that Faith might not be precarious and built upon his bare affirmation he openly claimed first the Kingdom of Judea as of the Line of David and caused the people to applaud him with Hosanna's But being to Redeem us as a Sacrifice by his Blood and to Conquer Death and confirm his Gospel by Dying and Rising again he oft foretold all this to his Disciples and the rejecting of him by the Jews and their Nations Cities and Temples ruin for it and his purpose to cease the Mosaical Politie and to make his Church more Great and Catholick by the Calling of the Gentiles especially the Roman Empire X. At his Resurrection he took more solemn possession of his Kingly Government And first Commissioned the Twelve Apostles whom he had before made Preachers to the Jews to continue their Ministry to them in a number related to the Twelve Tribes till Persecution should expel them and then to do their best to make all Nations as such his Disciples Baptizing them as the Entrance into his Kingdom into the Name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost and there teaching them to observe all his Commands delivered to those Apostles and promising to be with them to the End of the World XI By this and more it appeareth that a great triumphant Kingdom on Earth and National Churches which are nothing but Christian Kingdoms was at first in Christs Intention though the Embrio and Infancy anteceding it was to be first in Execution For he commanded the Discipling of Nations and would have gathered Jerusalem and not cut them off nor taken the Kingdom of God from them but for their unbelief And the number of Twelve was by Matthias to be made up to shew their relation to the Jews National Church State till Persecution drove them to the Gentiles and then Paul and Barnabas were added The Apostles have Successors in all the parts of their Office which is to be continued to the End but not in the parts that were extraordinary peculiar and temporary XII Christ by the Holy Ghost which he promised to send to be his powerful Agent propagated a holy Generation and by his Messengers Preaching his Resurrection and Kingdom especially and the Miracles which they wrought he confirmed his Gospel And Converted quickly many Myriads of the Jews and after far greater numbers of the Gentiles Thus preparing materials or subjects for his more visible Kingdom of Power on Earth Himself reigning over all in Heaven XIII That his Subjects might know the Nature and Terms of his Covenant and Government which was to bring them to a Heavenly Kingdom he not only required their Covenant-Consent to forsake the Flesh and this World and the Devil for that Eternal Life which he had promised them but he was pleased to put them on the actual exercise of this agreement and to try their sincerity by putting them often upon Sufferings and Martyrdom And therein he exercised his Heavenly Power in strengthening them and making them more than Conquerors while they went as Sheep to the slaughter to the honour of their Lord and Faith and the confusion of their Persecutors XIV Yet did he so over-power the Spirits of the Pagan Persecutors that of Forty Emperors there were at most but ten that persecuted them so that in this Captivity and Wilderness state by their liberty their numbers so increased that they became a considerable party in their Dominions and Armies XV. Of all these Persecutors the Cruellest were Nero Domitian Maximinus and Decius but far above all the last who were seven together Dioclesian Max. Herculius Max. Galerius Max. Daya Severus Licinius Maxentius and Constantius not wholly innocent The cruelty of their Tormentors and the great numbers Tormented and Martyred is frightful even to read By all which Christ shewed his Heavenly Power in the terrible punishment of all their Persecutors First in the dreadful destruction of the cursed part of the Jews who were by Vespasian and Titus so destroyed that 110000 of them were killed and about 700000 Captivated And their State City and Temple overthrown and saith Origen and Chrysostom it is certain that they shall never that is the Infidels return to that Land And afterwards by Trajan and Adrian in revenge of the Murders of Barcocheba an Antichrist near as many more were killed which must needs leave the Infidels few in so small a Land when London is supposed not to have near one Million of Inhabitants And as to the great Pagan Empire the greatest that ever the World had Christ rode on the White Horse against them Conquering and executed on them all the Plagues gradually numbered in the Apocalypse the Seals the Trumpets the Vials till he had utterly overcome them and all their Confederates He dealt so severely with them that of Forty Emperors there were scarce ten or seven that died without Murder a natural death But they were still in Bloody Wars with other Nations and with one another so that The Beast that was and Is not and yet Is became a fit description of their State As notably suited to Domitian at first and to Dioclesian Herculius and their Fellows at last so all along to the ordinary Succession To day there was an Emperor the next day he was kill'd and there was None And yet another presently succeeded him and so there is one again The Soldiers selling the Empire to him that would give most for it or was likest to advance them How dreadful a destruction did Christ by one Constantine bring on the seven Heads and ten Horns at last in a very little time So that Heaven and Earth triumphed with Joyful Praise that Babylon was fallen and the Kingdoms of the World were become the Kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ and he had taken to himself his great Power and had reigned and was setting up the New Jerusalem as a Fifth Monarchy the Embrio of the Coelestial Jerusalem in its visible Reigning Power I am none of those that will secure Papal Rome from an answerable Name and Guilt and Fate But he that will convince me that Pagan Rome was not the Babylon there meant or that it is not fallen must first convince me that he is of more credible Authority than the Apocalypse XVI O how great a change was it for poor Christians throughout all the Empire to be brought from Scorn and Torments and the Martyrdom of many Thousands after 294 years Captivity to be suddenly made Freemen to celebrate Christs Worship in the most Solemn Assemblies and to be made Lords of their Persecuting Captivating Idolatrous Enemies lately so great that no Nations could stand before them Who did the Godly desire should be in Power rather their Bishops that came newly out of the Furnace of Tryal O what a change O what a joyful day And shall the success of the Devil that
confessed to me that if you err the misunderstanding of The Delivering up the Kingdom to the Father that God may be All in All is your 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I will first prove that you grosly err in this your foundation § 4. 2. You say oft that Christs Kingdom begins at the Millennium as if he had none before And you distinguish not the several Gradations of his Kingdom as from the Conception and Embryo to its maturity As it began in the Promise to Adam and renewed to Noah and proceeded to the Covenant of Peculiarity made to Abraham and his Seed settled in a Common-wealth by Moses renewed to David And as it came from Heaven in the Person of the Incarnate Messiah shewing his Kingly Power by his Miracles and Doctrines and in his Transfiguration and acknowledged by Hosanna's and owned to the death before the Roman Judge Nor his entrance on the more open exercise of it by his Resurrection Ascension and sending down his Paraclete the Holy Spirit and by it in his commissioned Apostles and Witnesses convincing and converting the World You take little notice of his going forth conquering on the White Horse as King of Kings and Lord of Lords and calling all the Fowls of the Air to eat the flesh of Kings and Captains and his utter subversion of Pagan Babylon taking to himself his great Power and Reigning when Heaven and Earth triumphed with joy that the Kingdoms of the World were made the Kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ and Christ set up Christian Princes as his Officers representing him to Rule as in his name as his Ministers do in Preaching in his name If you say that these things were not done your unthankful slander of Providence and the Revelation is confuted by the whole stream of the Roman and Church History What more will be done hereafter is a further question The fulness of the Gentiles then came in And is all this no Kingdom and Reign of Christ § 5. Compare Christs words of his Kingdom and yours Matth. 12. 28. The Kingdom of God is come unto you Matth. 21. 43. The Kingdom of God shall be taken from you and given to a Nation that will bring forth the fruit thereof Luk. 11. 20. No doubt the Kingdom of God is come upon you Luk. 9. 27. There are some here that shall not taste of death till they see the Kingdom of God come in power Luk. 17. 21. The Kingdom of God is among you or within you Matth. 13. Likeneth the Kingdom of Heaven to a Sower to a grain of Mustard-seed to a Treasure hid to rich Pearls sought to a little Leaven to a Fishers Net to a field of Corn and Tares Luk. 19. 12 15. When Christ ascended he then received for himself a Kingdom before he came to Judgment Joh. 5. 22. The Father judgeth no man but hath committed all Judgment to the Son Matth. 28. 19. All power in Heaven and Earth is given me Joh. 17. 2 3. All things are delivered to him Luk. 23. 42. He that prayed Christ to remember him when he came in his Kingdom was told that he should be in Paradise with him that day § 6. Abraham Isaac and Jacob are now in the Kingdom of God and others shall sit down there with them God is not the God of the dead but of the living Lazarus was in Abraham's bosom Moses and Elias appeared with Christ on the Mount of Glory And Enoch was translated Christ is not in Heaven alone without any company but Angels And if Moses and Elias be there more are there to make the superiour part of his Kingdom He hath there a nobler Reign now than is exercised in this dark distracted World that is drowned in wickedness and torn by mutual Enmity and Malice It would not else have been better for Paul to be dissolved and to be with Christ Those that follow him shall be where he is Joh. 12. 26. We live because he liveth as branches in him the Vine § 7. Either this World is Governed now by God or not If not he is not a God to it or Kings are more to it than God If yea it is by Christ that he governeth it Are there any Divine Laws or not If there be they are Christs Laws and the Execution is Christs Execution of them And sure the exercise of Legislation Judgment Protection Rewards and Punishments are the exercise of Kingly Government You deny Christ if you deny him to be King Will you not obey him as King till the Trumpet sound and he come to the final Judgment § 8. But where is the present Kingdom of Christ more gloriously described than in the Prophecies which you call your self the Humble Reader of and especially in the Apocalypse if it be not you only that understand it It would swell this writing to name all the Texts that expresly assert it Isa 9. 6 7. To us a Child is born to us a Son is given and the Government shall be upon his Shoulder and his Name shall be called Wonderful Counsellor the mighty God the everlasting Father the Prince of Peace of the increase of his Government and Peace there shall be no End upon the Throne of David and upon his Kingdom to order it and to stablish it with Judgment and with Justice from henceforth even for ever Is this only at the Millennium He is a Prince and a Saviour to give repentance and remission of sin God hath made him Lord and Christ Acts 2. 16. To be Lord is to be King To deny this is to say that we owe him no obedience and is Apostacy indeed How could he make us Kings and Priests to God if he were not King himself even a Priest after the order of Melchizedeck and a Prophet raised up like Moses that was King in Jeshurun But enough of this to real Christians § 9. But what is all this to you Do you deny it 1. If you do not it is not Christs Kingdom but the Consummation of his Kingdom and his Glorious appearing in it that is to begin at Judgment after the Conflagration 2. But it is your words and not your thoughts that are published in Print and if you have written contrary to your Heart recant it and pity them that you deceived In your Catechism of the Millennium you say pag 5. Q. When doth Christs Kingdom begin Ans It begins at the Coming and Appearance of Christ and at the Resurrection of his Saints at his Coming and Appearance And page 6. The Apostle without any other mention of his Kingdom saith He must reign till he hath put all his Enemies under his feet Now when did this reign begin but at his Coming Or where did the Apostle give any intimation of his reigning but at his Coming And when he comes and descends and no longer sits at the Right Hand of God then God first maketh his Enemies his Footstool Not when he sits but when he comes And then
