heaven to earth, and from earth to heaven, upon an errand of their own making! when himself, in his Holy Scriptures, never speaks but of a double ascent of Christ: the one, which is past, from Mount Olivet, where the impressions of his sacred feet are still said to be, forty days after his Resurrection: the other, future, when, after the General Judgment of the World, he shall carry up all the elect with him to his heavenly glory. A literal interpreter is no other than a slave to his syllables; binding himself up to a mere sound of words, with Seventh Paraneglect of the true sense intended: which is too dox. The towell seen in this present subject. The Subjects tal reduction of this kingdom, if any may be such where all are of the Ten lost either princes or slaves, are to be the Twelve Tribes of IsTribes of the Jews, and the Nations of the Gen- ruel. tiles. 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 natural Israelites ; especially Jerusalem, which shall be the most eminent city in the world, or that ever was in the world; and, at Jerusalem, will Christ begin to shew himself: and, then, by and from the Israelites, shall glory descend to the Gentiles. Thus runs the letter. But, the best interpreter, St. Paul, tells us of a Jew outwardly, and a Jew within; of circumcision in the flesh, and circumcision of the heart; of circumcision in the spirit, and in the letter"; of children of the flesh, and children of the promise. Which distinction whosoever shall have duly digested, will easily find how wild a paradox it is, to tie those frequent and large promises of the Prophets made to Judah and Israel, Zion and Jerusalem, to a carnal literality of sense; and to make account of their accomplishment accordingly, which were never otherwise than spiritually meant: and, thereupon, to affirm, as this author doth, that even those Ten Tribes of Israel, which were, two thousand three hundred and forty years ago, so dispersed, as the dust with the wind, 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 fetched up again, out of the forlorn rubbish of Paganism and Mahometism, 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 Judæus 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 5 Page 26. h Rom. ii. 28, 29. i Rom. ix. 8. their graves but we know the sense of these prophetical 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 soil of old Jebus, but in the hearts of believers. Shortly, that we may clearly evince the moral 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 instead of a thousand arguments. It is but the next year, one thousand six hundred and fifty, or at furthest fifty-six, which this author, comparing Daniel with John according to his own calculation, hath pitched 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 Jews which are Two Tribes, and the Israelites which are Ten Tribes, &c. And now, where is the man, that can tell us tidings 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 tells our Millenarian Brethren they have mistaken their aim, and sends them to seek for a truer and more verifiable sense. Saints, in their glorious and immortal condition, meddling with their earthly affairs. many Well may it pass for a further paradox, that the dead Saints now raised to an immortal life, shall, in those their Eighth Para- spiritual bodies, so the Apostle calls them, meddle dox. The with the outward administration of the affairs of the Church, and have continual conversation with mortal men; controlling their actions, and ordering their processes according to their secular occasions. We find, that, in the attendance of Christ's Resurrection, of the dead Saints rose out of their graves, and went into the Holy City, and appeared to many: but, that they ever offered to touch with any either secular or sacred business, we never find. These Ecclesiastical 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 privileges of their glory and immortality? shall they be always visible? shall they be clothed, or naked? since clothes are only to hide shame, and to defend from the injuries of the air; 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 spiritual substance, shall they confine themselves to these low places upon earth, and not lodge when they please in their former paradise? As for those living Saints, who, if any at all, must be their * Matt. xxvii. 52, 53. subjects, in what an impossible condition doth he make them! They must be mortal, and yet sinless. What man Ninth Paraor angel can reconcile these two? They must still dox. The Livhave original corruption in them; that cannot be ing Saints, denied but it shall be so yoked and restrained, mortal, and that it shall get little or no ground of them. : yet sinless. What a paradox is this! If little, if any at all, surely they are sinners and sin, wherever, whatever it be, defileth! now nothing that defileth, or worketh abomination shall be there; Rev. xxi. 27. None shall be in this kingdom, but such as shall be saved, such as are elected: but is it the privilege of election, to exempt from sin? I had thought the fruit of God's gracious election had been the remission, not the freedom from the commission of sin. All here shall be Saints: no one, he saith, shall be a hypocrite: O happy kingdom, where there is no taint of hypocrisy! But shall men have hearts then? and are not the hearts of men deceitful above all things? Though Satan be never so close chained up, yet the innate corruption of that deceitful heart, is able enough to breed store of hypocrisy. But what news is it, that no person excommunicate shall be there?what place can there be possibly imagined for an excommunication in a kingdom, after a sort heavenly, wherein there shall be no use of Sacraments? no use of any