Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	church_n	speak_v	word_n	2,592	5	3.8764	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A47200	The woman-preacher of Samaria a better preacher, and more sufficiently qualified to preach than any of the men-preachers of the man-made-ministry in these three nations / by George Keith.	Keith, George, 1639?-1716.	1674 (1674)	Wing K236; ESTC R218789	20,048	40

Scripture but never one word they question them concerning the work of God in their hearts or concerning their Faith and Piety But alas how can they try them concerning the work of Grace in their Hearts seeing they acknowledge th●● have not a discerning themselves whereby to know them surely and infallibly yea they affirm there is no such discerning in these dayes as whereby men can be known to be truly gracious And doth not sad Experience shew it that the generality of those Preachers have not true Faith and Piety their Lives and Conversations are so gross and Carnal Yea do not many of themselves see it and have they not complained of it And yet doth not this Principle of theirs That wicked Men may be Preachers and ought to be Received lay a Foundation for a wicked 〈◊〉 And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being laid with their own Hands will not wicked Men come in thick and throng And will not th●se 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to have all like themselves If they can have a wicked Man will not the wicked prefer him to another that but seems to be a godly and may or may not be and thus in process of time the whole Ministry will consist of ungodly men the wicked being still preferred by the wicked and carrying it by most Votes as among them called Presbyterians or by the Authority of the Bishop as among the Episcopal Oh! for shame never say that you are for a godly Ministry while you both lay such a Foundation for the ungodly And Secondly as both sorts hold that true Faith and Piety is not necessary to a Mans being a Preacher so they hold that immediate revelation and to be immediately taught by Christ himself is not necessary either to his being or better being yea they wholly exclude it and affirm that all immediate Revelation and Teaching by Christ himself so as to teach Men the Truths of the Gospel is ceased since the Apostles dayes and is no more to be expected while the World lasts so Iames Durham concerning Prophecying in his afore said Book and in the first Page of that Book he saith God hath spoke his last words to his Church by Iohn in the Revelation and so the Church nor any in the Church is not to hear any word from God or Christ himself nay he hath spoken his last words sixteen hundred Years ago Oh gross blindness and darkness Is the Lord wholly absent from his Church Or if he be present with her and in her doth he never speak himself Hath he lost the power of his Speech or his willingness to speak that he hath been so long silent Surely nay as it is written Our God will speak and not keep silence he is not so unkind nor hard-hearted as those Men would make him so as not to speak himself And as concerning the immediate Teachings of Christ who is such a Stranger unto them and their Principles who know not that they deny them and are Enemies unto them and that one of the main things of Controversie betwixt them and us lyeth here they say the immediate Teachings of Christ are all ceased since the Apostles dayes We say not and we are Witnesses of the contrary in our Experience who witness the New Covenant fulfilled they shall be all taught of the Lord that is immediately else what doth the new excel the old and first Covenant in For under the old they were taught of the Lord mediately as by Moses and the Prophets but under the new they are taught of God himself who dwelleth in them and walketh in them and is their Teacher Shepheard and Husband And now How can these Men be taught of the Lord himself or immediately to Preach Christ who deny the thing it self How can we have Charity unto them to believe they are so taught while they deny that any are so taught in those days And then what is their Preaching of him it is but by hearsay and report they are all short of this Woman She both heard Christ himself and saw himself which none of them as they confess have ever done they say they have never seen him nor heard him nor spoken with him and yet they preach whereas she both heard him and saw him before she Preached him and thus did John and the Apostles Preach him That which was in the beginning which we have seen with our eyes and heard with our ears and our hands have handled of that Word of Life we declare unto you for the Life was manifested and we have seen it and delare it unto you that you may have fellowship with us c. Now which of the two ways of Preaching are the best to Preach only from a hearsay by others or from a fight and hearing of Christ himself Surely this was the best and therefore this Woman is a better Preacher than all your University men and Doctors amd Batchelors she learned more of Christ from himself in that small time perhaps not one hours length than your Doctors and University men have yet learned for all their many years Studying labouring Reading and Hearing As Christ upbraided the Jews that they had neither heard his Fathers Voice nor seen his shape so it may be said of them yea they say it themselves they have neither heard him nor seen him Alas for such Teachers What should men hear them for they can tell us no more of him but as they have heard it from men or read it in the Seripture and all their knowledge is fron the Scripture and all have the Scripture as well as they and so without them by the Scripture may know as much of Christ as they and save both their pains and their Money And as concerning this Woman it is manifest that as she heard him and saw him outwardly so she both heard him and saw him inwardly and was taught by his spirit in her heart for had she not been inwardly taught and heard inwardly she could not have believed on him which she did neither had the outward hearing and seeing made her blessed for many heard and saw him outwardly and yet were not blessed But said Christ to his Disciples Blessed are your eyes for they see and blessed are your ears for they hear this was inwardly they both heard and saw inwardly and this made them blessed whereas others heard and saw outwardly and therefore were not blessed as the Disciples and this Woman was Yea that she was taught inwardly and that more largely and fully than by what she heard outwardly it doth manifestly appear from her words in that she said He hath told me all things that ever I did now this could not be outwardly for he told her but some things outwardly as concerning her Husbands that were dead and how the man she had was not her Husband and certainly in so small a time as they had together words outwardly could not have told her the half yea not the hundred part of all that ever she did she was