Selected quad for the lemma: judgement_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
judgement_n	work_n	world_n	worthy_a	78	3	5.9231	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A38026	Polpoikilos sophia, a compleat history or survey of all the dispensations and methods of religion, from the beginning of the world to the consummation of all things, as represented in the Old and New Testament shewing the several reasons and designs of those different administrations, and the wisdom and goodness of God in the government of His church, through all the ages of it : in which also, the opinion of Dr. Spencer concerning the Jewish rites and sacrifices is examin'd, and the certainty of the Christian religion demonstrated against the cavils of the Deists, &c. / by John Edwards ...	Edwards, John, 1637-1716.	1699 (1699)	Wing E210; ESTC R17845	511,766	792

the Sea insomuch that they shall cover all the Earth as it were for that is meant by their going up on the breadth of the Earth And they shall lay close Siege to the Beloved City that Place whither the Saints the Beloved of God shall fly for Refuge Or the whole Church of Christ the Visible Body and Society of the Faithful which shall be left at that time may be understood by the Beloved City In a very lamentable and wretched Condition they shall be you may imagine all the time of this Gogick and Magogick War and the Siege which accompanieth it It cannot be expressed what Streights the Saints are reduced to what Calamities they undergo what Miseries they indure And This is but agreeable to what our Blessed Lord foretold of the Times immediately preceding the Day of Judgment He hath assured us that those Days shall be very remarkable both in respect of Sin and Suffering As to the former when he compares them to the Days of Noah in which the Old World gave themselves up wholly to their Pleasures and forgat God and defied his Providence he sheweth how Corrupt and Wicked the Last Times shall be So that Interrogatory of our Saviour Luk. 18. 8. When the Son of Man cometh shall be find Faith on the Earth is a downright Negative and signifies that he shall not find Faith upon Earth That is not only as some interpret it the Faith even of God's Servants shall be very Weak and Little before the Last Coming of Christ the Saints themselves having been persecuted and harassed by the Wicked shall faint and flag They shall scarcely believe the Promise of his Coming they shall almost despond that Christ will help and deliver them But the meaning rather seems to be This that Faithfulness here called Faith shall be very rare upon Earth Sincertiy and Truth shall be bani●h'd and Lying Perfidiousness Dissembling and which is the Consequent of those inward Hatred and Malice and all outward Injustice Violence and Oppression shall come in their place And so in another place Christ foretells that not long before the Day of Judgment Iniquity shall abound and the Love of many shall wax cold For this is to be remarked that the Signs foregoing the Destruction of Ierusalem and of the Coming of Christ are intermixed in that Four and twentieth Chapter of St. Matthew Or we may say the former Signs were to be repeated and more fully display'd in the Latter Event Our Saviour likewise fets forth the State of the Last Days before the End of the World not only as extremely Sinful abounding with great Wickedness and universal Corruption of Life but as most Afflictive and Dangerous most Distressed and Calamitous There shall be saith he distress of Nations with perplexity the Sea and the Waves roaring Mens hearts failing them for fear Luk. 21. 25 26. Yea Those Words of Christ in Mat. 24. 21. are applicable here for the reason beforementioned Then shall be great Tribulation such as was not since the beginning of the World to this time no nor ever shall be And now the Fore-runners of that Great and Notable Day of the Lord mentioned by our Saviour in this Chapter shall appear viz. Wars and great Commotions in Kingdoms and Nations Signs in the Heavens and in the Earth Earthquakes Pestilence and Famine with other unusual and extraordinary Occurrences and tremendous Accidents which shall give notice of the approaching Judgment Thus our Saviour not only confirms the Truth of what we read in the Revelation but he further explains and sets it forth He plainly suggests unto us what an evil posture the World will be in before he comes to Judgment He lets us know that the Tribulation as well as the Wickedness of those Days which approach the End of the World shall be more grievous than any that ever were before At that time the Sins of the Churches Enemies and the Sufferings of the Godly shall be at the Vertical Point as high as they can go Briefly It will be found true that the World shall be most Wicked and most Perilous at last The worst State of it will be towards its End For the Devil will be very wrathful and outrageous because he knoweth that he hath but a short time as it is said of him in Rev. 12. 12. And at that time it may more truly be said of him than ever for the 1000 years being ended he is loosed but for a little season Rev. 20. 