Selected quad for the lemma: kingdom_n
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A47416
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A sermon on the 30th of January, being the day on which that sacred martyr, King Charles the First, was murdered by John King, D.D. ...
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King, John, D.D.
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1661
(1661)
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Wing K509; ESTC R22466
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26,669
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96
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thus employed is no longer bare and common Oyle but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the gifâ— of Grace which however vilified by Enthusiastiques and Solifidians betokens the Grace 〈◊〉 Christ unto Kings and prescribe necessary submission and duty unto their Subjects We are not whatever phantastique men may presume â—o spirituall in this life but that we stand in need of outward representations to carry on our faith and hope unto things spirituall the greatest favours unto lapsed mankind are the Sacraments where the visible and corporeall Elements are the meanes to convey by faith spirituall graces and the whole benefit of Christs sufferings unto us the sublimated and metaphysicall Professours of our times endeavour too irreverent a close with Almighty God they will have no King but Christ no Unction but that of the Spirit which is not that sober peaceable Spirit that leadeth into all truth but the Spirit of giddinesse Elihu's spirit the spirit of their belly which leadeth into all errour Carnal interests constraining them to shake off Gods Government in Princes to effect which the most compendious way is to throw all Ceremony which is unto Religion as the Scaberd unto the Sword to preserve it from the rust of contempt as Saint Augustinâ— speaks The sacred regards of Unction of King of Priest of Prophet of Churches of Tythes stand betwixt them and their sacrilegious ends they must be removed no railes or bounds must be set unto them they will up into the Mount and run the hazard if not of temporall flames yet certainly without hearty repentance of the Everlasting burnings These men who will be solely swayed by the guidance of their own spirit which being as various as the severall tempers of the Continents it inhabits will make Religion full of uncertainties meerly imaginary and wholly depending upon the doubtfull Insufficiencies of mens weak Conceptions so that hereby the essentiall truths of Religion must needs daily decay the substance thereof be reduced into the smoake of every mans unbounded Fancy and the Christian faith will die by degrees But Unction puts Gods Dominion into the Kings hands that must not be resisted for it is the resisting of God himselfe It is the very language of the Holy Ghost unto the â—en revolted Tribes that they resisted thâ— Kingdome of God in the hands of the Sonnes of David and Josephus assignes this the Cause of the subversion of them no memory of them being left The sedition saith he that they moved against Rehoboam establishing hiâ— Servant for their King was the originall of their mischiefs Ammon was a most wicked and idolatrous Prince yet God punished the Treason of his Servants against him because he was Gods Anointed Many sacred regards are by Unction conveyed from God unto Princes great cause then had the Prophet and people of Judah to lament the death of their good King Josiah The Anointed of the Lord That he was fallen into their pits 3. Of whom we said Vnder the shadow of his wings we shall live among the Heathen King Josiah his regall prerogatives and personall vertues were a protection unto his people he was the fountaine of their liberty and safety The happinesse of Subjects depends upon the wel-being of their Kings and the preservation of the Regall dignity is a sure pledge of Gods goodnesse the continuance of his favour unto a people for this cause is it that when the Apostle had exhorted that prayers should be made for all men 1 Tim. 2.1 as though this precept were too universall he reduceth it v. 2. unto Kings and adds the reason that ye may lead a quiet and peaceable life and for the same cause did the Prophet command the Israelites to pray for the King of Babylon Nebuchadnezzar This consideration also made Davids Subjects apprice his life at so high a rate is not now thy life worth ten thousand of ours The King is the Head of the people there is a sacred and neare relation betwixt them a disease or paine in the Head causeth a discrasie in the whole body an indisposition throughout all the members So the calamity and sufferings of the King affecteth every conscientious man in his Kingdome this honest zeale and pious sympathy between thâ— Heâ—d 〈…〉 the King and the people made our Prophet and the men of Judah so passionately bewaile the losse of their good King Josiah they promised unto themselves a lasting security in this life Of whom we said Under the shadow of his wings we shall live among the Heathen Gods grant of Regall prerogatives unto Josiah afforded not onely protection as the Hen gathereth her Chickens under her wings our Saviours allusion to defend them from the Birds of prey but a strength also and vigorous warmth to make them grow up unto an ability to guard themselves and dwell with safety among the Heathen the known Enemies of their Nation and profession when then this Royall Oake was cut down and they deprived of the thriving benefits of its shelter their sorrows must needs plentifully spring up from the sense of so great and irrepaâ—â—able a losse and the fear of those stormes which now threatned to overturne their felicity But the depth of this sorrow was not to be fathomed when they found the bottomlesse Abysse of their own sinnes the head thereof that notwithstanding the great priviledges of Josiah's Regall dignity and pieâ—y that the fiercenesse of Gods greater wrath was so kindled against Judah that the Lord said I will remove Judah out of my sight as I have removed Israel and therefore that his fury without obstruction or let might be powred out upon them God suffers the breath of their Nostrils the Anointed of the Lord of whoâ— they said Under the shadow of his wings they should live among the Heathen Good King Josiah the life of their Religion Law he who was empowred by God with the Supreme Authority had a divine grant of humane Indemnity and Inviolability their righteous Justicer their Physitian their nursing Father their Protectour and the great Conservator of their Liberty and Safety To fall into their pits to die by the hands of his Adversaries being the second consideration in the Text. 2. The breath of our Nostrils c. was taken in their pits Here is the nulling of Gods letters patents and the grant of Regall prerogatives and beneficiall priviledges made unto King Josiah by a violent death God for the punishment of the people of Judah's sinnes takes away their pious Prince by the power of his Enemies The force of the relation betwixt the head and the members the King and the People is the true reason why God punisheth the best of Kings with temporall judgments for the offences of his Subjects as here in Josiah The anger of the Lord was moved against Israel and he moved David to number the people 2 Sam. 24.1 The divine Justice vindicated that sin of the King upon the people for whose
