Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	believe_v	faith_n	lord_n	1,391	5	3.9699	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A47133	The deism of William Penn and his brethren destructive to the Christian religion, exposed and plainly laid open in the examination and refutation of his late reprinted book called, A discourse of the general rule of faith and practise and judge of controversie, wherein he contendeth that the Holy Scriptures are not the rule of faith and life, but that the light in the conscience of every man is that rule / by George Keith.	Keith, George, 1639?-1716.	1699 (1699)	Wing K156; ESTC R6589	71,572	164

with any Blood outwardly shed for them Is not this the ready way to open the Flood-gate and to let in Deism and Heathenism to over-run not only England but all Christendom and not only to destroy the Protestant Christian Religion but any remains of Christian Doctrine that are in the Popish Countries But from this Cure of W.P. we have all great cause to pray Good Lord deliver us But nor would this Cure he proposeth be successful upon the Hypothesis of his general Rule if universally received for a Rule The Heathen Philosophers many of whom professed and owned the Light in every Conscience as it did enlighten their Reason yet how many great Controversies were there among them notwithstanding and oft great Heats and Animosities And if this Cure of W.P. be so effectual how comes it that it has not healed the breaches and great Controversies that have been on foot these Forty Years chiefly about G. Foxes orders his party contending that they were the Dictates of the Light both in G.F. and all his followers the other party as strongly denying it that they were any Dictates of the true Light within and let W.P. tell us when any such Controversie arises which are the true Dictates of the Light and true Spirit abstractly considered from the Scripture what shall be the Cure in that Case He seems indeed to give an answer to this in Page 42. Answ By the same Spirit as well said Gualt Cradock the way to know whither the Spirit be in us is its own Evidence and that is the way to know it in others too and the Man that hath the Spirit may know the Spirit in another There is saith he a kind of Sagacity in the Saints to this purpose To this I answer where the Spirits Doctrine which is the Doctrine both of Christ and the Father goeth along with the Spirit according to Isaiah 59 21. and many other places of Scripture there is a great Truth in it but whatever Spirit either teacheth another Doctrine or draweth Men away from the necessary belief of Christ's Death in the Flesh in being a Sacrifice for our Sins and other Fundamental Principles peculiar to Christianity is not the true Spirit of Christ whatever Unity or Sagacity W.P. and his Brethren may think they have to know it in one another while he and they make nothing to be the Rule of Faith but the Light in every Conscience John 2.9 which teacheth not this Doctrine of Faith nor proposeth this great Object of Faith to wit Christ Crucified to the Conscience they destroy all necessity of that Faith as concerned in our Salvation However with plausible shews he and they will say it is necessary where the History as he terms it has reached but how not for Salvation but historically as we believe the History of Alexander or Julius Cesar or as W.P. and his Brethren pretend to believe G. F's Journal The Difficulty that he moves P. 41. about Interpretation of Scripture is easily resolved without any new material object of Faith if the Spirit of God be acknowledged inwardly to enlighten the Understandings of the faithful and that they faithfully receive the same it will infallibly give to all the Faithful so much of the true knowledge and Faith of all Scripture Doctrine as is necessary to Salvation Page 46. As unfair and fallacious as he hath been in his Definitions and Arguments about the Rule of Faith and Life no less unfair and fallacious is he in his representing many Orthodox and sincere Protestants as if they Judged the Quakers for their asserting an unerring certain or infallible Judgment in things necessary to Salvation This is a very unfair representation of them The Question lyeth not about an unerring certain and infallible Judgment given by the Spirit of God to all the faithful in the things necessary to Salvation which they fully assert But the Question lyeth here whither they have this infallible Judgment either by the common Discoveries and Dictates of the Light in every Man's Conscience or by any new discoveries of the Spirit abstractly and seperately considered from the Scriptures so that the Doctrine as delivered in the Holy Scriptures is not the Rule or Instrument whereby the Spirit works or begets this infallible Judgment in them in all the necessary things of Salvation which ●et are more and others than those assigned by W.P. to wit Faith in Christ crucified and raised again and other fundamental Doctrines of the Christian Religion A Second part of the question is Whither all or any of the Quakers when met in their Yearly Meetings or any other Meetings or the most enlightned among them have an infallible Judgment given them in all things as their chief Teachers have asserted so that they are not only infallible in the most necessary things but in other things Yea in