4. Subs 1. n. 3. how the exotick opinions of some School-men gave her wrong Sentiments of Angels in like manner hearing of some nice points debated among School men and Philosophers she was apt to adopt the worst side of the Problem which being once made hers out it flyes into the World as a new revealed verity for example A. B teacheth S. V. pt 1. p. 96. And the Ap. homologates pt 1. p. 62. That both our Souls and Bodies are propogated from Adam Contrary to Heb. 12.9 where GOD is called the Father of Spirits or the creatour of our Souls in contradistinction to our natural parents who are there termed the Fathers of our flesh And many other of her Accessories she might have learned by ordinary discourse as that the Heretick Eunomius and generally the Gnosticks out of a pretence of magnifying Faith said that good works were not necessary This false and odious opinion her La. after her charitable manner doth most frequently father upon all Protestants without due consideration that St. Aug. confuted it L. de fide oper Whose orthodox strain is followed by Calvin and all Proteslant writters and Billarmine himself de Justif L. 3 c 6. Vindicats Protestants of the foresaid imputation Obj. 2. It was asserted in my hearing by some whom the Borignianists had mistuned that there are more than two thousand verities speaking of these Accessories set out in the Books of A. B. which are not to be read in all the writtings either of Papists or Protestants A. I have discovered in her Books more than an hundreth falsities but have seen none of these new disclosed verities and if any favorite of hers shall be at the pains to number them let him take heed that he make not a false muster or rather such an appearance as drunken men see of great armies in the Air which instantly and quite disappear when sober people are curious to view them And if Accessories be called New Verities they should be rejected on that very head by reason that no truth can be new and all Truths are older than Errours Obj. 3. Have there not been some persons Divinely Inspired Teachers in all Ages such as Antonie and Paul the Anachorets St. Terese St. Briget and St. Katharine Theular and Thomas a Kempeis And were it not for fear of your Pastoral Office A. B. would be respected as one of these and her Books held worthy of all acceptation A. 1. There should be no ground to fear the falling of the Pastoral Office altho many now living were inspired in the measure of the Prophets and Apostles which will never be seeing the Canon of the Scriptures is compleat because the Pastoral Office is appointed of GOD for his especial Service and his perpetual presence is promised to be therewith even as if a King should reveal his will secretly to some special favorits it would no wayes follow from thence that the standing Laws should not be the peoples Rule and be expounded and executed by the settled Judges 2. None of these were infallibly inspired and no more was A. B. neither do I read that Paul and Anthonie the Egyptian Monks spake against the established Offices in the Church though they chused a Monastick Life in time of Persecution If A. B. had any Precedent it was the Spanish Nun Teresa who yet pretended not to be the singular or sole Doctrix of the whole World as A. B. did Thomas a Kempis and Teular were good men but why doth not the Ap. call St. Aug. Bernard and many more eminent men as well inspired as they Obj. 4. To what purpose is all this reasoning against A. Bs. Accessorie Doctrines Since the Ap. did premonish pt 1. Car. 13. p. 38. That if any person did not relish the Accessories he might let them alone that is to say he shall not be bound to believe them and let him forbear to dispute against them how much soever he be dipleased therewith A. That is a shift put into the mouths of all who are become raâ—hly fond of all A. Bs. writtings but it is such a silly shift that I marvel to hear any rationall person pronounce it for a defence when he is pressed with good Arguments against her Errours from Scripture and Reason In the common use of the phrase to let a thing alone is to forbear or to medle or concern with it on such an occasion as when a Boy is to be chastised for a fault he cryes let me alone but let us examine the Aps own gloss of the expression 1. First he says the meaning is you need not believe A. Bs. Accessories to be true unless you please Here he enjoins a rare thing Did ever any other persons pretending to be Divinely Inspired in all their writtings leave the Readers at libertie to believe the half of them to be true or no! Why did she mix and confound them in all her twenty two Books with the Essentials of Religion which ought to be believed and how can unlearned people seperate the Gold from the dross 2. He sayes dispute not against them so says Mahomet in his Alcaron c. 5. and elsewhere If Truth be in them it should be believed if falsehood it ought to be confuted or disputed against and many of them are such as is already proven Obj. 5. It hath been said to me that whoso writes against A. B. will be answered even as the writtings of Le. Clerk at Amsterdam and all Socinian Books are still defended by some persons tho they give much offence to the Church men were it not better then to forbear disputing in matters of