Selected quad for the lemma: work_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
work_n	attain_v	law_n	righteousness_n	5,866	5	9.1807	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A23660	The danger of enthusiasm discovered in an epistle to the Quakers : in which 'tis endeavoured, to convince them of being guilty of changing God's method of bringing men to salvation / by one who is no more an enemy to their opinions, than their opinions are enemies to them themselves.	Allen, William, d. 1686.	1674 (1674)	Wing A1058; ESTC R13150	64,102	137

any worthy the Name of a Christian how weak soever but even of any that is worthy but of the Name of a man and not a And yet how are those Works in which these things are found applauded as the Works of a Prophet of the Lord by several men of great Note among you such as George Fox George Whitehead Francis Howgil and Josiah Co●le who adjoin their several Testimonials to them And wherfore do I lay these things before you but to give you occasion to reflect upon your selves and your way with a jealous eye and to convince you that ye know not of what Spirit ye are of but that while ye have thought ye have been walking in the Light ye have been walking in Darkness and that whilst ye have fancied your selves the most spiritual among Christians ye have discovered your selves to be but carnal If any man among you seemeth to be Religious and bridleth not his Tongue but deceiveth his own heart that man's Religion is vain Jam. 1. 26. If there be bitter Zeal glory not and lie not against the Truth for that wisdom is not from above as you are apt to boast it to be but from beneath and is Earthly Sensual and Devilish Jam. 3. 15. But it is not strange if men be left first or last to fall into unchristian practices who out of affectation of Novelty and Singularity in Doctrine and a desire to appear more sublime in their Notions than all that went before them have left the old beaten path of Christian Doctrine in which the several Generations of holy men have lived and walked from the Apostles time downwards For when men wax spiritually proud and wanton in rejecting the plain way and method which God hath chosen to bring men to saving Faith Repentance and a holy Life and to continue them in it and invent and chuse another in its stead and call it by the name of his and preach to and press it upon the people in his Name he takes no pleasure in their so doing nor doth he delight to vouchsafe his concurrent Grace and blessing therewith which he doth with his own way and method by which it becomes effectual to make men good and to keep them so And therefore as I said 't is no marvel if men by degrees lose in the goodness of their Frame and Temper which sometimes they had attained while they kept close to God's way and method in which he bestows it and degenerate into men of quite another Spirit and Temper when they forsake that and run into another of their own invention and choice The disobedient Jews who had declined from the better way of their Ancestors and grew into a worse spirit and temper they had a zeal of God still but not according to knowledge They did will and run for Justification and Life they followed after Righteousness and yet attained not to the Law of Righteousness and wherefore but because they sought it not by Faith which was the method of God's chusing but as it were by the works of the Law which was a method of their own chusing in opposition to God's Rom. 9. 31 32. § 2. And whether you are not guilty of rejecting God's way and method of converting men to and keeping them in the way of saving Faith Repentance and Evangelical Obedience and of inventing and chusing one of your own different from that comes now to to be considered I shall state your way in this by what you have published to the world in your own Books and for Brevity sake shall instance but in two Authors Ed. Burrough formerly and Mr. Pen of late who speak for you that which is otherwise well enough known to be your common Opinion In the Works of Ed. Burrough whom you are pleased to stile that true Prophet in the Title-Page which are published by you there are these Sayings In Page 252 thus His pure Spirit is put into the inward parts to be the Rule and Guide of Life in all things And again Only by the teaching of the Eternal Spirit is the Living God known in the Creature Again p. 408 It is promised saith he that the Spirit shall lead into all Truth and such do own the Scriptures but not as their Teacher for the Anointing dwells in them and they need no man to teach them but as that Anointing teacheth all things and they have no need of the Scripture to teach them for all the Children of God are taught of God and need not any other Teacher nor need not to say one to another Know the Lord. And yet all such do own the Scriptures to be the Testimony of that which they believe and have received And again in p. 834 The only perfect Rule of Conscience in the exercise to God is the Spirit of Christ and not any other thing And because something besides the Spirit of God exercises the Conscience therefore it is that here are so many Ways and Sects of Religion and kinds of Worship in Christendom and among Christians while the Spirit of Christ only is not the Rule of Judgment and exercise of Conscience to God and man Again pag. 861. The judgment in that matter Heresie must be just equal Holy and only by the Spirit of Christ which is infallible and gives infallibility of judgment and discerning into all Cases and Things Mr. Pen spends the Fourth Chapter of his late Book Entituled Reason against Railing to prove that the Light within and not the Scriptures is the Rule of Faith and Practice In p. 47. he saith We dare boldly affirm in the Name of the Lord that the great reason of our Belief concerning them the Scriptures is not any outward thing but that inward Testimony Record and heavenly Amen that we have frequently received from the Holy Light within us to the Truth and Faithfulness of those Sayings Again p. 48. Wherefore the Scriptures are so far from being the great Rule of Faith and Practice that the Light of Christ within us is both our Warrant and Rule for Faith in and Obedience to them Again p. 114. Let it be remembred saith he that Christ promised to send the Spirit of Truth to lead into all Truth as much as to say none are led into the Truth nor in the Truth but by the Holy Spirit of Truth or that their practice is a Lie or they are led into a Lie who are not led by the Spirit of Truth that alone leads into all the ways of Truth Where by Truth is not meant the meer Letter of the Scripture which notwithstanding is true but the living powerful Truth Christ the Way the Truth and the Life of which the Scripture is but a Record or Declaration And p. 115. Many may run into the practice of several outward things mentioned in the Scriptures to have been the practice of Saints in former Ages and yet not be led into the Truth for all that is but Will-Worship Imitation and Vnwarrantable Your

