Selected quad for the lemma: scripture_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
scripture_n	authority_n	believe_v	infallible_a	5,104	5	10.1902	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A84760	A sober answer to an angry epistle, directed to all the publick teachers in this nation, and prefixed to a book, called (by an antiphrasis) Christs innocency pleaded against the cry of the chief priests. Written in hast by Thomas Speed, once a publick teacher himself, and since revolted from that calling to merchandize, and of late grown a merchant of soules, trading subtilly for the Quakers in Bristoll. Wherein the jesuiticall equivocations and subtle insinuations, whereby he endeavours secretly to infuse the whole venome of Quaking doctrines, into undiscerning readers, are discovered; a catlogue of the true and genuine doctrines of the Quakers is presented, and certaine questions depending between us and them, candidly disputed, / by [brace] Christopher Fowler & Simon Ford, [brace] ministers of the Gospel in Reding,	Fowler, Christopher, 1610?-1678.; Ford, Simon, 1619?-1699.	1656 (1656)	Wing F1694; Thomason E883_1; ESTC R207293	63,879	81

whether you vvill submit your Revelations to this Touchstone or no If so you yeild the question If not then whatever Commands or Prohibitions you receive in the way of revelation you must obey vvhether agreeing or disagreeing to the written Law of God And then how far the examples of Abraham offering up his Son and Phinehas executing vengeance yea and vvhen time serves Ehuds message from God to Eglon may be witnessed in you as you speak we know Judg. 3. 19 not and shall pray vve never may by experience Q. 9. Whether the Scriptures do not establish it selfe as the rule of Faith in referring all pretenders to new light to the Law and the Testimony and telling us expresly That if they speak not according to this word it is because there is no light in Isa 20. 8. them And whether the light in you and in your companions be not darknesse that will not undergo this tryall Q. 10. Whether the phrases of walking in the Law of the Lord keeping Gods Testimonies taking heed to a mans way according to Gods word not wandering from Gods Commandements Ps 119 1 2. 9 10. 21. 30. 35. 51. 102. 110. 133. 157. laying Gods Jugdments before him going in the path of Gods Commandements not declining from Gods Law not departing from Gods Judgments not erring from his Precepts ordering his steps in Gods word not declining from his testimonies Are not cleare evidences that David made the written word that then was his Rule And you owne Davids Rule for yours p. 8. Q. 11. Whether you think in your conscience that Deut. 5. 32 33. doth not convincingly prove the Scripture to be the Saints rule The words are Yee shall observe to do therfore as the Lord your God hath commanded you and before vve have the repitition of the written Law You shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left c. Your answer in your book is in summe P. 7. that all the Scripture was not then written But did not Moses therein establish as much as was then written for the rule the Saints of those times were to walk by Besides these words immediatly refer to the Morall Law before repeated in the same Chapter And will you exclude that from being the Saints rule as well as other Scriptures Then indeed there vvill be no duty or sin but as a man thinks Q. 12. Whether you deale honestly with Calvin in that P. 20. Scripture Eph. 2. 20. whilest you tell your Readers that he saith in Terminis That the Apostle doth in that Scripture intend Jesus Christ to whom the Prophets and Apostles did beare witnesse Whereas Calvin saith expresly It is without doubt that the foundation in this place is taken for the Doctrine of the Prophets and Apostles And therefore Paul teacheth that the Quin fundamentum hic pro doctrina sumatur minime dubium est Et itaque docet Paulus fidem ecclesiae in hac doctrina debere esse fundatam Calv. in l. Churches faith ought to be founded on this Doctrine And there is not any mention at all of those vvords in Calvin vvhich you quote from him To say the truth vve much vvonder how you could have the brazen face to father a saying upon Calvin vvhich he never said till vve looked upon Marlorate whose mis-quotation or rather the fault of his Printer it seemes deceived you for there vve find among other things there ascribed to Calvin this passage you mention But it concerned a man of your acutenesse not to have taken up a report from another vvhen Calvins vvorks are so common in every Shop and Study that vvith a little paines more you might have conversed vvith the Originall Author whence Marlorate makes his collections But it seemes you vvere vvilling to snatch at any thing that seemed to support your cause vvhere ever you found it And yet you shewed no part of ingenuity in your