Selected quad for the lemma: scripture_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
scripture_n	acknowledge_v	faith_n	rule_n	2,324	5	7.1280	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61701	The religion of the Dutch represented in several letters from a Protestant officer in the French army to a pastor and professor of divinity at Berne in Switserland ; out of the French.; Religion des Hollandois. English	Stoppa, Giovanni Battista.; Davies, John, 1625-1693.	1680 (1680)	Wing S5769; ESTC R8262	51,056	72

Having given you this Summary account of the Socinians my next work is to give you that of the Arrians Those last are very numerous in this Country and many amongst the Socinians have embrac'd their Opinions You know what were the Sentiments of the Arrians concerning the Birth of Jesus Christ They believ'd That the Word the Intellect and the Word of God had had been created before all the Creatures That God had made Use of it in the old Testament as of an Interpreter of a Mediator when he had something to declare to the Patriaerchs and Prophets That that word had by a voluntary annihilation animated the Body of Jesus Christ as the Spirit of Man animates his Body the Word having taken Flesh only without Soul and without Spirit Nay they were also of a persuasion That all the Souls of other men were Spirits subsisting before the Bodies and that they assum'd not the name of Souls till such time as they actually animated their Bodies Christopher Sandius a Gentleman of Poland Son to a Councellor of the Elector of Brandeburgh was the Restaurator of the Arrian Sect in this Country His habitation for some Years past has been at Amsterdam Among other works he has written two Books which I have seen whereof one is entituled The Paradoxall Interpretations of the Four Evangelists The other is An Ecclesiastical History in which he proves or pretends to prove That all the Doctors commonly called the Fathers of the Church who flourish'd from the time of the Apostles to that of Arrius had the same Sentiments as he had concerning the Mystery of the Trinity The Borrellists had their name from one Borrell the Ringleader of their Sect a man very Learned especially in the Hebrew Greek and Latine Tongues He was Brother to Monsieur Borrell Ambassador from the States-General to his most Christian Majesty These Borrelists do for the most part maintain the Opinions of the Mennonites though they come not to their Assemblies They have made choice of a most austere kind of Life spending a considerable part of their Estates in Alms-giving and a careful discharge of all the Duties incumbent upon a Christian They have an aversion for all Churches as also for the Use of the Sacrament publick Prayers and all other external Functions of God's Service They maintain That all the Churches which are in the World and have been ever since the death of the Apostles and their first subsequent Successors have degenerated from the pure Doctrine which they had Preach'd to the World for this reason That they have suffered the infallible word of God contain'd in the Old and New Testament to be expounded and corrupted by Doctors who are not infallible and would have their own Confessions their Catechisms and their Liturgies and their Sermons which are the works of m●n to pass for what they really are not to wit for the pure word of God They hold also That men are not to read any thing but the word of God alone without any additional explication of men Another persuasion they have is That if there should be any Assembly wherein men would content themselves with the bare reading of the word of God however the persons who might be desirous to be receiv'd into it may demean themselves provided they acknowledg the Holy Scripture to be the Word of God they ought to be receiv'd into its Communion The Enthusiasts or Quakers who affirm That what they say or do is by Divine Inspiration maintain That the Holy Scripture ought to be explicated according to the light of that Divine Inspiration without which it is but a dead Letter written to Children and not to perfect and spiritual men and that it is not the true only and perfect Word of God or the Compleat and Necessary Rule of Faith They maintain That their own private Spirit is the true internal and spiritual Word of God the Rule and the Judg of the Scriptures That men ought to hearken to and follow that Spirit and not the words of the Scripture That a man has within himself and in his own Spirit an infallible Teacher who if he hearkens to him will inform him of all he is to believe or do in orer to his Salvation That they who hearken to that Spirit are united to God and that such union makes them Gods When they are in their Assemblies they continue a long time in a sitting posture without speaking and many times without so much as stirring for the space of one or two hours and there is nothing heard of them unless it be some sighs and groans till such time as some one among them feeling the agitation and stirring of the Spirit rises up and speaks the things which the Spirit commands him to speak Nay many times the Women are sensible of those motions of the Spirit which occasion their speaking or holding forth in the Congregation of their Brethren In their ordinary discourses they speak of their Ecstasies and Revelations and will be always sure to add very severe censures of all other Christians They very vehemently declaim against Vices and with great earnestness press the mortification of the Flesh They challenge all those who are in the Assembly and conjure them to speak if there be any one that has ought to object against what the Spirit has inspir'd them to deliver And this occasions the frequent disputes and quarrels which happen amongst them Nay it comes to pass sometimes that after they have for a good while expected the coming and inspiration of the Spirit not any one amongst them being sensible of its heat and motion in himself they depart from the place where they were Assembled without any one's having held forth As to the Libertines they seem to have each of them his particular Sentiment to himself But most of them are of this persuasion that there is only one Spirit of God which is universally diffus'd and lives in all Creatures That the Substance and Immortality of our Souls is not any thing but that Spirit of God That God himself is not any thing but that Spirit That mens Souls die with their Bodies That Sin is not any thing That it is but a simple opinion which immediately vanishes provided there be no account made of it That Paradise is but an illusion a pleasant Chimera which the Divines have invented to engage men to embrace that which they call Virtue That Hell also is but a vain Fancy which the same Divines have fram'd to divert men from that which they call Sin that is to say to hinder them from being happy in doing what they please They affirm in fine That Religion is only an invention of Politicians to keep the people by the fear of a Divinity in a subjection to their Laws in order to the better Regulation and Government of the Commonwealth In short there are in this Country a vast number of persons as I know there were heretofore in England who go under the

