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	hope_v	1,483	5	7.8841	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A49761	An history of angells being a theologicall treatise of our communion and warre with them : handled on the 6th chapter of the Ephesians, the 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 verses / by Henry Lawrence ...; Of our communion and warre with angels	Lawrence, Henry, 1600-1664.; Milton, John, 1608-1674.	1649 (1649)	Wing L660; ESTC R12895	135,420	210

littlenesse this nothingnes of faith is your advantage because in this great businesse of our salvation God will be all in all and you shall thanke your selves for nothing Did it hinder Naaman the Assirian that to wash in Jordan was nothing or did it relieve Jericho that the bloweing of Rams-hornes was nothing if it had bene any thing it had not done it for God is resolved to destroy Jericho by nothing that is by himselfe alone and therefore he will have you by nothing or by that which is as good as nothing in respect of what you doe But on the other side hee findes enough in the ballance to make your sins nothing even his owne eternall love and the suffering and merrits of his owne son Thirdly Gods heart is in this matter of faith never any thing was so fenced with mottinesse with threats and commands with intreatings and invitings with words and oathes with signes and seales with rewards and punishments The Gospell is nothing but the Message of faith Christ himself and all his Ministers but the preachers of faith The great businesse is to make the match to tye the knott betweene God and our soules the rest other things flow on naturally Love followes faith works flowe from love But without faith its impossible to please God without faith wee are Strangers and a farre of Now that which is so neere Gods heart and so advantagious to our selves wee should doe wee should be much in what ever the divell say to the contrary God neverhedged any thing about like this never any thing came so freely off the making of this cost him his Ministers ordinances and seales and without it all is nothing Fourthly to fetch Arguments not onely from necessity and duty reason but ingenuity the onely salve you can apply to the wounds of Christ is beleeving your sins made them your faith heales them Hee shall see of the travaile of his soule and be satisfied Isa. 53.11 That is hee hath beene at a great deale of paines and cost now what are his in-comes what will make up this poore people for whome hee did and suffered all this will trust him and beleeve in him for so it followes by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many that is by the knowledge and beliefe of him they shal be justified this satisfies him this payes him this is the onely way you have to make him amends Now his stripes hath healed you heale him by your faith do a little nobly and freely for him that hath done so much for you sticke not with him to beleeve him that stuck not to dye for you But then lastly did the divell never let loose any fiery darts upon you or may hee not doe it if hee have not yee can judge the lesse what it is to want this shield but aske Judas and hee will tell you aske David hee will tell you aske Paul when Sathan buffetted him and hee had nothing but God to relie upon If hee have I hope experience will make us wise to have our shield ready if hee have not knowe that hee may doe looke that hee will doe and will doe it when you are weakest when you are lowest provide for that evill day get up your shield this of faith in God through Christ as yours and then when hee comes what have you to doe ye can turne God loose to him yee can fetch downe liquor and vertue of that temper and coolenesse as shall dead and quench and extinguish his darts and in the thing wherein hee is proud and mighty you will be above him and to hard for him We are come in the fifth place to another peece of the great and sure armour with which the spirit of God armes us against the divell a peece for our head the Helmet of salvation as that before was more generall applicable to the whole Body That by this Helmet is meant hope the Apostle who is his owne best interpreter tells you 1. Thessa. 5.8 And for an Helmet the Hope of Salvation This peece of armour is of excellent use and proper to that part it defends The worth of it appears as by many things So by the deplorable condition of those that want it they have no hope saies hee and they are without God in the world Eph. 2.12 they wanted that ligament that tye to fasten them to God and so were left most miserable Wee must consider a little what hope is and then why it is called of salvation and then how it fits that part to which it is destined and doth the worke of an Helmet It is a receiv'd maxime that all affections are rooted in love and as they are rooted in love so they are acted by love even hatred and malice it selfe hath its rise in some thing loved for therefore I hate such a thing because I love the contrary Againe as affections are rooted in love and acted by love so love is felt and appeares according to the affection it acts by and is seene through that as the sunne which is alwayes the same in it selfe yet workes upon us according to the constellations it possesseth and the light coulours it self according to the body through which it shines so loves workes and appeares much according to the affection it possesseth and through which it renders it self visible for example Love appeares very darke in sorrow violent in choller tranquill and peaceable in joy dejected in dispaire but in hope love is in its Throne there it appeares in most pompe there it workes with most efficacy and is altogether lovely This affection of all others semes to be destined to great affaires and hath a mighty influence either upon our doeing or suffering It was all that Alexander had to inable him to the conquest of the world distributing all his other goods that hee had received from his father Againe what is it but this that makes men every day crosse the seas labour the ground seeke after Mines in the bowells of the earth fight and pursue victories nay it is that which accompanyes men to the scaffold and to their death bedds But to follow our methods wee consider not hope heere in that loose sence in which it is commonly taken namely for a certaine fault and lowe attendancy or lookeing after some good thing desired and so to be before faith and without it as when wee are apt to say I cannot beleeve such a thing but I hope it well but on the contrary we take it for a firme expectation of some future good which wee doe already beleeve and are assured of so faith the scripture Heb. 11.1 Faith is the substance of things hoped for Gal. 5.5 Wee waite for the hope of righteousnesse by faith that is faith gives you the ground of waiteing which is by hope so if wee hope wee waite Rom. 8.25 so as this hope which must be our Helmet is a superadded grace to faith a birth and effect of it

