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	holy_a	teach_v	4,620	5	6.0021	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A33370	A paradisical dialogue betwixt faith and reason disputing the high mysterious secrets of eternity, the like never extant in our revelation. As touching God in eternity, how he became time in flesh, and how he dyed in the grave, and ascended to his glory again. Also what the angels are in form and nature, and how the angel became a devil, and that devil man; and that this world was prepared for the devil, so this the devils kingdom; and what the soul is, with the place of its glory and torment. With a brief narration what a commission is, and how many commissions there are; what the difference of their worships, and how that the law was given to the devil; with a brief discourse on the catechism, the Lords Prayer, and the creeds; as also, a divine prospect to the elect of the Lord. Written by Law. Claxton, the onely true bishop and faithful messenger of Christ Jesus, creator of heaven and earth.	Claxton, Laurence, 1615-1667.	1660 (1660)	Wing C4581; ESTC R215220	88,691	122

are born of women there hath not risen a greater then John the Baptist and yet thou and thy ●eachers will not believe unless present vengeance fall upon thee But know this though the Pharisees desired a sign from Christ and Mat. 12. 38. none would be given them but the sign of the Prophet Jonas yet know this he was Christ the Eternal God for all that and though Christ rebuked James and John in the saying Luke 9. ●4 Lord wilt thou that we command fire from Heaven and consume them even as Elias did yet they were not for the future freed from the Eternal fire in their souls So let me tell thee and yet not I but the Revelation of the Holy Spirit within me though not presently yet it shall flame within thee as fire from Heaven and that without end till it consume all thy hopes of salvation and thou shalt know and finde that this sentence of thine shall shut the Heavens and it shall rain no more showers of mercy or comfort in thy soul so that I say though thou finde it not presently thou shalt as surely feel it after death as Christ is God the Eternal Father And what if miracles did belong to our Commission as they do not in that ours is the Commission of the Spirit so our sentence spiritual thou wouldst no more believe then thou dost now but rather call us Conjure●s unless the tenor of our Commission was as the two former to execute present vengeance and if it were executed once or twice and not upon every occasion thou wouldst be as much seared up in unbelief as thou art now Reason If thy Commission were as real truth as Moses and the Apostles and such a power did attend thine as was in theirs then I should as truly believe in yours as now I do in them Faith Ah blinde Soul thou dost not know what is truth and what not for if thou didst thou wouldst as really believe in me as in them But from my Seedspring I tell thee That thou nor none of thy Seed do really believe that the Scripture is a true Record of the Transactions of Christ thou mayest talk of it and preach from it but if thou wert really perswaded in thy own soul of the truth therein contained then thou wouldst believe in us for the Apostles writ of us as Moses and the Prophets writ of Christ to come and therefore if thou didst believe in them that have nothing but a dead letter to prove them Commissioners surely then thou wouldst believe in us that are living and know this if the Roman Authority had not established Moses and the Apostles Writings for Scripture then it had been believed no more then ours for thy Fathers in the days of their lives notwithstanding their miracles did no more believe in them then thou dost in us and know this the same power that attended them upon externals doth belong to our Commission in spirituals and therefore as the Apostle had power in his Commission to curse either Angel or man that did preach any other Doctrine so we have the same power in ours Reason What then doth not their Commission belong to us in these days successively as it did to them what then is the meaning of those Scriptures where it is writ The Scriptures aforetime are written for our learning and again it is writ Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded Mat. 28. 20. you and loe I am with you always unto the end of the world Faith From the Lord of Glory I tell thee That neither of those Commissions do belong to thee or any of thy Seed either by succession or otherwise for from my Seed of Faith I declare That the Scripture was never written for the learning of any of thy Seed though none living now present do make it a more Idol for their own gain then thy Seed doth Though I have sufficiently proved this point in the Quakers Downfal yet from my well-spring within me I tell thee That as the Scripture was written by the revelation or inspiration of Faith so I know it was writ for the use of none but the Believers of that Faith which neither thou nor none of thy Seed are partakers of For as Paul the great Commissioner was the Penman of those sayings so that Scripture