said of himself that he robbed other Churches taking wages that he might serve the Church of Corinth without charge which he did only to take occasion from the false Apostles who songht occasion to blast the reputation of his Ministry upon occasion of his taking mony just as you do now by the Ministers of the Gospel 2. Cor. 11. 8 12 13. And if you do as they did you will too much deserve the same name they had You think it seems you may compare them as frequently you do with the false Prophets and bad Priests of old of whom it is said that the Priests did teach for hire and the Prophets divine for mony But are you indeed so far forsaken of understanding as to think it was a crime in the Priests under the Law to take mony or moneys-worth whereby to live to discharge their Office You cannot but know what ample provision God made for them and accounted himself rob'd when their Tithes were detained and kept back from them and therefore that could not be their crime But when the people were wicked and did not make conscience of observing God's Laws but broke them in keeping back the Tithes as well as in other things the crime of the Priests complained of then doubtless was that they taught the people corrupt Doctrine such as would please them that they might thereby incline them to pay them their Tithes God in Malachi's Prophesie complains of the people that they had robbed him in Tithes and Offerings even the whole Nation And then he complaines of the Priests also saying but ye are departed out of the way ye have caused many to stumble at the Law ye have corrupted the Covenant of Levi saith the Lord of Hosts Therefore have I also made you contemptible and base before all the people according as ye have not kept my ways but have been Partial in the Law Mal. 2. 8. 9. And so the false Prophets that saw vanity and divined lies saying thus saith the Lord God when the Lord had not spoken And why did they so but to get the peoples mony by pleasing them in Prophesying peace to them when the true Prophets prophesied of judgment and were prasecuted for it Ezek. 22. 25 28. And are you sure that all those Ministers that receive mony of the people as a reward of their Labours whom you brand with preaching for hire and divining for mony are such aud do as those Priests and Prophets did for which they are so stigmatized And if you are not sure of it as I am sure you are not nor can be Then I pray you consider how or which way you will quit your selves from being of the number of those false accusers of whom St. Paul Prophesied as persons that should have a form of Godliness and yet deny the power of it by whom the times should be mad perilous 2 Tim. 3. 3. 'T is possible and too probable that there may be some who for worldly and fleshly respects may greatly fall short of a faithful discharge of their duty towards the souls under their charge and if there be any that by dawbing with untempered Mortar do betray them I am no advocate for such they shall bear their burden whosoever they be But if there be some such how unreasonable and unchristian is it to condemn the Righteous with the Wicked and to censure all for somes sake It looks as if the work and office it self were the eye-sore to you as much if not more than their miscarriage in it And that which adds ground of suspition herein is that your great out-cry against them is for taking mony for preaching which is none of their crime they doing their duty But those which I fear stand behind you and insensibly influence you herein know well enough that if the people could be but prevailed with to withold maintenance from the Ministry the Ministerial work would cease and a Door would be opened for somewhat else And therefore those Romish Factors that can turn themselves into any shape have cunningly made use of all sorts of Sects among us however otherwise differing among themselves yet in this to agree to cry down the publick Ministry There were in the Apostles time such pretenders to Christianity and Teachers too as sought their own things and not the things of Jesus Christ that served their own bellies instead of serving Jesus Christ that through covetousness with feigned words made merchandize of the people in order to all which they did corrupt the Word by reason of whose pernicious ways the way of truth was evil spoken of But by whom doubtless by none but by malignant adversaries to the truth it self But we have not the least whisper of any good Christians speaking evil of the faithful Ministry because of some miscarriages of the Scandalous and unfaithful And yet I believe you would take it ill if upon account of your doing now not as the good but as ill men then did you should be rank'd and numbred not with the good but with the bad which if you be not it is because some have more charity for you than you have for others that better deserve it What I was beginning to answer to your Plea for the incongruity of your opinion and practice hath led me to somewhat a long discourse and yet I have something more directly to say to it Your opinion is that men being taught of God himself by his Light and Spirit within now under the New Covenant need not to be taught by men nor to have the Scripture for their Teacher And yet for all that you take upon you to teach the Peopel your selves whil'st you decry it in others and say in your defence that in as much as men may disobey the Light in them therefore your teaching is necessary to perswade them to obey it But I pray you is God's shewing men their duty all the inward teaching you pretend to Do you not pretend to be led and moved by the Spirit to do as well as to know your duty Do you not say expresly that the Spirit of God moveth and leadeth into all the works of righteousness and that the Spirit of Christ only exercises the Conscience to God and Man and leads into the practice of all Truth Nay do you not make the acceptation of what is acceptably done to depend upon the motion and work of the Spirit in the doing of it and do you not count all that is not so done to be done in man's own will And therefore why do you thus dissemble the matter and heap one contradiction upon another But suppose that which you pretend were the only reason of your teaching is there not then the same reason that others should Preach as well as you Or are none in danger of rebelling against the Light but only such as hear you But the plain Truth is for all your talk that you do undertake to teach men what their Duty is as