Selected quad for the lemma: kingdom_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A45360
|
The sacred method of saving humane souls by Jesus Christ by Henry Hallywell ...
|
Hallywell, Henry, d. 1703?
|
1677
(1677)
|
Wing H466; ESTC R13918
|
47,634
|
128
|
continuance in goodness to his own solitary effort or powers but to the benign and auspicious influence of the Divine grace and spirit It is he that forms in us the Life and Nature of God that makes us Holy Righteous and Good enlightning the Eyes of our Minds that we may see the inestimable riches of the Gospel and convinces us of the Truth of the Great Promises of Salvation It is He that daily by a Vital Energy purges and refines the minds of Men from all filthiness and uncleanness and consecrates their hearts as Holy Temples unto God It is he that continually burns up and consumes our unruly lusts and breathes upon the Sacred Life of God in our Souls fanning it into a flame of love that we dwell in God and God in Us. Through his mighty Power we are secured from our Spiritual Enemies leading us with a Pillar of a Cloud by Day and a light of Fire by Night till he bring us to Heaven the true Land of Canaan But in all this the Divine Spirit does not pull and draw us like stocks and stones nor offer any irresistible violence to our wills nor must we expect that God should do all the work for us while we sit still but we must do it for our selves only he has graciously promised to concur and lend us his hand and his assistance Work out your salvation says the Apostle with fear and trembling for it is God who works in you both to will and to do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of his good pleasure or according to your desire that is God stands ready to help you with Power and Ability to do it according to your desire or as you desire it of him and we are to take care that we actuate that Power which of his gracious bounty he confers upon us Which very thing makes us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cooperate with God as the Apostles are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 labourers together with God in the Dispensation of the Gospel Having now discovered the Great Influence of the Divine Goodness and Wisdome in the Work of Man's Salvation it remains likewise that I now shew how the Power of God has interessed and concerned it self in the same For the Apostle tells the Corinthians that he Preached Christ to them not only the Wisdome but the Power of God And again to them who are saved the preaching of the Cross is the Power of God Now this Power manifested it self 1. In raising our Blessed Saviour from the Dead Thus St. Paul says that Jesus was declared the Son of God with power by the Resurrection from the Dead that is God did own and publickly declare him to be his beloved Son in that powerful manner of raising Him from the Dead And again he calls it the mighty power of God which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the Dead For when the Jews had crucified our Saviour the Cause of the Gospel as to all Humane Appearance lay dead and buried with him as a lost and undone Cause insomuch that the Disciples themselves were brought to this We trusted it had been he that should have redeemed Israel so little hopes and expectations had they of a new state of things when they saw their great Master dead upon the Cross But suffering Virtue being so illustrious an object of the Divine Providence God who owned and approved our Lord Jesus all the time of his life would not now suffer his Credit and Reputation to lye at stake being dead and therefore notwithstanding the malice of the Jews and the envious diligence of the spirits of Darkness asserts and maintains the Truth of his Mission by bringing him up to life again The impious care and industry of his Enemies made the glory of our Saviour's Innocence so much the more clear and conspicuous they look upon him as an Impostor and having heard him afore speak of his Resurrection they endeavour by all means to hinder it that they might blast his Memory and bury his Honour with Disgrace therefore they roll a great Stone to the Mouth of the Sepulchre sealing it probably with the Signet of Pilate and setting a Band of Souldiers to watch about his Grave But God that loved his Son Jesus to his Death and took the care of Him when he was laid in the Grave disappointed the hopes and expectations of the Jews and made their malicious contrivances subservient Testimonies to the Truth of his Resurrection A mighty Angel comes down from Heaven at whose Presence and awful Majesty the Keepers trembled and the Earth it self was moved and rolls away the Stone and sits upon it and the stupendious Power of the Divinity shakes the Territories of Night and slumber and dismantles the Prisons of the Grave and restores to our Saviour that Life the Jews bereaved him of notwithstanding all their fraudulent Practices and Machinations A palpable Indication of the mighty and efficacious Power of God who alone can call the things that are not and quicken and enliven the Dead beyond all Humane Thoughts and Apprehensions 2. The Power of God in the Gospel has been very notable in the Destruction of the Devils Kingdom When Mankind began to apostatize from God and fall into Idolatry he gave them over to the Tyranny and Dominion of the Prince of Darkness as a just Punishment of their wilful Adhesion to his Counsels and Inspirations and for Reasons reserved in the Depth and Abyss of Divine Providence permitted all the World save that he selected himself a Church out of the Posterity of Abraham to be abused by the Devil and to lye under that servitude and slavery till the coming of Christ into the World But when the Son of Righteousness was risen the Nations of the Earth soon saw and walked in his light and the Prediction of our Blessed Saviour became verified and fulfilled in the Ruine of the Devils Kingdome whose lapse and fall was like lightning from Heaven For notwithstanding the mutual Combinations and Confederacies of the Kings and Potentates of the Earth against the Lords anointed and his Disciples and Followers notwithstanding the furious Rage of Satan in stirring up and raising many cruel and bloody Persecutions against the Church yet the Word of God grew mightily and prevailed so far that the whole Roman Empire at last became Christian whereby the Devil utterly lost his hold his Oracles being silent and his whole Worship destroyed And surely had not the Christian Religion been of God it could never have so Universally prevailed against such Potent opposition of Men and Devils The hand and Power of God was visibly and eminently discovered in the ample Diffusion and high success of the Gospel which from such weak and small Beginnings ran and was glorious captivating the Minds of Men to the obedience of Christ's Laws and bringing the World under the Scepter of his Kingdome Which Destruction of the Devils Rule and Dominion over Mankind being
