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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
word_n	believe_v	church_n	infallible_a	3,890	5	9.9983	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A27001	The Quakers catechism, or, The Quakers questioned, their questions answered, and both published for the sake of those of them that have not yet sinned unto death and of those ungrounded novices that are most in danger of their seduction / by R[i]chard Baxter.	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1655 (1655)	Wing B1363; ESTC R28362	39,590	58

almost only of This Inward Light In which I perceived 1. That you falsly intimate that we deny the necessity of an inward light when as we maintain that the external light of the Word alone is not sufficient without the inward light of the Spirit 2. You there intimate to us a supposed sufficiency of the inward light that every man in the world hath Concerning which I shall say more anon and now only demand of you 1. Whether you mean it is sufficient to leave men without excuse That we maintain as well as you or is every mans light sufficient to his salvation If so Q. 2. Was it sufficient before Christ preached the Gospel and sent his Apostles Or is it now sufficient to all that never heard the Gospel If so Is not the Gospel a vain and needlesse thing or are you Christians that dare so affirm Q. 3. If the world have sufficient light what need they your teaching or discourse or conviction Q. 4. If all have sufficient light within them what need there any converting grace Q. 5. Then why did Christ send Paul to open mens eyes and to turn them from darknesse to light if they had sufficient light before Act. 26. 18. Q 6. I pray you do not disdain to tell me when you have rub'd your eyes if all men have sufficient light within them Why you got up into the Judgement seat and pronounced me so oft to be in darknesse and to be void of the light and to have none of the Spirit If all have it why may not I have it But let me tell you further in your ear that we that you so frantickly bawl against have read Bellarmine and other Papists so oft that we cannot be ignorant who are your Teachers though your selves are ignorant We know how earnestly the Jesuites would perswade us that there is a light in every mans conscience which if he improve and husband well God is bound to give such additions as shall make it become saving and that by the good use of natural light men may certainly get supernatural and that it is in mens own power what light soever they have to improve it to salvation Your 11th Query is Whether we have seen Gods face Ans. Whether these be Learning or Teaching or quarrelling or doting Questions I leave to your consideration but what Call you had to propound them to such Serpents Dogs and Children of the devil as you call us I know not But however I 'le answer you truly 1. By the eye of reason I have seen that there is a God and that he is infinite incomprehensible most great and most good c. 2. The same I have seen more cleerly by the eyes of faith 3. But I never saw God by the eye of flesh for none can so see God and live Nor hath any man seen God at any time saving the only begotten Son who is in the bosome of his Father he hath declared him 4. Nor have I seen him in glory intuitively or as the glorified in heaven do If you say you have seen more I shall not be very forward to beleeve you till I see better fruits of it I also therefore demand of you Whether he that hath seen God do not abhor himself as Iob did in dust and ashes and whether the true knowledge of God do not ever abase the soul and make a man very mean in his own eyes And then is it likely that ever those men had the true knowledge of God who make it their businesse to exalt themselves as having the Spirit and beign perfect without sin and to revile and bedung other men with their reproaches as being all the Children of the devil and of darknesse that be not of their strain and rave not as they do The Pharisee that thanked God he was not as other men nor as the Publicane spoke humbly and modestly in comparison of you and yet was he counted a proud self-justifier If ever you come to the least saving sight of God it will mightily change the proud strain of your spirits and make you abhor the thoughts of your present evil waies Your 12. Query is Whether we have the same infallible Spirit as the holy men of God had that spoke forth the Scriptures Ans. Why must you know this Are all Dogs and Serpents with you that have not that Infallible Spirit But we hear the croakings of your Papist guides in that word Infallible that's the pillar of their Kingdom and the master-point of their New Religion That their Church is infallible For denying which Knot the Jesuite against Chillingworth and a late ●otable gawdy Orator S. W. against Dr Hammond and others of them would fain perswade us that we subvert Christianity and are little better then Infidels because we are not