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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	certain_a	church_n	scripture_n	1,732	5	5.7322	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62893	The Muggletonians principles prevailing being an answer in full to a scandalous and malicious pamphlet, intituled A true representation of the absurd and mischevious principles of the sect called Muggletonians : herein the aforesaid principles are vindicated, and proved to be infallibly true : and the author of that libel, his scandalous title and subject proved as false to truth, as light is to darkness, and that he knows no more what the true God is, nor what the right devil is, nor any true principle or foundation of faith, for all his great learning he so much bosts of, then those Jews that put the Lord of life to death, for learned and taught reason is but natural, and so falls short of the glory of God, as will appear in the following discourse / by T.T.	Tomkinson, Thomas, 1631-1710?	1695 (1695)	Wing T1840; ESTC R18719	47,859	79

behold him as he is in his full Glory Deut. 10.6 If God was willing at any time that some of his Servants the Prophets should behold him he was compelled to vale his Glory so as that their frail Nature might be in a capasity to behold him And this we further affirm That we can sooner find in Scripture that our God hath and ever had a distinct Body of himself than you can find in Scripture a Trinity of Persons in one Godhead for if you find Three distinct Persons then you must find Three Bodies and where then is your Spirit God become 4. Again is not the Scriptures clear That the Fathers of old did see God Gen. 17.3 Exod. 24.10 Isa 6.5 John 35.9 Exod. 33.23 and ever beheld him in Form and Shape of a Man Will you say that God assumed that Shape and yet had no Shape of his own this is to make God a Conniver It is no wonder as I said before that you dispise John Reeve for saying that the Lord spake to him to the hearing of the Ear for you do not believe that God hath any Tongue to speak at all For say you a Spirit hath no Flesh and hath no Body For say you Body and Spirit are Two contrary things As the Scripture saith that God hath a Body Dan. 7.9 Revel 10.1 1.14 John 6. ● Psal 94.9 N●m● 12.8 Isa 6● 5 so it attributes to this Body Hands Eyes Face Nose Mouth Ears Arms Leggs Breast Heart Back c. And yet must he have never a Body this is clearly to deny Scripture for the Scripturian saith That God hath a Body but the Antescripturian saith That God hath neither Body Parts or Shape but yet is an infinite vast God filling all things and is in all Places at one and the same time and so can neither Assend nor Descend Come nor Go but is everywhere at once as your great Augustin saith This is yours and the Worlds monstrous God Are those the Men that are so capable of Argument if we should be as ignorant in the Scriptures as you it were no matter if our Tongues should cleave to the Roof of our Mouths I wonder you are not ashamed to pretend to Scripture do you believe the Scripture Certain I am that there are many Doctors of your Church that doth not believe them at all for instance hereof there is one of your Doctors namely Dr. More This Man in one of his Books called his Cabila doth little less than give the Scripture the Ly for treating upon the Creation of Man by Moses saith That the Scriptures doth not always speak according to the exactness of Truth but according to their Appearance in Sense and the vulgar Opinion and he quotes Chrisostim Bernard and Aquinus as holding the same things and instances it as to the Creating of Adam and Eve Saying thus God hath no Figure or Shape altho Moses saith he hath he only permits the Ignorant and Vulgar People to Believe so it being his Prudence and Policy so to do Now is not this Odious for what Prudence is it to Flatter Dissemble and Deceive the People for must Gods Prophets be but like Polititians of State pretending one thing and acting another Again this Man brings in Moses speaking thus God took of the Dust of the Ground wrought it with his Hands into such a temper that it was fit to make the Body of a Man which when framed then comes near to it with his Mouth and breathed into his Nostrils the Breath of Life And when God had made a Woman of one of Adam 's Ribs he takes her by the Hand and brought her to Adam so when Adam was awaked Ge● 2● 21 he found his Dream to be true for he dream'd that God took a Woman out of him for God stood by him with a Woman in his Hand Now it is true says this Doctor Moses spakes in this manner to