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-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
D. D. AN ADVERTISEMENT Anent the Reading of the Books of Antonia Borignion By GEORGE WHITE Minister at Mary-Culter near ABERDEEN They have a Zeal of GOD but not according to Knowledge Rom. 10.2 All Hereticks diminish the Authority of the Holy Scriptures Tert. de praesc c. 49. Enthusiasm is an Impiety whereby a Person hardily bent for the Inward Worship of GOD doth boldly violat and despise His Commands as to outwards Mr. Henry Scougall P D in Aeth l 4 c 8 de justitia ABERDEEN Printed by JOHN FORBES Printer to the TOWN and UNIVERSITY Anno Dom. 1700. The TABLE or INDEX SECTIONS SUBSECTION 1. NUM POINTS SUBS. 2. SECTIONS Sect. 1. The Occasion and Purpose of the Advertisement page 1 Sect. 2. How I have read her Books and the Rules of Arguing p. 3 Sect. 3. Q. If A. B. was Divinely Inspired p. 7 and Sect. 4. Subs 2. N. 2. p. 83 Sect. 4. Q. If her Doctrine be conform to the Holy Scriptures p. 23 Subs 1. Of the Essentials of Religion p. 24 N. 1. Concerning GOD and the Blessed Trinity p. 25 N. 2. Of CHRIST and his Satisfaction for Us. p. 31 N. 3. Of Mans future State p. 40 N. 4. Anent the Love of GOD. p. 45 N. 5. Of the Holy Scriptures p. 51 N. 6. Miscelanies relating to the Essentials of Religion p. 53 Whereof the 1. Point is Of GOD'S Decrees and the Doctrines depending thereupon p. 54 2. Of the Image of GOD in Man p. 60 3. If Man sinned before he sinned p. 61 4. Of Perfection p. 62 5. Of Perseverance p. 64 6. Anent the Sacraments p. 66 7. Of Pastors and Church Government p. 69 N. 1. Of Accessories in the general p. 73 N. 2. Of A. Bs. Accessories in particular p. 77 N. 3. Of her Contradictions p. 89 Sect. 5. How Errours in Books shall be discerned p. 92 Sect. 6. If any should read the Books of A. B. p. 94 Sect. 7. If Borignianists be a New Sect. p. 96 Information to the Reader LEt the Reader of this little Book remember that for brevities sake the two Letters A. B. Signisie Antonia Borignion Ap. the Apologie for her S. V. Solid Vertue L. W. Light of the World Pt. the Part of the Book that is cited P. the Page thereof And according to the Table Sect. the Section Subs the Subsection N. the Number of the Subsection And Po. the Point of it Q. Question A. Answer Obj. Objection SECTION I. The Occasion and Purpose of this Advertisement HAving observed with Regrate for several Years bygone sundry well-meaning Persons and some of them not Unlearned to have vented many Errours concerning the Holy Scriptures the Gospell-Sacraments Church-Government the Pastorall-Office and other most Sacred Establishments of the Christian Religion which they had pick't out of the Pamphlets that are said to be written be A. B. a Flandrian Yea some young men of good expectation by reading these books inadvertently had their Melancholy height'ned to an excessive degree therefore it seemed good for the Truths sake which we ought to contend for Jude 3 and for preventing by the LORD's Blessing further inconvenience that way to write a seasonable Advertisement in meekness and love Eph. 4.14 That we be no more children tossed to and fro and carried about with every winde of Doctrine by the sleight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive That Christian People may not through blind zeal snatch up any pretence of piety without due examination and it often fals out that some out of a Capricious fancie of defending Innovations leave the high and troden way to Heaven so wander in a Wilderness of Errours It is here proposed that all who tender their Souls Interest may in this case observe the Divine Oracle Rom. 16.17 18. To mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the Doctrine which they have received and avoid them who with good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the Simple This Tractat shall be short and so not tedious to any Reader because in a late Apologie for A. B. printed at London Anno 1699 two pious and learned men to wit Dr. John Cockburn and the Author of the Snake in the Grass and the History of Sin and Herefie are fiercely attaucked for writting against her who doubtless if alive will answer for themselves which yet will require a considerable time for them to answer all the Defences which the Ap. hath alleadged for A. B. and her Abetters her whole Life Actions and Writtings So my present undertaking is only to act the pairt of their fore-runner as one who doth what he