Selected quad for the lemma: authority_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
authority_n	apostle_n	church_n	particular_a	2,274	5	6.8998	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A54155	Judas and the Jews combined against Christ and his followers being a re-joynder to the late nameless reply, called, Tyranny and hypocrisie detected, made against a book, entituled The spirit of Alexander the Coppersmith rebuked, &c. which was an answer to a pamphlet, called, The spirit of the hat, in which truth is cleared from scandals, and the Church of Christ, in her faith, doctrine, and just power and authority in discipline is clearly and fully vindicated against the malicious endeavours of a confederacy of some envious professors and vagabond, apostate Quakers / by ... William Penn ; to which are added several testimonies of persons concern'd.	Penn, William, 1644-1718.	1673 (1673)	Wing P1307; ESTC R23117	100,153	131

Shepherd and a Stranger will they not hear Who is this Stranger Not alwayes False Doctrine but a False Spirit covered with True Doctrine They shall come in my Name that is pretending Authority from me and speaking my Words not having my Spirit Christ's Spirit within is his Voice within and 't is that alone gives to discern the Strange Voice let it come with never such True Words Had Christ left his Churches destitute of this Touch-Stone they had been imposed upon by every False Spirit and his Flock devoured by every Wolf in Sheeps Cloathing Sheep know Sheep not only by Sight but Instinct and Wolves too For if Shepherds be of Authority they tell us that if a Wolf be near though out of Sight the Sheep will bleat their Antipathy So do the Sheep of Christ know each other by the Instinct of that Divine Nature they are mutually Partakers of and by it do they discern the Wolf within notwithstanding the Sheep's Cloathing without It was for this end they were to have Salt in themselves the Anointing and Spirit in themselves that they might see relish and discern thereby who were so Salted Anointed and Spirited which in the ground could never be visibly discerned 2ly The second Question I also take in the Affirmative and for which there is both express Scripture and Unanswerable Reason This is seen in the very case of Alexander the Copper-Smith who was denyed and rejected notwithstanding that he made Profession of Christianity And there is cause to believe that the Difference began from his emulous Spirit 's taking Occasion against the Apostles Authority and the Power of the Elders in the Church It was doubtless for something not unlike to this that Paul complained of him to Timothy Alexander the Copper-Smith did me much wrong of whom be thou ware also for he hath greatly withstood our Words Which is the very State and Character of the present Apostates Who pretend with Alexander not to withstand Truth or Christianity but a Lordly Paul Timothy or such like eminent Labourers They pretend to own the Churches but deny some of their Leading Ministers That this was Alexander's Disease the next Verse proves At my first Answer no Man stood with me but all Men forsooke me I pray God it may not be laid to their Charge Who was this People but the Church for of the Heathen it could not be said And what was Alexander's aim besides Ambition I mean to discredit the Apostle that he might gain the Repute and being him down from that Authority God had given him in the Church that he might usurp it to himself What did the Apostle do in the like case shrink No Hear him For though I should boast somewhat more of our Authority which the Lord hath given us for Edification and not for your Destruction I should not be ashamed 2 Cor. 10 8. But no more of this at present That Christ as well gave his Church Power to reject as to try Spirits is not hard to prove That notable Passage Go tell the Church does it to our hand For if in case of private Offence betwixt Brethren the Church is made absolute Judge from whom there is no Appeal in this World how much more in any the least Case that concerns the Nature Being Faith and Worship of the Church her self The Judgment Christ passeth in the matter is sufficient to the Resolution of our Question But if he neglect to hear the Church let him be unto thee as a Heathen and a Publican This I say on the Account of those Apostates who pretend to be the Men they ever were For this Man that works with their Tooles is upon his own Principle as much an Heathen and a Publican as any thing else and tells us to boot that it is dangerous to be of any one Party Therefore not of the true Churche's Party I omit any particular recital of the Apostle Paul's frequent earnest Dehortations from so much