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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
ground_n	authority_n	scripture_n	word_n	1,782	5	4.5549	3	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A47167	A refutation of three opposers of truth by plain evidence of the holy Scripture, viz. I. Of Pardon Tillinghast, who pleadeth for water-baptism, its being a Gospel-precept, and opposeth Christ within, as a false Christ. To which is added, something concerning the Supper, &c. II. Of B. Keech, in his book called, A tutor for children, where he disputeth against the sufficiency of the light within, in order of salvation; and calleth Christ in the heart, a false Christ in the secret chamber. II. Of Cotton Mather, who in his appendix to his book, called, Memorable providences, relating to witchcrafts, &c. doth so weakly defend his father Increase Mather from being justly chargeable with abusing the honest people called Quakers, that he doth the more lay open his fathers nakedness; and beside the abuses and injuries that his father had cast upon that people, C. Mather, the son, addeth new abuses of his own. And a few words of a letter to John Cotton, called a minister, at Plymouth in New England. By George Keith.	Keith, George, 1639?-1716.	1690 (1690)	Wing K199; ESTC W21703	49,228	77

were very civil who were with him but as to any Worldly or Civil Concern either with him or any other or as to any intention or purpose that he or they had to hurt or damage you in any of your Religious or Civil Concerns I had no knowledge nor have from any of them But the ground of my saying what I have affirmed in my Book was simply and wholly as I there in my Book have affirmed That my hope is that in due time many People both in Boston New England shall have their Eyes opened by the Spirit of the Lord which ye blaspheme to see you to be these false Teachers who bring not the Doctrine of Christ and the Houses ye preach in not being your Houses buc the Houses of the People they shall not any more receive you into them c. Hereby it doth most evidently appear that I had not the least ground in my most remote thoughts that these in present Authority or any others by any outward Force would destroy your Churches or extrude you out of your Meeting Houses but that in due time God would open the Eyes of the People to see you to be that sort of false Teachers who bring not Christs Doctrine and that on that account the People would not receive you into these Houses being their Houses and not yours It is therefore most evident this gloss of thine upon my words is a meer Forgery and Calumny as if I did either wish or predict by some conjecture That any in present Authority at that time were e'er long purposed to destroy or overturn your Churches or Meeting-Houses But it is no wonder thou putest such false Interpretations on my words when thou and thy Brethren dare so frequently put false Interpretations on the Scriptures themselves And I never had the least ground to think or conjecture that any at that time in Authority had the least intention to overturn any of your Churches or in the least to straiten you in the Profession of your Religion and I believe they had none And as to my words that I laid In due time my hope was that God would open the Eyes of many People both in Boston and New-England thou also makest a Mock of that Expression In Due Time saying Ay no doubt of it in due time but I pray friend George sayst thou when shall this due time be I Answer thee sooner than thou dost expect or thinkest of but as to the precise time of what Year Moneth or so I leave it wholly to the Lords ordering who hath said He will Overturn Overturn Overturn till He come to reign whose right it is and that is the Lord Jesus Christ spiritually and inwardly revealed to reign and rule in mens hearts whom ye oppose and blaspheme against and all his Enemies will fall before him in Due Time according to Deut. 32.35 To me belongeth Vengeance and Recompence saith the Lord their feet shall slide in DVE TIME for the Day of their Calamity is at hand and the things that shall come upon them make hast So thou mayst see that the true words of Prophecy in Deut. 32.35 are so expressed with a respect to the Due Time As for us and me in particular neither we nor I have any evil will or wish in our hearts towards the Land or People of New-England but we and I in particular can and do say I wish the Well-fare and Happiness of it every way and my Hope is great and my Faith sure and firm That God hath a chosen Seed and People in it to whom he will inwardly reveal himself in great Power and Glory and gather them to the living knowledge of himself and into a living acquaintance with himself and his living Way and Truth and this will make them indeed a blessed and happy People but as for all such who shall be found continuing to oppose and resist the heavenly inward and spiritual Appearance and Revelation of God and Christ in the hearts of People and shall be found saying as these Scoffers of whom Peter prophesied who should come in the last dayes and say Where is the Promise of his coming and as this Cotton Mather in the same scoffing nature and spirit hath said When is that due Time that I have said shall come that God will open the Eyes of People c both thou and all such and all Hypocrites and all false Teachers of all sorts who do all that ye can to uphold your Babylonish buildings shall be greatly disappointed of all your vain and false Hopes and a dreadful Cup of Wrath and Judgment will be given to all such who shall still continue to gainsay and oppose yea to blaspheme this heavenly inward Appearance and Revelation of Christ in his People And therefore I do sincerely and earnestly exhort and request both thee C. Mather and Increase Mather thy Father if this ever come to his hands and all others of you call'd Ministers and Teachers in New-England to Repent of all your hard Speeches Revilings false Accusations and Calumnies that ye have raised against the Truth and Witnesses of it and bow and submit to that divine Light of Christ in your hearts that ye have so long and so much gain-said and blasphemed against heretofore And as for thy Conclusion in thy Appendix it is so dirty and unclean that it is not worth mentioning being an old Latine Rhyme made by some old doting Priest or Clergy-man in the former time of Ignorance and as it hath no good favour to any that understand a little Latine so no more would it have if translated into English But we may well bear it to be called or esteemed by thee in thy ignorance and darkness of understanding as Dung and Filth when the Apostles of the Lord by men of thy dark Spirit were made as the Filth of the World and the Off-scouring of all things 1 Cor. 4.13 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There is another Passage in Cotton Mathers Appendix which though I could easily have passed by altogether without any just Reflection on us yet because it showeth now foolish and inconsiderate he is to accuse others for that which these of his own Society have been sufficiently liable to I shall take some notice of it He saith That the Quakers fall out amont themselves is but a natural Consequence of their Tempers and Errors which cannot be otherwise than incoherent and sometimes their Credit forces them to explode in one another what they wish they could but can't excuse Answ. That we have denyed Thomas Case and all his ungodly Crew and Followers is not the least proof that the Quakers fall out among themselves for tho' they or others may falsly call them Quakers as being of our Religion and Society yet it doth not follow any more than that many of the most Wicked called Christians are of the true Christian Religion or are Christians because falsly so called But in this thou actest more like Celsus

