Selected quad for the lemma: kingdom_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
kingdom_n	call_v	day_n	time_n	2,672	5	3.4765	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A74960	The cause of God, and of these nations sought out, and drawn forth from the rubbish of the lusts and interests of men, and lifted up into sight and view for all the upright in heart to follow it. Wherein is shewed, what our cause was. What opportunity we had for it. How miserably it has been deserted. What was the cause of that desertion. The spiritual judgment that is already upon the desertors. With a word of encouragement to all the faithful, and persevering friends of it.		1659 (1659)	Wing C1533; Thomason E968_11; ESTC R207703	35,047	47

birth it should not have gone back again For when God will work who can lett therefore sure that was not the time and therefore we are guilty of no such A postacy as you charge us nor his late Highnesse of turrning his back upon the Designs of Heaven Ans The Kingdom of God was not onely at the Door and come to the Birth but it is born into the World and is among us though as a Kingdome of Patience Know ye not what our Saviour said of himself and of his Kingdom Luk. 17.25 It shall indeed come as irresistably as the light and as generally and it shall be as evident and conspicuous as the light but first must he suffer many things and be rejected of this Generation It is no Argument that the time is not because men reject the Kingdom The Kingdom hath its time to suffer as well as triumph to suffer before it triumph The Son of Man must be betrayed before he be inthroned but woe unto that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed though it be the fulfilling of the Counsell of God So the Kingdom must be rejected of this Generation What Generation why mark who put the Question unto our Saviour vers 20. The Pharisees the strictest Sect of Religious persons among the Jews the Generation we have been describing in the foregoing Discourse The Kingdom of God could not be rejected if it did not make its appearance All men court Christ at a distance and court the Kingdom of God in the Notion in the Prophecy of it they do not reject it there but when it comes not coming in their way with observation and outward shew they reject it coming not in the wise in the mighty in the noble in the learned but Christ riding on an Asse coming in Fishermen in the people that knew not the Law this was the Offence and is the Offence at this day I have heard with my ears in the time of the little Assembly some of that Assembly say into whose hands perhaps this may come I pray the Lord they may consider it and repent for they are now of another mind That if they did not think and believe there were some better and greater thing at the bottom in the design of Providence calling them together then meerly to go upon an outward settlement they would not continue at that work a day longer such convictions and awakenings of the Kingdom of God its being at hand were upon some Spirits that do now steer another Course But to return To what uncomfortable and dangerous waies and policies this disobedience did subject his late Highnesse is lamentable to consider sometimes to court this party sometimes that now with the Cavaliers then with the Presbyterians Then when they galled him turn to his old friends and speak kindly to tender consciences living upon the wrack all his daies which made him in all probability seek his peace in forreign designs with the noise and reputation thereof to drown the noise of Conscience at home which was still gnawing at the Root Then Anti-Christ must be conquered and the Spanish power that upholds him Until at last these continuall strivings and fightings within brought him down into his Grave The Lord knows I mention not this to bring up a blot upon his Memory nor to insult over his Ashes He that shall do so considers not that He was set forth unto us as a Mirrour of humane frailty Therefore be not high minded but fear and that it was not his personall ambition or other Evils but our sins in association together that both gave him up to that temptation and us to that subjection wherein certainly he was equally unhappy with us to be the Person that should take away that liberty that He had been imployed to purchase for us and to have all this ruine befall us under his hand As for his sin it is to God but the use of these things is to us and upon no other account do I repeat them CHAP. VI. A farther and more full Character of that Spirit in many great Pretenders that knew not our Cause nor indeed served it but serv'd themselvs of it And a witnesse against them BUt why do I speak of the Cause of God when most of us are ignorant of it and far from righteousnesse as the Prophet speaks The Cause of God is a divine thing and as the day of God Who may abide it Is it our ease our peace our liberty our promotion our pleasures our Interests Nothing lesse The Cause of God is that which searches and tryes and burns up all these is an enemy to all these in that carnall and dark way of understanding possessing and injoying of them which men imagine The Cause of God is that indeed which hath health pleasure deliverance and salvation in it for every Creature rightly understood and truly advanced and subjected unto but of all that we have done God may justly say Did ye it at all to Me Did ye take away the Bishops at all to me No ye did it to your selves and ye have feasted your selves with their flesh their lands their revenues Yea their power and Jurisdiction so far as for shame ye may ye do joyfully exercise over your Brethren When ye took off the King's head did ye do it at all to me No It was to your selves that ye might be absolute and supream your selves And hath not the Event shewed it When ye abolished the House of Lords did ye it at all to me Are ye not mad to set it up again So that why do we inquire after particulars wherein we have gone astray when we have gone astray from the womb from our first birth and setting forth in this Cause we have acted from a gentile principle from self preservation for self ends and advantages from stomach and revenge because we suffered and were eclipsed by the former powers Now the Wrath of man works not the Righteousnesse of God the Apostle tels us we were never subjected to God in those Rods that were upon us we could not lay down our lives and take them up again as Christ we fullfil'd our own lust and were set to save our own lives in all we did This is far from the righteousnesse of God And this may be infer'd not only from the State we wrought in which was dark and legal and fleshly as that of old Israel but from those Characters of wavering uneavennesse and uncertainty which accompanied all our Actings Hence we were for the King and against the King for treating and then for breaking off for carrying on the Cause and now for carrying it back thus bringing upon our selves all the blood that hath bin shed in the Land both on the one side and one the other whereas the righteousnesse of God is a steady thing is not yea and nay puls not down to set up the same again The righteousness of God judges things in their root and principle be

