Selected quad for the lemma: scripture_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
scripture_n	apostle_n	gospel_n	preach_v	3,957	5	6.9240	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A45134	A letter to George Keith concerning the salvability of the heathen together with a testimony to the same doctrine, as long held and not newly taken up, out of several former books of him that writ it / by J.H.	Humfrey, John, 1621-1719.; Keith, George, 1639?-1716.	1700 (1700)	Wing H3684; ESTC R25550	27,967	37

A LETTER TO George Keith CONCERNING The Salvability of the Heathen Together with A Testimony to the same Doctrine as Long held and not Newly taken up out of several former Books of him that writ it By his Respectful Neighbour J.H. If therefore the Doctrine of Christ hath demonstrated to all Nations the same God whom the Ancients even before Moses have served there is no doubt but that we are made Partakers with them of the same Divine Worship and having moreover the same common Religion it is manifest that we shall likewise enjoy the same Blessedness or Benediction Eusebius de Demonstratione Evangelii L. 1. C. 5. London Printed and Sold by the Booksellers of London and Westminster 1700. A Letter to George Keith c. Mr. George Keith UNderstanding that you came to live near me I was willing to be acquainted with you as a Person learned and whose Converse is profitable but I am sorry to find you so engaged and hot in your Opinion though Zeal in a good Cause is commendable that you cannot let another differ from you without Anger when if he be angry too whom you differ from there must be Contention Which is to be avoided by a prudent Man Prov. 17.14 Look you George You and I do believe a Salvability for some Heathen You and I for all that do believe That no Man is was or ever can be saved but through the Name Mediation or Redemption of Jesus Christ neither of us are Deists therefore but both Christians You proceed further and say That no Man ever was is or can be saved but by Faith in Jesus Christ and the knowledge of him Crucified and Risen again Here I must differ from you for though Redemption be Universal and it is true That no Man ever could or can be saved without the Benefit thereof Yet must we not make the Redemption of Christ or the Benefit of his Death and our Knowledge of it to be Commensurate God forbid it should be so for then indeed no Heathen could be saved In your Truth Advanced p. 40. you very candidly declare That to conclude all Gentiles however diligent they have been to live up to their Illumination to be finally and irrecoverably Lost and Damned is a rash and uncharitable Opinion And in the same page you say I do positively affirm according to the Scriptures That Eternal Salvation is to be had only through Faith and Knowledge of Christ crucified and raised again This is to maintain two things inconsistent with one another And here I ask'd you therefore how you could make out the Mystery And you answered me That you had three ways to do it Two of them you expressed but because they were to me unsatisfactory I can remember neither and the third upon which you lay'd most stress you would not deliver thinking me at present not like to receive it I very much desire to know what that reserve was but what you have in your Book and in the same Page I see Though God giveth this Knowledge and Faith say you ordinarily by preaching and reading the Scriptures yet I nothing doubt but that God hath inwardly Revealed it to divers without I cannot but remember upon this what you told me That when W.P. put this Question to you and pressed you with it as unanswerable asking you how you could hold any Heathen to be saved seeing you do maintain that a Faith in Christ without is necessary to Salvation You answered him That the Light within is sufficient for the Revelation When you told me this I could not but commend it as a present ingenious Repartee ad hominem or to a Quaker but that is no answer to me or any other Man that is no Quaker nor fit for you to own as good for then it renders you still to be one of them who take Enthusiasm for your Guide W.P. would never have declared you an Apostate over the Head of you for this saying That you nothing doubt but God doth inwardly Reveal whatsoever is of necessity to be believed without Preaching or Reading Whereas I for my part am so far from an assent to you that I am perswaded to the contrary by those express words of the Apostle How shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard And how shall they hear without a Preacher Rom. 10.14 We read in the Acts of the Eunuch that Man of Authority a Proselyte reading in Isaiah Philip asks him Understandest thou what thou readest And he answered How can I except some Man should guide me Acts 8.31 From whence we may see that though the Prophets speak of Christ in many places and in none more amply than in this yet the Readers understood them not nor indeed could they the Understanding being reserved till the time of the Apostles who had the Spirit with-held till Christ was Glorified John 7.39 to enlighten them with that Knowledge which they were to communicate to us The Knowledge of Christ and Faith in him is indeed a Treasure and those Riches of the Gospel which as to the times before were unsearchable for it was to them a Treasure in the Field Hid in those Ages till Found by the Apostles through the Revelation thereof by the Spirit for the Publication of the same to the World And this is to be noted for a matter exceeding remarkable That though God had declared to Abraham that in his Seed all Nations should be blessed whereby the Gospel is said to be Preached to him Gal. 3.8 Yet was the Preaching the same by Peter to the Gentiles such a strange thing to them who were of the Circumcision that they contended with him for going to the Uncircumcised as what ought not to be done until Peter rehearsed from the beginning and expounded in order to them the Visions that he and Cornelius had and how the Holy Ghost fell upon them before he Baptized them which put them to silence so that they held their peace and glorified God saying Then hath God also unto the Gentiles granted Repentance unto Life Acts 11.18 This was the thing they wondered at this the Mystery hid from them the Apostle so calls it though Preached so long ago to their Father Abraham himself That the Gentiles should be fellow Heirs and of the same Body and partakers of his Promise in Christ by the Gospel Ephes 3.6 I deny not therefore but the Old Testament Scripture speaks of Christ and that so fully as to his Person his Office his States of Humiliation and Exaltation that Christ in his appearing to the two Disciples going to Emmaus did shew them how Moses and all the Prophets speaking concerning him fore-told that he was to suffer and so to enter into his Glory Luke 24.26 St. Peter likewise preaches the same That unto him gave all the Prophets witness collecting from thence that through his Name whosoever believes in him shall receive Remission of Sins Acts 10.43 Nevertheless it is very manifest that the

