Selected quad for the lemma: sense_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
sense_n	faith_n	justify_v	work_n	8,100	5	7.4187	4	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

to conceit the case altered in their own concernments from what they rigorously pronounce concerning others We have not yet quite done with you and therefore we must Sect. 84 crave your patience a little longer whilest we ask you a few plaine Questions upon this subject now at hand Q. 1. Sir you will admit of no interpretations of Scripture we entreat you therefore to tell us Christ saith he is the true Vine and his Father an Husbandman Jo. 15. 1. Are they properly so or Metaphorically If you say metaphorically or improperly you interpret for the Texts expresse words are not I am a metaphoricall Vine and my Father a metaphoricall Husbandman If you say properly you blaspheme Q. 2. Christ saith I am the door Jo. 10. 9. You beleive you Epistle p. 7. say that Christ meanes as he speakes and therefore you deny our meanings and interpretations as needlesse Is Christ then that which we in propriety of speech call a door If you say he is in a spirituall sence a door who interprets now Do we offend if we interpret this Text of a spirituall door to a mysticall building and you though you give the same sense not so Q. 3. Nay what say you further to those two places of Paul and James which in words flatly contradict one another Yee see saith James that by workes a man is justified and not by faith onely Ja. 2. 24. But we know saith Paul That a man is not justified by the workes of the Law but by the faith of Jesus Christ Gal. 2. 16. You will allow vve hope that the Scriptures are truth though they be not the word of God Now truth and truth contradict not each other so that vve must find a different sense from the contexts of both places wherein the one affirmes that works justifie not and the other that they do This reconciliation is usually made by our Divines thus St. Paul denies works to constitute any person just before God and James affirmes that workes declare a person just How you without interpretation vvill reconcile them we know not especially when vve consider that you are a greater friend to constitutive justification by workes if you be of the mind of your fellow Quakers then vve believe James was and so are more concerned to study how to come off fairely with Paul then vve Q. 4. And now vve are upon the point of reconciling Scriptures vve shall make you a little more work in this kind Christ saith The Father is greater then I and yet he saith againe I and the Father are one And Paul saith of him That he accounted it no Robbery to be equall with God Phil. 2. 9. The Apostle John saith There are three that heare record in Heaven the Father the Word and the H. Ghost and these three are one Shew us without interpretation how Christ can be equall with the Father without robbery and one with him and yet the Father greater then he how the Father the word and the H. Ghost can be three and yet one And we might here also put you the question that our Saviour put to the Pharisees Mat. 22. 41. How Christ is Davids Son and yet Davids Lord and we suppose with the same successe that you will never be able to Answer us a word if you hold your Principle of denying all interpretations but that your forehead possibly may be harder then the Pharisees Q. 5. What will you say to a Papist but that you owne not the Scripture as a rule of Doctrine which indeed is a quick way of Answering all difficult Texts when he tells you that he finds Transubstantiation in this is my body Is the expression proper or figurative was the bread his body indeed or a Signe of it if you say his body indeed you are a Papist if not you interprete Sir to be short we shall take leave to mind you of these particulars and we have done 1. As to that un-christian passage of yours viz. a righteousnesse beyond the Stars a Righteousnesse far above us as you call the Righteousnesse of Christ in a slighting manner and we have just ground to feare some of those you plead for speake to that purpose in a spighting way we heartily advise you to take heed what you doe that you may not be found in the number of those who by wicked hands labour to pull the Crowne from the Head of Jesus and destroy the very being of Holynesse amongst men for all the workes of such Persons at the best are but beautifull deformities and although they may be highly esteemed amongst men yet they are abomination before the Holy God for our parts we are not ashamed of the Gospell of Christ and have through mercy determined not to know any thing amongst our People but Jesus Christ and him crucified and we judge it a speciall duty in this season the Lord helpe us in it that the more you and your complices doe either wretchedly reflect upon or downe right Blaspheme and speake against that Glorious Righteousnesse the more to exalt and make mention of that Righteousnesse even that only 2. Whereas you say could the Scripture be a rule before it was Scripture We answer the word now written even the selfe same word was the very same and had the same Office viz. to be a Divine ground of faith and rule of life before it was written as for instance Enochs Prophecie quoted by Jude 14. 15 concerning the judge the attendants the Persons to be judged the judgement it selfe the deeds and words for which they are judged is the very same with the written word and Gods word to Abraham Gen 17. 1. I am God al-sufficient waelke before me and be upright is the same with nay is the summe of the written word yet this was spoken foure hundred yeares before a word was committed to writing it being generally agreed upon that Moses was the first holy man that did write by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost Pray Sir tell us what difference was there between the Law as spoken by the mouth of God and afterwards written by the finger of God When Moses being provoked in the businesse of the Golden Calfe had broken the two Tables God commanded him to make two Tables of Stone more and the Text tells us that God did write the very selfe same words that he had written before in the first Tables Exod. 34. 1. the Truth is you doe but trifle in your Quaerie yet we feare you border not far from Blasphemy you nusle up your quaking freinds in their horrid rejecting of the Scriptures to be the rule and so make them listen after inspirations you would make void the word of God through your pretended Revelations and pull that pure and perfect clear Light out of the Firmament of Assembleis that men might follow the ignis fatuus of their darkned minds and deceitfull hearts 3. You quaere Whether our Sermons are infallible and if so why they