other ordinances? wherein all shall immediately feed from God in Christ? wherein Christ will hold them all up in fulness of grace"? Yea, when there shall therefore be no use of pastors, doctors, elders, deacons, preaching, censures in this holy and glorious estate, what spiritual government is that, which the raised Saints shall exercise in the New Jerusalem? Neither shall the persons only 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 loins? yet their issue shall not prove sinners. As much as to say, there shall be fire, but neither heat nor smoke: there shall be a poisonous fountain, but it shall yield no unwholesome water. Neither can there be any danger of their languishing in grace, though they have neither Word nor Sacraments. Neither shall they have use of any improvement by the heavenly counsel or examples of those glorious and immortal Saints which they shall converse with, which one would think should avail much to the continuation and increase of their holiness; but they shall have an immediate fellowship with God, 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 God's Ordinances? and the fellowship, he saith, which they shall have with God is not by Ordinances, but by God and the Lamb and what need they pray for that, which they do indefeasibly enjoy? However, let it be scored up for none of the least paradoxes, that God's Ordinances should be useless unto God's people any where out of heaven. That, under this monarchy of Christ, there shall be to the Tenth Para- Saints for a thousand years all fulness of all temdox. The Ful- poral blessings; as peace, safety, riches, health, ness of all long life, and whatsoever else was enjoyed under Temporal any monarchy, or can be had in the world, or may Blessings of make their lives comfortable, savoureth too strong riches, honour, of a Jewish or Mahometan Paradise; as being exlong life, under this Mo- tended, in a fairer and more modest expression, to narchy of those carnal pleasures, both of the bed and the Christ. board, which have been dreamed of by those sensual Turks and Talmudiges. It is true, that God hath been as exceeding rich in mercies, as no less large in promises, of all blessings to the children of the kingdom: but those riches and delights are of another nature; purely spiritual; 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 enjoys them, most miserable: such, as wise Solomon tells us, bewray neither the love nor hatred of the Almighty P. 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 kingdom, to rise up against the Saints in an open war. Shortly, we know the kingdom of God doth not consist in meats and drinks, in houses and lands, in mines and metals, in flocks and herds; but in righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost; Rom. xiv. 17. The enjoyment of good things for a moment, is scarce to be reckoned amongst blessings; since the grief of their cessation doth more than counterpoise the contentment of their fruition. But, here, a long life shall make up the happiness of the rich, honourable, frolic patriots of this new kingdom: for not one of them shall die early. What! not though it be to be translated from mortality to eternal blessedness? Is it an advantage to be held off long from heaven? But who told this man, that no one should die under a hundred years old? It is true, he finds in the letter of Isaiah, 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 a hundred years old; Is. lxv. 20: but he might have found also in the next words preceding, In Jerusalem the voice of weeping shall be no more heard, nor the voice of crying; v. 19. Well, then, the husband, or wife, or child must die, at the last: and shall there be no tear 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 freedom 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 allegorical expressions, whereby it pleaseth the Spirit of God to set forth, under bodily resemblances, whether the prosperous and comfortable condition of the Evangelical Church, or the happy estate of the glorified children of the Resurrection; which, whoso shall construe literally, shall in vain expect to see the wolf and the lamb to feed together, and the lion to eat straw like the bullock; Is. lxv. 25. That May it not well pass for a further paradox, that, while there are so many thousand Saints reigning upon earth, Eleventh Paand endued with so much majesty and power to radox. govern the world, the slaves and underling-tribu- so many thoutaries should be suffered to grow up under them, sands of gloto such a head, as to defy their governors, and to rious and imbid battle to all those immortal rulers, any one whereof were able to quell a world of weak sin ners? mortal Saints reigning, the Wicked,slaves and tributa ries, should be able to raise war against Who can think, that the malice of these men should so far exceed their wit, as that, knowing, by long and daily experience, that these raised and them. glorious Saints, under whose iron sceptre they lived, are immortal, 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 drawn 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 than the Apostle, say, We are not ignorant of his devices: so as, if Gog and Magog shall hope, either by wiles or violence, to prevail against invulnerable, spiritual, and half glorified powers, they shall approve themselves more mad than malicious. And, to make this paradox perfect, how strange is the intimation, that this shall be taken for the occasion of Christ's coming the third time to his General Judgment; even the ruin of these assailants, whom he will come from heaven to destroy! as if this witless and vain insurrection of Gog and Magog could not be suddenly and powerfully crushed, by so over-puissant opposites: as if |