God for you infer that or nothing But a Law is nothing but the notification of the Rulers will to the Subject And will not God make it our Duty to love and praise him His face yea and the face of Christ will be a Law or notification of our duty Cannot God govern us by a perfect Law of Nature and Intuition Shall we see God and not know his Will Yea have Angels now so much work to do rejoyce over men and Saints shall judge the World and shall we for ever have no work of Obedience Love Joy or Praise And there will be Executive Judgment of Rewards and Punishments for ever The Rebels will not be annihilated Their Worm dieth not And it is Christ the Lamb that is said to destroy them and to bless the just And this as Believers in Christ or Unbelievers 2 Thes 1. 6 9 10 11. It is the sad case of the Church that even studious Ministers must have new Books written to answer every doubt that ariseth to them and cannot answer them themselves I conclude that 1. These men teach the Mahometans to vilifie Christ's Kingdom and consequently the King himself as if when the sinful Kingdom lasteth about six thousand years Christ's Glorious Sabbatical Kingdom shall last but one and then for ever be spewed out with loathing as neither hot nor cold but naked and miserable 2. That they tempt men to Paganism and to take either the Stoicks Revolutions or Aristotle's Eternity of the World as an Eternal Body and Effect of an Eternal Cause to be better than the Gospel And did I expound Delivering up the Kingdom as grosly as they I would rather fall into Peter Sterry's way that Christ hath three Natures The Divine uniting it self to the first and noblest Creature and that prime Created Nature assuming the Humanity and so ex Ordine Naturae as superangelical and ex Ordine Liberae Institutionis retaining the Humanity glorified by way of Reward Ruling the World as the highest subordinate created Cause I confess this would seem to accommodate us in expounding Heb. 1. Col. 2. c. and to reconcile the Arrians to the Orthodox if not to reconcile us to Aristotle and them that think it unlikely that God who now delighteth in his Creatures should have none from and to eternity but Himself if Christ had a middle created superangelical Nature from But we must not make Doctrines to accommodate us in our difficulties especially such as the Church never commonly received Though I will not undertake to confute it But if I should grant this Doctrine that the Divine Eternal Word produced creatures in different Order and produced the highest creature so as to Unite it self to it eminently as that by which he would make or at least operate on the Inferiour and that this prime Creature at least was God's Eternal Effect and that this is either the Natura Mentalis in Genere comprehending that of Angels and Men or some higher Nature above both and that the Word in this Nature united was it that appeared to Abraham Moses c. and after to Redeem Man assumed the Soul and Body of Man as a third Nature by such an Hypostatical Union as I have described cap. 3. in End of Controversies I say should I grant them all this I would never grant them against plain Scripture that Christ's third Nature here received dieth or ceaseth after the Thousand years or that he continueth it Glorified to no use active or objective and that he will not still be the Mediator of Fruition Nor shall I believe that we Men no nor Angels shall have no Existent Nature to Eternity but what we had from Eternity in duration Or if their last Argument would hold that eternal and everlasting and for ever and without End in the Promise did mean but a long time as it doth oft in the Old Testament I should leave this long time as known only to God and all that should follow and not confine it and all Christ's Humane Reign in Glory to a Thousand years upon so unconcluding an Evidence as one only obscure Text Rev. 20. which may clearly be proved to have no such sense The Lord inlighten us FINIS
