Selected quad for the lemma: knowledge_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
knowledge_n	jesus_n	light_n	shine_v	5,880	5	9.7269	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A96113	A scribe, pharisee, hypocrite; and his letters answered, separates churched, dippers sprinkled: or, A vindication of the church and universities of England, in many orthodox tenets & righteous practices. Whereunto is added a narration of a publick dipping, June 26. 1656. In a pond of much Leighes parish in Essex, with a censure thereupon. By Jeffry Watts B.D. and Rectour of Much-Leighes.	Watts, Geoffrey, d. 1663.	1657 (1657)	Wing W1154; Thomason E921_1; Thomason E921_2; ESTC R207543	280,939	342

cloud was a Pillar of fire and light to let you see if you be not wilfully blind that education of men at Schools and Universities in the knowledge of the Arts and Sciences as also Tongues and Languages is so far from being a way shut up by Christ as an Impertinency or Impediment to his Ministery that it hath been and is still a way laid open by him even in the times of his best and purest Ministery as a great furtherance and promotion thereof and that his Humane learning which you so vilifie is instrumental and subservient so it ought to be as Hagar to Sarah to the better propagation and profection of the Divine truth But Sir what is the reason you and yours are so much out of charity with Scholars and University Learning Sure it is because you are too much in love with your selves and the Countrey ignorance and like not those who are not like you in ignorance or whom you cannot be like unto in knowledge Like as it is said that Hierom wrote somewhat against Bishops and the Episcopal order because he could not be made a Bishop himself And yet I have heard and partly know it that you had natural wit enough to have been a Scholar though God never gave you the gracious will thereto and I have heard you discourse a great deal more rationally then now you do which makes me think you were dipt in some shallow Pond and not over head and ears otherwise you would not after such declaiming writing against the learning of Latine have within a line or two spoken and written Latine your self as you sililly do in those words of my taking a Living from them to the value of 100 l. per annum yea and have spoken false English too like a bad English Scholar also for I never took a Living from them the people neither from them as the owners nor from them as the Doners and so no way from them I hope that hereafter you will love Latine the better now your self begin to speak it But I have done with that which concerneth my self solely in your Letter for as to those other Queries or Interrogatories Did ever Jesus lay down my sprinkling of water in Baptism upon the childs face it is answered as being the subject of this my last piece written to you my being Master and Lord over Gods Heritage my taking a Parish Church my giving the Lords Supper to no better then dogs These have been answered as being a part of the Subject of that my former piece written to your brother Thus When the Jews had married wives of Ashdod their children spake half in the speech of Ashdod and could not speak in the Jews Language Neh. 13.23 24. so you having made a separation and divorce from your Mother Church of Jerusalem and entred into a Communion and match with Ashdod or Samaria this your Letter as your childe and off-spring speaks wholly I may say and not half the speech of the Separation or Ashdod for in all these particulars which you have mentioned you plowed with your Samsons Heifer and there is no more difference betwixt that he first vented and you now have added then betwixt Ephraim his Shibboleth and Gilead his Shibboleth You tell me of some no better then dogs that I give the Sacrament to and of your self having been not so good as a dog yet I see you are good at gathering up the scraps and eating the crumbs which fall from your Masters Table your Master Brothers Table to whom you have committed your soul and in whom you have put your trust for your soul as I have heard you should say to him and so like a Parrat or Pie as I said you speak no other but the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Language of your Master and Teacher brother In answering therefore him first I have answered you also who are but his second nay but the very first again now also I will answer my own question before of Quis expedivit Psittaco suum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 namely Magister artis ingeniique largitor venter When he began to be in want he went and joined himself to one of the Citizens or Farmers in that Countrey 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as now so then Citizens had their Farms in the Country and were Farmers also as well as Citizens and so he filled his belly with the very same Husks the Swains or Swines do eat Luke 15.15 And so I come to that in your Letter which you speak first Of my Parishioners to be no better then dogs and secondly of your self to have been one not so good as a dog till the grace of God appeared plucking you out of your wicked wayes to the knowledge of the Truth which you say I fear you have not owned but the day will discover and God will judge betwixt you and us Sir it is true I wrote so that I feared it and do still fear as I wrote that you owned not the Truth for you own not the Scriptures in the right sense which are the Word of Truth but wrest the Letter to prove your own Errors nor do you own the Church but have forsaken it which is the Pillar of Truth and betaken your self to a Synagogue of your own and not onely this National Church of England but the Universal Church in the world as who have withdrawn your self from the publick Ministery of the Truth in the Word and Sacraments Yea and have renounced one of its true Sacraments your Infant-baptism these things have been clearly and largely set forth already in my answer to your Brother and I must not tyre my Reader or trifle away paper with needless repetitions And therefore though I yeeld you that the grace of God hath appeared plucking you out of your wicked wayes which I am glad to see as it appeareth yet I cannot say as you follow on that it hath pluckt you to or into the knowledge of the Truth for I find you not there but rather which both your Letter and life make to appear in the ignorance and that wilful ignorance of the Truth which makes me doubt somewhat of the truth also of the grace of God you so boast of for where true grace appeareth it not onely sanctifieth and plucketh out of wicked wayes but it illuminateth and setteth in the knowledge and path of Truth Yea and usually the grace of God doth first enlighten the soul and teacheth it the knowledge of the Truth before it pluck him from his wicked wayes as in the Prodigal and Saul more apparently There shined round about him a light from heaven and a voice thereout taught him the knowledge of the Truth even Jesus whom he persecuted in ignorance and so there fell from his eyes immediately as it had been scales and he received forthwith his sight and so after arose and was baptized Acts 9.3 18. and became a new creature and was plucked out of his evil and

