of the sufficiency of the Light within Further Discovery p. 16. I shall therefore to avoid his attacking me in like manner barely give an instance or two out of his Book called Truth Advanced and leave it to the Reader to judge His Answer to an Objection That Adam Died not that day he Sinned but lived many years after he divides into three Heads His last is this As it is observed by some saith he neither Adam nor any of his posterity living a compleat thousand years which in Scripture signifies sometimes a day Psal 90. it may be said he lived not a whole day p. 23. Now that this is a Principle of the Revolutionists is plain to all that know their Principles and that it is his is also manifest in that he gives it as one of the answers to the Objection What Can he hold to nothing But be self-inconsistent in every thing Again p. 42. he saith Who are under the Law and obey it according to what their Ability doth reach they are held there as in a Custody or place of Safety as the Man-slayer in the City of Refuge in the time of the Law till the Faith come to be Revealed This word till the Faith come to be Revealed is a plain indication of his Notion though he dare not desend it for they dying in this City of Refuge when should the Faith be Revealed to them except in some other Revolution Some had a measure of Sincerity and Uprightness under the Law or Legal Dispensation both of Jews and Gentiles who had not the Faith and Knowledge of Christs Death and Resurrection and all such were in a state of Safety for that present time so that had they died in that State they could not have perished even as the Manslayer was safe in the City of Refuge p. 43. This is again a Token that he leans to the Revolutionists whose this is not to the Scriptures that say In the place where the tree falleth there it shall be Eccles 11. 3. See also Heb. 9. 27. where it is said It is appointed unto Men once to die but never twice to die for he adds But after this the judgment This with my Animadversions above are what I propos'd to close this Head with and come to the next Fourthly Of Christs and the Saints Glorified Bodies I shall give one instance that his Notion herein is of late as gross as other Professors whom he hath formerly oppos'd and confront him by a passage or two out of a former Book of his and so leave it In Truth Advanced p. 111. he saith Paul distinguisheth between the Belly and the Body saying God will destroy the Belly but he doth not say he will destroy the Body For seeing after the Resurrection of the Dead Men shall need none of the Meats of this corruptible World nor shall they need a Belly to put them in as Guts and Draught or any gross parts as Men have now This shews he hath very Carnal Conceptions of the Resurrection at present like those Sadducees who Erred not knowing the Scriptures nor the Power of God Matt. 22. 29. Now let 's see his Sentiments formerly in his Book called Rector Corrected We do believe saith he p. 23. That we also shall be raised up to have an Immortal Spiritual and Glorified Body like unto him This Virtue is not any visible thing nor is the Glorified Body of Christ visible Flesh Seeing the Body of Christ is Glorified and wholly Spiritual as the Body of every true Believer shall be at the Resurrection how can it be visible Flesh And Christ the second Adam is called in Scripture the Quickning Spirit but not visible Flesh Therefore in this thou dost grossly Err and needest Correction said G. K. to the Rector and so say I to him Again p. 54. Is not Christs Body a Spiritual Body which he hath now in the Heavens Seeing the Body of the Saints at the Resurrection is raised Spiritual according unto the Glorious Body of Christ shew a Syllable that Christ hath any other Body but that which is Spiritual Had G. K. retained these Sentiments when he wrote his bulky Book styled Truth Advanced he needed not have told us of Belly Guts and Draught They do not Symbolize with a Spiritual Body nor indeed with Spiritual Senses But as is the Man so is his Communication Fifthly Concerning Water-Baptism and the Supper It is so hard for G. K. to be consistent with himself in any thing that even here he falters That the Non-observing of the outward Baptism and Supper hath been one Characteristick of our Profession wherein others have differed from us they must be very little Conversant with us who do not know That he once concurred with us in our Testimony relating thereto is what will appear anon At present I shall shew how I find him now For he would now persuade us he hath been very easie in the point all along It is known by my former Printed Books saith he in his Further Discovery p. 30. I have been moderate in my judgment concerning both Water Baptism and the Supper in the outward use of Bread and Wine chiefly blaming the great formality in Mens practising these things and resting in the outward practise of them but not universally judging or concluding that God neither did nor would move any by his Spirit to practise them since the Apostles days but rather allowing it might be possible that some were or might be moved Thus far G. K. And in his Truth Advanced p. 173. he makes some Positions and Queries concerning Water-Baptism and the outward Supper tending as he saith to Love Peace and Unity among all the sincere Professors of the Lord Jesus Christ who hold the Head and build on