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over his Church, and secures it from being destroy'd:
He can, by a power paramount, stop the rage either
of Satan or Antichrist; Hitherto shall you go and no
further. As sometimes when he was upon Earth, he
exerted a Divine Power, which yet did not destroy
his state of Humiliation; so he interposes now when
he thinks fit, but he does not finally take the power
out of the hands of his Enemies, nor out of the hands
of the Kings of the Earth. The Kingdom is not deliver'd up to him, and all dominion, and power; that
all Tongues and Nations should serve him. For S. Paul
can mean no less in this place than that Kingdom in
Daniel: Seeing he calls it putting all things in subjection
under his feet, and says that it is not yet done. Upon
this account also, as well as others, our Saviour might
truly say to Pilate (Joh. 18. 36.) my kingdom is not of
this World. And to his Disciples, The Son of man came
not to be ministred unto, but to minister, Matt. 20. 28.
When he comes to receive his Kingdom, he comes in
the clouds of Heaven (Dan. 7.13, 14.) not in the womb
of a Virgin. He comes with the equipage of a King
and Conqueror; with thousands and ten thousands
of Angels: not in the form of a Servant, or of a weak
Infant; as he did at his first coming.
Neither can this World to come, or this Earth to
come, be understood of the Kingdom of Heaven. For
the Greek word will not bear that sence, nor is it
ever us'd in Scripture for Heaven, Besides, the Kingdom of Heaven, when spoken of as future, is not properly till the last resurrection and final judgment.
Whereas This World to come, which our Saviour is to
govern, must be before that time, and will then expire. For all his Government, as to this World, expires at the day of Judgment, and he will then deliver
up the kingdom into the hands of his father: that he may
be all in all. Having reigned first himself, and put
down all rule and all authority and power. So that
S. Paul, in these two places of his Epistles, refers plainly to the same time and the same reign of Christ:
which must be in a future World, and before the day of
Judgment: and therefore according to our deductions,
in the New Heavens and the New Earth.
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