in so great a measure already accomplished by the preaching of the Gospel and that Powerful Assistance that attended it from Heaven shall receive its full and final completion when the Mountain of the Lord's house is exalted upon the tops of the Mountains and all Nations flow unto it that is when both Jews and Gentiles shall unite themselves under the Banner of the crucified Jesus And now that I am discoursing of that signal overthrow of the Devil's Kingdome by Christianity or the Gospel under the Powerful conduct of the Lord Jesus whereby he became dispossessed of his Usurped Dominions and those who had so long time been his Slaves and Vassals returned to the Loyalty and Obedience they owed to their Natural Soveraign I cannot forbear to insert a Conjecture of the Pious and Learned Mr. Mede concerning the American or New World That those Countries were first Inhabited since our Saviour and his Apostles times and not before yea perhaps some Ages after there being no signs or foot-steps found amongst them or any Monuments of older Habitation as there is with us That the Devil being impatient of the sound of the Gospel and the Cross of Christ in every part of this old World so that he could in no place be quiet for it and foreseeing that he was like at length to lose all here bethought himself to provide him of a Seed over which he might reign securely and in a Place Vbi nec Pelopidarum facta neque nomen audiret That accordingly he drew a Colony out of some of those barbarous Nations dwelling upon the Northern Ocean whither the sound of Christ had not yet come and promising them by some Oracle to shew them a Country far better than their own which he might soon do pleasant large where never Man yet inhabited he conducted them over those Desart Lands and Islands which are many in that Sea by the way of the North into America which none would ever have gone had they not first been assured there was a passage that way into a more desirable Country Namely as when the World Apostatized from the Worship of the true God God called Abraham out of Chaldee into the Land of Canaan of him to raise him a Seed to preserve a light unto his Name So the Devil when he saw the World Apostatizing from him laid the Foundations of a new Kingdome by deducting this Colony from the North into America where since they have increased into an innumerable Multitude And where did the Devil reign more Absolutely and without Controll since Mankind fell first under his clutches And here it is to be noted that the story of the Mexican Kingdome which was not founded above 400. Years before ours came thither relates out of their own Memorials and Traditions that they came to that Place from the North whence their God Vitzliliputzli led them going in an Ark before them and after divers Years Travel and many stations like enough after some Generations they came to a Place which the sign he had given them at their first setting forth pointed out where they were to finish their Travels build themselves a City and their God a Temple which is the Place where Mexico was built And though the Devil in those Quarter and such other Parts of the World seem to Lord it alone over abused Mankind without any controll and opposition yet the Son of God to whom the uttermost Parts of the Earth are promised for an Inheritance will at length lay a Powerful claim to his own Possessions and take out of the hands of his Grand Enemy by the pure and uncorrupt Propagation of the Gospel that Soveraignty which he exercises over those Desolate People For as Christ in the Days of his Flesh by his Powerful and efficacious Word commanded the Devils out of their usurped Habitations in the Bodies of Men as a Praeludium of that Universal Conquest he should hereafter obtain so will he after such Periods of Divine Providence fixed and determined by his All-comprehensive Wisdome go forth with his Legions of Light and recover those wretched Mortals out of the Hands of the spirits of Darkness by whom they have been captivated and seduced at their Will Nor is this a bare Airy Notion or Fancy but a thing to be hoped and prayed for upon very Rational Grounds it being nothing but the enlargement of the Kingdome of Truth and Righteousness and the Dissemination of that Holy and Blessed Life of God to which Mens Souls have a Natural Cognation though for the present bent and forced out of their true state and Position 3. The Power of God will Discover it self in a very eminent manner in raising all Holy Men from the Dead and rewarding their faithful services with Immortality and Life at the last Day The last enemy that shall be destroyed says the Apostle is Death And when God shall think fit to put an end to the Generations of Men and conclude the Scene of the affairs of this World then shall the Holy Jesus descend from Heaven with a shout with the Voice of the Archangel and with the Trumpet of God and the Dead shall be raised and presented each one in the Visible and Individual Personality they bare in this World before the Judgment-Seat of Christ to receive for the things done in their Bodies whether good or bad and they that have done good shall come forth to the Resurrection of life and they that have done evil to the Resurrection of Damnation Which final sentence at the Conclusion of that dreadful Appearance shall be executed accordingly the Wicked being plunged into the Lake of Fire and Brimstone but the Righteous through the gracious Bounty and stupendious Operation of their merciful Redeemer shall be taken up into the Regions of Immortality and life where their Corruptible Bodies shall put on Incorruption and be transformed into the similitude of the Glorious Body of the Son of GOD through that mighty Power whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself And though this Transcendent state and Portion may very well be thought too big for our humble Hopes and Expectations and exceed all that we can do or suffer yet since God is pleased of his Infinite Bounty to promise we have no Reason to distrust his Faithfulness and Truth in the Performance of it since he has moreover given us a palpable Pledge and Assurance of it in the Resurrection of our Blessed Saviour from the Dead and because he lives we may be confident we shall live also Christ is risen from the Grave having conquered Death by dying and is ascended into the pure and peaceable Habitations of Glory therefore all his Members who are united to Him in the inseparable bands of Faith and Love shall feel the effects of his Powerful Life in immortalizing their very Bodies which shall then be absorpt into the Great Vortex of Eternity where both Body and Soul shall be deckt with such a refulgent