Christ's eating the Supper with his Disciples just before his Death and their breaking Bread together soon after his Death Not a Year whereas the Pope showed not himself till near six hundred Years after I cannot see Friendly Reader how much more criminal I made my Adversary by charging him with saying in our Name The Bread and VVine Christ blessed is the Invention of the Pope then he hath made himself by his own Saying That we call the Lords Supper eaten soon after his Death the Popes Invention unless he should deny the Latter to be the same Sort of Supper with the former In short We cannot but repute this an Injury too apparent for John Faldo's utmost Invention to cover But that he may not suffer the Imputation of Forgery at least a very gross Perversion he thus braveth me Reply p. 70. If Pen dare deny it to be in W. Smith's Book which Iquoted three or four times over in pag. 39. I shall prove him a Deceiver to all that will but read it W. S. answers to this Question I would know Father how it is concerning these things called Ordinances as Baptism Bread and Wine which are much used in their Worship Answ Why Child as for those things they rose from the Pope's Invention Rejoynder This Citation as rankly and partially as he hath put down doth not prove that we account the Lord's Supper either as it was eaten by Christ and his Disciples before his Death or by his Disciples after his Death to be the Pope's Invention How can it since we know the Pope's Date to have been so many hundred Years after that Practice His Citation must therefore be understood of such a Baptism and such a Supper as the Apostate Church hath presumed to practice and that I put not a fairer Gloss then his own Answer will allow observe these Words and the whose Practice of those things AS THEY use them had their Institution by the Pope and were never SO ordained of Christ strongly implying that what was of Christ's Ordination was not of the Pope's Invention and Institution consequently That the Lord's Supper was neither a popish Invention nor Institution which is yet plainer from his following VVords For he did not ordain sprinkling Water in a Child's Face or to make a Sign of the Cross in his Forehead nor God-Fathers and God-Mothers to undertake for it Neither did he ordain Bread and VVine to be SO or after that Manner used and received So that nothing can be plainer then that his Reflection lies against their Manner of practizing and using them not against the Things themselves as at any time practiced by Christ or his Disciples Followers Therefore he is quite beside the Truth in telling the VVorld that he doth but apply these VVords Pope's Invention to the Name that is Lord's Supper which the Quakers apply to the Thing since we so clearly distinguish betwen Baptism the Lord's Supper Name and Thing and these Practices and Usages of them which have risen since the Apostacy Now it rests with thee Friendly Reader to pass Judgment which of us two hath acted the Deceiver to leave out a great many more of his hard VVords he that affirmed VV. Smith called that Baptism and Lord's Supper which was in Use some time as well after Christ's Death and Ascension as before the Pope's Inventions or I that affirmed and from VV. Smith's own Book have expresly proved that there was no such thing said as Primitively practiced but only as they have been since abused by the Apostate Church For the Supper it self I refer the Reader to the sixteenth Chapter of my Answer and shall only say at this Time that as it was a Commemoration or Remembrance of Christ to the Disciples who were at that Day so weak in Faith as Luke 24. 11. Mary Magdalen's news about Christ's Resurrection seemed to them as Idle Tales yet that the Service and consequently the Institution of it were of as they came to witness him the Evangelical Supper of Passover to their Souls and that we therefore discontinue it First Because the false Church hath made Market with her imitating that primitive Practice drawn the Minds of People abroad from the Heavenly Bread of Life which is only to be received within and hath been shedding so much Blood about it rendring it and Water Baptism the Seal of Christianity thereby puffing up People to believe that of themselves which they are not Next we have the Testimony of God's Spirit that he is withdrawn from such Observations that have been so much insisted on and magnified in the World Lastly and eminently we discontinue it because Christ is become unto our Souls that very Thing which it was most truly and properly the Sign of to wit the Heavnely Bread and Passover which nourisheth the Soul unto Eternal Life Where by the Way it must not be forgotten how perversly he wrongs Christ and Holy Scripture who turns this Passage Do this till I come after this strange Manner The Lord's Supper is a Remembrance of Christ's Death past NOT TO COME Rep. p. 71. wherein first he makes as if there were a Death to come Next Instead of exhorting People to look for his Coming until which he bid his Disciples practice it he turns back their Eyes from that Expectation and makes the Sign wholy to have Reference to what was past and not what was to come thereby seeking to perpetuate his Absence and bar out his Appearance implyed in these Words till I come which ends the Absence during which the Institution lasteth For the plain English of it framed into an Argument is this The Supper is to remember Christ's Death that is past but that will be alwayes past therefore it ought to be alwayes so remembred The like may be said upon the Word Remembrance for if it ought to be practised because of remembring Christ's Death then forever because his Death ought never to be forgotten Thus it perverts the Text in that it makes not the outward Supper to cease upon his Coming as John 14. 23. Rev. 3. 20. which is the Evangelical Supper till whose Coming Christ bid his Disciples do it But to continue upon the Score of remembring Christ's Death only which as I said before ought never to be forgotten is consequently to continue it upon Institution forever I shall only leave two things with my Reader and so proceed to the next Chapter first That from our discontinuing the Practice of these outward and temporary Observances J. Faldo concludes our absolute and general Denyal of them 2ly Because some of our Friends have denyed rejected and termed Popish the long Abuse of these Things he makes no Difficulty of charging us in so many Words with calling Water-Baptism and the Lord's Supper as laid down in Scripture and primitively practised Popish Inventions c. God if he please make this Man sensible of his notorious Injustice towards us CHAP. VIII Of the Doctrine of
the Power of Satan unto God we own honour and love and only deny and reject that Ministry which is by the Will Study or Acquisition of Man in his unregenerated State who not being acquainted with the Effectual Operation of the Word of God in themfelves are wholy dark as to those things which relate to the true Ministry not knowing what they deny nor whereof they affirm which doth not edifie but hazard the immortal Souls of Men And as they want the Inspiration of the Almighty to instruct them so being Strangers to the Work of God in themselves and not waiting to feel an Enduement with Divine Power from on high there proceeds no spiritual Life or divine Vertue from them to make their Ministry effectual which is the Cause of that Lamentable Decay of holy Living that is in the World and great Increase of all manner of Unsavoury and Irreligious Conversation I will conclude with two or three Testimonies given by men once in request with Separatists Christopher Goad's Invalidity of Church's Censures pag. 64 65. It is the Spirit that makes Ministers and those Ministers that remain by the Spirit do minister the Spirit and that is ministring of the Gospel when we miuister the Spirit I am a Minister of the new Testament so far as the Spirit speaks in me and by me In whomsoever the Spirit stands up and speaks that Person for the Time is a Minister a true Minister The Spirit doth not regard Sexes the Spirit regards not Age Learned or unlearned 'T is not Age nor Sex nor any major Part can minister Spirit but whom the Spirit pleaseth Christopher Goad Right Spir. c. p. 21 22. The Ministry that is calling us off from Man from the Gloworm Light of this Creation from Man's Parts an Gifts into the Spirit that is the Ministry we should look after The Truth is there is no true Prophet no true Testimony given of Christ but by those that see him and the nearer to him the clearer Sight of him the more clear and powerful is the Testimony given of him That Testimony that is given to him by those that do not see him present and come is not in deed a Testimony to Christ but to Anti-christ he is such a Prophet as Balaam was that had nothing but Notion All true Prophets that prophesied of Christ saw him and he was in them Christopher Goad's Paraphrase upon Act. 17. p. 18. We know no other Guide but the Spirit There is not any Minister in the World that is our Guide or any Company of Ministers â—ut the Spirit if he speaks in them and by them VVe have but one Master that is Christ T. Collier in his Works p. 47 48. and p. 430. Upon that Scripture Mal. 27. The Priâ—st's Lips should preserve Knowledge and they should seek the Law at his mouth for he is the Messenger of the Lord of Host Now this usually is applyed to the Ministers who have given themselves the Title of Priest's and that the People should seek the Knowledge at their Mouths and indeed they themselves have done what in them lies not only to bring People into this Error and Ignorance but to keep them in it whereas Christ is indeed the alone Priâ—st the Substance of the Jews Type and the People are to seek the Law at his Mouth but he is the Messenger of the Lord of Hosts he is called the Messenger of the Covenant Mal 3. 1. the alone Prophet and Teacher of his People The Spirit being lost Anti-christ sets the VVisdom of the Flesh human Industry Tongues and Arts in room of it it is the Anointing of Anti-christ for in all things Anti-christ seeks to imitate Christ as well in the Flesh as in the Spirit Again The Saints are made partakers of the same Spirit the Apostles were W. Dell's Sermons pag. 16 17 18. There is a Necessity of this Power of the Holy Spirit for Ministers For first If they have not this Power of the Holy Spirit they have no Power at all for Christ sent them only as his Father sent him Without this Power they are insufficient for the Ministry for no Man is sufficient for the Work of the Ministry by any natural Parts and Abilities of his own but only by this Power of the Spirit and till he be endued with this notwithstanding all his other Accomplishments he is altogether insufficient but only by the Power of the holy Spirit coming upon them He cannot speak the Word of God but by the Power of God Christ himâ—elf without this Power of God could not have spoke one VVord of God W. Dell. Stumble Stone p. 8. The Ministry of the new Testament is a common Ministry belonging equaly and the like to all the Seed of Christ W. Dell. Tryal of Spirits p. 17 18. The true Prophets speaking the Word of God by and in the Spirit as Paul sayes of himself and other Believes who had received the Spirit We have the mind of Christ But the false Prophets though they speak the Word of the Letter exactly and that to the very Original and Curiosity of Criticisms yet speaking it without the Spirit they are false Prophets before God and his True Church seeing all right Prophecy hath proceeded from the Spirit in all Ages of the World but especially it must so proceed in the Dayes of the New-Testament wherein God hath promised the largest Effusion of his Spirit Greenham Serm. 1. p. 51. Without this Spirit of God no Holy Exercise can have its full Effect for the word works not where the Spirit of God is wanting when we have not the Spirit of God to teach us speak of the Law or the Gospel c. we are little affected therewith unless God give us of his good Spirit to profit by the same CHAP. III. That we own a Gospel-Church contrary to our Adversary's Charge THe next thing our Adversary charged us with a Denyal of is a Gospel-Church one of his Proofs as he will have them called was in J. N's Love to the Lost pag. 17. And the Chruch so gathered into God is the Pillar and Ground of Truth where the Spirit alone is Teacher Upon which he argued thus The gospel-Gospel-Church is a Church which had other Teachers and not the Spirit alone Therefore the Quakers deny a gospel-Gospel-Church and they contradict themselves for they have more Teachers then all others Thus his first Book pag. 16. To which I returned That such as are not blinded with Prejudice may discern that from our speaking of the Universal Church of God which sayes the Apostle as well as the Quakers is in God he inâ—ers That we deny all Visible Religious Societies commonly called by the Ancients Asia Thessalonica Ephesus Corinth c. Now observe his Reply Reply pag. 59. Not one word of this in all my Book My Charge was That they deny a Gospel-Church not Visible Religious Societies Rejoynder Confidently said but if all the Words be not there doth it follow
that Salvation is intailed by the Gospel on a mighty Confidence or vehement Perswasion of what Christ hath done for them p. 160. Thus teacheth D. Patrick D. Tillatson D. Cradock W. Shirlock and others called Episcopalians to say nothing of the general Independents and Baptists how this will agree with J. F. But above all how Episcopalians are no further concerned in his Book then vindicated a Story he hath the Confidence to tell in his Preface whilst they are so manifestly contradicted in the great Point of Justification every common Capacity will see without further pointing And so we proceed to the next Exception he makes against my Defence of a Saying charged by him upon R. Farnsworth as fit for his Turn Reply p. 72. To the second Citation viz. What Righteousness Christ performed without me was not my Justification neither was I saved by it W. P. seeks to mend one Error by another much akin to it thus VVhat gives daily Access and Acceptance to and with the Lord is that Preparation of Clean and Righteous Adornment the Soul actually receives from Christ c. Take Justification in this Sense and not for Remission and let our Adversary do his worst There needs a Diver of Delos to make very good Sense of these words I am so wâ—ll acquainted with the Quakers Meanings as well as their Sayings that I dare affirm he intends by all this no other Righteousness for Access and Accâ—ptance then what is subjected in Men and is therefore their own Righteousness Rejoynder The words he charged upon R. Farnsworth I defended conditionally that is That if ever he spoak or writ them he did not intend any Benefit that came by Christ's Offering of himself by the Eternal Spirit a Sacrifice for all for the Remission of Sins that are past through the forbearance of God which is the first part of Justification But that the Justification and Salvation he understood were not from the Guilt of Sin past by Christ's Offering c. but from the Root Nature and Power of In-dwâ—lling Sin through the Powerful Operation of Christ's Spirit in the Inward Parts in the Heart and Conscience But first let is be remembred that he cited no Book a Fault I found with him before and desired him just where he leaves off that the next time he would let us know what was the Book that afforded that Expression which he hath not done next That he dares affirm we intended our own Righteousness to be that which gives us Acceptance with God whereas in so many words I said that the Clean and Righteous Adornment which gives the Soul Admittance into God's holy Courts must actually be received from Christ the Lord her Righteousness which four words with a great many more he disingenuously skipt For those words of his subjected in Man I know not what he means by them unless it be a Righteousness within the Power and Ability of Man to bring forth for I know no other Righteousness that can be subjected in Men and that this was not my Meaning notwithstanding his obtrusive Confidence my own words plainly evidence He might as properly say that a Child's being washed clean by its Father is its own Cleanness or that it made it self clean or because a poor Man in Rags intreats some better Rayment at the Charity of a great Man and that he would please to take him into the Capacity of a menial Servant therefore that Livery or Apparel bestowed upon him by which he is denoted and hath the Access proper to one of his Family was of his own proper Cost or Working and not the Gift of his Lord and Master If this be Absurd John Faldo's Consequence cannot be Rational In short The Everlasting Righteousness which Christ brings into his People by which he fits them for his Father's Communion is not the less of him nor the more of or from us because in us But that I may not trouble my self to challenge him to prove this Pernicious Meaning to be ours he sayes he will prevent me with a Citation out of W. Smith's Cat. p. 74. Quest What is the Righteousness that justifies in the Sight of God Answ For we have Life before we have Motion to act or do any thing that is pleasing to God and in that Life we have Salvation and so Life and Salvation is freely given us from God Reply pag. 72. This Citation Mr. Penn had to consider in this Chapter he pretends to answer but he forbears it among many other which say more for my Purpose then he dare transscribe Rejoynder If there were others more to his purpose then this he is to blame to conceal them but believe him that will I cannot And we have Cause to think that if he hath misapplyed this he would not have been very faithful in the rest I do seriously profess I never met yet with his Peer for quoting First there is no such Question either in pag. 74. or in several pages before or after that if in the whole Catechism Secondly he hath left out Five Words of the Answer which stood us most upon to be cited and altogether the true Question which was this Quest But whether do you not depend upon the Things ye do for Life and Salvation Answ Nay we do not so for we have Life before we have Motion to act or do any thing that is pleasing unto God What Reader can be clearer first then his Denyal of our Dependance upon Good Works for Life and Salvation Next What plainer then that he excludes Action and consequently Works as in the Creature from so much as pleasing God unless God vouchsafe to breath the Breath of his own Life and thereby impower him to bring forth Fruits of Holiness Lastly That the Reason of Man's Acceptance is not his own Works or Actions but his being found acting and working in the Living Faith which is the Gift of God by and through which Access to and holy Fellowship with God are enjoyed by his Children And thus much W. Smith's following words tell us and so Life and Salvation is freely given us from God and by his Grace we are saved through the Faith which we have in him and that puts us upon Motion and Action to do his Will in all things and yet not to depend upon what we do for Life But do all things which he commands us from the Motion or first setting on work of his Life and this is Life before Action which moves us to Action and not Action before Life thereby to attain Life Catechism page 73 74. Now Reader this considered give us thy Judgment of J. Faldo's daring Proof Doth it not to a Tittle make good his Charge That the Quakers are for Justification by their own Works What sort of Conscience must he have that dares look the World in the Face and obtrude such arrant Vntruths upon it Doth this Scandalous Perversion become a Man who two pages off tells us of his abhorring
