Selected quad for the lemma: power_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
power_n	government_n	king_n	monarchy_n	2,757	5	9.5091	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A93705	A solemn discourse vpon the sacred league and covenant of both kingdomes, opening the divinity and policy of it: / by John Saltmarsh, Master of Arts, and late pastor of Hesterton in Yorkshire.	Saltmarsh, John, d. 1647.	1644 (1644)	Wing S502; Thomason E253_7; ESTC R210075	9,504	8

have brought forth great effects in Stats kingdoms in the mutual aydings assistings and therfore Israel sent to Syria Judah to Assyria and Iudah to Israel and other Kingdoms have sought to one another for such combinations in any grand Enterprise That famous Design of Christendome which was such a universall confederation against the Turk onely it was a Designe in a wrong channell Therefore the more spirituall that Leagues are the more powerfull that which made Israel so famous in their conquests to Canaan was the Association of the Tribes and the Arke of God amongst them therefore the Philistims cryed out Woe unto us the Arke of God is in the Campe of the Hebrewes and when they marched with the Arke amongst them Iordan was driven back and the mountains and little hills were removed the walls of Iericho fell And certainely this grand and blessed Association of the three Kingdoms is a glorious portent to the destruction of Rome it selfe carrying amongst them such an Arke and Gospel this is the first time that ever the Sun saw such a Triple Confederation against the Triple Crown so many States so solemnly combined against the Popish Hierarchy this is the time the Spirit of God hath set up a Standard this is a faire rise and improvement to the Prophecie When the Princes of the earth shall gather themselvs together and shall agree to make her desolate I know there hath beene many confederations but they were narrower than this and so opposings and strong ones too and by confederacies too yet those were but single to this when our Princes in their eyes appeared in their graduall Extirpations our Henry and Edward and Elizabeth when in Scotland they against the French power and Idolatry ayded by a power from this Kingdom yet these were not from such strong resolutions such able Principles such a Sacred Covenant they were but ordinary and civill contributions and weak strivings and so had shorter extirpations and relapses and had little more of Religion then brought them into the fields and enabled them to break down Images The Confederations and Covenants in Germany so many Princes and States entring into a solemn Protestation upon Luthers discoveries The Confederations of those in Holland and those States in the Netherlands The Confederation of those Princes in France But these had their ebbings and flowings But now as if this were the Antichristian crisis and as if the Reformation had recovered the Period of declination three kingdoms strike into a Sacred League And now me thinks I hear the Angell saying to us The Prince of the Kingdom of Persia withstood me one and twenty dayes but loe Michael one of your chiefe Princes came in to help me and now I am come to make you understand what shall befall in the latter daies now me thinks the set time to favour Sion is come her servants take pleasure in her stones And for the Extirpation of Prelacie though it be a government rivetted into our Laws and usages and into the judgements and Consciences of some through a mistaken and colluding Divinity yet let us not like the Jewes lose our Gospell with holding our Laws too fast I know this Kingdom hath ever been a retentive nation of Customes and old Constitutions and it parted but sadly with its old Paganisme and with its latter Antichristianisme in the desolation of Abbies and Priories And hence it is that Reformations in this Nation hath been with such little power and duration for we have ever easily gone back with a new successour never taking in so much of the power of godlinesse as should be able to make us live Protestants to another succession and especially the superstitions and Idolatries of late were woven with such strange and plausible insinuations Episcopacie was got upon the bottome of mis-interpreted Scriptures and the whole Government upon a pretended Antiquity and the Innovations upon a spirituall Decencie and Order upon an Ecclesiasticall Magistrality Reverend Infallibility and prodigeous Policy as if there were no way to bring a Papist to Church but by going with him to Rome first if we consider well we shall finde cause enough to remove these as not consistent with the holy simplicity of the Gospell of Iesus Christ nor the spirituall purity we were then trading with Popery when we ignorantly thought we had not enough to serve us from the Scriptures of God now we see they are perfect and compleat in Iesus Christ let us cast away those weak and beggarly rudiment● of the which we are now ashamed and they do not savour the things of God who would now like Saul at Endor raise up Aaron and the whole Hierarchy and bring us back againe to the Law forcing us under that coole shadow of Types and Ceremonies drawing the curtains of the Law before the light of the Gospel we serve now in the newnesse of the spirit not in the deadnesse of the letter The next thing I observe is the Politicall excellency those sound maximes for the Kingdomes duration as the preservation of Parliamentary rights and Nationall rights and Royall rights that they exceed not nor exorbitate and this is no more then to reduce the Kingdome into its primitive contemperation and to keep the mixture even for we see that whilest the power of Monarchy would needs take in such poysoned principles as the Divines and Privadoes did instill carrying up the notion of a King into an higher firmament then its owne the whole State was in a posture of ruine for nothing hath more betrayed Kingdomes into destructive alterations then exorbitancie of government and States must respect their fundamentals and originals in their present constitution for those in●use secret dispositions into all the Orders and subordinations and that ingagement inables to incline to their own interests and then in their inclinations and pursuite thither tumults and stirs are wakened and there is a noise of some new and treasonable indeavour when it is but the naturall workings of each degree for its owne preservation and hence have these late aspersions been born and received the Princes and people being carried on by the strength and violence of a late predominancie almost out of sight of their true fundamentalls till they have forgot their interests and maligne those that would bring them back and for the temper of our English Monarchy I will not say more to the praise of the constitution so many having spoken before me than its own duration breathing to this day under the succession of so many ages and never distemper'd but when the fiduciary power would needs be severer and taller then the rest and entertaine designes of trying strengths and interests to see If the fire out of the bramble would at length come forth and consume the trees of the Forrest And whereas there are some other subordinate principles in order to these as the discovery of Incendiaries and Malignants certainely they that shall suffer any relations to corrupt them