the true Foundation and yet differ in some lesser matters Which whoever pleases to bestow the reading on will see whose Communion he labours to insinuate himself into next as holding the Head and only differing in some lesser matters at the same time when no Epithets are black enough upon his quondam Friends whom he sometimes boasts he hath been upwards of 30 years amongst For my part I grudge them not such a Proselyte nor do I think they will be fond of him but what is before me is to give the Reader a taste that here as well as in the Instances above the Man is wavering and fluctuating In p. 183. of Truth Advanced qu. 5. he thus interrogates Whether it may not be said there is One Baptism as that there is one Land called America though the Map or Figure of it is also called America even as there is but one Spiritual Baptism with the Holy Ghost though the Outward Baptism with Water is also called Baptism To this he shall make answer out of his Book stiled Help in the time of need Printed Anno 1665. p. 65. Though the Scripture declare of this Word saith he yet they are not that Word more than a Map or Description
Christ his coming in the Flesh or God made manifest in Flesh in that prepared Body which was Crucified at Jerusalem and afterwards raised up again and Glorified And this same Doctrine the Quakers Preach saith he We acknowledge no other Christ but the one only and true Christ Jesus the Son of David our only Saviour We do most faithfully believe and acknowledge Jesus Christ to be true and perfect God and true and perfect Man and that the Nature and Substance of his God-head is not the Nature and Substance of his Manhood His Manhood is not his God-head nor is his God-head his Manhood yet that Man Christ is God by reason of the most wonderful Union betwixt the two Natures p. 82. Again We hold forth no other Christ Jesus but the same that all the Saints believed in and was of Mary and David according to the Flesh and before them and the Father and Lord of them according to the Spirit who is the Saints hiding place in all Ages as it is written Isa 32. 2. And the Man to wit the Man Christ shall be as an hiding place p. 152. And thus I have gone through the Eight particular Charges saith G. K. wherewith he hath so falsly Charged us and in plainness and simplicity of Heart declared OUR Belief concerning them and how that we own the true Christ as true and perfect God and as true and perfect Man who as concerning the Flesh was the Son of David and of Mary but yet was before Mary and David and all Men who is the Son of God blessed for evermore p. 167 168. To these I might add Quotations out of two Books more the one written by himself and some of Rhode Island called The Christian Faith of the People called Quakers c. Printed Anno 1692. which was since he began to be litigious the other by himself singly the same Year 1692. in answer to Cotton Mather Entituled A Serious Appeal wherein the Quakers are cleared as Orthodox in their Faith concerning Christ his Conception Birth Resurrection Ascension Intercession and coming again to Judgment even in those very things he would now render us Heterodox in But of this a hint is enough inasmuch as the Reader may find it more at large in my late Treatise called An Apostate Exposed only one comprehensive Passage I may not omit viz. in Serious Appeal p. 7. According to the best Knowledge I have saith G. K. there of the People called Quakers and these most generally owned by them as Preachers and Publishers of their Faith of unquestioned esteem among them and worthy of double Honour as many such there are I know none that are guilty of any one of such Heresies and Blasphemies as he accuseth them And to enforce it that he mought not be thought to speak at random he adds a little lower I think I should know and do know these called Quakers and their Principles far better than Cotton Mather or any or all his Brethren having been Conversant with them in Publick Meetings as well as in Private Discourses with the most Noted and Esteemed among them for about 28 years past and that in many places of the World in Europe and for these divers years in America Now doth not this manifest great hardness that a Man who had so large so long so near and intimate Converse both Private and Publick with the most Noted and Esteemed among Friends for so many years and had so lately defended them and their Christian Testimony should now all of a sudden give the lye to all this and which is more deduce some of his pretended Probations out of those very Books which among others he had so newly commended and recommended But he against whom G. K. is risen up taketh the Wise in their own Craftiness and the Councel of the Froward is carried headlong Job 5. 