Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	lord_n	people_n	word_n	7,267	5	4.0951	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A93646	The guilty-covered clergy-man unvailed; in a plain and candid reply unto two bundles of wrath and confusion, wrapt up in one and twenty sheets of paper. The one written by Christopher Fowler and Simon Ford of Reading; the other by William Thomas of Ubley in Somersetshire. Wherein all their malicious slanders and false accusations, which they cast upon the truth, are clean wash'd off; their weapons with which they war against the Lamb, broken over their own heads; and they, with the rest of the tyth-exacting teachers, proved to be the great incendaries, and mis-leaders of these nations. In which also there is made a brief and sober application, to the magistrates, and other inhabitants, within the city of Bristol. / By Thomas Speed, a friend to all that tremble at the Word of the Lord; but an irreconcileable enemy to the mysterious deceit, and monstrous hypocrisie of those that do teach for hire, and divine for money.	Speed, Thomas, b. 1622 or 3.	1657 (1657)	Wing S4905; Thomason E893_1; ESTC R203614	61,807	87

command But you say the Ministers of Christ then had not the same legal right back'd with the power of a Christan Magistrate Rep. To which I reply two things 1 Could they not have made demand without a Magistrate and have laid it as a sin upon those that refused payment 2. But this is of no weight for neither had the Tribe of Levi any law to enforce payment at all which maketh your practice the more wicked who supposing Tythes to be as due to you as to Levi do notwithstanding horribly transgress their pattern in extorting that by Law from the people of which they onely made demand by vertue of Gods appointment I shall close this of Tythes with these four things 1. I do demand of you and William Thomas and of every Tyth-gathering Teacher in England but one example throughout the Scripture either of a Priest under the Law or of any Minister of the Gospel since Christ that did ever force his maintenance from the people nay even that maintenance which was given them by Gods or Christ 2. Whereas there was but a tenth appointed payable to the Tribe of Levi and a tenth given to Melchisedeck how cometh it to pass that you who are not of that Tribe do demand and receive a seventh of the people viz. a seventh Calf a seventh Lamb a seventh Pig c. 3. I would demand of William Thomas whether he did not some years since receive of his Parishoners the sixth part of all their encrease for one year and whether he did not urge them to have continued the same for one year more which they refused if this be true in the matter of fact for which I can produce testimony out of his own neighbourhood then I demand what shadow of a rule in Scripture he had for this and whether supposing the tenth to be his due it be not extortion to receive the sixth 4. Lastly There is no clearer demonstration that neither you nor he are Ministers of Christ then this that you express such clamour about your maintenance What fears What distrusts what out-crys Christ is no hard Master for where he sendeth out although it be without purse or scrip c. there is no want Never any that were faithful in his work but had enough and were you his servants you would trust more and fear and complain less SECT 29. To the contents of your twenty ninth Section treating about your not trusting your Master as his Ministers in Scripture did but indenting for a maintenance I have already made reply in my seventh Section to which I refer the Reader SECT 30. In this Section you charge me with bold censures because I charge it as hypocrisie on such as preach against pride and yet live in it against covetousness and yet are greedy of filthy lucre c. And you do passionately deny that matter of fact Whereas should I charge you two in particular to be a couple of proud imperious domineering persons I could soon produce many scores of witnesses out of the Town of Reading and the County of Berks to give testimony thereunto And as to the most of your Brethren abroad who but he that shutteth his eyes at noon day doth not see that whilst they preach against pride and covetousness they themselves are both proud and covetous who more haughty who more greedy of filthy lucre I do further charge it as gross hypocrisie for men to come in the face of a congregation pretending to pray with a great deal of zeal that God would teach them what to say when as they are resolved before hand what they will say And I do further ask you where you read of any of the Ministers of Jesus Christ in Scripture that carried about Sermon-notes in their pockets to the several places where they preached the Gospel and putting them in a book did now and then read and now and then speak a few sentences to the people without them Or whether did they not occasionally where they came speak as the Spirit of the Lord gave them utterance Surely were they now upon the earth William Thomas would damn them for extemporary Teachers Page 40. and Enthusiasts as in the heighth of his rage he doth those that have not Sermon-notes c SECT 31. You charge me in your following Section with bringing an