Selected quad for the lemma: ground_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
ground_n	divine_a	faith_n	revelation_n	2,617	5	10.5414	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A57283	A vindication of the reformed religion, from the reflections of a romanist written for information of all, who will receive the truth in love / by William Rait ...	Rait, William, 1617-1670.	1671 (1671)	Wing R146; ESTC R20760	160,075	338

release those Prisoners sooner and sill some rooms in Heaven faster How readie are we to delay duty from time to time And doth not this baite our humour How jejune and bare is their contrition which goeth before confession and absolution Yet may prove sufficient Hear Suarez tom 4. disp 4. who saith a slender grief is sufficient And Tolet. lib. 3. de instr Sacerdot a smal degree of grief can wipe away a great degree of sin What is this but daubing with untempered morter and putting kercheifes under arme holes a strengthening of the hands of the wicked that he should not return from his evil way By toleration of Brothels and preferring in votaries fornication to lawful marriage Is not a wide door opened to ob●cene sensualitie Agrippa de vanit witnesseth that the Pope hath tribute payed to him by all the whore-houses at Rome Therefore Pope Sixtus builded the nobile l●pan●r a notable Brothel house Bell. de Monach. lib. 2. cap. 30. saith that fornication in such is a less sin nor marriage What will debauch the chastitie if this do not Tolet. lib. 4. de instr sacerd telleth us that a man is bound to sanctifie the Sabbath but is not bound to sanctifie it well for he may hunt travel and make market on that day Is not this infectious doctrine Now Christian Reader if thou be serious for salvation I charge thee to pause here a little and consider if this can be the way of holiness wherein the Prophers Apostles and primitive Fathers walked to Heaven Therefore as thou tenderest thy own salvation and consolation bewar of it this leadeth to the chambers of death Hath falne man who enclineth naturally to wickedness need of such incentives to sin and lenitives when he hath sinned Or can he who is of puter eyes then to behold iniquity approve such as break his Commandments and teach men so to do Can the tree be good where the frui● is so b●d None will believe it who have understanding unless they be willing to be deceived It is the stain of any Christian to desert the good old way in which they are commanded to walk Ier. 6. 16. and to be fooled out of their Religion by some groundless distinctions and ingenious devices of subtile men who stent snares and lay themselves in wa●te to deceive the simple If a man born and trained in the Reformed Church shal hanker after Popery he is foolish in so doing if he purpose n●t to swallow the whole bulk of it For Bellarmin saith they cannot quite one ●ota otherwise their Church were not to be reputed infallible and if he resolve to do this I must say he hath an Ostrich-stomach and is a great latitudinarian Further it is to be feared that at the next alteration if tempted ●e fall into Atheism total infidelitie For the weapōs by which the Papists wage warre with the Scriptures and the Reformed Church built thereon are the same which Celsus used of old against Christianity it self which Origen refuteth at length he impeached the Scriptures and quarrelled the Christians for their rents for the calumnies of the world c. If these have beat thee from the Reformed Religion hast thou not to fear that they may shake thee in all and turn thee at last Nullisidian As they make use of Pagan arguments so of the Jewish for they reasoned just so against Christ Jesus and his Apostles By what authority where is your visible succession have any of the rulers Scribes or Pharisees beleeved on him c. It hath pleased the Lord to furnish us with good defences but it is strange that they drawing many of their shafts from Pagan and Jewish Antichristian quivers should not be ashamed of their way And it is more strange that knowing men if conscientions should be ensnared by them It is known to such as are not ignorant of Church history that when Christianity came first into this Ysle they had nothing to do with Rome for a long time they were strangers and adversaries to her soveraignty and would not exchange the dyet of Easter for her commands nor have communion with these messengers who came from her Bede called Venerable telleth lib 2. hist cap. 4. that in the beginning of the 7. cent after Augustine the Monk came to Brittain he found them no way like the Romanists no● could he prevaile with them to conforme to Rome not so much as in the administration of Baptism or observation of Easter And when one Laurentius his successor endeavoured the same and thought the Scots would be more tractable he found the plaine contrare as he writteth to the Abbates in Scotland for Dagamus the Scotish Bishop who came to speak with them refused to eat or drink with Laurentius or stay in the roome where he was So little communion would they here have then with Romanists Now that Church is farre more corrupt then it was in Gregories dayes and ours more pure and enlightened then it was at that time What phrenesie must it be therefore in them now who are members of this Church to enter into communion with Romanists or tamper with or haunker after their way Let all who love the Truth stand in awe thus to sin we have a safer surer way for Salvation nor Popery wherein if we walk peace and mercy shal be on us Gal. 6. 16. Least this Preface swell disproportionably I will offer four advyees to my Countrey-men that they may be perswaded from Poperie and then close with a word more particularly to the Inhabitants of this Place First If ye would guard well against Popery have a full perswasion of the Truth from the ground of divine revelation in the holy Scriptures 2. Tim. 1. 13. 14. Hold fast the forme of sound words which thou hast heard of me in faith and love which is in Christ Iesus that good thing which is commited to thee keep by the holy Ghost which dwelleth in us For men not perswaded by divine faith like to young schollars evil grounded in their principles are easily put from their grounds and tossed to and froe with every wind of doctrine Persuasisti mihi Domine saith Aug. lib. 6. confes cap. 5. this keeped him fast When once divine Truth sinketh into the heart ye will have a sincere love to it for it self and not for any by respects or worldly advantages Otherwayes when truth florteth only in the head and men are bated with worldly temptations and selfish interests they are soon drawn away from the truth which in their affection is postponed to that which they love better And GOD in his holy justice giveth them up to stronge delusions for their hypocrisie and want of sinceritie 2. Thess 2. 10. 11. the Lord hath promised the spirit to them who ask him Luke 11. 13. If ye love the truth seek the grace and strength of the holy Spirit to lead you into all truth and labour to grow in grace and the knowledge of our Lord Jesus