all that they have given forth either in Preaching or Writing as the Word of the Lord and with an Authority the same in kind with the Prophets as W.P. doth in the Conclu●ion of this Book where he pretends that he has a Message to tell them and that from the Spirit of the Lord God of Truth and that is Page 48. That Men unregenerated for all their external imitations of the Ancients in some Temporary and figurative parts of Worship will never be accepted But this is no extraordinary Revelation it is a Doctrine that is daily taught and generally believed among all true Christians that never were under the profession of Quakers But the fallacy is here that all are unregenerate in his Sense who own that what they are taught and helped to believe know or practise is by the Doctrine contained in the Holy Scriptures as the Rule of their Faith and Life and Instrument of the Spirits preparing and giving them the Spirit himself being the principal efficient Author and Cause and primary principle of their Knowledge Faith and Practise Yet all this is Judged by W.P. here in his Conclusion to be nothing but a literal Knowledge Historical Faith and outward Religion that is but as the Old Heaven that are to be wrapt up as a scroul and the Old Wine and Bottles that belong not to the Kingdom of God For which Uncharitable and False Judgment I heartily pray God that he may forgive him and giving him a better understanding and reclaim him if it be the blessed Will of God from those most dangerous errors he is intangled in and especially from this that is the foundation of his other errors to wit his Deism and setting up the Light within or Spirit or whatever he calls i● abstractly and seperately from Christ's Doctrine and Words even those divine Oracles and Words which the Father gave to Christ and Christ gave them by his Holy Spirit to the Apostles John 17.8 And by the same Holy Spirit by means of the Apostles writing has given to all the faithful since thus dividing what God and Christ have Joyned together surely this cannot be the true Light nor Spirit in him or his Brethren that leads away People from hearing the true Shepherds Voice either as it is outwardly sounded in the outward Ministry of the Word outwardly Preached or as it is inwardly sounded and Eccho'd by the Holy Spirit in Teaching the faithful to believe the same Doctrine that is outwardly delivered in the Holy Scriptures My Sheep said Christ hear my Voice they that draw from Christ's Doctrine being the Rule of Faith and Life to every true Christian draw from the Spirit of Christ and from his Voice whatever seeming pretences they fallaciously make to exalt the Spirit by rejecting that Instrument to wit the Rule of the Holy Scriptures by which the Spirit doth both enlighten the faithful and beget Faith and Hope and Love in them by the precious Oracles and Testimonies therein contained and also doth refresh quicken and comfort them If the Spirit and his divine influences be the Wine that refresheth and cherisheth them the Scripture so to speak are the Flagons that convey it to them according to the words in the Song Cant. 2.5 Stay me with Flagons comfort me with Apples and many other plain Testimonies of Scripture that hold forth in God's ordinary way the Doctrine of the Holy Scriptures as outwardly delivered to be the means and therefore the Rule by which the Spirit doth both Teach and also Quicken Comfort and strengthen them such as these following places which I recommend to W.P. and his Brethrens Consideration Psal 19.7 8 9 10 11. Prov. 6.23 Psal 119. 4 5 6 18 49 50 105. Psal 147.19 20. Isaiah 8.20.59.21 John 10.3 John 17.8 20. John 20.31 John 5 39. Acts 10.44 Rom. 16.17 Rom. 16.25.26 Gal. 3.2 Eph. 1.13 1 Thes 1.5 1 Tim. 4.16 2 Tim. 1.13 2 Tim. 2.20 2 Tim. 3.15 16 17. 28th of the First Month 1699. G. K. FINIS Nam cum humana mens pro sua imbecillitate pervenire ad Deum nullo modo queat nisi sacro ejus verbo adjuta sublevata omnes tunc mortales exceptis Judaeis quia Deum sine verbo querebant necesse fuit in vanitate atque errore versari Calvin Instit Lib. 1. c. 6 S. 4

c. Which saith he could not be without the Light of his Son shines in Man's Conscience therefore the light of Christ in the Conscience must needs have been the General Rule c. Answ His Consequence is again denied which he doth not prove it has the same defect with his foregoing proofs that he confounds the Author and Efficient cause of Faith with the Rule which is the instrumental Cause thereof But let it be further considered what the following words are not mentioned by W.P. here and let them be compared with the foregoing words Ver. 7. Will the Lord be pleased with Thousands of Rams or with ten Thousands of Rivers of Oyl shall I give my first born for my transgression the Fruit of my Body for the Sin of my Soul Ver. 8. He hath shewed thee O Man what is good and what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly and love Mercy and walk humbly with thy God And it will appear that the words at least have a Comparative Sense as intimating that Justice Mercy and Humility or Humble walking with God are more acceptable to God and the greater things of God's Laws than all outward Sacrifices were But doth it therefore follow that God did not require those outward Sacrifices then to be offered up or that God did not require Faith in the