that the Guides of this Sect notwithstanding their faire pretensions of an immediate call and extraordinary Mission and the great Opinion their followers have conceived of them are not the servants of the Lord Jesus but in very deed the Emissaries and Ministers of Satan and that their way is not the good old way the way of God but as contrary to it as darknesse to the light I shall take some paines to acquaint my Reader 1. With the cursed Blasphemies which George Fox the Grand Master of this Faction and some others have uttered 2. With some of those Doctrines of Devils damnable Heresies and dangerous Errors which their speakers have disseminated and wherewith they have infected their unhappy Disciples 3. With the bitter and rotten fruits of their Doctrine such of their strange impious seditious suspicious insolent and Barbarous practices as have come to my knowledge some of which doe in the judgement of the most sober and intelligent Christians strongly savor of sorcery and the immediate co-operation of the Devill Of the horrid Blasphemies of the Quakers against God and his Christ. George Fox the Father of the Quakers of these parts hath avowed himselfe over and over to be equall with God being asked by Doctor Marshall in the presence of Master Sawro Colonell Tell and Colonell West Justices of the Peace in the County of Lancashire at a private Sessions in the Towne of Lancaster whether or no he was equall with God as he had before that time beene heard to affirme his answer was this I am equall with God This Blasphemy hath been attested upon Oath by the foresayd Doctor Marshall and Master Altam Schoolmaster of Lancaster before the Justices at the last Sessions held at Appleby Ianuary the 8. 1652. and before Judge Puleston at the last Assizes held at Lancaster March the 18. 1652. This Fox in a Booke intituled Sauls Errand to Damascus endeavours to purge himselfe of this and other such cursed speeches layd to his charge but he doth it so woodenly and ambiguously that if there wanted sufficient witnesses his owne bungling answers would to a rationall man declare him guilty And well may he affirme himselfe to be equall with God when he in the foresayd Booke Page eight Line nine and ten layes downe this blasphemous Proposition indefinitely Hee that hath the same Spirit that raised up Iesus Christ from the dead is equall with God The said Fox hath also avowed himselfe to be the Christ yea to be the way the Truth the life George Bickett Isaac Bourne witnesseth At the last Assises above-mentioned at Lancaster Mr. Sawro a Justice of the Peace in that County and an honest Gentleman told Judge Puleston in the open Court that he could produce many would witnesse that Fox had affirmed himselfe to be the Christ. The same also he said in the hearing of an honest Minister in Westmerland who will be ready to attest it when called to it This Fox hath also professed himselfe to be the Judge of the World George Bickett Adam Sands Nathaniel Atkinson witnesseth Yea the Eternall Judge of the World George Bickett witnesseth Iames Nailer another of Satans Nuntioes and principall spokesman in these parts affirmeth that he was as holy just and good as God himself This was I heare attested at Kendall by two witnesses There is a man of good Repute an Inhabitant of Underbarrow in the Barony of Kendall who sayeth many heard this Blasphemy besides himselfe but he thinks being all followers of this Nailer and Fox they will be unwilling to testifie it Iames Milner one of Foxes Disciples in the County of Lancashire professed himselfe to be God and Christ. Thomas Shaw Gerard Shaw George Inman witnesses This mans Advocate I mean that Pamphleteer that took the pains to put forth and procure the printing of that Book called Sauls Errant to Damascus or he that undertook to answer in his behalfe to Salve this his execrable Blasphemy and some wretched Prophesies which are already turned into lyes hath minted this miserable Excuse As for Iames Milner saith he though his mind did run out from his condition and from minding that Light of God which is in him whereby the world takes occasion to speak against the Truth and many Friends stumble at it yet there is a pure Seed in him It seems if a man be of their way though a Blasphemer and false Prophet by their own confession yet with them he is excusable One Williamsons Wife a Disciple of Milners when she came to see him at Appleby said in the hearing of divers there whose names might be here inserted if it was needfull that she was the Eternall Son of God And when the men that heard her told her that she was a woman and therefore could not be the Son of God She said no you are women but I am a man These last words I insert that the Reader may see how strongly the Spirits of some of these people are transported and how ready they are to affirm any thing how ever impious or absurd Of the Erroneous Opinions of the QUAKERS HItherto of their Blasphemies Now for the Doctrines which the Leaders of this Sect have avouched and taught and the Principles they have instilled into their credulous Adhaerents They are some of them Errours of the first Magnitude Fundamentall Errours Others of them though of a lesser size in their own nature yet the understanding Reader will censure them to be such as tend to the disturbance of the Civill Peace as well as