Selected quad for the lemma: kingdom_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
kingdom_n	become_v	earth_n	lord_n	2,290	5	3.5936	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A28156	The believer's daily exercise, or, The Scripture precept of being in the fear of the Lord all the day long explained and urged in four sermons / by John Billingsley ...	Billingsley, John, 1657-1722.	1690 (1690)	Wing B2907; ESTC R6203	37,871	100

whole Body of Christ and of all the Members of it by such a sympathy as may prove you a living Member thereof This is the news that a right Christian is inquisitive after how it fares with the Churches of Christ what becomes of the Interest of true Religion in the World what hopes there is that the Kingdoms of the Earth may become the Kingdoms of the Lord and his Christ If he meets with good tydings as to these matters it glads him at the heart But if he hears of the prevailing of wicked Errors and abominable Idolatries of the Divisions and Scandals of the Professors of Christianity of violent Persecutions against the Saints and Servants of the most High God this wounds him at the very Soul he is so affected as if he saw one killing his Father forcing his Wife or butchering the fruit of his own Loins If Sion sit in the dust he puts on Sackcloth And in the particular afflictions of Gods Children that are known to him he resents them deeply cries to God for their deliverance and he is willing to be both at cost and pains that they may want no help that he is capable of affording them He is not one of the glib-tongu'd gouty-sisted Professors whom the Apostle James characteriseth James ii 15 16. of which sort there are abundance in our days that if a Brother or Sister be naked or destitute of daily Food say unto them Depart in peace be you clothed and filled notwithstanding they give them not those things that are needful for the Body If others sufferings do not make us smart so that for our own ease besides a great many better considerations we would do what in us lies to help them out of them I will not say we are stark naught lest I too much discourage you but I will say we are far from what we should be and it concerns us to strive hard to become better 17. Let Heads of Families see they defraud not God of his honour nor the Souls of theirs of the means of their Spiritual Life but keep up Family Religion with seriousness life and constancy He that provideth not for his own especially for them of his own houshold hath denied the Faith and is worse than an Infidel 1 Tim. v. 8. He is a Murderer that provides not bread for his Family unless the Providence of God debar him of all opportunity to do it what is he then that never breaks the Bread of Life to them but leaves them to starve and pine away in their iniquities Prayerless Families are Types of Hell O Sirs let no day pass without calling yours together morning and evening and praying praising God with them reading the Scriptures to them exhorting them seriously to remember their Creator and to work out their Salvation and to make their Calling and Election sure How can you think God should bless your Society or your Labours while you call not upon his Name Whence come such quarrellings and discontents such crosses and disappointments such outragious wickednesses and disorders in Families but from this neglect of daily worsh●p Oh therefore take heed how you let the World justle out the daily exercises of Religion that ought to be in your Families For let me tell you All that the World can do for you when you have got the most of it cannot make up the loss of one hours Communion with God What will you say and think then when for it you have shut your selves and yours out from the everlasting enjoyment of God in Heaven 18. Look upon Relative duties as a main part of your daily business as Christians Be well versed therefore in the Scripture-directory for the discharge of them and be sure you make conscience of yielding obedience to it See Eph. v. 22. to chap. vi 6. Col. iii. 18. to iv 2. Let yoke-fellows live together in mutual love and helpfulness Let the Husband excel in Love and walk with his Wife as a man of Knowledge Let the Wife see that there be a Law of kindness in her Lips that she adorn her self with the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit that she be not querulous nor imperious but content with the station Providence has assigned her and the place wherein both the Light of Nature and the written Law of Scripture sets her Let Parents take care for the Children they have been the Instruments of bringing into the World especially for their Souls and to give them Christian Education Let Children honour their Parents reverencing them loving them obeying them requiting them and not despise them when they grow old and their parts decay or they have had what they can hope for from them Let Masters carry to their Servants with a due mixture of love and awe provide them what is needful for the Body and especially be tender of their Souls as knowing they must account to God for the Soul of every Servant that cometh under their Roof And let Servants be humble diligent faithful and let me add silent not carrying tales about from one house to another discovering the secrets of the Family in which they live this is a base property and they that are so glib of their Tongues are seldom fit for any business that requires either skill or industry 