Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	apostle_n	deliver_v	doctrine_n	1,647	5	6.0899	4	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

is a stone that every sorry thing in black to use your own expression hath to cast in his face who hath so much honesty and courage as to bear testimony against the wickedness of your Pharisaicall generation If any man doth appear with strength of truth and plainness to decry the deceit and unrighteousness of teachers and people every ignorant Priest is presently crying out a Jesuite a Jesuite thinking by that brand of reproach to render those just accusations that are brought against them less credible in the judgements of the simple But do not decieve your selves in thinking that I shall be scared from discovering your uncleanness by your great words I am as irreconcileable an Antagonist to the Antichristian principles and practices found among the Jesuites as I am to the same found among you from declaring against which I shall never be disswaded by either bribe or fear The rest of your scorns and unsavory scoffs in your Title page I pass over as being unwilling to defile my thoughts or my pen with such filthy rubbish I now pass to both your Epistles And first I cannot but take notice how you walk in the old path of begging Patronage to your deformed Pamphlet Christ Fowler and Simon Ford 's Epistle to Col. Sydenham examined You have some mire and dirt to throw upon the innocent out of the raging Sea of your inward guilt and what then that you may act your design with the more authority you must crouch and cringe to Col. Sydenham and tell him that you are his Honors affectionate Servants that under his shelter as you phrase it you might shoot out the bitter arrows of lies and slanders with which your Epistle and Book do abound with the greater hope of credit among those that live in the same spirit of wickedness with your selves Had you writ nought but truth that would not have needed the shadow of any mans wing for its shelter and patronage I once knew Colonel Sydenham dwelling in a spirit of prudence and moderation in which if he yet abideth and be not Priest-ridden into passion and prejudice against the truth which I should be sorry to understand I doubt not but he doth discern and loath that spirit of fawning and flattery upon which you offered up to him that polluted sacrifice of an Epistle You begin it with a high but a lying Accusation charging me with Apostacy to damnable doctrines To which I say That he that saith that of me which he neither doth nor can prove is a lyar and such do I charge you Two to be who have most maliciously dealt with me both in this Epistle and the Pamphlet as your Predecessors the Roman blood-suckers did with the poor innocent Christians in those days viz. cloath them with the skins of some ugly creature and then cast them to the wild beast to be devoured But I doubt not but that I shall before you and I part give the sober Reader a true representation of such Doctrines and Practices of yours and your Brethrens as will make his ears to tingle You tell Colonel Sydenham that in my Epistle I challenged all the publick Teachers in the Nation and you in particular Rep. Now whether this be true or like the former Col. Sydenham and all honest readers may determine upon perusal of my Epistle in which there is not a word of any challenge or any thing like it But how doth it appear that I did challenge you your proof is because you say I sent you each a Book by name To which I shall onely say That the person that delivered you a book from me utterly mistook me For why I should particularly direct a book to either of you whose faces to my knowledge I never saw nor ever exchanged word with you let the reader judge This is the pretended ground of your undertaking but I rather judge the real rise to be from a mixture of your guilt and ambition that you might at once give the world a proof of your abilities both in painting and sophistry But your coverings are too short and to the most weak-fighted of the children of light is your nakedness manifest The next thing you suggest to Colonel Sydenham as a motive to your undertaking is that you dared not to betray the truth and the glory of the Lord Jesus nor the precious souls of the people Rep. Did not your hypocrisie stare in your faces when you were penning these fained motives Are you not known to live in a professed enmity to the truth of Christ appearing in his Saints and yet pretend a zeal for it Are not your conversations a stain to the very profession of hi●●●me by living in pride covetousness by your persecution nay what in you lieth drawing his blood in his innocent Lambs and yet you tender of his glory Besides how can you absolve your selves from being betrayers of precious soul who cry peace peace where the Lord hath spoken no peace Jer. 6.14 and do slay the souls that should not die who do reach for doctrine Ezek. 13 19. the traditions of men drawing poor souls from their true guide to listen to your corrupt dreams and divinations and keeping them fast in the snares of Satan do lead them down hood winck'd into the chambers of death I shall pass from yours to William Thomas his Epistle Will. Thomas his Epistle to his friends c. in and about the City of Bristol scan'd in which he maketh a great cry to little purpose He directeth it to his well beloved Friends and Neighbors in and about the City of Bristol those in particular of his own charge and in special those that have sadly and dangerously declined from the Scripture path Rep. I will not quarrel at the sence or rather the of this inscription I shall speak to the thing intended It seemeth that William Thomas hath those of his own charge that have sadly and dangerously declined from the Scripture path And do they not therein demonstrate themselves to be teachable Disciples in following their Pastors practise Sure I am he is far wide from the Scripture-path both in his principles and practice and if you call to him for Scripture to prove what he saith or doeth as I have sufficiently done he will give you one of his own meanings or wild deductions instead of Scripture which if you refuse to accept then an out-cry is presently made here is one that denieth Scripture an Heretick an Heretick He telleth his friends in Bristol among many other notorious untruths that I will needs bee his adversary Reply As if from a busie minde I had been the beginner of the present contest betwixt us VVill. Thomas the beginner of the present Contest Whereas I was quietly abiding in my calling not designing to write or print any thing to him or touching him Neither can I say but that I might have gone to my grave in silence without writing or printing ought that