Indictment of felony against poor Ministers as you call them for QVOTING of the Fathers and Expositers of Scripture Rep But that you are accustomed to tell your Reader that I say this and that which never proceeded out of my lips thereby hoping to enervate the force of that truth which I did indeed speak one would wonder that you should so imprudently assert so manifest a lye touching me Let the honest Reader peruse my whole Epistle and see if there be such a word as quote or quoting to be found therein And yet I must needs be made to charge your poor Ministers with that which I never said And having laid a lye for your foundation you proceed to erect thereon a rotten building proposing several lofty interrogatories to me touching Christ quoting Moses and the Prophets Peter quoting Paul and Paul quoting Aratus Menander and Epimenides and all this while do but fight against a lye of your own creating for I never gain-said any of these things You know well enough that my tenth Article did express the complaint made by your generation against the people called Quakers for that they called those men Thieves and Robbers who did spend six days in the week to gather together the words of other men and then come forth on the seventh day and bid the people hearken to the word of the Lord c. And did Christ or the Apostles thus they spake from the Spirit and preach'd by the Spirit and as they were by that directed they did where they saw occasion urge the words of the Prophets against those that talked of them but dwelt in that Spirit that slew them as your generation do at this day preach Christ in words but yet crucifie him where he appeareth in power And this practice of Christ and the Apostles I never condemned William Thomas soming out his rage about this Article Page 42. is as foul and false in his slanderous accusations as you He confesseth that he doth spend his time to gather together the words of the Prophets and Apostles with their right meanings and then say Hearken unto the word of the Lord. Where by the way we must observe that the meanings that the Priests do put upon the words of the Prophets and Apostles are by this man esteemed the word of the Lord. And then demandeth whether they be theeves because they receive that from the Lord which they deliver to his people Rep. He is not in the account of truth a Thief that receiveth that from the Lord that he delivereth to the people But must he that maketh it his trade to gather together the Saints

great day of the Lord. You say you are little beholding to my principles who would reduce you to the condition of Heathens Rep. Well were it for a great part of you that you were in the condition of those Heathens whose uncircumcision do fulfill the Law whilst you who bless your selves with the name of Christians Rom. 2.27 are found transgressors of it SECT 14. In your fourteenth Section you would be quarrelling with me if you durst and could you handsomly quit your selves of those Scriptures I quote about perfection you would proclaim me a Blasphemer And if that be all I hold of perfection yet those of my perswasion you say are not so modest Rep. If by those of my perswasion you intend the people called Quakers whom ye seek to devour I say that I never found any of them to preach or profess any other perfection then such as Christ exhorted to and Paul and other Saints witnessed About which you and William Thomas do distinguish with all the art you can to stop the mouth of the Scripture But when you have done all what Paul witnessed therein is still wisdom among them that are perfect 1 Cor. 2.6 And here again you are craving allowance to ask me a few questions Because you can finde no flaw in plain truth you would therefore by questoning finde some if you could William Thomas closeth his discourse about perfection Page 21. with a strange saying viz. our duty here is to be always perfecting Heb. 12.23 but our labour is in vain for it belongeth to our wisedom to know that we can never be fully perfected till the last day wherein our souls shall be among the souls of just men made perfect Rep. What a thick mist doth rage cast before the eyes of the envious Could one think that one that pretendeth himself to have been so long a Minister of the Gospel Vers 22 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ΠΡΟΣΕ ΛΗΛΥ'ΘΑΤΕ Sed ACCESSISTIS 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Τ ΕΤΕΛΕΙΩΜΕ'ΝΩΝ Ad spiritus justorum PERFECTORVM should lay down such an assertion and produce a Scripture for proof speaking point-blank contrary thereunto We cannot be fully perfected saith he untill the last day How doth he prove it Why by the words of the Author to the Hebrews who saith to the Hebrews Ye ARE come to the spirits of the just men made perfect Doth he say in the future tense they should come at the last day or doth he say they are come to those that shall be perfect doth he not say in the preterperfect tense they ARE already come to the spirits of just men ALREADY made perfect Isa 44.25 is not the Scripture fulfilled at this day which saith The Lord maketh the Diviners mad and turneth the wise men backward and maketh their knowledge foolish SECT 15. In your fifteenth Section you offer