usage of Marlorate himself vvho together vvith that passage vvhich you quote and under the same note by which he distinguisheth Calvins vvords cites Calvin point blank against you saying that the Apostle shewes in that place how the Ephesians vvere made fellow Citizens vvith the Saints Nempe si fundati sint in Prophetarum Apostolorum Doctrinâ to wit If they be founded on the Doctrine of the Prophets and Apostles These words and others to the same purpose immediatly precede your owne quotation vvhich renders your dis-ingenuity the more culpable as shewing a vvilfull designe of abusing so reverend a name to delude your Readers Q. 13. In a vvord tell us ingenuously Whether we must or must not beleive the Doctrines which the Scriptures lay downe upon their owne authority If vve must vvhy do you quarrell at those that call them the rule ground foundation of faith seeing every intelligent man will tell you that it is the same thing to beleive the Doctrines of the Scripture upon the Scriptures authority and to make the Scriptures the ground rule foundation of faith If vve must not then tell us what superadded to the Scriptures owne Authority renders their Doctrines more credible We observe the Papists state this question as you do But they vvill answer us ingenuously That they beleive the Scriptures because the Church hath confirmed them And the Socinians are of your mind also but they deale fairely too and speak out That they will beleive the Scriptures as far as reason votes with them Would you speak out vve doubt you must confesse you are very neer these last in your judgment Why do you not tell us plainly that you beleive the Doctrines laid down in the Scripture as far as the light within you concurs with them And then vve shall know vvhat you mean in denying the Scriptures to be the rule and ground of faith Viz. That as much as pleaseth you you vvill beleive and vvhat dislikes you shall be cashiered as an old Declarative or an Almanack out of date as some of your Cater-cosins the Familists have blasphemously called the Bible Q. 14. Lastly Whether God vvill not judge every man vvho lives within the sound of the Gospell by the written word If not what meanes the Apostle Paul when he saith that as many as have sinned in the Law shall be judged by the Law in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my Gospel Rom. 2. 12. 16. And seeing we are upon this subject give us leave to enquire yet a little further what are those Books out of which the dead shall be judged and whence one day God will draw the rule of his proceedings in the day of Judgment as you may find Apoc. 2. 12. If God vvill judge us out of the written word after death surely we are not to be blamed if we study that Statute-Law and labour to conforme our beleif and practise thereunto whilest we live which must judge us when we dye Or else we pray you

have suggested to him Viz. That that Scripture did not expresly forbid Jesus of Nazareth to throw himself down from the Pinnacle And in the third Tentation according to your Tenet our Sect. 67 Saviour had been hard put to it to prove that it was unlawfull to worship the Devill himselfe had Satan been disciplined by your principles and required of him an expresse Text That it is not lawfull to worship the Devill Whereas it seemes for want of your Artifice the silly Tempter was put off with a Scripture that requires us to worship and serve God onely and concludes the unlawfulnesse of Devill-worship by this Argument If we must worship and serve God only ergo not the Devill But we must worship and serve God only therefore not the Devill And the Sadduces afterwards were very silly animalls that Sect. 68 they would let our Saviour go away in triumph for putting Mat. 22. 32. Exod. 3. 6. them to silence by so weak a proof of the Resurrection as the words of God to Moses in the Bush I am the God of Abraham the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. Why had they not required in so fundamentall an Article of faith especially a positive and expresse Scripture affirming in so many words that the dead shall rise againe But you think our Saviours example will not beare us out in Sect. 69 our interpretations and deductions because he was infallible in P. 6. what he spake and neither did nor could erre in what he said which you suppose cannot be said of us or our meanings and arguments To which we answer we do not compare our selves with our Saviour in point of infallibility although your generation do who account themselves equally perfect with him But this we say that our Saviour in these places and others where he argues from the Scriptures doth not urge his owne infallibility as the ground upon which he requires beleif neither did Satan or the Sadduces acquiesce in the acknowledgment thereof but in the conviction wrought in them by the strength of his Arguments