Selected quad for the lemma: word_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
word_n	faith_n	hear_v	preach_n	3,029	5	10.8817	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A96300	Mercurius Americanus, Mr. Welds his antitype, or, Massachusetts great apologie examined, being observations upon a paper styled, A short story of the rise, reign, and ruine of the Familists, libertines, &c. which infected the churches of New-England, &c. Wherein some parties therein concerned are vindicated, and the truth generally cleared. By John Wheelvvright junior. Philalethes.	Wheelwright, John, 1594-1679.	1645 (1645)	Wing W1605; Thomason E309_37; ESTC R200432	25,051	29

naturall cause whilest he in his Method telling us her penaltie judges her for her errours immediately sentenced from heaven in which passage as in many other in his book a spirit of censure and malice is pregnant The other he speaks of is one good wife Hunkins who he saith is a witch a poore filly woman yet having so much wit as perceiving Mrs. Hutchin ambitious of proselytes to supply her wants she attended on her weekly Lecture as it is called where when Mrs. Hutchinson broached any new doctrine she would be the first would taste of it And being demanded whether it were not clear to her though she understood it not yet would say Oh yes very clear By which means she got through Mrs. Hutchinsons affection to her some good victuals insomuch that some said she followed Christ for loaves Now seeing those things were so me thinks our Author need not have been so rigid in his opinion of her Alas Ars illae sua census erat surely a little lesse gall would as concerning others so her have done better in his ink when as it appears she complied with her patronesse not so much out of love to her positions as possets being guilty I think of no other sorcerie unlesse it were conjuring the spirit of Errour into a Cordiall Thus having given you an account of these persons and passages I cannot but observe these things First the Reasons which all these men might propound to themselves for doing and saying what they did Alas we must look at them as men who had left their estates friends pleasures of their native soyl spirituall Chymists extracting the sweetnesse of all into freedom of conscience doubting not but they might find all in that Elixar but as no Chymist yet got it so they were many of them deceived which when they surveyed and see the result it might trouble the weaker and through melancholy fumes dispose them to strange fancies in Divinity Secondly the verdict of the Court upon them all contempt which surely must proceed from the strong impression that the supposed contempt of Mr. Wheelwright made in the fancie of the Governor by reason of which prepossession he could conceive no other crime else it cannot but seem strange that there should be such a sympathy that so many men and women too whose sex may inequalize and difference much should all run into the same praemwrire Such a continuity of spirits as this consent of theirs must suppose would be a good principle of the Art of the Weapon-salve I give this watch-word to you all that you are disgraced in omni gradu naturae intellectivae ac practicae he goes first from practicks then to doctrinals then again to practicks thus he runs in a circle of abuse In the understanding he weakens you two wayes by an inordination of things and tearms of things in the errors of tearms in the unsavoury speeches as he cals them in practise by all the possible differences of exorbitancie pride boldnesse insolence deceit contempt sedition schisme all which are indifferently and indistinctly charged upon you in the Preface so that indeed who reads it would think you all equally guilty and had I any premisses of the same nature concerning some of you as I have concerning Mr. Wheelwright I should vindicate you as I do him But seeing I have not I must apply my self to him particularly and free him from those errours and unsavoury speeches wherein I do but proceed according to the Rule of Art which attends principale analogatum which by his own saying in his 31. pag. is Mr. Wheelwright Now saith he all these except Mr. Wh were but young branches c. The way wherby I must vindicate Mr. Wheelwright is from my Authors own lines in his 42. page where he tels us of the opinions which he viz. Mr. Wh opposed being these First That there are immediate revelations without the Word Secondly That the child of God is dead not acting at all but as Christ acts in him Thirdly that there is no inherent righteousnesse in the Saints Fourthly that the Commandment is a dead letter Now if Mr. Wheelwright as the Author gives us do abhor these positions let right reason and the strength of consequence judge whether he can be justly entituled either to the unsavourie speeches or to any of the errours And first for the unsavonry speeches If Mr. Wheelwright oppugne the opinion of immediate revelations how can he say that evidencing justification by sanctification savours of Rome For if he denie immediate he must grant mediate And that mediante verbo either in an absolute as he grants at the first or in a conditionall promise as he holds at the second evidence And many can witnesse who have heard him approve evidence of justification by sanctification but what need of that doth it not appear in the principles they themselves do happily give me How can he hold he is never the worse for being unholy nor the better for being holy when he grants evidence from holinesse Or how can he say if Christ will let me sin let him when as he holds Christians have life in themselves a principle from which they act Surely M. Wheelwright hath so much Logick as to know frustra fit potentia quae non reducitur in actum Or how can he say I seek not grace but Christ if it be meant in contempt of graces would any man neglect his evidences unlesse he mean thus I seek not graces ultimate resolutive not as the supreme but subordinate end not as principium imperativum but directivum not as quod but as quo not to rest in them but to move by them to the place of rest which if he mean it is not unsavoury but savours of sublimated purity and grace Or how can he say I know I am Christs not because I do crucifie the flesh but because I do not when he expects testimony of salvation by such acts of crucifying Or this If Christ be my sanctification what need I look for any thing to evidence my justification when as it is of the same nature with the former and lies exposed to the same inconsistence Now I come to the first number of errours wherein although many things be coincident with the former unsavoury speeches and with the latter number yet I shall give you an exact account of the particulars and as for the first of them which is That the preaching of the Law is of no use to drive a man to Christ How can he hold it when as he saith Faith comes by hearing the Word Now if he allow the Word in Actu completivo in the completure and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of a Christians mind much more in some preparatorie and dispositive acts as is drawing to Christ know that reason gives that a dispositive to which it will not give a completive power as to cold in generation as the Philosophers say surely where completion is allowed much more disposition

