Selected quad for the lemma: kingdom_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
kingdom_n	king_n	put_v	see_v	2,127	5	3.4071	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A77148	Good counsell for evil times. Or, A plain sermon preached at Pauls in London, April 16. 1648. / By Edw: Bowles M.A. of Katherin-Hall Cambridge. Printed by the desire and order of the Lord Maior and aldermen of that famous city.	Bowles, Edward, 1613-1662.	1648 (1648)	Wing B3872; Thomason E435_35; ESTC R204201	25,559	35

GOOD COUNSELL FOR EVIL TIMES OR A PLAIN SERMON Preached at Pauls in London April 16. 1648. By EDW BOWLES M. A. of Katherin-Hall Cambridge Printed by the desire and Order of the Lord Maior and Aldermen of that famous City Psal. 34. 12 13 14. 12. What man is he that desireth life and loveth many dayes that he may see good 13. Keep thy tongue from evil and thy lips from speaking guile 14. Depart from evil and do good seek peace and pursue it LONDON Printed by F Neile for Samuel Gellibrand and are to be sold at his Shop at the Brasen Serpent in Pauls Church-yard 1648. TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE THE LORD MAIOR To the Aldermen and Common-Councell of the City of LONDON GIve me leave to joyne You together in an Epistle and may it be a pledge of Union in all things that tend to an happie and speedie establishment of Truth and Peace The Kingdome is very sensible how considerable You are in the welfare of it especially as it now stands And according to the influence you have upon the publick good or evill are the endeavours of the Enemies of our reformed Settling to distract and divide you for they see no other means to destroy you and those with you whose welfare is bound up in yours And in this you are a resemblance of the Kingdom of whom a great Politician saith that it is Magnum Animal neque interit nisi a seipso and according to this Axiom have the Enemies of our Religion and State framed their designes The zeal of Spaine and Rome carried them on indeed at first to furious attempts as in 88. and Powder Treason but when they saw they were not able to prevail that way they put on the Foxes skin and have most studiously raised and fomented jealousies and differences betwixt the King and Parliament betwixt the Parliament and Kingdom not to mention those subdivisions lately stirred which I would not be so far guiltie of keeping alive as to name them So hath it fated with your renowned City you have been to the Reformation and Liberty of this Kingdom what this Kingdom hath been to the Protestant Religion in other parts a great support The opposing party as impatient of such an adversary you know directed the first fruits of their strength and malice against you they were indeed interrupted in their way by the battell at Edge-hill but as soon as they were recruted and recovered how eagerly they pursued their former purpose Brainford can witnesse but the next day when the City appeared so unanimously and heartily for their own and the Parliaments defence they saw it was necessary to take another course and try if they could become your masters by designe and fraud and bring you to a cheaper ruine by making you destroy one another To this purpose severall courses have been taken and not altogether without effect But so long as there was a Common Enemy appeared there was a diversion of the humors which since our late semblance of Peace have broken out into violent and strange diseases which have alreadie distempered the health and go on to endanger the life of that famous City The best expedient to remedie this great evill were doubtlesse a reconciliation of those persons and parties who are now distant but were in the best estate of the City affectionate and unanimous This is not onely policy but piety as by a serious perusall of Jam. 3. from the 13. ver. to the end may appear Experience witnesses the hard task and fate of reconcilers who lye betwixt the extremes as corn betwixt the Milstones But yet I must professe my self one of them and I had rather they grinde me then one another To the accomplishing this great work a speciall portion of the wisdom that is from above which is mentioned Jam. 3. ult. is very necessary which let us beg on the behalf of all Christians especially those whose influence into publick affairs requires a greater measure A probable expedient hereunto may be this that extremities on both hands be layd aside and persons that drive them on For of each party there are some parts so heterogeneous that there is little hope they should ever mingle together neither is it beneficiall that they should while they so remain for they tend to distraction that is to destruction And give leave to him that hath many faults to complain of one That is that those who have and might have agreed have put so little trust in God and so little mutuall confidence in each other that they have chosen rather to support and strengthen their factions for that it 's come to with persons lesse desiring their welfare then themselves of one another And therefore whatsoever persons principles or practises tend to bring us under old revenges or new confusions should carefully be avoided There is hardly any man who is not in reason convinced that the continuance of this distance and opposition betwixt good men will certainly expose them to the power and revenge of them who equally hate both and yet how few are there whom passion or faction will suffer to act accordingly You will pardon the mention of this odious word Faction it is of mischievous consequence and deserves to be branded for it will undoubtedly ruine both sides especially when there is a third to wait the advantage and the issue And he that would be free from this evill must not inordinately affect his own opinion or interest which will expose him to that inordinate course of making parties to maintain it but be content to have all his Propositions fairly examined neither must he look at persons more then things as weak and angry men are wont to do having some mens persons so in admiration as they most cry up or at least justifie or excuse all their wayes and others in such detestation as to undervalue blast and blemish all they say or do It 's hard to finde ei●her a man so good as in some things he should not be declined or so evill that there may not be some use of him and if we could abstract from persons and let things and actions take their own demerits much injury and misery might be prevented There have been many vicissitudes of late and those that have been highest have still lost themselves and endangered others by extremities It 's now come to your turn again and unlesse God grant so much wisdom self-deniall and forgetfulnesse as may dispose toward moderation it will not it cannot last I adde no more but an excuse first for this Epistle if plain dealing need one and 2ly for the Sermon which when I composed I was so far from thoughts of the Presse that I never thought of a London Pulpit it hath been a moneth delayed in hopes of an excuse But since you will have it I submit with a homely but hearty complement Much good may it do you And the God of peace give you peace alwayes by all

