S. Jerome; and many later Ecclesiastical Authors. These, with the Philosophers before mentioned, I count good authority, Sacred and prophane: which I place here as an out-guard upon Scripture, where our principal force lies. And these three united and acting in conjunction, will be sufficient to secure this first post, and to prove our first Proposition, which is this:

Propos. 1.

That after the Conflagration of this World, there will be New Heavens and a New Earth: and that Earth will be inhabited.

CHAP. IV

The proof of a Millennium, or of a blessed Age to come, from Scripture. A view of the Apocalypse, and of the Prophecies of Daniel, in reference to this Kingdom of Christ and of his Saints.

WE have given fair presumptions, if not proofs, in the precedent Chapter, That the Sons of the first Resurrection will be the persons that shall inhabit the New Earth, or the World to come. But to make that proof compleat and unexceptionable, I told you it would be necessary to take a larger compass in our discourse, and to examine what is meant by That Reign with Christ a thousand years, which is promis'd to the Sons of the first Resurrection; by St. John in the Apocalypse; and in other places of Scripture is usually call'd the Kingdom of Christ, and the reign of the Saints. And by Ecclesiastical Authors, in imitation of S. John, it is commonly styled the Millennium. We shall indifferently use any of these words or phrases; and examine, First, the truth of the Notion and Opinion; whether in Scripture there be such an happy state promised to the Saints, under the conduct of Christ. And then we will proceed to