Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	christian_n	evident_a	great_a	136	3	2.0711	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30899	Quakerism confirmed, or, A vindication of the chief doctrines and principles of the people called Qvakers from the arguments and objections of the students of divinity (so called) of Aberdeen in their book entituled Quakerism convassed [sic] by Robert Barclay and George Keith.	Barclay, Robert, 1648-1690.; Keith, George, 1639?-1716.	1676 (1676)	Wing B733; ESTC R37061	83,121	93

and teachers seing prophets and teachers teach both from the spirit The first is answered at large in the end of G. Ks. book of Immediat revelation To the second we answer that by prophets in the strickest sense are meant those who prophecy of things to come as Agapus was by teachers they who instruct the people in doctrine and this is a manifest difference although in the large and common sense prophecying and preaching are one thing Their seaventh argument they pretend to build on that Scripture Jud. 19. but it is easily answered that men in one sense may be said not to have the spirit and in another to have it even as a rich man who improveth not his money both hath and hath it not in divers senses according to which Christ said from him that hath not shall be taken away that which he hath And whereas R. B. doth grant that they whose day of visitation is come to an end have not the spirit so much as to invite and call them unto God here they insult as if all were granted they seek but they are greatly deceived for though he grant that some have not the spirit to call and invite them yet he granteth not that they have not the spirit to reprove them for even the devils and damned souls of men and women sin against the Spirit of God witnessing against them in their hearts which is in them a law of condemnation as David said if I go down into hell thou art there yea do we not read not only that God spak unto Cain a most wicked man but also unto Sathan Job 1. which speaking of God to Sathan we suppose the Students will not say was by an outward voyce and consequently it was internall But we ask them if all wicked Professors of Christianity should burn the Bible and destroy all outward rules and means of knowledge should they by this means cease to sin because they should have no rule or should they be excused from gospell duties because they have no rule by this supposition according to the Students to require them In their second subsection they spend both their strength and paper in labouring to prove some things which we no wise deny as the sequel of their Major § 14. but in the proofe of their Minor where the whole stress lyeth they utterly faill in both its branches as we shall briefly shew As to the first they argue thus they know no such inward objective evidence of inward revelations of the spirit in themselves therefore they have none such We deny the consequence they see it not nor know it because they will not their prejudice against the truth doth blind them and indispose their understanding yea might not the unbelieving Jews have reasoned the same way against Christ when he was outwardly present with them we do not know him to be Christ Therefore he is not Christ. Again whereas they querie in a scoffing way can a thing that is self evident be hidd from the whole world except a few Illuminado's We answer if it were hidd from the whole world except a few in comparison of others it is no more then what the Scripture saith that the whole world lieth in wickedness their wickedness blindeth them that they do not see the light that is in them yet we could instance many who are not Quakers so called both Christians and Gentils who have acknowledged the evidence and certainty of divine inspiration in all men as the surest ground of knowledge but we need not digress into this here we have enough besides to stop their mouths For do not they say that the Scriptures have a self-evidence and yet are not the Scriptures and the truths declared in them hidd from the greatest part of the world The Mahumetans reject both Old and New Testament and the Jews the New although they read them and yet according to our adversaries they have self evidence so that it is evident the same argument is as much against the Scripture as the Light within in point of self evidence and indeed much more seing many who deny the self evidence of the Scirptures even heathens have a knowledge of the self evidence of divine inspiration as Socrases Plato Plotinus Phocyllides Seneca and many others And here in the close being sensible of their weakness after they have laboured to prove the negative they tell us that seing the negative is theirs they are not bound to prove it and so would roll it over on us to prove the affirmative against their own law which would have us to be meer defendents As to the maxime Affirmanti incumbit probatio it doth not help them for they have affirmed a negative and have been at great pains to prove it But all in vain And why may we not put them to prove their Minor being a negative as well as their master I. M. put the Jesuit Dempster to prove his Minor which John Meinzies affirmed to be negative In their prosecution of the second branch they affirm that the Q. cannot give any sufficient evidence of their revelations This we deny and put them to prove it but how shamefully they fail here is apparent for instead of proving of what they affirm they put us to prove the contradictory and so contrary to their own Law would urge us to be impugners and defenders at one time a silly trick they learned from the Baptists in their dispute at London as indeed the Students argument about an evidence is the same upon the matter with that which the Baptists used against us at London long before them and which the Iesuit used against I. M. long before them both So that we may see what sort of patrons the Students here follow But it is well to be observed that when they seek an evidence from us they tell us pag. 57. They mean not an evidence which will actually and de facto convince a pertinacious adversary but an objective evidence or clearness in the thing it self which is apta nata fitt of its own nature to convince and will really convince the well disposed Very well this their plain concession destroyeth their whole building for seing they press upon us by way of Dilemma either we have the Spirit of God or we have it not which is I. L. his argument We may very lawfully by his own example press him and his fellow Students with the like argument either they have a well disposed mind or they have not If they say they have not then they confess they are a pertinacious adversary and so not capable to be convinced of our evidence and surely it were great folly in us to seek to convince them of the truth of a thing who are not in a capacity to be convinced If they say they have a well disposed mind then let them prove it to us or give us an evidence of it seing by their own rule Affirmanti incumbit probatio Who is so weak

