Selected quad for the lemma: heaven_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
heaven_n	enter_v	righteousness_n	scribe_n	2,630	5	11.0710	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A28235	A looking-glass for the times being a tract concerning the original and rise of truth and the original and rise of Antichrist : showing by pregnant instances of Scripture, history, and other writings, that the principles and practices of the people called Quakers in this day and their sufferings are the same as were the principles and practices of Christ and His apostles ... / by George Bishope.	Bishop, George, d. 1668.	1668 (1668)	Wing B2998; ESTC R14705	345,237	250

in the life time of the late King Charles whose Chaplain he then professed himself to be when those called the Synod were sitting at Westminster and had consulted the Directory and Catechisme his words in a Printed Book of three Sermons preached by him at Dublin in Ireland out of the first of which these are taken are these Speaking from that Scripture Except your Righteousness exceed the Righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees you shall in no case enter into the Kingdom of Heaven Matth. 5. 20. Which is the Text from which he preached and in particular of the Law of Moses in or according unto which stood the Righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees which must be exceeded he saith When Christ brought life and immortality to light Evang. Righteous Page 3. through the Gospel and hath promised to us things greater than all our explicite desires bigger than the thoughts of our hearts then saith the Aposile (a) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Then we draw near to God and by these we are enabled to do all that God requires and then he requires all that we can do more love and more obedience then he did of those who for want of these helps and these Revelations and these Promises which we have but they had not were but imperfect persons and could do but little more than humane Services Christ Page 4. hath taught us more and promised to us more than ever was in the World known or believed before him and by the strengths and confidence of these thrusts us forwards in a holy and wise Oconomy and plainly declares that we must serve him by the measures of a new love to do him honour by wise and material glorifications be united to God by a new Nature and made alive by a new Birth and fulfil all Righteousness to be humble and meek as Christ to be merciful as our Heavenly Father is to be pure as God is pure to be partaker of the Divine Nature to be wholly renewed in the frame and temper of our mind to become people of a new heart a direct new Creation new Principles and a new Being to do better then all the World before us ever did to love God more perfectly to despise the World more generously to contend for the Faith more earnestly for all this is but a proper and just consequent of the great promises which one Law-giver came to publish and effect for all the World of Believers and Disciples The matter which is here required is certainly very great for it is to be more righteous than the Scribes and Pharisees more holy than the Doctors of the Law than the Leaders of the Synagogues than the wise Princes of the Sanhedrim more righteous than some that were Prophets and High Priests than some that kept the Ordinances of the Law without blame men that lay in Sackcloth and fasted much and prayed more and made Religion Page 6. and the study of the Law the work of their lives This was very much but Christians must do more they did well and we must do better their Houses were Marble but our Houses must be gilded and fuller of glory but as the matter is very great so the necessity of it is the greatest in the World it must be so or it must be much worse unless it be thus we shall never see the glorious Face of God Here it concerns us to be wise and fearful for the matter is not the question of an Oaken Garland or a circle of Bayes and yellow Ribbond it is not a question of Money or Land Page 7. nor of the vainer rewards of popular noise and the undiscerning suffrages of the people who are contingent Judges of good and evil but it is the great stake of life eternal We cannot be Christians unless we be righteous by the new measures The righteousness of the Kingdom is now the only way to enter into it for the Sentence is fixed and the Judgment is decretory and the Judge infallible and the Decree irreversible for I say unto you said Christ Unless your Righteousness exceed the Righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees ye shall in no wise enter the Kingdom I have put these things together as they lie in the Bishops own order and words that I might not seem by dis-joyning them to vary his sence whilst I repeat his words In what follows I shall be more short In speaking of the Scribes and Pharisees wherein the Righteousness did consist and wherein it fell short of the Evangelical Righteousness which he saith is required he saith It was a great innocence if they Page 15. did not rob the poor then they were righteous men but thought themselves not much concerned to acquire that godlike excellency a Philanthropy and love to all mankind Again in the conclusion of such his discriminations of them he saith Page 18. Page 19. This was the Righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees and their Disciples the Jews which because our Saviour reproves not onely as imperfect then but as criminal now calling us unto a new Righteousness the Righteousness of God the Law of the Spirit of Life to the Kingdom of God and the proper Righteousness thereof It concerns in the next place to look to the measures of this And as for these measures he saith Ibid. As for this in my Text it is indeed our great measure but it is not a question of Good and Better but of Good and Evil Life and Death Salvation and Damnation for unless our Righteousness be Page 20. weighed by new weights we shall be found too light when God comes to weigh the actions of all the World and unless we be found more righteous than they we shall in no wise that is upon no other tearms in the World enter into the Kingdom of Heaven Now concerning this we shall do very much amiss if we take our measures by the manners and practises of the many who call themselves Christians for there are as Nazianzen expresses it the old and the new Pharisee I wish it were no worse among us and that all Christians were indeed righteous as they were it would not be just nothing but I am sure that to bid defiance to the Laws of Christ to laugh at Religion to make merriment at the debauchery and damnation of our Brother is a state Page 21. of evil worse than that of the Scribes and Pharisees And yet even among such men how impatient would they be and how unreasonable would they think you to be if you should tell them Then there is no present hopes or possibility that in this state they are in they can be saved But the World is too full of Christians whose Righteousness is very little and their iniquities very great And now adayes a Christian is a man that comes to Church on Sundayes and on the week following will do shameful things being according to the Jewish Proverbial

