Selected quad for the lemma: kingdom_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A36320
|
Love to Christ, necessary to escape the curse at his coming by Tho. Doolittle ...
|
Doolittle, Thomas, 1632?-1707.
|
1692
(1692)
|
Wing D1886; ESTC R13801
|
131,969
|
240
|
shall all the Non-Lovers of Christ at his coming be excluded and stand excommunicated from the favourable Presence of the Glorious God and of Christ the Gracious only Saviour from the Company of all the Holy Angels and Society of the Blessed Saints from the Holy Place above and from all the Joys and Happiness thereof The manner how the Jews excommunicated the Samaritans was very solemn and dreadful They brought Three hundred Priests and Three hundred Trumpets and Three hundred Books of the Law and Three hundred Boys and they blew with Trumpets and the Levites singing accursed the Cutthaeans in the Name of Tetragrammaton or Jehovah and with the Curses both of the Superior and Inferior House of Judgment and they said Cursed is he that eateth the bread of the Cutthaeans hence is that saying of theirs He that eateth the bread of the Cutthaean or Samaritan is as he who eats swines flesh and let no Cutthaean be a Prosâ—lite in Israel neither have any part in the resurrection of the just These Curses they wrote upon Tables and sealed them and sent them through all Israel who multiplied also this great Anathema or Curse upon them But the Excommunication of all the Non-Lovers of Christ will be inconceivably more terrible when the Lord himself shall come with Millions of his Holy Angels and with Ten Thousands yea Thousands of thousands of his Saints and the Trumpet sounding the Saints singing and the Air ringing Christ and all shall say Now cursed for ever be every man that did not love the Lord Jesus Let them never come into the Kingdom of Heaven nor have a share in the Happiness that God hath prepared for them that love him and all the Saints and Angels shall say Amen Amen There is another Text setting forth the contrary good condition of those that love Christ Ephes 6.24 Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity Amen Paul standing one while upon Mount Ebal denounceth a Curse against those that do not love the Lord Jesus another while upon Mount Gerizzim pronouncing a Blessing upon them that do Deut. 27.11 And Moses charged the people the same day saying 12. These shall stand upon Mount Gerizzim to bless the people when ye are come over Jordan Simeon and Levi and Judah and Issachar and Joseph and Benjamin 13. And these shall stand upon Mount Ebal to curse Reuben Gad and Asher and Zebulun Dan and Napthali 14. And the Levites shall speak and say unto all the men of Israel with a loud voice 15. Cursed be the man that maketh any graven or molten image an abomination to the Lord the work of the hands of the craftsmen and putteth it in a secret place and all the people shall answer and say Amen 16. Cursed be he that setteth light by his father or his mother and all the people shall say Amen 17. Cursed be he that removeth his neighbour's land-mark and all the people shall say Amen 18 Cursed be he that maketh the blind to wander out of the way and all the people shall say Amen 19. Cursed be he that perverteth the judgment of the stranger fatherless and widow and all the people shall say Amen Six Tribes stood upon Mount Gerizzim and six upon Mount Ebal and in a little Valley between these two Mountains the Priests stood one while pronouncing a Blessing upon the Observers of the Law and then the Tribes upon Mount Gerizzim sounded out Amen Another while denouncing Curses against the Transgressors of the Law then the Tribes upon Mount Ebal founded out Amen But now though you are not unjust towards men no Drunkards no Swearers yet if Non-Lovers of Christ the Curse lies upon you and at the coming of the Lord it will be in vain to plead your praying hearing receiving your moral Conversation if void of the Love of Christ for Christ shall declare you accursed and all that shall attend him at his coming shall say Amen SECT III. A Division and Paraphrase of the Text. The whole Text consists of these seven parts 1. The Grace to be obtained the Duty to be performed or Act to be exerted viz. Love Sweet pleasant and delightful 2. The Object of this Act or Person to be loved called the Lord and Jesus and Christ 3. The Subject of this Act or who should do this Duty Man Beasts cannot Devils will not Man ought 4. A Supposition if a man love not and it is indeed to be supposed that many will not 5. An heavy Imprecation or solemn denunciation of Vengeance Anathema if he will not be a Lover of Christ let him be accursed 6. A determination of the time when this at furthest shall be executed and poured forth upon him Maran-atha when the Lord comes tho he prosper in the mean time yet when Maran-atha then Anathema 7. The Extent of this Curse If any man let him be he what he will a Scholar a Preacher a Professor an Emperor and yet not a Christ-Lover the Plagues of God at the coming of Christ shall light and lie upon him and if this any be never so many Vengeance and Damnation shall overtake and seize them all I cannot yet get off the words of the Text without another view of each term one by one 1. If This if joined to the not loving of Christ is one of the saddest ifs you can suppose if you should be poor if you should be cast into Prison if you should be banished if you should suffer the loss of liberty and life it is not so bad as if you should not love the Lord Jesus Christ For if you be cast to Hell if you should be damned for ever it will be if you love not Christ If you be ever saved if you never love Christ God is not true and Christ is not true and this Word of God is not true if you pray till you wear the skin from off your knees if you cry for mercy till you waste your Tongue if you confess sin and weep your selves blind if you go as far towards Heaven as ever glozing Hypocrite did and all this while have no sincere love to Christ you never shall escape the Damnation of Hell if you do say I am a Lyer say I preached falshood and deceitful words unto you What! will you drive us to despair yes that I would with all my heart into this despair of ever getting to Heaven without sincere unfeigned love to Christ for despair you must of having Happiness and eternal Glory any other way than God hath prescribed in his Word and Love to Christ is one qualification of that man that shall be saved And to this if relating to your not loving of Christ I will shew you another if relating to your not entring into Heaven Heb. 4.3 I have sworn in my wrath If they shall enter into my rest 5. And in this place again If they shall enter into my rest Here God useth an Oath but concealeth the Imprecation when
