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	revelation_n	1,466	5	9.8611	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A37649	A vindication, or, Further confirmation of some other Scriptures, produced to prove the divinity of Jesus Christ, distorted and miserably wrested and abused by Mr. John Knowles together with a probation or demonstration of the destructiveness and damnableness of the contrary doctrine maintained by the aforesaid Mr. Knowles : also the doctrine of Christs satisfaction and of reconciliation on Gods part to the creature, cleared up form Scripture, which of late hath been much impugned : and a discourse concerning the springing and spreading of error, and of the means of cure, and of the preservatives and against it / by Samuel Eaton, teacher of the church of Jesus Christ, commonly stiled the church at Duckenfield.	Eaton, Samuel, 1596?-1665.	1651 (1651)	Wing E126; ESTC R30965	214,536	435

this That doctrine which denyes and destroyes that one only true Christ and brings in a strange and a false Christ that doctrine destroyes the true Gospell and Scriptures and brings in another Gospell and Scripture in a main point of it But this doctrine of his which makes Christ a creature doth thus therefore this doctrine brings in another Gospell and Scripture in a main point of it The Major is so void of controversie that it will not be stuck at but the Minor will be denyed and therefore must be confirmed That doctrine that denyes Christ to be the proper Son of God and makes Christ to be onely the Son of man that doctrine denyes and destroyes that one only true Christ and brings in a strange and a false Christ but this doctrine of his doth thus therefore this doctrine of his denyes and destroyes that onely true Christ and brings in a false Christ and strange to Scripture The Major will again passe without exception but proofe will be required for the Minor And I confirme it thus That doctrine which takes Christs God-head from him that doctrine denies Christ to be the proper Son of God and makes him to be meerly the son of man But this doctrine of his which makes Christ to be a meere creature and nothing more takes Christs God-head from him Therefore this doctrine of his denyes him to be the proper Son of God and makes him to be meerely and only the son of man The Major wil now only be in question for the Minor is without question true if God-head be taken in a proper sense as I have taken it in my arguing with him all along For the proofe then of the Major proposition I shall present and make out two things 1. that these two things God and Son of God are all one in reference to Christ therefore whoever teacheth any doctrine against the one viz. that Christ is not God teacheth doctrine against the other viz. that Christ is not the Son of God 2. Christ cannot be God any other way or under any other consideration but as he is the Son of God 1. God and Son of God are all one thing in reference to Christ my meaning is not that the termes are confounded for the word God respects the essence more properly and subsisting in a person and the words Son of God respect the second person in the Trinity as distinguished from the Father and the holy Ghost subsisting in the Godhead But my meaning is that where ever the one is expressed the other is implyed and that a divine person subsisting in the Godhead is meant evermore and in the order of existing and working the second person for proofe of this consider these following particulars 1. Christ himself confounds these two God and Son of God by using them promiscuously John 10. 33. 36. In ver 33. the Jewes said they stoned him because he blasphemed and said he was God Christ repeats their words and blames them for charging him with blasphemie because he said he was the Son of God ver 36. those were not their expressions but Christ makes them their expressions therefore in a sense they were one and the same thing and Son of God was as much as God else Christ had both extenuated their fault spoken untruly of them But in truth and deed Christ said of himself neither the one nor the other in express words but said he and his Father were one ver 30. and if the Son of God did not import as much as God their collection in their own words that he made himselfe God in making himselfe one with the Father was more naturall in reference to Christs words then as Christ repeated them For the Father is God and not the Son of God and when Christ said he and his Father were one they might rather conclude that Christ made himselfe God then that he made himself the Son of God unless the Son of God were also God and so Christ might be the Son of God and yet one in Godhead with the Father 2. The Apostle John 1 Joh. 5. 