Selected quad for the lemma: kingdom_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
kingdom_n	belong_v	great_a	king_n	2,174	5	3.6100	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A59809	A defence and continuation of the discourse concerning the knowledge of Jesus Christ, and our union and communion with Him with a particular respect to the doctrine of the Church of England, and the charge of socinianism and pelagianism / by the same author.	Sherlock, William, 1641?-1707.	1675 (1675)	Wing S3281; ESTC R4375	236,106	546

of time as in order of nature before we are holy and then we may if Christ please as well continue united as at first be united to him without holiness For if neither the nature of the Gospel-Covenant nor the nature of God and Christ hinder such a Union between Christ and bad men while they may be considered as bad then nothing can hinder their continuing bad after they are united to Christ but an arbitrary Decree or an irresistible Power Christ may make them good if he pleases by an Almighty Power but there is no reason can be assigned why he may not as well own them while they continue wicked as receive them into Union with himself while they were considered as such Christ may undertake the cure of bad men as Physicians do the cure of the sick this was the great end of his coming into the world not to call the Righteous but Sinners to repentance but to unite them to himself to receive them into a state of favour and reconciliation to interest them in his Righteousness to make them Heirs of Glory while they are considered as bad in order of nature before they are renewed and sanctified is contrary to the holiness of his Nature to the express declarations of his Gospel and perfectly alters the whole frame of the Christian Religion This gives us a little taste what candour and honesty we may expect from our Author in his ensuing Discourse in the examination of which I shall not confine my self to his method but shall content my self to vindicate my own Discourse of our Union to Christ in that order and method wherein it lies which will give me occasion to consider whatever I am concerned to answer in Mr. Ferguson's Chapter of Union and then his scurrilous reflexions and Childish impertinencies will need no answer The two first Propositions which I laid down in order to explain our Union to Christ are these First That those Metaphors which describe the Relation and Union between Christ and Christians do primarily refer to the Christian Church not to every individual Christian. And secondly That the Union of particular Christians to Christ is by means of their Union to the Christian Church Which Mr. Ferguson tells us Are in his opinion things coincident If by Coincident he means that one follows from the other I readily grant it but if he means that the Propositions are the same which have neither the same subject nor predicate he might have spared his reflexions either upon my Logick or accuracy of Writing as being a very incompetent Judge of either But the Propositions are distinct and proved by different Mediums that which proves the first Proposition does not immediately prove the second though Mr. Ferguson would perswade the world that I had argued at that inconsequent rate and charges my Logick with the miscarriages and failures of his own which was the most effectual way he could take to make it ridiculous And yet after he had charged them with being coincident Propositions which signifie the same thing at the very next turn he is so far from owning them coincident that he will not allow one to be so much as a just consequent from the other For having recited that Paragraph whereby I proved That the Metaphors which describe the Relation and Union between Christ and Christians do primarily refer to the Christian Church not to every individual Christian He adds To this I answer 1. That were this Discourse of our Author framed into a Syllogism the incongruity between the Conclusion and Premises would easily appear For example Christ is the Head of the Church ergo no particular Believer is united to him but by means of their Union with the Church Let us learn then how he disproves it I deny says he the Consequent I suppose he would have said Consequence had he understood the difference of those Logical terms his Reason is this Surely though the King be immediate Head to the whole Kingdom yet he is immediate head to every Individual Person in it As for that word Immediate I shall let it alone till anon but our Author says very right The King is the Head of every Subject as well as of the whole Kingdom and so is Christ the Head of every particular Christian as well as of the whole Church but this is not the thing in Controversie The question is Whether a King who is Head only of his own Kingdom can be said to be the Head of any single Person who is not of his Kingdom and therefore whether such a Person must not first be incorporated into his Kingdom before he can be related to the King as his Head Thus Christ is primarily stiled a Head with reference to his whole Church which is his body and therefore those who are not of this Church and body cannot be related to him as to their Head the only way to be related to Christ as our Head is to be incorporated into his Church which is his body For no head has relation to any members which are not united to its own body But our Author proceeds 2. The Church and its Individual Members being of an Homogenious nature what soever is praedicated essentially of the whole is equally praedicated of every part If by this he only means that Christ may as well be called the Head of particular Christians as of the whole Christian Church I readily grant it though it be nothing to the purpose but the Proposition is the most absurd and senseless that ever was framed A River is a Homogeneous body and yet every drop of water cannot be called a River The Union of several things of the same nature gives them a new denomination which cannot belong to every particular A Kingdom consists of a great many men who are as much of the same Homogeneous nature as men as Christians are as they are Christians and yet every particular man cannot be called a Kingdom The body of Christ consists of a great many particular Christians and yet every Christian is not the body of Christ And besides this it is fulsomly absurd to say that the Church and its Individual Members are of an Homogeneous nature For the Church is an organized body which consists of several Christians who considered as Members are of as different a nature as the hand and eye and foot which are of different use necessity and honour So the Apostle tells us 1 Cor. 12. 12 13 14 c. For as the body is one and hath many members and all the members of that one body being many are one body so also is Christ. And he particularly mentions the Foot and the Ear and the Eye which no man yet thought to be of an Homogeneous nature till Mr. Ferguson blessed the world with this Discovery His third and fourth Arguments proceed upon the same mistake and indeed are the very same in terminis That every member of the body as well as the