Infallible But I will answer you and your Masters together in a word 1. The Prophets and Apostles had infallible Inspirations of new matters of divine verity not before revealed because they were to be Gods penmen and Messengers of such New Revelations I have none such that I know of 2. The Prophets and Apostles were guided infallibly in the manner as well as the matter so that every word that they wrote to the Churches was infallibly true I have no such Infallibility nor your Grandfather the Pope neither He may erre while he pretendeth to the greatest Infallibility in deciding Controversies 3. What man soever he be in the world that beleeves any Truth he doth infallibly believe it For he that is in the right is not deceived so far and he that is not mistaken is so farre infallible which is no more then non fallitur 4. But if by Infallibility you should mean the clearnesse and subjective Certainty as distinct from the objective and the bare truth of our conceptions then I say that 's another thing then Infallibility and not to be so called and of that Certainty men have different degrees All true Christians are certain of their Fundamentals yet sometime with some doubting so that they may finde cause to say with the Apostles Lord Increase our Faith or We beleeve help thou our unbelief But in lesser controverted Points which Salvation dependeth not on the best man on earth may erre much more be uncertain So that in a word Every Church in sensu composite while a Church is infallible in the essentials of Christianity and so is every true Christian And also they know infallibly every other truth that indeed they know because Truth is Truth whether they know it or not and when they do know it they are not deceived But in many things we all erre because we know but in part and so farre are deceived Well I say still Fair fall the honest humble Christian that will confesse with Paul that we know but in part For I shall never like pretenders to un-erring Infallibility more I know but two such pretenders and they are both the most abominable deceivers and deceived

that down so many Ministers for being called Masters But alas do you not know that Pride of inward qualifications commonly called spiritual Pride is the most killing and abominable the better the thing is that you are proud of the worse is your Pride O what a brave thing doth it seem in these mens eyes that they should seem to be possessed with such an excellent spirit as can trample upon worldly glory and can boisterously contemn all that are not of their sect and that can despise Dignities and be equall with the greatest yea that only they should have this admirable spirit and all o-others are the Children of the Devil and under their feet Though other men should never so much sl●eght them yet do they wonderfully please themselves with these high thoughts of themselves For Pride is first an overvaluing of a mans self and thinking of himself above what is meet and then a desire that others should do so by him too If yet you see not the pride of these men I will shew it you in these four particular Evidences and that so plainly that if you know the difference between the language of heaven and of hell you may easily perceive the devil speaking by their mouths 1. They affirm themselves to be perfect without sin yea some of them say they are Christ and God And is it possible that any man in this life that is not mad with spiritual pride can indeed believe that he hath no sin what that he transgresseth no Law That he doth love God in the highest degree that he is bound to do That he never hath a thought or word that is sinful nor sinfully loseth one minute of his time Yea and this when in the eyes and ears of the wisest they foam out their own shame as the raging Sea doth cast out the dirt The devil himself hath either lesse pride or lesse ignorance then to think himself to be perfect without sin If they have no sin what need they pray Forgive us our sins or what further need have they of the bloud of Christ or his Intercession to procure them any further forgiveness If you can see no pride in this I fear you are blinded with them to destruction 2. And is it not apparent pride in them to set up themselves so far above all the people of God on earth yea to vilifie the most holy and eminent Servants of God and condemn all the Churches in the world as if heaven were made for them alone if it were so well that all of them did beleeve a heaven besides that within them which I suppose is but a sorry heaven 3. And yet more unmatchable pride and impious Infidelity is it to damn all the Church and people of God for this 1600 years at least Indeed God had never a people on earth of these mens way But to let passe the Scripture ages which condemn them tell me Had Christ any Church since the Apostles daies till now or not If he had not then he was no head of the Church and so no Christ For there is no head without a body If he had a Church tell us where