20. makes the Son of God and the true God to be all one in reference to Christ You are in him that is true even in his Son Jesus Christ and this true one this Son Jesus Christ this very person is the true God As if the Apostle should have said when I speak of the Son of God I would have you to know whom I mean by him I do not mean a man a meer creature and nothing else but I mean a person that is the true God 3. The Apostles in their professions of faith if they do agree therein and I suppose none will say that they do disagree therein do make these two to be one and the same thing The Apostle Peter professeth his faith in these words I beleeve that thou art Christ the Son of the living God But the Apostle Thomas in these words My Lord and my God Peter beleeved him to be the Son of God Thomas beleeved him to be very God and very Lord yea his God and his Lord in an applicative way and Christ doth not look upon one as two low for him nor upon the other as too high for him but upon both as professions of their true faith in him he tells Peter that upon the rock of such a profession he would build his Church and he puts a blessing upon all those that shall beleeve as Thomas beleeved his slowness only to beleeve depending upon sight excepted 4. The grounds whereupon the followers of Christ have some of them stiled him the Son of God and others of them have stiled him God are alike and high enough all of them to cause them to entitle him God Nathaneel sees his omnipresence and omniscience when Christ told him before Philip called thee I saw thee under the fig tree and he glorifies him with the title of Son of God Thou art the Son of God Thomas discerns his omnipotence in raising himself from the dead according as he had foretold destroy this temple and I will raise it up in three dayes and he attributes the name of God to him My Lord and my God Had Thomas apprehended Christ to have been passive in the resurrection and raised meerly by the power of the Father and not his own why should he denominate him God upon this occasion and not rather put that crown upon the Father that raised him if the Father only and not the Son wrought in it 5. The high Priests and Scribes and Pharisees thought it to be blasphemy alike in Christ when he made himself the Son of God and made God his natural Father as when he made himself God as they truly collected from those words of his I and my Father are one Compare Joh. 5. 18. with Joh. 10. 31 33. and the truth of this wil appear And they made account when he stiled himself the Son of God that he therein assumed to

divine faith and so Moses and the Prophets may be the object of faith which is gross 2. Though God viz. the Father and Jesus Christ be two objects of divine Faith yet it is not true in the sence that he represents it in viz. that they are two objects really distinct from one another for the Father that sent the Son Jesus Christ and the Son Jesus Christ that was sent are not two distinct Gods but one God they are not two distinct Essences though they be two distinct subststences or persons so the object essentially and really is but one To this agrees the place which he quotes Joh. 12. 44. He that beleeveth on me beleeveth not on me but on him that sent me An Expositor of note puts this sence upon it Not on me that is such whom you take me to be a man and no more but on me the Eternal God and then same in Essence with him that sent me He puts another sence upon it saying He that beleeves one beleeves both because God appears merciful in the face of Christ and Christ appears instrumental in the hand of God Rom. 4. 24. and 10. 9. And so he makes Christ an instrument who could not as he saith raise himself from the dead the object of faith concerning our Resurrection and Salvation which is gross for Christ is the object of our faith as he is able to save not himself onely but us to the utmost And though Christ be the Son considered as sent and as having taken flesh and as Mediator and so is the object of faith yet he is the same person as before he took Flesh and was Mediator though under another consideration yet the taking of Flesh hath not made him another person much less another being and still he remains the same God with his Father And though as he is considered in Flesh and as Mediator he be an intermediate object of faith yet he is also the principal and ultimate object of faith as he is the Eternal Son and second person in the Trinity for the same person may be both the intermediate and the ultimate object of Faith under a divers consideration this was one part of his emptying of himself the Son became Mediator in Flesh and so the intermediate object of faith who yet was with the Father the ultimate Object of it And Christ though he had been Mediator yet if he had not been God he could not have been the intermediate Object of Faith no more then Moses was who was Mediator he was not the Object of Faith nor could be because he was but a creature Moses was one by whom they beleeved on God and so were the Prophets and also the Apostles Paul saith of himself and of Apollo that they were Ministers by whom the Corinthians beleeved 1 Cor. 3. 5. Mediums or means by whom they were brought to faith in Christ and God but Objects they were not no not intermediate objects of their Faith so Christ could have been but a means of faith in God if he had been no more but a man and had not been God The brazen Serpent which was a Type of Christ to which the promise was made That whoever looked up to it should be healed and it was really so they were healed as God in the promise said Numb 21. 