Selected quad for the lemma: kingdom_n
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A54098
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An address to Protestants upon the present conjuncture in II parts / by a Protestant, William Penn.
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Penn, William, 1644-1718.
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1679
(1679)
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Wing P1248; ESTC R15359
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141,914
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254
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that man know he despiseth the Spirit of God who is President there and shall be sure not to escape unpunished Before a man propounds any thing to the Church he ought to consider again and again how sure a manifestation he hath of that thing and whatever the matter be let him be sure not to forget a sober modest bashful behaviour without which vertues doubtless no good can be effected But here we must attentively consider both how far a man â—ught to submit to the judgment of the Congregation and who may deservedly be accounted a Troubler of the Church Verily I conceive a man ought so far to give way as that after I have alledged what I had to say for my Opinion if yet the rest shall not allow of my Judgment I ought to give over defending of it and cease to be troublesome to the Congregation concerning the same But I ought not to be compelled to confess that I have erred or to deprecate any fault whiles I do not yet understand that I have erred for so I should sin against God He therefore is a Troubler of the Church that will not so far as we have expressed submit to the judgment of the Church but goeth on to be troublesome but especially that man who would exact of another that which he ought not to do viz. to recant being not perswaded that he is in an Error But those men are commonly reputed troublers of the Church who refuse to ratifie whatever shall any ways fall out of the Pastors Mouthes Again in this place it may reasonably be demanded whether when that a matter hath been once or twice debated and some man knowing the judgment of the Congregation would again reduce it into Controversie he ought to be heard or enjoyned silence and take the matter for determined But of this we shall in another place more conveniently dispute That which remains therefore is that we wrestle with God by daily Prayers to grant that we may have the use of this so soveraign and saving liberty so profitable to the Church and that thereby we may reap abundance of Fruit. And that he would to that end tame and break our Spirits with his Spirit and render them milde and gentle and not suffer what he hath ordain'd for the confirmation and establishment of his Church to be by the stubbornness and perversness of our Wits and Minds turned to the mischief and destruction thereof With much more to the same purpose too large to be here inserted What I have cited makes an Apology for doing so needless his whole Book is a most accurate account of Satans Stratagems to cause keep up divisions among Christians deserving a first place with the most Christian Writers since the Apostolical times He was an Italian of excellent Natural and Supernatural endowments Banisht about Luther's times for the Gospel Let us now inform our selves of the Judgment of that great Man J. Hales upon the matter in hand viz To your second Query Whether the Keys were confined to the Apostles only The Answer is in no case hard to give it may perchance in some case be dangerous for there is a Generation of men in the World the CLERGY they call them who impropriate the Keyes unto themselves and would be very angry to understand that others from themselves should claim a right unto them To your Question then no doubt but originally none received the Keyes from the Mouth of our Saviour but the Apostles only none did nor ever could manage them with that Authority and Splendor as the Apostles did who were above all most amply furnished with all things fitting so great a Work For whereas you seem to intimate that the preaching Mission was communicated to others as the seventy two Disciples as well as the Apostles you do but mistake your self if you conceive that the Keyes of the Gospel were any way committed to them for concerning the Mysteries of Jesus Christ and him crucified for the Sins of the World wherein indeed the opening of the Kingdom of Heaven did consist they received it not they knew it not To be the prime Reporters of this was an honour imparted only to the Apostles Yet were they not so imparted as that they should be confin'd to them Every one that heard and received the Light of the saving Doctrine from them so far forth as he had understanding in the wayes of Life had now the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven committed to his Power both for his own and others use Every one of what State or Condition soever that hath any occasion offered him to serve another in the wayes of Life CLERGY or LAY MALE or FEMALE whatever he be hath these Keys not only for himself but for the bâ—nefit of others For if Natural goodness teach every man Lumen de Lumine Erranti comiter monstrare viam c. Then how much more doth Christian Goodness require of every one to his ability to be a Light to those who sit in Darkness and direct their steps who most dangerously mistake their way To save a Soul every man is a Priest To whom I pray you is that said in Leviticus Thou shalt not see thy Brother Sin but thou shalt reprove and save thy Brother And if the Law binds a Man when he saw his Enemies Cattel to stray to put them in their way How much more doth it obliege him to do the like for the Man himself See you not how the whole World conspires with me in the same Opinion Doth not every Father teach his Son every Master his Servant every Man his Friend How many of the Laity in this Age and from time to time in all Ages have by writing for the publick good propagated the Gospel of Christ as if some secret instinct of Nature had put into mens minds thus to do c. To this let me add his Sense of the force of the Fathers Authority in the decision of Controversies and how far the Antients whether Fathers or Councils ought to be interrested in the debates of these times which may not be improper to the present subject because not a few build upon their bottome You shall find says he that all Schisms have crept into the Church by one of these three wayes either upon matter of Fact or matter of Opinion or point of Ambition For the first I call that matter of Fact when something is required to be done by us which either we know or strongly suspect to be unlawful so the first notable Schism of which we read in the Church contained in it matter of Fact For it being upon Error taken for necessary that an Easter must be kept and upon worse then Error if I may so speak for it was no less than a point of Judaism forced upon the Church upon worse than Error I say thought further necessary that the ground for the time of our keeping that Feast must be the Rule left by