Substance or Inventions for Texts or Wrestings for Meanings or Gibes and Taunts for pertinent Replies I have hitherto abundantly satisfied my self concerning him and I hope all that read me both of him and his Essayes against the People called Quakers If not it ought not to be charged upon me as wanting good Will to do it I was never more sedulous and I think never more faithful in any such Affair And to the End my frequent Complaint of his unfair Dealing may be further justified and confirmed and his Deportment in the whole of this Controversie more exactly related I intreat my Reader to consider what I have now to tell him CHAP. XIV Of Reflections on Persons and Things IF we will believe John Faldo in his own behalf he abhors that sordid Way of Writing which some Practise of Reflecting Nick-Naming giving Ill-Language c. either to his Adversary or his Doctrine But as it fares with most Men they condemn in others what they indulge in themselves so truly No Adversary in the midst of all his severe Censures of that unchristian Way of procede hath made more bold with his Reader nor fallen more fouly upon his Adversary yea Persons unconcerned then J. Faldo hath done We were as quiet as Men that had scarcely known there was such a Person in the World when our Peace was disturbed by a great Book intituled with no more Modesty nor Mercy then in plain Terms QVAKERISM NO CHRISTIANITY In this he chargeth us at once with whatever all our Adversaries put together had from time to time insisted upon to render us Odious almost every Charge as scandalous and impious as rankest Blasphemy and both rendred and called so for ought I know more then Twenty Times in that Discourse This Book I thought I answered with more Moderation then either it deserved or the Law of Retaliation would have granted At the latter-end of it I ran up a few of his many unworthy Reflections Jeers and Scoffs together that I might the better help my Reader to a true Relish of our Adversary's Spirit He sayes nothing to them which makes me conclude I have not injured him nor in one word done him wrong for had I without doubt he had not past over my Collection with so deep Silence I think it fit to transcribe them that my Reader may see what Provocations I met with to draw Rebukes from me Horrid Imposture Ditch of Grossest Delusion Subverting Christianity Their Feigned Christ Folly Madness It began in Blasphemies against Christ Gratifying Pride Idleness Giddiness In Professors Prophane Vanity Folly Non-sense Error Whether it smell more of the Fox or the Goose Imposture Babble Blockish Person QUAKERISM ENTERED THE WORLD AS IF SATAN BROKE LOOSE and POSSESSIONS BY SATAN WERE TO MAKE WAY AND FIT SOULS FOR THE QVAKERS SPIRITS O the Hell Dark Expressions of the Quakers Teachers What bitter Curses and Execrations Dismal Howling Horrible Roaring Blasphemy Wretch Vain Fictions Quakers Glow-Worm Deck their Idol Real Non-sense But 't is Pitty not to lash a little Idiots Stark Blind Steel Hard Your Crooked Unholy Principles Their Light grows Wiser and Wiser Opium of Quakerism The Quakers Divine Spirit Dumb Refreshments at Quakers Meetings so there is at Puppet-Playes Impudent Fore-Heads Non-such Ignorance Proud Dreaming Intollerable Notions Ignorance and Delusion Outstrip all in the Crooked Way Blasphemers of the Lord of Life and Glory Surely God has given them up for their Pride Giddiness or Idle Ignorance and that in Justice And the Devil hath blinded their Minds with a Witness Horrible Abomination Gross and Dark Conceits The Rankness of Quakerism And though I have carefully avoided his ill Example yet such is my Unhappiness that my Reproofs are stiled Railing and Religious Censures given forth from a grieved Spirit counted Ill-Language But what seems yet most insufferable this very Man that calls every sober Reprehension by an Hard Name is most profuse in his black Epithetes upon us as if notwithstanding the Circumstances he mostly confesseth he is under in the World as his complaints tell us which is no Fault lay'd to his Charge he thinks it more intollerable that we should censure his Domineering Scoffing Strain against an intire People be they what they will in Reputation Merit Honesty or Acceptance among Men then that he should use it What Blindness hath seized him that he should not see this a Fault in himself Is he fit to reprove who out-does the Reproved in that for which the Reproof is given But before I reflect his Miscarriages of this Nature upon him he hath something to say to me It seems I have not behav'd my self towards him with that Subjection to his unprovok'd Abuses which he thought became me to a Man of his Quality Let us hear what hath stumbled him and how patiently this pretended Enemy to Personal Reflections takes it The first is this I happened to let fall in my Answer not material to the Point this but as a passant Expression and so intended I find him more in Words then Matter and I suppose more are of that Mind or else what means his Pains to be made Waste Paper of already QUAKERISM NO CHRISTIANITY hath exchanged the Book-sellers Stall for the Tobacco-Shops This so harmeless and true Saying hath given him great Offence at least he hath taken it what had become of me had I bin either as petulant or vain-glorious I will give his words that my Reader may judge if the Man have any Vanity After his Debate of serious Matter Now Reader sayes he I am come to a Passage which makes me conclude its Author desperate As if all the Error and Blasphemy he laid at my Door in his fore going five Chapters had been Toyes and Trifles but dark Conjectures and meer Guesses to this great Discrimen of my desperate Condition Oh monstrous Vanity of Vanities But he goes on A Passage sayes he that renders W. P. careless how justly odious he becomes with Thousands so he may but lessen the Reputation of my Book Better and better or worse and worse which my Reader will Doth my Reputation depend upon the Good-liking of J. Faldo's Ungodly Charges propt with falâ—e Citations Perversions c I am miserable then No Head not empty would make so great a Sound It seems his Books have Thousands of Votaries Hundreds are a Number too diminutive to vow Maintenance to his Labours These words show the great Vanity of the Author or the Debility of the Cause that must have whole Regiments of Auxiliaries to his Protection chuse him whether But that he may leave no part of his Picture undrawn by his own hand for who can or will do it so well hear him yet further The Acceptation my Book hath had in the World becomes not me to express A cleaver Way to tell us both his Book 's Acceptance and his own Modesty Yet he so loves the Theam he can't give over The second Impression of above 1250. may be abroad ere
this come to thy hand And how should they chuse since the New Cabal contriv'd to over-throw the Quakers have taken a way of packing such Books into the Country as a new sort of Manufacture where long before the second Impression came out in several parts of England they lay so heavy upon hand by the peaceable Disposition of both Preachers and Hearers that as I have been credibly informed some better affected to such Work then ordinary have gone from House to House offering yea pressing them upon the People as if it had been an Alms to buy them Yet he goes on still I cannot yet find by enquiring that any of W. P's Answers to my Book have come to the Preferment to adventure that Passage It seems he hath enquired Strange Vanity But what then Therefore unworthy So was W. Tindal's then in Henry the Eight's dayes H. Barrow in Q. Elizabeth's from whom descended those that are undeservedly called his Followers I mean such Independents as J. Faldo is become Had it been a good Argument against Luther's Books that they were not sold at Rome Or what Preferment had it been to despised Truth to lye upon the same Stall by Error and Imposture It 's well our Books escape Burning amidst such Ill-Neighbours as J. F. and our selves too Conveniency to dispose of our Defences we like and sometimes want His Attempt is a License to lye upon any Stall without fearing a Search But he should not insult over that low Condition God is pleased to exercise us in Though we think it no Preferment to our Books to keep Company with J. Faldo's at any time nor should we desire it but to disprove their black Charges But as if I had committed the most enormious of all Crimes in saying That his Book had exchanged the Book Seller's Stall for the Tobacco-Shops he cautions me not to pass yet a while by the Book-Sellers Shops for fear they should point at me and do something else for a Non-such I know not what unlefs he had some private Intelligence that they intended to break my Head with some of his Books to prove to me by the Experience of Battery that they had not left the Books Seller's Stall But this is not all he tells me on this only Occasion I have not the Fear of God before mine Eyes The Words of my Mouth are Iniquity and Deceit That I left off to be wise and to do good that I set my self in a Way that is not good and abhor not Evil Psal 36. 2 3 4. Upon this Text he preaches my Infamy and Disgrace but with an Abuse to the Text as well as to me and all for that only Passage Nay the Book-Sellers J. Robinson at the Sign of the Golden Lyon in Pauls-Yard R. Boulâ—er at the Sign of the Turk's-Head in Cornhill are brought forth with a Fearful WHEREAS against W. P. upon no other score then to buoy up the Book 's Sale and the Author's Credit And by this pair of Book-Sellers whom I know not and I scarcely think ever heard of especially the latter much less had I ever harmed them am I call'd all to nought unless Notorious False Dishonest Impudent Brazen-faced Detractor are no such thing and this in one page and that in a Certificate too as if they had not been giving meer Testimony but Sentence and that after a municipal Proceed of a Billingsgate Judicature But I forgive them besides the Words call neither of them Author Two things I shall observe First That his Book has had general Acceptance by Learned Divines both of Conformists and Non-Conformists Secondly That we have endeavoured to prevent the Sale of J. F.'s Book To the first I answer their Learned Divines I know not and how should I their Names are concealed But granting what these Men say it proves nothing I could produce the Letters of Men of known Honour Learning and Quality not only in England but abroad in the World to ballance the Scale who condemned his Enterprise of Weakness Vncharitableness and Wickedness heartily embracing the Answer as a Check but due to his Exorbitances But let it be as it will in the Esteem of Men we the poor traduced Quakers have a further Appeal and expect an higher Judgment In the mean time we rest in God's Providences and desire to pursue our Christian Duty In the second Passage I do aver they have wronged us for we never endeavoured any such thing as to prevent the Sale of our Adversaries Book therefore in so many Words they have certified an absolute Vntruth which ill becomes Men pretending to Conscience as the latter of them doth going under the Name as I take it of an Anabaptist but I suppose some what BECALMED This I thought to have prefixt in Form of a Certificate under several Hands after their Example but I had more Regard to the Weight and Gravity of my Discourse then to seem so concerned for my Reputation about a very Trifle wherein had they what they desire J. F's Book would appear never the less impious nor my Answer one Jot less formidable and so I end with him upon this Score His next Disturbance at me is in p. 43 44 45. of his Reply on this Occasion He would needs turn Hangman to us in his former Book saying That now he was come to the highest Round of the Ladder I presume in order to execute us But I was so Modest as to use no Word so gross to him only inverted the Allusion and turned his Simile back upon him thus I will not say for what an Army Chaplain might deserve to be so highly exalted but since his eager Pursuit after an innocent People hath brought him actually thither and it fals to my Share to be his Executioner I shall take all the Care I can to acquit my self well of my Employment At this he rages beyond-measure though he be only entangled in a Rope of his own providing He must needs be medling with Laddes and trussing up the poor Quakers and their Principles without all Civility Mercy or Justice and because I improved his own Similitude to the Dispatch of his Cause that he had designed to illustrate the Execution of us and ours by He as one beside himself calls me Hangman Bungler infallible Stager and in plain Terms Fool. But this is little to what is behind for it seems I am not enough for him to wreak his Displeasure upon and therefore of all others my deceased Father whose Grave with Heathens had been a Guard from all Reflections especially when as unconcerned as what was never born in the Contro-sie must be fetcht up to answer for his Sons Micarriage if such it had been his Words are these But why an Army-Chaplain deserves that Preferment more then a military Sea-Captain his Father's Character Insolence and Pride for Shame John Faldo shall the most Barbarous Nations make it a standing Axiom De Mortuis nil nisi bonum And doth J. Faldo a
the true Freedom of this Mighty Nation from greatest Thraldom I could particularize in twenty great Instances and bring the Complaint of many considerable Persons against them Many Pamphlets are extant that loudly speak the same especially two call'd The first and second Narrative of the late Parliament's Proceedings c. printed Anno 1658. and 1659. as I take it in which the greatest Hypocrisie the most detestable Falseness to God and Men and a Sort of Flattery to their new Monarchy exceding all modern Idolatry yea Blasphemy it self are brought to Light and laid at the Doors chiefly of the Priesthood among all Perswasions in any Power at that time Out of which and several others I have extracted about one Sheet which I intended for the Press but pure Tenderness to those that acted with Integrity and Conscience stopt its Publication I was careful not to give any Occasion for them to be born hard upon by such as knew not well how to distinguish between Persons and Things that differ though such as I meant well deserve it from us that when in Power persecuted us contrary to their own Engagements and now out of Power malign and abuse us by slanderous Reports and invective Libels Nor is it wholly laid aside though pro tempore suspended New Provocations may give Occasion for their History to come abroad to the Nation more compendiously then ever A Work I take no Pleasure in but am heartily sorry that such as have given that just Occasion for Rebuke should as not having their Fill of us before fall so severely on us now about Religion who have so eminently prov'd themselves false to God Religion and the Kingdom and thereby necessitated us to rip them up and show how nauseous this Officiousness of theirs is as if they thought to expiate old Crimes and prove themselves Zealous for Religion by perverting abusing and gainsaying ours This is the present Plague that infects the Families of but too many through the secret Instigations of their Ministers yet too inward with them And I know that the most honourable left among Dissenters lament at this Day the Stingeness of their Clergy whose Fierceness is rather encreased then lessen'd with their Loss of Power But such generous Persons as have acted truly upon Conscience according to the best of their Understandings and have ever continued immoveable for General and National Good no Man holds them in greater Value then my self I wish for every such one the King and Kingdom had a Thousand It is an Abuse therefore in my Adversary to extend my Words to all Non-conformists which only relate to the Narrow-Spirited Angry and Imperious a-among their Teachers And if it be for my Plain Dealing with them he like himself and his Cause threatens me with the Punishment of the Judge Law and I know not what beside unless I repent me of my Saying at what time he pleads the King's Oblivion showing himself more below him in Mercy then he is in Dignity Let him begin when he will it will never lessen my Credit nor greaten his But that he should after so much Provocation such scurrilous Replies Hard Names and black Characters given by him say I am turned CAVALIER and PRELATE too to satisfie my Lust of Anger adding We see what a Change the Quakers Light can make when it acts the Part of Fire are Words very Indiscreet and Ungrateful as well as Scoffing and Prophane for they fling such scurvy Reflections upon Cavaliers and Prelates as become not one who got his Oblivion by the former and his present Liberty of Preaching and License for Printing by the latter For it is as much as to say that both Cavaliers and Prelates are a Sort of Revengeful Angry and Fiery Persons to be sure bad enough or he would not have rendred me either when he went about to character me to Disgrace So unthankful is he for his Oblivion and all other Benefits that he now enjoyes at the Hands and by the Moderation of either Cavaliers that is Royalists or Prelates that is Episcopal Protestants whom notwithstanding he pretended to be no further concern'd in his Essayes against us then vindicated as I have frequently observed But lastly he accepts against my mention of one of his new Benefactors There is a Gentleman Mr. T. F. against whom Mr. Penn hath such a Slpeen that to my great Wonder I find him in all his Writings I have read attempting his Disgrace who never wrote against him and if my Information fail me not P. hath been engaged by him to another kind of Deportment How black am I with J. Faldo's Dirt but none of it will stick Spleen I never had to the Man but once a Friendship that had never been broken by me but as it came it went At the time of our Disputation with T. D. T. V. T. D. and W. M. at the Spitle being engaged in the Negative concerning the common Doctrine of distinct and separate Personallity he and some others fell into great Intimacy with us Who but we in his and their Thoughts at what time they were not quite discovered by us But pulling off their Masks at last we found them to have been the Followers of J. Biddle in that which is commonly called the Socinian-Way and that their peculiar Regard to us came from an implicite Vindication of one of their Principles for which we came under the Scandal and Odium of Socinians Pulpits rang how the Quakers had unmaskt themselves on that Occasion and their warm Disputes in our Defence did not a little strengthen the common Reports that went of us and me in particular When my Book intituled The Sandy Foundation Shaken came out it being a further Detection of what we call Errors and it happening that Socinians did the same as I was a rank Socinian who had never read any one Socinian Book in all my Life if lookt into one at that time so these Men at least T. F. was ready to believe me nearer a kin to them then God he knows I was that is to say in Denying the Divinity of Christ At this time what would he not have done for me if I might have believed him and in Reallity the Man was wonderfully taken but which was grievous he was shamefully mistaken and when he came to read my Confession to Christ's Eternal Godhead in my little Book intituled Innocency with her Open Face though he had another called The Guide Mistaken that p. 28. abundantly doth the same which was writ and read by him before the Sandy Foundation was thought of he deserted me broak all Bonds of Friendship and Rules of Civility and his extream shews of Kindness turned to continual excessive Reflections He would have it a Retraction rather then be thought to have been mistaken He had built his Hopes too high for the Foundation and then became wrathful that they fell And though I sought his friendly Behaviour having no Thought in my Heart but Love and
118. G. Fox Great Myst Part 2. pag. 10. G. Fox Gr. Myst 12 J. Parnell Shield of Truth 22 23. W. Smith's Cat. 27. W. Smith's Prim. 37. Love to the Lost 40. W. Smith's Prim. 42. W. Smith's Prim. Part 3. pag. 94. W. Smith's Prim. Vindic. pag. 6 70. Thus much at present of False Citation which to say no more makes any Book uncapable of being answered IV. Several Passages Clipt and Maim'd J. St. Short Discovery Book 1. Part 1. pag. 42. Short Discovery 80. W. Smith ' s Prim. 88. J. N. Love to the Lost 89. E. B. Answ to Choice Experience 89. J. Story Short Discovery 89. W. Smith ' s Prim. 114. J. N. Love to the Lost 120. J. N. Love to the Lost Part 2. pag. 6. I. Penington ' s Quest 19 23. W. Smith ' s Cat. 26. W. Smith ' s Prim. 37. G. Fox Gr. Myst 40. J. N. Love to the Lost 43. W. Smith ' s Cat. 69. Love to the Lost 103. Reader These are but a very few of what we could offer for indeed there is scarcely one Passage that he hath not mangled on purpose to make it speak the better on his behalf which given at length would have cleared it self V. Certain Places more particularly Perverted by Adding or Mis-applying I. Penington ' s Question Book 1. Part 1. pag. 41. E. B' s Answ to Choice Exper. 89. I. Peningt Quest 109. W. Smith ' s Morning Watch 119 W. Smith ' s Morning Watch 126. Love to the Lost Book 1. Part 2. pag. 25. J. N. Love to the Lost 27. W. Smith ' s Prim. 42. I. Peningt Quest 46 47. W. Smith ' s Morning Watch 48 49. I. Peningt Quest 70 71. I. Peningt Quest 81. I. Peningt Quest 126. I. P. Quest 129. These Reader are but some Hints I was willing to give thee of our Adversary's Disingenuous Carriage towards us either in letting drop that which may be most material at least might be more explanatory of our Friends Intentions foisting in words wholely inconsistent with the Scope of our Passages or mis-applying them in favour of his black Charges all which may clearly be seen by a Comparison of his Books with our Friends Writings a great part of which I must confess it will be difficult to procure since to prove his Miscarriage in Citations I have not been able to compass above the one half of the Books he names but that carries this Woful Reflection with it if his use of 15. Books in Thirty affords us so many gross Instances of his Unfair Dealing with us what might we have expected upon our Examination of the rest In the mean time we shall without leave suspect him having so much Reason for it To compleat what I have done in this Particular let me tell thee Reader that in his Comparison of us with the Papists he sets down Twenty several Passages as our Doctrines and Opinions not producing so much as one Person Book or Page to avouch them a piece of Justice he denies not to the Papists themselves at what time he refuseth it to us though not they but we were the People against whom the Discourse was writ which though gross enough yet nothing compared with his Disingenuity at the end of his First Book where under the Pretence of furnishing his Reader with a Key to understand the Quakers Meanings by he sets down no less then about two Hundred and Fifty Particulars in our Name without so much as the bare mention of one Author Book or Page to countenance his Attempt Yet after all this he cannot bear to be told of his unfair Carriage and his Unjust Dealing towards us His Quality or his Pride is so great it will not bear a Reprehension I never met with a Man of so much Falseness and Stomach together He thinks it so great a Punishment to be told of his Miscarriages that if we will not let him pass for a Faithful Sober Meek and Christian Author however he hath proved himself the Contrary we must expect all that his Scorn and Anger can cast upon us But such Vindications of his Essayes will be Hand-writing enough against themselves and their Author who ought not to flatter himself after these great Evils with the Hopes of Impunity for such as he hath sown against us such shall he reap at the Hand of God the Righteous Judge of all who will reward every Man according to his Works But I desire with all my Soul that God may show him Mercy that Repentance may yet over-take him and this Iniquity be blotted out before he departs this World and is no more seen I would beseech him in the Love of God to fight no longer against the Truth and for a Cause his Conscience might it speak would tell him is not the only true God's but the Honour and Interest of the God of this World whom the formal Christian is lead and ordered by that is so sharp against us Let him not be afraid to take Shame for that which is shameful lest vain Credit here brings Sorrow hereafter I cannot be otherwise perswaded but that Reputation prevailed more with him then Conscience in this Controversie he tugs so hard to prop the one and there is so little savour of the other God could never be in that Design nor amidst those Thoughts that were laid with so great Mistake and which have been vented with so much Fury I must needs say There was neither Truth to inform us nor Charity to gain us It stumbled the Weak grieved the Tender offended the Peaceable among those Professions he pretended to vindicate gratifying only such as are of a Litigious and Contentious Nature whose unreasonable Heat it had been his Duty rather to abate by Sweet Perswasion and a meek Example I have this Comfort in my Conclusion of this Controversie that I most heartily forgive him all the Injustice and Vnkindness he hath shown at least so far as I am therein concerned and that I think is more then any Man And with the same Love that God hath loved me I do with all my Soul fervently wish his Solid Vnfeigned Repentance that he may receive the Love and Mercies of God in the Remission of his Sins and Reconciliation of him by the Power and Spirit of Jesus Christ our Lord that he may knoâ— the Excellency and Glory of the Truth in the inward pâ—â—ts and what are those good things no Carnal Eye Ear or Heart hath ever seen heard or understood that God hath laid up for them that truly fear him and which he daily reveals unto all such by his Eternal Spirit The Conclusion THus Friendly Reader are we come to the End of our Task wherein I hope the Doctrines of that despised People in Derision called Quakers their Worship and Church-Practice are evidently and firmly vindicated against vulgar Mistakes and Reports and more especially those many black Charges so confidently exhibited by J. Faldo in his first
