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	know_v	3,423	5	4.6161	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A82020	A publick discovery of a secret deceit. Or, the man of sin unmasked, his sheeps-clothing of glorious pretences pulled off; and his wolvish inside set forth in its colours. Where may easily be discerned Satan transformed into the resemblance of an angel of light, in that sect or society commonly called Quakers. Being nineteen quæries, directed to their speakers at the Bull and Mouth neer Aldersgate: and answered by that grand fomenter of heresie, James Nayler. With a reply thereunto, and fourteen queries more returned by him unto me, fully answered: and twenty four more proposed. / By me John Deacon.	Deacon, John, 17th cent.	1656 (1656)	Wing D487; Thomason E884_6; ESTC R207313	47,188	67

as Theodorus and Ignatius c. and in Q. Maries dayes Cranmer Latimer Hooper Ridley Farrar Mat. 12.3 Bradford Philpot Saunders Glover Taylor and many others of the same profession or wherein did they differ or were they false Ministers and so died as evil doers and were they not called Masters took tithes and preached upon Texts and in Pulpits and doe not you justifie their murders in condemning their cause and so joyn with their persecuters and condemn those afresh and is not the spirit in you a truth-opposing and Rome-upholding one Q. 18. Is Baptism and the Supper Sacraments yea or no or whether there can be any Sacrament without some outward signe or whether a Sacrament is consistent in words or an Element or of the one or of the other or of both or of neither and how there can be any Sacrament without an Element speak plainly to the purpose Q. 19. And since you say I am damned where is that pious charity spoken of by Paul 1 Cor. 13. or is it to be owned by and practised of a Christian yea or not if yea after what sort and in what measure and why do not you use it if no when was it made void and whether it be the spirit of Christ or of something that cals it selfe Christ that saith Judge not lest ye are judged or of Satan which seeketh to drive men into desparation without cause as thou art damned when and at what time were you made privy unto Gods determinate will to know that I am damned or to his secrets that I believe not or sauours not this of a diabolical censorious envious spirit in you and how comes it to passe that I must believe James Naylor and then be faithful and though I believe in Christ yet be faithlesse is there more objects of faith then one in unity and what be the degrees and what the effects what the grounds of a saving and sanctifying faith and how known Q. 20. Whether the power that worketh in you and in the rest of your quaking Fraternity be divine or diabolical if divine prove it by Scripture or may we not know the Tree Antichrist by its fruits heresies in you if diabolical then cease like Simon Magus to seem to be some great one to draw disciples after you and resist this spirit in your self better repent then perish Q. 21. Whether it be by the spirit of Satan or the power of God say you that worketh by charms whereby some of your Proselytes have been possessed with devils as Gilpin Mary White and others and whether Peter or Simon Magus be the Apostle of Christ or whether it be the work of the spirit of God to inspire with the holy Ghost or with Satan and hereby let us know whether you be Saints or sorcerers make it out upon a Gospel account Q. 22. And since you so much rail against superiority dignities 2 Pet. 2.10 11. Heb. 13.7 17 1 Cor. 4.1 Tit. 1.7.11 Tim. 3. Cor. 3.10 Act. 14.15 Eccl. 12.11 1 Pet. 3.6 Act. 20.25 Act. 26.2 27. Act. 16.30 when as the very Angels in heaven bring no railing accusations againg them and wherefore did our Saviour speak against being called Masters and upon what occasion and why may not Ministers be called Masters as well as Rulers and what is the difference between a Master and a Ruler and is the title of Ministers of Christ the Stewards of the Mysteries of God Embassadors of Reconciliation Bishops Overseers inferiour to the word Master did Paul transgresse or was he no Minister because he called himselfe a wise Master-builder or did the holy Ghost erre when he called teachers Masters of Assemblies or did the spirit erre when it commends Sarah for calling Abraham Lord or Paul who called Festus most noble Festus and Agrippa O King Agrippa did not Paul and Silas own the title Sirs from the Gaoler or doe you not stumble at a straw and run over a mountain and see a mote in anothers eye but not a beam in yours Q. 23. Did not your spirit speak in Corah Dathan Num 16.3 Abiram and their adherents and did not they raile against their Ministers ye take too much upon you and say not you the same in effect and said not they all the Congregation is holy and so themselves in their own eyes and you say you are pure said