3. He must soon go off the Stage and that makes him act his part with so much vigour and fierceness The Iudgment shall come presently after the 1000 years There shall be a very considerable time between the Mellennium and Dooms-day but it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a small time in comparison of the thousand years And therefore on this account that malicious Spirit shall bestir himself with a mighty Concernedness The Tenth and Last Persecution which he raised in the Primitive Times was the Bloodiest So now he rageth most when he is to take his farewel of this Earthly Stage And now behold the Tragical Close of all Fire came down from God out of Heaven and devoured these Armies of Gog and Magog and the Devil that deceived them was cast into the Lake of Fire and Brimstone Rev. 20. 9 10. For now after all CHRIST appears from Heaven and comes to be Avenged of his Enemies and to Judge the whole World as you read expresly in ver 11 12 of this Chapter Before his first Coming Satan reigned a long time as God of this World he had a kind of an unlimited Rule and Sway But our Saviour by his Coming restrain'd his Power and Lordship and afterwards in the Millennary Reign gives a greater check to them But at his Last Coming he shall wholly deprive him of his Rule and Dominion Accordingly he comes at that Day to drive Satan down into his own Place and there to leave him to be tormented for ever and ever He comes to take Vengeance on Sinners and to punish them with the utmost Severity He comes to rescue the Righteous from the Fury both of Satan and wicked Men. This is the Work of the Last Day There is nothing more to be added unless it be the Conflagration of the World For this I take to be an evident Truth that the Firing of the whole Frame of Heaven and Earth is a Consequent of the Final Iudgment which is after the Millennium For to what purpose should this material System be consumed or rather indeed how can it till the present Scene of Action in this World be at an end which will not be till after the Thousand Years are past I deny not but there may be some Beginnings of it before which perhaps is meant in that forenamed Place Rev. 20. 9. Fire came down from God out of Heaven and devoured c. Here is an Essay of the Last Firing of the World which is prophesied of

Gentiles which is absolutely against Iudaism for the Priesthood amongst the Iews was tied to that certain Nation yea to a certain House and Family amongst them Therefore it is evident that the Iewish Religion was Temporary and was to cease This is obscurely intimated in Ezekiel's Model of the Temple Chap. 40. c. There never was any such thing no such Dimensions and Platforms it is a vast unwieldy thing his Temple is as big as all Ierusalem and the Ground allotted the Priests and Levites equals all Canaan It is likely therefore that this prefigureth the Christian Temple or the Church under the Gospel which was to be capacious and large But I need not make use of these obscure and mystical Places after I have produced so plain and evident ones as those before mention'd It is undeniable that those several Prophesies could not be accomplished if the Old State of the Iews was to be perpetual Ierusalem was too little the Land of Iudea could not serve for those purposes which are there spoken of Here also it might be observ'd that the Passover their great and most famous Ordinance was a Memorial of a particular Deliverance vouchsafed to the Iewish People and therefore was proper to them and appertained not to other Nations Hence it was that the Iews themselves did not require of the Proselites a Conformity to this Law nor indeed to any other of the like peculiar Nature Yea themselves were not obliged to observe some of the Mosaick Laws if they were in other Countries as those of First-fruits Tithes and the Sabbatick-year the Iubilee In Canaan only these and other Constitutions were to be kept as is confess'd by their own Writers Their Laws concerning Sacrifices and Incense and Feasts are ceas'd at this day amongst them because they were confin'd to that place and were not to be observ'd any where else Thus a considerable part of the Iewish Laws are now abolish'd by their own Confession they being dispersed into other Countries This might convince them that Iudaism was to give place to Christianity which is large and fitted for all the World which hath God the Church Religion and Salvation all in common This is a great Prerogative of Christianity that it is Universal and excludeth no People or Nations whereas the Religion and Worship of the Iews was narrow and scant and confined to themselves which is a Demonstration that it was Temporary and that there was to be a change of the Mosaick Law and Administration 2. This appears if you consider likewise that God dispensed with the Mosaick Rites and Ceremonies and did not always exact the observance of them which he would have done if they had been perpetual Laws and were designed to continue to all Ages Thus God dispensed with Circumcision not only as to the Time which was punctually assigned by the Law viz. the eighth Day for when the Infants were sick Circumcision was put off till they were well but he dispensed with the very Act and Performance it self All the time the Israelites were in the Wilderness which was forty Years they neglected to circumcise their Children and indeed there was no occasion for it because they then needed not to be distinguished from the Nations being not mingled with them and besides it was inconvenient in their Marches and Removals as may be gather'd from Ios. 5. 