went too far In his second he has done little else What shall we say of those whose Pride has brought them to such a pitch of Passion that Rage must follow Reproof and Revenge a Confutation Without out breaking one part of the Law of Modesty I may say for I know he is irrecoverably gone in my Answer Not one Charge can he prove nor one Friend of ours can he make to speak to his Purpose He was for having us to assassinate our selves our Friends he would fain have to turn Executioners to their own Principles This Fool 's Paradise pleased him but the Discreet know and think better Some were startled at the Pretences of the first wherein nothing less then our own Books wâ—â—e to bear Witness against us who are now great Abominators of his Injustice and Railing Blessed be God for that Good Success we hope the like of our following Endeavours I have for the sake of such as expect an Answer sent forth this Rejoynder wherein several weighty Points are as clearly handled as Time Place and other Occasions would permit It greatly concerns all to be fully satisfied therein And I hope there is enough said for all Impartial Readers to reap that Benefit I seek no Revenge I aim not at Reputation God is Record neither has he done enough to raise up the One or question the Other yet he has done doubtless what he could and I must take the Will for the Deed. I shall not show my self so Personally concerned in this Rejoynder as his Personal Reflections would make me 't is below the Spirit of a Christian Man to be disturbed by such Barks of Malice Curs yelping at the Moon neither questions nor ecclipses her Light 'T is a sort of Suffering I must expect to undergo and the best is I find little Difficulty in it And though I shall not cite all his Injustice towards me for that were well nigh to transcribe his Book yet that which may be requisite to give a further Relish of this pretended Christian may be done in its proper place In the mean time I shall betake my self to the Consideration of such Passages in his Reply as may be thought to call for my Rejoynder and that without those insolent Checks frequent Abuses and very vain and gingling Taunts he has cramb'd his Pamphlet with For I can suffer that my self I cannot let the Truth suffer Nor can I think my Silence to his Revilings the worst Answer especially when my Religion will not allow of a like Return in Vindication For though Scoffs and Abusive Reflections may discredit an Adversary with the Weak or Prejudiced yet with a Serious Reader such rather pollute then defend a Cause I will leave the whole Honour of that Way of Confutation to my Adversary not being in such Necessity for Conquest as to take that Dishonourable and Dishonest Way of procuring it If I can make my Rejoynder a little more intelligible then he has done his Reply defend the Truth I own and honour so as to answer my Reader 's Conscience I shall have obtain'd my whole End and maugre the Impetuous and blustering Humour of a few Enraged Adversaries my Mind will sweetly rest in Peace with God in whom I have believed and for whose Cause only I am thus warmly concerned in the World CHAP. I. Of Christianity in General JOhn Faldo in his Book entituled Quakerism No Christianity begins with his Account of Christianity What it is as I honestly observed in my Answer called Quakerism a New Nick-Name for Old Christianity What he laid down was this By Christianity we are not to understand all those Matters of Faith and Practice which Christianity doth obliege us unto for Christianity is a large and noble thing and takes in all that 's worthy in those Religions which it hath out-stript To which I gave this Answer though disingenuously mangled and transposed by my Adversary A strange Definition of true Christianity For if to Believe and Do all Christianity requireth be not Christianity then there is something beyond all that Christianity requireth to be believed and done that is Christianity else I understand nothing This is all he brings of my Answer to ground his Reply upon omitting that part of his Definition and my Return to it which in Honesty stood him most upon to consider But first let us hear his Reply to what he has quoted for Reply and Rejoynder distinguish our matter Reply You may as well affirm a Finger to be a Man when separated from the rest of the Man as common Justice Truth c. to be Christianity Rejoynder Though the Finger be not the Man yet it is Part of the Man therefore common Justice Truth c. by his own Instance are a Part of Christianity but if no Part of Christianity then may Christianity be without Justice or Truth My Drift was in my Answer and is in my Rejoynder That something of what was at Antiâ—ch called Christianity was in the World before Chrst's Visible Appearance at Jerusalem And that his Coming was but to bring the World to a more improved Knowledge and large Enjoyment of that Divine Power Wisdom Life and Righteousness which former Ages had comparatively but an obscure Sight and imperfect Sense of and this was my Reason because the contrary Opinion excludes all antecedent times from any Share in Christianity and plainly shuts them out of all Hope of Eternal Salvation which my Adversary takes a little notice of in these words Rep. If the Scripture had any where said that none but Christians shall be saved his Consequence had been grounded But he might have found asserted in my Book THAT SALVATION DEPENDS ON A RIGHT BELIEF AND ACCEPTANCE OF THE COVENANT OF GRACE Rejoyn The Scripture saith as I instanced for Proof of that little Part of my Answer by him considered For there is no other Name under Heaven given among Men whereby we must be Saved neither is there Salvation in any other Now how to distinguish betwixt a Man being saved by Christ and his being a true Christian I must declare my Ignorance Nay John Faldo though in Contradiction to himself tells us That Salvation depends on a right Belief and Acceptance of the Covenant of Grace Let him either show how a Man may rightly believe and accept of the Covenant of Grace and yet be no Christian or else he does nothing to his own purpose whatever he does for ours Christ is called God's Covenant The New Covenant stands in him How a Man may believe in the Covenant and not in Christ How in Christ and not be a Christian concerns John Faldo to reconcile only Reader let me tell thee that of about Six Pages concerning Christianity this Man has not undertaken Eight Lines to reply to neither are those the Strength of my Discourse To conclude I dare not repute Enoch to be no Christian who walked with God Abraham no Christian who saw Christ's Day and rejoyced
believe great and good things of them and that from no less Evidence then the Eternal Word that gave them forth which hath oftentimes given my Soul a deep Savour of those blessed Truths it declares of only we cannot allow them to be The Word though the Words of God and the rather forasmuch as we see the great and general Neglect that People are guilty of towards that Living Powerful Regenerating Word of Life by whom alone all right Knowledge and lasting Peace is derived to the Soul of Man through this Apprehension that in having the Writings they have the Word of God and therefore look no farther the very State of the professing Jews of old who thought better of the Scriptures then of Christ believing to have Life in them at what time they crucified the Lord of Life and Glory From whose Proceedings we learn thus much That the worst Enemies to the invisible Word of Life may carry the greatest seeming Respect to and bestow the highest Titles upon the Scriptures that were given forth from it In short It was when Men turned from the Power of Godliness to the Form only that they did Canonize and lay so vast a Stress upon them In the first and second hundred years after Christ they were so scattered that very few had all of them and it is not unreasonable for us to believe that many had none of them especially those of the New Testament Were they therefore without the Word of God and a sufficient Rule for Faith and Practice Surely not It was an Administration of Life and Power of writing the Law in the Heart and putting the Spirit in the inward Parts From whence came that Christian Answer to the Heathen concerning Swearing Fighting such contra-Evangelical Practices They could not do so because of God in their Consciences At that time of Day the Anoâ—nting led them into all Truth But in process of time when Christians grew Careless and Worldly whereby they lost the Power of Godliness then they began to set up an outward pompous Religion ascribing that to the Letter and Form which was only due to the Spirit and Power And as thus entered the Apostacy into the World so where Men are not turned and conformed to that eternal Spirit and divine immortal Power the Apostacy still remains And our End in pressing People unto the Eternal Word of Life is that they may be brought out of Death and Darkness which the Scriptures can never do They are a Declaration and Testimony of Heavenly Things but not the Heavenly Things themselves and as such we carry an high Respect unto them We accept them as the Words of God himself and by the Assistance of his Spirit they are read with great Instruction and Comfort I esteem them the best of Writings and desire nothing more frequently then that I may lead the Life they exhort to and whatever sleight Apprehensions my disingenuous Adversary is pleas'd to have of these kind of Acknowledgments I write the naked Truth of my Heart knowing I must give an Account to God CHAP. IV. His Pretence of our Equalling our own Writings and Sayings with the Scriptures VVIthout any flourishing Reflections most commonly the Head and Tail and sometimes Middle too of my Adversary's Reply I shall lay down his words Rep. The Means I used for confirming the first part of this Charge were two First Their pretending them to be from Immediate Inspiration This he is so far from denying that he pleads for it but after such a rude impertinent manner that I should but injure you and shew my self Idle to transscribe and animadvert upon it Rejoyn How rude and impertinent a manner I pleaded for it the Reader may best judge by perusing something of the Passage For Inspiration the Scriptures are not more express in any one thing No man can know the things of God by the bare Spirit of a Man The Scriptures are a sealed Book to all but those who know them by the same Hand that originally gave them so that however common they may be in the World they are Strangers to them that understand them not And though Old respecting the Time when they were revealed to the Saints yet New to every Age. So that we assert not a Revelation of New Things but a renewed Revelation of those Things God made former Ages Witnesses of otherwise men are no more benefitted by them And to be benefitted they must be made ours by the Spirit which made them the Holy Ancients In short No Man can understand Spiritnal Things but the spiritually Discerning nor can he so be without the Inspiration of the Almighty This is Scripture Now the Author of those Queries and J. Faldo also denying Inspiration they consequently deny themselves to be spiritually Discerning And for Men not spiritual to judge of spiritual Matters much 〈◊〉 to write of them and bid their Writings go and throwdown Self-will and exalt the Truth is Vain and Idolatrous For the Scriptures themselves considered meerly as such are unable much less Writings founded on Self-Will For it s the alone Priviledge of God's Power and Spirit and no writing whatever distinct from it can perform that Great and Mighty Work in Man Now as Rude and Impertinent as this Answer may be in John Faldo's Eyes his Reply has not afforded me Light enough to see it He would prove us guilty of holding Inspiration as if to do so were a Crime From a Passage of John Story 's who rejected certain Queries exhibited against the Quakers because meerly grounded upon the Author's Imagination of certain Passages in Scripture and not any certain Knowledge or Experience received from the Revelation of the Spirit It must be left to the Reader to judge how pertinently I returned upon my Adversary Sure I am that Self-willed Queries can never throw down Self-will And to urge Scripture not experienced is to steal the words of Truth from our Neighbour Inspiration was in request after Scriptures were in the World And indeed are unintelligible without it The New Birth is never the more known for Christ's Saying to Necodemus though thereby we are taught that without it no man shall enter into the Kingdom of God It is the Spirit alone that reveals the Mysteries of Regeneration therefore to deny Inspiration or Revelation is to overthrow the only and Evangelical Way to divine Knowledge Erasmus himself could tell us What Men set forth by Man's Device may be perceived by Man's Wit But the thing that is set forth by the Inspiration of the holy Ghost requireth an Interpreter inspired with the like Spirit And without the Inspiration of it the Secrets of God cannot be known which is also the substance of the fourth Article exhibited against the Lutherans in the Council of Trent as an erroneous Doctrine they held That to understand the Scripture neither Gloss nor Comment is necessary but only to have the Spirit of a Sheep of Christ's Pasture Vetablus
preach you the Truth or no and send me word what they say that I may learn to speak after them If they say they be Sure ye know what followeth If they say they be Vnsure when shall ye be sure that have so doubtful and unsure Teachers Thus much of Infallibility when he has answer'd this we may give him some more mean time we shall proceed Rep. But further sayes W. P. Cannot one Man be another Man's Brother and not the Eldest Brother This hath done your Work or all Hope is lost It seems the Scriptures and your Writings may without Offience call one another Brother yet not be thought to aspire to Equallity But why Because for sooth you do not say they are the Scriptures Elder Brother I thought till now that Brethren had been a term of Equallity And though in Humane Births there is a Natural Right to the First-born above the Rest yet not in the Productions of Scripture for the new Excelleth the old Testament in Glory Rejoyn In Similes there is some Allowance with honest Men but none to be hoped for from J. Faldo But if it be so hard for him to bear I cannot help it Several Writings may be given forth from the same Spirit without coming upon the Vy If we must needs equaâ— some of our Writings to the Scriptures because given forth by the same Spirit then must every the least True Christian be equal to the greatest Apostle because indued with the same Spirit The Pouring forth of the Spirit which was the Promise of the Father we have proved the very Substance of the Gospel and Inspiration as necessary as divine Knowledge because the only Way to it Whatever therefore hath been writ from Adam's day to this or shall yet be to the End of the World from the Motion of God's Spirit in the Hearts of any of his Children stands as nearly related to the Scriptures as his several Manifestations of his Spirit in his Servants Writing The Ancient Christians were Brethren having one Father Were they therefore equally dignified in Degree of Fellowship And that was the Meaning of my former Simile disingenuously taken by my Adversary For as there is a Degree in natural so in spiritual Births The Dignity of the first lies in Priority of Time the Dignity of the last in a more full Discovery of Immortality and eternal Life Thus the Scriptures of the New exceed those of the Old Testament Where there is the first and most ample Declaration there must be the Preheminence Now alas what can we boast of that was not formerly testified unto we exalt no singular Spirit neither walk we in an untroden Path 't is the Everlasting Gospel we bear witness unto and to the Revival and Breakin gs forth of that ancient Life Truth Spirit and Power which according unto divers Dispensations hath made People true Children of God What do you esteem your own Meanings and Interpretations Do you not intitle them to a very near relation the Text interpreted We never intended to bring our Writings upon the Vye and dispute with it the Scriptures for the Preheminence But our Writings further declaring of the same Truth from the same Spirit are related to them If to testifie and exhort to the same Truth the Scriptures declare of and that in the same Spirit of Christ by which they were given forth be offensively to equal or prefer such Testimonies we are indeed guilty of great Presumption But if it be Scripturally True That as many as are led by the Spirit of God are the Sons of God and that such as so led may by that Spirit further be drawn forth to fresh Testimonies to any ancient Truth or Truths declared of in the holy Scriptures whether by way of Prophecy Information Exhortation Reproof or Comfort to Believer or Unbeliever as must not be denyed since God cannot be limited it cannot be Presumptuous or Arrogant to affirm any Kindred or Relation between any such Writing or Wrirings of the Scriptures of Truth In short Either there are never to be more Inspiration after the Apostles Decease and consequently no more Testimonies nor Prophecies to be then what the remaining Scriptures give us or the Pouring out of the holy Ghost belongs as well to after Ages as to that as hath been abundantly proved and therefore fresh Testimonies and Prophesies by way of further opening or pressing the ancient Truth recorded in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament may in after Ages be given forth unless God and his Spirit should be limited and many parts of the Scripture remain unfulfilled If any shall object 'T is Adding according to Revel 22. 18. I would have them know that the Addition intended was not of other Writings but other Doctrines I will conclude this with a very notable Passage delivered in a Book entituled An Examen of the late Assembly of Divines Confession of Faith presented to the Parliament Anno 165â— pag. 8 10. It is evident that the Lord will have Prophets in all Ages especially when he is about to bring extraordinary Judgments upon the World in general and upon the Church is special and that the Last Times shall abound most of all with the Prophetical Spirit So that these extraordinary Wayes of God's revealing himself neither are ceased nor shall determine in the militant Church Thirdly whereas you say in the sixth Section that nothing at any time is to be added to the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament whether by new Revelations of the Spirit or Traditions of Men We desire to know what Warrant you have thus to determine If you say that in Revelat. 22. 18. it is written That if any Man shall add unto these things God shall add unto him the Plagues that are written in this Book We answer That so much in effect was forbidden long before as Prov. 30. 6. Add thou not unto his words lest he reprove thee and thou be found a Lyar yet many Books of the Holy Prophets and Apostles have been added since the written Word of those times Yea the same Inhibition was given by Moses Deut. 4. 2. 12. 32. Ye shall not add to the Word which I command you neither shall you diminish ought from it Therefore this Addition thus probibited must necessarily be understood of any new Doctrine in substance differing from the Old but even that of Moses But that there should be a Vindication of the same when mis-understood or a more full and free Publication of the same by the Prophets of the Old Testament or Inspired Men of the New Rep. My Adversary tells me a Blind Story a preferring our Writings above the Scriptures as being from God essentially in us But this saith he P. has not one word to Rejoyn I had little Reason for it He confesseth pag. 43. of his former Discourse that he expected not to find any such word as Essentially in our Authors Doth he think I was to play the