mention of two Scriptures in John is this such a crime that I need a purgation Observe Reader notwithstanding all these mens verbal zeal what their bosom thoughts are of Scripture But what would you have you say you hope I will give you leave to aske me a few questions Rep. Why had you not spoke out what is within and said what this Speed hath said is plain Scripture and therefore we dare not for fear of the people but say it is truth however we will try if we can to catch him with our Queries and meanings that we may have some matter to work upon But hold Sirs do you use to bring men to their arraignment at the Bar and then ask them if they know ought against themselves whereof you may accuse them Let the Reader take notice of the subtilty of these men that throughout my whole book where they find my words so plain and true that they have nought to answer they to cover over their own guilt do either first go to making meanings on my words or secondly fly from the matter in hand and begin to propose Queries thereby to amuse the Reader and blunt the edge of his intention upon what hath been said Pagei 5. And therefore it is that William Thomas telleth his Reader in his Fifteenth page that his Brethren have dealt providently with me in querying me out of my starting holes That is to say out of my plain Scripture into meanings For when the truth of plain Scripture which I quote do so rub their fore that they cannot bear it then they fall to querying about senses and meanings You ask me first What light that is with which Christ enlighteneth every man Answ The Scripture beareth witness that the work of Christs Ministers consisted in turning men from darkness to light Acts 26.18 and do you two pretend to have been Christs Ministers for so many years past and yet declare so much ignorance of your work as now to ask what that light is What is that conversion that your preaching have wrought upon your miserable hearers more then from one degree of darkness to another who yet remain strangers to that light to which they should have been converted William Thomas maketh a great cry about the light VVill. Thomas his confession touching the light with his meanings and interpretations his suppositions and distinctions calling but not proving it a natural light and all to stifle it if he could Although in the close of his thirteenth page he is made to confess as much of it Page 13. as ever I heard or read from the pens or lips of the men of his anger viz. Christ lighteth every man that cometh into the world ☞ though not by saving illumination yet by saving revelation a distinction which I understand not but he will explain it that is saith he by that Gospel-revelation that is fit to save them though divers receiving the revelation do through their own fault lose the salvation Let himself beware that having the reevlation he lose not the salvation And now lest you should think I am ashamed to declare what I own touching this light of Christ I shall briefly express what I understand of it 1. This light of Jesus is that in which all the deceit of the Priests is seen and witnessed against and therefore it is that they do so bandy against it speaking all manner of evil of it refusing to come to it because their deeds are evil 2. This light is that which discovereth the temptation to evil before it is committed and checketh and convinceth for sin when it is commited 3. It is that which followeth many a man day by day throughout his life smiting him for that hidden wickedness he liveth in prompting him to return to his Maker which he stubbornly resisting passeth his days with a galled conscience to his grave 4. It is the same that was in Enoch Noah Abraham and Moses and the same to which the Prophets John Baptist and the Apostles did bear witness So that wherever it is now it leadeth not contradictory but according to the testimony of the same holy men recorded in the Scriptures of truth 5. Lastly It is that which will be the certain condemnation of all those who having it obey it not Joh. 3 i9 but love darkness rathen light Here I would close what I have to say to your answer to this first particular but that William Thomas hath not yet done being very wrath that I asked What need of their teachings And thereupon insolently demandeth of me What need had Christ to send forth his Apostles and bid them go and teach all Nations Rep. 1. What the Apostles taught was from the living Spirit of Jesus and not from liveless traditions neither were they fire-brands where they came as he and his brethren are teaching the people to persecute imprison and destroy one another as they do but manifested the way of peace 2. They taught men to turn from darkness unto light but these men ask what the light is quarrelling fighting Page 16. raging against it Nay as if he himself could not render it sufficiently odious he chargeth his Readers to have a jealous eye upon it Some Scriptures there are that do stand much in his way which I beleeve he heartily wisheth were razed out of the Bible and doth endeavor all he can to make them Apocryphal such as these They shall teach no more every man his neighbour Isa 31.34 1 Joh 2 27. c. And that in John Ye need not that any man teach you c. To which Scriptures he saith he will for the satisfaction of