And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.
Ver. 4. And they sat upon them] Resting from former persecutions, and reigning in righteousness even here upon earth.
And judgment was given unto them] That is, say some, the spirit of discerning between Christianity and Antichristianism, or the clearing of their innocence, and doing them right, say others. Or, they had their chairs, seats, and consistories, wherein they did both preach the word and execute the Church censures, as some sense it.
And I saw the souls] This makes against the millenaries. Souls reign not but in heaven, there are "the spirits of just men made perfect," Hebrews 12:23. True it is, as Mr Cotton well observeth, that there are many devices in the minds of some, to think that Jesus Christ shall come from heaven again, and reign here with his saints upon earth a thousand years. But they are, saith he, but the mistakes of some high expressions in Scripture, which describe the judgments poured out upon God's enemies in making way to the Jews' conversion, by the pattern of the last judgment. Thus he. The souls here mentioned are the same, I conceive, that were seen under the altar, Revelation 6:9, and do cry, "How long, Lord?" These are not capable of a bodily resurrection, nor of an earthly reign.
And they lived and reigned with Christ] They, that is, those that sat on the thrones (not they that were beheaded), "lived and reigned," as spiritual kings (after the same manner as they are priests, Rev 20:6), for else there should be more kings than subjects.
With Christ] It is not said "with Christ upon earth;" this is an addition to the text; or if the words did import a reigning upon earth, yet this would not infer an earthly reign for a thousand years, in great worldly delights, begetting, many children, eating and drinking, and enjoying all lawful pleasures, as some dream today. The conceit, I confess, is as ancient as Cerinthus, the heretic, and Papias (scholar to St John), a man much reverenced for opinion of his holiness, but yet homo ingenii pertenuis, saith Eusebius, not oppressed with wit. Jerome and Augustine explode it as a Jewish fable, and declare it to be a great error, if not a heresy; so do all the ορθογνωμονες at this day. The patrons of Christ's personal reign upon the earth are Mr Archer, and Mr Burroughes (Moses' Choice), who tells us that if the opinion of some concerning Christ's coming to reign here in the world before the day of judgment be not a truth, he cannot make anything of many places of Scripture, as this place for one. But if he cannot, yet others can. See an answer to his and Mr Archer's chief arguments in Mr Bayly's Dissuasive from the Errors of the Times, chap. xxi. p. 238.