Selected quad for the lemma: kingdom_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
kingdom_n	father_n	hand_n	king_n	2,664	5	3.5501	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A52601	Two speeches delivered before the subscribing of the Covenant, the 25. of September, at St. Margarets in Westminster the one by Mr. Philip Nye, the other by Mr. Alexander Henderson.	Nye, Philip, 1596?-1672.; Henderson, Alexander, 1583?-1646.	1643 (1643)	Wing N1501; ESTC R4609	13,718	26

stout resolute and composed spirits that vve may bee able to goe on in the maine and stirre in the middest of such stirres and not bee amazed at any such doings It may possibly happen that even amongst your selves there vvill bee out cryes Sir you vvill undo all saith one you vvill put all into confusion saith another if you take this course saith a third vve can expect nothing but bloud but a vvise States-man like an experienced Sea-man knovveth the compasse of his vessel and though it heave and tosse and the passengers cry out about him yet in the middest of all hee is himself turneth not aside from his work but steereth on his course I beseech you let it be seriously considered if you meane to doe any such work in the house of God as this is if you meane to pluck up what many yeares agoe was planted or to build up what so long agoe was pulled downe and to goe thorough with this work and not bee discouraged you most begge of the Lord this excellent spirit this resolute stirring spirit otherwise you will bee out spirited and both you and your cause slighted and dishonoured 2 On the other hand wee must labour for humility prudence gentlenesse meeknesse A man may bee very zealous and resolute and yet very meek and mercifull Jesus Christ was a Lyon and yet a Lambe also in one place hee telleth them hee commeth to send fire on the earth and in another place rebuketh his Disciples for their fiery spirits Luk. 9. 54 There was the like composition in Moses and in Paul and it is of great use especially in this worke of Reformation I have not observed any disputes carried on with more bitternesse in mens writings and with a more unsanctified heat of spirit yea and by godly men too then in contraversies about discipline Church Government Ceremonies and the like Surely to argue about Government with such ungoverned passions to argue for Reformation with a spirit so unreformed is very uncomely Let us be zealous as Christ was to cast out all to extirpate and root out every plant his heavenly Father hath not planted and yet let us doe it in an orderly way and with the spirit of Christ whose servants we are The servant of the Lord must not strive but be gentle to all men apt to teach patient in meeknesse instructing those that oppose 2 Tim. 2. 24 25. We solemnly engage this day our utmost endeavours for Reformation let us remember this that too much heat as well as too much coldness may harden men in their wayes and hinder Reformation Brethren let us come to this blessed work with such a frame of heart with such a minde for the present with such resolutions for the time to come let us not bee wanting to the opportunity God hath put into our hands this day and then I can promise you as the Prophet Consider this day and upwards even from this day that the foundation of the Lords work is laid Consider it from this day will I blesse you saith the Lord Nay we have received as it were the first fruits of this promise for as it is said of some mens good works they are manifest beforehand 1 Tim. 5. Even so may be said of the good work of this day it is manifest before hand God hath as it were before hand testified his acceptance while wee were thinking and purposing this free will Offering he was protecting and defending our Armie causing our enemies the enemies of this work to flie before us and gave us a victory not to be despised surely this Oath and Covenant shall be Iudahs joy the joy and comfort of this whole Kingdome yea of all three Kingdomes Jesus Christ King of the Saints govern us by his Spirit strengthen us by his power undertake for us according as he hath sworn even the Oath which he sware to our Father Abraham that hee would grant unto us that we being delivered out of the hands of our enemies might serve him without feare in holinesse and righteousnesse before him all the dayes of our life Luke 1. Grant unto us also that when this life is finished and wee gathered to our Fathers there may be a generation out of our loynes to stand up in this cause that his great and reverent Name may be exalted from one generation to another untill hee himself shall come and perfect all with his own hand by his own wisedome even so come Lord Jesus come quickly Amen A Speech delivered by M. Alexander Henderson immediatly before the taking of the Covenant by the House of Commons and Assembly of Divines ALthough the time bee farre spent yet am I bold Honourable Reverend and beloved in the Lord to crave your patience a little it were both sin and shame to us in this so acceptable a time in this day which the Lord hath made to bee silent and to say nothing If we should hold our peace wee could neither be answerable to God whose cause and worke is in hand nor of this Church and Kingdome unto which we have made so large profession of duty ow much more nor to our Native Kingdome so abundant in affection toward you nor to our own heart which exceedingly rejoyce to see this day We have greater reason then the leprous men sitting in a time of great extremitie at the gate of Samaria to say one to another We do not well this day is a day of good tydings and we hold our peace it is true the Syrians are not yet sted but our hope is through God that the worke begun this day being sincerely performed and faithfully pursued shall put to flight not onely the Syreans and Babylonians but all other enemies of the Church of God of the Kings honour and of our