19. Take heed of Formality and labour to be sincere in all you do Let not a course of serious Religion seem a drudgery to you but labour to maintain a holy delight in duties All this that I have been telling you will seem to most especially to them that have never been used to any such thing and are wholly strangers to it a great deal Obj. So much reading and praying so much labouring such exact watching of our selves such inspection into ours what all this ado for Salvation Cannot we get to Heaven at cheaper rates than so This is a hard saying who can hear it Sol. But I pray Sirs do not think any of this needless till you know better what work is fit to be appointed you than he that has set you this nor do not condemn this as intolerably hard work till you have tried it Some that have tried it have said they never knew what a pleasant Life meant till then Is it such a terrible hard task for a hungry man to be set to a full Table and be bid eat heartily Or for a man that is dropping into his Grave to be bid drink this pleasant potion and be whole Or for a Condemned Malefactor to be bid thankfully accept his pardon and be set at Liberty Or for a banished man to have leave to return home if he will but converse an hour or two every day with his nearest Relation or his dearest Friend Why such is the task that Sensualists and Hypocrites shrink back so from If men knew what practical Religion were they would equally avoid the opposites and the Counterfeits of it Love would cast out slavish fear And God would be worshipped

purchased for them by his death and how those benefits come to be applyed to the Souls of his chosen Labour to work things down into their hearts and get them to feel what they know This is Gods work but it is to be expected in Conjunction with your endeavour and Children thus initiated betimes rarely do amiss whereas a Child left to himself causeth shame Prov. xxix 15. Dishonours God grieves his Parents and damns himself Infer VIII What great need there is for us to keep the Christian hopes in constant believing view that by them we may be encouraged to so great and difficult work The Just shall live by his Faith Hab. ii 4. Now Faith is the Substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen Heb. xi 1. Moses had respect unto the recompence of reward Heb. xi 26. And our Lord himself endured the Cross and despised the shame for the joy that was set before him Heb. xii 2. Christianity were not the best Religion if it did not propound to us the best Reward and that with the fullest and clearest evidence and we are not Christians if the hope of that reward act us not in our endeavours of conformity to its blessed Precepts So widely are they out that cry down diligence in the Christian Work and Race in expectation of the Rewards of Eternal Glory as mercenary and that talk of quenching Hell and burning Heaven to prove the sincerity of their obedience God help me to obey and suffer for the joy set before me and I doubt not but I shall be for ever in that Heaven where Jesus Christ now is and let those that hope to fare better in new-fangled ways of their own devising let them I say at long run bragg as they speed Man is a creature the very frame and constitution of whose Soul shews him made to be governed by Hopes and Fears And no hopes like those of a happiness compleat and everlasting The Apostolical Canon therefore is Heb. vi 11 12. And we desire that every one of you do shew the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end that ye be not slothful but followers of them who through Faith and Patience inherit the Promises He that will be an Active Useful Exemplary Persevering Christian must clear and settle well his hope of Everlasting Life as that which God who cannot lye hath promised and often review it by believing Meditation nothing quickens nothing supports like this Am I lazing and slugging and moving heavily in the ways of God What a Spur is such a thought as this Do I now act as becomes a Candidate for Eternal Glory an Expectant of Heavenly Felicity Would this pace content me if I now saw Heaven open to my bodily Eyes And is it not equally certain as if I did So when sinking into discouragement when drooping and desponding when horribly afraid of suffering or the like say O my Soul doth this become a Christian a Child of God an Heir a Coheir with Christ What a Kings Son the King of Heavens Son the Heir of a Kingdom and such a Kingdom And thus lean from day to day allusion to 2 Sam. xiii 4. Oh Sirs little do we think what a vigorous Instrument of an holy Life the Christian hope in our Souls would prove were we more careful to get it firmly rooted there and then to maintain it in its lively act and powerful exercise Infer IX How much is it the concernment of all that would be Christians indeed to get right notions of Religion That our Duty is our Interest a real pleasure and advancement to our Souls 'T is wrong conceits of Religion and the nature of the work it puts us upon that scareth so many from it Men will not hear of becoming Religious because they take it to be what it really is not and have no right understanding what indeed it is Men think Religion ties them up from all that is grateful and fills them continually with fear and sorrow and unhinges them for business unfits them for action and calls them to part with all that they at present count valuable and giveth them nothing or next to nothing