[Note: The reader must appreciate that many theological terms, such as “postmillennial” did not exist during the time of Isaac Newton. He lived in the century just following the introduction of the printed Bible and Europe was only then discovering its languages for the first time. Although scholars were well acquainted with the biblical text and patristic literature – usually in Latin- it was sequestered from the general population. That changed in the 17th Century at the dawn of “the age of books,” the King James Bible, and Newton’s physics.]
Part 4
Whoso sheds man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed. Genesis 9:6
He that beareth the sword is the servant of God. Romans 13:4
We come now to an analysis of Newton’s view of the human condition and what might constitute this “recovery and re-establishment of the long lost truth“ (Observations, op cit, p. 79) necessary for the dawn of the Millennial Kingdom.
Throughout his analysis of biblical symbolism, the role of civil government is central to his view of Bible prophecy and God’s work in the Earth. Providential government and the sanctions of civil government become the essence of Newton’s understanding of the Kingdom of God. God guides the heart of the “king” or magistrate through providential government and then sanctions are imposed by that ruler upon the wicked in society so that “the people do not learn iniquity.”
While the doctrine of postmillennialism might not be explicitly stated in his writings – especially since the terminology did not yet exist for another century – nevertheless, the essential features of the doctrine are manifest, which are these:
First is the optimism that there can be an earthly kingdom at all in which “dwells righteousness” and receives the blessings of heaven for its obedience.
Second, that the “preaching of the Gospel” can effectuate such an outcome: “the gospel of the kingdom” not the modern gush of the “gospel of salvation.” Newton believed that it was a defective Gospel which has been preached by organized religion.
Third, the faithful enforcement of God’s law. For some time, Newton served as Chancellor of the Royal Mint. During his tenure, he demanded and got Parliament to impose the death penalty for counterfeiting. We see, then, that Newton’s temperament was toward the efficacy of sanctions.
Enlarging upon the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares, Christ directs our attention to the idea of “uprooting” and the damage that might cause. It is worth noting that the Greek word here for “end of the world” is “eon” not “cosmos” (Matthew 13:39). Christ is not describing the end of the world, as in the end of the physical creation, but rather the end of an “age.” An eon is marked by the maturation which occurs in civilization. “Judgment Day” comes at the end of a season when the crop has reached maturity. The ripening of the harvest is what dictates when the harvest occurs, not an arbitrary timetable. He is describing judgments within history.
Consequently, Christ is describing the operation of God’s moral government as it is repeated many times throughout the life-cycles of all civilizations. The Four Kingdoms in Daniel’s prophecies have had their day. Rome has had its day. We are having ours now. And after the reckoning, a new civilization will arise and a new era will emerge with a new cycle of growth, ripening and harvesting.
The “Great White Throne Judgment” in Revelation represents an on-going judgment of each individual as they die:
For it is appointed unto man once to die, and after this, the judgment.
– Hebrews 9:27
God’s Court is always in session and you appear before Him as soon as you die. The judgment in Revelation is sequential, but not chronological. There is no state of waiting after death, as is erroneously supposed by the doctors of Scripture. You are immediately dispatched.
According to Newton, the judgments in Revelation pertain to God’s government of the nations. As long as there is a physical creation, there will be seasons of evaluation and judgment: the dispensing of rewards and the assignment of new tasks. A vibrant and growing cosmos requires just such Divine husbandry.
And what of the “General Resurrection”?
In Pauline theology, there is such a resurrection that is a discontinuous, historical event sometime in the future. But Paul was a Pharisee, and his futuristic mythology should not be taken too literal.
Jesus, on the other hand, often spoke of such things pertaining to the Resurrection “at the last day” (John 11), only without too many particulars and in parables. The “day nor the hour knoweth no man.” Rather, He taught us to pray for “thy kingdom to come,” not that we get to go to heaven.
Whatever might be true of our eternal existence, it does not diminish or suspend God’s moral government now, in time and on Earth. It is the denial of God’s Kingdom which constitutes the heresy which Newton and others warned against. Dispensational-type prophetic models consign the world to “the devil” until some future deliverance or eschaton. This is the core doctrine of the Gnostics and Cabalists. . . and Satanists.
