The court of the Gentiles: or A discourse touching the original of human literature, both philologie and philosophie, from the Scriptures, and Jewish church in order to a demonstration, of 1. The perfection of Gods vvord, and church light. 2: The imperfection of natures light, and mischief of vain pholosophie. 3. The right use of human learning, and especially sound philosophie. / By T.G.

§. 5. Neither were the Heathens without many broken Traditi∣ons concerning the last Iudgement, which we may no way doubt were conveighed to them, originally, from the Iewish Church or sa∣cred fountain. The Iews had clear Notices of the last judgement, which was to ensue upon the worlds Conflagration, and that, as we may presume, from Enochs Prophecie common amongst them, as Iude intimates v. 14.15. or from other Divine Re∣velations. And more particularly, the Iews had a common and famous Tradition of the worlds duration 6000. years, and the 7000. year to be the day of Iudgement &c, of which see August. de civit. Dei lib. 22. cap. 7. and Lud. Vives thereon: also Mede Diatr. 4. pag. 476 to 491. Broughton likewise, in his Principal Positions pag. 14. asserts the same out of the Iewish Rabbins viz. that the world at the 6000 year by the old expecta∣tion, in all likelyhood shall end. So Mede (Diatr. 4. pag. 490) saith

it is true the primitive Fathers, especially those that be∣lieved the Chiliad, conceived the world should last and the church therein labour 6000 years; and that the 7000 should be the day of Iudgement, and Sabbath, in which the Saints should reign with Christ their Lord, according to the Iewish persuasion.

Now that the Heathens had some fragments and Traditions hereof, may be evinced out of Plato de repub. lib. 10. fol. 621, where he thus Philosophizeth

Seing the soul is Immor∣tal and patient of labor, we must, by a kind of pleasing vio∣lence, follow on towards the Celestial blisse, that we may be friends to our selves, and the Gods, and Victors in that long passage of the thousand years &c.

His own words are these, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, that we may live happily here, and in the thousand years when we come to them. Here Plato makes mention 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, of a passage of a thousand years which comes very near the fornamed Iewish Tra∣dition of the 7000 year being the day of Judgment; whence sprang that notion of Annus Platonicus the Platonick year, which I take to be the same with, or at least a corrupt imitation of the Iewish 7000 year, wherein they place the day of Iudgment. Again Plato, in the same lib. 10 de Repub. fol. 614. mentions a Phenician or Egyptian Fable of Gods righteous Iudgment in that great Platonick year, his words follows:

Truly I will relate to thee a Fable of Herus Armenius, an excellent personage, of the Stock of Pamphilius; who being raised from the dead, re∣lated those things he saw in Hell. He said therefore, that after his soul was separated from his bodie, he travelled with many, and came into a certain Divine place, in which he saw two hiatus's or breaches of earth very near unto him; also two others above in heaven. Between these hiatus's there sate judges; who after they had passed judgment on the souls of men deceased, commanded the just to ascend on the right hand, into the upper place of Heaven, with the monuments of their judgment hung before them: but the unjust, on the contrary, they comanded to passe to the left hand, into the lower place, with memoires of all that they perpetrated in their life time, hanging behind them. Thus Plato: and Serra∣nus on this place addes, that Plato here, to demonstrate the just judgment of God, brings a certain 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 fable (or

〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉) taken from the Doctrine of the Egyptians or Phenici∣ans.

That Plato derived these his contemplations of the last judg∣ment from the Mosaick Doctrine, is rationally argued by Lud. Vives, in August de civit dei lib. 22. cap. 28. Thus Eusebius (lib. 2. praepar. evang.) supposeth

that Plato received by Tra∣dition, from the Mosaick doctrine, both the mutation of the world, and the Resurrection, and the judgment of the damned in Hel. For Plato relates, that time being expired, the terrene stock of mankind should come under a Defection, and the world should be agitated with unwonted manners; yea shaken with the vast Destruction of all living things: then, after some time, it should be again setled by the endeavor of the supreme God, who, that the world might not fall in pieces and pe∣rish, will again receive the Government thereof, and adde to it Eternal youth and Immortalitie.

Notes

• Pagan Notices of the last Judgment
• Jude. 14.15.
• The Jewish persuasion of the 7000 year to be the day of Judg∣ment
• The Platonick year an Image of the day of Judgment.