Online Bible 1995 March/ROM-1025.iso/olb/gill/d_400.lzh/D_477.TXT

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C~I^P. VIII.            OF THE MILLENNIUM, OR PERSONAl, REIGN OF CItR1ST.                                                           477

into evil practices; nor to be excited to persecute the
saints, for the space of a thousand years; and that the
church of Christ, during such a time, has been in a
state of perfect purity and peace; free from being
disturbed and distressed by idolaters, heretics, and
persecutors; then may these thousand years be said
to be past; but if this cannot be made to appear, then
most certainly they are yet to come. Let us put this
to the trial; which will he best done by considering
the several epochas, or periods, from whence these
thousand years have been dated. As,
1st, From the birth of Christ, who came to destroy
the works of the devil, and before whom Satan fell as
lightning from heaven; yet this falls short of the
binding and casting him into the bottomless pit: who-
ever considers the state of the Gentile world when
Christ came, being under the power of the god of this
world, the nations thereof being left to walk in their
own ways; nay, Christ forbad his disciples going into
any of the cities of the Gentiles; nor had they a com-
mission to preach the gospel to all nations, till after
his resurrection from the dead; who, 1 say, that con-
siders these things, can ever imagine that Satan was
now bound ? And if we look into the state of the Jew-
ish nation and church, how sadly corrupted in their
morals, being a wicked and an adulterous generation,
and depraved in their religious sentiments; neglect-
ing the word of God, and preferring the traditions of
the elders to it; rejecting Christ, when he came to
them with all the marks and characters of the true
Messiah, and treating him with the utmost indignation
and contempt; and were, as cur Lord says, of their
father the devil, and his lusts they would do; there can
be no reason to believe that Satan was now bound.
His many attacks on the person and life of Christ
shew the contrary; as Iris putting Herod on seeking
the young child's life to destroy it, in his infancy; and
to make that carnage of the infants in,and about Beth-
lehem, he did; his tempting him in the wilderness,
in the manner he did, which was bold, daring, and
insolent; instigating the scribes and Pharisees to lay
hands on him, and kill him, marching towards him as
the prince of the world, and cornbating with him in
the garden; and putting it into the heart of Judas to
betray him; and stirring up the people of all sorts to
he pressing to the Roman governor, for the crucifixion
of him, and by which means he was brought to the
dust of death. And though, indeed, Satan was dis-
possessed of the bodies of men, which possession
shews he was not bound; yet when dispossessed he
was not bound; and cast into the bottomless pit, but
was suffered to go and rove about where he pleased;
and though Christ, by his death, destroyed Satan, who
had the power of death, and spoiled his principalities
and powers, and ruined his works; yet all this did not
amount to a binding and confinement of his person in
prison.
2dly, Others date these thousand years of Satan's
binding from the resurrection of Christ; when it is
true, Christ ascended on high, and led captivity cap-

Joseph. de Bello Jud. 1. 6. c. 9. s. 3.
Lampe Synops. Hist. 8acr. et Ecclesiast. 1.2. c, 3. p. 110.

tive, and poured down his Spirit upon his apostles, on
the day of Pentecost, whereby they were wonderfully
fitted to preach his gospel; and accordingly preached
it with great success,"both in Judea and in the Gen-
tile world; but still Satan was not bound. Not in
Judea; for in the first and purest christian church, he
filled the hearts of Ananias and Sapphira to lie against
the Holy Ghost. He stirred up the Jews to lay hold
on the apostles, and put them in prison; and to stone
Stephen the proto-martyr; he raised a violent perse-
cution against the church at Jerusalem, and havock
was made of it, and men and women hauled to pri-
son; he put Herod upon killing James the brother of
John, and committing Peter to prison. And whereas
the ministers of the word went into other countries,
preaching the gospel, the Jews, under the instigation
of Satan, stirred up the people against them wherever
they came; as at Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, Thessa-
Ionica, and other places; and what the christian-He-
brews suffered from them, may be seen in Heb. x.
32, 33. Nor was Satan bound in the Gentile world;
for though the gospel made its way into divers coun-
tries and cities, to the conversion of many souls, and
the forming of many churches; yet heathenism, un-
der the influence of the god of this world, was the
prevailing religion every where; and the sect of the
christians was every where spoken against; and the
apostles and ministers of the word, were every where
persecuted; bonds and imprisonment waited for them
in all places; and all the apostles suffered death for
the sake of the gospel; see the account the apostle
gives of himself and others, in 1 Cot. iv. 9, 12, 13.
3dly, Others begin these thousand years of Satan's
binding at the destruction of Jerusalem, which was
very dreadful; in the siege of it eleven hundred thou-
.sand men perished"; and when such insurrections,
intestine quarrels, seditions, murders, and scenes of
iniquity were among the Jews themselves, Satan could
never be thought to be bound then; and after it,
though things took a different turn with the Jews, and
iu fayour of the christians, in Judea and elsewhere;
the Jews, though they had the same ill will to them,
had not the same power against them; yet they them-
selves manifestly appeared to be under the deception
of Satan, by their giving heed to false prophets, and
false christs, which our Lord foretold would arise;
witness Bar Cochab, a false messiah, who rose up in
the times of Trajan, whom the Jews embracing, re-
belled against the empire, which brought a war upon
them in which fifty-eight thousand were slain {}; and
under the same deception by false messiahs, and under
the same blindness and hardness of heart, and malice
against Christ and his gospel, have they continued to
this day. And as for the Gentile world, though the
gospel got ground every where, and multitudes of
souls were converted, and the Gentile oracles were
struck dumb {}; the temples almost desolate, and wor-
ship in them was intermitted {}; yet Gentilism conti-
nued to be the prevailin. g religion throughout the
Roman empire, till the umes of Constantine, at the

24      Delphis Oracula cessant, JuvenM, Satyr. 6. v. 554.
as P|in, Epist. 1.10. el}. 97.