Selected quad for the lemma: kingdom_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A40831
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The Family prayers of those poor Christians who in court and country, in cities, towns, cottages and farm houses, are in good earnest with religion : together with their way of intercession or praying for others.
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1675
(1675)
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Wing F355; ESTC R18017
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7,316
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23
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to the Souls of those who are under your Authority As any time hereafter morning and evening not to seek God in your Families in this short and easie but effectual way and make no question but that God who understands Hearts better than we do Words will most graciously accept both the Hearts and Words because these of his own endiâing as those of his own exciting See then saith the Apostle that ye âalk circumspectly not as fools but as âise redeeming the time because the days ãâã evil Wherefore be ye not unwise but understanding what the will of the Lord ãâã Ephes 5.15 16 17. As if he should âave said in other words thus Seeing the days are so evil so perilous and so ââheistical and withal so contagious and ââoysoning as ye see they are do not ââil to redeem time for this little as one would say to find or make time for âsing this soveraign Antidote in your reââective Families twice every four and twenty hours at the least or certainly ãâã do not understand what the will of the Lord is in this and many such-like Scriptures If yet ye have not done it yet now at length do it and let not this reproach lie at the doors of professed Christians that Family-prayers like set and costly meals are to be seen and found only among the rich and learned Do but break into it and begin and after one week the Devil and former neglect will never be able to cast you back into your old stupour indisposition and benummedness To conclude whereas that word ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã great volume great vanity was never more true than now because men of poverty cannot buy such Books and men of business cannot read them We shall put no more to you at this time but this one thing the long and happy experience of sundry your Brethren which assures you that if this due care among sundry other ye do take of your Families this benefit for certain ye shall sind to your selves namely That in your secret proper and personal Prayers and Ejaculations whether up or in bed whether for your selves or for others ye shall see your selves every day more and more enlarged and asseââed than ever ye did when this open regard of your Families ye had not as ââe would say in the words of the Prophet Ezekiel when ye did not study the turning of others as well as of your selves Ezek. 18.30.32 Wherefore turn ââur selves and live ye Margent Whereââre turn others and live ye Especially if ãâã do not fail often to mind your Faââilies both jointly and severally both ââe by one and altogether that to these family-prayers they add praying by themselves every one to himself and by himself as often as he shall find himself ââleisure and thereunto disposed and ââet never seldomer may it be than âery night when he goes to bed and âery morning when he ariseth And ãâã every Father of the Family let him ââver forget but always well remember ââât the only way to have good Children and good Servants is to be sure to ââke them good Christians And all whatsoever Masters Servants Parents children Landlords Tenants Kings Subjects Pastors People Husbands Wives all of all estates conditions and capacities whatsoever Know we all one great reason why we all have so little comfort one of another seems to be this Because we have so little Christian care one of another For if Kings for instance would pray more for the Kingdom of God to rule in their Subjects their Kingdoms certes would not be so shaken with Rebellions and Seditions as they be And on the other side if Subjects would be more praying that their Kings might study more to hallow Gods Name than to honour their own they would see Reason questionless to be more willing to confess them the Fathers of their Country and under God the authors and maintainers of their Prosperity If Husbands would say the Lords-prayer for their Wives oftener than they do God would keep their Wives from saying their Prayers backwards for them so oft as many do ãâã Fathers and Mothers would be more aâ Our Father for their Children the Children being wrought upon by their Father in Heaven would become more dutiful to their Parents on Earth If people would pray more that the Angels of God in this World his Ministers might do the will of God on Earth as done it is by the Angels in Heaven they would see more things in them to rejoyce in than now they do to lament and find fault with If Masters would pray more that God would give their Servants their daily bread in the full extent and true meaning of that word the daily bread which they do give them would doubtless be much better resented and requited by them than now ordinarily it is And then according to the Ordinance of King Ethelbert who gave all mean Lords their Estates upon three Conditions and one of them this That they should be Fathers to their Tenants Then I say would Landlords doubtless be a kind of loving Fathers to their Tenants and they back again as good as Sons to their Landlords if both would make great conscience of offering up Our Father for one another daily constantly and devoutly In a word if all that is if men as St. Paul orders Phil 2.1 Would not seek every one his own things only but think and study and pray every man for the things of others also then would there be clean another face of things in the World than now is even as it is in the next verse The same mind in us in a good measure as was in Christ Jesus But when all the entercourse between the respective Estates and Conditions is nothing but what we see every one prating and practising for himself and scarce any one praying or so much as propounding for any other no marvel so many very many are for the good of themselves only and so few able to do themselves or others any real good at all Si in suà quisque viciniâ hanc aut similem fatigandi Isa 62.7 Deum suum rationem suos omnes ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã docerent Ecclesiae Ministri eamque iis in usum redigerent effectum daretur haud dubie multum boni multumque mali partim anteverteretur partim sanaretur Quod faxit Deus per propter Jesum Christum Advocatum Dominum Mediatorem nostrum Amen FINIS