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	receive_v	1,549	5	5.5472	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61501	Trias sacra, a second ternary of sermons preached being the last (and best) monuments that are likely to be made publique of that most learned, pious and eminent Dr. Richard Stuart ...	Steward, Richard, 1593?-1651.	1659 (1659)	Wing S5528; ESTC R34608	46,631	180

Dr. Stewards Sermons TRIAS SACRA A Second Ternary OF SERMONS PREACHED Being the last and best Monuments that are likely to be made publique of that most learned pious and eminent Dr. Richard Stuart DEAN of St. Pauls afterwards Dean of Westminster and Clark of the Closet to his late Majesty King CHARLES Being Dead he yet speaketh LONDON Printed by T. L. for Hen. Brome at the Gun in Ivy lane 1659. TO THE READER Courteous Reader I Have almost protested against Printing in such a Time as this wherein a most ingenuous invention was never more abused and 't is doubtful whether this or that of Powder have hurted the modern world most I dare believe had the Founders of them had so much of Providence as Invention they had stifled their {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} in the birth and never bequeathed such dangerous VVeapons into the hands of such mad men as we are who abuse both the Powder and the Press as that cursed Assasine to kill body and soul too But since the soul must have her Mess without which she cannot live and that is best and soonest carved out to her from the shops of Intellectuall provisions And since too many sawcy and capricious Peasants have kickt down her dishes as they were serving in and most of her entertainment has contracted much dirt about it and is rendered unfit for her Table Reader take this as a part of the cleanest Divinity that is left us being I think disht out to thee before the s●…uffle began and is sent to thee by A Steward who when alive loved to serve those of the houshold with clean dyet and well drest and now dead is entred into the joy of his Lord It has no other plot upon thee but to save thee there be other Tables spread for thee in the world but 't is foul meat ill drest hard to digest will lie heavy on thy Stomack which thou must disgorge or die for it and a very hard reckoning at last Use the Steward God hath sent thee who brings thee this Angels food and bread from Heaven and taking what is carved thee go on eating till thou come where thou shalt read all in God A Table of the Texts PHILIP 4. 17. Not because I desire a gift but I desire Fruit that may abound to your account MARK 6. 20. For Herod feared Iohn knowing that he was a just man and an holy and observed him and when he heard him he did many things and heard him gladly HEBREWS 10. 1 2. For the Law having a shadow of good Things to come and not the very Image of the Things can never with those Sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the commers thereunto perfect For then would not they have ceas'd to be offered because the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of Sin The First SERMON PHILIPIANS 4. 17. Not because I desire a gift but I desire Fruit that may abound to your account GODS vineyard had for some certain years been now planted at Philippi and therefore no marvail if the labourers did both desire and expect fruit Indeed should those Disciples have believed onely it would have argued that the vines had taken root but yet except they also bring forth fruit with patience the Apostle who cultivated them might well conclude the ground of their hearts was but unprofitable The Philippians then must be working and their works must be fruits too answerable to those rootes of Faith which they had received by Saint Pauls plantation For if a Christian soul bring forth the works of darknesse being himself a child of light it is no lesse unnaturall than for a vine to be●…r Thorns or a Fig tree Thistles If it yeeld works in themselves good yet without the culture and help of faith it is but like some hollow stump which the bees have chosen to be their store house it may afford honey a gift perhaps and yet in it self be both dead and fruit That the Philippians were to abstain from works of impiety both nature and Saint Paul had taught them My Apostle here becomes more punctual and admits not of all those works which yet in mans judgment perhaps might seem approvable he is more curious in his choice and like those Fishermen in Saint Matthews Gospell Chap. 13. He accepts not of all that comes to hand but takes the good and refuseth the bad I desire fruit saith he thus with them he puts the good into vessels but I desire not a gift saith he again so he casts the bad away In the whole there are these things considerable First A distinction of works they are either gifts or fruits or to speak more properly to this text a division of paris within the same good work For either we consider the matter whereof it consists and so 't is a gift or else the root from whence it takes life and so 't is fruit Secondly A direction for our practice The Axe is laid to the root of the tree bring forth therefore fruits not gifts onely And this truth stands here Armed with a double weapon the first is the judgment of mine Apostle I desire not a gift but I desire fruit The Second is the nature of ●…he things themselves fruits abound to your account saith my Text and thereby intimates that what is but gift onely comes not into the reckoning My discourse then must consist of these three parts First I am to shew you the conditions requisite to the perfection of a good work it must not onely be the gift of the man but the fruit of his Faith Next I must inform you how to esteem of a good work you must not so much respect the gift it self as the Faith of him that gives it for so my Apostle is resolute I desire not a gift c. He was in want and penury at this time and yet takes more delight that his Philippians are good than that they are liberal joyes more to see their Faith than to feel their bounty In the last place I must acquaint you with the value and price of good works We have an account to make with the King of Heaven and at his great Audit such ●…oyn as this good works will be passable Strengthen me O Lord while I treat of these particulars in their order and you my beloved Here and 〈◊〉 likewise Not because I desire a gift but I desire fruit c. Gifts and fruits As the man is so is his strength was the Speech of those Midianitish Princes unto Gideon the revenger of Israel Iudg. 8. 21. And 't is no lesse true in the Acts of Religion than those of valour as is the man so are his works There are some you know who want as much Faith as they have Hypocrisie men that desire not so much to be as to be accounted Religious in whose mouths there is a God sometimes but their hearts are farre from him Such as

