Selected quad for the lemma: sense_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
sense_n	church_n	scripture_n	way_n	3,397	5	5.4178	4	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56305	The church of Christ in Bristol recovering her vail out of the hands of them that have smitten and wounded her, and taken it away. Being, a just and necessary vindication, from a false and scandalous imputation cast upon her by Dennis Hollister, formerly a member of her, but now an apostate from, and an opposer of those waies, truths, and people, which once he seemed zealous for. As appears by a late pamphlet put forth by him, called, The skirts of the whore discovered. With some particular words, from some particular persons whom he hath by name abused and reproached. Likewise a word by Thomas Ewen, unto what concerns him in the said pamphlet, and also to the later part of another book, called, Satan enthroned in his chair of pestilence.	Purnell, Robert, d. 1666. aut	1657 (1657)	Wing P4232; ESTC R213966	65,602	90

hath been since laid aside for scandall and insufficiency by other Committees and Commissioners appointed for that purpose yet I think England hath cause enough still to mourn for complain of and pray against a great part of the Ministery thereof I do not speak this of all nor intend it to all for I doubt not to affirm against the Quakers that God hath many pretious servants in the Ministery both among those called Presbyterians and them called Independents and the Baptized and some that are of or under none of these names yea both learned and unlearned c. who yet are faithfull to the Lord Jesus and do prefer the conversion and salvation of pretious souls before all the treasures in the world and who do rejoyce to see that work of God carried on by any either learned or unlearned as men now speak and I trust that as the Lord who holds the Stars in his right hand will establish such So the time is near when men shall not wear a rough garment or a propheticall garb to deceive but that the false Prophets and unclean spirits shall pass out of the Land and that God will raise up and give Pastors according to his own heart for faithful is he that hath promised who also will do it And whereas he saith page 68. That you shall know them to wit the ignorant and unlettered Ministers by this Badge or Character they are separating factious and schismaticall c. I remember these were words much in use and cast as brands upon the godly people called Puritans by the Bishops and their Clergie about 20 or 30 years agoe and how it comes to pass that these words are taken up again I know not unless it be that the same spirit that was in the Bishops and their Clergy is again revived and if so then they in whom it is had best take heed that they apply those Nicknames righter than the former did lest c. But I shall give another Badge or Character of those that I mean and that is you shall alwayes know them by their pride envy and covetousness or their scorning reviling and persecuting all those that differ from them and therefore as he commends the caution and counsel of the Apostle Rom. 16. 17. 18. So shall I make bold humbly to recommend the caution and counsel of our Lord Jesus Christ Matth. 7. 15 16. Beware of false Prophets c. for by their fruits you shall know them I do not speak this of any godly man or men for I know no godly men can do so as above Now for his closing word to the Ministers that are lawfully called c. if by lawfully called he mean Pastors or Elders called chosen constituted ordained and appointed to office in Churches and by Churches according to the New Testament and according to the example and practice of the Churches of Christ both in New England and Old then I freely close with him therein for such a Calling and Ordination I own and plead for according to Scripture But if by Ministers lawfully called he mean all the Parish Ministers in England or Bristoll as such then I cannot but wonder how any man pretending to godliness durst so to abuse that pretious Scripture Acts 20. 28. and how he will be able to prove that Parishes are such Churches and that all Parish Ministers are such and by the holy Ghost made Overseers in the sense of that Scripture for my own part I must be silent and so I think might he well have been It is true the 29. verse may in a sense be rightly applied to some men in England that call themselves Ministers who since the Apostles times and the apostasie that followed have like grievous Wolves entred in not sparing the flock c. I write not this of nor intend it to any godly man of any judgement whatsoever But as for the rest of his jerks jeers quibles scoffs derisions reproches and untruths which he hath cast upon me with all the injury and wrong that he hath thereby done to me I shall lay it at my feet looking upon it as the fruits of a froathy brain and the products of a spleenish temper and shall not bestow a pen full of ink or one minutes time to answer it but do rather in my