Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
B08395
|
The weapons of the people called Quakers turn'd backward, by the shield of truth ; the fountain whereof is the rock and sure defence of that despised contemptible instrument / Elizabeth Atkinson.
|
Atkinson, Elizabeth.
|
1669
(1669)
|
Wing A4129B; ESTC R215419
|
6,536
|
16
|
THE WEAPONS Of the PEOPLE called QUAKERS Turn'd backward by the Shield of Truth the Fountain whereof is the Rock and sure Defence of that Despised Contemptible Instrument ELIZABETH ATKINSON Being Confident and Sure that the Floods of Reproach cast out of their Mouth shall not Prevail Wherefore my Soul doth Magnifie the Lord and my Spirit Rejoyceth in God my Saviour Printed in the Year 1669. The Weapons of c. YE People who would be counted Israelites in the Spirit and call your the selves chosen of the Lord owning your selves a Body of Friends when any smooth things are spoken to you but rage when the pillows are torn from under your Arms. Though I shall not take notice of your Words or Writings so as to answer all your malicious Forgeries yet if ever you or any of you recover the use of your senses then take notice how the pride of your vain-glorious Spirits hath transported you beyond truth and sobriety so long professed by you You seem to ground your first Objection from my speaking in the plural Number which you say are general Terms And in great Rage you cry out Who but an impudent person c. To which I answer Pride hath blinded you Doth the word Those that practised honesty c. more include all that practised honesty then the word They or this people draw near to the Lord with their lips c. did include All that drew near unto the Lord with their lips Neither will your subtilty take effect wherein you would perswade people as if I by a loose Life had more knowledge or intimacy with your seeming holy Hypocrites then the chief of you which is known to be an apparent falshood for had I been as sensible of your gross Hypocrisie then as now I should have had as much familiarity then as I now have with you which is none at all but it is evidently known they had more acquaintance and approbation with your Ministers then ever they had with me And if I were disposed to particularize persons and their fruits since your pretending to walk by the light you call Christ in you I should not need to cloath you in any other then your own defiled habit to make you appear what you would not be thought to be I am sure a smaller piece of Paper would contain your Remaining Vertues For your corrupted body hath of late broken out with putrified sores in several parts not only in your mean Members of small account but in the chief and principle parts thereof who seemed to guide the rest And it may as truly be said to you as it was to the Israelites of old That from the sole of the foot to the head there is no soundness in it though not every part broken out with one and the same disease How often was the house of Israel reproved in General Terms yea and pleaded withall as if they were one single person as may be seen by Record Ezekiel the 16. Chap. and Numbers the 25. Chapter Neither was Jeremiah to be branded as an impudent person though he told them in general terms they were as fed horses Neighing after their Neighbours wife yet there was a Remnant for whose sake they were not made as Sodome and Gomorrah Neither do I doubt but that there is among you a Remnant that may obtain mercy to have the leaven of the Pharisees purged out by faith in that Jesus whom they are yet ignorant of and then they will no longer take part with you in reviling those that shew you some of the dirt that you have spotted your selves withall since you were lifted up in spiritual pride standing afar off as if the Garments of others would defile you and when those deceived people that now have an esteem of your spirit shall come to the knowledge of the truth they will find the greatest Number of you to be A Generation of Vipers And now as to your Query what I have against your Principles wherein you only pervert my words by your own serpentine spirits falsly saying that I have blasphemously accused the light and staggered like a drunken person but I know this judgment of yours proceedeth from the giddiness of your own heads that thinks others stagger when they stand upon firm ground Wherefore as to your Principles I have this to say that though you may repeat the Law every Meeting Day yet I know and testifie that you are yet Unbelievers and have not the knowledge of the true God and Saviour of them that believe Who promised in the Beginning to Bruise the Head of the Serpent and his promise the Saints believed which was imputed to them for Righteousness and when the fulness of time was come he faithfully performed his promise by taking our Nature upon him sin excepted who by suffering at the hands of unbelievers having passed through deaths Kingdome according to his promise raised up the Temple of his Body in three dayes and this spiritual Body both before and after his Ascension gave the Saints full Assurance of their own Resurrection and Salvation this light and knowledge you are not yet partakers of though you so much take the name of light in your mouths Neither can that light in every mans nature though you have fed so long upon it not being enlightned with the light of faith apprehend this Mystery of God being manifest in the flesh of Christ and laying down his life that he might quicken again and rise a spiritual Body which ascended into the highest Heavens but the pride of mans rational spirit is always aspiring to be a GOD though it was made to be a Subject wherefore it 's light is become darkness that it neither