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
A42450	An examination of the case of the Quakers concerning oaths propounded by them, A.D. 1673, to the consideration of the King, and both Houses of Parliament : with a vindication of the power of the magistrate to impose oaths, and the liberty and duty of all Christians to swear by God reverently : humbly submitted to the judgment of His Most Sacred Majesty, and the two Houses of Parliament / by Charles Gataker ...	Gataker, Charles, 1614 or 15-1680.	1675 (1675)	Wing G305; ESTC R40267	35,338	42

that our Saviour said plainly and severely that except your Righteousness exceed beyond that of the Scribes and Pharisees Math. 5.20 ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven that is ye cannot be Subjects of the Kingdom of the Messiah which now ye long to see Mark that Christ spake then to the Jews who were carried away with a reverence and esteem of the Scribes and Pharisees who partly enervated partly made void the Law of Moses by their new Traditions and false Interpretations Christ recovers the Law of Moses as it was expounded by the Prophets who preferred a Spiritual Obedience and sincere Righteousness and charitable Mercy before Sacrifices from noval corruptions and recommends it explain'd by himself to them who delighted to be counted the Disciples of Moses He propounds no superabundant Righteousness beyond the Law which cannot be exceeded in a tittle For there is nothing imaginable in the way of Righteousness as it imports a conformity of Man's Will unto God's Will beyond the loving of God with all the Heart Soul Vnderstanding Matt. 22.37.40 and Strength and the loving of our Neighbor as our self on which two Commandments all the Law and the Prophets do depend These Christ came neither to make void nor to improve by any new Precept of Righteousness The Righteousness of God by Faith which is now fully and clearly revealed in the Gospel Rom. 1.17 3.21 22. is another thing far different from the inherent and active Righteousness which Christ in his Sermon so earnestly recommends to his new-come Auditors The conceit that Christ made up the defects of the Law and laid a yoke of more exact Righteousness upon Christians than Moses laid upon the Jews yet Papists say we may take up or refuse at pleasure because all these pretended additions which we may find as easily in the Old Testament as in the New are not Commandments but Counsels hath bred many pernicious errors and practises in the Church The Popish way of taking Christs additional Ordinances as they conceive for Counsels leading to a state of Perfection above common Christians hath begot the Doctrine of Works of Supererogation of Merit of Monkery and all the Superstitions and Frauds depending upon them The Phanatick way of false expounding Christs interpretations of the Old Law for New Precepts obliging all Christians hath put Anabaptists and others upon the conceit that the use of the Sword in the Magistrates hand and in the Soldiers and also Swearing is altogether inconsistent with Christianity But let it be considered whether it is likely that Christ would engage his raw Disciples to break the Law of Moses and in a refractory manner to disobey their Magistrates by refusal of Oaths which might be exacted of them almost every day Certainly if his Doctrine had been such and any number of his Disciples had been obedient to his new Law his adversaries who took much pain to little purpose in suborning witnesses against Christ might with ease have found ground enough of accusation and plenty of Witnesses who heard and practised his Doctrine or in their Courts saw it observed if Christs words had been taken at that time in the same sense as the Quakers do now to have overwhelmed our Saviour with the charge of abrogating Moses's Law Lastly is it imaginable that Christ our Blessed Lord and Master would so prevaricate as not to observe and practise what he taught and preached to his Disciples But our Blessed Saviour whom these Seducers affirm to have forbidden Swearing in a Court at the Command of a Magistrate and to have made this abstinence from Oaths a degree of Perfection above the Righteousness of the Law did himself at the great Council at Hierusalem after long and strange silence give an answer to the High Priest being required to speak upon his Oath and he submitted to the High Priest's adjuration by confessing himself to be Christ The High Priest as if he would use a Spiritual Rack to extort a confession from his silent Prisoner said I adjure thee by the living God Mat. 24 63. that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ the Son of God The form of the Oath is pronounced by the