Works, Book 4 · Letter 15
EPISTLE XV.
Mr. Mede's Answer to Dr. Meddus, touching the Day of Iudgment.
Worthy Sir,
I Have now found some little time to make some kind of Answer to your Letter of the last week save one. You desire me to point out the particulars wherein I differ from that Lutheran: But this I cannot do without making a censure of the whole Discourse, which would ask me some labour, and besides I have not now the Book by me. But by the way, the Stationer which told me he had six of them, was deceived: Indeed he had six Books, which he thought to be the same, but, four of them were Discourses of Law, by some error sorted together with them.
You secondly desire me to point out the places of the Old and New Testament appliable to my Tenet of the Day of Iudgment: Where I understand not well whether you mean of the Regnum to be then, or of the acception of the word [Day] for a long space of time, even of a thousand years. But I suppose you mean the former, to which therefore I will say something, the rather because I know you will communicate it to Doctor Twisse, to whom I had intended some such thing in my Letter I sent by you to him: but time would not suffer me to write it then, having spent both it and my paper in other discourses before I was aware. That which I have to say is this.
The Description of the Great Day of Iudgment, Dan. 7.
THE Mother-Text of Scripture whence the Church of the Iews grounded the name and expectation of the Great Day of Iudgment, with the circumstances thereto belonging, and whereunto almost all the descriptions and expressions thereof in the New Testament have reference, is that Vision in the seventh of Daniel, of a Session of Iudgment when the Fourth Beast came to be destroyed: Where this great Assises is represented after the manner of the great Synedrion or Consistory of Israel; wherein the Pater Iudicii had his Assessores, sitting upon Seats placed Semicircle-wise before him, from his right hand to his left. I beheld (saith Daniel, verse 9.) till the *Vulgar. Lat. Donec throni … sunt; LXX & Th… odotion. foreign Cha…d. foreign & sic foreign usurpatum de Solo inveniat apud Chald. Paraph …. …. v. 15. foreign ubi in … est foreign Sep…uag. foreign.Thrones or Seats were pitched down, (namely, for the Senators to sit upon; not thrown down, as we of late have it:) and the Ancient of days (Pater consistorii) did sit. &c. And, subaudi I beheld, till the Iudgment was set, (that is, the whole Sanhedrim) and the books were opened, &c.
Here we see both the form of Iudgment delineated, and the name of Iudgment expressed; which is afterwards yet twice more repeated: First, in the amplification of the tyranny of the wicked Horn, verse 21, 22. which is said continued till the Ancient of days came, and IVDGMENT was given to the Saints of the most High; i. Potestas judicandi ipsis facta. And the third time in the Angel's interpretation, verse 26. But the IVDGMENT shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion to consume and destroy it to the end. Where observe also that cases of Dominion, of Blasphemy and Apostasie, and the like, belonged to the jurisdiction of the great Sanhedrim.
From this description it came that the Iews gave it the name of foreign and foreign The Day of Iudgment and the Day of the Great Iudgment; whence in the Epistle of S. Iude, verse 6. it is called foreign, the Iudgment of the Great Day.
From the same description they learned that the destruction then to be should be by fire, because it is said verse 9. His throne was a fiery flame, and his wheels burning fire. A fiery stream issued and came forth before him: and verse 11. The Beast was slain, and his body destroyed and given to the burning flame.
From the same fountain are derived those expressions in the Gospel, where this Day is intimated or described; The Son of man shall come in the clouds of heaven. The Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his holy Angels: Forasmuch as it is said here, *Verse 10.Thousand thousands ministred unto him, &c. and that Daniel saw‖Verse 13. One like the Son of man coming with the clouds of Heaven, and he came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him, (or placed him) near him, &c.
Hence S. Paul learned that the Saints should judge the world, 1 Cor. 6. 2.because it is said, that many Thrones were set, and verse 22. by way of Exposition, that Iudgment was given to the Saints of the most High.
Hence the same Apostle learned to confute the false fear of the Thessalonians, 2 Thest. ch. 2. ver. 2, 3.that the day of Christs second coming was then at hand; Because that day could not be till the Man of Sin were first come, and should have reigned his time appointed: Forasmuch as Daniel had foretold it should be so, and that his destruction should be at the Son of mans appearing in the clouds; whose appearing therefore was not to be till then. This is foreign in S. Paul; whom the Lord (saith he) shall destroy at the foreign of his coming. Daniel's wicked Horn, or Beast acting in the wicked Horn, is S. Paul's Man of Sin, as the Church from her Infanc…e interpreted it.
