Selected quad for the lemma: world_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
world_n	darkness_n	light_n	light_v	5,748	5	10.2934	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A67209	Anguis flagellatus, or, A switch for the snake being an answer to the third and last edition of The snake in the grass : wherein the author's injustice and falshood, both in quotation and story, are discover'd and obviated, and the truth doctrinally deliver'd by us, stated and maintained in opposition to his misrepresentation and perversion / by Joseph Wyeth ; to which is added a supplement, by George Whitehead.	Wyeth, Joseph, 1663-1731.; Whitehead, George, 1636?-1723. Snake in the grass.	1699 (1699)	Wing W3757; ESTC R16372	333,418	578

distinguish what he has taken as above in a different Character Pref. p. 7. of Great Mystery First The Lord brought us by his Power and Wisdom and the Word by which all Things were made to know and understand and see perfectly that God had given to us every one of us in particular a Light from himself shining in our Hearts and Consciences which Light Christ his Son the Saviour of the World had lighted every Man and all Mankind withal which Light in us we found sufficient to reprove us and convince us of every evil Deed Word and Thought and by it in us we come to know Good from Evil Right from Wrong and whatsoever is of God and according to him from what is of the Devil and what is contrary to God in Motion Word and Work And this Light gave us to discern between Truth and Error between every False and Right Way and it perfectly discovered to us the true state of all things And we thereby came to know Man what he was in his Creation before Transgression and how he was deceived and overcome by the Devil and his estate in Transgression and in Disobedience And how he is drove and banished from the presence of the Lord and the Sorrow and Anguish which he is in and to undergo And also by the Light in us we perfectly came to know the way of Restauration and the means to be restored and the state of Man being come out of Transgression and restored These things to us were revealed by the Light within us which Christ had given us and Lightned us withal What Man was before Transgression and what he is in Transgression and what he is being redeemed out of Transgression and also the Light which shined in every one of us as to it our Minds became turned and our Hearts inclined the perfect estate of the Church we came to know Her estate before the Apostles days and in the Apostles days and since the days of the Apostles And her present state we found to be as a Woman who had once been clothed with the Sun and the Moon under her Feet who brought forth him that was to rule the Nations but She was fled into the Wilderness and there sitting desolate in her place that was prepared of God for such a season which season in the very end thereof when the time of her sojourning was towards a full end then were we brought forth If any have an Ear they may hear So that all these things concerning Man and concerning the Times and Seasons and the changing and renewing of Times and all things that pertain to Salvation Redemption and Eternal Life needful for Man to know ALL THIS WAS discover'd revealed and made known to us by the Light that was in us which Christ had lighted us withal Thus E. B. The Snake's next Quotation is from E. B's Works p. 862. and his quotation is thus Every true Member of the Church hath certainty and infallibility of Judgment and discerning who are out of the Truth and in the way of Error and are Hereticks In this as in the last he hath abusively mangled E. B's words which are these Every true Member of the true Church hath its particular Measure of the Infallible Spirit of Christ whereby he is certainly persuaded of the way of Truth in which he walks and knows and believes the Infallibility of the Truth he professes and is certain and secure of the way of his Peace and Assurance in God which he hath received and believed and hath also certainty and infallibility of Judgment and discerning who are out of the Truth and in the way of Error and are Hereticks Such are infallibly known and discerned by the Spirit of God in the true Church of Christ. See here Reader the great perversion of words sound as can be deliver'd and which I dare the Snake to deny if he can for if he does he must of necessity thro' away all that Enthusiasm to which he says the Church in her Offices does pretend Ibid. p. 34. Quoted from E. B's Works p. 861 862. So both the Law-makers and the Judges of the Law must be infallible in Knowledge and Judgment in this case of Heresie otherwise the Law made for that purpose and the Judgment given by that Law are both false and unjust and not according to God and his Truth but are to be justly Judged and Condemn'd of the Lord God in his day and season This the Snake says dissolves our Laws Damns the Law-makers and infers necessarily the Quakers Opinion of their own Infallibility To this Charge let the Snake himself answer whether or no his refusing Swearing Obedience to the Present