little save a threat what a severe reckoning you will have with me hereafter Against which I doubt not but to appear so armed with truth as to be able therewith to quench all the fiery darts that you and your Master have ready in your Quivers to shoot at me But William Thomas supplieth that wherein you are wanting Page 23. in passion and ignorance exceeding zealous he is in this particular for herein consisteth the life of the Priests trade in mangling tearing and confounding the Scriptures which they call Interpretations The Scripture witnesseth that none knoweth the mind of God save the Spirit of God and he to whom the Spirit shall reveal it Now observe Ten men do send each of them a Son to the University in order to their outward preferment where having spent seven or more years they are called home by them that sent them and by crouching It is the spirit not study in a University that maketh able to understand and interpret Scripture and cringing and perhaps the help of some of Simon Magus his purchase money a Benefice is gained for each of them Now these men being Ministers in William Thomas's account he asserteth it to be their imployment committed to them of God to be Messengers and Interpreters As if they had gained the Spirit and consequently the mind of God by the consumption of a few years in a University One of these readeth Augustine another Jerom a third Calvin a fourth Luther Peter Martyr c. their interpretations of Scripture and then they come forth to the people and say this is the meaning and t'other is the meaning And is this to interpret by the Spirit May not the worst of men who have not the Spirit but hate the Spirit nay may not the worst of Devils who well understand the languages in which those Commentators writ do the same Moreover take these ten young Divines which he calleth Gods Messengers and Interpreters and give them ten difficult places of Scripture a part each from other to interpret and it may be there shall not five of them agree in one interpretation Now mind if these men have not the Spirit of God they are not fit Interpreters because they cannot know Gods mind without that Spirit If they have that Spirit The Spirit never contradicteth it self I demand whether the same spirit interpreting in one man do contradict it self giving an interpretation in another If there be but one Spirit of truth and that speaketh in every man where it is the same thing then it 's clear that these men whom he calleth Messengers and Interpreters do bring forth the fancies and vain conceptions of their own brains and not the mind of God by the Spirit of God who do so jangle and contradict one another in their interpretations And therefore his charging it as a wicked error in the same page upon those that deny their expositions and interpretations is but a Bug-bear to startle the ignorant I say to thee Reader Abide faithful in the counsel of the Lord and thou shalt know his mind Live in that Spirit that gave forth the Scriptures by the mouthes of holy men and the Scripture will be plain unto thee for it 's that Spirit that unsealeth the mystery Thy soul is most precious therefore let not the false Prophet deceive thee As I have formerly told thee so now I tell thee again in bowels of love thou must die for thy self and not thy Teacher for thee and to the Lord must thou give an account for thy self therefore look well to thy standing interpret for thy self and beleeve for thy self and let not those Dreamers that call themselves Gods Messengers and Interpreters but live in pride malice covetousness c. lead thee down hood-winck'd to the chambers of death whence there is no returning SECT 16. I now come to your sixteenth Section in which you follow your old trade of deceit viz. not daring to deny in express terms although you do in effect Christs unlimited prohibition of swearing at all you fall from that to asking me questions Before I

and false accusations where are those lazie Lurdens or Drones as you call them who eat the fat and drink the sweet For mine own part I know none such but the Priests who yet are wiser for themselves then those you accuse of walking up and down the Land for that instead of travelling through heat and cold drouth and wet they love to keep close in one parish to eat the fat and drink the sweet But where are those that do eat their wives and families out of doors name any man that 's called a Quaker that hath done so and if you can were recrimination any excuse I doubt not but for every such one to name you twenty Priests that are deeply guilty of the same crime SECT 36. In your 36th Section you accuse me of setting up the revelation of the Spirit in opposition to all humane studies and why Because my Twelfth Article said That the mind of God is not to be known by study in a Vniversity but by revelation of the Spirit who alone knoweth his mind 1 Cor. 2.11 12 And is not this plain truth SECT 37. Why is it then that you make such a great noise about Vniversity learning endeavouring to make Paul and Peter to be Advocates for you in the case The first of whom viz Paul did with all his learning fight against Christ and drew his blood as you and many others at this day do that pretend highly to it And