not they The Lord is among us and so say you The Lord Christ is within us 2 John 9. and is not the same spirit in you that was in Diotrephes who rejected the Epistles of the Apostles And did ever any more presumptuously boast of and yet act more contrary unto the Spirit of God or did ever any generation shew such audacious arrogant impudence in opposing the Doctrine for which Martyrs holy men of God have spent their blood for the testimony thereof and yet take unto themselves the justice of their cause for a defence of their basenesse and is not this spiritual presumption if not abomination Q. 24. Is a lye the fruit of an infallible or a fallible spirit and may not a true Church erre and so be fallible or may it erre and yet still be infallible or is pretence of infallibility an assurance that that Church so pretending it is a true Church or did any of the Apostles boast of infallibility as doe you or are you more infallible then they were And if you have the same spirit why then what hinders that you doe not the same miracles is it that the spirit is now lesse able then it was then and so is not the spirit fallible or is it not rather that there is in you a deceivable spirit that calls it selfe infallible and did ever any besides your selfe and the Church of Rome your Founders stand upon so presumptuous a score of infallibility and yet acted with more fallibility in doctrine and opinion and is it not hellish darkness in you and them that calls it selfe pure light J. DEACON FINIS

dominion of sin and death too yet is the most faithful not perfectly free from the remnants of sinne Mat. 16.23 Mat. 26.70 72 74. Gal. 2.11 12 13 14. 2 Cor. 12.7 Gal. 2.20 Phil. 4.13 Rom. 7.22 23 24. Judg. 2 3. Judg. 3.1 2 3 4. Rev. 2.10 1 Pet. 5.4 2 Cor. 2.2 3 4. Rom. 7.19 20. Gal. 2.20 which is the sting of death for though the least measure of saving faith in Christ be sufficient to free and keep us from the dominion of sinne yet the greatest portion or fulnesse that ever was distributed unto the greatest of the Apostles exempted them not from the remnant of sinne not onely original but also actual too for Peter he was accused get thee behinde me Satan and after deny'd his Master and then dissembled so as to be contradicted by Paul who also was so far lifted up on the wings of ambition that he needed to he corrected and therefore received a prick in the flesh which was neither through the wants nor disabilities of faith through which he boasted he could doe all things but the law of his members the remnants of sin there warring against the law of his minde brought him captive to the law of sinne and death which remnants are commonly called sins of infirmity which are left as thorns in our sides to prove us whether we will continue faithful to the end that so we may be crowned with glory And who had faith so much and so strong as to be translated in the spirit and give his soule the prospect of that no lesse eternally sacred then incomprehensibly glorious object of the third heavens and by this overcame the power as a Saint but could not shun the temptation as he was a man but both his will and affections were so far subordinate as the latter to those powers of darknesse that saith he the good that I would doe that doe I not and the evil that I would not that doe I but then as the former If any man may boast much more I I live and yet not I but Christ that liveth in me and until the one be separated from the other there can be no perfect perfection 1 Tim. 1.15 Rom. 3.23 Jam 3.2 1 John 1.8 10. Heb. 12.5 Phil. 3.21 for the same Apostle asserts this is a faithful saying Christ died to save sinners of whom I not onely was but am the chief and we including himselfe too have all sinned all none excepted and come short of the glory of God and James saith also the same that in many things we offend all and John that Apostle of love and Eagle-ey'd Evangelist to pry into the secrets of those Mysteries of the Son of glory records this that he that saith he hath no sinne is a lyar and the truth is not in him and therefore you are lyars and void of the truth if then the Apostles who had the most eminent faith above all others were not free from the remnant of sinne nay and some grosse ones too I cannot be convinced that perfect perfection can be in any before a dissolution of mortality and a resurrection unto glorification I say since that they were contented to rest without discomfort in perseverance till Jesus the Author and Finisher of their faith should come to change their vile bodies therefore not pure and make them like his glorious body I cannot apprehend that any one shall attaine any higher perfection until they come to the end of their race eternal rest if they run so as to obtaine and they that content not themselves therewith to sit downe and rest here as did the Apostles For the present I shall leave