heart wish and desire that he may so repent of this piece of folly and wretchedness whereby he hath hardened the hearts and opened the mouthes of many against me that it may do his soul no more hurt another day than it doth me at present in the mean time I resolve to sit down in silence as to him c. And now I return again to you Denn●● Hollister to close up my answer to your Book and I cannot but take notice as many others do of your shamefull abusing that pretious upright servant of Jesus Christ Robert Simson though I suppose he will clear himself or at least his innocency will answer for him and stop your mouth another day In the mean time I cannot but bear a testimony of his integrity and your impudency in that you do so fiercely and faisly charge him to be a lyar whereas I can testifie that the thing was true which he as messenger of the Church did admonish you of namely that you should say that the Scripture was a blind and plague to Souls which thing you did speak at a publick meeting in your own house as I doubt not but there are more than twenty persons some of the Church and others not of the Church who can also testifie the same Whether your meaning was then as now you write pag. 18 19. I shall not dispute but that you did speak those words is true and no lye invented nor lye prosecuted c. Therefore if there be any lyar in this thing you are the lyar yet I durst nor judge you to the Lake but rather pray hope that God may shew a miracle of mercy in saying you from it and do advise you to take heed how you throw them into the Lake or under condemnation whom Jesus Christ hath by his pretious blood and perfect righteousness graciously freed from it And as for the sin of lying you will do well to east the beam out of your own eye c. For Robert Simpson is a man as well known in Bristoll to be a truth speaker and a just upright conscientious dealer as any of those that do accuse him I shall say no more but let every man prove his own work Gal. 6. 4. But passing by many of those impertinencies in your book I find that after your letter to me there is an answer to 16. Queries formerly sent to you or to the people called Quakers and afterwards printed by that pretious servant of Christ John Pendarves before his death I might commend your wit in putting forth your answer after the man is dead Secondly I observe that these sixteen Queries have been once answered in a fashion

to and fro or at the least word of yours sent to me to desire it and I judge I should not have denied it But I conceive you had not spoke when you did but that you were heared by that fire that is sure from beneath by my contesting against that held out by you which I desire to war against by the Spirit and spirituall weapons so long as I have any being and not otherwise as being fully satisfied Rom. 6. 13. 2 Cor. 10. 4 5 6. that onely such a war of that kind and nature is to be maintained the wrath of man and carnal weapons not being appointed of God and so not under a promise of 2 Thess 2. 8. 2 Tim. 2. 24 25 26. 1 Tim. 1. 18 19. 1 Sam. 17. 45. 47. 50. Rev. 12 7 8 9 11. a blessing from him to bring down and to naught such wickedness And indeed I am clearly and in some measure satisfied by God from that most sure word of prophesie whereunto we do well to take heed that one main cause why the Lambs Warriours and Souldiers gain no more ground than they do against the Lambs and their enemies and opposers both those enemies within and those enemies they combat withall without is because such contests and combats with them the war is so little maintained by the Spirit and spiritual weapons which if it were sure they would she and fall before them And immediatly after you have subscribed the Letter you sent me in the third line of the next page you say concerning your Letter that you sent me you have received no answer of me this is true but did I promise to send you an answer If so you might charge me home which I know you would not spare But I did not neither indeed could you groundedly expect any answer from me of it if in a sober mind but yet that had been done but that the bearer by whom you sent the Letter to me by some thing that he proposed to me which had weight in it did perswade me not to meddle in such vain fruitless janglings as to that effect some of his words was to me by which I was detained from writing to you and indeed his counsell in that was sound and savourie And whereas you mention that Festus a Heathen Roman Governor was so noble that he heard Pauls defence as to the accusation made against him by his own Countreymen and King Agrippa said Thou art permitted to speak for thy self but say you you are falsly accused condemned and refused to make your defence First I say you are not falsly accused condemned and refused to make your defence that is but your own saying it is a meer a rie vapour Secondly were you not desired nay intreated to come and appear and so if you had any thing to say to speak and make your defence Do you not