Selected quad for the lemma: christian_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
christian_n	body_n	church_n	mystical_a	1,148	5	10.4023	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A54224	The spirit of truth vindicated, against that of error & envy unseasonably manifested : in a late malicious libel, intituled, The spirit of the Quakers tryed, &c. / by a friend to righteousness and peace, W.P.	Penn, William, 1644-1718.	1672 (1672)	Wing P1375; ESTC R21576	102,800	151

Difference I mean Doctrinal in this place I don't see It becomes a Man of his Wit and larger Conscience to perceive it who can make and fling dixt for the Alteration or Omission of a word not absolutely necessary for how can we suppose he meant those good Gentiles that became a Law unto themselves to have thoughts different from their Conscience so far as concerned Evil or Good and the Peace or Trouble that followed the Doing of the one or the committing of the other For to what did their Conscience bear them Witness if not to their Doing Well or Ill and consequently to acquit or accuse Therefore their Conscience did bear Witness to the Accusing or Excusing as well as their Thoughts for that their Thoughts and Opinion of one anothers Innocency or Guilt are squared by the Witness that their Conscience did give the place strongly implies In short they could not make that Judgment of one another without a certain Knowledge of the same thing in themselves and they must have received that only by the Testimony of their own Conscience which is no more but this the Judgment of a man concerning his own good or ill State by the In-shining and Discoveries of God's Holy Light and this the Gentiles had in measure and our Adversary granteth it as well as his Eminent Preacher pag. 40. Eighthly G. F. sayes in answer to the Priest that denyed him to be perfect who bridled his Tongue which is contrary to the Apostle James who saith he is which our Adversary calls belying the Apostle who sayes If any man offend not in word the same is perfect And what Difference is there now one sayes He that bridles or rules the Tongue and the other saith He that offends not in Word is the perfect man unless a mans Tongue can be said to be bridled or ruled when it offends which cannot be supposed by any but Persons of this mans Ignorance In short Not to offend in word or bridle that which would utter it is one and the same thing for that which bridles the Tongue bridles the Body which is the perfect man that offends not in word Ninthly G. F. sayes That God works all in us and for us for which he reflects upon him as at other times saying he knows no such place but it is strange that he never heard or read And there are diversities of Operations but it is the same God which worketh all in all according to the Power that worketh in us for it is God that worketh in you both to will and to do Now unless when God works all in all c. we are to exempt his working in us and so give the Scripture the Lye or if workt in us yet not for us which is to give our own Understanding the Lye it will follow and doth follow That God who worketh all in all according to his Power in us both to Will and to Do does work it both in us and for us But Oh the Vanity of this poor man that thinks by these Paper Pellets his Malice casts at us either to Wound us in our selves or in the minds of Sober People Tenthly But he thinks he has done G. F's business for him now where bringing him in saying through the Power of God the Gospel again the Gospel is the Power of God he thus adventures to correct him The Apostle saith I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ for it is the Power of God unto Salvation c. Now where to find out that Difference which this Quick-sighted Man abuses G. F. for saying it proceeds from the same bitter Root in him that perverts the sence of Scripture is past my skill for if the Gospel be God's Power then God's Power is the Gospel In one of the Passages it is as he would have it which may show that G. F. meant by the other Transposition of the word No new Sence or Doctrine Gross Folly Incharity and Carping Eleaventhly But he stiffly charges him with miscitation in this Passage G. F. And so deny Christ the Lord that bought them Peter saith only Denying the Lord that bought them Which sayes he may as well agree to God the Father as Christ the Son We may guess at his Meaning without an Interpretation But must Christ be Lord and not Lord at every turn when this presumptious Person will If the fore-going Chapter be considered it will appear That Christ is that Lord that some should deny after they had made Profession of Him In short If a man's believing Christ to be that Lord must conclude him an Impostor c. who is true let all the World read and observe of what Ungodly Stuff and very Trash his Libel doth consist Twelfthly The Scripture saith our Adversary and his own runs thus He that believeth on Christ out of his Belly shall flow Rivers of Living Water where His Belly is plainly spoken of Him that believeth But G. F. applies it to the Light Christ out of whose Belly slowed Rivers of Living Water the Light the Light must be Magnified by G. F. To which I shall only say That it is no improper sence at all for no man's Belly can be filled but from His therefore He is the Fountain of Living Water Himself from whose Belly ours come to be filled Besides If a Scripture will admit of two distinct sences without Contradiction they may be used in both those sences upon occasion So Christ the Light whom we will Magnifie above our Adversary's Darkness is that Belly and Fountain and such as believe in Him shall have their Bellies filled with the Rivers of Living Water that come from Him He is the Fountain that is set open for Judah and Jerusalem and the River that makes glad the City of God Thirteenth G. F. The Church is the Pillar and Ground of Truth without Spot or Wrinkle or Blemish or any such thing Our Adversary thus And the Apostle saith That He might present it unto Himself a glorious Church not having Spot or Wrinkle or any such thing He saith that might and should not that it is but this is the old Devilish Distinction of Sin-Pleasers that would never have the Church Compient Two things follow hence First A Disbelief of the Perfection of the present Mystical Church by which Christ is rendred the Head of a spotted Body Secondly That he is himself in a spotted and wrinckled Condition and every such thing and therefore an unfit Person to maintain the Faith of the true unspotted Church of Christ Fourteenth G. F. True Christians are Flesh of His Flesh and Bone of His Bone But the Apostle sayes our Adversary has it thus For we are Members of his Body of his Flesh and of his Bones The Fault is this that he left out For we are Members hoping that it sufficiently proves Christ to be in Heaven absent from his Church not considering that a Body can be no more without its

