a New Earth. Another habitable World, better and
more perfect than that which was destroyed. That,
as the first World began with a Paradise, and a state
of Innocency, so the last may be a kind of Renovation of that happy state; whose Inhabitants shall not
die, but be translated to a blessed Immortality.
I know 'tis the opinion of some, that this World
will be annihilated, or reduc'd to nothing, at the
Conflagration: and that would put an end to all further enquiries. But whence do they learn this? from
Scripture, or Reason, or their own imagination?
What instance or example can they give us, of this
they call Annihilation? Or what place of Scripture
can they produce, that says the World, in the last
Fire, shall be reduc'd to nothing? If they have neither instance, nor proof of what they affirm, 'tis an
empty Imagination of their own: neither agreeable
to Philosophy, nor Divinity. Fire does not consume
any substance: It changes the form and qualities of
it, but the matter remains. And if the design had
been Annihilation, the employing of fire would have
been of no use or effect. For smoak and ashes are at
as great a distance from Nothing, as the bodies themselves out of which they are made. But these Authors seem to have but a small tincture of Philosophy,
and therefore it will be more proper to confute their
opinion from the words of Scripture; which hath
left us sufficient evidence, that another World will
succeed after the Conflagration of that we now
inhabit.
The Prophets, both of the Old and New Testament, have left us their predictions concerning
New Heavens and a New Earth. So says the Propher
Isaiah, ch. 65. 17. Behold I create New Heavens and a
New Earth, and the former shall not be remembred, or
come into mind. As not worthy our thoughts, in
comparison of those that will arise when these pass
away. So the Propher S. John, in his Apocalypse, when
he was come to the end of this World,
says,
And I
saw a new heaven and a new earth. For the first heaven
and the first earth were passed away, and there was no
more Sea. Where he does not only give us an ac
