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
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
in the time of 1000 years Is the time the species of the Kingdom And is a Thousand years better than everlasting 5. Is it in the subduing of all Enemies Mean you in fieri or in facto esse If the first Is he not subduing them now Doth he not subdue them in every sanctisied Soul and did he not subdue the Grand Pagan Roman Empire c. If you mean in facto esse as consummate then what needs a Thousand years to do it when the Resurrection is the finishing of it 6. Is the delivering up to the Father the specifying form then it is not in being till it is past being How can it be delivered up before it is in being And then the previous Kingdom of Acquisition and Conquest is the same for that is delivered to the Father 7. Is it the Son 's being subject in that very sense Little know I what you mean by that very sense But I know that the Son as Man was and will be subject In the former and the everlasting Kingdom And so here is not one syllable of the specifick difference but a harangue of words As to the Taking of God's Name in vain I beseech you to fear it To father a falshood on God is dangerous Suspension is safer where you say that to diminish is equally dangerous Therefore I do it not I do not say that God tells us that there is no such Millenary Kingdom but only that I can find no proof of any such and therefore tell you what hindereth me from your confident Opinion To pag. 10. It 's very true that you say that there is needful a comprehensive knowledge of the whole frame of Prophecy and Chronology to a clear Judgment of many hard points But not to the suspension of Judgment nor to the confutation of every Errour And I believe that you have studied Chronology and Daniel and Ezekiel more than I have done But should I enter into a dispute with your pretended Scripture Chronology and object against you all that I find in Usher Helvicus Petavius Beroaldus Jos Scaliger Carion Bucholzer Functius Gutberleth Micrelius Mr. Talents c. how endless would be the dispute And yet must your Chronology and all its consequents be taken for granted Truths 3. You truly say that our Infancy that needs to be fed with Milk maketh us less capable of these Mysteries The Lord pity and teach us But I must say that the Ministers and People that have most need of Milk but least feel their need are most inclined to your Opinion in this point excepting a few Learned men Mr. Mead and Dr. Twisse and Dr. Moore c. whom he overcame Ad pag. 11. 1. Call it a distinct Kingdom or a distinct part of the administration as you please we grant that the glorious appearance of Christ to Judgment is distinct from his invisible Reign in Heaven As the Assizes is a distinct exercise of Judicature and as Triumph is distinct from Conquest As it is the Triumphant end of Christ's Conquests and the beginning of his Rewarding Kingdom of Glory it is oft spoken of in Scripture But of what more I expect your proof But here you pretend a description of this Kingdom but no other than before sine differentid specificd 1. It is a Supreme Oeconomy and was not that before and after Supreme 2. It was towards the Family in Heaven and Earth So was that before and after 3. It was in the fulness of all times Sure then it was after your Thousand years 4. It was by the Great Son of Man and Lamb. So it was before and will be after 5. The Humanity shall have a Glory singular to it self as it had a Humiliation True but not divided from the Godhead and so it had before and will have to eternity as you confess Is this Elucidation or an informing way of an Instructor But you say The Rain-bow is a symbol of it This is obscure Information I like not your name of it's Glory distinct and distant from the Sun The Glory of Christ's Humanity is distinct but not distant from the Deity and it is as near before and after and as glorious as you can justly imagine it to be in the Thousand years Pag. 12. A Kingdom confined to a Thousand years you affirm indeed but without a word of proof 2. You add seventy five years and some time after the Thousand I would you had deigned to tell us what you mean by its Succession and what by its Investiture whether the Succession be before or after the Conflagration and any part of the Kingdom Or if only a preparation what that Church-state of preparation is Pag. 13. Gog and Magog you say Are Satan and all the wicked that had been Raised to lie at the footstool of Christ from the very beginning of the Thousand years being loosed Take to make a bold attempt on the holy City to draw it to defection Is this Christ's Gospel or yours Qu. 1. Are these dead raised men invisible bodies or only as Devils invisible spirits or in bodies invisible Qu. 2. Rev. 20. saith that Satan deceiveth the Nations to gather them against the holy City But if they were Devils themselves that do it as other Devils in malice what need they a Satan to deceive them Qu. 3. Rev. 20. saith They were the Nations that were in the Earth Were all the dead wicked raised dwellers on Earth in the Thousand years Qu. 4. If they had bodies where will there be room on Earth for all the wicked since Cain till the end to dwell there all at once Qu. 5. And would there be room for them all so near the holy City Qu. 6. When the Text saith Satan deceived them to gather them to Battle why turn you Battle to drawing the City to defection Q. 7. Where were all these Dead Raised men when the Earth was on fire If in another World how come they after to be dwellers in the New Paradise Earth If they were on Earth were they raised before or in or after the burning And how scap't their new bodies The Paradise Saints have bodies of flesh passible and such as must have food Sure all the raised wicked have not bodies less sensible patible or that need less food Qu. 8. Is not the New City and Earth after a Thousand years experience worse than weak Christians are now If by known Devils and condemned wicked ones of all Ages raised they will be drawn from Christ after a Thousand years Miracles Q. 9. What becometh of the bodies of all the wicked that are found alive at the Conflagration Do they scape out of the fire also as the Saints do And doth the New Earth at once hold all the Saints that were alive and all the wicked alive and all the wicked dead from Cain's time Qu. 10. And is that the New Earth wherein dwelleth Righteousness that hath so many wicked Qu. 11. If Grace cannot now be lost will not Christ