liberty and peace For it is acceptable to God and well pleasing in his sight when his people come willingly in the day of his power and how shall they not be willing in the day of his power to enter a religious Covenant with him and amongst themselves whatsoever be the condition of the people of God whether in sorrow and humiliation before deliverance or in rejoycing thanksgiving after deliverance this is it which the Lord waits for at their hands which they have been used to performe and with which hee hath been so well pleased that it hath been the fountaine of many deliverances and blessings unto them When a people beginneth to forget God he lifteth up his hand against them and smitteth them And when his people humbled before him lift up their hands not only in supplication but in covenant before the most high God he is pleased such is his mercy and wonderfull compassion first to lift his hand unto them saying I am the Lord your God as we have it three times in two verses of the 20. of Ezekiel and next he stretcheth out his hand against his enemies and thers It is the best work of Faith to joyn

concernment as I can truly say it is worthy of us yea of all these Kingdomes yea of all the Kingdomes of the world for it is swearing fealty and allegeance unto Christ the King of Kings and a giving up of all these Kingdomes which are his inheritance to be subdued more to his thron and ruled more by his Scepter upon whose shoulders the government is laid and in the increase of whose Government and peace there shall be no end Esay 9. Yea we finde this very thing in the utmost accomplishment of it to have been the Oath of the greatest Angel that ever was who setting his feet upon two of Gods Kingdomes the one upon the Sea the other upon the Earth lifting up his hand to heaven as you are to doe this day and so swearing Rev. 10 The effect of that oath you shall finde to be this that the Kingdomes of the world become the Kingdomes of the Lord and his Christ and hee shall reigne for ever Rev. 11 His Oath was for the full and finall accomplishment this of yours for a graduall yet a great performance towards it That which the apostles and primitive times did so much and so long pray for though never long with much quietnesse enjoyed that which our Fathers in these latter times have fasted prayed and mourned after yet attained not even the cause which many dear Saints now with God have furthered by extreamest sufferings poverty imprisonment banishment death ever since the first dawning of Reformation That and the very same is the very cause and work that wee are come now through the mercy of Jesus Christ not only to pray for but swear to And surely it can be no other but the result and answer of such prayers and teares of such sincerity sufferings that three Kingdomes should be thus born or rather new born in a day that these Kingdomes should be wrought about to so great an engagement then which nothing is higher for to this end Kings raigne Kingdomes stand and States are upheld It is a speciall grace and favour of God unto you Brethren Reverend and Honourable to vouchsafe you the opportunity and to put into your hearts as this day to engage your lives and estates in matters so much concerning him and his glory And if thou should doe no more but lay a foundation stone in this great work and by so doing engage posterity after you to finish it it were honour enough But there may yet further use be made of you who now are to take this oath you are designed as chief master Builders and choice instruments for the effecting of this setled Peace and Reformation which if the Lord shall please to finish in your hands a greater happinesse on earth nor a greater means to augment your glory and crown in heaven you are not capable of And this let me further adde for your encouragement of what extensive good and fruit in the successe of it this very oath may prove to be we know not God hath set his Covenant like the Heavens not onely for duration but like also for extension The Heavens move and roule about and so communicate their light and heat and vertue to all places and parts of the earth so doth the Covenant of God so may this gift bee given to other Covenants that are framed to that pattern How much this solemne League and oath may provoke other reformed Churches to a further Reformation of themselves what light and heat it may communicate abroad to other parts of the world it is only in Him to define to whom is given the utmost ends of the earth for his inheritance and worketh by his exceeding great power great things out of as small beginnings But howsoever this I am sure of it is a way in all probability most likely to enable us to preserve defend our religion against our common enemies and possible a more sure fundation this day will be laid for ruining Popery and Prelacy the chief of them then as yet we have been led unto in any age For Popery it hath been a Religion ever dexterous in fencing and muniting it self by association and joynt strength all sorts of Professors amongst them are cast into Fraternities and Brother hoods and these Orders carefully united by Vow one with another and under some more generall notion of common dependancie Such States also Kingdomes as they have thus made theirs they endeavour to improve and secure by strict combinations and leagues each to other witnesse of late yeares that La Sainte ligue the holy league It will not bee unworthy your consideration whether seeing the preservation of Popery hath been by Leagues and Covenants God may not make a League or Covenant to be the destruction of it Nay the very rise of Popery seemeth to bee after such a manner by Kings that is Kingdomes assenting and agreeing perhaps by some joynt Covenant the text saith with one minde why not then with one mouth to give their power and strength unto the Beast and make war against the Lamb Rev. 17. where