heaven and not allowed for the lot of this pilgrimage and if differences were wisely distinguished we should have more peace and never the lesse Truth among us But that way should be given to a licencious lawlesse boundlesse Vorstian libertas Prophetandi as it s called that every one whose brain is big of some new conceit or the transmigration of an old error should have the Midwifery of a Toleration to produce and propagate it how soone would it turn both Church and Kingdome into a Babel of confusion The fruits of this practise have been found in Poland and Transilvania And whereas it is usually objected that some place neerer hand flourishes notwithstanding this I answer or rather aske in what they flourish is it in the life and power of Religion or in other things onely And let it also be considered whether this indifferency connivence there hath not given advantage to a secret and subtill enemy to undermine the very foundations of their liberty the issues whereof may too soon appear Where all Religions or all things called religion are exercised the product is commonly no religion or a prevalency of the worst Therfore never let us think to establish our selves with those things for which other Churches have been threatned and probably wasted as of Thyatira and Pergamus Rev. 2. 14. 20. 5. To these I may adde a fifth consideration and its this No violent or sudden change of Civill Government according to the Idea's and chimeraes in the minds of more witty then wise men is likely to better these times If things could be acted as easily as imagined and compassed as soon as contrived it were another matter But revolutions of times and States are the fancies of men but the works of God It is said indeed of some that they shall think to change times and Laws Dan. 7. 27. but it 's the power and priviledge of the most high to change times and seasons to remove Kings and set up Kings Dan. 2. 21. The weight of Kingdoms is too great to be turned by the weak engine of humane invention God uses to suit providences and spirits of men to great works when he intends them and it 's he that makes agreements of people and not a few of the many And those dreams of parity in Civill affairs is unequall and impossible Philosophers say of naturall bodies Non datur temperamentum ad pondus because that body could consist no where were there not a predominant element to determine it It 's as true of civill and politick bodies Those that now are for equality while they are inferiour would be for superiority when things were equall if the Vine and the Olive were taken away the Bramble would rule over the trees for some body will Thus we see what will not do the businesse so much desired let us briefly consider what will And to this purpose know in one word Reformation would do the work and that 1. In Religion the settling the affairs of which would have a very great influence into an alteration of times for the better For not onely men that have the power but even all that have the form of it will be ill at ease till it be established And more especially it being acknowledged that the God of heaven hath the soveraignty of times and seasons in his hand this must necessarily be granted that to procure better times must be to comply with that which the Lord looks upon as his main interest if I may call it so which is the ordering the affairs of his Church and that in Doctrine and Worship Truth is a glorious beam of the Sun of righteousnesse I mean Gospel truth the Word of truth the Gospel of salvation which God is very choice of how slightly soever men may esteeme it and tosse it at their pleasure the foundation of that stately structure was layd in the blood of his Son and hath been raised by the blood of his Saints and who so would have the eye and heart of God to be toward them must have theirs to his truth To the bettering therefore of these dayes how usefull and acceptable would it be how pleasing to God and profitable to men if the more grosse injuries and affronts offered to the truth of God were more discountenanced and punished especially if pertinacy and contumacy be added thereunto And so to make a graduall progresse to a more full vindication of it by a mixture of power and means of information There are some damnable heresies that bring swift destruction to persons and places and there must not be delay in them there are opinions and practises against the light of nature and evident light of Scripture that have been broached in these licentious times which can hardly pretend to conscience which should be carefully repressed Let not men be afraid of endangering peace by asserting truth If it were so yet it were no just plea because we are bid to buy the truth but not to sell it no not for peace though that be a pearl it 's not the pearl of price but it will not be so beside the meraphisicall relation of verum and bonum you will find a frequent connexion of them in Scripture Truth and peace So for Worship much hath been done by Authority that way for the draining of it from the muddy mixtures of humane ceremony and invention Onely the coldnesse of inferior offi●ers trusted with execution of Laws together with the corruption of men addicted to the easinesse of externals in Religion have rendred them in a great measure unprofitable so tha● men are left still halting betwixt God and Baal saying 〈◊〉 after a new fashion and holding the people in hand that there is yet hope of a re-establishment of former customes whereby an intolerable envy and mischievous prejudice is raised against them who practise Reformation And that God may be pleased in worship you must look not onely to avoid superstition but formality also the usuall bane of Religion in places where it is much professed Remember that God is a Spirit bare words and externals hold no communion with him he will be worshipped sutably that is in spirit and in truth I doubt the quarrell mentioned Isa. 29. 13. is executed upon us and upon the same ground we have in our ordinary and extraordinary duties too frequently honoured God with our lips when our hearts have been far from him and therefore is the wisedome of the wise men perished and the understanding of the prudent hidden And as a fence to both these how necessary also were it that Government were settled according as the most considerable part of Godly men have advised Let it not be looked upon as too rigorous it is not found so in other places where it is exercised remember whose language it is Let us break their bands in sunder but lest this Scripture should be misapplyed let men take heed of putting of their own rules under the notion