The Revelation Unrevealed Concerning the Thousand Year Reign, Section 15 – Section 19
§. 15 A literall Interpreter is no other then a slave to his syllables; 7Paradox. The totall roduction of the ten lost Tribes of Israel.binding himself up to a mere sound of words, with neglect of the true sense intended; which is too well seene in this present subject; The subjects of this Kingdome (if any may be such where all are either Princes or Slaves) are to be the Twelve Tribes of the Jewes, and the Nations of the Gentiles; what if ten of those twelve tribes be lost? they shall be found again; and be made Saints, that they may become subjects; for else they should but be found out for a worse confusion; So then the cities of the Tribes shall be built again and inhabited by naturall Israelites; especially Jerusalem, which shall be the most eminent city in the world, Pag. 26.or that ever was in the world; and at Jerusalem wil Christ begin to shew himself; and then by and from the Israelites shall glory descend to the Gentiles Thus runs the letter; Rom. 2. ult.But the best Interpreter St. Paul tels us of a Jew outwardly, and a Jew within; of circumcision in the flesh, and circumcision of the heart; Rom. 9.8.of circumcision in the spirit, and in the letter; of children of the flesh, and children of the promise, which distinction whosoever shal have duly disgested, will easily find how wild a Paradoxe it is to tie those frequent and large promises of the Prophets made to Juda, and Israel, Sion, and Hierusalem, to a carnall li… terality of sense; and to make account of their accomplishment accordingly; which were never otherwise then spiritually meant; and thereupon to affirm (as this Author doth) that even those ten Tribes of Israel, which were 2340 years ago, so dispersed (as the dust with the winde) that no man could since their dissipation say of any one of them, This was an Israelite; neither have they now any known being in the world, that they should be suddenly fetcht up again, out of the forlorn rubbidge of Paganisme, and Mahometisme, wherein they are in many hundred generations irrecoverably long since, lost, and made the founders and citizens of a new and more glorious Jerusalem; credat Judaeus apella. It is true, that nothing is impossible to an omnipotent power; Had the Almighty said the words to their sense, no difficulty could hinder our assent. He can as easily raise Israelites out of Turks, Tartars, Indians, as out of their graves, but we know the sense of these propheticall promises and predictions, to be (as that Father said) in medulla, not, in superficie: In this just construction, there is no Jew but a Christian, and Jerusalem is built up, not in the soyle of old Jebus, but in the hearts of believers.
Shortly, that we may clearly evince the morall impossibility at least of this mis-conceit of the reduction, and flourishing estate of all the twelve Tribes wholly converted to Christ, their King, and the magnificent re-edifying of Jerusalem, the event is in stead of a thousand arguments. It is but the next year 1650 or at furthest 56; which this Author (comparing Daniel with John according to his own calculation) hath pitcht for the performance of these great matters concerning the Jewish people; In which (saith he) the Israelites are to be delivered by being called to Christianity; both the Jewes who are two Tribes, and the Israelites, which are ten Tribes, &c.
And now where is the man that can tell us tydings but of a thrave of Jews newly converted, or of one stone laid in the new foundation of the new Jerusalem; So as the issue plainly tels our Millenarian Brethren they have mistaken their aime; and sends them to seek for a truer and more verifiable sense.
§. 16 Well may it pass for a further Paradoxe, that the 8Paradox. The Saints in their glorious and immortall condition, medling with their earthly affairs.that the dead Saints now raised to an immortall life, shall in those their spirituall bodies (so the Apostle cals them,) medle with the outward administration of the affairs of the Church; and have continuall conversation with mortall men: controlling their actions, and ordering their processes, according to their Secular occasions; We finde that in the attendance of Christ's Resurrection, many of the dead Saints rose out of their graves, Matth. 27.52, 53.and went into the holy City, and appeared unto many: But that they ever offered to touch with any either Secular or Sacred business, wee never finde; these Ecclesiasticall Services, how holy soever, are too mean for so glorious Agents: And if they shall manage them, how and in what fashion shall they govern? Shall they abate any thing of the priviledges of their glory, and immortality? Shall they be always Visible? Shall they be cloathed, or naked? since clothes are onelyonly to hide shame, and to defend from the injuries of the aire; and there can be no place for shame in an immortalized body, and amongst Saints, where there shall be no sin: And since their raised bodies are now impassible, and apt to the quick motions of spirituall substance, shall they confine themselves to these low places upon earth, and not lodge when they please in their former Paradise?
