Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n
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A39306
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A reply to an answer lately published to a book long since written by W.P. entituled A brief examination and state of liberty spiritual &c. by Thomas Ellwood.
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Ellwood, Thomas, 1639-1713.; Penn, William, 1644-1718. Brief examination and state of liberty spiritual.
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1691
(1691)
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Wing E624; ESTC R29061
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86,814
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104
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as it concerns a holy Conversation or the worship of God is of any Service but until he come They err There are many outward Rules in the Scriptures of Truth that were given by the Spirit of God which have been and are of Service to many after Christ hath been witnessed come Again when they say Every latter Appearance of God is as death to the former The Expression is unsavoury and not sound For the Appearance of God or Christ do not kill one another but agree one with another and Co-operate to the work he intends thereby But when to this they add And this is our Case as well as any that did go before us c. They err egregiously For the Appearance of God in us did not bring Death to the former Appearance of God in others though to the false Appearances and Likenesses thereof it did Neither will any further Appearance of God hereafter bring Death or be Death or be as Death to this Appearance of God whereby God hath made known himself in and to his People in this Age. Again they say When the Appearance or Conversation must be measured by certain Rules it follows what is terms of Communion or is accepted with God may not be accepted with men This is a loose Expression and tends to let up Looseness Are not Sobriety Temperance Chastity Modesty Honesty c. certain Rules whereby Conversation ought to be measured If there must be no certain Rules for measuring Conversation how shall the most unruly Conversation be blamed reproved judged condemned and either reformed or rejected By these few Instances it may appear how much they are declined from Truth The God of Truth knows I have no other End in this Reply than to defend Truth and the Children of it against the slanderous Suggestions false Charges and wicked Insinuations of the Adversaries to lay Open their deceitful Dealing and to remove as the Lord shall enable me the stumbling-Blocks which they have laid in the way of the Week whereby they have caused some to fall into Misapprehensions and hard Thoughts of Friends without cause And I beseech the God of Mercy to open the Vnderstandings and clear the Sight of all those whose Simplicity has been betrayed by the Others Subtilty that they may see and escape the Enemies Snares and return to the true Fold from which they have been led astray A Reply to an Answer lately published to a Book long since written entituled A brief Examination and State of Liberty Spiritual c. THe Author of that Book called A brief Examination c. hath therein truly and soundly defined Spiritual Liberty declaring it to be two-fold True False according to the true and false Spirit which respectively leads into each The true Spiritual Liberty he defines to be Deliverance from Sin by the perfect Law in the Heart the perfect Law of Liberty Iames 2. otherwise called The Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus that makes free from the Law of Sin and Death elsewhere stiled The Law of Truth writ in the Heart which makes free indeed as saith Christ If the Truth make you free than are you free indeed So that the Liberty of God's People stands in the Truth and their Communion in it and in the Perfect Spiritual Law of Christ Jesus which delivers and preserves them from every Evil Thing that doth or would embondage In this blessed Liberty it is not the will or wisdom of man neither the vain Affections and Lusts that rule or give Law to the Soul for the minds of all such as are made free by the Truth are by the Truth conducted in doing and suffering through their earthly Pilgrimage The false Liberty he defines to be A departing from this blessed Spirit of Truth and a Rebelling against this Perfect Law of Liberty in the Heart and being at Liberty to do our own Wills upon which cometh Reproof and Judgment This being the Basis of the work I thought fit to transcribe at large that the Reader may plainly see and understand what that Liberty is both true and false which was the subject of that Book and is now of this Controversie Against this Definition of Spiritual Liberty I do not find the Answerers of that Book for the Answer runs in the plural Number take any Exception For in the entrance of their Answer they say As to the Definition of Liberty Spiritually explained page the first We agree upon the matter But passing by some Questions and Answers in that Book tending to shew in some general Instances wherein and how far the Members of the Church of Christ may be left to their freedom They take-hold of a Question and Answer in the second and third pages which are thus exprest Quest. But doth not Freedom extend further than this for since God hath given me a manifestation of his Spirit to profit withal and that I have the Gift of God in my self should I not be left to act according as I am free and perswaded in my own mind in the things that relate to God lest looking upon my self as obliged by what is revealed unto another though it be not revealed unto me I should be led out of my own measure and act upon another's Motion and so offer a blind Sacrifice to God Answ. This is true in a sense that is if thou art such a one that canst do nothing against the Truth but for the Truth then mayst thou safely be left to thy freedom in the things of God and the Reason is plain Because thy freedom stands in the perfect Law of Liberty in the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus and in the Truth which is Christ Jesus which makes thee free indeed that is perfectly free from all that is Bad and perfectly free to all that is Holy Just Lovely Honest Comely and of good Report But if thou pleadest thy Freedom against such things yea obstructest and slightest such good wholsome and requisit things Thy Freedom is naught dark perverse out of the Truth and against the perfect Law of Love and Liberty The Question as stated above the Adversaries find no fault with but approve and applaud often calling it a Weighty Question But for all that they either mistake or wilfully pervert it For whereas the plain and express Terms of the Question are these Since God hath given me a manifestation of his Spirit to profit withal and that I have the Gift of God in my self should I not be left c. They in their Sophistical Glosses upon it vary the Terms and instead of God 's having given c. They render it where the Gift of God is received to profit withal And instead of I have the Gift of God in my self They put such as do adhere to it As if there were no difference or They knew or regarded none betwen God's having given a manifestation of his Spirit to profit withal and man's having received this Gift of