tempt us Q. 3. Will their punishment all the Thousand years be so easie as to allow them to cover the Earth sight against the Saints and will it no more convince them Q. 4. What became of their Bodies in the Conflagration Q. 5. And of the Bodies of all the living wicked Q. 6. And of their Souls that lived then in wickedness Q. 7. Seeing you take Philadelphia to be the New Earth in its purity before its fall can you believe that in that World there is but a little strength and that there is a Synagogue of Satan called Jews that must come and worship before their feet And that Philadelphia after the fire is yet to be kept from an hour of temptation that shall come on all the World to try them that dwell on the Earth Q 8. Doth the New Paradise World hear Behold I come quickly hold fast c after Christ is come Q. 9. Seeing Laodicea is also with you the New Earth and Paradise State is that indeed a Changed State and World of Righteousness in which the New Jerusalem is neither hot nor cold and to be spewed out and is wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked and knoweth it not but saith I want nothing and is yet counselled to buy and cover her shame c. Is that World no better than so Q. 10. Doth God reward all men according to their works if the Best Saints found alive are for a thousand years in no better a World and the Worst Saints that were dead since Abel till Christ's coming are in a spiritual higher Body and Region all that Thousand years Is this God's Word Q. 11. Did any of the Asian Churches or any Christians for 1300 years at least or 1500 believe that the five first Epistles were written to men of this World and the two last to the men of the World to come after the Earth and Bibles are burnt Q. 12. Consider whether you that so zealously cry down the Papal Antichrist and Babylon do not ignorantly maintain the Papal State which you call Antichristian What is the Essence of Papacy but the claim of an Universal Power over the Church in the Pope or his Counsel he being the Head And do not you maintain that the Seven Churches are Seven States of the Church Universal And almost all Expositors agree that by the Angel is meant the Bishop at least as Biza saith the Proestos with his Elders And have even the Two Churches of the World to come such an Universal Government Sure then it is of Divine Institution that such there be And who claimeth it but the Pope and Councils This is the Effect of over-doing Zeal For my part if I believed that by God's Institution the Church Catholick must have one Universal Humane Angel or Government Monarchical or Aristocratical or mixt I would presently be a Papist Sir If any words in this Paper are displeasing to you for their freedom be assured it is to your Words and Cause and not for want of Love and great Esteem of your Person who as you are by Birth above me the Son of a Godly Knight so from my heart I believe that you are a far better man than my self And though I think you over-confident of your Apprehensions I love you the better while I think How strong a Faith hath that good man of God's Word in general who is so confident in every hard particular I beg your prayers for me who look from day to day when sight resolveth me of all these Controversies Postscript § 1. I Understand that on further thoughts some men that are further from me than Mr. Beverly are like by his Book to be much confirmed against Christianity Their Judgment of Christ is much like the Turks That there is One God and Jesus is one of his three great Legislator-Prophets and to be called his Son because of his miraculous Generation But that as Incarnate and the Son of Man he hath but a Temporal Kingdom and that Humanity shall at the end of the Thousand years be put off and with the Kingdom delivered up to the Father shall cease and that God's being All in All implieth this cessation Because Mr. Beverley taketh himself not accountable for other mens Errours and seemeth himself to renounce all such I will speak to them my self and to him on the by first desiring him to have so much charity to such men as to undeceive them by explaining these few particulars of his § 2. 1. To tell them what he meaneth by his distinction of Christ's Nature and Kingdom as Man in our Nature and his Nature and Kingdom as the Son of Man which he thinks ends with the Millennium To tell them what he meaneth by Christ's Humane Nature before the Incarnation If it be the Natura Mentalis in genere is it not as much an Angelical Nature as a Humane And he was not Jesus Christ the Anointed Saviour from Eternity nor before he was here Incarnate of Mary If his Body and Humane Soul then received die or cease then Jesus Christ dieth or ceaseth though the Mental Nature Humane or Angelical cease not Leave us not to the equivocal of a continued Humane or our Nature while you distinguish Christ Man from Christ the Son of Man But tell us whether it be only a Spiritual Mentality superangelical or the Soul and Body of a Man at his Incarnation If it be the Anima Mundi is it not the Common Nature of all things 2. To tell them yet what he meaneth by the Kingdom of Eternity as distinct from the Thousand years Kingdom seeing he denieth that there were any Subjects or Creatures from Eternity what is that Kingdom that hath no Subjects nor Government If he mean only To Eternity of that anon 