had the leading forth and management of all But when that Spirit had done its work and gone as far as it could goe which was to cut downe that Spirit and work that was more unrighteous then it self wherein God owned them and was assistant to them then other work of another and far different Nature appeared unto which this Spirit that had acted so strenuously and successfully all this while did bear no proportion which yet was the end that God had and still hath in his eye as the Crowne and advantage of all that Preparatory dispensation which was frequently in the mouths of many and they called it building work How often was the late Protector while General heard to say If ye have any more rough and breaking work for us to do We are ready but how to build or to lay one stone aright we have no knowledge Now was the time for faith to have been brought into exercise and to have looked up for another Spirit to take the work into its own hands to have resigned and given up to Him which Spirit was amongst us and not improbably was discerned to be growing upon us but men were afraid of it and could not trust themselves with it God ordering things so that it appeared in much weaknesse and unlikelinesse of the flesh and so was despised and rejected by the Builders Many stumbling blocks also of strange Spirits and principles being permitted to come forth with it so that then had been the time for men to have thought seriously of that Commonition of our Saviour Blessed is he that is not offended in me This work was the work of God which he hath been carrying on through all ages even the setting up his Son upon his holy hill of Sion This was that which God did but justly expect at our hands That he having subdued all our enemies for us and broken and put down all powers that stood in the way we should according to our many foregoing seeming promises and professions have acknowledged these Nations to be his and have given them up to be ruled and governed by him and this Rule must have been given forth and when ever it appears it shall proceed out of Sion from the Lords own Spirit in his poor broken Crucified ones whose earthly wisdom is brought into subjection by the Crosse of Christ to the Heavenly wisdom which is foolishness with the world whose weapons are not carnal but spiritual mighty through God The wisdom that is from above which is first pure then peaceable gentle easy to be entreated full of mercy and good fruits without partiality and without hypocrisie But the Master-builders reject this corner-stone and thinking scorn to deliver up the work to this Spirit and to be out at any thing though never so hard and difficult having had the Van all this while they could not fall in the Rear having had the guardianship of the Heir they were loath to part with it and to set up their younger Brother Must our sheaves bow to His Therefore they take up a Manly resolution having some convictions upon them of the right that Christ hath to the Kingdom 's of this World they could not down right deny him and therefore in part admitting his title they are only sollicitous to have as great a share with him as may be and therefore they will blunder upon the work as well as they may and they will square and model out the Government of Christ for him and so they call a number of Persons together of all sorts of judgments and interests which they chose with as much discretion as they had of such as were most likely to be friendly to this Mongrel Idea of a Kingdom partly Christs and partly this Worlds This so far as man can guels was the very Constitution of the thoughts and designs of the late Protector in Calling the little Assembly after the dissolution of the Long Parliament wherein he was upon this advantage with many honest people That he undertook this business not till such time as the forementioned Spirit and interest of Christ had been very much rejected and hardly intreated by the Builders in Parliament who had troubled some honest men and threatned a further storm upon tender Consciences What claim the Lord Jesus did then lay to the Government of these Nations in the very heart and conscience of the then Protector His Speech to that Assembly some passages whereof have been since quoted by others may testifie and how it was entertained the sequel will shew For though this Heterogeneous mixt Assembly were not found of wisdom and moderation sufficient to manage things according to the Platform in the head of the Designers yet they served to give the Protector a colourable ground and advantage to reject the thoughts of the Kingdom of Christ or the Rule of Saints having now tryed them and found such an improportionateness in them to such a work which some say was that which was sought and designed by him in the beginning We need not be so uncharitable to surmize that it is enough and too much that there was that ready and at hand to lay hold on this advantage to put Christ by the Throne as unfit to sit there And now having taken this offence without any remorse or regret of mind that generation of men turn their backs upon the the Kingdom of Christ and usurp the Grant of a longer Lease for a Kingdom of this World The Heir is an Idiot and He must have a Guardian a Protector Here was the first stone of Jericho laid again Now did they set themselves from that very day to build again the things they had destroyed How far and how fast the World recovered again after this in the space of five years I think can hardly be paralell'd by the Declensions of any time though some were to the last so * Of which number the Author confesseth himself to be one foolish as to hope the Protector did but put on a Disguise in all these Complyances with worldly Interest and that he would when he saw his opportunity throw off this Mantle and come forth in his own true Spirit which was hoped was to exalt Jesus Christ in the head of all If therefore it be demanded why we did not lift up our voice sooner and restify against this Apostacy in the life-time of his late Highnes The Answer is ready That with great longsuffering we did wait hoping better things looking ever when the Scene would change especially in every Crisis of Affairs the Lord hiding these dark Counsels from many untill the event and issue declared them of what sort they were But now God hath made them so manifest that he that runs may read and it is that which is due to his works to take notice of them and to sanctifie his Name which is holy in them Object But if the Kingdome of Christ was indeed at the door and come to the