Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	great_a	kingdom_n	time_n	3,773	5	3.1684	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A89583	A sermon preached to the Honorable House of Commons assembled in Parliament: at their late solemne fast, Januar. 26. 1647. at Margarets Westminster. / By Steven Marshall, B.D.	Marshall, Stephen, 1594?-1655.	1648 (1648)	Wing M780; Thomason E423_27; ESTC R204300	29,725	48

to build up the Kingdome of Heaven is the same work that God and the Lord Iesus Christ work and can there be a greater glory communicated unto any creature then to bee tooke into association with God in a service that is for his highest glory Secondly as they are associated with God so They make the people to whom they are instrumentall beholding to them for the greatest benefits that people are capable of receiving Seneca saith Nihil in rebus humanis praeclarius quam de republica bene mereri There is nothing in all the affaires of mankinde more honorable then to deserve well of the Common-wealth to be instrumentall of good to others it is the glory of man in all humane societies and you shall find that Tubal-Cain and others that did invent instruments of Brasse and Musick are numbred among those that have done good to the world and Hezekiah hath a Crowne of praise that hee did build a poole and brought water to the Citie of Ierusalem But for a man to be instrumentall to helpe forward the Kingdome of Heaven to advance it to draw people out of the snares of Satan unto God to help them with the pardon of sin and right to everlasting life these are mercies with a witnesse no wonder though the Galatians could have pull'd out their eyes and have given them to Paul when he had been a means to help them to the knowledge of Christ and so to Heaven so that whether you regard the glory of being associated with God or the good that they convey unto others there can be no such honour as to be instrumentall in helping forward the Kingdome of Heaven This Lesson is of excellent use especially to two sorts of men that are or may be publikely instrumentall in it I mean Magistrates and Ministers I am called at the present to speak onely to the first therefore I 'le say nothing of the latter but for you Honourable and beloved that are the Patriots of the Kingdome is it not in your heart to do all the good that is possible to poor England I dare say you are deeply affected with the distresses of it and would not count your lives deare so you might but promote the good of it shall I tell you what that thing is which above all things in the world will be advantagious to England and glorious to your selves lay the cause of the Kingdome of Heaven to your hearts more then ever you have done endeavour to be instrumentall to make Religion thrive and prosper that the Kingdome of Heaven may suffer violence under your service so shall your names bee ingraven with the name of God and numbred among the Saviours of this Land Let me speak freely to you you have contended long and vehemently for rescuing the Kingdome of England from the bondage and pressures that it lay under and that England might be a free people herein you have wrought in the fire and because the cure hath been hard costly woe and alas I must speak it the Patients are weary of it and could rather wish to bee under their old Soares then under such Physitians and are ready to say with the murmuring Israelites Let us make us a Captain and return againe unto Egypt would be againe at their flesh pots and onyons though under bondage your selves doe know how much ingratitude is shewed and all because there is not that event and successe that hath been hoped for but would the Lord make you instrumentall to advance the Kingdome of Heaven really there should never bee found one among those that should partake the benefit of it that would be weary of you but would for ever blesse the Lord for you If the generations to come and future Chronicles may but be able to say From the dayes of such a Parliament the hearts of the people of England were turned to God from the dayes of such a Parliament the Ministery was reformed setled encouraged with countenance with maintenance Vniversities were reformed heresies blasphemies every thing contrary to Christs truth was discountenanced suppressed beaten down and the glory of the Lord Christ was laid to heart might but this bee said of you after all your toyle and blood and after all your being cast down and laden with reproach and scorne your names should revive your glory should be eternall this and the everlasting world would number you among the repairers of the breaches of Gods people and you shall bee called Saviours of the Kingdome of England if the Lord doe but direct you to doe this worke but in the meane time should the Lord leave you that it should bee otherwise that the affaires of Christ should prove retroomnia that the Kingdome being overspread with blasphemies and heresies and the poysoning of the soules of people c. should bee concurrent with your worke and you not endevour to administer the best helping hand you can to it it would bee said of you as Ecclesiasticall writers do of one age since Christ that was overspread with heresies and destitute of worthy men to oppose them it was called Infoelix seculum an unhappy age so would you be accounted Infoelix Parliamentum an unhappy Parliament if this should happen under you and you not indevour to the utmost to redresse it I pray the Lord and it is my prayer when ever I can pray that God would give that glory to you and set that crowne upon your heads that with Ioshua and Zerubbabel and and the rest of those whom God hath counted fit to bee numbred among his Worthies you might make this the great designe that from the dayes of this Parliament the Kingdome Heaven might bee set up and flourish in England and so I have done with the words in the first consideration of them as they are a crowne set upon the head of Iohn the Baptist From the dayes of Iohn the Kingdome of Heaven suffers violence I now proceed to the words as they containe a description of a people really converted and brought home to Christ The Kingdome of Heaven suffers violence and the violent take it by force take but the Rhetorick off from these words they signifie no more then that which is said in the 1 of Luke 16. Many of the children of Israel he shall turne to the Lord their God many shall bee converted by him but the holy Ghost expresses it in these Metaphoricall termes because they doe fully set out the true Genius of every soule who is aright instructed of the Kingdome of Heaven In the words there are two things First what the frame of spirit is which possessed the people under Iohns Ministery in these words the Kingdome of Heaven suffers violence Secondly The successe of this frame of spirit the violent take it by force For the first the Kingdome of Heaven suffers violence wherein there are two things to bee interpreted First What is meant by the Kingdome of Heaven Secondly

