A59665:54
The Parable of the Ten Virgins Opened and Applied
The parable of the ten virgins opened & applied being the substance of divers sermons on Matth. 25, I-13 wherein the difference between the sincere Christian and the ... hypocrite ... are clearly discovered ... / by Thomas Shepherd ; now published from the authors own notes ... by Jonathan Mitchell ... Tho. Shepherd, son to the reverend author ...The parable of the ten virgins opened & applied being the substance of divers sermons on Matth. 25, I-13 wherein the difference between the sincere Christian and the ... hypocrite ... are clearly discovered ... / by Thomas Shephard ; now published from the authours own notes ... by Jonathan Mitchell ... Tho. Shephard, son to the reverend author ...
London: printed by J. Hayes for John Rothwell, 1660
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
SECT. II.
AND hence I shall note this one thing.
That the visible Church of God on earth,1 especially in the times of the Gospel, is the Kingdom of Heaven upon earth.
- 1Doct. 1.
For look upon the face of the whole earth, there you may see the Kingdoms of men, and the Kingdom of Satan, sin and death, which the Apostle saith, Rom. 5. reigneth over all men; here is only the Kingdom of Heaven, upon earth, viz. in the visible Church; 'tis not the place only which makes either Heaven or Hell, (though there is a place for both) but the state principally makes both, one may be in Hell upon earth, as Christ was in his bitter agony, and a man may be in a kind of Heaven upon earth, as Christ tells his hearers, that the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand; a man may be under the Kingdom of Satan and darkness upon earth, Col. 1. 13. which is a kind of Hell; and why not as well under the Kingdom of God on earth, which is a kind of Heaven, especially (I say) now under the Gospel, wherein the Lord hath begun to fulfil, that which was but only promised under the Old Testament to be fulfilled in the fourth and last Monarchy, (