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
A42831	Some discourses, sermons, and remains of the Reverend Mr. Jos. Glanvil ... collected into one volume, and published by Ant. Horneck ... ; together with a sermon preached at his funeral, by Joseph Pleydell ...	Glanvill, Joseph, 1636-1680.; Horneck, Anthony, 1641-1697.; Pleydell, Josiah, d. 1707.	1681 (1681)	Wing G831; ESTC R23396	193,219	458

Grace and Hope And this very often is the condition of the Scoffer who hath debauch'd and jested away all feeling of these Interests Yea 2. there is great cause to think that he commits the Sin against the Holy Ghost or a sin that is very near it For that consists in the Disbelief and contempt of the great and last Testimony that was given by the Spirit to the truth of Christianity And that I may not seem to speak this without ground let us look into the place where the first and fullest account of this sin is We have it Matth. 12. Our Saviour had cur'd one that was possest ver 22. The people marvell'd and were inclin'd to believe upon it ver 23. But the Pharisees revil'd saying that he cast out Devils by Belzebub ver 24. Christ shews the absurdity and falshood of their suggestion arguing that then Satan would be divided against himself and his Kingdom so divided could not stand ver 25 26. And having reason'd against that malicious account of his Miracle he infers from the contrary and true way of his performing it ver 28. If I by the Spirit of God cast out Devils then is the Kingdom of God come unto you viz. then I that have done this am the Messias And he concludes by a serious application to them to shew the sad consequence of such bold and impious suggestions 31. Wherefore I say unto you All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men Where by Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost must be understood according to the context That of imputing the operation of the Spirit in Miracles to the Devil which is therefore so hainous because it is an expression of the greatest contempt of it and a bar against the being perswaded by it Now to apply this Though the Scoffer doth not impute the Spirits Testimony in Miracles to the Devil yet that is not because he hath a greater esteem of the operations of the Spirit but because he hath less belief of the existence of Devils Yea he will not allow so much as the Pharisees did That any such things were done but supposeth all to have been Impostures and delusions in the Author or cunningly devised Fables in the Relators which is a contempt put upon the operations of the Holy Spirit equal to that of ascribing them to the Devil and doth as effectually and incurably strike up the Grounds of Faith as that So that in substance the sin of the Scoffers is the same with that described in the Text though differing in circumstance and form Yea 't is the sin with aggravation since they do not barely speak against the Holy Ghost and his operations but deride them an expression of the greatest contempt possible And when men are come thus far to despise the great Testimony of the Spirit and ground of Faith after it hath been sufficiently propounded to them and entertain'd by them in favour of their Lusts we have cause to think their Infidelity is incurable and consequently unpardonable For so the Apostle hath declar'd plainly Heb. 6. 4 5 6. For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly Gift and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost viz. in Baptism and have tasted the good Word of God and the powers of the World to come all which are expressions of the visibly owning Christianity and partaking in the duties and priviledges of it if they shall fall away to renew them again to repentance And they that are arriv'd at the impudent height of deriding all this are faln away with a witness and therefore I think we may conclude safely from the Doctrine of the Apostle that they are incurable and unpardonable and from this and the discourse before that 't is sadly probable they have committed the sin against the Holy Ghost This 't is like may seem very severe Doctrine but I cannot help that if it be true I am not to be blam'd for the severity of it And I 'me sure the Book of Homilies declares more positively in the case than I have done For speaking in the Tenth Homily of the Scorners of Godliness and Religion who are there describ'd the Author saith of them I think I may without danger of Gods judgement pronounce that never any yet were converted unto God by Repentance but continued still in their abominable wickedness heaping up to themselves Damnation against the day of Gods inevitable Judgement I Come now IV. to the APPLICATION which shall be 1. Earnestly to Dehort all that have the least sense of vertue or reason from Scoffing at Religion or at men for making profession of it And then 2. I shall conclude with some very brief Directions and Rules of caution to secure us from the danger of this Sin Concerning the first I consider that the Scoffers with whom I am further to treat are of two sorts 1. The desperate who have debauch'd themselves into down-right Infidelity And 2. the Fashionable ones as I crave leave for distinction to call them who do not Scoff at Religion out of enmity or malice but out of modishness and compliance and it may be out of design to be accounted Wits for so doing I shall deal First with the former sort and in treating with them shall use none of the acknowledgments of Religion but from plain unassisted reason shall shew the extreme vanity and madness of their