Selected quad for the lemma: kingdom_n
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A36356
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A sermon preach'd before Their Majesties in their chappel at St. James's the 25th. Sunday after Pentecost, November 17th. 1686 by J.D. of the Society of Jesus.
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J. D. (John Dormer), 1636-1700.
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1687
(1687)
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Wing D1928; ESTC R8587
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8,533
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32
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Devotion you enslav'd Faith to Sense Reason to Passion Soul to Body and by a false Perspective representing unto your selves great for little and little for great you aspired to settle your Greatness and Happiness in a Contemptible World by relinquishing God And whereas like the Mustard-seed raising your self from little to great to God to Eternal Bliss by your own increase you should have increased the Kingdom of Heaven Falling from great to little you have made an accession to the Princedom of Torment And now quid prodest quid prodest what doth it avail you what doth it avail you to have master'd a World The World is where it was and you in Hell. Crucior in hac flamma exclaims the Rich Man we commonly call Dives I am tormented in this Fire Where our Saviour bringing in Abraham and Dives discoursing together emboldens me to put in a Word to my purpose and so end Good News O Dives from the other World. And what says he are the Tydings of the other World to me who am in pain but painful Your Children are jocund And I sighing They peaceable enjoy the Riches the Titles the Honours with so much Toil thou entailest upon them And my Inheritance are gnashing of Teeth a never-dying Worm Reproach and Ignominy That Pallace of which Wealth laid the first Stone by Magnificency the Architect is now compleated And I unhappy dwell in a Dungeon of Horror and Darkness The Gardens you design'd are curiously divided the Walks laid out the Flowers breath a constant Spring and Paradise And here in stench I am chain'd only permitted to walk with my dismal Fancy from torment to torment Comfort O Davies those little Cypresses all thrive and are grown up to defiance of the scorching Sun. And I burn Your Fountains run and sport your Waterworks Play to admiration within your shady Groves and neither Shade or a drop of Water have I to temper my excessive Flames That Wilderness you planted with such exquisit art is grown up into a Labyrinth where pleasure has lost its self to be found by all that enter And I am lost says he in the inextricable Labyrinth of Fire of Torment of a woful Eternity I burn I burn and burn I must for ever Cruciar in hac flamma Such beloved Brethren is the apparent increase and real decrease of those who value Interest above Religion their own Humours above Gods Precepts Body above Soul Vice above Virtue and Earth above Heaven and so it ends without ever finding an end of misery By an opposite way of living let us change the decrease into an increase by a right estimate of what is Truth and what Imposture what Temporal what Eternal The Mustard-seed begins early no sooner committed to the Earth but it works its increase its perseverant of a hot nature that is as it were resolute The like are we to be we must begin we must persevere we must be resolute Regnum Coelorum vim patitur violenti rapiunt illud The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence and the violent bear it away We are to be resolute in a True Faith of undaunted Hope and fervent Charity that so by raising our thoughts to a true esteem of our Soul to God to Life Eternal we may increase the Kingdom of Heaven and the Kingdom of Heaven like the Mustard-seed may increase by us which God of his Infinite Mercy grant us In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Amen FINIS
A SERMON Preach'd before Their MAJESTIES In Their CHAPPEL at St. JAMES's The 25th Sunday after Pentecost November 17th 1686. By J. D. of the Society of Jesus Published by His Majesties Command ✚ LONDON Printed by Nat. Thompson at the Entrance into Old Spring Garden near Charing Cross MDCLXXXVII A SERMON Preach'd before Their MAJESTIES The 25th Sunday after Pentecost Math. XIII ver 31. Simile est Regnum Coelorum Grano Sinapis The Kingdom of Heaven is like to a Mustard-seed ONe of the greatest and one of the least of things Sacred MAJESTY this morning Arrest my Thoughts The Kingdom of Heaven and a Mustard-seed Had any but the Divine Author devised this Parable as the World now goes the Proposer with your Pious not over-wise would have pass'd for a disparager of Heaven for a Profaner of the Pulpit and with your Worldlings not over-charg'd with Piety that might have prov'd the Subject of Railery which coming from Christ is a Sacred Mystery and ground of Reverence Hence we may learn not to close with first and therefore often false appearances an over-sight incident to Spirituals not too profound and to pretenders to Wit not too Spiritual Great things have a proportion with little and little with great a bit of Leven a Mustard-seed with the Kingdom of Heaven witness the present