Selected quad for the lemma: kingdom_n
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A92054
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The spirits touchstone: or, The teachings of Christs spirit on the hearts of believers. Being a cleare discovery, how a man may certainly know whether he be really taught of the spirit of God, being very useful for these times. / By J.R. late student of Merton Colledge in Oxford.
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Roys, Job, 1633-1663.
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1657
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Wing R2161; Thomason E1663_1; ESTC R203429
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176,299
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389
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of the devil so many thousand years Why I will tell you as the devil is the Prince and God of this world so Christ Jesus is the King of Saints Rev. 15.3 and the Prince of the Church and God is the God of his people Now which do you think is strongest 1 Pet. 5.8 God or the devil that roaring lion the devil that goes about seeking night and day whom he may devour or the Lion of the Tribe of Judah Which more politick Rev. 5.5 Rev. 12.9 the serpent or Jesus Christ who is the wisdom of God the Father Prov. 8. Which is the likeliest to prevail or which party hath prevailed in all ages hath not the Church Vincit patiendo Ecclesia the Church overcomes by sufferings as the Israelites in Egypt the more they were afflicted the more they grew And though the Church hath been small in all ages in respect of the enemies and of Satans party yet the Saints of God might truly say Let the enemies part be never so numerous or great that there is more with them than against them and why because God is with them He is the Saviour of his people Exod. 24.24 That God who but with a look from heaven could destroy all the Egyptians that God who can destroy them but with the breath of his nostrils Iob 4.9 Exod. 10.12 who can cause weak and inconsiderable creatures to punish the foolishness of his adversaries Isa 40.12 That God who measureth the waters and spanneth the earth and holdeth it in the hollow of his hand that God who created all things and if will say but the word can loose the fabrick of heaven and earth and turn it to its first nothing Dan. 5.23 that God whose is our breath and in whose hands are all our waies that disposeth of Kingdoms and giveth them to whomsoever he pleaseth that taketh the crafty in their own deceit Job 5.12 and destroyeth the wisdom of the wise Last of all that God who hath at this time the devils fast bound in everlasting chains of darkness Jude v. 6. unto the day of judgement and hath thousands of cruell persecutors under his hands whipping them with Scorpions to all eternity Rom. 9.5 that God who is over all blessed for ever he is the God of the Saints and therefore no wonder if the Church prevails and hath prevailed and will prevail to all ages The gates of hell shall not prevail against it Matth. 16.18 We reade in the Book of the Revelation Rev. 12.12 that the devil is come upon the earth with great wrath and malice because he knows that his time is short Saith a Learned Commentator God may lengthen the devils chain and give him more liberty than formerly but he never quite looseneth it and lets him do what he listeth He knows that in these last times his Kingdom is going down and that Christ is fulfilling his work and that he will make but a short work upon the earth He knows it is best to be doing while the opportunity is put into his hand And what in former times he could not do by power and by persecution he endeavours in these later times to do by policy Formerly he was a red Dragon a ravenons Wolf a cruell Tiger but now he is become an Angel of light 2 Cor. 11.14 and comes in a more secret and mysterious way yet his malice is as great as ever against the Church though he rides not upon the pale horse of death Rev. 6.8 and he endeavours by all means to increase his Kingdom to the everlasting destruction of poor souls O that there were a wise heart and a considering heart in Christians to consider this that now we are fallen into the last times and the devil now bestirres himself more than ever that he is doing all he can do with all his policy and subtilty to advance his Kingdom and to gain proselites to maintain his cause listing souldiers daily under his banner therefore we should be a more praying people and a more watchfull people continually pleading at the Throne of grace that God would accomplish his work upon the earth and hasten the coming of Jesus Christ the bringing in of the Jews the fulness of the Gentiles and the destruction of Gog and Magog Pope and Turk with all the rest of the antichristian party 2. He is called the spirit of the world the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience He may well be called a spirit because of his working The manner of Satans working upon the wicked He being a spirit hath a great influence upon our spirits and he can not only suggest his temptations and put evil things into our hearts but like a skilfull fouldier he can marshall them and put them in order before our eyes and set home the object upon the heart with all the delight if an evil thing and with all the detestation if a good thing that possibly he can He doth not only morally perswade us but by a secret indiscernable way for the operations of spirits especially of one spirit upon another are very mysterious and difficult to be understood but by a willing compulsion draw forth the heart to entertain the motion It is said that Satan stirred up David to number the people 1 Chron. 21.1 Joh. 13.2 And that Satan put it into Judas heart to betray Christ And that Satan hath blinded the mindes of them which beleeve not 2 Cor. 4.4 There is a threefold blindness in an unregenerate man A threefold blindness in the ungodly 1. A naturall blindness 2. A contracted blindness by their long continuance in ignorance Wicked men are wilfully ignorant concerning the Commandments of God 3. A blindness which Satan super-adds over and above those two Satan can work insensibly upon the passions of the body and the images in the fancy And as he can delude our outward senses making us beleeve we see such things when they are not such as they are presented unto us so he can delude our mindes and hoodwink our understandings and by his Paralogisms and false argumentations reason us to a hatred of God and his waies to embrace the pleasures of sinne and the works of darkness We reade of the Energy of the devil Eph. 2.2 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which worketh effectually in the children of disobedience 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Efficacia est verbum usitatissimè relitum actionibus formarum spirituum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 operatio â—nima Arist The more spirituall any thing is the more force and power it hath to work and the more insensibly it sets home the impression upon another Conceit in many men worketh strange things A meer conceit of such a thing or of such an evil approaching hath driven men into deep melancholies and great sadness of spirit into strange diseases passions and furies If a meer conceit will do so