2. Circumcise again c. and more plainly from what follows v. 5. The People that were born in the Wilderness by the way as they came forth out of Egypt them they had not circumcised All that time the Celebration of the Passover was omitted in the Wilderness or it was celebrated but once in those forty Years Num. 9. 1 2. Ios. 5. 10. All the Sacrifices and Oblations tho commanded and appointed them the first Year they came into the Desert were omitted all the time they were there excepting some Peace-offerings and Sin-offerings which you read of in Exod. 40. 29. But the daily Sacrifice was not offered and the constant use of all sorts of Sacrifices prevailed not And afterwards when they came into Canaan God dispensed with the Law concerning Sacrificing only in the Tabernacle for Elias sacrificed at Carmel and Samuel at Mishphat unless we shall say that the Law had not reference to these Extraordinary Sacrifices and more Instances might be produced of that kind As to the Resting on the Sabbath-day which was a direct Injunction of the Law it was not observed when they besieged Iericho on that day And other punctual and peremptory Commands of the Mosaick Law were not observed And I could add that many things commanded in the Iudicial Law were dispensed with by God for he who enjoyned them had Power to do it A Bastard was not to come into the Congregation Deut. 23. 2. Yet Iepht●ah who was of that Character was prefer●d and that by Gods own Order to be Judge of Israel So the Judicial Law was violated by letting Saul's Sons who were hang'd up remain so long a time on the Gibbets Hence it appears that the Obligation of the Mosaick Laws is not perpetual for this relaxing and dispensing made way for annulling them and were a certain vindication that the Iewish Laws were to be laid aside 3. You may take notice that as God himself dispensed with these Laws so the best Men were oftentimes very neglectful of them Thus Gideon Manoah and David sacrificed not according to the strict direction of the Law And the last of these eat the Shew-bread when he was press'd with extream hunger and Hezekiah ordered the Passover to be celebrated otherwise than it was written in the Law 2 Chron. 30. 18. So careless were they of precisely observing the Cermonial Injunctions And here it might be observed how the holy Men and Prophets despised the service of Sacrifices and all the other Duties of the Law in comparison of inward Goodness Vertue and Holiness and spiritual Exercises and Performances of Religion The Psalmist speaks to God after this manner Psal. 51. 16 17. Thou desirest not Sacrifice else would I give it thee thou delightest not in Burnt-offering The Sacrifices of God are a broken Spirit a broken and a contrite Heart O Lord thou wilt not despise The Son of this Royal Prophet is plain and downright in this matter to do Iustice and Iudgment is more acceptable to the Lord than Sacrifice Prov. 21. 3. Whom Philo that worthy Jew follows saying God is not delighted with the Flesh and Fat of Animals but with the harmless Disposition and pious Intention of the Worshipper And not only this Writer but several other professed Iews acknowledg that Sacrifices were but a secondary sort of Service they were not in their own nature good nor required for their own sake but the primary and main part of divine Service and Worship are Prayer Repentance and Obedience As for Circumcision it was not esteem'd to be of absolute necessity and accordingly was not always perform'd

Innocent Christians This is sufficient to confute that Opinion Therefore Others hold the Thousand Years began under Constantine the Great when coming to the Empire he caused the Persecutions to cease and set up Christianity as the Religion of the Empire which was about the Year of our Lord 310. and they ended at the rise of the Ottoman Empire and with ●the Papacy of Boniface the Eight who made the Sanguinary Laws against the Waldenses and Albigenses which was about the Year 1300. Thus thought those Great Men Willet Forbes Napier Grotius Hammond And Brightman likewise seems to hold that the Reigning of the Saints and the Binding of Satan were from Constantine the Great to the beginning of the Fourteenth Century of thereabouts But this could not be the time of the Saints Reign for we read in Rev. 12. That the Woman viz. the Church as soon as she should be delivered was to be in the Wilderness a State of Distress how then could she Reign which denotes her Prosperity And she was to be in this State for the space of 1260. Days i. e. Years This began according to Mr. Brightman from the time that Constantine the Great was taken up to Heaven for he is the Manchild caught up to God v. 5. and to him the Context referreth Now reckon from the Death of that Emperour which was A. D. 337. till the time that the 1260. Years are expired and you will find that the Thousand Years ended later than he had set them