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To this I answer, That as there has been a long time to answer objections, so there has been a long time to strengthen them. As there have been many ages to solve difficulties, so there have been as many to find out difficulties and inconsistencies. Besides, there has been all this time to make difficulties more plain, and bring out inconsistencies more to the light; and by thorough and exact consideration, to make them more manifest and apparent. Time wonderfully brings truth to light, and wears off by degrees false colourings and disguises. The truth will always have most advantage by time. Appearing inconsistencies being well founded, will grow plainer and plainer, and difficulties more and more evident. Time will discover more circumstances to strengthen and confirm them, and so pretences of solution will appear more and more evidently absurd and ridiculous. When parties contend by argument and inquiry, time greatly helps that party which has truth on its side, and weakens the contrary. It gradually wears away the sandy foundation, and rots away the building that is not made of substantial materials. The Christian religion has evermore, in all ages, had its enemies, and that among learned men. Yea, it is observable, that there have commonly been some of the most subtle of men to scan the Christian scheme, and to discover the objections that lie against it, and have done it with a good will to overthrow it. Thus it was in Judea, in the infancy of the church. The Scribes and Pharisees, and the wise men among the Jews, employed all their wisdom against it. Thus, in the first ages of the church, not many wise, not many mighty, not many noble were called. Christianity had the wisdom, learning, and subtlety of the world to oppose it. In latter ages, how many learned and subtle men have done their utmost against Christianity? So that the length of time for persons to strengthen their own side in this controversy, brought as an objection against Christianity, is much more an argument for it, than an objection against it.

43. If there be a revelation from God to the world, it is most reasonable to suppose, and natural to expect, that he should therein make known not only what manner of being he is, but also that he should lead mankind to an understanding of his works of creation and providence. These things the Christian revelation opens to us in such a manner as might be expected. This alone gives any tolerable account of the work of creation, and this reveals to us the scheme of providence, and what is God's main design in the whole, a design worthy of himself. And we are shown how these events all point to this main work of power, wisdom and grace. We have a particular account how this greatest work has actually been wrought in the fulness of time, as to those great acts which are the main

ground of it; and how that was foretold in the several ages of the world.

These things are exceedingly agreeable to a rational supposition, in case God makes a revelation to mankind. But if the scriptures are not a revelation of God, then man, the principal creature God has made in this world, the only intelligent creature, to whom he has subjected this lower part of the creation, is left wholly and entirely in the dark about God's works both of creation and providence, and has nothing whereby to judge what God's scheme is, in all the great changes he sees come to pass in the world, or what he aims to accomplish. Every thing lies in darkness and confusion before him, without any possibility of his determining any thing, or to direct him what to think of God's works which he beholds, or what affections he should exercise towards the Supreme Governor, on occasion of them.

CHAPTER II.

The objection concerning the Apostles' apprehensions of the second coming of Christ answered.

§ 1. WITH respect to that objection against the truth of the Christian religion, That the apostles seem often to speak of the coming of Christ to judgment, as if they thought it near at hand; I will begin with what the apostle Paul says that may have such appearance. In the first epistle to the Thessalonians, which is reckoned to be the first of his epistles in the order of time; and particularly chap. iv. 15-17, he says, "For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive, and remain unto the coming of the Lord, shall not prevent them which are asleep for the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first : then we which are alive and remain, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we be ever with the Lord." He speaks of those that should then be alive, in the first person plural; and of those that should be asleep, in the third person. Thus it would have been more natural for him to have said, They which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord, shall not prevent us, who shall then be asleep.-And in the 17th verse, Then they which are alive, and remain, shall be caught up together with

us.

§ 2. Considering the scope of the apostle in these verses, all that can be inferred from such a manner of speaking, is, that it might, for ought was then revealed, be while they lived.

For the scope of the apostle was to comfort the Thessalomans concerning their friends that were already dead, with the consideration, that they should surely meet them again, at the day of the Lord's coming. And therefore, it was most proper and natural for the apostle to speak of them in the third person. And it is but just to suppose, that it was only the uncertainty of the time, that was the ground of the apostle's using such a manner of expression; because he, in this very context, speaks of the time as altogether uncertain; as it follows immediately in the beginning of the next chapter." But of the times and seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you for yourselves know perfectly, that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night," &c. The apostle, by the expression he uses, probably had in his mind those words of Christ in Acts i. 7. "It is not for you to know the times and seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power."

§ 3. We have an instance of a like nature with this, in the words of Joseph to his brethren, Gen. 1. 25. “God will surely visit you, and ye shall carry up my bones from hence." He does not say. God shall visit your posterity, and they shall carry up my bones from hence. Yet it cannot be argued, that Joseph concluded that the redemption out of Egypt, would be in that generation.

