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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	church_n	know_v	true_a	8,326	5	5.4606	4	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A33370	A paradisical dialogue betwixt faith and reason disputing the high mysterious secrets of eternity, the like never extant in our revelation. As touching God in eternity, how he became time in flesh, and how he dyed in the grave, and ascended to his glory again. Also what the angels are in form and nature, and how the angel became a devil, and that devil man; and that this world was prepared for the devil, so this the devils kingdom; and what the soul is, with the place of its glory and torment. With a brief narration what a commission is, and how many commissions there are; what the difference of their worships, and how that the law was given to the devil; with a brief discourse on the catechism, the Lords Prayer, and the creeds; as also, a divine prospect to the elect of the Lord. Written by Law. Claxton, the onely true bishop and faithful messenger of Christ Jesus, creator of heaven and earth.	Claxton, Laurence, 1615-1667.	1660 (1660)	Wing C4581; ESTC R215220	88,691	122

this was forged by their own lying imagination do but read the third affirmation in p. 37. of the Quakers Downfal and there you shall read the nature of God in all men more or less c. 5. L. C. said The Devil was the author of this light in the world Answ Now the words that was then said were That Reason the Devil was the light within them but in the Quakers Downfal you shall finde all along that Christ as he was Creator of Heaven and earth by his word of Faith created this light now in being 8 L. C. said He had damned the Lord Mayor seven or eight years ago and a thousand within this eight years and that he had just●fied forty or fifty Ans Now ye of the seed of Faith may discern of what seed or spirit these men are of when it is not unknown to you it is not above two years and a half since I first heard of this Commission Now indeed Lodowick Mugleton said some of those words that the Lord Mayor with Recorder Steel and the whole Jury with thousands more had by them been damned 9. He pronounced damnation to George Fox junior and to John Harwood and said several times he would speak no more to them yet after did and said he would answer no question but after did Ans Had but any discerning soul been there he might have beheld the spirit of Cain in them so cruel so tempting that they pull'd us by the Coats and with diabolical speech said they would ensnare us so that I could not but tell them I did not think there had been such a violent spirit in them c. Now after their condemnation charging them with their blasphemy and witchcraft carriage this they esteemed an error or weakness in us 12. One of them said That a spirit hath flesh blood and bones contrary to Christs words Answ Now do but read their first particular and compare it with this last and then judge of what a dark formal hypocritical Rabsheca nature the chief heads of these Quakers are of insomuch that I say were it not that I know ye are all the seed of the Serpent so in darkness I might admire ye should say this or that is blasphemy when as we have told you we onely are the Judge of the Scripture and what we judge is blasphemy heresie or a lye is so and no other For this I infallibly say the first Commission was onely understood by the second Commission and the first and second Commissions are onely understood by our Commission so that the notional Churches have nothing to do with Scripture much less to say the two first Commissions were truth and the last Commission a lye From the Lord of Glo●y I say that as theirs were truth in their time and place so now is ours the onely commissionate truth now in being and therefore let me but tell you this once that your Pharisaical preaching and praying with your moderate civill walking a●e all but as di●t or the dunghil yea as a menstrous cloth not knowing the true God So that from the seed of Gods own body I say ye had better been generated a Snake or a Toad then a rational understanding man as in the day of an account when it is too late you will acknowledge but then in vain FINIS ERRATA PAge 106. line 25. for that faith can take up the words of faith read that faith can take up the words of reason as reason can 〈◊〉 up the words of faith

a word and a stab when as the Jew Devil is subject to the Law he is reasonable in that he will moderately try the innocent by the Law so that God saw good the Devils should have a Law to curb them yea torment them and condemn them for ever Now the rule that the Seed of Faith doth walk by is not by the Law but by Faith as it is written The Law of faith hath freed us from the Law of sin and death though most of Rom. 8. 2. thy Seed do conclude themselves believers yet I say that freedom onely belongs to a Commission and the believers thereof as the Apostle includes all believers with him are free from the Law and none other For Chr●st is the end of Rom. 10. 4. the Law for righteousness to every ●one that believeth And what though I have been a great sinner yea so great murther excepted that there was few beyond me yet now being washed sanctified yea justified that I am now no longer under the Law but under Grace which none of thy ●eed shall ever attain too notwithstanding they seek it with tears Reason What then do all believyrs of thy Commission keep the Law and not any of the seven Churches keep the Law as well as thou What then dost thou say of the Quakers and many others that are very moderate just men insomuch that none can tax them with the breach of any of the ten Commandments Faith I say in the experience of my Revelation there is not any keeps the Law but those that are freed from the Law as aforesaid and sure I am there is none in the perfect Law of Liberty but the Seed of the Woman which Seed of Faith doth run in the line of one Commission to another so that I can speak for no more then I finde in the publique profession thereof not denying but there may be here one and there one scattered up and down which if the report of our Commission came but to the hearing of their ear they would embrace it as the rest of our believers do But truly I speak it there are so few known and not known that there is not a hundred to ten millions of the contrary Seed that will or can believe the report of a Commissioner as touching the true God and therefore we may say with the Prophet Who hath believed our report or to whom is the Isa 43. 