Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	church_n	scripture_n	word_n	7,625	5	4.5069	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A97109	The vanitie of the present churches, and vncertainty of their preaching, discovered. Wherein the pretended immediate teaching of the spirit, is denyed, and the all-sufficiency of the Scriptures teaching, is maintained. With, a new and true method of reading thereof, for the peace of the mind, and rule of life.	Walwyn, William, 1600-1681, attributed name.	1649 (1649)	Wing W693A; Thomason E1367_1; ESTC R210498	20,838	55

do ye not tremble when you consider it to think that you should so frequently practice so grosse an imposture as openly to pray unto God that your eronious doubtfull uncertain conceptions for what other are your Sermons shall be heard and received as the word of the ever living God what greater impiety nay blasphemy then to call mans word Gods word to counterfeit a Preacher an Evangelist an Ambassadour of Christs and to deliver a Word a Message a Gospel mixt and made up of opinions and conjectures as if it were the true reall word of the ever living God What is this but even to debase belye and offer despite to the spirit of God himself for advancing your own false Honour and repute amongst men Consider this serioussy all ye that are captivated with the charmings of these Sophisters that are intangled in their formes of godlinesse that are drawn into their imaginary Churches that are deluded into an opinion that they are pastors feeders preachers of the word of God and be so true to God whose honour lyes at stake to your selves whose peace and comfort lyes at stake and to your Neighbours whose good name lye at stake also as to make a clear examination whether these pretended pastors Churches are taught immediately by the spirit of God or not as they pretend try them by the word they preach And you shall find however they have prepossest you to the contrary that neither they nor your selves have any understanding at all of such divine or heavenly things as bring peace of Conscience and joy in the Holy-ghost by any other way or meanes but only and solely by the Scriptures and that neither they nor your selves are taught by the spirit as they have long perswaded you and whereby chiefly they delude you into a belief that they are true pastors and your Churches true Churches of Christ For Judge you had they the spirit of God as they pretend would they need as they do when they have resolved to speak to you from a Text of Scripture to go sit in their Studies three or four dayes together turning over those authors that have written thereupon and beating their own braines to find out the meaning and true intent thereof no certainly had they the spirit of God it could in an instant in the twinkling of an eye inform them the meaning of his own writings they would not need to be studying seven ten or twenty years to understand the truth of the Gospel and when they have done so too be as farre to seeke as they were at first for any expresse certainty therein for do but observe that when they have for some years preacht up a Doctrine they are many times forst to preach it down again as ye well know most of them have done and that in very materiall points As for instance are they not one while zealous for the baptizing of Infants another while for the baptizing of Beleevers only and then again for no Baptisme at all for want of a true Ministry do not the Pastors differ amongst themselves and contentions arise not only between Church and Church but in every Church within it self are there not some that for many years have preacht up election and reprobation and afterwards have as much preacht it down and cryed up generall redemption and that man hath free will or a negative voice in his salvation and this in a Church gathered and taught by the spirit as they would make the world believe and those who by praying and preaching ex tempore would be thought to have yet a more immediate teaching of the spirit how extreamly are they to seeke in the ready understanding of the Scriptures what weake and indisgested matter issueth from them is too easily discerned yea what contradictions they huddle one in the neck of another though through confidence in the speaker and superstition in the hearer all passeth for currant truth But consider can it be of the true spirit to produce uncertain Doctrines if the Trumpet give an uncertain sound who can prepare himself to the battle so if the preacher preach uncertainly how can he affirm his word to be the word of God or how from such doubtfulnesse can true faith be begotten in the hearts of the hearers is not a Church founded upon such uncertainty founded upon the sand and built up with hay stubble not able to stand the least blast of a reasonable opposition and will ye that have Consciences towards God any longer be instrumented in this mocking of him and by your countenance thereof partake with them in this strong delusion What doth the Pope and his Clergy more then belye themselves and blaspheam God in saying they have the true spirit of God which leads them into all truth whilst by their lying miracles by their art and sophistry they lead the poor deluded people in the greatest errors for maintenance of their own