the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost there is no necessity of using the terms of Persons or the Trinity That the first Productions of the Creation as to Mankind were not created in a state of Justice and Holiness That there is no such thing as Original Sin That Jesus Christ did not take Flesh of the substance of his Mother Mary but of the Essence of the Father or that the Word was changed into Man or that he brought it from Heaven or that it is not known whence he took it That the Union of the Divine Nature with the Humane in Jesus Christ was so made that the Divine Nature was render'd visible subject to Suffering and death That it is not lawful for Christians to swear to exercise any charge of Civil Magistracy or to make Use of the Sword not even to punish the wicked or to oppose force with force or to engage in a War upon any account or occasion That a man may in this life come to that pitch of Perfection as to have an accomplish'd Purity and to be without any defilement of Sin That it is not lawful for the Ministers of the Word to receive any Salary of their Churches for the Pains they take That little Children ought not to be baptiz'd That the Souls of men after their death rest in an unknown place till the day of Judgment These Mennonites are divided into several Sects upon very slight occasions Of these Sects there are two of a considerable standing whereof one is that of the ancient Mennonites of Flanders The other that of the Mennonites of Friezland Those of Flanders exercise Ecclesiastical discipline with extraordinary severity and excommunicate those of their Sects for very trivial miscarriages They are of a persuasion That it is not lawful to eat or drink or to have any communication no not as to the Concerns of a Civil Life with those who are Excommunicated They by that means make a division between Husbands and their Wives Children and their Parents maintaining That all the Obligations of Friendship and Society are to be cancell'd with those whom the Church has anathematiz'd Those of Friezland receive into their Communion such as have been rejected by the other Sects of the Mennonites and they exercise so great a relaxation in their discipline that they entertain all sorts of polluted persons into their society and for that reason are they called Borboritae or Stereorarii But as there are even amongst them some more scrupulous than others so they also are parcell'd into divers S●cts upon very slight and trivial occasions I shall only give an account of one by which a judgment may be made of the rest There is one Sect of them called Mamillarii upon this score That a Young Man had taken the freedom to put his hand into a Young Maids Bosome whom he was then courting and within a few dayes to marry Some amongst them maintain'd That he ought to be Excommunicated and others condemning that severity there happ●n'd a Schisme They who would not have the Young Man to be Excommunicated were called Mamillarii There are daily divisions and separations amongst them and assoon as they chance to be ejected out of one Society they find a reception in some other Many amongst the Mennonites have embrac'd most of the Opinions of the Socinians or rather those of the Arrians concerning the Divinity of Jesus Christ They generally press that Toleration of all Sects which is so earnestly recommended by the Arminians It is their persuasion That they ought not to expell out of their assemblies any man who leads a devout life and acknowledges That the Holy Scripture is the Word of God though the same Man does not agree with the others in many things which are accounted Articles of Faith These last are by the others called Galenists taking their name form one Galenus a Physician of Amsterdam a very Eloquent Learned and well-Experienc'd Man and one who is charged to be an absolute Socinian The Socinians deny the Divinity of Jesus Christ the Existence of the Holy Ghost Origina Sin the Satisfaction of Jesus Christ the Resurrection of the Reprobate and the Reassumption of the same Bodies which the Faithful had during their abode in this World Their publi●k Ass●mbli●s are forbidden but they lurk under the names of Arminians and Anabaptists They have also their secret Assemblies in which they are very fervent in Prayer to God with groaning and weeping They make it their Comp●a●nt That they are odious to and abominated by most Christians upon the score of the doctrine which they profess They affirm Th●t they have not Interest in the maintaining of it save only the P●rsuasion they have of its truth and the zeal of appropriating to its only individual and Sovereign God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ the glory of his Divinity They are further of opinion that having been confirm'd in their Faith by the reading of the Word of God and by the Books which have been written against them they make it their earnest and humble Suit to that great God That if they are in any error he would discover it to them that they may renounce it and give his Truth the glory Their conversation is holy and without reproach as far as men can judg by what they see and that conversation is absolutely modell'd according to the Precepts of Jesus Christ and it externally appears that since they are not much concern'd for the things of this World their care is the greater to perform the works of Devotion and Charity and to promote the Salvation of their Souls They wholly employ themselves in the reading of the Word of God in which they are so well vers'd that most of them seem to have it by heart In the Assemblies they make for their exercises of Piety all that are present have the liberty of speaking One amongst them begins to read a Chapter of the Scripture and when he has read several Verses of it till he has come to a full Paragraph he who reads and they who hear do respectively give their Sentiments concerning the sence of the words which have been read to them But what is most surprizing is that though the greatest part of them be illiterate and men of no study at all as being Merchants or Tradesmen yet they all seem to have a particular Talent for the understanding and exposition of the Holy Scripture Nay it is reported that the Learned amongst them who have written Commentaries or Annotations upon the Holy Scripture have every where done very well save only in those places where their own prejudgments have engag'd them to accommodate the Scripture to their own Erroneous Sence So that it may be said of them as I think I have heard it heretofore said of Origen Vbi benè nemo meliùs ubi malè nemo pejùs Where he had done well no man could have done better and where he had done ill no man could do worse