Selected quad for the lemma: kingdom_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
kingdom_n	devil_n	divide_v	satan_n	2,318	5	9.3446	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26947	A key for Catholicks, to open the jugling of the Jesuits, and satisfie all that are but truly willing to understand, whether the cause of the Roman or reformed churches be of God ... containing some arguments by which the meanest may see the vanity of popery, and 40 detections of their fraud, with directions, and materials sufficient for the confutation of their voluminous deceits ... : the second part sheweth (especially against the French and Grotians) that the Catholick Church is not united in any meerly humane head, either Pope or council / by Richard Baxter, a Catholick Christian and Pastor of a church ...	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1659 (1659)	Wing B1295; ESTC R19360	404,289	516

must be done to reduce them into Practice 1. THE first General Ground is this Peace and Holiness must be carried on together Yea Peace must be sought as a Means to Holiness and therefore Holiness which is the End must be preferred The wisdom that is from above is first Pure then Peaceable Gentle easie to be intreated c. Jam. 3. A man may be saved that cannot attain Peace with men and therefore we are commanded to seek it as an uncertain good Rom. 12. 18. If it be possible as much as in you lyeth live peacably with all men But no man can be saved without Holiness Heb. 12. 14. Follow Peace with all men and Holiness without which no man shall see God There is a kind of Unity among Devils For if Satan were divided against Satan how could his Kingdom stand Mat. 12. There is a Peace in a state of misery and sin which hindereth mens recovery For when the strong man armed keeps his house the things that he possesseth are in Peace It is a state of greatest danger on earth to be United in evil and to have Peace in a way of sin And therefore it is no wonder if there be more lovers of Peace then of Holiness and more that will cry out of our Divisions then of our ungodliness and more that cry out of so many Religions then of irreligiousness and ungodliness For nature may make a man in love with Unity and Peace but not with Holiness for with that it is at Enmity Hence it is that we hear so many Worldlings Swearers Drunkards Whoremongers cry up unity and cry down so many minds and wayes And hence it is that so many such wicked livers do turn Papists on supposition that there is more unity with them And so the Popish party among us are the sink into which the filth and excrements of our Churches are emptyed 2. The second General Ground From hence it followeth that the first closure of the members of the Church must be upon principles of Faith and Holiness and therefore only between the Professors of Faith and Holiness And therefore we ought not to be solicitous of obtaining a Unity with open ungodly men For what Communion hath light with darkness or what concord hath Christ with Belial If men will not agree with us in the great Principles of Godliness nor join with us in avoiding crying sins and living an Holy life it is they that are the Separatists and withdraw from our communion If they will not come to us in Piety we must not come to them in Impiety And to attempt a union with them in Government and Ceremonies when we cannot bring them to a Union with us in seeming Godliness is as vain as to attempt to an Association with the dead and to make a marriage with a stinking Corps It is therefore but a carnal stir that Papists and some Reconcilers make to have a Union so General as shall take in the most impious rabble that ought to be excommunicated and should conjoin the living and the dead And therefore in some cases we are all called to separate by him that calleth us in other cases to unity And he tels us that he came not to send peace with such but division 3. The third General Ground Unity and Peace are such excellent things and so much depend upon Love and Holiness and suppose also so much Illumination that the perfection of them is reserved for Heaven and as it is but a small measure of Illumination and Love and Holiness that is here attainable in comparison of that which we shall have in heaven so it is but a small measure of Peace and Concord And therefore though our desires and endeavours should go as high as we can yet our expectations on earth must not fly too high This hath been my own error I have not sufficiently considered that perfect Peace as well as perfect Holiness is the prerogative of Heaven and that true Peace will be imperfect while the Light and Vertue which is supposed to it is imperfect And it is a blind absurd conceit of them that wonder we have not perfect Unity when yet they murmur at Piety and think a little may serve the turn and any sin is tolerable that 's directly against God but not disunion So much for the General Grounds The Particular Grounds are these following 1. Ground IT is the Prerogative of the Lord Jesus to be the only Head and Soveraign of the Church And his will revealed is our Law and in him only must we center and not in any Vicarious Universal Head And from him must all receive their power and all must worship God according to his praescript Eph. 4. 3 4 5. 1. 21 22. Mat. 28. 18 19. Col. 1. 18. Acts 4. 12. 3. 22. 7. 37. Mat. 3. 17. 1 Cor. 3. 5 22. 1 Cor. 1. 12. Gal. 2. 9 10. 2. Gr. The Holy Scriptures with the Law of Nature are the only Laws of Christ unless as he may possibly by extraordinary Revelation oblige some person to a particular duty not contrary to that word but left undetermined which yet is so rare a thing that men must not rashly presume of such a matter 1 Tim. 1. 3. Gal. 1. 7 8. 9. Isa 8. 20. 1 Cor. 4. 6. 2 Tim. 3. 17. Deut. 12. 32. Mat. 15. 9 11. 3. It is the prerogative of Christ himself to be the supream absolute and final Judge of the sence of his own Laws and of the causes that are to be tried thereby And therefore it is treasonable folly to attribute any of this to man and to cry out for an Absolute Judge of Controversies here on earth when one saith This is the sence of Scripture and another saith that is the sence saith the Papist But who shall be Judge To which I answer How far man is Judge I shall tell you in the next but the Absolute Judge and the final Judge is only Christ He that made the Law is the proper Judge of the sence of his own Laws Do you not know that Christ will come to judgement and that all secrets must then be opened by him and he must decide what man cannot Man is to Judge but in tantum ad hoc secundum quid limitedly so far as he must execute but Christ only Judgeth entirely finally and absolutely 2 Cor. 4. 3 4 5. 1 Tim. 5. 24. Jam. 4. 11 12. 1 Pet. 1. 17. 2. 23. 1 Cor. 2. 15. Act. 23. 3. 1 Cor. 13. 9 10 11 12. Mark 7. 9 13. 4. All Councils whether General or Provincial or Classical which consist of the Bishops or Pastors of several Churches met together are appointed and to be used directly but gratiâ Unitatis Communionis Christianae and not directly gratia regiminis for the Governing of Pastors in order to Unity and Communion and not as a Regimental as to the Pastors This Proposition which is of exceeding consequence was voluntarily asserted to me

