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	know_v	scripture_n	1,728	5	6.3627	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A78551	Animadversions on Mr. William Dells book intituled The crucified and quickned Christian. By Humfry Chambers, D.D. Pastor of Pewsy in the county of Wilts. Novemb. vicessimo, 1652. Imprimatur John Owen Vicecan. Oxon.	Chambers, Humphrey, 1598 or 9-1662.	1653 (1653)	Wing C1912; Thomason E686_3; Thomason E686_4; ESTC R206849	85,353	100

and the faithful in all Ages are filling up the remainders of the sufferings of Christ in his body For believers have all along suffered and do still suffer from the World because God is in them of a truth and the evil done to them is against God himself who dwells in them And against this Rock have all the unbelievers dash'd themselves in pieces all along 4. Christ who lives in believers lives in them like himself that is like the Son of the living God and so those in whom he lives 1. He frees them from their own evil things and 2. He confers upon them all his own good things 1. He frees them from their evil things And in reference to these he lives in them as their Redeemer and Saviour and so Christ within them abolishes the Law takes away sin and destroyes death for none of these things can dwell in his presence in that soul wherein he lives F For he is our new Law to make void the Old and he is our new Righteousnesse to take away sin and our new life to destroy death and the Law Sin and Death can have no place nor power where Christ our new Law Righteousnesse and Life dwels and lives 2. Christ living in believers confers upon them his own good things G For Christ the Son of God hath nothing in himself that is in his Divine nature which he will not communicate to our flesh as he hath done to his own according to our place and use in his body and so he communicates to all those in whom he dwells of all the things of God till at last he fill them with all the fulnesse of God And thus is Christ glorified in his Saints and admired in them that believe 5. H If it be Christ the true God that lives in believers then we learn hence what true justification is and that is to be so one with Christ by faith that Christ himself may live in us and we in him that he may communicate his nature to us and our nature may be taken up into his for we cannot be Justified before God by our own living but by Christs living in us his own life and his righteousnesse which is the righteousnesse of God must dwell in us e're we can be Justified before God I Lastly seeing Christ himself lives in all true believers let us all who professe our selves to be such so live that Christ may be seen to live in us more then our selves that they that have known us may know us no more but may know Christ in us and that they that have communion with us may acknowledge Christ himself speaking working and living his whole life in us in all self-denyall humility holinesse love resignation of our selves to the will of God and in all diligence to do the work of God and readinesse to suffer the will of God for thus Christ lived in his own flesh and thus also he will certainly live in ours if he live there at all and when Christ lives in our flesh as he did in his own something of his glory will be seen upon us Now such a Christian in whom Christ lives and he lives not himself how amiable would he be in the spiritual Church but how unlike would he be to all the men in the world yea to the most Professors in that which is called the visible Church but I proceed to that which follows ANIMADVERSION 14. A MAster Dell should do well to name the men who look for all the life of Christ in his humanity and do not acknowledge that Christ lived truly in Paul and doth live in all the faithful by his spirit If none such appear as I am confident there will not amongst knowing Protestants he might have saved his use of rectification at least wise in respect of them B That Christ the true God is instead of all created habits of grace yea that he is truly all grace unto believers seems to be a position very dissonant from Scripture doctrine and which to my best remembrance I never saw Printed nor heard uttered until now Paul fully distinguished the spirit in believers from the sanctifying graces of believers which he calleth the fruits of the spirit Gal. 5.22,23 and in divers places he teacheth that the graces flow by way of creation from Christ through his spirit 2 Cor. 5.17 Ephes 2.10 and 4.24 Might the Scriptures be heard I think created graces and Christ in believers would not be opposed or confounded but Christ dwelling in believers by his spirit be acknowledged not to be all grace but the fountain of all created graces in them for of his fulnesse have we all received and unto every one of us is grace given according to the measure of the gift of Christ Ephes 4.7 That the Godhead which dwelt in our Saviour was in him instead of all grace as Mr Dell confidently affirmeth needs proof before it be believed The fear of the Lord fiducial hope in God and other holy graces seem plainly according to Scripture doctrine to have been wrought habitually in our Saviours humane nature by the Spirit which was given him without measure Esay 11.2 and 61.1 Acts 10.38 It is quickly affirmed that created habits of grace in a Christian are empty notions and vaine speculations of School-men and of carnal and unbelieving hearts But doubtlesse men of holy and believing hearts have conceived that God in the Scripture makes mention of the habitual grace of righteousnesse wrought by the Lord Christ in his people Phil. 1.11 Eph. 4.24 as also the habitual graces of faith and love 1 Tim. 1.14 Acts 18.27 and of patience James 1.4 and the like flowing all from the Lord Christ as the vine which hath the sap of all grace originally in himself But that the Lord Christ is all grace to a believer I never yet read in any Scripture As to the place here produced by Mr Dell as expresly teaching the same sc 1 Cor. 1.30 I find it not there said that Christ is all grace to a believer nor do I imagine how it should be convincingly argued from that text which as far as I yet see only setteth forth our Saviour as made by God to his believing people the author and object of saving wisdom the treasure of Gods righteousnesse unto justification the root of sanctification through his spirit and the worker of the ful redemption of his people All which may be granted and is believed of those who yet believe that there is habitual operative grace wrought by ●hrist through his Spirit in his believing people enabling them in some measure unto every good work acording to 1 Cor. 15.10 C It is certain that our Lord Christ is the only ground of acceptation with God unto believers but that he is the only acceptable grace to God as Mr Dell here affirmeth is never as I know said in Scripture Love acting towards the Saints is pointed at as acceptable to God Heb. 6.10 and

