Coherence in Matter and Intelligibleness of Language to all Nations which may render them such a Rule Besides it is more then probable that much of the Writings of the New Testament are lost from Luke ' s Word 's in the beginning of his History where he tells us that he was but ONE OF THE MANY who did set forth a Declaration of those things which were most surely believed amongst them even sayes he as they delivered them unto us which from the beginning were Eye-witnesses and Ministers of the Word For it must be considered when Luke writ his Narrative that John's History was not in being and some will have it that Luke wrote before Mark But whether it be so or no certain it is that Mark and Matthew could not make up those many that took that Work in hand neither can we think he should call Matthew and Mark 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifie with the Athenians a Multitude for a certain Learned Man will have it That no better Greek was spoken then that wherein Luke wrote his History That those Narratives were not Apocriphal but at least of equal Authority with his dedicated to Theophilus his own words tell us For those that writ were such as related what they received from Eye-witnesses and the first Ministers of the VVord Besides which there were in the Apostles Age and the two following Centuries several Writings reputed genuine which either dyed out of the World through that Neglect brought upon them by the Advantage some accounted Hereticks might make of them in Defence of their Opinions or stifled by the subtilty of the Romish Church being more expresly opposite to her growing Superstition and Grandeur And for such Writings as still remain among us methinks it should not be unknown to a Man of J. Faldo's Pretences to Learning how much the Authority of several of them has been questioned by some and exploded by others though never by any of us particularly the Epistle to the Hebrews the Epistle of James second and third of John second of Peter Jude the Revelations and with some Matthew's History it self has not escaped the like Censure Of which Reader thou hast an Account at large in that Notable French-Man Dallaeus De usa Patrum and a late Discourse mainly directed against the Roman Church entituled Christoph Christophori Sandy Nucleas Historiae Ecclesiasticae I would not any from hence should repute me so Impious as to endeavour to weaken the Testimony of Scripture or beget any the least Doubt of the Doctrine thereby declared only upon our Adversary's Principles which so strongly oppugn'd the Doctrine of Revelation or Inspiration I must take leave to conclude in his Name and upon his Principles that the VVord of God is imperfect and a great part of the Rule of Faith and Life and Judge of Controversie is lost and that he has no more Reason to believe the Truth of those great things related in that part of the Scriptures yet remaining then any Legend at Rome For exclude Revelation and what Ground has he for his Faith besides Tradition and what Evidence can he give us upon his Principles of the Truth of the former and Falshood of the latter These Councils and Synods who collected and canonized them he accepts for one part and rejects for the other Again he trusts their Judgment in picking and chusing and yet rejects their Interpretation as if it were not so difficult to relish Genuine from Spurious Scriptures as when rightly discerning them to be such to understand them which is an absolute Contradiction For how should they know true from False and not understand the True That Council which made the Writings of the New Testament Canonical left out the Revelations as Apocriphal yet I hope J. Faldo accepts that as heartily and unquestionably as the rest And that Council which took in the Revelations and made it first Canonical brought in with it the Books of Tobi Judith c. which J. Faldo I suppose with all his Brethren rejects as Apocriphal Thus are meer Men and the Judgments of such Councils as he otherwise rejects his Rule for believing the Scriptures that remain to be Canonical if it be proper to say the first is the Rule of his Canon which is too short and the other which is superfluous as by his Account My next Question is What was his Rule for believing those Councils I am sure he must have been without all other then a Willingness to believe so because they said so which how like this is to his Papist unto whom he would resemble us let all sober Protestants consider I cannot see how he is able to oppugn any thing they say upon Tradition who mounts no higher for his Assurance then Tradition and such too as rests mostly within their Hands But if it shall be granted us that to know Scripture to have been given forth upon Inspiration Men must have Recourse to Inspiration then not so much Councils and Synods as the Inspiration of the Almighty which gives certain Understanding is our Rule in the Case as well saith the Assembly of Divines in their Confession of Faith chap. 1. § 4. The Authority of the holy Scripture for which it ougâ—t to be believ'd and obeyed depends not on the Testimony of any man or Church but only upon God who is Truth it self the Author thereof And since J. Faldo himself confesseth the Spirit necessary to the Vnderstanding of the Scripture which implies the Insufficiency of the Scripture to give that Understanding of it self the Spirit must be the Rule of our Vnderstanding the Scripture as it was before the Rule of our Faith concerning the Divine Authority of Scripture For the Light of the Interpreter and not the Thing interpreted is the Rule both of Faith and Practice which is undeniably evident from the reconciling of seeming Contradictions If the meer Letter of the Scripture were to be followed no Man could ever make them meet in the same Truth The many Different Perswasions at this Day about Religion prove this whose respective Authors and Abettors think it no mean Advantage to their Cause that they hold the Scriptures to be their Rule But such as come unto the Spirit of God know and believe the Truth as it is in Jesus David ' s Key that opens and none shuts is given unto them and the Secrets of their God remain with them This reconciles those seeming Contradictions and leads through the Greatest and Deepest Truths mentioned in Scripture without the least Doubt or Stumble This is the Super-excellent Benefit of the New-Covenant Administration the Promise of the Father the Instructer Leader and Comforter of all God's Children And for a further Account of which I refer the Reader to my Book entituled The Spirit of Truth Vindicated from pag. 16. to pag. 47. and Reason against Railing from pag. 24. to pag. 46. To prove his former Charge he produces this Passage out of James Naylor
His Disingenuity great His Perversions and Wrestings about his Key pretending to open our Words Detected pag. 389. CHAP. XIV Of Reflections on Persons and Things pag. 397. CHAP. XV. His several gross Miscarriages summ'd and further observed p. 420. Authors Testimonies Occasionally cited in Defence of this DISCOURSE R. Allen pag 16. Ambrose p. 371. D. Amesius p. 98. Arnobius p. 21. Augustin p. 15 130 285 360 361. D. Barnes p. 129 234 292. H. Barrow p. 176. M. Barker p. 247. T. Beza p. 96 97 333. J. Bradford p. 48 227. T. Brooks p. 247 383. Brownists p. 176. H. Bullinger p. 115 143 245 292 360. J. Calvin p. 46 92 93 96 245. J. Camero p. 358. J. Cann p. 153 176. J. Caryl p. 129 172 247. S. Castalio p. 36 172. D. Cave p. 22. J. Chrysostom p. 46 118. M. T. Cicero p. 92 93. J. Clarius p. 36 43 172 357 372. Clemens Alex. p. 22 173 292 329. P. Codurcus p. 172 358 376. T. Collier p. 73 114 120 154 202 215 236 316 341 377. Council Laod. p. 36 37. G. Cradock p. 43 246. D. Cradock p. 277. J. Dallaeus p. 78. W. Dell p. 45 46 75 120 153 215 230 246. Annot. cert Divines p. 368 372. Doctor and Student p. 91 93. B. Downham p. 293. J. Drusius p. 43 172 357 358 376. Epictetus p. 93. Erasmus p. 36 43 96 97 325 333 358. Ethiopick Version p 331. D. Everard p. 200 239 247 285. Eusebius Pamph. p. 21 22 P. Fagius p. 326 360. Farellus p. 378. D. Featly p. 118. Mart. Finch p. 342. C. Goad p 128 200 214 226 235 315 341. W. Greenham p. 217. H. Grotius p. 36 295. B. Hall p. 383. D. Hammond p 295 378. C. J. Hobert p. 91. P. D. Huetius p. 378. E. Hutter p. 329. Jerome p. 379. B. Jewel p. 113 314. Irenaeus p. 291. Ignatius p. 340. Justin Mart. p. 340 359. Lactantius p. 92. H. Latimer p. 46 50 51. M. Luther p. 46 47 98 120. Lutherans p. 43. P. Martyr p. 98 107 118 360. D. H. Moore p. 358 374. S. Munsterus p. 172 357. Origen p. 292 379. D. Owen p. 172 W. Parker p. 54. D. Patrick p. 277. W. Perkins p. 246. Philo p. 172. J. Philpot p. 47 50. Plato p. 329. Plotin p. 172. Plutarch p. 93. P. S. Polano p. 37. J. Robinson p. 176. A. Sadeel p. 285. Samaritan Copy p. 326. B. Sanderson p. 16 92 93 C. C. Sandius p. 78. Scapula p. 329. Seneca p. 93. W. Sherlock p. 277. Spanish Translation p. 322. J. Sprig p. 127 201 202 293 315 342. D. Stillingfleet p. 89 277. Synesius p. 378. Syriack Translation p. 331. Theophil Antiochenus p. 21 371. Tertullian p. 21 118 360. D. Tillotson p. 89 277. W. Tindall p. 46 113 115 120 226 234. L. Valla p. 36. F. Vatablus p. 36 43 172 357 358. Vossius p. 378. B. Usher p. 16. Waldenses p. 76. J. de Wessalia p. 418. J. Wickliff p. 46. D. Wilkins p. 33 226. R. Woodman p. 341. N. Zegerus p. 36 358. V. Zwinglius p. 46 47. THE INVALIDITY OF John Faldo's Vindication Of his Book called Quakerism No Christianity The Introduction THis Controversie not of Choice but absolute Necessity thus continued and which hath swell'd this Rejoynder beyond both my Desire and Expectation through such great Provocations and multiplyed Wrongs as are utterly inconsistent with the Honour of Truth to put up and which require our serious Notice in its Defence was begun by J. Faldo a Non-conforming Minister at Barnet in a large Discourse entituled QUAKERISM NO CHRISTIANITY disgusted as I have heard at the coming over of some of his Hearers to the Way we profess in which he not only accused us of the Blackest Errors but pretended to prove every Charge out of our own Writings an Essay none had ever yet fallen on besides himself At what Rate soever he proved them certain it is he charged us home and managed it with Equal Disingenuity This it was my Lot to answer which I did in a Book call'd QUAKERISM a New Nick-Name for Old CHRISTIANITY c. Chiefly intending by it to discover how grosly he had mistaken our Principles and unworthily perverted those Words we had employed to maintain them and finally to confirm our true Sence with the Authority of holy Scriptures Unto which he has ventured to give us a Reply doubtless that he might not be thought to have nothing to say so little hath he said to the Purpose which is already become the Discourse of the Moderate and Regret of his Party But what he wants of Solidity he fills up with Air and places his Reflections to the Account of Arguments and when he comes to a Pinch he gives us Confidence for Evidence attended most commonly with a Rout of hard Names to drive it more forcibly home And truly herein he has deceiv'd me for I must needs say I did not take him to be one that would withstand such manifest Conviction and that with no other then Froth Rant and very Obstinacy I hop'd that when I had given him a Serious Answer to his Book he would either have ingenuously acknowledged his Mistake of our Writings with this Satisfaction that he found us not so Heterodox as he apprehended us to be or else have bestowed upon us such a sober and convincing Reply as might have sufficiently proved our Error and justified his own Undertaking But instead thereof behold a Pamphlet stuffed with Rage and scornful Abuse by him entituled A Vindication but is indeed his Condemnation with God and all Good Men. He seems to have deserted the Matter as giving that for gone and under pretence of answering my Book fully payes himself of my Person Of that he has no Mercy I am all that a Man swelled with Passion Prejudice and Revenge can character me to be He complains much yet himself is the Injurer Forgery he layes at my Door and 't is his own beloved Crime He sayes I boast of Victory yet John Faldo is the great Crack Where I rebuke his Froth he returns me Railing and if I improve his own Similes against him then Disingenuous W. P. Devotion he fleers at as if it were an old-fashioned thing My Reprehension of his Ill-Language he counts intollerable Is this your Meek Christian sayes he making it a greater Sin in me to Defend my self then in him to Accuse me Personal and Principâ—â— Reflections run fluently through his first Book My Reproof of that unprovoakt Asperity he storms at and will needs have it to be Reviling and instead of Repenting of his ill beginning with us he hath greatly encreased his score by a more Scurrilous Reply as if the Man's Business were not to make us Better but prove and justifie his own being Worse He would make us in Love with our Errors if such we held that uses so ill a Way to reclaim us Does he think we are to be Jeered or Railed out of our Religion No No. In his first he
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
Coming in the Flesh and that which Christ Jesus and his Apostles taught was not in kind but in degreâ— only the Ceremonial part excepted which the same Clemens calls childish and Trifling and the Apostle Paul Beggarly Elements serving only the non-Age of the World in Religion and therefore to be laid aside upon a more improved Knowledge and full Enjoyment of it And this Christ's own Sermon upon the Mount clearly evinceth who runs the Sin of Adultery as far beyond the Act as the first lustful Desire conceived in the mind And from true Swearing to yea yea and nay nay and from loving our Friends to loving our Enemiese and from self-saving to suffering I say unless we should with the Uncertain and Irreverent J. Faldo exclude the Life Doctrine and Miracles of Christ from any share in Christianity because sayes he it s dated with more reason from Christ's Resurrection and consequently Christ Jesus before but an extraordinary kind of Jew we must needs conclude that as the tendency of Christ's Life and Miracles was to preach live and confirm his divine Doctrine so the very bent of that Doctrine was the Improvement and Perfection of that Righteousness which in former Ages was but begun and more imperfectly manifested so that to be under Grace is not to live in the Breach of God's Law Uncondemned through Christ's personal Obedience wrought wholely without us but to be led to deny all that Vngodliness and those Worldly Lusts for which the Law takes hold upon the World according to the Apostle to the Romans There is no Condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the Flesh but after the Spirit implying that who walked after the Flesh were so long not under Grace but under Condemnation Again For the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the Law of Sin and Death that is not only from Death the Wages but from Sin the Work that leads to it yet further For what the Law could not do in that it was weak through the Flesh God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful Flesh and for Sin condemned Sin in the Flesh that the Righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in vs who walk not after the Flesh but after the Spirit So that to be under Grace is to be under the Government Leadings of it and to enjoy that divine Power which fulfills the Law and redeems from those Corruptions which prove men rather to be alive without Law then under Grace that fulfils it Upon the whole since some in all Ages have been taught to deny Ungodliness and to live godly and that they could not so have done without the Grace that brings Salvation And since the Seed of the Serpent has been bruised in them and that it could not be without Christ the promised Seed and since such were then turned from Darkness unto Light and from Satan's Power unto God and that all this is purely Gospel and Christian something of Christianity was in the World before that visible Appearance of Christ from whose Name the true Religion was so called For though there have been Diversities of Gifts yet the same Spirit though Difference of Administration yet the same Lord. And though God who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in times past to the Fathers by the Prophets hath in these last dayes spoken unto us by his Son yet he was the same God who spoak by the Prophets that spoak by the Son though it is always confest not in so plain express and excellent a manner the Difference therefore lay in the Manifestation rather then in the Thing manifested For through all Generations there has been but one Seed Truth Grace Word Life Power or Spirit by which any of the Sons and Daughters of Men were ever saved and consequently J. Faldo has greatly wrong'd the true Christian-Religion as well as contradicted the Ancient Writers and abused us in dating Christianity from the time of Christ's Bodily Resurrection and so bitterly reflecting upon them that conform not to his narrow and false Apprehensions CHAP. II. Of Quakerism as this Independent Priest scoffingly calls our holy Religion IN my Defence of the Truth we profess shewing not only the Consistency of it with Christianity but proving it to be Christianity there are Four Passages he takes an abrupt notice of His words concerning the first run thus Rep. To purge away the Character I give of a Quaker he tells you p. 9. We never said that the Light within every Man was the only Lord and Saviour and very God let him shew us any such Passage of any one acknowledged Quaker and he will say something Now Reader observe his Reply The Man cannot see Wood for Trees I quoted him Forty Places in my Book that will prove it For instance All Power in Heaven and Earth is in it Smith's Primmer p. 14. Again I will make you know that I the Light which lighteth every man that eomes into the World am the true eternal God G. Fox junior c. These I quoted in my Book yet could Penn say I thought to be believed hand over head Rejoyn That this Adversary is base with a Witness remember Reader that there is not One Testimony much less Forty in that place I quoted and unto which my Answer was made Next observe how he suggests my smothering of those Testimonies he brings whereas I have particularly answered the latter which includes the force or tendency of the former and five more of his falsly pretended forty But to the Point That I cannot see Wood for Trees is a very mean and wooden Reply what I have said in my former Book stands unanswered and indeed is Vnanswerable I shall contract it thus No man that believes Scripture will dare to deny that God is Light That every Man is enlightened by Him and that by Him who is called Light all things are upheld And that He alone is Saviour A Doctrine J. Faldo teaches pag. 84 85 89. That we never did assert that the God that made Heaven and Earth was comprehendible within the Soul of Man yet that he gave Light to the Soul of Man To which with much more he returns us not one word of Answer but would make People believe it has been the course I have taken with him To conclude He must either deny Christ to have all Power in Heaven and Earth to be the True Eternal God or that He who has that Power and is that God is not that True Light that enlighteneth every Man that cometh into the World or his Labour is but very Vanity whose Wages will be Vexation of Spirit But thus far we are well assured that J. Faldo for all his Shews of Reverence to the Scripture overturns the most evident Testimonies therein contained by withstanding and defaming this one Assertion that God who is Light shines not in the Heart of any Man on
