The child's portion, or, The unseen glory of the children of God asserted and…

3. What appearing of Christ John here intends?

Ans. There hath been an old error, and of which E•sebius makes Cerinthus (that blasphemous Heretic) the Author, who lived in the time of the Apostle John, and against whom he is supposed to have written his Gospel; which is more accommodable to the Turkish Alcoran, then the Christian confession of Faith, which (as the Jews of old, interpreted all old Testament prophesies of the Messiah, of a worldly Kingdom, pomp and glory, and a temporal deliverance from the yoke of the Roman ⟨p. 94⟩Empire) puts a carnal interpretation upon many passages in Scripture, and then concludes of Christ's coming in the flesh into the lower world, and setting up a Kingdom here below, bearing date for a thousand years, in which the Saints shall possess the Earth, and, with great outward pomp, carnal pleasures, and voluptuousness, reign over, and have command of the ungodly, in which they shall enjoy all manner of sensual delights; the very naming of which opinion is sufficient confutation, it smells so much of the flesh, and savours so much of vanity: And that it hath found so many abettors in these last ages, is an argument that the world grows old and doting. Mundus senescens patitur phantasias. There is another apprehension, which hath gained many learned and Godly Men for its Patrons, who, supposing many texts of Scripture to speak without trope or Allegory, do thereon conclude it at least probable, that before the Resurrection of the wicked and ungodly, there shall be a first Resurrection of the Just, wherein Jesus Christ, coming to Judgement, shall openly acquit, and make to reign with him in this lower world, all his Elect and Redeemed ones, for the space of a thousand years; after which shall follow the general Resurrection of his Enemies, and the final issue and determination of all those great affairs, when Christ shall return to Heaven and his Saints with ⟨p. 95⟩him. Whether it shall be thus or otherwise, the day shall determine: All which I dare say of it, is, that it hath no such evidence in the word of God, as to make it a necessary point of Faith, is attended with so many knots and intricacies, as are hard if not impossible by us at present to be resolved;