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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	apostle_n	church_n	word_n	1,489	5	3.9514	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A27001	The Quakers catechism, or, The Quakers questioned, their questions answered, and both published for the sake of those of them that have not yet sinned unto death and of those ungrounded novices that are most in danger of their seduction / by R[i]chard Baxter.	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1655 (1655)	Wing B1363; ESTC R28362	39,590	58

almost only of This Inward Light In which I perceived 1. That you falsly intimate that we deny the necessity of an inward light when as we maintain that the external light of the Word alone is not sufficient without the inward light of the Spirit 2. You there intimate to us a supposed sufficiency of the inward light that every man in the world hath Concerning which I shall say more anon and now only demand of you 1. Whether you mean it is sufficient to leave men without excuse That we maintain as well as you or is every mans light sufficient to his salvation If so Q. 2. Was it sufficient before Christ preached the Gospel and sent his Apostles Or is it now sufficient to all that never heard the Gospel If so Is not the Gospel a vain and needlesse thing or are you Christians that dare so affirm Q. 3. If the world have sufficient light what need they your teaching or discourse or conviction Q. 4. If all have sufficient light within them what need there any converting grace Q. 5. Then why did Christ send Paul to open mens eyes and to turn them from darknesse to light if they had sufficient light before Act. 26. 18. Q 6. I pray you do not disdain to tell me when you have rub'd your eyes if all men have sufficient light within them Why you got up into the Judgement seat and pronounced me so oft to be in darknesse and to be void of the light and to have none of the Spirit If all have it why may not I have it But let me tell you further in your ear that we that you so frantickly bawl against have read Bellarmine and other Papists so oft that we cannot be ignorant who are your Teachers though your selves are ignorant We know how earnestly the Jesuites would perswade us that there is a light in every mans conscience which if he improve and husband well God is bound to give such additions as shall make it become saving and that by the good use of natural light men may certainly get supernatural and that it is in mens own power what light soever they have to improve it to salvation Your 11th Query is Whether we have seen Gods face Ans. Whether these be Learning or Teaching or quarrelling or doting Questions I leave to your consideration but what Call you had to propound them to such Serpents Dogs and Children of the devil as you call us I know not But however I 'le answer you truly 1. By the eye of reason I have seen that there is a God and that he is infinite incomprehensible most great and most good c. 2. The same I have seen more cleerly by the eyes of faith 3. But I never saw God by the eye of flesh for none can so see God and live Nor hath any man seen God at any time saving the only begotten Son who is in the bosome of his Father he hath declared him 4. Nor have I seen him in glory intuitively or as the glorified in heaven do If you say you have seen more I shall not be very forward to beleeve you till I see better fruits of it I also therefore demand of you Whether he that hath seen God do not abhor himself as Iob did in dust and ashes and whether the true knowledge of God do not ever abase the soul and make a man very mean in his own eyes And then is it likely that ever those men had the true knowledge of God who make it their businesse to exalt themselves as having the Spirit and beign perfect without sin and to revile and bedung other men with their reproaches as being all the Children of the devil and of darknesse that be not of their strain and rave not as they do The Pharisee that thanked God he was not as other men nor as the Publicane spoke humbly and modestly in comparison of you and yet was he counted a proud self-justifier If ever you come to the least saving sight of God it will mightily change the proud strain of your spirits and make you abhor the thoughts of your present evil waies Your 12. Query is Whether we have the same infallible Spirit as the holy men of God had that spoke forth the Scriptures Ans. Why must you know this Are all Dogs and Serpents with you that have not that Infallible Spirit But we hear the croakings of your Papist guides in that word Infallible that's the pillar of their Kingdom and the master-point of their New Religion That their Church is infallible For denying which Knot the Jesuite against Chillingworth and a late ●otable gawdy Orator S. W. against Dr Hammond and others of them would fain perswade us that we subvert Christianity and are little better then Infidels because we are not Infallible But I will answer you and your Masters together in a word 1. The Prophets and Apostles had infallible Inspirations of new matters of divine verity not before revealed because they were to be Gods penmen and Messengers of such New Revelations I have none such that I know of 2. The Prophets and Apostles were guided infallibly in the manner as well as the matter so that every word that they wrote to the Churches was infallibly true I have no such Infallibility nor your Grandfather the Pope neither He may erre while he pretendeth to the greatest Infallibility in deciding Controversies 3. What man soever he be in the world that beleeves any Truth he doth infallibly believe it For he that is in the right is not deceived so far and he that is not mistaken is so farre infallible which is no more then non fallitur 4. But if by Infallibility you should mean the clearnesse and subjective Certainty as distinct from the objective and the bare truth of our conceptions then I say that 's another thing then Infallibility and not to be so called and of that Certainty men have different degrees All true Christians are certain of their Fundamentals yet sometime with some doubting so that they may finde cause to say with the Apostles Lord Increase our Faith or We beleeve help thou our unbelief But in lesser controverted Points which Salvation dependeth not on the best man on earth may erre much more be uncertain So that in a word Every Church in sensu composite while a Church is infallible in the essentials of Christianity and so is every true Christian And also they know infallibly every other truth that indeed they know because Truth is Truth whether they know it or not and when they do know it they are not deceived But in many things we all erre because we know but in part and so farre are deceived Well I say still Fair fall the honest humble Christian that will confesse with Paul that we know but in part For I shall never like pretenders to un-erring Infallibility more I know but two such pretenders and they are both the most abominable deceivers and deceived