unworthiest Reflections however unprovoked without any Reproof is to merit their sharpest Retorts in the most vilifying Terms I know not what to infer from such an humorsome Carriage but that it is expected from the Quakers Religion it should bear that which J. Faldo's Vindication tells us his cannot a great Credit to our Cause against his Will Thus far of Christianity and Quakerism as they are contra-distinguished by our Adversary CHAP. III. Of the Scriptures MY Adversary begun his first Chapter in his former Discourse upon this general Charge The Quakers deny the Scriptures The Proof he offered was this The Quakers deny the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be the Word of God and therefore they deny the Scriptures Upon this account I thus delivered my self He entitules his Chapter That the Quakers deny the Scriptures I was almost astonished at it because he pretended to prove all out of our own Books and none such had ever come to my Hand but upon Perusal I found this to be the Upshot That the Quakers deny the Scriptures to be the Word of God My Adversary's Reply is Rep. This is not the first Cordial you have made of a wilful Vntruth nor yet the last by a great many And you who summed up nine Arguments of mine more which were the Contents of the nine Chapters next following should have been ashamed of calling this one which was the first of ten the Vpshot and then insult But I shall try how you break this single Cord this one of ten Rejoyn I will not say he has Wilfully wronged me but Wronged me he has I did not say that it was the Upshot of his whole Discourse concerning the Scriptures but of that single Chapter For had I reputed his nine following Arguments undeserving of any notice I might have called this single one the Upshot but having singlely refuted his subsequent Arguments I could not in good sense call the First the Vpshot 'T was not therefore the Vpshot of the Whole but of that Chapter in which the Word is used I had good Reason so to term it since the Proof was too particular for the Charge It was not my wilful Untruth but his Mistake His suggesting as if I only encountered that single Cord is very Disingenuous for I throughly considered Nine following Chapters Hear him further Rep. That you deny the Scriptures to be the Word of God you grant But you say pag. 25. I declare to the World that we own them to be a Declaration of the Mind and Will of God with many other things which I have shewed to be short of the main Ends of the Scriptures Rejoyn Whether those other things left out are short of the main Ends of the Scripture or no will best be seen by considering what those Things are I do declare to the whole World that we believe the Scriptures to contain a declaration of the Mind and Will of God in and to those Ages in which they were written being given forth by the holy Ghost moving in the Hearts of holy Men of God That they ought also to be Read Believed and Fulfilled in our Day being Useful for Reproof and Instruction that the Man of God may be perfect Now if this belongs not to the main Ends of Scriptures either there are none or they are unknown However it was 〈◊〉 much the End as name of Scripture that was then controverted Again he goes on thus Rep. I shall easily grant that one Word may stand representative of many An odd Phrase that represents him not able to express himself congruously I have heard of Persons as Parliament-men but never of a representative Word before Rejoyn He might have pardoned me an Incongruous Phrase if such it had been for I have twenty times over been so kind to him But I must tell him it is not less proper though less used in Words then in Persons He shews Ignorance in that Philosophy he pretends to be a Master of where there are many single words or Terms that are significative of entire Sentences but argumentum ad hominem granting to the Scriptures that they are the Word of God does not our Adversary repute that Title Representative as well as Expressive of those many thousand Words contained therein if so then there is a Representative Word If not it can never be called so in our Adversary's sense Again he brings me in thus I think it is as good sense to call a King's Letters King as the Scriptures the Word of God Rep. But by your favour Mr. Penn It is neither non-sense nor bad sense to call a King's Letter the Word of a King Rejoyn This is nothing to the purpose the Stress lies here The Word of God being a Title given to Christ as the Title King is to a supreme Magistrate whether it be Reverent or Significant to call the Declaration Christ the Word of God any more then to call the Declaration of a King by the Title of King For we therefore decline to give that Title to any thing below Christ himself to whom the Scriptures most emphatically ascribe it Because I said that it might be the Word of Advice Reproof Instruction which Christ the Great Word of God livingly sows in the Hearts of Men and Women that Christ spoke of when he said The Cares of the World choak the Word and it becomes Unfruitful He replyes Rep. Here you have yielded the Cause to save Christ from being the choaked and unfruitful Word Rejoyn I need not have done so for any such Reason since Christ may in a sense as well be Choaked as by Sin afresh Crucified and the Spirit Quenched Nor could unfruitful obliege me to give away the Cause since the Word is alwayes Vnfruitful where rebelled against But is there no Difference J. Faldo between a Word of Advice spiritually livingly and powerfully sown in the Heart by Christ the great Word of God and that Advice Reproof or Instruction declared by Writing This brings to the Point Whether the Scriptures or Christ may most deservedly be stiled the Word of God Christ is God's living Oracle and rightly called the Word of God because that which livingly speaks forth the Will of God to the Souls of Men The Scriptures are but that Revelation declared and recorded consequently they can have no right to that Title which is so suitably ascribed to the Author of that Revelation To be sure J Faldo acknowledges that they are not the Living Powerful Self-sufficient Word of God Nor does he pretend to dispute for them to be such a Word of God as the Quakers deny them to be Though it seems very strange to me that there should be Two Words of God the one quite differing from the other or that any Word of God if two there were should be of it self Impotent or Insufficient as he seems to allow in his first Book pag 20 27. Vind. pag. 14 16. That the Word of God
Fool in answering of him as he begs Excuse for in Replying to me We affirm with the Scripture that God tabernacles in his Children that Christ dwells in 〈◊〉 People and that the holy Spirit Temples in his Saints He was full of all Grace and Truth and of his Fulness have we received a measure of Grace and Truth and he that sanctifieth and they that are sanctified are all of one After this Way that he calls Heresie know we worship we and enjoy we the God of our Fathers But what was the second Argument by which he endeavoureth to prove we prefer our Writings and Sayings above the Scriptures Rep. My second is their Characters they give of them concerning the Scriptures Feeding Death with Death the Letter which killeth Of their own Sayings The Voice of the Son of God was utter'd forth by him c. Rejoyn I told him before That Death is a State without the living experimental Knowledg of God and his Work in the Heart And that State I said will talk of the Fame of ◠Wisdom as saith the Scripture At this he Scoffs and makes as Merry with it as would some prophane Stager And in the midst of his Desires to be thought Meek to this little piece of a large and sober Answer basely cropt he gives the hard Names of Non-sense Folly and Impious The Scripture justifies me in what I said For Men dead in Trespasses and Sins talk of God and that perhaps according to the Letter of Scripture too why may it not be then said That Death talks of Wisdom as well as Dead Men. But this he calls arriving at as perfect Non-sense as G. Fox himself He would have done better not only to have answered but considered my following words Death or dead men's talking or feeding upon the Words of Scripture being ignorant of the true Sense of the Scripture But it had been vain to have expected this Candor from him In short The Scripture without the Spirit is Dead say some Independents as well as Quakers Men Unregenerate are dead in Sins say all What can such men's Feeding upon the Scriptures be but one dead thing feeding upon another Remember it was Christ that said It was the Spirit alone that quickens But that this Man may shew himself almost irrecoverably gone in Dishonesty because I said There is no Comparison betwixt what God requires and an immediate hearing of his Voice and being sensible of his living Touches upon the Soul Writings are but holy things at second hand He implyes and replyes thus Rep. Their Writings and Sayings they pretend to be perfectly immediate from the Spirit of God But the Scriptures handed through many Ages And therefore there is no Comparison because he affirms theirs to be more immediate Rejoyn Reader Right me in this Matter Was the Comparison betwixt our Writings and Sayings with the Scriptures or any Writings or Sayings and the Immediate Voice and Living Touches upon the Soul Do not I expresly say Writings are but holy things at second hand If so how do I make our Wrings holy things at the first hand Do not I prefer the Voice of God to the Soul and his Immediate Touches upon it as well before our own Writings and Sayings as the holy Scriptures of Truth And who dare deny that heavenly Enjoyment of God to be the blessed End of Writings and Sayings too It is after a manner not less Perverting though much more Scoffing that he deals with my Answer about Our Friends Denying Light to be in Scripture That is said I There is not Living Spiritual Essential Light in the Scriptures Now hear him Rep. Did he not intend his Writings for the View of those only who understand no more Right Reason then a Horse doth Hebrew He could not expect any success in such pittiful Attempts Whatsoever makes manifest is Light saith the Scripture But if there be no Light but according to the Character he gives Candles Stars Moon Sun Reason W. P's Writings also are gross and perfect Darkness Rejoyn This Man would pass both for Just and Rational Just he is not who has left out those very words which remove all Pretence to Scruple viz. That the Scriptures carryed a Descriptive and Declarative Light with them that is a Declaration from and of the divine Light Dares he affirm more or does this deny all other Lights besides the Living Spiritual and Essential Light Unjust Man to leave out that which only could wrong his Adversary and answer his infamous Ends. Besides he abuseth Scripture the Light mentioned in that Passage is the Living Spiritual Light of God in the Conscience as the Verse at length proves viz. That all things that are Reproved are made manifest by the Light for whatsoever makes manifest is Light Again Hear what he sayes to the same Matter Rep. And yet W. P. tells you of the Author of the Quakers Book he writ to give notice of the Day-spring of God's Eternal Light of Life to the World i. e. the Light within that needeth the Light of Farnsworth's Book to be seen by What cannot such a Reconciler do Rejoyn But what cannot such a Scoffer do who dare Affront God and be Injust to Men in the View of the World which is manifested thus First as I denyed a Living Spiritual and Essential Light to be in the Scriptures or any other VVritings so did I acknowledge a Descriptive and Declarative Light to be in them and measurably in other VVritings as well as the Scriptures which he hides from the Reader and then triumphs over a false Consequence Secondly If the Light within needs Rich. Farnsworth's Book as a Light without to be seen by because it is by it testified to the same upon his Argument may be said of God himself who is Light that he needed the Light of the Scriptures to be seen by But what shall I say The man is desperate in his Ventures From my concluding upon his Accusation and my own Answer so that our Adversary's Argument amounts to thus much We therefore prefer our own Writings before the Scriptures because in all our Writings we earnestly endeavour by numerous Quotations to prove what we write to be according to Scripture For this he flyes out into this following Reply Rep. I leave it to my Reader sayes J. Faldo to give a Name to this Passage the like to which for a daring Vntruth the World hath scarcely been ever acquainted with yet the man pretends besides all other Graces to Infallibility In many a large Libel I could produce where there is not one Quotation of Scripture W. Smith often quoted in Quakerism no Christianity in his Directory for Religious Principles consisting of above Two Hundred Pages hath not one Scripture quoted not one Exhortation to read the Scriptures But as his main Scope denyes and throws Dirt upon them Rejoyn Reader right a poor People once Never I think did man so slander Persons
Principles Dwell ◠while here then give thy Judgment of both My Answer unencountered by him lay thus Let it suffice to all impartial People that we only desire to make a Difference betwixt the Writings and the Thing written of And to the eternal Overthrow of our Adversaries not wholely without their own Help since they think the Titles we gave our Books very glorious in themselves most unworthy of them but proper to the Scriptures whom they say we slight Let it be considered that not one of those Books is destitute of Scripture but is either generally in a Scripture stile this Distinction I fear my Adversary wilfully omitted or particularly defended by plenty of express Scriptures cited Therefore of necessity they the Scriptures must also partake with them in common of those famous Titles And thus far have they the Preference that they are quoted on purpose to give the Truth we write of greater Credit VVhat is that Greater Credit but to be exactly agreeable with them Now Reader first consider I did not say that no◠one Book is not without plenty of express Scripture cited as my answer clears but that every one of them is in a Scripture stile or particularly defended by express Scripture cited W. Smith's Catechism belongs to the first and if he would have fastened the Lye deservedly upon me he should have made appear that he treated not on the Truth declared of in Scripture scripturally which is as much the contrary as any thing can be For his Catechism contains nothing else neither is it managed any other way Secondly If he can produce one Book endeavouring to defend or prove our Principle to be true without such Quotation for to such Books the Passage by him cited relates I will confess his Ranting Abuse to be a Just Rebuke But I make this Challenge to him To give me one Book out of a Scripture Stile that is not controversal or any Controversal Book without express Scripture cited if he cannot his vain Insults fall thick upon his own Head But let us see if the Design of W. Smith's Catechism be to deny and throw Dirt upon the Scriptures In the thirteenth page of William Smith's Catechism printed 67. we have this Question and Answer concerning the Scriptures Q. Of what Service are the Scriptures as they are given forth and recorded without A. MVCH EVERY WAY unto those that have received the same Spirit from which they were given forth for unto such they are Profitable and make Wise unto Salvation and are unto them of Service for Instruction Edification and Comfort The same Spirit in them receiving the Testimony of the Spirit as it is declared in the Scripture And there is an Agreement and Vnion in the Spirit within AND ALSO IN THE WORDS without And so there is Instruction Edification and Comfort by the Scriptures unto all that are in the same Spirit that gave them forth Now in my Adversary's words I leave it to my Reader to give a Name to his Passage both against me our Books and particularly William Smith The like to which for a daring Vntruth is not commonly told For if to confess to the Scriptures to believe to read and to fulfil them as what by the right Spirit makes Wise through Faith to Salvation being full of Instruction Edification and Comfort If this I say he to deny and throw Dirt upon them William Smith is deeply guilty but I leave it with God and my Reader 's Conscience whether J. Faldo hath not denyed all Honesty in throwing so much Dirt undeservedly upon W. Smith But let us see what Reply he makes to my Answer in his Inferences and indeed there is need of Patience in having to do with so much unworthy Shifting and ill Language His first Inference was this If the Light within was alwayes sufficient the Scriptures and other Means were ever superfluous His second By the same Ground the Writings of the Gentiles yea the bitter Scoffs of Lucian and Julian the Apostate are of equal Authority with the Scriptures for they resulted from their Light within To all which as my full Answer only thus much I will say That though all Ability was and is in him the Light whom we declare to be the Light of all Mankind to reveal the whole Mind of God Here he leaves off and takes the rest from the beginning of another Paragraph about a page off to clap to it Yet that he so 〈◊〉 mistakes Reason and abuses his Reader as to infer from the ability of the Light whether obeyed or disobeyed the Uselesness of the Scripture Now hear his Reply Rep. Obeyed or Disobeyed were no Words of mine But how can we know any thing the better for VV. P's hard Names he puts upon it seeing there is nothing that pinches him but he hath presently 〈◊〉 hard Name for it And so impertinently and slovenly imposed that a man might learn far more gentile Railing under a Hedge As base Comparison p. 43. Black as Hell in Malice p. 46. The Impudence of his Wickedness p. 49. Rejoyn VVhatever pincht me before I hope the Reader will bear witness for him he has been more merciful in this Reply He first brings little or nothing out of my Answer and sayes just nothing to what he brought He did not say obeyed or disobeyed The more the Shame As my Answer to the Inference will sufficiently manifest the substance of which was this That if the Light had been obeyed and God's Spirit not rebelled against there had not been so much need of Line upon Line and Precept upon Precept Therefore was the Light or Spirit in it self insufficient or Line upon Line superfluous Is the Ability of a Master questioned by the Use of Books or the Use of Books superfluous because of his Ability Insufficiency belongs not to the Light but to the Creature that cannot receive it as it is in it self A Condiscension to such VVayes and Means as suits the great VVeakness and Distance of degenerated Man from God can no more conclude the Light insufficient then God Christ and the holy Spirit To which let me add that as the Law so very much of Scripture was added because of Transgression that makes it not superfluous no more then the succesless Strivings of the Spirit to bring out of Transgression because of Man's obstinate Rebellion renders the Spirit not sufficient To the second Inference he drew I gave a large Answer which I shall contract That the Light of the Jews and Gentiles was one in it self That as either writ by that Degree of Light they had they might both be said to write by the same Light and yet the VVritings be no more equal then the Degrees of manifestation That the VVritings of the Jews greatly transcended those of the Gentiles from that greater Discovery God vouchsafed to them That his bringing Lucian and the best Gentiles upon an Equallity was wicked That nothing lies heavier against the Light
