Selected quad for the lemma: ground_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
ground_n	apostle_n	church_n	pillar_n	1,918	5	10.1330	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62900	The principles of the Papists by which their leaders put them upon bloody and treacherous practices, plainly demonstrated by the Scriptures to be most erroneous and wicked. And a few better principles briefly laid down, for them (or others) to meditate on, tending to a peaceable life among men, &c. And also a few quæries left them last of all, to satisfie their consciences in. Partly for the sakes of those among them whose consciences have some tenderness in them, and are not quite feared: partly also for those who through ignorance are too much inclining to them. Also there may be some service of these things to others. By a lover of truth, mercifulness, plain-heartedness, humility and fidelity, W. T.	Tomlinson, William.	1679 (1679)	Wing T1850; ESTC R221759	49,364	105

darkness done in his cruel Inquisitions will all press upon him And yet this Man whose Sins and Cruelties and unmerciful Massacres reach to Heaven he must be the Man to forgive men their sins Oh the blindness and besotted condition of men whom the Lord hath given up to strong delusion I beseech you let us understand who they are that are given up to strong delusion to believe a lye if they be not that train that follows the Pope and depends upon him for the pardon of their sins For the strong delusions are to come upon them that follow the Man of Sin the Son of Perdition who exalts himself above all that 's called God and who sits in the Temple of God as the Pope doth And so you may find these deluded ones spoken of as the train of that exalted Man of Sin in the same Chapter with him 2 Thess 2. But the Pope pretends to have power to pardon sins because Christ gave that power to his Apostles for he boasts of his Succession to them especially to Peter But I aver that he that is departed and fallen away from the Apostles Spirit and Doctrine is no true Sucessor to them nor hath that power which they had The Apostles were innocent holy humble men of heart not seeking the glory of this World as the Pope doth not exercising dominion over mens Faith and Conscience as the Pope doth nor lording it over God's Heritage as the Pope doth but were ensamples of piety and holiness to the Flock of Christ But the Pope walks contrary to their Example and to their Doctrine being a devouring Wolf where he cannot exercise dominion over mens spirits He indeed arrogates to himself the title of Holiness but is far from the life of it being a ring-leader into wickedness murthers massacres perjury dissimulation and wicked fraud encouraging his Children to take Tests or Oaths so that they may lurk among us like Foxes under Sheeps cloathing until they can seize upon their prey Is not here plainly a departing and falling away from the upright and innocent spirit and wholesom doctrine of the Apostles When will your eyes be opened you that are his Subjects and Slaves When will you be sensible and understand what manner of Holiness you have set before you to follow I pray you consider what is it above and beyond these wickednesses that he shall live in who is such a Man of Sin and Son of Perdition See if you can find out grosser abominations among all that profess Christianity for which those titles may be put upon any man more justly So then seeing he is thus departed and fallen away from the Apostles spirit and doctrine who will trust to him for the remitting of their sins who have any good understanding or sound reason left in them and are not given up to strong delusion to believe a lye 4. I proceed to a fourth Principle of the Romish Church viz. That the Church of Rome whereof the Pope is Head is the true Church of Christ and all that depart from them are Hereticks That there was once a true Church and a precious Church of Christ at Rome I grant while they followed the Doctrine and innocent Life of Christ and his holy Apostles But since they are fallen therefrom into the murthering and lying treacherous spirit they are become degenerate and thereby cut themselves off as a Branch withered is cut off from the Vine But here by the way before I proceed any further I desire to be rightly understood that the bent of my Discourse is not against those that are simple-hearted and harmless among them and honest according to their knowledg but it is against the ruling and leading part who lead the rest into evil these are fallen away from Christ and hold others in bondage and keep them in captivity as the Israelites were kept captives in Babylon of old So there is a people that God calls his people in Babylon the great the Mother of Harlots and abominations of the Earth For saith the Scripture Come out of her my people which words were insignificant if he had not a people in the midst of Babylon This being premised which I desire may be minded all along I shall now for the finding out of the truth or falshood of this 4th Principle put the Question thus viz. Whether the present Church of Rome that is the ruling leading part and the ruled part from the Pope to his meanest Minister or Subject who are spirited to teach or actively to put in practice the destructive principles of their Church be the only true Church of Christ Now for the readier finding out of the truth or falshood in this Question I shall set another by it which may run parallel with it to give light to it namely Whether a people teaching or by principles practising lying perjury or false swearing hypocrisie and dissimulation Plots and conspiracies to destroy others assassinations secret murders and open massacres and other such like abominations and all this with consent and approbation of their Church Whether such a people be the only true Church of Christ and all that withdraw from them be Hereticks Thus the Question is truly stated concerning the present Church of Rome as their actions make it manifest and being thus stated I think I may leave the deciding of it to the meanest capacity where there is any grain of honesty left in their hearts towards Christ Jesus the Head of his Church for certainly none will say that such a Church is the only true Church of Christ and all others Hereticks except they have sold themselves to speak wickedly Now that the Pope and his Romanists are such a people they themselves prove by matter of fact and by their actions they sufficiently declare it to this present Age which is constrained for its own security to use the best means it can to preserve it self from their assassinations stabbings stranglings sinothering of their persons burning of their Houses and Cities and from their bloody hands and merciless massacres The Church of Christ in the Apostles days was the pillar and ground of truth upholding and holding forth truth in the World by teaching it and by living in it and so by living a just and innocent harmless life among men so that they were of no danger to others among whom they lived But the Church of Rome is come to that that she is become the pillar and ground of lyes and slanders of equivocation false accusations truce-breaking hypocrisie to seem one thing and be another to deny or hide their own Principles for wicked ends she is so far fallen from an innocent harmless life that she is become the pillar and ground of Plots and wicked designs to contrive the blowing up of Parliaments the ruine of Nations the destruction of Kings and Rulers the massacring of multitudes and butcherly murthering of thousands of innocent people that do them no harm This is the Pope's Roman