he begins to reign His Kingdom and the Resurrection of his Saints begin together § 10. I confess this Doctrine well agreeth with Doctor More 's Life of Tryal in the Air and Mr. Mede's Conclusion that our Salvation is not ascertained to us till the Resurrection Indeed it maketh all our Preaching and Religion in this life of little moment in comparison of that which is after both Death and Resurrection For if Christ Reign not till then he maketh no Laws till then He bindeth us to no obedience to him till then He punisheth no sin till then He setteth up no Magistrates till then to be Governing Officers in his Kingdom He executeth no Discipline in the Churches as King O how have Independents and Presbyterians been deceived then who have lamented the neglect or suppression of Christs Kingly Government in the Church It is then under his Thousand years Government that men must obey to secure their Salvation § 11. But the contrary is fully evident by the Effects 1. What new Laws he will make in the Air you must prove But we can prove that he made Laws for Government on Earth 2. Else the World hath had no King or Government of God 3. Nor no authorized Prince or Pastor 4. All Saints can say that he giveth Rewards on Earth to Believers 5. And he is the Protector of his Church 6. He here is known by the Judgments which he executeth and maketh his Enemies his footstool though their final Fall be at the last Did he not in that Kingly glory described by John execute all those Plagues on Pagan Rome and its Beast which are gradually described in the Seals the Trumpets and the Vials till it fell If you say that all this is meant of Papal Rome sure I am it was done first on Pagan Rome And you that tell us how shortly Turk and Pope shall fall sure take it to be before the Resurrection And doth not Christ then make his Enemies his footstool by his Kingly Power 12. What it is for Christ to subdue his Enemies must be known by his Office and Undertaking which is to overcome Satan and to save his People from their sins And did he not conquer Satan as a Tempter and triumph even on the Cross And doth he not conquer the Dominion of sin in all his Members Is he not mortifying them in us day by day And is not this treading down his Enemies And is he not taking off the Curse the fruit of sin These are Christs Enemies because they are ours even the diseases which he came to cure § 13. Is it not unreconcileable self-contradiction for you to extol the Doctrine of Dr. Crisp who saith That we are so fully saved by Christ even before Conversion that we have no sin it being none of ours but his nor can any sin hurt us much less other mens nor any penalty befal us nor any place left for any duty to do us the least good and yet that Christ our Saviour subdueth not his Enemies before the Resurrection Yea your self assert that we are Righteous by Gods Essential Righteousness and that as our only Justification and Holiness And yet doth not Christ tread down his Enemies Hath he trod down in you no Pride no Lust no Errour no Injustice Doth he not tread down greater Enemies than Turkish Swords or Papal Inquisitions in every Soul that he converteth When we fight not against flesh and blood but against Principalities and Powers and spiritual wickedness in high places And when we are but killed and counted as Sheep to the slaughter in all this we are more than Conquerours and need not fear them that kill the body § 14. Rev. 5. 12 13. The numberless Host of Heaven cry Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honour and glory and blessing and is not that a Kingdom and is it not till the Resurrection And every creature which is in Heaven and on the Earth and under the Earth and such as are in the Sea and all that are in them heard I saying Blessing and honour and glory and power be to him that sitteth on the Throne and to the Lamb for ever and ever This is before the Resurrection § 15. Rev. 12. 7. If Michael be not Christ he is Christs Servant And there was War in Heaven and Michael and his Angels fought against the Dragon and the Dragon fought and his Angels and prevailed not neither was there place found any more in Heaven And the great Dragon was cast out that old Serpent called the Devil and Satan who deceiveth the whole World He was cast out into the Earth and his Angels were cast out with him And I heard a voice saying in Heaven Now is come salvation and strength and the Kingdom of our God and the Power of his Christ for the accuser of our Brethren is cast down who accused them before our God day and night And they overcame him by the Blood of the Lamb and by the Word of their Testimony and they loved not their lives unto the Death Therefore rejoice ye Heavens and ye that dwell in them Woe to the Inhabitants of the Earth and of the Sea For the Devil is come down to you having great wrath because he knoweth that he hath but a short time He may make his own Faith that will affirm that this describeth no Kingdom of Christ or no Conquest of his Enemies or that all this is after the Resurrection or yet to come and none of it yet fulfilled § 16. Rev. 14. 7 8. Fear God and give Glory to him for the hour of his Judgment is come Babylon is faln is faln This is a Judgment and a treading down Enemies before the final Judgment And so is the Reaping and the Wine-press mentioned ver 13. to the end § 17. Were all the seven Vials poured out after the Resurrection c. 16. Or were there no treading down of the Enemies of King Jesus Ch. 17. 12 14. The Beast and his ten Kings make war with the Lamb and the Lamb shall overcome them for he is Lord of Lords and King of Kings and they that are with him are called and chosen and faithful This is a Conquest before the Resurrection Ch. 18. Is yet more full herein about all the Fall and Plagues of Babylon Over whom Heaven and Earth are called to rejoyce And it was certainly before the Resurrection that the Kingdoms of the World are said to become the Kingdoms of Christ And the three last Chapters describing the Glory of the delivered Church on Earth as representing the heavenly Glory is yet the fullest proof of all § 18. By all this it is evident that you call that Christs Kingdom as begun which is but his Kingdom in triumph and maturity as if a man were no man till he is at full Age. But it is your not distinguishing the Kingdom of Mediatorial Redemption recovery and acquisition from the Kingdom
when he cometh with his Angels and the Trumpet soundeth But those found alive on Earth cannot be excluded from the number of the Elect that are at or under the four Winds Therefore they shall then be gathered to him § 11. X. The living shall be caught up when Death the last Enemy is subdued But that will be at Christs Triumphant Coming and the Resurrection For after that there will be no more death as an Enemy If you would deny this as aforesaid because in the New Earth the Blessed are Mortal in possibility of Nature I answer that Paradise possibility were it true is none of the Curse for Sin and therefore not the Enemy to be subdued § 12. XI The Saints shall be caught up when the day and work of Judgment Cometh But that will be at Christs Coming and the Resurrection As he himself and many a plain Text of Scripture tell us too much to cite And whereas you feign a Judgment day of a Thousand years taking Judgment for Government Christ otherwise expoundeth himself and tells how the Judgment will proceed by Exploration and Sentence Mat. 25. c. And Government in general containeth Legislation Judgment and Execution You tell us not a word what Legislation will be in the Air the Thousand years And for Judgment in special will Christ be a Thousand years in Exploration and Sentence Will the wicked so long be untryed and uncondemned or the Faithful so long unjustified or by Sentence judged to Salvation Doth not Christ Mat. 25. contradict this VViil their case be so long undecided If you mean that Execution will be that Thousand years can you prove that the Damned shall suffer no longer Nor the Blessed any longer reign with Christ O make not a New Gospel Heaven and Hell § 13. XII The Saints will be taken up when the Kingdom is delivered up to the Father and God is All In All But that will be at Christ Triumphant Coming and Judgment at the Resurrection For it signifieth no more but that Sin and Curse shall all be cast out and all that rebelled against God be Conquered and all Christs Recovering work performed and God again Rule Man as Innocent according to the Law of his perfect Nature This will be then finished You say that those on Earth shall be in a Paradise State and those in the Air will not be worse And then Christs Coming in Triumph delivereth up the Kingdom to the Father that his and Christs Kingdom of Glory and Fruition may succeed § 14. XIII When Paul was opening to them the Mystery of Christs Kingdom if he had talkt thus of being caught up in a moment of time at the last Trump to meet the Lord and never told them a word of a Thousand years between the Trumpet and being caught up it must be because he knew it not or was not willing that we should know it But neither of these could be true in a matter of so great moment when it was that Coming of Christ that he was satisfying them about And I will learn from you nothing that Paul knew not § 15. XIV I have proved before how copiously Christ openeth the nature of his own Kingdom in many Parables and how he maketh his Enemies his Footstool Conquering Satan Sin and Enemies and how the Revelation openeth his Conquest of the Roman Empire And he shall destroy the Man of Sin with the Breath of his Mouth and the Brightness of his Coming Therefore he hath not left this to be done the Thousand years after his Coming § 16. XV. Peter tells us that the day of the Lord will come as a Thief in the night in which the Heavens shall pass away with a great noise and the Elements melt with fervent heat But a Thousand years is not such a sudden surprize Nor will Heaven and Earth be a Thousand years burning § 17. XVI The Earth and the Works therein shall be burnt up and all these things be dissolved 2 Pet. 3. 10 11 12. Therefore the Bodies of those then alive would be burnt and dissolved were they not first taken up To say as you do that God would keep them in the Fire unburnt as he did the three Dan. 3. is to make and obtrude on us a Gospel of your own § 18. XVII You think Gog and Magog shall live after the Conflagration who shall cover the Earth And shall all their Bodies too be unburnt in the Fire that dissolveth all these things on Earth Is this any Word of God § 19. XVIII You that think Men live each one the whole Thousand years and generate so abundantly as to recompense with a much more for the few that were saved under the first Adam can by no reasonable imagination find room on Earth for the numberless Off-spring of a Thousand years to dwell all at once here And the numberless followers of Gog and Magog also to dwell with them They must not be so unrighteous as to dispossess the wicked of their dwellings And for one year after all is burnt up they may be in want § 20. XIX It is incredible that your description of Earth for the Thousand years can leave Gog and Magog in their Hostility unconvinced For to see Men live a Thousand years in the sight of Christ and all the Saints in the Air one would think should convince them Or if Men are changed before at the common Age of Men to see so many Millions caught up to Heaven without Death or Burial sure would make them afraid of fighting against such § 21. XX. There is not one word of God that confineth Christs Kingdom to a Thousand years and what are you that you should presume to do it It hath continued much above a Thousand years already If you alledge 2 Pet. 3. One day with the Lord is as a Thousand years and a Thousand as one day which speaketh only against doubting because of the delay of Christs Coming as if this told us how long he should reign when he is Come this would but confirm us that your Doctrine is meerly of your self The Thousand years in Rev. 20. is the same with that of the Womans being in the Wilderness and the Dragons being bound which is plainly on this side the Conflagration And indeed is presently after the fall of Pagan Rome For that Pagan Rome was not Babylon or that it is not faln I will not believe though you should swear it or cast the Glove in Challenge to dispute it § 22. XXI Gog and Magog and all their Hosts are to be in the end of the Thousand years But they are to be before the Conflagration and Coming of Christ Therefore the Conflagration and Coming of Christ is to be after the Thousand years In the New Earth will dwell Righteousness that is only Righteousness and in a Paradise state But that is inconsistent with a numberless power of malignant Enemies that shall compass the Holy City § 23. XXII You make a strange
Exposition of John as if he wrote to five of the Asian Churches as in one World and to Laodicea the seventh in another when this is burnt up and Christ come § 24. XXIII When you have almost equalled the New Earth with Heaven you debase it by making it a Laodicean Church which for Lukewarmness God threatneth to spew out and to take away their Candlestick Is this the Paradise World of Righteousness § 25. XXIV You make two New Jerusalem's when Scripture speaketh but of one after Christs Coming One you take to be in the Air and the other on Earth Though one Society may be in both one Vrbs or material City cannot such as is described Rev. 21. and 22. § 26. XXV You feign two Conflagrations One to Burn the World and another after to Burn Gog and Magog and their Followers over the Earth § 27. XXVI You groundlesly dishonour the Kingdom of Christ by confining it to a Thousand years which God hath promised shall have no End § 28. XXVII You dishonour Christ and his Kingdom by bringing him from his Fathers Right Hand in Heaven and placing him and his Saints a Thousand years in the Air where you say wicked Spirits now dwell and where Dr. H. More saith Good and Bad dwell in an Aerial Vehicle till they are advanced to an Etherial Yea where you say Devils and Damned Men now dwell with Christ And where Christ must exercise the greatest self-denial in leaving that lower Station § 29. XXVIII You make Christs Kingdom to be a humbling loss to the Saints above while you take them down into the Air for a Thousand years from the Heavenly state where you say they were in God where Christ is at his Right Hand as they shall be at last or else you will make that Everlasting Union their loss § 30. XXIX Either you also bring down the Angels from their Glory to dwell in the Air or else you separate them from Christ and the Saints in the Air with him § 31. XXX When God hath already continued the old sinful World under the Curse almost six Thousand years you by Fiction confine the New purified World wherein dwelleth Righteousness to a Thousand years and call this the Sabbatism As if our Rest must be so much shorter than Sin and Labour When yet there will be no Sin to provoke God to destroy the New World Principle VIII Answered § 1. How frivolous is your arguing from the name of a Monarchy God is ever the absolute Monarch But if you mean a Humane Visible Monarchy and suppose he must so visibly Rule the Earth you do but beg the question A Monarch of all the World none ever was and therefore four such never were But if by a Monarchy you meant the greatest Visible Empire on Earth so the Fifth Monarchy was set up by Constantinople which differs far more from the Pagan Roman Monarchy than that did from the Grecian or Assyrian And it was Christs Visible Monarchy Reigning by his Vice-Roys the Kingdoms being now said to be his Kingdoms This was the true Visible Fifth Monarchy And the Turks are the Sixth Monarchy the renewed Reign of the captivated Dragon let loose after a Thousand years § 2. But your fiction that the Scripture assigns a Thousand years to Christs Reign after the Resurrection is worse than frivolous a meer forgery I answered it before If Peter quiet mens over-hasty expectation of Christs coming by telling them that a Thousand years time is as nothing to the Eternal Infinite God shall a man pretend skill in Prophecy and tell us that he meaneth that Christs Reign after the Resurrection is measured and meant by this Thousand years and is as nothing to the Eternal God And I have proved to you that the Thousand years in the Revelation speaketh of no such thing but of what is done before the Resurrection For 1. Those Thousand years are most likely to signifie an undetermined time and mean no more than a Long time as Mr. Durham and Cluverus most incline to think and many others