13. Thus far upon the first Head now to the second viz. his Declaration of his Belief wherein he is inconsistent with his latter Pretences 1. Concerning the Benefit of Christ's Inward Coming in the first place and that it saves where the Outward is unknown This he Objects against Friends Nameless Bull p. 11. and saith Seeing this true Faith is wrought in God's ordinary way by Preaching therefore the true Faith of Christ's Death and Sufferings ought to be one of the First and chiefest things that every true Minister ought to Preach and build up his Hearers in in order to bring them to Communion with God and Christ in Spirit and that they may Witness God and Christ to dwell in them and rule in them One great Quarrel he had against Friends in America was about the sufficiency of the Light he having said That the Light is not sufficient to Salvation without something else And he urges in his Plea p. 23. That if the Man Christ Jesus be our real Saviour and that his Death Resurrection Ascension and Mediation for us without us in Heaven hath any part in our Salvation then the Light doth not save us without somewhat else Other Instances of the like kind may be seen p. 12. and 17. of his Seasonable Information Now although we do not in the least undervalue what our Lord did and suffered in that prepared Body but acknowledge as G. K. hath been often told the blessed effects thereof towards all Mankind whereby to reinstate them in God's Favour lost by Transgression yet whether that Faith were indispensibly necessary to all Mankind and that none could be saved without it though they had not the Means Opportunity or Capacity to know or receive it is what Sam Jennings tells us State of the Case p. 11. was their debate there but G. K. denies it however it is ours here And in order thereto I am now examining what G. K. hath formerly said concerning the Benefit of the inward how the outward may be savingly known how most edifyingly Preached and the sufficiency of the Light desiring my Reader to remember that even now I quoted G. K. that the true Faith of Christs Death and Sufferings ought to be one of the first and chiefest things that every true Minister ought to preach I shall begin with his Way to the City of God Printed Anno 1678. There he saith page 3. The Knowledge of his Christs inward Coming is that which is the more needful and in the FIRST PLACE as being that by which the true and comfortable use of his outward Coming is ALONE sufficiently understood And p. 125. Through the Coming of Jesus Christ thus in the inward even before he was outwardly Come or manifest many were SAVED and attained unto PERFECT Peace and Reconciliation with God in their Souls Again in p. 152 153 154 155. Though express Knowledge of his Christs outward Coming Sufferings and Death is very profitable to beget Faith and Love in Men towards God as aforesaid and ought to be HIGHLY VALUED IN ITS PLACE nevertheless this express Knowledge is not of absolute Necessity unto
and that therefore it was not good that Man should be alone to wit that his Wife should remain barren in him for the effect of their Fall was such that they could not multiply their Species in one Body as they mought have done if the Fall had not been And so as to that manner of propagating their Species or Kind they became unfit unfruitful which is by way of Allegory exprest by some My stick Writers that their Backs were joined together and their Faces averted i. e. turned the one from the other but when they were divided their Faces were set one to the other according to the words in Gen. 2. 18. I will make him an help as before him i. e. Face to Face so the Hebrew see p. 28. 29. This is indeed to refuse the Waters of Shiloah that go softly and to rejoyce in Rezin c. for these Monstrous Births have more place with him than what is truly solid and edifying And as Esau parted with his Birth right for a Mess of Pottage so such trashy Notions he can catch at while he disdains plain Jacob's Tents who is more for Heart than Head-food Thus shall I close my Animadversions upon him the former part whereof viz. all but the Conclusion have lain some time by me though undigested till now expecting when his restless Spirit would give occasion for them Now although he seems averse to answer us in Print where he hath abused us alledging want of time and ability of outward Estate yet inasmuch as he is still as industrious to make us a derision to Fools if he can or to stir up the Populace against us surely it will not be unbecoming us to wipe off his Obloquy and Detraction and declare what the Man himself thought when he was more himself and less agitated with Passion and Prejudice This is the scope this the aim of my present Undertaking not in ill will or vindictiveness to the Man but in defence of Truth and the Friends thereof which he hath calumniated J. P. A POSTCRIPT BY G. W. 1. HAD we first Condemned George Keith in Print as Guilty of gross Errour Hypocrisie Unbelief and afterward in Print Challenged and Summoned him to a publick Tryal before us at a Meeting appointed in our own time and place without his Privity or Concurrence as he has done by some of us he and others more indifferent who better know common Law and Justice than himself might have justly reflected upon us as very Arbitrary and Unjust Judges to be thus preposterous and extra-judicial in first Condemning and then Summoning Men to Tryal 2. Had we for some weeks aforehand raked in George Keith's Books to pick out Matters against him and only given him a General Charge of most Erroneous and hurtful Principles or of his self Contradictions or Calumnies against us contrary to the Fundamental Doctrines of the Christian Faith and Relegion and then in Print Advertisement and Summons to a publick Trial i. e. to hear himself Charged and Proved Guilty without so much as affording him any Copy of the particulars of his Indictment or Charge before Trial or of the Books and Pages referred unto therein for a due preparation