satisfy the rude Multitude who was ever ready to think that God was in Forme and Shape as they were and thus Moses complyed with their Humour and permited them to belive so yet saith he it is a Contradiction to the Idia of God to have Figure and Shape Now what say you to this is not this giving Moses the Lie Moses you see would permit People to believe That God was in the Form of a Man Now why will not you permit us to believe so Moses did not count this Doctrine a mischievous Principle as you do but you with this Man set your selves against Moses and against the Scriptures they are counted no other than a Lie with you Now it is clear by this that many of you Doctors are stark blind Athists your Protestant Church is now grown as blind with Age almost as your Fathers the Papists and as Atheistical as one of the Popes who said That that Fable of Jesus Christ had brought their Church great Riches And one of that Church said to me that the Scriptures were but balderdash Stuff Now as to that saying of Christ's to his Disciples That a Spirit had not Flesh and Bone as he had it was only to inform them that there was no such Spirit as the World imagined that could be seen that had no Body for Eyes of Flesh must have a Substance for its Object Therefore said Christ handle me and see for I have a Body a Substance of very Flesh and Bone John 20 2● and they felt and believed him to be their Lord and God For Christ from hence would have them for ever after to know that all Spirits whither of God Men or Angels are always invisible for it is the Body that is visible for the Soul that is in it is always invisible which Spirit comprehends all visible things yet cannot Live Act or Operate without its Body And so much for that Principle Again Page 19th you Representor object against that most divine and misterious Principle of God the Fathers becoming Flesh and call this a Doctrine quite contrary to Scripture and produce those Scriptures for Proof against us namely that God sent his Son made of a Woman And the Word was made Flesh but say you there is not one Word That the Father was made Flesh CHAP. VIII ANSWER IT is confessed by us Gal. 4.4 John 5.26 10.18 Epb. 5.2 that the Scripture saith That God sent his Son as also that Christ came of himself and that he laid down his Life of himself Now if he laid down his Life of himself then where was the Father but in himself for it was his divine Spirit that was the Father by which he could lay down his Life by that self and by that self could take it up again For God transmuteing his spiritual Body into Flesh so gained the Godhead and humane Nature together Heb. 1.3 and so hath a Twofold Self Humane and Divine Therefore when he saith he hath Power of himself to lay down his Life Titus

your Brethren are the Worlds Ministers and the World hears you and hence it is that you appeal to the World 1 John 4.5 John 7.7 for the World will Love its own Here now you appear to be a right Legolist Deut. 27. Judg 17.10 11 12 13. in imitation of the Levits of old for that Priesthood was to teach Reason the Moral Law for its reasonable Service that it should not Murder Commit Adultery Steal or bare false Witness which Reason is subject to do But all the Prophets spiritual Declarations belonged to the Elect Seed of Faith Psal 119.100 and was spoken into that innocent Nature that cannot do Evil and that in order to a further degree of Knowledg Love and Obedience Wherefore then if by your Teaching you can keep your Disciples in Sobriety and the Bounds of Reason this is a Virtue and brings with it the Temporal Blessing promised that Seed but if so it be Deur 28.2 3 4 5 6. that your Reason will seek Lordship John 19.7 Mat. 18.6 and would be a Judg and Controwler of Faith it is nothing less than a Devil and will be damn'd to Eternity And herein appears your Blindness notwithstanding your earthly Wisdom Ezek. 34.17 Matt. 25.33 1 John 1.17 because by it you cannot distinguish betwixt the Two Seeds of Faith and Reason or the Law and the Gospel But to proceed and come to the Matter in Question Would you Priests have us be tryed by your Arguments Then you are like to have the Cause if you must be your own Judges like the Jews by our Saviour his Prophets and Apostles But this we presume to tell you that your Reason being but Natural 1 Cor. 2.13 1 John 4.1 Rom. 2.2 Acts 17.2 24 25. therefore it cannot try spiritual Truth but our Faith can try your Arguments and it can take up Reason as a Servant to argue with you in the Balance of your own Reason the Angels Nature fallen nevertheless we can no more agree