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	life_n	1,585	5	4.9703	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A89258	A leaf pull'd from the tree of life: medicinall for the healing of Englands divisions. Or, A glimpse of the excellency of a kingly government. Proving it to be 1. Most Godly. 2. Most Christianlike. 3. Most ancient. 4. Most safe for the people. Written out of love and good will to the peace and tranquility of the three nations, of England, Scotland, and Ireland. By John Moore.	Moore, John, of Wechicombe, near Dunster, Somerset.	1660 (1660)	Wing M2560; Thomason E1026_7; ESTC R208755	14,530	23

tongues have uttered perversness wherein few or none call for Justice and scarcely any plead for truth where the Cockatrice Eggs are hatcht and the Spiders Web woven and in whose hands is nothing else but the act of violence where their feet run to evil making haste to shed innocent blood whose paths are full of wasting and destruction where they fast for strife and debate where they do not loose the bands of wickedness nor undo the heavy burthens nor let the oppressed go free nor break any yoke where none seek for peace neither will they be acquainted with the ways thereof Where they are seeking them out new ways as if they intended to serve a strange God where judgement ss turned away backward and justice standeth a far off Where truth is fallen in the street and equity cannot enter Where they grinde the faces of the poor and sell the needy for a pair of shoes Where the people have used oppression and exercised Robbery by a Law Where the sins of Sodom are rife for this was the sin of Sodom Pride Fulness of bread and abundance of Idleness was found in her neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy Where the Governours prize their own Ordinances above the Ordinances of God and the Subjects thrreof more afraid to violate the former then profane the latter Ah sinfull Nation laden with such iniqui●ies as these the head whereof is sick and the heart thereof faint and from the sole of the foot even to the head there is little or no soundness or solidity in it but ful of wounds and bruises and putrifying sores of division which to this day are not yet closed with the balm of Repentance and returning to God nor bound up with the white Fillet of peace nor mollified with the pretious men of unfained love This even this is Englands state but what is the reason that we are so full of divisions that the heart of England pants and beats and is so out of frame and order so disquieted within her self is it hence because the foundation of government is out of course and if such foundations be destroyed or be out of course What can even the righteous themselves do but sit down by the waters of confusion and weep or else consider whether there be not a way for them to return to such a foundation of government which may be instrumentall for their deliverance from confusion the healing of their devisions the obtaining of their peace without which we shall never reap the true benefit of any mercy which made the Poet excellently sing forth this Verse Sit pax cum lignis Si vis ut a●diat ignis Let peace blow thy fire If warmth thou de●ire But then the Question will be what that Foundation of goverment is tha● is most likely to effect it why truely the question is soon answered and 't is this that government which hath it's foundation in the holy Scriptures to which the Patriarchs Prophets and Apostles have submitted to the law and to the Testiomony for whatsoever is not according to that word is full of darknesse and confusion I once heard a godly and a reverend Divine Mr. Newton of Taunton deliver this doctrine in the P●lpit that the Scripture God is our God and in this case answerable to that I say let the Scripture government be our government for if the Scripture be the only and sufficient ground of Faith and rule of life for the eternall peace and welfare of the soul there is certainly a sufficiency in it for the ground and rule of government pertaining to the body so that we need not go beyond the Scriptures to look us out a new form of government or new Titles for governors except we are willing to continue war in our gates the Scripture saith that when the people chose them new Gods which I understand by the context of the words to be governours who in Scripture are called Gods then was warre in their gates even of civill warrs and bloody divisions Now this is as clear as the Sun at noon-day Jud. 5.7 8 to every sober-minded Christian that is not drunk with self-Interest not overcome with a spirit of Giddinesse that the foundation of goverment which is commended to us by God in the Scripture did and was to rest and reside in a single person known by the Names or Titles of Kings and Judges and to contradict the perpetuation of it untill Christ himself come there is not one line in the whole Bible as I remember and I believe I have read the Bible over threescore times and as the Apostle saith that he that keeps the whole Law and failsin one point is guilty of all so if wee own the Scripture as the ground of faith and rule of life in some things and renounce it in other having no command for it we must unavoidably be guilty of sliting the whole for the Scripture was not given in old time by will of man nor is it to be altered or chang'd by mans will nor any thing to be added to it or taken from it upon pain that every one that shall so do shall have his name blotted out of the Book of Life and for an addition all the plagues that are written in the same book inflicted on him if ever we would then enjoy our peace our lives libereties and estates our wives and children with tranquility joy and comfort it must be by a chearfull submission to such a foundation of government which God in his wisdome hath appointed and thought meet for us and made obvious to our eye in his sacred records let then the exhortation Jer. 6. 16. which the Prophet Jeremiah hath spoken to us in the name of the Lord be acceptable to us Who bids us to stand in the ways and see and ask for the old paths where is the good way and walk therein and we shall find rest for our souls Let us consider and examine whether it be not better though we should be loosers by it to imitate the servants of God of old and walke in their steps paths then for our own ends to dance after the pipe of the covetous drunken swinish slovenly Dutch and the lustfull adulterous Venetian where under the government of the one all manner of intollerable blasphemies are tollerated and under the dominion of the other most abominable beastlinesse countenanc't yea rather let us set our eyes to behold have our ears often to hearken to our minds bent to contemplate our hearts to ponder our lips to speak of our hands to lay hold of and our feet to tread in the paths of such a goverment which hath these properties attending it First most Godly Secondly most Christianlike Thirdly most antient Fourthly most safe for the people Now the govenrment of a single person is most godly for these reasons following First because it was brought forth in time and establisht in the Nations according to