But 2. Granting the contrary it plainly speaketh of a time presently following the feasting of the Fowls of Heaven with the flesh of Kings and Captains and the Fall of the Pagan Babylon And not only Grotius but John Fox and many others tell us that it is the just time between the Fall of Pagan Rome and the beginning of the Ottoman Empire which was about 1300 years 3. And this Thousand years is before the suppression of wickedness in the World while Gog and Magog are in the four quarters of the Earth in number as the Sand of the Sea that shall go upon the breadth of the Earth and compass the Camp of the Saints the beloved City And before the fire that cometh down to devour them And most certainly all this is not in the New Earth wherein dwelleth Righteousness So that this Thousand years seemeth to signifie but 1. That Apostles and Martyrs go to Heaven 2. And leave their Names and Doctrine honourable on Earth 3. And that the surviving Confessors shall rise from their persecuted state to triumph with Christ in their deliverance and superiority on Earth 4. And that this sudden Exaltation is a fit representation of the Glory that they shall have perpetually in Heaven Let any sober man judge whether this one only mention of a Thousand years in a hard Prophecy Rev. 20. under the expository circumstances now named will warrant a man to Preach a new Gospel and Kingdom of Christ to the World without any proof from all the plain words of Christ himself and his Apostles and directly against them He that well considereth Prophetical Language will think that Articles of Faith should be founded on plainer words When we read in Ezekiel that Egypt shall have no Inhabitant for forty years that Tyrus shall be no more inhabited that Babylon and the Land of Babylon shall be no more inhabited and abundance the like we shall the better understand the Apocalypse whose very words are much taken out of the Prophets 5. The Devil and the false Prophet are cast into the Lake of fire after the destruction of Gog and Magog and after the Thousand years But sure they are cast into the Lake at the Resurrection For if they stay uncondemned a Thousand years after that I know not what Christs coming to Judgment signifieth Sure it is not the date of their Execution for they are to be tormented for ever and ever And must they be unsentenced a Thousand years 6. And the Resurrection is described as coming after all this The Earth and Sea giving up their dead and the dead judged out of the Books c. 7. And Ch. 21. The New Heaven and New Earth cometh after this Thousand years and the destruction of the Enemies and the New Jerusalem coming down from God And there are yet Kings of the Earth that are to bring their Glory into it And there are Nations to be healed
The Glorious Kingdom of Christ Described and clearly Vindicated Against the bold Asserters of a Future Calling and Reign of the Jews and 1000 years before the Conflagration And the Asserters of the 1000 years Kingdom after the Conflagration Opening the Promise of the New Heaven and Earth and the Everlastingness of Christ's Kingdom against their debasing it who confine it to 1000 years which with the Lord is but as One day Answering Mr. Tho. Beverley who imposed this Task by his oft and earnest Challenges of all the Doctors and Pastors and his Censure of Dissenters as Semi-Sadduces of the Apostasie in his Twelve Principles and Catechisms c. By RICHARD BAXTER whose Comfort is only the Hope of that Kingdom 2 Peter 3. 13. We according to his Promise look for New Heavens and a New Earth wherein dwelleth Righteousness After the Conflagration LONDON Printed by T. Snowden for Thomas Parkhurst at the Bible and Three Crowns the lower end of Cheapside 1691. To Mr. Increase Mather the Learned and Pious Rector of the New-England Colledge now in London Worthy Sir WHen it befalleth me to differ from men more judicious it is not because I have a greater esteem of my Intellect than of theirs but because that which to me seemeth Evidence constraineth me And when I publish that seeming Evidence it is not in expectation that any receive it save those that by impartial deliberate thoughts discerning it are convinced by it I therefore craved your censure of these Papers because I found that you had long and laboriously studied the Controversie and were confident of much of that which I write against I have read no man that hath handled it with so much Learning and Moderation as you have done And therefore I knew no man fitter if I err to detect my Errours And as your Candour is rather for my publishing than suppressing these Papers so truly I am so far from disliking a true Confutation of this or any Errour that I shall publish that I therefore direct these lines to you to intreat you to write whether I be alive or dead your Reasons against any momentous or dangerous Errour which you shall here find That as we thus friendly consent to such a Collision or rather Communication as may kindle some further sparks of light the Readers may be helpt by comparing all the better to find out the truth Seeing the chief Writers for the Millennium are Conformists and men of greatest Learning and Piety among them as Jos Mede Dr. More Dr. Twisse then conformable Dr. Cressoner Mr. Beverley Mr. J. M. c. I hope they will not take it for scandalous in you and me herein to differ You have partly relieved me against some Accusations of Singularity when you tell your Readers in the Preface to your English Mystery that so many think the Thousand years past already viz. That Aretius Bilney Wickleffe Walter Brute Benno Cardin c. thought that the time began at the Birth of Christ That Viegas Pererius Augustine Primasius Beda Andreas thought it began at the Passion of Christ That Junius Pareus Dent Broughton Bibliander Usher thought it began at the Destruction of the Jewish State And that even Brightman Majer Forbes Willet Gerhard Guild Cartwright as well as Alcaser Castiglius begin it at Constantines Inthronization which is as the same with John Fox Acts and Mon. Vol. 1. p. 111. Grotius Hamond and many others that begin it at the Fall of Maxentius or Licinius or at Constantines Edict for Christians from whence to the Ottoman Empire say they was just a Thousand years And that the Conversion of the Jews will not be till the present state of this World be near its end you hold with Beda Estius Acosta Stella Zanchy Perkins Vossius Finnus And page 20. you believe that the 1290 years in Dan. are past long ago as you say Arnold de Villa nova The Author of the Problem Mr. Stevens Mede Alsted Lud. Capellus Dr. Twisse to whom I may add many more Though you are plain that the Thousand years are not before the Conflagration and that Antichrist shall not be finally destroyed till then though Rome shall and that a Thousand years will be but a part a morning of the last great day in which the Just only shall rise and that the evening will be the time of the rising of the unjust to destruction and the space that is till Christ give up the Kingdom c. Yet because oft-times you joyn the Jews earthly Monarchy so obscurely with the Resurrection without mentioning the intervening Conflagration I intreat you in your next to make your self therein more intelligible And give some proof that the wicked shall not be raised nor judged till after the Thousand years neither those dead before nor those found alive at the Conflagration seeing many words of Christ and Paul seem plainly to assert a common Judgment of Sheep and Goats just and unjust at the same time of Christs coming As to my Opinion that Pagan Rome was Babylon I have so much to say for it as must not here be repeated If that cast away my reputation with any or many let it go He is unworthy of reputation that cannot give it up for Truth The Revelation hath much plain and easie to them that read it without prejudice who I doubt are few I only fix on so much and leave the rest to wiser men without dishonouring of their Judgments so be it they give not up our Cause to the Papists by laying it upon things doubtful or untrue while we have sure and plain proof enough against them Your unworthy Fellow-servant RICH. BAXTER London Decemb. 19. 1690. THE CONTENTS Chap. I. THE Kingdom of Christ as described in the Scripture Chap. II. An Answer to Mr. Tho. Beverleys Twelve Principles and much of his Catechism of the Millennium necessitated by his many provocations and challenge to all the Doctors and Pastors of the Church and his censure of Dissenters as Semi-Sadduces of the Apostasie His first Principle examined Of delivering up the Kingdom to the Father Christs Kingdom began before the disputed Thousand years proved His Enemies much subdued before What is meant by Giving up the Kingdom The longer continuance of Christs Kingdom proved Of Christs being subject to the Father And God All in All. Whether it be true that Christ was eternally a Man having an eternal Kingdom as Man but not as the Son of Man after the Millennium Whether out Union with God and Christ Joh. 17. be that Then God shall be All in All as before the World began Whether we were in God before the World began and how The tendency of this Doctrine Of Mr. T. B's ambiguous Language His 2d 3d 4th 5th and 6th Principles The 7th Principle That those found on Earth shall be presently caught up at the Lords Coming and not stay a Thousand years after proved fully And the limitation of a Thousand years confuted The 8th Principle The Thousand
quickly sowed the Tares of Covetousness Pride and Contention among the Clergy and Laity tempt us to undervalue Gods great mercy to his Church which Angels and Saints gave him so much praise for Emperours also had their odious Crimes even Constantine killed his Eldest Son Crispus and after his Step-mother for accusing him and banished Athanasius Shall we therefore be unthankful for a Christian Empire which was Christs own Visible Kingdom Theodosius killed the Thessalonians Arcadius banished holy Chrysostom-Theodosius the second a Saint was called an Eutychian and so of others David committed Murder and Adultery Solomon was a Monster of Lust and Voluptuousness and at last of Revolt to favour Idols yet were they the peculiar Kings of Gods peculiar People and few better followed them All this sheweth that Christ all this while Reigned and left it not wholly to the Resurrection to make his Enemies his footstool XVII It is not unlikely that this delivered exalted state of the Church though after corrupted by Temptation to Pride was the New Jerusalem in the Embrio of which Constantinople was the Capital Seat as the Porch or Infancy of the heavenly City of God and that one as the Infant Heir and the other as the Possessor of the Inheritance is described in Rev. 20. 21. 22. But of this more fully elsewhere XVIII The Dragon being bound up a Thousand years from the Churches deliverance from Constantines Edict to the Ottoman Empire the Church after grew corrupted And Papal Rome imitated Pagan Rome though under more plausible names and pretences and exceeded them in Cruelty And Mahomet the Eastern Antichrist compassed and conquered Constantinople the holy City and Christs revenge on Gog and Magog the Turk and Tartarian with the rest of the Infidel World are yet to come and therefore dark XIX At the end of this World which shall be burnt with fire God will make a New Heaven and Earth in which shall dwell righteousness without sin And all things shall be restored and the Creature delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the Sons of God How God will people this New Earth he hath not told us whether by Creation as by Adam or by Transmigration Nor yet how long it shall continue unless for ever as part of the endless Kingdom Scripture giveth us no confinement of it to a Thousand years but the contrary XX. Christs Glorious Appearance and Judgment will be both the triumphant concluding parts of the Kingdom of Redemption and Grace which he will deliver up when his Recovering work is done And the beginning of the Kingdom of Glory In which as his Reward he will for ever in Humane Nature be glorified as the Mediator of Fruition as he was of Acquisition and that in the Heavens His coming in the Air is not there to Reign a Thousand years but presently to Judge the World as in Matth. 25. he describeth it And to confine his Kingdom in Humane Nature and ours with him to a Thousand years and confine it to the Air and the survivers on Earth is a fiction full of contradictions dishonourable to Christ and his Kingdom uncomfortable to his Church XXI There is but one Thousand years mentioned in Scripture from whence they can fetch the least shew for their limitation and that is only in Rev. 20. But it is most evident that the Thousand years there mentioned was to be before the Conflagration and New Earth and the Resurrection For it was to be before Satan was loosed and before Gog and Magog and their numberless Armies assaulted the Holy City and before the fire from God came on them And the Paradise restored State of the New Earth in which dwelleth Righteousness is not consistent with so much wickedness of the Inhabitants and Satans Power over the Nations Nor with a Laodicean Lukewarmness and danger of being spued out They therefore that well expect a Thousand years Reign before the Resurrection have no pretence to expect another Millennium after XXII To expect a Thousand years and that after the Fall of Papal Rome before the Resurrection is a supposition that this World will endure a far longer time than Christians have hitherto believed And that the great Sabbatism is to be before the New Earth And what a Sabbatism that will be the description of Gog and Magog and of their Laodicea may tell you Far unlike a Paradise state when all things shall be restored and the groaning Creation be delivered from the bondage of Corruption into the glorious Liberty of the Sons of God XXIII They that assign this Thousand years on this side the Conflagration and Resurrection for the setting up a Fifth Monarchy of the Converted Jews at Jerusalem are the grossest feigners of all the rest Well did Jerom say That the Millenaries fetch their Errour from the Jews and would set up Judaism by it He that dwelt so long at Bethlehem knew the Jews Opinions For to pass by what else is after to be said Their very Fiction is a contradiction Were our Jews converted they would in less than a Hundred years be no longer a Jewish Nation For their state of peculiarity with the Mosaical Policy is abolished by Christ and must never be restored And they must and would marry with Gentile Christians and fall into the Catholick Church as Rivers into the Sea and lose the name of Jews So did their converted Predecessors XXIV And seeing it is not like that our now Infidel Jews are one to a hundred of the Posterity of the first believing Jews that have been propagated these sixteen hundred years why should a glorious Monarchy be set up of this self-cursed Remnant excluding all the first-fruits both the sealed Rev. 7. and all since But if the Posterity of all those old holy Jews were now sought for to be sent to Jerusalem not one man of them would be found and known of which more after XXV It is a marvel that the great disagreement of the Millenaries among themselves yet hindereth not their seeming Concord while they can but cry up the Thousand years Reign though most of them know not what the words mean Some of them say The Thousand years are on Earth and some say They are only of the Souls of the Martyrs and Confessors in Heaven Some say They are both in Heaven or in the Air and on Earth at once Some say That they shall be a Jewish Monarchy at Jerusalem and some That it shall be of the Godly all over the World Some say Christ will Reign there visibly in his Humane Nature Others That he will only sometime appear as he did after his Resurrection And some That he will Rule there only by Reforming Christian Princes Some hold but one Thousand years and some two one being after the other Some hold two New Jerusalems and some but one Some say That the Day of Judgment is the Thousand years and yet that Scripture hath not told us how
