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
A54857	The signal diagnostick whereby we are to judge of our own affections : and as well of our present, as future state, or, The love of Christ planted upon the very same turf, on which it once had been supplanted by the extreme love of sin : being the substance of several sermons, deliver'd at several times and places, and now at last met together to make up the treatise which ensues / by Tho. Pierce.	Pierce, Thomas, 1622-1691.	1670 (1670)	Wing P2199; ESTC R12333	120,589	186

his Friends besought him not to go to that City Paul rebuked his friends for their love to Him as seeming to derogate from his to Christ. What mean ye to weep and to break mine heart I am ready not to be bound only but to dy at Ierusalem for the name of the Lord Iesus Nothing wounded him so deeply as that what was his glory should be the cause of their grief So when our Lord put the Question unto some of his Disciples upon the Cowardize and Falsehood he saw in others will ye also go away they presently gave him such an Answer as imply'd their being wounded in the tenderest part of their Soul Lord to whom should we go thou hast the words of Eternal life Why dost thou kill us with such a Question as seems to scruple at our Loyalty and to derogate from our Love where is he in all the World whom we are able to leave thee for or what is that that we can Covet in exchange for Eternal life Can we be so besotted as to part with our Iewel in hopes of Dirt why then dost thou intimate that it is possible for us to leave thee or possible for us not to love thee or possible for us to love thy absence so again when he ask't no less than three times together Simon Peter lovest thou me Peter was grieved saith the Text because he had said to him the third time lovest thou me and therefore gave him such an Answer three times together as I cannot better express then by this short Paraphrase Lord when thou knowest that I love thee why dost thou ask if I love thee though all should forsake thee yet will not I. My love is stronger than Death it self Why dost thou grieve me with such a Question as wounds the honour of the love that I bear unto thee Sect. 2. Just so when our Saviour does say to us If ye love me keep my Commandments it ought to go somewhat neer us that we should give him any occasion of putting it to us with an If. Were we piously inamour'd with him who is fairer than the children of men did our Souls love Him who is the Lover of Souls in as passionate a manner as he deserves and were we as jealous of the honour of our Fidelity as we ought we would be ready to expostulate in such a case Blessed Lord dost thou by saying If ye love me imply it possible that we do otherwise behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed on us that we should be called the sons of God When we were Bondmen ready to perish not in Aegypt like the Poor Syrian but that other land of darkness even Hell it self it cost him himself to buy our Freedom And is it possible not to love him whilst we believe it to be true that he hath thus loved us and that he loved us first too Can we possibly be able not to love him at the Rebound Observe the force of those words in the best beloved of his Disciples We love him because he loved us first or let us love him because he loved us first For the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 does equally signifie them both It affirms and it exhorts It is at once of the Indicative and of the Subjunctive mood 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we do love him and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 let us love him and if for no better reason at least for this because he lov'd us when we were Enemies and because he then lov'd us when we deserv'd nothing but hatred Sect. 3. But what a sad thing is this if we shall love him only for that for which the worst sort of men are wont to love one another For if we love them that love us what thank have we saith our Saviour do not even the Publicans the same nay do not the Devils do somewhat like it by being still at agreement amongst themselves never was Satan divided yet against Satan for then his kingdom had not continued It was a witless and foolish calumny rais'd by the Pharisees of our Saviour that he did cast out Devils by Beelzebub the Prince of Devils For the Devils have more wit than to invade each others Rights And is not that a kind of Love by which as by a Bond they are kept together in Peace and Unity for mutual interest and preservation And then what great matter is it if we love Christ for this that he loved us first It is no more than we are tyed to by the law of good nature to return at least a little for the great deal we have receiv'd yet He desires no more of us than that we will pledge him when he begins to us that we afford him what he has bought and deerly paid for and at least that we will love him because he loved us first Now if we have no love to give him or spare him freely we should at least have some to sell him or some to retribute and restore him love for love obedience for obedience patience for patience and blood for blood Seeing the Publicans themselves do love their lovers how much worse must we be if we are no lovers of Him who lov'd us better than his Life Solomon thought it a great expression to say that Love is as strong as Death thereby meaning nothing more than the love of the Bride But the love of the Bridegroom was very much stronger as being that that overcame the sharpness of Death And shall we so much disparage either Him or our selves as to let a Peradventure or an if be made of it whether or no we have attain'd to such a secondary love as may suffice at least to prove us one degree better than Devils Shall we think it is sufficient to serve the turn to make us Competent Christians and good enough that we approve of Christs Innocence and own his Power have no aversion to his goodness and are glad if we can serve him with ease and Pleasure to the Flesh As when we Pray in his Name and make Profession of his word and sing Hosannas to his glory and never deny him but in our works nor ever forsake him but in his sufferings Sect. 4. Nay to shame ourselves yet farther out of the coldness we labour under shall an if be made of our love to Him the love of whom does most conduce to our greatest Interest and Advantage All the Promises in the Context are no more sequels of our obedience than our obedience is the Fruit and effect of Love From whence it follows that on our Love to the Lord Jesus Christ all his great and pretious Promises must needs depend for their performance For if we love him not enough how then can we delight in him And if we cannot delight in Him how much less in his Commandments and if not so how then can we obey him and if not that how then can we hope he