say they have converted you and so say some others I am sure and done you much good to your sou● which you have said you would commit to them and trust them with a very foolish almost blasphemous speech if you said it And God faith here they shall not profit you at all and therefore do you no good either in soul and body as to Conversion and Salvation whom shall I believe God or you whom do you believe God or your self Gods true prediction or your own false suggestion Come come Sir Let God be true and every man a lyer Rom. 3.4 as it is written also for so your self and every other man that saith he hath profited in soul unto Salvation or Conversion by these unsent and unordained Preachers of the separation when as God saith such shall not profit the people at all by their Anabaptistical Doctrines and Preachings Mistake me not I am not against the profit that may come even from them to you or others by mutual and fraternal conferences exhortations admonitions supplications so long as their words be seasoned with the falt of Truth and Grace and be good to the use of edifying and your selves have your senses exercised to discern both good and evil and be able to try and prove all things and hold to that which is good for so God hath allowed and approved of it and profit may come upon it Col. 3.16 1 Thes 5.11 But this from Gods Word I hold That an usurped publick taking upon them the cure of souls without Commission as teaching Anabaptists do in a manner yea upon the matter of the fraternity and sorority within their limits and also their dispensing and dividing the mysteries of the Word and Seals of the Sacraments without a lawful sending ordination and separation thereto and that in a rightly constituted and planted Church where there is a power of order and degrees and a settled or fixed Ministery will be of no profit and benefit to you or the people as to Faith and Conversion that wait and attend onely upon such a service or Ministery if I may so call it For now lift up your eyes and look on the fields are they white unto the Harvest since people left praying that God would send Husbandmen into his work and Laborers into his Vineyard and since people have left coming to and attending upon their own painful preaching Ministers and have betaken themselves to the hearing of self-intruding peakers which were none of Gods calling or sending are they not rather smutched and smitten with blasting and mildew with pride haughtiness malice variance rancour envy fraudulency covetousness lying defamation hypocrisies impu●ities more then ever they were and compassed about of late with such a dark cloud of Satans witnesses and his Emissaries every where transforming themselves into Angels of New light no better then darkness Besides the Schisms in the Churches of God and destractions of mens minds the contempts of Gods Ordinances the broaching of Errors and Heresies the Rapines Sacriledges and Massacres that have been committed the slighting of Laws and Civil Magistrates the uprising of bloody Wars and throwing down of Order and Proprieties Insurrection and Rebellion And now Sir I return to you again to whom I have a sixth thing to acquaint you with and then I shall take my leave and subscribe a friendly farewel to you § Sixthly What shall I say more to you of these men for that indeed a notable change and alteration hath been wrought in you is manifest to all them that dwell here abouts and we cannot deny it my self as I have said rejoyce at it yea and the Angels in Heaven rejoyce over one sinner that repenteth and converteth truly and sincerely This therefore I will say even the same still that you do That the Grace of God appeared plucking you out of your wicked wayes to the knowledge of the Truth But I ask as St. Paul doth Gal. 2.3 This onely would I hear and know of you Received you the Spirit by the works of the Law or by the hearing of the Faith so received you this Grace or your Conversion of being pluckt out of yoru evil wayes to the knowledge of the Truth from the Word preached by your Brethren of the separation or from the Word preached by my self or other ordained Ministers I have proved before that unsent Teachers and Preachers shall not and cannot profit you with their Doctrines especially being not of God and his Word and therefore they have not wrought any such thing in you by their Doctrines and that you could not cannot attain and therefore have not attained to Faith but by hearing of a sent and ordained Preacher and the Word of God by him Again received you this Grace of God or your Conversion and plucking out of your evil wayes from the Spirit of God in and by your last Dippism or your first Baptism not in and by your last dipping at Laver for this requireth Conversion and Faith and Profession of it before you can be partaker of it you must bring these with you already wrought to your dipping your dipping doth not work them at that time but presupposeth them so I cannot call your dipping a Laver of Regeneration but a Generation of I know not what at Laver or a degeneration Besides I have shewed this your dipping which is but a Re-baptizing at the best to be a humane device yea Heretical practise so esteemed and for such condemned of the Churches of God throughout all Ages and therefore it can be no means or instrument of God and his Grace to pluck you from your wicked wayes to the knowledge of the Truth Whither now Sir will you go as Hos 2.7 so is yur case She shall follow after her Lovers but she shall not overtake them and she shall seek them but shall not finde them then shall she say I will go and return to my first Husband for then was it better with me then now Follow not therefore after those your Suitors and Solicitors rather your inveiglers and beguilers that rather have tempted your spiritual chastity and attempted also somewhat upon your body but come and return to your first Husband Christ Jesus and your first Covenant of Grace sealed unto you in your first Baptism from which as from the Fountain hath issued out all other Grace of God appearing to you sithence and even that plucking you out from your wicked wayes and bringing you to the knowledge of the Truth through his dispensing his word and your hearing the same of Gods Ministers sent to that purpose and through the operation of his Spirit stirring up the Grace of God in you and the Grace of the same sanctifying your afflictions and last sickness and fears and other things that have befallen you She did not know that her first Husband gave her Corn and Wine and Oyl and multiplyed her silver and gold which they prepared for Baal Hos 2.8 or as in the