8 9. was onely a means by which they beleeved in God being but a creature and not an intermediate Object of Faith they did not beleeve on it at all but through it on God and so it must have been said of Christ had he been but a meer creature had he been but onely the man Jesus Christ And though it cannot be denyed but that whole Christ as consisting of two natures being God and man is Mediator and materially considered is the intermediate Object of Faith yet not the whole of Christ is the formal cause of faith in Christ but the Divinity or Godhead of Christ alone is the formal cause and reason and ground of the faith of Christians in Christ for that is the Rock upon which the souls of Saints are built and a firm unshaken unmoveable Rock it is and the gates of hell shall never prevail against Beleevers whose faith doth bottom them upon this Rock But he saith It is from Gods commandment that faith in Christ is needful Joh. 3. 23. And it is from Gods appointment that faith in Christ is saving Joh. 6. 40. Rep. All faith that justifies and saves as well that which hath God viz. the Father for its Object as that which hath Christ for its Object is by Gods commandment and appointment justifying and saving for the first Covenant was of Works which men brake and were under death by breaking it and then came both the commandment of faith and the promise of life that was made to faith Gal. 3. 8. The Scripture foreseeing that God would justifie the heathen through faith c. God freely made choyce of faith to save men by it as well of that which respects himself as that which respects Christ I hope he will confess that it was by institution that faith in him that sent Christ viz. the Father is needful and is saving But if his meaning be that no faith was due to Christ naturally save what is due by vertue of appointment and commandment It is utterly untrue if extendeded to whole Christ for Christ is the natural Essential Son of God and look what faith was due to the Father the same faith is due to Christ as the Eternall Co-effential Son of God Or if this sense be given to the words that there was nothing but a Commandment that could move or draw to faith in Christ that is false also for Nathanael was drawn to beleeve without any commandment that came to him to that purpose from those beams of his Deity which sparkled upon him in those words of his Before Philip called thee when thou wast under the Fig-tree I saw thee And many others believed on him when they saw his Miracles So that not the commandment onely but his own Almightiness and Infinite Excellency brought credit and gained faith to him The conclusion is this Though it should be granted that Faith in the Father and faith in Christ do act in a divers manner as indeed it must Christ being considered as Mediator yet it will not follow that either in one manner or another Faith doth act upon a creature but that still the person is God that it acteth upon And it is to be observed that he hath not invalidated that Scripture in Joh. 14. 1. but it stands in full force still for though he would have i● to be man Christ that is there spoken of yet it cannot be for Christs Argument would not be good in that sence Ye beleeve in God therefore beleeve in me a man there is no good consequence in it But the Argument is good Ye beleeve in God the Father beleeve in me the Son also for the

scatter the clouds nor clear up their judgements Now Church admonition is the best expedient to bring them to repentance as the Apostle speaks of Hymeneus I have delivered him up to Satan saith he that he may learne not to blaspheme that is by denying a doctrine which he ought to have professed And so such scales of ignorance which were by sin contracted are by Church-censure removed many times Obj. But what if such persons be very holy in their lives and very profitable in their Communion must they notwithstanding undergo the censure of the Church Sol. 1. There is no holinesse but what flows from the doctrine of the Gospel rightly entertained and held by faith Therefore so long as they waver in the faith in points of great concernment and moment their holinesse must of necessity be waved also the Apostle saith Gal. 1. 7 8. Though I or an Angel from heaven bring any other Gospel and yet he means it of circumcision held by some as necessary to salvation let him be accursed 2. Such persons that are pertinacious in a corrupt opinion are evil leaven and their Communion cannot be so profitable as it is like to be hurtful to the fellowship to which they do belong 3. If they be Saints which do so greatly erre from the faith there ought to be so much the more compassion shewed to them and the greatest love and compassion that can be shewed lies in this to use the last remedy to them when other remedies fail and are ineffectual and it is the greatest cruelty to withhold any means which God hath sanctified for the healing of such as from Exod. 23. appears 5. What one Church of Jesus Christ doth this way in the execution of censure justly and according to rule all the Churches ought to ratifie for if such who are bound by any Church on earth be bound also in heaven then all the Churches in the world have not power to acquit or lose from it therefore in their walking towards such persons great or small they ought to confirme it by having no Communion nor fellowship with such that so such persons may come to see the miserable condition that they are in and may be ashamed and if any Churches or Christians should walk otherwise they sin against Christs ordinance and harden such persons in their sin and hinder their repentance and returning to the truth and will draw the blood of such souls upon their heads