it to them to examine whether they fight not against Gods Councels and determinations and let them be careful how they grope for a heaven on earth lest they misse it where it is Ps 16.11 even above all Principalities and powers in Christ his presence where there is fulnesse of joy and pleasures for evermore Quere 6. Seeing you say the Scriptures is the ground of faith and that they who can read the Scriptures have power to beleeve as you did the last first day then I say can any beleeve who have not read or heard the Scriptures if yea then is not their faith without ground by your opinion or is there more grounds of faith then one or is the Scriptures Christ An Answer to the Sixth Query Most impudent and no lesse disconsolate and thrice wretched man whether it be properly the fruits of thy spirit to speak truth or a lye seems unto me a matter neither doubtful nor disputable but apparent for the first are as rare to be read in thy writings as to see a blazing star in the Firmament for ought I can conjecture I had almost said as to see a Phoenix in England which was never known but in Arabia for what you relate that I said the Scripture is the ground of faith is as notorious a lye as to affirme James Naylor to be no lyar and both as incomparable untruths as to say light is darkness or darknesse light yet I say the Scritures read and preached is a meanes to work faith for faith is by hearing Rom. 10.17 1 Cor. 3.5 and who is Paul or who is Apollo but Ministers by whom ye beleeve And since your brains are tosticated with invention and fomenting of heresie which breatheth forth nothing but lyes and falshoods and hath raised this forgery among the rest that I said he that could read had power to beleeve were thou not led by the Father of falshood to heap up shame unto thy self though thou intendest it for others thou mayest remember I asserted that no man by any native light inherent in him had power to beleeve except he had an augmentation thereof and therefore finding the foundation of thy Quere but thy own invented lyes I shall returne it back unto thee to whom of right it belongs being forgeries of thine own head and no expressions of mine I send thee back thine own and if you please you may send it unto the Devil the father of lyes whose it was at first I deale plainly as you desired me Quere 7. Seeing you affirme that none can be Ministers of Christ but who are called of man and are learned men whether was the Apostle Paul a true Minister who saith he was neither of man nor by man and what he preached was not after man Nor was it but by revelation Gal. 1.2 11 12. Or was Peter John and the rest true Ministers who were unlearned and ignorant men Acts 4.13 And what lets that God may not chuse such now An Answer to the Seventh Quere If ever Satan had the penning of a paper stuffed up with untruths or Beelzebub the portraying of his unexpressible hypocrisie to the prospect of humane eyes with the pen of his falshoods then certainly he or his Agents are the Inditors of this your packet of lyes and particularly this

against which I utterly declare as have others done for this were first to bereave us of that glorious priviledge of communion with God he speaking unto us in his word we unto him in prayer Secondly to shut up the Kingdome of God in some sort from the sons of men in bereaving us of the meanes for discipline and observance is the security of an Army in wars and what are glad tydings if they are not told Thirdly this is to presse us to the omission of duty which is questionlesse commission of offence And fourthly this leaves all open to the assaults of Satan we laying downe in our infirmities and not standing up against his invasions and temptations And lastly this giveth way to sluggishnesse of spirit and to an unwatchfulness in matters of salvation and endeavour to engage us to a confidence of beliefe Matth. 24.23 24. Luk. 21.8 Act. 17.11 in and to every thing that shall come in the name of Christ and so to receive Antichrist not leaving us the priviledge of the braines to try the words of an Apostle by the umpire of all controversies the sacred Scriptures which is absolutely opposite unto the truth and contrary yea far exorbitant from the known will and temporal expressive word of God for though he hath said Joh. 14.26 1 Tim. 4.15 2 Tim. 2.15 Rom. 12.12 2 Thess 5.17 The Spirit shall teach us all things yet hath it said againe Meditate on these things give thy selfe wholly to them Now wholly excludes all negligent intermission and the manner how is prescribed too for Study to shew thy selfe approved and stir up the gift in thee as fire which sometimes is covered with ashes and againe Be constant and instant in prayer and pray continually which includes all times and seasons wherefore we ought to put up our supplications at the throne of grace not onely when the spirit especially moveth us but when our occasions or necessities require Matth. 