then keep his Paradise Saints Qu. 12. Or if the New Earth fall away did not the holy City consist most of Hypocrites and is that the Glory of it We are now in surer keeping than Adam and the faln Angels were None shall take us out of Christ's hands Qu. 13. Doth not this leave us to fear that those in the New Heaven also may fall away as the Angels did Qu. 14. For will there not after the Seventy five years preparation be as good people found on Earth as those that died before Why then think you that those alive shall be set so far below the rest as to have but an earthly generating life when the rest are in Heaven And Christ saith The last shall be first and the first last Qu. 15. Why say you that the Laodicean Apostasie is no greater a wonder than Adams and the Angels Is the New World in no better a state Then the New Jerusalem may become Devils Qu. 16. You say Christ being to put an end to a Church-state on Earth may suffer so just an occasion for spewing out of his mouth But do you honour or dishonour the Glorious Kingdom to feign it to have such an end That lasting but one day a Thousand years it should end in being spewed out for ever Qu. 17. What Word of God have you for your Opinion that there shall never more be an Earth or a Church on Earth And that God who is delighted in his wondrous works will have none of these Worlds from eternity to eternity but only for seven days seven Thousand years Qu. 18. Peter tells us of the burning of the Earth but not of the ending of it How come you to know so much more than he ever intimated or seemed to know Qu. 19. To say that Heaven and Earth have so unhappy an end doth it not tempt men to Manicheising to think that an ill God made this world Qu. 20. Did not something within you reluctate when you cited 2 Pet. 3. for the Thousand years duration of the Kingdom As if you argued Peter tells the unbelievers Delay of Christ's coming should not make you think that he will not come For a Thousand years delay is with God but as a year Ergo his Kingdom will be but a Thousand years Is this to expound Prophecy Qu. 21. Is it more faulty in a Plato Zeno or other Pagans to conjecture at Transmigrations of Souls revolutions of Worlds or with Aristotle to think the World was an eternal Effect of an eternal Cause Or for a Christian to say Thus saith the Lord and pawn God's Word for his erroneous conjectures Your Arguments are too long and loose for any Mood and Figure or Reason Arg. I. King of Kings is a Title fit for a great Kingdom c. What then Ergo it proveth a Middle Kingdom between that of Recovering Grace and Resurrection Glory I deny the consequence no Kingdom is fitter for those Titles than that of Grace and final Glory This is not proving It 's false that Christ hath not yet been an Universal Monarch Pag. 15. Your 2d Argument as the rest is but a repeating of your own formally confuted Opinions without any reply to the Confutation as if you had nothing to do but assert again what you think 1 Cor. 15. 24. Is your proof Then cometh the end And is the Thousand years the end and not the Glorious Kingdom of fruition Judgment will end by Triumph the Kingdom of Acquisition But the eternal Kingdom will be the last 2. Your denial of a Distinct Glory of Christ's Humanity before and after the Thousand years is certainly untrue If the Divine and Humane Nature be distinct the Glory of each must needs be distinct tho' not divided VVhy obtrude you gross things unproved 3. Your intimation that God doth then begin to be All in All and Christ to be Subject in some special sense hath no proof from the Text nor if proved is it any thing for your purpose 1. The Text speaks of no such beginning But that though Christ hath done his Conquering work yet still God shall be All in All things as he was 2. Yet we grant that it speaks of Christ's ending his Kingdom of Conquest and Acquisition and the Deity now Governing Man as restored not needing any more recovery I oft tell you as the King's Son made General to reduce Rebels giveth up his Generalship when he hath reduced them but hath after the promised honour and reward but as a Subject still not a Captain Pag. 16. You say that our Exposition chargeth on the Apostle Impropriety of speech but you do but say so and we deny it Is it not proper speech to say that a General giveth up his Office and yet remaineth an honoured rewarded Subject Ruler Indeed had it been as you feign it said to become subject it would have seemed to signifie that he then began to be subject But that 's your addition yet you before confest that he was subject before 2. I told you Distinguishing is not Separating And I told you wherein the difference consisteth which you confute not 3. To your 2d Reason I find no such Scripture as you talk of that mentioneth any middle Kingdom but a Triumphant Judgment perfecting the Kingdom of Grace and beginning that of Endless Glory The admirable agreement which you mention seemeth to me to be but an agreement of your conceit Your 3d Argument from Luk. 22. 29 30. saith nothing of a third Kingdom All that is there said seemeth to me fulfilled without a third Pag. 17. Is not that you plead for of the Humane Nature as united to the Eternal Word How can it else be any Kingdom of Christ But both that of Grace and Glory are such but not without the Relation of Mediatorship By Constituted I suppose you mean not essential to the nature or person without respect to the Office as the product of God's VVill And such is the Everlasting Kingdom It is the Reign of the Man Jesus united to the Godhead as Mediator of Acquisition first and then of Fruition and this over creatures I fear it is dangerously untrue therefore that you say That the Kingdom of the Humane Nature is united to the Eternal Word and communicating with it is an Essential and not a Constitutive Kingdom Essential to what Is the Humane Nature and a World of Creatures essential to God It is essential to it self that is it is what it is But can you prove that the Humane Nature was or shall ever be united to the Deity without its Relation of Mediator It is Christ's will that those given him be with him and see his Glory And that sight is of the Mediator of Fruition and did he limit that sight to a Thousand years To your 2d 1. You have not proved that the Apostles yet sit not on Thrones of Judgment They are equal with Angels 2. If yet they do not may it not be at Judgment
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
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
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