Selected quad for the lemma: knowledge_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
knowledge_n	law_n	sin_n	sin_v	2,207	5	9.5096	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A88811	A plea for the vse of gospell ordinances: against the practice and opinions of certain men of these times. Unto which is added by way of an illustrious instance; a vindication of the ordinance of baptisme: against Mr. Dels booke, entituled The doctrine of baptismes. Wherein it's proved that the ordinance of baptism is of gospel institution, and by divine appointment, to continue of use in the Church, to the end of the world. / By Hen: Laurence Esq;.	Lawrence, Henry, 1600-1664.	1652 (1652)	Wing L668; Thomason E654_2; ESTC R205905	51,207	92

them and admonish them of such things as hee writ then altogether lay foundations or deliver principles that are new to them and with which they are not acquainted Therefore Verse 24. hee admonisheth them that that might remaine with them which they have heard from the beginning as intending rather to confirme what they knew already and have been taught from the beginning by the word and spirit then to add in this exhortation any thing in which they were raw and unprincipled But because John sayes here that they have an unction from the spirit and know all things and Vers 27 that they need not that any man should teach them To conclude that therefore they needed no other Ministry or teaching but the spirit neither Scriptures nor Prophesies were to make John himselfe ridiculous For wherefore did he labour in this Doctrine and wherefore did he teach them at all if there were no need at all of his teaching when Paul sayes as he doth 1 Thes 4.9 Touching brotherly love there is no need that I write unto you for yee your selves are taught of God to love one another Doth he forbeare therefore to exhort the Saints to that duty or rather shew that he need not doubt of the successe of that Doctrine of brotherly love which he and other Apostles inculcates exceedingly because they have a principle taught them by God himselfe and his holy spirit that renders them apt to receive any hints or intimations that way It is a great piece of Oratory when yee can perswade your hearers that the things ye would inforce and make out more fully they assent unto already Therefore John here professes that hee wrote to them because they knew the truth already and upon that very ground that they were taught and did know and that they needed not teaching he was incouraged to the Doctrine and exhortation he gave them It is one of the best arguments we draw from reason to prove there is a God and in the vertue of which we use many others that this point is a thing they need not to be taught this they are all taught of God no man so barbarous no Nation so remote from the knowledge and converse with others that hath not this ingrafted in their nature this notwithstanding we doe not cease to multiply arguments to this purpose to confirme and draw out that principle into use and practice of which there is so faire a beginning layd deep even in the nature of every man living The summe is besides what I have sayd in the beginning that the Apostle would use them to bring all things to the Examen of the spirit and that he would improve the confirmation of the truth of his Doctrine by the principles already layd in them by the spirit of God he uses these expressions that they know all things and need not that any man teach them but as the same anoynting teaches them and that he writes to them because they know the truth already Both to avoyd the seeming to deale with them as learners and beginners altogether unprincipled and untaught when as the things were such as were built upon principles layd into them by the anoynting of the spirit as also to fetch an effectuall rise of arguments for the assenting to such things as they knew and were taught already as there is no better bottome argument as I sayd to prove there is a God then this that they know it already being all taught it of God nor no better foundation to the exhortation of brotherly love with which the Scripture abounds above any one thing then that which Paul layes in the place above quoted out of the Thessalonians That there is no need to bee taught that For that they are all taught of God to love one another We say it is the part of a wise man Rerum manifestarum causas quaerere and it is especially the duty of those who have the care of instructing others to improve principles already lodged into them of which the foundations are most generally and most cleerly layd by the holy spirit in all the Saints for those commonly are of the greatest use and concernment So as here will be no good warant to depart from the use of Scripture or the Ministry of teaching for which God hath in all times and in these particularly in which John wrote indued men with gifts and power to follow vaine Enthusiasmes unlesse we wil put ridiculous and contradictory actions and wayes upon the Doctrines of this holy Apostle and the dictates of the holy spirit Having largely and sufficiently I hope opened these words I proceed now to those other texts I quoted out of Isaiah and Jeremiah That of Jeremiah is in Chap. 31. Vers 31. c. which is certainly a Prophesie of those times in which the Apostle John lived and of that state of the Church in which in the place before discussed he speaks Here the Prophet as it was usuall with the Prophet Isaiah and the rest rising from the Type to the Antitype having before discoursed of the inlarging and bettering of the condition of the Israelites he fals naturally and easily into the discourse of the times of the Gospell and New Testament Behold the day's come saith the Lord that I will make a new Covenant c. what this Covenant is not hee tells you Verse 32. Not the Covenant hee made with their Fathers when he brought them out of the Land of Aegypt What that Covenant was we shall not need here to consider of but then Verse 33. hee tells you what his Covenant shall be I will put my Law in their inward parts and write it in their hearts and I will bee their God and they shall be my people and they shall teach no more every man his neighbour and every man his brother saying Know the Lord for they shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest of them saith the Lord for I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sins no more The great benefit of this New Covenant in opposition to the Old lyes in this that in this New Covenant God doth not onely propound the tearmes but ingages himselfe to performe the condition whereas the Old Covenant set before you life and death good and evill but ingaged you to the performance of the good without assistance for the Law was without you or to the suffering of evill But in the new Covenant the Law is within written in your hearts by which you are made holy and disposed for all good If you sinne as if any man sayes he has no sin he deceives himselfe and the truth is not in him He will forgive your iniquity and remember your sin no more And because the knowledge of God and his wayes is of the greatest consideration to us for our happinesse and holinesse ye shall be enlightened have the holy unction and be taught of God This inlightening especially in things of the