you read the Lamb shall overcome the Beast and possibly with the same weapons hee is the Lord of Lords and King of Kings hee can unite Kings and Kingdoms and give them one minde also to destroy the Whore and bee her utter ruine And may not this dayes work be a happy beginning of such a blessed expedition Prelacie another common enemy that we Covenant and swear against what hath it been or what hath the strength of it been but a subtile combination of Clergy men formed into a policy or body of their own invention framing themselves into Subordination and Dependencie one upon another so that the interest of each is improved by all a great power by this means acquired to themselves as by sad experience we have lately found The joynts and members of this body you know were knit together by the sacred engagement of an Oath the Oath of Canonicall obedience as they called it You remember also with what cunning and industrie they endeavoured lately to make this Oath and Covenant more sure for themselves and their posterity And intended a more publike solemn and universal engagement then since Popery this cause of theirs was ever maintained or supported by And questionlesse Ireland and Scotland also must at last have been brought into this holy league with England But blessed be the Lord and blessed be his good hand the Parliament that from the indignation of their spirits against so horrid a yoke have dashed out the very brains of this project and are now this day present before the Lord to take and give possession of this blessed Ordinance even an Oath and Covenant as solemne and of as large extent as they intended theirs uniting these three Kingdoms into such a League and happy combination as will doubtlesse preserve us and our Reformation against them though their iniquity in the misteries of it should still be working

in the end bring forth a Covenant as the onely meane after all other have been assayed for the deliverance of England and Ireland out of the deeps of affliction preservation of the Church and Kingdome of Scotland from the extremity of miserie and the safety of our Native King and Kingdomes from destruction and desolation This is the manifold necessity which Nature Religion Loyaltie and Love hath laid upon them Nor is it unknown in this Honourable Reverend and wise Audience what errours and heresies in doctrine what Superstition and idolatrie in Worshippe what Usurpation and Tyrannie in Government what cruelty against the soules and bodies of the saints have been set on foot exercised and executed for many Generations and now of late by the Romane Church all which we hope through the blessing of God upon this work shal be brought to an end Had the Pope at Rome the knowledge of what is doing this day in England and were this Covenant written on the Plaster of the wall over against him where he sitteth Belshazzar-like in his sacralegious pomp it would make his heart to tremble his countenance to change his head and Miter to shake his joynts to loose and all his Cardinals and Prelates to be astonished When the Reformed Churches which by their Letters have been exciting us to Christian Communion and Sympathie in this time of the danger of Religion and distresse of the Godly shall heare of this blessed conjunction for uniformity in Religion according to the word of God and the defence thereof it shall quicken their hearts against the heavinesse of oppressing sorrows and feare and be no other than a beginning of a Jubilee and joyfull deliverance unto them from the Antichristian yoke and tyrannie Upon these and the like considerations wee are verie confident that the Church and Kingdome of Scotland will most chearfully joyne in this Covenant at the first motion whereof their bowels were moved within them And to give testimony of this our confidence we who are Commissioners from the Generall Assembly although we have no particular and expresse Commission for that end not from want of willingnesse but of foresight offer to joyn our hearts and hands unto it being assured that the Lord in his own time wil against all opposition even against the gates of Hell crown it with a blessing from Heaven The word of God is for it as you have been now resolved by the consent and testimonie of a Reverend Assembly of so many godly learned and great Divines In your own sense and experience you will find that although while you are assaulted or exercised with worldly cares and fears your 〈…〉 other times when upon seeking of God in private or publike as in the evening of a wel spent Sabbath or day of Fast and Humiliation your disposition is more spiritual and leaving the world behind you you have found accesse unto God through Jesus Christ the bent and inclinations of your hearts will be strongest to go throgh with this work It is a good testimony that our designes and wayes are agreeable to the will of God if we affect them most when our hearts are furthest from the world and our temper is most spirituall and heavenly and least carnall and earthly As the Word of God so the prayers of the people of God in all the Reformed Churches are for us and on our side It were more terrible then an Army to hear that there were any fervent supplications to God against us blasphemies curses and horrid imprecations there be proceeding from another spirit and that is all That Divine Providence also which hath maintained this Cause and supported his Servants in a marvellous manner unto this day and which this time past hath kept things in an equall ballance and vicissitud of successe will we trust from this day-forth through the weight of this Covenant cast the ballance and make Religion and Righteousnesse to prevail to the glory of God the honour of our King the confusion of our common enemies and the comfort and safety of the people of God Which he grant who is able to doe above any thing that we can ask or think FINIS