long Christ will be Judging us And some That it is only the Beginning and the End of the Thousand years that the Judgment will take up and the rest will be in other Government Some think that Execution on Men and Devils will be but that Thousand years which some decry Some think that the first Resurrection is from an Aereal Vehicle or Body into an Ethereal and others that it is from earthly dust to a heavenly body by transmutation of Elements And others that it is to be a Paradise body like Adams before he sinned Other differences seem almost reconciled to some by the bare name of a Thousand years Reign XXVI It is a far more glorious Christian Monarchy which Christ by Constantine set up than most of the Millenaries give any probability of 1. It was a Deliverance from the cruellest Persecution 2. And from the Dragons most potent Empire 3. A Deliverance of all Christians as well as of Jews 4. Without confinement to the narrow Land of Israel 5. A setting up of a National-Provincial Church in Judea 6. With the great Charges of promoting it by New Churches Monasteries Bibles Bishops What could he do more The knowledge of what hath been done long ago would have prevented many mens expectation of the same XXVII If it prove that their Millennial Doctrine and the Calling of the Jews prove a meer mistake it will not be so small as should suspend our detection of it Because it is an adding to Gods Word and fathering on him many untruths and so a taking of his name in vain and a corrupting of his Worship while we preach write and pray for that which we ought not further than we must pray for the Conversion of all sorts of men and a turning of mens Zeal to promote untruths and corrupt mens minds XXVIII We find it so easie to possess men with a fervent Zeal for the Millenary Opinion and so hard to make them zealous in holy Love to God and Man and in a heavenly conversation as may make us suspicious that both sorts of Zeal have not the same original I am not willing to name some tremendous Instances of men nearly known to me hereabout XXIX Our worthy Brother that hath more Learnedly opened that Cause than any else that ever I read by moderation hath brought the difference into so narrow a compass in his Diatriba de signo filii hominis that except 1. The Calling of the Jews 2. And the Extending of the Day of Judgment to a Thousand years and that the general Resurrection and Judgment of the wicked shall begin after the Thousand years are expired there remaineth to great and weighty disagreement of such with the Judgment of the Churches XXX Seeing we ascribe to Christs Kingdom so much more than they that we oppose why should they be thought to extol his Kingdom more than we 1. Is not Eternity longer than a Thousand years 2. And Heaven a more glorious state than the Air 3. And a New Earth inhabited only by the righteous better than one that is Laodicean or that hath such Enemies of Saints as Gog and Magog 4. And this New Earth either everlasting or of undetermined time better than one but of a Thousand years duration which is but with the Lord as One day and about a sixth part as durable as this corrupted World that is under sin and curse Is this Doctrine or the other more honourable to Christ and more comfortable to Believers and more evident in the Word of God Chap. II. An unwilling Answer to Mr. Tho. Beverleys Twelve Principles and his Catechism of the Millennium necessitated by his many provocations of many Ministers and me by name and his Challenge of all the Doctors and Pastors of the Church and his Censure of the Denyers of that Millenary Reign as SEMISADDUCES OF THE APOSTASIE § 1. Reverend and truly beloved Brother I Take it for no wonder that great and many disagreements in matters of Religion are among us while in Professions of less Mystery Law Policy Physicks Medicine c. there are so many that so many men so many minds hath so long been a Proverb And in such tolerable cases as much endanger not Church and Souls few men are more for mutual forbearance and charitable construction than I am Therefore the Millennial Opinion I have never been a censorious opposer of while men kept up Peace and Charity with it But the case lately is altered and is made a matter of necessary Zeal as part of the Creed and the Lords Prayer if not essential to the Gospel and Christianity And very many of the Antinomian and Separating Opinion that least understand it lay much of their Religion on it And the just honour of many Conformists of the most peaceable Principles otherwise promoteth it such as Mr. Jos Mede Dr. H. More Dr. Cressoner your self Mr. M. Author of the Midnight Cry Mr. R. M. the Publisher most pious men both and many others And we must not now be suffered to be silent but must answer your provocations or be grosly guilty of the evil that will follow your success § 2. The Millenary Opinion was indeed early received by some followers of Papias But the universal opposition of the Christian Church that hath exploded it ever since tells us that it was a singular Opinion And is he a humble man that now calleth the Christian Church for sixteen hundred years and all those Learned and Holy Divines of England and other Reformed Churches that differ from your conceit by the name of SEMI-SADDVCES OF THE APOSTASIE Bear with my freedom Is it humility that so loudly challengeth all the Pastors and Doctors of the Churches to answer you Have you answered all them or so much as one Cluverus alone or James Calvert whom you promised me to answer Was it humility that cast a Glove for an Answer to two or three trifling Fallacies about the Pagan Babylon when I had given you an Answer to them long before and you modestly sent it back without a Confutation I have had long by me as a Learner some humble Queries to you and no Bookseller will Print them because they say men look on you as diseased with prophesying Self conceit and will not read a Confutation Your Leader Dr. More saith That the Papists not answering my Books against them is because they despise them as unworthy of an answer May not your case be much the same Men have greater matters to mind than to trouble themselves with you and me or answering our Challenges § 3. But I come to your Chain of Principles And 1. It 's a half and fallacious description of Christs Kingdom to say it is his As the Son of Man There be millions of Sons of Men that have no such Kingdom It is his Kingdom as God-man the Redeemer and Recovering Mediator This Kingdom is to him as the Eternal Word and the Son of Man in one person of a Redeemer And because you
of Mediatorial Glory and Fruition that is the Errour that corrupteth all your confident discourses The Office of our Redeemer is to Recover sinful man to God and restore him to purity from sin and all the curse or punishment for sin yea and to advance him to a more perfect and confirmed state And Christs Reward for this is the everlasting Joy that was set before him in the fruition of the Divine Complacency and in the perfect and glorious Headship to his perfected glorified Church for ever Let us consider 1. Which of these is Given up to the Father And 2. What Giving up to the Father is And 3. When it is done § 19. 1. The first all grant is to be Given up The Kingdom of Recovery but not the Kingdom of Fruition That of Grace not that of Glory As a Prince commissioned to be General for the reduction of Revolted Rebels brings them down by degrees and having slain some and reduced the rest he giveth up his Commission and is General no more for his work is done But he hath after the promised Reward and Honour and may under the King rule them as recovered Or as a Physician that hath an Hospital or infected City to cure giveth up that work when it is perfectly finished So Christ giveth up the Kingdom of Redemption when he hath done that work 2. But this Giving up is no deposing of Christ nor is he less but more gloriously King than before Nor is God the Father any more King than before It 's no diminution to Christs Royalty nor any addition to the Fathers I shall prove this before I go further § 20. 1. By comparing this Text with Joh. 5. 22. The Father judgeth no man but hath committed all Judgment to the Son And yet the Father Governeth no less than he did before and is not deposed by giving up all Government to the Son Only the quality of the Subject and the terms of his Government are altered Creation is in Scripture eminently ascribed to the Father and Redemption to the Son The Father as Creator Governed Man in his Integrity to preserve and perfect him Man being faln into sin and misery the Son as Redeemer Governeth Man as a Physician his Patients in order to his cure The Father now judgeth no Man as sinless according to the Law of Innocency but hath committed the Government of all to the Son as his Administrator and Physician in order to their cure This is but altering the way of Government And it is the Subjects of the Kingdom that are called The Kingdom who are now restored and delivered up to the Father without blemish spot or wrinkle that he may henceforth Govern them as a perfectly healed People according to the Law of Perfection The Father now judgeth no less by the Son than before in another way § 21. 2. I prove the continuance of the Kingdom of the Son in the way of Fruition and Glory by the Promise hereof made to him by the Father The Covenant of Mediation hath Obligations laid on the Son and Promises of a glorious Kingdom as merited by his performance of his part And doth his performance dispossess him of his promised Reward when it was the condition of his Title to it It 's tedious to cite all Texts that prove it § 22. 3. The Promises are made to Christ that his Kingdom shall be an everlasting Kingdom and have no end And therefore ceaseth not by the delivery mentioned And though the Hebrew word commonly translated for ever oft signifie but a long time or many Generations yet in the Texts intimated there is no reason for such a limitation If God say that of his Kingdom there shall be no end let the deniers prove their denial § 23. 4. Christ hath promised to make them that overcome Pillars in his Temple and they shall go out no more which he could not perform if he go out himself or lose his Kingly Power And he saith That the Children of God and the Resurrection are equal to the Angels and die no more And sure he can make their state no more durable than his own And it is called Life Eternal which we shall possess And shall Christ have less than we § 24. 5. Christs Humane Nature will be perpetuated and therefore so will his glorious Kingdom No Text speaketh of his ceasing to be Man but many contrary And who should then presume to assert it I know Smeckfeldius held that Christ ceased to be Man as soon as he entred Heaven But the Church called it a Heresie As on Earth he was to be Man like us in flesh so in Heaven where flesh and blood cannot enter yet he will make our vile bodies like to his glorious body § 25. 6. The state of Reward is an Advancement and not a Diminution as to us so to Christ Phil. 2. 9 10. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every name that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow of things in Heaven and things on Earth and things under the Earth and that every Tongue should confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father § 26. 7. Christ hath promised us that we shall be with him where he is and prayed that we may there behold his glory which is plainly to say that when he hath been the Mediator of Redemption he will be the Mediator of Fruition that is that we shall see Gods Glory as shining to us in the glorified Humanity of Christ For as we shall have Bodies in Heaven as well as Souls so our Bodies will have a suitable Medium of Communion with God § 27. 8. If Christs Humane Nature should cease its Glory ours by the same reason would do so too But that is contrary to the hopes of Faith § 28. 9. Angels Glory and Being is perpetuated And therefore Christs Humane Kingdom and Glory who is above them will not cease § 29. 10. There is Executive Government by Christ to be exercised after the supposed Thousand years Therefore he shall Reign after to perform it The Redeemed Believers must be Rewarded to Eternity and he must save to the utmost all that come to God by him He must continue and perpetuate their Reward and Happiness For they must live as his Members because he liveth And I doubt not but if you are for ending Christs Kingdom after a Thousand years you will be for the ending of ours And he hath his Enemies to punish longer than a Thousand years Luk. 19. 27. And I believe that you are for ending their punishment then if you would end Christs Kingdom then Rev. 6. 16. It is the Wrath of the Lamb that is to be executed on the Enemies of the Lamb It was against him and his Grace that they sinned and it is he that cometh in flaming fire to execute Judgment on all that know not God and obey not the Gospel And doth punishment end with
