Selected quad for the lemma: knowledge_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
knowledge_n	believe_v	faith_n	implicit_a	1,688	5	13.6300	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A39566	Christianismus redivivus Christndom both un-christ'ned and new-christ'ned, or, that good old way of dipping and in-churching of men and women after faith and repentance professed, commonly (but not properly) called Anabaptism, vindicated ... : in five or six several systems containing a general answer ... : not onely a publick disputation for infant baptism managed by many ministers before thousands of people against this author ... : but also Mr. Baxters Scripture proofs are proved Scriptureless ... / by Samuel Fisher ...	Fisher, Samuel, 1605-1665.; Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1655 (1655)	Wing F1049; ESTC R40901	968,208	646

by little and little circumcising away all flesh for so he now stiles the waies of the word and spirit crucifying all that flesh of Christ till he becomes welnigh as spiritual as the devil 7 To endeavour after the true temper of a son of the Church which consists especially in these two qualifications 1 Humility or self denial 2. Charity or love humility is a being low in your own eyes Christ bids you learn it of him Nothing hath broacht Heresie and Schism so much as self conceit and self love as is shewed above in the case of the PPPriesthood who conceive themselves to be those unerring orracles from whom the law for Religion and faith is to go forth to the people throughout the several Nations this makes men these spiritual men especially to stand out in their own odd opinions as if all were heresy ipso facto that jumps not with them obstinately defend them utterly untractable to any argument though never so clearly urged out of the word it self that shall be brought against them resolved never to yield to any Iudgement nor willingly be in much lesse embrace any company that holds contrary to them proudly prohibiting any but such as are approved of by themselves disdaining to be discipled by any but men in orders as if that poor people and those babes to whom God delights to reveal the Gospel rather then such prudent ones as they are in their own sight were all as they said of old of such a people that know not the law and are accursed for which things sake the Lord suffers blindnes to happen to them leaves them to live in error as men lea ing to their own understanding but true humility as she is ever conscious of her own weaknesse and darknes so when she is most sure that in the Lords power and light she sees light and is most diffusive of it and desirous that all others should see it also and very zealous of promoting it yet is she far from glorying over others or boasting as if she had not received what she hath much lesse is she so impositive as by compulsion or otherwise then by plain proposal round reproof or earnest intreaty to inforce her faith as a rule for all people to believe by and howbeit it submits not as some say she does is the judgments of others sooner then its own for that verily is no other then that humble ignorance and implicit knowledge into which the PPPriesthood hath beguild the earth who as much as they perswade men to expresse their humblenesse by a voluntary submission of themselves to others judgements yet are as far from that expression of their own humility as men can be that would have all men see with their eyes swear into their faith and resign up themselves to their judgement against their own yet she submits her judgement as proud Papacy Prelacy and Presbytery never did to such free examination by others judgements as to le●d free leave to such as judge it wrong and are not satisfied to close therewith to decline and reject it and both to believe and worship as they find occasion and howbeit she must contend sometimes she dares not contend with any much lesse her superiours as the Priest does with his whole parish now and then about some trifle or remnant of tithes for so small a matter as a smal matter of means or maintenance but for matters of much more moment and of eternal consequence viz. that faith and Gospel which was once delivered unto the Saints for here indeed she gives place by subjection neither to ghostly father nor holy mother no not for an hour that the truth of the Gospel may continue and as t is Christs things she seeks and strives for and not her own so she assaults not without strong and evident and convincing reason from Scripture for her assertion not such butterflies and brown paper reasons as mans tradition 1500 y●●rs profession nor meer internal imagination and spiritual perswasion which the Rantizer and the Ranter render and even then too she prosecutes her cause with such candor and dociblenesse as to be ready to receive what ever is made manifest in the conscience to the contrary without such arrogancy as appears in some Divines when they dispute who are more ready to call them sawcy fellows that dares affront their false assertions then to clear what they hold to be the truth and without the Spirit of contradiction that is wont to shew it self in every haughty heart which is more asham'd to seem ignorant then to be so most specially in the Priesthood when the truth tendred is such as if it be acknowledged will not onely crack his credit but certainly pare his profit also As for Charity alias love it is the very