Rule and Controversie on foot were manifestly implyed especially when I made no Advantage to my self by it But every such little thing must be called by a hard Name or John Faldo would have little to write and but a few to believe his Books But to the Point avoiding many Occasions for severe Reflection Perhaps he grants us what we can desire For upon my asserting that what was and is more general then the Scriptures is most properly the General Rule he replies Rep. I never affirmed them to be a general Rule nor is it that I charge the Quakers for denying but I charge them with denying them to be any Rule at all of Faith and Life he mistakes the Question and yields my Charge to be their Principle and pleads for it p. 54. Rejoyn If that be not the Question how have I granted the Question Do I plead for his Charge because I plead against the Scriptures being the General Rule p. 54. which he sayes is no part of the Charge and what himself undertakes not to contradict But sure I am if the Scriptures be not the General Rule as he implies and thereby cuts his own Throat and grants to the Quakers the Question as largely as needs to be They are not The Rule by way of Excellency or the Rule by which God's People in all Ages have walked for that was and is General So that the Scripture upon his own Concession is but a particular Rule and therefore must be subservient to the Spirit who is the great Evangelical Rule as are many other Instruments that have been made use of upon several Occasions He might have learn'd thus much in p. 53. of my Answer where I say that we acknowledge the Scriptures to contain many Holy Rules for Godliness I would know of him how that could be and yet deny them to be a Rule in any sense But we have good Reason to deny them to be the Rule of Faith and Judge of Controversies who can neither give nor govern Faith nor Judge of Controversies as the many different Perswasions in the World fully prove for then all that have the Scriptures would be of one Perswasion as it is most certain those are who have and walk by the One Spirit VVherefore since the Scriptures themselves testifie to the Spirit as the great Judge Rule and Leader especially under the New Covenant where the Law is not written on Tables of Stone much less Paper but of Flesh to wit the Hearts of the Sons and Daughters of Men the Spirit and not the Scripture must be the Rule of Faith and Judge of Controversie In short The Scripture cannot try a present Motion or Prophecy Bad Spirits are wholely hid from it For Instance Paul reproved not the Spirit that cryed These are the Servants of the Most High God that shew unto us the VVay of Eternal Life from the Scriptures neither did Peter Deceitful Ananias but from the heavenly Instinct and Savour Relish or Discerning they received from the Spirit of God within them 'T was in a Case of such Difficulty that some in these late Times have writ That the Scripture gave no general standing Rule for all particular Cases in fleeing or standing in Times of Persecution but that it was the Frame of the Spirits of the People of God to retire at that season which whether it be true or false that the Spirit of God did so influence them two things are undeniable first That it was the Frame of their Spirits witness their Practice secondly That the Scripture was not sufficient for them to square themselves by on that Occasion And what else do Professors mean when they advise People to seek the Lord in this or the other Case why do they not go seek the Scriptures rather Doth not such a Practice manifestly detect the Scriptures of Insufficiency and evidently prove their Acknowledgment both of Revelation and their Recourse to a more Living Spiritual Immediate and Sufficient Rule VVhy else do they seek God's Mind say they by Prayers not formal but by the Spirit But this is become despised Heresie with J. Faldo For Faith in his Sense rises no higher then so many Articles laid down suppose truly according to the bare Letter of the Scriptures which the Devil can believe as well as he This Faith I call meerly Verbal and Historical of which the Scripture may be a Rule but not of Saving Faith for of that Faith only the Spirit can be the Rule and why because the Spirit of God alone reveals him to the Soul who is the Object of Faith and works Faith in the Soul upon that Object and as this only begets Faith so it increases enlivens rules governs and strengthens Faith unto Dominion This alone unfolds those Mysteries spoak of in the Scriptures Wherefore answered the Eunuch unto Philip when he queried Understandest thou what thou readest How should I unless 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I had a guide as sayes our old English Translation which implies That the things declared of by the Scriptures are not to be understood from the Scriptures but a more Living Spiritual and Certain Guide Wherefore we affirm That Repentance Faith Sanctification Justification Redemption Regeneration c. are all a Mystery never to be disclosed but by the Revelation and Operation of the Spirit of God in Man the Scripture can only testfie to such things that they are but it is the Spirit alone that works them and illuminates guides governs and rules the Soul in and about such things 'T is true all the Spirit leads to is according to the Scriptures it overturns them not for they declare of most of these Operations yet because we believe know and witness them from the Conviction and Operation of the Spirit before we can possibly understand them in Scripture therefore the Scripture is but a Declaration and not the Rule of Faith c. And the only best way to determine any Controversie on foot about Repentance Faith Sanctification Justification c. is the Judgment of that Spirit which works them For how can the Scripture that has so many Meanings put upon it determine which of those meanings is the true Let them shew me that Scripture that plainly and uninterpretatedly tells me such a Proposition is True and such a one is False that consists only of their additional Meanings such a new Nick-named People right and such wrong and they do their Business if they cannot as it is impossible they should they must have recourse to something else to rule determine and what can that be besides that Eternal Spirit which worked the true Faith and ruled the holy Life of those Ancients who gave forth this Declaration of Faith and Life Can any Man tâ—ll another's Mind better then himself or resolve any Doubt or clear up any Mis-understanding concerning what is delivered better then he that spoak it To understand those holy Men's Mind and disprove them that mistake it
Learn'd Ministers do defend and rather out-word us in Testimony to the Truth But before J. F. proceeds to any such Excommunication let him remember that he cannot do it without Disturbance to the Grave and Injury to the Memory of Joseph Carl that Famous and Ancient Independent Pastor who Licensed J. Spâ—â—gg's Book Ann. 1647. and consequently entituled himself to the Doctrine therein exprest And for Christopher Goad's not only J. Sprigg perform'd the Friendly Office of Publisher after his Decease but himself was Pastor of a very eminent Congregation of Independents in his life-Life-time Strange that the Men of these dayes should not know the Principles of their Admir'd Fathers and Teachers when they meet them but that worthy Witness C. Goad in his Conclusion of his last Testimony pag. 74 77. gives a good Reason for it He that hath Ears to hear let him hear he that hath not it may be will cry Whimsie Fancy and turning the Scripture into an Allegory and whilst the Vail is over Error Heresie Blasphemy I had thoughts of adding no further Testimony but a most remarkable Passage of that Christian and Learned Martyr Dr. Barnes Burnt for his Faith in King Henry the Eighth's dayes after having been his Ambassador and in high repute pressed hard upon me and I know not but his greater Distance from us then those before cited may carry more Authority and obtain greater Favour with our Enemies who will at least make shew of Reverence to his Autiquity and Martyrdom his words are these That Man's Will Reason Wisdom Heart Soul or whatsoever thing is in Man without the Spirit of God is but the Wisdom of the Flesh let him intend his best do all that lieth in him with all his Might and all his Power and yet can it not please God for it is but all Flesh Again It is the Spirit of Christ that maketh him Christs and the Spirit of God giveth witness to our Spirit that we be the Children of God Our Spirit giveth no witness to himself thâ— he is Christ's for then were the Spirit of God frustrate wherefore let our Spirit as well as he can study his best to apply himself to Goodness or to the uttermâ—â— of his Power and yet it is but WISDOM OF THE FLESH and HATH NO WITNESS OF GODâ— yea it is but an ENEMY and it must needs bâ— SIN as St. Austin saith He that feedeth without mâ—â— feedeth against me Thus far D. Barnes which is but a little of the greaâ— deal that he writes to the same purpose against thâ— Papists about their Doctrine of Free-will And iâ— deed he cleaves the Hair and hits the Mark above moâ— Ancient Writers for as he unanswerably argues in thâ— very Smart Discourse that Man's cleaving to his oâ— Power brought him into transgression and consequenâ—â—ly could never redeem him out of it So doth he eâ—â—press the absolute Necessity of Man's having Recourseâ— the Spirit of God in himself for Counsel and Assistanâ— in order to understand and fulfil the Good-will of Goâ— which implyes that all those who call it opposing 〈◊〉 Spirit to the Scripture and vilifying the Knowledge Scripture to press the understanding of it and witnessing the Truths therein declared of from the Revelation and Operation of the Eternal Spirit only are upon the rankest strain of Free-will that was ever yet broach'd among Men and there we leave our bitter Enemy J. Faldo I am now come to a Passage more immediately concerning my self which he thinks touches me to the Quick but I know not why unless he measures me by himself being a Man so quick to be touch'd that at the soberest and solidst Answer which I could give him he doth so gaul and fret that there is no coming near him without being kick't and abus'd His Carriage towards me in this Particular amongst many Instances already past and yet to come proves what I say In a Book of mine called The Spirit of Truth Vindicated c. in Answer to a Socinian who seem'd to deride the Quakers asserting a Necessity of having a Right Faith in God and Knowledge of the Scriptures from the Revelation and Operation of the Eternal Spirit I used these words But I assure them they shall grope in the Dark till they come into the daily Obedience of the Light and there rest contented to know only as they Experience At this he scoffed What know God only as they experience Can we experience his Omnipotency That W. P. of all others should talk at this rate is most ridiculous To which he brings me in thus answering 'T is Unchristian in John Faldo to assert the right Knowledge of God obtainable any other Way then by Experience Here 's my Reflection by way of Consequence but where 's my Argument That he left behind as being better able to jeer it then confute it some short Account of it I will give That it is the Light or Spirit of God that by its illuminatition giveth the right Knowledge of God that such Knowledge never goes without Experience Again The World without in its Make Order Perservation Providences his Powerful Work of Redemption within prove what I writ But of this he takes no notice Now his Dis-ingenuity thus far is two-fold First his stretching the word Experience to all Cases when the Scope and End of my words went no farther then every Man 's particular Saving Knowledge of God with respect to his Repentance Conversion and Eternal Salvation 2 ly He not only has taken no notice of my Argument but has abused the Consequence viz. That the Right or Saving Knowledge of God is not obtaiâ—able but by Experience after this manner Rep. Reader you have his Character of asserting that Reason Faith Scripture yea the Spirit of God too all which are not one and the same thing with Experience are any Means by which to obtain the Right Knowledge of God Rejoyn How like a Disputant or an honest Man he deals with me may be seen First In that no Man can have Experience without Reason because Reason is that part of a Man which is eminently concern'd in receiving that Experience therefore not the Giver of it nor yet it without Reason Secondly The Work of Faith is one great thing experienced Thirdly The Scripture is oftentimes an Instrument to that Experience Lastly The Spirit of God is the efficient Cause or Worker of the Experience in the reasonable Soul For must not He be very Blind or Malicious that can suppose I meant by the Knowledge of Experience such an one as God's Spirit brings not to who have been all this while pleading for that Knowledge and Experience which the Spirit of God can only give and abused with a Witness by J. Faldo for doing so but that he should suppose me to exclude Reason from Men in their Experiences which is to render them Brutes and because therefore unreasonable to be sure most uncapable of Experience unless Men may Experience without their
unworthily of the Scriptures we utterly detect their Actions For his second I confess I am greatly at a stand I have travell'd several Nations convers'd with Men of most Ways of Religion read a great many Books for my time but never yet did I meet with such an Insolent Blasphemous and Scornful Expression as this I now transcrib'd word for word out of his Reply 'T is true there was an Old Peevish Priest in Ireland who to get a little Money as clearly appear'd writ an Envious Book against us in which he called the Light within an Ignis Faetuâ—â—s a Dim Light c. who lived long enough to vex himself to Death with our Answer as we are credibly informed not long surviving its Arrival and general Acceptance of most sorts of People in those Parts But never yet have I heard or read of such hard Names from the worst of our Adversaries For Tho Hicks himself in his Dialogues against us acknowledges that the Light within checketh for many Evils and excites to many good things c. It were too large to go over the Praises given it by the best Jews Gentiles and Christians Philo the Jew calls it an Immortal Precept Plotin a Gentile sayes it is the Root or Life of the Soul That this Divine Principle in Man makes a true and good Man Clemens Alexandrinus a Christian-Father speaks of it thus The Light will shine out of Darkness therefore it shines in the hidden part of Mankind in the Heart Again Man cannot be void of Divine Knowledge who naturally or as he cometh into the World partaketh of Divine Inspiration c. Thus Munster Vetablus Clarius Castellio Drusius and Codurcus upon this Passage in Job And upon whom doth not his Light arise acknowledge both its Vniversallity and Sufficiency too where obey'd I could produce a Multitude of approved Protestants without being beholding to one Papist whatever J. F. says of us in Commendation of the Universal Light within but will conclude with J. Caryl one of the most ancient and eminent Pastors of the Independent Way in his Exposition on Job and J. Owen that great Doctor of Independency in his Latin Exercitations formerly writ against the Quakers under the Name of Phanaticks a Term since bestowed and improved by he knows who upon such as need no pointing at J. Caryl on Job 32. 8. says that Wisdom and Knowledge in the Things of God come from the Inspiration or In-shining of the Light or Spirit from above And on Chap. 24. 13. That Light there mentioned shined in Wicked Men's Hearts as well as Good or to that purpose And that it is not a Natural or Proper Light as the Sun in the Firmament but such as reproved them for their Iniquity and comes from above c. J. O. abundantly confesseth to the Morallity and Vniversallity of the Light calling it also a Supernatural and Spiritual as well as Moral Light as he frequently phrases it Good Use of which hath been made by our Christian and Learned Friend Samuel Fisher in Answer to Him Rich. Baxter J. Tombs and T. Danson unto which they have never attempted any the least Reply that we hear of though it greatly concerns their Cause and Credit to do something in it For my own part I shall say no more to J. Faldo's Refutation then that he calls the Light within us by which it hath pleased God to redeem us from our Vain Conversation against the Judgment of many Good and Learned Men in several Ages A BLASPHEMER OF THE SPIRIT OF GOD A SORDID SINFUL CORRUPT AND RIDICULOUS THING for which God rebuke him But there yet remains a notable Testimony of our Friends to be consider'd which J. F. produceth to prove our great Affinity with the Papists Rep. If any pretend to be of us and in Case of Controversie will not admit to be tryed by the Church of Christ Jesus nor submit to the Judgment given by the Spirit in the Elders and Members of the Church but kick against it such we testifie ought to be rejected as Heathens Rejoyn Nothing but Rank Ranterism can call this Popery in such Disgrace or reject it as unsound as I will make appear The Church of Christ indued with his Spirit hath a Judgment This Christ allows her and that every Individual ought to rest satisfied in it in Case of Difference therefore said Christ Tell the Church and if he refuse to hear the Church then let him be as an Heathen and Publican The Saints shall judge the World and much more by their Judgment determine or reconcile things among themselves No Caution or Resolution could be more soundly and scripturally laid down First It is the Church of Christ that judges Secondly It must be the Judgment of the Church by the Holy Spirit or rather the Holy Spirit in the Church not consisting of Elders only but Elders and Members which make the whole Church Lastly The Persons rejected are such as first kick or spurn against the Admonitions of the Church of Christ VVhat Man not bereaved of his Senses or as Irreligious as a Ranter can so scornfully upbraid us with this Serious Christian and Necessary Discipline Yes J. Faldo who pretends both to his Wits and Religion dares offer something against it Rep. Oh the Charity of the Quakers Leaders All that will not submit to their little Juncto are with them numbred with Heathens and Infidels Here the poor Quakers may see the Image of the Beast among themselves Rejoyn It were well if J. Faldo would show more Charity in pretending to rebuke us for the want of it But will he allow of those Aggravations the Episcopatians and Presbyterians made upon and against the first Brownists about Gathered Churches Did not they draw as large Conclusions And had they not as much Ground for doing it as our Passage can give to J. F. since they deny'd in most harsh Terms The Church of England to be the Church of Christ The same did the People call'd Anabaptists both of the Church of England and National Presbytery But why our little Juncto otherwise call'd the Spirit of G. Fox and his Ministry or Representative Body Is not this cast out on purpose to insinuate as if G. F. with other publick Travellers in the Service of the Church were Lordly or Domineering as J. Faldo a little further calls it who rarely meddle with those things leaving every Meeting to their own Power But what Occasion had he for this Reflection of our Friends Paper even as by himâ—elf given us Doth it not mention the whole Church and afterwards explain who that Church is by those two Words Elders and Members for such is the Practice of J. F. in his pretended Discovery of us Nor iâ— there any Reason why J. F. should so much stomach the Word Heathen since he thinks it a Priviledge to be so to us at least to call us so Besides we own every such one to have a Saving
