Selected quad for the lemma: law_n
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A39306
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A reply to an answer lately published to a book long since written by W.P. entituled A brief examination and state of liberty spiritual &c. by Thomas Ellwood.
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Ellwood, Thomas, 1639-1713.; Penn, William, 1644-1718. Brief examination and state of liberty spiritual.
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1691
(1691)
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Wing E624; ESTC R29061
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86,814
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104
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as it concerns a holy Conversation or the worship of God is of any Service but until he come They err There are many outward Rules in the Scriptures of Truth that were given by the Spirit of God which have been and are of Service to many after Christ hath been witnessed come Again when they say Every latter Appearance of God is as death to the former The Expression is unsavoury and not sound For the Appearance of God or Christ do not kill one another but agree one with another and Co-operate to the work he intends thereby But when to this they add And this is our Case as well as any that did go before us c. They err egregiously For the Appearance of God in us did not bring Death to the former Appearance of God in others though to the false Appearances and Likenesses thereof it did Neither will any further Appearance of God hereafter bring Death or be Death or be as Death to this Appearance of God whereby God hath made known himself in and to his People in this Age. Again they say When the Appearance or Conversation must be measured by certain Rules it follows what is terms of Communion or is accepted with God may not be accepted with men This is a loose Expression and tends to let up Looseness Are not Sobriety Temperance Chastity Modesty Honesty c. certain Rules whereby Conversation ought to be measured If there must be no certain Rules for measuring Conversation how shall the most unruly Conversation be blamed reproved judged condemned and either reformed or rejected By these few Instances it may appear how much they are declined from Truth The God of Truth knows I have no other End in this Reply than to defend Truth and the Children of it against the slanderous Suggestions false Charges and wicked Insinuations of the Adversaries to lay Open their deceitful Dealing and to remove as the Lord shall enable me the stumbling-Blocks which they have laid in the way of the Week whereby they have caused some to fall into Misapprehensions and hard Thoughts of Friends without cause And I beseech the God of Mercy to open the Vnderstandings and clear the Sight of all those whose Simplicity has been betrayed by the Others Subtilty that they may see and escape the Enemies Snares and return to the true Fold from which they have been led astray A Reply to an Answer lately published to a Book long since written entituled A brief Examination and State of Liberty Spiritual c. THe Author of that Book called A brief Examination c. hath therein truly and soundly defined Spiritual Liberty declaring it to be two-fold True False according to the true and false Spirit which respectively leads into each The true Spiritual Liberty he defines to be Deliverance from Sin by the perfect Law in the Heart the perfect Law of Liberty Iames 2. otherwise called The Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus that makes free from the Law of Sin and Death elsewhere stiled The Law of Truth writ in the Heart which makes free indeed as saith Christ If the Truth make you free than are you free indeed So that the Liberty of God's People stands in the Truth and their Communion in it and in the Perfect Spiritual Law of Christ Jesus which delivers and preserves them from every Evil Thing that doth or would embondage In this blessed Liberty it is not the will or wisdom of man neither the vain Affections and Lusts that rule or give Law to the Soul for the minds of all such as are made free by the Truth are by the Truth conducted in doing and suffering through their earthly Pilgrimage The false Liberty he defines to be A departing from this blessed Spirit of Truth and a Rebelling against this Perfect Law of Liberty in the Heart and being at Liberty to do our own Wills upon which cometh Reproof and Judgment This being the Basis of the work I thought fit to transcribe at large that the Reader may plainly see and understand what that Liberty is both true and false which was the subject of that Book and is now of this Controversie Against this Definition of Spiritual Liberty I do not find the Answerers of that Book for the Answer runs in the plural Number take any Exception For in the entrance of their Answer they say As to the Definition of Liberty Spiritually explained page the first We agree upon the matter But passing by some Questions and Answers in that Book tending to shew in some general Instances wherein and how far the Members of the Church of Christ may be left to their freedom They take-hold of a Question and Answer in the second and third pages which are thus exprest Quest. But doth not Freedom extend further than this for since God hath given me a manifestation of his Spirit to profit withal and that I have the Gift of God in my self should I not be left to act according as I am free and perswaded in my own mind in the things that relate to God lest looking upon my self as obliged by what is revealed unto another though it be not revealed unto me I should be led out of my own measure and act upon another's Motion and so offer a blind Sacrifice to God Answ. This is true in a sense that is if thou art such a one that canst do nothing against the Truth but for the Truth then mayst thou safely be left to thy freedom in the things of God and the Reason is plain Because thy freedom stands in the perfect Law of Liberty in the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus and in the Truth which is Christ Jesus which makes thee free indeed that is perfectly free from all that is Bad and perfectly free to all that is Holy Just Lovely Honest Comely and of good Report But if thou pleadest thy Freedom against such things yea obstructest and slightest such good wholsome and requisit things Thy Freedom is naught dark perverse out of the Truth and against the perfect Law of Love and Liberty The Question as stated above the Adversaries find no fault with but approve and applaud often calling it a Weighty Question But for all that they either mistake or wilfully pervert it For whereas the plain and express Terms of the Question are these Since God hath given me a manifestation of his Spirit to profit withal and that I have the Gift of God in my self should I not be left c. They in their Sophistical Glosses upon it vary the Terms and instead of God 's having given c. They render it where the Gift of God is received to profit withal And instead of I have the Gift of God in my self They put such as do adhere to it As if there were no difference or They knew or regarded none betwen God's having given a manifestation of his Spirit to profit withal and man's having received this Gift of