to answer as he has done against us I am perswaded he would not be so served or surprized but might have justly deemed this procedure very unfair precipitant and unjust 3. All which undue Arbitrary and Extrajudicial Proceedings and new Court of Judicature as erected by George Keith I with the rest of my Friends and Brethren concerned both as Men and Christians have refused and rejected and do protest against the same as unwarrantable both in the sight of God and just Men As Christians we are not to be subject to George Keiths Summons without God's Call nor allowed to gratifie his Ambitious Contentious Spirit or such as cause Divisions or Offences c. As Men we are obliged to have respect to the Civil Government and Peace and not to Countenance or Abet Strife and Contention in any Publick Meeting tending to Divisions and Confusions contrary to the Intent of the Law it self which is Enacted For the Ease and Liberty of Dissenting Protestant Subjects in the exercise of Religion and Religious Worship in order to unite them in Interest and Affection as the Words and Reason of the Statute are for which end only Meetings and Meeting Houses are tollerated and entred on Record and not for Stages of Contention 4. The first point in Difference between George Keith and my self that I remember and which I was really dissatisfied with was his Notion of Twelve Revolutions or Transmigrations of Humane Soulr whether of all or some of them passing out of one Body into another to have Twelve Intervals of Life to accomplish one thousand years on Earth Arguing from these Scriptures John 11. 9. Psal 90. 4. 2 Pet. 3. 8. and some others if I mistake not if he says I do let him give us a plain State of his own Notion herein which as I understood him was according to some passages in the Book of Two Hundred Queries concerning that Opinion of the Revolution of humane Souls For which Notion I am sure he argued in a Book of his in Manuscript which he shewed me before he went over into America and then would have had it Printed but I then in dislike to it and love to him disswaded him from Printing it yet he told me since his return he had brought it over with him but I suppose is afraid to Print it with his Name to it how he has covertly Writ and Discoursed in Favour of his Notion of the Revolutions or varied about it he and some others knows 5. I am not conscious to my self of Errour either in Reference to the Resurrection Christ's Satisfaction or Sacrifice or his visible coming again in his Glorified Body without us to raise the Dead at the great day of Judgment or of having denied the same as he has in that and other things unjustly accused and aspersed me in two of his late Pamphlets The one styled A True Copy p. 31. and the other Gross Errour p. 4 5 6 7 8. I say I am not conscious of denying Christ's coming again without us in his Spiritual Glorified Body c. By my Questioning some Anabaptists as William Burnet and John Newman about their Carnal Expectations of Christ's coming again in the Flesh tâ— be seen with their Carnal Eyes in opposition to his Appearance and Light within G. K. has dealt very unfairly by me in leaving out Blood and Bones after the Words Body of Flesh in my Answer to Newman and thus partially Cited by G. K. in his said Gross Error p. 3. And to prove me Guilty of Unbelief because I said We do not Read of a Third coming of Christ in the Flesh yet to be expected Hereupon seems his most colourable Charge against me but I think it no more proves me an Unbeliever in this point than himself for our not Reading of a third coming of Christ in the Flesh only Questions such a manner of his Coming and proves not me Guilty of Unbelief of his Coming in a more excellent manner viz. in great Glory in hir Spiritual Glorious Body For George Keith has confessed the Body of Christ to be wonderfully charged as to the mode and manner of its being it being no more a Body of Flesh Blood and Bones but a pure Ethereal or Heavenly Body like unto which the Bodies of the Saints are to be at the Resurrection Way cast up page 131. and endued altogether with Heavenly Qualities The Husk or Dressy part not the true Body c. as more fully in his Book stiled Gross Error p. 9 13. Now if Christ's Glorious Body be no more a Body of Flesh Blood and Bones as George Keith saith How should his Coming a third time in the Flesh or in a Body of Flesh and Blood c. be expected again to be seen by the World with their Carnal Eyes or Eyes of Flesh 6. George Keith's formerly Writing and Arguing against the continuance of Water-Baptism Altogether denying it to be commanded to the Apostles by Christ Matt. 28. and being but a Shadow buried with other Shadows not to be raised up again in a Book Intituled Quakerism Confirmed Printed 1676. Sec. 6. And his lately Writing and Arguing for the continuance of Water-Baptism as a badge of Believers Christian Faith and Profession and of Service to be continued in the Church by true Christians under the Gospel in his Book Intituled Truth Advanced Printed 1694. p. 173 174 175 c. Such his Wavering Variation Uncertainty and Inconsistency together with his great Envy in repreaching us in his Printed Books contrary to his own former Testimonies in Print shews he is now no Quaker nor Friend but Adversary to the People called Quakers Both John Whitehead William Penn my self and divers other Friends have patiently suffered under G. K.'s Abuse and Misrepresentations in Print for sometime I having writ a Letter to him to clear my Conscience in great plainness for which I suppose he Envies me the more I have hitherto forborn and do yet forbear to publish an Answer to detect him He being fallen into other Hands to deal with him and Load him with his own Fruitless Work for I find it no great Difficulty to Answer him And I believe that they i. e. T. Ellwood and J. Penigton have Conscientiously Opposed and Obviated his Injurious Attempts even about divers of those points Charged by him against us We now wait to see where he will Center after all his Hovering Waverings Turnings and Labouring to Gratifie our Adversaries London the 30th of the 4th Month. 