in exchange This is the notion the World hath commonly of Religion and no wonder if in this dress it appear very terrible and be so far from alluring Lovers that it affright Spectators But I pray you Sirs you that labour under these prejudices come a little nearer and take a better prospect of Religion before you renounce her utterly It may be she is not what you take her for perhaps she hath charms you never yet discovered I hope you will not think it impossible but Solomon might be in the right when he said of Wisdom or true Religion All her ways are ways of pleasantness and all her paths are peace Prov. iii. 17. What if upon enquiry all your Objections against Religion prove calumnies What if upon a true opening of the case your Scruples all vanish and a little light of sober Reason dispel the mists you have endeavoured to benight her with I hope you will then come over to that side which hitherto you have so violently opposed and so malignantly derided Come then and let us reason together If Religion debar you of no true pleasure but call you to exchange sordid and perishing ones for those that are noble and durable will you then become her Votary Why so it is Religion teaches you Temperance in the use of bodily Pleasures which alone gives them their true relish and renders them safe to be enjoyed and which is of more important consideration makes their use consistent with the obtaining of those better Pleasures whereof she allows and offers you freer and fuller draughts and whereof you can never have too much and shall not finally want enough The pleasures of Knowledge and Love are ever perfecting till we come to glory immediately upon our entrance whereunto they are perfected to satisfaction though according to some see the ingenious discourse of a nameless Author called The Future State even there they are in a state of perpetual progress and advance Obj. But it may be you will say Surely Religion cannot be a state of Joy when men pass into it thorow so many fears and sorrows and when the great Author of it hath clad it in mourning saying Blessed are they that mourn Matth. v. 4. Sol. I answer Religion only calleth for so much sorrow as is consistent with or conducive to the greatest joy and debarreth us only of such joys as will end in everlasting sorrows For Religion's taking men off from business or unfitting them for it it is a vain cavil and contradicted by the Experience of all Ages For in every Age some of the most active and eminent have been jointly noted for Religion and for Wisdom Courage and Success in the management of Publick Affairs both in War and Peace as Abraham David Nehemiah and others The truth is Religion in these things changeth not mens natural Tempers and Endowments but taking them as it findeth them improves and perfects them And for what Religion obligeth us to forego it is demonstrable that it calleth us to quit nothing but what may well be spared and for what is not consistent with our happiness giveth us in exchange what is alone constituent of it And if its worst Enemies have no more to say against it but that which is so easily refutable who can wonder if notwithstanding all the scorns of profane wits heavenly Wisdom be still justified of her Children Matth. xi 19. as she will shortly more fully be by her great Author who is able to defend her against all her profane contemners and malignant opposers Infer X. Great cause there is for all such as know by experience how sweet and comfortable a thing it is to be daily taken up in the lively spiritual performance of Religious Exercises to pity and by counsel prayer and example do all they can to help the rest who are the most of Mankind yea of professed Christians that live as without God in the World having neither skill nor will to holy Employments or the due improvement of their Time It is a doleful thing to take a considerate view of the world and think what God made man and placed him upon the Earth for and what we are redeemed for and what large provision of help there is in the Gospel for lost Mankind and yet how few do in any measure answer the end of their Beings or act like persons that have any hope of saving benefit by Jesus Christ Not only the Heathen and Mahometan World and the obstinate Infidel Jews and the Idolatrous persecuting Papists but alas the generality of the Reformed Churches are a sight fit to make a sensible heart bleed abounding so with ignorance profaneness worldliness sensuality corruption in VVorship Church-tyranny Heresies Schisms Divisions Envyings and bitter Zeal that the Tares do in a manner hide the Wheat and the Faith even of good men is sometimes put to stagger at the Promise That the gates of Hell shall not prevail Mat. xvi 18. But oh that we did rather in our places all do our utmost to promote its accomplishment by personal Reformation by fervent Prayer by due instructing and calling upon others and setting them a good Example by mourning for the sins of the Times and pleading with God his Promises for the Remnant of his People If we thus hope and quietly wait for the Salvation of the Lord Lam. iii. 26. we may yet live to see the eminent returns of Prayer and the glorious accomplishment of Prophecies and Promises when Salvation shall be to God's Israel for VValls and Bulwarks Isa xxvi 1. and when Jerusalem's VValls shall be Salvation and her Gates praise Isa Lx. 18. Even so come Lord Jesus come quickly Amen FINIS