Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	new_a	scripture_n	testament_n	8,305	5	8.0705	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62157	Some queries proposed, to the monethly meeting of the Quakers at Aberdeen; the sixth day of June, 1700. By Robert Sandilands With their answers thereto; together with some remarks thereupon. Published by authority. To which is prefixed a letter from George Keith, sent to the Quakers in Aberdeen, containing a very serious and Christian expostulation with his old friends, &c.	Sandilands, Robert.; Keith, George, 1639?-1716. aut	1700 (1700)	Wing S663; ESTC R220626	23,403	36

Errors I had Charged them with but if you will give your selves the Liberty to Read my late Books and particularly the two I now send you I hope ye will be convinced of the Truth of my Charge as diverse hereaway both in City and Country through the Mercy of God are so convinced but I fear that some among you are too deeply guilty of some of the same Errors And if ye in particular are not how can ye in Conscience own them to be your Christian Brethren whom I have proved so evidently guilty of them as particularly the chief Teachers among the Quakers hereaway some Living and some Deceased And I earnestly request you to distinguish betwixt any good things either in Doctrine or Practice which ye have seen or observed in me and whatever was contrary thereunto so as to cleave unto the former and only reject the latter What Honesty or Sobriety and Christian Practice ye ever saw in me I hope to persevere in it and increase in the same and I desire you to do the like but reject your Errors your Uncharitableness of Judgement towards others your Spiritual Pride and over high Esteem of your selves Believe not every Spirit either in your selves or others but try the Spirits and bring all Doctrines and Practices to the Test of the Holy Scriptures and pray God to give you that True Light and Discerning to help you to make an Impartial Examination It hath been a great default generally among the people called Quakers and remains among them too much to Countenance Ignorant Persons if they pretend to the Spirits Teachings and Motions to Preach and Pray and Travel from Place to Place as Teachers of others when yet they want to be taught the first Principles of Christianity and it s to be feared ye have such ignorant Teachers among you I am sure I remember when some of you used to blame it in my hearing and as I desire you to make a distinction betwixt what is right and wrong in any of my former Doctrines or Practices I hope none of you could ever charge me with any Immorrality or Scandalous Conversation when among you but that if I wanted an Attestation to that I think ye would do me that Justice to give me an ample Testimony so I would have you to know that I continue grounded and firmly perswaded as to that most necessary and excellent Doctrine of Gods Inward Teachings by his Holy Spirit Light and Grace and his gracious operations and Assistances to enable us and all good Christians to perform every acceptable Service to him And whatever ye or any others may or doe judge of me I bless my Gracious God that I feel my self a living member of CHRIST's Body by partaking daily of the Life and living Vertue of the Head JESUS CHRIST our Lord and a Living branch upon that living Vine and my care is and ever I hope shall be to abide in him which I bless God for I find by true experience that I can remain and abide such and yet be reformed in many things in my judgement and diverse practices from what I formerly was It hath been a great mistake in us to think that we could not be more holy or soholy as we think we are or were without being so excessivly uncharitable towards others and so contrary to them in our Perswasions and Practices when as many of their Perswasions and Practices were better then ours and others of them more inoffensive I hope ye will excuse my writing thus largely unto you for it is in true Love and good will however you receive it and as I have said I do not expostulat with you for your injuring me for I have more injured you though not by any Immorality but by being instrumental to have in any wayes misinformed you I pray God forgive you and me I remain your truly wel-wishing Friend George Keith London 17th 2d Moneth 1700. To Andrew Jaffray John Robertson Alexander Gellie John Forbes Robert Gordon John Glennic And the rest of the Monthly Meeting of the people called Quakers at Aberdeen Something of weighty importance modestly proposed to your serious Consideration FRIENDS Forasmuch as there hath been and is some just cause given to apprehend that many among the People called Quakers have not a found Faith touching diverse great and weighty Doctrines and principles of the Christian Religion plainly delivered in the Holy Scriptures for both mine and others satisfaction and also for your own vindication if so be which I should be truly glade of and rejoice in that ye manifest your selves to be really innocent and clear of those gross Errors and Heresies which the chief English Teachers among the Quakers have been and are still charged guilty of and upon which account only I have in good Conscience been concerned to leave communion with them not finding that they have in the least as yet cleared themselves of the same which they can never well do without a publick and ingenuous retractation of those many unwarrantable and unsound passages in their Books You are therefore earnestly desired and requested to give your plain and candid Answer in writing to these following Queries Querie 1. Whether the Holy Scriptures containing the Old and New Testament called the BIBLE in their plain and literal meaning Or the Light within be the certain fixed and standing Rule whereby to judge and determine matters of contraversie as to Religion Here followers the Quakers Answer Ans We believe that the Holy Scriptures containing the Old and New Testament called the BIBLE as having come from the Spirit of GOD and being written by Men Divinly inspired which we most firmly Believe they were when they are opened and explained by the same Spirit of GOD which gave them forth they being of no private interpretation 2 Pet. 1. and 20. are an Infallible Rule of Faith and Life unto all to whom GOD hath in his Providence been pleased to communicat them for they being the things of GOD cannot be understood but by the Spirit of GOD 1 Cor. 2. 