Selected quad for the lemma: ground_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
ground_n	fruit_n	good_a	word_n	4,456	5	5.3399	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A28341	The birth-priviledge, or, Covenant-holinesse of beleevers and their issue in the time of the Gospel together with the right of infants to baptisme / by Thomas Blake ...	Blake, Thomas, 1597?-1657.	1644 (1644)	Wing B3142; ESTC R12167	41,905	40

is a like execration to intermedele with the little ones of Sion by reason of the holinesse of such a people 2 King 8.12 their Covenant-relations in which they stand interested Much is spoken in Scripture against the enemies of the righteous the haters of them shall be destroyed he that offends against them shall not be innocent God observes every cariage of the adversary towards them in misery they speake not a word but God hath it against them when Ammonites Eze. 26.2.36.2 Obad. 12. Ibid. Psal 137.7 Obad. 13.14 Deut. 25.17 Tyrians cry Aha against the people of the Lord they are twitted with it and threatned for it Not a proud word that they utter but it is brought in to fill up the charge against them yea every eye that is cast with approbation of the adversary every encouraging word they speake and every act they doe against such a people yea injuries of elder times are kept in the decke and laid to them And all because that they stand in this relation to God as His in Covenant which you cannot limit onely to the personally righteous but all that are of a societie and fellowship that is such that are interested in a righteous cause The holy anointing oyle did make sacred when yet too often the man was wicked and therefore David looked upon Saul as the Lords anointed It holds in analogy and proportion unto all that have any Unction from God as all the called of God have When they were but a few in number Psal 105.12 13 14 15. yea very few and strangers When they went from one Nation to another from one kingdome to another people He suffered no man to doe them wrong yea he reproved Kings for their sakes saying Touch not mine Anointed All the people of God have that anointing from God that none may dare to intermeddle to their harme God promises his people that dwell in Sion that the burden of Assyria shall be taken away from off their shoulder and his yoke from off their necke and that the yoke shall be destroyed because of the Anointing Isa 10.27 Object Some will say as this is carried The danger of intermedling with any is with us alike Even Papists and the worst of men that are called Protestants are thus of a people that are called Gods people and go by the name of Christians For answer I shall not enter upon that controversie Answ what there is of the being of a Church under the Papacy The Papacy itselfe is none of it but only a botch bred in it and cleaving to it Onely this I say That he that shall oppose a Papist under the notion of a Christian shall beare his sinne and that upon the grounds that have been given Though a Papists damnable errours in the faith shut him out from the happinesse of Christians yet such an adversaries persecution renders him guilty of opposing the faith of Christ Iesus And he that followes with injuries a carnall Protestant because of Profession of the sinceritie of Religion in opposition to Antichristianisme is formally guilty of persecution The hearers resembled to the rocky ground suffer persecution for the Word as doth the good ground that brings forth fruit with patience But to come home with more cleare satisfaction A people of a fouly-polluted Ordinance standing in opposition to a people of a pure and untainted way are as a people void of Ordinances are as a people without God in comparison The opposition of the puritie of his service God accounts as the opposition of his great Name though it be by a people that goe under that name of His people And therefore though Elijah take so much to heart the pulling down of Altars set up by Ieroboam as Gods Altars 3 Kings 19.10 when it was done by Israel apostatizing and turned to Baal and in opposition to the worship of Baal makes that way of worship at Dan and Bethel a following of God 1 Kings 18.21 Those two opinions that the ten Tribes halted between were the worship of the false god Baal and the false way of worship set up by Ieroboam which corruption of worship being now to draw them from Baalisme he is for the present contented to wave Yet we well know the brand that lies on Ieroboam in bringing in that worship of his 1 Kings 15.9 scarce the like on any man in Scripture the man of sin only excepted the high phrases also in which this worship of his is set out making Priests for the high places 2 Chro. 11.15 and devils with the height of guilt to which he rose in casting the Levites out from executing the Priests office Vers 14. And howsoever God often cals that people of the ten tribes by the name of his people as having Ordinances Hos 4.6 though miserably polluted yet in opposition to Iudah where more pure Ordinances were injoyed they are said to be without God without a teaching Priest and without the Law And sighting against Iudah who could reckon up the particulars of the Ordinances of God in their puritie 2 Chron. 15.3 they are charged to sight against the Lord God of their fathers 2 Chron. 13.12 To come neerer home in an Instance If the Turkish power should fall upon a Popish State under the name and notion of Christians they were guilty with Saul of persecuting the Lord Iesus If this Popish State fall upon a reformed nation they are much more guilty A fouler sinne for a people of God in name and title to persecute his people in truth then for a people strangers to God to persecute a people only in name and title Scripture prayers against heathens we may fitly apply in our sufferings under the hands of Papists Pilate might have been guilty in persecution of a Pharisee as a Jew yet that nation was much more guilty being Iewes by nature in delivering Christ Iesus into Pilate's hands Ioh. 18.35 though Christ had been no greater then one of his Disciples A Papist persecuting a formall carnall Protestant under the notion of a man protesting against idolatrous wayes is a man blaspheming the faith This man thus persecuted persecuting another for the power of Godlinesse professing the same truth is equally yea more guilty The very sin of Cain against his brother 1 Ioh. 2.12 Their Religions were both one but Cain's in form and Abel's in power The result of the whole is to let us see what it is to oppose a people under any notion of Gods people under any notion of belonging to him A man may have his reward giving in the name of a Disciple Matth. 10.4 though he to whom hee gives be such as God will never own for a Disciple And answerably may incurre vengeance in opposition of one under such a name though with those on the rocky ground he be nothing lesse in deed and truth Abundance of sweet consolations yet flow from