§. 17 As for those living Saints, who (if any at all) must be their subjects, 9Paradox. The living Saints, mortall, and yet sinless.in what an impossible condition doth he make them? they must be mortall, and yet sin-lesse: What man or Angell can reconcile these two? They must still have originall corruption in them; that cannot be denied; but it shall be so yoaked, and restrained, that it shall get little or no ground of them: What a Paradoxe is this? If little, if any at all, surely they are sinners; and sin where ever, Revel 21.27.what ever it be, defileth; now nothing that defileth or worketh abomination shall be there: None shall be in this Kingdome but such as shall be saved, such as are elected; but is it the priviledge of election to exempt from sin? I had thought the fruit of Gods gracious election had been the remission, not the freedome from the commission of sin: All here shal be Saints, no one (he saith) shall be an hypocrite; Oh happy Kingdome, where there is no taint of hypocrisie! Pag. 27.But shall men have hearts then? and are not the hearts of men deceitfull above all things? Though Satan be never so close chained up, yet the in-nate corruption of that deceitfull heart, is able enough to breed store of hypocrisie: But what news is it that no person excōmunicate shall be there? what place can there be possibly imagined for an excommunication in a Kingdome (after a sort) heavenly; wherein there shall be no use of Sacraments; Pag. 17. & Pag. 29.no use of any other Ordinances? wherein all shal immediately feed from God in Christ; wherein Christ will hold them all up in fulnesse of Grace.
Yea, when there shall therefore be no use of Pastors, Doctors, Elders, Deacons, Preaching, censures in this holy and glorious estate, what spirituall government is that, which the raised Saints shall exercise in the new Jerusalem? Neither shall the persons onelyonly of the then-living Saints be freed from depravation by sin, but all their children in all the succeeding generations; none of them shall prove bad, none reprobate; all shall be called the seed of the blessed; what though they be begotten and conceived in sin? what though they propagate sin to the fruit of their loynes? yet their issue shall not prove sinners; As much to say, as there shall be fire, but neither heat, nor smoke; There shall be a poysonous fountain, but it shall yield no unwholsome water. Neither can their be any danger of their languishing in grace, though they have neither word, nor sacraments; neither shall they have use of any improvment by the heavenly counsell, or examples those glorious and immortall Saints which they shall converse with, (which one would think should availe much to the continuation, and increase of their holines) but they shall have an immediate fellowship Pag. 28.with God; 29.and shall be edified immediately from God in Christ; But what? shall there be any use of their prayers? Are not those a part of Gods Ordinances? and the fellowship (he saith) which they shall have with God is not by Ordinances, but by God, Pag. 29.and the Lamb; and what need they pray for that which they do undefeisibly enjoy? How ever; let it be scored up for none of the least paradoxes, that GODS Ordinances should be use-lesse unto Gods people any where out of heaven.