Church And here we may stay our selves and wonder with great admiration as John did when he saw the Woman drunken with the blood of Saints and with the blood of the Martyrs of Jesus Rev. 17.6 This is she that would be counted the only true Church of Christ and holy Church and mother Church and brands all for Hereticks that abhor her abominations Well might the Apostle wonder with great admiration when in vision he was shewed by the Angel that such a degenerate bloody people should rise up under the Name of the Church of Christ But is not this she in whom as it was foretold there was to be a falling away to make way for the revealing of the Man of Sin And so she is become Mother indeed but a bloody Mother not holy Mother what if we say Mother of Harlots and abominations of the earth according as the great Whore is called Rev. 17.5 Whether the present Church of Rome whereof I speak be that very great Whore spoken of in that Chapter or not I refer it to further judgement but this is plain that many if not all of those Characters whereby the great Whore is discovered do meet together in the Church of Rome It will not therefore be amiss or beside the mark to view some or most of them a little as they are exprest in that 17th Chapter of the Revelations In the first Verse she is called by the Angel The great Whore that sitteth upon many waters Come hither saith he to John and I will shew thee the judgement of the great Whore that sitteth upon many waters And what these waters are he expounds to John Ver. 15. The waters which thou sawest where the Whore sitteth are Peoples and Multitudes and Nations and Tongues which shews the large Dominion that the great Whore shall have which well enough answers the state and greatness of the Church of Rome which calls her self Catholick for her Dominion hath reached far and near But as for the title of great Whore how doth that any way answer to Rome's condition What ground is there for that title in her This is worthy of consideration Therefore consider That a Woman that 's married to a Husband and prostitutes her self to another man is called a Whore And so by way of similitude the Israelites were often charged with whoredom because they being a people owned by the Lord and as it were married to him yet went a whoring after their own inventions Psal 106.39 They went after Baalim and Ashteroth and the Gods of the Heathens and did not keep loyal to the Lord and his Commands This was imputed to them for whoredom The like thing being done by a people professing themselves to be married to Christ as his Church is also counted and called whoredom in them because they are not faithful and loyal to him but prostitute themselves to other Inventions This is spiritual whoredom Now where is there a people that are run out into so many Inventions of their own as the Romish Church is run out into Inventions that have no ground at all either from the Doctrine or Practice of Christ or any of his Apostles Where have they ground for their daily mumbling over so many Prayers so many Pater-Nosters so many Ave-Maries c. that they need Beads to number them by as they say them and as if God were delighted with Lip-labour Where have they ground to forbid Marriages to their Priests Where have they ground to forbid Flesh-meat as a case of Conscience on such and such days Where have they ground for their Idol the Mass for Invocation of Saints and Angels Where have they ground for carrying about their Host or Sacrifice and making all do obeisance to it and worship it Where have they ground for their idolizing the Cross and the Pictures of the holy Servants of God falling down and praying before them if not to them Certainly God will avenge his holy Apostles and Prophets upon them for thus abusing them so contrary to that spirit that was in them who could not endure that men should fall down to their persons while they were upon Earth much less now to their Images In these and many such like things the Pope's Church have run out after their own Inventions And this is whoredom against Christ who was faithful in all his house that is in his Church as Moses was in his to teach them the whole counsel of God Besides all this the Church of Rome hath taken off her love from him who is the great Friend of Mankind and would have us so as he is and she hath placed it upon him who is the great Enemy of Mankind and follows his steps For they have shut out that Spirit in which Christ comes and makes his abode with his people and whereby he forms his own Nature in them and makes them innocent humble lowly meek merciful c. and instead of that they have let into their bosom the Spirit of the wicked one whose works Christ came to destroy and so by that Spirit they have the nature of him that was a murtherer and lyar from the beginning formed in them and so uphold the works of the Devil which Christ came to destroy in man What greater whoredom from Christ than this Now she that outstrips all others in such like whoredoms she is the greatest Whore against Christ if she profess his Name And how sully the Church of Rome falls under these things I let others judge and pass on to further Discoveries Verse 2. It 's said With whom the Kings of the earth have committed fornication And the Inhabiters of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication This great Whore hath had power over the Kings of the earth to bring them into the same state of fornication or whoredom with her self even to fall down and prostitute themselves to her Inventions and Traditions and Idolatries and so to partake of her Spirit Let the Reader apply it as also what follows And the Inhabiters of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication She hath mingled a cup of her own Inventions and superstitious Idolatries and so sweetned it to the palate of earthly-spirited people that they have drunk it down with delight like wine but it hath intoxicated them and made them drunken so that like drunken men without any rule over themselves they are for killing and slaying and like savage beasts for pushing down and trampling upon all that shall withstand their drunken humours and sensless imaginations and superstitions and they need but a watch-word from the Pope to set them on Verse 3. Another mark of the great Whore is opened And he carried me away into the wilderness in the spirit and I saw the woman sitting upon a scarlet coloured beast sull of names of blasphemy having seven heads and ten horns This Verse with the Angel's interpretation of it will give us much light in