that he spake of was the writings of the first Commission viz. Moses and the Prophets which were written before his time and so for the learning of him and all that believed in his Doctrine for our learning that are of the Seed of Faith and for none of the Seed of Reason whatsoever but for our learning The word Plural includes all the Seed of Faith with him were the Scriptures written so the Commissions of Moses and the Apostles were not written for the use of any of the seven Churches but our Commission alone for as none understood the Commission of Moses and the Prophets but the Apostles so none now living understand either of the two former Commissions but this our spiritual Commission now in being and therefore from my Seedspring I tell thee We onely are the Judges of the Scripture whatsoever Reason thy cursed Seed pretend to the contrary as now thou shalt hear an infallible Exposition of the other Scripture which thou hast quoted which all besides our Commission gives a false definition thereof Go ye therefore and teach all M●t 23. ●0 Nations baptizing them in the name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you and loe I am with you always even unto the end of the world Now from hence all the seven Churches of thy Seed viz. Papist Episcopal Presbyterian Independent Baptist Ranter and Quaker do suppose that the extent of these words are in force to the end of this world and therefore the Baptists have assumed the Apostles Commission as their own when as if ye were not stone blinde you may read as ye run that this Commission was given to the twelve then living and not to Kiffin and Patience or any other Teacher of the Baptists whatsoever for ye were not born many hundred years after when this command was expressed And loe I am with you always even unto the end of the world with you my beloved Disciples and none other Reason I cannot conceive from this Scripture but there was to be a continuance of the Apostles Commission to the end of this World and though there was none of the Commissioners left to give or invest the same power by imposition of hands yet we having the same Spirit of God in us although not in the same measure yet may we not lawfully follow them as our patern and as the Apostle exhorts Brethren be followers Phil. 3. 17. together of me and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an ensample othervvise vvhat should all the World have done to have knovvn God or

Divine Heavenly Substance in the proportion and linaments of a man whose person was more bright and glorious then the Sun softer then Doun and swifter then thought So that I say this was the substance the Fathers person then consisted of and against men and Angels I affirm that there was no person before the world but the Father onely neither could he beget a Son until he dissolved his Divine substance into seed in the womb of Mary by which dissolution the Father begot or conceived himself into a Son of flesh blood and bone For this by faith I know that the person of the Father was capable of transmutation into the form of flesh though now he is not having taken upon him the form of flesh in fulfilling that promise saying The seed of the woman shall bruise the head of the Serpent Gen. 3. 15 which was no other but the Eternal Father was to be born of a woman with flesh blood and bones so that it was not the Father begot a Son but the Father became a Son as the Prophet Eliah by Revelation clearly unfolds saying unto us A childe is born unto us a Son is given and the Government Isa 9 6. shall be upon his shoulder and his name shall be called Wonderful Counsellour the mighty God the everlasting Father the Prince of peace and then it is written that that Word or Eternal Spirit that formed it self as aforesaid that Word became flesh and dwelt among us and saith Paul The Godhead dwelt in Christ bodily so that it is clear as in the Ioh. 1. 14. second Chapter is infallibly proved that the Father begot no Son before the Worlds but the Father in time became a Son himself and that not in two persons but one person alone But then what wilt thou do with these Scriptures where it is written Reason Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee also it is said We beheld his glory the glory as of the Psal 2. 7. onely begotten of the Father and again it it said Ioh 1. 14. Unto which of the Angels said he at any time Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee and again Heb. 1. 5. No man hath seen God at any time the onely begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father He hath declared him also it is written I will be to him a Father Joh. 1 17. and he shall be ti me a Son Now if Christ was not begotten of his Father why or wherefore should the Apostles Revelation declare that Christ had a Father and was begotten by him Faith As I have often told thee so I say again What hast thou to do with Scripture our Commission being the onely Interpreter thereof thou not believing the report therein was damned Yet for the further satisfaction of the hearers that shall believe this I shall declare that the Apostles in their Commission was not to know Christ any further or otherwise then onely a Son begotten by his Father and that for them in their time was sufficient as the Son himself expresseth John 15. 