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
and the Assistance of the Spirit of God are not these in my Book all made necessary to render the Scriptures such a Rule and Determiner Rejoyn But why such a trivial Rant for a Reply and why such hard words from a Man of his Circumstances one on many Accounts so near what he represents me to be Is it not true that if something be more firm then Writing that which is more firm and not the Writing is the Judge and Determiner Suppose a Scripture for every Case that ever did or may happen which we know there is not and therefore not THE RULE yet if such Scripture need an Exposition who is most truly the Judge and Determiner the obscure Text or the clear Expositor Certainly where the Stress lies the Power of Determination must be and there the Judgeship rests but that is alwayes in the Interpretation since the Difficulty is not about believing the Text but the Exposition given of it therefore the Expositor is both Judge and Rule and not the Text exposited And since J. Faldo has granted to us the Assistance of the Spirit for knowing the Scriptures the Spirit then which gives us how to understand and believe and enables us to fulfil them must needs be the Rule and Judge and no Writing whatever I shall conclude this Point with my Rejoynder to this following Passage in his Reply Rep. But W. P. hath not done triffling yet neither is the Law the Judge but there is a Judgâ— who interprets and speaks from the fresh Discoveries of his own Reason the Meaning and â—â—â—tendment of those written Laws But Mr. Penâ— The Judge is the Mouth of the Law and subject to thâ— Law and prescribed in his Judgment to that sense 〈◊〉 the Law which is expressed by the Letter of it If soâ—â— of the Judges had the handling of you for imposing yoâ— canting fresh Discoveries of his Reason upon them thâ— would tell you they give Judgment from a Deep Stuâ— and Weighty Consideration of the Letter of the Lâ—â— and moreover give you some hard Names or worse for youâ— canting Law added to your canting Gospel and yet the LIGHT IN THEIR CONSCIENCES NOT GIVE THEM THE LEAST REBUKE FOR SO DOING Rejoyn I perceive he measures the Judges Displeasure by his own Indeed they would be very Vnfit Persons to sit for our Judges that should be like him Men that would call hard Names and do worse to any Man for allowing them to be guided by a Living Reason would greatly evidence they had little or none and therein indeed that we mischaractered them But who most dishonours them I that suppose them to judge and explain Written Reason by the Living Principle of Reason in themselves or he that renders them so many Posts or Pillars that are to be moved by incens't Letters without relation to any Reason inherent to themselves and not otherwise But hear my forme Answer before I further rejoyn His Instance about the Law is same For the good Laws of any Land are but Reason written or rather declar'd by Writing which is oblieging against the Corruption of a Judge but not the Reason of the Judge neither is the Law the Judge but there is a Judge who interprets and speaks from the fresh Discoveries of his own Reason the Meaning Intendment of those written Laws If the Laws be sufficient without a Judge why is there a Judge If then they are Dark Obscure and Doubtful in many Cases so as to need a Judge and Interpreter which I call living and immediate Reason since the Scriptures are Writings in which are many things difficult to be understood it follows that there must be an Immediate Living Judge which must be therefore the Spirit of Truth that gave them forth because none knows the things of God save the Spirit of God And that those who are the Makers of Laws are the only Persons who are fit to judge and determine in Case of Difficulty by a Declaration of their Mind and Intenâ—ion in any such obscure Passage In short Either the Scriptures are not obscure a thing we daily see or if so yet sufficient which is impossible or they must have a Judge which is most true and necessary and what Judge but the Spirit of Truth which leads into all Truth p. 61 62. Now one would have thought that an Answer so sober and reasonable might have deserved a Reply more civil and pertinent then my Adversary gave me But I do the less wonder at it since he makes it his Practice to give hard Words instead of solid Answers But to his Reply as it is Rejoyn He tells me the Judge is the Mouth of the Law and Subject to the Law But I would have him consider two things First that the Scriptures of Truth were never given forth after that formal regular course that the Laws of England were but to particular Persons or Churches on particular Cases though together with hearty respect I acknowledge and enjoy the Benefit of them Secondly The Question is not about things obvious but obscure and herein the Judge is not only the Mouth but Interpreter of the hidden Meaning of the Law This our Adversary's own words import For if the Law were so plain as only to need a Mouth what need would there be of deep Study and Weighty Consideration which he makes necessary to a Judge the bare reading of the Law would be sufficient to determine all Cases Nay it would end all going to Law But inasmuch as the Laws are both numerous and intricate as the Vexatious Cases and Disputes of our Times fully prove 't is manifest that some other Judge and Determiner must be found out one that understands compares and rightly applies Law whose Judgment must decide and determine the Controversie Now though every such Judge may be said to determine according to the Mind of the Law yet his Interpretation and not the bare Letter is recorded for the Determination of the Case depending from whence come our Book-Cases Nor indeed is this only referrable to any certain Person explaining the obscure Passages of Law but the Application of the Law to the Fact in which not only the whole living Reason of the Judge is deeply and circumspectly exercised but the Understanding and Conscience of the Jury respecting the Nature of the Law the Evidence of the Witness the Heinousness of the Fact and Variety of Circumstances wherein the obnoxiousness to Error lies according to the Greâ—k Proverb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. Error is about the Circumstances all in order to a definitive Sentence or Determination about the Point handled Now for any Man to call the written Law the Judge and not Synteresis or living sound Reason and Conscience in the Judge and Jury to me seems very absurd Besides Let it be considered First that the Law is added because of Transgression and such as live to that noble Principle from whence all good Laws come have
Rejoyn What can there be more conceited then this He must live very lonely and far from Neighbours that proclaims so much Praise to himself and have wonderful Confidence to bid Defiance so vainly to others Reader I beseech thee for the Truth 's sake on whose side soever thou shalt find it to be to examine with all impartiallity his Charge our Answer his Reply and our Rejoynder If his Honesty Reason and Justice hold any proportion to his great Confidence we yield But if upon an impartial Consideration he shall be found to clip and pervert our Matter and to shuffle with us in his own once do a poor People Right in giving Judgment against his horrible injustice The Charge thou hast heard the Proof was this That is no Command of God to me what he Commanded to another Did any of the Saints which we read of act by that Command which was to another not having the Command to themselves c Now before I give my Answer as it was set down in my Book I shall insert his Quotation of my Answer Rep. To this saith P. I answer briefly and plainly and he is as good as his word No Commands saith he in the Scripture are any further oblieging upon any Man then as he finds a Conviction upon his Conscience otherwise Men should be eâ—gaged without if not against Conviction a thing Vnreasonable in a Man Rejoyn He has a notable Way of Contracting his Adversary's Answers I will set down what I writ faithfully plainly and briefly Edward Burroughs's Expression may be taken two ways both safe enough to the Honour and Credit of the Scripture though not to the Charity or Honesty of J. Faldo Now follows that part he cited No Command in the Scripture is any further oblieging upon any Man then as he finds a Conviction upon his Conscience otherwise men should be engag'd without if not against Conviction a thing Unreasonable in a Man Therefore the Apostle when he wrote to the Churches exhorted them not to do those things whereof they were ashamed to shun what was manifested to be Evil and affirms that whatever might be known of God was manifested within for God had shown it unto them So that Conviction can only obliege to Obedience and since what works that Conviction is the manifesting Light universal Grace or quickening Spirit in the Heart of Mankind it follows that the principal Ground for our Faith in the Scriptures and Reason of our Obedience to the Holy Precepts therein contained is the Manifestation Conviction and secret Drawings of the Light or Spirit of God in the Conscience And thus E. B's words are sound and scriptural Again Such Commands either relate to Ordinary or Extraordinary Cases By Ordinary Cases I mean such as chiefly concern Faith and holy Life which are general permanent and indispensible and then I deny his Consequence By Extraordinary Cases I understand Moses's going to Pharoah the Prophets several manners of Appearance to the Kings Priests and People of Israel with other Temporary Commands relating to outward Services c. And so we say that what is commanded One Man is not binding as such upon another But when the Lord shall say If thou sinnest thou shalt dye If thou keepest my Commands thou shalt live Be ye holy for I the Lord your God am holy For your selves KNOW YE NOT how ye ought to follow us c. I say these Precepts and Examples are oblieging upon all why because they more or less meet with a Conviction in the Consciences of all For I am perswaded none that has a reasonable Soul who has not out-liv'd his Day but would readily say These are true and weighty Sayings For Faith in God and a holy self-denying Life are necessary both to Temporal and Eternal Happiness It was Reader to this sober Answer he flung out his fore-going Rant and makes this following Comment and Reply Viz. sayes J. Faldo Rep. They are no Commands unless we think so 'T is no Sin to break all the Commands in the Bible if our Consciences can be so blind dead or hardened as not to tell us 't is a Sin They who thought they did God good Service in killing his Servants did not sin in the least because they were not convinced of a Command to the contrary To vindicate my whole Chapter concerning the Scriptures 'T is a Principle that hath all Iniquity in the Womb of it Who can find Names for such Impious Principles Penn hath opposed scorned the Truth vilified its Teachers and Defenders so as scarce never Man did vented the most pernicious Errors told abundance of those things that are known to himself to be false Rejoyn Reader This is all the Justice and Reason I can have from this pretended meek and suffering Non-conforming Parson What would such Men do had they as much Power as Anger But I shall leave him with his Pride and Passion Is there any thing more clear then that he extends the words of E. Burroughs to Ordinary Cases which were wholely writ about Extraordinary and that he takes no more notice of my Distinction then if there had been none made As if it had been formerly an equal Sin for any not to be Circumcised and to Murder his Father or Prince or that there was the same Conviction universally upon the Consciences of all Men not to wear Linsey-Wolsey as to do by others as they would have others do to them That what we say was E. Burroughs's Meaning his own words undeniably prove One sayes he was sent to baptize and another to preach the Gospel which were particular and extraordinary Commands He clearly shuffles evades the dint of my Answer would run us within the Borders of Rantism The Question is not Are God's Commands no Commands unless we think so and therefore no Sin to break all the Commands in the Bible which is the Comment he bestows upon us but whether this or that especial Injunction to any Particular Person or Persons to this or that parculiar End be warrantably imitable without sufficient Conviction and Commission Must J. F. Baptize because John Baptized or turn Preacher because Peter was one E. B. only denyed Imitation of Ancient Times in Temporary and Shadowy Services and all those Preachings Prayers Ordinances and Churches that have not as Peter Martyr well expresses it the holy Spirit for their Root So that instead of his holding a Principle that hath all Iniquity in the Womb of it John Faldo first perverts his words and then to confute them both implies a Denyal of the holy Spirit to be the only right Leader to the Performance of Gospel-Prayer Preaching and Ordinances and of gathering of Evangelical Churches and does as good as tell us that God's Commandments are such to him not because of any Conviction in himself of the Justness of them but from the Testimony of the Scriptures which for all his high Boasts of Christianity is a State
for them to have come to the true Sense and Knowledge of him and escaped that Wicked Murder and the Deplorable Consequences of it had not been to have waited upon God for the Convictions Discoveries and Guidance of his Holy Spirit since Flesh and Blood and the utmost VVit of Man with the Exactness of the meer Letter of the Scriptures could never give the certain Discerning Knowledge and Savour of him unto that Generation whose very VVords themselves were Spirit and Life It was by a Divine Touch Sense and Knowledge given from above that he was truly diâ—cern'd own'd and follow'd of those that believ'd in him and cleav'd to him therefore said Christ No man cometh to me but whom my Father draweth Where was that Drawing but within Again Simon Peter Flesh and Blood hath not revealed what who I am but my Father that is in Heaven So that at last Men must come to this Spiritual Sense in themselves to understand and apply the very Commands of Scripture otherwise not Justice but detestable Murder may under the Name of it be confidently perpetrated Wherefore we Exhort all To have Recourse unto God's Spirit that illuminates certainly and gives to act unblamably by which the Scriptures are only understood as they should be and People brought into the Possession of that Life of Righteousness they plentifully declare of Had it not been for this inward Discerning there had been no Ground for the Abolishment of the whole Jewish Service which follow'd some years after Christ's Ascension And it is the same Eternal Spirit that is the great Rule and Judge now which God promised more particularly to shed abroad in the latter Dayes and is the great inseparable Priviledge from the New and Everlasting Covenant But to conclude Why should it seem so Heterâ—dox in J. Faldo's Judgment since if Men believe the Scripture upon the Testimony of the Spirit they practise it by the Knowledge and Power of the same How else could Paul have decry'd Jewish Ceremonies or we know what to take and what to leave Or why do we omit any Command therein mention'd They Cicumcised therefore must I Circumcise They Baptized must I therefore Baptize with forty more particular Cases wherein nothing can secure any from the Imitation of them set Conviction or Spiritual Disâ—erning aside I will offer two or three Testimonies from approved Men in our Defence William Tindal that ancient faithful Protestant Martyr whom J. Fox that writ the Books of Martyrs calls the English Apostle speaks thus That it is impossible to understand in the Scripture more then a Turk for whosoever or any that hath not the Law of God writ in his Heart to fulfil it Again Without the Spirit it is impossible to understand them John Jewel Bishop of Salisbury in his excellent Book against the Papists writ above One Hundred Years ago sayes thus to our purpose The Spirit of God is bound neither to Sharpness of Wit nor to abundance of Learning Oftentimes the Unlearned see that thing that the Learned cannot see Christ saith I thank thee O Father Lord of Heaven and Earth that thou hast hid these things from the Wise and the Politick and hast revealed them unto the Little Ones Therefore Epiphanius saith Only to the Children of the Holy Ghost all the Holy Scriptures are plain and clear Again Flesh and Blood is not able to understand the Holy Will of God without SPECIAL Revelation Therefore Christ gave Thanks unto his Father and likewise opened the Hearts of his Disciples that they might understand the Scriptures Without this special Help and PROMPTING of God's Holy Spirit the Word of God is unto the Reader be he never so wise or well learned as the Vision of a Sealed Book Now unless Men are bound to do what they do not understand how to do then only are they to do them where they are Revealed or Discovered to them which being by the Spirit only according to their Doctrine the Testimony and Discoveries of the Spirit are requisite to our understanding of the Scriptures which implies and comprehends a Discriminating Knowledge or Certain Discerning of what we should practise from what is not oblieging upon us to practise and consequently that we ought not to run head-long without such knowledge T. Collier an Ancient and Eminent Man among the Western-Separatists of our Nation writeth thus For me to speak of God because another speaks of him and to be able to talk much of God as I read of him in Scripture NOT BEING MADE ONE IN THE SAME TRUTH I see and speak BUT WHAT ANOTHER HATH SPOKEN and so may speak truly sometimes of God but it is by Hear-say ANOTHER MAN's TRUTH BUT NOT MINE So I doubt many a Soul BOASTS IN ANOTHER MAN's LIGHT Again I see that external Actings according to a Rule without is nothing if not flowing from a Principle of Life and Love within Which is more then E. B. said of whom J. Faldo with unworthy Reflection and base Wrestings hath said so much Thus much of sober Rejoynder and much more then my Adversary's scurrilous Reply deserves but the ConCernment I have for the Information of others drew this from me I shall pass by his Ranting Strain against us at the top of his 36th page desiring to keep close to the Business and where I may without breaking his Matter avoid troubling the World with a Transcript of them I am very careful to do it But this next particular as many more being little else and since he suggests thereby an Untruth with great Confidence against me I should wrong both the Truth and my self in omitting it He charged us with Denying the Scriptures to be any Means to know God Christ or our selves for which he quoted W. Smith's Primmer pag. 2. because he there tells the Questioner that Christ is the Only Way to which J. Faldo answered That though Christ said No Man can come to the Father but by me yet he did not say that there is no coming to the Knowledge of God but by Christ thereby making as I observed in my Return to him a Difference between coming to the Father by the Son and to God by Christ though no other Name be given under Heaven then the Name of Jeâ—us Christ c. That we never deny'd the Scriptures to be a Means in God's Hand to convince instruct or confirm nor could this be W. Smith's Meaning since he would thereby have cut off all Benefit from accruing to People by his Books and also that Ministry he had receiv'd of God In short From our Denying that there is any other Way to the Father but Christ he concludes that we exclude the Scriptures and consequently our own Books and Ministry with them from being any way Instrumental of Good however if I err'd it was in good Company and that J. F. must acknowledge for worthy W. Tindal p. 80. of his Works and H. Bullenger a learned and famous Reformer in Switzerland