practice And I would entreat them to think of the following things 2. Be Religion True as we know or false as they vainly imagine their Scoffing at it is exceedingly absurd Every Faculty is to be applyed to its proper object to employ and of them about others that belong not to them is foolish and unnatural Now God hath bestowed upon us Reason and understanding to judge and discourse about things that are serious and the Faculty of laughter and derision to be exercised upon things that are vain to employ the former and discourse gravely about ludicrous trifling matters is ridiculous And 't is equally absurd to be sportive about affairs that are serious Now whether Religion be true or not 't is a serious thing If true the greatest Interests of this world and another are included and concerned in it Or if it be otherwise it must yet be granted that it hath much agreeableness with the Reasons and most serious Faculties of Mankind and our greatest and most important concerns in this Life viz. the main affairs of the Government of the World are bound up with it and have relation to it So that whether true or false it is no matter of sport but subject for our most serious considerations and discourses And from this last hint about Government I mind the Scoffer 2. That his practice tends to the dissolution of humane Society and the turning of mankind into the condition of wild nature And if it should

reverence of the most High which is a direct contempt of his perfections Now scorn is one of the greatest indignities especially it is sore and provoking when one is contemn'd by his inferiours and more when they are his dependants that have their bread from his Bounty such is the case here in all possible degrees of aggravation vilest worms and lowest dust scoff at the highest Majesty and fullest perfection The universal King our Soveraign before whom Angels bow and Devils tremble is derided by the slaves of his Kingdom and Creation The general Father and Benefactor flouted by those that have their Being and all their comforts from his goodness and cannot live or move or breathe without him Acts 17. 28. Instead of lowest reverence gratitude and prostrations they lift up their heads in proud scorn and defiance of him and as the Royal Psalmist speaks of them Psal 73. 18. They set their mouth against the Heavens 2. This is a sin that is a step beyond Atheism it self 'T is greater impiety to say God is a careless or a contemptible Being than to say He is not As the Moralist tells us He would rather it should be affirm'd that there was no such man as Plutarch than that it should be believ'd that there was such a man but that he was a vile and worthless person Now to deride Religion while we allow there is a God is to say by immediate consequence either that he is a careless and idle Greatness that heeds not his Creatures and so worship is an impertinence or that he is so bad or so mean a Being that he deserves not to be worshipp'd that is that we owe him no acknowledgement of his Being or his Bounty and which is more that 't is ridiculous to pay him any To deny the existence of God is gross and unreasonable but to acknowledge that and to scoff at the expressions of love and veneration of him is down-right madness So that if the scoffer be not an Atheist he is the more inexcusable in his scoffing and if possible he is worse 3. The humour of deriding Religion is monstrousness in the soul All sin is deformity but this is Horrid For a man to have his parts and members misplaced His legs suppose on his shoulders his eyes in his neck and his arms growing out of his belly is frightful but there 's a misplacing in the soul that is more ugly Man hath such powers given him as scorn and derision and while they are exercised against sin and folly there is nothing amiss in them But when they are misplaced upon holiness and wisdom upon the greatest and the purest upon the most visible and most universally acknowledg'd perfections they are then an excess of deformity in the soul and such scorners are greater monsters than the man that hath horns and hoofs 4. It is a wickedness beyond the degeneracy of Devils We read that They fought against the Angels the Ministers of God Rev. 12. 7. but never that they derided them for their Ministeries They oppose Gods ends and interests in the world but we find them not scoffing at Him No they believe and tremble Jam. 2. 19. This Fear is not a vertue indeed in those Apostate spirits and yet it proceeds from a sense and apprehension of divine power and vengeance But the impious Scoffers at Religion have out-grown that and are more bold than all the Legions of darkness They have so little dread of the wrath of God that by their scoffs they endeavour to provoke and as it were to dare him to pour his displeasure on them As if they had a mind to challenge the field with Him and to try the reality and force of his power and terrours Thus briefly of the malignity and aggravations of the sin of Scoffing at Religion There will be an occasion of saying more of it in the sequel I therefore descend now III. To an account of some Effects and Consequences of it and shall confine my self here also within the bounds of that which is mention'd as the character of these Scoffers in the Text Walking after their own Lusts We have seen that mens lusts are the ground and occasion of their scoffing and I add that this again is a cause of the greater heights and boldness of their Lusts like Water and Ice they produce one another Mens lusts put them upon scoffing at that which should restrain them and this through the judgement of God and the nature of the thing brings them at last to walk after their lusts in such obsequiousness and intireness that they follow them 1. Without any check or restraint upon their Lusts 2. Without power to forsake or disobey them 3. Without or with very little hope of remedy or deliverance from the dominion and sad consequences of them These are all dreadful things and such as frequently if not mostly follow upon the impious humour of scoffing at Relgion As to the first The Scoffers walk after their own lusts 1. Without restraint or check from the Spirit of God This strives long with sinners but it will not always strive with them that strive against it Gen. 6. 