pride covetousnesse and luxury The Bishops they come and by pretence of the true spirit discover abundance of faults in the Pope and his Clergy and make shew of great reformation but advance only themselves and their uncertain Doctrines for their own ambitious ends only without any regard to the glory of God or good of men then comes the Presbyters and they cry out against Common-Prayer that was faulty enough and studied Sermons as stinters and suppressors of the true Spirit of God in them and they are no sooner in the Chaire and their Prayers preachings examined but they also are found to differ one with another to contradict themselves to mind only their own honour and profit and to be possessed as both the former with a persecuting Spirit which is abhorred of God of Christ and of all his true Ministers and Apostles Then comes the Independents and pretend to erect a holy pure and undefiled worship according to the pattern shewed unto them by the true Spirit indeed pleading for generall liberty of conscience void of all compulsion or restriction and professing the meeknes of the very Lambs of Christ and humility towards all men who now could have suspected what since hath been discovered Namely that they as the rest belyed the Spirit of God pardon the harshnes of the expression it s for Gods cause and must be spoken they being no more infallibly certain of the truth they raise from Scriptures then any of those whom they so much condemn they as the rest pray preach and do all for mony and without it they do nothing taking mony for that which is not bread but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and sand mixt together that di● 〈◊〉 ●eople swallow it whole without 〈…〉 mination it would be as gravell between their teeth and they would 〈◊〉 it out of their mouths And since they are increased in number● and have as it were scumm'd the Parish Congregations of most of their wealthy and zealous members Do they not fully discover a serpentine disposition hankering after persecution Do

therefore and to distribute forget not for with such sacrifices God is well pleased whilst we have time and oppertunity let us do good unto all men Let us all strive to go on before another in love and let there be no other strife at all amongst us we wish with all our soules that all reproach despites and envyings amongst men might for ever cease and that difference in judgment may no longer occasion difference in affection there being in our apprehension no cause at all but that all men going in their severall wayes of serving God whether publique or private may neverthelesse be free to communicate in all civill Offices of love and true friendship and cordially joyne with any for a publique good but if notwithstanding all that hath been endeavoured or hath been said this Generation of congregationall men shall continue to puffe and swell through pride of heart to lift themselves up into the Chayre of the scornfull and as the man in Peters Chayre assume a power of life and death over all opinions and wayes not owned by them as if they were infallible judges of all controversies making no scruple of blasting mens good names and reputations or of undoing of whose Families thereby they must then expect to be told their own and be made appear to the world as they are not as they would be esteemed It being evident by what hath been said that although they have boasted themselvs to be rich and increased with goods and to have need of nothing yet they are as the luke-warm Church of Laodicea miserable wretched and poore and blind and naked and for all their bigg and swelling conceipts of parts of gifts of Saint-ship of the Spirit in effect pharisaically crying out Lord we thank thee we are not as other men nor as those poore Publicans that receive all their knowledge of Divine things from the Scriptures onely and are taught onely thereby Notwithstanding these bigg swelling words their Peacocks feathers being thus pluckt off you see and they will they nill they must also see that they must be content at last to shake hands even with those poore Publicans and acknowledge that they have no other infallible Teacher of Divine things but the Scriptures and that they partake no more of the Spirit then what that blessed Word of the Spirit planteth in them And if their consciences are awakened will be enforced to forsake their falling Churches unlesse for politique ends they shall stifle the power of these Truths within them chusing rather to perish in the rubbish then to seem to have bin so exceedingly mistaen which will prove an unpardonable error For however the best of men may erre yet they are the worst of men that persist in error after the discovery And therefore if there be any whose consciences shall be fully informed of the vanity of these Churches and yet for any ends shall continue to support the reputation of them let all such know that those who dare be so impious as to stop the continuall cry of their consciences must necessarily desire in their hearts there were no God whose Uicegerent Conscience is which is the most sad and dangerous conditon that man can fall into in this life And certainly they will find it far better to forsake their tottering immaginary structures confess their emptines sinfull imitation taking shame unto themselves and giving glory unto God whose name and power they have much diminished hy affirming those to be Churches which are not those Pastors and Preachers which are not those Saints which are not his blessed Word to be but a dead Letter that to be his Word which is but conjecturall Sermons and in censuring those to be erronious and carnall Christians who have more warrant for what they do then themselves And then by a more considerate ingenious and Christian-like carriage to make amends for the future which would very much rejoyce the herrts of all that love the Lord Jesus in sincerity whose Truth and Glory will be advanced by the Scriptures when all the roving wild and wandring immaginations of mens spirits shall vanish and come to nought FINIS Feb. 23. 