as keeping company with perverse Disputers about needless Questions or any that infested the Church and disturbed her Peace and that Practice in which she was at first setled with unprofitable Novelties under what Pretence soever They that can read may find in his Epistles enough to this purpose 'T is true They used no corporal Violence or any civil Power to punish such obstinate Dissenters nor is that Unchristian Practice so much as any part of the Question But first to reprove and admonish and in case of Persistance then to disown and reject which is a part of the Question and a part of the Scripture too And indeed it is most reasonable that as a Civil so a Christian Society should have this Power to preserve it self from the Taints Infections of hurtful Spirits for such tend not to further Knowledge Increase in Holiness or Peace but Strifes and Divisions Animosities and Rents Backbitings and Revenge to the laying waste of God's holy Heritage 3ly The third Question we also accept in the affirmative That men may believe confess and subscribe to the Truth of the Doctrine of the Vniversality Sufficiency and immediate Teachings of the Light as to Faith and Worship and yet be declined from the living Sense Power and Ordering of it so as to be acted by a wrong Spirit to Divisions and notwithstanding plead his Following of the Light within against the Judgment of the Church who reproves him for so doing In short that a man may follow a Wrong Spirit when he thinks he follows the Right and though he ought to follow the Light and Spirit yet is to be judged when he does not act thereby though he may think he doth by such as walk thereby In this the Scriptures of Truth are very positive The Jews owned the Law at what time they rebelled against it and thought they acted according to Scripture when by their Traditions they made it of none Effect There was a certain Generation that were pure in their own Eyes That is believed themselves to be of a Right Spirit whom the holy Ghost reproved for being guided by a Wrong one It was no other State then this that Christ spoke of when he said If therefore the Light that is in thee be Darkness how great is that Darkness Some doubtless acted by Virtue of this Darkness not as Darkness but as Light Was it therefore Light because they thought so When it is manifest that they were against Christ the true Light as you are now Or would the Plea of such an one be so valid against the Body of a Church walking in the true Light as to disengage any from her judgment Or must we therefore conclude that the Light is not a Rule for Men to walk by because some mistake or swarve from it Or that he who calls his dark Imagination a Motion of Light is therefore not to be condemned because it is every Man's Duty to follow the True Light Shall this Position I say

Churches Peace 2. That such as are not in Vnity with the Ministry and Body have no gospel-Gospel-Authority to be Judges in the Church And that it is abominable Pride when any Particular will not yield TO THE WITNESS OF GOD IN FRIENDS But what is the Matter with our Adversary Hath he lost his Wits that he makes this so Criminal Are any to be Judges in that Church they have no Unity with and amongst the Ministry they deny or are at distance from Strange Contradiction But why is it so Hainous to call such Proud or Self-willed who resist the Witness of God in Friends Certainly the Expressions are sound unless Scripture be defective He that can see any thing in them that deserveth such hard Words as this Billings-Gate Rhetorician bestoweth upon us has better Eyes then I. 3ly But they say That the Church without Dissenters has Power to Determine Controversies Very well and is it not true Are the Dissenters from the Church part of the Church they dissent from For Shame Thou Learned and talk so Idly Scripture declares That God has given the Power of Determination to his Church All the World knows That Dissenters are not of that Church they dissent from therefore the Church without Dissenters has that Power of Determination 4ly and 5ly But they add That such disapproved Ministers ought to leave off Ministring till they are Reconciled to the Church And if approved Ministers degenerate to Division the Church has Authority to deal with them in the same manner and that no such Persons Writings should be publisht with Consent c. What of all this He that can call this Imperious Audaoious c. can call any thing To allow that Dissentious Preachers and Writers are by the Church they dissent from to be approved of in the Course of that Ministry and Writing is such a Bedlam Boundless Piece of Stuff that none but one who thinks it Dangerous to be of any Party would be the