3. When men move with their Lusts as those that are joyn'd to them the holy Spirit will let them alone Hos 4. 17. And this impiety in the very nature of it is of all sins most likely to provoke Him to a dereliction of the sinner Since it is the greatest most direct and most intolerable affront of the most High and if any thing be a fighting against the Holy Spirit a vexing yea a blaspheming of Him This is Moreover such a sinner becomes a subject incapable of His communications Nothing that is sacr●d or serious makes any impression upon such whiffling spirits 't were as good attempt writing on the water or painting with a Pencil on the air as to think of fastening any sober sense upon the scoffer And when it is come to this that the sinner hath made himself incapable of any benefit from the influences of the Spirit He withdraws his solicitations from that miserable person He will not plough upon a rock nor sow upon the sands So that the man hath the advantage now of not being disturb'd in his pursuits by the grand Enemy of his lusts but is suffer'd to run upon the wrath of God and everlasting torments without controul from Him 2. The scoffer gets this priviledge also to walk after his own Lusts without check from his Conscience This is an Inward Judge that summons censures and condemns and while there is such a Court and such transactions in the sinners breast he cannot walk after his lusts in quiet But the scoffer takes a course with Conscience 1. He debauches it And 2. He makes it stupid As to the First it may be consider'd That when He enters upon the trade of deriding Religion he doth not believe it to be really so contemptible and ridiculous only he follows a fashion and

the Light is made to attend the darkness Contrary to the methods observ'd by Nature where the causes are ever more worthy than their effects from their first beginning downward Now as he is pleas'd to transcend and deviate from the tracts and capacities of natural Agents thereby to assert his Prerogative and render his omnipotency more conspicuous to the world So is he no less delighted to use the same recesses in displaying his Grace evermore ushering in his mercies with the Black Rod thereby inhansing and endearing our subsequent refreshments And though the goodness of those celestial inhabitants and the happiness of their condition need neither foyl nor artifice to render that or their acknowledgements of the Divine favour greater Yet however if we consider these things as a reward and incouragement of our obedience the proceeding thus is but regular and necessary that we should do our work before we receive our wages and finish our undertaking before we demand satisfaction Earnest and Security Heaven has vouchsaf'd us but to deposite the whole in hand this were not to encourage but bribe our Obedience This were to destroy Morality and turn Vertue into Nature Nor yet is the Divine goodness less communicable in this life but we are not so capable of receiving it For look as in Nature neither the single excellency of the Object or the Agent alone is sufficient to produce any notable effect but both are requir'd So likewise in Religion all the effects of the divine grace and bounty though that be free and infinite are limited and determin'd by our capacities and reception So that while our Appetites those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they are call'd in Scripture that are to be the receptacles of all this Glory are either replenish'd with the vain and sinful objects of this Life or are straitned and contracted by the weakness and imperfection of this dull and lumpish matter they must be rid of the one and devested of the other and then we should be instantly happy You have seen the happiness of the Christian man there are indeed encouragements of another nature namely earthly blessings and temporal rewards our whole present interest unless it happen to interfere at any time with the other Religion has descended to the securing of these too and that not only by moral designation but by a proper and natural efficiency so that we cannot better prosecute our present interest than by the methods of Religion And by this gracious and happy complication of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 together they are made to become helpful and assisting to each other serving reciprocally as a means or motive either to other But this encouragement is neither proper nor adequate to Christianity since it may be as well pursu'd by natural as by divine rules better perhaps by diabolical arts than either nothing experimentally so inriching men as sordidness oppression and other violences and frauds The Devil in all likelihood giving the fairest prospect and most likely possession of the Kingdoms and glory of this world But they are things I have shewn you