cognizance of a Christian the property of it is to blow out the coals of contention not kindle them in the true Church of Christ though it contend sharply with the false Churches for the truth to seek what in it lies to prevent not foment rents Schisms divisions and offences therein contrary to the doctrine at first delivered the love of which occasions offences in the world it is the very rafiers that hold all the house of Christ whose house they onely are that are built upon the foundation or form of doctrine delivered by the first Apostles the principles of which are set down Heb. 6.1.2 together in most comely frame and order Oh that the Saints and faithful brethren in Christ of those Churches that walk in truth would among all yea and above all those pretious things commended Col. 3.12 ad 16. to be put on would put on this which is the very bond of perfectnesse this is that which will make them endeavour in all lowlinesse and meeknesse and forbearance and forgivenesse of each other to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace Eph. 4.2.3 the love of the Brotherhood within it self which is hinted to us by Peter Pet. 2.17 and harpt upon more then any other string by that beloved Disciple Iohn 1 Ioh. 2.9.10.11.3.10.11.12.13 c. ad finum 4.7 ad 13.20.21.5.1 2. Ep. 5.3 Ep. 1. is that more excellent way which the Apostle Paul so magnifies to the Church of Corinth as that without which all other gifts tongues of men and angels prophecy understanding of mysteries knowledge faith of miracles liberality to the poor exposing the body to be burned can make a man no better then as sounding brasse and a tinkling cymbal yea knowledge puffs up and so plucks down the true Church but love edifieth buildeth it and pulls down nothing but BBBabylon 1 Cor. 8.1 love sufereth long and is kind love envieth not love ●aunteth not it self rashly is not puffed up doth not behave it self unseeemly seeketh not her own is not easily provoked thinketh none evil rejoiceth not in iniquity but rejoiceth in the truth beareth all things believe all things hopeth all things endureth all

saie of this evil and adulterous generation that they maintained it against me but themselves for whether they do or do it not they cannot hurt me thereby but if they do it the worst will be their own for as they of old that rejected the true Baptism for none Luke 7.30 did reject the councel of God against themselves so do they that reject it for a false one as to the terms of evil and adulterous generation concerning which you first charge me and then acquitted me as not intending them to you I meant them then in verie deed of this Age wherein we live yet so long as you go a whoring from God after waies of mens tradition and teach people to do so as you do I see not how I could have been truly said to revile had I used them directly to your selves Report Thirdly that though I had once been of that opinion and a Minister of the Church and received orders from it yet now I was of another and did renounce both the Church and her orders to which say you 't was answered that it was no marvell that I that had forsaken the Church should afterwards revile and despise her and that God having suffered me to fall into so gross an error as to deny and renounce my first baptism did in his just judgement suffer me to fall further and further Heresie being like a Precipice where after a man hath begun his run he cannot stay till he come to the bottom Reply I was once of that opinion indeed and practise too together with your selves and had not a little zeal thereof though not according to knowledge when I acted in your false function by implicit faith and made the Directories Canons Catechisms Creeds of the Clergies compiling my Rule as many more did besides my self not comparing them so singly as I should have done with that true Directory of the word but I have since seen good occasion to recant it as you will undoubtedly do also first or last and O that it may be yet in time to your peace notwithstanding your now forwardness to uphold it I was also in your sence once a Minister of the Church but since going about to look for that Ministry of the Church and for that Church whereof I thought my selfe a Minister from thenceforth I could never find either t'one or t'other As for your Church of England I confess I received twice her holy orders viz. once from the Bishops in the daies of their Dominion by whom I was ordained a Deacon i. e. in Scripture-sence to look toth'poor but in their sence half a Priest for in that capacity we might sprinkle if allow'd and give the wine to people also in the Supper but not by any means the bread unless very specially licensed thereunto till we should come into the full order of Priest-hood for so ran the phrase in the old English horn-book which as to that part was stiled The book of the Ordination of Bishops Priests and Deacons once also by the Presbyters so called since the time of their Parricid or cutting the throats of their fathers the Bishops that gave the being of Priesthood to them and inducting themselves to reign in their stead as the Bishops themselves had dealt not long before with their old father the Pope who gave the being of Priesthood to them both from whom not as a Priest-hood but a true Presbytery as they say I was in orders to practise their refined Popery more perfectly which I might do before but by the halves but now I