to enable People to understand the Romish Translation for we never yet heard of so much as any part of the Scripture that was Originally writ in that Tongue 'T is strange to me he should so much despise the People whose Language he so much extols and count the one serviceable to the Knowledge of God whilst with more Reason he reputes the other such gross Idolaters Luther jerks the Papists for their laying that Stress J. F. doth upon Humane Learning W. Tindal rejects it W. Dâ—ll and T. Collier write expresly and unanswerably against the Necessity of it or that it can give Man the Knowledge of God In short Common Experience and the Christian-Spirit and Conversation of Thousands that understand nor one Sentence of Hebrew Greek or Latine make good the Assertion of our Honest Friend and is a sufficient Rebuke to this vapouring Adversary whose Defiance to me to encounter his Proofs return Weakness with Shame upon his Head For though he thought to fling me to the Dogs or give me a Prey to Fierce and Lyonly Seconds behold they are my Friends and unananimously turn with me against himself who had designed them upon such ill Service a Recompence may he ever find at what time he shall endeavour to abuse our Friends and pervert their Writings And so I shall end this Chapter wishing for his sake as well as mine own that I may meet if not with more Reason yet with more Moderation in the remainder of his Discourse CHAP. VIII That we do not deny the Scriptures to be any Means whereby to resist Temptation in Opposition to and Denyal of our Adversary's Charge THe Charge by him endeavour'd to be defended in his Eighth Chapter is this That the Quakers affirm the Scriptures to be no Means whereby to resist Temptation I will set down his words Rep. He passes over no less then Six Testimonies without a word to invalidate them among the rest this If you use any other VVeapon then the Light within in-this Spiritual VVar you cannot prevail against him that is the Devil So I more then proved my Assertion Rejoyn I therefore avoided considering every Testimony he brought first because many of them were so forraign that there could be no Pretence for bringing them And next that I might not be prolix I thought it sufficient to examine three in six and with good Conscieâ—e I can assure my Reader I took as I thought those he built most upon if he doubted of any he should not have brought them I have answer'd the Law in the case For this now recited 't is as weak as Water to his Purpose though a strong Truth in it self For the Intent of the words could be no other then this that the Armor of Light the Apostle exhorted the Church at Rome to put on was sufficient to Encounter the Power of Darkness and that such as would overcome should not neglect or exchange that Armour for other Weapons thereby not in the least excluding other such Instruments as this spiritual Light might arm or give Strength and Invigourate to our Help And I am so far from doubting that I firmly believe that God's Spirit not only in times past hath made this use of the holy Scriptures to Instruction and Comfort but doth even yet to them who read them in his holy Fear and Wisdom Reader I am truly weary not because I find my way difficult from the great Perspicuity and Reason that are on the Side of my Adversary no nothing less in this VVorld But I know not which way to turn my self but I meet either with School-Boy Jeers Insolent Language Equivocations or horrible Perversions God is Record between J. Faldo and I who of us two hath behav'd himself with most Ingenuity in encountering the strongest and fullest Arguments and shown most Reason and Moderation in Confuting them Two or Three Instances of his Failure in both respects this Chapter presents thee with Rep. The first thing VV. P. deals with is a Passage of James Naylor ' s For those only are the Children of God who are lead by the Spirit of God to whom they who were led by the Letter were ever Enemies From whence saith Penn He concludes that we account it a very dangerous thing to read the Scriptures Now if this Passage hath any relation to his Charge or Conclusion no Man ever saw the like He should have added that was alwayes stark blind Rejoyn Here he has given my Reflection upon his ill Application of the Passage omitting both my Exposition and Argument An Injustice I do affirm every Page of his Book to be guilty of VVhat I said to explain the Sentence was this That there are Children of the Fleshly Literal and Historical Knowledge of the Scriptures and Religion who are Srrangers to and therefore Persecutors of the Children born of the Spirit and that in all Ages there hath been more or less of this among outward Jews and Christians And let J. Faldo deny this if he dare To all which and much more he sayes nothing but to his blind Squib before-mention'd he adds this Wrestâ—ing of the Passage by me so clearly exposited Rep. It is a Sign his Judgment is very feeble that â—ould not or would not know that it is dangerous to be â—od by the Letter if they that were so led were ever Eâ—emies to the Children of God Rejoyn What is this but to make us Enemies to thâ— very Scriptures who without any Distinction gives so Wretched a Meaning to words so far from bearing it whose true Sense was as I observ'd already to which I may add for further Explanation thus That those who have Confidence in the Letter Erring from and Grieving the Holy Spirit are not withstanding Enemies to the Children of God who are led by the Spirit according to the true Meaning of Scripture which the meer Letter-Professor as such can never attain to so that the Danger lies here to be led by the Letter without the true Meaning of the Letter or rather by his own dark Apprehensions concerning the Mind of it in the stead of it As the Jews when they crucified Christ by the Law of God against Blasphemers This is the genuine Sense of our Friend's words For had they been writ in the Sense in which John Faldo takes them we had then as greatly detested them as he has now wrong'd them A second Passage is in his first Book pag. 109. his words these Isaac Penington who speaking of Knowledge gain'd by the Letter of the Scriptures writes thus Making him wise and able in his Head to oppose Truth and so bringing him into a State of Condemnation Wrath and Misery beyond the Heathen and making him harder to be wrought upon by the Light and Power of Truth then the very Heathen Upon which J. Faldo bestows this Comment If reading the Scriptures and getting Knowledge from them puts us into a bad Condition beyond the Heathen I scarce know what is more
dangerous then reading the Scriptures Reader 't is worth our while to see if I. Penington be as bad a Man as J. Faldo represents him in order to which I ask First May a Man that reads and pretends to value the Scriptures from up an Vnderstanding of them and yet be absolutely mistaken for want of the True Interpreter the Spirit of Truth I cannot think but J. Faldo himself will say that such a thing may be I am sure I believe so for it hath often been so already and J. Faldo's present Writings are an Unanswerable Instance for the Point The next Question I would ask is this Whether such Persons so mistaken are not very apt in Defence of their own Conceivings to oppose the Truth it self Methinks the whole Jewish Church at the time of Christ's Visible Appearance in the World in disputing against him and decrying of his Religion while they magnify'd the Scriptures as the only great Doctors of them should without further Labour answer that Question in the Affirmative Next Let me ask J. Faldo If the high Conceit the Jews had of their Knowledge in the Commands Doctrines and Prophecies of Scripture however Erroneous for want of the True Interpreter did not render them more captious and obdurate then the Heathen themselves If he can read the Scriptures of the New Testament he may answer this Question to our Mind and his own Shame Lastly Was not this State more dangerous then that of the Gentiles God himself long since resolv'd this Question when he brought such heavy Judgments upon the Jews and turn'd the Stream of his Love to the Gentiles It was not for nought those words were left upon record He came to his own and his own received him not That is He came to the Nation and People of all others God had selected for his Service to whom he had been propitious beyond measure whom he redeem'd by wonderful Miracles and blessed with Holy Leaders Just Judges a Righteous Law True and Faithful Prophets whose were the Covenants and Scriptures who were the Seed of Abraham and of whom Christ came as concerning the Flesh yet they received him not as God over all blessed forever manifested in Flesh in the Fulness of Time for their Deliverance but vehemently rejected him under the Title of Beelzebub Prince of Devils By this time I hope Isaac Penington's Passage is vindicated from the Malignity of our Adversary's Comment whose Perversion must needs be open and conspicuous to all that read him First in charging him To have made this Reflection upon the Knowledge gained by the Letter of the Scriptures which are none of I. P's words Next in concluding that by I. P's Doctrine nothing can well be more Dangerous then Reading the Scriptures who alwayes was and yet is a great Respecter and Reader of them making the Stress of I. P's Saying to lie in a Dislike and Contempt of the Scriptures absolutely instead of their dark Interpretations upon and Carnal Deductions from the Scriptures which he only levell'd his Discourse against Thus have we been serv'd in every pretended Proof he has brought out of our Friends Writings to prop and enforce his feeble and incredible Charges For where we reprove Men's forming unto themselves Religion from the Letter of the Scriptures according to their own Conceptions of it and give a Check to their great Eagerness to comprehend the most weighty Mysteries therein expressed and their continual Questioning Cavilling and Contending concerning them whilst they themselves are Ignorant of the very first Principles of Religion being yet Strangers to Unfeign'd Repentance fâ—om Dead Works and Fear towards the Living God with Loud Voices and Clamorous Tongues they thus exclaim against us after this Unruly as well as Unjust Manner The Quakers Deny the Scriptures The Quakers say they are not binding upon them The Quakers say it is Dangerous to read them but I say in their Name Blessed are they who reading truly understand them and live according to them I might here break off but I intreat my Reader to peruse Two notable Testimonies given by University-Men and such as were reputed Famous Thirty Years ago The first is out of Joshua Sprigg's Book entituled A Testimony to an Approaching Glory pag. 96. Christ desires that his Disciples may be sanctified not by planting the Knowledge of the LITERAL Word in their Minds but by ingrafting the Nature of the DIVINE Word in their Hearts Again in pag. 107. Christ may offer himself long enough in the LETTER in the HISTORY of the Gospel but if he appear not in the SPIRIT and sit in our Consciences to quiet them we shall never have any true Understanding of the Word aright And in page 79 80. We may see what is to be done by looking upon the HISTORY of Christ but till we find the same things done in us in some measure in the MYSTERY we can find little Comfort The whole HISTORY of Christ will profit you nothing nor all that you know except you find EXPERIMENTALLY the same things done in you by the Spirit The second is afforded us by Christopher Goâ—d stiled Bachellor of Divinity and Fellow of King's Colledge in Cambridge in his Book entituled Refreshing Drops c. pag. 12. There is no Knowledge of Christ nor of the Scripture but by REVELATION it is that the Apostle prayes for That God would give unto us the Spirit of Revelâ—tion Again in pag 18. It is neither Moses nor the Scriptures nor Christ's Works can settle our Hearts unless the Father be in them c. Also in pag. 89. To go forth in Man's Power in the Power of a Letter of the Scripture only is not safe Yet again pag. 87 upon Acts 17. Here they hold Paul play in Reasoning and Disputing Paul holds up Christ out of the Scriptures and the Jews do dispute against Christ by the Scriptures And this is that that all the Learning of Man doth all his Knowledge in the Scripture doth but serve him to oppose the Spirit The greater Knowledge in the Scriptures and the more Learning if it be only of Man the greater Opposition unto Christ and unto the Spirit These Jews had LEARNING AND KNOWLEDG IN THE SCRIPTURES MEERLY TO OPPOSE THE TRUTH THE POWER AND LIFE OF THE SCRIPTURES And lastly that we may not be too prolix we shall content our selves in the over-looking many more with this Passage in his last Testimony pag. 71. upon Esa 25. There are that have devoted themselves to the Law and the Letter of Scripture There are others that have their Life in the Creature God will shortly draw all Life unto himself and all they that run after other Gods shall starve and famish They and their Gods These Passages Reader speak for themselves and which is more so much for us that till J. Faldo and his Fellow-Separatists have publickly renounced them and their Authors we have great Cause to say that such as themselves have hitherto reputed their Spiritual and
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-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
Reasonable or Understanding Part is a Wrong that would have drawn a whole Chapter of Railing from him had he been so serv'd by a Quaker And for Faith how can a Man have it and not know he hath it and which way may he possibly know it and not experience it As to the Scriptures they may both be instrumental to Experience and with respect to what they declare of be also experienced Two places more and we leave this Chapter in which it will appear that his Courage is as much upon the ebb as his Envy was before upon the flote In his former Book he was so unhappy in his Cause as to let fall this Expression That God above and the Scripture without have taught us better things The use I made of it in my Answer he takes a little notice of I mean to recite not confute it Now what is the Teaching of the God above said I If it be in the Scriptures it was impertinent to say any more then that the Scriptures have taught them better things But if he meant that God taught by his immediate Discoveries with and beside the Scriptures then wherein do we differ To which I will faithfully set down his Reply that if there be any Reason in it I may lose none of it in Transscription Rep. W. P. thinks now he has me upon the hip this Phrase he calls assisting to my own Confutation If joyning the Teachings of God and the Scriptures alwayes together be Self-confutation let me be ever so Confuted Rejoyn This is both Evasion and False Doctrine Evasion in putting alway together in the Reply which was not in the first Passage and very much alters the Case since to say the God above and the Scriptures without have taught us better things and to say if joyning the Teachings of God and the Scriptures alwayes together c. are vastly differing For the first Saying or Passage is general and leaves God at Liberty to speak beside with or above the Scriptures but the Reply tyes God alwayes to the Scriptures that he cannot speak otherwise then by them nor the Scriptures be without him which makes up the False Doctrine I charged upon him But if he means that God speaks nothing contrary to his Mind declared in Scripture and the Scriptures nothing contradictory to the Mind of God I acquiesce yet this Concession not only brings him upon the Hip but upon the bare Ground too for it confutes him without Controle inasmuch as he grants that the Scriptures without are not sufficient to teach without the God above the very thing in Controversie almost from the beginning betwixt us so that I return his own words upon himself pag. 40. of his Reply All this ado is to make the Scriptures nothing without immediate Inspiration implying that we hold them to be profitable as God is pleased to discover unto us and breath into our Hearts the true Meaning and Vertue of them for our Instruction and Comfort and what short of this doth John Faldo's Expression import that makes the Teachings of the God above necessary to render the Scriptures truly profitable unto any And what is this but to say with us that they are of no value not in themselves but to us unless the God above unfold them and brings our Souls into a sense of those States and Truths they declare of I leave my sober Reader to make his Judgment of this and so proceed to the next Particular which will end this Chapter I will set down his words Rep. He quarrels with my Mannagement of Ephes 6. 16 17. thus And a Shame it is that this Man should bring these places to prove that the Scriptures are Means whereby to resist Temptation The Words are Wherefore take unto you the whole Armour of God And among the rest is reckoned the Sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God Why doth he not say it is a Shame I produce any Scripture at all which is like a Quaker throughly but the Matter is it a Shame to call the Scriptures the Word of God or a spiritual Sword Rejoyn No such Matter The Shame was that J. Faldo perverted and mis-apply'd Scripture and the Shame still is that he should so bungle and bogle in the Business as of Two Pages to take Two Lines that concern'd not either the Exposition or the Argument and when he has done say nothing neither to it Is this Man like to acquit himself with Advantage against the vain Attempts of W. P. as he is pleas'd to call them Reader I have often complain'd and yet shall have Cause enough of my Adversary's unfair Dealing in not reporting the fortieth part of what I urge and that he is sure to take not what is most but least material to my Cause and then bestows a Squib or two upon it instead of taking my Strength or giving a sage Reply and that I complain not without Just Cause be pleas'd to consider my former Answer with what he first writ to occasion it by which his Honesty in reciting and Reason in replying may be most impartially judged of Thus he pag. 113. Above all take the Shield of Faith which is able to quench c. and the Sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God Observe saith J. Faldo Faith in the 16th verse is preferred above the Word of God in the 17th verse therefore it is not Christ the Word but the Scriptures the Word for Faith is not above Christ Jesus Christ who had less need of Scripture then any of us all resisted Satan ' s Temptation by Scripture It is written it is written Mat. 4. To which I gave this following Answer But neither will this do his Business and a Shame it is that this Man should bring these places to prove that the Scriptures are Means whereby to resist Temptation which Rebuke was the whole he recited that concerned them not especially this in Hand unless he would have Faith to be the Scriptures or Word of God in his Sense which as it is absurd so it will by him be deny'd since he allows the Faith to be preferr'd before the Word of God therefore distinct from it and consequently not the same with it And should we grant to him that Christ is not understood by the Word of God but the Scriptures yet observe the fatal Blow his Cause receives at his own Hand Every true Christian hath Faith that Faith is above the Scriptures therefore every true Christian hath something in him above the Scriptures Again True Faith overcometh the World and quenches the fiery Darts of Satan consequently Temptations therefore not so properly the Scriptures as true Faith which is preferred above them by John Faldo himself and which resists Temptation and overcomes the VVorld is c. Once more the Just they live by Faith but Faith is above the Scripture saith J. F. Therefore the Just live by that which is above the Scriptures