Gospel Nothing so minute nothing so remote nothing so familiar which to a well disposed mind may not prompt Devout and Pious Cogitations Simile est Regnum Coelorum grano Sinapis The Kingdom of Heaven what more considerable is like unto a Mustard-seed what more despicable But if the one so great the other so little between so great and little what similitude can there be I crave your patience whilst in requital I endeavour to work it out God alone is truly great and by a reference to God all other things are great and little He 's truly great because as the Royal Psalmist pronounceth Psal 144. ver 3. Magnitudinis ejus non est finis His greatness has no End For greatness where it ends ceases to be great so that a property of greatness is either to have no end or to increase The Mustard-seed is one of the least of Grains True yet consigned to the Earth when it seems buried it revives it rises above the rest of Herbs becomes a Tree small in its self great in its increase The Kingdom of Heaven is like to its increase the Kingdom of Heaven ever improves For take the Kingdom of Heaven for the Seat of Eternal Felicity take it for Christ take it for the present State of the Church take it for Faith take it for Charity take it for the Gospel This Kingdom now great was little great in being little in beginning Heaven dis-peopled by the fall of the rebellious Spirits grew small Christ in Bethlehem had his Crib The Church was once an Infant Faith Charity and the Gospel were confined to a few followers of Christ Behold the smallness of the Mustardseed Since the coming of Christ Heaven is grown Populous and Christ Glorious His Church Faith Charity and the Gospel though now and then kept down by opposition are evermore vigorously branching forth a mari usque ad mare from Sea to Sea Psal 21. v. 8. Behold the increase to the verifying Christ's words Simile est Regnum Coelorum grano Sinapis The Kingdom of Heaven is like unto a Mustard-seed The Kingdom of Heaven is the Kingdom of God And the Kingdom of God as our Saviour tells us Luke 17. ver 21. is within our selves Regnum Dei intra vos est It is not the Place or Region it is the Subjects which make the Kingdom We are the Kingdom of Heaven but like the Mustardseed we must increase And this increase grounded on the true measure of great and little shall be the Subject of my Discourse having first implored the Divine Assistance by the Intercession of the Glorious Virgin who little in her own Eye grew to be so great as to be Mother of God and Queen of Heaven Ave Maria. Simile est Regnum Coelorum grano Sinapis The Kingdom of Heaven is like to a Mustard-seed THE Kingdom of Heaven is within our selves like the Mustard-seed we must increase and to increase we are to frame a true measure of great and little To pass from equal to equal is no increase to pass from great to little is to decrease to Increase is to rise from less to more from little to great from great to greater Now in order to this my first reflection is That Christ says The Kingdom of Heaven is like unto a Mustard-seed he says not it is equal Between little and great similitude there may be Equality there can be none Though our Saviour then likens the Kingdom of Heaven to a Mustard-seed it follows not that Men may equal the Mustard-seed of Earthly things to the Kingdom of Heaven No it only ensues That like the Mustard-seed they must increase My second Reflection is That one of the disorders which reign in this sinful World and which obstructs our increase in Virtue Piety and Religion the Head and Source from which all our calamities flow is a false measure of great and little This occasions a wrongful estimate of things so that what to the partial Eye of depraved sense and humour appears great though little and little though great to our abused Reason is apt to appear the same and Men becoming unjust prizers in place of increasing by passing from little to great decrease by falling from great to little to the diminishing the Kingdom of Heaven and augmenting the Kingdom of Darkness Hence it is that Virtue is forced to retreat and yield to Vice True Glory to a Shadow Hence it is that a never-failing Bliss gives way to momentary content Heaven to Earth Eternity to Time. Hence it is that the Soul goes at so low a rate for little obscure or nothing Hence it is that the Body is proclaim'd the subject of courtship admiration and Worship as enormous a folly as to prefer the husk before the Seed or the course and rough Shell to the rich and noble Pearl which lodges in it The Soul the Soul though seemingly little is great and the first step to its increase is to know its own greatness Dim Antiquity sitting in the Shade of its Native Ignorance without the light of Faith could see no further than what was gross and material and therefore thought it said enough to enhance the dignity of Man by entituling him Microcosmus the little World. A Title bearing something of glorious and flattering many a fancy yet taking it into due consideration barely as it lies without other construction I cannot but recede from the common Vogue For if we take Man for the Body alone Man I cannot deny may pass for a little World keeping a proportion with the greater which environs it The Head and Breast may be resembled to the Heavens the Heart and Brain to the