Nature be a Soul to the Incarnate Body or Christ took both Soul and Body of Man besides the first Mental Nature Apollinarius was for the Godhead being instead of a Soul Now you come and tell us that The Eternal Word in Humane Nature hath a Kingdom throughout Eternity but not as the Son of Man but as the Eternal Word The Glory in which Christ is seen with his Saints being the Glory which he had with the Father before the World began Of the same Nature wherein he is now at the right Hand of God till he appears And the Union in that Eternal State is by God to God by the Word to the Father so the Son as Man is subject and God All in All. Catech. p. 21. It seems by the high expressions of God who is purest Spirit being All in All and by the Lake of the Second Death and even the New Heaven and New Earth after the Thousand years flying away there is no bodily or material nature continued no not of the Sons glorious body who is then subject nor of the Saints Ans Scripture having declared no such thing no such thing can be supposed but that Christ and his Saints shall be in bodies So high expressions can fit no state but of God All in All even as he was before the foundation of the World All in All and to which state our Lords words so much refer Joh. 17. When all the Saints are thus One with God in Christ then he is thus All in All as before the World began Though this Kingdom of Christ be so holy so heavenly so pure so much of God in it yet because it is the Kingdom of the Man Christ Jesus and of his Saints in a Visible Created Glory and not the highest Union to God All in All Christ gives this last declaration of the Name that is of the Nature and Glory of God He freely delivereth up this his Kingdom and the Son as in Humane Nature suffers most willingly that Glory of himself and of his Saints to be swallowed up by God All in All and unites them with himself to the Father as he is the Eternal Word and so they are with him for ever beholding the Glory which he had with the Father before the World was which is the highest instance of Self-denial of all Created Glory and giving up all to God All in All that could be given Joh. 17. 5. § 36. Here you do but confound mens minds with many things at the best unproved 1. That Christ was an Eternal Man of which your Transubstantiation-Book hath more 2. That his Eternal Manhood is so distinct from his being the Son of Man that he hath a twofold Manhood one from Eternity and one at his Incarnation 3. That Christs Kingdom as the Son of Man that is in his Manhood which he had by Incarnation endureth but a Thousand years 4. That the Manhood of his Saints which they had by Generation also ceaseth after the Thousand years 5. Yet Christ and they shall have material Bodies after even in Christs eternal Body 6. That this giving up of the Kingdom after a Thousand years is the greatest Self-denial in the World as if it were a loss or diminution of the Glory of Christ and Saints 7. That when all the Saints are thus One in Christ with God then God is All in All as before the foundation of the World 8. That this is the Unity meant in Joh. 17. 24. 9. That this is glorifying Christ with the Glory he had before the World began Joh. 17. 5. And not that God would glorifie him as the Son of Man by advancing his Humane Nature to its participation in the Glory which the Divine Nature had from Eternity 10. Yet you tell me by word of mouth that you believe the Individuation of the Saints in this united state The Metaphor of swallowing up in God you may make true or false as you shall expound it which till then signifieth nothing § 37. Short-sighted men may reverence this the more by how much the less they understand it But they that will make sense of it must see that it is to lead us to Heathen Philosophy as a higher Light than Christ and Scripture and to introduce the Pythagorean Opinion of the Transmigration of Souls and the Platonists and Stoicks Revolution and Averrhois his Universal Soul and to make God or Christ Divisible and with Origen to make the future Rewards and Punishments temporary § 38. 1. If Christ as a Man or Life or Spirit was Eternal it was as God or as a Creature As God he was not Man nor Body If you say that he was the second Hypostasis as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Holy Ghost the third as Matter as Dr. More and J. Turner then either you mean Vniversal or Particular Life and Matter If Universal you make the World to be God and make him Divisible If Particular you make God a part of the World And so you do if you make him but the Soul of the World § 39. 2. If the Saints were in God before the World began accordingly all things were eternally in God and that will bring in Aristotles Eternity of the World which indeed meer Reason might take for probable § 40. Either you mean that we were in God only as in Potentia Creatoris and that is not to be in him but only to say that he was able to make us For existere est esse extra Causas Efficientes Or else that we did actually exist which those hold that are for Souls Prae existence or worse And we did exist in God either as being God himself or Creatures or Effects of God If we were God from Eternity we are God still If as Effects or Creatures then either as Parts of one common Soul and body of the World or of the Humane Species or as so many Individuals If it be said that we were but Parts of one Soul or Body it will infer that we are so still and that these parts are as the Rivers and Springs from the Sea in continual Revolution Or if we are fixed Individuals God kept us not idle from Eternity or prae-existent None can think that God from all Eternity or since kept all the Souls that are to be embodied to the end of the World in a sleepy state till Bodies were generated for them If you say that they lived in God as pure Spirits without Bodies what then did the Prime Matter which some of you call the third Hypostasis in the Trinity We see that God put Souls into Bodies in this World And can you prove that he never did so before from all Eternity And when you have said that Christ and Saints shall be swallowed up in God and have no more Kingdom as Sons of men but be in God as before the World began do you mean that they shall continue so to all Eternity and never revolve into Bodies more When God hath
shewed us that he hath delighted in embodied Souls these five thousand six hundred ninety years will you feign that he never did so before nor ever will do so again § 41. I conclude 1. That there is no rational issue of your Doctrine to be expected but a Pythagorean or Platonick Revolution or Transmigration of Souls from one Universal Soul into many particulars as the Sea floweth into Springs and they into Rivers and they into the Sea again and so round Or as one Sun illuminating the Air lighteth many Candles by a burning-glass or by flames being individuated only by the oily matter but not divided from the common Element of Fire 2. And that all this is but to confound men partly with falshoods and partly with uncertainties when the plain Doctrine of Christ is a more quieting way God hath kept us so dark about the Beginning or Prae-existence and the manner of his producing Souls yea and of the manner of their operation in their separated state that to be confident beyond his Scripture-Revelation is but to be ignorant of our Ignorance and to venture to take Gods name in vain But we know that God breathed into Man that breath of Life and so made him a Living Soul and said Increase and multiply and that the Spirit goeth to God that gave it and we shall be with Christ in Paradise and that he will receive our departing Spirits and that it 's best to be with him § 42. And now I see not what you can make of Gods being All-in-All more that at this day he is and more than that he shall Govern Man again as sinless and fully restored without any further Redemption or Recovering Government but that you pervert the Text to countenance your pretended abbreviation of Christs Reign to a Thousand years All things are now in him and of him and to him Nothing can be added to All. But I am not able to discern why you speak so much in Equivocals and Generals that cannot possibly afford the Reader a determined sense If you are unwilling to be understood your Opinions are not of the Light If you understand not your own words how should others understand them No man can tell whether you infer from Gods being All in All the Deification of All things or their Annihilation or the dissolving of all Bodies compound and the Deifying only of the spiritual part You say Catech. p. 14. It is the ultimate end and last result of All things And Creatures below being capable of this Vnion as All which have no understanding are annihilated And Creatures of understanding Angels and Men can be no other than miserable in the loss of this Vnion But are Christ the Son of Man and his Saints miserable till the end of the Thousand years So p. 15. In order to the Vnion of All Created Beings of Vnderstanding to God all in all What Devils and all Damned Men The Eternal Word far above Angels became lower than Angels by becoming Man and so comprehended the whole Created Intellectual nature that he might be the Head of the whole in their Vnion to God And that in Him they might All be reconciled to God with the whole inferiour Creation Which having served the Glory of the Creator by Jesus Christ they fly back into their former State of NOTHING in themselves but indeed are returned into the Divine Immensity and Angels and Men be Vnited to God for ever Eph. 1. 10. Col. 1. 20. Here we have Anihilation and Nothingness in themselves and yet indeed are returned into the Divine Immensity And so that which is Nothing in it self hath a Being in God! What can this mean but that the Creatures were once all God himself till he gave them a Self-being which he taketh away and then they are God again not only their Individuation but their Creature-Being ceasing All things are still in God and his Immensity But if they have no Being in themselves there will be Nothing but God But will they so continue And will God from Eternity to Eternity have no Created Being save for Seven Thousand years or days And indeed is the whole understanding and inferiour Nature Devils and Men thus reconciled And is God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when there is no 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nothing but Himself in Unity Is he In that which is not I have been so long on your first Proposition as being your Foundation There is a Kingdom of Recovering Grace of Christ Incarnate and Glorified delivered up when he hath done that work which the Kingdom of Glory succeedeth where God as All in All shall be Glorified in the perfection of Christ God-Man and his Glorified Saints This is agreed and granted you Principle II. Answered § 1. No Text of Scripture saith that the Kingdom of Grace or Redemption begins at Christs Coming to Judgment But that then it Endeth in the Triumph of the Redeemer and his Entering upon his Kingdom of Fruition in the full Glorified Church 2 Tim. 4. 1. saith no more His Appearing there is for Judgment which presupposeth Mans final keeping or breaking of Christs precedent Ruling Laws It is his Triumphant ending of the Kingdom which he had and the Entrance of that of Glory Principle III. Answered § 1. No doubt but Christ will reign with and in his Saints § 2. But that the full number shall be made up then is your own word At his Coming you hold the number will not be full For you say Catech. pag. 4. They shall propagate a holy Seed in such abundance as to recompence with a much more to the Glory of the second Adam Rom. 5. for the few that are saved within the World of the first Adam And all these were not in Being at Christs Coming Nor can you prove that the New Earth and all Generation shall end with a Thousand years Principle IV. Answered § 1. Your supposition that they are not presently caught up yea till the end of a Thousand years is your Forgery 2. The Equality of Christs Love and Grace to All his Saints is also your own Doctrine not Christs For tho ex parte Dei who operateth per essentiam there is no inequality or difference yet in the Effects and the Relative extrinsick Denominations of God from those Effects there is great difference All have not equal Grace nor equally improve their Talents nor are Rulers of ten Cities nor as the Apostles sit on Twelve Thrones judging the Twelve Tribes of Israel Though you say Catech. p. 3. None of the Saints can be perfected the one without the other If that be true either those on Earth that you liken to Adam in Paradise are as perfect as those in the New Heaven or those in Heaven as imperfect as those on Earth And no wonder when you place them but in the Air where evil Spirits dwell now Catech. p. 12. But Christ saith the Children of the Resurrection neither Marry nor are given in Marriage but
with the Leaves of the Tree of Life which made Mr. Potter and many others conclude that it is the glory of the Church on Earth that the 21 and 22 Chapters describe Though it is most probable that it is but as a representation of the heavenly Glory But the Thousand years is plainly ended before the Resurrection 8. The plain meaning that Though the Old Serpent will still be a Tempting Deceiver both without the Church and within yet as a Dragon or Babylonish Conqueror and Captivater he shall be bound up for a Thousand years after the Churches delivery from the Pagan Captivity And so he was And yet the Text tells us that all that while the Earth had Nations of Enemies that at last were by that Dragon drawn to assault the Church again Here is not a word of a Thousand years New Earth in which dwelleth Righteousness and that after the Conflagration and Resurrection The New Earth is mentioned with no such limitation That 's all the device of presuming imagination Principle IX Answered § 1. The Recovering Victorious Gracious Kingdom is ended in the glorions triumph of his Appearing and Judgment and his glorious Kingdom of Fruition then beginneth That all his Kingdom then beginneth is a falshood largely confuted by Christs own mouth And as false is it that the Kingdom of Recovery or Grace is not given up till a Thousand years after the Resurrection That this is before the Kingdom of Eternity is false in any proper sense If you mean a Kingdom from Eternity without beginning you should prove that ever there was such Your bare naming it so is no proof If there were no men from Eternity then there was no Kingdom of men If you mean that which shall endure to Eternity so will Christs glorious Kingdom as Man over Men. For many and many Scriptures tell us it hath no end and is everlasting And he that accuseth others of Semi-Sadduceism of the Apostasie should consider whether denying the Kingdom of Christ and his Saints in glorified Humanity as soon as a Thousand years as one day are ended be not liker Sadduceism and Apostasie than our believing the everlastingness of it § 2. When your own presumption hath defined it to be a Thousand years you may as boldly assign its time and place But I have proved that the Scripture confuteth your time and that a moment and the twinkling of an eye and the last Trump sounding is not a Thousand years And therefore no such space as the whole Kingdoms duration between the Resurrection and the living caught up § 3. Paul saith Phil. 3. 