of the Spirit to the Scriptures and which he pretends to justifie against my Explanation was this Of this sort are the False Prophets who have their Preaching from Study and other Men's Mouthes charging me that I treacherously left out or from the Letter and not from the Mouth of the Lord. But as I us'd no Treachery neither omitted it in Design nor thought it Prejudicial to his Cause since my Answer as himself hath trans-scrib'd it shews that I understood it to be the Letter of the Scripture that was meant from whence they stole their Preaching and not that they receiv'd it from the Mouth of the Lord so in the end it will prove more my own Disadvantage to have omitted it then any Bodies else I shall set down my Answer as he has trans-scrib'd it and his Reply the equall'st Way of Judging The natural Purport of the Words said I can be no more then this That though the Things declar'd of in the Scriptures were the Word of the Lord to the holy Ancients and Jeremiah as God's Mouth not his Mouth therefore to the People Israel yea much of it mark the Mouth of the Lord to us also yet for Men to say any part of it by rote especially if they add mark their own Comments and Glosses framed from study OF any part of the Scripture and say Thus saith the Lord or Hear the Word of the Lord and not in the same living Sense nor upon the like Commission every such one doth rob his Neighbour and steal his words This is so much of my Answer as he trans-scribes which seems thus far ingenuous that in three times a larger Answer he has not trans-scrib'd one third of this perhaps he thought it not so much for his turn But before I set down his Reply I shall find two Faults with this recital First That he has I will not say treacherously or that I knew he did design'dly mis-give my words as he is frequently pleas'd to charge me falsly set down one part of my Answer for in my Book it is If they add their own Comments and Glosses framed from study TO any part of the Scripture and he trans-scribes it Framed from study O F any part of the Scripture as if the studying O F the Scripture and adding Men's own Glosses TO the Scripture were one and the same thing All I shall say of it is this 'T is a scurvy Mistake and looks very suspitiously The second is That he has left out the most material part of my Answer The Stress of which in brief lay here Parrots imitate Men But if such Creatures are not therefore to be reputed Reasonable though the Sentence be rational in it self because it proceeds from meer Imitation and not a Principle of Reason neither is He a true Prophet nor That the Word of the Lord with respect to that Prophet who has not receiv'd what he delivers from the immediate Word of God himself but by Hear-say or meer Imitation But of all this part he takes no notice I now come to his Reply which I will faithfully set down and I hope as clearly enervate Rep. The Errors Self-Contradictions and Absurdities of W. P. I shall express briefly First what he saith they mean I say they mean also viz. The Scriptures are not the Mouth of God Rejoyn The Mouth of God is a most uncouth Expression for which he has not one Scripture from Genesis to the Revelation nor do I see how he should since it is unsound if not Blasphemons for by calling them not A Mouth but THE Mouth it renders them the most constant necessary and excellent Mouth by which God who is a Spirit utters forth his Mind to his Children thereby excluding the Word of God nigh in the Heart and his Spirit in their Inward Parts But to proceed What does he mean by Mouth or how does he take it Properly or Metaphorically If the first I deny it If the last I thus far concede That the Scriptures as other things may be in a sense so stiled when God pleaseth livingly to speak by them otherwise I chuse to express my self as in my Answer by him also omitted The Eternal Word of God is the Mouth of God and the true Prophets and Apostles in all Ages have been as the Mouth of the Word of God declaring the Mind of it either by Word of Mouth or Writing to the People and the Scriptures are the Writings of those inspir'd Prophets and Apostles What more would he have Nay there is not only no such Negative as he charges upon us in my Answer but I do expresly say The Scriptures are not in a sense without a Mouth and that for God too being a Declaration of much of his VVill and Works though I cannot allow them to be the Mouth of God in the sense my Adversary throughout his whole Book tugs hard to get for by that means we should with him shut up the Mouth of the Eternal Word which is God's Living Oracle to the Souls of his People But he proceeds Rep. VV. P. saith the things spoken of were the Word of the Lord. Then the Word of the Lord is or was more then one a Contradiction to himself Rejoyn Reader take notice that there is no such thing as he pretends to reply to in this part of my Answer he brings into his Book It seems he has left it behind him and I must go back to look for it My words were these The Scriptures then are to us oblieging as the Thing they declare of was the Word of the Lord to several Ages Temporary Commands excepted VVhich import no more then this That the Word of the Lord declared the Mind of the Lord by the holy Prophets And the Mind of the Lord is not distinct from the Word of the Lord though the Declaration be different from the thing declar'd of I cannot see any Contradiction in what I writ Sure I am I meant not by the thing they Declare of the Declaration either by VVord of Mouth or VVriting but the Wisdom Will Glory and Power of the Eternal Word as they are Eternally One with and in the Word before so declared He was a little too nimble in the Business but if I should let him make the worst Construction he is able it can rise no higher then this I should mean by the VVord of the Lord the living Command of the Lord in the Heart of his Prophets afterwards declared by VVord of Mouth or VVriting For Word sometimes signifies Command as thus This is the VVord of the Lord or this is the Command or Mind of the Lord which are equivalent Rep. 3dly That God hath a Mouth in a proper Sense Rejoyn This is untruly charg'd upon me My Adversary's Reason for this indirect Consequence was my saying that Jeremiah was as God's Mouth not his Mouth therefore which to me is a good Reason why he ought to have inferr'd the quite contrary since as his
the gaudiest Titles and sweetest Entertainments this Temporal World can bestow It s for God against the Devil his Power and Spirit against Satan's the Spiritual against the Formal Man and the real Life of Jesus and Heavenly Experience of his Salvation within whereby the Doctrine of the Gospel is accomplish'd in Men against all Transformation into Likenesses and but meer verbal Immitations and Outsides of Religion For every Plant that the Heavenly Father hath not planted will he root up in this the Day of his Power in which the Lord will make his People a willing People and that notby indulging but rebuking and taking Men off from their own Willing and Running For the Lord has decreed to over-throw the Banks which the False Prophets of the Nations have cast up in the Night of Darkness whereby all Refreshment has been damm'd up from them and the Nations have been like a parched Heath and desolate Wilderness that his Life Power and Spirit may flow over every Kindred Nation and People under the whole Heaven and they shall be all taught of God and in Righteousness will he establish them and there shall be one Sheep-fold and one Shepherd and the Idol Shepherds who have no Vision neither have any Bread of Life wherewith to feed the Flock God will utterly scatter and make an end of and his Name shall be Famous and Renowned through all Generations Amen But Reader my Adversary is not yet willing to leave me he proceeds to tell us That the Quakers charge him and such others with the Sin of Idolatry to believe and live according to the Iustructions and holy Examples expressed in and by the Scriptures except they have them by Immediate Inspiration And though the Substance of it hath been already consider'd by me yet I shall not grudge my Pains if the Reader will bestow his perusal and perhaps he may find something not unserviceable to the further Clearing of our Sense and Detection of our Adversary's Dis-ingenuity He writes thus in his Reply Rep. I produced among others two Testimonies which W. P. takâ—s notice of My first is out of Morn Watch page 23. And this is Babylon the Mother of Harlots and the Abomination of all Uncleanness Rej. I need say the less to this because I have so clearly and lately defended W. S. in that Book and Page from any such wretched Meanings and Applications which J. F. has employ'd his Wits to rack his Words to Only Reader observe his Fallacy that he sets not down what Examples and what Instructions but confounds Moral with Ceremonial Precepts on purpose to make us at one Blow cut off all Regard to Scripture indifferently Next mark his Antichristianism in that he maketh the Mind of God and Doctrines and Lives of the holy Ancients in Scriptures capable of being understood and follow'd without the Inspiration of God's holy Spirit thereby giving the Lye to the most express Texts of holy Scripture and the plainest Assertions of the purest Fathers most famous Reformers and constant Martyrs I will say no more to this then that our Adversary himself hath in the same page cited so much of W. S. as declares his Perversion of the other part of his Book viz. And are all out of the Life and Power of God that is Those that say they have God to their Father speak high things of Holy Scripture and bedeck themselves with the Passages thereof and notwithstanding are out of the Life and Power of God are not true Jews or Christians but are of the Synagogue of Satan the Abomination of all Uncleanness and which help to make up Babylon the Mother of Harlots For the other Proof he brought which indeed was his first though in his Reply he tells us it was his last he was affraid to meddle with it and there was great Reason for it For he knew not which way to handle it but would bite his Fingers I will set it down with my Answer contracted that I may help the Reader to another Instance by which he may take his just Measures of the Man in hand respecting his sort of Fair Dealing or Strength of Argument W. Dewsbury he cites thus in his Discovery of Man's Return pag. 21. All People may search the Scriptures and see how you have been deceived by your Teachers who have caused you to seek your lost God in Carnal and Dead Observations WHICH THEY HAVE NOT ANY SCRIPTURE FOR. Now Reader was not this an extraordinary Passage to prove J. Fâ—do's Charge viz. That it was Idolatry to act according to Scripture c. which is given by our Friend as a Reason why People ought not to follow their Blind Teachers But be pleased to read my Defence as I then writ it W. Dewsbury is so far from making it Idolatry to live up to the Scriptures that he condemns the seeking for the True God where he was not to be found which saith he they have no Scripture for As much as to say that such seek after God not according to Scriptures And therefore are both Deceivers and Deceived Unto which J. F. reply'd nothing unless it be that he had nothing to Reply except an Acknowledgment which he thought would not make for his present sort of Credit He winds up this Chapter with a Justification of his Comparison of our Doctrine about the Scriptures with that of Jesuits and Papists I will set him down at large Rep. Concerning my Parallel between the Jesuits and the Papists in the venomn Spit against the Scriptures W. P. hath thus little to say It is Ridiculous and every way unworthy our notice a meer begging of the Question We can never allow of the Comparison But why all this Contempt Rejoyn Contempt pinches his proud Stomach But Curteous Reader ask J. F. why he left out the Words immediately proceeding viz. He has been so Cunning or Vnjust rather as to quote their Authors and not ours and some Passages we justly doubt What base Juggling is this with his Reader and Abuse of his Adversary It concern'd him more to be just in this then to ask Why all this Contempt And had he not had less Honesty then Stomach we might have expected that Justice the want of which brings greater Contempt upon him then my sober Reflection upon such unfair Dealing But he proceeds to cite these words as the whole Reason why we disallow the Comparison Sence the Papists place the Rule and Judgship in a Pope and General Council and the Quakers in the Eternal Unerrable Holy Spirit of God To which he replies thus Rep. The first is as I said the second is Blasphemously False for the Quakers call their Light within the Spirit of God which I have sufficiently proved to be a BLASPHEMER of the Spirit of God a SORDID SINFVL CORRVPT and RIDICVLOVS THING Rejoyn What he means by his first I know not unless that he said true of the Papists And if any of them have writ or spoak
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
we declare against all who come not in by the Door but seek to clime up another Way by their Study Inventions and Sepentine Wisdom and Knowledge and so are Thieves and Robbers Such Ministers and their Ministry we deny for the Hand of the Lord is against them c. Great and true Words No Man can minister that which he hath not no Man can have those things which qualifie him a true Minister but by the Inspiration of the Almighty and the effectual Operation of his Power and Spirit God's Messengers were ever led taught and furnisht by God's Spirit not by human Invention and Acquisition which Paul counted Dross and Dung in Comparison of the Excâ—llency of the Knowledge of his Lord Christ Jesus through the Revelation of the Eternal Spirit But that J. Faldo may be the better understood about the Ministry he pleads for take Reader a Passage he cites out of G. F's Book called Gr. Myst which doubtless he reputes very hetrodox or he would never bring it to prove a Charge containing such Matter as he counts so Thou the Priest art corrected by the Scripture and the Apostle corrects thee who said I have not received it of Man nor by Man and bid others look at Jesus the author of their Faith Their Writings saith J. Faldo are abounding with Matter of this Nature So much the better say I for it is old Scripture Doctrine and J. Faldo gives us plainly to infer by his Dislike of this Passage that he maintains a Ministry received of man and by man and that People ought to look unto them and not to Jesus the Author of their Faith If this be one of J. F's Christian Ordinances as his Discourse evidently makes it I hope my Reader will the less wonder at those hard Names he gives us in it for the plain English of his Charge against us is this The Quakers deny the Ministry that is of man or by man therefore they deny the Gospel-Ministry Poor Man what a pass hath he brought his Affairs to Indeed I pitty him and fear the Consequence of his Disappointment since a Man of his Stomach to charge so high and make so little of it may with the Loss of his Honesty for ought I know hazard his Wits too To wind up this Chapter and prove to all the World I have not mistaken him hear him Reply p. 55. W. P. produceth one of my Testimonies out of J. Parnel yet but by halfs And here is the Difference of the Ministers of the World and the Ministers of Christ The one of the Letter the other of the Spirit To which he replies Strange Impudence to call this a Proof But I cannot help it if P. will say the Sun is Darkness Before I part with him here I will furnish my Reader with that part of the same Testimony he treacherously leaves out for they are meer Deceivers and Witches bewitch People from the Truth holding forth the Shadow for the Substance and what is the Chaff to the Wheat Add this to the other as it was in my Book and I dare trust my Reader that is willing to speak Truth to pass his Censure It follows in the same Author before quoted And so the Devil takes Scripture to mantain his Kingdom and this he delivers by the Mouth of his Ministers which he sends abroad to deceive the Nations leading People in Blindness Rejoynder Let the Reader observe that what he here pretends to quote out of J. P. follows as himfelf said what we have just before transcribed Three things contain my Rejoynder First He reports not my Answer which was to this Purpose It is a Proof indeed but against him for if a false or worldly Ministry under the Form of Godliness may not be farewell Scripture But if such a Thing will be allowed us then since the Letter or Scriptures are not by such rejected but in Shew most highly admired and that they pretend to collect all they believe or know from thence though indeed they understand them not we have great Reason to say That those who are Ministers only from the Letter with what they imaginarily comment upon it they are not Christ's Ministers p. 110. Of which and much more he hath not given us a Word how can he reply honestly and intelligible who neither gives nor takes notice of the Answer he should reply to J. Parnel's Words plainly relate to a Ministry not gifted nor qualified by the holy Ghost and J. Faldo tells us in so many Words that without it none are worthy of the Name or Thing Yet doth he make it as unreasonable for me to say J. Parnel's Words prove not our Denyal of a Gospel-Ministry which so obviously own it as for him to assert the Sun is Darkness Secondly I did not leave out that which he chargeth me to have done Treacherously the best Word he can afford me on the like Occasions he must be quite bereaved of his Sences that thinks I should fear defending J. P. in calling such Decâ—ivers and Witches as bewitching the People from the Truth who are made Ministers by the Will of man without the Inspiration of the Spirit Gift of the Holy Ghost Will of God and are Coveters of men's Silver or Gold Preachers of their own Inventions Persecutors Revilers stirring up of the Magistrates to stone stock whip imprison c. all which J. P. gives as the Character of the Ministry he writ against for if this be the Gospel-Ministry the Devil is a Saint The Truth is John Faldo's Book is generally to be read backward Lastly There is no such Passage of the false Ministry much less of the true in page 15 16 or 17. of J. Parnel's Shield c. as J. F. suggests however I believe the Devil useth sometimes Scripture and that he hath had and hath many Ministers whom he sends abroad to deceive the Nations leading and keeping People in Blindness under a Pretence of Christianity and Conformity to the Doctrine of the Scriptures in order to maintain his Anti-Christian Kingdom all true Protestants were of that Mind but J. F. is none of that number Doubtless the poor Man is brought to a low Ebb that brings this to prove we deny Gospel-Ministry which the honest Martyrs primitive Reformers and what is more to our Purpose the Scriptures themselves say again and again The contrary will unavoidably prove the Ministry of the Church of Rome to have been not Anti-christ's but Christ's true Ministers since they both use Scripture preach Scripture and call themselves the Ministers of the Gospel by Apostolical Institution and Succession In this disarmed Condition we leave him and the Chapter confessing to all the World that such a Ministry as hath effectually known the Operation of the Spirit of God in themselves as to those things which concern Redemption and Eternal Salvation and that he draws sorth by his holy Spirit indues with his Heavenly Power for the turning of Men from Darkness to Light from