attingendo Christum ut Ideam he who acts immediately from the objective acts legally Non attingendo Christum ut efficientem And thus its true to act by virtue of a command is legall but if it be meant immediatione suppositi not that I think a command hath properly suppositalitie but onely aliquid Analog●yn which reaches my notion and intent it is not true that to act by virtue of a command is legall The next considerable is the 41. which is this There be distinct seasons of the workings of the persons in the sacred Trinity so that a man may be said to be thus long under the work of the Father and thus long under the work of the Son and thus long under the work of the holy Ghost If by this we are so long under the Father he intended onely an exclusion of the Son in some eminence and degree of attribution It is not against that received maxime Opera Trinitatis ad extra sunt indivisa and the generall opinion of Divines excuses it from a paradox For what more common then to attribute redemption to the Son consolation to the holy Ghost What more usuall then to say the Father humbles the Son raises up the holy Ghost comforts Touching which I thus conceive that the very same individed essence as it doth put on divers reasons or notions as the Schoolmen speak is said to perform divers actions not by a simple exclusion of the Attributes of any of them in this or that Act but onely secundum quid Notionally as we may conceive according to the common quidditie The Father is in himself and so produces a Son of comfort by reflection he loves that issue and so educeth illumination in this sense Opera ad extra sunt divisa for from the division ad intra why may there not follow a proportionall division ad extra too seeing the relations of those divided acts are reall and extra intellectum which would otherwise plead Reason for their limitation I say why may they not have some effect upon the acts ad extra too and make them in some sense divisa And if it be improper to say Deus est trium personarum but onely essentia est trium c. why may there not be some impropriety to say I mean in opposition to the above-named Doctrine that Deus est trium Actuam respectively when as these acts do in the common opinion attend those relations But if an absolute and simple division be intended Mr. Wh. cannot hold it when as it is very absurd in it self so his doctrine of evidence by sanctification where there must be Christs attractive and the Spirits illuminative power and of signes which require a concurrence proclaims The next is this Conditionall promises are legall If it be meant that they are in a legall form its true whether causaliter or consequative But if it be meant that they are legall virtually and so not to be made use of in the time of the Gospel how can Mr. Wh hold it when as he grants evidence from graces conditionall promises being the current wherein such evidences passe The next considerable is this to lay the Brethren under a covenant of works hurts not at all but tends to much good What did I say considerable a position strangely produced as it were in an indifference twixt truth and errour if it be presented as an errour we must needs by reason of the indefinitenes of the phrase suppose all Brethren to be under a covenane of grace If it be a truth what doth it among errours to make even number What shall we say its neither true nor false but stands in a pure precision he imagined though perhaps that the confinity of errours wherein observe how his malice multiplies heresies upon them would determine its neutrality and hereupon ingages at once all his Metaphysicks to effect an abstraction which he might have reserved till an exigence and in the mean while have referred this Janus to the unsavoury speeches with which it most symbolizes But he was afraid lest it so easily seasonable either way should have seasoned them which he prefers to disrelish the appetite of the Reader to the parties concerned in his Narration But he saith if it be good to lay the Brethren under a Covenant of works then it is good to bite one another which argument is much like one of his brats he hangs up against the Sun The next is this Faith justifies an unbeleever If the sense be that the faith subjected in Christ justifies me in whom there is not any its false if you take it in sensu composito it is so if in diviso its true I wonder such grave discursists as my Author by his style seems should with these poore subtilties put us upon such elementary distinctions in resolving which Simths Logick will claim a principall share But perhaps he did it to evade a more solid reply thinking no Eagle would catch such flyes Which way of his is in the mean time my advantage whilest by medling only in my sphere I cannot be said to presume which incourages me yet to tell him that this opinion is a consectarie of theirs who deny graces in the Saints not of Mr. Wh doctrine who grants them The rest of the Assertions are either coincident or such as concern Church Discipline wherein disagreement is not pretended Thus we have done with his pretended errours Now we come to his pretended Crimes viz. contempt and sedition which the Court pickt out of a Sermon of his he preached upon a Fast-day designed for peace the substance whereof was this Christs absence is a main cause of fasting therfore labour for him revealed in the Covenant of grace peace is to be sought in such a drawing neer the God of peace and oppose those by contending for the faith but spiritually who go the way of the Covenant of works as in that thing wherein indeed they are opposite to the end of the day as enemies to grace and in that respect persecuters of Christ as which word I suppose is sieut qualitatis onely Herod Pilus and the Jews This is the doctrine wherein the spirit of sedition and contempt breathes according to their opinion I will therefore briefly leaving the fuller discussion to Statists by some of which Mr. Wh hath been already cleared examine Contemptus est ex hoc quod aliquis rennit subjici legi bonae conferre the Magistrates publish a Fast in order to peace whether this publication have the compleat Nature of a Law let others determine But admit Mr. Wh whilest he tels them peace is the most easily attainable in Christ to whom they must apply themselves in a Covenant of grace twharts not their Law unlesse it had expressed the method which the Minister must use or unlesse Mr. Wh had done that the contrary of which it did necessarily imply But there is no such matter for in his generall terme a Covenant of