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	govern_v	king_n	2,454	5	3.7709	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A23666	The grand errour of the Quakers detected and confuted Shewing how they contradict God's method of directing men to salvation by following that light within which comes by outward teaching, by their directing them to seek it by following that light within which is wrought without external teaching by the scriptures or by men. Wherein those beings are considered likewise, which have betrayed them into delusion. By W.A.	Allen, William, d. 1686.	1680 (1680)	Wing A1065A; ESTC R215685	63,983	140

the Concurrence and Co-operation of several Causes to the producing of the same Effect as there usually is in God's working savingly upon men As men are said in Scripture to be born of God to be born of the Spirit so they are said to be born of the Immortal Seed of the Word 1 Pet. 1.23 Because that is God's Instrument Of his own Will begat he us by the Word of Truth Jam. 1.18 And the Gospel is the Ministration of the Spirit and the Sword of the Spirit as it is called because it is the great Instrument or Means by which the Spirit doth its Work upon men Indeed the Work of Grace in men is most properly attributed to God to Christ though other Causes concur to the producing of that Effect because he is the principal Cause of it and all other but subordinate and yet the Effect is sometimes attributed to subordinate and second Causes also though less properly Thus Christ the principal Cause of it is said to be The Light of the World the Light of men because he by his Gospel as the Author of it discovers and reveals to them a future everlasting Happiness attainable in another World and the way to it and yet the Gospel it self yea the Apostles and Pastors and Christian Professors are also said to be the Light of the world as subordinate Causes under Christ of the Illumination of men in the knowledge hereof Mat. 5.14 2 Cor. 4.4 Phil. 2.15 16. All which had you well considered you would never have opposed mens being enlightened and taught by Christ as ye do to their being taught by the Scriptures or by men and all because forsooth the Illumination of men is attributed to Christ This very thing here suggested to you would in great part reduce you and set you to rights if you could be but willing to receive and own that for truth which cannot without great absurdity and contradiction to the Scriptures be denied But for want of distinguishing between things and things which in some respect seem to be the same but in other respects greatly differ you run your selves into Error and great Absurdities I will upon this occasion instance in another thing not much unlike to that but now mentioned wherein you greatly mistake for want of distinguishing and that is touching the Presence of Christ in men For because the Scriptures speak of Christ's being in men and because Christ is God and God euery where present and so in all men from these thus jumbled together you infer that therefore Christ is in all men and that being so you farther infer that all men are taught by him himself immediately without external Teaching In doing of which you confound things together which are distinct to the darkning of them in your understandings and the misguiding you in Judgment You do not distinguish as you ought to do between the Essential Presence of Christ as God and his Virtual Presence as Mediator God-man For although Christ as God is present to every man in the exercise of common Providence in the world My Father worketh hitherto and I work saith he John 5.17 yet in respect of his Virtual Presence as Mediator as when he rules and operates in mens hearts by his Authority and by the Evangelical Law in this sence which yet is doubtless the sence in which Christ is said in Scripture to be in men and to dwell in them I say in this sence he is not in all men For men are said to be without Christ until they are converted to Christianity Eph. 2.12 And it is by Faith which only some and not all men have that Christ dwells in any mans heart Eph. 3.17 It is by that Faith that his Authority in his Doctrine and Law is owned and where that 's sincerely owned there Christ is said to dwell Not that Christ as Mediator God-man dwells personally in men for in that sence and respect he dwells in Heaven and is at the right hand of the Majesty on high And therefore as Teacher of his Church he doth not teach men now immediately in person but by his Gospel which he sends to them by which he enlightens them in the way of Salvation Ye do therefore err not knowing or understanding the Scriptures while you attribute those effects to the Essential Presence and immediate operation of Christ in men which are wrought by him indeed but it is by the Instrumentality and Agency of second Causes the Gospel and the Ministration thereof by men I wish that by these Instances you could be made sensible of your great weakness in despising Distinctions as if they were but effects of Carnal Reason and Fleshly Wisdom for sith Words that are the same in sound are often used to signifie things of a different Nature and words different in sound to signifie things of the same Nature instances of which the Scripture abounds with they must of necessity be perpetually liable to Error and gross Mistakes that throw away Distinctions as useless which is your own case in many other things besides these now instanced in Since then it was God's Method in the Apostles dayes to bring men to salvation by believing and obeying the Doctrine preached by them as I have shewed It is marvellous that any that pretend to know any thing in Christianity should deny this Doctrine to be the Rule of Faith and Christian Practice whenas that 's the very end and Reason of the promulgation of it to direct men what to believe and do that they might be saved and to excite them to believe and do accordingly When St. Paul saith Whereto we have attained let us walk by the same Rule doth he not by Rule mean the Apostles Doctrine whenas in the next words he proposeth himself that lived according to what he taught as an example for them to follow Phil. 3.16 17. It was the great commendation of the primitive Christians that they continued stedfastly in the Apostles Doctrine Acts 2.42 And St John said Whosoever transgresseth and abideth not in the Doctrine of Christ hath not God And to transgress sure is to swerve from the Rule 2 John 9. This Doctrine of Christ is called the Gospel of the Kingdom Mat. 4.23 and 9.35 and 24.14 For it is that Rule by which Christ our King doth rule and govern his Subjects both in Heart and Life as the Laws of the Land are the Rule according to which Earthly Kings do govern theirs The Sum and Substance of the Doctrine which the Apostles preached one as well as another and in one place as well as another is called The Form of Sound Words 2 Tim. 1 13. The Principles of the Doctrine of Christ Heb. 6. And this Form of Doctrine was delivered to the Christians to rule and govern themselves by Rom. 6.17 But now have obeyed from the heart that Form of Doctrine which was delivered to you And it was so much a Rule to them that they were commanded to mark and

