Selected quad for the lemma: scripture_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
scripture_n	believe_v	faith_n	revelation_n	3,045	5	9.5466	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A82320	The stumbling-stone, or, A discourse touching that offence which the world and worldly church do take against 1. Christ himself. 2. His true word. 3. His true worship. 4. His true church. 5. His true government. 6. His true ministry. Wherein the University is reproved by the Word of God. Delivered partly to the University-congregation in Cambridge, partly to another in the same town. Together with a brief touch in the epistle (for the present) on the late quarrelsom, weak, and erroneous Animadversions of one Mr. Chambers, called Doctor in Divinity, and Pastor of Pewsy in Wiltshire. By William Dell minister of the Gospel, and Master of Gonvil and Cains Colledge in Cambridge.	Dell, William, d. 1664.	1653 (1653)	Wing D930; Thomason E692_1; ESTC R206987	41,191	48

sin also that is like to undo and ruine the Vniversity and to race it down to the very ground even your horrible The University admonished Envy Enmity and Opposition to the truth of the Gospel When Christs word or the Truth as it is in Iesus is hated opposed derided and scoffed at in your Colledges in your Schools in your Meetings yea sometimes in your Pulpits this sin will dash you in pieces that you shall find none to recover you This sin will engage against you the Son of the living God and when his wrath is kindled against you not a little but to the very utmost for so great wickedness shall then your * Certum est Aristotelem mortuum damnatum esse Doctorem hodie omnium Vniversitatum magis quàm Christum Luth. Respons ad Libr. Ambros Cathar Masters Plato Aristotle Pythagoras c. wretched Heathens who with all their wisdom knew not Christ but are dead and damned many hundred years ago be able to deliver you Or shall Thomas and Scotus and other Schoolmen with their cold vain and Antichristian Divinity help you Or shall the Secular Arm and worldly Power whom you have seduced for many Ages be able to shelter you in such an hour No certainly but if you continue in your bitter Emnity against the true and spiritual Word and Gospel of Christ Christ lives and reignes to bring you down wonderfully and to make your Name a shame and a Curse to the whole true Church of God And this poor contemptible Doctrine of the Gospel which you hear to day and it may be most of you despise and esteem of no more then a straw for strength this very Word shall prevail against you and triumph over you And the poor People of God that small handfull of believers that are amongst you whom you despise in your hearts and reckon but as the filth and off-scouring of the place even they shall see your downfall and shall say Thou art righteous O Lord who hast judged thus and shall say again Even so Lord God almighty true and righteous are thy Iudgements And this now have I spoken in faithfulness to Iesus Christ and The Conclusion to the University in faithfulness to his true Church and in faithfulness also to the Vniversity that they might hear and avoid that Ruine with will otherwise inevitably befall them for their offence at Christ and his Gospel And now let them that can receive it receive it and let them that cannot deride and reject it But whether you receive it or whether you reject it sure I am I have spoken the Truth which God himself in his due time will witness to and so much also for this Point The fourth Point is 4. Generall The blessedness of them that-are not offended at Christ according The Blessedness of those who are not offended to Christs word here Blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in me Now those very few that are not offended at Christ and his things when the whole World and worldly Church are offended their Blessedness appears in many particulars 1. As first in that its evident that they all are taught of God 1. Such are taught of God and have heard and learned from the Father himself touching the Son And they that see Christ by the Revelation of the Father are not at all offended at him when all other men are For such do clearly see Christs Power in his weakness his Glory in his Reproach his Exaltation in his Abasement his Divine nature in his Humane they see his Sufferings were for our sins his stripes to heal Us his Death to deliver us from death and all this they know not only by the Letter of the Word but also by the Revelation of the Father in their hearts and so they cannot be offended at Christ who see him thus Wherefore when the World and worldly Church had many several Opinions of Christ and Peter notwithstanding acknowledged him to be the Son of the living God Christ replied blessed art thou Simon for flesh and blood hath not revealed this to thee but my Father which is in Heaven and this is thy blessedness that thou knowest me by the Revelation of the Father and so knowest me aright and art not offended He then that is not offended at Christ when all other men are hath for certain the Fathers Teaching and sees Christ far otherwise then the World and worldly Church do He sees Christ in all his Mysterie and in all his Glory and when we see him thus we value him never the worse for the form of a Servant nor for all his reproaches and sufferings from the World but we rather behold these things with the greater wonder and comfort seeing for our sakes he humbled himself from the form of God to the form of a servant and in that form to the death of the Cross 2. They are blessed because through this Revelation of the Father they have true Faith in Christ wrought in them For true 2. Through this Revelation have true Faith Faith in Christ doth necessarily follow the Fathers Revelation and when God teaches us Christ we must needs believe in him and through this Faith we know him by Experience and he that knows Christ through the Experience of Faith finds and feels Christ to be all that to him which the Scripture speaks of him He through this faith feels Christ to be made unto him of God VVisdom Righteousness Sanctification and Redemption and all things and Christ being through Faith made all that to him which he is in Himself it is not possible he should be offended at him Farther through this Experience of Faith Christ becomes precious to him as Peter saith 1 Pet. 2. 7. to you who believe he is precious That very Christ which to others is a Stone of stumbling and a rock of offence is precious to them who have Faith and know him by Experience So precious that they esteem all the greatest and most excellent things in the world but dross and dung in comparison of Him and such believers have chosen to part with their Liberty their Estates their Relations and their own Lives all which are precious things in themselves rather then they would part with this infinitely more precious Christ 3. They are blessed in that through this faith they have establishment as Christ saith on this rock I will build my Church And he 3. Through this faith have establishment that hath Christ for his only Foundation is never offended at him what ever scandals the World and the Devil raise up against him But he that hath another Foundation then Christ to wit either his own works and Righteousness or the World and the Things of the World when scandals come they are presently offended and their offence against Christ declares they are not built on him But they whom nothing can offend they are surely built and established on Christ and in