Judge himself with the Matter inquired for Our Saviour's answer of assent is a taking of the Oath Thus Christ did and that he taught the contrary is contrary to Reason and to the sense of our Saviours Sermons who therein secures the Law of Moses to a Tittle and excludes from Heaven Matt. 5 17 18 19 any one that teaches the breach of the least Commandment in the Law Surely if his Auditors had then understood their new Master to have abrogated all the Precepts of Moses concerning Oaths in Judicature especially they would have accused him of contradicting himself and of disparaging Moses and of vilifying the Law of God and in that humor would have deserted him But it is evident that our Saviours Doctrine had a powerful Influence upon them another way Matt. 7 28 29. to raise their Wonder and Reverence of his Authority above that of the Scribes and Pharisees But the knotty question is not yet untied For it is said by many If our Saviour did not fill up as they expound 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Defects or the Shortness of the Law in points of Righteousness why doth he oppose his sayings to what was said of old in the Law and settle a new Rule of Righteousness Here lies the difficulty which I pray God direct me to clear First I say that the common exposition of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by fulfilling as the Evangelist uses it Matt. 3.15 when he relates our Blessed Saviours Speech wherewith he satisfied John the Baptist concerning Baptizing his Master Thus it becometh us to fulfil all Righteousness is very pertinent and apposite to the former member of the Sentence as much as 't is agreeable to the Truth For Christ that came to destroy the works of the Devil 1 Joh. 3.8.6.5 and to take away sin which is the breach of the Law by his Holy Life and Doctrine and by his expiatory Sacrifice might truly and fitly say he came not to destroy the Law and the Prophets but to fulfil them And to reject this Sense of Christs words without manifesting the incongruity of it is an injurious dealing with Scripture On the other side the expounding of it Filling up or Supplying is supposed to be true before it is proved whereas it is not so agreeable to the opposition set between 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Certainly Filling up by Addition is not so directly opposite to the destruction of the Law and Prophets as Fulfilling them is which strengthens their Authority and Credit But let these Men who are so earnest for Christs improvement of the Law by addition of more excellent Precepts of exact Purity and heroick Patience shew how he hath supplied the defects of the Prophets

it or at least may warrantably imitate it The Ceremonial part of the Law which concerned the Typical Service and Sacrifices of the Temple ceased as to the design and Virtue of it when Christ by his Gospel published the accomplishment of our Redemption wrought by his Death and Resurrection The Political Law of Moses which was peculiarly accommodated in many particulars to the seed of Jacob called Israel as they were by Covenant made God's Tenants of Canaan ceased when they ceased to be the Politick People of God Both were openly abrogated as to their exercise and practice by the utter devastation of the Holy City with the Temple it self by the dissolution of the Policy by the ejectment of the Nation out of their Land and dispersion over the face of the Earth in which state of exile Hos 3.4 accompanied with bondage they yet remain without King Prince Sacrifice Image Ephod and Teraphim that is without any setled Form of Government and without any means to serve or to consult God as formerly they had done But for the Law of Moses so far as it prescribes Offices and exercises of Piety Charity Justice Humanity and Prudence it obliges Christians not upon the same account it did the Jews to wit as it was a part of the Covenant made in Horeb but as it is a clear explication and improvement of the Law of Nature by deduction of particular Precepts from general Principals of Religion and Righteousness Therefore St. Rom. 13.8 Eph. 6.1.2 Paul charges Christians with obedience to the Law the second Table whereof he ingrafts into the Gospel And which is yet more considerable to manifest our concernment in the Law he establishes the liberal maintenance of the Ministers not only upon the Ordinance of Christ but also upon two Laws of Moses 1 Cor 9.8.14 according to the Spiritual meaning of the one and the Reason and Analogy of the other And when we hear him speak thus ver 9. Doth not also the Law say these things We must remember that as St. Paul says elsewhere Rom. 3.19 We know whatsoever things the Law speaks