Author of such a Wild Expression 6ly But they advise That such whom the Holy Ghost had made Over-seers should not admit of the Weak to that Trust nor such as seek not the Good of all which All this Disingenuous Wrester interprets The great Body of George Fox and his Party But Men of Wisdom and Moderation will not I am confident so spoil the Text with his Comment This is the seventh time in two pages that G. Fox is brought in as the Explanation of the Word Body who was then close Prisoner at Scar-brough where no Letter was suffered to come to him and who never knew of any Paper till sometime after its being out O the Implacable Envy of these Men I have hitherto waited for that Arrogant Imperious and Audacious Passage which might have raized up our Adversary's Choller and whetted him to this Degree of Scolding but find no worse then what I have transcribed and justified this last excepted and I think it justifies it self such as seek the Good of all are certainly Fittest If he dare tell us his Name and meet me by Day as he can post up his Scurrilous Title-Pages on the City Posts with Flambeux or Links and a Guard by Night I will any where and in any sober Auditory maintain the Truth of all these Particulars and their clear Consistency with Scripture and Reason on whom he has bestowed so many hard Names But 't is to be lamented of his Cabal that he should with his Passion and Hate divulge so much Ignorance as to cry out That he thinks the Pope himself hath never taken such Power as to determine in Matters of this Nature and Manner but in a general Council Poor Man Brand us he would one way or other Has he never read the Council of Trent nor considered among many others the Life of Paul the 3d Is he to be informed of that Controversie long on foot between the Jesuits and the Doctors of Sorbon and the Followers of Jansenius I thought Councils had sometimes been as meer Cyphers in Italy as Parliaments are in France But this Man is as Kind to Elizabeth Barns one of that Backsliding Spirit as he represents me else where Unjust to M. Boreman that was For though she has Torn the Bible calling it in my hearing the Pope's Idol the Professors Idol and the Quakers Idol an Incredible Thing with J. Faldo and T. Hicks and committed more then a small History of shameful Miscarriages since yet is he pleased to tell us That she seeing the Ministers exalted themselves cryed out while R. Farnsworth was preaching You have whored from the Lord. Farnsworth sayes our Adversary replyed Thou art a Whore but for fear of being too great a Forger he brings it afterwards thus in a Parenthesis or the Whore This Michael Stanclift called Unsavory For which sayes this Secretary he was cast out as calling the Spirit of Truth Vnsavory Oh the Wretched Work these People make Will our Adversary justifie her Interruption of R. F. in Preaching who condemned it in us who did it after a more seasonable and justifiable manner a little before Yes that he will But does he think R. F's Reply Unsavory and not E. Barns Out-cry who only returned her own Word to herself Yes that he will Strange But does he take E. Barns word Whore in a spiritual Sense as Degenerating and will he seem to understand R. F's word Whore only in a Common and Proper Acceptation as a Dishonest Woman Yes that he will Well but was it Vnsavory so to reply and not in E. Barns so to interrupt and speak Yes that it was implies this present Apologist both of himself and M. S. O Monstrous O Partial But perhaps M. S. apprehended that R. F. meant by Whore an Unclean or Dishonest Woman in the Sense before-mentioned and then there might have been some Ground for his Answer but if M. S. took R. F. in the sense in which he spoak it to wit that she was gone out of her Habitation that is the Truth turned Harlot in Spirit and so was become Clamorous as speaks the Wise Man and should notwithstanding call that Vnsavory it was a Sign that he had more Unity with that Vnclean Ranting and Envious Spirit in E. B. then the Friends of Truth that generally judged her And truly in that Case it was time for them to tell that Angry Old Man their Mind of him In which they did but that which I dare answer for before the great and terrible Judge of Heaven and Earth Mine Own Defence from the most Considerable Reflections made by this Libeller against Me. § 1 HE is pleased both to Jeer and Prophane upon this Passage in the Spirit of Alexander the Copper-Smith Rebuked We require not Men to practise what they are not convinc'd of but we will be well satisfied with any Member's Dispractice of an Orderly Performance once Chearfully owned For this he calls me a Deep-studied Man and the Passage a Learned Distinction Let the Learned