at last Crucified him between two Thieves by the common consent of all the People and destroyed the Son of God as if he had been the Son of Perdition And in all this bitter suffering no body afforded him the least pitty or compassion but the common People mocked him and said he saved others but cannnot save himself if thou be the Son of God come down from the Cross And this usage Christ complains of to his Father Psalm 22. 6. where he saith that He by his cries had no deliverance which yet Others who had trusted in God obtained but saith he I am a worm and no man a reproach of men and despised of the People All they that see me laugh me to scorn they shout out the lip they shake the head saying be trusted in God that he would deliver him let him deliver him if he delight in him And Isaiah saith that by reason of this strange suffering of Christ many were astonished at him his visage was marr'd more then any mans and his face more then the sons of men and through this suffering of Christ all the World were so extreamly offended that Christ crucified was to the Iews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness And thus was and is the VVorld and Worldly Church offended at the true Christ whom the Scriptures hold forth Indeed the false Church have fancied to themselves such a Christ as flesh and blood can like of well enough a Christ fashioned after the mind and will and Wisdom and Prudence and Righteousness of man and such a Christ they extol and magnifie to wit for their own worldly advantage sake as the Papists have fancied the por Virgin his Mother who kept Iosephs house and provided his diet and layd her hands to the performance of his ordinary household affairs to be a gallant Lady and have clothed her in Silke and Sattin and rich attire and such a Mother of Christ they do highly esteem whereas the poor Virgin the true believer who lived in the plain and laborious imployment of a Family they would even scorn to regard such an one No more will the carnal Church regard or value the true Christ in his mean condition and marred Visage And thus much for their Offense at Christ himself 2. The World and Worldly Church are offended at Christs true 2. They are offended at his his true Word VVord Because Christ under the New Testament hath given forth a New VVord which is the VVord of the Gospel And this also they are offended at in many regards as 1. Because it is the word of Faith the word of Faith and not 1. Because it is the Word of faith of Sense the Word of Faith and not of VVorks For this VVord of Faith is wholly a Spiritual Word and hath nothing in it that is sutable to flesh and blood Nothing in it that pleaseth the Fancy or Reason or Understanding of man it hath nothing in it 2. Because it exalts Christ alone and God in Christ wherein a Natural or Carnal heart can take pleasure but is throughout a Word of Faith 2. They are offended at the New word of the New Testament because it exalts Christ alone and in him the Power of God and the Wisdom of God and the Righteousness of God and the Things of God and cries down all the Things of the World in which men trust and delight and all the common Religion and Righteousness of the World and makes Christ all in all and God in Christ and all other things nothing So Paul 1 Cor. 1. preached to them that did believe Christ the power of God and Christ the wisdom of God and nothing else 3. They are offended at this Word because it cannot be learned as humane Arts and Sciences can to wit by the teaching of man 3. Because it can only be learned by the Teaching of God together with their own pains and endeavors but only by the teaching of God and his Spirit as it is written They that is the true children of the Spiritual Church shall be all taught of God he therefore that hath heard and learned of my father cometh to me All my divinity said Luther consisteth in this that I believe that Christ only is the Lord touching whom the scriptures speak and neither my Grammer nor Hebrew tongue taught me this but it is the work of the holy spirit Now when God teacheth us his word Himself we have an other When God teacheth us his Word we know it otherwise then other men understanding of it then other men who hear and read the same outward words and yet want that inward Teaching For then have we the spiritual meaning of the Word and the very mind of Christ in it which others want that are not so taught And this offends the carnal Christians grievously that the spiritual Christians have another knowledge and understanding of the Word then they VVhereupon they thus break out what say they are you the only men who have the word of God and is all wisdom and knowledge comprehended in your brests and do you know more of the Mysterie of of Christ then the grave and learned men who have studied the Scriptures all their life and will you with your pretended teaching overthrow that Orthodox sense of the Scriptures that we have had so many yeers and thus they are greatly offended 4. They are offended at this word because it discovers the 4. Because it discovers the wickedness of the World and worldly Church wickedness of the world and worldly Church at a very high rate The world doth not seem the thousand part so wicked anywhere as it doth where the Gospel comes For where this cleer light of God shines and the word comes in any degree of truth and Power there not only the wickedness of the world appears out of measure wicked but also the Religion and Righteousness and Works and Duties of the carnal Christians are manifested to be gross hypocrisie and the deceivableness of unrighteousness and wholly contrary to Christ the righteousness of God and so nothing else but a more plausible way to Death and Hell Where the Word of Christ or the Gospel of God comes in power Many who seemed good are discovered to be very evil by the light of the Word there many who before seemed very Godly and Religious people and very good Christians and very quiet and peaceable men do presently become full of wrath and rage and cursed enmity against it and call it Error and Heresie and Blasphemy and so do no less then spit in the very face of the Truth and Gospel of Christ which he hath manifested above all his name And no man could ever have imagined they had been such children of the Devil before the word came And thus by the coming of the Word in the Spiritual Sense and Doctrine of it many that did once seem to be Christs Friends are manifested to be