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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	answer_v	scripture_n	word_n	1,678	5	4.1153	3	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56305	The church of Christ in Bristol recovering her vail out of the hands of them that have smitten and wounded her, and taken it away. Being, a just and necessary vindication, from a false and scandalous imputation cast upon her by Dennis Hollister, formerly a member of her, but now an apostate from, and an opposer of those waies, truths, and people, which once he seemed zealous for. As appears by a late pamphlet put forth by him, called, The skirts of the whore discovered. With some particular words, from some particular persons whom he hath by name abused and reproached. Likewise a word by Thomas Ewen, unto what concerns him in the said pamphlet, and also to the later part of another book, called, Satan enthroned in his chair of pestilence.	Purnell, Robert, d. 1666. aut	1657 (1657)	Wing P4232; ESTC R213966	65,602	90

and stiled them so though they had many miscarriages but those that were stiled of the Synagogue of Satan were a company of proud boasters that said they were Jews and Apostles but did lie and were not so now consider who are those at this day that call themselves Apostles and boast of perfection do any of us do so or do not they that ye own do so and hath not the Church of Bristol tryed them and their Doctrins and found them lyars and their Doctrins false as the Church of Ephesus did Rev. ● 2. witness James Naylor Christopher Atkinson and others whose Books some of us have read and tryed and have found them to be contrary to the glorious Gospel of the grace of God which was preached by the true Servants of God and therefore have upon a good ground rejected them according to the counsel of the Spirit of God Gal. 1. 8 9. 2 John 10 vers But you say possitively that we are found to be a Synagogue of Satan was it ever heard that any man either Prophets or Apostles or any that feared God or expected to give an account of his words and actions did assume that boldness as thus to judge a people professing godliness every one of which are able to give a good account of their faith in Jesus and that do strive to walk up to what they know c. Is not this to take the place of Jesus Christ whose prerogative alone it is to try hearts and judge persons c. Did you not say truly when you said you did not know Christ and might you not have said as truly you did not acknowledg him for certainly did you ever think to stand before him to give an account of your hard speeches you could never speak and write thus Oh that you would consider what you have spoken and written to the grief of Christs wounded ones Psal 69. 26 If it were better that a milstone were hanged about a mans neck and he cast into the Sea than that he should offend one of Christs little ones Matt. 18. 6. How sad is it then for you to offend and grieve judge and condemn near 60 persons calling them a Synagogue of Satan c. and that for no other cause but that after praying for you and mourning over you we sent three times in love and pity to admonish you of the evil of your way you should now break out thus violently against us O blush and roul your self in the dust that if yet the day of Grace and door of Mercy be not shut against you You say it is in answer to a charge brought against you by some of the Members c. Truly we could have been glad that you had spared us that pains and had not conscience of our duty and love to the name of the Lord and to your soul prevailed with us more than any delight we had in that work you had never heard of us in that kind You say it is by you for the sake of the simple hearted among us published blessed be the Lord there are some simple plain honest hearted amongst us had you and the rest been so no doubt you would have stayed with us and thus much for the first branch of your Title page We observe that you begin your Epistle to the Reader as likewise your Book with the word outward fellowship c. Truly we shall easily grant that your fellowship in the things of God was but outward for had it been inward and spiritual in truth and sincerity you would no doubt have continued in it but as it is written 1 John 2 19. They went out from us because they were not of us We shall not spend time to answer every passage in your Letter lest as Solomon speaks Prov. 26 4. we should be like unto you and yet we shall answer some things lest as Prov. 26 5. you should be wise in your own conceit As for those Scripture expressions in your Book though misapplied by you yet we hope we shall consider them and examine our selves by them though not as they come from you but as they are the words of God and as for those taunts scorns false accusations judgings and condemnations of which your Pamphlet is full we hope we may as we have opportunity spread them before the Lord as Hezekiah did the Letter that he received Isa 37. 14. we being otherwise taught than to render evil for evil or railing for railing but rather to bless 1 Pet. 3. 9. having the example of Christ herein as well as a Precept hereto 1 Pet. 2. 23. Mat. 5. 