16. All things that the Father hath made known to me I have made known unto you also Paul declares He that confesseth with his tongue and believeth with his heart that Christ is the Son of God shall be saved Though now in our Commission it is not sufficient in that our Revelation leads us infallibly to believe Christ was and is the Everlasting Father Creator of Heaven and earth as by Scripture is confirmed All things were made by him and without him was not any thing made that was made So that Christ as he was the Father was the Creator of all things whether in Heaven or earth as is manifest in that intricate Revelation of Paul which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead c. Who can Eph. 1. 20. tell but our Commission who raised Christ from the dead was there any other God or Father but what was within him that raised him from the dead as he saith I have power John 10. 18. to lay down my life and I have power to take it again as in the third Chapter is shewed at large And who should set him at the right hand of the Father but the Godhead power within him that enthroned him far above all principality and power and might and dominion and every name that is named not onely in this world but that which is to come insomuch that Christ by his death hath conquered himself to be head over all things And what is that which so highly promoted him above all even his Spiritual body the fulness in which was that which filled all in all So that I say That Father which Christ so often called upon vvhen he vvas on earth I say if it had not been his creature Elias commissionated in Glory then Christ could have made nothing nor by his own power have quickned himself to life again Nay I say if Christ had a real Father that had begotten him then Christ could not have had the preheminence in power name and been the chief head in that the Father is above the Son But hovvever let blinde Reason think vvhat it vvill from an infallible Spirit I say that Elias vvas his Deputy-Father and so at Christs ascension vvas to give up his Authority and Commission to Christ the Eternal Father from vvhence he received it 2. Secondly Thou believest God a reasonable soul perfect God and perfect man c. In ansvver to vvhich from the Revelation of Faith I tell Answ thee is the greatest blasphemy that by man can be imagined as to consider the nature of the tvvo Seeds viz. Faith and Reason First as in relation to their Satisfaction Secondly their povver First What Divine satisfaction could there be in God if there were the least spark of Reason in him I knovving in Reason there is no real satisfaction vvhatever it being a seed though as pure as in the Angels yet it is altogether unsatisfactory in it self as hath been proved in the Reprobate Angel he being left to his pure Reason alone vvas brought to aspiring confusion if possible to unthrone God and all creatures made by him as at large in the fourth Chapter is proved vvhich if the nature of God vvere but pure Reason then might the Reprobate Angel have kept his standing and the rest of the Angels have had full satisfaction in themselves vvithout any supply from God at all vvhich in the fourth Chapter thou hast heard to the contrary And therefore if the Nature of God vvere pure Reason he could have no satisfaction in himself but from another and so in conclusion there must be some above God to satisfie God Therefore from that God vvho is a body of living Faith I say Cursed is that soul vvho believes God to have the least motion of Reason in him nay further in the povver of our Commission I say

Christ these many hundred years since v●ere not the Scripture vvritten for our learning and if the Scripture do not belong to all then also the Lavv is void and belongs to none so then none vvould be condemned as it is vvritten I had not known sin but by the Law and the Lavv makes sin exceeding sinful so that if the Scripture do not belong to us then vve are freed from the Lavv so then for all thy curse I shall be as happy as thou Faith In this last ansvver I shall finish my discourse as touching the truth and variety of these three Commissions in that I have already so infallibly treated of them in the first Chapter of the Quakers Downfal I shall no longer demur vvith thee upon this but shall divide the heads of thy Question into these particulars and so exactly answer them as they lie in order 1. That thou bel●eves the Apostles Commission is to continue to the ●nd of this World 2. That though all the Commissioners vvere dead that had power to invest another yet thou having the same Spirit though as thou saith not the same measure yet thou believest thou mayest pray preach and baptize from the letter as they did 3. Thou sayest if ye had not thus done how should the world have come this hundred years to have known God or Christ Hell Heaven or Devil 4. Thou sayest if the Scripture do not belong to thy Seed then the Law doth not belong to thee and so thou