3. To tell us also how it can be that Christ should continue in our Nature and yet be no Object of our Souls but only a Conveying Medium § 3. Now I desire both him and these others that misuse him to consider as followeth I. Is there any Scripture that saith that Christ had two Humane Natures II. Cessation is no less than Death or Transmutation into some other Nature If Christ's Incarnate Humanity Die how is he called Immortal Eternal and said to bring Life and Immortality to light his Kingdom to have no end as the slain Lamb to be dead and alive for evermore to have the power or Keys of Life and Death and Hell c. If it be Transmutation it is either of his Humane Specifick Form And then into what other Form Nature or Being is he changed It is but the perfecting of the Humane Form which he had by turning corruptible flesh and blood into a spiritual glorious body And this was done before at his Ascension And this we deny not to be eternal as to come If this be your swallowing up III. If we shall have the same Humane Nature in specie spiritualized and glorified after the
Language And can you not stay on the mentioning of it What else should all your Book have been but your clearing of this one Text You promise to prove abundantly that it cannot possibly be understood of any time past But I see no hope of your performance I once more intreat the Reader to read John Fox his Oath of what God from Heaven revealed to him to the contrary Martyrol Vol. I. p. 111. and in his Lat. Expos of the Revelations even that John Fox who was no Papist and thought Prophetical when he told Mrs. Honiwood despairing in Melancholy how she should recover and live to be old when in unbelief she threw a Glass to the Wall or Ground and took it up whole and fulfilled his Prophesie But you have fitted the rest of your Exposition of the Revelations to your Exposition of the 1000 years and then you think that fitness proveth all your Point But if I shew that all these Texts were performed on Pagan Rome it is not your finding Papal Rome to be like it that will justifie your sense It were an impertinent work to shew here that the Revelation hath a far different sense from what you give it Pag. 27. Your 2d Point therefore is of another Controversie which this in hand depends not on unless you confess that you have no other proof of the Thousand years Kingdom but Rev. 20. and that it was not fulfilled heretofore I am past doubt that Pagan Rome was Babylon mentioned in Rev. But whether Papal Rome be another Babylon I leave to enquiry But if all your Cause lie on that one Text I think it hath no good foundation Many Expositors think those Thousand years long ago past as well as John Fox Grotius and Hammond I am sure they are before the War of Gog and Magog and you must say more yet before you can make me believe that this is another World by all the wicked dead and raised I have by me an Answer to all your Arguments on this Subject and more not here to be repeated Tho' your confidence by the advantage of prejudice may seem to many to justifie all your heavy charges on the true Opinion that the Thousand years there mentioned are past Pag. 38. I find all assertive and the repetition of what you have formerly said without true Argument or Answer Arg. 1. Is it not the Eternal Word in our Nature Mediator that is the Son of Man and Christ our Lord What a distinction is here Arg. 2. Isa 66 speaks of the Carkasses of the Syrians The Saints shall to Eternity be united to Christ in our Nature Arg. 3. I am sorry that a third time you so abuse Peter's Thousand years against the plain Text. Pag. 39. Arg. 4. The New Heaven and Earth is chap. 21. mentioned as after Gog and Magog's destruction and the time of Judgment And you make it 1000 years before If it was before it rather seemeth to mean the New State of the Church as prefiguring the heavenly Glory Assert 2. Arg. 1. The kingdom of Christ shall never cease as Glorious in Fruition but only as Victorious in Acquisition Arg. 2. 