19 20. that the Saviour that we look for from Heaven shall change our vile Bodies and make them like to his Glorious Body He speaketh not as you of four Bodies and three Changes 1. A Natural sinful Body turned into a Paradise Body 2. And that called Vile turned into a Glorious Body 3. And that ceasing left to a Divine Eternal Body 3. I have oft told you that the Paradise Body or Mortality is none of the Curse or Enemy to be subdued Principle X. Answered § 1. We have better thoughts of the New Heaven and Earth than you have we expect both to be of longer continuance than a Thousand years § 2. That it is the Saints remaining that dwell on the New Earth a Thousand years before they are caught up is your word and not Gods that I can find God can replenish that New Earth as he did this or how else he please Principle XI Answered § 1. Whatever they are Called you confess that the wicked Rise And that they are not cast into the Lake of Fire till the last of the Thousand years is only your word If they have a Thousand years Life of further tryal why may they not repent and scape Principle XII Answered § 1. The Fifth Monarchy is Christs whole Kingdom 1. As he preparatorily Governed by the Word Miracles and Spirit 2. As he visibly Set up and Ruled by the Christian Emperours and Kings 3. As he at last entereth on the Kingdom of Glory and Fruition Your Fiction of another is but your own word And now I have done what in the Enterance and Conclusion you provokingly Challenge all Persons believing the Scriptures to do and shew that while you say you Boast in the Word of God and not in your self it is by giving us your own word not only for Gods Word but against it The Lord heal and forgive our weakness and the ignorance of our ignorance It greatly hindereth the Edification of your Readers that you so much use terms General and Equivocal that unexplained signifie nothing And so every Book needeth another to Expound it and that may as much need another Some think this is because you would not be understood your Doctrine being not able to bear the Light Others think it is because you understand not your self and therefore cannot speak intelligibly confused Notions having but confused Expressions The instances are more than I will recite As e. g. You place Christs Kingdom so often in his and his Saints Appearance as no Reader can discern but you mean such Appearance to Mans visive Faculty in these Fleshly Bodies as if now in Heaven Christ and Angels and the Spirits of the Just did not Appear to one another because they appear not to us As if the Intuition of Spirits and Spiritual Bodies were not a more eminent discerning than our Eye-sight Sure there is a more noble sight than that of Mortals So no Man can tell by your phrase of swallowing up in God and that Christ was from Eternity and shall be to Eternity the Word and Man imbodied whether you mean that he was an Individual Man distinct from any others or the Universal Soul of the World imbodied in Matter And by your talk of our being One in God as we were before the World began none can tell whether you mean that we were Existent or only in Potentia Creatoris And if Existent whether we were God or parts of God or individual Souls made from Eternity for future Bodies and kept till those Bodies were made And whether kept in Revolution from Body to Body Or how And whether we shall have a future Revolution So your Doctrine of the Hell of the Devils and the Damned can tell no Man whether you think that after the Thousand years they shall not be as dead under meer privation since you say Catech. p. 5. and 22. It is a state of deprivation of Glory and casting into the Lake of Fire signifieth final and utter cessation of all action And that they shall not appear but be unseen c. And if they have no Action they have no sinful Action no Self-accusation no Intellection no Malice nor Revenge nor Hatred of God and Goodness So your Doctrine of the Kingdom of Christ I cannot believe you so notorious an Infidel as to deny Christs Kingdom in Heaven and Earth till the Resurrection And yet
your words expresly say that his Kingdom then beginneth and that this Apostle mentioneth none till then And in your Late Great Revolution Epist in the end you say His Monarchy shall then 1697 begin its Succession though the Glorious Investiture shall not be till Seventy five years after Can any but a Prophet that is inspired to Expound you tell what you mean by abundance such passages What is the difference between the Beginning of the Succession and the Glorious Investiture What is the Succession Doth it begin the Thousand years or not Doth the Succession begin Seventy five years before the Investiture Is not the Investiture Christs Glorious Appearance Your Writings make it plain that you are a good Man of deep thoughts faln into a fond esteem of your new unripe Conceptions and rapt up thereby into a diseased Conceitedness and how you will be able to bear it when providence and experience have confuted you in 1697 I know not But I am the more bold to foretel your failing by my perswasion that your Exposition of the Revelation which you take for granted is a meer mistake from the Beginning almost to the End And wonder not that no body writeth to confute you For Men love not to trouble themselves with Convincing every single Man of his Errours And the Reasons why I do attempt it is because by the Seduction of some of my Friends and the general Inclination of the Antinomian Anabaptist and Separating Party to this conceit of the Thousand years Kingdom and by the Midnight Cry published by Mr. R. M. and preached by Mr. J. M. Men of very great Piety whom I highly value as any Conformists I know I understand that your Opinion that formerly was tolerable as confined to a few conceited good Men is now becoming a great Article of their Faith and Religion Especially since I see that in all your professed extraordinary Humility you brand all that dissent from you as Semi-Sadducees of the Apostacy and earnestly Challenge and provoke all Pastors and Doctors to answer you and maintain though you Conform that Gods Word knoweth not a Clergy Chap. III. Of the other Sect of the Millenaries that place the Thousand years Reign before the Conflagration § 1. THis was the Elder Sect But Dr. More and Mr. Beverley and Dr. Cressoner and other late Writers being more searching did perceive that this way would not hold nor by it could they countenance their Doctrine from Rev. 20. the only Text that mentioneth a Thousand years Reign misunderstood § 2. They agree that 1. There will be a Thousand years Reign on Earth 2. That the Jews shall be called and make a glorious part of this Kingdom 3. That the Ten Tribes now lost shall be found and be part of the Kingdom 4. That Turk and Pope shall fall before this 5. That at last Gog and Magog shall gather in War against this New Jerusalem 6. That fire from Heaven shall consume these Enemies § 3. But they agree not 1. Of the state of the Church with Christ above all this time 2. Nor whether there be one or two New Jerusalems one above and one below 3. Nor whether Christ shall Reign on Earth visibly in his Humane Nature or only by a holy Magistracy and Ministry 4. Nor whether all or most of the Jews shall go dwell at the Old Jerusalem or Judea or stay in the several Countries where they live 5. Nor how far the Princes and Nations among whom they live shall be converted with them 6. Nor by what means the Jews shall be converted 7. Nor how long it will be in doing 8. Nor how the Princes under whom they live will dismiss or use them 9. Nor how they shall after all become a Laodicea and fuel fit for the Conflagration 10. Nor whether that fire that burneth the Earth and Heaven and that which burneth Gog and Magog make one or two Conflagrations 11. Nor how far Christs Kingdom ceaseth at the end of the Thousand years § 4. As to both Sects I know no more that I have further to do for their full confutation but I. To give a better Paraphrase of the Revelation than their feigned suppositions contain And that I have done in a Book not yet Printed II. To prove that the Ten Tribes were but part of them carried away by Salmanasser and that they were in Cyrus Dominions and had leave as well as the Two Tribes to return if they were willing And that Galilee and other parts of Israel as much owned Christ as the Two Tribes at least And the Twelve Tribes made up the Converts that were the Rudiments of the Christian Churches And that it was to the Twelve that James Peter and Paul to the Hebrews wrote And it was the Twelve that the 144000 Rev. 7. were sealed out of so expresly distinguished from the innumerable Gentile Christians as may confute the Expositors that make them to signifie the Gentile Ministry III. To prove that at the Fall of the Pagan Empire the Fulness of the Gentiles came in as meant Rom. 11. and all Israel saved That near three Millions of the Jews that were cursed Infidels being killed and ruined by Titus Trajan and Adrian out of a Countrey not so big as half England and the Christians escaping the Christian part remained the main Body of the Nation And marrying with Gentile Christians and forsaking Moses Law lost the name of Jews which remained only with the Off-spring of the scattered Infidels That Constantine made Judea one of the most famous National-Provincial Churches in the World for Honours Temples Monasteries and Bishops no Jews being forbidden there to dwell And that God hath promised no further Conversion of the cursed remnant of the Infidel Jews than of any other Infidel Nations And therefore all Christians should not in ignorance of all this corrupt their Prayers and Sermons and Religion with fathering on God such Promises of the Jews Conversion as he never made lest they be found guilty of adding to his Word and taking his Name in vain and scandalous depraving the Christian Faith Nor should they by ignorance unthankfully deny the performance of Gods Promises of the Fall of the Pagan Empire and Babylon and so much of the Fifth Monarchy and New Jerusalem and Conversion of the Jews as certain History puts us past doubt is already past The performance of this to avoid prolixity I shall but briefly give you as followeth Chap. IV. That the Ten Tribes of Israel will never be found and called if they never were so heretofore § 1. THose that are for a Jewish Monarchy or their general Conversion commonly hold that the Ten Tribes carried away by Salmanasser are lost and never yet restored Whether this be true we shall see anon But if it were true it would follow that they never will be found and called and consequently that they will be no part of the Converted Jews § 2. The proof is evident Because the Accident supposeth
that had been Tributary or Subject to the Pagan Empire so quickly followed the success of Constantine and the Christian Arms and turned against the Pagan Idolatry it is utterly incredible that multitudes of the Infidel Jews did not the same No one Nation turned all at once And no one National Church under Heaven were all that I say not the most sincerely holy Christians The visible Church still consisted mostly of temporizing Men that came in to Christianity for worldly Interest over-awed by Christian Power Till it came to this the Christians were a persecuted party and no National Church And the unbelieving Jews were not like to be so free from the Love of the Flesh and VVorld as not to do as others did Christ Riding victoriously on the VVhite Horse and Conquering his Enemies brought the Nations to Submission after he had by the Word and Martyrdom purified to himself a holy Generation As all the Revelation fully telleth us Therefore if Judea was not made a National Church no other Nation was made such Zonaras saith that many hired by Money turned Christians Two Hundred Thousand turned Christians for fear in their Troubles at Toledo in Spain whither they were long before sent And Forty Fryars were sent to instruct them After that Ferrerius converted many Read but the Chronological Tables of my worthy Friend Mr. Fr. Tallents and you shall find how they were hated hunted and destroyed in Spain France and almost all Christians Nations except Rome and how many turned seeming Christians for fear Chap VII Whether there be any Jerusalem Monarchy of Jews or any further Conversion of them more than of other Men promised by God § 1. I know of no such Promise in Gods Word but I find it in many Books of Men and I hear of it in the Prayers and Sermons of many Men so good and of so good repute that divers of my Friends disswade me from so much as giving my Reasons against it lest I lose my Reputation with such Men and lest I occasion a Division by contradicting them And is it come to that Must our Concord be held on such humane loose and unsound terms Is this savouring the things of God or of Men If it be proved an Errour taking Gods Name in vain polluting Sacred Worship and adding to the Word of God must we by silence promote a Concord in it I only humbly propose the Reasons of my dissent to the tryal of wiser Men. § 2. 1. It belongeth to the Affirmers to produce their proofs But I can find no Text cited by them that to a sober search hath any such proof 1. As to the many Texts of the Prophets of the uniting of Judah and Israel under David their King and the Jews repossessing their own Land and the Subjection of their Enemies and the Neighbour Nations to them and the great Slaughters of Gog and Magog in their Land c. 1. Let the Grandeur of Prophetical stile he allowed for and this compared with the Prophecies against Babylon Tyre Sion Moab Edom c. 2. Read the whole Text and you will find most express passages that cannot be applyed to any such time and use as this in question but plainly speak of their return from Captivity and their following state It would too much swell my Book to try and vindicate all the particular Texts Mr. James Calvert having already done it in his Naphthali yet unanswered 3. Confound not the Immediate Sense of the Prophesie with the remote and set not one against the other the several parts and degrees that make up the whole Many Prophesies in the Psalms are spoken immediately of David but as he was a Type of Christ in whom they were though remotely yet chiefly fulfilled The Prophesies of the honour of the Jews and their Restoration had divers degrees of fulfilling 1. They were primarily fulfilled in the return from Captivity and the Power that followed under Zorubbabel and the Maccabees 2. They were further fulfilled by the Coming of the Messiah of the Seed of Abraham and David in whom all the Nations of the Earth are blessed 3. They were further fulfilled at Christs Resurrection Ascension and Effusion of the Holy Ghost and the many Thousands of them Converted And their spreading the Gospel over the Gentile World 4. It was yet more fulfilled when Dominion was given to Christians and the fulness of the Gentiles brought in all Israel and settled a National Church in Judea and put all their Enemies in subjection to the Catholick Church of Jewish and Gentile Christians reconciled in one Body the partition Wall being broken down 5. It will be yet more fulfilled in the New Heaven and Earth under the Gospel there is neither Circumcision not Uncircumcision but Christ is All and in All How much more in the New World He that would promise to redeem Christians from Turkish Captivity and restore them to their own Land and prosper and honour them there if they will obey him must not be thought to confound the several benefits and degrees of this Promise He that will lead you into an upper Chamber includeth every step of the Stairs that you ascend and the promise of helping you up the first step includeth not the last but tendeth to it and if you obey will lead you further 4. Read the Book of the Maccabees and other History that you may not be ignorant of what is already done For instance How the great Ruine of Gog and Magog so Hyperbolically set out was fulfilled on the Syrian and Graecian Armies of which see the Assembly Mens Annotations § 3. II. Their next seeming proof is from Rom. 11. of which I have proved how much is fulfilled already besides which I find no more there promised than to all the Church in the New World 1. God cast not away the fore-known Elect v. 1 2 to 11. 