Selected quad for the lemma: kingdom_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
kingdom_n	hand_n	know_v	lord_n	1,908	5	3.6327	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44679	A funeral sermon for that faithful and laborious servant of Christ Mr. Richard Fairclough (who deceased July 4, 1682 in the sixty first year of his age) by John Howe.	Howe, John, 1630-1705.	1682 (1682)	Wing H3027; ESTC R28698	23,255	72

unprofitable Servant into outer darkness there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth vers 30. 6. See what estimate we are to make of the nature of God especially of his large munisicent goodness which is his nature God is love For consider the various emanations and discoveries of it which may here be taken notice of 1. That he should seek to have any for servants which the text supposeth that he doth in this world of ours A world of Apostate Degenerous Impure Impotent creatures disaffected to him and his Government hating him and as in themselves they are hateful to him He who hath so little need of servants for any real use who can do all things with a word And if he thought it fit to have them for state and as a thing becoming his majesty and greatness is attended above by so excellent God-like Creatures So suitable and obsequious So powerful and agile Those ministers of his that do his pleasure hearkening to the voice of his word A World of ministring Spirits that might be used for purposes less kind to us than they are That he should seek Servants among us for his having them implies it who ever serv'd him unsought unto invite men into his service with so importunate solicitation whom he might despise for their vileness and destroy for their rebellion which he can in a moment And that he should seek such to become his Servants not with indifferency but with so great earnestness and use afterwards so various endeavours to retain them in his service When they gradually decline that he so graciously upholds them when ready to break faith with him and quit his service that by so apt methods he confirms them when they actually wander and turn Vagabonds that he should be so intent to reduce them How admirable is all this View the whole case at once They neglect his first Invitations he repeats and inculcates them They faint he encourages and supports them They revolt he follows to bring them back The cause of our admiration still rises higher and higher How much is it in this last instance above all humane measures Most men would disdain so to sue to Servants that forsake them and are loath to confess their real need and want of them were it never so great The Cynick scorn'd to look after his servant that left him counting it a disgrace when Manes thought he could live without Diogenes that Diogenes should not be able to live without Manes The All-sufficient Deity stoops to that which indigency and wretchedness think even too mean for them 2. Consider the frankness of his acceptance even of the best for how many omissions how much lazieness and sloth how many incogitancies and mistakes how much real disservice must he forgive when he accepts them and says yet 'T is well done How little is it they do at the best and how unprofitable to him and yet that little also he forms and even creates them to and continually succours and assists them in it Works in them to will and to do Otherwise nothing at all would be done and yet how full how complacential his acceptance is 3. Consider the largeness and bounty of his rewards too large for our expression or conception So that we even say most to it when even lost in wonder we only admire and say nothing 4. Consider the kind of the Service which he thus bespeaks accepts and rewards The best and most acceptable service any are capable of doing him is when they accept him take and chuse him to be their portion and blessedness Trust love and delight in him as such live upon his fulness and according to their several stations perswade as many as they can to do so too They that in the most peculiar sence are his Ministers or Servants as they are more earnestly intent upon this and win more Souls are the more amply and gloriously rewarded They that turn many to righteousnes shine as stars And for all the rest of his Servants wherein do they serve him most but when by their converse and example they induce others to entertain good thoughts of God and Religion and thereupon to make the same Choice which they have made and become seriously Religious which is most certainly connected with their being happy and indeed in greatest part their very Happiness it self And when they relieve support encourage and help on those that are in the way or whom they are endeavouring to bring into the way to final blessedness We as much need our servants as they can us they are our living reasonable but most necessary instruments The whole universe of created beings subsists by mutual dependencies the uncreated being without any Creatures are made to need one another Infinite self-fulness not capable of receiving additions is most highly gratified by our chearful reception of its communications Let us learn now to conceive of God answerably to all this We do him not right that we consider not his admirable goodness in so plain instances of it with more frequent seriousness and intention of mind and Spirit and shew our selves stupid unapprehensive Creatures have we a thinking faculty about us a power to use thoughts and can we use it upon any thing more evident more considerable or that more concerns us or do we never use it less pertinently 7. How unreasonable is it either to quit the Service of our blessed Lord or to serve him dejectedly Quit it Who hath more right in us or where will we mend our selves O the treacherous folly of Apostacy and how severely is it wont to be animadverted on 2 Chron. 12.1 'T is said Rehoboam forsook the Law of the Lord and all Israel with him And what followed Shishak the King of Egypt comes against them with a great power and God sends them this Message by Shemaiah the Prophet that Because they had forsaken him vers 5. therefore he also had left them in the hands of Shishak and afterwards that thô upon their humbling themselves he would not quite destroy them but grant them some deliverance yet he adds nevertheless ye shall be his i. e. Shishak's Servants that ye may know my Service and the Service of the Kingdoms of the Countreys vers 8. Since they would abandon God and the true Religion he would by a very sensible instruction and costly experience teach them to distinguish and understand the difference and make them know when they have a good Master and if we serve him despondingly and with dejected Spirits how causeless a Reproach do we cast upon him and his Service 't is a greater iniquity than is commonly considered implies dislike of his work and the rules and orders of the Family impatiency of the restraints of it distrust of his Power to protect or Bounty to reward us and we may expect it to be resented accordingly so we sometimes find it hath been Deut. 28.47 48. Because thou servedst not the Lord thy God with joyfulness