than the Prophet Jeremiah and those National false Priests did in the like Dispute Because Faith when it takes up Reason it takes it up not to expound and open the Sence of Scripture Sayings but as a Servant to Illustrate that Revealed Word by Argument for the further Confounding of that unclean domineering Reason that doth oppose its spiritual Sence But on the contrary when learned Reason takes up Words of Faith it expounds it by the Imagination of Reason Rom. 1.25 Revel 3.9 in respect its Reason is Lord in its Soul and so turns Truth into a Ly and the Elogancy of its Speech must form the Substance of the Matter 1 Cor. 1.20 Revel 11.2 and then War is proclaimed against the Truth and so Truth must be trod under Foot Thus did the false Priests deal by Jeremiah Come say they Jer. 11.19 let us devise Devises against him and let us destroy the Tree with its Fruit and let us out him off that his Name may be no more Remembred That is let us destroy his Person which is the Tree and let us destroy its Fruit that is his Doctrin or Declarations for he is in bringing in another Priesthood therefore Report and we will Report Jer. 18.18 20.10 2.8 Mal. 2.7 let us frame our Arguments against him for he saith That they that handle the Law know not God when as it is written That the Law shall not perish from the Priests nor Counsel from the Wise Misrepresenting Doctor are not your Arguments answerable to theirs even to a Hair Therefore as true Wisdom was departed from them so it is now from you and from all those National pretended Gospel-Ministers tho you bost as they did yet have you nothing but an empty Title not so much as a grain of spiritual Sense appeareth but as it was their Blindness so it is yours who understand not that the spiritual Law of Faith will never depart from that Spiritual Priest the true Christrian Ezek. 7.26 1 Pet. but his Lips shall ever preserve true Knowledg And this Priesthood will never terminate but will be with them to the end of the World For after Faith is enlightened by a Commission from Heaven then it needs no other Teacher 1 John 2. ●● but that Unction which it hath received for the Spritit of Faith is Christ's Vicar But your outward visible Worships that are taken up from former Commissions they are ended and the spirit of God is gone out of them but this will bring a Box upon my Cheeks by you Non-Commissionated Minister as your Predecessor did to Micaiah the Prophet with a 1 Kings 22 2● Which way went the spirit of God from me to thee But as the Law of Faith Isa 59 21 Heb. 10.58 which we have known and received will never depart from us so we need not to your assumed counterfit Priesthood but live by our own generated Faith now awakened or eluminated Ephes 5.14 by the Doctrin of this Commission of the spirit for we have no new Faith given but the old awakened as aforesaid for Faith was but once given 2 Pet. ● 18 and every Commissionated Prophet Messenger or Minister of God Ads a further Light and Knowledg to it So that now through Grace we have attained to a more principal Degree of Knowledg of the true God and the right Devil than others had before us so that from hence we are not wanting in Wisdom to answer your strongest Arguments your Reason can devise 〈◊〉 ●1 ●1 Therefore muster up your Army raise all your Forses from all parts and from all your Priests that you have distributed your Books to yet shall you never be able to disprove by your Subtilty quell by your Power 〈…〉 or subdue by your Force the Muggletonian's Principles because Salvation and nothing less is their assured Walls and Bulworks But to your following Arguments I apply myself to Answer by truth of Scripture The Accusation against us In Page the First you make your Book to consist of Two Queries First Whether John Reeve and Lodowick Muggleton are sent of God Secondly Whether they are the Witnesses spoken of in the 11th of the Revelations To your First Querie you have largely repeated several of their Saings which you say they pretend to be true Characters and Evidences of their Commission Now after your Ramble in Page the 4th your First Evidence is That John Reeve saith That God spake to him Three Mornings together And say you Muggleton saith That it is God's speaking plain Words to the hearing of the outward Ear as well as the inward Soul that doth make a Man a Commissioner This Evidence say you is of no value because say you I cannot tell whether it be a true Voice or an imaginary lying Voice such a one as John Reeve said was in John Robins It is say you but their say so And then you conclude saing For let their