Hey folks.

I remember reading a while back that the Westminster Divines - a few prominent ones - were premillennial.

I remember seeing a thread on here about it. Just can't find the thread. Help ?

Also, I'd like to know - outside of the 2nd Helvetic Confession's condemnation - how often does premillennialism show up in reformed theology prior to the WCF's framers ?

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K. Joel Gilliard
Theologically Correct dot Com
http://www.theologicallycorrect.com
Sunday School Teacher (Elementary 2), Gaithersburg Community Church (EFCA)
http://www.gchurch.org
The Blog: THINK! - Wrestlin' With Wordz -N- Ideaz
The Upcoming CD: The Definition

I have read William Twisse (the Prolocutor) Jeremiah Burroughs, William Bridge, and Thomas Goodwin were premillennial.

http://tinyurl.com/6caa4q

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Taylor Otwell
Member -- Oak Cliff Baptist Church
Fort Smith, Arkansas, USA

Did we ever hear any cry out on their deathbed that they have been too holy, that they have prayed too much, or walked with God too much? – Thomas Watson, The Godly Man’s Picture

The Belgic Confession, article 37, begins by saying:

Finally, we believe, according to the Word of God, when the time appointed by the Lord (which is unknown to all creatures) is come, and the number of the elect complete, that our Lord Jesus Christ will come from heaven, corporally and visibly, as he ascended with great glory and majesty, to declare himself Judge of the quick and the dead, burning this old world with fire and flame to cleanse it.

In explaining this, one writer says:

In confessing that we are a persecuted people awaiting relief from our Lord, the Protestant confessions rejected outright all forms of what they called chiliasm. We know this doctrine today as premillennialism, which teaches that Christ will return before (pre) the millennium (mille annum, thousand years) and establish an earthly kingdom for one thousand years, ruling over the world in justice and equity.

This article’s simple confession concerning the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and the events associated with it, echoed throughout both Lutheran and Reformed confessions and catechisms, rejects all forms of premillennialism. For example, in the 1530 Lutheran Augsburg Confession, which Reformed theologians followed until writing their own confessions, we read,
They [the Lutherans] condemn others also, who now scatter Jewish opinions, that, before the resurrection of the dead, the godly shall occupy the kingdom of the world, the wicked being every where suppressed, the saints alone, the pious, shall have a worldly kingdom, and shall exterminate all the godless (article 17).

This “Jewish opinion” condemned by the Augsburg Confession, that before the end Christians shall have a worldly kingdom, is also expressed in the Second Helvetic Confession, written by Heinrich Bullinger in Zurich, sometime around 1561 and published in 1566. It states:
We further condemn Jewish dreams that there will be a golden age on earth before the Day of Judgment, and that the pious, having subdued all their godless enemies, will possess all the kingdoms of the earth. For evangelical truth in Matthew chapters 24–25 and Luke chapter 18, and apostolic teaching in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 and 2 Timothy chapters 3–4 present something quite different (chapter 11).

These “Jewish dreams” of a “golden age” receive a more moderate refutation in Zacharius Ursinus’ Smaller Catechism (Catechesis minor) when it asks, “What do you believe about his return to judge the living and the dead?” The answer:
That just as he ascended into heaven, he will again in his human nature truly descend from there on the last day in his Father’s glory, and after all unbelievers are cast down into eternal punishment, he will deliver me and all the elect from all evil and take us to himself in the eternal and heavenly kingdom, which he has already taken possession of in my name (Q&A 38).

An earthly reign and occupation of the kingdoms of this world by Christians is not mentioned. Ursinus’ Larger Catechism (Catechesis maior) expands upon this further:
What is the meaning of these words: “From there he will come to judge the living and the dead?”
That on the last day Christ will visibly return from heaven with divine power and majesty, just as when the disciples saw him ascending, and that he will judge all people who have lived from the beginning of the world and who are then left upon the earth, so that he might take to himself into the fellowship of heaven all who have truly believed in him, but cast out the rest into eternal fire along with the Devil and his angels (Q&A 102).
What does it mean, then, to believe in Christ who will return as judge?
It means to be sustained by this comfort: that after a little while Christ will return so that after all the wicked have been cast out into eternal punishment, he might deliver us from all evil in body and soul, show before all creatures that in him we are innocent, and take us to himself to be with him forever (Q&A 103).

From , pp. 492–94.

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Rev. Daniel R. Hyde
Pastor, Oceanside United Reformed Church, Carlsbad/Oceanside, California
Th.M. candidate, Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary

I wonder who that was?

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Daniel Ritchie
Saintfield, Northern Ireland - Queen's University, Belfast:History/Politics
Member of Dromara Reformed Presbyterian Church of Ireland (Covenanter)

In other words, Pastor Hyde, premillennial thought began to show expression in reformed thought later in the history of the reformation.

I'm wondering, outside of Westminster, when did this start to take place and what were the influences ?

__________________
K. Joel Gilliard
Theologically Correct dot Com
http://www.theologicallycorrect.com
Sunday School Teacher (Elementary 2), Gaithersburg Community Church (EFCA)
http://www.gchurch.org
The Blog: THINK! - Wrestlin' With Wordz -N- Ideaz
The Upcoming CD: The Definition