If this course were held with such who erre grossely and will not be healed it would awaken those who have left their first faith and are turned after fables and might recover them and would bring a trembling upon the rest that stand firme and unshaken and might preserve them from the like temptations and then there would be no cause for the interposing of the Magistrate which some do relish so evilly The fourth and last thing that I am to discusse is what the preservatives are by which persons may be kept in times in which errours are rife and the danger great in that respect 1. Let every person that pretends to saintship look to his implantation into Christ that it be right and true and that it be firme and sure and then it is to be hoped that he will abide in the Vine and the Vine in him and then he is more likely to stand fast in the faith for there is one that is able to keep him from falling and will keep him and if he fall he shall rise againe for there is one that is able to raise him and will raise him The greatest security of the Saints that they shall not depart from the faith is in their union and communion with Christ 2. Let persons commit themselves to God to be kept by him who can strengthen and settle and establish those that rest on him and wait for him while persons have leaned to their own understanding and have not looked up to the rock that is higher then they and come out of themselves and put their trust in him and begged his teaching and leading they have become vain in their thoughts and have erred from the truth 3. Let persons get a good root of knowledge within themselves and not attain onely to a generall knowledge of things but come up to a particular knowledge of them and know all things in the causes thereof so farre as Scripture gives light or as they have been taught for then though some other thing may be presented to them then what they have received yet the reasons of the things which they have beleeved will not be so soon answered in their souls If persons have but a forme of knowledge within them it is soon overturned 4. Let the love of the truth be laboured after as well as the knowledge of it for persons will be unwilling to relinquish that truth which they have found much sweetnesse in 5. Let the Scriptures be diligently searched into and perused and studied and let them be compared together and let Scripture intepret it selfe and let one Scripture give the sense of another Scripture when persons take up some one or two single scriptures and runne away with them without comparing them with other Scriptures they are led aside to error 6. Christians ought to take heed whom they hear what they hear and how they hear because of many Seducers and Deceivers that are gone abroad into the world and because there are many spirits of Antichrist who yet pretend to Christ 7. Christians ought to become wise unto sobriety and not to think of themselves above what is meet but to have humble and low thoughts of themselves for if once Christians be lifted up they readily fall in this snare of the Devill which is Error and Heresie 8. Christians ought to walk up to that light of truth that they have attained to because there is a promise belonging to such who will live in and practise the truths which they know John 7. 17. 9. Saints ought to consider that they have no more of the grace of faith then they hold of the doctrin of faith for they therfore beleeve because they have such a word of God to ground their belief upon if then they hold not that Word their belief will fall with it and then must needs be shaken as much in the grace of faith as they are in the ground of faith 10. Let them consider that there is no godlinesse but what grows out of the Gospel and springs from the truths of it if therefore the doctrine of grace in Christ be once overturned in the soule all godlinesse will be soon overturned with it 1 Tim. 6. 3. Tit. 1. 1. 11. Let them consider that if once they become unstable in the faith they become unstable in all their wayes for it is as when a tree is not firmly deeply and surely rooted in the earth but is loose in the ground it growes not flourisheth not nor is fruitful like to other

then in the words of the 8. verse sets him before men for the consolation of the righteous and terrour of the wicked as present calling to them I am Alpha and Omega c. who will make doubt of my coming who can intercept it I am Alpha and Omega c. But he imagines other Arguments will be made use of to prove this place to refer to Christ and disputes against them his words are these You will peradventure say that the thing is evident in that he is called Lord or you will bring the Testimony of learned Authors who have interpreted the words as spoken by Christ And he confutes both these reasons and saith God or the Father distinct from Christ is called Lord Act. 3. 19. 