Light which he denys to us therefore less Charitable nay Unjust to the Light for he esteems us only fit Company for the worst Sort of Heathens such as Julian and Lucianâ— It seems we must be viler then Heathens and Mahometans with J. F. witness his first Book But we ought not by any means to repute such as he is that denyes us and our Principles with Abhorrence as to us either Heathen or Infidel What shall we call him then But hath the Man forgot that the drift of his Book is to Vnchristian us That the Title of it is Quakerism no Christianity and that the Cry of his Associates for these 20. Years has been Heathenism Gentiles Moral but not Christian Men and therefore have excommunicated beaten imprisoned and that to Death and yet by no means must wedeny these Folks to be true Christians that have so long proved themselves to be none Though this might suffice that such as that Paper concerned thought us Christ's Church therefore just to them whatever it may be to others for whom it was not intended A man may abuse the highest Truths taking to himself the Liberty he doth to pervert our Words and Sayings His two Books in God's Day will prove to his great shame and Condemnation this one Charge that I have often in other words upon occasion said concerning him viz. J. Faldo's Charges against the Quakers are not their Principles but his own Consequences falsely drawn from them To conclude If such Inoffensive nay Christian and necessary Resolves for the right Disciplining the Church of Christ in the Wayes of Peace and Righteousness cannot escape J. Faldo's Cruel Hands instead of rendring us Papists I shall not wonder if from a Non-Conforming Priest he turns a Spanish Inquisitor or any thing else that can be worse but it is pitty he should leave us and not see his face before he goes I will acquaint him therefore if yet a stranger with an Excommunication drawn up and pronounc'd by an Independant of great note being in the Parliament's time Master of Pembrook Hall in Cambridge and Pastor of a Church in London Sydach Sympson's Excommunication of Capt. Robert Norwood I do in the Name of the Lord Jesus and his People declare Mr. Norwood one that hath lifted up his Tongue and Heart against the Lord Jesus Christ and God the Father one that from hence forward we have no more to do withall till he repent but shall continually pray that his Nights may not be quiet for the Thoughts of his Sin but that his Bed may be filled with Tears I charge all you both of the Church and all other that are Christians that you should look upon him as one that God would have thus severely used until that he buckle under his Sin and then our Souls shall rejoyce In the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ we deliver him unto Satan for the Destruction of the Flesh that his Soul may be saved To prove this Authority by Example he produceth this piece of Antiquity however ill it befits an Independent Church-Man The Church of Pallemnis as Semetius reports excommunicates Andronicus in these Words Let 〈◊〉 Man account Andronicus a Christian but look upon him as one whom God execrates have no Company with him 〈◊〉 but what is necessary This Reader is the Moderation and Charity of such as J. Faldo accounts both a true Minister and a Christian Society much of this have we found at the hands of the same Sort of Separatists But first observe according as J. F. would have us understand it by his Censure of us in a Case less obnoxious the absolute Authority personally assumed and how much S. S. acted the Pope in J. F's Language or arbitrary Prelate in this matter that had been an earnest Decryer of the same Spirit in a more national Clergy 2ly It is worth our Notice that the matter First charged was a pretended Untruth relating to civil Commerce from which he cleared himself to his Adversaries publick Confusion But this was but the Preface the Business is behind for he denyed the Locallity of Heaven and Hell that is void of outward Place as looking upon them to have a more spiritual Signification and that the other was too carnal indeed Mahometan and that he believed the Soul to have been breathed from God thereby assigning to it something more of Divinity than the usual Opinion doth For this and no more as the Pamphlet informs me which recites the Reasons of the Excommunication do they excommunicate him yet to colour the Business the better like as J. F. does with us S. S. expells him their Society for denying a Heaven and Hell at all and as rendring the Soul God himself crying out Satanical Devices Atheism and Blasphemy There is one Passage this Captain took notice of not unfit to be observed by us with Respect to the Use J. F. makes of our Paper S. S. in his Proem or Introduction to his Excommunication used among other these Words That though Men may withdraw themselves from the People of God they cannot from the Oâ—dinances of God meaning as I suppose that his pastroal Power could or should reach beyond Constantinople or a further Place to excommunicate Anathema Meranatha an Offender c. But to this the Person so dealt with answers and for ought I know more justifiably then J. F. can pretend to do to us for we allow no such personal and pastoral Dignity and prerogative Power to any Man nor do we use any such Forms of Excommunication siyes he Have I therefore withdrawn my self from the People of God because I have withdrawn from you ARE NONE THE PEOPLE OF GOD BUT YOUR SELVES What are all those you are withdrawn from ALL DAM NED This is such an Argumentum ad hominem as I am of the Mind ought to trouble J. F. if the least Grain of Modesty be in him what he chargeth upon us is out-done by themselves and the Aggravations he would render us odious by are made the natural Consequences of theâ—r own Excommunications I will conclude this with telling my Reader that for no other Cause then what is exprest namely Opinion and that not very offensive this Person once accounted greatly of among them being a Member of their high Court of Justice was first traduced then excommunicated after this complained of to the Powers by them therefore deprived of his civil Employ and though they were his Debtors both for Money lent and his Services done them if we may credit his printed Narrative the Priesthood so prevailed that the Lord Mayor Andrews sent a Warrant for him had him brought rudely and violently to the Sessions at the Old Bayly and there placed among Thieves and Murderers in Order to his Tryal for Blasphemy These were the meek and hearty Pretenders to and Fighters for Liberty of Conscience that when they had the Power in their Hand proved abundantly they intended it only for themselves not unlike to their
great Geneva Doctor that made Servetus keep Company with his Books or rather had him burnt by them as if it had been to save Wood for Exceeding their Presbyterian Reformation and instead of repenting defended it in Writing when he had done at what time the said Doctor and that whole City were persecuted themselves with the Anathama's of Rome and 't is not to be doubted but they thought them unchristian It would fill a Volumn to tell the Tragical Excommunications and other notable Feats done by some of this Tribe of Men for the Maintenance of their Church Power and Dignity oft times saving the civil Magistrate the Trouble of abusing such poor Dissenters from them as we are by a licentious Usurpation and Practice of his Power upon their Backs we well know it yet has this man the Confidence to fall hard on us for censuring such as recede from what they once own'd because we can never allow them as such to be of us he cryes out Oh the Charity of the Quakers the Quakers may see the Image of the Beast among themselves c. But on better Grounds may every ingenuous Reader return this Exclamation Oh the Incharity of J. F. and his Adherents whose very Mercies are Cruelties Let him pack up his Pipes and play us no more of these Envious and Hypocritical Notes and hold himself contented that whether we be the Image or no to be sure he has made Sydach Sympson and his Church the Beast in great Letters cum multis aliis not forgetting nor excluding his own railing and excommunicating self The Conclusion of the First Part. WE have now run through his Nine Chapters Seven of which concerned the Scriptures doubtless writ to vindicate his former Discourse but with what Success I leave with Thee Courteous Reader to judge And before I sum up our Sense for a Farewell to this Part of his Pamphlet I request thee when thou next falls into Company with J. F. or any of that Tribe of Men the pretended Admirers of Scripture and one would almost think the devoutest Observers of those Precepts and precisest Imitators of those Examples expressed therein to ask in good Earnest Whether it be the whole and every part of Scripture they call the Word of God and Rule of Faith and Life or No If they say All and every part of it then the Words of Wicked Kings False Prophets Persecutors c. yea the Devil himself therein at large declared with the whole Jewish History and Ceremenial and Judiacal Law containing the Government Sacrifices Priesthood and all other Jewish Rights will necessarily make up a great part of the Word of God and their Rule of Faith and Life But if they shall answer Negatively that they are not in the whole and every part of them the Word of God and Rule of Faith and Life Then ask them Which are those Places Precents and Examples that particularly concern us under this Administration And if they answer this Enquiry and are not grown too hot and angry by this time entreat them to tell thee By what they discern and distinguish in this weighty Matter For if they either set aside what they should receive or continue what should be laid aside they Add or Dminish to what themselves acknowledge to be the Word of God If they say the Harmony of Scriptures the same Question holds How and by What doth it appear so Harmonous since there are very deep and obscure places and sometimes seeming Contradictions and that in highest Points If they say by the Spirit and Vnderstanding of meer Man the Apostle Paul directly opposes himself to every such answer 1. Cor. 2. But if thus driven they answer in the Words of J. Owen That the only Publick Authentick and Infallible Interpreter of the Holy Scripture is HE who is the AUTHOR of them from the Breathing of whose Spirit it derives all its Verity Perspicuity and Authority Exerc. 2 7 9. against the Quakers Entreat their Patience to stand one Question more and thou hast done viz. If the Verity Perspicuity and Authority of the Scriptures depend upon the Breathing of the Holy Spirit or as he expresses it a little further the Infusing a Spiritual Light into our Hearts Then Whether People ought not to have recourse unto the Holy Spirit and Light as the only Interpreter Judge and Rule what Scripture remaine of Force to our Day and how and which way such Scripture is to be understood When thou hast obtained such sober Answers as thy Questions deserve at their hands I should be very glad to have the Perusal of them In the mean time we own and with our whole Hearts confess First That the Scriptures given forth by Inspiration are a true and faithful Narrative or Declaration of the Mind of God towards the Sons and Daughters of Men and his various Dealings with them respecting Precepts Prophecies Threatnings Promises Providences Rewards Punishments Deliverances Doctrines Examples and Practices Seconly That they are Profitable for Reproof Instruction Edification and Comfort Thirdly That it is the Spirit of God which only gives Men to read understand and use them to Advantage as Thomas Collier hath well expressed it about Twenty Five Years ago viz. And truly Brethren it is my earnest Desire to see Souls to live more in the Spirit and less in the Letter and then they will see THAT WE JUDGE OF THE LETTER BY THE SPIRIT AND NOT OF THE SPIRIT BY THE LETTER which occasions so much Ignorance amongst us And they who profess themselves to be our TEACHERS ARE CHIEF IN THIS TRESPASS Four â—hly That the Holy Spirit is the New Covenant Rule and Judge it being the Promise of the Father and Ministry and Dispensation of the latter Days as there Scriptures abundantly prove Neh. 9. 19 20. Job 32. 8. Isa 59. 21. Joel 2. 28 29. Hag. 2. 25. Mat. 16. 17. Jo. 14. 17 18 19. Chap. 16. 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15. Rom. 8. 1 9 14. 1 Cor. 2. 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16. Gal. 5. 16 18. Eph. 1. 17. I. Jo. 2. 20 27. Yet we deny not but the Lord hath and yet may make the Holy Scripture a Mean to several in the Hand of his Spirit of Understanding and Comfort and so far they may be a particular Rule Yea I do believe they have been and yet are next to a Living and Powerful Ministry a more ordinary Mean then many if not any other whatever Howbeit we are not to center here but press on forward to the Life Power and Spirit it self of which they declare for into That God hath determined to bring and as it were wind up his People by which they come to be fulfilled whereas those that stick in the Letter of them and pass not througâ—â—â—d beyond it into the Life and Vertue they bear record of know but as the Scribes and Pharisees did and cannot as such be true and faithful Witnesses for the
true and living God Fifthly We have proved our Doctrine of the Scriptures and the Holy Spirit as by us distinguisht and cleared from J. F.'s Perversions by abundance of such Authorities as I think he dares not gain-say So that we cannot be longer Hereticks and those continue Orthodox showing thereby that we are but pressing more intirely plainly and effectually what the best Protestants and Separatists have at times not only let drop from their Mouths and Pens but insisted on and prophesied also the increase and Enlargement of in the hearts of Men however forgot or denyed by their Dry and Degenerated Posterity Lastly That we do not therefore exhort People to hearken unto the Voice and Leadings of the Holy Spirit which strive with them as that by which God who is a Spirit comes truly to be known and the Scriptures themselves only to be read with a right Understanding and true Benefit with any the least Design to justle the Scriptures out of their place and Authority No God knows it is not our Purpose but for this very End do we so write and speak that People may come to possess what they declare of and witness them fulfilled in themselves instead of contending about what they do not understand and which can never be revealed to that dead dark and unregenerate State in which they live for the Lord is at work as I said before to gather People more and more into the Spirit and Life of his Son accomplishing his Glorious Promises in these latter Dayes and bringing People to the good Things themselves by which Out-sides are daily wearing off more and more and the Testimonies of Holy Scripture witnessed and fulfilled in them that believe Which is not to Overthrow but to answer the great End of their first Publication Preservation unto this very Day Whereas the contrary is not truly to esteem them but under the very vain Pretence of it to withstand and as much as in them lieth to bar out the Great Gospel-Ministration which stands in the Convictions Instructions Leadings and Orderings of the Holy Spirit And unto that must all come who in this Life would witness a Translation into Christ's Kingdom that is not of this World and know a being made free of that Jerusalem which comes down from above the Mother of the Free-born which they only are that have been born again by the Regenerating Word to whom the Formal and Literal Professors are but as Hagar and her Off-spring unto Sarah and the Seed of the Promise And this is the Word of the God of Heaven and Earth unto all those that are yet unacquainted with this Convincing Baptizing Reconciling Ingrafting and Regenerating Word Power or Spirit within And so I am thus far clear of your Blood and am at Peace with the God of my Salvation THE INVALIDITY OF John Faldo's Vindication Of his Book called Quakerism No Christianity PART II. CHAP. I. of Gospel-Ordinances in general such truly embraced THis second Part of my Rejoynder is a Consideration of his Defence of his Charge of our Denying Gospel-Ordinances the True Christ with his Transactions at Jerusalem also that we are guilty of Idolatry and own not the Resurrection of the Dead The Work of this Chapter will be to see how he will make good our Denyal of Gospel-Ordinances in general Be pleased to hear how he handleth both me and the Matter Reply pag. 49 50. The first Proof is out of Fox Myst p. 2. He hath triumphed over the Ordinances and blotted them out and they are not to be touched and the Saints â— Christ in them who is the End of outward Forms This saith W. P. pag. 103. is Scripture Language But why so because some Scripture-words are in it although the Text be mangled Corrupted and abused to the Contradiction of Scripture-Truth Thus they apply sinfulyenough False Prophets Dogs Serpents Hypocrites Devil Lyar c. But if I should call W. P. Thou Child of the Devil Thou Enemy of all Righteousness he would not therefore allow it to be all very true though so applyed it looks much more like Truth then G. Fox's scriptural Language who hath these Words about Baptism and the Lord's Supper Rejoynder For his Proof as he calls it it is not in pag. 52. of G. F's Book which were Answer enough to so shuffling an Adversary I confess in page 16. I find it but it is so far from being immediately directed to either Baptism or Supper that there is no such thing mentioned much lest insisted on from the Beginning of G. F's Answer to J. Timson's Book to the very place wherein the Words are found Now what to call this piece of Invention is sest with every Readers Discretion But it is not less worth our notice that of all my Explanation of G. F's Words he only reports these three viz. is Scripture Language who further told him Christ did blot out the Hand-writing of Ordinances Collos 2. 14. That he was to the Saints then and is to those now who rightly believe in him the End of all Meats Drinks Washing Dayes or any other Temporal Elementary or Figurative Worship according to verse 16 17. By this it will appear whether of us two have most honestly and most truely applyed Scripture I in thus expositing and vindicating G. F's Passage or J. Faldo in calling me by Implication a Child of the Devil and an Enemy of all Righteousness But again Reply p. 50. I also told Mr. Penn That if the Saints having Christ in them were the Consideration of which the Ordinances were not to be touched then not only we but even all other Saints under the Mosaical Administration sinned in their Practices of God's Ordinances also for they had Christ in them in those Dayes in the same Sence as the Saints in these Rejoynder This Saying carries with it a large Concession to Christ's Manifestation in the Hearts of his People as well under the Mosaical Administration as that which we call for Distinction Evangelical Indeed larger then true if by the same Sence he understands that all that he was to his Apostles and the Churches by them planted he was to the People of Israel under the Conduct of Moses for first it is manifest they were not capable of such Discoveries being weak-Sighted carnal and greatly addicted to embrace the Fopperies of the Heathen Secondly There would have been no need of shewing forth a further Glory by Types and Figures or to entertain minds so enlighted and Heavenly with such low and as the Apostle phraseth them beggarly things had they enjoyed Christ under the Administration of Moses as in more Gospel Times But above all that J. Faldo should plead for the Continuance of Ordinances after Christ had blotted them out and such Meats and Drinks c. as Christ ended being the Substance of them because Christ might be in some measure known to the Saints of old at what time such Ordinances were given forth and such Meats
Testimonial or Signification of their Belief in the Visible Appearance of the then so much denyed so cruelly derided and crucisied Jesus Wherefore I say it was not Evangelical but an Introductory Ceremony suited to the external State of things in that Day which in some competent Time so varied that there could be no Pretence of Christian-Prudence for Perpetuating the Practice of it much less any Reason for its Institution for as the Christian Power and Spirit then brightned and Christ came to be more and more formed in the Hearts of his People VVater gave way to the Holy Ghost and Fire John to Christ and their Carnal Historical Faith of Christ to the Revelation of the Son of God in them the one thing necessary even the Eternal Substance that as He grew up and put forth himself gradually wore off all Shadowy and Figurative Observations Thus did God restore the Kingdom to Israel and bring back the Captivity of his People having laid Help upon one that is Mighty the Son of his Love who alwayes was the Baptizer of all them that believe in him into his own pure Nature which is that Regeneration without which no Man shall ever enter into the Kingdom of God CHAP VII Of the Bread and VVine which Christ gave to his Disciples after Supper commonly called the Lord's Supper OUR Adversary begins his Sixteenth Chapter thus Reply pag. 69. W. P. having little to any purpose to say upon the Point of the Lord's Supper hath recoruse to his old Shifts First he charges the Independents with the Death of J. Parnel p. 141. But what is that to the Question and I believe as little to the Truth as my hand in the Blood of Kings and Princes Rejoynder Then is John Faldo deeply guilty of the Blood of Kings and Princes for certain Persons of that Way apprehended imprisoned and hardly used him to Death Doubtless no Murderer no Traitor was ever handled at that in humance â—ate by English Men as was this poor Young-man by those pretended Saints I refer my Reader to the second Part of our Serious Apology p. 185 186 187. for further Satisfaction Nor have I used any Shifts to avoid the Strength of J. Faldo's Charges or Proofs I am glad when he meddles with Matter for I find more Trouble Chaff Froth and Pedantry then when I encounter any thing more solid But if this be not crying out first there is no such thing as I will make appear in this very Chapter I brought several Reasons to justifie our Discontinuance of the Supper soberly discoursed in four or five pages He takes no more notice thereof then if there had been no such thing saving that he tells us He neglects them because they be speak the Emptiness of their Author Such a Way of Replying that had I loved Shifts more then honest Answers and could put off my Conscience at that easie but unjust Rate it would have saved me the Trouble of having to do with John Faldo's essayes against the Quakers He bestows his time in making good two Proofs he pretended to bring out of our Frinds Writings how well he acquits himself we will examine J. Parnell it seems said The Bread that People broak in that Observation was Outward Natural and Carnal This he counted most Hainous I told him That the Bread and Wine being of an Outward Elementary Nature and Substance may in Comparison of what they signifie be very properly termed Natural and Carnal Upon which he bestows this Reply after his wonted Modesty Reply pag. 69 70. Very well becoming Penn's knowing Divinity and Philosophy Fire and Air are of an Elementary Nature is Fire and Air therefore Carnal Rejoynder We would not that any should think that we intend by Natural and Carnal the worst Sense that may attend these words for sometimes they import a Wicked and Accursed State but simply as they are opposed to things Supernatuaral and spiritual and in this Sense all parts of this visible World may fall under their Signification Outward relates to the same thing and so doth Elementary as vulgarly understood and by me appropriated I was not making a Philosophistical Lecture but writing of plain and Evangelical Doctrine I know that VVords in Philosophy do carry a quite other Sense then what they bear in common Conversation I opposed Natural to Supernatural Carnal to Spiritual Outward to Inward and Elementary which relates to any of these VVorlds Elements to the Nature of that Food which comes down from above and I think Bish VVilkins's Real Character will vindicate me from the Crowing Charge of this pretended Divine and Philosopher His next Testimony was out of VV. Smith's Primmer They Bread and VVine in the Lord's Supper are the Pope's Invention This I utterly denyed to have been delivered by VV. Smith and did require him in the view of the World to produce any such Words out of the Books of W. Smith or any other of our Friends His Reply is this Reply p. 70. What W. P insnuates I charged them with viz. calling the Bread and Wine Christ blessed the Invention of the Pope I am as little concerned to make Proof of as he is honest to make report of for my Book layes no such thing to their Charge Rejoynder What a silly Evasion is this Did he not charge us with calling the Bread Wine of the Lord's Supper the Popâ—s Invention And doth he now tax my Honesty in saying That he makes us to call he Bread and VVine Christ blessed the Invention of the Pope I would fain know what is the Difference between these two Expressions were not the Bread and VVine Christ blessed the Lord's Supper If not he knows what follows and if they were the Lord's Supper then to call the Bread and VVine Christ blessed or the Lord's Supper the Invention of the Pope is equivalent therefore he ought to think himself greatly concerned to make us Satisfaction for having cast so great a Scandal upon us our Doctrine But he hopes to help one Shift by another Hear him Reply p. 70. But you are to take Notice that W. P's Words import that very same Bread and Wine which Christ and his Disciples eat and drank together at Jerusalem Rejoynder Oh J. Faldo leave of these horrible Falshoods Hath neither Christianity nor thy Profession nor common Reputation Power enough to influence thee into more Justice towards thy Adversary What Man of Sence can think I meant only that very same Bread and Wine which Christ and his Disciples eat and drank together There is no Foundation for this ill Comment And I dare appeal to my Readers Conscience in this Matter And so meanly hast thou managed this Matter that thy very next Words show the slightness of thy Reply Reply p. 70. VVhereas my Charge is of the Bread and Wine used in the Ordinance of the Lord's Supper after his Death among God's People and his Churches Rejoynder What Difference was there in Point of Time between
