Selected quad for the lemma: kingdom_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
kingdom_n	great_a	high_a	king_n	5,277	5	3.6528	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A66097	The child's portion, or, The unseen glory of the children of God asserted and proved together with several other sermons / occasionally preached and now published by Samuel Willard, teacher of a church in Boston, New-England.	Willard, Samuel, 1640-1707.	1684 (1684)	Wing W2271; ESTC R33658	112,015	240

Countenance those inward supports of heart that sweet communion which their Souls have with God in an Ordinance in hearing the Word at a Sacrament in their Closets on their knees powring out of their Prayers and tears into the bosom of their Father Those holy transports are riddles and matters of laughter and scorn to them and if they know not what is how should they understand that which is to come 3. The Children of God themselves whiles they are here do not fully know what they shal be it doth not yet appear to them It is true 1. The Word of God hath said a great deal concerning their future Glory There are many high and towring expressions to our apprehension used in the Scripture worthy descriptions of that great City and the Inhabitants of it and if we would study the Scripture more we might know more of it But yet when we arrive at the Kingdom and come once to see and view and experience it we shal say as the Queen Sheba to Solomon 1 King 10. 6 7. 2. The People of God have their sips and foretastes and first fruits of this Glory here They are made to tast of those Graps of which the Wine is made in Canaan They have not only their assurances but also sometimes their extasies They are taken into the Mount rapt up into the third Heaven their souls are lifted up aboue the world and all that is in it God is pleased at some times to carry them out so farr in their meditations and reveal so much of himself and his infinit love to their contemplation that they are loth to come down or to have any thing more to do with the sink and puddle of this world They know so much of that after state that when they are under these precious discoveries and the irradiations of the spirit of God upon their souls they cry out Who will give me the wings of a Dove that I might mount up and be gone And with Paul their hearts are carried forth with a longing desire to depart and be with him in full possession of all this Glory But 3. A full clear and manifest discovery of their happiness is not made to any of God's People here They that have seen most of heaven while upon this earth have seen it but ●● Landskip They that have had the most ravishing tasts of the love of God have but imperfectly tasted it All our knowledge all our sight here is but in part 1 Cor. 13. 9. We know but in part That which is p●●fect is yet to come vers 10. The are but dawnings at the most which we have here what those rayes will be which shal beam forth from the Sun of Righteousness in the mid-day splendour of Celestial Glory we now cannot tell but must be content to wait till we go thither where it is to be seen and enjoyed 2. For the ground of the Doctrine or reason why it doth not yet appear 1. God makes it not known to the ungodly 1. Lest they should be allured by it All which they hear and enjoy here must therefore be Aenigmatical or obscure to them lest they should be converted it is an awful word but Christ himself hath spoken it who knew his Fathers and his own mind and purpose Mar. 4. 11. 12. To them that are without these things are done in parables c. Lest at any time they should be Converted 2. That they may by Persecutions and oppositions try the Graces of his Children There is great use and fruit in this tryal it is more precious than that of Gold And God is pleased to use wicked men as instruments of the tryal And hence they shall not know who these be nor what their Glory is for if they did they would without doubt suspend if not in love yet in fear of them Christ himself must come in a disguise that so the determined Counsel of God might be fulfilled i● him 1. Cor. 2. 7 8. They would else never have Crucified him 2. The reason also why the People of God themselves have no comprehensive discovery of their own future estate 1. Because it is too big a sight for their weak eyes to gaze upon They must be prepared for their Glory as well as their Glory for them or else it would swallow them up Rom. 9. 23. Hence When Christ is upon the one work in Heaven the Spirit of Christ is on the other here Should a full description of that state be given us it must be in a Language which we understand not They are but dark similitudes dim and dull comparisons accommodated to our own weak capacity which the Scripture affords The words which Paul then heard when he was in the third Heaven were ineffable words and such as were not lawful to utter 2 Cor. 12. 4. Not unlawful because forbidden by any precept but because they did out-bid his ability If the Glory to be revealed should now be revealed to us in this our imperfect state it would over oppress and sink us 2. That they may with more patience abide the time allotted then here and serve there Generation in the doing of that work which God hath set out for them to do before they go to be possessed of this Glory We find that after St. Paul's rapture he had great wrestlings with his own spirit and much ado to keep up in himself a willingness to tarry here any longer Phil. 1. 21. I am in a strait between two Having a desire to depart And such have been the frames of God's dear Children after that they have had some extraordinary beamings of his love and been feasted by him with some special visits they have been long ere they could quiet themselves from longing and praying that the Chain might be cut and they might hoise Sail and be gone Might the Saints be permitted to know here as much as shall be known hereafter it would be harder perswading them to be willing to live than it is now to make them willing to dy USE I. For informations learn we from Hence 1. The reason why the Children of God are so little regarded here in the World it is because the World knows not who they are nor what they are born unto Their great Glory for the present is within outwardly they look like other men they eat drink labour converse in earthly imployments as others do the communion which they have with God in all of these is a secret thing They are Sick Poor Naked Distressed like other men those in ward supports which they have under all those exercises are remote from publick view They dy and are buried under the Clods and their bodyes putrifie and rot like other men and none see those joyes that their souls are entred into nor that guard of Angels which comes as a Convoy and carryes them into Abraham's bosom Na● they have their sins their spots their imperfections and weaknesses here as well as other men but