1696. G. Whitehead FINIS See G. K's Suggestions True Copy p. 23.
Faith so some who were truly Religious did want it as is clear in the Case of that Devout and Religious Man Cornelius whose Prayers God heard and yet he knew not the History of Christ nor of his Death and Sufferings till it was Preached unto him by Peter And the very Disciples themselves while they followed Christ outwardly knew not that he was to die for some time and yet in that time of their Ignorance of this weighty Matter were truly Religious It is a hard Matter for this Man to say any thing but he must interfere his former and later â—â—ritings looks askew upon one another as if they did not belong to the same Author He finds fault in his Causeless Grounds p. 1. with some for altering the Titles of his Books and giving new ones particularly to one this new Title The Christian Quaker or George Keith's Eyes opened As if the Name Christian Quaker were peculiar to me saith he Or as if I had been formerly blind till of late Days and then tells us Whatever he hath delivered in any of his late Printed Books touching either the Resurrection of the Dead or any other Principles of Christian Doctrine hath been his Faith ever since he came among the People called Quakers viz. upwards of thirty Years past He is like to be tried before we part But this I here observe that in the above recited Appendix Cornelius is represented as a Devout and Religious Man one whose Prayers God heard Yet in Truth advanced p. 45. a Book Printed Anno 1694. he will not allow him or the faithful Heathen who had no Knowledge nor Faith of Christ Crucified and raised again to be true Christians at all Nay p. 70. he reckons it among the dangerous and hurtful Errors to assert that Men may have that Holy Ghost that was given to Believers in Christ Crucified c. Without all Knowledge and Faith of Christ Crucified For he adds It is not said that Cornelius had the Holy Ghost in his Gentile State although he had a great Measure of Gentile Sincerity and Righteousness Now I would fain know of him Whether any Prayer is heard by God but what is put by his Spirit The Apostle Paul was of another Mind Rom. 8 26. And I doubt not but G. K. hath been so once Himself tells us p. 46. Some have asserted that Pythagoras Socrates and Plato and other Gentile Philosophers who had some Measure of Uprightness and were in some Measure faithful to what was inwardly Revealed unto them were Christians as Justin Martyr and some other Ancient Writers have asserted This he saith he will not positively contradict but adds If they were real Christians and were worthy of that honourable Name they had some Faith and Knowledge of Christ the Messiah and Saviour of the World as he was to come in the Flesh But I ask waving the Definition of a Christian wherein their Charity exceeds his Whether a Man in his pure Gentile State devoid of the Holy Ghost hath the necessary Parts of Religion hath that without which Religion cannot subsist as to the Being and Life of it the Terms of his Position above and if so it will necessarily follow that the Holy Ghost only makes up the Entireness and Fulness of it but is not Essential to the Being and Life of it which is an hurtful Error indeed If not Cornelius by having those Parts necessary to the Being of Religion had the Gift of the Holy Ghost and out of this Dilemma let him Extricate himself if he can In the mean time I go on to the next Citation out of the same Appendix p. 232. In them who have not the Scriptures the Spirit and Light of Christ sufficiently teacheth them the Parts of Religion absolutely necessary without the Scripture to which Parts the History of the Scripture doth not belong as is said and they who do faithfully improve the Knowledge of those necessary Parts although they want the History it sufficeth unto them for Salvation Hence I Query Whether the Spirit and Light of Christ being the Teacher such may be said to be without the Holy Ghost And whether any thing less then the Holy Ghost in some Degree sufficeth to Salvation But there is another Blunder of his yet behind I do most willingly grant saith he p. 242. that the Preaching of Christ without us in his Birth Life Suffering Death Resurrection Ascension Intercession c. is a very considerable part of the Doctrine of the Gospel yea more than the skin is a part of the Body of the Man yet it is but an integral Part such as the Hands and Feet of a Man without which a Man may subsist but not as an entire and compleat Man and so may true Religion and Christianity subsist without the History of Christ in the Letter to wit in the Mystery