ignorant in the Latine Tongue for the Superlative or firmissimum exceeds the positive or firmum by valde very as well as by maxime most However had we nothing of this to urge yet his own use of the Comparison as his Concession to what I said in my Answer and Erasmus and Beza confirmed there at large gives us all we desire for he acknowledges That the Writings of the Prophets are not MORE true in themselves then any other Revelation of the Mind of God but more certain with respect to the Jews who had a greater Esteem for and Testimony of the Writings of the Prophets to be of God and not a Delusion then of Peter's Revelation So that we see from J. F. himself the Scripture is not set above the Spirit as the more sure Word the thing promoted of old by our Enemies and which we only oppose for I doubt not but the Scriptures were more sure to the Jews then Christ himself else they would never have thought to find Eternal Life in them whilst they neglected yea persecuted him which whether it was their Perfection or Imperfection so to do I leave with the Judgment of my serious Reader yet doth the poor Man vainly call this his defending these three Passages from my Corruption and the Quakers Service May my Adversaries alwayes defend themselves at this rate and I shall never fear any loss to the Cause For what with his misrendering of our Writings unfair Quotations plain Wrestings pittiful Evasions and at best weak Replies never diâ— Cause receive more Advantage at the hand of an Enemy then ours hath from J. Faldo I will give one Proof more before we leave this Chapter Reply pag. 84. My Exposition of Coloss 1. 25. Christ in you c. though the most opposite to the Quakers Christ within W. P. hath not one Word of Answer to Rejoynder I know not whether he means the Text or his Exposition to be most opposite to our Christ within The Text is Coloss 1. 27. not 25. and lyes thus To whom God would make known what is the Riches of the Glory of the Mystery among the Gentiles which is Christ IN you the Hope of Glory In which I find not one word that opposeth Christ's Dwelling in his People One would think our Adversary spoak Ironically or by Contraries if he meant it of the Text for it seems an impossible thing to me that a Text so plainly expressing Christ to be in Men should notwithstanding prove Christ not to be in Men. If he understood it of his Exposition how can that truly exposite the Text who exposites it quite to another sense then it will bear at least he should call this a begging of the Question Let us hear what he offers First Book Part 2. p. 100 101. For Christ to be in the Gentiles rightly understood would be no hard Matter for the Gentiles to believe as to believe such a Glory to be attained by Faith in and Obedience to the Laws of a Man who dyed as a Malefactor and that â—his Death of his should reconcile God to Man with the Addition of such a Purchase This sort of Doctrine well becomes J. Faldo I perceive I have not mistaken him What Carnalist in the World could have let drop a more pernicious Sentence to the Doctrine and Kingdom of Christ then to render it more difficult to believe and lay a greater Stress upon the External then the Internal Work of Christ VVe must read the most weighty Scriptures backwards upon this Man's Principles He hath helped us to a new VVay of rendring the Text not this Mystery among the Gentiles is Christ IN you the Hope of Glory but this Mystery among the Gentiles is a Man who dyed as a Malefactor by his Death reconciled to God c. Behold your Expositor I dare warrant this Man's Comment will never trouble the next Collection of Criticks At this rate the Lord-Lord-Cryer is highly priviledged and the Galatians had passed the most difficult Birth before they had known Christ to be formed in them Regeneration is a sleight thing in comparison of the Knowledge of Christ after the Flesh This Doctrine brings not Men to Christ in them the Hope of Glory but inticeth them into the Vain Hope of the Hypocrite which perisheth The History is made the greatest Mystery and to believe the one matter of greater Difficulty then to experience the other Besides why should his Dying as a Malefactor render him unfit to be believed since his Vertue was most Exemplary his Miracles stupendious his Doctrine Spiritual and Powerful his whole Deportment amongst the Jews Innocent and Heavenly Did not Tiberius himself move to the Roman Senate his being taken into the Number of their Godds upon the Report of his mighty Works 'T is strange that should be reputed most Mysterious which was the Introduction to the Mystery and those Transactions counted most difficult that were by the Divine Wisdom of God ordained as so many facile Representations of what was to be accomplished in Man In short It is to lessen if not totally to exclude the True Mystery of Godliness which is Christ manifested in his Children their Hope of Glory But he proceeds thus The Man Christ that was nailed on the Cross the Quakers do not believe to be in them for the Godhead if Christ that is every-where and every-where alike he is in every thing at all times and nothing can be void of his Presence So that if this be it you mean the Saints have no more Priviledge then any other Creature whatsoever The second New and Living Man who is the Lord from Heaven the Quickening Spirit the Anointed Saviour whose Body was nailed to the Cross we confess before Men to be the Christ and do by Vertue and Authority of Scripture assert him to dwell in his Children and we see nothing offered by J. Faldo that can induce the weakest of us to desert this Faith having with the Testimony of Scripture that of Christ in our selves But let it be considered with what Confidence this Man excludeth Christ the Souls of his People as well with respect to his Godhead as Manhood but if in any Sense he may be said to be in them as God it is no more then he is in Cats and Dogs Oh Irreverent oh prophane Man Are Beasts and Birds as properly the Temples of the Living God as sanctified Men How can God be said to dwell and walk in his People if so remote from them as J. Faldo represents him to be The Apostle is much to be blamed according to our Adversary's Doctrine for letting fall this Passage I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me Gal. 2. 20. The Upshot of this sort of Doctrine is down-right Atheism for as they that know not God from the manifestation of God within are ignorant of him if Rom. 1. 19. sayes true So those who teach that God is no more in his Saints then in any other Creature endeavour
not said by me concerning the last Passage in which lay the Difficulty to wit me the Light in them but the first on which he very little insisted himself viz. that the Light is the Eternal God c. this transposing of my Answer and exchanging it was not ingenuous This Reader in short I offered as the Explanation of G. F's Expression and the Conclusion of a great deal more too large to be recited viz. That he who is the Eternal Fountain of all Life and Sun of Light caused his Light to visit the Hearts and shine in the Consciences of all Man-kind as well of such as rebel against it and scorn it to reprove them as of those who receive it and gladly submit to it to direct and justifie them wherefore we utterly deny that the Manifestation in Man strictly considered is the most high God but a Manifestation of God and from God by the In-shining of his blessed Light and we cannot be said to worship the Manifestation but that Eternal God who is Light that is thereby manifested p. 194. The next Testimony brought by him and examined by us was out of E. Burroughs's True Faith c. for page he gave us none neither then nor now but supposing true Citation a Thing most unusual with him I will set down his Words as they lye Reply p. 85. The next W. P. brings off as clearly Every Man hath that which is one in Union with the Spirit of Christ even as good as the Spirit of Christ according to his measure E. Burroughs Can any Man saith W. P. be so stupid as to think that E. B. ever intended the Soul of Man that purely and simply constitutes him such for he is speaking of that universal Grace Light Spirit which God hath given unto all c. His purely and simply constitutes is pure learned Non-Sense If what every Man hath be as good in kind as the Spirit of Christ which E. B. confesseth it must be God and Christ Rejoynder He should either have past the Manner of my Expression or have corrected it better but I had rather be guilty of Non-sense then horrible Perversion J. F's Crime for he applies that to the meer Soul of Man which E. B. not only intended but expressed of the Light of Christ within Men. I will set down some of his Words that it may be an indeleable Brand upon J. F. a notorious Abuser of our Writings E. Burroughs in his Answer to J. Bunnion and this Passage Heathens Turks Jews Atheists have that that doth convince of Sin yet are so far from having the Spirit of Christ in them that they delight to serve their Lust Thus expresseth himself Do they serve Sin or Lusts because Christ hath not given them Light to discover their Sin or because they hate the Light that is given them Tell me Is not the Light or Spirit of Christ the only Thing that doth convince of Sin Or doth any Thing convince of Sin contrary or besides or without the Spirit of Christ If nay then it must needs be that it is from or by or something of the Nature of the Spirit of Christ which is in the Heathens E. B. argues and about five or six Lines lower thus concludes Till thou provest the Light of Christ which thou confessest every Man hath to be contrary to the Spirit of Christ I shall say Every Man hath that which is one in union with and like the Spirit of Christ even as good as the Spirit of Christ according to its Measure Now let J. Faldo blush if he can Certainly Reader greater Injustice could not well have been acted towards any Man's Writings then he hath acted in this Particular for what is clearer then that the Soul is no further concerned in E. B's Words then that it onght to obey the Light and Spirit he wâ—â—â—es of I told him this before as that Part of my Answer he hath transcribed into his Reply shows to wit that E. B. was speaking of the Vniversal Grace Light or Spirit which God hath given unto all c. of which he takes no Notice but thinks an Epitomy of his first Book of Accusation and Wresting Reply enough to my Answer But which is yet baser he hath the Confidence for all this to cry out against Shifting and Evasion But to make it yet plainer I will set it down more distinctly E. B. Every Man hath that which is as good and like the Spirit of Christ J. F. Then every Man's Soul is as good and like the Spirit of Christ whiâ—h is God therefore the Soul is God W. P. answers E. B. understood it not of the Soul but the Vniversal Grace Light or Spirit therefore no Proof J. F. If what every Man hath be as good in kind as the Spirit of God which E. B. confesseth it must be God and Christ W. P. That which E. B. confesseth is of the Light or Spirit and not the Soul therefore J. F's Charge is false Now Reader what shall we call this but Petitio principii a begging of the Question a repeating of his Perversion It is so because I will have it so as much as if he should say I have charged them higher then any more then that I pretend to bring their own Books for Evidences If I yeild to have perverted them my Credit is gone my Books are despised and which is worst of all my Gain is lost But to the next Reply p. 86. That of Fox he deals treacherously in leaving out the Proposition to which the Answer is made and thereby its Sense also F. brings in the Priest saying It is an Expression of a dark Mind to say that God is not distinguished from his Saints To which he reples He is a Reprobate and out of the Apostles Doctrine What can be better proved If God be not distinct from them not only their Souls but the Composition of the Saints Souls and Bodies are God But if this Passage do not prove P. a designed Deluder none in the World will Rejoynder The Substance of my Answer took in the Priest's Assertion but that J. Faldo almost alwayes takes Care to conceal G. F. writ not like a Philosopher but an honest plain Christian Man Nor is it any Disadvantage to our Cause that either willingly or through Unskilfulness he neglects them for he meant by not being distinct that they were not at a Distance in point of Place by Reason of the dwelling of God and Christ in his People It is apparent G. F. intended no more by his Answer which our Adversary in his first Book gave in these Words But God and Christ is in the Saints and dwells in them and he the Priest is a Reprobate and out of the Apostles Doctrine We see by this that the Question was not whether the Soul be God and Christ but whether God and Christ are at a distance from or dwell in the Saints yea or nay I leave it with my Reader
's Conscience who hath shown himself the designed Deluder of us two Reply W. P. tells me p. 197. That Fisher did not mean the Spirit of Man that is any Part of Man's Nature whereas his very Words are The Spirit of Man which concurs to the constituting Man in his primitive Perfection I told him also that Fisher allowed no Man in his degenerate Estate to have any Spirit at all as Constitutive of Man Rejoynder 'T is true if he puts primitive Perfection to it for nothing can reduce Man to his primitive Perfection but that Holy Spirit which he may be said to have lost that is any Interest in by his Transgression but to say he told me that S. F. allowed no Man in his degenerate Estate to have any Spirit at all as constitutive of Man meerly is to tell his Reader an impious Falshood twice over and not to essay the enervating of one of those Reasons by me urged to prove it so S. Fisher's Words were briefly these As to the Spirit of Man which concurs to the constituting of Man in his primitive Perfection it is the Breath of Life which God breathed into his Soul whereby he became a Soul that did partake something of God's own Life This is that living Principle of that Divine Nature which Man did before his Degeneration and shall again after his Degeneration partake of I told him that S. Fisher did never intend it of the Natural Soul of Man but rather of the divine Life of the Soul without which the Soul is destitute of the Knowledge of the true and living God his own Words very plainly show for if S. Fisher intended that Spirit which is the divine principle that man did partake of before his Degeneration certain and clear it is that since Man did under that Degeneration pertake of his own Soul or else he could not have been a Man S. Fisher never meant the meer Soul of Man but the Life of that divine Principle which regenerates and renews the Soul unto a Life of Purity and Blessedness Unto which and much more he affords me no other Reply then what I have already inserted to wit I told him that Fisher allowed no Man in his degenerate Estate to have any Spirit at all as constitutive of Man as if his meer tell him were Convincement enough to his Reader that S. Fisher held all sinful Men to have no Souls and he knows the Consequence If no Souls then no Punishment for to be constituted a perfect Man to God and a meer Man is not one and the same thing neither can pertaking of the divine Life or Nature be so understood as that the Soul is that divine Life or Nature it self or that such as pertake not of it have no Souls Such Doctrine better becomes J. F's adventures Abuses then the Writings of that honest and Christian Man He tells us of some other Quotations which I medled not with particularly that G. Fox in his Book called the Great Mystery c. should say The Soul was Equal with God that it was without beginning infinite in it self and a Part of God for which he assigns us no Page in his Reply in his first Book the 16th I have diligently perused it and find no such thing however should he have ever written these Words I dare say for him he understood no more by Equality then Vnity for God is greater then all by Infinite no more then something that is not finite or which comes to an End and by the Soul 's being without Beginning and a Part of God no other then that divine Breath of Life which is as the Soul or Life of the Soul that came out from God and therefore is of God that Cause is much to be suspected that props it self with such shallow Cavils he observes no Nicety of Expression in his Writings and it is therefore disingenuously done of any to make this ill Use of his plain and vulgar Phrases But least all this should fail and he had Reason to suspect it he brings us out a Piece of a Letter formerly written by Josiah Coal who lived and dyed a faithful Servant of God and is now at Rest with him put into his Hands I suppose by his Gentle-Man p. 94. as he received it at the Hand I suppose of some Vagabond-Quaker First That he should call George Fox the Father of many Nations but what is this more then to say that Men of several Nations have been begat unto Christ through him Thus Paul was a Father to the Romans Corinthians c. 1 Cor. 4. 15. for though ye have ten thousand Instructers yet ye have not many Fathers for in Christ have I begotten you Secondly That his Life hath reached through his Children to the Isles afar off to the begetting of many again unto a lively Hope But what of all this The life of God is one in all Paul lived by the Life of Christ and so did Peter Paul was present in Spirit though absent in Body 1 Cor. 5. 3 4. Thirdly That Generations to come should call him blessed But is not the Memory of the just blessed Prov. 10. 7. and did not God by Isaiah promise concerning Israel I will make thee an Eternal Excellency and the Joy of many Generations Isa 60. 57. This belongs to G Fox Josiah Coal and every Child of God yea and J. Faldo too if he were so good as he should be 4thly That his Being and Habitation was in the Power of the Highest And so it should be for that is the Habitation of every Child of God for others dwell in the Power of the World In short we are exhorted to stand fast in the Power of Godliness and we read that it was the End of the Evangelical Ministry to turn People from the Power of Satan unto the Power of God which is the Power of the Highest 5thly That he ruled and governed in Righteousness This is but what Paul exorts Timothy to do in the Church of Christ as both his Epistles inform us at large Every Elder Overseer or Pastor in the Church of Christ is bound to do so If J. F. can prove he doth otherwise he may then charge him with uncomely walking but not J. Coal with Blasphemy for saying that a good Man governs in Righteousness Lastly That his Kingdom is established in Peace and the Increase thereof is without End So is the Kingdom of the Saints of God That they have a Kingdom and Dominion is clear from several Scriptures It is the Fathers good Pleasure to give you a KINGDOM Luke 12. 23. Wherefore we have received a KINGDOM which cannot be shaken Heb. 12. 28. The Saints shall JUDGE the World 1 Cor. 6. 3. The Nature of this Kingdom is declared Luke 17. 12. The Kingdom of God is within Joh. 18. 36. My Kingdom is not of this World Rom. 14. 17. For the Kingdom of God is not Meat and Drink but Righteousness Peace and Joy in the
