N01184:97
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.
If the Millennial Reign began a Thousand Years ago, then Christ's Reign on Earth and Antichrist's would be at the very same time, which cannot be. Non bené conveniunt nec in unâ seed morantur. There are others who think the Thousand Years are now current. Cotterius supposeth that they began in the Year 1517. Mr. Durham (a worthy Man) makes the Millennium to commence ab anno 1560. He imagines that the Twelve Hundred and Sixty Days were expired, and that the seventh Trumpet has been sounding ever since that. He thinks that this Notion of his will (as he Phraseth it) help to stay the Gadding Expectation of stupendous things to come. The First Resurrection is with him the same with Conversion and Regeneration. He would not have us believe that Christ will ever be on the Earth again, no not at the Day of Judgment. I am apt to think that Job and he had differing Sentiments as to that particular (see him on Revel. 20. p. 715, 727.) But since the Time he fixes upon, the Witnesses have been in Sackcloth, and slain also. What Massacres have there been since that? Would Mr. Durham deny that the Lord's faithful Witness•s in England and Scotland too have suffered a Civil Death since 1560? Yea sin•e 1660? And very lately in Hungary, in Piedmont, in France, and in all Popish Dominions the Witnesses have been slain. If then the Martyrs have Lived and reigned ever since 1560, they have reigned in Sackcloth and lived in their Graves. And if the Thousand Years began above an Hundred Years ago, how comes it to pass that Antichrist is yet living and ⟨p. 26⟩reigning? The Devil still reigns by his Vicar at Rome; how then has he been bound for these 130 Years last past? It is therefore a vai• thing for us to imagine that the Millennial Reign is begun. Besides, this Interpretation does concern only the Protestant Churches in the Happiness of the Thousand Years, when as the Converted Jews, and all the Churches on Earth, shall then be in a glorious Estate. Let us therefore go on with the second part of the Argument before us, viz. That the Day of Judgment will be here in less than a Thousand Years. Most of those whom we dispute against do believe that the coming of our Lord to Judge the Earth cannot be far off. This is therefore an Argument ad Hominem no• to be answered.