Selected quad for the lemma: ground_n
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A43233
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Controversy ended, or, The sentence given by George Fox himself against himself and party in the persons of his adversaries ratified and aggravated by W. Penn (their ablest advocate) even in his huffing book of the vindication of G.F. &c. : being a defence of that little book intituled, The spirit of the Quakers tryed ...
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Hedworth, Henry.
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1673
(1673)
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Wing H1351; ESTC R19542
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43,134
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72
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was done to the Prophets and Apostles Therefore G. F. in the very beginning of his Mystery as I hinted before showing the ground of difference between the Priests and Professors and all Sects in these Nations and the Quakers saith That the controversie on their part is just and equal against them all and that they have sufficient cause to cry against them and to deny their Ministry their Church their Worship and their whole Religion as being not in the Power and by the Spirit of the living God Compare this with what I have cited before and then it plainly appears that all right Quakers in G. Fox's sense have renounced or denyed their Faith Worship and whole Christian Religion which they had before they were Quakers as being grounded as ours is upon Reason Scriptures the Preaching of Jesus and his Apostles and Prophets and Tradition with an assistance of the Holy Spirit elevating the mind but not upon immediate objective Revelation such as the Apostles and Prophets had and such as the Quakers now pretend to have For we and those that differ from them profess those things before mentioned to be the ground of our Faith they profess the last of Immediate Revelation to be the ground of their Faith and Religion and deny ours to be Divine Faith or true Religion Nay they cry out against it as foolishness and darkness literal and lifeless So then W. P. doth but make a fair flourish when he faith p. 39. The Scriptures we own and the Divine Truth therein contained we reverence and esteem as the Mind and Will of God to men For they cannot according to their Principles esteem any saying of Scripture be it that God raised up the Lord Jesus from the dead or any other word of any Apostle or of Christ himself I say they cannot esteem it as the Mind and Will of God except they have an immediate Revelation dictating the same unto them Which if they have then the Scripture is superfluous to them and they do no more esteem it the Mind and Will of God because it is written in the Bible than if it had been written in any other Book among Fables and Lies These things considered I argue thus If among the Professors of Religion in these Nations there be those that sincerely confess the Lord Jesus and heartily believe that God raised him from the dead upon the grounds forementioned and not upon the ground of immediate objective Revelation of God's Holy Spirit then G. Fox and the Quakers deny and cry out against true Christian Faith and Religion and consequently cannot have them Again If men in general cannot savingly believe without hearing a sent Preacher then men cannot believe by immediate inward Revelation and then they that assert they can and do and deny the Antecedent cannot have saving Faith The Antecedent is true from Rom. 10.13 14 15. The Consequent from the opposition between mediate and immediate 1 Cor. 1.18 They to whom the preaching of the Cross is foolishness and not the Power of God cannot have Gospel-Faith But to G. F. and some Quakers the preaching of the Cross without immediate Revelation is foolishness and not the Power of God Therefore G. F. c. cannot have Gospel-Faith Let us proceed now to the other Instances of Scripture abus'd and show the tendency of it to false Doctrine Inst 29. Next he would vindicate G. F. in correcting the Translators for rendring 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I protest by 1 Cor. 15.31 saying there is nothing in the Greek for I protest and yet Mr. P. cannot but grant that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is commonly at least a particle of Swearing and if but so it follows that there is something in the Greek that answers I protest by for supposing that not to be the sense of the place which the current of Interpretors say is yet there is that word there which will bear such a Translation there is something in the Greek for I protest which G. F. denies and therein imposes upon his Reader which is enough for my purpose Here W. P. p. 91 that he may be true to his presumptuous way of arguing though he venture the abusing God and Men tells us That an Oath having been made from the distrust of honesty in him that was to take it where the cause Lyes Equivocations c. is removed the effect Swearing should cease As if Christ or rather God himself had distrusted his own honesty when he sware unto Christ Thou art a Priest for ever after the Order of Melchisedec or the Patriarch Abraham the Father of the Faithful had distrusted God's honesty and therefore God sware to him to free him from his dissidence and not because as the Scripture speaks God was willing more abundantly to shew unto the Heirs of Promise the immutability of his Counsel Heb. 6.17 30. Next we come to that Text in Matth. 23. Neither be ye called Masters c. Here as his manner is he abuses my words as if he came out of Bedlam and then my Argument must be a Bedlam one Read both and compare for I may not now repeat If the Quakers restrain the Text where they have reason why may not others restrain it where they have as good reason and that without blaming the Text or strange irreverence to Holy Writ If my Neighbour be a Master of Servants why may I not treat him in compellation as such and not as if he had no Servant and were himself a Servant And by Mr. P's favour I count it no sin to call another Man's Wife Good Wife or another Man's She-Servant Maid Mr. P. doth but no sin to tell me I have told a plain lye when himself has made my words so by detracting from them And therefore the Reader has no reason to believe him when he saith Civil honour namely of calling Master is repugnant to common Truth and Christian Religion But I wonder W. P. should take so much pains to vindicate Stephen in calling the Counsel of the Jews Men Brethren and Fathers who yet were not his proper Fathers for he might with more ease have done it by saying He had a special impulse for it as the Quaker that came many score of miles as they said to perform his obeysance to Margaret Fell at her own House where at a solemn Meeting the Man rose up from his Seat and went and fell down upon his knees with his Hat in his hand directly before Margaret Fell and made his humble address to her by the compellation of my dear Mother and beseech'd her to pray for him In like manner on the third or fourth day after John Stubs at another Meeting requested the like favour of her with his Hat under his Arm standing and calling her My dear everlasting Mother The truth of these things can be prov'd by eye and ear-witnesses and I suppose there are some Quakers that will attest them This is that Margaret Fell who was formerly Judge Fell's