it was and when Do you not know if you know any thing of the state of the Church for 1600 Years that Christ had no Church on earth of the Quakers minde and that all his Ministers have been such as they condemn and have been called by as honourable Titles as they are now And is not that man either an Infidel and enemy to Christ or stark mad with pride that can believe that Christ had no Church till now and that all the Ministers of the Gospel for 1600 years were the Ministers of the devil as they say of us that tread in their steps and that all the Christians of that 1600 Years are damned at now they dare denounce against those that succeed them and that God made the world and Christ died for it with a purpose to save none but a few Quakers that the world never knew till a few Years agoe or at least a few Hereticks that were their Predecessors of old 4. And I should suppose that their proud scornful railing language should put it out of doubt what spirit they are of to any that are acquainted with the language of Christs Spirit and of Satan and are able to judge of spirits by the most palpable effects and to know darknesse from light But you say It is Scripture-Language which they speak I answer the greater is their presumptuous sin in making so ill a use of Scripture-Language as to serve Satan by it and use it to reviling What if Christ call Judas a devil Is it therefore lawfull to call Perer so or any faithfull Servants of Christ But I perceive you think they justly condemn us because we are called Masters of men contrary to Matth. 23. Alas that a Christian should be so ignorant as not to know that even calling Master and Lord too is commonly allowed of in Scripture and that it is not the Title but 1. The proud affecting of the Title 2. And the Lording it over mens faith as Masters of that as if others must be of their minde right or wrong which Christ there condemneth Even as in the same place he forbiddeth being called Fathers in the very same sense when yet it is frequently allowed in a better sense But for the fuller answering of these scruples of yours and the rest about Tithes and such like I send you herewith an Answer to the Questions of some Quakers near us in the Parish of Bromsgrove and refer you to my Defence of the Worcester shire Petition Printed some Years agoe To your Question What I think of these men I will tell you what I think and am past all doubt of There are in England a Company of young raw Professors that have more zeal then knowledge And there are a companie of carnal hypocrites that place all their Religion in holding certain Opinions and using certain externall worship and siding with a Religious partie It is no hard matter to misleade all these if they be not better guided by others then by themselves While they have due regard to the Judgements of their Teachers that know more then themselves and so live in a learning way till they have attained to better understanding they may escape Deceivers But if they are once brought to be wise enough in their own eyes and to despise their Teachers then they are like a man that hath lost his way in a dark night or that hath lost his Guide in an unknown Wildernesse or like a Dog that hath lost his Master and therefore will be ready to follow any body that first whistleth to him The Papists and the devil know this well enough and therefore their first endeavour is to unsettle these people by taking them off all dependance on their guides and that must be by bringing the Ministers into contempt with them For if they could

One is the Pope and his Clergy and who more erroneous The other is your selves even distracted with errour The Pope venteth abundance of falshoods in doctrine and corruptions in discipline and worship and with all these errors in his hands protesteth he is infallible The Quakers all that yet have wrote to me or spoke to me pour out the greatest abundance of most impudent Lies and spue their filthy railings in the faces of almost all they come near so that I know not whether ever the Sun saw a more hardened shamelesse abominable Generation then they with their brethren the Ranters are and yet with all this filth upon their lips they confidently professe that they are infallible and without sin You may well excuse us that we be not hasty in beleeving you till we see more reason for it Your 13th Qu. is What is Hels month that the wicked go in at c. I answer 1. You are liker to know ere long then I If a miracle of grace save you not you 'le be better able to answer this Query then yet your unbelief will give you leave 2. It sufficeth me to know that Hell is a state of endlesse misery where such as you shall everlastingly bear the effects of Gods wrath and justice with the devils and his Angels that now seduce you if timely recovery prevent it not Your 14th Qu. is Whether the Bible be the Word of God and Matthew Mark Luke and John be the Gospel and whether there were any Gospel before them and whether they be the