That the place wherein men are to live eternally,after the resurrection,is the heavens,meaning by heaven those parts of the world which are the most remote from earth,as where the stars are,or above the stars,in another higher heaven,called coelum empyreum (whereof there is no mention in Scripture,nor ground in reason),is not easily to be drawn from any text that I can find.By the Kingdom of Heaven is meant the kingdom of the King that dwelleth in heaven;and His kingdom was the people of Israel,whom He ruled by the prophets,his lieutenants;first Moses,and after him Eleazar,and the sovereign priests,till in the days of Samuel they rebelled,and would have a mortal man for their king after the manner of other nations.
And when our Saviour Christ by the preaching of his ministers shall have persuaded the Jews to return,and called the Gentiles to his obedience,then shall there be a new king of heaven;because our King shall then be God,whose throne is heaven,without any necessity evident in the Scripture that man shall ascend to his happiness any higher than God's footstool the earth.On the contrary,we find written that "no man hath ascended into heaven,but he that came down from heaven,even the Son of Man,that is in heaven."Where I observe,by the way,that these words are not,as those which go immediately before,the words of our Saviour,but of St.John himself;for Christ was then not in heaven,but upon the earth.The like is said of David where St.Peter,to prove the Ascension of Christ,using the words of the Psalmist,"Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell,nor suffer thine Holy One to see corruption,"saith they were spoken,not of David,but of Christ,and to prove it,addeth this reason,"For David is not ascended into heaven."But to this a man may easily answer and say that,though their bodies were not to ascend till the general day of judgement,yet their souls were in heaven as soon as they were departed from their bodies;which also seemeth to be confirmed by the words of our Saviour,who,proving the resurrection out of the words of Moses,saith thus,"That the dead are raised,even Moses shewed at the bush,when he calleth the Lord,the God of Abraham,and the God of Isaac,and the God of Jacob.For he is not a God of the dead,but of the living;for they all live to him."But if these words be to be understood only of the immortality of the soul,they prove not at all that which our Saviour intended to prove,which was the resurrection of the body,that is to say,the immortality of the man.Therefore our Saviour meaneth that those patriarches were immortal,not by a property consequent to the essence and nature of mankind,but by the will of God,that was pleased of His mere grace to bestow eternal life upon the faithful.And though at that time the patriarchs and many other faithful men were dead,yet as it is in the text,they "lived to God";that is,they were written in the Book of Life with them that were absolved of their sins,and ordained to life eternal at the resurrection.That the soul of man is in its own nature eternal,and a living creature independent on the body;or that any mere man is immortal,otherwise than by the resurrection in the last day,except Enos and Elias,is a doctrine not apparent in Scripture.The whole fourteenth Chapter of Job,which is the speech not of his friends,but of himself,is a complaint of this mortality of nature;and yet no contradiction of the immortality at the resurrection."There is hope of a tree,"saith he,"if it be cast down.Though the root thereof wax old,and the stock thereof die in the ground,yet when it scenteth the water it will bud,and bring forth boughs like a plant.But man dieth,and wasteth away,yea,man giveth up the ghost,and where is he?"And,verse 12,"man lieth down,riseth not,till the heavens be no more."But when is it that the heavens shall be no more?St.Peter tells us that it is at the general resurrection.For in his second Epistle,third Chapter,verse 7,he saith that "the heavens and the earth that are now,are reserved unto fire against the day of judgement,and perdition of ungodly men,"and,verse 12,"looking for and hasting to the coming of God,wherein the heavens shall be on fire,and shall be dissolved,and the elements shall melt with fervent heat.
Nevertheless,we according to the promise look for new heavens,and a new earth,wherein dwelleth righteousness."Therefore where Job saith,"man riseth not till the heavens be no more";it is all one,as if he had said the immortal life (and soul and life in the Scripture do usually signify the same thing)beginneth not in man till the resurrection and day of judgement;and hath for cause,not his specifical nature and generation,but the promise.For St.Peter says not,"We look for new heavens,and a new earth,"but "from promise."