Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
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A45353
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An account of familism as it is revived and propagated by the Quakers shewing the dangerousness of their tenets, and their inconsistency with the principles of common reason and the declarations of Holy Scripture / by Henry Hallywell.
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Hallywell, Henry, d. 1703?
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1673
(1673)
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Wing H458; ESTC R25413
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52,525
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144
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great deal of poison I shall therefore for the sake of the Ignorant and such as lie most obnoxious to their snares discover the Cheat. To omit that this Expression Several Ministrations before and after the Law by Moses and after by John Baptist and Christ and his Apostles can scarce be made tolerable sense a fault pardonable enough in Mechanics and the Brethren of the Family but a notorious instance of their Hypocrisie in pretending immediate Inspiration from the Spirit when they write nonsense In the Discourse such as it is we learn these three things 1. That the Ministration of Christ was but a temporary Ministration to continue only till the Dispensation of the Spirit came and therefore was disliked and rejected of God as wanting that full Measure Rule and Power of the Spirit which should afterwards come into the world Whereas the Ministration of Christ was indeed the Ministration of the Spirit and therefore to set up a Dispensation of the Spirit above and in opposition to that of the Lord Jesus in the Gospel is a blasphemous derogation from the honour of our blessed Saviour who said to his Apostles Joh. 16. 14. He shall receive of mine and shall shew it unto you 2. It follows from the forementioned passage that the Spirit of God equally moves and acts in them as it did in the Apostles therefore say they As the Apostles were commanded to wait at Jerusalem for the gracious illapse and descent of the Holy Spirit so they and this signifies to them both what and when to speak But will any sober person believe that a Quaking Speaker is divinely inspired when he commits endless Tautologies and vain repetitions and makes inconsequent illations and especially when the greatest part of his Harangue shall be downright railing Shall the eternal Spirit of Wisedom and Reason be guilty of nonsense and absurdities 3. It will follow that what they speak or write must be as good Canonical Scripture as the Bible and we are as much bound to believe George Fox and James Nailor as S. Paul and S. Peter I shall instance but in one Quaker more to prove this first part of their Doctrin all one with Familism and that shall be out of Humphrey Smith's Discourse of the three Ministrations of Moses Christ and the Spirit If Moses says he with all his Priests Tythes and long Prayers were now upon earth and Christ in his own body with his Miracles Baptism and Supper then whether those obey not Moses who leave the Priests and come to Christ And whether such when they are come to Christ should always be looking and following after his Body Miracles Baptism or Supper without them or tarry and wait to receive the Spirit within them And then which of these now should all people that profess Christ be led by in these days either Moses or the Person of Christ or the Spirit of Truth There is no sober Christian that can read this passage without anger and disdain to see such wicked wretches scoff and flearingly insult upon the sacred Person of our Lord Jesus the whole History of whose blessed Life and Death in the Letter of it they esteem no better than one of Esop's Fables Again the same Person hath this Whether they be not compassed about with a cloud of error who are upholding that Ministry of the Law which Christ is the end of and likewise such as are upholding and keeping up that which Christ said he had finished And being that Moses nor indeed his true Ministers of the Law are upon Earth neither the body of Christ which by the Professors was murdered at Jerusalem visibly to be seen upon earth then what was it these have to follow who have not received the Spirit to be led by Here again the Personal Offices of the blessed Jesus are laid aside SECT II. The second thing wherein the Familists and Quakers are all one is the Pretence of immediate Revelation David George and H. N. both pretended to receive their Doctrin from the Angel Gabriel And Wil. Gibson the Quaker says that the Gospel which they preach they have not received it from men nor from books nor from writings but by the Revelation of Jesus Christ in them and then he goes on and denies the Scriptures of the old and new Testament to be the revealed Will of God There are two things especially by which our Saviour Jesus Christ and his Apostles demonstrated the Truth of their Doctrin 1. The Miracles which they did And these were so many infallible Seals and Marks of the Divinity of the Doctrin they communicated to the World that God was the Author of it For there can be no surer evidence of any thing being delivered from heaven than when a man in favour of it is enabled to work Miracles And this was the sign which Moses gave the children of Israel when they asked how they should know the word which God has not spoken Deut. 18. 22. When a Prophet speaks in the name of the Lord if the thing follow not nor come to pass that is if he do no Miracle that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken 2. The Reasonableness of the Doctrin which they delivered To this S. Peter seems to appeal 2 Pet. 3. 15. when he bids us be ready 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 always to give an answer to every man that asks us a reason of the hope that is in us Now let us examin a little the Doctrin of these Modern Familists or Quakers by these two foregoing Rules they pretend Divine Revelation and would fain have the World believe that they are divinely inspired but is any man so simple as to believe they are so merely because they say it so a man may believe all the Cheats and Impostors in the World What sign do they shew or what evidence do they bring that they have received their Doctrin immediately from God If they can work any Miracles to confirm it we will believe them otherwise we have no more faith to believe them than we have to believe that Mahomet discoursed with the Angel Gabriel and received his Alchoran from him As for the Reasonableness of their Doctrin a very easie and mean capacity can find none in it for how should there be any Reason in what they teach when they themselves deny the use of Reason and tell the world they are guided by a Light within them that is neither Reason nor Conscience which yet is but like a dark Lanthorn that gives light to none but themselves And besides by this Principle it is impossible they should ever convince any man that is not merely besotted As for Example the Quakers Light says that the Sacrament of the Lords Supper is needless but the Light within me tells me it is not And is not my Light as good as his nay much better for I have the warrant of Christ and his Apostles but he has only his own bare blind Fansie And the man
