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	word_n	world_n	3,040	5	4.5870	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A70454	The harmony of the foure evangelists among themselves, and with the Old Testament : the first part, from the beginning of the gospels to the baptisme of our saviour, with an explanation of the chiefest difficulties both in language and sense / by John Lightfoote ...	Lightfoot, John, 1602-1675.	1644 (1644)	Wing L2058; ESTC R11993	206,792	264

the doore or entry of the Church but it ingageth them to repentance for the time to come or when they being now entred into the Church shall come to the use of reason and knowledge of the ingagement And so was it with the children that were circumcised for they when they underwent that Sacrament undertooke obedience to the whole Law and yet they knew not what either obedience or the Law meant But that undertaking was what they were to doe when they came to the yeeres of knowledge and apprehension Matth. 3. Verse 2. And saying Repent yee for the Kingdome of Heaven is at hand The phrase the kingdome of heaven which is so frequently and commonly used in the Gospel is taken from Dan. 2. 44. and 7. 14. And it meaneth the spirituall kingdome of Christ in and under the Gospel as it is published and preached unto all Nations For though the phrase be generally and truely understood to meane the preaching of the Gospel yet doth it most properly and naturally signifie the preaching of the Gospel to the Gentiles or among all Nations as might bee shewed by the signification of the word Heaven by the manner of speech here used that it is at hand and so againe Mat. 4. 17. when the Gospel was now Preached already by the Text of Daniel from whence the phrase is taken and by diverse places in the Gospel where it is used but the full clearing of this I have chosen to referre to that difficult place which will call for it to bee cleared when the Lord shall bring us thither Matth. 16. 19. To thee will I give the keyes of the Kingdome of heaven where I conceive Christ to have foretold to Peter that hee should bee the first that should Preach the Gospel and open the doore of Faith unto the Gentiles as Act. 15. 7. and 10. Now The Kingdome of heaven signifying thus not barely and simply the Preaching of the Gospel but the preaching of it to the Gentiles and their conversion it sheweth how proper and pregnant an argument this was to inforce the doctrine and practice of Repentance upon the Jews because the calling of the Gentiles was neere at hand which would prove their rejection and casting off if they did not repent as Deut. 32. 21. Before the comming of Christ those foure earthly kingdomes that are mentioned by Daniel in the Chapters cited bare all the sway and domineered over all the world with cruelty and tyranny but when they were destroyed at his comming hee set up a Kingdome of his own and swayed the Scepter of Righteousnesse over all Nations and ruled them with his word and Spirit And whereas before his comming also the Church consisted but of one Nation and Kingdome and was couched upon a small parcell of earth the Land of Canaan and had earthly promises and earthly rites when hee came and published the Gospel hee gathered a Church of all Kingdomes and Nations and Languages under Heaven and built it up with heavenly and spirituall promises and instructions and thus The Kingdome of heaven may fitly bee understood in opposition to these two earthly ones Luk. 3. ver 5. Every valley shall bee filled c. These borrowed phrases intend the removing of obstacles and stumbling blocks out of the way and plaining and cleering the way for men to come to Christ and to the obedience of the Gospel The Jewes conceive that the cloud of glory that led the people of Israel in the wildernesse did really and according to the letter doe what is here spoken of for facilitating of their march and journey as that it levelled Mountaines raised vallies and laid all of a flat that it burnt up bushes and smoothed rocks and made all plaine that they might travaile without trouble or offence And some of them also say that when Jeroboam set up his golden calves and Idolatry in Bethel and Dan that hee and his wicked agents laid ambushments and scouts in the waies to Jerusalem to catch up every one that should go thither to worship and to this purpose they apply that saying of the Prophet Hos. 5. 1. O yee Priests and O yee house of the King ye have been a snare on Mizpah and a net upon Tabor And the revolters are profound to make slaughter c. If either of these things were undoubtedly so as they suppose how properly might this passage of the Prophet Esay and of the Evangelist from him bee thought to referre thereunto but since they bee but surmisals it is safest to take the words for a borrowed speech to expresse what was said before the removing of obstacles in the way to Christ. Mat. 3. ver 6. Confessing their sins Not to John but to God For neither was it possible for John to heare their confessions nor was it necessary Not possible because of the vast multitudes that came to bee baptized nor necessary for to tell him they had committed such and such sinnes what conduced it either to their baptisme or forgivenesse Nor was this their confession of their sinnes before their being baptized but after For first if wee should strictly take the Grammaticall construction of the word that importeth their confessing it is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which would have denoted that they had confessed before they were baptized but it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in both the Evangelists that speak of that matter Secondly It was farre more agreeable to the end and doctrine of Baptisme that their confession of sinne should bee after their baptizing then before in that they were baptized to repentance ver 11. and not e contra the Sacrament was more intentionally to enter them into repentance then repentance to enter them into the Sacrament For as was said before it obliged them more properly to repentance after the receiving of it then before Thirdly the gesture of our Saviour after his Baptisme seemeth to have been according to the common custome and gesture of the people and as hee comming out of the water fell to prayer so they when they came out used to doe to make their penitent confession to the Lord. Mat. 3. ver 7. When he saw many of the pharisees and Sadduces comming to his baptisme The Pharisees Sadduces and Esseans the three Sects of the Jews Josep Antiq. lib. 13. c. 9. are those three shepherds spoken of Zech. 11. 8. whom our Saviour at his comming was to cut off The two former whom wee have now in hand are very frequent in mention in the Gospel men of enmity one against another yet both joynt enemies to Christ and to his Apostles The originall of the Pharisees is not so easie to goe back unto as that of the Sadduces nor is the significancy of their name so readily determined and fixed upon as the other The Sadduces it is well known were so called from Sadoc the first Author of their Sect and hee the Scholar of Antigonus Rabbi Nathan in his Aboth Perek 5. hath thus