either for conviction or for direction It speaks unto them that are under the Law We therefore who have and hear by God's bounty Moses and the Prophets as well as the Apostles are under the Law Luk 16.29 not as a Covenant of Righteousness and Life by Works for in this respect We are not under the Law Rom. 6.14 but under the grace of the Gospel but as an obligatory Rule of obedience to the Will of God declared therein therefore St. James calls the Law recorded by Moses a Perfect Law of Liberty the doing whereof must be added to the hearing if we desire to be happy St. James also calls it The Royal Law one Commandement whereof being broken the whole Golden Chain is broken by which we must order our lives Jam. 1.25 2.8.12 and shall be judged Now St. James knew that the third Commandment running in the Negative Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain did include the Affirmative Precept of Swearing reverently and keeping legitimate Oaths which were Duties known well by the light of Nature but reinforced upon the Jews by the Law Now is it imaginable that St. James the Apostle of the Circumcision writing to the Jews should so far forget himself as after this high commendation of their Law expresly prohibit what the Law enjoyned and by a total abolition of swearing cancel the Third Commandment as a thing that hath no further any place or use under the Gospel This intolerable inconvenience is easily avoided if according to the scope of the Apostles discourse easily gathered from the Context and considering that impatience is the Parent of rash Oaths we say that St. James did very wisely joyn his inhibition of Swearing in heat and haste upon the Sallies of Passion to his exhortation unto patience Jam. 5.8.12 and yet he did not abolish the Third Commandment nor banish Oaths out of Christendom I confess I have unawares transgressed mine own limits and expounded St. James before the method I prescribed to my self did require it but I shall have the less to say hereafter Indeed being ingaged to shew how St. James and indeed all the Apostles do oblige Christians to their observance of and obedience to the Law in those Precepts which concern all Nations who are by Christ set at liberty from the Judaical Yoke of Ceremonies and carnal Ordinances amongst which none was so mad yet as to rank an Oath I could not but observe the incongruity of the Apostles prohibition as it is over-stretched by the Quakers with his own honouring of the Law and to prevent any scruple which might arise through misunderstanding of the Apostles restraint of us from swearing by this distinction of imprudent and passionate Oaths belched out in rage from deliberate swearing upon weighty Causes either arbitrarily or out of obedience to Authority but always with due reverence to God I have open'd a way to reconcile St. James to himself and the Law to the Gospel And now I proceed Secondly To refute the dangerous errors of the Quakers which they lay for a foundation of their abstinence from swearing They affirm the Righteousness of the Gospel exceeds that of the Law This Affertion they maintain by the example of one Walter Brute who as Mr. Fox relates in his Martyrology defended his refusal of an Oath because his Master Christ taught Christian Men that in affirmation of a Truth they should pass the Righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees of the Old Testament or else he excludes them out of Heaven Matth. 5.20 To the words recited out of Matth. 5.33.37 Walter Brute subjoyned Therefore as the perfection of the antient Men of the Old Testament was not to forswear themselves so the perfection of Christian Men is not to swear at all because they are so commanded of Christ But though Walter Brute was mistaken in the sense of Christs Commandment yet his words mount not to such an height of Error as this position of the Quakers For W. B. doth well note that our Saviour says our Righteousness must exceed that of the Scribes and Pharisees but not that of the Law of Moses And to the right understanding of Christs Sermon in the Mount we must take notice that Christ doth not unfold to his novice Disciples the Mysteries of the Gospel but first corrects the Jewish vulgar error of Happiness consisting in the full enjoyment of the Temporal Blessings promised in the Law and prepares them for the Cross to be suffered for Righteousness and that they might not be deceived by a counterfeit or defective Righteousness he establishes the Law and the Prophets to be the Rule of Righteousness and then proceeds to clear and vindicate the Law of Moses from the corrupt Glosses of the Scribes and Pharisees whose new Model of Righteousness was so defective