Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	church_n	scripture_n	testimony_n	4,093	5	8.2532	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A39296	The account from Wickham (lately published by John Raunce and Charles Harris) examin'd and found false and warning thereof given to all such well-meaning persons among the people called Quakers, as through personal affection, want of consideration, or weakness of judgment have been betrayed, or may be in danger to be betrayed by them, or any other in the same dividing spirit with them, and led aside from the way of truth into a separation from the people of God, for whose recovery and preservation this is written / by Thomas Ellwood.	Ellwood, Thomas, 1639-1713.	1689 (1689)	Wing E611; ESTC R3890	22,353	20

Now these things are repeated that none may be so ignorant as to think we begun these Quarrels with our Neighbours and Friends Now the God of Heaven knows and they know in their own Consciences that in this they deal deceitfully For the plain and naked Truth is that these things appeared not in any of our Meetings in this Country not a Hat kept on in the time of their Prayer nor any open shew of dis-union with or dislke to their Testimony how much so ever some of us were then grieved and burdened by them until they had first joyned themselves to the chief Authors and Fomenters of Division and Separation in other parts abetting their Cause espousing their Quarrel and having made a Party for them amongst Friends in this Country brake forth into an open Opposition to the way and order of Truth and by their continual Strife and Contention had done their endeavours to break our Meetings to pieces and by their unruly and turbulent behaviour had given unquestionable proofs that they were departed from the Fellowship of the Gospel of Peace and of Friends were become Enemies to Truth And surely they had no reason to expect to be owned by Friends in their Preaching and Praying after they or their party had published Friends to the World to be Apostates Innovators Introducers of Popery and the like As for the Papers they mention advising Friends to make no Bargain with that Spirit and feed it with Iudgment c. Those Papers declare what Spirit that was that was not to be bargained with but fed with Judgment namely that which was gone out of Truth and had led into Division and Separation and if these men had not known themselves guilty and That they were joyned to that Spirit and to those that by that Spirit were led into Division and Separation in other parts what need it have troubled them to hear such Papers read amongst Friends for a warning and caution to Friends to beware that they were not entangled by that Spirit Why should these men have taken offence at the reading of such a Paper any more than any other Friend in the Meeting where it was read if they had not then been in the Strife Contention and work of Division and so felt a stroke reach them in the reading of these Papers that were designed as a Caution to all Their charging Friends pag. 2. with endeavouring to leaven the Minds of convinced People from House to House to increase then Party and to defame such as were not of it is so exact a description of their own Courses that I am perswaded there are few Families of Friends in this Country but can convict them of it And I dare appeal to many of you if ye have not found it so your selves Nay does not I. R. still continue to draw some Patients of his to come to speak with him at his separate Meeting-place that so he may engage them who else would not come there to help increase his number But their charging Friends with writing approving and printing Books against several whom they call antient Friends by Name wherein they say are several Falshoods and Scandals is so notoriously known and has been so openly and unanswerably proved to be the guilt of their own party that it argues an extream degree of hardness and impudence in them to mention it Let them produce if they can any one Book to justifie their Charge before W. R. writ his foul Invective against Friends under the Title of The Christian Quaker distinguished from the Apostate and Innovator in five Parts Which infamous piece if my Memory fail me not I have heard I. R. say remained some considerable time in his hand before it was printed so that he could not be ignorant of it Nay he was a Promoter and Spreader of it after it came abroad Judge ye now how great a piece of Deceit it is in them to blame Friends for that which their own party first went into and necessitated Friends to answer in Defence and Vindication of the Truth and themselves After the same manner they cry out of Envious Reflections pag. 2. Base Reflections and. Hellish Names pag. 3. When as besides what they utter by Word of Mouth in their Preaching and Discoursing what Reflection that is envious and base is not to be found in their printed Books and Pamphlets against Friends How full is that Book of W. Rogers and other Books writ since by him of abusive Language bitter Words and base Reflections What is there else in Bug's and Bullock's Writings And for envious Reflections and Hellish Names what Sheet of Paper ever contained more than those of Susan Aldridge in forming of which how great an hand these very men had is not unknown to some But if ye look no further than the Account they have now published there ye shall find they say When the Womens-Meetings were first set up many was so elevated with it that they ran like Gehazi c. Gehazi ye know was Servant to the Prophet that cured Naaman the Assyrian of his Leprosie and when the Prophet had refused to take a Reward from Naaman for the Cure Gehazi ran after him in the Prophet's Name with Lyes of his own inventing in his Mouth on purpose and to no other end but to get Money and Clothes of him 2 Kings 5. Now for these men to say of any Friends that they were so elevated with the Womens-Meeting that they run like Gehazi what baser Reflection could they have cast yet here ye fee they caft this base and envious Reflection upon many What more foul as well as false Slander could they have vented or invented Yet these men ye see in that very Paper wherein they have thus basely reflected on others are not ashamed to tax others with envious and base Reflections whose Injustice here'in I represent to your view and serious consideration that ye may weigh and duly consider what Spirit it is they were guided by in writing that Account That so ye may not give your selves up through an affectionate fondness to an implicit belief of what they say or write but may examine and try them by the true measuring-Line the Spirit of Truth which uncovers their Deceit They reject Truth 's order upon pretence pag. 2. that Several things proposed have not proved a Blessing to the Church in such things they were pretenended for viz. to keep things sweet and clean The truly-sensible Ones the faithful and honest-hearted know the contrary not-withstanding the pains these men have taken by their Oppositions to prevent the Blessing and make things unsavoury and unclean But I pray consider what hath their Disorder done how sweet and clean have things been kept amongst them So far has their Division and Separation been from being a Blessing to the Church that it hath proved a grievous Curse to many of them that have run into it And hath led some of them utterly to part from