things of God which all Natural Understanding can never fathom because they are Spiritually to be discerned Fifteenth 1 Cor. 6. 19. What Know ye not that your Body is the Temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you which ye have of God and ye are not your own The Apostle treating of the great nearness that every Believer stands in to the Lord and that Blessed Union which the Dispensation of the Gospel brings to by the putting away the Filthiness of Flesh and Spirit and the Answer of a good Conscience before God in winding up this subject he thus smartly and as if his Query were enough to clear up all that he had to say to them as to their Duty and his Exhortation What know ye not that your Body is the Temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you From whence I draw this Argument If Believers be the Temple in which the Holy Ghost dwells as evidently speaks the Scripture then are they not left without an Infalible Spirit as Judge Rule and Guide to repair to but it is apparent to sence that the holy Ghost is by the Apostle affirmed to inhabit or take up his abode in believers therefore they must needs be attended with an iufallible Spirit and for what if not the End before-mentioned Sixteenth 1 Cor. 12 13. For by one Spirit are we all baptized into Body whether we be Jews or Gentiles whether we be Bond or Free and have been all made to drink into one Spirit By which Divine Sence of the Apostle we cannot but allow that if they were both baptized by one Spirit into one Body and made to drink into the same Spirit that the Saints were not without an Infallible Spirit since such Baptizing and Drinking do emphatically imply the whole Work of the Spirit in their Regeneration and their daily Union with and intimate Enjoyment of it the whole course of their lives And certainly If by that Eternal Spirit they were baptized ito that one Body Christ It was as impossible for them as Members thereof to live without the Life Vertue and Spirit of Christ Jesus their Head as for any natural Body to live without the same Life Blood Heat and Motion which belongs to its Head And how this man can be esteemed a good Christian who would render Christ Jesus the Head of a Fallible Body by divesting Christians of an Infallible Spirit I leave to Persons of better Judgment more Honesty and greater Moderation then himself to judge Seventeenth 2 Cor. 3. 18. But we all with open Face beholding as in a Glass the Glory of the Lord are changed into the same Image from Glory to Glory even as by the Spirit of the Lord. This whole Chapter is an admirable account of the Super-Excellency of the Gospel Administration of Life to that of the Law how far it did transcend it as to all spiritual Knowledge Priviledge and Enjoyment which I desire the Reader seriously to read as well as to consider what is offered from the Verse cited If a Christian's Change into God's Image from Glory to Glory be the Work of the Eternal Spirit in men it follows necessarily That Christians can no more be without the Discoveries Leadings and Orderings of God's Spirit then they can be his Children without his Image since whatever they think say or do in reference to Religion should bear a near Relation to that resemblance of God which above all things they ought to act correspondently with but we see how very expresly and profoundly the Apostle describes the exceeding Blessedness of the New Covenant namely A being changed into the Image of God from Glory to Glory not by our own Notions or Comprehensions from the strength of our natural Reason or any Book without us but by the Spirit of the Lord operating in us therefore God's Children are not without an infallible Spirit unless he should deny God's Spirit to be such which methinks I cannot believe him to do Gal. 3. 3. Are ye so foolish having begun in the Spirit are ye now made perfect in the Flesh If Christians are both to begin and end in the Spirit or if a Christian throughout the whole course of his Life from the first step or measure to the fulness and perfection of his stature is to be informed regulated and guided by the infallible Spirit of God as the Apostle's Reproof of the Galatians for their declining to be ordered thereby evidently proves then Christians ought to begin and end in the Strength Knowledge Wisdom and Guidance of an Infallible Spirit aud consequently that Doctrine which denies such an Unerring Spirit to be the Judge Rule and Guide of Christians is Antichristian Gal. 4. 6. Because ye are Sons God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your Hearts If God sends forth his Spirit into the Hearts of his Children then are they not without an Infallible Spirit but the express Letter of the Scripture affirms it and consequently our Adversary's Reflection upon us for making it part of our Belief is unsound and condemnable Gal. 5. 16 18. This I say then Walk in the Spirit and ye shall not fulfil the Lust of the Flesh They that walk by the Spirit must first have it and next be led by it but the Apostle exhorted the Church so to walk therefore the Church had and Christians have the Spirit and should walk in or by it that is according to the Motions Leadings and Rule of ●it Eph. 1. 17. That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ the Father of Glory may give unto you the Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation in the knowledge of Him If the Heavenly Wisdom and Revelation in the Knowledge of God be through the Spirit then as without Revelation there is no Knowledge of God so without the Spirit there is no divine Wisdom and Revelation And if the Church was attended with that Wisdom and Revelation then with that Spirit from whence they came and consequently Christ's Church is not without that Eternal Vnerring Spirit as saith the Apostle in the 5th Chapter Be not Drunk with Wine wherein is Excess but be filled with the Spirit which signifies the Apostles mind to be quite another thing from the Judgment of our Adversary who thinks All men ought to be empty of it esteeming such as are filled therewith as the Jews did Paul Drunk with New Wine 1 Thes 15 19. Quench not the Spirit If those could not quench the Spirit who had it not then those to whom he gave that Caution had the Spirit consequently the Primitive Churches were not without an Vnerring Spirit because they were not without the Spirit of God which is Unerring 1 John 2. 27. But the Anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you and ye need not that any man teach you but as the same Anointing teacheth you of all things and is Truth and is no Lye and even as it hath taught you ye shall abide in him If the Judge of Truth