Selected quad for the lemma: kingdom_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
kingdom_n	child_n	heaven_n	see_v	2,046	5	3.5372	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26865	An apology for the nonconformists ministry containing I. the reasons of their preaching, II. an answer to the accusations urged as reasons for the silencing of about 2000 by Bishop Morley ..., III. reasons proving it the duty and interest of the bishops and conformists to endeavour earnestly their restoration : with a postscript upon oral debates with Mr. H. Dodwell, against his reasons for their silence ... : written in 1668 and 1669, for the most of it, and now published as an addition to the defence against Dr. Stillingfleet, and as an account to the silencers of the reasons of our practice / by Richard Baxter.	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1681 (1681)	Wing B1189; ESTC R22103	219,337	268

s no wonder if one sin be a temptation to another or by actions sinful only in this And that scandal is 1. When the action otherwise lawful is purposely intended as a snare or temptation 2. When it is not so intended but hath a strong natural tendency in it self to tempt and being unnecessary is the effect of great inadvertency carelesness rashness and want of love to others souls But scandal taken and not given that is not culpably given is when it is either from a necessary duty of ours or from a thing so harmless as that there is no probability that it should be a temptation to any but those that go out of their way to seek for matter of temptation to themselves by an extraordinary perverseness We think it no false distinguishing to say that it is one thing to lay a trap or dig a pit purposely for men to fall in and another thing rashly and carelesly to dig a pit and cover it to catch wild beasts in in the common high-way or very near it and another thing to dig a pit quite out of all ordinary passage of men where yet a drunkard or one that will seek a pit to leap into may possibly find it Scandalum datum is that which charity and prudence bind men carefully to prevent and Scandalum acceptum is that which ariseth not from any omission of the duty of him from whom it is taken But more of this anon We have told you our Religion but we are not now disputing against yours If the naming of such opinions be confutation enough the owners have confuted them themselves If it be not let them pass Our work at present is only Apology though we are tainted too with the disputing disease And so much for our Reasons for Preaching Christs Gospel against mens will The sum of all is this It is an indispensible duty lying on us as men and Ministers by the obligation of Gods Law of Charity and as Ministers also by the obligation of our own Vows or self-dedication at our Ordination to do our best in the exercise of all our talents Humane Christian and Ministerial to seek to save the peoples souls and so to preach or teach and exhort them in the manner which most conduceth thereto when and where our teaching is truly and evidently necessary But now in the Kings Dominions our teaching is to these ends truly and evidently necessary therefore it is our duty so to teach III. BEcause many of your contrary Reasonings are already answered before I will here annex the rest that they may not have the disadvantage of too great a distance 1. Obj. Your own preciseness and censoriousness maketh the common people seem mostly ignorant and prophane to you and then you pretend a necessity of your Preaching when you do but feign it by setting your selves more above your neighbours than there is cause Ans. 1. I confess that many of the Separatists are truly guilty of what you here object For when they have Unchurched whole Parishes of men whom they know not nor ever heard speak for themselves we that have come after them have found abundance of the people much better than they imagined But one error or extream will not justifie another Remember that we are not now talking of mens qualifications for visible Communion in the Church but of their necessity of being taught And we censure none beyond such cogent evidence as is not in our power now to be ignorant of I beseech you deal openly with us and answer us these few Questions and all the matter will be ended 1. If men do not know who Christ is or what he came into the world for nor what he hath done for us nor what the Holy Ghost is nor what he is to do for us nor what a Saviour or a Sanctifier is nor what is the plain sense of most Articles of the Creed or Petitions in the Lords-prayer have such men need of Teaching to save their souls or not 2. If men follow the world eagerly all the week and talk of it on the Lords day and love not to hear any talk of another world or how they must be pardoned and saved but swear and curse and rail and many of them are drunkards gluttons or fornicators and if they never teach their children or families or pray with them any more than Infidels and shew no Religion but going to Church or perhaps sometimes say the Lords-prayer and the Creed without understanding and if we advise them to prepare for death and the life to come and tell them the need of a Saviour a Sanctifier and of faith repentance and a holy life they tell us that they will trust God with their souls and not trouble their heads with things so high they shall speed as well as their neighbours Have these mens souls any need of teaching 3. If any of the people so much love their drunkenness and fornication and other gross sins that they hate the Minister that seriously though gently reproveth them and like Cain would see their brothers blood if he offer God a more acceptable sacrifice than themselves or slander and hate the most conformable Minister that is but strict and seriously Religious and is talking against them on all occasins have these mens souls any need of exhortation or not 4. If many of the people be weak in judgment that mean well and have only a glimmering confused knowledge of most of the greatest matters of Religion and though we hope well of their sincerity they have abundance of mistakes and sad miscarriages in their lives and are inclined to most of the real errors which the Debate maker reciteth and in danger of being carried into any opinions which are offered by men who by nearness or plausibility of perswasion come to them with any great advantage yea and are like to be troublers of the Church have these men need to be taught or not Let us but be once agreed that the true belief consent and performance of our Baptismal Covenant is necessary ordinarily to mens salvation and that without faith it is impossible to please God and that except a man be regenerate of the Spirit as well as of water and except he be converted and become as a little child he cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven and that he that hath not the Spirit of Christ is none of his and that they that are in the flesh cannot please God because the carnal mind is enmity against him and that without holiness none shall see the Lord and that if the Gospel be hid it is hid to them that are lost and how can they hear without a Preacher c. Agree but to this or any of this and sure our case is fair for a good issue Mark 16. 16. Heb. 11. 6. Joh. 3. 3 5 6. Mat. 18. 3. Rom. 8. 6 7 8 9 13. Heb. 12. 14. 1 Cor. 4. 3. Rom. 10 c. 5. And for the matter