he will not be entreated Surely the infinite distance that there is betwixt God and Man might fill us with wonder that God should become a Suiter to man for his love when there is not so much distance between Man and Nothing as there is between God and Man and yet he is pleased to stoop so low to urge us to consent to him that we might be advanced as high as Heaven who else must be plunged into the depths of Hell On what is this that the Creator should seek to be loved by the Creature The Lord to be loved by the Servant The King of Saints to the Subjects of Sin that he might have our Heart and Love Whereas if we did consider that our striâ—test Service to him would be our largest Liberty our having of him our only Happiness our missing of him our greatest Misery we should know it were our Interest to prostrate our selves at his Feet to lye at his Door with Prayers and Tears with Cries and Calls with Grief and Groans to make it our daily Suit to him that he would love us and give us an Heart to love him Man was first in departing from God and in removing of that love that at first there was betwixt God and Man yet God is first in seeking the renewing of Love else Man would always hate and never love him And that God should seek to Man for his Love and be denied might be astonishment to the Angels in Heaven and make matter of joy if they be capable of any joy to the Devils in Hell that Men that may love Christ and will not might be as miserable as themselves to whom he is not propounded as an object of Faith Love or Hope But whether you will love or not love him God hath commanded me and others of his Ministers to lye hard at you for your Love he hath given us a Commission to make a motion of love betwixt Christ and you in order to your matching with him Mat. 22.2 3 4 c. and hath committed to us the Word of Reconciliation and made it our Work to Wooe you for your love unto his Son and to try to gain your consent 2 Cor. 5.18 19 20. And if you will love him to espouse you to him 2 Cor. 11.2 This is my Message and for this end am I come this day If I do not ask you I hazard my Soul if you deny you lose yours God therefore grant that I might so ask that you may not deny that both your Souls and mine might Love and so be Saved For the gaining of your Love for Christ I shall use these Arguments propounded by way of Question and when you have given a right Answer to them I hope Christ will have a good Answer from you CHAP. XI Twenty Motives or Pleas that Christ might have the Love of your Hearts I. CAN you find a more excellent object for your Love than Christ If you search through the whole Creation of God is there any like to Christ Whatsoever you think who dare say there is Are Riches Honours Pleasures Relations which you have loved comparable to Christ whom you ought to love If Good be only the object of Love is not the best Good the best object Can you love the lesser Good and not the greater Yea the greatest of all Is not all the Goodness in the Creature but as a drop to the Sea as a Candle to the Sun as a Sand to a Mountain if compared to the Goodness there is in Christ If David were worth ten thousand of others 2 Sam. 18.3 is not Christ Davids Lord better than all the World Read Cant. 2.3 5 16. Prov. 3.14 15. Phil. 3.8 Dost thou waver in thy thoughts or hesitate about this Tell me First Is not Christ a Good most suitable for thee Is Liberty so suitable to a Captive Man or Bread to an Hungry Man or Health to a Sick Man or Ease to a Pained Man as Christ is to a Sinsul Man For 1. Art thou not lost undone in danger to be Damned Christ will be thy Saviour thy Keeper and Recoverer Luk. 19.10 The son of man came to seek and to save that which was lost Heb. 7.25 Wherefore he is able to save to the uttermost all that come unto God by him seeing he ever lives to make intercession for them Isa 63.1 Mighty to save 2. Art not thou ignorant dark and blind knowest not the way to Heaven and eternal Happiness and mightâ—st weary thy self to find the Gate of Life and yet miss of it when thou hast done all He will be thy Teacher and thy Guide and direct thee Infallibly to it He will Anoint thine Eyes and cause thee to see such things as never yet thou sawest ver 3.18 If he Anoint thine Eyes with his Eye-salve though thou wast born blind thou shalt have thy sight 3. Art thou not Sick and full of Spiritual Diseases Abounding with Soul Distempers Even sick to Death Nigh unto eternal Death He will be thy Physician who is so able and so skilful that never any yet that he undertook to Cure Died under his Hands for rather than thou shouldst dye of thy Disease he will make thee a Potion of his own Blood which if thou Drinkest thou shalt certainly recover Therefore he came to be a Soul Physician and gave this as a reason why he did converse with Publicans and Sinners That he might cure them Mat. 9.12 4. Art thou not indebted Owest thou not Millions to God Hast thou a Mite to pay If God demand satisfaction from thee will it not prove thy Damnation If Justice pursue thee Death Arrest thee will not Devils seize thy Soul and hale it to the Prison of Hell from whence thou shalt not be delivered till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing which will never be This Christ if thou wilt but love him will be thy Bail become thy Surety and make payment of thy Debt and give thee a Discharge 5. Art thou not polluted and unclean Hath not the Leprosie of Sin overspread thy Vnderstanding Will Conscience Memory and all thine Affections So that thou art defiled all over liest wallowing in thy Blood art cast out to the loathing of thy person and canst thou in this filthy case enter into the holy Kingdom of God If thou wilt give him thy Love he will take away thy silthy Rags and give thee change of Raiment Zac. 3.1 2 3. If thou wilt come to him with Faith and Love and say Lord if thou wilt thou canst make me clean he in Love to thee will say I will be thou clean Mat. 8.2 3. He will make for thee a Bath of his own Blood and his Blood shall cleanse thee from all thy Sins 1 Joh. 1.7 Yea though they be as scarlet they shall be as white as snow though they be red like crimson they shall be as wooll Isa 1.18 6. Art thou not a Captive to Satan and to Sin Drudging Elbow deep in