Jews understood not these things prophesied of Him nor yet the Prophets that prophesied them seeing they ministred those things says the Apostle not to themselves but to us which are reported by them that preach the Gospel 1 Pet. 1.12 and therefore he hath it before That they prophesied of the Grace which should come or was to come and not then come v. 10. St. Paul accordingly lets the Romans understand Rom. 16.25 26. how the Gospel therefore was mainly a Revelation of the Mystery which was kept secret since the World began that now is made manifest and by the Scriptures of the Prophets according to the Commandment of the Everlasting God made known to all Nations for the Obedience of Faith That is as much as to say God by his Spirit hath opened those Prophecies to these first Preachers commanding them to Reveal the same to the World for Confirmation of what Christ said and did suffer'd and rose again they being such as abode with him as Eye and Ear-Witnesses of the same For which cause says he again Ephes 3.1 2 3 4 5 6. I Paul the Prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles if you have heard of the Dispensation of the Grace of God which is given me to you-ward how that by Revelation he made known unto me the Mystery which in other Ages was not made known to the Sons of Men as it is now revealed to his holy Apostles and Prophets by the Spirit The Knowledge of Christ dying and risen again as now revealed by the Gospel that is as dying for our Sins and rising again for our Justification with the Application thereof by Faith we see plainly was a Mystery and not made known to the Sons of Men till the times of the Apostles It appears therefore that the Redemption of Christ and Benefits of his Death and Resurrection must be of larger extent than the Knowledge of him for else no Man in the World till Faith came till Christ and the Gospel came could as is said before have been saved As for the Distinction here which you used of an Implicit and Explicit Faith or Knowledge of Christ I count it but a yielding the Cause For when we say The Benefit of Christ's Redemption and the Knowledge of Him or Faith in Him are not Commensurate we mean it of such a Kowledge of him or Faith as is now preached by the Gospel that is that Explicit Knowledge as was revealed by the Spirit to the Apostles and by them made known and so required of us as necessary to our Salvation And if this be granted that such an Explicit Knowledge of Christ and Faith in him is not of the same Extent Necessitate medii with our Benefit by him the Point is obtained If you will not grant it the matter is enforced or proved by this Text. A bare Implicit Knowledge of the Messiah to come without an Explicit Knowledge of his Death and Resurrection as now revealed is a thing that could be of no more avail to the Salvation of the Jews than the Faith of a Gentile only in God's Mercy upon his Repentance which we see the Ninevites had without the Knowledge of Christ at all and if either the one or the other had Repentance unto Life wrought upon their Hearts by the Spirit of God which is f●ee to operate where he will for the Wind bloweth where it listeth Christ himself says they were accepted only through the Satisfaction and Merits of our Redeemer whereof indeed they were both a-like Ignorant this being the Mystery of the Gospel yet hid from the Sons of Men. I must confess when I ask'd you Whether you did or could really believe that every Jew and Heathen that ever was saved allowing the Salvability of such had a Faith in Christ's dying and rising And you said You did verily believe so I wonder'd at it and told you I lik'd you the better as being a Man of a stronger Faith than I who can believe no such thing if I would never so fain On the contrary I do believe that there never was any Man in the World that had the Knowledge of Christ Dying for his Sins and Rising again for his Justification so as to make Application of it to his own Soul by Faith as is required now of us under the Gospel until the Prophecies which the Jews had were accomplished by Him that is till after his Death and Resurrection We are sure the Apostles knew nothing of his Death and Resurrection and consequently of his Satisfaction and Merit thereby though Christ did more than once tell them of it for indeed they were not yet under that Dispensation as they should believe it And when the Disciples undestood nothing thereof for all the Scriptures how can you believe that others did or could understand their Meaning before these Scriptures were fulfilled You ask in your Book Who taught Abraham Job our first Parents but God and Christ by the Holy Spirit in their Hearts I say the like as to any good man that ever was among the Heathen That it was God by his Spirit that wrought that Good in him as in us But I say also that God did teach them every one of them the one as well as the other so much in their day as was necessary to their Salvation by such way and means as he thought best But such a Faith and Knowledge of Christ as is necessary to the Salvation of a Christian that is one to whom the Gospel is preached and received I do by no means believe to be necessary to the Salvation of every Man on the Earth that is or ever was saved no nor to any one of those that lived before Christ came We read in John when Christ was going from his Disciples and from the World to his Father he has these remarkable words Ye believe in God believe also in me John 14.1 Under that Dispensation the Jews and the Disciples were before the Christian Dispensation was opened they were to have Faith in God and to put their whole trust in him and it was that Faith by which the Just Man was to Live Hab. 2.4 But the Dispensation was coming on and is now come when we must believe also in Christ It was Life Eternal for the Jews to know God the God of Abraham to be the only true God and to live in the Acknowledgment and Service of him But now we are to know Jesus Christ also and believe in Him whom he hath sent John 17.3 6.29 In both places note the word Sent which was not of necessity to Salvation therefore before he was sent When Christ had finished the Work of our Redemption by his Death on the Cross and Risen again he enter'd into that Kingdom which John and He Preached was at hand All Power is given me saith he in Heaven and Earth Go and Disciple all Nations The Jews were under a Theocracy and so God's People It pleased him now to have that