Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	life_n	way_n	word_n	6,997	5	4.4942	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A52440	Two treatises concerning the divine light the first, being an answer to a letter of a learned Quaker, which he is pleased to call, A just reprehension to John Norris for his unjust reflections on the Quakers, in his book entituled, Reflections upon the conduct of human life, &c., the second, being a discourse concerning the grossness of the Quakers notion of the light within, with their confusion and inconsistency in explaining it / by John Norris ...	Norris, John, 1657-1711.; Norris, John, 1657-1711. Grossness of the Quaker's principle.	1692 (1692)	Wing N1276; ESTC R2996	64,661	150

And so long as I make all Men in some measure to consult it tho I do withal say that they are enlightned by it only when they consult it I do not thereby deny that all are actually enenlightned by it For this does not deny the Universality of Actual Illumination but only determins and specifies the way and manner of it So that here is no Contradiction but all things are Uniform and Confistent Exception against the Fifth Article THE Fifth I take in the First Part of it to be the same in Substance with thy First differing in Form of Expressions viz. The Quakers by their Light within understand some Determinate Formed Dictate or Proposition expresly or positively directing or instructing them to do so or so as in thy first thou calledst it some Divine Communication or Manifestation only Where didst thou learn this Definition of the Quakers Faith and Doctrin of the Light within The Quakers believe the Light of Christ within to be God's Divine Oracle of Wisdom in the Soul the Former Dictator and Determiner of Heavenly Propositions them directing and instructing what to chuse and what to refuse as the Original Cause of the Knowledg and Love of Truth which are its proper Effects Now wherein is the Quakers Light as thou term'st it inferiour to that of thine except in the differing Character thou givest it They own the Real and Substantial Truth of God the Life of the Word the Light of Men as Christ said of himself I am the Way the Truth and the Life That this Divine Light which is the Light of Men is always in some Degree and Measure present in the Soul by which it is upheld either in God's Love or Anger the Quakers believe and that in him we live move and have our Being tho with respect to Operation after a different manner and measure and passing the Understanding of Man And whereas thou say'st Thy Light is only the Essential Truth of God This is an high Presumption about which I have already shew'd thy Confusion in other places calling it Reason and Conscience and a Man's Natural and Ordinary way of Understanding Consider Mat. 6. 22 23. The Light of the Body c. If therefore the Light that is in thee be Darkness c. So may I say if that Doctrin and Principle thou recommendest to the World for Truth and Excellency be erroneous and faulty how great is that Error and Fault Again thou say'st Thy Light is always present to thy Understanding and intimately united with it still Sect. 5. which in thy Sense of the Light is to say thy Soul is never without thy Reason and Conscience I wish they were both reform'd that thou may'st be no more guilty of these and such like false Aspersions That the Light supposing it to be what really it is a distinct Principle from the Soul is always present to the Undestanding which implies its Operation upon the Natural Capacity or Organ the ordinary means of knowing I conceive is more than can be safely or experimentally said because the Organ may be hurt and the Understanding in that Sense interrupted and consequently no fit Medium or Receptacle either for the Soul or its Light Besides the Soul may be absent from the Natural Understanding by the Interposition of Spiritual as well as Natural Causes and yet present with the Light in its Spiritual way of Understanding But to say as thou dost that Thy Light is only the Essential Truth of God and that it is always present to thy Understanding and intimately united with it and yet that it does not formally enlighten or instruct it but when carefully attended to and consulted seems to discover a Contradiction in its self and to the Formal Reason of its Being and Presence and Sufficiency in the one Act of the same Principle as well as to the State and Nature of Intimate Union For how can any thing be intimately united to its Principle and not partake of its Nature and Influences which is the Reason and Manner of its Union And how can this be and not carefully attended to and consulted Is not this manifest Confusion That the Presence of the Light does enlighten and instruct all in some Sense and Degree is sufficiently proved by Scripture By thy Word Formally Enlighten I apprehend thou intendest the Operative Exercise as in Pag. 17. and as here applied to Light signifies no more than actually to enlighten ex parte Objecti I grant such as do not carefully attend to and consult this Divine Light do not witness the Increases of it unto the Redemption and Salvation of their Souls It is the Path of the Just that is as the shining Light that shineth more and more unto the perfect Day If the Light as thou assertest doth not formally enlighten or instruct but when carefully attended to and consulted how then should it quicken and raise the Soul from Death to Life according to the multiplied experience of Holy David And how doth God speak once yea twice yet Man perceiveth it not Job 33. 