Theologie than to increase it A. I aprove not A. Bs. Sentiments in this case who declares that the writtings of Luther Calvin and all the Reformers whom she accounts Hereticks should have been quite despised and not answered or themselves cut off L. W. pt 1. p. 27. It is our duty to dispute for the Truth and altho Errours have Abetters and defenders yet the Truth which is stronger than Errours will at last prevail Obj. 6. The harmonie or consent of all the parts of the Holy Scriptures is one evidence that they were given by Divine inspiration so A.B. never contradicteth herself which sheweth that she was led by the Spirit of GOD in all her writtings A. If she was led by the Spirit of GOD in all her writtings then she should not be opposed but there is one thing said and another thing seen and her deeds in writting falsities proves her saying the contrary to be untrue one may write Books without contradicting himself therein and yet without Divine Inspiration but the tryal of that point anent A. B. shall bring the fourth Section anent her Doctrines to an end NUMBER III. Of her Contradictions IF one proposition be true then the contradictory assertion must be false and no palliating or favourable interpretation can reconcile them as for Instance That is a most true saying which also is
written sometimes be A. B. that Man can only be saved and justified by the merits of CHRIST but the contradiction of it is false which she likewise writes that we must add our own merits to CHRISTS Sacrifice This contradiction is not taken away by the subterfuge of the Ap. pt 2. p. 98. 99. Where he says her meaning was that we cannot be saved without mortification for mortification is our duty and not our merit for Mans merit with GOD is Chimerical a thing impossible In the end of the third Section it was shown how A. B. contradicteth her self anent the faculty of knowing Divine Inspiration And another of her contradictions was hinted in the former Number in answering the fourth Objection namly she says that she was Divinely Inspired to write all her Books if that saying be true then the contradiction of it must be false that she wrote the most part of them without Divine Inspiration which clearly follows from her bidding us let alone her Accessories which fill most of her Books To believe and not to believe a Doctrine is a contradiction but A. B. requires the belief of her Doctrine that fills all her Books because written by Divine Inspiration and yet requires us not to believe her Accessories or the most part of her Doctrines because she wrote them not by Divine Inspiration which is a contradiction I shall adduce two or three more of A. Bs. contradictions and then for the time let them alone 1. It is affirmed that many Heathens resigned their wills to God and were faithful to Him tho they had no laws whereby to know Him L W pt 3. p. 123. but herein she contradicteth her self in the very next page viz. 124. by affirming that those Heathens had Laws from GOD with the Doctrine of Jesus Christ 2. Man of himself is more inclined to Good than to Evil L. W. pt 2. p. 2. And yet she writes that our self-will is capable to move it self only to evil L. W. pt 2. p. 76. which is a flat contradiction 3. The Ap. approves A. Bs. crying down all Schools and Learning Pastors and Church-Government and that GOD calls no Man to a place in the Church and yet he says that he would not seperate from a lawful Bishop p. 349. Where are abundance of contradictions for to have no Church Government and yet to join with it is a contradiction so to seperate from those whom GOD hath not called and not to seperate how contradictious is it SECTION V. How Errours in Books shall be discerned IT is somewhat difficult to give certain Rules whereby any person not well versed in Divinity can distinguish Truth from Errour in reading Books except the Holy Scriptures in which there is no Errour at all but infallible Truth only Yet I shall give some helps to know what Truths are written in other Books 1. Consider well if what is written be Conform to the proportion of Faith Rom. 12.6 For false Prophets are known by their fruits that is their Doctrine and Actions Mat. 7.15 Luke 6.45 If they contemn wrest or gainsay the Holy Scriptures in the least they are Erronious 2. We are likewise premonished from the unerring Canon of the Holy Scriptures that the teachers of false Doctrine are very proud overveening of themselves and undervaluing all others in comparison of themselves and their partie Isaiah 65.5 Who say stand by thy self come not near to me for I am holier than thou these are a smoke in my nose and a fire that burneth all the day 2 Tim. 3.2.4 They are proud boasters headie and high minded so 1 Tim. 1.7 Desiring to be Teachers of the Law understanding neither what they say nor whereof they affirm Thus Simon Magus gave himself out that he was Some great one Acts 8.9 and the following Histories of the Church have narrated that both Hereticks and Schismaticks still vented intolerable spiritual pride such as Manes Arrius Pelagius Novatus and Donatus And albeit St. Paul declared that he was not inferiour to the chiefest Apostles in vindication of his Office against the contempt cast upon it by false Teachers it were most impertinent arrogancie for any now to