Online Bible 1995 March/ROM-1025.iso/olb/gill/d_400.lzh/D_464.TXT

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464                    OF THE MILLENNIUM, OR PERSONAL REIGN OF CHRIST-                                                      Book VL

fliction of any kind; and they need no candle, neither
light of the sun; neither artificial nor natural light;
for the Lord God giveth them light, what vastly exceeds
either; and they shall reign for ever and ever; first
with Christ on the new earth, for a thousand years,
next to be considered, and then in heaven to all eter-
nity.

C H A P. VIlI.

OF THE MILLENNIUM, OR PERSONAL REIGN OF CHRIST
'~Vll'H THE SAINTS ON THE NEW EARTH A THOUSAND
YEARS.
] HAVE treated already of the kingly office of Christ,
as executed by him in various dispensations, parti-
larly under the gospel dispensation, Book V. Chap.
13. and have observed, there are two branches of it
yet to come; one called the spiritual, the other the
personal reign; the former has been considered, and
this is a proper place to treat of the latter; which I
shall do by shewing,
I. That Christ will have a special, peculiar, glo-
rious, and visible kingdom, in which he will reign
personally o. earth.--l. I call it a special, peculiar
kingdom, different from other kingdoms of Christ;
from the kingdom of nature and providence, which
lies in the government of this world; which he, as
God, has an equal right to with his Father; but when
this kingdom will take place, this present world will
be at an end: and from his spiritual kingdom, which
belongs to him as Mediator; which rule he has exer-
cised in the hearts of his people fi'om the beginning
of the world; and which has been, under the gospel
dispensation, more large and manifest; and will be
more so in the latter day, when his spiritual reign will
take place; but this is different from that.-    2. It
will be very glorious and visible; Christ's kingdom,
in the spiritual reign, will be very glorious, when all
the glorious things spoken of it, will be fuifilled; and
it will be very visible, when exalted above all the
mountains and hi!Is, the kingdoms of this world: but
this will be more so, since Christ will be in it; not
only by his Spirit, and the effusions of his grace, but
he will personally appear in all his glory, and reign
gloriously before his ancients; hence his appearing
and kingdom, are put together, as cotemporary, 2 Tim.
iv. 1. he in person will appear, and his tabernacle be
with men on earth.. ,3. This kingdom will be after
all the enemies of Christ, and of his people, are removed
out of the way. In his spiritual reign antichrist
will be destroyed, with the Spirit, or breath of Christ,
his gospel; and with the brightness of his coming, that
clear light which will attend his coming, by the effu-
sion of his Spirits; which will be with such spiritual
efficacy, as to dispel all darkness, Pagan, Papal, and
Mahometan; and cause an universal reception of the

a So the author of Onus Eccleshe, published A. D. 1524. rid. Heideg-
ger Dinseft. 23. de Chiliasmo, s. 8.
z See p. 744.
a This is the sense of the ancient writers concerning the millennium;
as of Papias, a hearer of the apostle John, and a companion of Poly-
carp, Euseb. Eccl. Hint. 1. 3. c. 39. and of Justin Martyr~ and the

gospel; which will open the way for the ch.ristian
princes, to carry their victorious arms every where,
and seize upon, and possess all the antichristian states;
and in this order things lie in the prophecy of Daniel,
chap. vii. where, after the vision of the fourth beast,
of the judgment of i% of the slaying it, and burning
its body, the Roman empire, and the remains of it,
in antichrist, and the antichristian states; Daniel, had
a vision of Christ, the Son of man, coming in the
clouds of heaven, and having an universal kingdom
given him, which will not be succeeded by any other.
Anti in the same order things lie in the book of the
Revelation, chap. xix. where the beast, antichrist, and
the kings of the earth, the antichristian princes, are re-
presented as gathering together, to make war with
Christ, described as an illustrious Warrior; when the
beast and false prophet, antichrist, in both his civil
and ecclesiastic characters, are taken and destroyed,
and the rest slain, by the sword of Christ's mouth: all
which will be done, with the ruin of the Turk, the
Eastern antichrist, at the beginning of the spiritual
reign: but still there will remain a most potent
enemy, Satan, with his principalities and powers;
wherefore, in chap. xx. an angel descends from hea-
ven, who is no other than Christ, who will then per-
sonally descend from thence; described as having a
great chain, and a key in his hand; the one to bind
Satan and all his angels; the other to open the bot-
tomless pit, and cast them in it, and lock it up; that
they may neither deceive the nations, nor disturb the
saints, for the space of a thousand years {2}. And all
enemies being thus out of the way, follows the ac-
count of the Millennium, or personal reign of Christ.
4. Tiffs glorious and visible kingdom of Christ, will
not take place till after the resurrection of the just,
and the renovation of the world {3}. As soon as Christ
personally appears, the dead in him will rise first; this
is the first resurrection, which they that have a part in,
shall reign with Christ a thousand years; as appears
from the above place in theRevelation referred unto.
These children of the resurrection, as Christ calls them,
Luke xx..'35, 36. and who will be worthy of that
world, the new world, in which Christ and they will
reign, will be like the angels, die no more; nor will
they eat and drink, in a corporal sense; nor marry
and be given in marriage; carnal appetites will not be
indulged; nor carnal pleasures enjoyed: in this state,
nothing but pure, refined, spiritual pleasures, will be
had, Suited to the bodies and souls of men, united in
the resurrection state. Our Lord, indeed, speaks of
his disciples eating and drinking at his table, in his
kingdom; and of his drinking new wine in his Father's
kingdom, which is the same, Luke xxii. 30. Matt.
xxvi. 29. but then all this is to be understood of
divine repasts, of spiritual joys and pleasures, they
shall then partake of. The Jews, it seems, had very
carnal notions of the kingdom of God, of a great

orthodox christians in his time, Dialog. cam Trypho, p. 307. and of
Irena~us, adv. Hseres. 1. 5. c. S0, 3~. and of Apollinarius, Hieron,
Catalog. Script. Eccles. c. eS. and of Tertu!lian. contr. Marcion, 1.3.
c. 24. and of Lactantius, Instit. !. 7. c. 14. e4. and of Victorinns Pic-
taviensis, rid. Hieron. ut supra. and of Sulpicius Severus, Hieton. ia
Ezek. 36. fol. ~35. I.