by wicked Works degenerated into the Earthly and thereby rendered our selves Aliens yea Rebels to his pure Law of Life first declares or holds forth Forgiveness of Sins past upon true Repentance by the laying down of his Life and then works out by his Holy Power and Spirit in our Consciences the Sin that is inherent and in the room thereof brings in his own Everlasting Righteousness So that our being accounted Righteous is as Christ was accounted a Sinner That is he was not a Sinner by Commission or Guilt neither were we as of our selves Righteous by Innocency or Non-commission of Sin for then there had been no need of Remission to have been declared by his publick offering up of himself But he was so reputed from bearing away the Sins that were past through the Forbearance of God and we are accounted as Righteous upon Repentance and true Faith because of that Remission and perfect Acquittance of Sins that are past as if we had never committed them Therefore wofully will they be mistaken that shut out the inward Work of God in the Heart and stretch this to Sins past present and to come without any regard thereto when as the Benefit of Christ's Suffering can in no sense be known or enjoyed without the true Faith and unfeigned Repentance which must precede Remission it self by whom or where is that wrought if not by Christ within much more must they go before compleat Justification which comprizeth Sanctification and Redemption we cannot but pron ounce it a Dangerous Doctrine since it flatters People with that being compleated that is not thereby deluding their poor Souls into a Perishing Security CHAP. IX Of the True Christ We own and our Adversary prov'd to deny him THe sixteenth Chapter of his first Book charged us with the Denyal of the Christ of God Among other Testimonies that he brought out of our Friends Books to maintain it I did eflectually consider two viz. This we certainly know and can never call the Bodily Garment Christ but that which appeared and dwelt in the Body Again For that which he took upon him was but a Garment even the Flesh and Blood of our Nature I. Peninington Quest p. 20 23 32. To introduce my Answer I observed at the same time and in the very same page He confost That we don't deny there was such a Man as Jesus the Son of Mary and that God or rather Christ was in him which I then said makes up our Christ I meant God manifested in the Flesh He replyeth thus Reply p. 76 77. But this I told W. P. was no more then the Quakers profess themselves We witness saith Fox the same Christ that ever was now manifested in the Flesh Rejoynder He should have given us the Book and Page where G. F. hath so expressed himself however we deny not that Doctrine for God doth dwell and walk in his Children who are called his Temples and Tabernacles in Holy Scripture 2 Cor. 6. 16. Rev. 21. 3. But we must forever reject J. Faldo's ignorant or worse Consequence That because we own that God dwells in his Children therefore he dwelt no more in that Body of Flesh he prepared to manifest himself by then he doth in his People Or that our asserting that God appeared and dwelt in that Holy Body eminently prepared by him is to be understood in no larger Sense then that in which we understand him to dwell in his Children I might as well argue against the Scripture as J. Faldo doth against us Christ was full of Grace and Truth therefore when he fills his Children with Grace and Truth they have as much Grace and Truth in them as their Lord and Master Or thus God was in Christ and God was in Paul therefore he was as much in Paul as he was in Christ It is after this Rate Reader our Adversary essayes to confute us as if we made no Distinction between the Fulness and the Measure the Treasury and the Gift He was full of Grace and Truth and of his Fulness have we received and Grace for Grace Joh. 1. 14 16. The next Thing I observed from what he gave as our Confession of the true Christ was this That he whom we call Christ is not John Faldo ' s Christ for he was that Body only that dyed here he cuts my Answer of short and bestoweth this Reply upon it Reply pag. 76. Here the Word Only W. P. forgeth he makes my allowing Christ's Body to be his Garment to imply it is not Christ himself Rejoynder Why did he not give my Words who knows by what he quoted of my Answer that he had ever been so kind the Man knew it pincht him and seem'd resolved to conceal it It was this In the midst of his second Proof he inserts these two Words VERY RIGHT as his Assent to that Part of it which to me seems as inconsistent with his Purpose as may be to wit that which Christ took upon htm was our Garment even the Flesh and Blood of our Nature therefore said I John Faldo as well as we acknowledgeth That the Garment is not Christ unless there be no Difference betwixt Christ and his Garment Or that Christ was but the Garment of that divine Being that dwells therein which were unscriptural and very carnal and I still say That Christ's Garment can never constitute him Christ And that as he darkly calls it the intire Christ as I shall make appear so hath he in this Concession contradicted himself and utterly given away the Cause But he is of another Mind as his Reply will inform us Reply pag. 76. The Apostle Paul calls his and the Saints Bodies their Cloathing 1 Cor. 5. yet they were never the less a part of themselves Rejoynder A meer Rattle for Children Did the Body God prepar'd for his Son to do his Will in help to constitute him Christ as much as the Apostles Body did help to constitute him Paul If it did why may we not as well say that Paul was among the Fathers in the Wilderness so many hundred Years before he was born as the same Apostle doth assert Christ by Name to have been the spiritual Rock of which the Fathers drank in the Wilderness 1 Cor. 10. 4. for if the Body constitute him Christ as sayes J. F. then he could no more be Christ before he had that Body then Paul could be Paul before he had his Body and consequently There is no more Absurdity in affirming That Paul was Paul so many hundred Years before he was born then that Christ was Christ so many hundred Years before he was born Again If Paul's Body were but a Cloathing how much more remote doth J. F's Comparison make Christ's Body to be from his Divinity since Paul did not preexist Christ did but he that took that Body and that Body that was taken were not of equal Date for the Body was taken in the Fulness of Time but he that took it and
making the meer Body only to have dyed which not being the intire Christ of God it was not He but his Body only that dyed So that either J. Faldo holds the meer Body to be the Christ or else that something more dyed then the meer Body But because he acknowledgeth the Deity could not dye nor that the Soul did dye it must follow that the Body only dyed And since he will strictly have it that the Christ of God dyed the meer Body must be the Christ of God His second Exception is very trivial and what in it can be thought to deserve an Answer is included in what was said before for whom might be attributed to the Body as it represented the whole or intire Christ that is Metonymically spoaken the Thing containing for the Thing contained which is very frequent in Scripture for many times that is ascribed to the Body of Jesus which belongs to the whole Christ This with abundance more of pertinent Answer he takes no more notice of then if it had never been written But a little to give J. F. his Humor and to see if the Upshot rises higher then which What doth he understand by the Person slain according to J. F's own distinctions Was it the Godhead That he denyes first Book part 2. p. 73. Was it the Man's Soul No Reply p. 78. Must it not be the Body then And if so What Corrupting of Scripture is it to say which ye slew instead of whom ye slew 'T is at this slender trifling rate he hath dealt with us throughout the Controversie Two Passages more before we conclude this Chapter Upon my recollecting the whole of this Argumentation and concluding thus Since the Divinity could not dye and the Man's Soul was not Mortal much less could be hanged on a Tree or put into a Sepulchre it follows That it was the visible Body only that dyed c. and that it is therefore the intire Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in J. F's as well as Blasphemous L. Muggleton's Sense he makes this Reply word for word Reply p. 78. But if it follows upon my Sense it follows upon the words and scope of the Scripture which saith the same in so many words and in sense a Hundred Times But there is no such abâ—urdity follows upon either The Soul can't dye cannot therefore the Man dye If not there is no such thing as killing of Men or mortal Men. Rejoynder Man cannot properly be said to dye whilst his Soul lives but he may be said to cease to be in this Visible World or to depart out of it and to lay down his mortal Body so that the Body dyes but not the Man I know it is a common Phrase but synecdochically spoken where that is ascribed to the whole Man which only belongeth to the Mortal part of Man This brings the Business no nearer then it was before for if I understand any thing the Comparison makes the Death of Christ to be the Death of his Body only and that it is call'd the Death of Christ instead of the Death of the Body of Christ from that familiar usage in Speech the Thing contained for the Thing containing that is Christ instead of the Body of Christ In short Because such Murderers who are said to kill Men kill only the Bodies of Men those Jews who crucified Christ properly crucified the Body of Christ only though in a more mysuical Sense they may be also said in that very Action to have murdered the Prince of Life and Glory 1 Cor. 2. His other Passage containeth a Reflection upon my saying that Souls could not be hanged on a Tree Reply pag. 79. I had thought that the Soul being Vnited with the Body till Death where-ever the Body was disposed the Soul was also and therefore the Body so long as it liveth hanging on a Tree the Soul hangs there too also many a poor Wretch can tell him at the Torment of Execution that his Doctrine is False for were but their Souls separated from their Bodies they would feel no Pain nor cry out of their Torment Rejoynder A very Shuffie and nothing to the Purpose The Soul is in the Body so long as the Body is alive upon the Tree and yet it self not strictly hanged on the Tree for if it were then would it be as impossible for the Soul as Body to free it self whilst the Soul by his own Allowance is incomparable and impossible because immaterial whereas Nales Ropes or any other Instruments of Cruelty can only fasten upon material things for if the Soul could be properly hanged she could as well be burnt and laid into a Sepulchre A Man might as well say if J. Faldo were hanged on a Tree his Watch in his Pocket would be hanged or if he were put in the Stocks his Understanding would be in the Stocks Nor hath any poor Wretch reason to complain of my Doctrine at their Executions for I never denyed that Pain was a Sign of the Soul 's not being separated since it is an undeniable Reason why it is not separated however it is not the Soul but the Body through that sensibility the Soul while unseparated continues in it which feels that Pain But I could tell J. Faldo of many Blessed Martyrs that in the midst of Flames were carryed above the Sense of Pain not because their Souls were not in their Bodies at the Stake but from the exceeding Joy of the Holy Spirit which by the way may as well be said to be tyed to the Stake as the Soul because in the Soul for that is the Conclusion of J. F's Argument The Soul is in the Body therefore the Soul is as well tyed as the Body the Holy Spirit and his Comforts are in the Soul therefore tyed as well to the Stake as either Body or Soul In short Souls may be hanged upon Trees as Souls in Scripture are said to dye or be slain an Hebrew Phrase not that Souls really did dye or were slain but that Man is called many times by his nobler Part. I shall conclude this Chapter with a few Reasons for the Hope that is in us concerning the Subject Matter of this Chapter and two or Three Testimonies in Confirmation of them which I offer with all Tenderness of Conscience unto my serious Reader First This Opinion of our Adversary's renders Christ not to have been the Saviour of the World from Abel's Day contrary to Scripture which teacheth us to believe That there was never another Name or Power by which Men could be saved then the Name and Power of Jesus Christ Acts 4. 12. Secondly It makes Christ's Words either an Equivocation or a Contradiction when he said unto the Jews Before Abraham was I am since it makes him that was before Abraham and him that said so not the same Person or Being rather Thirdly Because 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Anointed hath a Relation to his being King Priest and Prophet which are both of a
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
Earth and that those very Bodies the Molds being turned aside shall start out of the Grave This Doctrine the Atheist very dearly hugs as a Pledge in his bold Conceit of the Falsness and Vanity of all the other Articles of Religion wherefore he fancying the upshot of Christianity to be so groundless and incredible he fairly quits himself of the Trouble of all and yields himself up wholely to the Pleasures of this present World To the Objection of Atheists who play hard upon J. Faldo's Carnal Resurrection First In that Canables proper Bodies are made up the Flesh of other Men so as if every one had his own he would have never a Body in the Resurrection Secondly That it implies that all Men are buried when as Myriads are drowned in the Sea and eaten by Fishes Thirdly That Men's Bodies are passing like Rivers consequently no more the same Numerical Bodies then the Water that runs away is the same River and upon this score the Body of an Old Man must pay for the Sine of a Young Man whose youthful Body felt the Pleasure and is gone He thus answers out of the best sort of Philosophers That the Soul of every Man is his individial Person and that she alone it is that sees hears enjoyes Pleasures and undergoes Pain and that the Body is not sensible of any thing no more then a Man's Dublet when he is well Bastinado'd and this Answer sayes he takes away all the first and last Cavil he goes on and why do Men plead for the Consociation of the Soul 's numerical Body in Reward or Punishment but that they fancy the Body capable of Pleasure Pain but they err not knowing the Nature of things the Body being utterly uncapable of all Sense and Cogitation as not only the best Platonists but also that excellent Philosopher Des-Cartes hath determined and is abundantly demonstrated in my Treatise of the Immortallity of the Soul See Book 2. Chap. 2 4 5 6. To the second Cavil I answer That the Universal Expression of Men's rising out of the Grave is but a Prophetical Scheme of Speech the more strongly to strike our Sences as I have already intimated in my Exposition on the 1 Cor. 15. against the Psichopannachites see Book 1. c. 6. § 3. This Succour saith he we have against the Atheists out of Philosophy but I answer further as concerning the Scripture it self That I dare challenge him to produce any place of Scripture out of which he can make it appear that the Mystery of the Resurrection implies the Recessitation or raising up of the same Numerical Body The most Pregnant of all is Job 19. which late Interpreters are now so wise as not to understand at all of the Resurrection And for 1 Cor. 15. that Chapter is so far from asserting this Curiosity that it plainly sayes it is not the same Body But the Atheist will still hang on and object further That the very Term Resurrectio implies that the same Body shall rise again for that only that falls can be said properly to rise again Where let the Reader take notice that D. More calls J. Faldo Atheist for it his Objection against me Rep. p. 89. But sayes D. More The Answer will be easie the Objection being grounded meerly upon a Mistake of the sense of the word which is to be interpreted out of those higher Origiginals the Greek and Hebrew and not out of the Latine though the word in Latine doth not alwayes imply an Individual Restitution of what is gone or faln as in that Verse in Ovid Victa tamen vinces subversaque Troja resurges But this faith he is not so near to our Purpose yet it excludes the same numerical Troja Let us rather consider the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which resurrectio supplies in Latine and therefore must be made to be of as large a sense as it Now 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is so far from signifying in some places the Reproduction or Recovery of the same thing that was before that it â—ears no sense at all of Reiteration in it as Mat. 22. 24. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and shall raise up Seed unto his Brother Also Gen. 7. 4. there 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies meerly a living Substance and therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in an active signification according to this sense will be nothing else but a giving or continuing Life and Substance to a thing The word in the Hebrew that answers to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Translators translate a living Substance whence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to this Analogy may very well bear the same latitude of sense that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they being both words that are rendred Resurrectio but simply of themselves only Vevification or Erection unto Life Thus far D. H. More against John Faldo's Carnal Resurrection of whose Philosophy Scripture-Challenge and Criticisms let him clear himself if he can I shall also produce a Testimony out of T. Collier T. Coll. Works pag. 169. This Doctrine of the Resurrection of this Body is by some denyed by others too Carnally looked upon some thinking that our Bodies of Flesh shall be raised in the same Form in which it dyed others that it shall be spiritual yet question whether it shall be of the same Substance therefore it will be necessary to consider two Particulars for the clearing of it First By what Power we shall be raised Secondly With what Bodies 1. By what Power Answ 1 st By the same Power by which Jesus Christ was raised which was by the Power and Spirit of God 2dly By the same Power and Spirit that the Saints are raised from the Spiritual Death of Sin and Self Phil. 3. 10. Rom. 8. 11. This being a Truth that they shall be raised by the same Power it may somewhat direct us to the Form in which they shall be raised which is the second Particular that is in a spiritual Form not in a Fleshly for as the Spirit of Christ raiseth us up in the Spirit while we are here so shall it raise up our Spirit in the last Day It is sown a Natural Body it is raised a Spiritual Body Our vile Bodies shall be changed and made like his Glorious Body D. H. Hammon also denyes a proper and strict Resurrection of Bodies and consequently is guilty of that horrid Principle as J. Faldo calls it which may be seen at large in his Comment 1 Cor. 15. Among other things he tells us of one Synesius out of Vossius who was made Bishop not withstanding he refused to subscribe the Article of the Resurrection of the Body which shows how much greater Charity they had for Dissenters then our rigid Adversary whilst a Dissenter for indeed it was very diversly thought on and very obscurely laid down in the beginning of the third Century sayes P. D. Huetius in Origenianis p. 132. Farrellus Calvin's Predecessor at Geneva