20. c. And Beza saith he conceived that these words are spoken of God absolutely taken And Pareus confesseth certain Orthodox Interpreters do attribute the words to God absolutely considered Repl. The Title Lord because it is rarely attributed to the Father in the New Testament and when it is attributed to him it is done with such clearness that it is easily discerned and because it is first commonly attributed to Christ therefore it may be a ground of a probable Argument that Christ is meant by it but a necessary Argument cannot be deducted from it therefore I wave it and it had been wisdom if he had done so also till he had discerned that I had made use of it as an Argument As for learned Interpreters though I honour them much yet it hath not been my custom to bottom the sense that I put upon Scriptures upon them but to prove it from the Scripture either the Text it self or context or some other parallel place therefore he might have spared his labour in citing Authors unless I had provoked him thereto But if he will produce Authors why will he offer wrong to the Authors whom he produceth and make them speak that which they speak not that hath been the way to uphold a rotten tenent and he treads in that way I cannot find the words he cites in Beza and he mentions not the place and if he can shew them in Beza I can shew that Beza contradicts himself If Beza have so expressed himself probably he would do it when he came to give the sense of the place but there his words are these Christus hic loquitur ut aeternus Deus acsi diceret ego is sum ante quem nihil est immo per quem factum est quicquid factum est quicque ut omnia intereant superstes illis omnibus maneam c. That is Christ here speaks as the eternal God as if he should say I am he before whom there is nothing yea and by whom every thing is made that is made and am one who do abide and am surviving when all other things perish As for Pareus I confess he cites his words aright and yet abuseth him egregiously for though he grants that some Orthodox Writers do apply these words to God absolutely considered yet he doth not grant that they are Orthodox in their Interpretation of that Text but disputes against them and renders reasons why the words must be applyed to Christ And in the very place from whence he fetcheth those words of Pareus which he mentions in his Margin these words immediately follow causas tamen evidentes sententiae huic obstare prius ostendi that is though some Orthodox Interpreters do apply these words to God absolutely taken or to the Trinity yet I have before shewed manifest reasons which do cross this Opinion of theirs Now he mentions the former words of this Author and silenceth these latter words and so deals unkindly and uncandidly with him But he saith We must betake our selves to reason whereby the Spirit may convince us of whom the Text in controversies is to be understood Repl. This is new Doctrine that is here taught us viz. that reason is the Spirits organ or instrument in its convictions that it sets upon men and it is dangerous desperate Doctrine which hath been exploded by all humble sober Christians if a man must be believe no further then he can see the whole Gospel must be rejected for it is an high mystery which reason cannot look into and the love of the Father and of Christ hath an heigth and depth c. which passeth knowledge must not persons believe it I have heard it and do believe it that the Spirit is sent to convince according to the revealation of Scripture whether we can reach it with our reason or cannot reach it but reason is now advanced as the only medium to Faith which was formerly cryed down as the great Enemy of Faith But let his reasons be considered of 1. This Text saith he declares the principal Author of those things which John the Divine was to communicate to the seven Churches for these words begin a new matter and are no part of the salutation They speak of God even the Father who is of highest authority and from whom originally this Revelation was Christ he is spoken of ver 11. and is to be considered as the principal instrument in conveying this Revelation to the Churches for God gave it to him to shew to his servants those things which were shortly to come to pass vers 1. Rep. 1. This reason asserts several things and proves nothing and so leaves the Reader altogether unsatisfied unless bare words must pass for currant 2. There is no truth in any thing that he asserts in relation to this text in controversie for though there might be some colour for such a collection that God the Father is the principal Authour of this Revelation and Christ the principal Instrument of conveying this Revelation to the Churches which is only in a sense true not of whole Christ but of one part of him to be understood in relation to the first verse because there it is said that God gave it to Christ yet in relation to verse 8. of which the dispute is there is not the least shadow of ground for any one to conceive much less to utter such things For if Alpha signifie the first or the beginning yet it must not be restrained to this Revelation but must be extended to all things and whether the Father or Christ be meant yet a person that is from everlasting to everlasting and that is the root and fountain of all things and that comprehends all things is meant as all the letters in the Greek Alphabet are comprehended betwixt Alpha and Omega 3. It is unreasonable for him or any one to apply the letter Alpha to the Father in verse 8. and thence to deduce this conclusion the Father is of highest authority and from him originally this Revelation was and then to apply the same letter Alpha in verse 11. to Christ and thence to deduce a diverse if not contrary yea contradictory conclusion viz. Christ is the principal instrument in conveying this