pretend to such praise since they have not St. Pauls infallible Spirit and an immediat call from GOD to preach and write Books 3. It is a good Rule which is written by Sir Thomas Brown in his Book of Vulgar Errours c. 1. That all deceivers write Sophistically so that any man who is acquainted with the Rules of Logick when he readeth erronious arguing let him try and he will finde it captious and peccant against the Rules of true reasoning either in the matter or the form or in them both where he also proveth clearly by instances from the Scriptures that the first Sophisms or fallacious way of argumenting had the Devil for the Author 4. All erronious writters usually hyperbolize too much through ignorance or self conceit still running unto extreams either praising or dispraising to an excessive degree as in dispraising avarice they commend Prodigality and contrariwise they cannot reprove Prodigality without perswading to penuriousness but liberality is the virtue in the midst So the Circumcellions of old thought that the only way to Heaven was by suffering therefore they wandred unwisely to and fro like mad-men seeking people to kill them and many writters have fallen into grievous Errours splitting on these Rocks or Shelfs unwarily like the Ships which steering too far off from the hazardous Shylla fall into Charybdis whereas the safest sailing is in the midst betwixt the two In like manner we see some writters in commending the Love of GOD to derogate from Faith and good works they call them merit whereas the writters of Truth aim always to give every thing its due praise or dispraise without declining from the just measure either to the extream of the excess or the defect SECTION VI. Q. If any should read the Books of A. B. An. THey who are well studied in the Systems of Divinity may profitably read some good things in very ill Books such as the Turks Alcaron Socinian-Books Hobs Laeviathan and the Pamphlets of Enthusiasts and still confuting Errours as they meet with them but I think that none can safely read the Books of A. B. excepting only those who can distinguish Truth from Errour according to the Rules given in the last Section because of the snake lurking in the Grass Obj. 1. You despise the writtings of A. B. because she was a Woman Ap. p. 146. A. I honour the Sex but am not bound to approve a Womans Erronious doctrine such excessive respect is not due to an Angel from Heaven Gal. 1.8 Obj. 2. A. Bs. Books are carped at as Philo the Jew and Celsus did with the BIBLE censuring half Sentences in sundry places not heeding the Scope or looking to what is said before or what followes after or is explained in other parts of her writtings A. That Challenge says nothing to one who Censures A. Bs. Books throughly hath taken to task her whose Hypothesis and proved that she was not Divinely Inspired and erred egregiously in her writtings both anent the Essentials of Religion and all the points thereof Obj. 3. She wrote well of Love to GOD. A. You may read other Books on that subject who have written far better and are free of errors Neither knew she well the Love of GOD who had not Charity to Man 1 John 4.20 SECTION VII If Borignianists be a New Sect. THe Ap. p. 349. denyeth that they are a New Sect because they provide no Orders for a new Society forbidding to join with any other I grant they have not done it formally but doubtless they have designed it when their number should increase since they defame all Christian Churches yet they would think it too severe a Censure to compare their pride to Erostratus who since he could not do any great thing that was good did burn the Temple of Diana at Ephesus only to get himself a name in the World I am of opinion that the followers of A. B. shall ere long vanish away as the Bhemanists have done whom I have known to make as great a figure as the Borignianists do now as St. Athanasius said of the Arrians a far more dreadful Party it will be but a little Cloud which will soon pass over in Latine Nubecula citò transitura AMEN
afterwards they shall serve Him perfectly in Heaven Obj. 3. Angels propagate their kinde and so shall Men doe when the Body shall be made Spiritual A. That whimsie of Angels propagation hath been started by some of the wildest of School-Men but was rejected by the most Learned and Solid of them as Aquinas Sum. p. 3.75.7 c. Where he proves that Angels are of different Species and Swares Metaph. p. 120.121 That they cannot produce a Substance Neither is there need of propagation nor of a new Creation of Angels there being so many of them made at first Dan 7.10 Thousand thousands and ten thous and times ten thousand Obj. 4. GODS works abide for ever and therefore all living Creatures must propagate their kinde for ever A. 1. These words For Ever doe often signifie no more than a long time 2. GODS Works abide according to his Appointment some for a lesser and others for a longer time some materially endure for ay though changed in the qualities as our Bodies after the Resurrection and other Creatures once made never come to an end as all Spirits 3. There is no Marriage in Heaven and so no propagation as Christ coargued the Saducees Mat. 22.30 4 If Devils and Wicked Men should propagate for ever then their Posterity should never be