14 15 16 17. and Isa 65. How frequently doth the Lord complain by his Prophets of his calling to his People to return and repent but they would not answer Note the Call of God is not without Instruction read Mic. 6. 8 and Prov. 1 from 20 to the end And see what Wisdom does also in Nehemiah how they rebelled against God notwithstanding he gave his good Spirit to instruct them The Testimony of John the Evangelist the 5th and 21th Ephes 2. 1 4 5. 2 Cor. 4. 6 7. These and many other Texts abundantly prove that God quickens and enlightens Man before Man can turn unto him The Answer I Have given my self the trouble to set down this Exception at large not because I intend to answer it all but that it may appear to the Discerning Reader that there is a great deal of it which I need not answer as being either answer'd already or so very impertinent and remote from the business that it deserves no consideration But in the first place I cannot but admire at the singular Happiness of his Fancy in imagining the former part of the Fifth Article to be the same in substance with the First and to differ only in form of Expression In the First it is said that the Quakers usually talk of the Light within as of some Divine Communication or Manifestation only that is as it has been explain'd that they represent their Light not as God himself but only as a divine Communication or as something communicated or exhibited by God In the Fifth it is said That the Quakers by their Light within that is as Directive understand some determinate formed Dictate or Proposition expresly and positively directing and instructing them to do so or so That is that they make the Direction of the Light or the Light as Directive to consist in Dictates or Propositions ready form'd and presented to the view of the

TWO TREATISES Concerning the Divine Light THE FIRST Being an Answer to a Letter of a Learned Quaker which he is pleased to call A Just Reprehension to John Norris for his Vnjust Reflections on the Quakers in his Book Entituled Reflections upon the Conduct of Human Life c. THE SECOND Being a Discourse concerning the Grossness of the Quakers Notion of the Light within with their Confusion and Inconsistency in Explaining it By JOHN NORRIS M. A. Rector of Bemerton near Sarum and late Fellow of All-Souls College in Oxford LONDON Printed for Sam. Manship at the Black Bull in Cornhil near the Royal Exchange 1692. Licensed April 15. 1692. ADVERTISEMENT TO THE READER THo I have not professedly undertaken in the Two following Treatises to give an express and full Account of the Divine Light but only so far as I have occasion to do it in dealing with my Adversary yet if my Judgment may be taken concerning my own Work I think that even this Occasional Account that occurs up and down in these Papers may be so considerable as to give them a fair Right to the Title of Treatises concerning the Divine Light And tho the direct and professed business of the former of these Treatises be only a Private and Personal Ingagement between me and my Opposer yet that it has been the occasion of my delivering many great and considerable things as well Absolutely as Relatively consider'd and such as if read carefully and judiciously and with a thoroughly Awaken'd Attention may contribute very much to the clearing of many useful Truths and to the Improvement of the Reader in several curious Points of Speculation An Answer to a Letter of a Learned Quaker which he calls A just Reprehension to John Norris of Newton St. Loe for his unjust Reflection on the Quakers in his Book Entituled Reflections upon the Conduct of Human Life c. By the Author of those Reflections THO I do not think it any great piece of Ignorance or Defect of Learning not to be rightly acquainted with the Quaker's Principles which if I knew them never so well would add but little either to my Knowledge or to my Opinion of it yet I am withal so sensible of that Right which even the meanest Persons and Parties have to Justice and Fair Dealing that I think I should not be able to justifie my misrepresenting those Principles of which I might be very excusably Ignorant And since this is the thing laid to my Charge and that with a great deal of Passion and angry Resentment not to say Rudeness and Incivility I think I may be allow'd to be so far concerned at the Indictment as to endeavour to acquit my self of it not so much for the Honour of my Judgment which I do not conceive at present to lie much at stake as for the Justification of my Sincerity Which tho I so peculiarly value that I might be allowed to be a little warm in the Vindication of it especially coming after such a provoking and affrouting Adversary yet I hope I shall be able so to temper my Spirit and govern my Pen that the Defence shall not be near so passionate as the Charge I confess indeed I did not expect any great Civility of Address from a Man of this sullen Tribe whose visible Mark and Character is Rusticity and who are generally at as great Defiance with all Courtliness of Style as of Behaviour But yet I thought that the Gentleman and the Scholar for such it seems is the Quality of my Adversary might so far ballance and over-rule the Quaker as to contain him within the Limits of Ordinary Decency and keep him