Selected quad for the lemma: kingdom_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
kingdom_n	day_n	judgement_n	lord_n	2,080	5	3.6337	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A29626	The famine of the word threat[e]ned to Israel, and Gods call to weeping and to mourning being two sermons preached on the fast day, Novemb. 13, 1678, and on the fast day, April 11, 1679 / by James Brome ...	Brome, James, d. 1719.; Brome, James, d. 1719. Gods call to weeping and to mourning.	1679 (1679)	Wing B4856; ESTC R18967	48,082	74

to girding with sackcloth And behold joy and gladness slaying Oxen and killing Sheep eating Flesh and drinking Wine let us eat and drink for to morrow we shall die And it was revealed in mine ears by the Lord of Hosts Surely this iniquity shall not be purged from you till ye die saith the Lord God of Hosts IT is not long since we kept a Day of Humiliation to implore Gods Mercy and deprecate his Judgment which seemed to hang over our heads by a bloody Plot contrived by Papists to murder our King to subvert our Religion and enslave our Kingdom by reducing it again under the Romish Yoke a Yoke which neither we nor our Forefathers were able to bear And he that considers with himself how ready and active the Devil is who was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a murderer from the beginning John viii 44. still to instigate and spur forward his Agents to set Kingdoms in flames and make the Streets swim with the Blood of good and holy Christians how willingly the Jesuits who be his chiefest Factors do obey such diabolical motions under what unhappy circumstances we of this Nation are for the present by reason of our manifold and potent enemies abroad our private feuds and divisions at home and above all our open daring and notorious sins and abominations which justly call aloud to heaven for vengeance upon us will certainly be perswaded that a second day of Humiliation is no less necessary than the former which it is much to be feared was not observed with those hearty resentments of indignation against our sins with those sincere testimonies of outward and inward contrition and with those cordial resolutions of future reformation and amendment which the grievousness of the Judgment and the greatness of the danger impendent over us did justly require at all our hands And now that the drowsy may be awakened the ignorant instructed the negligent excited the improvident forewarned and all of us deeply affected with a true sense of our condition and by a timely repentance prevent those calamities which threaten the extirpation of the Ecclesiastical and Civil Polity amongst us I have made choice of these words of the Prophet wherein God seems now to give us as seasonable a call as he did then to the Jews And in that day did the Lord God of Hosts call to weeping and to mourning c. From which words there are three things will fall under our consideration 1. The unspeakable Mercy and Kindness of God to the Jews in calling them to a solemn and serious humiliation Ver. 12. In that day did the Lord God of Hosts call to weeping and to mourning and to baldness and to girding with sackcloth 2. The horrible Ingratitude of the Jews who instead of humbling themselves before God went on in their former habituated courses of voluptuousness and sensuality For behold ver 13. joy and gladness c. 3. The astonishing Resolution of God upon their not hearkning to and obeying that gracious call viz. to root them out and destroy them Ver. 14. Surely your iniquity shall not be purged from you till you die saith the Lord of Hosts I. I begin with the first of these the unspeakable mercy and kindness of God to the Jews in calling them to a solemn and serious Humiliation In that day did the Lord of Hosts call to weeping and to mourning c. Whether this call was by his Prophet threatning them with some severe Judgment for their perseverance in iniquity or whether by some smart Judgment which God thought fit to lay upon them he endeavoured to reclaim them from the evil of their ways and bring them to a sight and sense of their follies before their final extirpation 't is certain that either or both of these calls were very expressive of his loving kindness towards them 1. For first it argues the great Care and concernment God had still for their Nation how sollicitous he was to preserve and to continue it to protect and to defend it to make them still a glorious and a flourishing people happy in themselves and a terror to their enemies 2. And secondly it was an argument of his Patience and forbearance in sparing and reprieving them from punishment when they most deserved it 3. And thirdly it was an incentive to their Duty a memorandum to put them in mind what course they should take under such gracious methods namely to fall to weeping and to mourning and to baldness and to girding with sackcloth that is by such outward lugubrious gestures of body as well as an inward anguish and vexation of spirit to declare their sincere hatred of all sin and resolution of amendment So that from hence here will be three things to be insisted upon 1. The Providence of God in taking care of Kingdoms and Communities of Mankind he suffers not things to go at random in them but he disposeth of them as he thinks fit and when there is a necessity he calls to them 2. His Patience and forbearance he doth not punish without giving them notice he calls them first and then he strikes 3. The End of all his gracious calls 't is to work in them a thorough humiliation for their transgressions 1. First I shall consider the Providence of God in taking care of Kingdoms and Communities of Mankind where all things do not happen by chance but the divine disposal of God Almighty who calls to them and exerts his power amongst them when there is occasion for it It was a fond and strange opinion of the Epicureans of old that God was so taken up with the contemplation of his own excellencies and perfections that he would not so much as vouchsafe to cast one glance down upon these Sublunary Regions that it was below the Majesty of Heaven to be concerned in the pitiful affairs of poor earthly miscreants and to be angry at their follies or seem to applaud their actions was irreconcileable with the Divine Happiness which was unmixed and pure free from any thing that might disturb or disquiet it a fancy no doubt which Lucian gathered from their Schools in which he was no small proficient as a learned and worthy person tells us for he brings in old Japetus and Saturn tipling Nectar together Archdeacon of Canterbury in his Book De Deo Providentia and spending their time in telling old stories Saturn confessing that he was gouty which gave occasion to the Poets to write that he was fettered by Jupiter to whom as being the younger and more active he resigned the thunder and the Kingdom not troubling himself with hearing mens prayers and punishing their offences that being a troublesome and irksome piece of service But if God Almighty be thus confined to Heaven and his Providence doth not expand it self over all the Universe what account can be given of the establishment of one Kingdom upon the ruines of another that one Nation whose Senators are wise and politick