1. Arm of the Lord revealed that is the arm of Faith revealed So few there was in every Commission that they were but a little yea and that a very little flock in comparison of the non-commissionate Churches And whereas thou supposeth by the moderate carriage and just dealing betwixt man and man the Quakers with many other of thy Priesthood generation may keep the Law as well as the believer of a Commission I shall moderately answer thee in that saying of James That whosoever shall keep the whole Law and Jam 2. 10. yet offend in one point is guil●y of all So that I say though the Quake●s of all the seven Churches do nearest keep the Law yet in that they offend in the first command they are guilty of all for it is written Thou shalt have no other Gods Exo. 20. 3. but me Now as aforesaid thou hast heard me in the first and second Chapters that there is none of your seven Churches Sons of Generations but you have other gods besides Christ the one●y God some of you saying God is a Spirit without form and this Spirit God is within you and others of you will have no God but Nature onely and the rest of thy B●b●lonish brood will have one Spirit to have three persons So that from the knowledge of the true God I tell you all are guilty of the Law though I acknowledge the Quakers exact walking and therefore I love them yet in that they are ignorant of the knowledge of the true God which is life Eternal I say your Directories forms of Prayer the Creed Baptism breaking of Bread and set days of Fasts and Thanksgiving and such like stuff are not onely a breach of the first but second Commandment all which have a form of godliness but not the power So that I say they are no less then Idols and graven Images of thy own invention and therefore it matters not though some of you keep all the rest of the Commands and not know the true God thou art guilty of all Reason Then if a man come to the knowledge of the true God that is sufficient notwithstanding he break all the rest of the Commands because thou saith Thet keeping of all the rest is nothing without he know that God which thou hast revealed Faith However it is thy pleasure to misconstrue me in that thou knowest not the indwelling of truth in me yet this is the thing I said unto thee That though any of thy Seed keep all the Commands but the first in that they keep not all they are guilty of all for this I knovv the knovvledge of the true God leads forth a soul to keep all the Commandments of God for in that I knovv him therefore I love him and so keep his Commandments as it is vvritten If ye love me keep my Commandments Reason What then dost not thou sin because thou knovvest the true God and keeps his Commands then I must say thou art more righteous and perfect then any man upon earth for it is vvritten If we say that we have no sin we 1 John 8. deceive our selves and the truth is not in us vvith such like places Faith Let me tell thee if I sin I do not keep the Lavv as it is vvritten Whosoever commiteth sin transgresseth the 1 Joh. 3 4. Law for sin is the transgression of the Law But in that I have knovvn the true God vvhich Seed of God remaining in me I cannot sin because I am partaker of the Divine Nature of God Now if I should say that I have no motion● to sin I should deceive my self and the truth is not in me for I knovv there is a great difference betvvixt a motion and an act for it is to be understood not he that thinketh a sin but he that committeth sin is of the Devil as all thy Seed are at a loss as touching the mysterie of this secret not understanding a motion from an act and therefore thousands of thy Seed perish for want of knovvledge in that saying of Christ That whosoever looketh upon a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart Mat. 5. 28. from hence concluding that if thou dost but lust after her thou mightst as vvell lie vvith her and soo too too many of thy seed do commit the act indeed vvhen if thou hadst a discerning betvvixt a thought and an act thou hadst not defiled thy soul as it is vvri ten When lust hath conceived it bringeth forth sin and sin when

examples more onely one more I shall quote which is more remarkable then those before and then let me heat thy answer and that is touching the man that lived in the land of the Gadarenes which man had Devils Luk. 8. 27 a long time and wore no cloaths neither abode in any house but in the tombes and no man could bind him no not with chains Mark 5. 4. neither could any man tame him and alwayes night and day he was in the m●untains and in the tombes crying and cutting himself with stones and all the Devils in him besought Christ that they might go into the Herd of Swine which they had no sooner entered but the man was well in his right minde and the whole Herd of Swine ran violently down a s●eep place into the Sea Now if thou canst make it apparent that these were no Devils besides Cain and his Seed then I shall with thee believe that there is no other Devil but man and woman Faith From Christ the onely Lord of Glory in the Revelation of his Eternal Spirit I affirm that those Devils so tituled from the first of Matthew to the last of the Revelation were onely the Seed of Reason and the violent distempers of the imagination thereof as first mind that the Devil that tempted Christ was one of the ablest Disputants whether a Pharisee or Sadducee I cannot by Faith finde yet by permissions I judge him rather a Sadducee they being the wisest and subtilest Devil of the two I say the Pharisees and Sadducees commissionate this man which by experience they found were best versed in Scripture to see if he could tempt the Lord Jesus to Baptize them with the holy Ghost and fire so that I say this Devil was a man of the same seed of those where it is written Ye shall not tempt the Lord Deut. 6. 