own hearts in this business you would find that the meaning of your crying down all other Teachers is that yours alone might be exalted But if your Teachers or any among you do see and know the inconsistency of these your Pretences and Practices and yet use the Pretences for a blinde to hide the designe from the people it is then a perfect peice of There is another thing like unto this you say those that are taught of God need not that the Scripture should teach them and that all men are taught of God by his Light within them and yet it seems you think that men have need to be taught by your Books though they have no need to be taught by the Scriptures else why is the World troubled with so many of them The Pharisees made void the Commandments of God that they might establish their own Traditions and it looks but untowardly that while you represent the Holy Scripture as such a needless thing that you at the same time have sent out such a croud of your own Books as you have done And if you would have the people believe that they proceed from the same teaching of the Spirit as the Books of the Holy Scriptures do what shall the people then do when they find them to contradict one another as they may easily do if they will but do as the noble Bereans did who searched the Scriptures daily whether those things were so which were preached to them in the Name of the Lord. As in the present case before us the Scripture plainly teacheth one method of bringing men to Salvation and your books another Ed. Burrough in his book teacheth that that is not the body of Christ which was not with the Father before the World began p. 465. But the Scripture teacheth that in the fulness of time God sent forth hi Son made of a Woman Gal. 4.4 Which of these two now must the people believe or which of these must be the rule to try the other by your Books or the Holy Scriptures I pray you speak out and tell the people plainly For if the Scriptures be true as you dare not deny but they are than your Books in such things as contradict them must be false and consequently not the Issue of the infallible Spirit as you would have the world believe they are But though we or an Angel from Heaven Preach any other Gospel unto you than that which we have Preached unto you let him be accursed said St. Paul Gal. 1.8 I have been the longer upon the Point of your Enthusiasm by which you have set up a new method of your own in opposition to God's method of bringing men to the Christian belief and Life because I deem it a Mother and a Master-Error to many others which you hold And therefore have good hopes that if you could but be cured of this you would be in a hopeful way of being cured of the rest which depend on it with less difficulty Having therefore been so long upon this beyond what I first intended I shall draw towards a conclusion of this address to you not engageing in particular with the rest of your mistakes But before I make an end I would caution you touching two or three things which among others may probably have had a large share in introducing you into this strange mistake § 20. The one is an opinion or conceit that the Gospel is a more mysterious thing than indeed it is It is true there are things in the Gospel called a Mystery the Mysterie of God's will the Mystery of Christ the Mystery of Faith the Mystery of Godliness and to you saith Christ to the Disciples 't is given to know the Myeries of the Kingdom of God and the like Upon occasion of all which and the like expressions in Scripture Some people have fancied that there is something else necessary to make a man a true Christian indeed than what is obvious to vulgar apprehensions and easie to be understood as other matters are And therefore they have been wont to esteem a plain and familiar way of teaching the Doctrine of repentance and the necessity of obedience to the Law of God together with a belief that Christ dyed for our sins and rose again according to the Scriptures to be but a dry and legal way of Preaching And those that have vented high Speculations and almost or altogether unintelligible notions and new coined Phrases and expressions concerning the work of God in the Soul and of Union with Christ and Communion with God of living by faith and walking in the Spirit these they have accounted Evangelical Preachers and such preaching and discourses in conference to be truly Spiritual and those to be Spiritual Christians that are of this make And because this way obtained a great reputation among a great many of Christian Professors many persons have been tempted hereby to proceed so far from one thing to another in this way both allegorizing Scriptures of plain import and turning plain points of Doctrine and of great concern into Mystical speculations until they have made another thing of the plain Doctrine of the Gospel than Christ made it And this seems to be directly your Case who in this way are come at last to turn the plain and intelligible method of God's proceeding with men to bring them to the Christian belief and Life and so to salvation into Enthusiastical Fancies Airy Notions and speculations Such is your conceited Mistery of of the inward Flesh of Christ in contradistinction to the Flesh of the Veil as you phrase it as if Christ had two kinds of Flesh one hid under another by which you trouble yea utterly confound the true Notion of Christ's humane Nature and the great effects which the Scripture attributes to the Flesh or humane Nature of Christ those you attribute to a meer fiction which you call the inward Flesh a thing altogether forraign to the Scripture an error doubtless of a very high nature Such also is your spiritualizing Baptism and the Lords Supper to the exclusion of their literal use and to the disparagement of his wisdome and goodness that ordained them as well as to the contempt of his Authority which hath enjoined the use of them for the ends for which they were first instituted Such likewise is your invented Mistery of the Redemption of the Seed ●in men for the Scripture speaks of no such thing but of the Redemption of men themselves This mistake about the Mysteriousness of the Christian Religion hath I fear had a bad influence upon and produced ill effects in some others as well as your selves who perhaps have not been yet carried so far out of the way by it as you have been Whereas those things that are absolutely necessary for men of all capacities to know believe and do in order to their Salvation are delivered in the Gospel with great plainness and easiness to be understood even of those of meanest