for instead of ending in 1300. they could not according to this Computation have their Period till the Year of Christ 1597. Here you see one Prophecy of the Book of the Revelation is so interpreted as to thwart another which is an Argument that his Calculation is not right And indeed what Considerate Person can believe that the Thousand Years of Christ's Reign and of Satan's Imprisonment are part There hath been nothing yet that hath look'd like it When was Satan so bound that he seduced not the Nations Or when was he loosed again so that we may discern the palpable difference between either Do we not know that when the Ten noted Persecutions were expired yet others were raised against the Servants of God in this Period And all this time either Old Heresies were revived or New ones invented Therefore I infer that the time of the Thousand Years is not yet come when the Angel is to cast Satan into the Bottomless Pit and to shut him up and set a Seal upon him that he should deceive the Nations no more And as for Gog and Magog who were to appear soon after Satans being loosed where are they at this time If by those are meant th● Pope and Turk then they make the date of Popery and Turcism to be before Satans loosing and the expiring of the Thousand Years of the Saints Reign which is an Absurdity which they would willingly avoid Mr. Brightman hath an odd fancy of his own that though the Reigning of the Saints a Thousand Years be their Reigning all the Thousand Years in which the Devil was bound i. e. from Constantine the Great to the Year 1300. yet there is another Reigning a Thousand Years viz. from the Year 1300. till a Thousand Years after that be expired But if there be any good ground for this it is in this 20th Chapter of the Revelation where the Thousand Years of Christ's Reign are spoken of expresly and no where else But here it is manifest that the Reigning and the Binding are in the same Thousand Years for it is said v. 7. When the Thousand Years viz. of Christ's Reign expresly mention's in the verse immediately before are expired Satan shall be loose out of his Prison Therefore the Reigning of Christ and the Binding of Satan shall both expire together which proves also that they both began together the same Thousand Years including both The Opinion then of Mr. Brightman and others that the Thousand Years of Christ's Reign are past hath no Foundation at all but is a mere imaginary and precarious Assertion And yet this Assertion was taken up and believed by very Learned and Pious Men the cause of which I apprehend to be this they were prejudic'd against the Doctrine of the Old Millennaries and look'd upon it and that justly as a Groundless and Scandalous Opinion and thereupon were willing to resolve the Thousand Years into some past Time rather than into any that is to come and thereby quash'd that fond conceit of a Personal Reign This was an ill method they took but their great dislike of the other Opinion occasion'd it and therefore they are on that account excusable But if they had rejected what is amiss in the Doctrine of the Chiliasts and had retain'd what is true in the General viz. that there shall be a Future State of the Christian Church which shall be every ways better than its former one they had taken the right Course and had asserted a Truth which is founded on the Sacred Scriptures Thence any Unprejudiced Person may inform himself that the Thousand Years are so far from being past as some have thought that they are not yet come Only to assure us before hand that there shall be such a thing the Christian World hath had some foretasts of it already I cannot positively say with some that the Thousand Years began at the Reformation and that Luther was the Angel that had the Key of the Bottomless Pit and bound the Devil I cannot fix the beginning just here because Wickliff Ierom of Prague and Iohn Huss and several others before Luther did something of this Nature they in some measure restrain'd Satans Power and Jurisdiction by Converting many Persons from the Papal Impieties So that if we say Babylon began to Fall in those Times and mean no other than this that those forenamed Worthies made way for it I grant the Assertion to be true but it is to be remember'd that I am not now treating of the Preparatives and Forerunners of the Blessed Millennum but of that Determinate State and Time it self I grant that at the Reformation the Souls of those that were Beheaded for the Witness of Iesus and for the Word of God might truly be said to Live they were as it were raised from the Dead When Luther and the rest of God's Faithful Servants appeared and were active in Restoring and Reforming Religion the Holy Apostles and Martyrs and all the Primitive Professors of the True Faith were then as it were revived and came upon the Earth again This is a Forerunner and Pledge of that which is call'd the First Resurrection this is a Previous assurance of the Millennary Reign or Christ here on Earth in that Sence which I have before explain'd Mr. Mede's Conceit that the Thousand Years of Christ's Reign shall not begin till the Day of Iudgment is not worthy of so Learned a Person and is confuted from what you Read in this Chapter so