6. your God as ye tempted him in Massah again it is written When your Fathers tempted me proved me and saw my Heb. 3. 9. works 40 years as at large thou may read in a Book of mine entituled Look about you for the Devil that you fear is in you so that I say these tempters of the Lord were the people of Israel men and women and no other form or Spirit whatsoever and again it is written That Jam. 1. 14. man is tempted when he ●s drawn away of his own lusts and enticed so that I affirm there is no other Devil but thy lustful Soul within thee that doth tempt thee to commit any wickedness acted by thee so that I say the meaning of that Satan entered Judas was onely this being by Christ Jesus discovered that he was the man that should betray him then forthwith nature in him entered into a resolution to betray the Lord of Life being then sealed up to a reprobate minde went out to his Brethren the Pharasaical Devils and sold him for thirty pieces so that I say there was no other Devil entered him but what was in him no more then would enter thee if thou wert now damned by me onely a spirit of tormenting envy would as it did in Judas so flame and burn that if possible thou wouldst destroy me as Judas did Christ Reason Notwithstanding what thou hast said as touching a Devil tempting or entering seems to have some colour of truth in it But then what wilt thou say of those Devils that were cast out of Mary and many others but especially of those legion that was cast out into the Herd of Swine For it is expressed when the Devils were cast out of the man they went into the Herd of Swine so that surely this was something more than Reason otherwise if Reason be the Devil and Reason cast out then the man had not been cloathed in his right minde but been altogether unreasonable Faith Let me speak never so plainly thou canst not understand me yet however this I shall tell thee that those Devils which by the powerful Word of Christ Jesus were cast out of Mary Magdalen or out of that man or any other creature spoke of in holy writ were onely all manner of filthy diseases or violent fiery distempers that hurried that man about such desperate wickedness oftentimes encreasing so powerfully that it did not onely occasion to rend his own body and break Iron chains but also ready to tear any one in pieces as many of thy seed at this day are possessed with Devils by such as thou are believed to be Devils and therefore it is that learned of thy seed have attempted by Conjuring Physical Medicaments to chain up that distemper or cast out by Vomit or Purgation and such like deceitful means which if thou wert not stone blind mightest see that these supposed Devils yet real distempers were no other but such as thou calls Lunatick frenzy Madness Convulsions or falling-sickness such like proceeding from melancholy is Colerick corrupt humors of the blood that by these Devilish distempers many of thy seed are chained up Prisoners in Bedlum all the dayes of their life which if they could be cast out by Faith being Lord over those Colerick and Melancholy distempers of the minde then they vvould by the Divine knovvledge of the true God be cloathed in their right mindes Reason If this vvere as thou sayest onely violent distempers in that man and so in M●ry vvhat then vvas that vvhich came out of the man and entered into the H●rd of ●vvine and if they vvere onely that vve call diseases vvhy then are they called Devils Faith From life of that Divine light in my Soul I declare they vvere no other but violent di●●empers aforesaid vvhich said diseases by the povverful Godhead in Christ vvas commanded at the request of the man to enter the Herd of the Svvine vvhich vvhen the Svvine vvere p●ssessed vvith the same distemper they vvere as mad as the man tearing and tumbling themselves into the Sea by reason of that violent distemper or affliction that the svvine became giddy in their heads not able to preserve themselves through the violence of the said distraction Now why the said distempers are called Devils are because none should know the true Devil but the Heirs of glory for thou mayest read the whole transaction of Christ were revealed in Parables and the mystery of Truth only revealed to the true Believers of the Lord of Glory And if thou supposest they were Devils what then dost thou apprehend them to be and how got they into the Herd of Swine and not seen Reason I conceive the Devils are invisible spirits that tormented the man and so could convey themselves into the Swine without the sight of any even as the Soul or Spirit of man at the hour of death do go forth of his body to Heaven or Hell Faith Oh! thou senseless sottish Reason now thou discovers thy ignorance in his as hath been in the rest as though the Devil were an invisible spirit and so cannot be seen

