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Wherefore, not to mention many other instances besides, as we now see
in Christ the fulfillment of that which God promised to Abraham when
He said, "In thy seed shall all nations be blessed," so this also
shall be fulfilled which He promised to the same race, when He said
by the prophet, "They that are in their sepulchres shall rise
again," and also, "There shall be a new heaven and a new earth:
and the former shall not be mentioned, nor come into mind; but they
shall find joy and rejoicing in it: for I will make Jerusalem a
rejoicing, and my people a joy. And I will rejoice in Jerusalem,
and joy in my people, and the voice of weeping shall be no more heard
in her." And by another prophet He uttered the same prediction:
"At that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be
found written in the book. And many of them that sleep in the dust"
(or, as some interpret it, "in the mound") "of the earth shall
awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting
contempt." And in another place by the same prophet: "The saints
of the Most High shall take the kingdom, and shall possess the
kingdom for ever, even for ever and ever." And a little after he
says, "His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom." Other prophecies
referring to the same subject I have advanced in the twentieth book,
and others still which I have not advanced are found written in the
same Scriptures; and these predictions shall be fulfilled, as those
also have been which unbelieving men supposed would be frustrate. For
it is the same God who promised both, and predicted that both would
come to pass, the God whom the pagan deities tremble before, as even
Porphyry, the noblest of pagan philosophers, testifies.
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