44. yet we cannot but take notice of the absurdity of your arguing and proceeding wherein you first beg the question and then draw what inferences you please you first stile us a Synagogue of Satan c. and then heap up threatnings against us as such c. much like the heathen persecutors of old who would first wrap the Saints in the skins of Beasts and then set the dogs upon them to tear them c. Would you not count it an absurd thing if any man should come to you and heap up all the Scriptures that speak against murderers Adulterers Drunkards Swearers Lyers Theeves c. and apply them unto you taking it for granted that you are such a one and then ask you if this be not Scripture c. Or on the other side if one should take all the Scriptures that speak comfort to the true Saints in a suffering and persecuted condition and apply them to a common thief that is cast in prison for his wickedness or to a Malefactor that is going to suffer justly for his evil deeds c. Now this is just your way of reasoning and many others with you first to heap up multitudes of Scriptures that speak against the Whore of Babylon against Anti-christ against the Beast and the false Prophets against Hypocrites and Rejectors of the Gospel and against other ungodly and wicked persons c. and apply all this to whom you please either to the Churches of Christ or to the faithful preachers of the Gospel or to any other godly people right or wrong if they stand in your way you conclude they are such because you call them so whereas they may as soon prove the former things against you as you can prove the later against them so likewise the comforts and promises made to suffering Saints may as well be applyed to a common thief c. As to some of those that you stile the Servants and Witnesses of Jesus and this we find was Rabshaketh his way of arguing with Hezekiah 2 Kings 18. 22. Now had Hezekiah been the man and had he done the things that Rabshaketh there charged him with then he had reasoned rightly but Rabshaketh was mistaken in his foundation taking the things for granted whereas there was no such matter for godly Hezekiah had done no such thing onely Rabshaketh by his wit and subtilty framed

Harlot the truth of which sensoriousness the whole Church can testifie yea we could give many particular instances were it necessary but what need we go further than your present Letter where in your Reply to this third particular you call the Church a Harlot c. and page 20. where you rehearsing what you had said amongst us before you left us confess that you did at last say our Church was but a Harlot and yet now you say this charge is false and from the Father of lies and that the Church of Christ you do own dearly c. Now here you come in again with your mental reservation saying you did not call the Church of Christ so but the People in Bristol which you say is a Harlot now is this honesty or any thing else but deceit and hypocrisie did not we send to admonish you for calling this Church in Bristol a Harlot which you confess you did and yet you say this charge is false and from the Father of lies we wonder who is your Father in this thing and what appears in you but meer deceit and subtilty equivocation and mental reservation O! for shame lay aside these unchristian practises and here we desire all Christians to consider whether this were a studied and false accusation as you say The fourth branch of your Admonition is your asserting in the Church Doctrins contrary to truth three of which are mentioned many more might have been c. First you asserted at a Meeting in your own house that as Christ was the great light of the World so he was the great Faith of the World and that Christ and Faith was all one and that Christ was not the object of Faith Our question was not about the oneness or nearness that there is between Christ and Faith but whether the person of Christ and the grace of Faith were not to be distinguished and whether Jesus Christ in his person as God-Man be not the object of Faith as him whom man is to believe in for Salvation Your assertion was we did not know what Faith was and that Faith was an eternal thing alleging that Scripture 2 Cor. 4. last But the things which are not seen are eternal This occasioned many Scriptures to be brought to prove that Christ and Faith were to be distinguished and that Christ was the object of Faith and though the word object be not used in Scripture in that sense yet we are often bid to look unto Christ for Salvation as Isa 45. 22. Zach. 12. 10 Heb 12 2. which Scriptures were then alleged against what you asserted Now in your Reply you allege 1 Tim. 1. 9 you say faith is a Mistery held in a pure conscience hid from al ignorant and vulturous eyes c. in which Reply of yours you shew your weakness in abusing the words and sense of the Apostle as any judicious Christian may perceive by comparing your Book with that Scripture c. but upon the matter you do now say as much as we did then admonish you of And whereas you demand why we did not then question you and that if it be for conscience sake why had we not done it sooner and why had we not disproved you by the Scripture and why would we suffer things contrary to truth to be asserted among us without rebuke c. We answer you were presently opposed and blamed for asserting such things as you were at several other times for asserting such things which in the 20 page of your Book you call some manifestation of truth that was breaking forth in you some years past at which some were offended and contradicted it c. though for a solemn dealing with you we did not till you left the Church which perhaps was our sin and your misery but considering your spirit and the state of the Church we knew not how to set about it though some saw ground enough to do it c. The fifth branch of your Admonition which was for speaking against the Scriptures affirming they were blind and a plague to souls and that they were not the Word of God nor the Rule of Life c. For the first part of this branch you did at a Meeting again at your own house affirm which many took notice of as well those that were not of the Church as those that were whereby the thing was publickly known in the Citie and became a reproach to the Church an eminent person of the Citie enquiring of one of us about it and that you did speak these words is as certain as ever you did speak word in your life some of us sitting over against you do well remember with what kind of passion you spake it clapping your hand upon the Book or Table saying that that