judged contrary to the Scriptures which Teach that all shall finally be judged by GOD Eccles 12.14 Jude 6. SECTION IV. SUBS. I. N. IV. Anent the Love of GOD. IT is the high pretension of A. B. throughout all her writtings to reduce men to the Love of GOD and values her self upon it as if she had been the first in her Age who had taught that sin consists in a privation of the Love of GOD S. V. pt 1. p. 52. That all Christian Writters and particularly the reformers did not teach the Love of GOD or they did it dryly and confounded the matter and her advancing the Love of GOD is the distinguishing mark of her writtings from all Systems of Divinity and that all Church Councills were of the Devil drawing men from the Love of GOD L. W. 3. Pref. to the 3. pts and pt 3. p. 45. and Ap. pt 1. Car. 1.5 from p. 14. to 25. and p. 78. n. 42. Is it not a pitifull Errour in any Christian to applaud such writters who under a vain pretence of advancing the Love of GOD do rail at the highest rate against all Christian writters without exception is not that to do what they can to destroy all Christianity Herein they are like the Sea-Monsters called Syrens who by a sweet voice allure passengers till they get near to destroy them or like enemies who set out the colours of Friends to render us the more secure till they fall on with deadly weapons So it is an usual trick for all Hereticks and Enthusiasts to set out for some true Hypothesis as Jacob Bhemen did by resignation to GOD as much as A. B. doth by the Love of GOD But let us observe them well and it will soon be apparent that their colour is but fairding and their canting deceiving and that they run from one extream to another and so loss the Truth which is in the midst as Eutyches refuting Nestorius did in opposition to him fall into a new Heresie anent the Natures of Christ so it is exactly in the present case the infamous Gnosticks of Old and Antinomians of late depraved the Law of GOD pretending to exalt Faith and A. B. runs to the other extream out of a pretence to advance the Love of GOD penitence and imitation of Christ as the means of attaining it she cryeth up humane Merite and undervalues the Doctrine of Salvation by Faith in Christ Iesus Ap. pt 1. p. 25. Car. 5.6 Her Doctrine is very unsound and erronious anent this essential Point of Religion nor did she know what it is to love GOD whereof she vaunteth so much and reproacheth all others not only as ignorant thereof and neglecting that which is the chief thing in Religion but even as if they were enemies to the Love of GOD and her self only the defender of it And for the instruction or making good this my Charge against her I shall not insist upon omissions as the not describing the nature of the thing she writes of shewing what is meaned by Love either as it is a chief passion or Theological vertue how Faith and Love are compared together and sometimes one of them gets the preference and sometimes the other whether love of gratitude to GOD or complacencie in GOD be recommended or what are the true tokens of it viz. love to GODS Truth to his publick Service to His People and many the like which she doth not touch but shall instance a few of her many mistakes anent the Love of GOD after that I have intimated to the Reader how the last Year I noted some things which I found amiss in a Latine Pamphlet entituled A Colledge discourse of Comparative Theologie which seems to be a masked abstract of Borignianism and particularly in the second note disclosed the Authors Errour in affirming that the Love of GOD is the chief end of Religion in every state of Man and all other things but the means of attaining it which is not true either in this Life or that which is to come For the Chief and ultimate end of all Religion is GODS Glory and subordinat thereunto is Mans Eternal Salvation There are three special Heads of Religion containing our duty in this Life things to be believed things to be done and things to be prayed for 1. In order to things to be believed Faith is the chief Virtue 2. As of things to be done Love is the Spring 3. And true Grace may be called Devotion in respect of things to be asked of GOD and hath its degree accordingly Neither is Love only the chief end of Religion in Mans future State of Blessedness which consists not only in the love of GOD but also in the Intuition and Fruition of Him with suitable exercises to be known hereafter 1. Cor. 2.9 Now to prove A. Bs. ignorance of the Love of GOD it is manifest 1. First in that she said the Iewes have the true love of GOD who are Infidels denying the LORD that bought them 2. That all Systems of Divinity teach nothing of the Love of GOD that is all the Creeds Catechisms Confessions of Faith Expositions of Scripture and all other Books that have been written by Christians Theoretical or Practical since the Apostles Days are to be thus taxed who could have written so but either a person grosly ignorant of the love of GOD or else extreamly impudent in belying all the Christian writters seeing it is as notour as that the Sun brings light that thousands of Christian writters and some in all Ages which if need were could be easily named and produced have written excellently of the Love of GOD and far better than this roving person hath done Nor is it