to be Papists 6. By this means they have easier access to a greater number then openly they could have 7. And by this means they may insinuate into our Counsels and know all our wayes and how to resist us 8. But above all by this means they may be capable of any office and trust among us They may be Ministers or Justices of Peace They may be Parliament men and Leaders in our Councils and have the conduct of our affairs They may have a great influence on the rest that know them not They may come to have power in our Armies And if once the Masked Papists come to make our Laws or guide our Councils and Affairs and influence or command our Armies you may soon know what would become of Protestants Kings and Parliaments Prelates and Presbyters shall all go one way if they can accomplish it It s easie therefore to discern that their principall Artifice lyeth in Hiding themselves so be it still there be a visible body of their open professors And for my own part I think I have good reason to fear lest the Papists are far stronger at this day in England that are unknown then that are known and that wear the Vizard of Seekers Vanists and other Sects then that appear bare faced Yea I believe that our danger of the open Papists is nothing in comparison of our danger from these Juglers And I confess I think an ingenuous open Papist should have a great deal more gentle dealing from our Magistrates then these Deceivers that have such stretching Consciences For my own part I must confess I feel a great deal of charity in my heart for a conscientious plain dealing Papist and I would never be guilty of cruelty or rigor to them But this jugling in the matters of God and Eternal life my very soul abhors I have been set upon by these Juglers my self and by some of the most renowned of them but as soon as I perceived any of them purposely choose the dark and hide themselves in affected cloudy terms or methods I was more a verse from their documents and took them for men that were either enemies to truth or else had not received it into honest hearts themselves Truth is most beautifull in its nakedness It loveth plain dealing and abhorreth fraud It takes that for its greatest friend that layes it most naked to the view of all and that for its enemy that purposely obscureth it We have all such a natural inclination to truth that he scarce deserves the name of a man much less of a Christian that would not embrace it if he knew it Did I think that the Papists had the truth the Lord knows I would run after them and follow them till I had learned it If ever any of them would work on me they must come bare faced for I naturally abhor a Jugler in Religion and a friend of darkness 3. But how shall these Hiders be Detected Answ 1. You have cause to suspect all that use a Mask and purposely hide their minds To suspect them I say to be Papists or worse They walk not in Gods way that walk in Darkness It is the Kingdom of Satan that is the Kingdom of Darkness and it is he that is the Prince of Darkness and his servants that are the sons of Darkness Me thinks a man that intendeth Deceit what ever his end be should not take it ill to be suspected for a deceiver God is so good a master that no body should be ashamed of him Truth is so amiable that the genuine sons of Truth are not ashamed of it It s no true Religion that assureth not men of that which will save them harmless and bear them out against all the malice of earth and hell and repair all losses that they can sustain in the defending of it Qui non vult intelligi debet negligi He that would not be fully understood shall never be my Teacher nor be much regarded by me And therefore the Vane and Steril language of Paracelsian Behmenists and Popish Juglers doth serve with me for no other use but to raise me into suspicion of their Designs and Doctrines and to signifie a Vaine and Steril mind Who will not suspect that Tradesmans weres that chooseth a dark Shop and refuseth to open his wares in the light I know that Scripture hath its difficulties and strong meats But that is from our incapacity of understanding higher points till we are prepared by the lower It is from the altitude of the matter and not that God doth envy us the truth which he pretendeth to reveal If a Prophesie be purposely obscured which concerneth not the world so neerly yet so are not the Doctrines that our life or death lyeth on But saith Clem. Writer to me recited in his late Book against me Would you not hide your mind or Religion in Spain Answ 1. No I would not whenever I found my self capable of serving God most by the discovery which is the common case 2. Till then I would not put on the vizor of any thing that I knew to be false and make use of Positive Jugling and Dissembling to hide my Religion 3. If Christians against Infidels or Protestants among Papists had thought this dissimulation lawfull there had not been so many thousands of them martyred or murdered as were 4. What Opinion is it that brings men in England into any great danger at this day Either your Opinion must be Atheistical or at least Infidelity if you suppose it will bring you now into any great suffering or if it be some small matter that you fear it seems you think not your Religion worthy to be openly owned in so small a danger I 'le never be of a Religion that is not worthy my openest confession even to the death when there is so much danger 2. The Jugling Papists may be known by this that they are alwayes loosening people from their Religion and leading them into a dislike of what they have been taught that they may be receptive of their new Impressions And therefore of any one Sect in England there is none to be so much suspected of a spirit of Jesuitism as the Seekers of all sorts 3. The Jugling Papists may be much detected by this that they are all upon the Destructive part in their Disputes and very little on the Assertive part They pull down with both hands but tell you not what they will build up till they have prepared you for the discovery They tell you what they are against But what they are for you cannot draw out of them As if any wise man will leave his house or grounds till he knows where to be better or will forsake his staff that he leaneth on or the food that he feedeth on till he know where to have a better provision or support Do they think wise men will be made irreligious They deal by the poor people as one that should say to passengers