Selected quad for the lemma: ground_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
ground_n	good_a	seed_n	sow_v	5,385	5	9.7863	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A39740	A sermon preached before the University of Cambridge in Kings-College Chapel, on the 25th of March, 1689, being the anniversary for commemoration of King Henry VI, the founder by William Fleetwood ...	Fleetwood, William, 1656-1723.	1689 (1689)	Wing F1251; ESTC R15934	16,155	30

to understand Believers Christians in general false as well as true yet we must understand withal that they were honour'd with that Name from the Sanctity of their Profession their holy Doctrine and their presumed holy Practice as well as in Contradistinction to the unbelieving Jews and the prophane unhallowed Gentiles So that as a Man must take all due care in the Choice of fit and proper Objects of his Charity and see that they be good and truly Saints if possible yet he must not abstain from doing Good purely upon the account of his Uncertainty whether his Works will be bestowed deservedly or no. A Man must not frequently make the Suspense of his Mind a ground for withholding his Hand The Pretence will always last and without great Care will prove a Snare to Virtue 't will put him upon little Tricks and disingenuous Shifts of pleading causelesly against mens Merits 't will make him argue nicely and ill-naturedly and subtilly distinguish the Poor out of Relief and himself out of Charity and engage him by degrees into Hardness of Heart and an inhuman Temper Let every One but do his Best and guide himself by the most probable Appearances and outward Shews of which he only can be judge and leave the Issue and Event to God To God who has made it a Duty to be Charitable but has not withall given us a Spirit of Discernment to sever Hypocrites from the sincere and honest Christians and ther fore cannot reasonably be thought to require this great Exactness at our Hands and is much too just and kind not to reward our good Intentions for the sake of anothers undiscoverable Malignity It is therefore good and necessary it shews our Hope and Confidence our Faith and our Obedience that we sow our Seed at peradventure but it is better that it fall on Good ground it is good that we intend it well but it is better those Intentions find their good Effects It is a great Commendation of Charity that it supplies the Necessities of such as want but 't is a greater yet when it supplies the Necessities of Saints and truly Good Christians But Secondly It is abundant also by many Thanksgivings towards God. Whiles by the Experiment of this Administration as St. Paul says in the following Vers they glorifie God First for their profess'd Subjection to the Gospel of Christ Secondly for their liberal Distribution to them and to all Men. And Thirdly by their Prayers for you If there wanted Arguments to advance the Praise and Honour of this most excellent and usefull Grace of Charity one might without being too minute and forcing things unreasonably deduce a very certain and well grounded one from hence that the works of Charity are here made the Marks of our profess'd Subjection to the Gospel of Christ That thô there are other ways of appearing Christians such as being baptiz'd into the Churches Faith frequenting its Assemblies Partaking of its Sacraments and Submitting to its Discipline yet that the clearest Tokens the certainest Indications the openest and most avowed Profession of our Christianity is the Practice of Good Works in Pursuance of its Holy Doctrine and Commands But since there is no great need of this I have only to observe at present First that their Charity administred occasion of Glorifying God and Honourring the Christian Religion Secondly that they who were and were to be Relieved were Gratefull to God by Returning him Thanks for the Liberality of their Benefactors and Thirdly Gratefull to their Benefactors by Praying to God for them First It occasion'd the Glorifying God and Honouring Christianity For as it is in Human Intercourses where when one Man by Counsel or Persuasion of another performs some brave and generous Action part of the Praise and Glory where 't is known will both deservedly and unavoidably result upon the Encourager and Setter on so is it in the case of Charity 'twixt God and Men. It must needs be that with Considering People the Merit and the Glory of those Benefits must fall especially on God who first inspir'd those Principles into the Souls of Men from whence those gracious Acts proceeded But farther their Works of Charity were Occasions of Honouring Christianity of preferring that particular Oeconomy to both the Gentile and the Jewish Dispensation Let Men contend never so long so warmly and so wisely about the Preference of the several Theologies about the Excellency of their Doctrines and the Properness of their Natures to exalt the Understandings to refine the Powers and Faculties of the Mind and raise the Souls of Men to a Nobler pitch and closer Union with the Godhead Yet after all that Doctrine that is fitted best for the general Wellfare of Mankind and best consults its publick Benefit and Interest in this World not excluding that of another will certainly prevail and carry it above the rest when once 't is truly scann'd and understood So that had the Christian Dogmata been as sutable to the Wisdom of the World and as agreeable to its way of reasoning as its practic Precepts were to the Convenience and Benefit of Human Life it had not stood in need of Miracles it had obtain'd that by its own Reasonableness and natural Force which it did by Supernatural and Divine Assistance it was so calculated for the general Good consulted so the Weal and Comfort of the World. Nay it dispos'd the Minds of Men so sweetly to the Practice of Humanity Compassion Charity Beneficence and in a Word to all Good Nature that even where Miracles were wanting both obstinate and sullen Jews and vicious hardned Gentiles were by them often charmed into Conversion and always into Admiration of those generous Doctrines And even in spight of all the indigestible Difficulties of the Christian Creed they could not choose but love the Christian Practice So that Doing good and multiplying Acts of Charity was the most natural and ready way of heaping Honours on their Institution of Conciliating the Esteem and Favour of the World of Winning Proselytes and Gaining upon those that were without and of Securing and Confirming those that were already in Secondly Those that were relieved were gratefull to God by returning Him Thanks for the Liberality of their Benefactors They glorifie God says St. Paul for your liberal Distributions to them and to all Men. However 't is that God impresses on the Minds of Men and moves them to good Works of Charity whether by stirring and impregnating those Seeds of natural Pity he hath sown in all our Hearts or moving us by Hopes or Fears by Promises or Threats Rewards or Punishments or by some special Act of quickning and exciting Grace some sudden sweet Illapses from above or some illuminating Vision and Divine Monition or whether Men are mov'd themselves by the Vanity of their own Hearts by the Decency and Comeliness of those Works by the Ambition of Fame and the Reputation of being called Benefactors by the delights of Praise whilst Living