his Mortality He did not groan to be uncloath'd with any desire of being naked but as a necessary condition of being cloathed upon with his House from Heaven It was for this and this only his extreme love of Christ that he did glory in Tribulations that he rejoyced in his Sufferings that he took pleasure in Persecutions and lov'd to bear in his Body the Dying of the Lord Iesus For this alone did S. Iohn embrace his Banishment into Pathmos S. Stephen his very stones and the men that threw them S. Thomas his saw and S. Peter his Crucifixion It was for this that S. Ignatius could bid defiance to salvage Beasts that Anacharsis brake forth with a kind of Triumph into his Tunde and that others being tormented would not let go their Sufferings not so much as accept of such a thing as a Deliverance when they might innocently have had it for taking up For this it was that Mary Magdalen perfum'd the Head of her blessed Lord and kiss't his Feet with the same affection and also wash't them with her Tears and after wip't them with her hair administred to him of her Substance closely follow'd him all along as far as from Galile to Ierusalem from thence to Golgotha and from thence unto his Grave too forgetting the tenderness of her Sex the tedious passages of the way the ghastly presence of the night the waking jealousie of the Elders the barbarous violence of the Guard and being afraid of just nothing unless of not finding Him whom with the pantings of her Soul she did love and long for Would ye know now the reason of so much love to the end it may affect you with somewhat like it She had been a great sinner and He had sav'd her from her Sins She had been seiz'd by seven Devils and her dear Lord had dispossess't her Had had the members of an Harlot which by a more than creative power He had converted into a Temple She had purchac't a place in Hell and He had given her an Inheritance in the Kingdom of Heaven Or to give you the sum of all in our Saviours own words She loved much because much had been forgiven her Now what Marbles rather than Men may we be worthily esteem'd if such Examples as I have nam'd cannot provoke us to aemulation Seeing Christ is our Saviour as well as theirs what should hinder us from loving him as well as they Can we think so hardly of him as to believe he did decree that such as they only should love him did he not love that we should love him as well as S. Peter and S. Paul And did he therefore necessitate our want of kindness Did he accordingly praedetermin the several means of our disaffection or give us any discouragements from being kind Let us expostulate with ourselves as God himself was pleas'd to do with his People Israel Hath Iesus Christ been a wilderness to any of us or have we found him a wither'd Tree which hath not afforded us any Fruit What kind of Iniquity have we ever seen in him Which part of his Covenant hath he not punctually performed Did he ever yet forsake us when we forsook him not first What hath he don unto us and wherein hath he wearied us He desires us if he hath that we will testifie against him Mic. 6. 3. Nay who was ever more belov'd than he was pleas'd to love us For whose sake hath he don better or suffer'd worse than he did for ours Hath he forgiven us lesser sins than Mary Magdalen was forgiven Why then should we requite him with lesser Instances of Affection Or if the Affectionateness of others will not provoke us to aemulation and that we have not any Impatience of coming after them in Loyalty as much as Time yet let us try by a third Indeavour how to make up the defects of the first and second Let us display before our selves the several excellencies of Christ That so if any spark of Love is now discoverable within us we may by the Grace which he hath given us blow it up into a Flame To speak of his Loveliness in Himself would be the business of an Age and therefore must not be set about in this poor Remnant of an Hour But yet a little let us consider his great obligingness to us because the powerfull'st Incentive to Love is Love When Love was suppos'd by the old Poets to have brought down their Gods from Heaven to earth it was the highest flight of fancy their Wits could take whereby to celebrate the vertue and Power of Love But we can say without the help of either a Fable or a Figure that 't was the love of our Souls I mean the love of their safety which made the God of all Glory to bow the Heavens and come down to take upon him not the likeness but the essentials of a man yea to become a man of sorrows an intimate acquaintance with Grief and Miseries and this in the Form of a poor servant yea and in the disguise of a sinner too Sure if the Heavens had not bow'd unto the Scepter of his Love his Love was so strong it must needs have broke them When he reflected upon the Torments he was to suffer soon after for our Injoyment he shew'd the vehemence of his Love by a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 How am I streightn'd how am I press't how am I terrifi'd and pain'd till it be accomplish't He long'd to drink of the cup of Trembling He thirsted after the Potion of Gall and Vinegar He gladly suck't the very dregs of the wine of Gods wrath Not at all for its own sake because 't was bitter for as such it made him wish that the Cup might pass from him but because our Redemption was sweeter to him than any thing else could be bitter by which 't was purchac●…t Is not he a rare Physician for skill and kindness and certainly if it be possible more for kindness than for skill who takes no more unto Himself than the Rancidity of the Medicine and leaves his Patient to injoy the pleasant effects of a Recoverie Yet this was perfectly our case with the great Physician of the Soul He took the nauseousness of the Physick which made for the Cure of our Diseases We were desperately sick and He would needs swallow the ugly Pills That we might be purged from our filthiness He would needs drink up the filthy potion Would have the noisomest Ingredients as it were strain'd through His body that we might have nothing to pledge him in but the sweet Restorative of his Bloud Now what can more excite our Love than thus to meditate upon His As there is no better way whereby to keep up our Patience than by looking up to Him who did indure with so much Patience such contradiction of Sinners against himself so is there no better way whereby to keep up our love and to raise it