1648-49 Imprimatur THEODORE JENNINGS

sillable but recite some place of Scripture which by serious intention hath imprinted it selfe in their minds If you demand a reall Demonstration of the Spirit they can give you none but peradventure will tell you that you must awaite Gods time and he will enlighten you That their Spirit is as the white Stone in the Revelation the name whereof no body knew but he that received it making use of false darke and misterious Scriptures intended for another end to prove that they are unable by any sound argument or sensible demonstration to manifest Whereas were they really endowed therewith they could not conceale it nor we be unconvinced of its devine and supernaturall Power but must needs bend our knees and hearts in acknowledgement thereof If we urge the Scriptures against them they tell us the Letter killeth abusing and that so grosly that place of Scripture to the upholding their own vain imagination nothing being more evident then that by Letter in that place of the Romanes is to be understood the Law and by Spirit the Gospel And if men did not too much Idolize their owne fancies it would soone appear That now in our times we have no Preacher of the Gospel but the Scriptures which being the infallible Word of God the Word of Truth Eph. 1. 13. not the word of man but as it is in truth the Word of God 1 Thes 2. ver 13. which was not yea and nay but yea 2 Cor. 1. ver 18 19. 20. The Word of God that abideth for ever Is it not strange that our pretended Preachers of all sorts should so far prevaile upon the minds of men as to draw them from giving eare to what this Word of truth plainly and evidently holdeth forth for the peace of their minds and direction of their lives and take up their time and thoughts wholly or principally with their uncertain fallible Sermons making them in effect forsake these living fountains and digg to themselves broken Cisterns that can hold no water Nay a wonderfull thing it is that it should be received for a currant truth That this the greatest blessing the World knows this word of the ever living God should now come to be esteemed but as a dead Letter this sword of the Spirit that forceth it self into our dead naturall understandings plants it self there makes us one with it and forms us new this regenerating word this immortall seed should be so undervalued as to passe but as a dead Letter Time was that it was otherwise in England when our fore-Fathers would have given any thing in the world yea many of them gave up their lives rather then they would part with the smalest part of this precious Word translated into English by the first sincere professors of true Christian doctrins but then Godlinesse was esteemed the greatest gain and the iniquity of Learning was not arived to so much impudence as to make a gain of Godlynesse to make a trade of Religion and to become rich by pretended preaching Nor weaned they the people from the Scriptures to give eare to their notions and opinions telling them they had the Spirit and that the Scriptures were but a dead letter but invited and perswaded all men to a diligent consideration of the true scope and intent of them Neither did they preferr the understanding of men with difficult points or obscure doctrins but as Luther insisted altogether upon the Doctrin of free Justification by Christ alone and in way of thankfulnes for so great a benefit invited all men to live righteously Godly and soberly in this present world therein following the example of the Apostles and the very end scope and main design of the Scriptures which is that unum necessarium and which if people did rightly and seriously mind they would not so easily be drawn to follow such Teachers or to give eare to such Sermons whereby they are alwaies learning but never come to the knowledge of this one necessary truth For how long work soever Ministers and pretended Preachers make of it to maintaine themselves and families in wealth plenty and honour necessary Doctrins are not at all hard to be understood nor require long time to learne them and if it did not concerne their livelihood and profession to make men beleeve they were people would soone understand sufficiently for their establishment and comfort and would fall to practice that so they might become an honour to their profession of Christianity for the Scriptures or word of God having once planted this truth in the understanding viz. That it is the bloud of Christ which cleanseth us from all sinne this