Brethren called Baptists most Anti-christianly have done and yet continue to do Oh Pardon Pardon God Almighty give thee pardon through unfeigned Repentance for this thy great sin others not these sober People called in scorn Quakers but Ranters and high Notionists who pretend to own Christ within them but deny him without as come in the Flesh c. And though thou call'st thy self in thy title page A Servant of Iesus Christ yet thou hast plainly discovered that thou yet art ignorant of him and in this thy Work thou hast rather proved thy self a servant of Anti-christ for what greater opposition can Anti-christ make against Christ than to oppose the presence and in-being of Christ in his People who is their Life And if he who is their Life be not in them they cannot live yea if Christ live not in thee thou art dead in thy tre●passes and sins and the old man is alive in thee and his servant thou art and Christ is not like to live in thee as he did in Paul and as he doth in all true Christians so long as thou judgest That the Christ in the heart is a false Christ. Oh Pardon Tillinghast thou hast made too great haste in this thy undertaking as in many other thy works wherein possibly thou mayst imagine thou art tilling and plowing in Gods field but remember that the Scripture saith The plowing of the Wicked is sin and when thou makest haste to till without the true knowledge of God and Christ thou hadst better let alone and imploy thy self in some other lawful occupation Hast thou no other way to defend thy Idol of Water-baptism but to smite against the Lord Jesus Christ in his inward appearance in his Saints But know O vain and foolish man that as that idol Dagon did fall before Gods Ark so thy idol of Water-baptism shall fall before the Lord Jesus Christ inwardly appearing in thousands and ten thousands of his Saints and let none be offended that I call thy Water-baptism an ●dol for whatever man sets up in opposition to the inward appearance of Christ in his People they make it unto themselves an Idol and it will fall and they together with it But as for Iohn's Baptism with Water or that baptism with water that others of the Disciples of Christ used I call it not an Idol far be it from me it had its blessing and service in its day and pointed as a figure to Christs inward and spiritual Baptism and if there be an inward baptism of Christ then is not Christ the inward baptiser and minister of this inward baptism yea certainly and yet thou denyest Christ within calling him A false Christ in the secret Chamber of the heart And as for thy undertaking to prove thy Water Baptism to be a Gospel Precept by plain Scripture I question not but through Gods assistance I shall prove that thou hast grosly perverted mis-applied the scriptures not understanding the scriptures nor the power of God like unto the Sadduces of old Thou comparest thy self to David with his sling his few stones smiting at Goliah But alas poor man that sling and these stones and that River or brook out of which he did take these stones according to the deep Mystery signified under that figure or allegory thou understandst not it is a dark Riddle and Parable unto thee and thou thy self art more a kin to Goliah than to David In the beginning of thy work thou dost not fairly state the Question first that thou takest no notice of my plain and express words in my book pag. 184. where I say expresly as followeth If any were raised up by the Lord as John was and could prove and instruct their being sent to baptize with Water as he was these to whom they should be sent ought gladly to receive it but to do it by bare imitation or a meer pretended Call which they cannot prove to be either mediate or immediate is great Presumption yea Superstition This one short section is enough to overthrow thy whole Work and yet thou hast made no Reply to it nor given the least notice of it in thy book and all that thou hast said for Water-baptism doth not in the least give any ground for thy Water-Baptism thou and thy brethren set up in your vain Imaginations without any call either immediate or mediate from God so that your work in your Water-baptism is a Will-worship Secondly Thou dost not fairly cite my words in thy stating the Question saying That I affirmed that the Apostles practiced it viz. Water-baptism Only by permission c. The word Only is thy addition and is not in my book but my words are these following The Apostles generally thought fit both to use and tolerate the use of Water-baptism that belonged to John and divers other things of the Law which was by permission for a time and not by any Gospel standing Commission c. Now the word Only being added doth derogate from my words as if I did understand that the Apostles only baptized by a bare dry or naked permission whereas I did understand and so I do still that it was not a meer or bare permission but they they thought fit both to use it and tolerate the use of it and that which made them think and judge it fit to use it for sometime was really the Spirit of God in them that gave them not only a spiritual and chearful freedom to use it for some time but let them see a great service and conveniency in it for somtime until men began to contend about it and lay more weight on it and other things of the like nature than they ought to have done for as in the change of an outward form of Government or a new administration of worldly and civil Laws the former Laws and the execution of them cannot in an instant be removed but gradually otherwise great inconveniences would follow as when a house is to be supported with new Pillars the o●d Pillars must not be first removed else the House would be in danger of falling but the new Pillars must first in great part be well placed and fixed and then the old are by degrees safely and wisely removed Even so Iohn's Baptism and other things of like nature were not presently and suddainly to be removed because many both Iews and proselited Gentiles laid great stress and weight on them And therefore I say the Apostles not by a meer bare and naked permission but in the wisdom and counsel of God used Water-baptism for a time and yet all this will not prove that it is a Gospel Precept or a standing Gospel Ordinance that was to continue in the Church to the end of the World Nor art thou more successful in managing this Controversy about Water Baptism than in stating it for almost throughout thou fight'st against thy own shadow and takest much pains and usest many Arguments to prove many things no wise denyed by