Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	holy_a	john_n	word_n	6,977	5	4.1585	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A60617	The Baptists sophistry discovered in a brief answer to a late pamphlet entituled The Quakers subterfuge or evasion overturned : wherein all people may plainly see ... / by William Smith.	Smith, William, d. 1673.	1673 (1673)	Wing S4289; ESTC R34257	16,696	24

That the Holy Spirit as he speaketh in the Scriptures is to Try and Judge the Spirits of men and particularly the Quakers Spirit which they call the Light within And here thou hast plainly manifested Deceit unto all who have Eyes to see and thy Meaning will not cover thee And who have any cause to believe thee that canst twist thy words from one thing to another But how do the Scriptures try and judge the spirits of men according to thy Meaning I would understand thy mind more plainly as to this thy Evasion And why must the Quakers Spirit which thou sayst they call the Light Within be particularly tryed and judged by the Scriptures Must the Letter try and judge the Light Wouldst thou make the Greater subordinate to the Lesser for that which is the Original of a thing must needs be greater then that which is manifest from it and the Letter was manifest from the Light for the holy Men of God spake as they were moved by it and it was within them when it moved them to speak and so the Holy Mens Spirit was the Light with which the Quakers have Unity and their words do not try and judge the Quakers Spirit but their words are fulfilled and witnessed by the same Spirit and here the Quakers are before you all who are only in the words as they were once spoken and not in the Spirit by which they were spoken and so you want the Key of Knowledge which opens the Mysteries of the Kingdom and when John bid the Saints try the Spirits whether they were of God he said There were many False Prophets gone out into the World and the False Prophets were in a False spirit which the Saints were to try in the True Spirit and so the True Spirit was the Tryer of all false spirits and false Prophets and the same Spirit is the Tryer of all spirits now and they that live in it hold fast that which is good and know it to be Good though false spirits may call it Evil. 5thly Thou sayst Thou saidst to R. A. that thou wast afraid that the Quakers were deceived and guided by a spirit of Delusion and that it was thy Judgment That all the Sons and Daughters of men ought to be guided by the Scriptures Rep. It seems thou hadst no certain Ground to believe that the Quakers were Deceived and Deluded but only wast afraid and so it is manifest thou couldst not try them either by the Spirit or Scriptures surely Wise Men will be ashamed of thy Ignorance and Folly And for the removing thy vain Fear we are willing to tell thee and thy Brethren That we live in the Blessed Truth where Righteousness Peace embrace and kiss each other And as for thy Judgment That all the Sons and Daughters of men ought to be guided by the Scriptures thou hast given thy Judgment inconsiderately for thou hast not demonstrated any thing as a Ground why it ought to be so but only stated it from thy own Judgment and if thy Judgment be sufficient to bring others to be of the same Judgment then the Judgment of the Pope may plead Authority and so people may as soon be Papists as Baptists and if there be no other Guide but the Scriptures for the Sons Daughters of men to be guided by then what Guide have such as never heard nor read the Scriptures have such no Guide to lead them to fear God and work Righteousness to be accepted of him or must they of necessity perish for want of the Scriptures to be their Guide or whether can such a People be saved thou art here concern'd to give thy Judgment again for there is not yet such a Decision of the great Controversie as thou vainly boasteth 6thly Thou now comest to speak of R. A' s coming to reprove thee and pronounce thee a Leper and that a little time after he confessed he was deceived and was a false Prophet and that the same Judgment was come upon one of his Children and himself Wife and other Children taken with a Restless Pain in their Bodies and that he desired thee to Pray for him and thou and thy Congregation did pray for the removing of that Distemper and Affliction and they were restored to their former Health again which thou sayst R. A. confessed when he came to the Meeting again Ans. It is to be observed That the very Ground of all the Buzzle and Noise which thou hast made against the Quakers is only from the bare and single Confession of R. A. and thy own Consequences and Conclusion from what he hath confessed and said but thy groundless Conclusions do not prove so effectual for thy purpose as thou might'st vainly suppose when thou begun'st thy work for though thou hast made such a Noise against the Light Within and against the Quakers because R. A. might tell thee The Quakers did tell him he was to mind the Light to be guided by it yet the Light is not to be charged with R. A's Miscarrying if he did Miscarry in any thing wherein he concern'd the Light for if he did concern the Light in giving Judgment against thee and then afterwards confest that he was Deceived and was a False Prophet this doth not make the Light to be a False Principle nor those that are faithful to it to be guided by it a Deluded People and if he did confess that he was Deceived it doth not follow that the Light deceived him for there were never any false Prophets in the True Light nor never any True Prophets out of it and so it is very clear that R. A. was not guided by the True Light when he was deceived and was a false Prophet neither doth it appear by all thou hast said that he was guided by the Light and yet he must be call'd a Quaker because he might sometimes have something to say of the Light and against Water-Baptism and suppose this was granted yet it doth not make him any more a Quaker then for a man to speak of Water-Baptism and against the Pope would make him a Baptist and if such a man should do or say something that is a manifest Error would you Baptists take it well that his Error should be charged upon your whole Society and you counted a Deluded People because of such a Miscarriage by that man when he was never taken notice of to be owned by you it may well be concluded That you would be ready to clear your selves both from the man and his Miscarriage and to blame such as should lay his Miscarriage upon you And if you would not be willing to bear such a thing your selves if cast upon you from such a Ground why then do you so much busie your selves to do it unto us Are you doing in this as you would be done by let the Juditious judge For you neither manifest Justice Equity or Mercy towards us in this matter but rather vent your Envy and Malice