Herod might indeed truly rejoyce at the Preaching of Iohn but I shall detect his joy and shew it to have been meerly carnal and so wholly set upon the respects of this life that it had no dependency at all on that to come And to begin the discovery aright we must first observe his Faith which I take or rather find to be Temporary the fame that Saint Mark describes chap. 4th at the 17th verse They have no root in themselves and endure but for a time my Authority is Beza ●…adebat hic semen in saxosa loca saith he The sowers seed sell here upon stony ground The servant must not be above his Master and therefore as Christ sometimes Preached to hard and obdurate hearers that received not the word so kindly into their hearts as that it could take due root in them so must Iohn be content to do Now this Temporary Faith although we may well enough stile it true Faith as Truth is opposed to Hypocrisie because it was not feigned yet doth it as much differ from the nature and excellency of that which justifieth as Ismael did from Isaak he was no counterfeit child of Abraham but yet begotten upon a bond-woman So these Faiths the Temporary and Iustifying Faith do both proceed from the same Spirit as from the same Father or Author of them But you know that Sun the Holy Spirit I mean imparts his influences diversly unto men and after different measures viz. according as he stands affected to the subject which he works upon No man can say that Iesus is the Lord but by the holy Ghost saith Saint Paul 1 Cor. 12. and yet the devils themselves constrained no doubt thereto by the evident power of Gods Spirit non dicunt tantum sed vociferantur as one saith they do not onely speak it but proclaim it I know who thou art saith the unclean spirit in Saint Mark chap. the 3. even the holy one of God Here are different works of the Spirit you see even upon reprobate and damned creatures But Spiritus Paracletus erit vobiscum saith Christ of the elect Iohn the 14th They shall receive the Spirit not of Illumination only but of Comfort The Scripture 't is confessed stiles them both by the name of Faith but the one is a bare assent only unto the Doctrine preached the other is a confident application of it wee saith that elect Apostle have confidence by Faith in him Ephes. 3. at the 12th verse Lastly they both produce a gladnesse this pure and Spiritual out of a sense of the forgivenesse of Sins being justified by Faith we have peace with God Rom. 5. at the 1. that other impure carnal and only stirr'd up by the force of some Worldly motives So were the Philosophers at Athens most gladly desirous to hear the Doctor of the Gentiles not because their Souls were joy'd with the soundnesse of his Doctrine but because their ears listened after Novelties 'T was a story to them that seem'd to deserve attention to hear of a Deity Incarnate of a God crucifyed and that to the Immortality of the Soul which they had learn'd from nature the Gospel now added the Resurrection of the Body The strangenesse of such Doctrine as this must needs delight and give satisfaction no lesse to a Curious than to a Godly Auditour How could the Doctrine of Christian liberty but be welcome to many irreligious and loose people in Hierusalem how could that news want ready entertainment that promised such absolute and present freedom both to themselves from the bondage of those annual ceremonies and to their children also from the pain and peril of Circumcision Iustification by Faith must needs joy them that are loath to be at the charge of good Works and free remission of Sins is so plausible a Theme that I fear it makes many think they are scarse put to the trouble of Beleeving How many joyful hearers do these times afford who yet never in their life desired much lesse laboured to attain a sense of the forgivenesse of Sins Their joy imployes it self about other matters The Preacher 's eloquent perhaps and then his pleasing periods command their attention Perhaps he 's bitter and then they are tickled with the display of their Neighbours vices and begin to take it for a kind of Innocency that other men are as bad as themselves Nay are they not those that presse with eagernesse into these Assemblies only that they may find wherewith to busie their detracting humours Here he wanted Art there diligence these lines were too carelesse that strain too affected Quibus plus Displices si ominem sine aspiratione dixeris saith St. Austin quam si hominem oderis men that had rather you should break a Commandement than offend a Grammar rule and think it a greater fault to mispronounce a mans name than to murther his reputation But let such Auditours know animis non auribus loquimur as Seneca hath it we speak to your consciences not to your ears and desire not so much to please as to save your Souls I much wonder therefore at our English Arminius I mean Thompson in the 5. chapter of his Diatriba that makes the difference according to Scripture as he pretends between the wavering or Temporary and Iustifying Faith to be only temporis tantum aut gradus non rei et essentiae that is that they differ not essentially and in nature one from another but gradually and in respect of time durance and perseverance only So that Temporary Faith with him so long as it continues is as true Faith as that which continues for ever And hence indeed it follows easily that a man though qualifyed only with that fading imperfection of a Temporary Faith yet for the time that such Faith continueth in him must needs be justified before God and when it fails that his Iustification also ceaseth and is broken off and so the Title of his Diatriba is made good de interscisione Gratiae c. But surely the Truth is farr otherwise Those things are distinguish'd essentially and in nature that differ as I have shewed these to do that is to say first in the cause The Temporary Faith proceeding only from some general and inferiour operation of the Holy Spirit commonly incident unto reprobates and wicked men who doubtlesse feel many times Impulses and as it were Knockings of the Spirit at the dore of their hearts which yet are never opened to any true Conversion whereas Iustifying Faith proceeds from that supreme and most special working of the Spirit which is proper to the Elect and alwayes effectual to Salvation Secondly they differ in the things themselves or in their Definition That viz. Temporary Faith being only a bare assent unto the Doctrine preached This a confident and lively application of it to ourselves and to our own Souls Thirdly in their effects This to wit Iustifying Faith being the Fountain and Source of true Spiritual joy and comfort