Selected quad for the lemma: faith_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
faith_n	church_n	scripture_n	tradition_n	15,184	5	9.5685	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A47150	Help in time of need from the God of help to the people of the (so called) Church of Scotland, especially the once more zealous and professing, who have so shamefully degenerated and declined from that which their fathers the primitive Protestants attained unto ... / writ by George Keith, prisoner for the truth in Aberdeen in the latter end of the year 1664.	Keith, George, 1639?-1716.; Jaffray, Alexander, 1614-1673.	1665 (1665)	Wing K173; ESTC R36221	73,094	85

which ye so hate us and stir up the Magistrate against us as the Priests did against your fathers and they could not suffer any man to reprove them for their covetousness And I read of a poor man in the History of the Reformation in Scotland who but through his sleep said The Devil take the Priests for they are a greedy pack and the poor man was pursued for his life and made to burn his Bill and though we were silent would not the stones rise up and witness against your covetuousness and do not the poorest idiots in the Land see it and is it not a Proverb among the people the Kirk is greedy Oh what a dishonour have ye brought upon the Name and Truth of Christ And were it not for a livelihood and worldly honour and respect would so many betake them to such a work and does not your gain from your quarter which you so punctually exact and they that will not put into your mouths ye prepare war against them and your removing from one Parish to another where ye can have a fatter stipend manifestly prove ye are moved thereto rather from a principle of covetousness then from any desire of doing good to the souls of the people and how came many of you to be Teachers was it not the design of your Fathers and Relations who saw it a ready way for them to put you in a livelihood and sent you to Schools to learn the Calling as ever the Shoo-maker or other Tradesmen past his Apprentiship and then becomes free to use the Trade the thing is well known and I speak it with regret and have not many of your selves sometime a day intreated the Lord that he would send a purge and put away out of his house such buyers and sellers and now the Lord is come to make the purge and who of you can abide the day of his coming the purge goes so deep its like to scourge you all out at doors and e're yee be put out yee will rather hold in who are in and seek to uphold one another but yee shall all fall together And whereas yee plead that he who preaches the Gospel should live of the Gospel so say I but I certainly know if the Magistrate would but take away his force whereby he compells the people to put into your mouths and if your selves would forbear your cursing excommunicating them all which is rigid law and far from Gospel your Gospel could never maintaine you and many of you would be let starve 10. Your Fathers the Primitive Protestants professed themselves against Traditions and all whatsoever that had not a warrant in the word of God in the matter of his worship Iohn Knox said that every thing though not contrary yet if besides the word of God in his worship was to be denyed and yet this day has discovered several things which they kept to have been but the traditions and inventions of men but they knew not so much and professed themselves against all traditions whatsoever and what was not warranted of God and now have yee not shrunk from them herein and taken up many things they did cast from them as traditions and you say the light of Nature or humane reason and prudence may supply what is wanting in Scripture to teach men at least some Circumstances in the worship of God for order and decency which is the Doctrine of your Church confession of Faith Oh have yee not thus shouldered Christ off his Throne if he by his spirit is to direct men as to the substance of Worship will he be wanting in the lesser to teach the Circumstances also and the order and decency does not all true order and decency come from the Lords Spirit who is the God of Order and is this to do in Faith to follow the direction of the light of Nature which is stark blind in the things of God and humane reason and prudence cannot step one right step herein and have not hundreds of the Popish supperstitions crept in under this mask of order and decency and is not this the Prelates plea at this day for his service book and Organs and Surplice and Altars and sign of the Cross lo how have yee given away your cause in this also 11. And your Fathers the Primitive Protestants were against all observations of dayes and called them supperstitious who observed them and your Ministers preaches up the observation of such days namely that called Christs Birth-day which within these three or four years they preached down which breeds no small admiration to poor people as if they had changed their God but I know well generally they have kept to their God all along very constantly among all their changes being such the Apostle mentions generally whose God is their belly and this master they have served and do serve very faithfully making every change answer its design And though yee lay such stress upon the observation of the first day of the week for a Sabbath yet one of your Fathers Calvin denyed the observation of that or any other day since the coming of Christ to be commanded of God and so many hundreds of Protestants and is it not a great abomination which may make the very Sun to blush whose day yee call it to profess to keep a day holy unto God wherein yee ought not to think your own thoughts nor speak your own words nor take your own pleasures and yet spend it so as yee do in gluttony and drunkenness sporting gaming buying and selling worldly communication quarreling and fighting and will not the Minister who in the Pulpit hath been telling you yee should not speak your own words in that day but so soon as he comes forth falls as fresh to the worldly discourse as any other which I have oft observed to the grief of my heart as many others have done 12. And your Fathers the Primitive Protestants were against Prelates and Lording Bishops It 's true in Queen Maries dayes in England there were some Bishops who did bear a measure of testimony against Popery according to the knowledge of that day and sealed it with their blood and the Lord had regard unto them according to their faithfulness to what they saw but such who came after saw further into mystery Babylon and it was discovered unto them by the light and they discerned Prelacy to be a limb of Antichrist and so called it and but of late dayes it was covenanted to God against Again and again and did yee not your selves vow to God against the same So that herein ye have not only apostatized from your Fathers but from what yee were of late your selves Oh what is become of all your zeal now for that Covenant which yee accounted the glory of your Nation have not many of you trampled it under foot as a dunghill which once was a Crown unto you and yee think shame of it as it had been a whores brat

