Selected quad for the lemma: ground_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
ground_n	faith_n	true_a	word_n	3,792	5	4.8466	4	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A42767	A sermon preached before the right honourable the House of Lords in the Abbey Church at Westminster, upon the 27th of August, 1645 being the day appointed for solemne and publique humiliation : whereunto is added a brotherly examination of some passages of Mr. Colemans late printed sermon upon Job 11.20, in which he hath endeavoured to strike at the root of all church-government / by George Gillespie, minister at Edenburgh.	Gillespie, George, 1613-1648.	1646 (1646)	Wing G759; ESTC R30413	43,318	49

{non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} the heritage of the Lord as well as the Ministers Thus much by the way of that distinction of names And for the thing it self to object an innate enmity between the Ministers of the Gospel and those that are not Ministers is no lesse then a dishonouring and aspersing of the Christian Religion To return you see his words tend to the taking away of all Church-Government out of the hands of Church-Officers Now may we know his reasons He fetcheth the ground of an Argument out of his own heart I have a heart faith he that knews better how to be governed then govern I wish his words might hold true in a sence of plyablenesse and yeelding to Government How he knows to govern I know not but it should seem in this particular he knows not how to be governed For after both Houses of Parliament have concluded That many particular Congregations shall be under one Presbyteriall Government he still acknowledgeth no such thing as Presbyteriall Government I dare be bold to say He is the first Divine in all the Christian world that ever advised a State to give no government to Church-Officers after the State had resolved to establish Presbyterian Government But let us take the strength of his Argument as he pretendeth it He means not of an humble p●iablenesse and subjection for that should ease him from his fear of an ambitious ensnarement and so were contrary to his intention but of a sinfull infirmity and ambition in the heart which makes it fitter for him and others to be kept under the yoke then to govern And thus his Argumentation runs Might I measure others by my self and I know not why I may not God fashions mens hearts alike and as in water face answers face so the heart of man to man I ingeniously professe I have a heart that knows better how to be governed then govern I fear an ambitious ensnarement and I have cause I see what raised Prelacy and Papacy to such a height c. The two Scriptures will not prove what he would The first of them Psal. 33.15 He fashioneth their hearts alike gives him no ground at all except it be the homonomy of the English word alike which in this place noteth nothing else but {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} all mens hearts are alike in this that God fashioneth them all and therefore knoweth them all aeque or alike that is the scope of the place The Hebrew Jachad is used in the same sence Ezra 4.3 We our selves together will build they mean not they will all build in the like fashion or in the same manner but that they will build all of them together one as well as another So Psal. 2.2 The rulers take counsell together Jer. 46.12 they are fallen both together The other place Prov. 27.19 if you take it word by word as it is in the Hebrew is thus As in water faces to faces so the heart of man to man Our Translators adde the word answereth but the Hebrew will suffer the negative reading As in waters faces answer not to faces The Septuagints read As faces are not like faces so neither are the hearts of men alike The Chaldee paraphrase thus As waters and as countenances which are not like one another so the heart of the sons of men are not alike Thus doth Master Cartwright in his judicious Commentary give the sense As in the water face doth not answer fully to face but in some sort so there may be a conjecture but no certain knowledge of the heart of man But let the Text be read affirmatively not negatively what shall be the sence Some take it thus A mans heart may be someway seen in his countenance as a face in the water Others thus As a face in the water is various and changeable to him that looketh upon it so is the heart of man inconstant to a friend that trusteth in him Others thus As a man seeth his own face in the water so he may see himself in his own heart or conscience Others thus As face answereth face in the water so he that looketh for a friendly affection from others must shew it in himself It will never be proved that any suchthing is intended in that place as may warrant this argumentation There is such a particular corruption in one mans heart for instance Ambition which makes him unfit to be trusted with Government therefore the same corruption is in all other mens hearts even as the face in the water answereth the face out of the water so just that there is not a spot or blemish in the one but it is in the other I am sure Pan taught us not so when he said In lowlinesse of minde let each esteeme other better then themselves Phil. 2.3 Nay the Brother himself ha●h taken off the edge of his own Argument if it had any in his Epistle printed before his Sermon where speaking of his Brethren from whose judgement he dissenteth in point of Government he hath these words Whose wisdom and humility I speak it confidently may safely be trusted with as large a share of Government as they themselves desire Well but suppose now the same corruption to be in other mens hearts that they are in great danger of an ambitious insnarement if they be trusted with Government Is this corruption onely in the hearts of Ministers or is it in the hearts of all other men I suppose he will say in all mens hearts and then his Argument will conclude against all civill Government Last of all admit that there be just fears of abusing the Power and Government Ecclesiasticall let the persons to be intrusted with it be examined and the power it self bounded according to the strictest rules of Christ Let abuses be prevented reformed corrected The abuse cannot take away the use where the thing it self is necessary Why might he not have satisfied himself without speaking against the thing it self Once indeed he seemeth to recool and faith Onely I would have it so bounded that it might be said Hitherto shalt thou come and here shalt thou stay thy proud waves yet by and by he passeth his own bounds and totally renounceth the Government to the civill Power which I shall speak to anon But I must first ask Whence is this fear of the proud swelling waves of Presbyteriall Government where have they done hurt Was it upon the coast of France or upon the coast of Holland or upon the coast of Scotland or where was it Or was the dashing upon Terra in cognita He that would forewarn men to beware of Presbyteriall usurpations for so the Brother speaking to the present Controversie about Church-Government must be apprehended and to make good what he ●aith fals upon the stories of Pope Paul the 5. and of the Bishop of Canterbury is not a little wide from the mark I should have expected some examples