Evangelicall truth of its own nature would instantly set man on work to do the will of him that hath so loved him and constrain him to walk in love as Christ hath loved so that after this all the care would be how to advance the Gospel by making our light to shine forth before men that others seeing our good works may glorifie our Father which is in Heaven But this is no profitable way for any of our pretended Preachers this Doctrin is to soone learned for if men once come to know that this short lesson is sufficient what will they regard either printed discourses or Sermons and if once they find them also full of uncertainty contradiction and unnecessary things they 'le not part with their mony for such trash when they may go to the two breasts of Christ himself freely at all times to the Scriptures and buy this sweet milk and hony without mony and without price and if men and women come once to understand this they will not comber themselves with many things but possessing this unvalluable truth will ever worship God in Spirit and in Truth and declare unto others this blessed one necessary comfortable way and that not by preaching or long set speeches which are apt to deceive but by conferences and mutuall debates one with another the best way for attaining a right understanding far excelling that which is called preaching But then how shall Demetrius and the Crafts-men live even by some lawfull calling this being the most palpably delusive of any in the world and it is very strange that all men do not discerne and avoid it It is so as cunningly as it is carryed as high in repute as it is hath long time been having no foundation but in the weake credulity of men for if men but once consider it their Sermons will appear to be but as common discourses full of mistakes errors and at the least altogether uncertaine and that all their preachings and prayings are only for mony and that their greatest skill and labour is to hold men ever in suspence and upon pretence of truth to give them a bastard Scholastick knowledge which only serve to make men proud wrangling Sophisters and Disputers vain boasters talkers busie-bodies censurers Pharisees wise in their own eyes and despising others void of all true piety

THE VANITIE Of the present CHURCHES AND Vncertainty of their Preaching discovered WHEREIN The pretended immediate teaching of the Spirit is denyed and the all-sufficiency of the Scriptures teaching is maintained WITH A new and true Method of reading thereof for the peace of the mind and rule of life Gal. 6. 15. 16 For in Christ Jesus neither Circumcision availeth any thing nor uncircumcision but a new Creature And as many as walk according to this rule peace be on them c. London Printed by J. Clows and are to be sold in Cornhill and Popes-Head-Alley 1649. To the Reader ALthough I dissent from some things in this Treatise and other things seème dark and doubtfull to me yet there are many plain clear and evident Truths of great use to all Christians Therefore that the Truth may be manifest to all And that all Believers and Churches of the Saints may be of one mind and may edifie the whole body in love And in all their Doctrines and Conversations hold forth the truth as it is contained in the written word the perfect rule of the spirit to guide us into all Truth and to make us wise unto Salvation through that one necessary thing Faith which is in Christ Jesus which is by the Gospel the power of God to salvation preached unto us And that errour may be discovered reproved and corrected and if possible that the guilty may be convinced and reformed Therefore I say to this Epistle and the ensuing Treatise February 23. 1648-49 Imprimatur THEODORE JENNINGS The vanity of the present Churches and uncertainty of their Preaching discovered c. AS there is nothing more cōmendable amongst men then a true correspondency between the heart the tongue the hand so no thing is more lovely amongst Christians then that the Conscience the profession and the practice do universally agree though somthing be allowable unto frailty yet when the defect or discord is continued and that to the reproach of Christianity in generall and to the prejudice of humane society then certainly a reproofe is not only requisite but the neglect thereof a sinne of an high nature And so those whom this discourse now deemeth worthy of reproofe did seeme to judge when they condemned the persecuting practices of the new raysed Presbyters whose positions and professions whilst they were persecuted by the Bishops did clearly hold forth a full and compleat liberty of Conscience in the exercise of Religion and justly and truly did the Independants reprove them as their many bookes of that Subject do sufficiently testifie their reproofes were sharp and their replyes driven home whereby they put the question of the utmost liberty of Conscience out of all question accompting nothing more base or mis-beseeming a Christian then to question or vex or reproach any man for his judgment or practice touching matters of Religion and inciting all men to peace unity love and true friendship though of never so many severall opinions or different wayes in Religion By which their ingenuity they as the Puritan Presbyter had done before them gained abundance of love and respect