can to stop the progress of devouring Fire till greater power arrive to extinguish it SECTION II. How I have read her Books and the Rules of Arguing BEfore I come to adduce the Rules of Disputing it is to be noticed how the Ap. in his Preface declares that he is perswaded in his Conscience that the Writtings of A. B. tend to the reviving of the Spirit of Christianity Which can have no more force to perswade others to be of his Opinion than the Canting Insinuations of the Bygots of all Parties declaring assevering and swearing that themselves only are in the Right and their Opposites in the wrong A mans erring Conscience cannot oblidge himself to believe a Lye or to do ill things it only binds him for to use the means to get it better informed and far less should such a vehement Protestation of his Conscientious Perswasion of the goodness of such rare Teneds as are here questioned procure the Assent of Rational men but the solidity of his Reasons if he hath any according to the Scripture 1 Pet. 3.15.16 There are four Rules of reading Books aright and judging of the Authors Sentiments or there are so many Postulats pre-required to the right disputing of any matter as they are set down in the Ap. Pt. 4 p. 334. 1 To be well acquainted with what we censure 2. If the Scope of A. Bs. Writtings be good and agreeable to the main end of Religion in that case to bear with litle escapes 3. To read her Books without prejudice or an evil eye 4. To narrate and interpret faithfully All which Rules he alleadgeth these gentlmen have transgressed who did write against A. B. And to obviat such an Objection against my self I have observed and shall firmly adhere unto the third and fourth of these Rules without exception being so far from having a Prejudice against A. B. and her Abetters that I wish with meek Moses Numb 11.29 That all the Lords People were Prophets and that the Lord would put his Spirit upon them And the Teneds or Sentiments which I intend to examine shall be truly narrated either in the express words of A. B. and her Ap. or the import thereof without distortion The second Rule needs some Qualifications for a good Purpose doth not justifie an evil Action no more than Sauls sparing the Cattel of
Scriptures doe the Creation of Angels or Spiritual beings assure us that Mans Body was material Formed of the Dust of the Ground Gen. 2.7 His food was material and the forbidden fruit was also such Good for food and pleasant in the Eyes Gen. 3.6 Which could not have been if Man had been altogether Spiritual and in the future State of Glory Man will need no material food whether we call it the essence or quintescence of things materiall but he will be as the Angels of GOD. 2. That all Men may forsake the Truth L. W. pt 1. p. 33. This is a false Doctrine for if all Men should forsake the Truth the Church might fail which is impossible It being built upon the Rock of Ages against which the gates of Hell shall never prevail Mat. 16.18 And wherewith our LORD JESUS CHRIST will be present to the end of the World Mat. 28.20 3. That Infants dying before they come to the exercise of Reason are either good or bad and consequently must be saved or damned according to the will of their Parents L. W. pt 2. p. 6.7.8.9 and pt 3. p. 155. This is against the Principles of Religion of GODS Election and the tenor of the Covenant of Grace 4. Antichrist is the Devil L. W. pt 1. p. 32. and the Devil is nothing S. V. pt 1. p. 94. These Tenets are overthrown by the Scriptures which teach us plainly that Antichrist is a man or a set of men sitting in the Temple of GOD. 2 Thes 2.4 5. That persons resigned to GOD return to such an estate of perfect innocencie as Adam was in before the fall L. W. pt 3. p. 138. Which is an unsound Doctrine since Adam at first was altogether free of Sin which can be said of no Saint in this Life Jam. 3.2 It is manifest by what is already written on this subject how easie it were to expose the absurdity of all A. Bs. Accessories but they are so many that to go through them all particularly even according to the present method adding a short refutation to every one of them would require as much writting as was designed for this whole Tractate Therefore having excerpted from the Books of A. B. and the Ap. some scores of Accessories like these forementioned equally hurtfull to Religion and noted exactly in a paper apart the places where they are to be found I shall here for brevities sake produce