know not where this Church of England is if you speak of a true Church of Christ unless you can prove things to have their true being without either their true matter or true form for as the subject matter whereof it consists is false being not baptized believers so the form into which the Pope cast it some 600 years since in to which also the Prelate and Presbyter have new cast it being and that subpaena too National Provinciall Parochiall is utterly false and her fellowship as good as none at all because not free but forced and as for the true Ministry thereof I know not where it is neither if that onely be a true one as you were wont to say it is that can derive it self by a line from the very Apostles neither can you make good your interrupted succession from them unless the Pope from whom your Series comes was even then a true Minister of Christ when he was also an Antichristian Deceiver and unless Apostacy and Apostolicy can so stand together as that Rome was even then an Apostolick Church when 't was palpably apparent to be an Harlot neither if I could tell where can I tell very well which is the Ministry of your Church of England there are so many Ministries in it now namely Prelaticall High-Presbyterian Presbyterian-Independent each of which lay claim to that title but being both themselves and their adherents for such different forms of government cannot all three be the Ministry of one Church unless your Church of England that was of old so full of uniformity is now become capable of tri-formety in its discipline and Ministry and yet to be intirely but one Ministry and Church of England still which if it be it s a tr-iform monster then indeed As to your answer to this third head I wish you to weigh how rawly you utter your selves whilst just after your selves had clear'd me from the guilt of Reviling and before I had us'd any new terms that could have the least savor of reviling you return to charge me of it again but no marvel when every round reprover and renouncer of your Romishness is as much a reviler with you as your selves are at Rome for renouncing that grosser Popery that 's there Howbeit in truth he reviles your Church no more that calls it a very Harlot if it be so then your selves revile Rome in calling her a Harlot because she is so you hint at my renouncing my first baptism can a man renounce that he never had for what was dispenc't when I was a child as t is no signe to me now for I remember not that I ever saw it so I learn by the hear-say of it that it was not baptism at all as for this last which is also the first baptism that ever was administred to me I see no cause to renounce it as yet nor yet I am well assured ever shall As for heresie or believing and doing besides the word t is a Precipice indeed where after men have begun their run unless the Lord mercifully prevent them as he hath done me and many more of late and I desire may your selves in due time who are all gone astray from primitive truth after the doctrines and commandements of men they cannot well stay till they come to the bottom even the bottomless pit it self into which that Arch-Heretitk the Pope who open'd it

the light that his deeds might be made manifest that they are wrought in God yet the means and courses by which truth should be tryed which are plain and not puzzling discourses upon the Scripture you smother by all the means and courses you can conveniently devise as for any entire discourses of such as are contrary minded to you though teachers of truth as t is in the word these you cannot away with at any hand nor permit to be used in publique before the people while you have any powar to shut your pulpit doors upon them you bid your people now or then prove all things that they may find out which is good and shun the evil but by your good-evil will they shall hear no more then what you tell them and chuse whether they 'l take that for truth or nothing you bid them cut where they like and yet you 'l be their carvers and force them to feed upon what you offer them or fast and welcome for no more messes must be meddled with though they have never such a mind to cut and try then what is of your dressing that oft is no more then some sugar sopt sententious Academical bespangled hide bound glasse measured spirit stinting stuff which may challenge the name of duncery baldnesse babling and prating more then that sincere milk of the word you commonly call so which hour of divinity when you have bookt down and cond with no little care is many times but Sed and some●imes but Red ore when all 's done neither yet oft times you crow couragiously upon your own dunghil you pay it soundly in your own pulpits with convincing and opposing the approach of heresies and argue so substantially against them that you carry the cause and win all but t is because you play there by your selves for if any chance to hear you that hath never so much wherewith to undeceive your deluded people yet they may not receive his interrupted reply to never so little when you in the first place have pleaded your cause the next thing to be done is for all them that hear and have ought against you to hold their peace they must not andere audire alteram partem least they be infected though wise men know there is no other way to be perfected in the knowledge of the truth and freed from that hobnob implicit faith which is wrongly acted when rightly objected then by