wel know that libertie was never denied unto you but what ground I pray you hath one in your case to expect the making his defence that way you would do by a Proxes as I may say with refusing to come face to face as Paul did before Agrippa and Festus that you know you were intreated and desired to do and therefore in your naming of them in order to that you name them for you speak nothing at all you were permitted to do it as they were and might have done as Paul did and I hope that groundedly an evener Rule and another kind of dealing had you found than what Paul was tried by or he found from them though I know you are more than apt to conclude otherwise of all that is not of your stature but I fear sense of guilt lay so open upon you as that if you speak truth that was it that kept you away from making your defence in that way that was clear by that Rule we are to go by in the managing of the things of Gods House and so not any would have denied or excepted against you in a warrantable way which you had free liberty to do and then before your self it not falling down under the sins charged upon you all in every particular had been proved so as that you could not justly have excepted against the Charge in no part of it and I believe that would have been done by some of those if not all for whose sakes as you say you made that you sent and was not read visibly So simple honest hearted they were and so remain as that they to save you out of the snare of the Divel would have in soberness of Spirit in conscience of their duty to God and in love to your soul witnessed before you that which was charged upon you But I forget my self now a true Answer you have of all that Letter which in particular you sent to me with a small Isal 43. 2. 1 Pet. 4. 19. 1 Pet. 2. 15. 3. 1. 16. Psal 37 5 touch upon some thing that in order to the not sending you an answer you speak to me afterward I confess I have more words in my answer than I would or intended But I could not tell how plainly to answer it so as to satisfie the Reader in a briefer way It is probable a flood you will cast after me but I pass not such floods shall not drown me nor such fire burn me I resolve in the strength of Christ in the way of wel doing to commit my self to him who in this I know will bring forth my righteousness as the light and my judgement as the noon-day and so to labour by well doing to put you to silence in this as not knowing any way otherwise better to do it And for your self I have if my heart deceive me not no coar at all against you but could be glad I might be of any use unto you and could rejoyce to see God recovering of you out of the snare of the Divel by giving of you repentance to the acknowledging of the truth the which I am sure you are departed from which is the groans of your Friend who is a lover of your Soul though a Witness against your falshood and deceit Robert Simpson A WORD to DENNIS HOLLISTER BY THOMAS EWEN Dennis Hollister I Have of late met with a Book put forth by you in which there is a Letter formerly written by you to me which Letter I acknowledge I received above a year since and having read it I laid it by intending never to have Answered you lest as Solomon saith Prov. 26. 4. I also should be like unto you but now you having published it with your folly to the world I take my self bound to Answer you lest as Prov. 26. 5. you should be wise in your own conceit c. In the second Branch of your Title page you say That I have before several witnesses often denied my self to be a Minister of the Gospel in which you deal like your self though not like a friend nor like

the Saints more together in judgement and affection into one heart and one way as the Scripture speaks 8. To make them more exact and spiritual in the use and practise of all Gospel Ordinances as Acts 2. 41. to 47. 9. To beautifie and adorn Christians with every spiritual gift and grace as Gall. 5. 22. Ezek 16. 10 11 12 13. 10. To fill them with a mighty Spirit of Faith and Prayer as the Saints in the primitive times after the pouring forth of the Spirit had In a word it is a Christians All for by it he can do all things as Phil. 1. 19. 4. 13. and without it he can do nothing well as John 15. 5. Without me ye can do nothing And thus I have declared my judgment fully about this blessed truth and what I mean by the pouring forth of the glorious Spirit which I so often mention in prayer and preaching as the great legacy privilege and portion of the Saints or believers in the New Testament c. Now then let me ask you this Question Whether it had not been better for you and those that are gone away with you that you had set your selves solemnly to seek the Lord by Supplication and Prayer and so have continued in the wayes and under the Ordinances of Christ waiting for that blessed spirit as many of the Servants of God have done and still do c. rather than to have taken up a Notion of a Light in every man and call that the eternal Spirit as some of your way do and