Selected quad for the lemma: kingdom_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
kingdom_n	king_n	son_n	succession_n	2,527	5	9.3768	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A66945	A plot to disseize God of his right defeated, and the contrivers punished discovered in a sermon preached in the Cathedral of S. Paul, on the 15th of September, 1661, before the Right Honorable Sir Richard Browne, Knight and Baronet, Lord Mayor of the city of London / by Tho. Wood ...	Wood, Thomas, 17th cent.	1661 (1661)	Wing W3411; ESTC R9249	18,398	28

the most fit but as the Power so the continual Exercise of it was only in God From Moses to Samuel about five hundred years they had still rulers when they had any of his appointment In all that time we read not of a Son succeeding his Father But heaven according to several Exigencies singled them out several men of several Tribes and Families of proportionable Abilities to sit at the Helm of the State During the Life of Samuel they require a King like other Nations but a King still of Gods choosing not their own They have Saul and he hath a Son both good and valiant yet he in his Life time perceives the Kingdome destined to a Stranger The Father indeed storms at it but the Son seems well content and though after both their Deaths Abner sets another Son of Sauls upon the Throne yet the cause thrives not the whole Kingdome at length devolves unto David So that if Jonathan or Sauls other Son had no wrong neither had here Adonijah And if God had not limited himself by an after assurance to David he might have dealt with him and his posterity as he did with Saul and his given the Kingdome to any Israelite now however he hath his whole off-spring to choose in and might without the least injustice have fastned upon any issue of his aswell as Solomon So that as St. Augustine in another case Huic fit misericordia illi non injuria God was favourable to Solomon did no injury to Adonijah Considering then that the Common-wealth of Israel was so constituted at the Beginning and had so continued many hundred years that none could pretend to the Principality by Filiation and therefore at this time fell not under the Cognizance of that Law of Primogeniture which God surceasing his claim suffer'd it to do in the Ages following Considering too that as the right of Election was in God so he had continually all along exercis'd the power of it without interruption for Joab and Abiathar boldly to undertake the pointing out of a Supreme Magistrate without his special Warrant and Commission nay to set up one when he had appointed another was a Presumption worthy the Vengeance inflicted upon them afterwards For we find and I thought not fit to conclude without this Note they paid deerly for it and so shall all those sooner or later that attempt upon any of Gods Reservations they had better been out of Employment then have had such Wages The one loseth his Life the other his Office and Heaven is to be admir'd for the Certainty and Justice of its Dispensations in both Joab had before committed divers Murthers and so powerful he was in the State that Vengeance by the hand of the present Magistrate durst not seize on him This Action of his Springing from the same root pays those old Scores and as he had shed mans blood so by man is his Blood powred forth Abiathar was of the house of Eli against whom we have Two several prophetical Denunciations 1 Sam. Chap. 2 3. and this his Stickling for and Siding with Adonijah here causeth his Removal from the Priesthood and so we see those Predictions likewise made good by their accomplishment And this consideration well sifted would the Time and the Space allotted for this exercise bear it would afford us fresh matter of Contemplation and Discourse about the certain yet secret ways of Providence First How the wise Disposer of all things turns many times mans greatest Shame into his own greatest Glory Secondly How our very Sins though Traitors to us their Owners prove Trusty Executioners of the Almighties purposes and our wickedst Actions so over-ordered as they become the Instrumental Examples of Heavens Justice But these will fall more fitly into some Texts in the Second Chapter To the only wise and powerful Trinity Three persons One God be ascribed c. Amen FINIS

then have been answerable Indeed when we see a House more then ordinarily beautified without we are apt to imagine the furniture within to be more then ordinary too Rich Caskets are commonly made to hold more precious Jewels and set aside divine Vertues unlesse Theives as Flattery ill Education or the like have robb'd Us of them 't will not perhaps be extremely absurd to affirm the like of man However comlinesse of personage it must be confest as the Loadstone doth Iron by a secret yet irresistible force attracts our Love and Liking and like a Conquerour inslaves and captivates compells our Affection Had unnatural Absolon been this way unbefriended I make a Question whether all his other Court Policies in wrigling and insinuating himself into the favour of the People had ever gaim'd so much upon them as to have rais'd them in such multitudes to side with him against their Soveraign Adonijah his Brother here hath the very same advantage that which would have exceedingly much set off a private man but a Prince as he was more as receiving from other Complements of such greatnesse a reciprocal addition of Lustre Thirdly But there 's another thing