The Kingdom of God: Peace on Earth

A folio from a large treatise on the Book of Revelation Newton composed in the same decade wrote the Principia mathematica (1687). In this selection, Newton discusses passages from the Hebrew Prophets Isaiah and Micha that speak about an age of peace between nations that Newton believed would be ushered in by the return of Christ. The passage from Isaiah 2 speaks of o kingdom of God centered in Jerusalem, a Kingdom of peace that Newton saw as coming several decades beyond his own lifetime. This passage of Isaiah is visualized on the Ardon stained glass artwork upstairs in this building. The evocative statement about beating swords into plowshares inspired a statue that the Soviet Union donated to United Nations building in New York during the Cold War. The text is written in the hand of Humphrey Newton, who served as Isaac Netwon's amanuensis (secretarial assistant) during the 1680s. The men were not related, despite having the same surname. So in Isa. 11.6. Beasts are men where tis said that wold shall lied down with the Lamb and the Lepoard shall lie down with the kid and the Calf and they you Lyon and the Fatling together and a little child shall lead tem and the cow and the Bear shall feed, their young one shall lie down together, and the Lion shall eat like the ox, and the suckling child shall play on the hole of Asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice; they shall not hurt nor destroy in all my mountain For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord. These last words explain the rest and shew the peaceable state of Christ's Kingdom to be here spoken of … the Prophets in other places described more plainly saying that they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks and nations neither shall they learn war any more Isa. 2.4. Micah. 4.3.