Selected quad for the lemma: kingdom_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
kingdom_n	heaven_n	pharisee_n	scribe_n	2,390	5	10.4944	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A39678	The reasonableness of personal reformation, and the necessity of conversion; the true methods of making all men happy in this world, and in the world to come Seasonably discoursed, and earnestly pressed upon this licentious age. By J.F. a sincere lover of his native countrey, and the souls of men.	Flavel, John, 1630?-1691.	1691 (1691)	Wing F1180B; Wing F1466_CANCELLED; ESTC R214634	80,393	172

a stronger Possibility that such as you may be converted and saved than there is for those that have ●ed a smoother and more civil life in the world and wholly trust to their own Civility for their salvation instead of the imputed righteousness of Christ. This plainly appears by that convictive Expression of Christ to the Scribes and Pharisees Mat. 21. 31. Verily I say unto you That the Publicans and Harlots go into the Kingdom of Heaven before you Publicans the most infamous among men and Harlots the worst of women yet these are sooner wrought over to Christ by Faith and Repentance than the more civil and self-righteous Scribes and Pharisees And indeed 't is far easier to come at the Consciences of such sinners by Conviction than at the others They have nothing to ward off the stroke of conviction It must fall directly and immediately upon their Consciences The most smooth and civil part of the world trust to their own righteousness and this self-confidence like Armour of proof resists all attempts to bring them to Christ for righteousness Nothing ●ixes men in a state of evil more than a strong conceit that their Condition is good But such as you are whose whole lives have been polluted with prophaneness and all impiety your Consciences will more easily receive convictions of your present danger and of the necessity of a speedy and thorow change You cannot think as others do that you need no Repentance or Reformation In this respect therefore you lie nearer the Door of Hope and Mercy than other Sinners do If therefore it shall please the Lord whose grace is rich and free to the vilest of sinners to pluck out such as you as brands out of the burning by thorough conversion to Christ you will not only become real Christians as all true Converts are but the most excellent useful and zealous amongst all Christians As you will be most eminent Instances of his Grace so will you be the most eminent Instruments for his Glory As you have gone beyond other sinners in wickedness so you will strive to exceed them all in your love to Christ Luke 7. 47. She loved much for much was forgiven her You 'l never think you can do enough for him who hath done such great things for you Who more fierce and vile before Conversion than Paul who was a Blasphemer a Persecutor and injurious 1 Tim. 1. 13 And who among all the servants of Christ loved or laboured for him more than he How did he rather fly than travel up and down the world in a flame of Zeal for Christ As you have been Ring-leaders in sin so you will not endure to come behind any in zeal and love to the Lord Jesus Yet not thinking this way to make him a requital for the injuries you have done him that would be the most injurious act of all the rest But to testifie this way the deep sense you have of the riches and transcendency of his goodness and mercy to you above others SECT IV. Conversion frequently and fatally mistaken BUT here I must warn you of some common but most dangerous Mistakes committed in the world with respect to Conversion unto God Except these be seasonably prevented or removed none of you will ever stir or move further than you are towards Christ. Amongst others beware especially of these three following fatal Mistakes That of 1. Baptismal Regeneration 2. Common Profession of Christianity 3. Formality in Religious Duties 1. There is a notion spread among men and almost every where obtaining That the Scriptures mean nothing else by Conversion but to be baptized in our infancy into the visible Church and that this Ordinance having past upon them long ago they are sufficiently converted already and that men make but a needless stir and bussle in the world about any other or further Conversion But Sirs I beseech you consider how dangerous a thing it is to take your own Shadow for a Bridge and venturing upon it drown your selves If Baptism be Conversion enough why doth Christ say Mark 16. 16. H● that believeth and is baptized shall be saved but he that believeth not shall be damned Baptism without Faith signifies nothing to Salvation but Faith without Baptism where it cannot be had secures Salvation And why doth the Apostle say Gal. 6. 15. Neither Circumcision nor Uncircumcision availeth any thing but a new Creature Or what needed Christ to have pressed and inculcated the indispensible necessity of Regeneration upon Nicodemus as he doth Joh. 3. 3 5 7. who had been many years a circumcised Jew This your dangerous dependance upon your Baptismal Regeneration is what hath given such deep offence and prejudice to many though without just cause against that Ordinance I lament it as much as they that men should turn it into such a deadly snare to their own Souls yet will still honour Christ's abused Ordinance 2. Some think the common profession of Christianity makes them Christians enough They are no Heathens Mahometans or idolatrous Papists but Protestants within the Pale of the True Church that is professed reformed Christians But Friends I beg you to consider that convictive Text 1 Cor. 4. 20. The Kingdom of God is not in word but in power Many there be that in words confess Christ but in works they deny him And why were the foolish Virgins that is professed reformed Christians shut out of the Kingdom of God if the Lamps of verbal profession without the Oyl of Internal Godliness were enough for our Salvation Mat. 25. 3 12. Believe it Sirs many will claim acquaintance with Christ upon this account and expect favour from him in the great day of whom he will profess he never knew them Mat. 7. 22. Christ need not have put men upon striving as in an Agony to enter in at the strait Gate if Baptism in our Infancy or Verbal Profession of Christianity were all the difficulties men had to encounter in the way to Heaven 3. Formality in external Duties of Religion is another fatal mistake of Conversion Have not these been the inward thoughts of your hearts As bad as we are though we take liberty to swear be drunk and unclean sometimes yet we say our Prayers keep our Church and hope for Heaven and Salvation as well as those that are more precise But tell me Gentlemen seriously What do you say or plead for your selves more in all this than those convicted Hypocrites did Isa. 58. 2. Yet they seek me daily and delight to know my ways as a Nation that did Righteousness and forsook not the Ordinances of their God They ask of me the Ordinances of justice they take delight in approaching to God Or to come nearer yet to your Case and cut off at one stroke for ever this vain Plea of yours read and ponder God's own Censure of it in Jer. 7. 8 9 10 11 12. Behold ye trust in lying words that cannot profit Will ye steal murder commit Adultery and