with naked persecuted truth in our Church as the Marques of Galeacia Mr. Smeton c. yea sundry have gone to Rome been converted by taking a distaste at their worship and way Fourthly Our run awayes runagads have to mourn before the Lord for their Apostacie seeing they cannot deny that the Ordinances in our Church have been by the Lords blessing instrumental to beget children to God This they must graunt unless they will say that all the reformed Church is unconverted which they have no confidence to averre Now how gross is it to spit in the face of her who did bear and foster them which I wish the Lord may lay to the consciences of such revolters But not to insist further I desire you in the fear of God to pause and consider well whether you are going to heaven or hell and by what rule you walk If the will of man or the revealed will of God have the power of your consciences or whether it be safer to take the scriptures way in which the Prophets and Apostles walked to heaven or the way of your own traditions and vaine inventions He who walketh according to the scripture rule peace and mercy shall be upon him and upon the Israell of God Reply In your last answer you say our Papists Reply pelf and policie is greater then yours both which I grant but glories in neither Yet if Ministers augmentations hold on they will shortly equal our pelf but not our Christian policit in employing it so well our glorious and goodly edifices of Churches Hospitals Monasteries dispersing and distributing their rents to pious uses But the thrusting down of Churches Hospitals Monasteries dispersing and dissipating their rents testifie your want of policy blind avarice mad passion Secondly You say we give indulgencies for looseness as if in Catholick times there had been greater looseness then since the Reformation Whereas the keeping of Lent and Fasting dayes were abolished Pennance and satisfaction for sin taken away Celibacie in Church men thought a crime Laicks allowed after divorcement to marry all good works thought impossible the Commandments thought impossible to be keeped and that men sin of necessity in their best actions which as it excuseth all wickedness and sin so it giveth way to all looseness and prophainness Thirdly You say many quit Rome in the integrity of their heart such as the Marquess of Galeacia and closed on their peril with naked truth in your Church To which I answer that all Hereticks and Schismaticks have quit Rome not in the integritie of their heart but in the blindness of their mind and that with their own peril eternal damnation closing with a very naked faith and Religion not well cloathed with the least colour of truth but not with naked faith or belief which Catholicks confidently and constantly assert what ever you say to the contrar And it is no where else to be found for they know there is but one faith and one GOD and one true Church Consequentlie united in the same faith in all which points as she was established by Christ and his Apostles hath continued since their time visible in her Pastours and People in all Ages holy and incorrupted in her Doctrine religious in her Sacraments and ceremonies powerful and glorious in her wonders and miracles conversion of Infidels in the which the holy Fathers have lived and all true Martyrs have died Which only all new upstarts and Sects do persecute and oppose as Protestants at this day under the pretence of Reformation and upon the same ground of wresting Scripture against the common consent of the Church and Fathers with them For as all divisions in Christianity have been from the Roman Catholick Church so all have turned both their armes and pennes chiefly against her but in vain she is builded on a rock against which the gates of hell shal not prevail against her And so who return from you to her are neither run-awayes nor run-agads as you call them but like the forlorn child or lost sheep return'd Whose example undoubtedly many more would follow if they would consider Faith without unity amongst Protestants a Church without a Head a Body without united Members a Law without a Judge a Temple without an Altar Religion without Sacrifice Divine service without Religious ceremonies Sacraments which do not sanctifie Doctrine without infallibility Belief without a ground Preachers without a call Commandments impossible to be keeped Exhortation to what is not in our power Reprobation without workes Reward without Merits Sin punished where there is no Free-will Scripture received or rejected upon the catalogue of the Jewes GODS word patched up by men Reformation without authority New-lights against old received ve●i●ins the Privat-spirit against the whole Church single mens opinions against the unanimous consent of the Fathers in a word wavering Pastours unsetled Government unstable Faith In the post-script there be a parallel patched about our Reformations which being composed of the gall of bitterness without verity or reason deserveth no answer but that which Hezekiah commanded Is 36. 21. Duply You graunt that ye are rich and politick this is true there is much prophain Prote ∣ stants Duply 1 policie where Jesuited equivocation is mantained But tell me if this be like the Godly sinceritie and Gospell simplicitie which was the old Apostolick way and ground of their rejoicing 2. Cor. 1. 12. If ye exceed us in sumptuous buildings which politickly you mistake for the policie mentioned by me though your pelf be greater then ours we want not Hospitalls Bridges Temples according to our abilitie But what is that to the doctrine which is according to Godliness The Turks exceed you as farre that way as ye doe us And the Temple of Diana at Ephesus exceeded you and them also Secondly You deny that Poperie fostereth prophanness but it is too apparent and Duply 2. how can it be otherwise If indulgencies bought and sold like an horse in a market tend not ex natura operis in it self to make men loose and prophane let any sober man judge For thus may they reason shall I quite my lusts for a little money I know what will do the bussines and put me in favour with God Why should I pluck out my right eye and cut off my right hand when a little time in pu●gatorie will do the turne and a soulemasse which I can have for the Legacie of a summe of money will free me thence But we with the scripture forbid men to deceive themselves for they who do such things shall not it herit the kingdom of heaven So with us nothing less will satisfie then Gospell repentance and the least ground of hope is not granted to those hereafter who turne not away hore from their iniquities How can this be denyed seeing your latest Casuists such as Escobar Busenbaius and Diana the Sicilian have purposly devised latitudes for rendring prophane men secure about Duells Sodomy and other acts of