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	faith_n	scripture_n	1,714	5	6.0562	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A86498	Dæmonologie, and theologie The first, the malady, demonstrating the diabolicall arts, and devillish hearts of men. The second, the remedy: demonstrating, God a rich supply of all good. By Doctor Nathanael Homes, [sic]	Homes, Nathanael, 1599-1678.	1650 (1650)	Wing H2562; Thomason E1341_2; ESTC R209143	95,747	222

doe they walke after or according to then Even after their owne lusts both corporall lusts namely those Principles that please the flesh and also intellectual lusts and mentall wantonnesses phantasies of their owne spirits What ever pleasant dreames they dreame or new devises they imagine to sooth up themselves and put away all true feare of God and the thoughts of judgement to come of locall Hell and Heaven and the immortality of the soule such dreames and imaginations I say as these that put away all fundamental truths and the thoughts of them are their Principles of truth And like Principles like conclusions Upon such premises must needs follow damnable heresies That the Creature cannot sin because God acts in him That the Creature hath done nothing that he should torment himselfe by denying himselfe any contentment That all things are common and to be enjoyed in common And thus they depart from the Faith As in that 1 Tim. 4.1 of the evil times the Apostle speaks of he saith Some shall depart from the Faith Est fides quâm fides qua There is either the Faith which we beleeve that is the object and ground of Faith namely the Doctrine of Faith the holy Scriptures or the Faith with which we beleeve namely the quality of Faith The parallel of our times to this is that there is in this Nation such an apostasie of Men and Women called formerly Professors from the Faith as I never heard or read of in any Ecclesiastical Story of any Nation We have them that deny the Scriptures and with those blasphemous reproaches cast upon them and with such audacious equalizing yea preferring of their owne dreames above them as it wil be safer to be silent touching the particulars then to carry the sound of them to your eares And if they depart from the object of Faith the Doctrine of the Word of God they must necessitatedly depart from the quality of so much Faith as may be in an Apostate before his faling away As from a fundament all Faith to wit That there is a God and from an historical Faith whereby hee once did beleeve that the Scriptures were the truth of God and so becomes worse then the Devill James 2. And worse then the generality of Heathens * For the Devill cannot be an Atheist but his sinne is properly the sin against the holy Ghost maliciously to hate and persecute that truth of which he is fully convinced And the generality of Heathens could not be Atheists because of the Common Law of nature Rom. 2.15 whoever of them as generally they all did set up any thing to be their God did withal acknowledge some Oracle secret conference or tradition c. whereby they knew the minde of that God And lastly these Apostates are worse then the Jewes or Papists whom they pretend to detest for they both in all their Heresies and Errors in opinion and practice stil in the maine keep to those Scriptures they first imbraced Nor is it a sufficient excuse for them to pretend they have all things dictated to them by the spirit because we are commanded to try the spirits by the Doctrine of the Scriptures 1 John 4.1 And if this place of Scripture is not of weight with these Anti-scripturians let them heare reason How were they two both ledd by the good Spirit when at the same time the one of them preteuded to Preach by the Spirit strange high Hyperphysicall transcendencies and the other in the auditory at the same time breakes out into lowd expressions of sublime spirituall raptures pretended to be upon the parties spirit to the occasioning of the Preacher to hold his peace a while til by and by he cryes out to the other Be silent O flesh Sure the spirit of God is not contrary to it selfe nor the author of confusion And if there be a lying spirit as wel as a spirit of truth how shal we know to distinguish the good from the lyer but by the old good way ever since there was a written Word on Earth namely by the written Word Isa 20.8 CHAP. III. A particular parallell of our times with that in the 1 Tim. 4.1 that men shall give heed to seducing Spirits and Doctrines of Devils SSould seeme that in the last times there shal be seducing Spirits and their Doctrines as wel as the Spirit of truth and his Doctrines And as Satan is called a lying spirit so hee is sayd to be a lying spirit in the mouth of Ahabs foure hundred false Prophets for one Michaia that spake by the spirit of truth so that mens spirits are also sayd to be lying spirits or spirits or error 1 John 4.1 prompted no doubt also by Satan The Parallell of these times to our times in this suits thus Men yea nominal Professors First are Levellers which was the Devils Doctrine to Adam Secondly Familists saying that men are Deified and God is the Creature which also was in effect the Devils Doctrine Thirdly are much given to heed and beleeve Diabolicall Magick and Divinations under the notion of lawfull Mathematicks and laudable Art to tel and foretel things which God doth not and nature cannot declare or Predict I speake not against proper lawful Art which I am ingaged to honour but against such practises as are above Art and belong to Diabolical assistances whereby many in these dayes are at last decoyed into the Circle of the Devils power of prevailing suggestions and bewitched Obsession if not also most probably by what I could tel you unto possession In Revel 12. Vers 10 11 12. in the type of the last times afore Christs appearance t is sayd Now is the Kingdome of our God and the power of his Christ and the Saints overcome by the blood of the Lamb. But immediately afore shal be a Woe to the Inhabitants of the Earth for the Devill is come downe unto you I say immediately AFORE because t is sayd first That the Devill and Satan were cast out And then it followes Now is salvation and the Kingdome of our God and his Christ Secondly t is sayd The Devil is come downe having great wrath because hee knoweth he hath but a short time * And Master Perkins shewes in his Booke of Witchcraft that a man that doth confidently beleeve that upon such Figures Circles and the like Diabolical traditions he shal be told such and such things not knowing any divine or natural reason WHEREFORE it should be so may be in an implicit Covenant with the Devil .. It is not enough for a right knowledge by Art to know That it shal be so but to know justly why and wherefore it shall be so The knowledge of wherefore promiseth Art But the knowledge of onely THAT it shal be so may be suspected of farr worse And doubtlesse some good men in these times whose returne to the truth witnesse their goodnesse of which we have but rare examples have been really bewitched being forced with an irresistable