from all men their Congregations multiplied and in conclusion obtained much countenance from authority which they no sooner tasted but instantly some of them began to pride themselves and to dispise others and to reproach and villisie all such as upon tryall and examination of their Churches their Pastors and Sermons finding all to be but fained imitations nothing reall or substantiall forsooke their societies and thereupon as the Presbyters had used them so deale the Independant with these and all that any wayes adhered unto these raysing nick-names and bitter invective reproaches against them sparing neither art nor paines to make them odious to others and their lives if it were possible a burthen to themselves and though reasons have been offered and conferences desired that they might see their error and forbeare to deale thus contrary to their positive owned and declared principles yet have they persisted therein and go on still without ●easing manifesting a most destructive and persecuting disposition not only towards these but towards many others whom they now as compleat Judges of other mens Consciences judge to be erronious or heriticall and seeme to have placed their felicity in the ruine of those whom their own Consciences cannot deny to have been instrumentall in their preservations and who have not thought their lives too precious to purchase them that freedom which now they enjoy And therefore it hath been conceived not only just but of absolute necessity to publish to the judgments of all impartial people both of the Congregationall way and others this their hard measure and unthankful usage of a harmlesse well-meaning people and withall to discover to all those who are conscientious the error of their wayes and emptinesse of the things wherein they glory and to let all those who are wilfull or meere polititians amongst them beare their shame openly and since they are proofe against their Consciences and can take up and lay down principles professions and practices too as stands most with their advantage and like the Jewes in their worst estate make no reckoning of oppressing all that are not of their tribes it is but equall that such should bear their mark in their forehead that all men might be warned from conversing with such deceivers and if any tartnesse appear herein they are the occasion it being no more then they deserve And not only so but we have herein also indeavoured to support the weake and by establishing them upon the sure foundation of the written word of God inclining them to give eare thereunto as unto the only true infallible teacher of spirituall things in our times and by directing them in a brief and plain method in the reading thereof how to attain to that one necessary Doctrine and main design intended therein unto man for his temporall and eternall comfort To which end that we may neither seeme to wrong the one sort nor to delude the other and for full satisfaction of all that are or shall be concerned herein we affirm it to be most palpably evident That ye of the Independant Congregationall or of any Church-way whatsoever have not that true essentiall mark of a true Church to be found amongst you which only can distinguish the true from the false and without which a true Church cannot be A true Church in the Scripture sence being such only as wherein the very word of God is purely and infallibly preached that 's the mark Now though it have been usuall among you in your prayers to desire of God that your auditors may give eare to the word that you preach not as unto the word of a mortall man but as unto the word of the ever living God and this too with such solemn countenances lifted up eyes and earnestnesse of expression as if it were the sin of sinnes for men to doubt it Though this hath been your course

they not dayly 〈◊〉 their venom privatly and publickly against any that either seperate from them or joyne not with the● and that in as foul aspertions as ever the 〈◊〉 uttered against Luther the Bishops against 〈◊〉 Puritan or the Presbyter against the Independents are they not high and skillfull in rayling making whom they please Atheists Anti-scripturists Autinomians Anti-magistrats Polligamists Seekers or what they will and can these proceed from the true Spirit of God or from the Spirit of Antichrist Judge impartially Yee that are yet untainted in your consciences going on in this Church-way as deceived and not deceivers whether yee can offer more dispite to the Spirit of Grace then by your presence and society to justifie this delusion or to uphold this new Idoll this Apple of Sodome seeming onely faire to the eye but touch it and it falls to powder to the very earth being nought but earth like Dagon before the Arke having neither hands nor feet but to discerning eyes is a meere uselesse lump an Idoll which as the Apostle saith is nothing in the world and therefore let none who minde the things that are of God uphold it any longer It being hardly to be beleeved the infinite evils which comes to the world by this false supposition and assumption of these Churches of having the Spirit of God or being taught immediatly thereby for by occasion thereof no sooner doth any one embrace any opinion pretending to Religion and beginnes to be fortified therein and that