on this side Rudeness and Scurrility To be blunt and down-right is one thing but to be rude and abusive is another And however I might expect the former from him and excuse in him as a Quaker yet of the latter I thought he would not be guilty as a Gentleman Indeed the least that I could expect from a Person of Mr. Vickris his Education and Quality was that he would not be uncivil especially in his first Onset and writing to a Person that was a Stranger to him and who tho he does not look upon himself to be so great as to be above Contradiction may yet justly think himself considerable enough to expect and deserve fair and civil Language But in stead of this he falls foul upon me after such a rude violent and passionate manner as is below the Breeding even of a Water-man and such as a Man of any Temper would be ashamed to be guilty of even in the sudden Heats of common Discourse Which may tempt some unlucky Fancies to imagin that he has exchang'd his Gold quaking Fit for an Hot one and that the Light within is turn'd into a Flame I cannot in Justice deny but that for a Man of his Way my Adversary is pretty considerable for his Sense and Learning notwithstanding that he endeavours to represent me as a Dunce and Blockhead as well as a Knave and I believe he would have shewn more of each and with better Advantage if the Violence of his Passion had not disturb'd the Clearness and Order of his Thoughts and put him often out of his Guard For Passion is the great Contrariety to Reason and will draw a Cloud over the brightest Mind The quiet and sedate Soul is most fit for the Contemplation of Truth as the calmest Weather is commonly the most serene If Love be blind Anger I 'm sure is much more so and there is this remarkable difference between the Wars of the Pen and those of the Sword that tho the Soldier may fight to most Advantage in Hot Blood the Disputant will reason best in Cold. But lest I should appear guilty of a false Charge in this respect as he says I am in some others and be thought to misrepresent the Temper and Behaviour of my Adversary as he says I do his Principles I think it necessary for my own Security to give the Reader some Account of the Passion Rudeness and Abusiveness of this Aggressor before I proceed to consider the Argument of his Paper And here to pass by the Roughness and the Magisterial Ayre of the Title Page where at first Dash he assumes the Office of a Censor and undertakes to Reprehend taxing me with no less than False Representation Confusion and Self-Contradiction which I think might be more properly left to the Judgment of the Reader or bring up the Arrear than be placed in the Front of the Book I appeal for the Truth of this Charge to the following Passages When first says he pag. 3. I perused thy Reflections upon the Conduct of Human Life c. I was and still am pleased with all that tends to the Propagation of Original and Necessary Truth but rejoyce where I find it spring from an upright Mind pure Intention and clean Vessel What Reason has he to question or prejudge the Uprightness of my

Mind or the Purity of my Intention or the Cleanness of my Vessel Either this is very impertinently or very uncharitably suggested Either he means nothing by it or he means ill And that he does so he has taken Care to satisfie the Reader by explaining himself more fully in the very next Words For whoso says he undertakes to reprehend the Intelligible Conduct of Human Life ought first to purge himself from the Irregularities of his Moral Conduct which does Cloud and darken his Understanding What a scurvy malicious Insinuation is this For tho the Words abstractly consider'd be a Proposition of Universal Truth and may bear an innocent and inoffensive Sense yet consider'd with their Occasion and with their Application to me if they signifie any thing they must signifie ill there must be either an intolerable Impertinence in them or a great deal of Malice and Censoriousness For does he not by this plainly insinuate to the World that I am an ill Man and that there are such Irregularities in my Moral Conduct as make me unfit to reflect upon the Intellectual Conduct of Human Life And would not any one that knew nothing of me any otherwise than by this Paper of his and were to take his Measure of me from hence be tempted to conclude that I was a Man of a loose and debauch'd Conversation Now if I deserve this Character I have nothing to complain of but if I do not and I appeal even to Mr. Vickris himself nay even to the World whether I do or no then this is a very uncharitable and very unchristian Insinuation And yet as bad as it is he has more of the same and that notwithstanding what he says of himself in the Paragraph immediately following that he is far from a Spirit of Detraction Which Passage I think should either have been left out or set at a greater distance from the foregoing one wherein there seems to be so strong a Savour of that Spirit As there does in what follows when p. 4. He charges me with despising the Testimony of God through the Meanness of the Instruments Applying to me that of the Apostle to the Thessalonians chap. 4. v. 8. He therefore that despiseth despiseth not Man but God who hath also given unto us his Holy Spirit Which Allegation I shall allow to be pertinent when he has proved those Instruments he talks of to be equally inspired with the Apostles But till then he must give me leave