are born of women there hath not risen a greater then John the Baptist and yet thou and thy ●eachers will not believe unless present vengeance fall upon thee But know this though the Pharisees desired a sign from Christ and Mat. 12. 38. none would be given them but the sign of the Prophet Jonas yet know this he was Christ the Eternal God for all that and though Christ rebuked James and John in the saying Luke 9. ●4 Lord wilt thou that we command fire from Heaven and consume them even as Elias did yet they were not for the future freed from the Eternal fire in their souls So let me tell thee and yet not I but the Revelation of the Holy Spirit within me though not presently yet it shall flame within thee as fire from Heaven and that without end till it consume all thy hopes of salvation and thou shalt know and finde that this sentence of thine shall shut the Heavens and it shall rain no more showers of mercy or comfort in thy soul so that I say though thou finde it not presently thou shalt as surely feel it after death as Christ is God the Eternal Father And what if miracles did belong to our Commission as they do not in that ours is the Commission of the Spirit so our sentence spiritual thou wouldst no more believe then thou dost now but rather call us Conjure●s unless the tenor of our Commission was as the two former to execute present vengeance and if it were executed once or twice and not upon every occasion thou wouldst be as much seared up in unbelief as thou art now Reason If thy Commission were as real truth as Moses and the Apostles and such a power did attend thine as was in theirs then I should as truly believe in yours as now I do in them Faith Ah blinde Soul thou dost not know what is truth and what not for if thou didst thou wouldst as really believe in me as in them But from my Seedspring I tell thee That thou nor none of thy Seed do really believe that the Scripture is a true Record of the Transactions of Christ thou mayest talk of it and preach from it but if thou wert really perswaded in thy own soul of the truth therein contained then thou wouldst believe in us for the Apostles writ of us as Moses and the Prophets writ of Christ to come and therefore if thou didst believe in them that have nothing but a dead letter to prove them Commissioners surely then thou wouldst believe in us that are living and know this if the Roman Authority had not established Moses and the Apostles Writings for Scripture then it had been believed no more then ours for thy Fathers in the days of their lives notwithstanding their miracles did no more believe in them then thou dost in us and know this the same power that attended them upon externals doth belong to our Commission in spirituals and therefore as the Apostle had power in his Commission to curse either Angel or man that did preach any other Doctrine so we have the same power in ours Reason What then doth not their Commission belong to us in these days successively as it did to them what then is the meaning of those Scriptures where it is writ The Scriptures aforetime are written for our learning and again it is writ Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded Mat. 28. 20. you and loe I am with you always unto the end of the world Faith From the Lord of Glory I tell thee That neither of those Commissions do belong to thee or any of thy Seed either by succession or otherwise for from my Seed of Faith I declare That the Scripture was never written for the learning of any of thy Seed though none living now present do make it a more Idol for their own gain then thy Seed doth Though I have sufficiently proved this point in the Quakers Downfal yet from my well-spring within me I tell thee That as the Scripture was written by the revelation or inspiration of Faith so I know it was writ for the use of none but the Believers of that Faith which neither thou nor none of thy Seed are partakers of For as Paul the great Commissioner was the Penman of those sayings so that Scripture that he spake of was the writings of the first Commission viz. Moses and the Prophets which were written before his time and so for the learning of him and all that believed in his Doctrine for our learning that are of the Seed of Faith and for none of the Seed of Reason whatsoever but for our learning The word Plural includes all the Seed of Faith with him were the Scriptures written so the Commissions of Moses and the Apostles were not written for the use of any of the seven Churches but our Commission alone for as none understood the Commission of Moses and the Prophets but the Apostles so none now living understand either of the two former Commissions but this our spiritual Commission now in being and therefore from my Seedspring I tell thee We onely are the Judges of the Scripture whatsoever Reason thy cursed Seed pretend to the contrary as now thou shalt hear an infallible Exposition of the other Scripture which thou hast quoted which all besides our Commission gives a false definition thereof Go ye therefore and teach all M●t 23. ●0 Nations baptizing them in the name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you and loe I am with you always even unto the end of the world Now from hence all the seven Churches of thy Seed viz. Papist Episcopal Presbyterian Independent Baptist Ranter and Quaker do suppose that the extent of these words are in force to the end of this world and therefore the Baptists have assumed the Apostles Commission as their own when as if ye were not stone blinde you may read as ye run that this Commission was given to the twelve then living and not to Kiffin and Patience or any other Teacher of the Baptists whatsoever for ye were not born many hundred years after when this command was expressed And loe I am with you always even unto the end of the world with you my beloved Disciples and none other Reason I cannot conceive from this Scripture but there was to be a continuance of the Apostles Commission to the end of this World and though there was none of the Commissioners left to give or invest the same power by imposition of hands yet we having the same Spirit of God in us although not in the same measure yet may we not lawfully follow them as our patern and as the Apostle exhorts Brethren be followers Phil. 3. 17. together of me and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an ensample othervvise vvhat should all the World have done to have knovvn God or