after frequent hearing prayer fasting or humiliation he continues to be of the same minde but presently he thinks himselfe bound to declare to all the world what the Spirit of God as he calles his owne imagination hath made knowne unto him And hence it is that at present the World abounds with such variety of opinions concerning life and salvation that many a sincere heatt seeking for peace and rest therein is kept in perpetuall suspence and doubtfullnesse whereby their lives become a very burthen to them and many sad and wofull effects follow thereupon Some by their confidence and extreamity of zeale and diligence get their opinions how contrary to Scripture soever they are into halfe the people of a Towne Village and Parish and then there is nothing but wrangling envy malice and back-biting one another to the extreme prejudice and unquietnesse of the place Some of them crying up their owne experiences and the teachings of God within them affirming that they speak not from Books or Scriptures written in Inke and Paper and in Letters and Sillables but from the inward suggestion of the Spirit induce multitudes to neglect the Scriptures and to give credit onely to their wilde Notions and Opinions and though they have no foundation in the plaine expression of the Scripture or be contrary thereunto yet are they satisfied that they onely are in the truth and all other Christians in errour not examining their opinions by the Text but urging that the Text is to be interpreted by their Opinions and experiences And hence it is that in the esteeme of some the Scriptures are of as small value as the Service Book and to speak of a Christ crucified at Jerusalem is carnall Hence it is that some and those not a few maintaine there is no sin no evill no difference of things that all things are good are one and that all things are God and that to see or judge any otherwise is for want of the teaching of the Spirit and this though it quite contradict the whole tenour and plaine open scope of the Scriptures from the beginning of Genesis to the end of the Revelation yet passeth it for currant and gets ground in all places Hence it is that some men will neither stir nor undertake any thing of any nature Civill or Naturall but as they are prompted thereunto as they imagine by the Spirit or as some phrase it by the drawings forth of the Father taken all their inclinations likings or dislikings to be immediatly from God whereby grosse neglects and failings to say no more come to be excused and not onely so but expresly put upon Gods score Hence it is that some after extreame fasting and continuance in prayer beyond what their bodies could beare extent of minde and intention of apprehension have really beleeved they have seen Christ standing by them and heard him vocally speake unto them that they have seene a light waving about their beds all the night long at other times a black darkness intermixt and in these extasies as they call them but indeed fevourish distempers they have been bid as they thought to doe such things as the holy Scriptures abhorre and yet could never rest till they had done them And hence it is that some presume to be so Goded with God and Christed with Christ as they affirme they are in heaven and upon the earth that they are ever well and that paine is not pain that all things are nothing and nothing all things and glory that they are contradictions Prophesie of things to come as the day of Judgement name the time the very day see it false and yet profess it true in a sence and are beleeved write bookes of the Germans madde mans Divinity of the occurrences and successe of the present distractions in such unheatd off expressions concerning King Parliament and all Parties that to a man that gives good heed to the Scriptures nothing appeares more irreligious yet through the generall supposition of the immediate teaching of the Spirit the authors please not onely themseves but others and none speaks against it or writes or preaches against it to any purpose least they should break the golden chaine of their own honour or profit for whoever assumes or maintaines himselfe to be taught by or to have the Spirits mediate teaching is lyable to hold any thing his Fancy presents to his Imagination and dares not condemne the false assumption of Gods holy Spirit in another least he should thereby condemne himselfe since they both have but their owne bare affirmations for their foundation neither being able to manifest by any thing extraordinary the reall possession thereof To this sad condition are men in these times brought by this fals presence of a Spirit which once taken up insisted on their credit becomes so ingag'd and they are so exceedingly delighted and lifted up in being thought the darlings of God that it is the hardest thing in the world to make them see their mistake offer but once to bring them into a doubt or but desire them to examine how amidst so many contradictory Opinionists all affirming the Spirit of God for their leader in each any one of them comes to know himselfe to be in the right and they turne the head of one side single and condemn you as not enlightned and pray not to trouble them yet if you enquire what at any time the Spirit immediatly hath made known unto them they cannot tell one