to think and call it a Blasphemous piece of Arrogance For it can be no less to make Despising the Quakers the same with despising God unless it be proved that the Quakers are Divinely inspired When I see this done I shall allow of the Expression In the mean while I must beg Mr. Vickris not to be angry if I tell him that it puts me in mind of a Story I have heard of a Quaker in Oxford who when some of the young Scholars for some Rudenesses and Disturbances he had been guilty of in the College had brought him to the Pump to pump him while he was doing his Penance impudently cried out Pump on Pump on you Pump not me but the Lord. I will not say Mr. Vickris his Expression is exactly of a piece with this but there is so much Resemblance between them that assoon as I read one I could not chuse but think of t'other But he goes on in his Censorious and Uncharitable Reflections for after he had quoted Page 6. that Passage out of the Book of Wisdom chap. 1. v. 4. Into a malicious Soul Wisdom will not enter nor dwell in the Body that is subject to Sin For the Holy Spirit of Discipline will fly Deceit and remove from Thoughts that are without Understanding and will not abide when Unrighteousness cometh in For Wisdom is a loving Spirit and will not acquit a Blasphemer of his Words for God is the Witness of his Reins and a true Beholder of his Heart and an Hearer of his Tongue Therefore he that speaketh unrighteous things can't be hid neither shall Vengeance when it punishes pass by him All which in the abundance of his Civility and Charity he has thought fit to apply to me He proceeds to add Now seeing these Sayings are true and righteous and that 't is possible to profess this Doctrin of the Divine Word Light Grace Spirit of Wisdom and Truth and the teachings of it and yet not possess it nor be learn'd of it nor led by it but whilst preaching of it to others to be a Cast-a-way I advise thee to consider in what Ground and Nature thou yet standest and livest in and what Spirit lives and rules in thee I thank him for his Advice but not for that spiteful and strangely censorious Insinuation that goes along with it which amounts to no less than that I am one of those malicious Souls into which Wisdom will not enter that I am deceitful without Understanding unrighteous and a Blasphemer That tho I profess the Doctrin of the Divine Light yet I do not possess it nor am led by it but while I preach it to others am my self a Cast-away which I think is as bad as one Man can well say of another and yet 't is what he plainly insinuates if there be any Connection or Pertinence in what he says But fearing he had not been yet plain enough and lest the too candid Reader should miss his Meaning he proceeds Hath not Unrighteousness entred in through Self-love and Esteem which blinds the Eye and causes the Tongue to speak Unrighteous things Here he charges me with Unrighteousness Ambition and Self-love which last he is pleased to beighten to such an extravagant pitch as to make me an Idolater and that of the worst sort as making my self to be my God For says he Is not Self exalted to sit in the Temple of God as God in thee What a Flight of Censoriousness and Uncharity is this For besides the Heinousness of the Charge it being as bad as can be said of the Devil himself that he makes Self his God there being nothing so opposite to Charity which refers all to God as Self-love which refers all to its self I say besides the Heinousness of the Charge 't is also of such a particular Nature as were I indeed guilty of it it would be impossible for any Man much more for Mr. Vickris who is a meer Stranger to me without a Divine Revelation ever to know For Self-love is a Vice of the Heart and one of the most latent and retired of all the Vices that are lodged there and consequently obnoxious to his Judgment only who is a Discerner of the Heart to whom all Hearts be open all Desires known and from whom no Secret is hid God alone can tell how far Self is exalted either in me or in any Man else And therefore Mr. Vickris had much better have left me to His Judgment than to sit in Judgment upon me himself and

Mr. Barclay That Man as he is a Rational Creature hath Reason as a Natural Faculty of his Soul by which he can discern things that are rational we deny not For this is a Property Natural and Essential to him by which he can know and learn many Arts and Sciences beyond what any other Animal can do by the meer Animal Principle So that here the Light is not simply and ordinarily necessary to the understanding of things which it seems may be done by Reason alone without the Light To the same purpose again says the same Author Man in his Natural State that is in the state devoid of this Light which he had just before call'd the state of Darkness can easily comprehend and doth comprehend those things that are peculiar and common to him as such And tho they commonly call the natural state of Man when without the Sensation of this Light a state of Darkness yet 't is not because they suppose him to be absolutely dark and to know nothing but only dark as to Spiritual and Saving Truths So that according to them there may be Knowledge and Understanding without the Divine Light which therefore they must be supposed to look upon as an extraordinary Accession and not as an ordinary Requisite to Human Understanding Which again sets their Principle at a sufficient Distance from