Book or Scripture was one of the greatest blinds and plagues to mens souls this day in England and these words became a reproach to the Church upon which we did admonish you and though now in your Book you say that this charge is utterly false and from the Father of lies and invented by his instruments yet we do again affirm and will set our hands to it that you did speak these very words Secondly for that expression that the Scriptures are not the Word of God c. did not you at the red Lodge in the Gardenhouse before near twenty people say so when one of us being by bid you for shame not to speak so it is true you did at a Meeting a little before you left us propose it to consideration as a thing wherein we had been mistaken yet so as your very proposing of it did imply the negative other instances also we could give at private conferences that some of us had with you about the same thing but what need we say more do you not demand in your Book page 19. where doth the Scripture call it self the Word of God to which we answer we shall give you four plain places instead of many Jer. 30. 2 4. Rev. 17. 17. Prov. 30. 5. Mark 7. 8 9 13. But what should we go to light a candle to the Sun have not many judicious and godly Writers long ago proved against former Athiests and Hereticks that the Scripture is the Word of God though neither they nor we deny that glorious Tittle that God the Father hath put upon the person of Jesus Christ that his Name should be called the Word of God Rev. 19. 13. And thirdly whereas you demand to whom was the Scripture the Rule of Life We answer to all the People of God to whom they were given Deut. 4. 8. and 5 31 32. Mat. 5. 6. 7. chap. Rom. 12. All which containeth Rules and Directions for Christians to walk by but it is the character of wicked men that they cast the Law of God behind their backs And thus we have proved every tittle you are charged with in your Admonition to be true and clear so that we are no liars

done with the substance of your Letter I intend to add a short word to the ensuing part of your Book but I shall first make a little digression by joyning an occasional word to what I have now written c. I shall desire you to Consider Whether you are not by this act of yours in publishing me thus to the world tickled the hearts and pleased the fancies of many who were full enough of prejudice against me before nay are you not joyned as a Brother in bitterness with him that wrote the late Book called Satan Enthroned in his chair of Pestilence Let any judicious Christian compare your Book with the latter part of his and see whether those two bitter streams do not both arise from one corrupt fountain namely the Spirit that is from beneath may not I return your own words upon you which you unjustly charge upon me and this Church from Obediah 11 Thou wast like one of them c. and is this the kindness of a friend or the part of a brother O how truly are those Scriptures fulfilled in you Mic. 7. 5. Trust ye not in a friend c. Jer. 9. 4. Take ye heed c. for every brother will utterly supplant and every neighbour will walk with slanders You had written your Letter to me about a year ago and if you had known ought by me you might have written more but for you now to publish it to the world and to proclaim it in your Frontispiece and that in such a subtile manner that he that reads your title page and my name would verily think if they did not know otherwise that I were some dreadful persecutor and that I had caused some Servant of Christ to be whipt and punished but I trust the Lord will look upon my wrong and your envie my innocency and your hypocrisies c. but I know it is in vain to write farther to you and truly had it not been for the vindication of the truth and satisfact on of some poor souls in this City and Nation I should have cast your Book and the other mans Book aside and never have troubled my self to have answered you or him but since it is so that both your Books are spread abroad and read by many at which some are grieved others staggered and people generally apt to conclude that things are so as he and you have said because I am silent and say nothing as I remember it was with me once before when a publick Scandal was raised and cast upon me at my first coming to Bristol which the Lord knew and I in my own Conscience knew I was as innocent in as any man or child under heaven and therefore sate still about half a year resolving my innocency should answer for me c. which made many conclude I was guilty because I was silent till at length I was forced to seek a publick Vindication by the Magistrate which I had and then the mouths of bad people were stopped and the minds of good people satisfied So I conceive it might be now if I were wholly silent as to what you and he do write though indeed I had resolved silence and to have given you and him and others leave to have trampled upon me and were I in a private capacity I think I should do so but forasmuch as the Lord hath set me as a publick instrument in his work and that that which you and he have written of me tends much to the defaming of me and the hindrance of my work by laying stumbling blocks of prejudice into the minds of people against me I therefore think my self bound for the truths sake and for the sake of some good people in this City being thereunto also advised and perswaded by godly friends to set forth a few words of truth and soberness both to your Book and his And I desire that neither you nor he will be offended that I joyn you both together in this my Answer for first you are much alike Brethren in bitterness against the people called Independants and Baptized as may be seen throughout your Book and in the latter part of his Secondly I find that he hath often joyned you with me therefore I think it not improper to coupple him with you and I hope that neither