concludes all shall be happy as we 1. First I declare That the Apostles Commission was to continue to the end of the World held forth in that Commission for this I know was the condition of thy Fathers the Jews that did as really believe it blasphemy for Christ or the Apostles to p●t an end to the Ceremonial part of the Law as now thou dost that our Commission should put an end to all Formal Worship under the Gospel But however I say unto thee as Christ said to thy Fathers Think not that I am come to destroy the Law and the Prophets I am not come to destroy but fulfil So I am come not to destroy the revealed transactions of the Gospel but to tell thee and thy Seed that as there was to be three Commissions before the end of this World so I know that every Commission is a World in it self and to it self and when the Commissioners dies that commissionate World ends with them otherwise thou mayest call God a lyar to promise he would be with them to the end of this World and many hundred years ago they are all dead and yet this World remains so that as I know the command was to none but them and to hold no longer then the lives of them so I know that the beginning of one Commission here below is the end of another as thou art not ignorant what overturnings here hath been in your Kingdom to the admiration of the inhabitants so are the Commissions of God the beginning of one was the end of another by which the infiniteness of the Divine Revelation in the Person of God is the more admired to behold the seeming contrarieties of these three Commissions that one puts a period to the other as a greater light clouds the use of the other not but the Moon is a true light in her self but living in the light of the Sun we have no need of the light of the Moon So the Apostles light being more glorious then that of the Law therefore no need of the Ceremonial part of the Law So our light being far more glorious then that of the Apostles therefore no need of the formal Worship of the Gospel 2. Secondly seeing the beginning of one Commission was the end of another how then canst thou plead for a succession of the formal Worship in the Gospel after all the Commissioners of the first or second Magnitude were put to death by thy Fathers Now if onely the Apostles had onely been p●t to death yet if Timothy or Titus who were Bishops or Messengers authorized by them had been preserved in the continuance of that Commission they might by the same power have continued the Bishoprick by their imposition of hands up●n another If so the effects thereof would not have produced such blinde Lordly Bishops with lawn sleeves caps tippits and such like fopperies as ever since hath continued so that if thou wert not stone blinde thou mightst all along discern there was no succession considering the Divine Knowledge and poor mean estates of the true Bishops and the Humane knowledge and lordly ragi● of all the false Bishops ever since as it is not many years ago since the Roman Lordly Authority had the whole power in this Nation as in all other places though now of late from that great Monster Bishop the Whore of Babylon there hath sprung six Sons or Generations one from the loyns of another yet each one refined more then his Father as the Episcopal more then the Papist the Presbyter more then that and the Independent more then that and the Baptist more then that and the Ranter more then that and the Quaker more then you all insomuch that the Father hath disowned the childe as the childe now doth the Father and yet the refinest Son of them is but a Formal Worshipper in the Gospel which when the last Son was begotten o● as it is written The last Angel sounded viz. The Quaker then the mysierie of truth was revealed that is our Commission was given by voyce of words from the mouth of the Lord Jesus as Moses and the Apostles were which spiritual Commission of ours doth abolish all formal Worship in the Gospel as the Apostles did the Circumcision with the blood of Bulls and Goats and all such traditional Ceremonies attending the Law and therefore as I am a Bishop or Messenger authorized in the power of my Revelation confirmed by the Commission of this last Witness so being in the height of Revelation with them I say That your Praying Preaching Breaking of Bread or Baptism is now of no more value then Circumcision or the blood of Bulls and Goats was in the Commission of the Apostles which circumstances was of high prize and great value in the days of Moses though not regarded by the Apostles so all formal worship of the Gospel is highly esteemed by thy seed when by our Commission it is forbidden and not regarded as before I have finished my discourse with thee thou shalt hear so that till then have patience that so I may proceed to the third But thirdly thou sayest What should all thy Seed have done had it not been for the Commission of the Apostles As unto this I shall answer thee As the Disciples went all night a fishing and caught nothing so thou hast all thy life time been enquiring after the true God by the light of another and so hast not the knowledge of the true God nor right Devil but