Selected quad for the lemma: kingdom_n
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A27007
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A reply to Mr. Tho. Beverley's answer to my reasons against his doctrine of the thousand years middle kingdom, and of the conversion of the Jews by Richard Baxter.
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Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.
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1691
(1691)
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Wing B1371; ESTC R39871
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18,652
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24
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and in the Kingdom of Glory 3. The Title of His Kingdom and eating and drinking are as fully answered without the middle Kingdom as with it unless you can prove that those Apostles with Christ shall dwell and eat and drink a Thousand years on Earth in their spiritual bodies or have a middle sort of bodies for that middle Kingdom and had they not better before and must they lay those by for worse Arg. 4. You know we deny not that Christ's Throne is distinguished from his Fathers You cite the Text Rev. 3. 21. He overcame and is set down and expounded it He knew he should sit but was not yet set down not indeed in the Throne of Triumph and of Glory till he overcame You say It cannot be a Throne he hath yet what when it is said He is set down on it But Saints must sit with him you say And may not he sit down before them Must he stay till every Saint be with him You say again It cannot be the Throne of Eternity because the Son is subject and hath not a distinct Throne c. Ans If you mean by the Throne of Eternity a Kingdom from Eternity There could be no such thing unless there were Eternal Subjects If you mean only To Eternity the Son will have a distinct but not a separate Throne tho' not distinct Subjects For he shall subordinately have all power in Heaven and Earth P. 18. Arg. 5. Mat. 20. 20. You say This is not the Kingdom of the Eternal Word Ans Then it can be no Kingdom of Christ You say There is no sitting on the right hand or left Ans Nor no Subjects from Eternity unless the VVorld be eternal But to Eternity there is You say He that sits on the left hand must sit next the Father Ans This is your way of arguing by Allegories You are not an Anthropomorphite You know that by God's right hand is but to be next him in Power subordinate And may not others be next to Christ Arg. 6. You say is from innumerable Scriptures Mat. 19. 27. is before spoken to who doubteth but the Throne of his Glory was future Mat. 25. 31. confuteth you You say It 's not to be till all be gathered before hiâ— to Judgment Ans Therefore not a Thousand years before those alive be gathered before him to Judgment Christ speaketh of coming to Judge all not some to everlasting life or punishment but nothing of a Thousand years Pag. 19. 2 Tim. 4. 1. VVe doubt not of his Judgment or Kingdom But what word is here for a middle Kingdom Luke 19. 11. Christ went to receive a Kingdom and did he receive none till his return at the Resurrection what can be plainer against you He ascended to be presently possest of a greater Possession of Power All Power in Heaven and Earth was given him before his Return You say This is not the State of the Kingdom where God shall be All in All. Ans These are but your own words often answered and confuted From Mat. 16. 26 27. One would think that it should be a good Argument that Christ shall have one Kingdom that was first obscured by flesh's weakness after come in visible Power to Judgment and pass into Glory because some then alive should see the pledge and appearance of it But you hence gather that because men shall see the appearance of his heavenly Glorious Reign therefore he shall have none of that Reign in the Kingdom of Grace or Endless Glory but in a third and middle Kingdom such Collections expound your self more than the Text. As soon as Christ ascended to Heaven he was possest of the Kingdom of Power seen in the Mount and not only at the Millennium P. 20. Arg. 6. You fetch your most conclusive Argument from the one single note by which the Spirit of God hath fixed the beginning of this Kingdom that is The subduing of Enemies where your fantasie maketh two degrees 1. The making of Christ's Enemies his footstool And 2. Putting them Low under his feet As if his footstool were not low and under his feet Can you prove that Scripture meaneth this as two States and that at 1000 years distance Yes you say the second is to bring them to the state of no motion or action And yet are they haters of God and have they a self-tormenting Conscience and when loosed are Gog and Magog and assault the holy City and yet have no motion or action I suppose that in your next you will say you meant well and not that they were made dead blocks or annihilated but you should speak as you think or say that you think as you speak It will comfort the wicked to hope that they shall have only the punishment of Loss as dead insensible carkasses You have many passages of this sound Pag. 21. You grosly pervert Psal 110. 1. God saith not Sit thou without Reigning at my right hand till I all at once or at the last make thine Enemies thy footstool He saith not Sit without Reigning and Reign only at thy last coming But sit next me in Ruling dignity while I am making thine Enemies thy footstool which at last shall be perfected What word saith as you I intend thee a Great and distinct Kingdom of one days length the date of its beginning shall not be at thy Ascension c Did not God make the Pagan Empire his footstool and subdue Sin and Satan till the day of Judgment It is enough that all will be then finished and the Kingdom of Glory begun He sits and doth not Reign is your fiction against full Scripture Heb. 2. 5. We see them not put under him can mean but We see not that subjection perfected But we do see them put under him in a great degree The Lord reigneth Let the people rejoice The Kingdoms of the World are made the Kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ before the day of Judgment If we see not all things put under him do we see nothing so put When Judgment puts all things under him what need a Thousand years do it The pag. 22d is but the repetition of what is oft answered P. 23. It 's a great disparagement to your Cause to lay your chief stress on this Text As if it were not fulfilled by Christ many 100 or 1000 years treading down Sin Satan and Empire of Enemies and triumphing over them at his Glorious appearing and Reigning for ever for that Conquest in Glory unless he be a Thousand years more between in Coquering them As to 2 Pet. 3. 7. I askt you before whether you feel no reluctancy in so gross an abuse of that Text that speaketh of 1000 delay being before Christ's coming as if it spake of 1000 years after Pardon the Question The Cause requireth it P. 34. You have but one Text in all the Bible that speaks of 1000 years to give you the least shew of Countenance and that in Prophetick