So the nature and design of the apostle's discourse, necessarily gave him to distinguish between those that should be alive at Christ's coming, and the deceased relations of the Christian Thessalonians. He speaks of them as already dead, and of their now living friends then meeting them risen from the dead. That the apostle did not intend to be understood, as though it were certain that Christ would come while they were living; is evident, from what he himself says, speaking of those very words, and expressly denying that he intended any such thing; or that he supposed it to be certain, that the coming of Christ was at hand, in any such sense. See 2 Thess. ii. 1-3; where he very earnestly warns them not to understand him in any such sense." Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, that ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter, as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any means; for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition," &c.

§ 5. Now it is evident, that the apostle does not thus write to them the second time, endeavouring to retract any thing he had written before; but it must be because he really did not intend so at first; for this epistle was written soon after the other, while the same fellow-labourers were with him.-And both

have been supposed to be written while the apostle abode in Athens, as appears by the postcripts. And if we well observe the contents of this and the foregoing epistle, the principal occasion of the apostle's writing the second so soon after the other, seems to have been an information he had received, that his former epistle had been misunderstood in this particular: and being much concerned about it, and fearing the ill consequences of such a misunderstanding, he writes to guard them from the mischief of such a mistake, and to establish them in it, that it is uncertain when the Lord will come, as he had told them before in his other epistle. And he argues the great uncertainty there was, whether it would be in that age or not, from what the Holy Ghost had revealed about the coming of antichrist.

§ 6. That this apostle did not expect Christ's coming in that generation, may be argued from his speaking as though he expected that those that were then alive, would rise from the dead at Christ's second coming, as in 1 Cor. vi. 14. "And God hath both raised up the Lord, and will also raise up us by his own power." And 2 Cor. iv. 14. "Knowing that he which raised up the Lord Jesus, shall raise up us also by Jesus, and shall present us with you."

§ 7. From what the apostle says in this second chapter of the second epistle to the Thessalonians, there appears a necessity, that those passages in any other of his epistles, that look as though he expected that Christ would come in that age, should be understood in some other sense, and that the apostle really did not mean so, as his words on a cursory view would lead us to suppose. For here the apostle is very express, and full, and earnest in it, that he would by no means be so understood. It is a further evidence, that those passages in other epistles must be understood in some other sense, that there are passages in this very epistle, particularly in the first chapter, that we should be ready to think had such a look, were it not that the apostle himself, immediately in the second chapter, denies any such meaning.

§ 8. In this sense we must understand those passages, in which it is spoken of as a duty of Christians, to look and wait for the coming of the Lord Jesus; as, Titus ii. 13. 1 Cor. i. 7. Philip. iii. 20. There is a necessity of understanding, in like manner, the following passages-which were all written after this to the Thessalonians-Rom, xiii. 11, 12. "And that knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent ; the day is at hand. Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light." We cannot understand this as though the apostle concluded, the day of judgment would come while they lived: because

he had before explained himself otherwise: but only that the day of Christ's kingdom, which is the day of the salvation of the church of Christ, was at hand. And so Philip. iv. 5. "Let your moderation be known to all men: the Lord is at hand." And Heb. x. 25. "Exhorting one another, and so much the more as ye see the day approaching."

"For

§ 9. Christ's coming was indeed at hand in many respects; and in such respects as might well have all that influence upon those to whom the apostle wrote that he intended. The coming of Christ at the overthrow of the Heathen empire, might well be said to be at hand; and Christ's last coming to judgment, might well, considering all things, be said to be at hand, as the apostle Peter observes, though there should be thousands of years between. The apostle Paul speaks of ages to come, Eph. ii. 7. That it was not to be till many generations were past yet it was at hand, in a sense agreeable to the common language of the Holy Spirit. So, Christ's first coming was spoken of as very nigh at hand, of old. Hagg. ii. 6, 7. thus saith the Lord of hosts, Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea and the dry land, and I will shake all nations; and the desire of all nations shall come; and I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of hosts" Yet there was then above 500 years to it. And when it was about 400 years, it is said, Mal. iii. 1, “The Lord whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple; even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in." And when it was about 700 years to the gospel day, it is said to be but a very little while. Isai. xxxix. 17, 18. "It is not yet a very little while, and Lebanon shall become a fruitful field, and the fruitful field shall be esteemed as a forest. And in that day shall the deaf hear the words of the book, and the eyes of the blind shall see out of obscurity, and out of darkness." So God represents, as though he would very quickly perform all things prophesied of by Jeremiah, some of them were not to be fulfilled in many ages; Jer. i. 10-12. So the time is said to be at hand, for the accomplishment of all the prophecies of the book of Revelation, and Christ's last coming at the conclusion of them; Rev. i. 3. and xxii. 7, 10, 12, 20; though the book evidently contains a series of events for many ages.

§ 10. Again, when the apostle Peter says, with respect to Christ's last coming, and its being said to be at hand, that "a thousand years in God's sight are but as one day," it is no new conceit of his own, to save reputation; but God's language that he had used of old justifies him in so saying. And the expresion that the apostles used about the approach of Christ's comng, did not tend to the disappointment of God's people. For Christ's coming to reward them at death was at hand, when they should have such a comfortable and full prospect of their

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