Christ would convince the Sadduces of the Resurrection he told them They erred not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God Matth. 22.29 and then makes out his assertion by Scripture authority Have yee not read that which was spoken by God unto you And then brings them the very Scripture words I am the God of Abraham c. vers 32. So when Christ would prove himself to be the Messiah he bids them Search the Scriptures John 5.39 You see therefore it is no disparagement to the spirit of God that there is a visible Standard and Rule manifest to all men to which we may have a constant and easie recourse in any doubt or controversie of faith or worship Obj. If any shal object further that though this be not a disparagement or a lessening to the spirit of GOD since the authority of God it selfe and the reason of the thing seems to vindicate it from this Yet the Scriptures are capable of senses and interpretations so various as we see in all experience as it will be difficult to make it a Sandard and Rule of Faith and Worship or a Medium to try the spirits by since it needs the assistance of the spirit to the right interpretation of it selfe Ans I answer that the ignorance or perversnesse of Interpreters can by no meanes take away that Honour from the Scriptures that it should not be the Standard and Rule in things spirituall no more then in civill things the ignorance or peruersenesse of a man in giving the interpretations of the Law should detract from the honour of its being the rule and standard of judging in things civill It is certaine that in respect of the things spoken or in respect of the Speaker the Scripture hath not various and uncertaine senses but it seemes to have so oftentimes in respect of our vanity or ignorance Which leads me into consideration of the second charge I lay to some perverse spirits of these times which by obscure and mysterious Allegories draw a vaile and cast thick Clouds betweene us and the Scriptures and then cry out that they are mysterious obscure darke and hidden but If our Gospel bee hid as the Apostle saith it is hid to them that perish in whom the God of this World hath blinded their eyes Pride or some evill lusting hath blinded their eyes and then they cry out that there is a defect on the part of the object that that is not visible and the way by which they would spiritualize and inlighten it renders it a thousand times darker whilst under a pretence of running far enough from the Letter which they judge carnall and killing they subject it to the vanities and dreamings of every addle head and make the holy Scripture Eccho to the sound that is already in their eares according to that English Proverbe As the foole thinketh so the Bell tincketh But first here they greatly mistake who in alluding to that place of 1 Cor. 3.6 Not of the letter but of the spirit thinke there is an opposition put betwixt the letter of the Gospel and New Testament and the spirituall sense of it for here plainely by Letter is meant the Law and by spirit is meant the Gospel or New Testament in the very letter of it as you have John 1. The Law was given by Moses but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ Not as if the Jewes were onely under a literall externall administration which did not affect their spirits God knew how to speake to his in those times but that was not the office of Moses or of the Law which propounded rules of living with promises and threatnings therefore When the Law came sin revived and I dyed saith Paul But the Ministry of the Gospel he cals spirit because the things it declares are quickning enlivening and restoring and such as speaking comparatively also the spirit accompanies much more then it did the Law as being the instrument of the grace of Christ in his Ministry The mistake of this place made Origen first and since very many loose themselves and their auditors in senslesse and idle Allegories supposing that the allegoricall sense was spirituall and the literall killing whereas the literall sense in most scriptures is not onely a spirituall sense but the onely spirituall sense of it and if besides what sense I have given of this place of the Law and the Gospel it reaches further the letter and the spirit is not to be understood of the Exposition of the words but of the fruit and effect of it it then being onely received in the Letter when it affects not the heart nor workes saving changes upon us and then in the spirit when it indeed converts and turnes us and moulds us into that holy frame and forme to which God ordaines his people Now that these expressions of the Spirit and the Letter are meant particularly of the Law and the Gospel appeares evidently in the following verses 7 8 9. For verse 7. speaking of the Letter he calls it The administration of death written and engraven in stones which we know was the Law this hee proves glorious from the glory and shining of Moses countenance In opposition to this he cals the Gospel The ministry of the spirit verse 8. and shews in one point more the excelling glory of this Gospell beyond the Law that it is to abide and remain evermore whereas the other is done away and past verse 10 11. It is true that what the Law is of it self that the Gospel is by accident killing and destructive 2 Corinth 2 16. To the one we are the savour of death unto death c. But though the Gospel be the occasion of damnation to very many notwithstanding it may be called the Spirit or Doctrine of life for as much as God uses it as the instrument or vehiculum of our conversion or new life and that it holds out and offers free reconciliation to us with God whereas the Law taking it simply and alone as it is here taken is the Letter that killeth and the ministry of death prescribing onely an exact rule of life by which comes the knowledge and reviving of sinne which kills without shewing any releife or way to escape And thus have I briefly opened this place which hath been the cause to many of such grosse errings and mistakes But to proceed It is certaine the Scriptures have a plainnesse and easinesse in them to be understood and therefore are said to be A light to our feet and a Lanthorne to our paths and a light shining in a darke place Thy words they give light they give understanding to the simple And if this may be affirmed of the Writings of the Old Testament with much more reason may it be affirmed of those of the New For Grace and Truth came by Jesus Christ They had many things formerly in Types and Allegories as things that concerned others more then themselves For it was revealed to them that