11. Remark This Answer to the 1 Q. being in all appearance sound and orthodox if they have no secret reserved meaning and agreeable to the sense of all sound Protestants I am heartily glade that they have deserted the unsound and hetrodox Doctrine that some of their principal Teachers both in Scotland and England have vouched in their writtings in relation to the Holy Scriptures being the Rule of Faith and therefore the Reader may be pleased to compare this their Answer with what Robert Barclay says tho I confess that he and G. K. were the soundest and m●st Orthodox Writters among the Quakers in See R. Rs. works pag. 299. his explanation of his 3d proposition among his Theses Theologicae The principal Rule saith he of Christians under the Gospel is not an outward Letter nor Law outwardly written and delivered but an Inward Spiritual Law ingraven in the heart the Law of the Spirit

only in some but in all the fundamental Truths of the Christian Religion but whether A. J. and his Friends have evidenced themselves to be such by their Answers to the Queries before recited I leave that to all impartial and judicious Readers to judge And for a manifest Tryal of the sincerity and soundness of their Faith in those points wherein they seem orthodox and that they have no secret reserved meanings but what is agreeable to the Sense of all sound Protestants it is here proposed to them and which is reasonably expected that they give a publick Testimony in Writing against those erroneous passages and positions as they are here set down as before and quoted out of their approved and antient Friends Books which plainly contradicts their own orthodox Answers They are obliged I think either to own or else to disown these errors the latter I hope they will ingeniously doe as being no Respecter of Persons For the Truth must be owned and preferred before all things and persons tho never so near or dear to us And unless A. J. c. doe this their sincerity will still be suspected notwithstanding all their great Pretences As for their saying we are not bound in Reason to receive the Testimony of an avowed Adversary against our Brethren as I would not be imposed upon in such weighty concerns so I doe not impose my Testimony upon them but have fairly and sincerely laid before them their own antient and most eminent approved Friends Testimonies both in England and Scotland And I could have produced many more Quotations if they had been so candid to have granted me the use of their Friends Books which I had not by me here and I being a Traveller could not be other wayes provided with however I offer this to them let the Books be produced out of which the Quotations are taken and let them be perused by any judicious and indifferent Persons and see whither they are justly and fairly quoted and I shall submit the same to their censure And whoever it is they mean to be their Brethrens avowed Adversary I bless GOD I can sincerely say that I have no Personal enmity or Prejudice against them or any Persons whatsomever it s true I detest their vile errors but I still love and respect their Persons and what I have herein done may shew that it was not through Malice c. I could also have given an account of many very Unchristian and unsavoury Passages which were Preached publickly in their Meetings at Reading in England where I live which occasioned divers to leave them And whereas they say and if he have any thing to Charge against them among whom he receeds he wants not opportunity to doe it face to face and we doubt not but they can clear themselves sufficiently I should be very glade as I have said before they would do so indeed but I am sure they have never in the least yet done it as they ought to doe notwithstanding of the many opportunitis and that publickly to have cleared themselves of what has been charged against them and still lyes at their door uncleared and unanswered by them and I am fully satisfied that notwitstanding of their many late new Creeds they can never well clear themseves until they publickly and ingeniously Retract those Errors in their Printed Books and when they once do that I think there is none will be so Unchristian as to Charge them any more therewith There is one or two Quotations more which I think fit to add G. F. and R. H. sayes in Truths defence p. 89 and 109 Our giving forth papers and printed Books it is from the immediat eternal Sipiritual GOD. 〈◊〉 Now I leave it to the serious Consideration of A. J. 〈◊〉 and the rest of his Friends whether in their Consciences they realy believe that the foresaid Passages quoted out of their Friends Books were given forth from the Immediat Eternal Spirit of GOD. And G. F. pleads for the same degree of the Spirit to know the Scriptures by as the Prophets and Apostles had See his great Myst p. 213. c. FINIS