But to go on: While this Iudgment sits, and when it had destroyed the Fourth Beast, the Son of man which comes in the clouds receives dominion, and glory, and a Kingdom, that all people, nations and languages should serve and obey him, verse 14. which Kingdom is thrice explained afterwards to be the Kingdom of the Saints of the most High, verse 18. These four Beasts (saith the Angel) are four Kingdoms which shall arise. But (viz. when they have finished their course) the Saints of the most High shall take the Kingdom, &c. Again, verse 22. The wicked Horn prevailed, until the time came that the Saints possessed the Kingdom. Again, verse 27. When the fourth Beast, reigning in the wicked Horn, was destroyed, the Kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the Kingdom under the whole heaven, is given to the people of the Saints of the most High, &c.
These Grounds being laid, I argue as followeth:
The Kingdom of the Son of man and of the Saints of the most High in Daniel begins when the Great Iudgment sits.
The Kingdom in the Apocalyps, wherein the Saints reign with Christ a thousand years, is the same with the Kingdom of the Son of man and Saints of the most High in Daniel. Ergo, It also begins at the Great Iudgment.
That the Kingdom in Daniel and that of a 1000 years in the Apocalyps are one and the same Kingdom, appears thus:
First, Because they begin ab eodem termino, namely, at the destruction of the Fourth Beast: That in Daniel, when the Beast (then ruling in the wicked Horn) was slain, and his body destroyed and given to the burning flame, Dan. 7. vers. 11, 22, 27. That in the Apocalyps, when the Beast and the false Prophet (the wicked Horn in Daniel) were taken, and both cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone, Apoc. 19. ver. 20, 21, &c.
Secondly, Because S. Iohn begins the Regnum of a thousand years from the same Session of Iudgement described in Daniel; as appears by his parallel expression borrowed from thence.
Daniel sayes, Chap. 7.
S. Iohn says, Chap. 20.
V. 9. I beheld till the Thrones were pitched down—and the Iudgment (i. Iudges) sat.
V. 4. I saw Thrones, and they sat upon them.
22. And Iudgment was given to the Saints of the most High.
And Iudgment was given unto them.
And the Saints possessed the Kingdom; viz, with the Son of Man who came in the clouds.
And the Saints lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.
Now if this be sufficiently proved, That the thousand years begin with the Day of Iudgment; it will appear further out of the Apocalyps, that the Iudgment is not consummate till they be ended: For Gog and Magog's destruction and the universal Resurrection is not till then: Therefore the whole thousand years is included in the Day of Iudgment.
Consectarium de Interpretatione aliorum Scripturae locorum huc pertinentium.
Hence it will follow, That whatsoever Scripture speaks of a Kingdom of Christ to be at his second appearing or at the destruction of Antichrist, it must needs be the same which Daniel saw should be at that time, and so consequently be the Kingdom of a thousand years which the Apocalyps includes between the beginning and consummation of the Great Iudgment.
Ergo, That in Luke 17. from verse 20. to the end.
And that in Luke 19. from the 11. verse to the 15. inclusively.
And that in Luke 21. verse 31. When ye see these things come to pass, know that the Kingdom of God is at hand. See what went before, viz. The Son of man's coming in a cloud with power and great glory; borrowed from Daniel.
And that in 2 Tim. 4. 1. I charge thee before God, and the Lord Iesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom.
By these we may understand the rest; taking this for a sure ground, That this expression of [The Son of man's coming in the clouds of heaven] so often inculcated in the New Testament, is taken from and hath reference to the Prophecie of Daniel, being no where else found in the Old Testament. As our Saviour also calls himself so frequently [The Son of man,] because Daniel so called him in that Vision of the Great Iudgment, and that we might look for the accomplishment of what is there prophesied of in him. It was not in vain, that when our Saviour quoted the Prophecie of Daniel, he added, He that readeth him, let him understand. Certainly the great mystery of Christ is chiefly and most distinctly revealed in that Book; which God the Father of lights so enable us with his Spirit, that we may understand to his glory and our own comfort. Amen.
I pray compare this with the Paper I sent you of the Four Monarchies, which I called*See Epistle VIII. The A. B. C. of Prophecie; and with the latter end of my Specimina de mille annis; and with my Interpretation of Praeconium Tubae VII. You shall find the grounds of all this in them.
I have no copy of this I now send: I would desire you when you are weary with reading it, to send me it again, that I may get it transcribed, to save me a labour another time, when some other friend shall make a Quaere to like purpose. I find ever and anon inconvenience for want of such a provision. I will send you it again presently. Before Christmass will be time enough. I desire to be remembred to Master Doctor Twisse; to whose Letter I shall make some Answer when I get some leisure; now I have none.
Yours, Ioseph Mede. Christ's Colledge, Novemb. 25. 1629.