sign of a right Christian Mind and Spirit Again they say pag. 3. Either he believes his Answer is full to the Question or he believes and knows it is not If he believes and knows it is not full then must he not only not have asserted the Truth as above but also be conscious wherefore he did it not and we conceive there 's another of their Conceptions that must either be because he wanted ability or because he wanted Truth in his way Here are a pair of inconclusive Conclusions together pieced out with a shallow Conceit of their own which I should not have thought worth taking notice of but to shew the well-meaning Reader what false ways of Reasoning they work by to beguile the simple Amongst whom though such sort of Reasoning may pass for currant and perhaps be thought of some force by such as through yeilding to the Enemies suggestions against the Truth are become vailed and clouded in their understandings yet to the opened Eye the single Eye the inlightned mind it appears as indeed it is empty shallow trivial weak and false Now as to the Answer it self after all their vilifying of it it will appear to the honest-minded to be pertinent proper and full enough to the Question to which it was given The Adversaries I perceive expected an Answer to consist only in a Yea or Nay and they account the Answer not direct because as they think it does not directly affirm or deny But it is their want of skill if without offence they may be told so that makes them think an Answer not direct unless it be exprest by Yea or Nay As the Answer relates to the Question so the Question related to as being grounded on the Definition of spiritual Liberty which the Author had given before That therefore the Answer they except so much against may appear to be both proper full and direct enough to the Question I desire both the Question it self and the Definition of that Liberty propounded in it and on which it is grounded may be seriously and impartially weighed together The true spiritual Liberty on which the Question was grounded was defined to be Deliverance from Sin by the Perfect Law in the Heart the perfect Law of Liberty c. as is before set down at large And this Definition the Adversaries have subscribed to The Question that follows and is grounded upon this Definition of spiritual Liberty or freedom is this Since God hath given me a Manifestation of his Spirit to profit withal and that I have the Gift of God in my self should I not be left to act according as I am free and perswaded in my own mind in the things that relate to God c. Now consider since it is certain that this Gift of God is universal that the Manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal and yet no less certain that All who have this Gift in themselves are not subject to it that All to whom the Manifestation of the Spirit is given to profit withal have not received the Gift nay that of them who do profess to have received it All have not so received it as to profit therewithal to be redeemed thereby into the true Spiritual Liberty These things I say considered such a positive absolute undistinguishing Answer as the Adversaries expected and call for of a simple granting or denying the Question by a positive Yea or Nay without distinction or explanation could not in Truth have been given For that had been to say that none ought to be left to their freedom no not They who by receiving the divine Gift in themselves subjecting to it and growing up in it are truly thereby brought to the true Freedom indeed the Freedom that stands in Truth the true Spiritual Liberty Or that All ought to be left to their freedom in the things relating to Goâ—â— even they who through their alienation from God know nothing of either this true Libety or the Gift that leads to it or They that professing to know it and to have received it live not in subjection to it and so are not brought to the true Spiritual Liberty by it but have a freedom out of the Truth a freedom to do such things as the Truth condemns The Author therefore rightly distinguishing these different states answered aptly to the Terms of his Question granting the Question in a right sense but not in a wrong sense For the Question not opening the particular state of the Party demanding this freedom but being grounded only upon the Gift or Manifestation given which is applicable not only to all in the Profession of Truth how disorderly and scandalous so ever but even to all mankind and not mentioning the Parties having received the Gift in the love of it closed with it to an improvement of it to a profiting therewith and dwelt in a subjection thereunto which alone brings into the true Spiritual Liberty therefore the Author that he might divide his Answer aright said If thou art such an one that canst do nothing against the Truth but for the Truth as much as to say If thou art indeed come by thy subjection to the Heavenly Gift given thee into the true Spiritual Liberty and thy freedom stand in that then mayst thou safely be left to thy freedom in the things of God and the Reason said He is plain Because thy freedom the freedom thou wouldst be left to stands in the perfect Law of Liberty c. As much as to say thy freedom if this be thy state is the true spiritual Liberty before defined and therefore thou mayst safely be left to that both with respect to thy self and to the Church of Christ which thou art a Member of since that freedom will not lead thee to do any thing against the Truth but all for the Truth And herein it is evident the Author had direct Relation to that Definition of true Spiritual Liberty which he had given before and which the Adversary now agree to But on the other hand If thou who demandest to be left to thy freedom in the things of God art not come to this true spiritual Liberty but notwithstanding God hath given thee a manifestation of his Spirit to profit withal and that thou professest in words to have received this Gift yet thou hast not so closed with and subjected to this divine Gift as to have profited therewithal and so art not come into this true Spiritual Liberty but by rebelling against the perfect Law of Liberty in thy Heart thou art gotten into a false Liberty a false freedom a freedom to do such things as are out of Truth then it is not safe either for thy self or for the Church of Christ which thou seemest to joyn with for thee to be left to this freedom of thine since that will lead thee to act not for the Truth but against the Truth to bring dishonour to the Truth disturbance to the Church