advancement of Gods Kingdom was alwayes the advancement of the kingdom of Israel and the glory of the one declined and set in the declination of the other for the Ark and the Glory departed together and both expired at once in a dolefull Ichab●d The advancement of Christs Kingdom hath been the designe of God from all eternity and it is the designe of the godly too God revealeth his secrets to his servants and we have the minde of Christ Now knowing so much of the counsels and designes and secrets and minde of God we are carried on by the same Spirit to be aiding to that designe now though the Kingdom of Christ be such a name as imports glory and dominion yet it is not a glory of this world but a spirituall glory seated in bare and simple administrations such as are foolishnesse to the Greek and to the Iews a Rock of offence and this Kingdom of Christ like other Monarchies hath its rise and growth its ages and improvements according to the propheticall latitude being at no fulness nor perfectnesse til the rest of the Monarchies be conf●●med before it this is that small excrescencie advancing out of the Mountain and by a power insensible exalting it self through al oppositions working through Atheisms Paganisms Idolatries Superstitions Persecutions and all the carnall machinations into a lustre glorious in the judgement of those only who can spiritually discerne the advancement of this Kingdome is only attainable by a Reformation to the Word of God and here wee shall take occasion to part with all the Models and Idea's which are not to be found in holy Scriptures it is markt there as a grand transgression to walk after the imagination of our own hearts and that was said to Ieroboams charge That his Priests Sabbaths and worship were such as he devised is his own heart God will indure no such rivallity nor conjunctures with himself it is an incompleating the work of God to build his House with our own timber and as he made this world at first only after the pattern of his own counsels so in this second work of the setting up a spirituall struct●●e for his glory God thinks none worthy of co-ordination in those things wherein his glory shall be sure to suffer in a distribution with his creatures and his own Image hath ever pleased him best and therefore he made the best piece of his creation according to it And where this Kingdome of Christ is there is holinesse of Doctrine holinesse of Government holinesse of Ordinances holinesse of Life God hath had a people at first whom he made his own by speciall adoption by eminent priviledges by rare providences by Lawes and Institutions by Worship and Administrations And now because darknesse in part is hapned to Israel God will still have a people that shall be his and have their lawes and usages and formes from him their guidance and providences from him This Kingdome of Christ is a company of godly gathered by his owne Spirit having their Lord and Saviour in the midst confederated by an holy and sacramentall paction ruled by the law of his Will and Spirit obeying his commands whither in silent inspirations or louder exhortations either by a word behind us and a saying Seek ye my face or by outward intimations and interpretations of his Will from such wayes of distribution and administration as he hath ordained studying what will adorne the Gospel of Iesus Christ and those that walk in the light and glory of it Being transformed from glory to glory as by the Spirit of the Lord Now these Principles viz. The advancement of Christs Kingdome and humiliation for sins are such as will bring God into this Kingdom and seat him and determine his presence as the Tabernacle and Ark and Temple were the ingagements and inthronizations of and mysterious fixations of Gods Divinity They are likewise an advancement of the Nation too setting it higher then other Nations that was the preferment of the Jewes That to them the Oracles of God were committed Therefore they were said to dwell in the light when other Nations sate in the Region and shadow of death And that Principle of Reformation according to the Word of God and the best Reformed Churches brings us closer to God and consociates us with heaven and makes us arrive at the highest mysterie even the deniall of our selves our own inventions wil-worship and superstitions pulling down at once all our relations to Rome and Popery and working to he pattern so That things which shall be seen shall not be made of things which do appear wee shall likewise be associated to the Church of Christ and so incorporated more clearly and purely and mystically into the body of Christ we shall be now in a capacity with them to partake equally of graces and priviledges and thus the Kingdome of Christ gathers power and latitude and stretches to the bredth of that Prophecie Of the fulness of the Gentiles and gathers strength too against the present Antichristian Monarchie and by that other Principle of humiliation we obtain the qualification and condition for mercie and peace we approach into terms of reconciliation with God if the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts God will forgive and abundantly pardon What is it that thickens the cloud over us but the evaporation exhalation of our sins and iniquities For our iniquities have turned away these things and your sins have with-held good things from you COVENANT The Principle of Extirpation In Praeamb. Calling to minde the treacherous and bloody plots conspirarcies attempts and practices of the Enemies of God Artic. 2. That wee shall in like manner indeavour without respect of persons the extirpation of Popery and Prelacie DISCOVRSE HEre lies the Propheticall power of it against the Church of Rome or Antichristian Monarchy and the bloody plots and conspiracies are such fresh remembrances as seal us to strong and perpetuall endeavours we can read in the leaves of our former Ages their conspiracies still in red Letters and at this day we have a succession of their bloody Designes and I conceive the rise we take from their own foundations in blood is but in holy paralell to him into whose remembrance great Babylon came to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fiercenesse of wrath and to his own peoples resolution Happy shall he be that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us and the treacheries and tyrannies of Gods enemies have ever drawn along with them this resolution in Gods people Amaleck and Asbur and Egypt are standing examples of Divine revenge And for Extirpation it is but a retaliation to their own just cruelty who would raze out the name of Israel that it should be no more in remembrance And what hath their endeavour in our Kingdome of Ireland been but an eradication of our memories And our confederations now cannot but be powerful in the very notion Nationall Leagues