And we must tell you that any one who can draw an Argument rightly from Scripture is no lesse infallible in the conclusions so deduced thence then our Saviour was in his The question therefore will be Whether any person in interpreting and arguing from Scripture be infallible but whether such interpretations and deductions be truly and bona fide according to the mind of the H. Chost in Scripture whether they be drawn by a person that is fallible or infallible For be the person never so fallible that gives the interpretation or drawes the argument yet if the interpretation be sound and the argument rightly concluded he is therein infallible For you cannot be altogether ignorant of that common Maxime That nothing Ex veris possunt non nisi vera sequi but truth can rightly follow from truth and a false conclusion can never be regularly drawn from true premisses So that all that flourish which you afterwards make is but a meer rhetoricall vapour and signifies just nothing to an understanding Sect. 70 Reader For whereas you bid us either tell the people P. 6. plainly that we are infallible that they may receive our deductions from Scripture for true Doctrine nay Scripture it self or else say that we are fallible that so they may take liberty of proving our actions and doctrine We answer we need not tell the people we are infallible and yet they are no lesse bound to receive our deductions if rightly drawne from Scripture then if we were indeed so Because although we be not infallible yet so far as we regularly argue from Scripture we are not deceived nor can deceive them The authority of our deductions from Scripture depends not on our fallibility or infallibility but upon the evidence they carry in them of their necessary connexion with the truth we argue from And this because we owne our selves fallible we allow our hearers to use their owne judgments and consciences to prove and try whether it be so or no. God forbid but they who as you say must dye for themselves and account to the Lord for themselves should interpret for themselves and beleive for themselve But what then will it therefore follow that they must not receive our interpretations or beleive our deductions Or that we may not help them to interpret or draw deductions which they cannot so well do themselves They interpret for themselves that by the light of the Scriptures and their owne Judgments led by them see cause to owne our interpretations And they beleive for themselves who are upon a serious weighing of our Arguments convinced that they ought to admit them as just and lawfull deductions from Scripture What you add in the close of that Paragraph that it may so Sect. 71 fall out that six of those that esteem themselves the ablest Doctors if shut asunder shall so vary in the interpretation of one Scripture that scarce two of the six shall agree in the same interpretation Whence you would infer how little credit is to be given to our deductions we might take for an unsavoury scoff and so passe it by But we shall forgive you this and many more such if it will do you any good and vouchsafe to answer even where you deserve no answer but silence and scorne Be it therefore as you say which yet in Scriptures that containe matter of saith and practise we cannot suppose most of us we conceive in such are at least till the new-fangled conceits of these times infected some of the Ministry as well as others were of the same mind in most of them yet herein we are no more to be blamed then the Apostles and other primitive Teachers themselves who differed as much in those times of clearest light about the Scriptures that enjoyned the observation of Jewish Ceremonies whilest some of them earnestly contended that they extended to converted Gentiles and others affirmed the quite contrary And will you thence conclude that there is little credit to be given to any of their deductions because they disagreed among themselves All that can be hence solidly inferred is no more but this that therefore it concernes Gods people to search with the Noble Beroeans whether the things the one or the other saith be most consonant to the Scriptures But you that will not beleive our interpretations or deductions Sect. 72 because we are not in all things agreed will you beleive them in those things wherein we are all or the greatest part of us of a mind Surely if so most of the quaking Doctrines will fall to the ground for very few if any of us shall dare to interpret Scriptures to the countenance of those horrid Doctrines before mentioned In a word this whole discourse about infallibility and differences Sect. 73 among our selves in interpretation of Scripture as one hath very well observed before us smells rank of your Popish