with Selfe-Interest if the edge of thy affections and desires to peace be not blunted with delight in War if thy will be any way inclin'd to beat thy sword into a plough share and thy spear into a pruning hook if thy hand be not glew'd to the gain of oppression if in the School of Christ thou hast learnt any thing of self-denyall if thou dost ingeniously confess and owne the sacred Scriptures to be the only ground of Faith and rule of a Christians life and that they are reall testimonies of truth I doubt not but that the ensuing lines wil find acceptation with thee being written only out of love and good will to the generall peace and welfare of my Country For my part I do confess that in the beginning of the late war my judgement did lead me forth to own the Parliaments proceedings both in relation to the extirpation of Popery and also to the reducing of the Kings person from amongst some evill Counsellers who were then thought to animate him against the Parliament but never with the least intent either to destroy his person or race out a Kingly Government nor was there any such intent in the Parliament then as could be apprehended by any having taken a solemn Covenant to the contrary untill their divisions unhappily began and a Tyrannicall Engagement forc'd upon the people under pain of being ruined in 〈◊〉 they refused it a thousand times better it is for England 〈…〉 religious Covenant be revived and put in force then an 〈…〉 Engagement violently forc't upon the peoples consciences perpetuated If any one ask what shall they do then that have taken the Engagement why let them take it off the File of their hearts acknowledge their errour and be sorry for it for my own part I am clearly of this mind that God is as much honoured and it savours as much of an ingenious Spirit to confess an errour as to profess a truth My advice therefore to the servants of God and to all the inhabitants of the three Nations shall be this cheerfully heartily to submit to that form of Government which was by God ordeined of old and setled in heaven by an everlasting decree the onely visible means to keep us from destroying one another to restore us to peace and heal our breaches I have called this small Tract A Leafe pull'd from the Tree of Life because it is gathered from amongst the Laws and Ordinances of Jesus Christ the Alpha and Omega of all Rule and Government in the world the faithfull counsellor in heaven and earth and the chief commander thereof to the reading whereof without premeditated prejudice I commend thee and take my leave with this assurance that I intended nothing therein but a Declaration of my faithfull love to Englands peace and therein I hope to abide A servant faithfully devoted JOHN MOORE A Glimpse of the Excellency of a Kingly GOVERNMENT CHAP. I. That it is most Godly THe great and mighty God the holy just and wise God who made and formed all things by the power of his Word and guideth and governeth all things by his Word of Providence did in the beginning settle and place all things in good order and equipage in every sphere of his Dominion both in the heavens above and in the earth beneath wherein all his creatures sinfull man and Apostate Angells excepted have kept the same order wherein their Creator at first had set them in the firmament of Heaven those coelestial bodies keep their constant course the Moon and Starrs observe the motions of the Sun whom God hath seated there as chief amongst them who also knoweth his going down and those other inferiour bodies do observe his setting and uprising as it were acknowledging his superiority over them Thus the Heavens declare the glory of God and the Firmament sheweth what his hand hath made observing therein their Makers will Next the Fowls of the air are subordinate to the Eagles as Supream the Beasts of the earth have a Lion whom they acknowledge their Head Governour which made the Prophet thus write When the Lion roars all the beasts of the Forrest tremble Under the earth in the waters of the Sea the Fishes have their Leviathan concerning which creature t is observable that he hath solely or chiefly but two enemies the Sword-Fish and the Thresher the rest giving place to the greatness that his Creator hath given him and who are they at this day that are the chiefest enemies to the Supream Government of a single person but the Souldier who lives by his Sword and the factious Sectary with his Threshing Levelling principles By the forementioned things we may clearly see that in heaven above in the earth beneath and in the waters under the earth there is an observation of Soveraignty to one in chief neither do they alter or change it but continue in it only mans heart being corrupted with the disloyal principles of the fallen Angels who for refusing to own Christ for their Supreame Head were cast down headlong from Heaven to Hell will scarcely owne any Order but such as proceeds from their own disorders nor own any supream Government but that which makes every one a Governour The consideration of this makes me call to mind a worthy saying of the Aldermen and Members of the Common Council in the time of their imprisonment in the Tower of London written in their Declaration and Remonstrance from thence the words are these And seeing with too transparent eyes both Nature and Religion turned Antipodes acting themselves into a self-Antipathy as if man above all sublu●ary creatures was only compound of all contrarieti●s seeing the foundation on which next under heaven our hopes depend of our Laws our Religion our proper Rights and Priviledges we say not Oaths and Protestations blown up by the very roots by such a strong tempestuons violence which beats down all things before it making the leftiest Cedar level with the lowest shrubs until it hath vented it self into an universal destruction Of the truth of this sad Clause of their Declaration wofull experience hath been the sole School-Mistress in England for by reason of Oaths Protestations Covenants and Engagements and the violent forcible breach of them doth the land mourn and whilest the Lord hath looked for and expected Justice behold oppression and for righteousness but behold a general cry and complaint of the poor and needy the stranger widows orphans and fatherless so that except the Lord do put it into the hearts of some faithfull godly self-denying persons to put in practise a speedy remedie for the healing of the Land of these and other such foul enormities hateful to God and destructive to Mankinde we may justly fear that he will say Shall not my soul be avenged on such a Nation and People as this who think to establish Religion with blood and tye the stakes of Government together with cords of iniquity whose lips have spoken lies and their