Newton on Biblical Prophecy

The Apocalypse as illustrated by Albrecht Dürer

Like most radical Protestants, Newton was keenly interested in the interpretation of Biblical prophecy. However, he believed that God had specially chosen him to deliver the truth about how prophetic texts were to be understood. A central plank of his general prophetic outlook was that images of the vials and trumpets described in the Book of Revelation referred to key events in the downfall of Roman Catholicism. In another remarkable treatise that can be dated to the late 1680s, Newton discussed what he believed would happen to the elect during Jesus’s thousand year reign immediately after his Second Coming. He suggested that Christ would reign with saints over a kingdom of mortals on Earth that would continue to produce successive generations of people until the end of time.

© 2024 The Newton Project

Professor Rob Iliffe
Director, AHRC Newton Papers Project

Scott Mandelbrote,
Fellow & Perne librarian, Peterhouse, Cambridge

Faculty of History, George Street, Oxford, OX1 2RL - newtonproject@history.ox.ac.uk

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