A REPLY TO Mr. Tho. Beverley's Answer TO MY REASONS Against his Doctrine of the Thousand Years Middle Kingdom and of the Conversion of the Jews By Richard Baxter passing to that World where we shall see face to face Feb. 20. 1691. LONDON Printed for Tho. Parkhurst at the Bible and Three Crowns in Cheapside near Mercers Chapel 1690 1. AD pag. 1. You say very well against catching at words and surmising strange Opinions But if an excellent Divine will speak strange and dangerous words the Reader must have an Antidote and it is time enough to forgive the Writer when he confesseth the Errour of his words He that speaketh ill and meaneth well should keep his meaning to himself till he can and will intelligibly express it To your pag 2. He were malignant that would not acknowledge your Candour And it is an encouragement to us that differ from you that you believe our part in that Kingdom which it is not given us yet to see And as you profess your patient bearing of Contradictions we should love each other the more for our likeness Though I am noted to have too sharp a reproving style I do profess that I can bear more than I use yea that I love Reproof and my Reprovers To your pag. 3. And your confidence of your right Interpretation of Prophecies and of the blessed 1697 year I say but 1. As Jeremiah to the Prophets of his time Amen My wishes accompany you further than my belief but not to the unhappy end of your New Earth 2. And I know how natural it is for every man to be over-confident of his conceptions and his way to be right in his own Eyes To your pag. 4. The description of your Conformity and recesses from it is very modest and discreet I named you not among Conformists as an Accuser but as excusing the Nonconformists to whom your Millenary Opinion is by unrighteous men imputed whiles it is Conformists that are its strongest Pillars But if it be not the Sacred Office that you disclaim but the bare name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are not those Officers Christ's more special 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 though the Laity also are his common Lot You love not I hope Controversies about meer names and words But if you do let Acts 1. 17. silence you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yet Judas was not chosen by Lot as Matthias was Tho' I know not what you mean by setting up that in Kingdom counterfeit nor how men should understand that by Semi-Sadduces of the Apostacy you meant no body but an Abstract Thing yet I understand and accept your Retractation Page 5. Your bold avouching speaketh your confidence but is no help to convince another that a Kingdom of One day 1000 years ascribed to Christ doth honour him more than an Endless Kingdom of Glory after two thousand or six thousand years Kingdom of Grace 2. I thank you for disclaiming the Doctrines which your words did favour And intreat you that are so accurate in Prophecy hereafter to be more accurate in your words and to speak as you think and as you would have others think that understand words according to common usage Pag. 6. Of your commendations of Dr. Crispe's Book I think soill that I have written a proper Answer to you about it but stop the publishing of it because I find you so ready to retract But I confess your commending to the World a Book so contrary to Christianity it self doth much abate my reverence to your confidence in Prophecy If such as Dr. Crispe and you have no safer and sounder words to Preach Justification and Grace by than to tell men how bad it is to think that sin can possibly do them any hurt or duty or any thing they can do Faith Hope Love Obedience do them any good and to tell them that Christ is the greatest hater of God Murderer Adulterer c. in the World and that not only the punishment and guilt of punishment but the very sins themselves of all the Elect are Christ's own sins and that if men commit Murder Adultery Perjury Treason it is none of their sin but Christ's for it cannot be Christ's and theirs too they are for all the acts no Murderers no Adulterers no Traitors no Haters of God c. I say if this be your excellent Preaching of Christ and his Kingdom I shall not admire your Doctrine of the Kingdom nor wonder if more of this Doctor 's Disciples be like that one that would come drunk and kneel to prayer in in his Family and cry Lord all our righteousness is not worth two-pence no Lord it is not worth a half-penny And I hope hereafter you will speak more intelligibly of our Justification only by God's Essential Righteousness To pag. 7 8. The Kingdom of Grace which you confess in not another but the same that extendeth to the endless Kingdom of Glory by degrees destroying Sin and Curse and putting down Enemies and by the Triumphant appearing of Christ at the Resurrection finishing the Reign of Deliverance Conquest and Acquisition and entring on the Reign of his Reward and glorious Fruition There being in Scripture no mention that I can find of any Thousand years between these two I come to your four professed Differences I. That there is besides all the Kingly State of Christ wherein we are agreed a distinct Kingdom of Jesus Christ as the great Son of Man to the highest Noon tide Glory of which God hath assigned a Thousand years And when it hath utterly subdued all Enemies it is to be delivered up to God and the Father and the Son to be subject in that very sense Ans I have recited all your words that I may be sure that I leave not out the specifick difference But what it is I am never the wiser nor know by these words I had the unhappiness from my Youth to be inclined to strict definition and distinction and accurate Logical Explications and to abhor confused Harangues and therefore the now despised Schoolmen were my pleasant study next to the Bible and practical Divinity But now I have lived to see that kind of study and disputing derided which is far easier than learned and to hear Disputes about Terms unexplained and the Question debated in the beginning and scarce stated in the end Which of these words specifie the middle Kingdom from the former and the latter Or must it be none of the particulars but all connext 1. Is it the word distinct That 's but to beg the Question which is whether there be any middle distinct Kingdom And it tells us not what it is A distinction in the exercise of administration between the beginning and resignation we are agreed of 2. Is the difference in the word The Great Son of Man Is he not the Great Son of Man before and after 3. Is it in the highest Noontide Glory Will it be greater than the Glory after the Thousand years 4. Is it