Selected quad for the lemma: ground_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
ground_n	believe_v	faith_n	sense_n	1,482	5	6.9836	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A96433	The art of divine improvement, or, The Christian instructed how to make a right use of [brace] duties, dangers, deliverances both as they concern himself and others : opened and applied in several sermons / by Nathaniel Whiting ...	Whiting, Nathaneel, 1617?-1682.	1662 (1662)	Wing W2020A; ESTC R43819	228,106	313

believed upon is a strong tower in the hour of temptation All the batteries of Hell cannot make a breach in it Now then get into this hold shut the doors upon you and let your temporal preservations be as locks and barrs to forbid Sathans entrance Lift up your shield of Faith embossed with your own experiences and wherever that Lion shall roar upon you give him battel fight him upon his own ground be steadfast in the faith keep true to your own experiences and believe without wavering the unchangeableness of Gods nature and Attributes and the Yea and Amen of all his Promises Improve the sense of eminent mercies and deliverances by way of comfortable assurance to your selves in all your castings down and fears of your eternal welfare But I shall speak little and warily on this head having touched upon it already in a foregoing use and least presumption should get up and carnal Professours should kindle a fire fetching fuel from this passage and compass themselves about with sparks walking in the light of this fire and in the sparks which they have kindled which notwithstanding all these confidencies their doom is pronounced by the Lord himself that they shallly down in sorrow Isa 50. ver 11. Indeed this humour is very ranck Ministers cannot with all their pains preach and pray and print it down And therefore I direct this discourse to the children of the new birth who have the witness within themselves of the work and truth of grace such may fetch much comfort from the appearances of God unto them in a day of distress they may argue Is not the life more worth them meat and the body then raiment Is not the soul more precious then name credit limbs and life Have the mercies of God been so signally remarkeable upon a temporal and shall they not be much more upon a saving account was the red sea dried up a pathway made through the wilderness Jordan made fordable and the Cananites slain even with hailstones from heaven and all this to give Israel possession of an earthly Canaan and shall not the outgoings of grace and outstretching of power be much more glorious to bring us to heavenly Canaan to that City which hath foundations and walls whose builder and maker is God Oh! reason up faith and hope to an exspectancy of after blessedness by considering the blessed presence and good will of him that dwelt in the bush in present comforts present succours and present deliverances I shall onely propose the presidency of Saint Paul under a remarkeable preservation even from the Tyrant Nero 2 Tim. 4. ver 17 18. I was delivered out of the mouth of the Lyon and the Lord will deliver me out of every evil work and will preserve me to his heavenly kingdome You may find much of this in David arguing from temporalls to eternals observe that Psal 23. ver 6. I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever which sometimes is taken for heaven Domus majestatis that upper house that house of State in which Christ sayes John 14. ver 2. There are many mansions Saint Paul calls it 2 Cor. 5. ver 1. an house not made with hands eternal in the heavens so Psal 17. ver ult Oh in all your sinkings of spirit let the sense of mercy received be as a cordial unto you and assure your selves that if in famine sword peril nakedness c. ye have been more then conquerours through Christ that loved you get up your hearts to this perswasion that neither death nor life nor Angels nor Principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other creature shall be able to separate you from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus your Lord Rom. 8. ver 37.38 39. or hinder you of heavens happiness which is the fruit of Gods Electing love and the purchase of the Redeeming love of Jesus Christ your Lord O then comfort one another with these words I am come now to the fifth and last Use Is it so that the best of Saints are often brought into suffering conditions that their afflictions are sharp and violent that the appearances of God are eminent and immediate to their help in the day of their distress Is this a truth attested by the experience of Saints in all ages and cannot their enemies deny this why then here is a rod for the backs of fools a sharp reproof for the profane and carnal world in 3 Particulars 1. It reproves them for their uncharitable censuring of the suffering Saints what more usual then for wicked men to entertain hard thoughts and let fly in harsh speeches against the people of God in distress measuring their sinnes by their sufferings and if their calamities exceed others their iniquities exceed them also laying down this false position that the greatest sufferers are sinners and that when the rod is most the wrath of God is most also not considering that of the Apostle Heb. 12.6 Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth laying down an exemption from the rod as a note of Bastardie or that Apoc. 3.19 As many as I love I rebuke and chasten This was practised by Shimei in that great day of Davids distress when he fled from his rebellious son 2 Sam. 16.7 8. Come out come out thou bloudy man and thou man of Belial the Lord hath returned upon thee all the bloud of the house of Saul in whose stead thou hast reigned and the Lord hath delivered the kingdome into the hand of Absalom thy son and behold thou art taken to thy mischief or taken into thy wickedness because thou art a murtherer as some Translations read it and as agrees with the Hebrew This was the Interpretation that Eliphaz put upon Job's sufferings Job 4.7 8. Rememember I pray thee who ever perished being innocent or where were the righteous cut off even as I have seen they that plow iniquity and sow wickedness reap the same thereby wounding him in his holiness and heart-sincerity yea upon the matter charging him to be a son of Belial and that because God was now writing such bitter things in the bloud of his cattel servants and children yea in black characters of sore displeasure upon his own body It was not much to be heeded that the Barbarians fastened the guilt of murther upon Paul because the viper fastened upon his hand Acts 28. ver 4. But that the viper should fasten upon the hearts of men and women under the same common Profession with us that the venom of the old Serpent should swell to such a degree of censuring and uncharitableness is much to be lamented and doubtless some will smart for these hard speeches when Jesus Christ shall come with ten thousands of his saints Jude ver 14 15. Then shall they know the English of that Text 1 Pet. 1.6 and the ends of God in afflicting his precious ones 2.