this Office of Administring it was by our Lord Jesus bestowed and settled upon his Apostles and that they planting of a Church which should continue after their Death should appoint and ordain Successors to themselves to preside and officiate in that Church and particularly to administer this Sacrament to the People by way of Office to do as here Christ did And this not in a Mystical and Allegorical but Literal Sense so that though it be true that he that eateth not Christs Flesh and drinketh not his Bloud has no Life in him yet is this to be done by the partaking of the outward Bread and Wine and by our communicating of that according to Christs Institution we partake of his Body and Bloud in a Spiritual manner and all other benefits of his Death and Passion So that these Apostates and Heretical Persons by their Allegories and Mystical meanings would bereave the Christian World of the choicest Mystery of Religion in which we are confirmed and assured of the Pardon of our Sins and by Gods free remission the burdned and distressed Soul is refreshed and we receive further supplies and increase of Grace and the Spirit of God to enable us to do that which he will graciously in Christ accept at our hands i. e. to serve him in holiness and renewed Righteousness and to impower us if we be not wanting to our selves and to our own best hopes and Interests to continue and persevere thus to our lives end And now let all men consider seriously how heinous a thing it is Schismatically to separate from the Church and how grosly they are cheated and abused by these deceitful Quakers and imposed upon against the plain Sense and Current of the Holy Scripture and how they hope to look that Jesus with comfort in the Face at the dreadful Day of Judgment whose sacred Institutions they now vilifie and contemn Christ saith Eat this bread and drink this wine in remembrance of me and Saint Paul says that as oft as we shall eat this bread and drink this cup we do one to another annuntiate or proclaim the death of the Lord till he come again to judge us But these Fanatic Spiritualists would persuade us that this Communion is Heathenish and Abomination Now judge whom we are to follow in this matter whether Christ and his Apostles or these deceitful Whifflers For Christ and his Apostles did corporally eat and drink the material Bread and Wine and left command to his Church that it should so be done and that this Order was observed Saint Paul plainly shews 1 Cor. 11. where he sets down the manner of Christs Institution of this Holy Sacrament and rectifies some abuses the Corinthians were guilty of CHAP. III. Of the Holiness of Times Things and Persons under the Gospel BEcause the Church of God hath ever set apart some Times Things and Persons in a more immediate relation to God and his Service and that these seducing Familists persuade the People that all these are equally common with others and so no difference to be put between one day and another one thing and another or one person and another though in the nearest relation to God and his Service but that the Christian Sabbath is no more than another day the Church no more than a Stable or Barn nor a Minister or Euangelical Priest than another man as appears by their following many times their usual Imployments and Trades on a Sunday their despight and scorn cast upon the material Edifices or Churches wherein Divine Service is celebrated calling them Steeple-houses in derision and the reviling Gods Ministers by the names of Baals Priests Hirelings Serpents and whatever their black and impure Hearts and Mouths can think and utter I shall therefore for the sake of those ignorant People who are not yet drawn away nor bewitched with their Sorceries and Inchantments shew plainly and distinctly the Reasonableness of these things When God created Man he wrote this Truth on his heart that he was a Creature and therefore acknowledging Gods Sovereignty and Dominion over all the Works of his hands he must likewise confess that God has a Right and Propriety in every thing from his Sovereign Majesty and Dominion which can never be alienated from him or he ever dispossessed of Since then God by Royal Bounty has not only given Man his Being but likewise draws out this Existence which is the Time and Duration of it and enriched him with various Gifts and Benefits such as the free Use and Enjoyment of all earthly Creatures he is obliged and bound to pay some Service Duty and Fealty to this great Lord of the World and must return him back something of all that he hath given him But lest this should be left to the frail and mutable will of Man who being possessed of these Benefits might forget the Lord therefore God has expresly declared how and in what sort he shall hold and enjoy all these Blessings that is So that God the great Lord have a Rent or Portion reserved out of them to himself that thereby Man might still acknowledge Gods Sovereignty and his own Dependency upon him Now the Benefits God has conferred upon Man they are 1. The Time or Duration of his Life 2. The Place of his Habitation 3. The Means of susteining his bodily Life upon Earth Out of all these God must have his Honorary Part That is since God has given us our Beings and draws them out in length and continues our Life to us we owe in Justice some portion of this time to God So likewise since God has given Man so wide a place for his dwelling as the whole Earth he must allot some place some part of this great space for God And lastly since all Creatures are given Man for his own Use and Benefit 't is fit that God likewise have his Rent out of what we possess and enjoy SECT I. In the fourth Commandment God designed the seventh day for his Service and Worship For the Worship of Almighty God being once setled in all the Parts and Duties of it it necessarily follows that some time should be set apart for the more special performance of it And this Commandment being Moral as all the rest of the Decalogue are a Symbol of which was their being written by the finger of God in Tables of Stone to denote their eternal Permanency and Morality we are as much bound to the Observation of it as to its main Importance as to the sixth or seventh I say we are bound to the Observation of it as to the Equity and Morality of it And from this we conclude 1. That it is reasonable there should be a time set apart for Gods Worship For we being commanded to worship honour and serve God it is impossible to do it but within the Comprehension of some time or other 2. One day in seven is time little enough to be allotted for the more special Service of God