Sacred Theory of the Earth: Book IV: Chapter VII

This is a piece of millennialist Protestant theology, likely from the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century, working within the tradition of chiliasm—the belief in a literal thousand-year earthly reign of Christ prophesied in Revelation. The author systematically enumerates six defining characteristics of the Millennial state drawn from Scripture: it will be paradisiacal (free from pain and want), universally peaceful (wars and even animal enmities abolished), abundant, righteous (populated exclusively by the redeemed with Satan bound), marked by a special divine presence or Shekinah, and will confer on all its inhabitants the combined dignity of kings and priests. A central argument is that this dignity is not reserved for apostles or chief martyrs alone but belongs universally to everyone admitted to the New Jerusalem, regardless of rank. The author specifically attacks a rival interpretation that would confine the Millennium to a modest improvement on present earthly life—still morally mixed, still subject to bodily suffering—while reserving heavenly glory only for resurrected martyrs, dismissing this view as lacking both scriptural warrant and intrinsic beauty. The work is polemically careful to distinguish what Scripture actually says from speculative additions, objecting, for instance, that the Bible records the martyrs' resurrection but says nothing of their ascending to heaven. Readers interested in early modern debates over eschatology, the nature of earthly versus heavenly reward, and the social egalitarianism implicit in millennialist thought will find the text directly engaged with those questions.

Sacred Theory of the Earth: Book IV: Chapter VII

Related pages View as graph →