Government dissolves the Law which requires it of him Damns the Makers of that Law and does infer an Opinion of his own Infallibility Ibid. p. 35. Quoted from E. B's Works p. 198. where I have look'd for the words quoted by the Snake but find no such if he be mistaken in the page when that is rectified it may be answered Ibid. p. 35. Quoted from Great Mystery p. 107. Thou sayst that the Holiest Man is not able to give an Infallible Character of another Man Hast thou not in this discovered thy self to be no Minister of Christ or of the Spirit who cannot give an Infallible Character of another Man how canst thou minister to his Condition How canst thou see them that be turned from the Darkness and that be in the Darkness and distinguish the one from the other and an Holy Man from an Vnholy Man that canst not give an Infallible Character of any Man's Estate Ibid. p. 36. Quoted from Great Mystery p. 94. Have you given your selves a Name of a Church of Christ and is there not a Spirit of Discerning among you have you not manifested there that you are Harlotted from the Church of Christ the Apostles were of and how can you minister or teach People if ye do not discern their estates how they stand before God how can you commend your selves to every Man's Conscience in God's sight How can ye present the Souls of Men to God and see not their states how they are in his Sight How came ye to have fellowship in the Spirit How can you or any minister to the state and condition that people be in and see where they are and doth not see how they stand in God's sight From these two long Quotations he draws two Inferences or Conclusions which I will briefly repeat and then reply to them Here the Quakers have excluded all from the Church of Christ from having any fellowship in the Spirit who have not this Infallible Spirit of Discerning every Man's Heart Secodly It is evident they did not discern Keith and Bugg whom for many years they own'd as true Quakers thought them principal Pillars whom now they vilifie as Apostates Therefore by their own Argument all the Quakers are Harlotted from the Church of Christ have no fellowship in the

travelling Friends that went abroad c. It is not good manners to name Names upon such an occasion Yet if the Friends will plead Ignorance something may be done for their Satisfaction That Women as well as Men may forsake the Guidings of the Spirit of God and run into Wickedness is very true but that any who have so run into Wickedness are Preachers or as such Travelling Friends as he in scoffing Mood calls them and intimates is very false and I dare him to name any that are such I come now to his 6th Head of Distinction which is a continuation of Stories of particular Failings VI. But we may make a little more bold with the Mens Infallibility And I will not go to mean Ones The Great James Naylor was brought upon his knees before their Church where G. F. presided to acknowledge his Failings This James Naylor suffered himself to be Hosannah'd into Bristol as Christ was into Jerusalem Of this Adversaries Boldness and Scoffing we have great Proof but of his Honesty and Truth we have none of his Lyes here is also fresh Proof For it never was the Practice of any Church or Meeting of ours to bring any Transgressor upon their knees nor did G. F. ever preside in them or any other Person We neither have nor own in our Assemblies any Headship of Man or Men the only Head of them being Christ Jesus who dignifies whom he pleases with fit qualifications by his Holy Spirit for the Service of his Church and they that continue faithful in their Gifts such we with the Apostle esteem worthy of double Honour But now as to James Naylor of whom the Snake often makes mention I shall here at once speak concerning him J. N. was a Man who had been highly favoured of God with a good degree of Grace which was sufficient for him had he kept to its teachings For while he did so he was exemplary in Godliness and great Humility was Powerful in Word and Doctrine and thereby Instrumental in the hand of God for turning many from Darkness to Light and from the Power of Satan to the Power of God But he Poor Man Became exalted above Measure through the abundance of Revelations And in that Exaltation did depart from the Grace and Holy Spirit of God which had been his sufficient Teacher Then blindness came over him and he did suffer himself to be accounted of above what he ought Here he slipt and fell but not Irrecoverably For it did please God of his Infinite Mercy in the Day of his Affliction to give him a sight and sense of his outgoings and fall and also a place of Repentance And he did with the Prodigal weep bitterly and humbled himself for his Transgression and he besought God with true Contrition of Soul to pardon his offences through Jesus Christ God I firmly believe forgave him for he pardons the truly Penitent His People received him with great Joy for that he who had gone astray from God was now returned to the Father's House and for that he who had separated himself from them through his Iniquity was now through Repentance and Forsaking