of a nature infinitely more sublime that Christianity propounds to its observers The rewards of our Religion exceeding as well the capacities of our Nature as all those other things To the attainment whereof as all vicious practices are extremely contrary so have all the others Philosophick transactions been miserably vain Some weak and glimmering light the Heathen had of these things which it is not certain whether they collected from some fragments of tradition or extracted from the principles of natural reason but which way ever it came it was so weak and imperfect as serv'd to shadow not help to discover but eclipse the transcendent excellency of that State till as the Great Apostle of the Gentiles saith Life and Immortality were brought to light by the Gospel And indeed without this all other proposals were unsuitable to its professors and disproportionate to the difficulty and severities of Religion Cicero saith None ought to be deem'd a vertuous or a just man that will be allur'd or affrighted from his duty by any advantage or disadvantage whatever But who trow ye would abide both these upon no other consideration than barely to have acted according to the sentiments of right Reason or in hope to acquire an insignificant fame of Vertue of which they could have no knowledge or remembrance after death And for this cause I judge the Stoicks more absurd in their morals than the Epicureans considering the principles that is upon which they built For 't is the premise and not the inference of theirs that 's so urg'd by the Apostle Let us eat and drink 1 Cor. 15. 32. But now the Christian Religion propounds such overtures to our Obedience and Patience as may justly and reasonably encourage us thereunto IV. For a Conclusion let us take in the Importance of that Phrase of dying in the Lord which relates primarily to Martyrdome but must also be extended to as many as live and dye in the faith of the Holy Jesus The result of all is this That we would so consider this happiness as every of our great interest that we forfeit not our propriety therein by a vicious and sinful life There 's nothing else can render it hazardous or doubtful but that which indeed in the very nature of the thing renders it impossible Let us not repeat Esau's folly sell our birth-right for a trifle and for the sake of some pitiful lust proscribe our selves out of our celestial inheritance Neither let us contemn our happiness for being feasible Were wilful poverty and certain Martyrdome part of our duty and inseparable appendages of our Religion there is tentation enough in the proposals to make us conflict with the greatest difficulties and overcome them When Christianity was thus attended and had nothing else to recommend it self to the world besides the reasonableness of its injunctions with what holy violence did those blessed Saints storm Heaven and with a strange eagerness pursue Martyrdome But now as if the fervour of our Devotion were only kindled and maintain'd by Antiperistasis Now I say the Impediments are remov'd and Religion is become a part of our Civil obedience and made necessary to our secular interests and guarded with a great many other temporal Phylacteries men are yet more hardly wrought upon to be Religious the consideration of a single lust shall be able to weigh down all And if any would seem to have a greater zeal for it than ordinary as if they were in love with the troubles of Religion and not the thing they suffer their heat to spend it self in little piques and contentions and about things of none or ill moment in maintaining of parties and opposing their Superiours and not in Devotion Obedience Charity Humility and the like as they ought In short Christians let the thoughts of this blessedness excite our affections Heaven-ward and quicken our endeavours Let it animate us against all difficulties and buoy us up above all adversities Let it cheer us in our duty quiet us in affliction and comfort us in death That so living unto Christ we may at last dye in him and in the end be for ever blessed And now to accommodate all to our present case It has pleas'd God to take away this extraordinary man for such considering all things we must needs allow him and because 't was some we what early I think of Dr. Hammond's notion of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Text the sooner the better the better for him no doubt I had once thought to have given you his Character but I am not asham'd to tell you I found me not able to do it worthy of him And calling to mind a saying of one of the Roman Historians I soon desisted from any further attempt of it who when he was reckoning up some of the great men of that age Virgil and Ovid Livie and Salust and going to commend them stops and concludes thus But of men of Eminency as their admiration is great so is their censure full of difficulty As to those Relations that are more nearly interessed in this solemnity I would beseech them to remember that all Indecency and excess of Grief for our deceased friends must needs reflect upon the memory of the dead or the discretion of the survivers God enable them to bear it And supply this loss to them by his Grace and Providence Let me say and to the Church of England by increasing the number of such men of no worse Learning Integrity and Courage that are able and dare defend her against the encroachments of Popery and Fanaticisme Now to God only wise be Glory through Jesus Christ for ever Amen FINIS 1 Ep. c. 2. v. 9. 2 Ep. ch 12. v. 4. Joh. 17. 3. Phil. 1. 23. 1 Tim. 1. 10.