pleasant perfect and perpetual enjoyment 2. This Joy is more expresly specifi'd by being called the joy of our Lord which signifies it to be not only 1. The joy wherof he is the object a Joy to be taken in him as before But 2. Whereof he is the Authour as he now puts gladness into the Heart in this our imperfect state he is not less the Authour of our most perfect Joy And 3. Also that whereof he is the possessour q. d. Enter into that Joy that is now to be common to me and thee and wherein thou shalt partake with me So one glosses the words Be thou partaker of the same Joy with thy Lord enjoy thou the same Joy that thy Lord enjoyes Amazing thought yet so Scripture speaks Where I am there also shall my Servant be Joh. 12.26 The glory which thou gavest me I have given them and vers 24. Father I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am that they may behold my glory which thou hast given me and that beholding cannot mean a meerly contemplative but a fruitive intuition If so be that we suffer with him that we may be also glorified together 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 8.17 Other joyes are in comparison mean and sordid this is the highest and most excellent for it is the Divine Joy 3. 'T is that they are to enter into which notes both the plenitude of their Right Their Lord bids them enter and the plenitude of this Joy it self they are to enter into it and the dominion it must for ever have over them they are to be absorp't of it lose themselves in it not so much to possess it as be possest by it And the perpetuity is intimated of that possession We are told of their entrance into it nothing of their passing out of it any more The last thing we hear of them is that they are gone into Joy Now let us see what brief useful reflections are to be made upon all this And 1. How blessed a thing is it to be a faithful Servant of Christ if any have not yet learnt to value his service for it self let them make their estimate by the end of it and by what is even at present most certainly annexed to it To be accepted with him to appear gracious in his eyes An Euge from such a mouth Where the word of a King is there is power How joyful a sound do these words carry from the mouth of God Well done good and faithful Servant The Persic version as it is render'd most significantly Paraphrases this Passage The owner of the Money received him pleasantly and uttered words to him grateful to his Heart saying Well done O thou good and faithful servant c. What can be more grateful and reviving to the heart of a good man than that the glorious Lord of Heaven and Earth should say to him Well done To have him say to us as to Moses Thou hast found Grace in my sight Exod. 33.12 To have gained this Testimony as Enoch did Heb. 11.5 That we have pleased God and that our Case might truely admit of such an Angelical Salutation thô upon a less peculiar account Hail thou that art highly favoured how great a thing is it So great a thing in the Apostles account that living or dying being in the body or out of the body seem'd little things to him in comparison of it He was willing rather to be absent but is more solicitous whether present or absent that he might be accepted of him 2 Cor. 5.8 9. Yea and the more abject spirit of a very Cain resents so deeply his not being accepted tha● his troubled mind imprints Characters of Sorrow in his Face shews it self in a fallen Countenance and dejected looks What ingenuous mind but knows how to value even the unprofitable kindness of a mean Friend Can the Love of a God seem little with us it addes greatly to the value of meer Kindness abstracted from Beneficence if it be born me by a judicious wise person such a one honours whom he loves we less esteem the love of a Fool there can be no greater contempt of God than to make light of being accepted with him But how transporting a thing should it be besides the present sence of such acceptance which with more or less expresness accompanies diligence and fidelity in his Service to have it judicially declared with solemnity and publickly said to us before Angels and men Well done good and faithful Servant when so great consequences depend and are to ensue upon it as that it should be further said Come be thou Ruler over many things Inherit the Kingdom prepared for you Enter into the Joy of your Lord. Who would think meanly of being the accepted Servant of the most high God They that finally despise so Priviledg'd a State will see it with their eyes exemplifi'd in others but shall never tast the sweetness of it 2. How easily accountable is it why our Lord lets his Servants suffer hard things in this World a while He may permit it to be so who hath it in his Power to make their Sorrow be turn'd into Joy It is not strange if Weeping endure with them for a night unto whom such Joy is coming in the morning it is unworthy to repine in this Case 'T is want of foresight that makes any wonder and censure Consider well those weighty words 1 Pet. 4.12 13. Beloved think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you as thô some strange thing happened unto you But rejoyce in as much as ye are partakers of Christs sufferings that when his Glory shall be revealed ye may be glad also with exceeding Joy 3. How wicked and foolish a thing is it to refuse this Service 't is horridly unjust towards our most rightful Lord and most imprudent for our selves Do men know what they do in this whose right they invade and resist and what Cruelty they use towards their own Souls 4. How much to be lamented is the condition of the sinful World who so generally decline this Service and make themselves Slaves in the mean time to the worst of Masters how do men drudge to the Devil what Slaves are they to themselves and their own vile Lusts As indeed no man serves himself but hath a Fool and a mad Tyrant as one well sayes for his Master We do not enough live up to the Principles of our Religion while we consider not with more compassion the condition of infatuated Mankind in this respect 5. What may be expected by unfaithful negligent Servants that hide their Talent in a Napkin The others Joyes serve to measure their Sorrows what a killing word will it be when instead of Well done good and faithful Servant it shall be said Thou wicked and slothful Servant and instead of Enter thou into the Joy of thy Lord they must hear and feel Cast ye the