that doth not see that they are intangled in the same difficulty they would urge upon us yea into a far greater for they can not so much as pretend to any objective evidence whereby to convince us that they are well disposed seing they altogether deny such a thing If they answer that they are not bound to say either the affirmative or negative but require of us to prove the negative who seeth not that we have the same to reply unto them when they urge us either the Q. have the spirit or they have not that we are not bound to say either the affirmative or negative for although to have and not to have are contradictory yet to say that we have the spirit and that we have not the spirit are not contradictory being both affirmative and indeed when we assert things only in thesi we do not say either that we have or have not the spirit but this we say and we are able to prove from Scripture that all good Christians have the Spirit of God immediately to teach and guide them into all truth and all men have it so far as either to justify or condemn them By this we stand and are able to defend it through the help of God as consisting both with Scripture and sound reason and testimonies of Ancients But if they think with their little craft to bring us down from the Thesis to the Hypothesis they must know the same will bring them down to it also for seing it is a truth acknowledged both by them and us that all true Christians and children of God have the Spirit of God working in them at lest as an efficient cause from this we urge them thus either they have the Spirit of God working in them as an efficient cause or they have not If they say they have not they confess they are not true Christians or children of God which we suppose they will be loath to say if they say they have the Spirit of God as an efficient cause of faith working in them and subjectively inlightening them let them prove it or give us an evidence of it Who doth not see that poor men they are taken in their own snare we know all rationall and sober men will acknowledge that we are not bound to receive their affirmations without proofe more then they are bound to receive ours nor indeed so much we being as the case stands but defendents As touching their answer to R. B. his retortions about an evidence 〈◊〉 shall be examined in the next section In pag. 60. they tell that we assign them at last some shaddows of evidences namely first our own declaration 2. the Scriptures 3. the immediat testimony of the Spirit But that these are not shaddows will appear to the judicious and well disposed if they consider these two things 1. That by our declaration we mean not a bare verball declaration having no virtue or manifestation of life in it for we confess such might be as good a ground for a heretick in way of evidence but by our declaration we mean such a declaration as doth really proceed from the spirit of God in us and is therefore a living declaration having a manifestaaion of life in it and with it and which is not only in words of life or living words uttered through us from the spirit of life but also in works of life or living works which are the fruits of the spirit as said Christ by their fruits shall ye know them Now such a declaration can no Heretick have however he may pretend to it If our adversaries say that we only pretend to such a thing We answer them with their own rule Affirmanti incumbit probatio i. e. The affirmer ought to prove Let them prove us only to be pretenders which yet they have not done nor can do and indeed such a declaration from the Spirit of God in the Apostles as when John said we are of God c. was an evidence that no heretick could justly pretend to 2. it is a most unjust and unreasonable thing to require of us any other evidence of our having the spirit then that which every true Christian may and ought to give seing we pretend to no other spirit but that which every true Christian hath nor to any revelations but these which are the priviledges of all true Christians nor to any doctrines which are not conform to the Scriptures of Truth as we are ready to prove and as G K. hath already shewed in his book Immediat Revelation which neither the Students nor their Masters have given us any refutation of Now have not all good Christians these three evidences for them and we can prove by the help of the Lord that they are as applicable to us as to any upon earth and here note that when we say the Scripture is the best outward evidence that can be given we mean it not as a particular evidence but as a generall common to all good Christians for we grant that the Scripture cannot prove that any particular man hath the Spirit of God in such a way as true Christians have it but it proves in generall that all true Christians have it yea and all men to convince them at least In pag. 61 62. They reject the Scriptures testimony as an evidence to us because according to us the Scriptures testimony hath no evidence without the Spirit In answer to which we say But it hath an evidence with the spirit his inward evidence going along with it which inward evidence we say doth go along with it sufficiently to convince every well disposed intellect And this we can prove from the Scriptures testimony Nor is this to commit an unlawfull circle as they foolishly alledge which is but an old threed-bare alledgance of Papists against the Protestants as Turnbull alledged on Paraeus that he proved the spirit by the Scripture and the Scripture by the Spirit Some Protestants in our dayes do miserably seek to extricat themselves of that circle that they know the spirit by the Scriptures objectively and they know the Scriptures by the spirit effectively and so indeed they get free of the circle as not being in eodem genere i. e. in the same kind But they affirm a gross untruth that the spirits influence is only effective and ex parte subjecti whereas we know it is objective and can prove both from Scripture and primitive Protestants see G. K. his book of immediat Revelation and Quakerism no popery Where the same is at length proved But we have a most clear way to extricat our selves of that circle imposed on us by Papists and these Students to wit that we know the Scriptures testimony by the spirit tanquam à priori as we know the effect by the cause and we know the Spirits testimony by the Scriptures tanquam à posteriori as we know the cause by the effect and so both are objective and yet in a divers