of it returned into the Unity of the Faith and their Holy Fellowship in the Gospel of Christ. And I do hereby testify that I do esteem it a particular mark of God's owning his People in bringing back into Unity with them a Man who had so dangerously fallen as did James Naylor And here let none Insult but take heed least they also in the hour of their Temptation do fall away Nor let any boastingly say Where is your God Or Blasphemously suppose his Grace is not sufficient for Men in Temptation because the tempted may go from and neglect the teachings of it David and Peter as their Transgressions came by their departing from this Infallible Guide the Holy Spirit So their recovery was only by it And for the Reader 's further satisfaction concerning James Naylor's Humiliation and Repentance I here subjoin his own Testimony Glory to God Almighty who ruleth in the Heavens and in whose Hands are all the Kingdoms of the Earth who raiseth up and casteth down at his Will who hath ways to Confound the Exaltation of Man and to Chastise his Children and to make Man to know himself to be as Grass before him whose Judgments are above the highest of Men and his pity reacheth the deepest Misery and th●s Arm of his Mercy is underneath to lift up the Prisoner out of the Pit and to save such as trust in him from the great Destruction which vain Man through his folly brings upon himself who hath delivered my Soul from Darkness and made way for my Freedom out of the Prison-house and ransomed me from the great Captivity who divides the Sea before him and removes the Mountains out of his way in the day when he takes upon him to deliver the Oppressed out of the Hand of him that is too mighty for him in the Earth let his Name be exalted for ever and let all Flesh fear before him whose Breath is Life to his own but a Consuming Fire to the Adversary And to the Lord Jesus Christ be Everlasting Dominion upon Earth and his Kingdom above all the Powers of Darkness even that Christ of whom the Scriptures declares which was and is and is to come the Light of the World to all Generations Of whose coming I testifie with the rest of the Children of Light begotten of the Immortal Seed whose Truth and Vertue now shines in the World unto Righteousness of Eternal Life And the Saviour of all that believe therein Who hath been the Rock of my Salvation and his Spirit hath given Quietness and Patience to my Soul in Deep Affliction even for his Name 's sake Praises for ever But condemned for ever be all those False Worships with which any have Idolized my Person in the Night of my Temptation when the Power of Darkness was above all their casting of their Clothes in the way their Bowings and Singings and all the rest of those Wild Actions which did any ways tend to dishonour the Lord or draw the Minds of any from the measure of Christ Jesus in themselves to look at Flesh which is Grass or to ascribe that to the Visible which belongs to Christ Jesus all that I condemn by which the pure Name of the Lord hath been any ways blasphemed through me in the time of Temptation or the Spirits of any People grieved that truly loves the Lord Jesus throughout the whole World of what state soever This Offence I confess which hath been sorrow of heart that the Enemy of Man's Peace in Christ should get this Advantage in the Night of my Trial to stir up Wrath and Offences in the Creation of God a thing the simplicity of my Heart did not intend the Lord knows who in his endless Love hath given me Power over it to condemn it and also that Letter which was sent me to Exeter by John

now in order Snake p. 165. That is say they with Hymeneus and Philetus till his coming Spiritually in our Hearts I have in p. 255. foregoing briefly observed already concerning these Men part of whose error was and which is only taken notice of by the Snake their saying the Resurrection was past already That they do not seem by the Character the Apostle gives of them of being profane and vain Babblers such who had put away a good Conscience and shipwrack'd Faith I say they do not seem hereby to be such who did contend for the Spiritual Coming of Christ in their Hearts Profaneness is Immorality and what has that to do with the Coming of Christ in the Heart It is in direct opposition to it And the Apostle could not have made their Character as above had they so contended for Christ because it was what the Apostle declares himself did follow after Phil. 3.10 11 12. That I may know him and the power of his Resurrection and the fellowship of his Sufferings being made conformable unto his Death If by any means I might attain unto the Resurrection of the Dead Not as though I had already attained either were already perfect but I follow after if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus Reader Think'st thou that Hymeneus and Philetus those profane and vain Babblers who shipwreckt Faith and a good Conscience in themselves and did overthrow the Faith of some did do all these things and expound that saying of theirs That the Resurrection was past already in such manner as the Snake says Spiritually in