Online Bible 1995 March/ROM-1025.iso/olb/gill/d_400.lzh/D_451.TXT

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CHAP. VI.                       OF THE CONFLAGRATION OF THE UNIVERSE.                                                               451

the Son of man, which is himself, as before observed,
appears in the heavens; for the Son of man will come
in an hour unthought of by good men; and as a thief
in the night to wicked men; suddenly and at an un-
awares; and to both wise and foolish professors, whilst
they are slumbering and sleeping.
VII. The ends to be answered by the second and
personal coming of Christ - -1. The putting of the
saints into the full possession of salvation, Heb. ix. 28.
ChrisCs first coming into the world was to work out the
salvation of his people; this he has obtained, he is be-
come the author of it, and which is published in the
gospel; and an application of it is made to particular
persons, by the Spirit of God, at conversion: but the
full enjoyment of it is yet to come, Rom. xiii. 11. to
which saints are kept by the power of God; and of
which they are now heirs, and when Christ shall ap-
pear he will put them into the possession of their in-
heritance, Matt. xxv. 34.           2. The destruction of all
his and our enemies; all wicked men, the beast and
false prophet, and Satan, who will be cast by Christ
into the lake which burns with fire and brimstone;
evcu all those who would not have him to reign over
them: and by all this, the ultimate end of all, the
,..t;lo,'y of God;will be answered; the glory of his divine
effections, in the salvation of Iris people, and in tile
destruction of the wicked; and the glorification of
Christ in all them that believe, 2 Thcss. i. 10.

CHAP. VI.

OF THE CONFLACIRATION OF TIlE UNIVERSE.

The effects of Christ's second coming and personal
appearance are many; as the rcsurrcction of 'the .just,
of which we have treated at large already; and the
burning or' the world, and making new heavens and a
new earth, and the reign of Christ there with his saints
a thousand years; and thou the general judgment: of
all which in their order. And to begin with the uni-
versal conflagration; which is strongly and fully ex-
pressed by the apostle Peter, 2 epist. iii. 10, 12. where
he says, the elements shall melt with fervent/zeat; the
earth. also, and the works that are therein, shall be burnt
up: which is to be understood of the burning of the
whole sublunary and visible world; signified by the
heavens and the earth, taken in a literal and not in a
figurative sense.
1st, Not figuratively, as some {} interpret them, of
the Jewish church, and of the Mosaic elements, the
ceremonial laws, and the abolition of them; and who
suppose, that the new heavens and the new earth, iu a
following verse, design the evangelical church state, or
gospel dispensation, which took place upon the re-
moval of the former. But, 1. Though the civil state
of the Jews is sometimes expressed by the heavens and
the earth, and the removing of it by the shaking of
them, Heb. xii. 26,27. and sometimes by the world,
at the end of which Christ came, and upon whose
apostles the ends of it were, Heb. ix. 26. 1 Cor. x. 11.

yet the Jewish church is never called the world; for,
m opposition to that, the Gentiles are called the world;
the name of church the Jews took to themselves, that
of the world they gave to the Gentiles, Rom. xi. 12,
15. hence the love of Christ in dying for the Gentiles
is expressed by this phrase, John iii. 16. 1 John ii. 2.
------2. Though the commandments of the ceremonial
law are called elements or rudiments, in allusion to
the elements or rudiments of a language, to which
children are put to learn; under which the Jews were
whilst children; and whilst under the law, as a school-
master, Gal. iv. 3, 9. Col. ii. 20. yet they are never
so called, in allusion to the elements, which belong to
the system of the natural world, such as air and earth,
which are ouly capable of being burnt; for surely the
burning of a few papers or parchments of the law can-
not be meant here.           3. The abrogation of the cere-
monial law is expressed by other phrases usually; as
by the fleeing away of shadows, the breaking down
the middle wall of partition, the abolishing of 'the
law of commandments, and a disannulling of it; but
never by burning, melting, and dissolving.    -+. The
Mosaic elements, or the ceremonial law and its pre-
cepts, were already abolished when Peter wrote this
epistle; these had their end in Christ, and were done
away at his death; signified by the rending of the
temple-.vail asunder; and Peter knew this, who was
the first to whom it was made known, by letting down
before him a sheet, iu a visionary way, with all kind of
creatures in it, which he was bid to slay and eat; and
fi'om whence he learnt that now nothing was to be
reckoned common and nnclean, that law which made
the distinction being abrogated; whereas the melting
of the elements was a future thing in his time, and is
yet so, And likewise, - 5.  The new heavens and the
new earth, if by them are meant the evangelic state, or
gospel church-state; that also had already taken place,
and Peter was au instrument in the forming of it; he
had the keys of the kingdom of heaven given him, and
opened the door of faith by preaching the gospel to
Jews and Gentiles; and on the day of Pentecost three
thousand were converted and baptized, and added to
the church, which was the first gospel church in Jeru-
salem; and therefore this was not a state to be looked
for as to be in future time. But,
2dly, The words are to be understood literally; yet
not of a partial bursting of some particular place or
city; not of the burning of Jerusalem, the city and
temple, and inhabitants of it; which is the sense some {}
pnt upon them; and which some take into the former
sense, and so make a motley sense of them, partly
figurative and partly literal; but such a sense of the
worsts cannot be admitted; for,    -1. This would not
aftbrd a sufficient answer to the objection to the pro-
mise of Christ's coming, taken fi'om the continuation
of all things in the same situation as they were fi'om
the creation, v 4. for what change in the system of the
universe would the burning of a single city, and of a
temple in it, make ? Changes and revolutions in single
stateS, kingdoms, and cities, had been frequent, and
these objectors could not be ignorant of them: but

* Lightfools Works, vol. ii. p. 626, 1074. And O~ven. Theologoumena, !. 3. c. 1. p. 153.
2 Ilammond in Loc.
3L2