knows beginning nor ending of it's Misery until it 's Crown is laid down at the foot of Jesus by Resignation and becometh a child again indeed God made the Spirit of Reason yet it was not serpentine until it aspired which caused the Lord to withhold his flowing vertues and then it became dark and received a name sutable to its nature which being by the first mans disobedience defiled is notwithstanding bridled by the law or light placed in every mans nature by the bright shining and living Jehovah who afterward to accomplish the work of mans Redemption did manifest himself in the person and name of Jesus whom the Professors of the first Covenant would not believe in though he came to establish the Second upon better promises yet they accused him for the law-breaker The corrupted spirit of man is very zealous in making large profession of keeping the Law when for want of purifying faith in Christ it is quite-dark and ignorant of him the only Saviour and so makes idols of his handy-works which if used in its place would manifest and declare the wisdome and power of God the Fountain from whence the whole Creation did flow But there is none but the enlightned by Faith in Jesus can understand the mystery of Salvation
right place but in the place you have stated it makes you uncapable of benefit in Christ this mystical idolatry began to appear above ground in those forward sprouts that sang Hosanna whose top Branches you have nipped but the root of the matter remaineth still in you which hath appeared several times since in your confused actings from the motions of your confused spirits but your punishment belongs to the King of Kings against whom you commit spiritual High Treason You put forth an envious Question What help I had in composing my Paper written to you which you have named after your own kindred but though you ask it in pride and scorn I shall answer it in truth and plainness by negligence in the Printing there was some words misplaced which did something wrong the sense of it and this was all the help I had from any man in the wording of it and for approvers I never sought after any but what approbation it would have with you I was very sensible of as I have sufficiently experienced since from the raging tongues of your confused Multitude you seem to reprove me for Blindness wherein you discover your own blind presumption Let the sober-minded consider whether the Lords accounting the believing Children of the promise to be the seed of Faith that shall inherit the Kingdom Did import an impossibility in them to sin For their uniting to Christ the holy Off-spring that could not sin was by the union of faith which faith was the Righteousness of that Remnant that followed the Lord in every dispensation according to his Command but uoy that have not followed him are become so blind that you know not Light from Darkness which makes you cavil at that which is clear to the Eye of Faith For the children of Israel were called and adorned by the Lord though Moses were the instrument to declare it to them But when they would not stay for further Counsel but concluded it was a vain thing to worship a God at a distance then did their imagination make an Idol to go before them which caused them to be as dark as the Egyptians Darkness which they departed from and a time will come when some of you will read the figure right though the rest will be hardned As for the rest of your superfluous falshoods and threatnings which ascendeth out of your Bottomless Pit I shall not take particular notice of it being assured you have no more power to hurt me then you have to save your selves But as to your last Question what fruits I am bringing forth I shall leave that to the Testimony of those that sees it who are best able to give an account of it if they be unbiassed and without prejudice And whether you be an innocent people in General or a corrupted people blinded with pride and ignorance though wrapt up in a pretended innocent outside there are witness s many who have testified thereof no more then they know to be truth yet I do not deny but that there is some amongst your Multitude who are yet ignorant both of the mystery of inâ—quity that first entered and also of some gross Evils arising from the Ground cursed for the first offence But the appointed Remnant shall be recalled to their Everlasting peace though they may be long deceived as I was by the fair pretences of those that talk of perfection while they themselves were the servants of corruption But the self-justifying Pharisees though they had so much light in them to plead for and preach the justness and righteousness of the Law given out by the Prophets yet those despisers did wander and perish because they would not believe or understand the vertues and effects of the Personal Suffering Resurrection and Ascension of the Lord of Life Wherefore he pronounced woes to them shewing them that they should be judged by the Law which they trusted in because they rejected him who was the Righteousness and Recovery to Everlasting Happiness of all that believed in him And were you not Blind leaders of the Blind you would see how you are dayly taken in your own net for every tittle of that Law broken which you trust in for justification will make you guilty of All. And for your two Witnesses that have signed this your Birth of supposed Nobility whose Father is known by its language they cannot be justified in this sordid abusive Answer stuffed with reproachful Terms and Expressions that Envy invented But when the time of Reaping is past and you begin to taste the Fruits of what you have sowed then shall you remember that you were told the Truth by me Elizabeth Atkinson