The Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University

By the saints' reigning on earth (as they sing in the Revelation 5 at the Revelation 5:10), and so by their souls' living and reigning with Christ a thousand years (in the Revelation 20, wherein that is accomplished), can be understood nothing but their reigning in Christ, who then shall reign; for they are united to him, and being one with him, it may very properly be said that they reign. For it is just all one as if they reigned, as the saints on earth then shall; for the saints on earth shall reign no otherwise themselves. And besides, because of their communion with the saints on earth, whereby when those reign, theseJE apparently wrote "those... these," but on a rereading changed the former to "they"; this alteration, however, introduces an ambiguity. What seems to have been his original wording has therefore been restored, since it fits the context and expresses his thought clearly. do in them. Wherefore it is most properly said to be a revival of their souls; for the spirit of the saints and dead martyrs shall then be revived in the saints on earth, as if their souls descended from heaven and lived in them. Wherefore this might very well be promised as an encouragement to the martyrs and the saints,

under the beast pagan and antichristian,I.e. the pre-Constantinian Roman government and the later papacy, which JE regarded as the two beasts of Revelation 13. as if they themselves should live and rule over their persecutors, for it is the same thing exactly And so it may be said very well, that the saints that die a thousand years before have a part in the first resurrection; and so it may be said, "Blessed and holy is he [that hath part in the first resurrection]" [Revelation 20:6], to move men to holiness.

The world may very properly be said to have two resurrections: the one a spiritual resurrection, the other a natural; the one a resurrection of the world to its primitive holiness and spiritual happiness (though not to innocency), the other a natural renewing of all the world, and so a resurrection of bodies, a renewing of the earth to its primitive luster, beauty, life and pleasantness, in both which respects the world has been a long time sunk into death. The first resurrection is a spiritual, the second a natural. The dead are of two kinds: [1] the spiritually dead (not as particular men but as to the whole church), in which sense the souls of the martyrs may be said to be dead; [2] the rest of the dead are the naturally dead, which were not to live again till the end of the thousand years. On those that had part in the first resurrection, or spiritual resurrection, the second death had no power, that is, the spiritual death. On those that were of the first resurrection, the first death had no power, or, the natural death. The devil and his angels were taken spiritually and thrown into the bottomless pit at the first resurrection; he was taken really and thrown into the bottomless pit at the second resurrection.