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	violence_n	violent_a	1,901	5	9.3401	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
B06797	Two sermons concerning nature and grace. Preach'd at White-hall, April, 1699. / By E. Young, Fellow of Winchester-College ...	Young, Edward, 1641 or 2-1705.	1700 (1700)	Wing Y71; ESTC R41169	21,820	61

gifts unto your Children how much more will your heavenly Father give give what give good gifts so the Antithesis requires and so one would think the Expression should run but instead of this it runs thus How much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him Implying that the Holy Spirit is equivalent to all other good Gifts nay as much exceeding them as the Love and Power of God exceeds that of Man And therefore however we may of esteem Long Life and Prosperous Fortunes yet so indifferent are they in the Event That God bestows them without any Indication either of his Love or Hatred as that Passage of Solomon is to be interpreted Eccles 9.1 For God bestows them not only upon the Good but upon the Evil and the Unthankful upon those that seek them not from him upon those that do not acknowledge them as received at his hands and finally upon those that are never the better for having received them as will appear at the adjusting of Accounts But on the other hand sanctifying Grace is a Pearl of greater Price than to be cast away upon the Regardless This is a Certain Benefit and a lasting Good and therefore God disposes it upon another sort of Condition viz. to them that ask him i. e. to them that wisely estimate and worthily value and earnestly desire this excellent Gift And indeed when we consider the Duty of Prayer qualify'd with those Circumstances that the Holy Scripture does require viz. That it must be Instant Fervent Importunate Violent we may conclude that Prayer it self is as certain a Proof of the Communications of Grace as it is a Means to procure them For if we must pray Instantly Fervently Importunately Violently what are the Things we must pray for in this manner No worldly Need can justifie such a Desire Our Desire of Life or any of its Accommodations in such a measure would be Immoderate Impatient and Sinful and therefore it is that Submission and Resignation is prescribed to our Requests in respect of all these things Grace therefore is the only Blessing that can be worthy such a measure of Importunity This alone we may desire instantly and with Impatience of Denial and yet not exceed Grace is that Kingdom of Heaven that suffereth Violence and the Violent take it by force In this Office of Prayer and in an Endeavour of Christian-living suitable and comporting with it without which Comportment the Efficacy of our Prayers must necessarily be voided I say in there two Offices of praying for God's Grace and walking in the Road of God's Grace consists the Practice of our Dependance upon him The Fruits whereof I shall next enquire into and shew that through this Dependance upon God which our present Weakness and Insufficiency enforces Man reaps greater Advantages from his present State than could have been look'd for had he been restored to the State of Primitive Perfection And to prove This it will be Argument enough if I shew that Man has now Provision made 1. For a safer Vertue and 2. For a more commendable Vertue and 3. For a more excellent Reward than otherwise he could have had 1. Man has now Provision made for a safer Vertue than Adam had when he was first formed Adam was left in the hands of his own Counsel And so the Author of Ecclus tells us Chap. 15.24 where he says God made Man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from or in the beginning and left him in the hands of his own Counsel c. For if we interpret this Text to mean that Man has Counsel Wisdom Liberty or Strength to chuse and pursue all that is necessary to Godliness I am sure it can be apply'd to no man since the Fall and this the whole Current of Sacred Writ makes demonstrable But Adam was furnished with such degrees of Perfection that it was fit be should be left in the hands of his own Counsel But withal we know that Adam fell under his own hands and after he was once fall'n after he had darken'd his Soul weaken'd and poison'd his Nature by giving up Reason to the power of Appetite he must necessarily have sunk under the dominion of Sin he must necessarily have grown more and more indulging careless desperate and without thoughts or power of Repenting as the Case of the fall'n Angels was had it not been for the Grace of that Covenant which was founded purely upon the occasion of his Fall For all the subsequent Power that Adam had to please God and to walk as a Man converted from the errour of his way from that time forward issued not at all from the Strength of his Nature as if Recovered by the means of Reflexion Nature was as much indisposed and insufficient to produce such a Reconciling Change in him as it is at this Day in any of his Posterity And accordingly we may observe from the History That before the New Covenant was pronounc'd and ratified in the Promised Seed there was no footstep of Repentance that appear'd either in Adam or Eve but merely a shifting off their Crime as if in Design to preclude their Repentance and therefore it appears that all the subsequent Power that Adam had whereby to Repent and to please God did issue purely from the Succour of that Grace which God vouchsased him in Compassion to his new-contracted Disorder and upon which he might now rest for the Course of his future Obedience with much more Security than he could upon his former Native Perfections Now to argue home to my Purpose Let us suppose that after Adam had fall'n yet this notwithstanding God had ordain'd that Original Uprightness should have equally descended upon all his Posterity yet we must allow that any one of his Posterity though born with the same degrees of Uprightness that he was might yet have been foil'd by the Wiles of the Tempter and so have fall'n as well as he did Now had they so fall'n I mean fall'n only personally and for themselves had they so fall'n and in the mean while the Covenant of Grace not been founded as it was only founded upon the Account of the Propagation of Sin how could any such have ever recover'd to that State from which they fell or indeed to any Degree of Acceptance with God Their Case must have been as desperate as that of the fall'n Angels was before they would have was now made natural to them and aimed at nothing more than to enjoy the Pleasures of farther Depravation Whereas on the other hand according to the present state of things and for the succour of our Nature as it is now infirm there is a Provision made through the New Covenant for a safer adherence to Vertue and such a Provision as every Christian may have the Benefit of unless it be in the case of affected Slothfulness and wilful Indulgence in Sin Sin indeed may more easily make its first Breaches upon us by reason of