your friends nor his will look upon my so doing as any disparagment to you or him Yet I must needs say in some things he is more modest than you in that he doth not name me as you often do though in some things you are more serious than he in that you do not 〈◊〉 as he often doth but both you and he have done what you could to lay me under contempt and scorn to the whole City and Nation and therefore I shall now address my self to answer some few passages in his Book though not for your information but for my own Vindication and for publick and general satisfaction c. And first in the 48 page of that his Book called Satan enthroned in his Chair of Pestilence c. he tells a story how they meaning the Church in Bristol send for a Taylor out of Wales to be their Teacher c. in which he deals very dis-ingeniously for first he knew that I was sent for by the Major of the City some Aldermen many of the Council and other Gentlemen and Commissioners of the City of Bristol which I take to be the Representative of the City c. As likewise I was sent for by many of the godly inhabitants as I have elsewhere declared and that not only to be a Teacher in the Church of Bristol but to be a publick Preacher of the Gospel in the City as I have through the help and grace of Christ hitherto continued and he himself at my first coming gave me the right hand of fellowship and professed he was satisfied in my Call But secondly I was no more a Taylor in Wales than he was any of his former Callings after he came to Bristol For when I was called to Preach the Gospel in Wales I left my former Employment as he did leave his several Callings when he took to Preaching the next thing concerning me in his Book is page 50. where he mentioneth a great Woman that had three Children unbaptized the truth of which I shall relate by which the falseness of his Relation will appear c. There was about the time of my coming first to Bristol a godly woman one at whose Husbands house the Church did often use to meet she having been delivered of a Child did about a month after desire the Church to meet at her house to render praise to the Lord and to spend some time in Prayer and conference c. accordingly the Elder that then was did upon the first day of the week appoint that the next Meeting should be at such a place to such an end now when the Church was met she desired that her Children might also

by Iames Naylor a man then highly admired and cried up by you or those of your way as a man of great infallibility which perhaps might help to puff him up with pride by which he came to fall into this fad condemnation c. Now whereas some of your way boast much of your being all led by one and the same Spirit so that though they were at a great distance yet they all speak but one thing c. Now let any man read and compare your answers with Iames Naylors and see how near they come together unless it be in railing judging and censuring though therein I must needs say his answers are more moderate than yours And whereas a late Writer for your way puts it by way of derision to the Preachers in England that if six of the most able Doctors should have a portion of Scripture given them to interpret and they shut up in six several rooms c. that perhaps not two of the six agree in their interpretation Now suppose you had taken four more of your Teachers such as some of you had challenged the whole world to accuse of sin and made them six in number and have given them these sixteen Quaeries apart to answer perhaps they would have come as rear as you and Naylor do in your answers or as six of the weakest Preachers in England might have done in their interpreting a place of Scripture As for your word to England I shall say little to that but desire rather to mourn for the evils and abominations therein as I know it is my duty and yours also if you knew how to do it and so I conclude expecting that I shall have many sharp Arrows of bitter words shot at me both by you and others but for that I matter not much being conscious to my self that I have written in plainness words of truth and soberness and that I have been pressed by others to do what I have done and that rather for the vindication of truth than of my self and rather for the sakes of some godly people who may read it than for your sakes to whom I direct it and if you or others shall dip your pens in Vineger or Gall to write again I hope I shall bear it or modestly reply to it though my thoughts are rather to suffer my self to be trampled upon then again to answer a word seeing that of making many Books there is no end and much study is a weariness of the flesh Eccles 12. 12. And knowing also that neither you nor others can speak or write me so vile as I can and do see and acknowledge my self to be as in my self yet is my perfection and compleatness in another even in Christ Jesus my Lord in whom is all righteousness all strength and all fulness laid up for all those that sensibly see and feel that in them that is in their flesh dwelleth no good thing c. and thereupon do look unto him to receive of his fulness grace for grace in which glorious person all that do believe are justified and by whose grace and blessed Spirit they are in a measure sanctified and through whose pretious blood and perfect righteousness mediation and intercession they shall be eternally saved and in whose way I could as gladly now as ever subscribe my self Your Friend T. E. FINIS There is now in the Press a Book written by Robert Purnel entituled A little Cabbinet richly stored with all sorts of heavenly varieties wherein there is a Remedy for every Malady viz. Milk for Babes and Meat for strong Men and the ready way for both to obtain and retain assurance of Salvation being an Abridgment of the sum and substance of the true Christian Religion and to be fold at the Three Bibles in Paul's Church-yard