then from the spirit of the Lord and call them the word of the Lord to us when we can produce the printed Books of others of your Fraternity whence they are most of them stollen word for word † T. C. his Quaeres to one of us borrowed to a Title out of a Book directed to all that would know the way to the Kingdom Excepting false english Sect. 32 To your eleventh Article wherein you justifie your confidence in advising us to preach no more to the people then the Lord hath spoken to us and then we our selves witnesse the life and power of in our selves We say that t is true your are noted for confidence enough and none more then your female Declarers who for such a scolding religion as yours is are very well furnished with a Billingsgate confidence Concerning whom by the way we will be bold to examine you upon a few Interrogatories Q. 1. Whether the Spirit of God ever did act any persons with a boldnesse and confidence that breaks the Lawes of Nature and Civility Q. 2. Whether your Prophetesses that come to declare in publick Assemblies and some of them sometimes naked * As at Whitehall not long since and elsewhere Jer. 3. 3. do not break the Lawes of Nature and civility Q. 3. Whether such immodest practises be not too great evidences against many of them that they are so far from Religion that they have much corrupted the principles of common honesty And whether such brazen-faced impudency in such be not in the language of Scripture an Whores forehead Q. 4. Whether Pauls light or yours be better who saith Let the woman learne in silence with all subjection But I suffer not a woman to teach nor to usurp authority over the man but to be in silence 1 Tim. 3. 11. 12. Whereas you allow your women to teach in our Assemblies and your owne and in the very Streets and Market-places and to usurp Authority over us who take our selves to be men charging us to speak no more in the name of the Lord c. And what confidence emboldens the rest of you to come into our Assemblies and against the wills of the Officers to deliver your rayling charges there to the disturbance of whole Congregations your selves best know Only this we desire to know of you Q. 1. Whether Christ or his Apostles ever practised the like liberty in the Synagogues of the Jewes without leave first obtained from the Rulers We find not that our Saviour Christ at Nazareth opened his mouth to speak to the people in the Synagogue till the Minister delivered him the Book in token of the liberty granted him to teach there Luke 4 17. 20. And we find the Apostle Paul and his companion Barnabas at Antioch sate down and were silent till the Rulers of the Synagogue sent unto them and gave them liberty Act. 13. 14 15. And yet supposing they did their miraculous gifts were a sufficient demonstration that they had an higher authority We see no such in any of you Q. 2. Whether you be not herein so confident as to offer violence to that very Article of the Government by which you yourselves claime liberty in disturbing those who as professing faith in God by Jesus Christ are worshiping him according to their Consciences Q. 3. Whether it be not an apparant designe of Satan to imploy such confident men and women to make such disturbances at such a time when people should go home and meditate upon what they have heard to hinder and divert them But you think that you have warrant for all this confidence Sect. 33 because you only advise us to preach no more to the people then the Lord hath spoken to us c. Which advice of yours were it delivered in a sober private Christian way we hope we should take well at your hands and do assure you that we will to our utmost ability practise accordingly But we doubt that so much will not satisfie except we renounce what God speaks to us in the written word and hearken for Gods voice in unwritten revelations In which sense we must professe we think it were great boldnesse indeed in you to require us not to preach more then God hath spoken to us Seeing you undertake to forbid what God requires and our Saviour Christ and his Apostles accordingly practised The Apostle to Timothy tells him and us that the Scriptures are given by inspiration of God and are profitable for doctrine reproof correction c. To what purpose is the Scripture avouched to be profitable for Doctrine if we may raise no Doctrines from it for reproof correction and instruction if we may not lay it as the ground of all these 2 Tim. 3. 16. And in the same Epistle chap. 2. 2. he commands Timothy to commit what he had heard of him to faithfull men who shall be able to teach others also Had your quaking Generation been on foot then would they not have had the confidence to charge Timothy to speak nothing to the people but what he had heard from God immediatly and those that received Pauls Doctrine at the second hand from Timothy much more But whether the Apostle Paul or you be to be obeyed let sober men judge Sure we are that our Saviour Christ himself took for his Text what the Lord had many years before spoken to the Prophet Isaiah Luke 4. 17. 18. And for the Apostles and Apostolicall men we find them preaching those things which they learned from the Scriptures Apollos Act. 18. 28. shewed by the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ And when the great question concerning Circumcision and the Mosaicall observances was started among the Apostles and Elders Act. 15. James quotes the word of the Lord to Amos v. 16 17. in that Assembly And the Apostle Paul Act 26. before Agrippa and Festus professeth He in all his Doctrine witnessed saying none other things then those which the Prophets and Moses did say So that he preached the word that was spoken to Moses and the Prophets and yet none that we read of charged him to cease from preaching more then God had immediatly spoken to him And we hope we may safely disobey your councels or commands herein under the protection of such great examples As for the other part of your advice to us that we preach no more then we our selves witnesse the life and power of within our Sect. 34 selves We would hope you mean Orthodoxly in it to wit that we practise what we preach wch if it be all you intend herein we assure you we do and we hope shall be enabled by grace to do so more and more But when we look upon the papers of others of your brethren we doubt you mean we must not preach any thing of the Histories and Prophesies of the Scripture See faith full discovery of mysticall Antichrist pag. in their literall sense but only the experiences of the Allegoricall senses their