that of the Church Others of them again are such light stuff as shewes them to be meer triflers in Religion I shall heare mention such of their Errours onely as I can bring sufficient proofe for either from those that have been Ear-witnesses and are well acquainted with their way or from their own printed Books which are owned and admired by their Disciples 1. They hold that the holy Scripture the Writings of the Prophets Evangelists and Apostles are not the word of God and that there is no written word of God But they say using a foolish distinction of their own coining that they are a declaration of the word onely in those that gave the faith 2. They hold their own speakings are a declaration of the word Christ in them thereby making them though they be for the most part full of impiety and non-sense to be of equall Authority with the holy Scriptures 3. They hold that no Exposition ought to be given of the holy Scripture and that all expounding of Scripture is an adding to it and that God will add to such a one all the plagues written in that Book Opening and applying the Scripture is one thing they mainly declaim against where ever they come 4. They teach poor people that whosoever takes a text of Scripture and makes a Sermon of or from it is a Conjurer and that his preaching is Conjuration Fox in his printed answer to this Sauls Errant Page 7. saith thus
some that pride idlenesse and fulnesse of bread the sins of Sodom are the fruits of their preaching They acuse them of being brought up at Oxford and Cambridge they say they know nothing but naturall Books and naturall things the Scripture Letter Hebrew and Greek which is all naturall That the ungodly unholy proud Priests add Professors must be scorned who know not the Power of the word Reader I coine or add no expression of mine own I repeate onely their own words which such Books and Papers of theirs as I can produce are full of They apply all that is spoken to Idolatrous ignorant idle prophane persecuting Priests and false Prophets either in the old or new Testament to the Ministers of England but we know that though one syllable or tittle of such abused Texts of Scripture doth not pertain to any godly faithfull Minister of the Gospell yet that very many of them do as properly belong to themselves as the Skin that is upon their flesh They exhort people not to heare them to cease from them and not to hold them up and tell them they will never be profited by them And indeed as soon as any man turnes their Proselite he becomes as pure a Recusant as any Papist in England And not content to raile against them in Prose they compose Songs or Ballads rather which their Disciples magnifie and look upon as Spirituall Songs that they may revile them in Meeter also One of their Speakers said not long since that the Priests had deluded the people this sixteen hundred yeares borrowing this peice of Divinity or Devility rather from the Almanack-maker Their Writings are full of Threatnings Prophesies against Ministers for which also they are beholding to the Astrologers They say the Lord is coming to beat up their Quarters the Son of Thunder is coming abroad to sound Trumpets to call to Battell against the great day of the Lord and there Kingdome must be taken from them and that their downfall is neer at hand Some of them have said they hope within a yeares time to see never a Minister left in England They exhort one another in the words of Coliier out of whose Pit they have drawn much of their black Religion to overturn overturn overturn Thus one Instrument of the Divell helps another Reader I do very believe that if these wicked men had power in their hands there would be no Toleration of any true Minister of Jesus Christ in England and that one of the first things they would endeavour would be if not to raise a tempest of Persecution by raining blood yet at least to raise and extripate the Sacred Callings I say Sacred calling of the Ministry being the Institution of Jesus Christ in his Church One principall reason why they do thus shew their teeth against Ministers I imagine to be this they look upon some of them as those that do mainly stand in their way as those that are able to detect their Errours to manifest their folly and unsheath the Sword of the Spirit the word of Truth against them They cannot for them so freely proceed in the propagation of their Delusions as they would Hence they are their greatest eye-sores Also if I may without offence speak what I think and partly know they presume to take this liberty to themselves because they are apt to conceive that Ministers are now almost friendlesse that Authority will not appeare for them and that they are the Object of the wrath of divers Soldiers in the Army whom they foolishly suppose to incline to their as to them unknown Sect. But I hope yea I am confident that when the Hypocrisie of these men shall be unmasked and their madnesse and iniquity which hath already begun in some places to lift up her head shall be better known and appeare they shall then proceed no further And that those Worthies that by divine Providence do or shall sit at the Stern to guide the Ship of the Common-wealth and the godly Officers of the Army will not onely disowne and detest but also manifest themselves to be Enemies to all their Impieties and Enormous Practises