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This last persecution by Antichrist shall last for three years and six
months, as we have already said, and as is affirmed both in the book
of Revelation and by Daniel the prophet. Though this time is brief,
yet not without reason is it questioned whether it is comprehended in
the thousand years in which the devil is bound and the saints reign with
Christ, or whether this little season should be added over and above
to these years. For if we say that they are included in the thousand
years, then the saints reign with Christ during a more protracted
period than the devil is bound. For they shall reign with their King
and Conqueror mightily even in that crowning persecution when the devil
shall now be unbound and shall rage against them with all his might.
How then does Scripture define both the binding of the devil and the
reign of the saints by the same thousand years, if the binding of the
devil ceases three years and six months before this reign of the saints
with Christ? On the other hand, if we say that the brief space of
this persecution is not to be reckoned as a part of the thousand years,
but rather as an additional period, we shall indeed be able to
interpret the words, "The priests of God and of Christ shall reign
with Him a thousand years; and when the thousand years shall be
finished, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison;" for thus they
signify that the reign of the saints and the bondage of the devil shall
cease simultaneously, so that the time of the persecution we speak of
should be contemporaneous neither with the reign of the saints nor with
the imprisonment of Satan, but should be reckoned over and above as a
superadded portion of time. But then in this case we are forced to
admit that the saints shall not reign with Christ during that
persecution. But who can dare to say that His members shall not reign
with Him at that very juncture when they shall most of all, and with
the greatest fortitude, cleave to Him, and when the glory of
resistlance and the crown of martyrdom shall be more conspicuous in
proportion to the hotness of the battle? Or if it is suggested that
they may be said not to reign, because of the tribulations which they
shall suffer, it will follow that all the saints who have formerly,
during the thousand years, suffered tribulation, shall not be said to
have reigned with Christ during the period of their tribulation, and
consequently even those whose souls the author of this book says that he
saw, and who were slain for the testimony of Jesus and the word of
God, did not reign with Christ when they were suffering persecution,
and they were not themselves the kingdom of Christ, though Christ was
then pre-eminently possessing them. This is indeed perfectly absurd,
and to be scouted. But assuredly the victorious souls of the glorious
martyrs having overcome and finished all griefs and toils, and having
laid down their mortal members, have reigned and do reign with Christ
till the thousand years are finished, that they may afterwards reign
with Him when they have received their immortal bodies. And therefore
during these three years and a half the souls of those who were slain
for His testimony, both those which formerly passed from the body and
those which shall pass in that last persecution, shall reign with Him
till the mortal world come to an end, and pass into that kingdom in
which there shall be no death. And thus the reign of the saints with
Christ shall last longer than the bonds and imprisonment of the devil,
because they shall reign with their King the Son of God for these
three years and a half during which the devil is no longer bound. It
remains, therefore, that when we read that "the priests of God and
of Christ shall reign with Him a thousand years; and when the
thousand years are finished, the devil shall be loosed from his
imprisonment," that we understand either that the thousand years of
the reign of the saints does not terminate, though the imprisonment of
the devil does, so that both parties have their thousand years, that
is, their complete time, yet each with a different actual duration
approriate to itself, the kingdom of the saints being longer, the
imprisonment of the devil shorter,, or at least that, as three years
and six months is a very short time, it is not reckoned as either
deducted from the whole time of Satan's imprisonment, or as added to
the whole duration of the reign of the saints, as we have shown above
in the sixteenth book regarding the round number of four hundred years,
which were specified as four hundred, though actually somewhat more;
and similar expressions are often found in the sacred writings, if one
will mark them.
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