getting many of the outward forms and words of the Saints the sheeps cloathing but inwardly adulterated from the life and Spirit of Jesus Christ the only foundation of the true Church and was not the ground of the Dragons Whores Beasts false Prophets quarrel against the Martyrs and witnesses of Christ principally this that they held the testimony of Jesus which is the spirit of Prophecie Rev. 19.10 and bear witness against the Whore who had the form retained without the power yea denyed the power of godliness denyed the teachings and leadings of the Spirit of Christ and the Revelation of him in the hearts of the children of men this is the Antichrist who denies Christ the Son come thus in the revelation of himself in the heart for that coming of Christ in his bodily appearance at Ierusalem Antichrist will not does not deny it being he knows it will never harm his Kingdom so to confess him come providing Christ his Kingdom be not set up in the heart now was there not such a dispensation in the earth were there not a people in the Apostles dayes who witnessed Christ come again in spirit according to his promise who said If any keep my commands I and my Father will come and dwell with him And again I go away but I will not leave you comfortless I will come again unto you Iohn 17. And after the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ were they not indued with the Spirit from on high and filled with the holy Ghost did they not live in the Spirit walk after the Spirit did it not give the knowledge of the mysteries of God's Kingdom unto them did not the Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation open the eyes of their understanding to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge and while they kept here did they not remain a pure chast Church unto Christ and while the eye was kept open and single by the revelation of the Spirit of Truth could the Dragon or Whore or Antichrist prevail over them could the many traditions or inventions get place as the Ordinances of Christ had they kept to the evidence and demonstration of the Spirit of God Now was not the principal Defection and Apostacy from this even the pure chast Light Life and Spirit of Christ revealing God and the things of this Kingdom unto them and when people wandred from this there the inventions took place and Babylons cup was drunk for the vail came over whereby the true discerning was lost and a wrong eye opened which could not but judge amiss of the things of God and of his People and wrest and abuse the Scriptures Now ye who say That there was indeed such a dispensation but now it hath ceased and is never any more to take footing in the ea●th do ye not hereby demonstrate your selves to be of the whorish Church for hath not this been her plea all along this dark night of Apostacy that the Revelation Teachings and leadings of the Spirit of Chirst is ceased therefore another Head was set up in the Church then Christ Jesus and the Pope and his Council was made Judge to determine all controversies of Religion and no man was to look at an infallible Judge the spirit of Truth within him and are ye not become as bad who openly affirm that ye are not led by the infallible Spirit and consequently not by the Spirit of God and your Church Confession of Faith saith The former way of God's revealing himself by Prophecy and immediate Revelation is ceased and God hath committed his counsel wholly into writing or to the Scriptures and nothing is to be added thereto by any new revelation of the Spirit And oh how fa● are ye in this point degenerated and apostatized from the primitive Protestants and Reformers who not only affirmed that there was immediate Revelations from God and that the Spirit of Prophecie was not ceased but witnessed the same in themselves and foretold many things of consequence by the spirit of Prophecie which came to pass did not Iohn Knox and George Wishard prophecie exceeding clearly of whom it was said That from the day he entred upon his Ministry t● his death there never came a storm upon the Church but he foresaw the end of it as may be seen in the Book of the Reformation of the Church of Scotland and many others did prophecie as ye may read in Fox's Book of Martyrs and was not this the main and only pillar of the Protestant cause against the Papists who should be the Judge of Controversies and the interpreter of Scriptures The Pope and his Council with the Fathers said The Papists no said the Protestants but the Spirit of God And I read in the fore-cited Book of Martyrs how when some who were burnt for their testimony to the Truth in Queen Maries dayes were called before the Popish Clergy and Bishops who disputed with them and when the controversie arose concerning such points or Scriptures the Popish party alleadged the determination of the Church but the Martyrs pleaded for the determination of the Spirit of God and when it was queried if such had the Spirit of God and it was answered Yea and one brought that Scripture for his assertion who is Antichrist but he that denyeth that Christ is come in the flesh the people partly flouted thereat and laughed them to scorn as yee do us at this day because we affirm that we have the Spirit of God and that Christ is come and his life made manifest in our mortal flesh as saith the Apostle Paul And that which sounds very harsh in your ears at this day and is mocked at by you yea accounted delusion and blasphemy viz. Enthusiasm or the Inspiration of God and the motion of his Spirit was a thing usually known professed and possessed also by them as may be read at large in the aforesaid books and they said faith was the Inspiration of Gods Spirit and so it is and I deny that there is any true faith but that which comes as really and immediately from the inspiration of the Spirit as ever Paul or Peter or any of the Apostles and Prophets witnessed the same whom yee your selves acknowledge to have been inspired and were they now living yee would hiss at them as yee do at us calling them Inthusiasts and Oh what a time are we fallen in that the inspiration of the Spirit of God which is the very breath of life into the souls of the Lords people should be scorned and such as witness such a blessed and glorious dispensation nick-named Fanaticks and mad men even by them who have pretended so highly to be the reformed Church and at such a time wherein the day of God is broke up in such clearness in the midst of them yet they know it not 2. Your fore-fathers the primitive Protestants and Reformers who saw a little further into mysterie Babylon then others that went before them for the day brake up gradually and