hearing all that is to be said against it as well as for it yea the heathen herein may be thy Tutor O PPPriest Qui statuit aliquid c. You cry out they are not Orthodox that oppose you and so forbid all audience of them to your people whom you feed with a word and a blow a bit and a knock lest if they be not as well corrected into a refusal of all direction from others as directed by your selues they quickly discern difference between you and them yet you would fain be counted free and forward that all should have liberty according to their duty to try all but the niggard shall never be called liberall nor the churl said to be bountiful for me for he deviseth not the liberal things whereby the liberal shall stand yea the instruments of the churl are evil and he deviseth wicked devices to destry the poor with lying words when the needy spoaketh right things yea his heart works iniquity to practise hypocrisie and to utter error befor the Lord to make empty the soul of the hungry and to cause the drink of the thirsty to fail Isa. 32.5.6.7.8 As for pro and con discourse or disputation you smother that likewise with all your might for as you desire no more of it then needs must so you decline it what you can and disclaim it too as far as you dare for shame be seen in such a service as disputing against disputing is declaiming against it as a dismal thing of some dangerous consequence poison means of infection contentionem scabiem and such like being sensible of your sores you come not to the stake to be questioned in your waies before your blind admirers but when you cannot with credit considering your over shooting your selves sometimes in hasty challenges make a cleanly come off without it though it be to meet with those that are inferiour to your selves save that the Lord is with them for surely you see somewhat further then a mole into a milstone that things are no better with you then they should be why else should there be such loathnesse like that of the Elephant that 's loath to drink in fair waters for fear of seeing a foul face to come to the light as we find there is in the most of you as well as in Dr. Gouge who would at no hand vouchsafe any publique discussion of in●ant-sprinkling whether it were of God or man nec per se ne per synodum in his parish with Dr. Chamberlain yet sometimes Euphoniae gratia for reports sake you make some pretty put offs in publike and put on tooth and nail for disputation but alas you curtail it into so narrow a compasse as namely half a day two hours or some odd end of an after-noon when two dayes is too little two weeks scarce enough two years not too much to discusse the truth in witnesse not onely Iude who bids the Saints of the last times saving Tertullian and Sir Henry Wottons dislike out contend for the faith once delivered to the Saints and Paul who for 2 years space disputed dayly in the School of one Tyrannus not such a Tyrant to the truth as you are it seems for if he had he would have admitted not a word out you confine it I say into such a corner of time that as Pilate askt what 's truth and when he had so said went his way without an answer so you hast to have an end not hearing half the half quarter that is to be said in opposition to your own opinions about that question And during that little while the busines lasts you carry all as much as you can above the reach and beyond the capacity of plain minded men and women that come together for resolution in Scholastick terms and conclave it from their cognizance under the lock and key of your Linsey wolsey Logick which is neither fine enough for the University from which you have a while discontinued nor home-spun enough for the Country which muddy way of mood and figure is neither suitable to the simplicity and plainess of speech in which the Gospel ought to be declared and discussed nor reasonable to reason in with Russet Rabbies that are otherwise reasonable enough to give you such reasons of their faith and practise as you can never rationally resist nor is it much more profitable to our honest hearted people then if you spake wilde Irish. And when you have done then you smother and cloud over all that was more plainly and punctually

be supreme and overcome so the lord let him for a time that he might manifest his own power the more in the overcomming him for ever in the end yea power was given him to make war by the beast that bears him even all nations of Christendom which he overcame first against the Saints and to overcome them also and so to be filled with his own inventions he gives out when any disputes against him that his desire is to be satisfyed by disputing and so perhaps he would but t is with riches more then rightousnesse with tith more then truth for in truth he seemes if he must meet with such as charge him with error in his doctrine of baptism tith forced maintenance forcing conscience as if he would renounce his opinions and practises in these points if any can prove them to be corrupt but seeks onely opportunities to spread his odd opinions of what schism and sacriledge and robbing of God it is if submission be not acted and tithes be not offered to him among the vulgar among whom his Ghostly pretences produce a kind of aweful affrightment and dread of doing any thing against what he saies being resolved before hand never to be convinced of the truth as t is in the word for that overturns him in all his