In order for such a false doctrine to take root, like the tares which were indistinguishable from the wheat, it becomes necessary to make it look like the true doctrine: in this case a substitute for the agents of the Dominion Covenant itself. What God declared in the beginning to be “very good” must be re-labeled by the Satanist.
Returning to the parable’s metaphor: from growth and expansion, roots push out and suffocate the competition. In Pauline metaphor, the roots represent the “fathers” and the patriarchal heads of families (Romans 10:16-29). Fathers spend their lives carving out an estate, creating a social order, and defending it with institutions which restrain and punish lawless behavior. Sanctions require the use of force, not preemptively, but as a deterrent, which when defied, results in swift and certain judgment.
What then becomes the moral “force” which reverses entropy? We might start with the doctrines of the Atonement and the Resurrection. Men operate according to symbols which create mental constructs governing their actions. That Christ died for our sins, was raised triumphant over the grave, and imparted a source for moral calibration (the indwelling of the Holy Spirit), gives us the power to choose life rather than death. These doctrines affirm that the Kingdom of God is among men.
But the historic church has always affirmed both of these doctrines in its creeds. We do not find in them the “long lost truth” to which Newton refers. Rather, we find that different doctrines, not found in the Ecumenical Creeds – such as that of Original Sin and the “total depravity of man” -which make the Christian religion into a death cult and defiles the source of man’s reproductive powers. The Dominion Covenant is taken away from patriarchal families and given to the clerics of the Church.
It is important to spend time analyzing Newton’s lengthy discussion of the “Mahuzzim” heresy which he regards as the work of the Antichrist (Ibid, p. 59-71). The “Mahuzzims” “forsook the desire of women” and found “holiness in abstinence from marriage.” They became the monastic movement within Christianity. Founded upon Augustine’s view that male sexual prowess is proof of Original Sin, the phallic symbol, instead of representing the omni– “potence” of God’s creative power, instead became defiled and was inverted to represent man’s sinful nature.
Because of this doctrine, an impossible psychological condition has occurred. Christian men are at war with their reproductive powers. The doctrine defeats the Creation Mandate and perpetuates generation after generation of guilty men. Original Sin, as it has become known in Christianity, rejects the life forces with which mankind has been endowed as “the image of God.”
Newton identifies the beginning of this heresy in the Montanists “who denied second marriages” whether simultaneous or successive (i.e. literally “bigamous,” p. 61).
To remedy this perversion, we must find a doctrinal link between “holiness” and man’s urge to reproduce. It appears that only the institution of polygamy can do this.
[N.B. Even published posthumously, Newton’s discussion of this topic was guarded and carefully worded. His lengthy discussions, left in the Latin untranslated by the publisher, must await for future studies.]
According to the Antichrist doctrine, polygamy is proof of depravity, while monogamy and celibacy are exalted as the purer standard. Judging the man by the limitations of female sexual capacity becomes a direct assault upon fatherhood, and by extension, the fatherhood of God:
He is antichrist, that denieth the father and the son.
– 1 John 2:22
The purer religion, in contrast, is one dedicated to propagation, colonization, and succession.
This Antichrist doctrine has become so entwined in the Christian religion, it probably cannot be excised without destroying the religion itself. It has created a cultural and psychological condition which has become an inextricable pathology. To exorcise it, mankind must likely be returned to a state of nature in which the realities of survival recalibrate social mores to become consistent with that imperative.
Our civilization is the final iteration of this Antichrist kingdom. It will be destroyed, as seen in Daniel’s vision. A new civilization will prevail: the Stone Kingdom. “Eben” stones are the figure of the “ben”: sons. The kingdom to come will mirror heaven, as each man becomes a “Lord of Hosts” (Sabaoth) because the Father in Heaven, also, is the LORD of Hosts.
Isaiah 4:1 – “In that day seven women shall take hold of one man; saying, We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel: only let us be called by thy name, to take way our reproach.”
While Newton never married, he nevertheless stood correctly on this doctrine. Considering that the monastic religion is so directly identified and elaborated by him as the “Antichrist” – especially as it was embodied in the Orthodox and Catholic religions – we may infer that the “lost truth” of which he speaks, is that of fecundity and the family. The Mahuzzim doctrine wrests spiritual authority from the true fathers of families and places it into the hands of pseudo-fathers which venerate “saints” and martyrs.
Part 4 of 4: End of Series
JWS, 4/27/25