of this turbulent Faction But in the mean time while they are so injurious to the Soveraigne Majesty of our Lord Jesus Christ the Prince of the Kings of the Earth by their Hellish Blasphemies and eager opposition of the Truth well may they contemne and rage against such Earthen Vessels as are his Ministers here on Earth Of their Censoriousnesse Lying instability in their own Errours and enmity to Learning NEver did Hereticks speak greater swelling words of vanity and more exalt themselves and throw down others then those who are of that Synagogue do They commend themselves up to Heaven they give themselves the title of Saints they boast themselves to be equal to the Apostles to speak from the immediate Revelation of the Spirit impudently impiously affirming more of themselves then the true Apostles of Jesus ever did or durst do touching their freedome from sin and perfection in holinesse c. and threaten that they shall be the Judges of the World but they will readily censure all others to Hell tell them they are damned that they worship the Beast that they are possessed with the Divell yea with many Divels that the Divell speakes in them and that they see him in their eyes and faces c. This language of Divels indeed is as ordinary with them to dissenters from their way that oppose them as to talk with them Many of them will be as ready to say and unsay any thing as if lying was a Vertue They make no conscience of raising false Reports against those especially that do any way oppose them Witnesse that lying Pamphlet Sauls Errant to Damascus wherein there are a hundred untruths as may be proved by a hundred Witnesses It is the Testimony of a faithfull Minister of Christ concerning them Not in halfe an houres discourse saith he with most of those I have discoursed with but you shall finde plain and down-right lyes Some of them saith he have commed to my house and said they had a Message from God to me upon my speedy demanding it they have point blank almost in the same breathing time denyed it When some that have been in some measure able from the word of Truth to manifest their Errours have discoursed with those Wells without water though themselves have stood like men inwardly convicted and ashamed utterly unable to gain-say or darken those cleare Evidences of Scripture brought against them and sometimes totally silenced and as mute as Fishes Yet when these Champions of Errours have gone away they have boasted of their Conquests and how gloriously they had foiled and stopt the mouths of their Adversaries Thus wholly by Lyes Lying Doctrines lying Revelations lying Wonders lying Reports they do endeavour to build up the Kingdome of the Father of Lyes among us Their inconstancy to their own Errours is also very remarkable They
not heard heard of their open revilings which they principally fasten on them in whom most of God and sound Religion appears A man that professeth godlinesse especially a Minister that endeavors to be faithfull to Jesus Christ in the discharge of the duties incumbent on him cannot passe by them without their scorns Against such they grin and point at them with their fingers These and such like practises of this licentious people have filled the hearts of Gods People in these parts with exceeding fears to be driven after all their hopes to serve God in Corners and that they may die tho in the faith of the promise of Jerusalems peace yet without receiving it whilest the enemies of God roare in the midst of the Congregations So fast did their insolencies grow and their Numbers increase for a while that had they not been a little curbed by the imprisonment of Nayler and sending forth a warrant for the Apprehension of Fox for his blasphemies it is verily believed by many sober understanding men among us there would have been in a short time no peace or almost safety for any real Christian in Westmerland and some adjacent parts This was as some of the Justices expressed themselves at the Sessions Ianuary last one main reason of Naylers confinement namely that they were necessitated to it for the preservation of the publique peace and prevention of civil dissentions and such evils as might have ensued upon further connivance at these turbulene Impostors I shall conclude with the Judgements of two known learned and judicious men one of which is yet living and able to plead for the Truth and himself Master OWEN in his Discourse of Toleration hath this Passage Page 32. THere are saith he a sort of persons termed in Scripture disorderly vagabond wandring irregular persons 1. Thes. 5. 14. Acts 17. 5. 2 Thess. 3. 2. 1. Tim. 1. 