they were taught to look further, namely at the heavenly or spiritual Jerusalem, the Church through all the World.
Now the Jews according to their allegorical vein, applied these things to the days of Christ thus: that first there should be a resurrection caused by Messias of righteous ones▪ then he to conquer Gog and Magog, and then there must come 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 The brave World to come that they dreamed of: Besides what they speak to this tenour in the Tal∣mudick Treatise last cited, there is this passage in Jerus. Megillah fol. 73. col. 1. They are applying particular parts of the great Hallel to particular times [what the great Hallel was, we shewed a little before.] And that part, say they, I love the Lord because he hath heard me, refers to the days of Messias: that part, Tye the sacrifice with cords: to the day of Gog and Magog. And that, Thou art my God and I will praise thee: refers to the world to come.
Our Divine Apocalyptick follows Ezekiel with an Allegory too, and in some of his expressions alludes to some of theirs, not as approving them, but as speaking the plainer to them by them: Here is a resurrection too, but not of bodies neither, for not a word of mention of them, but of souls. The souls of those that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, lived and reigned, ver. 4. and yet this is called The first resurrection, ver. 5.
The meaning of the whole let us take up in parts. There are two main things here in∣tended. First, To shew the ruine of the Kingdom of Satan; and secondly, The nature of the Kingdom of Christ. The Scripture speaks much of Christs Kingdom, and his con∣quering Satan, and his Saints reigning with him; that common place is briefly handled here: That Kingdom was to be especially among the Gentiles, they called in unto the Gospel. Now among the Gentiles had been Satans Kingdom most setled and potent, but here Christ binds him and casts him into the bottomless pit that he should deceive no more [as a great cheater and seducer cast into prison] and this done by the coming in of the Gospel among them. Then as for Christs Kingdom I saw Thrones, saith John, and they sate upon them, &c. ver. 4. here is Christ and his inthroned and reigning. But how do they reign with him? Here John faceth the foolish opinion of the Jews of their reigning with the Messias in an earthly pomp; and shews that the matter is of a far different tenour: that they that suffer with him shall reign with him, they that stick to him, witness for him, dye for him, these shall sit inthroned with him. And he nameth beheading only of all kinds of deaths, as being the most common: used both by Jews and Romans alike, as we have observed before at Acts 12. out of Sanhedr. per. 7. halac. 3. And the first witness for Christ, John the Baptist, died this death. He saith that such live and reign with Christ the thousand years, not as if they were all raised from the dead at the beginning of the 1000 years, and so reign all together with him those years out, as is the conceit of some [as absolute Judaism as any is, for matter of Opinion] but that this must be expected to be the garb of Christs Kingdom all along, suffering and standing out against sin, and the mark of the Beast and the like: whereas they held it to be a thousand years of earthly bra∣very and pompousness.
But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished: This is the first resurrection: Not that they lived again when the thousand years were finished, but it means that they lived not in this time which was the time of living, when Satan was bound, and truth and life came into the world: The Gentiles, before the Gospel came among them, were dead, in Scripture phrase, very copiously: Ephes. 2. 1, 2. & 4. 18. &c. but that revived them, Joh. 5. 25. This is the first resurrection, in and to Christs Kingdom: the second is spoken of at the twelfth verse of this Chapter that we are upon. Paul useth the same expression to signifie the same thing, namely a raising from darkness and sin by the power of the Gospel, Rom. 11. 15. Now when this quickning came among the Gen∣tiles, Satan going down, and Christs Kingdom advanced, and the Gospel bringing in life and light, as Joh. 1. 4. those that did not come and stick close to Christ and bear witness to him, but closed with the mark of the Beast, sin and sinful men, these were dead still and lived not again till the thousand years were finished, that is, while they lasted, though that were a time of receiving life.
Blessed therefore and holy are they that have part in this first resurrection, for on them the second death hath no power, ver. 6. The second death is a phrase used by the Jews. Onkelos renders Deut. 33. 6. thus, Let Reuben live and not die the second death. And Jonathan, Isa. 65. 6. thus, Behold it is written before me, I will not grant them long life, but I will pay them vengeance for their sins, and deliver their carcases to the second death. And ver. 15. The Lord will slay them with the second death.
Observe in the Prophet that these verses speak of the ruine and rejection of the Jews, now a cursed people, and given up to the second death: and in Chapter 66. vers. 29, 30, 31. is told how the Lord would send and gather the Gentiles to be his people, and would make them his Priests and Levites: And then see how fitly this verse answers those. In stead of these cursed people, these are blessed and holy, and