although he came afterwards to know and receive that Jesus whom he before persecuted yet I deny it was at all by the power of his humane learning but by the revelation of the Spirit of life And as for Peter how could you but blush were you not past all shame to abuse and belie him as you do in bringing him for testimony to the usefulness of Vniversity learning in this way making him to say that in the reading of the Scriptures it may keep a man from wresting them to destruction doth not the Scripture bear witness of Peter that he himself was unlearned and will you make Peter to condemn Peter Act 4.13 and implicitly conclude that he himself was a wrester of Scripture having not that learning which you say will keep men from wresting them Moreover do not the Pope his Cardinals the Jesuits and the rest of your Romish fraternity abound in Vniversity learning notwithstanding which do not you and the rest in England accuse all those learned ones for wresting the Scriptures to their own destruction SECT 38. In what confusion do your next Section shew you to live in which you begin with as full an acknowledgment of the impotency of humane learning to give the knowledge of the mysteries of the Kingdom as I my self have at any time or could have made Your words are these We acknowledge that all the learning of the world will not bring saving truth effectually home to the understanding and consciences of men nay carnal reason back'd with LEARNING will dispute the light of the most glorious doctrinal truths of the Gospel out of mens judgements and the most glorious practical truths of of the Gospel out of mens consciences as appears daily in those whose learning Satan makes use of as he doth of yours and others to defend and patronize their lusts So that there needs another kind of learning to settle these truths savingly in the minds and hearts of men which the Scripture calls the revelation and demonstration of the Spirit Thus are you constrained in words whatever your hearts are to give testimony to the insufficiency of your Idol Vniversity learning and to the efficacy of the revelation and demonstration of the Spirit And yet in the close of the same Section you cannot but call Schools of learning no small props of Christian Religion Are not they very sure props of Christian Religion in which men learn that which joyned with carnal reason will dispute the most glorious truths of the Gospel out of mens judgements and consciences Here is just the image of Babel As your brethren do use to preach so do you print who oftentimes in their Sermons do very zealously assert a thing for truth and before they close their discourse do cross the same thing and contradict it I could tell the Reader at large what precious Plants the Vniversities and Schools of learning do oftentimes nurse up but I shall reserve that untill another season Onely for close of this you being now crying Hosanna to your Universities let me ask you this question How came it to pass that Simon Ford was a very few years since expelled the University of Oxford Simon Ford turned out of the University of Oxford Was the Mother unrighteous or was the Son wicked If for a good deed he was driven thence then that prop of Christian Religion was a persecuter of the innocent if for evil-doing then let the Reader judge how well this man behaved himself there that the University which I am sure heretofore did rarely administer expulsion to any but for a very great crime thought good to vomit him up as a corrupt member SECT 40 41 42 43. In the next place I cannot but take notice how much stir both you and William Thomas do make about that expression of mine in the Twelfth Article viz. that Paul and Peter preach'd that Gospel which Christ by his Spirit revealed in them 1 Cor. 2 10. Gal. 1.16 And here you follow your old trade of making meanings upon my plain words And you doubt another Snake in the grass of this fair expression Rep. Are you Ministers of Jesus Christ and know not to this day what it is to preach the Gospel which he hath revealed in you Are there two Gospels or did Paul and Peter preach two viz. one revealed in them and another without them 〈◊〉 there any other way of knowing the glorious mysteries of the Gospel but by revelation made by the Spirit of Iesus within William Thomas confesseth that Paul and Peter were instructed by immediate revelation Page 44. which saith he We are not so presumptuous as to expect Rep. Poor blind man The Lord is my witness that my bea rt was moved with pitty towards him at the reading of this expession and could even weep over him thus drowned in ignorance What hath he been preaching these thirty and nine years for so long it seems he hath been a Teacher who is so far from having received Pag. 8. confessed that he never expected instruction by immediate revelation Hath he only taught the history of that which others did and spake If so what hath he done more then the Devils and many now damned spirits can do and have done Cannot those soul spirits talk of what others have said and done in the Scriptures nay Mark 5.7 do we not find an unclean spirit preaching Christ in words to be the Son of the most high God Have not the Pope his Cardinals and Jesuites the