as for the attaining of them God must come out of heaven Christ must die and suffer God must set all his wisedome on worke that wee may have a ground to pitch our hopes upon and for our part hope is mannaged and conversant about difficult things as ye shall heare But then last of all our hope is wise the things are possible about which it is conversant so possible as they are assured and therefore it s called the full assurance of Hope Heb. 6.11 Let us knowe then where wee are and what use wee have of this affection The truth is Christian Religion is altogether founded upon hope the things of this life are not our portion wee breath after what is to come let us therefore live as men untyed from this world and fasten to another by hope let the pleasures and honours and profits of this world be dead things to us because wee have no hope to animate them Hope acts and animates above any thing but wee want this engine because we have not that object For instance to appeare something to be great wise and honourable is the great contention and pursuite of this world When Christ who is our life shall appeare then shall wee appeare c. Heavenly hope puts you off thither and disputes not the thing but the time ye shall have enough of appearing but it shal be in a peculiar and advantageous time when Christ shall appeare to fill up his triumph to adorne that pompe respite your desire of appearing till then God doth but time it for us so for pleasures to enjoy your selves to be satisfied to be at ease to gratify and content every part of you these are mens hopes one time or other you shall get it There is a place of pleasures the presence of God and there is a fullnesse and compleatnesse of pleasure but it is in that place and in other and there are plasures for evermore pleasures that are as long as they are great but it is at the right hand of God The pleasures Sathan would give you are of a base alloey their durance is but of that minute in which they are enjoyed Their fullnesse is worse then their emptinesse for they are not onely vaine falling short of that good they promised but vexing also and deceiving the truth is this is not a life for pleasures but for paines especially to Christians and so saies the Apostle If in this life onely wee have hope wee are of all men most miserable If our hopes as other mens were heere wee were in a worse condition then they that cannot eate their meates and enjoy their comforts tast of their daintyes partly because there is a greater disproportion betweene us and them then betweene they and them and partly because our light and our conscience is to much raised of too great a tendernesse to digest their morsells what then have wee nothing to ballance their contentments not to speake of other things what ever returnes faith and hope can make wee have They are without hope wish them joy of what they have but hope they have none and this let mee tell you improve this well and it shall pay all the charges of their gaines you have the hope of eternall life the hope of glory of what ever your hearts can wish and desire Faith gives things a footing and a subsistance hope is grafted upon it and is ready by the expectation of better things to outbidd the world and by virtue of a pleasure taken in things to come to carry you above the false pretensions of pleasure which the world makes ofter therefore content your selves with your portion and use your Helmet to ward of the assaults of semeing goods or ills as Sathan shall present them But more particularly use hope for joy for patience for workeing live in the joy of hope let one spirituall affection in prove and provoke another that there is a joy of hope appeares in this which wee usually say of worldly hopes that things are usually better in the hopes then in the enjoyment and wee see men will sell any thing rather then their hopes Now those hopes in comparison with ours have two or three notable defects First they are built upon uncertainties and contingenties they have no firme bottome and ground work and so cannot be intire cannot be without the mixture of feare feare of issue feare of successe and this let mee adde that the more they hope the more they will feare out of a loathnesse to want the good things they desire and so it is a mixt affection that prickes and pinches aswell as relieves and comforts Worldly men enjoy litle their hopes or their possessions not their possessions for they are ballanced with uncertainties and emptinesse so as they are faine to relieve themselves by their hopes by their reachings after more nor their hopes doe they enjoye purely and sincerely for they are mixt with feare which oftentimes is the weightiest ingredient and beares the greatest part of the composition but our hopes have not this impediment to joy but on the contrary carry evidence and subsistance with them being built upon the evidence and subsistance of faith so that what faith firmely beleeves hope joyfully expects and waites for What is the great happines of heaven but the fixeing stayeing of joyes by eternity Now the joy of that hope is fixed by faith which gives it a steddy and untottering foundation so that what you have you have If joy come in by that doore it will or ought to do so alwaies there is no rationall or necessary mixture of feare because there is no rationall cause of doubting Secondly there is a vanity of rejoycing in boastings as James saith and so an evill for all such rejoycing is evill The mixture of feare is a troublesome but it is a rationall thing in their hopes the foundation of which is but contingency but a further evill and more sinfull and irrationall is that they rejoyce in their boastings they thinke by the determination of their wills to do that which godly men doe by faith and when their hopes have once concluded a thing they thinke it should be established and thereupon runne away without reckoning with their hoast as wee use to say whereas the scripture saith yee ought to say if I live and if the Lord will Now for their foolish conceits to fixe that which onely God can render certaine is a folly and a sinne and the hope that riseth from it is an irrationall presumptuous hope for that they ought to say if wee live and if the Lord will things that are wholy out of their power Now our hopes and the joy of it is not a rejoycing in boasting but it is a boasting in truth wee have already the Lords will his will declared his will commaunded that wee should have the joy of hope and should rejoyce in hope Rom. 12.12 And that wee should have the rejoycing