2. Through their Fall and Infidelity persecuting the Christians from among them the Gospel came to the Gentiles v. 12. 3. It was but some of the Branches that were broken off v. 17. 4. As the casting away of them was the converting and reconciling of the Pagan World so their receiving was as a Resurrection of life from the dead v. 15. 5. The Converted Gentiles were but grafted in among them and partakers with them and not without them of the fatness of the Olive v. 17. 6. Not the Root but the some Branches that were broken off was that we might be grafted in v. 19. It was chiefly the Priests and Rulers and the self-cursed Rabble that followed them and yet some Priests and Pharisees were converted 7. If they continue not in Gods Goodness the Gentiles also shall be broken off v. 22. So much of conditionality is in the Promise And yet there is more Scripture to expect that the Gentiles shall not be broken off than that there shall be any more National Conversion of the Jews 8. The promise of restoring the broken Branches is If they continue
old peculiarity Of which more anon § 5. II. The Doctrine of the Jews Conversion as inferring a Policy or Monarchy of Jews as such is a contradiction and therefore impossible Is there any room then for any further dispute of it When there are no Jews there cannot possibly be any Kingdom or Common-wealth of Jews But were the self-cursed Progeny converted they would be no Jews immediately in a Religious sense nor within sixty or eighty years in a natural sense 1. A Converted Jew joyneth himself to the Catholick Church and knoweth that this is his advancement above the old separate state of Peculiarity and knoweth that Moses Law and Policy is ended and that if he turn to that Law he falls from Grace and if he be Jewishly Circumcised Christ shall profit him nothing Therefore he is no more a Jew in Religion 2. And being a Catholick Christian he will marry with Gentile Catholicks and not confine Marriage to those of his own Nation to keep up the separation And so within a short time there would be no Natural Jews For instance If A marry B a Gentile Christian their Children will be but half Jews If their Children marry Gentile Christians their Children will be but a quarter Jews And if those marry Gentile Christians their Children will be but an eighth part of Jewish Race that is no Jews at all Thus it is faln out with the Progeny of all their converted Ancestors I have since I was twenty four years Old lived in the house with the Mother of the Grandmother of the Grandfather of some now living And if I have seen between 24 and 76 so many Generations in how short a time would Converted Jews be no Jews § 6. III. And the desire of such a Jewish Conversion State and Kingdom or Church as should continue them in a Jewish Line and Peculiarity distinct from the Catholick mixed Church is a wickedness and contrary to the very nature of Christianity and the Kingdom and Design of Christ For Christ came to take down the Partition Wall Middle Wall and make of two one new man even both one no longer two Here is neither Greek nor Jew Circumcision nor Uncircumcision Barbarian Scythian Bond or Free but Christ is All and in All of whom the whole Family in Heaven and Earth is named and will have all to grow up to one perfect man Eph. 2. 3. 4. Col. 3. Will Christ now turn against his own uniting Design and Kingdom and set up Moses again and his Policy § 7. Obj. But we do not hold that he shall set up Moses Ceremonial Law or Worship Answ Nor if you are Christians should you say that he will turn again the one United Body into two and by restoring the carnal Peculiarity to set up again the Wall of Separation § 8. Obj. But if English French Spaniards c. may be still distinct why may not Jews and Gentiles Ans Because One is but accidentally and mutably from the difference of Countreys and Habitation and of Language and Trading and Government which Christ came not to unite But the other is on pretence of a Religious Trust on a Divine Gift of Peculiarity setting them up above the rest of the Church which Christ came to take down and tendeth to Church Divisions § 9. IV. So hardly were the first Converted Jews taken off their conceit of Peculiarity and acknowledging Catholick Equality of the Gentiles and such doleful Heresies and Breaches were made by this Pride that it is not safe tempting them to it again § 10. V. It seemeth a Carnal Imputation of the most Holy God as if he made under the Gospel so great an account of one sort of People by their peculiar Birth-priviledge above all the rest of the World When Paul tells us that All Believers are Abrahams Children and that he is not a Jew that is one outwardly nor that Circumcision which is of the flesh And the Jews are so far from being of any better nature or desert than other men that the Infidel part have ever since their self-cursing and obdurateness in unbelief been found in all Nations to be the most covetous treacherous and sottish sort of People Much unprepared for so great a change § 11. VI. Either All the Off-spring of the Jews shall be partakers of this pretended Priviledge and Monarchy or only the Off-spring of those that continued Infidels till the change But neither of these can be true 1. The Off-spring of all that have been converted for fourteen hundred years after Christ cannot possibly now be made any parts of a Jewish Monarchy or State Because they are all unknown and are now no Jews And so that it is impossible 2. And to advance only the present profligate Generation to a separate Monarchy excluding all the Off-spring of the Converts of all former Ages looks so strangely that the affirmers had need to bring good proof of it considering the difference of quality and number that the least and worst part shall be chiefly advanced § 12. VII Either in this Jewish advancement all the rest of the Godly through the World shall be as much advanced or the Jews alone If all the Godly they being I hope a Thousand to one Jew why should it be called a Jewish Jerusalem or Monarchy Then sure this New Jerusalem must be setled in all Kingdoms where the Godly dwell And shall they every where be Lords If it be only for the Jews can any but a Jew believe it That the Off-spring of the scattered cursed sottish Enemies of Christ shall be so much preferred before all the Godly through the World § 13. VIII Either all the Nations of Heathens Mahometans Papists and Ungodly-Ones shall be Converted with the Jews or not If yea it will be a New and Happy World indeed A Blessed Change will be made on Kings and Parliaments and Lords and Rich Men and Poor And there will be as many Miracles as Men when all those shall be made wise and holy that we cannot now with twenty years preaching prevail with to be Men and to cease malignity and bestial Lusts Sure God will not Burn such a Blessed World and bury so many Millions of Miracles in the Flames But if it be only the Jews that are miraculously Converted it must be a Miracle that must cause the malignant Princes and People Heathens Mahometans Greeks Papists and Carnal Protestants either to become Subjects to these poor Jews where they dwell or to help or permit their Transportation to Jerusalem and then to be subject to them there If this must be their Fate why do we not acquaint our selves with those few cursed Enemies of Christ that live in London in Wapping or elsewhere near us and honour them and beg their favour against the time of their Reign Oliver Cromwell appointed a Solemn dispute before him whether the Jews for Money should have a Toleration and when that good Man Dr. Tho. Goodwin and some other godly
Independents had spoken much for it Matthew Newcomen that holy Man so opened the wickedness of turning loose a Cursed Generation to tempt a Nation to Infidelity that is already too much inclined thereto as turned the Scales and put an end to that deliberation §14 IX Either the feigned Conversion of these Jews will be before the burning of the World or after But neither before nor after Therefore not at all 1. If it be Before either it will be the Thousand years Reign or some part of the Thousand years Reign or beffore it all If it be the Thousand years Reign then 1. The World must last yet a Thousand year after the Jews Conversion Which few believe 2. And then there will be no Thousand years Reign after the Conflagration which our chief Millenaries will not endure For there is but One Thousand years Reign looked for by them 3. And then the New Jerusalem state shall have the numberless Enemies of the Armies of Gog and Magog And shall fall to a Laodicean Lukewarmness What! After so many Millions of Miracles 2. But if they say it will be After the burning of the World that is before disproved For the Thousand years are past before that Conflagration Gog and Magog and the numberless Enemies will not survive the Burning nor live in the New Earth wherein dwelleth Righteousness 3. And if they say that it will be but some part of the Thousand years or a short time before the Conflagration 1. The Thousand years will not be divided part before the Burning and part in the next World 2. And so short a Reign of the Jews as shall end before the Thousand years and Burning will not answer the glorious preparation of so many Millions of Miracles nor the Doctrine of their so speedy Apostasie after as to prepare for the Incendium §15 X. The Miracles must be so many and great that must go to the feigned Conversion and Exaltation of these Jews that it will be a great and heinous crime to impose them on God by presumptuous Fiction if the Truth of them be not proved 1. As to the number of Converts 2. Their present unfitness 3. Their scattered distance 4. Their Servitude in all Nations 5. The feigned way of their Conversion 6. The state of their feigned Exaltation All these must be so full of Miracles that will a thousand-fold exceed all the Miracles that ever Christ did on Earth or his Apostles after him And God keepeth so constant a tenor in his Established Order of working by means and subordinate Causes as that we must have good proof before we say that he will do all this Tell us not what God can do when our Question is what he will do God can enlighten the World without the Sun or make all the frame of Heaven and Earth to change their course God can convert Turk and Pope and all the Heathens in the World and all the bloody Princes and Souldiers to morrow But do not therefore say that He will do it When the Devil tempted Christ to shew his power by a Miracle he saith It is written Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God God hath appointed a quite contrary way for mens Conversion Rom. 10. How shall they believe on him of whom they have not heard and how shall they hear without a Preacher and how shall they Preach unless they be sent Christ ascended on high to give gifts and offices to men for this end Apostles Prophets Teachers to gather and edifie his Church Christ tells us of no way but the Lord of the Harvest to send forth Labourers and the Messengers to go into the high-ways and hedges and compel them to come in And the Sowers to go forth to sow that Word which is the regenerating Seed Though Christ would speak to Paul from Heaven it was to send him to Ananias And though an Angel appear to Cornelius it is to send him to Peter to be taught Though Miracles affright the Jailor Act. 16. it is to ask Paul and Silas what he must do to be saved And by what warrant shall we say that Christ will for millions quite change this his appointed way § 16. 1. As to the number it must be ten thousands of Miracles that a number so great should be thus changed all at once or near it throughout the World And yet that a number so small in comparison of all others should become a Monarchy and Gog and Magog be so friendly to them as to permit and help them as Cyrus did the Jews in their removal and afterward be subject to them § 17. 2. They are now a more sottish Generation full of Malice against Christ and Cruelty to Christians where they dare shew it sordidly worldly and covetous They live among Christians and all our endeavours converse and examples scarce converteth in this Kingdom three in an Age. Bear with me you that talk so zealously for the Jews Conversion and Kingdom while I ask you How many in London have you converted in your lives Yea How many have you laboured with by Instruction and Argument to convert them while you have prayed for their Conversion and censoriously disputed against us that doubted of your Opinion § 18. 3. They are scattered over the most of the Earth being every where a hated and despised people And shall Preachers be sent to them in all Lands at once Shall Preachers so quickly be made when no Countrey have enough for their needful work at home And shall they quickly learn and speak all the Languages of the Countreys where the Jews are For Hebrew alone will not do the work And shall all Jews on Earth get together to Jerusalem Will they be Rich enough to bear the charge of their Transplantation Or enough cured of the love of Riches to leave their Trades and Wealth behind them § 19. Obj. We hold not that they shall all be converted or dignified but enough to possess Jerusalem and Reign there Say some The Tartarians may do it Ans It seems then it is but the Popes old Zeal to recover the Holy Land But what 's this to the Conversion of the Jews Were they converted when Godfrey and others recovered it The Tartarians taking Jerusalem will not prove the Conversion of one Jew that now is taken for a Tartarian § 20 4. They are in such servitude in all Nations and so contemned a People among them as must prove it a Miracle for them to remove so far to power § 21. 5. The feigned means of their Conversion is millions of Miracles 1. The New Opinion is that Christ shall do it by appearing in the Air as he did to Saul O take heed what you impose on Christ That appearance of Christ was seen but by a very few in one place And the words heard by none but Saul himself Shall Christ in the Air be seen at once in Persia Greece Rome Portugal and all Nations where there be Jews And yet these good
