Selected quad for the lemma: kingdom_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
kingdom_n	certain_a	king_n	time_n	2,645	5	3.5256	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A51515	The mount of spirits that glorious and honorable state to which believers are called by the Gospel explained in some meditations upon the 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24 verses of the 12th chapter to the Hebrews : with some previous reflections upon that whole Epistle and the people of the Jews.	Wolseley, Charles, Sir, 1630?-1714.	1691 (1691)	Wing M2970; ESTC R32126	106,065	208

comes to no more then arguing from a bare possibility against a plain matter of fact to the contrary The prophesies and promises that concern the Restoration and Conversion of the Jews are not to be reckoned as fulfilled and accomplished from any possibilities or probabilities that they might be so in any age that were to trifle with God's veracity but from an actual specifical execution and performance The ten Tribes I acknowledge were within the Dominions of Cyrus and by that decree might have returned but 't is certain in fact the Body of them did not and that is easily supposed in the general because we find those that had been but a few Years setled in Babylon were loath to return and much more might the ten Tribes that were at so great a distance and when the two Tribes came out of Babylon had been setled in those remote parts very near two hundred Years and all those dead long before that knew the Country and had been personally removed from thence and that they did not return is possitively proved from Ezra 2. v. 1. And from Neh. 7. and the 6th Verse where 't is expresly said those Jews that returned into Palestine were those that had been carried away by Nebuchadnezzar and we are further assured they consisted only of the two Tribes because they took account of them and registred them by their Genealogies and Families and so they were returned every one to their own City and 't is said they came to Judah every one to their own City Esdras was one of them that returned out of Babylon and by his second Book it plainly appears so far as his Authority goes that they reckoned the ten Tribes to remain then in their captivity and shews how they had setled themselves there and those that then lived must needs know that matter True it is that from the Decree in the first Year of Cyrus to the sixth Year of Darius Nothus when the Temple was finished was 46 Years so long was it e're the Temple was compleated reckoning besides the times of its actual building those of the stops and intervals that interposed and to that the Jews relate when they told our Saviour Forty six Years was this Temple in building during which time some few scattered Jews belonging to the ten Tribes that had fled upon Shalmaneser's conquest into the adjacent parts returned into Palestine but it does not appear that they were of any other Tribes but those of Ephraim and Manasseh but this was so inconsiderable a thing in respect of the return of the whole ten Tribes that in Ezra and Nehemiah no notice at all is taken of it and the building of the City and the Temple and re-peopling the Country is wholly ascribed to the two Tribes that went out of Babylon Now no Man can think if he would that if that vast body of the ten Tribes had been then restored but that they would have had a great hand in resetling that Country and eminent mention would have been made by the Holy Ghost of it So that 't is plain the body of the ten Tribes setled by Shalmaneser by the River Gozan and in the Cities of the Medes came not back upon Cyrus his Decree but in the wise and secret Providence of God were reserved for a more glorious Restoration which is yet to come From the rebuilding the Temple till our Saviour's time there is not the least intimation in any story of the return of the ten Tribes In Ahasuerus's time they were dispers'd all over the Persian Empire that is plain from what Haman said to King Ahasuerus in the third of Esther There is a certain people speaking of the Jews scattered abroad and dispersed among the people in all the provinces of thy kingdom And I think 't is utterly impossible to find any Call or Conversion of them to this day such as is prophesied of and St. Paul tells us of such a body as those Ten Tribes must needs consist of could be never called or restored without filling the World with a very great Story since our Saviour's time we hear of nothing but Judgments upon that People of their Slaughter and Ruine by Titus Trajan Adrian and other Emperors but not a word of any Restoration or general Conversion of the body of the ten Tribes that were carried so far eastward some speak much of the flourishing of the Christian Religion in Judea and about Jerusalem in and after Constantine's time but that did not arise what ever it was from the number of Christian Jews there so much as from the great conflux of other Christians that came from all Parts and many of them setled their Dwellings there with respect to the holy Sepulchre and the City and Country where our Saviour had lived and wrought all his Miracles The ten Tribes as to any knowledge we have of them are certainly the bulk and body of them lost he that will deny it is obliged to prove what is become of them and where they be but 't is no good Argument to infer from thence that either they are totally finally and really lost or shall never be recalled 't is out of the compass of all rational conception to think such a vast number of People should be wholly extinct and not propagate Posterity no instance can be given of any such thing but their being does not at all depend upon our knowledge of their being they may exist in many parts of the World and we not know it and so may be lost as to us though not in themselves 't would be no good way of arguing to deny the existence of all parts of the World and all Inhabitants of it that are not to us particularly known and discovered And as to their Calling it is a very potent Argument to me they shall be called because they are at the present in such a lost unknown state for the Prophets and especially Isaiah do in many places intimate that their condition by the ordination of God should be such that they should seem as utterly lost and past all hope of recovery so Sion is introduced speaking Who hath begotten me these seeing I have lost my children The Prophet Zachariah seems to point at their wonderful recovery in that expression I will remove the iniquity of the land in one day and also the Prophet Isaiah when he says Who hath heard such a thing who hath seen such things shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day or shall a nation be born at once for as soon as Sion travelled she brought forth her children And the whole Scripture seems to design it as a most glorious Work of God's Power wherein he would eminently appear to call home those his ancient People out of a most forlorn seemingly lost and desperate condition and Saine Paul himself who best understood this matter calls their recovery and restoration in the 11th of the Romans which as he says there was