did not presently pour down the vials of his wrath but upbraid them first for their crimes by Enoch who was an eminent Prophet in those days a fragment of whose Prophesie is still extant in St. Judes Epistle and only threaten them with vengeance upon their perseverance in impenitency Afterwards when the world grew worse and worse and wickedness appeared with a brazen forehead and violence had covered the face of the earth when the promiscuous mixtures of the Children of Seth and Cain had produced Giants and mighty men men strong to do evil and who had as much will as power 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Josephus calls them a race of men insolent and ungovernable scornful and injurious and who bearing up themselves in the confidence of their own strength despised all justice and equity and made every thing truckle under their extravagant lusts and appetites a character which Lucian gives the men of this Age speaking of the time of Deucalion their Noah and the flood for saith he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. they being men exceedingly contumelious were guilty of the most enormous and unrighteous actions violating all oaths and covenants throwing off kindness and hospitality and rejecting all supplications and addresses made to them I say when mankind was grown to so prodigious a height of impiety and this infection had spread it self over all parts and was become so epidemical that all flesh had corrupted their ways and scarce any but Noah left to keep up the face of a Church and the profession of Religion things being come to this pass quickly alarum'd the Divine Justice and made the world ripe for vengeance the patience of God was now tired out and he resolved to make mankind feel the just effects of his incensed severity but yet in the midst of judgment he remembred mercy for he tells them although he would not suffer his patience to be eternally prostituted to the wanton humours of unreasonable and wicked men and although his spirit would not always strive with them disceptabit as some Divines render it dispute Gen. VI. 3. and reason with them yet that he would bear with them 120 years longer in order to their Reformation so loth is God to take an advantage of the sins of men not willing that any should perish but that all should come unto repentance Well thus it was in the Antideluvian Age and when the world was replenished with new inhabitants who tempted and provoked the most high God afresh by such sins and abominations as were of the deepest dye yet God did not presently open the treasuries of vengeance and speak their ruine and decree their destruction but still endeavoured to reclaim them by seasonable precautions and deferred his punishment and waited patiently for their amendment and to instance in Israel who was a people as signal for their perverseness and rebellion as for the manifold favours they received from the Almighty under the Parable of the Vineyard God is pleased to give a clear demonstration of the tender care and regard he had still for them notwithstanding their reiterated provocations against him for he made this Vineyard upon a very fruitful Hill Isa v. and he fenced it and gathered out the stones thereof and planted it with the choicest vines nay he digged it and dunged it pruned it and watered it used all the art of cultivation that might cause it to be fruitful hoping and looking still for some productions proportionable to his care and industry concerning it nay and when it still year after year disappointed his expectations and brought forth wild Grapes instead of Grapes he was loth to withdraw his kindness from it but continued to dress and to manure it and suffered it Luke xiii 7 8 9. like the Figg-tree in the Gospel an Emblem still of the same People further to trespass upon his patience and would not destroy it till there was no hopes of its improvement And to apply this to our selves Hath not God planted as choice a Vineyard in this Nation and evidenced his Providence and his loving kindness towards it by cultivating and preserving it for many years together in as ample a manner as he did that amongst the Jews Hath any Church of the world received greater notices of his favour more peculiar marks of his affection or more signal testimonies of his care on it than the Church of England of which we profess our selves to be members Hath not the Divine Omnipotency interposed it self many times miraculously for its deliverance and have we not been as fire-brands pluck'd out of the fire rescued from the most apparent dangers snatch'd from the very jaws of death and the pit of destruction How frequently have the crafty Foxes of Geneva endeavoured to undermine us and the wild Boars of Rome to root us up and devour us and yet notwithstanding all their secret Cabals their slie insinuations and politick projections have been disappointed of their hopes and frustrated in their expectations As nothing could be more cruelly contrived than the present Popish Plot so nothing could be more secretly managed for as if the Devil and the Jesuits had laid their heads together and joyned in a league to ruin and dispatch us nothing could seem more to favour their barbarous enterprize they had strengthened themselves against us with Foreign interests abroad they had drawn into the confederacy many of their friends at home a general Massacre was resolved upon and most of us to be entombed in the ruins of our Kingdom whilst they erected triumphant Trophies upon the piles of our murdered and mangled Carkasses but behold when they thought themselves most sure when they were pleasing themselves with the thoughts of a prosperous success in their designs the Lord in mercy looked upon us by discovering their wicked intentions by defeating their cursed projects and bringing to light their mischievous practices and machinations against us and though in justice by reason of our manifold offences against him he might have suffered us to be taken by their wilyness to be ensnared by their devices and fall a prey to these malitious and blood-thirsty Boutefeus yet he hath reprieved us for some longer time from their tyranny and cruel dealings and is resolved to try what effects this his gracious and merciful providence will have upon us hoping still that this his patience and forbearance will lead us to repentance 3. Which brings me to the third Consideration I proposed from the Text the end of all Gods callings to mankind 't is to work in them a thorough and sincere humiliation for their transgressions In that day did the Lord God of Host call to weeping and to mourning and to baldness and to girding with Sackcloth now although these put together are but the exteriour superficies of repentance yet they are very good signs and symptoms of the reality of its performance and necessary in order to its acceptance with God Almighty a weeping