I do it The Lord is there arguing with his people to humble them to convince them and to cut off all matter of glorying from them And among other things left they should glory in this that what ever they were before they became afterward as silver refined seven times in the fornace Nay saith the Lord I have refined you in some sort but notas silver not so as that you are clean from your drosse but I have chosen you and set my love upon you even while you are in the fornace not yet refined and I will deliver you even for my own names sake that you may owe your deliverance for ever to free mercy and not to your own repentance and amendment A land is accepted and a peoples peace made with God not by their repentance and humiliation but by Christ beleeved on Micah 5 5. This man shall be the peace when the Assyrian shall come into our Land There were Sin-offerings and Burnt-offerings appointed in the Law for a Nationall atonement Levit. 4.13.21 Num. 15.25 26. which did typifie pardoning of Nationall sins through the merit of Jesus Christ We must improve the office of the Mediator and the promise of free grace in the behalf of Gods people as well as of our own souls which if it be indeed done will not hinder but further a great mourning and deep humiliation in the Land And so much of tribulation The third thing held forth in this Text of which I must be very short is Mortification This also is a refining fire Matth. 3.11 He shall baptize you with the holy Ghost and with fire Mark 9.49 For every one shall be salted with fire and every Sacrifice shall be salted with salt He hath been before speaking of mortification of the placking out of the right eye the cuting off the right hand or the right foot and now he presseth the same thing by a double allusion to the Law there was a necessity both of fire and salt the Sacrifice was seasoned with salt and the fire upon the Altar was not to be put out but every morning the wood was burnt upon it and the burnt offering laid upon it So if we will present our selves as a holy and acceptable Sacrifice to God we must be seasoned with the salt and our corruptions burnt up with the fire of mortification The Doctrine shall be this It is not enough to joyn in publick Reformation yea to suffer tribulation for the name of Christ except we also endeavour mortification This mortification is a third step distinct from the former two and without this the other two can make us but almost Christians or not far from the Kingdom of God In the parable of the Sower and the seed as we find it both in Matthew Mark and Luke this method may be observed That of the four sorts of ground the second is better then the first the third better then the second but the fourth onely is the good ground which is fruitfull and getteth a blessing Some mens hearts are like the high way and the hard beaten road where every soul spirit and every lust hath walked and converted their consciences through the custome of sin are as it were seared with a hot Iron In these the Word takes no place but all that they hear doth presently slip from them Others receive the Word with a present good affection and delight but have no depth of earth that is neither having had a work of the Law upon their consciences for deep humiliation nor being rooted and grounded in love to the Gospel nor paradventure so much as grounded in the knowledge of the truth nor having counted their cost and solidly resolved for sufferings thereupon it comes to passe when suffering times come these wither away and come to nothing thing There is a third sort who go a step further they have some root and some more solid ground then the former so that they can suffer many things and not fall away because of persecution yet they perish through want of mortification One may suffer persecution for Christ not being sore tried in that which is his Idol lust yet enduring great losses and crosses in other things Of such it is said that the cares of this world and the deceitfulnesse of riches and the lusts of other things entering in choke the Word and it becometh unfruitfull Mark that the lusts of other things that is whether it be the lust of the eyes or the lust of the flesh or the pride of life and he speaks of the entring in meaning of some strong tentation coming upon a man to catch him in that which is the great Idol of his heart and his beloved lust what ever it be such a tentation he never found before and therefore thought the lust had been mortified which was but lurking Did not Judas suffer many things with Christ during the time of his publike Ministery Did not Ananias and Saphira suffer for a season with the Apostles and Church at Jerusalem What was it then that lost them They neither made defection from the profession of the truth nor did they fall away because of persecution But having shined in the light a sound profession having also taken up the crosse and born the reproach of Christ they make shipwrack at last upon an unmortified lust I shall enlarge the Doctrine nofurther but touch upon some few Uses and so an end First let all and every one ofus be convinced of the necessity of our further endeavouring after mortfication The best silver which cometh out of the earth hath drosse in it and therefore needeth the Refiners fire and the whitest garment that is worn will touch some unclean thing or other and therefore will need the Fullers sope The best of Gods children have the drosse of their inherent corruptions to purge away which made Paul say I keep under my body and bring it into subiection lest that by any means when I have preached to others I my self should be a castaway It is a spee●h borrowed from reprobate silver which is not refined from drosse and so is the word used by the Septuagints Isa. 1.22 Thy silver is become drosse The Apostle therefore sets himself to the study of mortification lest saith he when I have been refining and purifying others I my self be found to be drossie silver And as there is inherent drosse so there is adherent uncleannesse in the best and who can say that he hath kept his garments so clean that he is unspotted of the world or that he hath so separate himself from the pollutions of the world as that he hath touched no unclean thing So that there is an universall necessity of making use both of the refiners fire and of the Fullers sope Secondly let us once become willing and contented yea desirous to be throughly mortified A mans lus●s and corruptions are indeed so strongly