mine Tho I must needs do them so much Justice as to confess that herein they speak as agreeably to their Principle as I do to mine For conceiving their Light not as the very Object of Human Understanding not as that Truth it self which we perceive as is plain because they do not make it the Essence of God as was noted above but as something that serves for the clearer Revelation or Discovery of that Object that is in one Word conceiving it rather as a more advantagious Medium than as an Object they might well be excused from making it simply and absolutely necessary to Understanding Whereas I conceiving the Divine Light to be the Omniform Essence of God and accordingly making it to be the very immediate Object of my Understanding that very Truth which not that Medium by which I contemplate was obliged to suppose it so necessary to the common and natural way of Understanding that there could be no such thing as Understanding without it which I am sure a Quaker will not or at least upon his Principles can never say And thus far the Difference between us is very clear and plain and would indeed be on all sides unexceptionable but that Mr. Vickris has here spied out something for which I very much admire the Quickness of his Eye-sight and that is a Contradiction Before says he it was a Divine Communication and Manifestation only and now an extraordinary Inspiration Is not Extraordinary more than Common or Communication and Manifestation only And this he takes for a Contradiction of what was laid down in the First Article But methinks Mr. Vickris should not undertake to write Controversie unless he had known better how to judge of a Contradiction For does it follow that because I first say that the Quakers represent their Light as a Divine Communication or Manifestation only in opposition to its being the very Essence or Substance of God and afterwards add as another Step or Degree of Difference that they represent it as an Extraordinary one in opposition to the Natural and Ordinary way of Understanding I say Does it hence appear that I contradict my self What if Extraordinary be more than Common or Communication or Manifestation only does it therefore Contradict it What is every Addition a Contradiction It may indeed be so in case the Degree added in the Second Proposition were denied or excluded in the first But is this the present Case Tho Extraordinary Communication be more than bare Communication simply consider'd is it therefore denied by it Is it not plain that this is only an Abstraction and not any Negation For if he should take hold of the Term only where I suppose his Mistake lay is it not very plain that the Term only in the First Article is not exclusive of Extraordinary which is added in the Second but only of the Divine Essence or Substance this being the Sense of the Proposition that they represent their Light not as the very Essence of God but only as something communicated by God And where then is there any appearance of a Contradiction But lest Mr. Vickris should not take this for he has now given me just occasion to question his Capacity I will illustrate it by an Instance Suppose a Cartesian should say first That Light is only the Endeavour of the Globules of the Second Element to Motion not the Motion its self and then afterwards should further say that 't is the Endeavour of those Globules to recede from the Center of the Luminous Body in a Right Line would one of these Propositions contradict the other 'T is more than I can find if they do But he continues his Exception upon this part asking me Have not the Quakers declared the Light to be Universal as well as Divine in its Gift and Manifestation to the Sons of Men Well what if they have may they not also notwithstanding that hold it to be an Extraordinary Gift according to the above-stated Sense of the Word Extraordinary as it signifies something superadded to the Natural way of Man's Understanding Does Extraordinary in this Sense import any thing inconsistent with Universal Suppose Adam had persevered in his Original State and his whole Posterity had inherited that extraordinary Grace that Fraenum Justitiae which according to some was superadded to the Essential Perfection of his Human Nature would it have been the less Extraordinary that is the less a Superaddition to the Nature of Man because Universal Sure Mr. Vickris must be but little acquainted with the Nature of Opposition if he thinks there is any between these two things But suppose there were he himself is accountable for it and not I. For I have brought Evidence enough to prove that they do make their Light to be as I have explained it Extraordinary and if that be inconsistent with their other Notion of its Universality the Inconsistency lights upon themselves and I can't help that And thus the Former Part of this Section is sufficiently vindicated but it seems there is a Flaw in the Latter which Mr. Vickris endeavours to make great Advantage of tho it be such as is plainly owing to the Captiousness and Uncandidness of his own Construction Again says he in the same Section thou sayest I suppose it viz. The Light within to be a Man's Natural and Ordinary way of Understanding And just before thou madest it to be the very Essence and Substance of the Deity c. Did I so Then this one would think should have been a Key to my Meaning to any one that was not resolv'd to misunderstand and pervert