upon you by those Witnesses vvho vve are assured vvill stand to their vvords vvhenever they are called to make them good The Quakers Doctrines 1. That they are equall with God as holy just and good as Sect. 54 God himself Affirmed by G. Fox and J. Nayler before Witnesses Perfect Pharisee p. 3. See also the Relation of the irreligion of the Northern Quakers vvho attest it in a Book called the perfect Pharisee published by five Ministers of Newcastle 2. Suitable hereunto vvas the blasphemy of one of your Shee-Quakers lately in hold in this Towne vvho being convented before the Major of this Corporation and asked what she was and what was her name roundly answered and stood to it againe the next day I AM THAT I AM which will be attested upon Oath by the Major and one of the Constables 3. Suitable to this was the blasphemy of another of your Brethren who meeting with a godly Londiner occasionally being in this Town on a Lords day lately and asking him the way as he met him to one of our Churches answered him in these words The Church is in God and the Church is God 4. That the being of God is not distinct from them that are begotten by him Sword of the Lord by James Atkinson Quaker 5. That the Nature and Glory of the Elect differ not from the Nature and Glory of the Creator For the Elect are one with the Creator in his Nature enjoying his Glory That the Elect is not distinct from the Creator Howgill and Burroughs two Quakers in an answer to Reeve 6. And that God is not distinct from living Creatures for in him living reatures lives moves c. 7. That God is three persons or subsistences they say is a lye That there is no distinctions of persons in the Godhead Sword of the Lord by J. Atkinson G. Fox Errand to Damascus 8. That the Soul is a part of the Divine Essence See perfect Pharisee p. 6. 9 That Jesus Christ is God and man in one person they say is a lye 10. They deny and detest this Doctrine That Christ being the only God and man in one person remaines for ever a distinct person from all Saints and Angels notwithstanding their Vnion and communion with him Sword of the Lord by James Atkinson 11. That the person that Son of God which died at Jerusalem is not the Redeemer of man from sin but the Redeemer is in every man that light by which he is given to see him c. The discourse of a Quaker vvith Jo Toldervy Foot out of the snare p. 7. 12. That Christ is in every man even Heathen Indians and in the Reprobates he is held under corruption J. Nayler See perfect Pharisee p. 7 13. That Christ was a man had his failings for he distrusted God upon the Crosse Rob. Collison See Gilpins Book p. 2. 14. That we are not justified by that Righteousnesse of Christ which he in his own person did fulfill without us And that whosoever expects to be saved by him that died at Jerusalem shall be deceived For Christ in the flesh was in all that he died and suffered a Figure and nothing but an example 15. That we are therefore to be saved not by the righteousnesse of Christ imputed to us but by the righteousnesse of Christ inherent in us See both these in the perfect Pharisee with their Testimonies p. 9 10 11. And Howgill and Burroughs Answ to Bennet Q. 9. And another to the same purpose saith That the faith and justification which stands in the comprehension of Christ without will stand us in no stead Fr. Gawler to Mr. Miller of Cardiff 16. That God and man cannot be perfectly reconciled till he be brought into the state of the first Adam and able in his own power to stand perfect And that holy workes and lives of Saints are not excluded from justification Howgill c. Answ to Bennets 11 12. Quaeries 17. That no man that is not perfectly holy or commits sin can ever enter into the Kingdome of Heaven except there be a Purgatory And there is no Saint but he that is so perfectly holy in this life without sin Nayler perfect Pharsee p. 1. 112. 13. 18. That to preach the impossibility of such a freedome here on earth is to preach up sin while the world stands and to bring men into Covenant with the Diuill for term of life See also J. Parnell Shield of faith p. 29. to both these Nayler in his answer to Mr. Baxter p. 28. 19. That Christ took not humane flesh upon him at any time otherwise then he daily doth and that Christ is now conversant on earth among men since his ascension as he was in the Apostles times It is the summe of Howgills and Burroughs answer to two Quaeres of Mr. Bennet See Howgill c. in their answer to Benéts 18 and 19. Qu. 20. That the Scriptures are not the word of God This is their constant judgment though they dare not professe it for feare of the Law as one of the most eminent in these parts confessed before the Magistrates here in the hearing of one of us asking Whether if the Bible were burnt the word of God were burnt or words fully to this purpose See the proof Perfect Pharisee p. 23. T. C. Parnells book p. 10. saith He that saith the Letter is the word is a deceiver 21. That they had a light in them sufficient to lead them to salvation if they had never seen or heard of the Bible The substance of this was affirmed before some Magistrates of this Towne and one of us by the same party And this light extended to Heathen Indians by him Suitable to the assertions of James Nayler in a discourse of his in the book quoted here And he that saith the Letter is the rule and guide of the people of God is without feeding upon the Husk c. p. 11. See way to the Kingdome p 8. See perfect Parisee p. 17. 