must follow All must be left free or None must be left Reply They are very quick at their Consequences But it concerns them to see that their Consequence contains no more than their Premises When they say All must be left free what All do they mean All that are called Quakers or only All that are in Christ from the Babe in Christ upward If they say only All that are in Christ according to the Description they have given of being in Christ what more or other is that than the Author they carp at had said before If they mean All that are called Quakers that 's more by their leave than is in their Premises For there they say Therefore we believe where the Gift of God is received to profit withal and truly adhered to there must be a Liberty to chuse and refuse things according as such are perswaded even from the Babe in Christ to the strong Man c. And sure they will hardly say that All that are called Quakers have so received the Gift have so adhered to it have so profited with it as to be really in Christ and that according to their forecited Description of being in Christ though but in a Babish state or degree They were therefore too hasty in their Conclusion that All must be left free or None They should have remembred that the Definition of true Spiritual Liberty to which they say they agree was Deliverance from Sin by the perfect Law of Liberty in the Heart a being made free indeed by Christ the Truth All have not this freedom They cannot be left to it who neither have it nor know it Must therefore None be left to it although they know it and have it They should have considered that Spiritual Liberty was declared to be two-fold True and False So that there is a false Liberty a false freedom as well as a True a Liberty to do our own Wills upon which comes Reproof and Judgment Examinat of Lib. Spir. p. 1. Would they have All nay would they have any left to this freedom to this Liberty to do their own Wills in Opposition to God's Will That would bring Reproof and Judgment indeed Now because it is a pleasing and desirable thing to man's Nature to be left to its Freedom to be at Liberty to do or not do what it pleases and how it pleases in Religious as well as in Civil matters whereupon it may sound harsh in the Ears of some that any should not be absolutely and unquestionably left to their own Freedom to do what they think fit without being accountable to others Therefore that I may remove all grounds of Offence and Stumbling on this occasion out of the way of such as are honest-minded I am willing here as briefly as with plainness I can to open the matter further First therefore a little to explain the Terms and shew what is meant by those words Not to be left to ones Liberty to act as one is free c. I take the meaning thereof to be that no Person who doth profess to be a Member of a true Christian Society ought or hath right to plead any Exemption upon the account of his Liberty or Freedom from being called to an Account by that Society which he professes to be a Member of in case such Person shall do any thing repugnant to the Principles of that Society or tending to the Defamation or hurt thereof But that every such Society hath power to call any such professed Member to an Account in order to inform him and open his understanding if he be weak and dark to Reprove Rebuke and Exhort him to Repentance if he prove heady wilful contentious and Unruly And if he obstinatly persist therein to refuse any further Fellowship with him until he manifest true Repentance This is the Power the utmost Power that the Church of Christ claims namely to Inform Instruct Reprove Admonish Exhort to Repentance such of her professed Members as go astray and if nothing less will serve to refuse Communion with the Impenitent and those that reject her and declare them not to be of her Now that it may appear how reasonable as well as needful it is that there should be such Power in the Church of Christ I desire the Reader in the next place to consider that in the best Religious Societies of men there have always been as to outward Profession Good and Bad True and False Right and Wrong With Israel of old there came up out of Egypt a mixt Multitude or a great mixture Exod. 12.38 Besides which many of the Israelites themselves when they came to be tryed in the Wilderness proved to be Murmurers Complainers Gain sayers and Rebellious So that the Apostle rightly observed they are not all Israel which are of Israel Rom. 9.6 In the Christian Church at the first gathering thereof many that walked a while with Christ so far as to be reputed his Disciples wont back and walked no more with him Iohn 6.66 How it was afterward in the Apostles times the Epistles of the Apostles sufficiently show There were in the Church at Corinth some that were carnal and walked as men 1 Cor. 3.3 There were many the Apostle tells the Philippians that so walked that they were the Enemies of the Cross of Christ Phil. 3.18 There were some in the Church at Thessalonica that walked disorderly 2 Thes. 3.11 There were some in the Church in Fergamos that held the Doctrine of Balaam who taught Balack to cast a stumbling-Block before the Children of Israel to eat things sacrificed to Idols and to commit Fornication for by that name doth the Holy Ghost call those unlawful Marriages of Believers with Unbelievers which Balaam taught Balack to draw the Children of Israel into with the Midianitish Women Rev. 2.14 There were some also in that Church as well as in the Church in Ephesus that held the Doctrine of the Nicolaitans ver 6. 15. Which by Ecclesiastical Writers is delivered to have been Community of Wives as well as of other things And sure enough it was some great Evil which Christ exprest his Hatred of There was in the Church in Thyatira the Woman Iezabel seducing like Balaam to Fornication c. Not to fetch instances out of every Church there were some that walked after the Flesh in the Lust of Uncleanness 2. Pet. 2.10 These were presumptuous self-willed despised Government and spake Evil not only of Dignities but of things they understood not ver 12. Yet these were great sticklers for Liberty for They promised Liberty to such as they allured being themselves mean while the Servants of Corruption ver 19. Of whom a more full description may be seen in the rest of that Chapter and in the Epistle of Iude. Thus it was in those times How it hath been in our time since the Lord first gathered us to be a peculiar People to himself they must have had but little Experience or made but