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	true_a	truth_n	1,564	5	5.8086	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A79525	The danger of being almost a Christian. Shewing, [brace] 1. How far men may go without grace. 2. Why some men go so far. 3. Why they go no farther. 4. The dangerous estate of such persons. / By John Chishull, minister of the Gospel.	Chishull, John.	1657 (1657)	Wing C3903; Thomason E1694_1; ESTC R209426	76,944	179

of the sinner Thirdly they may be perswaded of the necessity of a change this must needs arise from the two former he that sees the evil of his own wayes together with the danger of them must needs conclude that a change must passe upon him in order to happiness though no unregenerate man does know what that change is which he must suffer if he wil be saved yet many of them know thus much that they must be changed they are convinct that something is to be done for Heaven though they are ignorant of the particulars I have met with some that have confessed that they could not read or think of that passage of Christ John 3.3 Except a man be born again he cannot inherit the kingdom of God but it would perplex their thoughts thus there is I am perswaded in many men a confused general notion of Regeneration though they have not a distinct knowledge of it and they are convinc'd it is a work which they have not yet experienc'd without vvhich they cannot be saved I need not go out of the Congregation for the proof of this I am confident this is the perswasion of many of you who know you must be changed if saved the Lord grant you may not carry these convictions to hell Fourthly they may be convinc'd of the equity of the wayes of God and the reasorableness of all his commands yea and of his judgments How many are there whose affections serve the devil and their lusts who vvil notwithstanding consent in their judgements to the vvayes of God they wil grant vvhen they are urged to it that there is nothing more equitable then that the creature should be conformed to the vvil of the Creator that he that made us should expect from us a submission to his commands seeing vve depevd upon him and vve should improve and spend all that for him which we receive from him The very principles of Reason wil condemn the sinner as a monster and the most irregular person in the vvorld vvho would live without being accountable to God upon whom he depends this is to blot out the notion of a creature out of his heart for vvhat reasonable being could expect this unless he were of himself and could subsist without any help from another if you propose this to the reason of many men they wil confess it is very equitable that the Lord who made us and by vvhose patience and bounty we subsist should put the yoak upon us and that it is no injustice nor exaction in him to require the strictest obedience in us so that vvhen he conside rany or all the ways which the Lord prescribes unto us to walk towards him though hee apprehend them as hard and unpleasant thorough his weakness and corruption yet when he doth but glance upon the soveraigne power of God over his creatures and the dependance of the creatures upon him he must needs say that it is a reasonable thing and just to fear this God and to submitt to all that he commands And as they are convinc'd of the equity and justness of all his commands to us so they are from hence forced to see the justice of that sentence which shal be pronounced against all those that despise and refuse the yoke of the Lord as I hinted before from that of Rom. 1.32 For what is more deeply rooted in nature then this Principle that the work should praise the workman and that the workman should draw forth his own honour and glory from his own and if these shall refuse to serve the ends of their being that then he should subs●ract all comfortable influences from them and turne his hand against them for evill Now if these thinges be ingrafted in nature surely men who have many accessions of light to their naturall principles by the gospel under which they live will goe to hell with a conviction of the equitie of those ●hings which the Lord required of them and of the Iudgment which he hath past upon them V. They may be persawded of the truth of the threatnings and promises so that they may be able sometimes to looke into heaven and hell through the truth of God in the one and the other Thus Balaam saw the reality of those promises which God had made to Israel and he saw also the certainty of the fulfilling of all that God had spoken against the enemies thereof thus the eyes of wicked men are sometimes opened especially of temporary beleevers and such as are almost christians that they are cleerly convinc'd that there will be a difference betwixt those that fear the Lord and those that fear him not they know it will goe ill with the wicked but it will goe well with the godly so that when the threats denounced against such are opened they tremble as Faelix did at the preaching of judgement to come Acts 24.25 They feel something of what is threatned already in their consciences the word is as hot as an oven to them which scorches them convictions and terrors which from thence fall upon them are like streams of fire breaking out of hell it self so that if we did but some times observe and consider the impressions that are made upon such mens spirtis it would put it out of doubt whether there be a hell or not and men vvould conclude that the dreadful things threatned in the Word of God are not ciphers or things to be played vvithal or the inventions of men onely to keep others in awe as some Atheists have believed but that they are truths whereof one tittle shal not fall to the ground unperformed these things vvicked men know to be true here and shal feel them true hereafter yea these tastes of the truth of the threatnings make oftentimes great visible changes in them and they do much to escape the judgement written thus Herod did many things when he heard John Baptist and the Jews being terrified with the sharpnesse of his Ministry came to him confessing their sins Mat. 3.6 What says he to them You generation of Vipers who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come as if he had said Now that hell has flasht in your faces you come in a fit of terror and you pretend to be sorrowful for your sins but let me see such things as wil evidence this in after-fruits Beside this they are convinc'd of the truth of the promises of God made to his people And when the terrors which brake in from the threatnings has made some external change upon them mistaking themselves and taking this which is wrought for a gracious change they reckon themselves among the regenerate and reading the promises which are made to these they confidently apply them to themselves and that not without abundance of joy Thus did Herod Mark 6.20 when Johns Doctrines had some impressions upon him and these had made an alteration in his practises and ways having reformed many things that were amiss