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
Friendship to him yet so invincible was his Displeasure that there was no holding for me of his Good-will and believing Christ to be God They were with him as inconsistent as Light and Darkness I know no other Reason if this be any for his Sharpness to me And God knows this is the very Truth I leave it with my Reader to satisfie his own Conscience concerning this Matter But he never wrote against me Truly he needed not who hath another Instrument so nimble and so able a Scribe as J. F. for the Purpose But if calling me the basest Names undervaluing detracting and traducing me in almost all Companies behind my back and in a Garden at Hogfdon where I went to accompany some of my Relations to affront me with opprobrious Names as many can witness who demean'd my self with all Gentleness towards him and to act in the Quallity of an incessant Agent against us by Informations Reports Books c. WHO ONCE DID ALL THESE THINGS FOR US and we are no worse Men then we were If these things be no just Provocations to mention two Letters I am to blame Yet that I name him in almost all my Writings or all that he hath read is false for in the Spirit of Alexander the Copper-Smith c. which J. F. quotes he is not named and of above Twelve Books he was mention'd but in Three and that obscurely this makes the Fourth against my Will The Occasion besides what hath been already toucht upon was this H. H. one of his Friends writes a Book against us or rather to us against G. F. J. Faldo's Mr. T. F. was the Promoter and Scatterer of these Pamphlets especially upon the Exchange where not in private Converse as J. F. sayes and makes to be the only Reason of my taking notice of him that he may render me base to his Readers before several and those of divers Perswasions called G. Fox Knave Puppy Logerhead with such like unhandsome Terms unworthy of a Man of T. F's Consideration in the World This I would never have repeated had not J. Faldo drawn yea compelled it from me by suggesting an Untruth and substituting it in the room of the True Reason Well But if his Information fail him not I have been engaged by T. F. to another kind of Deportment And suppose all this hath he not dis-engaged me sufficiently I owe no Man any thing beyond Truth nor will be fettered from my Testimony by any Obligations But I never was engaged to him beyond what I have faithfully related except it was his lending me as he thought by one that was my Servant at that time of my Tower-Imprisonment about Forty Pounds he coming in my Name counterfitting both Messages and Letters as I made appear to him afterwards which though mine Eyes never saw one Penny of it nor was there a Penny employed in my Service or to my use I did when God enabled me having then no Estate in my Hands faithfully repay as if I had really had every Penny believing then and still that it was Kindness in him to me that was abused by a Knavish Servant and I would never let him suffer for it If herein I have wronged him he may forgive me But because in my Answer to J. Faldo and what he said in his behalf against us I told him that some thought it a Shame that so ill a Tongue should go unrebuked of those whose Principles and Interest give them the Liberty of doing it in a way that might be more effectual then all the Moderation and Reason that can easily be shown to him J. Faldo exactly like himself strains these words all the Moderation and Reason which I intended of our bearing his Abuses only showing their Vnreasonableness by writing to nothing below some Vnjust and Violent Course to rid him out of the way which are but softer words for down-right Murder and to Countenance this Comment of his I was told I think by one that had it at T. F's Mouth that he was advised to take the Law of me for his Security But to put all this out of doubt those that thought it a Shame he should so frequently violently and publickly revile honest Men bringing their Common Credit into Question by scurvy Names meant by the way that might be taken only the Law which was what some counselled him to use to secure himself against me These Men had need have good Consciences that are thus affraid before they are hurt Thus have I vindicated those Reflections J. Faldo lay'd such Foundation for and if T. F. be troubled at this I must tell him so am I but I cannot help it Let him better advise his Scribe next time for I have nothing but hearty Love and good Wishes for him nor have I said any thing harsh or disgraceful in this Defence of my self imputing much of what hath happened more to his Natural Haste and sometimes ungoâ—â—rn'd Speech then a Premeditated Injustice He knows how often I have caution'd him in those respects while we conversed together Nor hath it been my only Observation and Admonition by a great many others and some of his own Friends too Thus I leave T. F. â—n perfect Good-will to see what Leave it is that J. Faldo is taking of us His Epilogue degenerates not one jot from the Book it self And as if he would do me a great Deal of Mischief in a little Compass and say whatever is rude and unjust once for all he tells his Reader That I have egregiously played the Forger that I am a Cheat that all Men understanding Controversie will judge me worthy to be made a Proverb of and when they would express an impudent Forger to say no more then W. PENN Rep. pag. 95. And that he may add Prophaneness to his Railing he proceeds A Great Poet of their own hath these words worthy to begin all Mr. Penn's Books on that Subject as it ends this of mine If a meer Scoff in Scripture-Phrase be prophanening Scripture then I have not over-charged him in calling this Phrase wherein he useth Paul's words to the Athenians but with Scorn and Levity against us Prophaneness But let us hear these so much Derided Words And they that would be satisfied concerning us any way they must find us and know us in the Principle of Life where we are and not in their own Reason where we are not and so let none REASON about us for there they can never know us nor come unto us W. Smith's Cat. p. 94. But why so much Contempt upon this Passage unless it be to show us that he can still Scoff at that Principle of Life which is the Strength and Habitation of God's Children as he hath done already throughout both his Books Did the Disciples or the Pharisees find out Christ's Meaning by their Reasoning about it John 6. or would not either have relisht the true Meaning of his Words had they dwelt in the Divine Principle of Life
Why did Christ say I thank Thee O Father Lord of Heaven and Earth that thou hast hid these things from the Wise and Prudent and revealed them unto Babes if they are discoverable by humane Reasoning for Babes are ignorant of that Art yet out of the Mouth of Babes and Sucklings c. The Apostle's Question 1 Cor. 1. 20. was very impertinent if J. Faldo may be of Authority who said Where is the Wise Where is the Scribe Where is the Disputer c. for this implies an Exclusion of all those Arts Sciences and Natural Gifts from any Capacity to reveal the deep Things of God shut up in the Divine Principle of Life Besides W. S's Words imply a Clouded Understanding and degenerated and therefore Uncapable J. F. must either intend by his Derision that he thinks W. S. deserves to be hiss'd for denying the Knowledge of Divine Things to be attainable by the Degenerated Understanding of Man or sanctified If the first All may have Cause to abhor his False Doctrine If the latter I would know which way that can be without the Divine Principle of Life This abundantly manifests J. Faldo's unsavory Spirit and proves him to be ignorant of the Way Method Work of God in his Children When the Natural Man by his Reason can know Christ he may know his Sheep the Scriptures and the Power of God and not before but because it is impossible in Reasoning or Arguing pro and con by the utmost Strength and Search of Natural Abilities to know Christ but by the Revelation of the Spirit of God alone as hath been abundantly proved therefore William Smith's words are sound and weighty and J. Faldo's carnal and prophane showing himself to be a Mocker of the Priviledges and Mysteries of the Gospel but what else may we expect from one that walks after the Lusts of his own vain Mind having not the Spirit Jude 18 19. Yet that we may manifest how inconsistent he is with himself as that he can't write against us but he must write for us take this Passage out of Quakerism No Christianity which ought alwayes to begin his Books against us upon this subject as it ends this Chapter of mine Those Gospel-Illuminations are beyond the utmost reach of our Natural Faculties of the Mind though sanctified and therefore it is said to be 2 Tim. 3. 16. Divinely inspired It is not produced in the Exercise of the Rational Faculties the Soul is purely passive or receptive therein and is to those Illuminations as the Wax is to the Seal CHAP. XV. His several gross Miscarriages summ'd and further observed I. Of his Over-looking my Answer and Arguments OF Twenty Two Chapters in his Reply there is not one of them in which he hath not wilfully declined inserting my Answer and Arguments and only flutters about pecks and scratches at some part that is of least moment to the Reason of the Point perhaps some Rebuke or Reflection upon the ill use he makes of our Friends Writings particularly pag. 9 22 23 24 30 31 35 53 56 57 71 73 82 83 85 86 90 92 93. How is it possible my Arguments should be conquered when they were never encounter'd I was never yet so unjustly dealt withal in this Particular by any Adversary of his Pretences II. Of his drawing False Inferences Where he ventures at any time to insert any considerable part of my Answer he is sure to draw some Inference that may bring an Odium my words never deserved I could particularize at large pag. 6 13 17 18 31 35 41 42 47 49 71 72 73 74 75 85 86 87 88 89 90 91. but take these following for the rest 1. From Edw. Burroughs Reflecting upon Peoples imagining God to be confined to some place beyond the Stars he implies they deny Christ's Manhood Vindic. pag. 6. 2. From our not styling the Scriptures the Word but Words of God he infers that we deny the Scriptures First Book p. 18 19. 3. From our Asserting the Doctrine of Inspiration and Certainty of what we are inspired either to write or speak he infers not only our Equalling with but preferring what we speak and write before the Scriptures First Book pag. 40. Vind. p. 17. 4. From our Condemning the Imitation of any of the Holy Men of God of former Ages in particular Cases without they are thereunto required by the Spirit of the Lord he infers that Commands of God in Scriptures are no Commands unless we think so and that it is no Sin to break all Commands in the Bible if our Consciences can but be so blinded as to tell us it is no Sin Vind. p. 34 35. 5. From our Asserting that there is no knowing of God but by the Spirit and that Mens Apprehensions of God and his Work in the Souls of his People are but the Endeavours and Effects of the Wisdom of the Flesh he infers that we oppose the Spirit and the Scriptures nay that we reject and scorn them Vind. pag. 41 42 47. 6. From our denying a Carnal Worldly Mercenary Ministry Lifeless Prayers a meer formal Church Preaching and not by the Spirit and W. Smith's saying that the present Use of Bread and Wine and Water called Baptism and the Supper as they are used at this Day are no other then Popish and Humane he infers that the Quakers deny the Gospel-Ministry Gospel-Prayer Gospel-Church Gospel-Preaching and that we CALL Baptism and the Lord's Supper as PRACTISED IN THE FIRST AGE AFTER CHRIST the Popes Inventions c. Vind. from p. 49. to p. 71. Oh Injurious 7. From our reproving People for feeding in an Unconverted State upon the meer Report of what Christ hath done without them and depending thereon from our asserting that Justification taken for Remission goes not before Repentance which is an inward Work much less that Men can be compleatly justifi'd or made inwardly just but by the washing of the Word of Regeneration Sanctification of the Eternal Spirit this Man dares to infer Our Denyal yea our Vndervalue and that to the Degree of Blasphemous Contempt of the Transactions of Christ at Jerusalem Vind. p. 71 72 73 74. 8. From J. Penning asking If outward Blood would cleanse the Conscience from indwelling Sin he infers that we deny all Benefit by the Blood of Christ shed upon the Cross for the declaring of Remission of Sins Rom. 3. 25. First Book 2. Part p. 46 47. Vind. 77. 9. From our chusing to call that Body God prepared in which to do his Will the Body of Christ rather then the Christ of God And from our asserting God to be that Light which enlightens every Man and that the Soul of Man had something of the Life of God in its primitive Perfection he makes no more ado but concludes First That we deny the Christ of God 2dly That we make the Measure of Light in every Man the Eternal God thereby confining him to Man's Soul And lastly That the Soul of Man is
God himself and so God saves God and God worships God This my Reader may find in his Vind. from p. 75. to 87. particularly this following of E. B. about the Soul 10. From E. Burroughs affirming the Light of Christ in every Man to be one with the Spirit as good as the Spirit of Christ in order to prove it the same J. Faldo infers he made the Soul of Man God because that which is as good as the Spirit of God is God Book 1. Part 2. p. 122. Vind. p. 85 86. As if E. B. had spoken it of the Soul of Man and not the Light of Christ shining in the Soul of Man as his Words express it 11. Lastly from our Denyal of his carnal Resurrection as inconsistent with Scripture and Reason he takes Heart to tell all People that W. P. and all the through Quakers deny the Resurrection of the Dead and are guilty of not believing a future Reward in an other World with a Train of Ill Language too long to bring in Vind. p. 88 89 91. This Friendly Reader hath been the Entertainment we have received at J. Faldo's Hands but all things shall work together for good III. of his evading my Answer and Arguments It is very frequent with him next to leaving out what I say or fastening false Consequences upon what he transcribes to evade the Strength of mine Answer either by pretending to have said enough in his first Book as if that had foreseen my Answer and anticipated his Reply with a Refutation or by some one Word which will serve him to play at or by being in haste or else my Answer deserves no Reply at all c. An Evidence of this Sort of Carriage my Reader may find in his Reply p. 5 17 18 38 51 57 58 59 69 71 76 91 93 One at large for all To my several Arguments in defence of Immediate Revelation Inspiration as he terms it he returns three or four Lines This W. P. 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 animadvert upon it p. 17. The cheapest Way that ever Man took to confute his Adversary Doth this become any Man of his Pretence to either Schollarship or Christianity IV. Of his Forgery or Perversion I am sorry I have such reiterated Occasion to charge him with Forging that is foisting in Words into our Writings and Sayings that are wholly inconsistent with them or perverting those he delivers to the End he may make them ponounce his Mind the more plainly A few of many Places I have observed as in page 22 25 41 42 50 51 92 93. Of which I shall give four Instances more particularly 1. â— Pennington speaking of Knowledge according to the Flesh By Flesh sayes he The Quakers understand the Vse of our Vnderstandings though sanctified first Book p. 41. Vind. p 24 25. 2. His second is making W. Smith to call the Scriptures Traditions of Men Earthly Root Darkness Confusion Corruption Rotten Deceitful the Whore's Cup the Mark of the Beast all out of the Life and Power of God and not that the meant them of those who had degenerated from the Power of Godliness and had set up their own Imagination in the stead of God's Institutions teaching for Doctrines the Traditions of Men first Book p. 117. 119. Vind. 41 45. 3. The Third is his making I. Pennington to call visible Worship the City of Abomination Vind. p. 50. 4. Lastly That he gives in our Name this Interpretation of the Vail is over them i. e. the Belief of the Man Christ Jesus which was of our Nature to be the Christ c. Vind. p. 93. V. Of his grand Improbabilities and downright Untruths This Charge I know must needs be very unpleasant to a Man as Vain Glorious as many Places of his Book declare him to be but I cannot help it 'T is Truth if there be anâ— Truth in the World that he hath writ a great many unlikely and absolute untrue Things Let my Reader take the Pains to look over these following Pages of his Reply and I am well assured if impartial he will not think that I have in a Tittle wrong'd him p. 6 7 19 21 33 35 38 39 42 46 47 48 49 55 56 65 70 72 73 89 93. Of which I will only instance four 1. First he affirms that he quoted forty Places out of our Friends Books that would prove the Light within as within us to be the only Lord and Saviour and very God p. 6. whereas he brought not any one that either proved the Terms or the Matter 2. Secondly He confidently accused us of charging the Miscarriage of Mens Souls on the Knowledge the Letter of the Scriptures by God's Blessing doth convey p. 21. 3. Thirdly Whereas I said that W. Smith's Words reflected not in the least upon the Scriptures nor those Doctrines truly received thence neither that any such VVords can be produced by our Adversaries he boldly tells his Reader I intended no other but that Smith doth not accuse himself in so many Words of Blaspheming the Spirit of God in the Scriptures and the Doctrines from thence received as much as to say We both knew it to be Blasphemy but W. Smith did not call it so p. 41. There is no ingenuous Man that will not abhoâ—â— the Falseness of this Passage 4. Lastly I opposing his Affirmation that we did not profess or believe Eternal Rewards thus pretends to confute me W. P. opposes me rather because he would not be thought to subscribe to me then that he believes not what I say to be true p 69. But if this be true sure I am there is no Truth in the World And indeed there is no giving this Sort of Carriage at large but by transcribing far the greatest Part of his Book VI. Of his idle Jeers and frothy Expressions I have not met with any Man writing upon so serious a Subject as Religion is that gives himself the Liberty of so many vain Expressions as if he had intended his Discourse for vulgar Merriment not to Christian Information If my Reader please to trouble himself with the Perusal of these following pages he shall find enough to nauseate p. 6 22 23 26 27 29 30 34 37 40 47 50 51 53 58 60 69 71 72 95. Take two Instances He cackles like a Hen when he had laid a WORSE THING then an Egg p. 47. Again because we said God spoak once by Balaam's Ass thereby proving that he did not alwayes speak by the Scriptures he thus reflects I wonder not that they leave the Teachings of God by the Scriptures to attend on the Ministry of Asses thereby calling us Asses p. 27. Which how Witty soever he thinks such sort of Sayings to be sure they are more Frothy and Irreligious then becomes a Man professing Religion much less writing of the Weightiest Points of it
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.
