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	good_a	2,481	5	4.3352	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A23769	A sermon preached before the King at White-hall, October the 12th 1662 by Richard Allestrey ...	Allestree, Richard, 1619-1681.	1663 (1663)	Wing A1165; ESTC R15228	15,707	44

and it was imputed to him for righteousness and he was called the friend of God James ii 23. and then is Christ more inaccessible and harder to be made a friend Why truly God and Christ both are so much friends to all true believers that the life of Christ was given for them for God so loved the world that he gave his onely begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life John iii. 16. nor are there any qualities more signally peculiar to friendship more engaging then confidence and trust dependance and relying embosoming my self in him now these are but the exercise of Faith and t is most certain if we heartily endeavour to do what he commands there is employment then for all this work of Faith place for its applications and assurances My Text does make this good But when his friendship is made over on conditions as t is not onely in these words but every where in Scriptures there being not one promise absolute that does concern Gods favour justification and eternal life he does not once offer remission of sins but to those that amend their lives nay does express as if he could not give it otherwise peradventure they will repent that I may forgive them Jeremy xxxvi 3 The promises therefore being conditional Faith must be answerable to the promises that it does rest on and apply and at the most can be but an assurance that you shall be partaker of what 's promised that is to say partaker of the favour and the life of Christ if ye do his commands But then if I perform not this condition to trust upon his friendship which I am not qualified for to think by faith to receive a pardon which in that case I am was never offered me to apply to my self promises which were never made me for none were ever made to them that do not do and to assure my self Christ will transgress his everlasting Covenant for my Vices sake meerly to give me leave to enjoy my sins will do that which God may not do forgive one that will not repent If I believe thus against promise and against decree am confident whether Christ will or no and will rely upon him in despite of him if such a faith will make us friends affronts do reconcile This is indeed to lay violent hands on his favour and to invade his friendship and without metaphor take Heaven by force But sure I am that this is not the faith made Abraham be called the friend of God in that place of Saint James but a faith that was perfected by doing v. 22. of that Chapter a faith that made him offer up his onely Son upon the Altar v. 21. 'T is true he did in hope believe against all hope Rom iv 18. So that his faith was stronger then a contradiction but yet his resolutions of obedience seem stronger then his faith for he did that even to the cutting off the grounds of all his Faith and hope He trusted God would make his promise good to him make all the Nations of the Earth be blessed in the seed of Isaac though Isaac had no seed nor could have if he should be slain And he resolved at Gods command himself to slay that Isaac so to make him have no seed His Faith indeed did no dispute the great impossibility but his obedience caused it He did not question how can God perform with me when I have offered up my son I cannot look that a large Progeny should rise out of the Ashes on the Altar nor will those Flames that devour all my seed at once may my seed numerous lasting and glorious as the Stars in Heaven which he promised me but much less did he question why should I obey in this He that does his commands can but expect what he hath promis'd but if I should do this command and slay my Son I make his promise void and detroy my own expectations and if I disobey I can but suffer what he bids me do my own obedience will execute all that his indignation would threaten to my Disobedience Though Abraham had three daies time and journy to the Altar that Nature might have leisure the mean while to reason with the precept thus and his affection might struggle with his duty yet he goes on resolves to tear out his own bowels and cut of his hopes will Sacrifice his onely Son and Sacrifice God's promise to his commands And then He that will trust to Abraham's example of believing yet will not follow him at all in doing will obey no commands that is so far from offering up an onely Son he will not slay an onely evil custome nor part with one out of the herd of all his vicious habits will not give up the satisfaction to any of his carnal worldly or ambitious appetites not Sacrifice a passion or a lust to all the Obligations that God and Christ can urge him with he hath nor faith nor friendship no nor fore-head 'T is true indeed he that hath Abraham's faith may well assure himself he is Christ's friend but t is onely on this account because he that believes as Abraham believed he will not stick to do whatever Christ commands which is that universality of obedience that is the next condition that entitles to Christ's friendship and my last part Ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you There is no quality so necessary to a friend or so appropriate to friendship as sincerity They that have but one soul they can have no reserves from one another But disobedience to one precept is inconsistent with sincerity that hath respect unto all the commandments and he that will not do whatever Christ prescribes hath reserves of affection for some darling sin and is false to his Saviour He is an enemy indeed so that there is no friendship on either side Saint Paul says so of any of one kind the minding of the flesh saith he whether it be providing for the belly or any other of the organs of carnality is desperate incurable rebellion Now such a rebel is we know the worst of enemies Saint James does say as much of any of those vicious affections that are set on the world Whosoever will be a friend of the world is an enemy of God James iv 4. and he calls them adultereses and adulterers who think to joyn great strict Religion to some little by-love of an honour or a profit of this world Such men are like a wife that not contented with the partner of her takes in another now and then she must not count her self her husbands friend though she give him the greatest share in her affections no she is but a bosom enemy and so any one vice allow'd is a paramour sin is whoredome against Christ and our pretended friendship to him in all other obediences is but the kindness and the caresses of an adulteress the meer hypocrisie and