§. 18 That, under this Monarchy of Christ, 10Paradox The fulness of all temporall blessings of riches, honour, long life, under this Monarchie of Christ.there shall be to the Saints for a thousand yeares all fulnesse of all temporall blessings, as peace, safety, riches, health, long life, and whatsoever else was enjoyed under any Monarchy, or can be had in the world or may make their lives comfortable savoureth too strong of a Jewish, or Mahumetane Paradise, as being extended in a fairer, and more modest expression, to those carnall pleasures, both of the bed, and the board, which have been dreamed of by those sensual Turks, and Talmudiges; It is true, that God hath been as exceeding rich in mercies, so no lesse large in promises of all blessings to the children of the Kingdome, but those riches, and delights, are of another nature; purely spirituall, such as may be proper for the fruition of Saints: as for those outward favours, they are such, as the worst may have, and the best may want; such, as that a man may be happy without them, and he that enjoyes them most miserable; Such as wise Solomon tels us, Eccles. 9.1.bewray neither the love nor hatred of the Almighty. And surely, if Gog and Magog did not find themselves enabled with strength, and health of body, with vigour of spirits, with outward wealth, and power, they would never offer, during the time of that Kingdome, to rise up against the Saints, in an open war. Shortly, we know the Kingdome of God doth not consist in meats, Ro. 14.17.and drinkes, in houses and lands, in mines and mettals, in flocks and heards, but in righteousnesse and peace, and joy in the holy ghost. The enjoyment of good things for a moment, is scarce to be reckoned amongst blessings, since the grief of their cessation doth more then counterpoise the contentment of their fruition; but here a long life shall make up the happinesse of the rich, honourable, frolick patriots of this new Kingdome; for not one of them shall die early, what? not though it be to be translated from mortality to eternall blessednesse: It is an advantage to be held off long from heaven? But who told this man, that no one should die under an hundred yeares old? It is true; he finds in the letter of Isaiah; Isa. 65.20.There shall be no more thence an infant of days, nor an old man that hath not filled his days, for the child shall die an hundred yeares old; but he might have found also in the next words preceding; Verse 19.In Jerusalem the voice of weeping shall be no more heard, nor the voice of crying: well then; the husband, or wife, or child must dye at the last; and shall there be no teare shed for them? shall all the subjects be exempted from all afflictions whatsoever; and yet be obnoxious to death, the utmost of all terribles? And how doth that promise extend to a freedome from all outward violences, and inward sicknesses, grief and trouble, which are the means and harbingers of dissolution, and yet give way to that worst of evils, to which all these are but the gentle preparations? The truth then is; these are high Allegoricall expressiōs whereby it pleaseth the Spirit of God to set forth under bodily resemblances whether the prosperous and comfortable condition of the Evangelicall Church, or the happy estate of the glorified children of the Resurrection; which, who so shall construe literally, Isa. 65.25.shall in vain expect to see the wolfe and the lamb to feed together, and the lion to eat straw like the bullock.
§. 19 May it not well pass for a further Paradox, 11Paradox That so many thousand of glorious and immortall Saints raigning, the wicked, slaves and Tributaries should be able to raise war against them.that whiles there are so many thousand Saints raigning upon earth, and indued with so much majesty and power to govern the World, the slaves and Underling-Tributaries should be suffered to grow up under them, to such an head, as to defie their Governours, and to bid battle to all those immortall Rulers; any one whereof were able to quell a world of weake sinners? Who can thinke that the malice of these men should so far exceed their wit, as that knowing by long and daily experience, that these raised and glorious Saints, under whose iron scepter they lived, are immortall, and utterly impassible, they should yet hold it safe or possible to oppose them with any hope of success? And, if (to make the matter more credible) it shall be suggested (as it is by this Author) that they are drawne in by some deceitful trick of Satan; they could not but know the wisdom and knowledge of these glorious Saints to be such, as that they might much better then the Apostle say, We are not ignorant of his devices: So as if Gog and Magog shall hope either by wiles, or violence to prevaile against invulnerable, spirituall, and half-glorified powers, they shall approve themselves, more mad then malicious; And to make this Paradoxe perfect, how strange is the intimation, that this shall be taken for, the occasion of Christs comming the third time to his generall judgement even the ruine of these assailants whom hee will come from heaven to destroy; as if this witlesse and vain insurrection of Gog and Magog, could not be suddainly & powerfully crushed, by so over puissant opposites; as if the blowing upon all the Legions of earth and hell could not scatter them in an instant. 2 Kings 19 35.As if one of Gods mighty Angels who in one night destroyed an hundred four-score and five thousand Assyrians, could not as easily turn Gog and Magog into heapes or ashes; and yet the Son of God still keep his heaven?