the behalf of Mankind He it is that by his own Arm brings Salvation and singly undergoes the Burden and Weight of all Humane Miseries and Misfortunes the care of all the concerns that belong to Mankind are laid upon him and the recovery of the fallen Posterity of apostate Adam is solely left to his Undertaking Conduct and Manage ever since that first Promise concerning him set forth by the Seed of the Woman Mankind has been his Care and the Church his peculiar Province the Faith of all the Holy Men in the first times was built upon his promised and intended coming It was prophesied of him in the 72 Psalm Prayer also shall be made for him continually that is for his coming and incarnation before he did come and for the success of his Kingdom and his second coming after he was come It is he that hath been with the Church in all Ages and appeared so often to the Fathers in the Patriarchal times in humane shape to confirm their Faith and assure his future Incarnation and when the fulness of time for his being born of a Woman and born under the Law that is standing in Man's steed and obliged to the mediatory righteousness God required from him came the whole course of his Life his Sufferings Death and Resurrection and his Intercession above are all on the Churches account to make a full and ample provision for all the Declensions and Apostasies of Humane Nature and secure Man's Eternal Happiness with himself for ever so that 't is evident that God's making the World at first by the second Person was in order to the discovery of his manifold Wisdom and infinite Grace in redeeming and recovering it by the same blessed Person Thirdly This will appear from hence because that the whole Dominion and Soveraignty over Mankind the intire disposal of Man is committed unto him how correspondent is it to all God's revealed purposes touching his own Glory and Man's Happiness that a mediatory Dominion should be vested in the second Person that the creating and redeeming Right over Man should all concenter in him sometimes we are in Scripture told of his creating Right so in the first of St. John's Gospel He was in the world and the world was made by him and the world knew him not sometimes we are told of his Right by Redemption The Father so he himself tells us judgeth no man but hath committed all judgment to the Son and the reason given for it is because he is the Son of Man the true Seed of the Woman and the only Mediator between God and Man and upon that account 't is said he will judge the World by that man whom he hath appointed the ordering governing and final disposal of Man belongs alone to this blessed Person he that made us and knew our original frame he alone could best tell how to recover and remake us and from everlasting 't was God's pleasure it should be so In his Redemption all is taken care for all is recover'd and fetch'd back not a Hoof of what was made and lost is left behind there is a Plaister provided for every Sore and a Remedy for every Malady an infinite Treasury of Grace provided and suted to all depraved humane Faculties to unite Man again to his Maker and Redeemer with cords of love and bands of a man to influence the whole Soul of Man to convince his Understanding and govern him in a way of true Wisdom and Knowledge to seize his Affections with the most heart-affecting Motives and most glorious Objects and to fix the unruly Will in a right Path out of which it should never again wander All the Workings since Adam's fall of the Souls of Men towards God and the Influences of God and his Spirit upon them they are all transacted managed and will be finally judged of by the second Person this is the Kingdom of God and the great Realm of Christ within Men not a Divine Whisper into any Man's Breast by the Holy Ghost but 't is from the Mediator and a consequent of his Ordination and Government the great Effect of Christ's ascending Conqueror into Heaven was the sending down the Holy Ghost and till he did so the Holy Ghost could not in that glorious eminent manner appear as afterwards he did for he came from Heaven with the Ratification of that Peace and Reconciliation that Christ had purchased this we are positively told in the 7th of St. John's Gospel The Holy Ghost was not yet given because Christ was not yet glorified It appears to be an eternal determination by the blessed Trinity that till the mediatory Work was all compleated and Christ was ascended and had made his triumphant appearance in Heaven as a Conqueror the Holy Ghost should not be sent down and therefore our Saviour tells his Disciples plainly Unless I go away the comforter cannot come and it is expedient for you upon that account that I do go away for if I go I will send him unto you this is the grand effect of Christ's ascention to procure the descent of the Holy Ghost that great Engine of Salvation the Sword of the Lord in Christ's hand the mighty Operator by which the Mediator erects his Kingdom and without whose Influences upon the Souls of Men to change and remark them no Laws of Grace no Terms of Salvation though never so easie would ever have proved effectual for Man's Recovery and Happiness this is the great effect of what Christ hath purchased for the World for Men to receive an ability from Heaven to believe and obey what God requires of us had not this been the Conditions of the Gospel would have been as little performed as those of the Law this sending down the Holy Ghost from Heaven St. Peter tells us the Angels desire to look into 't is an Allusion unto the Cher●bims that were made with their Faces looking upon the Mercy-seat to let us know that the Angels above diligently behold the glorious effects of God's Grace to this lower World and two sights they have had by their attentiveness thereon which were both stupendious and wonderful First The second Person leaving Heaven descending upon Earth becoming Man and making his abode for a time here And secondly Upon his return so soon as the second Person ascended the Holy Ghost coming down to manage all the concerns Christ left behind him here below And as all the Operations of the Holy Ghost upon the Spirits of Men are under the Mediator's Conduct so the Behaviour of all Men is noted in his Book and laid up in his Records in order to a future Judgment which Judgment is of everlasting duration for after he has given up the Kingdom to the Father both the Righteous and the Wicked will for ever remain in the same posture and condition his Judgment left them the Wicked will be for ever miserable by vertue of his Sentence and the Righteous enjoy their everlasting portion of