the Kingdome of Heaven the advancing of it is a matter of the greatest concernment unto the whole Kingdome of any thing that ever you can be employed in when you have thought all that lies within your compasse there is nothing of that concernment to the Kingdome as the Kingdome of Heaven is for why you know the greatest part of our well being here upon earth lies in the things of Gods Kingdome and the whole sum of our everlasting well being in Heaven to eternity is wholly to be taken from the Kingdome of Heaven not from any outward things that you can helpe us with and as the things concerne us for our well being so these are the things will bring other things with them set up the Kingdome of Heaven throughly in the Kingdom of England and you shall say of it as Nabals servants said of Davids men when they lay with them all the while the men were with us they were a wall about us that we lost nothing none could hurt us nay it wil be a wal of fire to England Salvation will God provide for wals and Bulwarks to you I fear not to speak it to wise men that the four Seas of England and if to them were added wals of brasse of 20. cubits high thick about England and all your Souldiers as the sons of Anak they could not give that security to the Land which the Kingdome of Jesus Christ would be to it Let the Gospell flourish let Religion prosper let that goe on and salva omnia that will secure all other things to you the very Heathens saw this by the light of nature you cannot read of one Lawgiver amongst them but ever counted the matters of the worship of their Gods and of Religion to be of greatest advantage to their states and therefore counted Religionso sacred a thing that they made their Kings Princes alwaies their chief Priests that the care of the Gods might not be neglected it is true these poore blind wretches knew not God and worshipped Devils and therefore miscarried but yet thus much we may learn from them that even in their judgments nothing so secures a Nation as Religion Now when wee have the cleer light of the Gospel and so many examples before us and so many promises from Heaven can we expect the like succor and help from any thing else as from the advancement of that Sixthly Know ye for certain you never shall bee able to breake through your difficulties and to settle this poor Land in Peace unlesse your whole heart be sincerely set to advance the Kingdome of Heaven you shall not prosper in other work I know it grieves your hearts and it grieves those that love England to see how you labour in the fire and what pains you take and still the end of one trouble is the beginning of another our clouds return after the rain and when wee think we are going to moore our ship wee are instantly ready to dash against new rocks up and down we are and England appeares to our eyes as a dying fading plant certainly the Lords anger is not yet turn'd away from England there is somewhat provokes him God grant that we may search whether it be not somewhat like that in the 1. of Haggai that the house of God was not regarded as it should be I doe acknowledge here before you my heart is overwhelmed with grief oftentimes when I look upon our unsetled condition but could I once see and might it appear that the Lord had let it so really into the hearts of our Parliament that they could with all their might buckle to the work of God sincerely and faithfully to enquire what God would have them doe in the cause of Religion and doe it to the utmost I think all my feares would vanish I should say we went forward when wee seemed to goe backward wee prospered when we seemed to be overthrown I could say to my own melancholy spirit as Luther said to Melancthon Ego miserrimas istas curas quibus te consumi scribis vehementer odi c. I doe extreemly hate saith he those cares that thou sayest doe consume and tear thee it is not the greatnesse of our danger but the greatnesse of thy infidelity that is the cause of it it is the cause of God that we are ingaged in So mee thinks I could resolve that the enemies of England of the Church of God would quickly bee where they should bee that is made the Lords footstoole and we should triumph over them break through all if the Lord would but incline the hearts of those hee hath called to it to goe through-stitch with the things of the Kingdome of Heaven and therefore I most humbly beseech you fall to it and in it doe as Baruch did of whom you may read in the 3. of Nehem. 20. that he did build the wal earnestly and Tremelius reades it accendit se he sets himself a fire to it he stirred up himself he did not stay till others stirr'd him up but hee provok'd himselself to it doe it with all your might and doe it throughly too do not make a patch'd businesse of it the Lord made that once a curse to the Ministers of Israel that they healed the wounds of the people slightly therefore that I may speak plain English search Gods Word and find not what may be agreeable to humane policy but search what God would have you own and set up what he would have you oppose and what hee would have you beat down what hee would have you indulge how far hee would have you indulge it by what rules it should be done get a clear light in these things for the Scripture is able to make every man of God perfect in all his workes get this and fall to it throughly and God Almighty will be with you the Lord will yet blow over the clouds you are afraid of and will prosper your work in your hand but truly if you doe neglect it and shall not bee faithfull to the Lord in it beleeve it though our misery and ruine may be protracted and beaten off and kept off for a time it wil return upon us and come in like the huge breaking in of waters and like a great breach in a high wall whose mine comes suddenly therefore because you cannot do the rest of your work without it let this be the main Seventhly I 'le but name the two other and lay this to heart likewise That a great part of those miseries that the Kingdom of Heaven lies under at this day in England have broke out since the cure of it was committed to your hands I doe not say through your fault the root of these humors was in the sick bodie before and in such confused times as hath appear'd in Germany and other places abundance of disorders doe come in especially in times of War but because God hath blessed you and inabled