effect the Salvation of Mankind But this troubles him too that I say they are the different administrations of this Mediatory Kingdom for says our Author Is an Office an Administration No by no means therefore I say they ought not to be look'd on as different Offices but as different Administrations of the same Supreme Office which comprehends them all But then he would fain know what kind of Totum a Mediatory Kingdom is to the Offices of Prophet Priest and King Why Sir just such a Totum as consists of three parts His mistake which occasions this wondering humour is that he thought a Mediatory Kingdom and the Office of a King to be of equal extent and therefore that the Office of a King could not be contained under a Mediatory Kingdom as a part is contained in the whole Whereas every Puny in Divinity knows that a Mediatory Kingdom is of a larger extent than the meer Office of a King and contains the Prophetical and Priestly Offices under it Which is like another of his mistakes that because as he observes from Doctor Iackson and Doctor Hammond Christ was consecrated to his Priestly Office by his Sufferings and Death therefore he was not consecrated to his Mediatory Office as I assert by being anointed with the Holy Ghost and with Power as if Christ might not have a general Consecration to his Mediatory Office and a particular Consecration to the particular parts of it though Doctor Hammond only says That the Death of Christ was his Consecration to his Melchisedechi an Priesthood but was it self an act of his Aaronical Priesthood But I see the most innocent expressions shall not escape the severest Censures when we have to deal with men who can understand nothing which is out of their common road of phrases Mr. Ferguson draws up a very severe Charge against me upon this score as if I confounded the Offices of Christ and denied his Priesthood and his Expiation and Sacrifice and yet would have the World believe that if he had not been in a very good humour he could have handled me after another rate Truly what his humour is I cannot tell but I am sure that either his Understanding or his Conscience is not very good He takes a great deal of laudable pains to prove that the Offices of Prophet Priest and King though they be not separated in their Subject the Person of Christ yet they are in their Natures Objects Acts and Effects distinguished one from the other But do I any where deny this Because I say that they are several Parts and different Administrations of his Mediatory Kingdom does it hence follow that they are not several Parts and different Administrations That they do not differ in their Natures Acts and Effects As for instance the Paternal Government consists of very different parts as the Education of Children providing Food and Raiment for them correcting them when they do amiss and incouraging their Vertues placing them with prudent Masters and Governours and providing for their future subsistence and the like Now will any man say that there is no difference between feeding Children and correcting them and sending them to School and putting them out to serve an apprentiship to a Trade whereby they may get their Livings because all these do equally belong to a Fathers care and are contained under the general notion of Paternal Government Thus when we say that Christ is a Saviour or which is the same thing a Mediatory King and that the Offices of Prophet Priest and King are but the several Parts and different Administrations of his Mediatory Kingdom that is they are all essential to the Office of a Saviour and included in the notion of it and necessary to the same end the Salvation of Mankind can any man hence reasonably infer that they do not differ in their particular Natures Acts Objects and Effects But Mr. Ferguson proves that I make no difference between Christs Priestly and Kingly Office because I say that Christs offering himself a Sacrifice for Sin was an Act of Kingship But I say no such thing My words are these When he offered himself a Sacrifice for Sin he acted like a King Now can our Author perceive no difference between these two expressions that Christs offering himself a Sacrifice for Sin was an Act of Kingship and When he offered himself a Sacrifice for Sin he acted like a King The first signifies that the nature of his Sacrifice and Oblation consists in the exercise of a Regal Power which indeed confounds his Priestly and Kingly Offices the other only signifies that at the very same time and in that very Act when he offered himself a Sacrifice for Sin he exercised the Power of a King too that is as I explained it that his Life was not taken from him by external force and power but his laying down his Life was an Act of Authority He had power to lay it down and he had power to take it again And I wonder Mr. Ferguson should think it any derogation from our Saviours Power and Authority that he adds This Command have I received from my Father for I would fain know of him what Authority and Power that is which Christ as Mediator has not received from his Father and does not exercise by his Command and in subordination to him A Mediatory Kingdom is a received and subordinate Power it is Obedience with respect to God and Authority and Power with respect to Men. And had this Author been so honest as to have considered what I immediately subjoyn he could not have suspected me of Socinianizing or of confounding the Priestly and Kingly Office viz. Herein Christ differs from other Kings that he laid the Foundation of his Kingdom in his own Blood that he purchas'd and redeem'd his Subjects with the Sacrifice of himself Such another mistake one may observe in our Author when he makes me to say That the Sacerdotal Office is only a part and different Administration of the Regal Whereas I never thought that the Sacerdotal Office was part of the Regal Office but that the Priestly and Kingly and Prophetical Offices were several Parts and different Administrations of the Mediatory Kingdom And when I affirm that they were several parts of the Mediatory Kingdom I had not so little wit in the same breath to affirm that they were parts of each other which is a down-right contradiction but I see our Author with all his Learning cannot distinguish between a Kingly Office and a Mediatory Kingdom In the like manner he arraigns me for a Socinian for asserting that Intercession signifies the Administration of Christs Mediatory Kingdom the Power of a Regal Priest to expiate and forgive sins Though either our Author is very ignorant or cannot but know that what I there assert has no affinity with the Socinian Notion for I expresly attribute the Virtue and Efficacy of his Intercession to the Expiation and Sacrifice of