N01184:85
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.
It remains then that the First Resurrection is Literal and Corporal.
6. Primitive and Orthodox Christianity was of this Mind. Indeed since Antichristianism has had the Ascendant, as many other glorious Truths, so the Doctrine of the First Resurrection and the Thousand Years Reign has been condemned for Heresy. Baronius calls it Heresy, but A Lapide is more modest. He saith the Millenary Opinion is an Error, but he dared not to call it Heresy, because it was never condemned by any Council. Some Lutherans have been as severe in their Censures as Baronius. There was a late Lutheran Minister, viz. Georgius Laurentius, who wrote a Book which he calls Problema Theologicum de Regno Sanctorum in Terris Millenario. His Arguments are proposed with great Modesty▪ Nevertheless a Lutheran Consistory condemned his Book as Heretical, and the Author was excommunicated. It is an odd Passage which the Editor of that Treatise has in his Preface to it, viz. That when Laurentius fell sick, he desired to speak with the Vicar who had excommunicated him, told him that he should die with that Sickness, and that the Vicar should quickly follow him. Within a few Days the Vicar was taken ill and died, but in great Horror often over cried out, Laurentius has written the Truth, Laurentius has written the Truth; and so departed this Life. Let Papists and Lutherans think what they please of it, I am certain that if this Opinion be Heretical, the Fathers and Martyrs in the Primitive ⟨p. 22⟩Times were Heretics. Jerome was one of the first that did set himself fiercely against it; and yet in one Place he says, that although' he did not approve of the Chiliastical Opinion, he dared not condemn it, because (says he) many Ecclesiastical Doctors and Martyrs have so taught. This has been so often spoke to, and by so many, that it would be Loss of Time to insist or enlarge upon it. Dr. Burnet has laid down this Conclusion, That the Millennial Kingdom of Christ was the General Doctrine of the Primitive Church, from the Times of the Apostles to the Nicene Council inclusively. He observes truly that in the First and Second Century this Doctrine was not contested, or opposed by any excepting Heretics, who denied the Resurrection wholly. I cannot omit the mentioning of what Justin Martyr speaks, whose Words are so express and full as that nothing can be more.