Selected quad for the lemma: ground_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
ground_n	church_n	faith_n	pillar_n	2,322	5	10.2633	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A38163	Great salvation by Jesus Christ tenderd to the greatest of sinners and in particular to such as have been refusers of it, if God shall now at last make them willing to receive it / by Richard Eedes ...	Eedes, Richard, d. 1686.	1659 (1659)	Wing E243; ESTC R17583	114,819	292

will repudiate you and give you a bill of divorce and because you were no more faithfull in keeping the Oracles of God your Candlestick shall be removed and you shall be left in darkness and that Land of yours which is the glory of all Lands shall be like a desolated Desert and a forsaken Wildernes what is it that hath made such havock of late years in Germany that hath destroyed so many Towns and made such depopulations as our ears have heard of was it not the Lords Covenant-quarrel What was it that opened such bloudy sluces in England Scotland and Ireland and the Netherlands without all peradventure this sin of Gospel-refusing hath stricken the deadlyest stroakes in all our Wars and we may say to this sin as once Zippora said to Moses thou hast been a bloudy sin to us and if we shall go on to dishonour God and slight his Gospel and notwithstanding the loud out-cries of his Word and Sword we shall nourish that viper in our bosoms and shall foment those blasphemies and heresies that strike at the foundation and shall help on those divisions that threaten to deprive us of Verity and Purity as well as Unity we may take up a lamentation when it is too late and Sword Pestilence and Famine may be sent upon that errand to bring our sins to our remembrance which the Gospel in the mid'st of peace health and plenty could not fasten upon us It should be written with a pen of iron in every thankfull heart what wonderfull deliverances the Lord hath wrought for us especially those of the Spanish Invasion and the Powder-plot of which we may say in Davids words if the Lord himself had not been on our side may England now say if the Lord himself had not been on our side when men rose up against us they had swallowed us up quik when they were so wrathfully displeased at us but blessed be the Lord that hath not given us over as a prey unto their teeth Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the Fowler the snare is broken we are delivered And shall we after all this betray our native Land into the cruel hands of our religious adversaries that would borrow all the politicks of Julian or Machiavill and make use of all the Stratagems and strength of the Devils heads and borns to deprive us of the Gospel Surely we cannot take a likelier course to effect all this than by going on to neglect this great Salvation which if this Gospel-glutted Land shall persist in doing notwithstanding the warnings of all Gods Watchmen when the Sword of the Lord shall devour greedily your flesh and his arrows shall make themselves drunk with your bloud when your sins have made this populous and plentifull Land a place of sculls and a field of bloud when the hornet of your conscience shall sting you like the pangs of death and say unto you as Nathan to David you are the men that have done this you will then know that you are Traitors to the State who have betrayed your Country into the Enemies hand We read that the Cananites dwelled in garrisons walled up to Heaven and yet their sinns delivered them up into the hands of spoilers and though our fenced Cities had walls as high and thick as the walls of Babylon yet the sin that is within would let in the enemy Though our Armies were never so mighty and numerous Our Counsellors and Statesmen the very Oracles of the time Yet they are the faithfull Ministers and people that are the Charets of Israel and horsemen of it And our greatest security under Heaven lies in such as teach and live the Gospel such as know and do and declare the will of God and indeavour to keep a conscience voyd of offence towards God and man and order their whole conversation as it becometh the Gospel of Jesus Christ 4 Reason of the greatness of this sin is because it is a Church-confounding sin There hath been a great crying down of Churches in our dayes by giddy sectaries but this is a short cut to destroy all and to turne the Lords vineyard into a howling wilderness All the secret underminings of schismes within and the malignant batteries of persecutors without can do but little hurt so long as he is our keeper that never slumbers nor sleepes and is able to make his Church bear up against the gates of Hell but when by setting light by the Gospel we do put God from us open a wide dore to our own overthrow then the wild bore and beasts may make havoek the adversaries may fall on and cry downe with it downe with it even to the ground and the Churches Enemies may say as Davids enemies did of him God hath forsaken him persecute and take him for there is none to deliver him What it was that made the Lord God of Israel to forsake his tabernacle in Shilo and utterly to forsake the Jewes you hard in the last reason for it was their setting light by Christ that did overthrow their State and Church too What was it that made Babylon the great to fall and Rome to be unchurched whose fame and faith made the world to ring but because of Christian they became Antichristian and from Apostolicall did turne retrograde and became Antipostolicall and of a Church of the living God a pillar and ground of the truth they became an Hydra of Heresy and Synagogue of Satan What removed the Candlesticks from the seven famous Churches of Asia and fills their eares with the forgeries of Mahomet where the sound of the Gospel was wont to ring read the Prophesies that went of them in the second and third Chapters of the Revelation and you will find it was for turning their backs upon the Gospel and entertaining falshood insteed of truth And what hath made the Lord to stand so often upon the threshold amongst us as if he were ready to take his leave though like a long suffering God and he yet plaies ●oath to part If we do but take these following causes among many into close consideration we may easily informe our selves 1 How many in this Goshen and Land of light do stand in open opposition to the Gospel and as it were bid defiance to God and Christ How have sectaries swarmed of late and such as openly oppose the truths of God yea the very fundamentalls opening their black mouthes wide against God and Christ and the Spirit and the Word and Seales and Sabboth and Ministry some denying the immortality of the Soul and perswading men that they are without Law and that there is neither Heaven nor Hell And besides these how many dissolute and profane Spirits abound in all places even under searching and powerfull Ministries that in words profess Christ but in workes deny him 2 How few do close with the Covenant of God so visibly that they may pass for beleiver in a large sence and be conversed with