1. The Text speaketh of the Old Earth and Heaven flying away and you feign it to speak of the New 2. New and Old and all things are in the Divine Immensity How then doth that make the difference 3. That no other shall succeed is but your word if you had proved that it is the New that flie away Arg. 3. Is but repetition I believe you not that there shall be no use of a Material Heaven and Earth Nor that the Humane Nature of Christ shall not be the Object that Saints shall look upon and yet shall be the Medium of Conveyance Doth not Christ say It is his will that we shall be with him to see his Glory Shall it not be an Object if a Medium Let us not feign our selves higher than God hath promised If we be not the bighest creatures why should we think that we have not need of higher Is all our promised Comfort in Communion with the Angels Saints and Christ's Humanity objectively confined to a Thousand years Pag. 41. Obs 1. How prove you that God's everlasting Communication to Humane Nature is not as free as the rest seeing he freely created and continueth Humane Nature 2. Is not all Time in Eternity And doth all Time end before all temporary creatures end You may as well call one an Oeconomy as the other Pag. 42. Is there no Glory to Eternity but what is from Eternity Then either Christ's Humane Nature and all his Saints were from Eternity or else they will not be to Eternity Arg. 4. That there shall be no use of the New Heaven or Earth for Saints of the first Resurrection above seemeth contrary to the whole scope of Scriptures Christ's Humane Nature and ours had no Glory with the Father before any World began For that which existed not had no Glory Pag. 43. Propos 3. The spiritual heavenly Bodies will be apparent for ever shall they not know and be known even as face to face Prop. 4. You answer not what is said to prove that there is no Thousand years between the Changing and the taking up Your Reasons are formerly answered Pag. 44. Prop. 5. Lot was carried out of Sodom but you hold that the Living shall be in the fire and not caught out That they shall be in it unburnt you do not prove Peter doth not speak of keeping them in the fire unburnt Pag. 45. If the Saints changed are to be numbred with the Children of the Resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage And you say They both make but one New Jerusalem Prop. 7. Tell us your proof of three or four sorts of our Bodies That the Earthly Body shall be turned into a Paradise Body and that into a Spiritual Body if not that also into a supercelestial Prop. 8. I have proved that the taking up is at the sound of the Trumpet which is the time of the Resurrection Pag. 46. If all be One Resurrection then those in Paradise are Children of the Resurrection and marry not Point 4. Of the Jews Restauration you are pleased to leave almost all unanswered that I brought against you and so discharge me from any Reply Though you say that your words answer all material Objections being themselves what I did before invalidate In the conclusion to all my former Questions I desire your Answer to these few more added Q. 1. Seeing pag. 5. Tou dare not think of any World before that Gen. 1. nor after the Kingdom given up c. what mean you by the Eternal Kingdom when there are no Eternal Subjects Q. 2. If it be all the wicked that died before the Trumpet that are Raised and after assault the New Jerusalem have they not mostly been bound many Thousand years already in that they assault us no more unless you take them to be the Devils that
Thousand years that we had before so shall Christ for he will make our Vile Bodies like to his Glorious Body But many Promises assure us of such a continuance Else we shall be no Men but Nothing or some thing of another species And Christ calleth us Brethren and Coheirs IV. If Christ will be the Head of the Glorified Church after the Thousand years then certainly there will be a Unity of Humane Nature and an everlasting Communion both as with a Cause Efficient Objective and Final And it cannot be true which you say and the Infidels will take hold of that Christ as Man in our Nature will not be an Object even of Fruition For we shall still be Individual Members of a Political Body And shall we have a Head and King and not Know him and not Love him and not Praise or Honour him Shall the Saints praises of the Lamb that Redeemed them cease then for ever Shall we all then cease to be Kings and Priests and to sit with him on his Throne and to sing the song of the Lamb and to see him as he is and face to face and to behold his Glory given him as Man Is he in all this no Object And how oft doth Scripture make him the Final Object under the finis ultimatè ultimus as he is to be glorified Shall an Intelligent Head and Members live together and neither know nor love nor rejoice in each other V. Shall the whole Heavenly City Society and Chore be dissolved for ever If so do not the Mahometans hope for a better felicity than such who think Mahomet will for longer time than a Thousand years give them their desires and that his Kingdom shall not end by being spewed out finally in everlasting disgrace But if the Body and City continue so will the Head and King And will Christ's Incarnate Humanity spiritualized be for ever useless Will he live for nothing Heaven and Angels will