authoritie This he takes to be sufficient yet for more full satisfaction he goes on to dispute for it from the Scriptures whence we see what himselfe meanes by the custome of the Church And by what authoritie that Councell did appoint the Baptisme of Infants Augustinus de Bapt. contra Donatist lib. 40. cap. 24. ad initium By all this that hath been said it more fully appeares what regard is to be given to that which is cited out of Luther and Cassander concerning the time that Baptisme of Infants was brought into the Church Luther as it is said affirmes that it came into the Church a thousand yeares before his time which must be one hundred yeares after Austin and three hundred yeares after Origen Cassander affirmes that it was brought in three hundred yeares after Christ and his Apostles which must be an hundred yeares after Origen at least If this had been true these fathers must have said as St Paul of contentions 1 Cor. 11 16. We have no such custome neither the Church of God and could not have said that it was a custome or tradition of the Church Origen then had never knowne it and Austin might have called it an innovation Those conjectures of Tuicencis Iohannes Bohemius cōcerning the occasion of the first in-let of Infants Baptisme into the Church fals to the ground likewise when men heare of a beginning they will be bold to assigne some reason of it If my conjecture may be heeded I suppose it was in some dis-use with many not long after the Apostles times and that by reason of the superstitious conceit that too soon prevailed of the opus operatum in Baptisme that it cleanses all sinnes that are past whether originall or actuall And therefore many that were converted at ripe yeares deferred their Baptisme as neere the houre of death as might be to have all their sinnes cleansed by that water against which custome Bellarmine at large disputes by reason of the absolute necessity of Baptisme though both his grounds and theirs are on a false bottome May we not then beleeve that parents upon the same ground did put off the Baptisme of their children and after did re-assume it upon the necessity of it And this is that which the authour produced viz. Iohannes Behemius speaks of But Mr Daniel Rogers above all is stood upon in his Treatise of the Sacraments he hath these words I take the Baptisme of Infants to be one of the most reverend generall and uncontrolled traditions which the Church hath and which I would no lesse doubt of then the Creed to be Apostolicall although I confesse my selfe yet unconvinced by demonstration of Scripture for it I wish the Reader to consider what the adversary gaines by this testimony Answ It is generall uncontrolled he saith and so he knowes unwritten traditions never were Orthodox Divines antient and moderne have ever opposed them In gaining a peice of a witnesse such an one that hath his reasons to beleeve Baptisme of Infants to be Apostolicall they have the Church unanimously in all successive ages their adversatie And as the Infants of beleeving parents are to be received to Baptisme The consectarie enlarged so no Infants that descend from those that make Profession of the faith of Christ are to be refused Any solid reason which will lye against any for ought can be said may be a ground of the challenge of all The promise made to those that professe Christ and their seed takes in the seed of all that make profession Some that doe not withstand but maintaine and practise the Baptisme of Infants have found a middle way as betweene rigid Brownists and Presbyterians so between Anabaptists and as I may say Paedo-baptists All Infants they will not have to be refused confessing them to be within the verge of the promise yet they will not have all promiscuously received The parents by solemne Covenant must first be made members of some particular congregation and so their Issue is to be admitted their children baptized otherwise both parents and children are to be accounted as without by nature unholy and only the Godly regenerate so farre as men can judge no one of loose life to be admitted But this middle way under correction I cannot but take to be a step out of the way I will here dispute it no further then as it concernes this particular Either the vicious and scandalous life of such a parent or his non admission into Covenant in a Congregationall way is the barre of the Infant that he is not admitted unto Baptisme but neither of these may be a barre First not the vicious life of his parent If the ground of a childs admission to baptisme be not the faith of his immediate parent but the promise made to Ancestors in the faith whose seed he is though at the greater distance Then the loose life of an immediate parent can be no barre to his baptisme This is plaine if Iosiah have no right from his father Ammon yet he is not to be shut out in case he have right from his father David or his father Abraham And though the immediate parent were not wronged when his child is so shut out and denied yet such Ancestor in distance is wronged out of whose loynes the Infant is descended If Phinehas were not wronged in case Ichabod had been debarred yet Eli yea Aaron had suffered But the ground of a childs admission is the promise to Ancestors whether at neerer or greater distance The promise is to beleevers and their seed Now Iosiah was the seed of David Christ was the seed of David An Ancestor at distance and not alone immediate where the race within the Church may be derived in a continued succession gives right of admission therefore unto baptisme 2. There is nothing that can exclude the seed of him that is a beleever as beleever is opposed to an Infidell the seed of one that is of a dogmaticall or historicall faith This we have before made good and from 1 Cor. 7.14 may be further cleared He that is no Infidell is there a beleever whose seed is holy But a man of a vicious life is in that sense a beleever Simon Magus Acts 8.13 Luk. 8.13 the hearers compared to the rocky ground were beleevers therefore a loose life will not exclude the Issue His seed who is a member of a particular Church society must be admitted unto baptisme a Church member and all that are his must have their priviledges But it often falls out that men of loose lives are members as the Church of Corinth yeelds many proofes 2 Cor. 12.20 21 c. Therefore vicious life excludes not the Issue Secondly The non-admission into Covenant is no barre in the parent 1. It was no barre when themselves who now are members were admitted in their infancy their parents for the most part being no members in such a way Therefore now it is no barre though