18 22. That the Scriptures are not the Saints Rule of knowing God and living unto him but that which was before the Scriptures were written This is also your owne concerning which anon more at large Atkinson ubi supra p. 1. Parnell p. 11. 23. That there is no need of outward teachings by reading or hearing of the Scriptures opened and applied See perfect Pharisee p 20. 24. That no mens interpretations of the Scripture or Arguments from them are to be received except those that give them be infallible See Quakers Cat. published by Mr. Baxter where the Quaerists require Infallibility in a Minister And Perfect Pharisee p. 27. This is generally their straine We renounce and deny all your meanings interpretations arguments calling them adding to the Scriptures And concerning it we must have a brush or two with you anon 25. That the light in them is the Gospell and the more sure word of Prophecy so sure that some of them say That it is a like

of our bodies meet with no other entertainment then an Who hath required these things at your hands And we desire you particularly to consider what the Apostle Paul tells you that if a man give up his very body to be burned and have not charity 1 Cor. 13. 3. it profits him nothing And surely if your generation be sufferers you are the most uncharitable sufferers that ever were and Martyrs that have been in the World from Christs time till the starting up of your new Apostles within these 3. or 4. years are so far from that charity wch other sufferers in Scripture have had to their bloodiest Persecutors that your mouthes are full of rayling reviling cursing and bitternesse to those that do not meddle with you further then it concernes them in their places to preserve others under their charge from the infection of such abominations as those fore-mentioned However We have not so learned Christ as to render evill for evill but desire to suffer under the sharp Arrowes of your tongues as he gave us an example not reviling againe when we are reviled by you but committing our Cause Callings and Maintenance to him that judgeth uprightly And to instruct even the worst of Opposers in meeknesse trying if God will at any time give them repentance to 2 Tim. 2. 25. 26. the acknowledgment of the Truth and that they may recover them out of the snare of the Devill who are taken captive by him at his will which we yet with pity towards and prayer for you are assured to be the condition of your selfe and your Clients in this Cause ANd now Sir after a tedious pursuit of you through all Sect. 57 the windings and turnings of your subtle insinuating Epistle it may be expected we should proceed to your Book it selfe But we shall wave it as we before told you for these reasons First Because a great part of it hath been once served up in the Epistle and because we found it not seasoned with salt by us already discovered and rejected as unsavoury So that we shall not cloy the Reader with a second course of it Secondly Because that we find that it is wholly made up of personall contests with Mr Thomas and insolent reflexions and reproaches upon him into whose harvest we desire not to thrust in our Sicle besides that we are advertised that he intends to take that task in hand himselfe and we are assured that he will not need any assistance from us or any other to answer it as it deserves Onely because you so often call the Scriptures in scorne our Rule in your Epistle and therein expresly reject all Interpretations and deductions which we draw from them in preaching or dispute we will here subjoyne these two questions Q. 1. Whether the holy Scriptures be the Saints ground and rule of faith and practise Q. 2. Whether it be lawfull without an infallible spirit to interpret Scripture or draw consequences and deductions thence In both these you defend the Negative we the Affirmative As to the first of them in your Book you stand only upon Sect. 58 your defence against some Texts quoted by Mr. Thomas concerning which we leave you to his second charge wherein we doubt not but he will fetch them off without losse Mean while we cannot but take notice of the Artifices of your selfe and others of the generation you close withall 1. We observe that in most or all matters of difference betwixt us you put us upon the proof of our Principles and practises and offer none for your owne which is a slye way of hiding