THE QUAKERS CATCHISM OR THE Quakers questioned THEIR QUESTIONS Answered AND BOTH PUBLISHED For the Sake of those of them that have not yet sinned unto Death And of those ungrounded Novices that are most in danger of their Seduction By RCHARD BAXTER LONDON Printed by A. M. for Thomas Underhill at the Anchor and Bible in Pauls Churchyard and Francis Tyton at the Three Daggers in Fleetstreet 1655. TO THE READER READER I Suppose thou wilt marvell that I trouble my self with so wilde a Generation as the People called Quakers are or that I trouble thee with a few hasty lines which I wrote on such an Occasion I 'le truly tell thee the cause of both 1. They sent me five severall Papers one of them containing the Queries which I answer and others of them almost nothing but abundle of filthy railing words Thou Serpent thou Liar thou deceiver thou childe of the devil thou cursed hypocrite thou dumb dogge with much more of the like They chose out one day when it pleased God to confine me to my Chamber by sicknesse to come into our Assembly and after Morning Sermon to fall a questioning the Preacher my assistant and because he avoided publike disputing with them at that season as not taking it for a profitable spending of the Lords day they call him the hireling that flieth it seems referring to Joh. 10. 12. and so confessing themselves to be the Wolves I finde that they do so challenge and brag and triumph if we say nothing to them and that too many simple people expect that we should answer them that after an unprofitable verball discourse with an unreasonable railing fellow I resolved to send them this brief answer to their Questions And because they abhorre Syllogismes and disputings I was fain to deale further with them in their own questioning way I had before offered to come and answer all their Queries in their Assembly if they would consent that I might do it without disturbance But instead of permitting that they denied it and sent me a Letter of Reviling calling me ever and over Serpent and Hypocrite and the like Names and commanding me in the Name of the most High God to answer their Questions in writing that they might print them with their reply so that if I say nothing they will insult If I write to them they will print it Being therefore so far called to speak I chose rather to print my own Papers how mean soever then let them do it Two Objestions I foresee will be raised against me One is that the Persons are so contemptible and the errours so grosse that it 's a needlesse work to strive against them To which I say Let sad experience witnesse whether it be needlesse when they so much multiply and so many where they come are presently infected The salvation of the poorest Christian is so far from being contemptible that it is worth much more then our greatest diligence 2. It will be said it is but the Churches of the Separatists and Anabaptists that are emptied by these Seducers and it 's best even let them alone to keep their own Flocks and secure their Churches or if they fall off it may shew others the tendency of their waies and so pervent their turning aside To which I answer 1. Though the stream of Apostates be such as first were Anabaptists or Separatists yet here and there one of the young unsetled sort do fall into that stream that were not before of them but perhaps inclining to them and so do some few that had no Religiousness 2. I had farre rather that men continued Separatists and Anabaptists then turned Quakers or plain Apostates And therefore would do all that I can to hinder such an emptying of their Churches as tendeth to the more certain filling of Hell It 's better to stop them in a condition where we may have some hope of their salvation then to let them run into certaine perdition I did therefore take it to be my duty when these poor neighbours who had before been Anabaptists Separatists and some Seekers had turned Quakers to offer them a verbal answer to all their vain Questions that I might have had so much opportunity to undeceive them When they refused that and said they would not be drawn into a Serpents snare I thought best to send them my Answer in writting committing it to some of their Neighbours that they might desire leave to reade it in their Assembly And when I heard that they would not grant that neither for all their insulting adjuring of us to answer them but talkt of Printing something against me I chose rather to tell the world of these Passages between us then leave them to their reports especially hearing how they encrease in London and other parts and that the ignorant have need of some plain Information to prevent their Apostacy and perdition in this temptation April 20. 1655. R. B. TO THE Separatists and Anabaptists IN England THough Gods minde be most plainly revealed to us in his written Word yet are his Providences also teaching and it is the duty of his Servants to reade and study them especially the Poenall withdrawing or withholding of his grace and giving men up to beleeve lies and to vile affections to a reprobate sence and to an abominable conversation these are such discoveries of the sore displeasure of the Most High as should make even the beholders to fear and all that stand but near to this heavy judgement to fly away from it as the Israelites did at the cries of the Rebellious followers of Corah Num. 16. lest the earth should have swallowed them up also I am not of their minde that make light of the strange Providences in our military affairs and changes of State though I think every carnal admirer of them doth not understand them But it 's a matter of very sad consideration that many of vhose same men that seem so much to magnifie these do no more observe understand and lay to heart the more remarkable Providence of our heavy spirituall judgements The overlooking of these Providences makes many fear lest it be but their own interest which they study in the other and lest by reading themselves and their own Names where they should reade God they turn this light into darknesse or seduction and by surfetting on this Feast do contract those diseases that are like to be their bane What is Gods Word for but to make himself and our duty known to us And so he doth very much by his Works where we may see his Nature and something of his Approbation or dislike especially as they are read by the help of the Word Certainly God is known by the judgement which he executeth specially when the wicked is snared in the work of his own hands Psa. 9. 16. The hand of God is apparently gone out against your waies of Separation and Anabaptism It is your duty to observe it You may see you do