the World and the Prince of it hath sought to pull down but hath not been able Naked Truth which is greater than all by its own force and virtue which is spiritual hath overcome and given all to do the same who have been led and guided by it that which subdues the spirits of men that which chains that binds the strong man armed and makes the Devils subject can certainly prevail to keep all that are guided by it in whom it lives and by whom they are preserved and kept The Lord the everlasting God neither fainteth nor is weary there is no searching out of his understanding The Power of God Christ Jesus by whom all things were made and preserved without which said he to Pilate nothing could be done unto him without doubt is able and will as he sees its most advantage to his Truth and the glory of his Name keep those in whom it lives who know the Rock that is higher than they the strong Tower the Name of the Lord to which the Righteous fly and are saved This may suffice to answer the Objection which happily may arise in some in point of safety should that be insisted on which looks to outward Arms the Truth had never been at this day had not the virtue and power thereof preserved and kept it self and all who have kept to it Wars and the Sword were not in the beginning in the beginning it was not so man was made in that or by it which made the Creation there was no variance Adam gave names to all the Creation the Creatures came to Noah by an instinct not humane to be preserved in the Ark. The first use of Arms was found in Cain who killed his Brother because of Religion the enmity entered with transgression the strange Nature which knew not that in which all things were made which sought the destruction of that which was made that which is come to redeem from transgression redeems from the consequence or that which followed by reason of transgression as well as transgression removes the enmity casts it out which having entered into the Creation seeks to destroy it which is the Devil and brings where man was in the beginning where one Spirit that by which all things were made which is tender to that it hath made which is the Harmony or Union where no Jar is lives and rules and hitherto things must all come again And as that in and by which all things were made comes to live as it comes to live works to this out of the contrary and that which will be in the end must be in the beginning and a beginning it must have and some must begin it and who should or can do this but those in whom this is so come to live that in the particular hath so far overcome that this it can do which is to be an example or a leader to the rest till iniquity being overcome and that which destroyes the Creation being cast out the Earth enjoy her Sabbaths again and the oppressor ceaseth out of the Land Happy is that people who are in such a case saith the Psalmist Psal 144. 15. in a thing of another nature Yea happy are the people whose God is the Lord. He gave his back to the smiter and his cheeks to them that plucketh off the hair and hid not his face from shame and spitting Isa 50. 6. The same is now where and as he is witnessed and his Dominion is an everlasting dominion and his Kingdom that which shall not pass away All that were led by his Spirit in all Generations pertook of his mind in this and thereby overcame the Lord sustained them so that they fainted not That which fights with the Sword must subdue the Spirit or it cannot overcome the body in which the Spirit is if the Spirit be overcome without the Sword bound or chained up is it not the same yea is it not better and there is a way to this and the man sees and hath proved it so who knows the Wisdom and the Power of God So let all men be satisfied in this thing the Doctrine that I preach is not new it was in the beginning and is in measure in some again and will be in the end The Prophets have prophesied so the Lord of Life in his humiliation witnessed it to be so so did the Prophets and Apostles so have all his Witnesses to this day and so now it is witnessed and will be till all hath an end and till time is no more The Witnesses of Jesus though men of War otherwise laid down to this The Roman Captains and Souldiers when it came to this laid down their Sword-Girdles as aforesaid and imbraced death as Christians I am a Christian and so suffered so have the Christians in succeeding Ages Why should I fill the World with reports of what Histories have said of this matter any further The ground hath been shewn wherein War stands and the reason and ground of the alteration and wherein that stands which gives it I hope no considerate man by this time will look strange upon this Position but having duly weighed things will see the rise of the one and of the other Arms and that which subdues them and so will be more gentled at least to the contrary Principle if not convinced of it which they may be in due season for which cause this is written at least that the ground on which we stand as to these things may be understood or that we may give a reason thereof to this and Generations to come and not appear as Monsters which the opposites to us would make in this thing who are no otherwise therein then on the ground aforesaid which he that thinks he can overthrow let him manifest himself therein So far at this time is it with me to write of this thing and so I shall proceed THE Fourth General Head Concerning the Changeable Priesthood The fourth and last Head is the Changeable Priesthood the Rise and Original of that and of the contrary to which I shall speak and then I shall end as to these Heads or Particulars THE Changeable Pristhood had its Date with the Nation of the Jews it was Figurative and ended in him who changed the Priesthood who is a Priest for ever after the Order of Melchisedeck without beginning of dayes or end of life whom the Changeable Priesthood signified For Christ is not entred into the Holy Places made with hands which are the figures of the True but into Heaven it self now to appear in the presence of God for us Nor yet that he should offer up himself often as the high Priest entred into the holy Place every year with blood of others for then must be often have suffered since the foundation of the World but now once in the end of the World hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself And as it is appointed for men once to die but