your owne weaknesse and discovering our strength that so you may make your advantages of it Which is as if a man should sue another at Law to produce his evidences by which he holds his Land to be canvassed by his owne Counsell without exhibiting any thing in his owne behalfe to justifie his claime to it 2. We observe also that you reserve to your selves a liberty of excepting against the Jurisdiction of the Court in which the cause is depending not allowing it a power to decide the case if you see you selves likely to be cast in Judgment although you will owne it so far as you suppose it may serve your turne against us For you call us forth to a tryall by the Scriptures and yet will not allow them to be the rule to decide the controversie 3. We observe thirdly that you will have the choice of the Weapons in this encounter not only for your selfe but us also setting up a Star-chamber Court of your own first to damne our Evidences and then forsooth you will fight with us when you have disarmed us You will dispute with us from the Scripture and yet will allow us no Arguments to dispute withall A valiant undertaking and worthy peice of Chivalry for which you deserve to be recorded among the chiefe Champions of the Quaking Knight Errantry But we hope upon second thoughts you may be perswaded Sect. 59 not to disparage your owne atchievements upon us by keeping your selfe within the security of an Irish bogg where it is harder to come at you then conquer you and come forth into the plain field where we may encounter you upon even termes If otherwise we shall take it as an Argument of your Cowardize and yet rather swallow any inconvenience then not dislodge you and set up the Banners of Truth upon your owne ground And first we will try you with a few Quaeries which seeing Sect. 60 they are your owne familiar way of arguing we hope you will admit into your consideration Q. 1. Whether you will receive the Scriptures Testimony concerning it selfe or no If you will then Q. 2. Is it not the rule of faith by your owne confession For it is that to which you submit your saith in this question If you will not then Q. 3. To what purpose do you require of Mr. Thomas to produce a Scripture P. 4. that saith in Terminis it is the rule when if he do the question is as far from being decided as before In the next place we will state the question between us that Sect. 61 we may understand one another First therefore the question betwen us is not Whether the Scriptures or written word have been the ground and rule of faith and practise in all ages of the World but whether in every age of the World since any part of them was written so much as was written in any age were not the rule by which those of that age were to be regulated and consequently whether to the ages that have been and shall be since the whole was compleated the whole be not so and to continue so to the Worlds end So that you are quite besides the Cushion and the Question in the instances of Abel Enoch and Ahraham and all the Patriarchs before Moses who wrote the first Scripture We are not so silly as to affirme the

Baxtet Quakers Catechism Tutors For are they not the very same things which they object against us That we have not an infalliable Spirit to interpret Scriptures and that we differ among our selves in our interpretations and therefore when we appeale to Scripture as the only Judge of Controversies between us they as you do deny it upon this account because we have no infallible Spirit to interpret the Scriptures controverted and thereby give an Authoritative decision of them And what we answer to them we therefore say to you in a word The Scripture we owne as our onely Rule and Judge in matters of faith and we owne no interpretation of Scripture nor desire others to owne any but such as hold proportion with other Scriptures and such interpretations and deductions are so far infallible as they do necessarily agree to them or follow from them But say you further You have some of you been Teachers in Sect. 73 this Nation ten twenty thirty yeares were those things that you have taught so many yeares together necessarily deduced from Scripture What then If not say you then by your owne confession you have taught falsehood But stay Sir every deduction that is not necessarily drawne from Scripture is not falsehood A true conclusion may have but a probable consequence sometimes to infer it from the premisses It s truth is never the lesse for that but its evidence But suppose we should confesse for once that all which we deduce from Scripture is not true We know not what use you will make of it except this that those that do not alwaies speak truth are not to be thought at any time to do so And if so we know whom this inference will hit as well as our selves What think you of the Apostle Peter whom Paul withstood to his face Gal. 2. 