light To which I answer 1. Only Jesus Christ is the co-essentiall co-eternal Word of the Father being one with the Father 2. But the holy Scriptures are the temporal expressed Word that is the signs of Gods minde to man so that Christ and the Scriptures are nor called the Word in the same sense no more then is the Word of a mans minde and the word of his mouth or pen This signifying word was preached before it was written and then was the Gospel but it was written after it was so preached at first that it might be a standing Rule and might be kept intire and sure to the Church to the worlds end For the bare memories of men would not have kept them for us with such certainty as they have been kept in Scripture and delivered unto us This Word therefore is the light but not as Christ is the light or as the Spirit is the light for there are many lights that must concurre to give us light It is a wise Question of him that shall ask Whether the light by which a man sees be the visive faculty of his eyes or the light of a Candle or the light in the air or the Sun Why it may be all these There must be 1. A Sun 2. A light from that Sun in the air 3. An inward light in the eyes 4. And that outward received by the inward before you can see So God in Christ is the Sun Mans Reason is the Eye The Gospel or Word of God is the external Light flowing to us from the Sun The Spirit closeth these two together even the Gospel and our Reason and by its powerful work in that closure breedeth a special illumination in the soul which the Word alone could not produce I shall adde some Queries to you 1. Do you beleeve the Scriptures to be true or not If you do then you must beleeve what they say of themselves But they call themselves the Word of God Mar. 7. 13. Rom. 10. 8. 2 Cor. 2. 17. 4. 2. 1 Thes. 4. 15. 1 Pet. 1. 25. And often they are called the Laws of God his Testimonies his Statutes his Precepts his Promises Gospel Covenants c. All Scripture is written by divine Inspiration 2 Tim. 3. 16. The word of Prophecy is a sure Word 2 Pet. 1. 19. 2. Will you give us leave to smell the Pope in your endeavours to disgrace the Scriptures though your own Noses be stopt For we have been used to deal with him at this weapon and know that this is the main point of his New Religion Your 15th Qu. is Whether we own Revelations or no Ans. I own all divine Revelations and disown all diabolicall ones so farre as I know them I own all those blessed Revelations contained in the holy Scriptures for they were infallibly sealed by multitudes of uncontrolled miracles and a spirit of holinesse I believe that the Scriptures or Laws of Christ being finished and sealed we must hold these till the coming of Christ 1 Tim. 6. 13 14. and that Christ will be with the Preachers of this same doctrine to the end of the world Mat. 28. 20 21. and that these are able to make men wise to salvation without any more additions and therefore no more is to be expected But yet I beleeve 1. That God hath not tied himself from revealing particular matters in subservierty to Scripture extraordinarily as divers murders have been revealed and the like matters of fact 2. And I beleeve that all true Christians have the illuminating sanctifying Spirit of Christ to help them to know all the meaning of the Scripture which is of flat necessity to salvation and more according to their several measures of the Spirit with other helps Your 16. Qu. is about Singing Davids Psalms To which I say Till you have considered what is already written on that Question by Mr Cotton and Mr Foard I know not why I should adde any more If all Scripture be written for our use and learning why may not we speak to God in the words of Davids Psalms as well as any other Scripture Tell me if you can And further Qu. 2. They being used by the Church till the Apostles times where do you finde that they did ever forbid or abolish that use Qu. 3. Whether is it more lawful for us to speak Gods praises in the words of holy Scripture and particularly of Davids Psalms or for you to rake together all the threatnings and sharp reproofs in Scripture to serve your turn to rail and slander me with Your 17. Qu. is What 's the soul of man which the Ministers of the Gospel are to watch for as they that must give an account to God and what is it that captivates the soul and what death is it that hath passed over all c. and what is the Serpents head that must be bruised Ans. Seeing I am fallen under your Catechizing I will readily obey 1. The soul is that spiritual substance which causeth by its lower power your life growth and nourishment by its next power your feeling and by its highest power proper to man of all inferiour Creatures your Reasoning Intellective knowledge and rationall willing and affections which together with the Body constituteth the whole man Supposing that you look not for a Definition because you so abhorre Logick I think this in brief may serve your turns 2. The whole man is oft called the