not be useless God shall shine in them and we shall see that light Shall it be our joy to sit with Abraham Isaac and Jacob and to enter into the Joy of our Lord and this all cease and the Deity only be an Object after a Thousand years O short everlastingness VI. Open your Eyes and see your Contradiction that think Christ's Kingdom as the Son of Man shall for ever cease and yet that Christ shall be subject to the Father Shall he be subject as God or as Man Not as God for God is not subject to himself If as the Son of Man then that Manhood continueth in being And doubtless in a Glorious Objective and Effective Being VII But speaking to men inclined to believe that Christ shall be no Christ after the Thousand years I will deal with them according to their Principles and argue from Natural Order and from Oeconomical or Instituted Do you not believe that God hath Creatures of divers ranks some above others in excellency and causality No wonder that he that believeth not any Creatures continuance believeth not Christ's Or he that believeth not that one is above others in operation believeth not the continuance of Christ's Power Do you think that God worketh by any second Causes though he be himself never the further from the Effect nor less in the Causality Doth he not enlighten warm and quicken earthly Creatures by the Sun and govern Men by Angels and Subjects by Princes and Beasts by Men Certainly if the World cease not this Natural Order of Creatures and Causes will not cease None but mad-men I think will doubt that Angels and Devils have Rule and Inferiority And if so after the Thousand years some prime Creature must be a Superior Cause of operation to the rest and that according to the Nature of each and therefore to Man that is Intellectual Volitive Affectionate and Active And what Creature is this Why may you not grant it to Christ as well as to any other Will you say with Aristotle It is the first or highest Orb That Orb then must be a Spirit And what Spirit before Christ the First and Last If his Humanity cease shall Angels cease too Or shall they be advanced so far above Christ as a Creature as to Reign under God for ever when Christ is deposed or extinct Obj. He is not deposed but his Created Nature will be swallowed up in the Deity Ans Intelligible sense is swallowed up in such insignificant Metaphors Is the Humane Nature turned into the Divine and a Creature made the Godhead it self If not what can you mean but Extinction or Annihilation Obj. But there was no use for a Mediator before the Fall and and there will be none after Ans There was no use for his Recovering Government and there will be none in perfect Glory But there will be use for Christ's and his Body's glorious Fruition and felicitating work as the state of Reward There was no use for us before we had our Being and yet we may have everlasting life Obj. But the Kingdom it self and not only the Modus Regendi will be given up and Christ Subject and God all in all And you say the Kingdom continueth and make two Kingdoms when Scripture maketh but one Answ Is the Question de Nomine or de Re If de Nomine only take your liberty to call it One or Two or Three If de Re are not these real differences 1. Between the Genus or Species Superior and the Species Inferior or Specialissima For in each sense is the word the Kingdom of God Christ's Heaven oft taken in Scripture 2. Between the Governing of men as an Army a School a Hospital the Governing them as meer Subjects healed taught subdued 1. The state of the Subjects is not the same 2. The Relation of the Ruler is not the same a Captain a Physician and a Viceroy 3. The finis Relationis is not the same 4. All the persons are not the same for Conquest destroyeth some Rebels 5. The Laws are not the same 6. The Execution is not the same What is it then that you would have Is it that Christ as a Creature shall cease Or that he shall have no power under the Deity Who shall have it then Doth not Scripture set him above Angels Are they not his Ministers What Creature shall be over Christ To say There shall be no Kingdom is to say There shall be no God To say There shall be no Government under God as second Causes is to say There shall be no World Obj. But why call you it two Kingdoms Ans Because Scripture and all Divines do so The Kingdom is taken from the Jews and given to another Nation The Kingdoms of the World are become the Kingdoms of Christ And many such Texts speak not of the Kingdom of endless glory Obj. But after the Resurrection and Thousand years there will be no Legislation no Judgment no Execution therefore no Kingdom of Christ Ans You may as well say No Kingdom of