their tears repentance secret mournings and renewals of Faith and restorings to peace and soul-comfort are secret And hence Though the Righteous Man be indeed surpassingly more excellent than his neighbour yet is he not thought so to be Whereas did the World see and understand whose sons they are what inheritances th●● are the undoubted heirs of and what are those Gloryes they shall ere long be made to possess it would alter their opinion and make them afraid of them and not dare to do them any wrong How fearful was Abimelech of Abraham when God did but tell him he was a Prophet Gen. 20. 7 8. 2. Here we see the reason why the People of God are often so doubtful disquiet discontent and afraid to dy I put things together The ground of all this is because they do not as yet see clearly what they shall be It would be a matter of just wonderment to see the Children of God so easily and often shaken so disturbed and perplexed in hours of Temptation were it not from the consideration that they at present know so little of themselves or their happiness Sometimes their sonship it self doth not appear to them but they are in the dark at a loss about the evidencing of it to the satisfaction of their own minds and from hence it is that many doubtings arise and their souls are disquieted Sometimes their present sufferings look bigger in their thoughts than the conceptions or apprehensions which they entertain of their future Glory these things being near and the other looked on at a distance and hence they out-weigh in their rash judgements and now they are disquiet and discontent and say with him 〈◊〉 7● 13. I have cleansed my heart in vain and 〈◊〉 my hands in innocency And usually in 〈◊〉 good frames they apprehend more of the sweetness of present Communion with God in his Ordinances than of that blessed immediate communion in Glory and this makes them with good Hezekiah to turn away their faces from the messages of death and change All these things are arguments of the weak sight and dark thoughts which we here have of the things of another world which yet it is the holy pleasure of God that it shall be so a while for the advancing of his own ends in his Saints 3. Learn hence a reason why the present sufferings of God's Children can neither argue against nor yet prejudice their felicity for the time is not yet come wherein they are to appear like themselves Joseph's prisoned condition and prison robes set him never the further off from his preferment in Pharaoh's Court but were indeed the very harbingers of it When the appointed time for the manifestation of the Sons of God shall come he can fetch them out in hast change them in the twinkling of an eye and cloath them upon with all that excellency and splendid Glory whereby they who were but the other day lying among the pots shall with their dazling lustre outshine the Sun in the Firmament It is the Almighty's good pleasure that their life for the present should be hid with Christ in God But yet he hath his time and will take ●is opportunity to reveal and make it known 4. This teacheth us that the Glory of the sons of God must needs be wonderfully and astonishingly great For why Have they not already in hand that which surpasses the knowledge of all the world and which is in value transcendently more worth than all the Crowns and Kingdoms and Gloryes of it Do they not live upon and satisfie their souls with marrow and fatness here Psal 63. 5. Are they not here replenished with the fatness of God's house Psal 36. 8. Who but he that enjoys it can declare what an happiness it is to enjoy peace with God and fellowship with Christ assurance of his love and consolation of his spirit Who but he that hath felt it can tell what it is to have the love of God shed abroad in his heart and in his Soul to hear the sweet voice of Pardon and promises of Glory to ly all night in the bosom of Christ and have his left hand underneath his head and his right hand imbracing of him And yet he that knows all this doth not know what he shall be These are but the displayes of the outward Temple or holy place what then is to be seen in the holy of Holies These are but drops and rivulets which come in Pipes and in little portions how glorious a thing then must it needs be to dwel at the fountain and swim for ever in those bankless and bottomless Oceans of Glory How happy then are the dead in Christ who are now seeing tasting knowing and experiencing these things USE II. For Exhortation learn we hence 1. Not to judge of our selves or of our own state by our present sense It is the delight of Satan to be keeping the thoughts of the Children of God looking and poring upon their present sinful and sorrowful condition that they may be held under discouragement by thinking themselves miserable but we live by hope and Hope that is seen is not hope Rom. 8. 24. As often then as your sense would dishearten you now betake your selves to and stirr up your Faith set your selves to meditate upon the unknown Gloryes which are coming and think them not less but greater because they appear not this being one main reason why they do not as yet appear because they are too big for our present comprehension 2. Think it not hard that God should call you to 〈◊〉 sufferings for his Name but let the consideration of that unseen Glory that is a coming arme and animate you for whatsoever Dayes of trouble you may have good reason to think are not afarr off that when they do come they may not be burdensome but may weigh light Learn therefore of Paul to place the scales right that you may be able to draw the same conclusion which he doth when you come to weigh your future felicities that you have in hope against all the present sorrows and sufferings you are at the present undergoing for Christ 2 Cor. 4. 17 18. 3. Wait patiently for your Glory though you do not now enjoy it no nor make a full and through discovery of it at the present yet be patient and wait and you have those encouragements so to do 1. The time is not long It is but when he shall appear Context There is a little work for you to do for God here and then the reward And as you have need of patience for this that when you have done the will of God you may receive the reward Heb. 10. 36. So there is this given to animate you in the chearful exercise of it that it is but a little while and he that shall come will come and will not tarry vers 47. Christ is but gone to heaven to prepare and then he will come again for you 3. You have mean