the very profession of Truth and sit down again under the preaching of a Parish-Priest of which Examples might be produced in several parts But not to seek Examples far from home what shattering work has been among them since their Seperation from Truth and Friends even in their own Meeting at Wickham One that was a bold Champion in their Quarrel a great Contender for them against Friends and Truth 's order and went into the Separation with them hath since turned Papist and gone openly to mass I forbear to name the Person or publish at present the miscarriage which drove him from the being unwilling to expose persons or things unless necessitated thereunto Another that had got up to be a pert Preacher among them hath of late deserted both them and his Profession and is now said to hanker after the Baptists Divers others of their party in that Town are gone off from the very Profession of Truth and are gone to the Priest or the Top-Knot or both as I have been credibly informed The Lord make these Examples warnings to you that ye may not tempt God as some have done and by him be given up to a reprobate sense They strike also at the order of Truth under the phrase of unscriptural Discipline page 1. and of unscriptural Orders page 2. as if they thought and would have you believe the way and method of acting and managing the Affairs of the Church now were as expresly set down and plainly to be read in the writings of the new Testament as the Discipline of the Church under the law was in the wirtings of the old not considering or not seeming to regard the Difference between the Dispensations of Law and Gospel wherof the one was expresly limitted to a litteral Prescript the other left to the Direction of the free and unlimitted Spirit of God which is never absent from the true church and by which the true Church ought to be and is guided They should do well to distinguish between unscriptural and Anti-Scriptural between that which is contrary to the Scripture and that which is not contrary to it though not expresly and fully set down in it And ye would do well to put them to speak their sense plainly in the case If their meaning be that the order and Discipline of the Church of Christ is expresly particularly invariably and fully in term set down in the Scriptures of the New Testament let them assert it and they or others shall soon by God's assistance be made sensible of their Error Or if they will affirm and undertake to prove that the order way or method of managing the Affairs of the Church of Christ now used amongst Friends is contrary to the Scriptures of Truth it shall not be long before they shall be convicted of Falshood and Slander therein In the mean time it will not be a miss to observe what Scriptural Orders they have brought forth either during their jangling Contention with Friends or since their Separation from us They who so tartly twit Others with unscriptural Orders should one would think be very exact in squaring their own Orders by the Letter of the Scriptures How Scriptural their Practices are in the case of Marriage in their Separate Meetings I refer to your own impartial Observations who have been present at any of them What they have laid down in their late printed Account and which they say they desired is That the Men and Women might meet together whilst we sate to wait upon God and also whilst all Marriages were proposed and that Men might take care concerning their Sex and the Women of theirs against the next Meeting and then if the Women had any mind to be together about any other Matters that they thought they could do best by themselves they might take their Liberty c. I earnestly press you to consider and wish ye would as earnestly press them to shew where this Order which they propose is exprest in the holy Scriptures Is there any plain Direction of such a method there Is there any Intimation there that the Saints so practised Have they any either Precept or Precedent in the Scriptures of Truth for this Proposal of that more then we have for our practice which they reject They say It is a Comfort to them that they can say in the presence of God They have not been the cause of Division by bringing into the Church any sort of unscriptural Discipline and yet in the same breath as it were they propose the bringing in a Discipline no whit more Scriptural then they which that oppose O Consider these things I beseech you all ye well-meaning Ones who have been and are in any measure beguiled by the fair Speeches and smooth Insinuations of these and such like men Bring their work to the Light of Christ examin it by the Light weigh it in the true Ballance try it by the true Touch-stone and take not every thing for Gold that doth a little glister They add that they desired Our Meetings might consist of qualified chosen Friends from each particular Meeting and not be filled up with Youths and Girls and Strangers from other Countries to busie themselves to head and make Parties among us and then carry Tales form place to place to increase difference Surely none whether Strangers from other Countries or others should head and make Parties in Meetings or carry Tales from place to place yet this I certainly know was their practice in our Meetings while they continued amongst us and by that means the Difference was much increased in these Parts But if they would have Strangers by which I suppose they mean Friends of other Countries wholly excluded from our Meetings I say Distance of place or remoteness of outward Habitations ought not to make any such Distinction among us None are Strangers to us to our Meetings or to the service of Truth in our Meetings who are not Strangers to that divine Life and Power but dwell in it and are subject to it by which we have been gathered to be a people to the Lord and our Spirits engaged to his service The Spirit of Christ is an universal free unlimitted Spirit and both teaches us how to behave our selves towards Friends that come from other Countries to sit in the Vnity of the same Spirit with us in our Meetings and them how to behave themselves amongst us But I fear these men are no more just in this cavil than in the former Don't they think ye when they go into other Countries help fill up the Meetings of their own Party Ask them if they have so done and busied themselves to head and make Parties and help make Division where Meetings have not been actually divided And whether Strangers from other Countries such as are confederated with them in their wicked work of Separation come not to their separate Meeting in this Country I appeal to your own observation and knowledge who sometimes resort