Selected quad for the lemma: kingdom_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
kingdom_n	church_n	heaven_n	peter_n	4,199	5	7.9041	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61197	The royal and happy poverty or, a meditation on the felicities of an innocent and happy poverty: grounded on the fifth of Matthew, the third verse. And addressed to the late and present sufferers of the times.	Sprigg, William, fl. 1657.	1660 (1660)	Wing S5081; ESTC R221805	40,412	115

come to be audited and enquir'd into our neglect of and uncharitableness to the poor will make a great part of the Indictment against us We have been so long disputing about forms of Government in the State and of Divine Worship in the Church that the noyse of our janglings about these things hath quite drown'd the cryes of the poor whose necessities should have been first reliev'd had we commenc'd our Reformation a right and till this error be rectified I know little ground we have to expecta settlement or that God will in the least own and bless our Government whatever we may set up and establish But to proceed though it be commonly thus that mens poverty and misery is proceeds from themselves as being the Product of either pride ease or luxury as hath been largely demonstrated yet sometimes through the rapine and oppression of the wicked the righteous are stript of all their enjoyments turned out of their possessions and exposed as Pentioners to the cold charity of the world It is sometimes known as in the Parable that a poor and righteous Lazarus whose Soul shall have a Legion of Angels as his Convoy or Life-guard to carry him into Abrahams Bosom begs an alms at Dives Gates at the hands of a rich and wicked Miser and hath his sores lick'd by dogs and therefore though we ought to do good to all yet more especially to those of the boushold of F●ith if any such objects of our charity are known unto us And although God can and often doth interrupt the course of Nature and work Miracles for supplying the necessities of his Saints though God sometime fed Eliah by the Ministry of Ravens and can cloath his Prophets as he doth the Lillies of the Field yet that is no excuse no Apology for our with-holding any thing from them they stand in need of or that their necessities call for at our hands though we have never so little though our estate be but as the Widdows Cruse of Oyl God requires our mite if we can do no more we must cast it in if we expect to find that acceptance with God the Widdows did or desire that blessing of encrease on our estates as fell on the Cruse of Oyl whereby the Prophet was fed in a time of famine 2 But secondly by poverty of spirit is not here meant as the Papists would have it a voluntary poverty or of vow as when men for Religions sake or Righteousness sake as they are pleas'd to guild it do renounce the world and strip themselves of all their outward enjoyments when men cast their whole estates into the treasury of the Church and intail their Revenues on the Altar when for the better disburthening themselves of the cares of this life and of this world and that they may the better sequester themselves unto the Lord and devote themselves unto his service they part with all for the Cross of Christ and wholly cast themselves upon the Providence of God Truly the taking root of this Opinion hath brought forth much fruit much profit to the Church of Rome many of whose voluntary Votaries that under a pretence of extraordinary devotion and Holiness sequester themselves from the world do but renounce those smaller Fortunes Providence hath given them better title to in expectation of and on design to inherit far greater riches and reap a more plentiful crop of gain from that blind charity Superstition hath cheated the greater part of the World into an opinion of and of these there are several Forms and Classes in the Man of Sins School as your Hermites Fryer Mendicants with divers others who instead of accounting with the Apostle godliness great gain do reap great gains from a counterfeit and feigned godliness These therefore are not the {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} on which the Kingdome of Heaven is intail'd but rather swarms of Locusts and Caterpillers that cover the face of too great a part of the earth But this Opinion of Poverty as I said hath been a rich Revenue to the Popish Church and wonderfully improv'd the Patrimony of St. Peter hath much encreas'd the Revenue of the Man of Sin and intail'd much Land upon his Altars this is a gallant devise to sell the Kingdome of Heaven to those will bid most for it and the Pope and Cardinal may well confer notes as sometime on another occasion Quantum nobis Lucri peperit haec fabula de Christo So Quantum nobis Lucri peperit haec fabula seu Doctrina de paupertate What gain hath this fable of poverty brought into us This is that hath so much in riched the Coffers of the Pope that hath fill'd the fat bellies of the Priests and cloath'd the Whore in Scarlet Truly I cannot but commend the zeal and devotion of all such poor deluded souls as out of a principle of Sincerity strip themselves of these outward enjoyments thinking thereby to render themselves more quick and less cumbersome in their journey towards Heaven but I cannot but therewithal pity their ignorance and great pity it is so great a heat of zeal should be without the light of Knowledge to direct it that so great Devotion should be the Daughter of Ignorance and Superstition No this is not the poverty of spirit recommended to us by our Saviour and therefore to the Proselites of this Opinion we may say what is commonly said of self-Murther it is not lawful to quit our stations for our souls to break the prison of the Body to anticipate our deliverance from the captivity of our flesh by a voluntary or violent dissolution We may with the Apostle sue out our Habeas Corpus by sending up our sighs and desires to be dissolved but to break prison is Felony we may say Demittas 〈◊〉 but we must expect till God sends the Serjeant Death to bring us our Writ of Ease our bene decessit and to knock off the Fetters of our body for our life is a warfare and we are here Militant in a Vale of Tears and therefore may not desert our Colours till we are rude donati and Milites Emeriti till we have finish'd our warfare and are legally dismiss'd the Camp Our Souls are plac'd as Centinels in the Body and may not go off the guard till they are reliev'd or the Captain of our Salvation calls them off So may I say in this case our wealth is not our own but the Lords and therefore it is not lawful for us to quit or resign our trusts before the day of our Audit for we are Gods Stewards and he will require an account at our hands our estates are the Lords and we must be faithful in our office and distribute of our bread to the poor Christianity does not forfeit our right to the creatures but rather inlarge strengthen it It hath been the custom in some places when any Iew turns Christian to forfeit or s●●●ester his estate but this is no