all these hurtful qualities introduced by Man's sin at the first shall be removed 't will be hard with any tolerable and sober sense to put a mystical and metaphorical meaning upon these Passages and those that have attempted it have much justified the literal interpretation by their misfortune in the attempt and if it seem necessary to take any part of the Prophesie literally it will be a probable ground to suppose the whole ought so to be taken and the truth is the Prophets do seem often plainly to foretel that the Creatures shall be all reconciled to each other and brought into their due and primitive obedience unto Man according to that Passage in the Prophet Hosea In that day will I make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field and with the fowls of the heaven and with the creeping things of the ground that is as I take it they shall be restored and reduced to that order they were first made in and a metaphorical sense put upon this Prophesie would seem very heterodox and foreign to what by the Context the Prophet seems to intend and aim at The second Scripture I shall insist on is that of St. Paul in the 8th of the Romans v. 21. Because the creature it self also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God for we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now this is highly probable to be one of those Discourses of St. Paul which St. Peter mentions in which there are some things hard to be understood for St. Peter where he quotes St. Paul for his writing in his Epistles of those things is there speaking of the new Heavens and new Earth wherein dwelleth Righteousness the Season when the Creatures restoration is to be There are many things hard to be understood in Scriptures and without all doubt many very many things within its bowels that lye undiscovered and untaken notice of as yet for 't is a Book intended for the instruction of the Church and to exercise her care and industry in all Ages it will be with the Church in the last period of the World as it was with the Disciples when they went to Emaus Christ will open their understandings and give them a clear view of the Scriptures and of all things therein contained touching himself and the glory of his Kingdom and the restitution of all things For the clear understanding of this Text in hand it will be necessary to take in the Context from the 18th Verse For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us for the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the Sons of God the last part of the 18th Verse is that as I think from which the Apostle takes the rise of his whole Discourse in these Verses are not worthy to be compared to the glory that shall be revealed in us and proceeds in the 19th Verse to shew there will be such a glory for the whole Creation expects it their deliverance being to be contemporary with it For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestations of the Sons of God the meaning seemeth to be that he speaketh not of the glory of Heaven in the 18th Verse but of that glory that shall be revealed in the Saints here in this World before the conclusion of it when the whole World shall become the Kingdom of Christ and his Saints and so the force of the comparison lyes the stronger the sufferings that we have in this World are not worthy to be compared to the glory that shall be revealed in us even in this World and then in Verse 19 proceeds to shew there shall be such a glory For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the Sons of God that is there is an expectancy in the whole Creation of such a day when the Sons of God are manifested and revealed in the glory that is promised them then the whole Creation shall enjoy a Restoration and Jubile 'T is of great moment here to take notice that the Apostles Antithesis is not between the Sons of God and the Sons of Men of any sort but between the Sons of God and the Creature by which is certainly meant the inanimate part of the World which is said in its way to expect for nothing is more common in Scripture than to apply rational Acts to irrational Creatures as calling upon the Heavens and the Earth to hear and many such like For the creature Verse 20. was made subject to vanity not willingly but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope that is the whole Creation was cursed and subjected to vanity by the just judgment of God for Man's sin but yet so that it remains in hope and why because in Verse 21. the Creature it self shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the Children of God because there is a restoration belongs to it and the opposition is still between the Sons of God and the Creature and cannot with any tolerable sense be made between Man and Man The scope of St. Paul in this place seems clearly to be this That the Creature being under a curse and under a preternatural subjection and usage not suitable to its first make and designment by reason of Man's sin and being unwillingly subjected thereunto did in its way dislike it groan to be delivered from it and naturally tended to its primitive state and use which it was to be restored unto when the Sons of God should be manifested and Christ should set up his glorious Kingdom here upon Earth This Interpretation though without doubt it contains the natural and genuine sense of the Apostle is by some contradicted by understanding the word Creature in another sense that is to say by taking it to mean the Gentiles and that part of the World who say they were unwillingly subjected by the Devil to all the bondage of the Heathenish Worship and Religion and groaned to be delivered from under it Now both the Text it self and the Context utterly refuse this interpretation For first we must represent the Apostle thus speaking For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us for the earnest expectation of the Gentiles waiteth for the manifestation of the Sons of God The Apostle does not make the opposition to lye between the Sons of God and the Sons of Men of any sort but between the Sons of God and the irrational part of the World and makes the groaning of that after the manifestation of the Sons of God a reason why there shall be such a manifestation and in Verse 20. when he says the Creature was made subject to Vanity he