People of Israel that he did Command them And if such a Faith was then required of them which the common dictates of the light in every Conscience did not teach them but special Revelation by the like reason it can be proved that the Faith of Christ the great Sacrifice as he was outwardly to be offered up of which all the outward Sacrifices were Types was also required by the Lord from that People the which Faith all the faithful then had and by which Faith they received the remission of their Sins according to Acts 10 43. But seeing the Light within every Man gives them not this Faith nor teacheth it them it evidently follows that the Light within every Man is not the Rule of the Christian Faith it may be further said that the words Micah 6.8 9. if they were to be understood with respect to meer Heathens and Gentiles who have not the External Word might imply that no more is required of them than those general things which the Law or Light in them doth teach them and is the only Rule they have but these words seem not to be spoke with respect to meer Gentiles but rather to them that were by Profession the Church of God and though neither Faith nor Repentance nor many other Evangelical Virtues and Duties are there expressed yet without doubt they are implyed as well as where Faith is only exprest in many places of Scripture Love and other Virtues are implyed And indeed by the like Fallacy W.P. might infer that our whole Religion consists in practiseing the Duties of the 2d Table from James's words Pure and undefiled Religion is to visit the Fatherless and the Widow and to keep unspotted from the World And that Consequently he that doth this though he practise none of the Duties of the First Table he has Religion enough yea though he have no Faith in God no fear of him nor Love to him if he be Charitable and temperate as it has been reported some Atheists have been Page 5. His next Argument is It was by this Law that Enoch Noah Abraham Melchisideck Abimilech Job Jethro c. walked and were accepted as saith Jreneus and Tertullian they w●re Just by the Law written in their Hearts then was it their Rule too and in that Just State Answ This Argument hath several defects in it 1. To argue from a Law or Rule of Moral Justice to a Law or Rule of Faith in Christ the promised Messiah without which Faith there is no promise of Eternal Life and Salvation in all the Scripture Secondly That he Jumbleth Abimelech and Jethro none of which were prophets with Abraham and others that were Prophets and had extraordinary Revelation concerning the Messiah Thirdly That he makes no distinction betwixt what the Light or Word did reveal commonly in all Men by the common Illumination and what that same word did reveal to the Prophets and by them to the Faithful by special Revelation and Illumination And indeed all his Arguments are in great part built on this Fallacy of not distinguishing but confounding the common or general Illuminations given to all Men from the special and extraordinary given to some That the common Illumination of the Divine Word was to the Patriarchs Abraham Noah c. a Law or Rule of Justice is granted but that it was to them a Law or Rule of Faith whereby they believed in the promised Messiah is denied for that was a special Revelation that was the Law or Rule of that Faith and not the common Illumination though both common and special were and are from the same Divine Word yet this hinders not their Distinction as all the Creatures of God have one Creator and Author of their Being yet this hinders not but that the Creatures are widely distinct one from another Section 3. His first and second Arguments that the Scripture is not the Rule of Faith and Life Answered Page 5. IN the next place he pleads that the Scriptures cannot be the Rule arguing thus Arg. 1. How can they be the general Rule that have not been general Answ He is still guilty of confounding and jumbling things that ought to be distinguished 1. None saith that the Scriptures are a general Rule If by a general Rule he means a Rule actually obliging all Men whomsoever for the Scripture obligeth none but such who either have them or at least can by some possible means have them 2. It is granted that the Law or Illumination that is in all Men is the general Law or Rule of Justice and Morality to all Men. But what then will it follow that Christians have no other Rule but that of moral Justice 3. He ought to have distinguished betwixt the general Law or Rule of Justice given to all Mankind and the general superadded Law and Rule of Christian Faith and Practise given in general to Christians but for want of this distinction he deceives himself and seeks to deceive others with fallacious Arguments Page 6. He brings an Objection thus But granting that the Light within were so viz. the general Rule before Scripture was extant yet c. Answ He supposeth that to be granted which ought not to be granted viz. That the common Illumination before Scripture was extant was the Rule of the Faith of all the Faithful who lived and died in the Faith of the promised Messiah by whom they believed to have Remission of Sin and eternal Life This is altogether denied for this Faith they had not by the common Illumination but by special Revelation given to some by Prophesie and to others by means of their Prophesies Page