most active resolved Enemies in his power did he dismisse with our Saviours caveat unto the blind man Sinne no more His Majesty in this divine clemency which yet some interpreted a cruelty unto Himselfe imitating the Father of mercies who maketh the Sunne of his favour equally to shine upon the just and unjust being so farre from procuring or desiring the death of his Enemies unto which he wanted not inciting animosities from others that he often wished that he could recover those that were already dead Neither are there wanting egregious Monuments of his Kingly munificence and liberality the great acquisitions of his Servants under him shew it from many of whom notwithstanding he had the unhappy returnes of ingratitude desertion and disloyalty And as unto his own Servants he was munificent so especially unto those who were set apart for the service of God whom with those religious Kings Hezekiah Josiah and Constantine he encouraged by giving the portion of God and our pious Auncestors unto them to recover which out of the hands of sacrilegious persons he used many pious endeavours and propounded Compensations which would onely have entrenched upon his owne profit when former Grants from the Crowne of Impropriations for years determined His Majesty alwaies restored them unto the Church conceiving his best and most royall right unto the Goods of the Church which he was otherwise by the Lawes of this Realme invested of to be that of Patronage and Disposition and from this Princely munificence doe I with all the devotion of an humble and hearty thankfulnesse acknowledge to have received a particular encouragement in my profession This nursing Father of the Church knew the best way to support that was by Church maintenance so that by his bounty the Churches in the three Kingdomes were lifted up out of the mire of contemptible poverty and Clergy-men of noted piety and greatest abilities of learning daily increased so that setting aside some few either illiterate wandâ—ing cockbrain'd discontented or unconscionable Levites who were in the great reserve of the sacrilegious and rebellious Jeroboams of our time to secure those two Calves of their Government and Worship which they fought for no Kingdomes of the World were beautified with so many Lights of learning and piety as these Kingdomes Observe the divine graces of this glorious King the unmoveable stability of his faith a firme Rocke which no stormes of popular rage no swelling surges of the multitude nor all the proud billowes of his insulting Adversaries could alter or unsettle in his pious purpose to preserve the Protestant Religion and the Lawes of this Realme how great was the intention of his sacred hope and of what exceeding latitude was his charity which included and enclosed his fiercest and most mortall Enemies But the lively features and faire lineaments of his graces and virtues are best and more largely drawn out by his owne Pencill His works praise him in the Gate his writings present unto us the heavenly pourtraicture of his divine large and grasping Soule these what they are wanting in volume recompensing an hundred fold in worth are the Repertory of all his Actions and the truest Index of his virtues that Book is the quintessence of knowing zeal the store-house of the ripe choice fruits of Christian piety there are the principles of Religion perfectly digested into holy practice there is the true Princely Image of King Charles that Golden Manuall being a stately building of Meditations Consultations Essayes Debates and Devotions raised upon emergent occasions with such judicious artifice of grace adorned with so rich furniture of piety enlarged with so many faire roomes and convenient receipts for grace that it shews his Body was the Temple of the Holy Ghost that there was no corner or vacuity in his great and glorious Soul I doubt not without the height of an Hyperbole to affirme that in what we have of this holy Kings draught we are abundantly repaired in the losse of Solomons physiques for here is a shop full of heavenly medicines for all the maladies of the soule by so much then is their sinne the greater whose malice hath deprived us of those other later pieces of His Majesty What already we have is the greatest monument of piety of any Kings after theirs whose writings become authentique from God as being Pen-men of his own divine dictates since the Creation and shall have continuall and unwearied travailes made unto it in all Languages and Kingdomes by all Men and Women who know love and honour piety prudence and all divine and morall graces and virtues every of which hath its severall atchievement and particular Trophy erected in this one work which will be as long liv'd as Time I conclude this short and generall survey of His Majesties personall virtues worthy of a just Volume and exceeding the limits of a Sermon with that Eulogy and Honour of Praise given unto Constantine the Great by Eusebius he was most deare unto God and proposed by him a great and excellent example of an holy and religious life for all mens imitations The memory of his piety and glorious reputation of his virtues shall be for ever precious and whatever Dogs barke against it alwaies remaine a fixed and shining Starre of the greatest magnitude in the firmament of Honour And thou carnall Prophet who walkest by the light of thine own eyes and callest thy darknesse light thou who as the Jewes unto our Saviour didst reach the Vinegar and Gall unto Gods Anointed in the Agony of his sufferings offered'st that false furious and forc'd application of Scriptures which thy counsels must fill up with an interpretation as the event shewes know that there is a lying and seducing Spirit in thee that thâ—u wrestest the Scripture unto thine owne damnation thou Sorcerer and chief Witch of these times full of all subtility and all mischief thou child of the Devill thou Enemy of all righteousnesse wilt thou not cease to pervert the right wayes of the Lord Thy Epicurean and sublunary Divinity cannot admit that a violent death should be a singular testimony of Gods favour yet here thou seest it in Josiah wilt thou have all temporall judgments to be punishments due unto sinne will not thy triumphant wickednesse let thee know that some afflictions are for Tryals and the additions of grace and glory unto Gods Children and therefore the chief marks of Gods favour As in our gracious King Charles who was also taken away from the evill to come in Gods mercy unto him which thou even thou unto the shame and confusion of thy face although thou hast hardned it shalt see in the approaching day of Englands calamity which in a great part is procured and hastned by thy infernall counsels thou needst not to have given that Scripture such a violent stretch so to streine it as to make it reach from Assyria unto England or to travaile so farre for a reason why