our Hearts No it could not be they were gone from the Spirit of Christ in them when they went into profane Babbling and what degrees soever they might have known while in obedience of the Power of Christ's Resurrection Yet that they quite lost when they shipwreckt Faith and a good Conscience So that the Snake's explanation is not only arbitrary but contradictory to the Apostles character of them He goes on with great assurance and pretence of familiarity with the Holy Apostles and of the purest Primitive Christians and Blessed Martyrs and affirms of them all in his frothy manner Ibid. p. 165. None of them dream'd of the time being thus expired For the observance of what he calls the Sacraments but that they did think them obligatory to the end of the World the litteral Resurrection at the last day It can be no small acquaintance which this Snake pretends to have had with this variety of Persons who dare so boldly affirm of them all while sleeping that they did never dream of their Expiration and while waking that they all did think these Ordinances always were to continue I suppose the observing Reader will with me be apt to question how he came by this great Intimacy and desire him to give some proof of the truth of what he hath so affirm'd But if we should suppose that he could prove which he never can that none of them did so dream that would not be ground sufficient to us to prove that the time of their continuance is not expired For the Question being concerning Ordinances said to be appointed by Christ we are not to look to Dreams but to consider the Appointment of Christ for from thence can only be truly learn'd both the things appointed and the time for which they were appointed And here of a sudden the Snake hath much abated of his pretence to know what was not Dream'd by the Holy Apostles purest Primitive Christians and Blessed Martyrs and comes to lay his pretence upon the Commission given by our Saviour to his Disciples mentioned Mat. 28.19 20. And this Commission he gives by piece-meal so as that it might if possible be so large as to take in the Addition which he makes to it For first He would have it to be a Commission for Water-Baptism next He would have it to express the Continuance of the Water-Baptism to the end of the World And having in disjoynted sort thus given it he draws this Pithy Conclusion p. 166. For if this be the time during which Christ promised to assist his Commission it must doubtless infer the like continuance of the things required in the said Commission We say so too But the Question is concerning something said to be required in the Commission which the Commission does not express therefore we say not contained in it And that this has been our frequent Objection to our Opposers in this particular the Snake could not but know and therefore if he would have established his addition Water to the Text he ought to have refuted our objections to the addition and then to have given his better reasons for it but none of this is done But he goes on begging the Question and taking that for granted which we deny viz. That when our Saviour saith Mat. 28.19 Go ye therefore and teach all Nations Baptizing them in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost He doth herein Command them Disciples to Baptize with Water If the Snake had given us some reason why we ought to take this his Addition of that wherein the Text is silent that reason might have been considered And it will be yet of greater force if he can prove from Scripture that our Saviour is here giving to his Disciples Commission concerning John's Baptism with Water and not his own which is with the Holy Spirit But of this the Snake says p. 167. The Holy Ghost is his Christ's Gift only It is true that the Holy Ghost is originally Christ's Gift yet it is as true that Men prepared fitted and quallified by the operation of his Grace have Instrumentally as Ministerial Ofcers given the Gifts of the Holy Spirit Thus the Apostle Rom. 1.11 For I long to see you that I may impart unto you some Spiritual Gift And the same Apostle tells the Corinthians 1 Cor. 4.15 For in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the Gospel And he declares that his Commission was Acts 26.18 To open their Eyes and to turn them from Darkness to Light and from the Power of Satan to the Power of God Now strictly speaking it is only Christ by the Gift of the Holy Ghost who does these great Works of which the Apostle speaks The Apostle herein was Instrumentally made the Minister of those things wherein God did appear unto him And at this day those who are of God made Ministers of those things wherein he does appear by his Spirit unto them such he fits furnishes and quallifies Instrumentally to be able to impart Spiritual Gifts and to beget People to God by turning them from Darkness to Light and from Satan's Power to the Power of God Thus Spiritual Baptism and Teaching mentioned in the Commission of Christ continues to be assisted by Christ and will be so to the end of the World Now this teaching with respect to the sound of words may be said to be