Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	chapter_n	holy_a	scripture_n	1,815	5	5.4680	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A23660	The danger of enthusiasm discovered in an epistle to the Quakers : in which 'tis endeavoured, to convince them of being guilty of changing God's method of bringing men to salvation / by one who is no more an enemy to their opinions, than their opinions are enemies to them themselves.	Allen, William, d. 1686.	1674 (1674)	Wing A1058; ESTC R13150	64,102	137

any worthy the Name of a Christian how weak soever but even of any that is worthy but of the Name of a man and not a And yet how are those Works in which these things are found applauded as the Works of a Prophet of the Lord by several men of great Note among you such as George Fox George Whitehead Francis Howgil and Josiah Co●le who adjoin their several Testimonials to them And wherfore do I lay these things before you but to give you occasion to reflect upon your selves and your way with a jealous eye and to convince you that ye know not of what Spirit ye are of but that while ye have thought ye have been walking in the Light ye have been walking in Darkness and that whilst ye have fancied your selves the most spiritual among Christians ye have discovered your selves to be but carnal If any man among you seemeth to be Religious and bridleth not his Tongue but deceiveth his own heart that man's Religion is vain Jam. 1. 26. If there be bitter Zeal glory not and lie not against the Truth for that wisdom is not from above as you are apt to boast it to be but from beneath and is Earthly Sensual and Devilish Jam. 3. 15. But it is not strange if men be left first or last to fall into unchristian practices who out of affectation of Novelty and Singularity in Doctrine and a desire to appear more sublime in their Notions than all that went before them have left the old beaten path of Christian Doctrine in which the several Generations of holy men have lived and walked from the Apostles time downwards For when men wax spiritually proud and wanton in rejecting the plain way and method which God hath chosen to bring men to saving Faith Repentance and a holy Life and to continue them in it and invent and chuse another in its stead and call it by the name of his and preach to and press it upon the people in his Name he takes no pleasure in their so doing nor doth he delight to vouchsafe his concurrent Grace and blessing therewith which he doth with his own way and method by which it becomes effectual to make men good and to keep them so And therefore as I said 't is no marvel if men by degrees lose in the goodness of their Frame and Temper which sometimes they had attained while they kept close to God's way and method in which he bestows it and degenerate into men of quite another Spirit and Temper when they forsake that and run into another of their own invention and choice The disobedient Jews who had declined from the better way of their Ancestors and grew into a worse spirit and temper they had a zeal of God still but not according to knowledge They did will and run for Justification and Life they followed after Righteousness and yet attained not to the Law of Righteousness and wherefore but because they sought it not by Faith which was the method of God's chusing but as it were by the works of the Law which was a method of their own chusing in opposition to God's Rom. 9. 31 32. § 2. And whether you are not guilty of rejecting God's way and method of converting men to and keeping them in the way of saving Faith Repentance and Evangelical Obedience and of inventing and chusing one of your own different from that comes now to to be considered I shall state your way in this by what you have published to the world in your own Books and for Brevity sake shall instance but in two Authors Ed. Burrough formerly and Mr. Pen of late who speak for you that which is otherwise well enough known to be your common Opinion In the Works of Ed. Burrough whom you are pleased to stile that true Prophet in the Title-Page which are published by you there are these Sayings In Page 252 thus His pure Spirit is put into the inward parts to be the Rule and Guide of Life in all things And again Only by the teaching of the Eternal Spirit is the Living God known in the Creature Again p. 408 It is promised saith he that the Spirit shall lead into all Truth and such do own the Scriptures but not as their Teacher for the Anointing dwells in them and they need no man to teach them but as that Anointing teacheth all things and they have no need of the Scripture to teach them for all the Children of God are taught of God and need not any other Teacher nor need not to say one to another Know the Lord. And yet all such do own the Scriptures to be the Testimony of that which they believe and have received And again in p. 834 The only perfect Rule of Conscience in the exercise to God is the Spirit of Christ and not any other thing And because something besides the Spirit of God exercises the Conscience therefore it is that here are so many Ways and Sects of Religion and kinds of Worship in Christendom and among Christians while the Spirit of Christ only is not the Rule of Judgment and exercise of Conscience to God and man Again pag. 861. The judgment in that matter Heresie must be just equal Holy and only by the Spirit of Christ which is infallible and gives infallibility of judgment and discerning into all Cases and Things Mr. Pen spends the Fourth Chapter of his late Book Entituled Reason against Railing to prove that the Light within and not the Scriptures is the Rule of Faith and Practice In p. 47. he saith We dare boldly affirm in the Name of the Lord that the great reason of our Belief concerning them the Scriptures is not any outward thing but that inward Testimony Record and heavenly Amen that we have frequently received from the Holy Light within us to the Truth and Faithfulness of those Sayings Again p. 48. Wherefore the Scriptures are so far from being the great Rule of Faith and Practice that the Light of Christ within us is both our Warrant and Rule for Faith in and Obedience to them Again p. 114. Let it be remembred saith he that Christ promised to send the Spirit of Truth to lead into all Truth as much as to say none are led into the Truth nor in the Truth but by the Holy Spirit of Truth or that their practice is a Lie or they are led into a Lie who are not led by the Spirit of Truth that alone leads into all the ways of Truth Where by Truth is not meant the meer Letter of the Scripture which notwithstanding is true but the living powerful Truth Christ the Way the Truth and the Life of which the Scripture is but a Record or Declaration And p. 115. Many may run into the practice of several outward things mentioned in the Scriptures to have been the practice of Saints in former Ages and yet not be led into the Truth for all that is but Will-Worship Imitation and Vnwarrantable Your

