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1. We leave this presumption to your selfe, who have so bold∣ly told God, what is most for his glory, pag. 15, 16. and what is most to the praise of his mercy and bountifulnesse, pag. 68.
2. It is revealed in expresse words, ver. 44. That God shall set up a Kingdome in the dayes of these Kings. But not that these Kings and the Kingdomes which God shall set up, are to continue together. Yea the Kingdome of God could not breake in peeces these King∣domes, could not succeed them by conquest, unlesse they should be in the possession of their severall Kings, when the Kingdome of God is thus to be set up. And seeing these Kingdomes are to be broken in peeces, are to be consumed, by the Kingdome which God shall set up; how can you once imagine, that their conver∣sion, and not their confusion: that their instruction, and not de∣struction: that their mending, and not their ending, (I meane onely in respect of their former distinct titles and governments,) should hereby be meant? Certainely you cannot finde in all the scripture, nor in any humane writer, such a signification of these words. And as for the Christian beleefe, it doth not alter the form of civill government in any Nation. But be it Democraticall, Ari∣stocraticall, or Monarchicall, it agrees alike with all of them. Yea it consisted in the primitive times with the profession of Pa∣gans: and doth now consist in the E••sterne Churches in the re∣ligion of the Mahometans, so farre is it (in its purity and integri∣ty.) from teaching us to disturbe the peace of any Kingdome: to seeke, I say, the suppression and removeall of the government or religion thereof, by outward violence, by the helpe of the sword. And therefore it cannot be said of the preaching of the Christian faith, that it breakes in peeces, and consumes the King∣d••mes in which it is profest.
3. There was reason, you say, to expresse the Kingdome of God, ver. 44. by a thing different from the image, because the foure Kingdomes were of one quality, and this of another. But doubtlesse, (as the four were no more of one quality, then gold, silver, brasse, and iron, are all of one quality, so) though they were all of different qua∣lities from this, yet this could not be the reason wherefore the Kingdome of God, ver. 44. was represented by no part of the image, but by a thing different from it: For if notwithstanding