then jeer and scoff at them that pray for the Spirit and reproach them which complain out of their sense of the want of it as poor Mris. Prince did when she came to revile me at my Lecture c. But blessed be the Lord there are many Churches in England and Wales that are now wrestling with the Lord day after day joyntly and day and night singly in the deep sense of their wants for the accomplishment of that glorious new-Testament promise and such an Answer is already given to some both Independant and Baptized as you call them that they have no cause to repent of the time they have set apart for that work and I verily believe That if the people whom you and others so much despise go on and continue praying as now they do for the pouring forth of the blessed Spirit there will shortly be such a breaking forth of the day of Christ that all the antichristian foggs of false doctrins and false worships will flie and fall as the darkness before the rising Sun And Oh that some men in England and Bristol that are now wrangling and quarrelling about their humane learning and scoffing and envying those that have it not would seriously consider this thing before their lamp go out in obscurity and their feet stumble upon the dark mountains before their arm be dried up and their eye utterly darkned c. Now before I part with this I will also clear my self about another expression that I have sometimes used and at which many have been offended and that is about an old and a new Testament Spirit though of late to avoid offence have forbore it now by those expressions I did not mean nor intend the Spirit of God so as to call that an old Testament Spirit for I know that Spirit was one and the same from everlasting but by an old or new-Testament Spirit 1. I mean the frame and temper of a mans own Spirit and so by an old-Testament Spirit I alwayes mean that dark weak childish and low frame and temper of Spirit which professors generally had in the time of the old Testament while under the Mosaical administration with that bondage and fear that weakness and sadness that did accompany it c. 2. By a new-Testament Spirit I alwayes mean that lively chearful active joyful bold son-like frame and temper of Spirit which the Saints generally in the primitive times under the new Testament did enjoy which is called a Spirit of Adoption as the other is called a Spirit of Bondage a full description of what I mean is set forth in two Scriptures as namely Gal. 4. from the 1. to the 7. and Heb. 12. from 18 to 24. In which two Scriptures is set forth First The weakness darkness childishness fear bondage c. of the old-Testament state which is that that I call the frame temper or spirit of the old-Testament And Secondly There is set forth the light life strength boldness comfort courage joy rejoycing of the new-Testament state which is that that I call the frame temper or Spirit of the new Testament c. And whether Christians be not generally more under the old-Testament frame than under the new I leave to their experiences and thus I have fully declared my self as to these two particulars and if any sober Christian into whose hands this may come shall apprehend that I am mistaken in either of them I shall be glad to receive a word from them in love but I do not expect it from you to whom I now write c. You farther tell me in your Letter that you were warned from invisible lights some months past to beware of me which you could not believe till now it breaks out like fire c. I conceive those invisible lights were some secret whisperers that did bring you many stories both of me and others c. but truly I could discern by visible light long before you left us that my speaking was but little acceptable to you and some others especially after I did begin to oppose your spleen and passion though whilst I sate still and silently approved of what you spake then I was the excellentest man that ever you met with you would often both to my face and behind my back applaud and extol me but when once I began a little to cross you as many others of the Brethren did and as some godly men had formerly done as they saw cause enough then you and your partie began to fume and fret and as it was often observed to go out of the Meetings when I had been to speak though I did oppose you with all the tenderness that possibly I could as knowing what a partie you had in the Church and what influence you had upon them but now you say the fruits doth appear and break out like fire c. Q. And what is it But that I should say That such an idle Huswife as is before mentioned should be sent to Bridwel rather than to go rayling about as she did Now I appeal to all Christians upon the face of the earth what hurt this was to this poor rayling cursing fierce creature c. Q. And was this the ground upon which some of your company spread it about the Country and place of my nativity what a persecutor I was become so that the good people there that had known me to be of another temper did wonder