and if most of the Parishes in and near London have men so tolerable that we much rejoice in it doth it follow that it is an error or schism to be acquainted with the rest of the Kingdoms or to believe our ears and the sad experience of too great a number in the land It is a fine world when it is become a controversie Whether that which so many thousands in three Kingdoms hear and see be true We write none of this to reproach the Ministry we would hide their nakedness if we could We like not the Glocester-Coblers writings nor the Centuries We only shew you that the reasons are invalid which are fetcht from the sufficiency of the present Ministry to prove it our duty not to preach 5. And if it were but the peoples prejudice against them it proveth their necessity I will purposely say nothing whether the common charge of scandal be true or false because I will not meddle with that cause But be it as it will if the people once think hardly of them or of their Preaching it is not like to do them much good I know the common answer is Who is that long of but of themselves and you To which I say 1. Suppose it be long of themselves must their souls be therefore cruelly forsaken I have wondered to hear and read such reasoning so often from some Pastors of the Church that should be the Fathers of the flock It is long of themselves say they And what then It is long of our selves that we are all sinners and must we therefore have no Saviour no Sanctifier no Ministry no remedy All the sins that you Preach against are long of the sinners themselves Will you therefore think you are discharged from Preaching But you 'l say That it is their wilfulness Ans. If there were no will there were no sin There is too much wilfulness in all the sin that you commit your selves must you therefore be forsaken But O how much better would it beseem an humble tender conscienced Ministry to suspect themselves and say Is there no cause of this distaste in us If it were partial hereticks only that disliked us for opinion sake it were no wonder but when the common people of our Parishes think our Preaching cold and dry and our Sermons like a boys Oration and our lives too little heavenly and holy what cause have we to fear lest it be too true or so much at least as will make us guilty of their distaste Surely it more nearly concerneth you all to see that you be clear your selves and to judg your selves before God judg you than to fall so heavily on the people When you have been as angry as you will men will be men and ears will be ears and as words will not satisfie a hungry stomack so chiding the poor people and telling them that the fault is theirs will not illuminate quicken humble and comfort them nor either do that for them which they want or make them that are indeed alive to believe that it is done when it is not Suppose your own children surfeit by their own fault and lose their appetite will you deny them one sort of food which they can eat because it is long of themselves that they have lost their appetite to another Will you say Eat this or famish it is long of your selves Shall the Physician deny his Patient that Physick which his stomack can take because it was long of himself that he can take no other Is this a method fit for Parents Nurses or Physicians to think that it is not their duty to help those that are made diseased or necessitous by themselves I beseech you think what else your Ministry is for and why have you your honour and your maintenance but to serve under Christ for the saving of those that would destroy themselves What enemy have you so much need your selves to resist and to be saved from as from your selves Oh that you better knew it And from whom else would you save the people Men and Devils cannot hurt them if they be but saved from themselves When I hear a cold and sleepy Preacher or hear Gods work done so ignorantly and slovenly as I would not have my boy to say his lesson I yet confess It is long of my self if this Sermon raise not my heart to Heaven For his very Text or one of the Scripture-sentences which he cited should have been enough to do it because it mentioneth God and Eternity the least thought of which should raise my soul. But alas my heart is cold and dull and drowsie This is my disease or else what need I come to Church for cure I knew I was faulty but I hear you in hope that my faults should be cured And if you do that which is unsuitable to your hearers faults and maladies you are faulty Physicians for no better curing faulty Patients To tell a man in a fever or a dropsie if bread and drink will not cure you it is long of your own disease is the answer of such Physicians as are like them in whose hands many thousand souls in the world lye gasping at this day If you shall say That God doth not tye his grace to the ability of the Pastor I answer such words are fitter to make ones head and heart to ake than to put the answerer to any difficulty Use such arguments about plowing and sowing about eating and drinking and when you are to chuse a Tutor or Schoolmaster for your Children or when you are sick and seek to a Physician say God doth not tye his help and blessing to a wise Tutor any more than to an ignorant one nor to an able Physician any more than to a foolish Emperick Or if you will fly to the distinction of spiritual gifts and common remember that God is no more tyed to means for the one than for the other and quoad media habitus infusi se habent ad modum acquisitorum At least set not your greatest Scholars nor sharpest wits to convince a Sectary or a Papist for Illumination is a spiritual Grace and God can work on a Papist or Schismatick as well by an ignorant Reader But sure the opinions of these times are not so much for miraculous operations of Omnipotency nor so much for the vanity of moral suasion and instruction that we should need to say much in this case if you could but turn it to a Doctrinal-controversie where their Interest is not against it God can work convictions and conversion by the unlikeliest means But he usually worketh according to the aptitude of the means he useth And sure I am that it is our duty both teachers and hearers to chuse the best and to study and preach even as we would do if all lay on our skill and diligence but to know that when Paul hath planted and Apollo watered it is God still that must give the increase But he will not give so