Bad Advertisement?
Are you a Christian?
Online Store:Visit Our Store
| St. John, in the Apocalypse, Equally Explicit in Asserting the Same Great Doctrine.
PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP 
Chapter XXV.—St.
John, in the Apocalypse, Equally Explicit in Asserting the Same Great
Doctrine.
In the Revelation of John, again, the order of
these times is spread out to view, which “the souls of the
martyrs” are taught to wait for beneath the altar, whilst they
earnestly pray to be avenged and judged:7455
(taught, I say, to wait), in order that the world may first drink to
the dregs the plagues that await it out of the vials of the
angels,7456
and that the city
of fornication may receive from the ten kings its deserved
doom,7457
and that the beast Antichrist with his false
prophet may wage war on the Church of God; and that, after the casting
of the devil into the bottomless pit for a while,7458
the blessed prerogative of the first
resurrection may be ordained from the thrones;7459
and then again, after the consignment of him to the fire, that the
judgment of the final and universal resurrection may be determined out
of the books.7460
Since, then, the
Scriptures both indicate the stages of the last times, and concentrate
the harvest of the Christian hope in the very end of the world, it is
evident, either that all which God promises to us receives its
accomplishment then, and thus what the heretics pretend about a
resurrection here falls to the ground; or else, even allowing that a
confession of the mystery (of divine truth) is a resurrection, that
there is, without any detriment to this view, room for believing in
that which is announced for the end. It moreover follows, that the very
maintenance of this spiritual resurrection amounts to a presumption in
favour of the other bodily resurrection; for if none were announced for
that time, there would be fair ground for asserting only this purely
spiritual resurrection. Inasmuch, however, as (a resurrection) is
proclaimed for the last time, it is proved to be a bodily one, because
there is no spiritual one also then announced. For why make a second
announcement of a resurrection of only one character, that is, the
spiritual one, since this ought to be undergoing accomplishment either
now, without any regard to different times, or else then, at the very
conclusion of all the periods? It is therefore more competent for us
even to maintain a spiritual resurrection at the commencement of a
life of faith, who acknowledge the full completion thereof at the
end of the world.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