Ignorance their thoughts still ran upon a Kingdom like unto the Kingdoms of the World notwithstanding they had so long and so often heard our Saviour to the contrary Our Saviour therefore shortly takes them up Non est vestrum your Question is nothing to the purpose the Kingdom that I have spoken of is another manner of Kingdom then you conceive Sixteen hundred Years et quod excurrit hath the Gospel been preached unto the World and is this stain spunged out yet I doubt it Whence arise those novel and late Disputes do notis Ecclesiae of the notes and visibility of the Church Is it not from hence they of Rome take the World and the Church to be like Mercury and Sosia in Plautus his Comedies so like one another that one of them must wear a Toy in his Cap that so the Spectators may distinguish them whence comes it that they stand so much upon State and Ceremony in the Church Is it not from hence that they think the Church must come in lâ—ke Agrippa and Bernice in the Acts 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as St. Luke speaks with a great deal of Pomp and Train and Shew and Vanity and that the Service of God doth necessarily require this noise and tumult of outward State and Ceremony Whence comes it that we are at our Wits ends when we see Persecution and Sword and Fire to rage against the true Professors of the Gospel Is it not because as these brings Ruin and Desolation upon the Kingdoms of the World so we suppose they work no other effect in the Kingdom of Christ all these Conceits and many more of the like Nature spring out of no other Fountain then that old inveterate Error which is so hardly wiped out of our Hearts That the State of the Church and Kingdom of Christ doth hold some proportion some likeness with the state and managing of temporal Kingdoms Wherefore to pluck out of our Hearts opinionem tam insitam tam vetustam a Conceit so antient so deeply rooted in us our Saviour spake most excellently most pertinently and most fully when he tells us that his Church that his Kingdom is not of this World In which Word of his there is contained the true art of discovering and knowing the true Nature and Essence of the Church For as they which make Statues cut and pare away all Suporfluities of the matter upon which they work so our Saviour to shw us the true proportion and feature of the Church prunes away the World and all superfluous Excrescenties and sends her to be seen as he did our first Parents in Paradise stark naked As those Elders in the Aprocryphl Story of Susanna when they would see her Beauty commanded to take off her Mask So he that longs to see the Beauty of the Church must pull off that Mask of the World and outward shew For as Juda in the Book of Genesis when Thamar sat Vail'd by the Way-side knew not his Daughter from an Where So whilst the Church the Daughter and Spouse of Christ sits vail'd with the World and Pomp and Shew it will be an hard matter to discern her from an Harlot But yet further to make the difference betwixt these Kingdoms the more plainly to appear and so better to fix in your Memories I will briefly touch some of these Heads in which they are most notoriously differenced The first Head wherein the Difference is seen are the Persons and Subjects of this Kingdom For as the Kingdom of Christ is not of this World so the Subjects of this Kingdom are Men of another World and not of this Every one of us bears a double Person and accordingly is the Subject of a double Kingdom The Holy Ghost by the Psalmist divides Heaven and Earth betwixt God and Man and tells us as for God He is in Heaven but the Earth has he given to the Children of Men So hath the same Spirit by the Apostle St. Paul divided every one of our Persons into Heaven and Earth into an outward and earthly Man and into an inward and heavenly Man This Earth that is this Body of Clay hath he given to the Sons of Men to the Princes under whose Government we live but Heaven that is the inward and spiritual Man hath he reserved unto himself They can restrain the outward Man and moderate our outward Actions by Edicts and Laws they can tye our Hands and our Tongues Illa se jactat in aula Aeolus Thus far they can go and when they are gone thus far they can go no farther But to rule the inward Man in our Hearts and Souls to set up an Imperial Throne in our Understandings and Wills this part of our Government belongs to God and to Christ These are the Subjects this the Government of his Kingdom Men may be Kings of Earth and Bodies but Christ alone is the King of Spirits and Souls Yet this inward Government hath influence upon our outward Actions For the Authority of Kings over our outward Man is not so absolute but that it suffers a great Restraint it must stretch no farther then the Prince of our inward Man pleases for if secular Princes stretch out the Skirts of their Authority to command ought by which our Souls are prejudiced the King of Souls hath in this case given us a greater Command That we rather Obey God then Men. 3dly A third great Cause of Persecution for Religion is this that men make too many things necessary to be believed to Salvation and Communion Persecution entred with Creed making for it so falls out that those who distinguish the Tree in the bulk cannot with the like ease discern every Branch or Leaf that grows upon it and to run out the necessary Articles of Faith to every good or true thing that the Wit of Man may deduce from the Text and so too as that I ought to have a distinct Idea or Apprehension of every one of them and must run them over in my mind as a Child would â—on a Lesson by Heart and that as the Creed of which I must not miss a tittle upon my Salvation this I think to be a Temptation upon men to fall into Dispute and Controversie and then we are taught by long Experience that he that has most Power will oppress his Opinion that is weaker whence comes Persecution this puts Unity Peace too much upon the Hazard Mary's Choice therefore was not of many things but the one thing necessary as Christ terms it the Lord of the true Divinity and pray what was this one needful thing but Christ Jesus himself and her Faith Love and Obedience in and to him here is no perplext Creed to subscribe no Systhime of Divinity to charge the Head with this One Needful thing was Mary's Choice Blessing may it be ours and I should hope a quick End to Controversies and consequently to Persecutions 4thly Another Cause of Persecution is The Prejudice of Education and that