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
your Thousand years The very nature of the glory of the Glorified Body of Christ is to live as Branches in him the Vine Our Life is hid with Christ in God And if his Kingdom be given up all our life and security is also given up The same cause must continue that began the Reward of Believers in whom Christ will be admired more than a Thousand years and the punishment of Unbelievers The Kingdom of Glory therefore continueth when the Restoring Kingdom hath done its work § 30. 11. The Devil hath reigned by Gods penal permission over this sinful World as to the far greatest part about 6000 years within 314 And shall Christ reign but one thousand Prove it before you affirm it § 31. 12. How frivolous is your reason from Gods being All in All What do you think those words do mean It 's neither any Addition to God nor any Exclusion of Christ But Gods Governing Mankind as fully recovered according to the Law of his perfect Nature and without any more Medicinal recovering Grace and his filling them with the Grace and Joy of his inhabiting Complacence 1. It cannot mean that God in Essence is nearer the Creature than before For in him we Live and Move and Be. He is All in All now as the God of Nature 2. It cannot mean that God will be more the Cause of Grace or Glory for Christs ceasing to be a Cause For God is no less a Cause when he useth second Causes than if he used none 3. It can no more be an Exclusion of Christ from being a Cause of our heavenly Communion with God than an Exclusion of all second Causes from their Office And if all second Causes be excluded and there be no Cause but God there will be no Being but God and this is but to reduce the World into God or Nothing which you must not feign unproved § 32. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being plural cannot mean that God will End all things and so be Nothing in any thing but Himself All things in All signifieth the Existence of those All things And shall not Christ and his Kingdom then Exist Not in its Paradise or Heavenly State § 33. Can it possibly mean any more than Of Him and Through Him and To Him are All Things And so they are now Rom. 11. 36. Or that he is Above All and through All and in us All And so he is now Eph. 4. 6. And that he worketh All in All And so he doth still 1 Cor. 12. 6. And that he filleth All in All And so he doth still Eph. 1. 23. Even Christ is said to Be All in All Col. 3. 11. And shall he cease to be so He is appointed Heir of All things he upholdeth All things by the Word of his Power For whom are All things and by whom are All things Heb. 1. 1 3. 2. 10. And why must he be deposed By him are all things 1 Cor. 8. 6. God gathereth All things in One in Christ Eph. 1. 10. Who filleth All things Eph. 4. 10. till we come to the Unity of the Faith and of the Knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect Man to the measure of the Stature of the fulness of Christ ver 13. We are growing toward this before the Resurrection And if then we attain it must it endure but a Thousand years The perfection of the Church of Christ is not like that of Fleshly Bodies that when they are at the top of Age go downwards again Nor Apples and Pears that when they are mellow soon rot § 34. Obj. But Christ must then be subject to the Father Ans And was he not always subject to him in his Humanity He tells us oft that he doth not his own will but the will of him that sent him The Father worketh and he worketh He were not the true Christ if as Man he were not subject to God But Paul saith not that Then he begins to be subject to the Father But that he shall still be so When his War is over and he hath done his work as General or Conquering Redeemer he shall be still as Man a Subject to God and Glorified as the Reward of his Redemption and be the Glorified Head and King of his Glorified redeemed Kingdom § 35. I suppose you will say that Christ and his Saints shall not die nor be deposed but have such a Glory in which God shall be All in All. Ans Very good who denyeth that God is or will be All in All But the doubt is whether Christ shall be ever the less Christ or King Or the Church ever the less his Kingdom at the End of a Thousand years I forget not your distinction of Christ as Man and as the Son of Man You confess that Christ shall be Man for ever but not as the Son of Man That is as Dr. More and you and John Turner say He is an Eternal Man or Life and hath say you and Dr. M. an Eternal Body Flesh and Blood from whence you plead for Transubstantiation Ans You could scarce speak to a Man that hath been more tempted to follow you in such intimations as embolden Reason to be too presumptuous and I confess that the insinuated Opinions of Peter Sterry Dr. More and J. Turner and you do strongly flatter emboldened Reason But I take it but for a Temptation while Scripture is against it as well as the judgment of the Universal Church When Paul tells us that Flesh and Blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God I must in Charity suppose that by Flesh and Blood Eternal Dr. More and others mean not properly but Catachristically the Natura Mentalis or the Intellectual Nature which they suppose to be the same in Christ Angels and Men. It is not improbable that the highest of Creatures is in order of Nature a prior effect of the Divine production before the lower Whether this shall be called an Emanation or a Creation you are not agreed Nor whether this prime Created Nature be Vniversal Life and Vniversal Matter and so be the Soul and Body of the World considered as before modal Mutations or whether it be only some nobler sort of Spirit and Matter that is made before the more ignoble and perhaps maketh the rest But it is concluded that Christ is the Life or Spirit and second Person in the Trinity and the Holy Ghost the Matter and so the third Person And that Christ the Soul and the Holy Ghost the Matter are one which some call A Creature and some call God and some both Peter Sterry's is the plainest way that the Divine Nature first produceth and uniteth it self to the Universal Intellectual Nature which is Christ the first Creature including the Holy Ghost And that this first Intellectual Nature uniteth it self at the Incarnation to the Humane Nature And so that Christ hath three Natures 1. Divine 2. Superangelical Created 3. Humane But still it is unresolved whether the prime Created
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
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