men are against the Lutheran Vbiquitarians And shall Christ Preach to them in the Air and his voice be heard throughout the World a thousand times further than the Thunder And how will they know that it is Christ when on Earth they would not know him but imputed his Miracles to Beelzebub And will the bare sight of Christ make millions of ignorant sots presently understand all the Essentials of Religion yea and become eminently wise and holy when we can scarce teach an ignorant one now to understand the Catechism or Creed in many years I doubt many Millenaries have some such Servants and Children in their own houses 2. Some say that Elias shall come and Convert them A Jewish Dream And how will they know that he is Elias As they knew John Baptist to be Elias If you say as Peter did on the Mount I say that was by Inspiration or by Christs telling him that it was Elias Shall they have either of these And where shall Elias preach to them Is he also ubiquitary If he preach in Spain shall they hear him in Portugal Or if in Holland or Rome shall they hear him in England If he preach at Stepney shall they bear him at Westminster at Tarmouth at Norwich and all over the Land and over all the World at once Or must he stay long enough to go over all the Earth If one Man can do so much why have many thousands done so little on the Jews to this day 3. If you say God will raise up and send forth Ministers enough that will be yet a greater Miracle To give so many Skill VVill and Zeal To cause them to speak with all the Languages of the Nations When the Jesuits at Japan Congo and China after many years Learning their Tongues do but set the Nations in a Laughter to hear their mispronunciation as Maffeius Varenlus and others tell us And who will furnish so many Thousand new inspired Preachers with Money to carry them through all the VVorld And procure them free passage through Enemies Lands 4. But the last answer I expect is that nothing is difficult where God will work and Grace shall make one sight of Christ to Convert them all I answer If you lay all on the Miraculous Inspirations of God that can do it without seeing Christ and without preaching As God made the World with a Word He can so make every Infant a Doctor that they not stay as Christ to encrease in Stature and Wisdom But if you feign him to purpose or promise this take heed lest he will not hold you guiltless for taking his Name in vain This Creating Inspiration of sudden Wisdom Faith and Holiness into so many Thousands over the World at once will be a greater Miracle yea Millions of Miracles than ever Christ did And is quite contrary to the Word of God § 22. 6. The feigned Exaltation of them by a Jerusalem Monarchy is also a devised Miracle That these scattered people by such means should get to Jerusalem and become a Grand Monarchy and that in a place so uncapable and that never was such no not in David's days § 23. XI Another reason against this Jewish Monarchy at Jerusalem is that instead of an Exaltation it would be a Banishment to the Jews Judea being like our Wales or not so big as half England and a Countrey though flowing with Milk and Honey in comparison of the Arabian Wilderness yet very full of Mountains Rocks and Deserts and oft infested with Famines So that could they bear their charges thither I believe that the Jews in Portugal Constantinople Rome and Thessalonica alone would take it for as sad a Banishment to be sent to Judea as all England would do to be sent to Jamaica yea or Barbadoes If you say that God can feed them by Manna or by Angels or Ravens or make all the Neighbours Countreys Egypt Mesopotamia c. feed them take heed of imposing upon God § 24. XII God in Scripture hath given us another description of the Two New Jerusalems the Infantile and the Perfect that on Earth and that on Heaven more Glorious and Desireable than the Jewish feigned one Therefore we should not obscure the Glory of them by such a Fiction As Satan fighteth against the Spirit by a false Spirit and against the Church by a false Church and against the Ministry by a false Ministry and against Unity by false Unity so doth he against the Kingdom of Christ and the New Jerusalem by a Counterfeit 1. As the Assyrian Persian Grecian and Roman Monarchies were the four mentioned in Daniel so there have been since a fifth and a sixth By a Monarchy now is meant only the Greatest on Earth known to the Church The fifth was the Christian Empire whose Chief Seat was Constantinople called New Rome and New Sion I am not ignorant what is said against this by Heddeggerus and many others That is not to be disputed in this narrow Room The sixth Monarchy visibly is the Turks with the Tartarian Unity Gog and Magog The seventh the Sabbatical and Perfect Monarchy is that of Christ in the New Heaven and New Earth wherein dwelleth Righteousness after the Burning of this World By debasing Fiction confined to a Thousand years and Christs own Kingdom also so confined whereas this wicked World hath already lasted Six Thousand years within Three Hundred and Ten. This vilifying of Christs Glorious Kingdom is by blind Zeal now made the exalting of it by many deceived and deceiving Men. Chap. IX Of the New Earth § 25. COncerning the New Earth we must content our selves with what God hath revealed and not search into the unrevealed things 1. It is revealed that it will be the Restitution of all things that in it shall dwell Righteousness that the whole Creation groaneth to be delivered from the Bondage of Corruption into the Glorious Liberty of the Sons of God that it will be a Paradise State that Christ shall Reign over it that no Glorified Saints shall lose any of their part in Heaven by it that there will be no death nor misery Therefore there will be no Gog and Magog and numberless Armies of the wicked For there entereth nothing that is defiled It will be a State of Communion with Heaven Angels and Men will have familiar Converse Christ shall be joyfully known among them as their Saviour and King Neither Christ nor the Saints will lay by the Humane Nature or Body but their Bodies will be so far refined as shall be suitable to the condition of the New refined World This much is certain But these things following are uncertain 1. How much of the Old Earth God will use in the constitution of the New Whether only the Surface of the Earth shall be Burnt and the Things and Works thereon or also the Interiour parts dissolved into a Chaos As it is uncertain to us whether the Chaos at the present Earths Creation was the Relicks of a former World
We are not certain whether there was any former World Though to conjecturing Reason it seems improbable that God who delighteth in his Works and will continue a VVorld to Eternity should from all Eternity have nothing but Himself till Six days ago Six Thousand years But this will infer Aristotle's Eternity of the Universe except mutations of alterable compositions that the VVorld is an Eternal Effect of an Eternal Cause and Gassendus his Indefiniteness he meaneth Infiniteness of the VVorld and the old Opinion that God and the VVorld are but One as Soul and Body By which they resolve the Grand difficulties that God is not Pars Entitatis which were to be Imperfect and so no God the Entity of the World and God being more than of either alone if the VVorld have any real Entity 2. It is uncertain how God will people this New Earth Some think as he did this Earth by Adam and Eve Some think by a Creation of many at once Some think by a Transplantation from some other Orb Some think as Dr. H. More that except a few rare Saints or Martyrs all go hence but into an Aerial Vehicle and may thence without loss be made Inhabitants of the New Earth And some think that those that are found alive shall live in the Fire and after and some that they shall be caught up from the Fire and Judg'd and sent hither again 3. It is uncertain whether there shall be any Generation on the New Earth Mr. Beverley saith They shall multiply so as to compensate with a much more for the Jewness of the saved under the first Adam and each shall live the Thousand years But Christ saith that the Children of the Resurrection neither Marry nor are given in Marriage but are like the Angels and die no more The doubt is then whether he call only those in Heaven and not those on the New Earth the Children of the Resurrection 4. It is uncertain whether there shall be any stated visible presence of Christ here or that only he shall appear as in Heaven as the Sun doth by its Light or only sometimes be seen as he was after his Resurrection And so of the Angels 5. Itâ—s uncertain whether the New Earth shall have any End or Change or shall be Everlasting It 's certain that the Thousand years Rev. 20. are before it in this Life but of its Duration God hath said nothing to us 6. It 's uncertain how much of the Old Heaven shall be Burnt Though it's likely it will be only so much as was Cursed for Sin 7. It 's uncertain whether there will be any removal to a higher VVorld and each Person live his Thousand years and then as Henoch and Elias be translated and so on to following Generations or each Person continue here for ever 8. It 's uncertain whether Devils shall be permitted here to be Tempters or all Temptations be cast out § 26. It will be no disparagement to Christ to Rule the Restored Earth as well as Heaven Nor to Saints or Angels to be Governours under him VVere the Sun Intellectual it would be no grief to it to be a Benefactor by its Influence to Earth For it is no dishonour to God Himself to Communicate all to the Creature that it hath There may be here such Subjects as God promised Apostles and Saints that they shall Judge If by Faith in Christ God dwell in us by Love and we in Him and we have in us that Kingdom of Grace we shall have our Part in the future Kingdom though we understand not many difficulties about it For Christ is the Author of Eternal Salvation to all them that obey him Decemb. 10. 1690. A Catalogue of Books Printed for and Sold by Tho. Parkburst at the Bible and Three Crowns in Cheapside near Mercers Chapel CAtholick Theology Folio The Saints Everlasting Rest or a Treatise of the Blessed State of the Saints in their Enjoyment of God in Glory 4to The English Nonconformity as under King Charles II. and King James II. Truly Stated and Argued 4to The Life of Faith in every State 4to Alderman 〈◊〉 Funeral Sermon 4to A Key for Catholicks to open the Juglings of the Jesuits The first part of answering all their common Sophisms The second against the Soveraignty and necessity of General Councils 4to Naked Popery Answering Mr. Hutchinson 4to Which is the True Church A full Answer to his Reply proving that the General Councils and the Popes Primacy were but in one Empire 4to The History of Bishops and their Councils abridged and of the Popes 4to A full Treatise of Episcopacy shewing what Episcopacy we own and what is in the English Diocesan frame for which we dare not swear never to endeavour any alteration of it in our places 4to A Search for the English Schismatick comparing the Canoneers and Nonconformists 4to An Answer to Mr. Dodwell and Dr. Sherlock consisting an Vniversal-Humane Church Soveraignty Aristocratical and Monarchical as Church-Tyranny and Popery and defending Dr. Iz. Barrows excellent Treatise 4to Catholick Communion defended against both Extremes Moral Prognostications what shall befal the Church till their Concord c. Full and easie satisfaction which is the True Religion Transubstantiation shamed 8vo All 〈◊〉 by Mr. R. Baxter A Hundred Select Sermons on several Texts of Fifty on the Old Testament and Fifty on the New Folio The True Prophecies and Prognostications of Michael Nostrodamus Physician to Henry the Second Francis the Second and Charles the Ninth Kings of France and one of the Best Astronomers that ever were Folio Sixty one Sermons Preached mostly on publick occasions whereof five formerly Printed by Adam Littleton D. D. Rector of Chelsea in Middlesex Folio A Discourse of the Saving Grace of God by the late Reverend and Learned David Clarkson Minister of the Gospel 8vo The Vision of the Wheels seen by the Prophet Ezekiel Opened and Applied Partly at the Merchants Lecture in Broadstreet and partly at Stepney on January 31. 1689 being the Day of Solemn Thanksgiving to God for the great Deliverance of this Kingdom from Popery and Slavery by his then Highness the most Illustrious Prince of Orange Whom God raised up to be the glorious Instrument thereof By Matth. Mead Pastor of a Church of Christ at Stepney 8vo FINIS Gen. 1. 26 27. 9. 6. 1 Cor. 11. 7. Col. 3. 10. Gen. 3. 13 14 15 16. Eccles 7. 29. Hos 13. 9. Exod. 34. 7. Psal 86. 5. Mat. 28. 19. Deut. 29. 29. Joh. 3. 5 6 7. This is written with relation to the Writings of Mr. Sterry Dr. More Mr. â— Turner Mr. Beverley c. which I would not be too peremptory in my opposing Rom. 11. 33. Joâ— 5. 9. 40 41. 42. 〈…〉 of the World Exod. 34. 6 7 8. Gen. 3. 15. Prov. 1. 3. 8. Rom. 2. 4 7. Heb. 11. 26. Gen. 9. Gen. 22. 15. 26. 5 24. Rom. 4. 3 9. Gal. 3. 8 24. Heb. 11. 8 17. Jam. 2. 23. Moses the Prophets and Christ Mat. 5. attest all this Mat. 3. 15. 5. 17. Gal. 4. 4 5. Heb. 4. 15. 9. 14. 1 Pet. 1. 19. Phil. 2. 7 8 9 10. Mat. 28. 19. John 17. 3 4. John 5. 22 23 26 27. Luke 19. 34. Jo. 18. 37. Rev. 17. 14. Jo. 1. 49. Col. 1. 13. Mat. 12. 28. 21. 43. Mar. 1. 15. Luke 7. 28. 9. 27. 10. 9. 11. 20. 13. 18 19 c. 17. 20 21. 21. 31. 22. 16 18. Rom. 14. 17 18. Rev. 12. 10. Mat. 10. 7. Mat. 28. 19. Mark 16. 16 17. Mat. 23. 37. Rom. 11. 20 23 24 25 26. Rev. 11. 15. Rev. 11. 17. 19. 6. Acts 1. 25. Mar. 28. 20. John 14. 16 26. 15. 26. 16. 17. Acts 2. 37 38. 21. 20. Rev. 7. Luke 14. Rom. 8. 29. Rom. 8. 17. 1 Thes 2. 5. 2 Thes 1. 6. 11. 2 Tim. 2. 12. 3. 12. Rev. 2. 10. The Roman History is the full proof of this The Revelation and the Roman History compared prove this and expound each other Read Eusibius Eccl. Hist L. 8. Rev. 14 15 16 17 18 19. And the Prophets that proclaim it a great deliverance to the Israelites to have their Mountains again Inhabited and their Cities Built Mr. Potter and many Protestant expositors 〈◊〉 Rev. 20. 21 22. to speak of the Church on Earth Rev. 20. 5 6 7 9. 2 Pet. 3. 7 8 9 10 11. Rom. 8. 19 20 21. Fully proved after Mat. 25. Rev. 14. â—