him and challenge the God that made them to do his worst They deck and adorn as they account it their common Discourses with bloody Oaths and horrid Imprecations not reckoning them Genteel and Modish without them It consists not with the greatness of their Spirits to be wicked at the common rate They are willing to let the World know that they are none of those puny silly Fellows that are afraid of invisible Powers or so much Cowards as to clip a full-mouth'd Oath by suppressing or whispering the Emphatical sounding Syllable but think an horrid Blasphemy makes the most sweet and graceful Cadency in their Hellish Rhetorick They glory that they have fully conquered all those troublesome Notions of Good and Evil Virtue and Vice Heaven and Hell to that degree that they can now Affront the Divine Majesty to his very Face and not fear the worst he threatens in his Word against their wickedness If there be a God which they scarce believe they are resolved audaciously to provoke him to give them a convincing Evidence of his Being And if he be as they are told he is rich in Patience and Forbearance they are resolved to try how far his Patience will extend and what load of wickedness it is capable to bear If their Damnation be not yet sure enough they will do their utmost to make it sure by breaking down the only Bridg whereby they can escape Damnation I mean by trampling under their feet the precious Blood and Wounds of the Son of God and imprecating the Damnation of Hell upon their own Souls as if it slumbred too long and were too slow-pac'd in its motions towards them I am of Opinion there are few Christians to be found on Earth crying so often Lord pardon Lord save me as some Wretches among us cry Horresco referens God damn me the Devil take me Herein they seem to envy the happiness of the Devils and damned Wretches in Hell and endeavour as one speaks to snatch Damnation out of Gods hands before the time as if they could not be soon enough among their roaring and howling Companions in the midst of the everlasting burnings But why such haste to be perfectly miserable The very Devils themselves deprecate Torments before their time tho you impreca●e them Your misery makes haste enough towards you you need not quicken it or thus run to meet it I am perswaded that if the Bars of the Bottomless Pit were broken up and Devils should ascend in Humane Shapes none among them would be sound hastning upon themselves the fulness and compleatness of their Misery as you do 'T is a Truth though a strange one That it is much easier to find than imagine men upon Earth professing Christian Religion yet in some respect sunk below the wickedness of the Diabolical nature by making Damnation both the Subject of their Drollery and the object of their very wishes and desires Some greater Masters of our Language may more lively and emphatically express the horrid nature of this Sin but excuse me Reader if I believe no Words or Thoughts can measure the heighth or depth of this monstrous Abomination SECT IV. Such contumelious Language as this especially when grown modish and common cannot but be a most high and dreadful provocation of God and such an one as will certainly bring down his desolating vengeance not only upon the heads of blasphemers themselves but upon the States and Kingdoms that connive at or tolerate them We read Zech. 5. 2 3 4. of a flying Roll-full of Curses the length thereof twenty Cubits and the breadth thereof ten Cubits which shall enter into the house of the Swearer remain in the midst of his House and consume it with the Timber and Stones thereof Blasphemy and prophane swearing are like Barrels of Gunpowder laid under the Foundation of many great and noble Families many of which are already blown up and laid in ruins by this Sin and many more ready to follow as soon as the Justice of God shall give fire to it And comparatively speaking it were happy if the mischief ended here but alas it causes God to commence a quarrel with the whole Land Hos. 4. 2 3. And because of Oaths the Land mourneth You find in Isa. 38. what it was that brought that unparallell'd desolation upon that famous and flourishing City Jerusalem and the whole Land of Judah For Jerusalem is ruined and Judah is ●allen because their tongues and their doings are against the Lord to provoke the eyes of his glory But alas Scripture-threatnings signifie scarce so much with these men as the Predictions of the Weather in an Almanack and which is strange to consider the very execution of Scripture-threatnings before their eyes will not terrifie them from this inhumane wickedness Even these also are laughed to scorn or easily forgotten Oh! that God would set it home with power upon the Spirits of all that are in Power to take some speedy and effectual course to remove this accursed thing this iniquity to be punished by the Judge one and a chief one too of those direful provocations of Heaven to which we owe a special part of our National infelicity at this day We all acknowledge that all prosperity and success depends upon God If so Reason will subsume that it must be therefore the interest of Kingdoms and Commonwealths to prevent and restrain those impieties which so audaciously provoke and incense his wrath As much is this their duty and interest as it is the interest of a Courtier to avoid offences of his Royal Master the King upon whose Favour his Honour and Preferment depends Or as it is the duty of the Owner to keep in that Ox which is used to goring or cover that pit into which some have and others of his Family are like to fall Or carefully and speedily to remove that Gunpowder which his enemies have placed under the ●oundation of his house to blow it up Both Reason and Experience will inform the Rulers of this World That professed Rebels to the God of Heaven are never like to make useful Subjects in the Kingdoms of men SECT V. Till publick Justice lay hold upon such Offenders let us try what close reasoning may effect for their Reformation 'T is hard to imagine that men of Sense should so generally and so far engage themselves in this Course of prophane swearing and have nothing at all to say for themselves If they have no reason at all to offer in justification or excuse of what they do they act the bruits not the men and are self-condemned already 'T is a question with me whether the Soul of man on this side Hell can sink so far into the nature of a Devil as to sin because he will sin or to engage himself in a Course of Sin without any respect at all to some carnal interest either of Profit Pleasure or Honour The Thief hath a visible Temptation of Gain to allure him or pinching Necessity