11. for countenancing the false brethren in the Doctrine and practise of the Mosaicall Ordinances among the Gentile Churches and compelling the Gentiles to live as the Jewes was he never in the right or not to be beleived to be so because he was then in the wrong Nay doth not God himselfe suppose a possibility of being deceived in the best of his Ministers when he bids hearers prove all things 1 Thes 5. 21. and commends the Beroeans for searching the Scriptures whether the things that Paul and Silas preached were so or no Act. 17. 11. We suppose that no godly Minister will preach that which he knowes to be false But if without his knowledge yea or with his knowledge any one should do so it is the hearers fault if he be deceived thereby because he hath a certain rule whereby to examine what he teacheth and we professe we desire no further to be credited then the Scripture will beare us out in what we say But suppose there be some of us possibly to be found who Sect. 74 will justifie all that they have preached for so long time to be truth necessarily deduced from Scripture What of that Why then say you all that is so taught is infallible True And what then Forsooth then you add why do you not then adjoyn all your Sermons to the Scripture for if necessarily deduced from Scripture they are Scripture and a part of the Saints rule And so you go on it would become so voluminous a Book that many poore Soules Estates would not buy a Bible We shall give you a breif account why we do not if it may do you service And that is because we do not judge our selves so immediatly inspired in our Sermons although we deliver the same truths the holy Pen-men of God were in penning of the Scriptures The sacred Writers of Scripture did not onely write the things they left upon record to the Church by immediate inspiration but the words and phrases in which they expressed them Whereas the best Ministers that since have been have been faine to expresse those truths in notions and tearmes of their owne yea and the Apostles themselves in their popular Sermons And therefore we suppose the H. Ghost thought not fit to record all the popular Sermons which were preached by the Apostles themselves but only appointed them to draw up the summe of the Doctrine they generally taught in expressions of their owne into a forme of sound words of his owne inspiration to be a Standard of Doctrine and expression to succeeding ages And yet supposing the Apostles alwaies preached as they Sect. 75 wrote by immediate inspiration as to matter and forme then we ask you Why they did not bind up all their Sermons with the Canonicall Scriptures seeing all they taught was infallible Whatever you answer hereunto will be applied to our case But we suppose John gives you a sufficient reason in the close of his Gospel There are many other things saith he which Jesus Jo. 21. 25. did which if they should be written every one I suppose that even the World it selfe would not containe the Bookes that should be written So that God therefore thought fit to keep from after Ages part of the History of Christ that the Bible might not be too voluminous And we hope the same reason will serve for us if we do not bind up our necessary and infallible deductions with the Bible In a word this question is proposed with no greater measure Sect. 76 of discretion then if you should ask Whether all the Bushells and Yards and Pints in every mans house or shop in Bristoll be exact measure or no If all say yee then you further enquire Why they do not all bring them into the Market-house or publick place appointed for that purpose and chaine them all to the common Standard seeing they are all alike exact with it Surely to such a wise question the answer will be easie Viz. Because one publick Standard is enough to measure private Measures by and the severall Tradesmen according to their severall imployments having once had their private Measures tryed by that can make profitable use of them at home We shall leave you to make the application to the Question in hand But before we dismisse this captious Argument of yours Sect. 77 you shall give us leave to retort it upon you and then see whether you can give a wiser answer to your owne question in your owne case then we have done in ours We ask therefore Is all that George Fox James Nayler or your selfe teach write and pronounce as from God For from Scripture you will not say you speak seeing that it is not your rule of Doctrine necessarily true or no If not then by your owne confession you have if your owne Argument be good taught falsehood if so then all you and they have taught is infallible for you say it is dictated by the same Spirit that indited the Scriptures and so equall to them your Epistles are as good as St. Pauls is before-said by some of you And then why do you not adjoyne all your Preachments and