upon what Foot his Resurrection standeth if it may be said to have any or to stand at all Faellacious is but one of his hard words for if the Body rifeth with the same Matter it carried to the Grave it riseth with gross Matter unless it carried no gross Matter thither Let him chuse of the two which to deny But is this to answer my Argument to tell us with so much unwarranted Confidence that the Body shall be the same Matter Substance and Essence c. the very Question What is this but to say It shall be so because it shall be so If he would have done any thing he should have demonstrated how Matter can be without Grosness and the most gross and Material part of the Body to be but the Accidents But he thinks he hath said something to the Point Reply pag. 89. To talk that it the Body cannot be incorruptible because beyond the Nature of Matter it self is to talk like an Atheist making Nature to be God and not acknowledging the God of Nature Rejoynder Did I dare sport in Religion scarce ever Man gave a fairer Occasion in his Compass But he practises it and I abhor it This is such a riddle me riddle me as I never heard of before W. P. sayes The Nature of Matter admits not of Incorruptibility ergo W. P. is an Atheist ergo he makes Nature to be God and ergo he acknowledges not the God of Nature This is the very Man that not a page off reflects Ignorance upon my Philosophy Doubtless a Peerless Disputant one way or other May he evermore thus confute me which is all I will say to such subtil Reasoning and losty Argumentation in this place Yet he has not done Reply p. 89. If God be omnipotent which he is or he is not God he is able as the Apostle speaks to subdue all things to himself with which words he answers all Cavils from Impossibility in Nature Rejoynder The Question was not about God's Power nor was it so much as any Part of the Question But whether Matter is not by Nature corruptible and how that which is corruptible by Nature may be by Nature incorruptible This Scripture he urges to prove his carnal Resurrection will as well prove the Popish Transubstantiation or any the most unreasonable Conceit in the World for it is but saying All things are possible with God and God is able to subdue all things unto himself and the Business is done at J. Faldo's rate of arguing But the Question is not about what God can do but what he hath done and has declared he will do I know there are Impossibilities in Nature which God's Omnipotency makes possible but if J. Faldo doth not know that there is a Difference between Impossibility in Nature and Contrariety to Nature I now tell him there is one and that so wide as though Almighty God frequently supplies Nature's Want of Power yet he rarely if ever acts contrary to and inconsistent with the Nature of his own Creatures What is spiritual remains spiritual what is material material and what is corruptible corruptible But let us see how much better he acquits himself of another Passage which he ventures to cite and in my Opinion doth no more Reply p. 89. W. P. proceeds farther in this vain Reasoning and wicked too p. 202. I say we cannot see how that which is of the Dust should be eternal whilst that from whence it came is by Nature but temporal and that which is yet most of all irreconcileable with Scripture and right Reason is that the Loss and Change of Nature from corruptible to incorruptible natural to spiritual should not make it another Body That it is according to Scripture I have given large Proof in my Book to no one of which he replyeth as also how unreasonable it is to call that a Resurrection which is not of the same numerical Body Rejoynder We may guess how well he proved it in his first Book by the Strength he hath employed to maintain it in his second But let all sober Men judge if this Reply be pertinent to this Part of my Answer yet he promised he would answer my Arguments For the Scripture it is clear That Corruption shall not inherit Incorruption neither can Flesh and Blood inherit the Kingdom of God 1 Cor. 15. 50. Thus Anota cert Divin anno 1645. upon the Place and if he will know the true Resurection set him learn to understand this weighty Passage For we know that if our Earthly House of this Tabernacle were dissolved we have a Building of God an House not made with Hands Eternal in the Heavens 2 Cor. 5. 1. And I cannot but wonder my Adversaries Understanding should be so benighted as that contrary to express Scripture he should assert a Resurrection of the same Body that is buried properly and strictly so the Apostle teaches us to believe that it is not that same Body that is sown that shall be for though we shall be changed from Mortality to Immortality Corruption to Incorruption 2 Cor. 5. 1. and 1 Cor. 15. 37 50. yet mens Bodies of Flesh and Blood shall not inherit the Kingdom of God For the Word Resurrection 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth hot strictly imply a taking up of the same Numerical Body as he would have us believe from his new found Relative IT first Book 2. Part p. 138. for which Beza shall give him a Release both from the Latin and original Greek there being no Word in either for his Relative IT on which he and his factious Brother Hicks have so relatively insisted Indeed as their last and best Refuge The Text lyeth thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Seritur corpus animale resuscitatur corpus spirituale i. e. Anatural Body is sown a spiritual Body is raised that is They lay down a natural and take up a spiritual Body or in lieuof a Natural receive a spiritual Body not that the Natural Body shall be transubstantiated into a Spiritual Body or that admitting of such an Exchange that the Spiritual is the same Numerical Body that was the Natural for so the Natural and Spiritual Body would be one and the same but suppose J. Faldo ' s Relative IT to hold I do utterly deny that this Text is concerned in the Resurrection of Man's Carnal Body at all I will recite it with the five following Verses as they ly in our English Translation It is sown a Natural Body it is raised a spiritual Body There is a Natural Body and there is a Spiritual Body and so it s written The first Man Adam was made a Living Soul the last Adam was made a Quickning Spirit howbeit that was not first which is spiritual but that which is Natural and afterward that which is Spiritual The first Man is of the Earth Earthy the second Adam is the Lord from Heaven As is the Earthy so are they that are Earthy and as is the Heavenly so are they also
quote it so If we speak of Salvation unless we put future or eternal to it he confines it to this World he deals so with Heaven and Hell boldly concluding from what we say Men feel and know of those things here our Dis-Belief of any such thing hereafter I told him of B. Hall and T. Brooks their Books entituled Heaven upon Earth but he sayes nothing to that In short he seems to have made it his Business to render us but as odious as his Wits and worse would let him but let him go with this Character no Man having charged so home proved so weakly and abused so grosly as this Adversary hath done Because I concluded my Answer to the two first Parts of his former Book though contrarily to what he did yet in the same Method he is pleased thus to treat me Reply p. 90 91. Set how good W. P. is at APING MY Logick If Quakerism so called sayes he be not another Dispensation then that of Christ preached and setled by the Apostles If it deny not the Scriptures if it deny not all nor any of the Ordinances of the Gospel c. And so he goes on with his Negatives by the same good Logick I will prove Geometry Logick or Philosophy to be Christianity If Geometry c. deny none of these Things Geometry is Christianity but it doth not therefore Christianity yea if we will pass to the Concrete you may prove a HORSE or a GOOSE a Christian by the same Argument for they deny none of these things Rejoynder Take away his idle Carps and Cavils and he would have nothing to say and he rarely sayes any Thing but something is against himself Who any whit intelligent or candid considering that I refumed the Argument in opposite Terms could think I intended it not to opposite Ends That is when J. Faldo tells us that we deny the Scriptures and all the Ordinances of the Gospel and we answer that we do not deny the Scriptures or any Ordinance of the Gospel that we thereby do not mean or these Words do not imply an Acknowledging of the Scriptures and every Ordinance of the Gospel for Instance Suppose any Man charges J. Faldo with a Denyal of the Scriptures to be the Word of God and Baptism and the Supper to be Ordinances of the Gospel and he shall answer I do not deny the Scriptures to be the Word of God nor Baptism nor the Supper to be Ordinances of the Gospel Are we to conclude that J. Faldo acknowledged the Scriptures to be the Word of God and those Ordinances to be Gospel no more then an Horse or Goose I will form it into an Argument for his Sake He that denyes the Scriptures and Ordinances of the Gospel is no true Christian But W. P. sayes J. Faldo denyes the Scriptures and Gospel Ordinances Therefore W. P. is no true Christian I deny the Minor or second Proposition I query then if I ought not to be understood to own the Scriptures and Gospel Ordinances If not there is no Disputation If I ought to be so understood was it ingenuous or just in him so to cavil But that his Honesty and Logick may yet more clearly appear I will give his Reply in this plain Argument wherein I wrong him not one Tittle Whosoever denyes not the Scriptures and Gospel Ordinances is a true Christian But an Horse or a Goose doth not deny the Scriptures and Gospel-Ordinances Therefore a Horse or a Goose according to J. Faldo is a true Christian I know he would fling this Absurdity upon me but he right well deserves it himself who would extend the Major Proposition beyond its Bounds for it was not Who or Whatsoever did not deny Christianity thereby including all Sorts of Beings and Things which made a Gap for his Horse and his Goose but if Quakers or Quakerism so called of whom was the Controversie and must either deny or own do not deny the Scriptures c. it follows they own the Scriptures c. for by the same Rule that his owning the Scriptures includes no Denyal of the Scriptures it holds e contra that our not denying of the Scriptures includes an â—owning of the Scriptures or else his Argument proves nothing for if it stands not upon the Rule of Contraries it will follow that we may deny them and yet own them for not denying them though there be no Medium is with him no owning them But what Part is not that Man fitted to act who can argue against his Adversary at such a Rate as this W. P. denyes not the Scriptures yet for all that he owns them no more then an Horse or a Goose and why because they do not deny them Next to this Injustice his Logick in these Attempts excells But above all the rest that the first Piece of my Argument as formal as any thing can be should not eâ—cape this Man's Abuse viz. If Quakerism so called be not another Dispensation then that of Christ preached and settled by the Apostles then the same said I though not another yet not the same sayes he Let the Reader judge in this Case My Adversary in his first Book 2d Part p. 144. begins thus If Quakerism be an other Dispensation then that of Christ settled and preached by the Apostles Now what is plainer then that this is a Negative as well as mine for another Dispensation is not the same Next doth it not imply that Quakerism so called is not Christianity if another Dispensation And why may it not follow if it be not another Dispensation that it is the same with that of Christianity Is not this implyed as strongly and clearly as his Consequence in the contrary Proposition Why should his Negative pass and mine be stopt or his Consequence hold and not mine He will have That if Quakerism be another Dispensation then not the same but I must not be allowed to infer If Quakerism so called be not another Dispensation it is the same as if it were not alike to say If Quakerism so called be not another Dispensation then the same Or thus If Quakerism so called be the same Dispensation then not another Our Controversie lay upon absolute Contraries not upon things only indifferent as Geometry c. for they are neither for nor against Christianity neither do they own or deny them But if J. Faldo will be understood of his Saying The Quakers deny the Scriptures that the Quakers do not own the Scriptures Why should not we be understooâ— when we say we do not deny the Scriptures to mean that we do own the Scriptures His Objection is we run upon Negatives whose first Proposition of nine Parts hath eight Negatives in it unless If the Quakers deny Scriptures Ordinances Christ c and affect not a future Blessedness c. are no Negatives or that we must not thereby understand They do not own them for if he sets it not in Contradiction but at the Distance of Geometry only
chosen by Man though he be thereto disposed by the Will of God revealed in the Scripture W. P. This is False Many things may be and are daily chosen by Man that is not in the Will of the Flesh nor by his own Will much less when any should be disposed thereto by the Will of God revealed in the Scripture An Abominable Untruth and so Notorious that I need say no more only Challenge him to produce any of us that is any of our Sayings or VVritings in Proof of his Exposition if he can otherwise be hath Slandered Us and Our Principles For the Wâ—ll of the Flesh is that which is quite Contrary to God and inconsistent with the Good of the Creature How well he hath acquitted himself in point of Honesty as well as Ability first in so maiming my Answer and next in saying nothing to it is still referred to my Reader 's Judgment and so we proceed Reply pag. 92. The second is pag. 249. CHRIST THE OFFERING i. e. the Light within W. P. calls this no Quakers Expression that it is take this Proof We believe that Christ in us doth offer himself up a Living Sacrifice to God for us Smith Cat. pag. 64. Rejoynder I still say it is no Quaker's Expression Though the Light that shineth in our Hearts be Christ the true Light But that which I most insisted on he hath as he useth to do quite left out viz. for he would by this insinuate that we deny Christ to be an Offering as in the Flesh and that Body then offered up to be concerned in our Belief of the Offering but I do declare it to have been an Holy Offering and such an one too as was to be once for all therefore let none receive his Abuse of us for our Faith He that hath half an Eye may see how poorly and meanly he hath shifted off the Weight of my Answer Again Reply p. 92. The third MEN-PLEASERS Sense They who comply with Men though in things not only Lawful but also to Edification This W. P. calls an arrant Lye but the ground is provided J. F. meaneth by Lawful unto Edification what we do I am not so silly to put such Bonds on the Truth Rejoynder Indeed I never took him to be so Silly as Mischievous in the Matter not to use his own Phrase more then Ignoramus for instead of putting Bonds on the Truth he hath broken all Bonds of Truth he pretends to give our Sense of Men-Pleasers and substitutes his own in the room of it and when we tell him that if he means by Lawful and to Edification what we do he belies us he confidently replies I am not so silly to put such Bonds on the Truth as if in rendring our Sense of words he were not bound to keep to our Sense of them how is it our Sense if it be his and not ours and how truly ours if it be putting Bonds on the Truth to render ours truly But the Man's present Hardiness is beyond wondring at To the next Reply p. 92. TRADITIONS OF MEN i. e. The Scripture or written Word p. 250. To this W. P. adds But to say they are the Traditions of Men in the sense Christ forbid the Pharisaical Religion God forbid I had rather my Tongue were cut out of my Head Oh base Man to abuse an Innocent People thus grosly I have already proved the Phrase to be the Quakers viz. Smith ' s and Nailor ' s. Rejoynder This answers it self if he had taken off the Force of my Words I might have bestowed a Rejoynder upon him in the mean time I have disproved his pretended Proof where I met with it and what I find here is but a meer begging of the Question The fifth and last Particular he thus endeavours to vindicate is this Reply p. 93. THE VAIL IS OVER THEM p. 251. Their Sense I give of this he presents the greater half of which explains the other by an c. to blind the Reader and make the Quakers believe I deserve the Imputations of Malice and wicked Man which it seems he is resolved afore hand to bestow on me Rejoynder The Man is weary of his Work as we may see by the great haste he makes over every particular No Man living that hath not read both our Books can make any Sense of this Hodge-Podge Section that ever any Man should touch with Religious Controversie that is so visibly defective in it My Answer shall be my Rejoynder for sure I am he hath overlookt it and therefore yet to be replyed to J. F. p. 89. THE VAIL IS OVER THEM that is sayes J. Faldo the Belief of the Man Christ Jesus which was of our Nature to be p. 251 252. the Christ c. W. P. Let this be the last though several more might be observed which at this time shall be considered in which we shall see that J. Faldo has done like himself and the Man we have all along taken him to be The Vail is over them it is a Scripture-Phrase 2 Cor. 3. 15. used by the Apostle to express the Darkness and Ignorance that to that time remained over the Understanding of the Jews in reading the Law and this Vail he makes us to interpret after this gross and absurd manner namely that the Vail is the Man Christ Wicked Man Did ever Quaker so irreverently express himself Give us his Name or tell us in what Book we may find it What greater Malice couldst thou have shown then thus injustly to pervert the Scripture in our Name abusing both As if because Christ's Flesh is called a Vail and the Ignorance of the Jews a Vail that therefore the Quakers must of Necessity mean by Vail in the first Sense Vail in the second Sense as if the Way to have the Vail rent were to deny the Man Christ Jesus All this my Adversary thought fit to conceal left his transcribing it into his Reply would have made that Discovery of his Baseness which he should never have been able by all his Shifts to palliate I think I did not nick-name this Chapter when I called it a Representation of his whole Reply He ends as he begun with Squibs Puns Evasions and Ill Language for unless the Goodness of a Book be to be measured by the Paint of a Title-Page or bare Writing reputed Replying he might with more Sense and Reason have called it Froth Folly and Fiction then a Religious Vindication c. No Man I ever read of hath exceeded the Bounds of Truth by obtruding Falshoods and wandred from the Dâ—corum of a fair Adversary by unfair Citations and obvious Wrestings betaken himself for Sanctuary to such silly Shifts School-boy Jeers at the rate this Adversary hath done And I have no Reason to Doubt of others being of the same Mind since the World is not so destitute of Understanding as to be cheated with his hocus-pocus Tricks to take Tin for Silver or Copper for Gold or Froth for
VII Of his Vain Glory and Self-Praise At this he is excessive So conceited is he of his own Abilities and impatient after Praise the greatest Discovery of Pride and Weakness that any Man can make which my Reader may find p. 28 32 33 34 50 52 61 63 65 84. I will give one Proof for all My Charge and Argument in this Chapter sayes he is such an Argument and so proved by me as a THOUSAND PENNS can never invalidate it p. 34. The truth of which as also the Vanity of it may be seen both in my Answer and Rejoynder however he stops his Reader 's Mouth and counts him senseless and desperate that is not of the same Mind p. 36. VIII Of Railing and Ill Names No Man pretends to dislike yet no Man practises these ill-bred as well as un-christian Courses more then J. Faldo where he wants Reason he imposes an hard Name and if he be rebukt he calls it Railing reflecting that upon us for reprehending it in him If I call his Comparison base that is so and that he manages it malitiously against us he replies that more gentile Railing may be learned under a Hedge and that those Words are slovenly imposed UPON HIM as if he were too great to be reproved or licensed to rail without Controle at least against the Quakers for if I tell him he is unmannerly he counts our own Practice a Dispensation inferring from our Dislike of vain and fruitless Complements a Liberty to treat us with what unseemly Language pleased him best This my Reader may see at large if it please him to look into these Pages of our Adversary's Reply p. 5 8 16 20 27 29 33 35 45 49 50 52 54 58 62 63 64 69 72 73 77 82 87 91 95. But to omit whole Sentences and yet to give some Instance more at large then by bare Figures my Adversary hath liberally bestowed out of his great Store of ill Language these following Epithetes as well upon our Religion and Friends as my self for defending them That our Light is the second Antichrist the Quakers Idol Pernicious Guide and Saviour Fancyful Teacher in fine a sordid sinful corrupt and ridiculous Thing and our Religion and Practice Blasphemy and Idolatry p. 47 85 87. Our Friends Quakers so called benighted with palpable Knavery and Impudence Absurd and Blasphemous Idiots Out of the Knowledge and Wits also Prodigiously wicked Speak the amazing Delusions of Satan And that I am a presumptuous and blind Accuser a Sophister an Hamam an accursed Ham a treacherous and wilful Deluder a Mad-man an Hangman an infallible Stager a Fool an Ape a Dunce an impudent Forger and what not that his Rage and Folly can foam out pag. 4 53 54 59 61 63 65 90 91 95. I desire my Reader would also take notice that besides his excessive ill-using of us and ruputing our Rebukes for doing so Railing which shows the Beam to be in his own Eye and that his Nature is as proud to reject Reproof as it is foul and rough to occasion it he gave us the On-set Had he not begun with us we know not that ever we should have meddled with him but having begun and withal so miserably abused us by foul Charges false Citations and vilifying Language that it should be more unreasonable in us to censure him then in him to deserve it no impartial Man can ever think What is John Faldo for a Man of what Rank what Quality what eminent Office or Dignity in the World that we must be kickt by him up and down four or five Hundred Pages for whatever he pleaseth to count us not be told he wrongs us Is the Quality of this diminutive Priest so much and the whole Body of the People called Quakers and that to stop him in his Career of Scoff Jeer Taunt foul Names and Reflection is to deserve them But over and above that this shows his Disposition to be Imperious and Impatient as well as Rude and Frothy and therefore very inconsistent with his Pretences to Meekness and Good Manners but most of all with his Reprehension of others in Cases less offensive it will neither confute my Arguments nor damnifie my Person which makes me the less solicitous of making any other Rejoynder I should here bring in my Conclusion to this whole Discourse but lest any may yet doubt of the Truth of these things as believing me to have made an ill Use and partial Relation of them I shall yet offer for further Confirmation of my Sense of the Man and his Undertaking against us this undeniable Evidence to wit that he hath dealt imperfectly and falsly with the World in his Account of our Writings which he makes the Foundation on which every Charge is built that he exhibits and aggravates against us I have here and there in my Book toucht already upon this great Failure But I shall more particularly inform my Reader of it in this place Of Imperfect and False Citations Forasmuch as J. Faldo would have all People believe that he hath charged the People called Quakers with nothing that their own Books do not clearly and plentifully prove insomuch as he counts those that think not so senseless and desperate and that many who read him may be ready to credit him because they see Books Names and Passages frequently cited especially those who have not the Books by them to examine how honestly he deals with us I thought it requisite to end this Book with this further Unanswerable Discovery of his Defective Foundation that in many places we find Names without Book Books without Parts Chapters Pages yea without Names and Pag. without Number or Figure many falsly cited some added to others diminished from in the beginning middle or end of Sentences thereby robbing them of their own Explanation that he might the better fit them for his purpose Take these few Instances I. Names without Books G. Fox Book 1. Part 1. pag. 47. G. Fox 48. J. Nailor 90. C. A. Part 2. pag. 7. W. Dewsbury 11. C. A. 45. R. Farnsworth 46. G. Fox jun. 83 119. R. Farnsworth 142. E. Burroughs 143. Thus far of Names without Book which is not fair in any Adversary Now of Books without Pages and Pag. without number II. Books Without Parts Chapters Pages Morning Watch Book 1. Part 1. pag. 37. Light out of Darkness 37. Shield of Truth Book 1. Part 1. pag. 45. Love to the Lost 45. Life of E. B. 45. Epistle of W. Dewsbury 47. Velata quaedam revelata 53. Morning Watch 92. Morning Watch Part 2. pag. 19. W. P. Spir. of Truth 32. Love to the Lost 39. True Faith 122. F. H. Testimony 123. Great Myst 124 125. Velata quaedam revelata 133. Great Myst 142. Some Principles of the Elect People 142. Great Myst Vindic. pag. 86. III. Books Falsly Cited G. F's Great Myst Book 1. Part 1. pag. 41. W. S's Primmer 44. Great Myst 52. Great Myst 57. Love to the Lost