mean time he sits at God's right hand that is he has all power in Heaven and Earth committed to him and reigns over Men and Angels as will appear by comparing 1 Cor. 15.25 with Psal 110.1 They believe that the Father hath committed all judgment unto the Son that all men should honour the Son even as they honour the Father Joh. 5.23 Therefore they worship Christ and call upon him as their Lord their King their great High-Priest their God that searcheth their hearts and is perfectly able to save them that come unto God by him And they say it 's no wonder that they honour Christ as God whilst they acknowledge God his Father to be above him forasmuch as the Author to the Hebrews doth the same Heb. 1.8 9. saying But unto the Son he saith Thy Throne O God is forever and ever Thou hast loved Righteousness and hated Iniquity Therefore God even thy God hath anointed thee with the Oyl of Gladness above thy Fellaws Finally When all things shall be subdued under him this Man Jesus then shall the Son also himself be subject to him that put all things under him that God may be all in all 1 Cor. 15.28 Now I know not any thing of all that I have said concerning the Manhood Resurrection and Exaltation of Jesus wherein the Trinitarians and Vnitarians do not agree The only Point in difference between them is this Whether this Dominion Power and Glory which are conferred upon the Man Jesus be conferred upon him by assuming him into a personal Union with God so that the Man and a Person of God make one individual Person or whether they be conferred upon him by God's communicating to him such a Supernatural and Divine Power as he never communicated nor ever will to any Man or Angel and greater than which God himself cannot bestow The first the Trinitarians hold the latter the Vnitarians Herein they both agree That the Man Jesus is really invested with this Power But for the Quakers I have shew'd that they really deny this Person this Man Jesus and consequently all that power and glory which he is invested with So that all that they talk of him and all their contention for him is meer equivocation The Man Jesus the Mediator between God and Men is according to them so far from being our King our Lord and God our High-Priest and Intercessor and from being in himself immortal most happy and glorious that he has not so much Being as a Bat I mean a proper Bat not one of Mr. Pen's Bats So that he that shall call Jesus accursed O horribled meaning by Jesus that personal Beeing or Man that was dead and is now alive in Heaven a place remote from men on Earth he commits really no greater offence than he that shall call the man i' th Moon accursed for the one as they hold hath as much Beeing as the other And now let the World judge whether I did not use a soft expresson when I said that some Doctrines of the Quakers did render them very dishonourable and dangerous to Christian Religion If the Deists in France should once get the Quakers knack of equivocating and meaning by Jesus Christ when they speak of him nothing but God then what havock might they make of Christian Religion I would not be mistaken when I charge these things upon the Quakers I mean the Leading Men for I am still perswaded there are some honest-hearted among them that neither know this that I have said to be their Doctrine nor believe it And perhaps there may be some that own it and profess it that are so silly they neither know what they say nor whereof they astirm Moreover I prosess solemnly that it is not from any malice envy or revenge that I impute these things to them for I do heartily believe their Doctrine is such as I have said and I hope the Proofs I have quoted out of their Writings will sufficiently vindicate me in the eyes of all impartial Readers and I can easily produce more of the same kind See the Dialogue between a Christian and a Quaker Now as I have shew'd that they do not believe the Beeing of Jesus the Mediator and consequently none of those Articles of Christian Faith which depend upon his Beeing so it were not very difficult to demonstrate that they cannot upon their Principles believe any of them I will try a little and for Example let the Proposition to be believed be God raised up the Lord Jesus from the dead It you bring them Scripture and universal Tradition to get credit with them it 's all nothing G. Keith saith in his Immediate Revelation p. 35. The best words uttered from Christ in the dayes of his flesh or from any of the Apostles or Prophets and yet recorded in the Scriptures cannot reveal the Father nor the Son either Again p. 37. Outward Revelation or Discovery by words spoken from without of Chirst or any of his Disciples or Apostles cannot reveal the Father nor the Son It seems then that if Christ himself as after his Resurrection with his Apostles should converse with us and preach to us that God had raised him from the dead and if the whole Colledge of the Apostles should bear witness to what he said all this could not work in us any true saving-Faith of the Proposition aforesaid without an immediate Revelation within for that 's the purport of his Book the Title whereof is Immediate Revelations not â—â—â—siâ—â— but remaining of indispausable necessity as to the whole Body in general so to every Member thereof every true Believer in particular And by immediate Revelation he tells us p. 16. They understand not onely immediate supernatural influences of the Spirit of God to assist and enable or elevate the mind to know and understand savingly but also such inward influences as are the very immediate Objects of our mind Hence he saith p. 40. The Lord knoweth the thoughts of Man to be but vanity and his wisdom foolishness and enmity against God even all that wisdom which the carnal mind can gather into it self whether from the Words of Scripture or from the Works of Creation and Providence Here by mans wisdom and carnal mind mind you must understand him of all wisdom whatsoever which comes not by immediate inward Revelation So p. 59. All your Scripture literal traditional Knowledge and Wisdom is a burthen unto this something in you And G. White head saith Christ Ascend p. 28. That Faith that is without the divine and immediate illumination of the Spirit within which is no Divine Faith but mens Knowledge Faith and Religion are but Traditional Literal and Lifeless So that if W. P. would have told candidly and plainly with us he should have told us that the infallible Spirit is the immediate Judge Rule and Guide to men and so that no man can have any true Faith or Religion without its immediate proposing by way of Object unto him as