behind which seems to be more available to his Ends then both these and 't is laid down in the words immediately preceeding the Text His Mother bare him c. His Mother bare him next after Absolon Why what 's that to the purpose How comes this any way to advantage and promote his Cause Yes very much Ammon the eldest Son as we may read was divers years before slain by Absolon And Absolon the second Son again slain by Joab and so as if they had never been the natural right is devolv'd and rests upon the next Surviver If Ammon or Absolon were the eldest whilst they lived Adonijah is so now they are dead So that we see here that he hath the Priviledge of Primogeniture and that alwayes as we have a Proverb carries Meat in the Mouth of it By the very Law of God a double portion was due to it and because Kingdomes admit not of Division of Partition in those that are settled in a Succession by the Law of God of Nations to the whole So that you see he hath Three strings to his Bowe a threefold Cord to strengthen and assure his hopes and that his wise brother tells us is not easily broken But though his Tackling were thus good yet like a discreet man he warily suspects and provides for a greater Tempest then was likely to happen His Competitor was a youth nay very little more then a Child and such we know men desire not should Reign over them a Child too of a Mother tainted formerly with the Stain of known Adultery and that questionlesse bated him something too in the common opinion And yet our Pretender is as careful to settle and assure his cause as if his Corrival had been a well-grown man like himself and had had too the start of him in reputation In weighty Affairs 't is still the wisest and safest course to doubt the worst to forecast the Extremity and to prevent and provide for that How many have lost an Inheritance a Lordship a Kingdome nay by somes leave Heaven it self by reckoning themselves but too sure on 't Adonijah here was a man of another Temper He hath a fair Game we see which doth in a manner assure him the Stake yet for all this like a wary adventurer he remits nothing of his care but playes it with all advice and deliberation possible So in the Text And he took Counsell c. In which words we may consider the two parts of all great Enterprises 1. Consultation 2. Action And this in hand being of that nature we have of either a plain Description First we have three plotting heads laid together and so taken though one but young perhaps not Three wiser between Dan and Beersheba Secondly We have three pair of hands executing the contrivances of these heads For from either we must not exclude him whom it all concerns The first word He makes him a Party in the Consultation The last word Adonijah makes him so in the Action His advice undoubtedly was not wanting in his own cause nor stood he then by as an idle Spectatour but as they helped him forward so he too help'd forward himself The end reason and But which they drive at in both is to make this younger head Head both of Young and Old in Israel To set him upon the Throne of his Father and publickly in the face of the World to justifie his private-taken-up-resolution I will be King vers 5. This was their aim about this they consult I might here for the first part of my Text enter upon a Common place of Counsell Be plentiful in Quotations of what divine and prophane Writers Oratours Historians Poets have delivered in commendation of it I might too enlarge the praises of it from experience generally how 't is of singular use nay absolute necessity to the well managing of all weighty concerning Affairs particularly in matters of Government how 't is the Steersman of a State the Soul of all Sound Policy and that which next under Heaven a Kingdome may chiefly thank for all its Happinesse Peace Plenty every good thing If in matters of War how by it small things have confounded great Ten men shut up a Thousand an handful overthrown a Million Amplified likewise further it might be from its contrary What frequent examples there are in all Story of manifest and miserable inconveniencies which men of all forts have run themselves into by inconsiderate rashnesse and temerarious precipitation Again from the second part of my Text I might go on upon another head of Action tell you that 't is this which renders Consultations Illustrious Counsells are dark things begot in obscurity and so nourished and ordinarily shew not themselves to the World but by this Indeed they are but Illusions when Action is not design'd to back them And as faith without works is but an abusive misleading Chymaera so 't is here Though Counsel seem to consist of more spiritual parts then Action yet 't is Action that makes the Demonstration that raises out of the dust and gives Life and a Lasting Lustre to those advices which else had perished like the untimely fruit of a Woman and had never seen the Sun This and more upon these two heads might be largely discours'd on and the Text doth seem to warrant it but I shall take Leave to leave these general Considerations and to fall up more closely with the particularities of the Story In this Chapter then as I told you for substance in the beginning we have a Kingdome at Stake and Two Brethren Gamesters playing hard for it The elder and more experienc'd loseth yet perhaps we cannot say 't was so much his fault as his destiny He had Heaven against him or else we might justly wonder he came not off the Winner for