many Nations but to his seed of the promise of the Land of Canaan I will give to thee and to thy seed all the Land of Canaan therefore thou and thy seed after thee shall keepe my Covenant Gen. 17 8 9. And such a different end may bee observed in the administration of baptisme to Christ himselfe and the administring of it unto Christians The text alledged sealeth the lease of the Land of Canaan to the seed of Abraham with the seale of Circumcision and confineth that Ceremony onely to that Land and onely to their continuance there And upon this inference I will give thy seed the Land of Canaan therefore shall they keepe my Covenant it was that Joshua as soone as ever they had set foot upon that Land was commanded to circumcise them Josh. 5. And from hence it will follow first that that Land must bee considered dilated as farre as Circumcision went with the seed of Abraham in Ishmaelites Midianites Edomites and others Secondly hence they will be found to erect circumcision againe in the Church of Christ that hold the called Jewes shall have a temporall kingdome againe in the Land of Canaan And thirdly hence it may bee resolved why that Sacrament was deferred so long and not given to the World before Adam Enoch Noah Eber c. were not circumcised because to them a fixed and setled place for the Church to reside together was not designed but when such a one is designed to Abraham then circumcision is given also The Land of Canaan was bequeathed to Sem by his father Noah the occasion was because Cham and his Sonne Canaan derided Noahs nakednesse as hee lay asleepe in the midst of his Tent when therefore that Land is to bee setled upon the right heires of Sem to which God 〈◊〉 the Prophetick spirit of Noah intended it a seale and an assura●●e thereof is given in that member which had beene derided by 〈◊〉 to his losse of that Land and to his perpetuall slavery This was a maine reason why Males alone were circumcised and why in that member because a male alone and that member in him was so derided Other reasons of the institution of the Ceremony and onely for masculines and in that part might concurre for instruction such as are given by Lumbard Aquinas Biel Lyra and others but that they were not of the nature or essence of the Sacrament and that this forementio●ed was the vigor and spirit of it may bee concluded by these two things First that Circumcision concerned not the children of Israel only but the whole seed of Abraham For those children of his by his Concubines that lived in Arabia as Ismaelites Dedanites Medanites Midianites Shuhites Amalekites and the rest were circumcised as well as Israel in Palestina Those Countreys whither Abraham had sent them to inhabite were once in the possession of Canaanites till he obtained them by conquest of the foure Kings Gen. 14. and thither he sendeth them with the seale of Circumcision upon them which gave them interest in the Land there as well as Isaac had elsewhere Abraham taught his children and his household after him to keepe the way of the Lord Gen. 18. 19. which though this off-spring of his in Arabia did not long in other things yet in circumcision it did So that from hence may result the observation of another end and reason of the institution of this Ceremony namely for distinction not of Israel from other Nations as Lyranus would have it but of the seed of Abraham from all other people Secondly howsoever all the Israelites dwelling before the comming of our Saviour out of the Land of Canaan as both of the Babylonian and Grecian dispersion used Circumcision in Heathens Lands and used it lawfully yet it was because their claime and interest to the Land of Canaan did still continue nay this was one reason why it held up some store of yeers after Christ his comming ascension but when Jerusalem was destroyed and their lease of that Land of promise either expired or forfeited or both then did this seale of it fall and come to ruine also and might not lawfully be used ever after and when they must for ever relinquish the Land they must for ever also relinquish this seale or Ceremony that had assured it This well con●idered will cause us also to observe First that the interest of Israel in the holy Land began to shake when baptisme came to shoulder out Circumcision Secondly that John most properly preached much of the Kingdome of Heaven for their earthly one began to cease when baptisme began to extinguish Circumcision As Circumcision it selfe had relation to the in●eritance of the Land of the Canaanites so the fixed time for the administration of it namely the eight day seemeth also to have some aim and respect to the same thing For seven nations were in that Land which the Children of Abraham were to subdue and dwell in their stead Canaanites Hittites Hivites Perizzites Girgashites Amorites and Jebusites Deut. 7. 1. Josh. 3. 10. In correspondency to this number of seven Nations that were to bee subdued Jericho the first field fought in that Land is compassed seven dayes and seven times the seventh day And in like answerablenesse every child of Abraham● for seven day●● was like the children of those seven Nations but on the eight day he was to receive circumcision the pledge of that interest and claime that he had in that Land which those seven Nations had usurped This then was the ground-worke and Originall of that Sacrament that every Sonne of Abraham might beare in his body the seale of the inheritance of the Land of promise and the badge of distinction from all other people and that this visible signe might make him strive after the invisible grace which it sealed the inheritance of heaven a●d walking as the peculiar of the Lord From which appropriated and restrictive ends of the Rite the necessity of the changing of it at the comming of Christ doth plainely appeare for when there was to bee no more distinction betwixt the children of Abraham and other people and no one land more peculiarized then another but of every Land and Nation he that feareth God and worketh righteousnes is accepted of him that badge of appropriation a●d seale of singularity must either cleane come to nothing or become unnecessary Now that baptisme did succeed in the stead thereof some reasons may be given As first because the Sacraments of the New Testament were to bee gentle and easie in stead of the smart and burdensome ones of the Law Secondly because God would comply with men even in their owne common custome of washing children when they are newly born Ezek. 16. 4. 9. and turne the common to a sacred use thereby to catch and winne them the more But thirdly this one maine reason may serve for all namely the neere correspondency that is between the Sacrament and the thing signified and the