chosen called out of the World they are not of this World as he is not of this World W. Dell's Sermons p. 152 156 186. The Church is a Spiritual Invisible Fellowship gathered together in the Unity of the Faith Hope and Love Christ and the Spirit are the only Officers CHAP. IV. His Charge of our Denying to Hear the Word of God examined True Preaching acknowledged HE hath maintained this Charge against our Answer with the same sort of Jeers and Florish but manifest insuccess too that he hath done what went before His words are these Reply pag. 61. Concerning denying the Ordinance of hearing the Word preached to my Proof from G. F. We must not hear Man c. W. P. saith That is so far from making against us that it makes for us at an high rate Much like the Mad-man of Athens who called all the Ships that came into the Port his own while he was for all that but a poor Thred-bare Gentle-man I proved that they asserted the Light to be only preached to be the only Preacher and only â—eached to yea and the only Obeyer Rejoynder If this be done Erit hic mihi magnus Apollo If to cease from Man be not false Doctrine then not to hear Man is no false Doctrine for Man is taken in the same sense in both places For as God never intended by ceasing from Man that they should not regard his Prophets who were Men when they came to declare his VVill so neither did G. F. intend that Man ought not to be heard when he comes on God's Errant or Message in the Name of the Lord but meer Man Man in his Natural Capacity and Ability without the Holy Spirit and Power of God which is but a carnal humane and worldly Ministry To say we only preach the Light is no more then to report The Quakers preach Christ for our Doctrine directs People to the Knocks of Christ the true Light at the Door of the Soul who is the Saviour Redeemer and Preserver of them that believe in him and keep his Commandments But that we ever said That it was only preached to yea and the only Obeyer of such Preaching is as false as any Thing that can be said He tells us he proved it I will give the strongest Passage he brought J. Parn. Shield c. Epist To the Light of God in all your Consciences I speak Very well and what then Is the Light therefore preacht to taught or instructed when he only appealed to the Light in all their Consciences concerning the Truth of what he said as the Apostle did To the Light I speak that is To the Light I direct my self To that I make my Appeal if what I write be not true for what soever is reproveable is made manifest by it Ephes 5. 13. This Construction is Natural Our Adversary's forced for nothing is more common with us in General and that Author in particular then to turn People to the Light pressing their Conformity to the Reproofs and Instructions of it alwayes respecting it as given us of God to be our true certain and constant Teacher and alwayes have we been reproacht by such as J. Faldo for doing so But above all that this Passage should be brought to prove the Light is the Obeyer of such Doctrines and Instructions who is the Author of them is an Absurdity that reflects great Ignorance or something worse upon our Adversary We have already declared our Faith so freely and plainly in this Matter besides the Testimony of our dayly Practice that we need say no more then this A true Living Gospel-Ministry we own and the Service and Benefit of such a one we have enjoyed and beautiful are their Feet who come in the Power and Demonstration of the Spirit that open the blind Eye turn People from Darkness to Light and from the Power of Satan unto God Act. 26. 18. that He may be their Instructer according to that Promise They shall be all taught of Me which is the chiefest End of all External Instrumental Ministry To prove our Sence of true Preaching we may add these two following Testimonies out of that renowned Independent Dr. Everad Dr. J. Everad's Sermon Militia Coelestis Truth it 〈◊〉 many toss and tumble the Letter and make you believe they expound it and give you the Sense and Vertue yet how shallow how literal how humane how low how sensual and carnal do they make the Worlâ— to be Even your Rabbies your Doctors your great Schollars which shews if God himself if the Lion of the Tribe of Juda if the Root of David do not open the Seals 't is not all the Learning or all the Universities in the World can help us to the Mystery and the Mind of Christ as the Apostle calls it Shadows vanishing c. p. 326. I dare not offer at any Method in the whole nor at any Connection in the Parts For I find that all the curious Dichotomzers do but dream and play with the Scriptures feeding themselves with Fancies and not Truth for Sure I am the only Method that holy Men of old observed was to speak as they were moved by the Holy Spirit There be many Expositions on this Place which I will not trouble you withall for Men speak according to Men but the Scriptures were written by God's Spirit dictated by his own Finger We must therefore labour to find out what is God's Mind in the Scriptures whatever Men say pag. 369. 370. CHAP. V. Of True and False Prayer HE pretends in this Chapter which containeth not a page to refute several pages in my Book relaing to Gospel-Prayer in which if I 〈◊〉 not he hath done me and the Truth I defend the greatest Service that a reasonable Man would desire at the Hands of his Adversary for the Truth of the Matter is the Man hath shrunk from his Post and deserted his Colours which we shall make appear by comparing his first Book with his Reply Reply VV. P. according to my Charge disowns man's Wilâ— and the Vse of his Conceptions to have any thing to do in Gospel-Prayer pag. 122. and disowns all Prayer that is not by and in the Light within The Quakers Christ The Reasons he gives are as Witless as his Assertion Truthless Thus Now unless Men may perform Gospel-VVorship without the Spirit and the Truth or if in the Spirit and the Truth yet not by the Motion of either a thing absurd it must needs be that Men ought only to preach and pray by the Motion of the Spirit and of the Truth How absurd is W. P' s Reasoning here as if the Vnderstanding Conceptions Will of Man in Prayer must needs exclude the Motions of the Spirit or the Motions of the Spirit exclude them Rejoynder The first Thing our Adversary charged upon us in his former Book was our Denyal of Gospel-Prayer to prove which he cited W. Smith who in his Catech. p. 107. spoak against Prayers of Man's forming
in his own unclean VVisdom to be performed at his own Time and in his own Will which I answered thus It seems then that what Prayer W. Smith's Passage reflects upon is Gospel-Prayer in J. Faldo's Account Of this he takes no notice he might think it is his Inâ—â—st but I am sure it was not his Honesty to omit it for it was to entitle Prayers hateful to God Gospel that he might have his Will of us in making the World believe that we deny Gospel-Prayer he was far from the Carriage of a worthy and generous Adversary in this that knowing how apt many are to receive any Charge against us would have acted deliberately and faithfully as one concerned by the Constraint of Conscience when he alass sent his many Charges as false as black to incense the Ignorant and Credulous against us Revenge for the Loss of some Hearers and that which follows animating him to this Unchristian Essay But he proceeded thus That we own no Prayer that is not by immediate Inspiration and Motion of the Spirit and without the Vse of our Conception and Direction of our Understanding He brought two or three Testimonies to confirm this Limb of his Charge I avoided reporting them by confessing the Matter my Business was therefore to mantain our Assertion in order to which I produced John 4. 24. The Worship of God is in the Spirit and in the Truth which he left out and from thence I gave the Argument by him repeated which he is pleased to call Witless and Truthless as if sayes he the Vnderstanding Conceptions and Will of man in Prayer must needs exclude the Motion of the Spirit or the Motions of the Spirit exclude them But this Reader we will easily scatter for if Man offer up his own Conceptions he cannot be said to offer up what is injected by the Holy Ghost by whom alone God's Children cry Abba Father for by Man's own Conceptions I mean what simply proceeds from man and where any man prayes such Conceptions he must needs exclude the Injections and Motions of the holy Spirit and offer up an unclean Sacrifice else there would be no difference between the Prayers of the righteous and the wicked The Will of man in Prayer was not mentioned in the first Boook But if by Will he means Man's Praying in his own Power and how and when he pleaseth we also deny that for how can he be said to pray with thâ— Spirit and worship in the Spirit who acts without the Will Guidance and Motions of the Spirit And if hâ— means the Will of man subjected to the Will of God anâ— Râ—le of the Spirit then we say Such Prayer is not in tâ—â— Will of man properly but in his Will to whom the Willâ— man is subjected That is properly done in the Will of Man which is done at Man's Disposal or is in Man's Power to perform but it is not within the Compass of Man's Will to offer up a spiritual Prayer consequently it belongs to the holy Spirit to furnish Man with that Capacity So that by the Will of man we do not understand the Will subjected but the Will absolute and that we exclude The Will of Man in that Case is swallowed up in the Will of the Spirit as the Apostle Paul's Life was swallowed up in Christ It is not I Paul that live but Christ in me It is not I Paul that pray but the Spirit that prayeth in me that is I Paul live by and through the Life of Christ Jesus and in Subjection to him and I Paul pray by and through the Spirit and in Subjection to its holy Motions I distinguish between things being done contrary to the VVill of Man and not according to the VVill of man for Paul might pray not according to his own VVill but the Mind of the Holy Spirit and yet not pray contrary to his own VVill because resigning of his own Will unto the Power and Leadings of the Holy Spirit To be acted by that whereby he receives a new Will even the Will of the holy Spirit he does not resist or act contrary to the Will of the Spirit though not according to his own Will But for our Adversary to say we deny the Vse of our Vnderstanding in Prayer is a great Mistake if not a Slander That which I objected against was an other VVord by him carelefly or designedly omitted to wit the DIRECTION of our Understanding for there is as much Difference between the USE of our Understanding and DIRECTION of our Understanding as between a Master and a Servant as to command obey Understanding is alwayes made Use of by the holy Spirit in Prayer for without it there would be no Subject for the Spirit to act or work upon But the Direction of our Understanding in Prayer is perfectly exclusive of the Direction of the Holy Spirit for there cannot be two Directors Besides if the Direction in Prayer be ascribed to the Understanding there is nothing left that may be attributed to the Spirit wherefore say we The Vnderstanding is not to direct but to be directed in Prayer to Almighty God by his own holy Spirit according to that notable Passage Rom. 8. 26 27. The Spirit also helpeth our Infirmities for we KNOW NOT what we should pray for as we ought but the SPIRIT IT SELF MAKES INTERCESSION for us with Groanings which cannot be uttered and he that searcheth the Heart knoweth what is the Mind of the Spirit because he maketh Intercession for the Saints according to the Will of God I offered Eight Arguments in Defence of this Doctrine whereof he cited but one and said no more to it then I have reported For that little he added was but an Aggravation of his Fore-mentioned Consequence Seven then of my Arguments remain unmedled with I will hint at three to show not any Reason but my Adversaries Shuffle If the Children of God are led by the Spirit of God and not by their own VVils Conceptions and Directions then no Access to God without it consequently Prayer without the Leading of God's Spirit is not acceptable with him Again If no Prophecy or Preaching was to be of old but by the Revelation or Motion of the Spirit though but to mortal men of far greater Reason should not any Prayer be made to the Eternal only Wise God without the Motion of the Holy Spirit Lastly Man of himself is Vnable to think a good Thought and as the Professors say from the Crown of the Head to the Sole of the Foot altogether Vnclean therefore he can not perform Gospel-Prayer by the Directâ—on of his own Understanding Vse of his own Conceptions and Strength of his own Will To this Purpose was my fourth Argument which with those that went before and follow after it my Adversary unmanfully declined I will conclude this Chapter with six Testimonies the first out of a venerable Author with almost all Nonconformists J. Calvin In one of his
second Books both by a fair Rescue of our Words from his gross Perversions and indirect and unnatural Meanings and the Confirmation of our real Sense with plenty of plain Scripture many Reasons and the unquestionable Testimonies of several Ancient and Modern considerable Authors My Design hath not been Conquest but Information that by these Religious Wars we may at last arrive at Peace And these Weapons be all beaten into Plow-shares so as to learn War no more That to fear God and work Righteousness the Life of Jesus Christ our Lord who hath left us his most Holy Example that we should follow his steps may be the very bent of our Hearts the Resolution of our Minds and constant Practice of our Lives which bring the Soul to the Inheritance of Substance establish the Heart forever Oh that all who read this Discourse may with me wind up their Spirits and lodge their Souls not in the Love of Controversie but of that Divine Life which stills resolves and fixes all and gives such Heavenly Waiters to feel and enjoy Immortallity To see and possess something that is beyond time these painful Exercises that are within it Oh this makes Men Weighty Serious Loving Meek Holy Forbearing and Constant the Image and Delight of God! Such become Livers of Pure and Vndefiled Religion who have been thitherto but so many vain and verbal Contenders for Religion so shall this Scripture be fulfilled to our unutterable Rejoycing Surely his Salvation is nigh them that fear him that Glory may dwell in our Land Mercy and Truth are met together Righteousness and Peace have kissed each other The God of Everlasting Strength Bless and Prosper this Glorious Work in the Earth to the Praise of hiâ— Holy and Blessed Name Amen W. P. THE END ERRATA THe Author 's frequent Absence from the Press with that continu'd Difficulty which attends us in printing has now as at other times made way for several Escapes The most offensive though few very obstructive to the Sense are here collected and corrected The other as Stops Parenthesis and some â—ew Improprieties are left for the Ingenuity of the Reader to excuse and amend Page 9. line 20. read Principle p. 10. l. 9. for were r. was pag. 20. l. 3. r. writ in p. 21. l. 11. r. charged p. 30. l. 27. r. should not p. 32. l. 16. for no r. not p. 33. l. 9. r. there are l. 10 11. r. as much p. 35. l. 27. f. who r. whom p. 38. l. 33. r. belief p. 42. l. 22. r. much more p. 50. l. 22. r. doubtful p. 53. l. 26. it dele p. 54. l 2. r. as are so l. 29. r. 1651. p. 55. l. 22. f. but even r. even p. 56. l. 2. in dele l 4. f. the r. his p. 59. l. 32. for this dele p. 64. l. 7. f. no r. any p. 78. l. 18. r. 〈…〉 7. l. 8. for dele l. 20. r. lame p. 88. l. 32. f. me r. 〈◊〉 l. 33. f. thy r. my p. 92. l. 23. r. praelect p. 117. l. 2. r. cull'd p. 129. l. 10. r. Caryl p. 136. l. 3. f. it r. them p. 140. l. 15. r. reply pretended p. 142. l. 3. r. scars l. 19. r. scrutiny p. 144. l. 22. r. gone I fear p. 147. l. 31. r. ye teach p. 153. l. 16. r. Cajus p. 161. l. 23. r. distinct p. 166. l 5. r. certainty p. 169. l. 18. r. but it p. 188. l. 3. f. of r. have l. 9. r. sinfully p. 195. l. 28. r. foild p. 197. l. 25. r. to conclude p. 204. l. 17. not dele p. 209. l. 22. r. serpâ—ntine p. 216. l. 24. r. and a. l. 27. r. spake p. 225. l. 33. f. it out of the Soul r. Sin p. 226. l. 26. r. promised in his Discourse p. 232. l. 16. r. repute p. 235. l. 11. r. verb. p. 239. l. 22. r. word l. 31. r. Dichotomizers p. 244. l. 25. f. any r. my p. 247. l. 29. r. Barker p. 248. l. 27. f. they r. themselves p. 249. l. 21. f. with such an r. thus with his l. 22. r. 65 66. p. 253. l. 23. â— Sharers p. 259. l. 30. after dele p. 260. l. â—8 the Baptism dele p. 262. l. 17. to dele p. 263. l. 32. r. he wore p. 265. l. 6. r. trouble in his p. 266. l. 2. r. crowing l. 15. r. philosophical p. 269. l. 2. f. a r. of p 270. l. 18. r. were l. 30. f. yet r. so l. 31. r. wore off p. 255. l. 5. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 30â— l. 25. r. incompeâ—ible p. 308. l. 16. r. he that p. 310. l. 12 8 22. r. holys p. 311. l. 24. f. too short r. to show f. so as to r. so to p. 318. l. 26. it dele p. 319. l. 25 r. needs no. l. 22. r. or slip p. 320. l. 5. f. â— r. what p. 324. l. 14. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 325. l. 27. f. Propheâ—s r. Poets p. 326. l. 7. r. had p. 327. l. 14. r. that they p. 329. l. 15. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 l. 17. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 l. 20. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 330. l. 11. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 332. l. 1â— 21. r. Polyglott p 339. l. 7. r. of some l. 23. r. 〈◊〉 p. 346. l. 21. r. ubiquitary p. 348. l. 15. r. â—leverly p. 352. l. 11. r. terreno p. 353. l. 19. r adventrdus p. 358. l. 11. f. then r. that p. 3â—0 l. 8 12 22. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 361. l. 21 r. imperious p. 365. l. 18. f. in r. is 〈◊〉 p. 369. l. 12 r. fictious l. 15. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 372. l. 11. r. and bring l. 21. however dele l. 29. r. Souly Body p. 373. l. 24. r. pass p. 374. l. 27. r. up of p. 375 l. 15. r. numerical p. 370. l. 2. r. resuscitation l. 4. f. 32. r. 2. p. 379. l. 1. f. but r. and. l. 20. r. restituent semina l. 26. r. weigh'd l. 31. r. as dâ—stroyes p. 380. l. 17. r. intricate p. 382. l. 19. r. wrotâ— p. 383. l. 21. r. hath p. 408. l. 24. r. and would p. 419. l. 4. f. as r. and. p. 422. l. 24. r. of the Light p. 423. l. 18. r. and Inspiration l. 〈◊〉 r. Pretences p. 428. l. 9. r. Vind. pag. 47. l. 19. r. Vind. pag. 4. p. 429. l. 4. f. and r. greater then l. 5. and dele p. 430. l. 11 31. f. Chapters and Pages r. Chapters or Pages * advers Err. Johan Hierosoly mitani Qua. no Chr. pag. 2. My Answ pag. 2 3. pag. 5. Acts 4. 12. 1 John 1. 7. Rom. 8. 14 17. Qua. no Chr. pag. 13. pag. 8. pag. 21 22. D. Cave Primitive Christianity Rom. 8. 1 2 3 4. Tit. 2. 12. Heb. 1. 1. See my Answ p. 193. pag. 7. p. 15 16. See my Answ pag. 24 pag. 13. pag 25. See it in Dr. Wilkins Real char pag. 14. pag. 28.