9. Fixed to no Calling abiding in no place taking no care of their Families that under a pretence of teaching the Truth without Mission without Call without Warrant uncommanded undesired do goe up and down from place to place creeping into houses c. Now that such wayes as these and Persons in these wayes may judicially be inquired into I no way doubt The Storie is famous of Sesostris King of Egypt who made a Law that all the Subjects of his Kingdome should once a yeare give an account of their way and manner of living and if any was found to spend his time idly he was certainly punished And the Lawes of most Nations have provided that their people shall not be wanderers and whosoever hath not a place of abode and imployment is by them a punishable vagabond And in this by experience of the wayes walking and converse of such persons I am exceedingly confirmed I did as yet never observe any other issue upon such undertakers but scandal to Religion and trouble to men in their Civil relations when men by the practise of any vice or sin draw others to a pretended Religion or by pretence of Religion draw men to any vice or sinne let them be twice punished for their reall vices and pretended Religion Thus far Master Owen Master COTTON of New England touching the controversie of Libertie of Conscience in matters of Religion Page 7. layeth down this Position for Truth IF a man hold forth saith he or professe any Errour or false way with a boysterous and arrogant Spirit to the disturbance of civil Peace he may justly he punished according to the qualitie and measure of his disturbance caused by him and page 8. He saith the Scripture forbids not to drive ravenous Wolves from the sheep-fold and to restrain them from devouring the sheep of Christ and Page 9. He saith we acknowledge that none is to be punished for his Conscience though misinformed unlesse his Errour be fundamental and seditiously and turbulently promoted and further we acknowledge none ought to be constrained to believe or professe the true Religion till he be convinced in judgement of the Truth of it but yet restrained he may be from blaspheming the truth and from seducing any into pernicious Errors The End A BRIEF REPLY To some part Of a very scurrilous and lying Pamphlet CALLED Sauls errand TO DAMASCUS SHEWING The vanitie of the praises there attributed to the Sect of the Quakers and Falsitie of their Relations which are nought else but the breathings of a spirit of Malice Psal. 35. 20. They speak not Peace but devise deceitfull matters against them that are quiet in the Land LONDON Printed by T. R. for H. R. at the signe of the three Pigeons in Pauls Church-yard 1653. To the Reader THere is an unlicensed Pamphlet called Sauls errand to Damascus lately procured to be Printed wherein diverse Ministers of Westmerland and Lancashire are falsly aspersed and maliciously belied and traduced Had it not been for the clearing of their Innocency and the discovery of the falsities contained in that Book too apt in this credulous age to be believed as whatsoever is spoken against a Minister there had not been one word written in answer to it And for the rest of that Book that concerns us not I should be loath to betray my indiscretion so far as to attempt a full answer to such a heap of words or to trouble any judicious Reader with such fruitless contests Good Readers you have that Book by you or can think it worth your buying or perusal let me intreat you to read it with some observation of the Contents And if you be men whose inner man hath been indeed illuminated by the good spirit of the Lord and the knowledge of the Truth or whose reason hath been at all refined or polisht by learning or good education you will easily perceive by what they have to say for themselves that they are men whose knowledge is science falsly so called that these men are blind Leaders that while they pretend to be full of the Spirit full of Light and Revelations they are led a captive prey to the spirit of lies that spirit that workes in the children of disobedience that they walk in thick darkness that they go they know not whither and speak they know not what Something they would say to clear themselves of those blasphemies and cursed speeches they have been overheard to utter and have bin deposed upon oath against them both in Westmerland and Lancashire if they could tell how Flatly deny them they cannot they do not you wil even wonder to see how they bungle out an answer You wil admire at their impertinencies inconsistencies irrational insensate misty expressions as ambiguous sometimes as the devils oracles and stand amazed to see their impudence and how magistically they can revile censure to the pit of hel how boldly they dare avouch an error and offer a rape upon the holy Text wrest and misapply it and father their heretical absurd tenets assertions on it that in Print even
of all the Ministers in England without exception and did pretend that himself together with his fellow speakers were the onely true Ministers and Messengers of Christ that we desired to know his Faith and to hear from him if we might the summe of that Doctrine of the Gospel which he came to preach I told him further that our selves and the Countrey in general did look upon him and his fellow speakers as seducers such as preached another Gospel and another Jesus then we had preached and that therefore for the clearing of himself and the satisfaction of the Countery and our selves there present it was but meet that he should give us them desiring it some account of his saith And to do that I told him I hoped he would not be unwilling seeing the Apostle Peter exhorts all Christians to be ready to give a reason of the hope that is in them to every one that asketh To this he replied nothing but stood as one that had nought to say I then asked the people there present if they did not generally desire to hear something from him touching his Faith in some of the main principles of Religion To which many of them said it was their desire Whereupon I intreated Nayler to answer plainly to a few questions which I desired to propound to him The first Question I propounded was whether he believed the Holy Scripture to be the very Word of God To this he answered there was no word but Christ which he would have proved out of Iohn 1. 