well as perswade them to do it as appears abundantly in your Books particularly in those of Edward Burroughs So that by this tergiversation and shuffling it plainly appears to intelligent men that the business at the bottom is not that you are against the needfulness of mans teaching notwithstanding all the teaching by the Light within but only against all other mens teaching but your own So that if you knew your own hearts in this business you would find that the meaning of your crying down all other Teachers is that yours alone might be exalted But if your Teachers or any among you do see and know the inconsistency of these your Pretences and Practices and yet use the Pretences for a blinde to hide the designe from the people it is then a perfect piece of There is another thing like unto this you say those that are taught of God need not that the Scripture should teach them and that all men are taught of God by his Light within them and yet it seems you think that men have need to be taught by your Books though they have no need to be taught by the Scriptures else why is the World troubled with so many of them The Pharisees made void the Commandments of God that they might establish their own Traditions and it looks but untowardly that while you represent the Holy Scripture as such a needless thing that you at the same time have sent out such a croud of your own Books as you have done And if you would have the people believe that they proceed from the same teaching of the Spirit as the Books of the Holy Scriptures do what shall the people then do when they find them to contradict one another as they may easily do if they will but do as the noble Bereans did who searched the Scriptures daily whether those things were so which were preached to them in the Name of the Lord. As in the present case before us the Scripture plainly teacheth one method of bringing men to Salvation and your books another Ed. Burrough in his book teacheth that that is not the body of Christ which was not with the Father before the World began p. 465. But the Scripture teacheth that in the fulness of time God sent forth hi Son made of a Woman Gal. 4. 4. Which of these two now must the people believe or which of these must be the rule to try the other by your Books or the Holy Scriptures I pray you speak out and tell the people plainly For if the Scriptures be true as you dare not deny but they are than your Books in such things as contradict them must be false and consequently not the Issue of the infallible Spirit as you would have the world believe they are But though we or an Angel from Heaven Preach any other Gospel unto you than that which we have Preached unto you let him be accursed said St. Paul Gal. 1. 8. I have been the longer upon the Point of your Enthusiasm by which you have set up a new method of your own in opposition to God's method of bringing men to the Christian belief and Life because I deem it a Mother and a Master-Error to many others which you hold And therefore have good hopes that if you could but be cured of this you would be in a hopeful way of being cured of the rest which depend on it with less difficulty Having therefore been so long upon this beyond what I first intended I shall draw towards a conclusion of this address to you not engageing in particular with the rest of your mistakes But before I make an end I would caution you touching two or three things which among others may probably have had a large share in introducing you into this strange mistake § 20. The one is an opinion or conceit that the Gospel is a more mysterious thing than indeed it is It is true there are things in the Gospel called a Mystery the Mysterie of God's will the Mystery of Christ the Mystery of Faith the Mystery of Godliness and to you saith Christ to the Disciples 't is given to know the Myeries of the Kingdom of God and the like Upon occasion of all which and the like expressions in Scripture Some people have fancied that there is something else necessary to make a man a true Christian indeed than what is obvious to vulgar apprehensions and easie to be understood as other matters are And therefore they have been wont to esteem a plain and familiar way of teaching the Doctrine of repentance and the necessity of obedience to the Law of God together with a belief that Christ dyed for our sins and rose again according to the Scriptures to be but a dry and legal way of Preaching And those that have vented high Speculations and almost or altogether unintelligible notions and new coined Phrases and expressions concerning the work of God in the Soul and of Union with Christ and Communion with God of living by faith and walking in the Spirit these they have accounted Evangelical Preachers and such preaching and discourses in conference to be truly Spiritual and those to be Spiritual Christians that are of this make And because this way obtained a great reputation among a great many of Christian Professors many persons have been tempted hereby to proceed so far from one thing to another in this way both allegorizing Scriptures of plain import and turning plain points of Doctrine and of great concern into Mystical speculations until they have made another thing of the plain Doctrine of the Gospel than Christ made it And this seems to be directly your Case who in this way are come at last to turn the plain and intelligible method of God's proceeding with men to bring them to the Christian belief and Life and so to salvation into Enthusiastical Fancies Airy Notions and speculations Such is your conceited Mistery of of the inward Flesh of Christ in contradistinction to the Flesh of the Veil as you phrase it as if Christ had two kinds of Flesh one hid under another by which you trouble yea utterly confound the true Notion of Christ's humane Nature and the great effects which the Scripture attributes to the Flesh or humane Nature of Christ those you attribute to a meer fiction which you call the inward Flesh a thing altogether forraign to the Scripture an error doubtless of a very high nature Such also is your spiritualizing Baptism and the Lords Supper to the exclusion of their literal use and to the disparagement of his wisdome and goodness that ordained them as well as to the contempt of his Authority which hath enjoined the use of them for the ends for which they were first instituted Such likewise is your invented Mistery of the Redemption of the Seed in men for the Scripture speaks of no such thing but of the Redemption of men themselves This mistake about the Mysteriousness of the Christian Religion hath