N01184:107
A dissertation concerning the future conversion of the Jewish Nation. Answering the objections of…
A dissertation concerning the future conversion of the Jewish Nation. Answering the objections of the Reverend and learned Mr. Baxter, Dr. Lightfoot, and others. : With an enquiry into the first resurrection. / By Increase Mather, president of Harvard-College, at Cambridge, in New-England. ; [Three lines from Jeremiah]A dissertation concerning the future conversion of the Jewish Nation. Answering the objections of the Reverend and learned Mr. Baxter, Dr. Lightfoot, and others. : With an enquiry into the first resurrection. / By Increase Mather, president of Harvard-Colledge, at Cambridge, in New-England. ; [Three lines from Jeremiah]
London: printed by R. Tookey for Nath. Hillier, 1709
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
That it is evident that the Sentence of Absolution will be passed on the Righteous before the Sentence of Condemnation on the Wicked. When it is said, he shall set the Sheep on the Right hand, but the Goats on the Left, the meaning is, that the Sheep shall be acquitted, but […] Goats condemned. Both the 25th Chapter of Matthew and the 7th of Daniel •••ude to the Synedrium, or great Sessions of the Judges in Israel. That Supreme Court of Judicature in which Cases of Life and Death were tried (which Court was always held at Jerusalem, thence was it said, that it cannot be that a Prophet perish out of Jerusalem, Luk. 13.33.) the Jews call Beth din haggadol, the great House of Judgment. This Court was first erected by Moses, according to Divi•• Direction. It did consist of Seventy Elders besides the Nasi. i. e. the Prince or President of the Court. The most Aged or Venerable of the Judges was Vice-president, he was called Ab-beth-din, the Father of the House of Judgment. This helps to understand that Expression of the Ancient of Days in the 7th of Daniel. These Judges sate semi-circle wise: The Nasi, or President, in the midst of them, the Father of the Consistory, or Vice President, next to him on his Right Hand. This gives Light to the Expression of sitting on the right Hand of Power, Mark 14.62. There were Two Scribes belonging to this House of the great Judgment; the one of which sate on the Right Hand, he took the Votes for Absolution; the other on the Left Hand, who took the Votes for Condemnation. Unto this (I say) the 25th of Matthew and the 7th of Daniel have Respect. Now why may we not believe, that at the great Assize, when all Mankind shall be brought before the Judge, the Righteous shall have the Sentence of Absolution passed on them in the Morning of that great and long Day; but the Wicked receive their Sentence of Condemnation in the after Part, or Evening of the Day? And why may not the Mille Anni caelestis imperii, (as Lactantius's Expression is,) why may not the Thousand Years Reign be the setting of the righteous at the Right Hand of him who is the Ancient of Days, the chief Judge to whom it belongs to pronounce the Sentence, and who will sentence to the Second Death all whose Names are not written in the Book ⟨p. 29⟩of Life after the universal Resurrection?