1. In the beginning was the Word c. I told him we did not deny Jesus Christ to be the Word but did believe him to be the Essential Word of his Father I further told him according to that distinction of the Word into Verbum Deus Verbum Dei That the Word was twofold The Word that is God which is Iesus Christ and the Word of God which is the Holy Scripture Then altering the former question a little I asked him whether he did believe the Holy Scripture to be the written Word of God To which after many words to no purpose being pressed to answer positively he said It is not the Word of God there is no written Word The next question I asked him was Whether he that speaks or teaches that which is directly contrary to the Doctrine of the Holy Scripture is to be lookt upon as one speaking from the immediate inspiration of the Spirit though he pretend to do so To this be replied The Word and the Spirit are one What said I do you understand by the Word when you say the Word and the Spirit are one He said by the Word he meant Christ. I told him we did believe Christ and the Holy Spirit to be one God and that if that was the matter of his answer That Christ and the Holy Spirit are one it was impertinent to my question I then put the case touching my self thus If I said I should pretend to preach from the immediate assistance of the Spirit and preach that which is repugnant to the Holy Scripture whether would your self believe that the Spirit of God spake by me or no To this he answered as before I say saith he The Spirit and the Word are one I told him he did not answer like a rational man and pressing him to answer plainly and not so cloudily and darkly as he did indeavour to do that those were Auditors could not understand what he meant divers of his followers that were there present said altogether almost the devil spoke in me the Serpent spoke in me I told them that was a pure Language that became a Quaker better then a Christian. His Disciples there present desired he should propound some question to my self I told them upon that condition he would answer me plainly to some questions I further desired to put to him I would answer him to any Question of his as plainely as I could He then asked me how I could prove my self to be a Minister of Jesus Christ. I told him that-I had been called and ordained to the work of the Ministery by the laying on of the hands of the Presbytery and that the Lord had been pleased mercifully to furnish me with some though very mean abilities for the discharge of that work and that it had been my endeavour to preach the Gospel sincerely and that I desired and as farre as the Lord assisted laboured to walke as became that Doctrine He told me I did not live as became a Minister of Christ. I asked him wherein he could accuse me He said I preached for hire and suffered my self to be called Master contrary to the command of Christ. To the first I replied that for the terms hire or wages they were used in Scripture that our Saviour speaking of those that labour in the Gospel saith The workeman is worthy of his hire And that the Apostle scrupled not to say he received wages Accordingly I told him I tooke hire or received wages for Preaching of the Gospell But did not preach for it did not make that the end of my Ministery And for being called Master I told him that I was not ambitious of that Title That my name was T. H. and that it would please me very well to be called by that name I said further when our Saviour saith Matth. 23. and 10. Be not ye called Masters he doth not simply forbid them to be so called no more then in the foregoing verse he forbids children to call an earthly Parent Father but that he there forbids such proud and ambitious affectation of Titles of respect as was in the Scribes and Pharisees Away Away saith Nayler with your Expositions of Scripture The Scripture is not to be expounded and God will adde to such as Expound them all the plagues written in that Book I replyed that the Apostles knew the meaning of this Precept of Jesus Christ and were obedient unto it and yet suffered a Title superior to that of Master to be given to them Iohn 12. 21. and Acts 16. 30. and that they reproved not them that so called them which they would have done if it had been unlawful for them to have been called Master and that Iohn 20. 15. Mary Magdalen called our Saviour Sir supposing him to have been the Gardiner The Greek word translated Sir is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and doth properly signifie Lord and is as Linguists know a Title of greater respect then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the term used Matthew 23. 10. The next question I asked him was not as he saith Whether Christ was ascended into Heaven as Man that was in another place about 5 dayes after which yet some of their speakers have denied and argued against but whether he did believe Iesus Christ to be true God and true Man also in one Person And first said I whether dost thou believe Iesus Christ to be true God The question I asked because I