against us as the Sober-minded well perceive And as for the Judgment of R. A. against thee R. J. if such a thing was and the thing coming upon himself and Family it doth not concern the Quakers at all or the Light of Christ within which is their Principle and hadst thou been so wise as to have let the Quakers alone and not concern'd them its possible the Story of thy Prayers for removing such a Judgment might have made thee and you famous in the Eyes of some who delight in Novelties but thou hast taken a wrong course to advance thy own glory and in time both thee and those that have assisted thee in thy work will fall under your own Shame for the True Light is not to be charged with that which by a False spirit may be done no more then an Innocent Man is to be charg'd with the Offence of an Offender for all that live in the true Light receive true Commands and no Error is to be charg'd upon the Commander nor such accounted Deluded that keep his Commands for the true Light leadeth all those that faithfully follow it out of all Error into all Truth but where Imaginations have liberty to work they conceive a false thing and bring forth a false birth and in that work the Light may be pretended though not at all concerned and by this thou mayst see where R. A. was when he was deceived and was a false Prophet as thou sayst he confessed And so it is not what any may speak of the Light Within that makes the Light guilty of any thing that may be done amiss by such as speak of it for it stands a Witness against them in their Consciences when transgress it And as for R. A. and his Family being restor'd to their former health by the Prayers of thee and thy Congregation it is still to prove though thou hast gotten several Subscribers to what R. A. confess'd concerning it and in such a manner thou mayst write one Book after another with reiteration for thou brought'st Evidence to what R. A. confessed in thy first and thou art gotten no further yet only hast gotten new Witnesses to R. A's old Confession and so all thou hast done by thy last Subscribers is but a further manifestation of thy Folly and it is not worth taking notice of in particulars neither shall I trouble my self or the Reader with such Impertinencies and thou dost as much as confess that as to thy own knowledge thou wast ignorant of any Affliction upon R A. and his Family or of their Recovery for thou sayst Hadst thou fore-seen this Peevishness in the Incredulous Quakers thou mightest perhaps have deprived them of this their foolish Advantage and then thou bringest Christ and the Apostle Paul whom thou sayst did not go to visit all for whose Health they prayed and so thou wouldst parralel thy self with those Unparralel'd Workers thou wouldst bring thy self off again by saying But what am I O Lord I confess unto thee I am not worthy to be mention'd here and so thou first seem'st to include thy self with Christ and the Apostle and then wouldst exclude thy self again as not worthy to be mention'd And for thy Fore-seeing the Peevishness of the Quakers as thou term'st it thou hast sham'd thy self with that Expression for it seems thou hadst nothing in it to have satisfy'd thy self of the truth of the matter but only to have depriv'd the Quakers of that which thou callest their Foolish Advantage and so thou couldst not pray either in Faith or Hope who didst not know whether there was any Affliction upon those thou prayd'st for or no and so thou and thy Congregation pray'd at an adventure and R. A. confessed to the Restoration of Health again and this is the Great Wonder which thou hast spread abroad in the Nation to make people believe that you prevail'd with God by your Prayers but the most Juditious do rather believe that it was a meer Fiction and thou art not able from thy own knowledg to demonstrate it otherwise And thus I have done with thy Narrative I shall now take notice of some particular Passages which thou hast stated to make good R. A's Affliction and Restoration Thou speakest of some that asked him meaning R. A. Whether he himself had not a Child presently after that was Leprous and he said he had a Child then that did break out into Sores p. 13. Rep. Mark this Confessor he did not directly answer the Question of the Enquirers as to confess his Child had a Leprosie but that he had a Child broke out into Sores and it is well known to all that have their Senses that there may be a breaking out into Sores and yet no Leprosie and this is all that R. A. confessed upon inquiry How hath the poor man been drawn out and squeezed by Inquirers to answer the End which thou Unjustly hast begun Thou sayst in the same page That the Title Page of the Narrative was not of thy composing Rep. It seems you Baptists can shuffle to make out your own matter and thou canst subscribe to that which is not of thy own composing and to help the matter as well as thou canst thou sayst It is not without Truth but whether this appears like the Truth I shall leave to all Unbyast Judgments to determine Thou endeavourest pa. 10. to make R. A. a Quaker without any Contradiction saying That R. A. was a Quaker in Principles and owned that People above all others and was acted by their spirit is palpable enough from what is said in the Narrative Ans. Thou now seemst to leave thy Subscribers to R. A's Confession and take the Matter upon thy self as if thy own word should carry the matter more clearly then all that R. A. hath confessed and by several subscrib'd and must we take thy bare word that R. A. was a Quaker in Principles and own'd us above all others and was acted by our Spirit wouldst tho● impose these things upon us from thy vain Conclusions but as thou hast refer'd this Matter to the Narrative as such a palpable thing I shall not run into Tautology but desire the Reader to peruse what is answer'd to the Narrative which I doubt not will fully satisfie any Juditious Person touching this matter I shall take a little notice of three Heads which thou statest to make good this false Assertion First Thou sayst In that he contributes his Testimony to that which they call the Light Within at as high a rate as the most of that Way which sayst thou if they have any Principles at all is the chief of their Principles Answ. What Testimony as thou callst it R. A. did contribute to the Light Within or at what rate we have only thy bare word and our Belief not being in thee we can't credit thy Stories and therefore thy words are but as Wind unto us But thou sayst if we have any Principles at all the