and the Desires of Glory when they are Dead or from what other Motive certain or unknown those who receive the Benefits are most undoubtedly oblig'd to make their due Acknowledgments to God by their Returns of Praise and Thanksgiving For let the Cause and Motives and the Instruments be what they will yet the kind Fruits and good Effects will certainly require and certainly deserve it at their Hands The Goods are equally the Gifts of God and the Dispensers of them equally his Stewards with respect to the Receivers as if they had had immediate charge there to bestow them And God must not lose his Praise though the Givers do thô they too should be Loosers onely in the day of Recompence We must not do as some Men do who see no farther than the Hand that reaches and only mind the next immediate Cause that ministers to their Relief like some but few absurd Idolaters of old that Deified the visible and flowing Streams but never thought upon the hidden Springs from whence they came they entertain with joy and thankfulness to Men the Pleasures and the Benefits that they receive but never think of looking up to God the Fountain and Original of all their Happiness But 't was not so with those of whom St. Paul treats they made the kind Benevolence of their Benefactors an occasion of Praising God and Honouring his most Holy Name and by seeing and by feeling Mens good Works they learnt as all of us should do to glorifie their Father in Heaven Thirdly and lastly They were gratefull to their Benefactors by praying to God for them It cannot fairly be denied but that there is a strong propension in us all to self-sufficiency and independence one upon another No man can say but he had rather want no help than be oblig'd to others for it but since this cannot be the next thing we have to do is to contrive how to be even and on the square again with our Obligers and the nearer we come to it the freer we think our selves and certainly are more contented and at ease but since the state of affairs in this life will not admit of equal gratitude in kind or indeed in any tollerable proportion God in his goodness hath prepar'd for the poor the comfort and relief of Prayer and hath annex'd such promises to the due performance of that work as may quickly equal the most considerable advantages they can receive from any of their Benefactors and hath made it their Religious duty as well as their Natural desite to pay their debts and obligations and hath commanded them to sollicit him by earnest Prayers and by incessant Cries to shower down favours on their Benefactors heads and as there is an unaccountable venom in their bitter cries and curses so have their Prayers a marvellously penetrating power and force And of this the World hath been in every age so well assur'd that there have not wanted men of all conditions and degrees Sons of Peace and Conquering Heroes high and mighty Princes Clergy Laity learn'd and ignorant that have exchang'd their Gold and Silver Lands Jewels rich Donations ample Settlements stately Structures Colleges and Hospitals for the bare purchase of these Prayers and thought it no ill bargain That have look'd upon their following Victories and Triumphs the prosperous and successfull Issues of their undertakings as so many returns and answers of these Prayers so many Blessings forc'd from Heaven by the sweet violence of their importunate addresses to the throne of grace So that praying for Benefactors hath not been more esteem'd a duty on the Receivers side than it hath prov'd a motive and encouragement to Giving And it may be it is better to stop here than proceed to tell the extravagancies to which the excessive confidence that men repos'd in these kind of Prayers and Services transported many a good but indiscreetly zealous Soul. And since there is now no danger from the examples let us rather choose to cover than excuse or condemn the faults shall I say or rather the mistakes of our Forefathers And now having done what right I could be well allowed to do the Text I am come in the second place to apply what I can to our present purpose And first if St. Paul so earnestly exhorts to and commends a Piece of private casual temporary transient Charity how much is due what might be said of such a publick so deliberately design'd and such a Lasting one an Everlasting one I hope as I stand here the Gratefull Subject of A private Man may cast his Bread upon the Waters in hopes to find it after many days and give a Portion to seven and also to eight because he knoweth not what Evil shall be upon the Earth And if notwithstanding this Design and these self-interested Principles the Work is excellent and acceptable both to God and Man it must needs be infinitely more so when a Prince becomes the Donor under whose Consideration none of those Hopes or Fears can reasonably be thought to fall And if the Relieving private and some few Persons want not its Praise and Glory they must both of them rise as the Merit does where the Publick is oblig'd and all may put in equal Claim and Title to the Benefaction that will be content with his way of Education The Story is well known to Vs be sure but he that would record the Virtuous Qualities and Fair Endowments of our Glorious Founder to those that are without or to Posterity could not by any means forget that most Remarkable and Noble Instance of his large and comprehensive Soul in generously Rejecting one of our first Governours for his too partial Fondness to his Native Countrey and endeavouring to appropriate all the Royal Bounty to it only considering with Himself that though a Private Man might do the same with Reason enough and Justice too yet that a Prince should both in this and every thing besides approve Himself a Father of the Publick Secondly A form'd premeditated and deliberate work of Charity has certainly the advantage of a casual accidental One this may be wrested only by the importunity of some that want compliance with the custome of the place forc'd by the example of the company and shame of being singular or exprest from men by the lamentable moans and presence of some piteous object and men are often seen upon removal of those objects and the going down of those mechanick springs of tenderness to harden and return again to their ill-natur'd tempers and frequently repent them of the good they did wishing themselves again possessors of their riches But he that acts deliberately that forms his designs beforehand without any present artificial motives and certainly intends them for a lasting benefit to all posterity must be presum'd in reason and in justice to build upon the best and surest grounds to proceed upon the noblest and most perfect Principles It can't indeed be said that this Foundation was