weaker Christians speak something Rep Page 17. I wish he and the rest of the traders upon Scripture would let the Scriptures abide pure as they are and not hew them and clip them and curtail them as they do and all to make them speak according to their corrupt fancies They must be weak Christians indeed that must receive satisfaction from Scripture so rack'd and manacled as they are before they come out of his hands SECT 13. Your thirteenth Section sheweth your readiness to wrangle with me about words if you could find any matter to work upon Something you must have to say to me for form sake touching my second Article Page 19. Although William Thomas doth so fully assent to what is said therein that he passionately saith that if I say the Teachers of this Nation do charge the people called Quakers with the bare affirming thereof it is an untruth But if I mean so or so then he saith it 's an untruth also So let me say or mean what I will if they like it not I must be condemned In the close of this Section you come to speak scoffingly of this light of which take heed and beware for a swift witness shall you find it to be against all your unrighteousness to your condemnation in the

Epistle To the after part thereof wherein you rather seek matter of quarrel with me then answer ought that concerned you I shall not be wanting in making a particular return in case I hear not further from William Thomas whom that do more especially concern In the mean while return into your selves and consider what you are now doing and whose errand you are posting upon And know that neither you not your weapons formed against the Lamb shall prosper before the Lord. Consider whether Satan doth not make the same use of your learning In your 38. Section which you confess he doth of some mens viz. To defend and patronize your lusts You may for a season with fair words and specious pretences deceive the simple perswading them that you are Ministers of Christ because you preach and profess him in words though you persecute and crucifie him where he appeareth in power But though men may be deceived yet God will not be mocked As you sow so shall you also reap Whilst you sow to the flesh bringing forth the corrupt fruits of Pride Envy Covetousness Oppression c. It is not your guilded profession that will cover you over in the presence of the most high God In the pure light of Christ that despised light that light which you so furiously decry and trample upon search and prove your selves For I bear record to it and you shall one day witness the same to be true that a swift and dreadful witness will it be against all transgressors in the great and terrible day of the Lord. It will then assuredly speak by no gift will it be bribed nor by the tongue of an Orator will it be enjoyned silence but an impartial cry will it make before the Lord for justice upon the the evil doer and he himself shall put his seal to it that the cry thereof is just I am A Friend to your Souls but an unalterable Enemy to your deceit THOMAS SPEED A TESTIMONY FOR TRUTH AND A Caution to all that profess it TO live in the fear of the Lord is the beginning of true Wisdom from which whosoever departeth doth at once lose both his Rock his glory Whilst the earthen vessel is made the habitation of the Lord it is all beautiful and in him and for his sake to be honored among the Saints but he being withdrawn what is man but a dark temple of clay whence the glory is departed Man abiding in the truth shineth as a Star in the Firmament but turning his back upon that he becometh an unsavory snuff whose light is extinguished Whilst Aaron listneth to the Lord I will hearken unto him but when he giveth ear to the seducing charms of the people to make new Gods I will leave both him and them to worship the molten Calf which he hath set up How illustrious is the Throne of Solomon while he abideth faithful with the God of his Fathers but forsaking him and turning unto strange women his wisdom becometh foolishness his strength weakness and is brought by the subtilty of the Tempter to bow his knee to those dead Idols Ashteroth and Milcom But the true God whom Aaron once served is not to be blasphemed because he is now found sacrificing to an Idol Neither will the wholesom words given forth by the mouth of Solomon from the Spirit of the Lord cease to be truth throughout all generations though Solomons heart be turned from his God and he prevailed upon to worship those things that are no Gods Cursed be that lip that speaketh evil of the pure light of the Lord because some starting from it are found wandring in the perillous paths of darkness They that abide in the light walk safely but who so turneth from it walketh among the rocks Who is he that despiseth the light of a candle in a dark night because another who turneth from it stumbleth and falleth Or where is he among all the Sons of men that will refuse to walk in a clean path because some straying from it are found having their feet stock'd in the mire and clay Look well therefore to your standing all ye that fear the Lord and whilst ye think ye stand take heed least ye fall Let not your faith stand in the wisdom or excellency of man but in the power of the Lord Walk humbly with your God so will you walk safely Forsake not the blessed fruit of the tree of life to eat of the shining fruit of the tree of Knowledge Stumble not because another falleth but be the more watchful over your own steps And to all you that rejoyce at anothers swerving from the truth I say beware how you condemn Christ for a deceiver or his doctrine for deceit because Peter denied him If Peter return to himself and repent his will be the joy but yours the shame What gain will it be to you O ye men unwise if over one that is fallen you your selves stumble and fall to your own destruction He may be raised by power of the Lord to praise him in the Land of the living when as you being hardned by the sliding of his feet will be sealed up under the chains of eternal darkness FINIS