preferment projects and plucks him up from all the profits of his present princely posture which is such a right eye to him that he hath not faith enough to believe that it can possibly be more profitable to him to part with though Christ himself till him tis then to preserve and perish with it His disciples are for the most part not such as the noble Beraeans that would take nothing upon trust from the very Apostles mouths but searched the Scripture dayly whether the things were so or no not onely men but honourable women too not a few but rather meet idle implicit forefather faitht men simple and weak women who try nothing but keep their Church and believe as their Church believes and as their good churchman saies led away with diverse lusts and pleasures leaning onely on their Priests understandings pinning all their Religion upon their sleeves adoring all that their Orthodox divines deliver at a venture ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth as t is in the word whose honest ignorant devotions he hath won to himself by his cunning artifice of pretended piety voluntary humility seeming zeal to the truth long prayers or rather multitudes of short prayers and praises Pater Nosters Miserere Mei's Magnificats Te deums Gloria Patri's per Iesum Christum Dominum nostrums and such like devoutries and being once gained are so carried on with the streme of corrupt custome present fashion foolish affection that no reason in the world can reclaim them he deterreth lay people as much as may be from reading expounding or too much prying into the Scripture alledging unto them the perils they may incur by misinterpretations he hath laid his foundations so firmly in the dark consciences of men women by perswading them of his own infallibity Ecclesiastical Authority his Ius Divinum in the Government and guidance of the Church as here in Britain and even of his Temporal jurisdiction too as at Rome over both heaven and earth hell and purgatory of his power in the agony of mens souls to forgive sin that men and women are becharmed into beleif of him he hath woven himself so far into their credulity that all his sayings are received as oracles all his doings as divine all his traditions as truth it self all his Administrations as Apostolical all his doctrines as Orthodox all his Arguments though confessed by himself to be weak as unanswerable and all others Administrations Actions Answers Arguments though never so consentaneous to the true sense of Scripture valued at that price which he sets upon them as if the holy chaire of Papall determination Episcopal Convention Synodical constitution could not possibly be mistaken yea the Scripture it self is but a nose of wax with him of what shape soever the CCClergy casts it into of no more authority then Aesops Fables with the Papists if the Pope say the word so as to disdate digrade it or put any part of it out of commission of no other sense then the Bishops and Synod seem to say is the sense on 't with their good Protestants so altogether Oraculous is the Pope among his the Bishop among his the Presbyter among his and even all the three several CCClergies among their three several sorts of CCCreatures that their different ipse dixits are ipso facto divine directory and discharge enough too for these different doters on them insanire cum ratione to dote to and fro by Authority so as to do and undo and do and undo and do by In a word he is too bold to be born down not so much from such things as make the righteous witnesses to truth as bold as Lions before God and men viz. the goodnesse of his cause for that is stark naugh● and rotten nor the clearnes of his call either to his Clerical function or any actions he goes about by vertue and in persuance thereof for t is clear enough that his orders emission commission as to the external etymology of them are more from the Pope then Christ and the true Church nor any good answer of a good conscience for either his conscience is so cloudy that he cannot or so cowardly that he dares not or so resolved that he will not see or else so clear that he is condemned of himself when truth shines plainly upon his face but rather from either his great interest in or directive authority over the civil power that hath long back as well as bellyed him as in England or his having it all in his own hands and dispose as at Rome where ecce duo gladii both swords are in the Clergyes clutches so that he can quickly correct those that contradict him he is too clamorous to be silenced calling out with such a heavy noise and divine ditty against the truth and condemning it with such an outcry of Schism Schism Sedition blasphemy Heresie Heresie before he hath half heard it and so soon as ever its opening its mouths to speak that all the parish pulpits in a whole Countrey and now and then their steeples ring out in such combustion to the tune of Great is Diana of the Ephesians Act. 19 28.34 that truth hath no way wherby to silence him but to be silent her self for when she begins to declare he with his Heresie Heresie soon stops men ears he is too arrogant to be convinced he hath controuled whole nations cut of the spirit of Princes bin terrible to the kings of the Earth and devinced invincible Emperors in his time therefore may well scorn to be convinced abominate detest disdain to be directed by Russet Rabbies Apron Levites Ministerian Mechanicks illiterate Artizans