pag. 15. pag. 30. pag. 16. Act. 12. 24. Pietr. Soan Polan p. 152 p. 36 37. Erasm on 2 Pet. 1. 19. Ibid in 1 Cor. cap. 2. Polano Hist Coun. Tr. p. 150. Crad Divine Drops p. 171 172 210 215 221 217. This gives the Lye to J. Faldo Wil. Dell. confut of Simps pag. 114 115 116 117. Tom. 3. fol. 169. Mart. vol. 3. p. 572 573. 3 vol. of the Book of Martyrs p. 298. pag. 17. My Answ pag. 36. Col. 2. 2. Hebr. 6. 11. Chap. 10. 22. â— Book Martyr p. 577. This J. Faldo kicks at he is one with the Papists 3 Book of Martyr p. 475. p. 18 19. pag. 19. pag. 19 20. pag 39. An ellegant way of speaking and Scriptural pag. 40. pag. 21. Answ p. 42. Ephes â— 13. pag. 22 Which concerns him if he would have what he writes to be according to Scripture pag. 22. My Answ pag. 42. Quak. no Chr. p. 59. pag. 23. pag. 24. pag. 63. p. 25 26. Ibid. p. 26. Acts 8. 30 31. Dell Tryal of Spirits p. 10. Collier Gen. Epist pag. 249. c. 10. pag. 258. c. 12. Those Famous Poor Suffering Christians the Waldenses in their purer times besides many other weithty Points wherein they symbolized with us in this very Matter are not forraign who in a Confession about Five Hundred and Fifty Years old â—aid this down as a piece of their Creed That the Discoveries Testimonies of the Holy Spirit in them were the most Convincing Evidence and Infallible Proof of the Divine Authority of the Scriptures Consequently the Spirit must have been their Judge and Rule concerning their Understanding the Truths testified by them as â— P. Porrin their Historian in so many words assures us concerning them in the beginning of his notable History of their Rise Doctrine Sufferings and Progress pag. 23 24 25 26 27. Concil Tom. 1. p. 481. can 60. Anno 364. and p. 549. can 27. Anno 417. after Christ * I find Iohn Faldo often Scorning Inspiration and bringing it into odium under the word Enthusiasm used of late to signifie Whimsical Pates or Heads troubled with a Religious kind of Frenzy as if he had abandoned the Plea Enjoyment and Practice of the best Separatists whose Names he emptily honours and resolved to set up for a Coffe-House Droll or a Play-Prophanist To cool his Courage and stop his Career I commend Two or Three late Discourses to his perusal writ by Men of Undoubted Learning and pretendedly defended by J. F. in his Quakerism no Christianity against the People called Quakers The first is D. Patrick his Friendly Debates 2d Fowler his Design of Christianity never to be answered by that Angry Man that designed it And W. Sherlock his late Discourse of Jesus Christ c. If both Presbyterians and Independents are not throughly and truly charged to be Enthusiasts Men holding what J. F. condemns us for owning though less justifiably and if more ridiculous Interpretations are not to be found among them then was ever yet read in any Quakers Book I am content to suffer J. F's Reproach as Just who does not do as he would be done by his great Scab or Leprosie of some other of his Fraternity too for alas it is at best but a piece of Heathenism with him and a Man may be a very good Christian forsooth by a New Art of Imputation found out and accommodated to the Ease of Hypocrites without that streight and legal Way of just and holy Living pag. 27. pag. 28 29. pag. 58 59. pag. 29. * At whose Hand-Writing pag. 61. * His Blasphemy against the Lighâ— Pag. 61. * I would desire the Reader to take notice that the first Reformers never intended by their great respect to the Scriptures to establish them their Rule exclusive of the Spirit as most do now W. Kiffin for instance only they did on all Occasions prefer them as God's Tradition to the place of a Rule beyond Popish Doctors or Councils which they who know any thing in these Matters are well assured to be the Truth of the case So that they were but a Rule comparatively as we also hold but by no means can we allow that they prefer'd the Scriptures to that great Office exclusive of the Spirit or that Men were not to have their Immediate Dependence upon the Instruction Discoveries and Revelations towards Faith and Good Life So much at this time * Note I have not made any considerable Distinction between â—e Rule and the Judge from thy Judgment of that little if any Difference that is between them And my Adversary to his own Confusion seemeth of the same Mind for notwithstanding he severely tauntingly reflects on that Passage upon me in my former Book yet in making the Scripture both Rule and Judge he shows to us that the Judge the Rule are not at so great a Distance as his little Skill in Philosophy would have rendered it And herein he thwarts D. Stillingfleet and D. Tillosson who against the Papists assert not the Scripture to be the Judge but Right Reason And to speak the Truth of it Nothing can be more absurd next to Transubstantiation then that the Scripture should be the Judge of a Man's Meaning of any part of it self that is if it be applied as a Right Rule since in such Cases of Difference no Scripture ever yet spoak clearer then its first Text and the Question lies not about that but the just Interpretation Prov. 8. Doct. Stud. c. 2. p. 4. Rom. 2. 14 15. San. pag. 138 139 140 141. Plut. Dron Prus Dis lib. 1. c. 14. Senec. Epist 73. pag. 30 31. Luth. Tom. 2. Pol. 309. 2. Pet. Mart. com loc part 1. cap. 6. Part 2. Cap. 18. Lib. 1. c. 5. Thes 32. Hos 6. 9. pag. 34 Ed. Bur. pag. 34 35. pa. 71 72 73. Levit. 19. 18 19. Phil. 3. 15. W. Tindal's Works pag. 319. p. 80. B. Jew contr Hard. p. 532 534. T. Coll. Works p. 247. pag. 36. De praescr Haeretic adoer Marcion lib. 4. De carne Christi * Against the Anabaptâ—sts p. 1. pag. 37. pag. 37 pag. 38. pag. 39. My Answ pag. 87. pag. 39. pag. 40. Ephes 16. 17. pag. 41. pag. 41 42. pag. 42. pag. 43. pag. 45. But J. F. Is not that Babylon or the Antichristian Church which has the Shew and Outside but not the Life and Power of Godliness May not Antichrist adorn himself with the Literal Profession of the Gospel Certainly all Protestants have accorded to this I am sure I. Sprig C. Goad W. Dell I. Saltmarsh T. Collier yea J. Fox B. Jewel I. Renolds D. Willet R. Abbot and a nameless worthy Author about Qu. Elizabeth's time in his Voice out of the Wilderness c. allow of W. Smith's Doctrine viz. That the meerly Literal Formal and Fleshly-wise Church not regenerated into the Image and Liâ— of the Son of God is Babylon and some of them are most â—press in the Matter which I omit for haste pag.
and consequently the Scriptures are not the Rule of Faith for how can any thing be ruled by that which is inferior to it Thus much we get granting to him that the Scriptures are the Word of God in the Text. Now Reader tell me of this Argumentation what has he taken what has he replyed to Yet this man is deem'd worthy by the Professors of our Times to act the Tertullus against the poor Quakers For those words The Sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God I told him then We rejected his Gloss for the spiritual Sword as he sayes Beza renders it must be of the Narure of the rest of the Armour mention'd in that Chapter that is invisible and Spiritual which the Bible or meer VVritings we know are not To which let me add that I know no Reason why the Shield of Faith should be preferred before the Sword of the spirit unless it be because that 's in the Verse before this if we consider them in an abstract Sense or as they are in themselves For Above all is not a preferring the Shield of Faith in Dignity before the Sword of the Spirit respecting their own Nature and Quality but with regard to the Creature For if Vnbelief enters how can the Loins be girt with Truth the Breast arm'd with Righteousness the Feet shod with the Preparation of the Gospel of Peace the Head covered with the Helmtt of Salvation or the Enemy encounter'd with the Sword of the Spirit So that respecting Man not respecting the Dignity of the several parts of the Armour Faith is above all or first necessary for though God Christ the Holy Spirit Eternal Salvation be all or either of them greater then Faith as in themselves yet without Faith no interest can be had in them Wherefore our Adversary's Preference vanisheth and his Consequence about the Scriptures being the VVord of God falls to the Ground Concerning Christ's Answer to the Devil It is written it is written I shall desire the Reader to observe in my Adversary's Reply what of my Answer he trans-scribes which I gave to the use he made of that Scripture and what sort of Treatment he affords me These are his words Rep. Once more and I have done with this Chapter But said Christ to the Devil It is written VVhat then sayes W. P. Therefore must the Quakers needs deny the Scriptures to be any means to resist Temptation pag. 90. You may fear the Man is craz'd or was almost asleep when he wrote this I produced the Example of Christ to prove that the Scripture is a Means for resisting Temptation he resisting so effectually with It s written it s written But Penn would make you believe I intended it to prove that the Quakers deny the Scriptures to be such a Means Can you think such a Man to be sinlest yea Infallible Rejoyn His Froth and Reflection I am no otherwise concern'd at then that it ill becomes a Pretender to Divinity It is enough for me to shew that he has willingly conceal'd my Answer and hath made a Reply as if he had taken in all that was fit to be consider'd my Answer lay thus But said Christ to the Devil It is written VVhat then Therefore must the Quakers needs deny the Scriptures to be any Means to resist Temptation Here J. F. leaves me but I go on or rather are they not such Means which I am sure no right Quaker ever deny'd Now Reader mark Besides it was reasonable that Christ should so answer set that Power aside which filled up those words and chain'd Satan because the Devil used Scripture to prevail upon him as the place proves However we deny not but confess that where-ever God is pleased to speak by any place of Scripture to a Tempted Soul it may very well be acknowledg'd to be a Means by which God scatters such Doubts and Despondences and gives Power over Temptations and that it may often so occur yet we would not have People fly to them as what of themselves may be sufficient but rather have Recourse to that Divine Faith which the Scriptures testifie is able to Quench the fiery Darts and which J. F. himself has largely confest is to be preferred above the Scriptures themselves Now I desire the Reader to consider First That he gave not the 10th part of my Answer in any respect 2ly That what of it would have prevented his reflecting upon me he wholy omitted He seems di pleased that I made such a Question upon his citing Christ's words to the Devil as this therefore must the Quakers needs deny the Scriptures to be any Means to resist Temptation telling Folks They may fear I was craz'd or a sleep when I wrote it asking If they think such a Man to be sinlest or infallible as thinking it improper to his Quotation and yet would take no notice of these words that were directed immediately to it viz. it was therefore reasonable that Christ should so answer because the Devil used Scripture to prevail upon him the very Answer in his pretended Reply was wanting VVith what Face then can our Adversary over above his other ill words charge me with designing to render him impertinent by making him endeavour to prove that the Quakers deny the Scriptures to be such a Means by the Question I ask'd as if I had wrong'd him that he never intended any such thing through the bent of the Chapter And what can be clearer then that he on purpose avoided the shock and took notice only of that part of my Answer which being torn from the rest he thought fittest for him to play upon But I see no VVrong I did him in so asking what I did for I am sure it was one End for which the Scripture was quoted by him and the Jeers he bestows upon me and it besides his wilful Neglect of the rest of my honest Return and yet complain for want of it when he had done so is a pittiful come off for a Man of his Pretence to Controversie CHAP. IX Not we but our Adversary opposeth the Teachings of the Spirit to the Doctrines of the Scriptures The Testimonies brought by him cleared and delivered from his Application Our Doctrine proved from Scripture and several Testimonies His frequent and gross Perversions of our Words and Writings discovered and justly rebuked VVE are now got to his last Chapter relating to the Scriptures in which he pretends to justifie his Charge by further evidencing a Consistency between it and William Smith's Doctrine which I utterly deny'd to have been William Smith's VVords or Meaning The Charge was That the Quakers put the Spirit of God and the Scriptures in Opposition to each other His Proof of the Charge lies in these words Traditions of Men Earthly Root Darkness and Confusion Apostacy the Whore's Cup the Mark of the Beast Bastards brought forth of Flesh and Blood c. which sayes John Faldo in his first Book would amaze a
Christian to read what is contained in the two pages quoted of vilifying Reproach to the Scriptures If this be not opposing the Spirit of God to the Scriptures the Devil himself must dispair of inventing words to express it by Thus far John Faldo And indeed I must confefs If all or any of these things were ever said or publish'd by VVilliam Smith there is great Cause for Amazement and Abhorrence too But what said I to this Truly enough but that J. F. was careful to conceal he brings in a small Limb of my Answer and then scares it with hard words Take notice of his Reply to what he ventures to trans-scribe of my Answer Rep. Penn saith VV. Smith reflected not in the least upon the Scriptures nor those Doctrines which were truly received thence No such words can be produc'd by our Adversary No Jesuit in the World did ever out-do VV. P. in Equivocations and Subterfuges His stress lies on the words TRULY received thence Rejoyn Suppose them to be my stress what Subterfuge lies there Are there not Doctrines falsly deduced through Men's Ignorance of the true Intendment of Scripture And do not such as confidently think them to be truly receiv'd from Scripture as if they really were so But the Stress lies here with J. F. His Religion cannot bear a Scruting and is as well nigh as shy of a Search as Mahometism it self Though had John Faldo and the rest of his Gang continu'd where they were the poor Quakers might have had an Inquisition with a VVitness at their Heels by this time But he has a further Comment for us Rep. The Quakers allow no Doctrine to be truly received from the Scriptures but such as is received by immediate Inspiration and not from the Authority of the VVritten VVord Rejoyn VVhere 's the Opposition now Doth not he set the Authority of the Scriptures against the Inspiration of the Holy Ghost at least exclude the holy Inspiration from any share in that Authority and so do what he can to shuffle out the Spirit from being concerned in the Authority of the Scriptures which is if not the only yet the greatest Proof of their Authorities since it is chiefly by the Testimony of the Spirit in our selves that we know them to have bin given forth by the Inspiration of the holy Ghost in others as held both the Primitive Christians our Famous Martyrs and most Considerable Protestants He speaks as if he affected Obscurity and aim'd only at jumbling and intricating instead of explaining the Matter But had we put the Spirit in Opposition to the Letter it is no more then what the Scripture hath done before us as H. Bullenger that notable Reformer observes upon Rom. 2. 29. The Spirit saith he is opposed to the Letter as when Paul saith The Circumcision of the Heart is the Circumcision that consisteth in Spirit not in the Letter And again The Lord hath made us able Ministers of the New Testament not of the Letter but of the Spirit for the Letter killeth but the Spirit giveth Life 4 Dec. 8 Serm. A notable Application to our Purpose but while we only so oppose them as to give the Preference to the Holy Spirit J. F. falls foul of us for a Pack of Enthusiasts shutting out the Spirit at least setting it aside to exalt the Letter But what doth he mean by these Terms Immediate Inspiration for a Mediate Inspiration I never heard of Sure I am that Inspiration is God's own Breathing into the Soul by which it hath Understanding given it whether it be of things written or not written and how that can be done and not immediately I know not If he will exchange his impertinent Distinction of Mediate and Immediate for Ordinary and Extraordinary we shall allow him more then we can upon the other for by Ordinary Inspiration or Revelation I understand such daily and common Vision and Discovery to the Soul as concerns it in its general Station respecting God and Men By Extraordinary such as great Fore-Sights or Divine Prospects which give to fore-tell or prophesie things to come or decide some signal Controversie or very special Case of Difficulty The first is what I speak of and do affirm that neither can the Scriptures be understood our Souls fed and comforted nor our Duties to God rightly perform'd without it The last is a Case so peculiar that all along it is plain I never intended it But if by Immediate Inspiration respecting us he understands that from thence forwards we cast off all Scripture as an antiquated or insignificant piece of Business which are yet Words too Modest for his Malice to father upon us as I shall anon make appear then doth he wrong us and our Doctrine to an high Degree And no matter what he thinks of me or what Names he may please to call me who is too far gone in his present splenetick Disease to think any better of such as I am I shall plainly set down what was my Meaning by the Words he cavils at viz. TRULY received thence I hope to their Satisfaction who will be more dis-interested in their Judgment By Doctrines TRULY owned and received from Scripture we mean such holy Truths as God by his Spirit inlightning our Understandings hath given us a true Discerning of to be such and those are they which we put in Opposition to Men's Carnal Interpretations upon and Imaginary Deductions from the Scriptures and not that we clash the Spirit 's Inspiration against the Scripture for they harmonize and bear reciprocal Testimonies to each other And this God that knows all Hearts both knows to be our true Sense in the Matter controverted and will one day abundantly prove to our Adversary's Eternal conviction This I fear J. Faldo will never swallow and why because it would choak him Perhaps I must be a Jesuit an Equivocator and what else he pleaseth but wherefore because it strikes at his Honesty indeed Dishonesty for he had rather we were what he sayes we are then receive a Contradiction by finding us otherwise then he hath so confidently represented us to be So much dearer is Humor Pride and Worldly Credit to him then our being not so mistaken as he thought for Is this Man like to make Converts that first maims my Answers and then either pelts what he doth take with Dirt or if one Sense worse then another may be had that usher'd in with a Rant and wound up with a Quibble must be given for an apt and irrefutable Reply This hath hitherto been his Practice and we now go upon both a Proof of it and yet more evidently to clear the Truth In that little piece of my Answer he cropt off from the rest for after his wonted manner he thought it not best for him to encounter it at large but a snap and away I told him that he could produce no such Words as Traditions of Men Earthly Root Darkness Confusion Corruption Deceitful Whore's Cup c.