called a grace 2 Cor. 8.7 which yet certainly is not Christ D Questionlesse there is the grace of Gods eternal love whereby we are saved against which the gates of hell cannot prevail which though believers are partakers of in Christ yet is not the Lord Christ this grace but the chief gift of it John 3.16 and the 4th 10. E The third use made here by Mr Dell of his doctrine standeth in full force for the comfort of believers upon the ground of the doctrine of Christs living in his people by his spirit as it is taught by those who see no footing for his doctrine in the Word of God for they all know that Christ is afflicted in his members according to the Scriptures F If Christ being himself our new law within us makes void the law of God without us as old as Mr Dels words in this place seem to import then both the law of works and faith too as it is outwardly dispensed yea the whole Scripture as to the mandatory legislative part of it is made void to believers which whether Mr Dell will nakedly affirm I know not If he do I doubt not but it will appear an anti-scriptural affirmation and an open road to a state beyond ordinances and above duties in which men are apt in a mist of imaginary perfection to lose their way to that real perfection of righteousnesse and blessednesse which believers enjoy in Christ Jesus according to the Gospel Col. 1.28 G These words as I conceive in a sound Scripture sence may be admitted for it is certain that our Lord Christ doth communicate himself wholly to believers according to their place and use in his body and will do so till at the last he fill them with all the fulnesse of God yet is it not to be admitted for truth that the divine nature is communicated to our flesh as it was to his own that is to say after the self same manner If Mr Dell decline this sence of his words I will not presse it or the dangerous consequences of it upon him If he own it I see not how he can avoid the avowing of believers to be God even as our Lord Christ is God which I hope he will not affirm H It seems to me by these words that Mr Dell either hath not learned or which I rather think doth not like the Protestant doctrine of justification justified by so many of our worthies against Popish advocates Protestant Divines generally having learned from the Apostle Paul that Justification is verbum forense a word taken from humane judicatories and opposed to comdemnation Rom. 8.33,34 Do teach that we are justified freely by Gods grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus But Mr Dell here teacheth that we are justified by Christs living in us his own life and by his righteousnesse even the righteousnesse of God dwelling in us which as I know it not to be down-right Popery so I am sure it coasteth much nearer upon Popish then upon Protestant which I trust I may call Scripture doctrine since it acknowledgeth the righteousnesse whereby believers are justified to be resident in their own persons which is a position very wide from the apprehension of Protestants who believe that we are justified freely by Gods grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus I This exhortation directed to believers as to the matter of it is very sound and good But I would ask to what persons Mr Dell intends to give this exhortation If to the persons of believers he would perswade us that there are none such for he teacheth that believers have lost their own personality and are taken up into the nature and person of the Son of God Sect. 11. B C And I believe M Dell doth not look upon the person of the Son of God as one that needs his exhortation SECT XV. And the life I live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God A ANd here note in the first place That Paul sometimes saith Christ lives in him and sometimes that He lives I live saith he yet not I but Christ lives in me and again The life I live The life I live saith he of that very life which Christ lived in him All which shows the near Vnion and Communion betwixt Christ and a believer Christ and a true Christian being so much one that what the one doth the other may be truly said to do B So that as God and Christ were so united that the very works of God in Christ sometimes were attributed to God and sometimes to Christ as is manifest in divers places in the Gospel and it made no difference whether they were attributed to God in Christ or to Christ in God Just so it is betwixt Christ and believers who are as nearly united as God and Christ as Christ himself whom we may safely believe affirms in Joh. 14.20 saying In that day ye shall know that I am in my Father and you in me and I in you C In that day that is when the Spirit is given and comes into the heart which makes the true Lords-day in a believer in that day when the Spirit is the light whereby we see and know aright all the things of God in that Day Ye shall know this great mystery which the World and the Worldly Church cannot know but will be greatly offended at it when they hear it to wit that I am in my Father and you in me and I in you D And in John 17.21 Christ who was heard in all things in his last solemn prayer for his elect Church in the dayes of his flesh intreats his Father that this may be accomplished in all the Believers praying that they all may be one as thou Father art in me and I in thee that they also may be one in us From which Scriptures we may see and perceive that as Christ is in the Father and the Father in Him so Believers are in Christ and Christ in Them And hereupon the works of Believers are sometimes attributed to Christ and sometimes to Them And it is no matter whether they be attributed to Christ in them or to Them in Christ seeing it is Christ in believers that is all and doth all and hath the Glory of all E Now this Vse we who are believers may make of this to wit that it is our Dutie so to live in Christ that every part of our life may be attributed to Him and may be such that Christ may not be ashamed to own it but that it may be a praise to Christ He doing all in us and we doing nothing but in him and of him and for him ANIMADVERSION 15. A THe former part of this paragraph in a sound sence is true but that Christ and a Christian are made so much one that what the one doth the other may be said to do being laid down by Mr Dell as universally and without all limitation true is an