THE SPIRITS Touchstone OR The Teachings of Christs Spirit on the hearts of BELIEVERS Being a cleare discovery how a man may certainly know whether he be really taught of the Spirit of God Being very useful for these times 1 Cor. 2.15 But he that is spirituall judgeth all things yet he himself is judged of no man By J. R. late Student of Morton Colledge in Oxford London Printed for Simon Miller at the Star in St. Pauls Church yard 1657. Sept. 10. 1656. Imprimatur Edm. Calamy TO THE WORSHIPFUL Dr. LANGLEY Master of Pembrook-College in Oxford and one of the Canons of Christ-Church Reverend Sir VNder God and next to my Parents I may righty term you the dearest friend that I have in the World from whom when I was at Oxford a Student in Merton-College I received many favours and great encouragements to the promoting of my studies being by your care and vigilance over me preferred from Pembrook-College over which your self is a worthy Master thither to a Schollers place in the house And since I left Oxford I have been continually in your thoughts when God shall open a way for my further preferment Vpon this account with many other obliging arguments I have presumed in this present Treatise aâ— the first fruits of a more plentifull harvest to address my self unto you by way of thankefulness to whom I owe my self and the praise and the glory as to a secondary cause of all those services which God shall ever enable me to doe for his Church and people My portion to dispense the Word of God is fallen out in a very disheartning and in an evill time yet let the opposition of the world of flesh and of the devil let the carnall reasonings of flesh and blood let the malice of unreasonable men be never so great I have determined with my self to be the servant of Jesus Christ and of his Church so long as my life health strength liberty or any ability by the good providence of God is preserved unto me and to spend it and to be spent for the Gospel of my Saviour If I meet with opposition as I must doe I have nothing but what I looked for and what is my lot and portion while I am in this life and what all the faithfull servants of Jesus Christ have formerly undergon and what the enmity in the spirit of the world against the Spirit of God doth naturally produce and what we must have if we be faithfull and consciencious in our places not dawbing with untempered mortar but speaking the truth in the heart and what follows as necessarily wheresoever the power of godliness the cross of Christ the lesson of self deniall and the setting our selves against the corruptions of the times and the breaking down of the Magazines of sin and the setting up the pure worship of God and a plain sincere honest hearted dealing for the good of their souls not sparing any high or low rich or poor honourable or despised so he it God may be glorified and the Kingdom of Christ advanced is fully held forth An evil time I say it is wherein under a colour of zeale for the cause of God as if these were the forerunners of Christs second comming upon the earth wherein as they say he shall reign a thousand yeers as John the Baptist was the forerunner of his first comming He indeed was so for he came to prepare the way of the Lord to make his paths straight before his face But if we grant them forerunners they are no otherwise then sad omens of the worlds destruction with all the rest of the Antichristian party when Christ shall come to render vengeance upon them that know him not and obey not the Gospel of his Sonne they pervert the right wayes of the Lord and corrupt the word of God before the second comming of Christ there shall be an Apostacy from the faith when they seek to remove and to put out the light of the glorious Gospel that they may sinne with more freedom by turning our Bethel into a Bethaven and the houses of the Prophets to a den of abominable wretches Woe be to those men who are disobedient to the heavenly vision who despise Prophecyings who reject the word of his faithful Ambassadors calling them Popish fellowes and Priests of Baal under a pretence of higher mysteries It will be the saddest time that ever England saw yet if the Sun shal goe down upon the Ministers of the Gospel and the night shall come upon them Where the vision fails the people perish My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge Prov. 29.18 Hosea 4.6 2 Chro. 15 3 4 5 6. When there was no vision nor no teaching Priest then there was no peace to him that came in or to him that went out David saith Psal 11.3 If the foundations be destroyed what shall the righteous doe And if a faithfull Ministry and a conscientious Magistracy be removed and men be suffered to do what they list without reproof and correction and instruction what can we expect but abominable prophannesse but that England should become a second Rome a second Babylon and another Sodom But yet I hope better things of England yet since God hath a precious seed to shew forth his praise growing up in the two famous Vniversities of this land watered exceedingly with Divine showers of heavenly grace with the influences from above by the late prudent government in them seeing by the wise providence of God such pious conscientious and holy men do sit at the stern and doe guide the helm lest the sons of the Prophets might be infected with the errors and heresies of the times and the sons of Belial might prevaile over them though yet there is not a sufficient purgation of pride self seeking and of the advancement of humane wisdom before the everlasting wisdom of God from the Midst of them And there is yet something to be done before the blessing of God will descend upon them in such a plentifull measure as otherwise it would to wit a joynt setting themselves with one shoulder and with one consent to serve God in sincerity of heart and to bestir themselves more then ever for the preserving of the truth of God and to cleare the truth from all those calumnies which have been cast upon it in these latter times and to stand up for the honour of God and of his Church Now as there is a generation of men men of perverse minds reprobate concerning the faith given over to a spirit of delusions blinded with a judiciall blindness and hardned with a judiciall hardness led away with the vanity of their minds wicked and ungodly men foreordained to destruction who would pull down all Ordinances as preaching prayer receiving of the Sacraments holy conference and all those means whereby grace is wrought cherished promoted confirmed in the hearts of believers and which is far worse they pretend to doe all this