highest rank were by the Roman Law nailed to the Crosse hence Isa 53. ver 9. the Prophet tells us he made his grave with the wicked that is suffered the death of the wicked the word imports ungodly lewd and turbulent irreligious towards God debauch't in manners and turbulent in the Common-wealth which sort of men David by the word of the Lord doomes to destruction Psal 9. ver 17. The wicked shall be turned into hell And now though the man Christ Jesus who is God blessed for evermore the Lord of glory feared death and was put to that shamefull and tormenting death the death of Hell-birds yet he endured it and despised the shame of it having his eye upon the joy set before him and what was that joy Sure much of that joy consisted in his compleating the work of his Redemption in bringing home the Elect unto God as Isa 53. ver 11. He shall see of the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied Hebr. shall sit down with acquiescence of spirit shall dwell there he shall receive joy and satisfaction from the saving of sinners as a man doth that dwelleth in his own house scituated with the best advantage of profit and delightfulness It was the saturity and satisfaction of his soul and the reason thereof may be gathered from John 12. ver 32. where he sayes and I if I be lifted up will draw all men after me he knew there would be such a magnetick vertue in his death which would attract all men to wit multitudes of men and women to believe in him The Spirit being to be sent forth and the Gospel being to be universally preached after his death O then ye believing ones look unto this Jesus and look unto this joy which in some measure will be given in unto you by the attractiveness of your deaths to draw soules to Christ and settle this upon your hearts that though your bloud may be spilt as water upon the ground yet by the wise appointment of a gracious God it may be as seed instrumentally not meri-toriously for in this sense onely the bloud of Jesus is of life and grace to poor sinners and be not so streiten-ed in your bowels to the Lord Jesus or to your poor brethren as to deny an handfull of seed if called unto it to encrease the greatharvest I shall subjoin but one Consideration more namely 5. That t is an honorable advancement to be called out by Christ to suffer for him a vouchsafement of grace Magna est hu●us verbi Emphasis ex quo intellimus omnia deberi gratuitae Dei Electioni and that in a way of speciall favour to die a Martyr a right Martyr The Apostles Acts 5. ver 41. rejoyced that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for the name of Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that in a way of grace they had this honour put upon them that they were reputed as persons worthy to wear an honourable scar in their flesh for Christ though they were onely scourged this made Paul and Silas so meray at midnight that they sung Psalmes probably of praise to God that they were counted worthy to be shut up in the inner prison and to have their feet made fast in the stocks for the testimony of Jesus Acts 16. v. 25. Hence he tells the Philippians Phil. 1. ver 29. to you it is given 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it is a grant of grace of rich grace in the behalf of Christ not only to believe on him though that be an high honour but also to suffer for his sake as if he had said the Lord hath granted you this honour that ye shall believe on him when as he leaves thousands of your acquaintance country-men yea Betters upon a worldly score in unbelief This is worth your acceptation our admiration this calls for full returnes of praise and thankfulness but this is not all that this grant of grace conferres by way of honour upon you for ye ye that are believers shall also be sufferers be Martyrs for Christ and sure the crown of Martyrdome is a glorius crown and every soul won over to God by a dying Martyr will be as an Orient pearl and precious Diamond in his crown of far more value then that Adamant found about Charles Duke of Burgundy slain by the Switzers at the battel of Nantz sold for twenty thousand Duckets and placed as it is said in the Popes tripple crown Oh what foretastes of glory what ravishments of soul have many of the blessed Martyrs had in their suffering for Christ Hold Lord stay thine hand I can bear no more like weak eyes that cannot bear too great a light and oh what thankfulness and joy of heart have many express'd Act. and Mon. Fol. 1553. It is the greatest promotion God gives in this world to suffer saies Father Latimer I thank God most heartily for this hour Mr. Glover wept for joy of his imprisonment God forgive me my unthankfulness for this great exceedingmercy that among so many thousands he chuseth me to be one in whom he will suffer Martyr ●tiam in caten● gaudet August Act. Mon. Fol. 1361.1744 saies Mr. Bradford Martyr I am the unmeetest man for this high office that ever was appointed to it saies Mr. Sanders Such an honour is it saies John Carlisle Martyr as the greatest Angel in heaven is not permitted to have God forgive me my unthankfulness Oh then what the Apostle saies Heb. 12. ver 1. as the close and Epilogue of that Martyrology so say I Wherefore seing you are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses lay aside every weight and the sin that so easily besets you and run with patience the race which is set before you Ye know not what times ye may be called unto what quaimes of fears may be upon your spirits and what temptations to self pitty from Sathan and the flesh may then seize upon you Therefore store up Provision afore hand lay up Promises lay up Presidences lay up Arguments and lay up these considerations by an unworthy hand offered unto you keep a fresh sense of former deliverances and improve them by way of comfort and support in persecuting times Argue with David Psal 9. ver 13. Have mercy on me O Lord consider my troubles which I suffer of them that hate me and probably in the cause of Religion thou that liftest me up from the gates of death ex praesentissimo en certissimo interitu from present and certain dangers which shewed me the grave gaping for me and therefore raise up your spirits and believingly say as vers 6 7 8 9. O thou enemy destructions are come to a perpetual end the date of thy commission against us is expired and shall never be renewed and thy destruction from the Lord is irrevocable and eternal but the Lord shall endure for ever vivit regnatque Christus Christ lives and raigns and shall judg the world in