Twenty of them as a swatch of the rest reasonably hoping that every Christian Reader who is acquainted with the Holy Scriptures and being thereby instructed that Hay and Stuble are not fit materials for the building of GOD. 1 Cor. 3.11.12.13 Will be able at the very recitation thereof to confute them himself without my help which GOD willing afterwards shall if it be needful not be wanting in the behalf of Truth or it will be done by abler Pens which the Church will never be destitute of And these Accessories are 1. That there are no true Christians now in the World 2. The ordinary sins of Papists are the sins against the Holy Ghost 3. Protestants disown the civil Magistrat 4. A Spiritual Man is never melancholly 5. A Spiritual Man will not take a walk for recreation 6. Mentall Prayer should be omitted 7 Sin is only a disorder of the five Senses 8. All the advantages that Men reap from others serves but for their damnation 9. The Devil at first moved men to posses their own Goods 10. It had been good there had never been Schools nor Learning in the World 11. GOD'S cursing the Earth made mans returning to GOD the more easie 12. GOD calls no man to any place of Honour or Power 13. CHRIST'S Kingdom comes not according to the second Petition in the LORD'S Prayer 14. GOD doth not permit sin 15. Good motions incite alwayes to suffering 16. Phisitians and Divines doe ordinarily more ill than good 17. The Devil inlightneth our Uunderstanding and maketh us conceive deep Divine Mysteries 18. We should not commend good things because the Devil can do so 19. We should not instruct others but when they desire it 20. A. B. was Divinely Inspired in all things to reform the World It is no less than a spectrous piece of goodly confidence which sheweth it self in all the writtings of A. B. and the Ap. to affright people into the belief of their visionary Doctrines in stead of giving solid reasons for them still to cry that she was Divinely Inspired Obj. 1. For how say they could it otherwise be that she who was unlearned did write of so many things and rare verities and in such a ravishing strain beyond the reach of the chiefest Divines So that to offer to correct her Doctrine is no less presumptuous than to dare to correct the Spirit of GOD and whoever opposeth her Sentiments are like Jannes and Jambres that withstood Moses like the Scribes and Pharisees who opposed CHRIST himself or like the Jewes Atheists and Hereticks that contradicted and persecuted the Apostles and primitive Christians A. 1. That is sufficiently already answered in the third Section where it is proved at large that she was not Divinely Inspired but since they ingeminat it so often some more shall be said to it here 2. To discover oppose and confute Errours in any persons Books is not to oppose the Spirit of GOD but rather to be led by the famen for GOD is Truth and whosoever defends the Truth is on his side 3. Good words and a zealous strain of writting are only good when Truths and no falsities are thereby expressed for the most pernicious writters that ever existed in the World seemed to affect a pious strain and mixed many Heavenly like words with their poysonous positions to cover from the unadvertent the Venom thereof such as Gelsus Porphyrie Julian Vaninus and in fine Heretickes Shismaticks Sectarians and Enthusiasts in all their writtings 4. For A. Bs. pretending to have been unlearned and her crying down all Schools and Learning she had many infamously famous impostors for Precedents who to impose their damnable Doctrines and delusions on the World declaimed loudly against all Learning as their most deadly enemy such as the Gnosticks Montanus Manes and Mahomet 5. CHRIST and his faithful Servants were opposed by many in all Ages slighted and persecuted for holding the Truth but it is an undue thing for A. B. to compare her self to them and her Opposers to their persecutors when she is confuted and contemned only for teaching Errours 1 Pet. 2.20 For what glory is it if when ye be buffeted for your faults ye shall take it patiently 6. The Cabine of A. Bs. rarities can be disclosed without a miracle or flying so high as to Divine Inspiration for a key to open it For most of her extravagant flights anent Mans primitive Estate of Innocencie and the future state after the day of Judgement have been catcht with little variation from the Jewish Cabala It was formerly showen Sect.
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