25.25 26. and far be it from me to imagine that the Spirit of God moved the Apostles to preach when they did onely and at no other time and that they alwayes waited in silence till then for then it stirred up it selfe they stirred it not but rather hid their talents of grace in the earth and so were unprofitable if not unfaithful servants and since the holy Ghost advised and the the Apostles so practised as to meditate study and pray without ceasing it appeares plainly unto me that Christ neither limited or constrained them respectively in particular but onely notionally in general so to doe giving them repenitent hearts to sorrow for sinne and grace to beleeve and power thorow that grace to exercise faith in the performance of those duties and when they prayed Christ also prayed with them and as a faithful Mediatour making continual intercession at the throne of grace that the fruition of their prayers might be the accomplishment of their desires and far be it from me to imagine that Christ can be limited by any external thing though I suppose and really beleeve that it is possible for any man to limit himselfe and then much more for Christ who is God and therefore with him all things are possible and so may limit himselfe in any thing if he please Quere 12. What is the ground and rise of your knowledge whether it be received within man from God or without from the Letter And if without whether this be not the knowledge which all the vaine janglers comes out of and the generation of persecutors comes out of as the Jewes was in which professed the Letter and were strangers to the life of God And whether this generation of men and Professors in our Age do not begin to manifest the same as the persecuting Jewes did yea or nay An Answer to the Twefth Query Act. 19.2 My knowledge as was Pauls is neither perfectly the one nor the other and yet partly both for as the disciples of Ephesus were ignorant of Jesus though baptized unto John and had not so much as heard of that name or that there was a holy Ghost notwithstanding any inward light until they were informed of it by the outward teaching of Paul and then they beleeved on Jesus and so their saith and their knowledge too was from without not within but the Jewes who like you thought to inherit glory by a Covenant of works not of grace endeavoured to pervert and subdue all knowledge Mat. 5.14 save of their way who professing obvious light were found to be in obscure darknesse and therefore persecuted the lights of the world the Apostles and Ministers of Christ fearing lest their deeds should be brought unto the light and be found evil as you doe and so they walked short both of the Spirit and the Letter too yet professing as much and as peculiar sanctity as your selves and you and your generation manifest as much malice as did they wanting only their might against those precious candles of the Gospel who waste themselves that we may grow up unto perfection and I speak sincerely and I suppose I may doe it without breach of Christian Charity That if ever we should live to see that dismal disconsolate day wherein Quakers should predominate in might as much as now they doe in malice I feare fire and faggot would be a deare commodity through the frequent use thereof for any may see with a single eye without a paire of spectacles not onely the persecuting and censorious Jew but also the Saint-murdering and truth-opposing Pope enthroned both in your malice and your Tenets The Lord defend us and his cause from your envious power Quere 13. What Scripture have you for your manner of worship as to read a Chapter and to give meanings to it and call it expounding to take a text of another mans words and raise points reasons and uses c. to sprinkle Infants to sing Davids words in order of your ballads to stand praying in the Synagogues at your set times before and after your glasse Prove your practice by command from Christ or practice of Gospel-Ministers else for shame cease to call it Gospel-worship since none of Christs Ministers worshipped in that manner An Answer to the thirteenth Query When first I read this common hackny and overthredbare worne Query which hath been the publick frequent Strumpet of all your blemished vitiated pens answered more then once and againe I could not but smile to fee your so often battered armour wherewith you war against the cause of Christ become the harnesse of your resistance in the list of this controversie against the truth at this time also and though in respect it hath been as often answered as proposed by several learned pens who have writ on this occasion and by others who have treated on this subject whose abilities are manifest in their works of precious concernment which might induce me to wave my Answer But as I said before so say I now