of the Life of Christ in the Spirit and yet even here where the History is wanting the Mystery or inside of Christianity is not without its skin or outside namely an outward Confession unto God Waving the unaptness of the Simile for no Man can subsist without his Skin without Hands or Feet he may I observe he here admits of a Christianity without the History of Christ in the Letter What becomes then of his late Position That if they were real Christians they had some Faith and Knowledge of Christ the Messiah as he was to come He that pretends that upwards of thirty Years he hath been the same Man may cast an Eye back upon what he hath said Reasons and Causes p. 31. viz. That Faith in Christ Jesus as he came without us in the Flesh and died for our Sins c. is necessary to make a true Christian The same he tells T. E. Seasonable Information p. 29. and assigns it as the chief point of Doctrine wherein the Controversie lay between them of the other side and him Is this Man fit to engage in Controversie with others that knows not his own Mind But this is not all it seems where the History is wanting the Mystery may not nay it is not without its outside if there be an outward Confession to God though there be never a Word of Christ his Death Sufferings c. Yet once again let me Query Whether where the Mystery is known the Holy Ghost be received or not To a Question of the Rectors of Arrow whether the Light within sufficienly tells us that the Messias is come or indeed that he was promised that Jesus born of Mary is he that he had real Flesh Dyed c. G. K. after an Enumeration of what the Light doth teach viz. That there is a God that created all things that he is most Holy Just Wise c. a Plentiful Rewarder of them that serve him c. concludeth thus These and divers other Truths as necessary as any doth the Light of Christ teach and hath taught in many who never had the Scriptures and if they have been faithful
and therefore we cannot acknowledge it to be necessary or profitable to the weakest If neither necessary nor profitable to the weakest to whom are they or what have we to do with them say I And if they be Shadows they are no part of the Gospel Dispensation according to Paul's Doctrine saith G. K. p 146. and yet even now as Memorials and Significations that Christ hath already come they were of service to be continued in the Church Reconcile this who can for it is past my skill CONCLUSION MAny more Instances might be given of G. K. his Contradictions and Inconsistencies but I love not to clog my Reader who could have been content to have been more brief than I am Yet if any will take the pains to trace him they will find that in the Doctrine of Election and Reprobation he is the same uncertain Man as in those I have handled if they read from page 9. to 15. of Truth Advanced and compare it with his Book of Universal Grace from page 73. to 79. and from page 105. to the end Also what he says of the Church her coming out of the Wilderness and the Glory of this Dispensation Printed Anno 1665. in a Book called Help in time of need from page 55. to the end which was written I question not in a brighter time than of late he hath known hath no Analogy or Proportion with what he saith upon the same Subject in his Truth Advanced p. 133. to 163. as may be seen by comparing them together What remains is to touch on a few Passages of his Book Stiled Truth Advanced not those many sly false and proofless Insinuations hiddenly couched as with a side-winded blow at us which he seems willing should affect us yet would guard so that if they fall short and cannot his us he may come off and say he did not charge upon us wherewith his Work abounds but an Absurdity or two whereby the Mans Spirit may be savoured and the loss he is come to by leaning to his own understanding may be obvious In p. 16. He opposeth as an Error that the Garden of Paradice was some part of this visible Earth And whereas our Translation hath it That God put Man into the Garden to dress it and to keep it he finds fault with the word Dress saying p. 18. That it answereth not to the Hebrew which signifieth to work in it for it cannot be well understood saith he that it needed dressing after the manner of our common Gardens And his Reason is Man's Food both for his Soul and Body was to have been Paradisical but the Probation of both is to seek To this I shall only object What Work hath a man to do in a Garden if not to dress it and if the Garden had been no part of this visible Earth what work had there been to do there Surely if this visible Earth were made for Man he was not always to live in another Region above So p. 21. He tells us Though God made Man of the Dust of the Ground yet that Dust was not common Dust but much more pure and refined than that of which the Bodies of Men since the Fall were made of This shews he loves to be a Dictator and thinks well of his own Notions but proof he gives none knowing it is easier to assert than prove nor when he saith p. 26. That the Beasts of the Field are the Fallen Angels have we any more than his say so for it which considering how often he hath said and unsaid in the Instances above will not go a great way with such as well know him He also accounts it as an Error to assert That Adam and Eve were naked before the Fall saying it is no where so affirmed in all the Scripture and makes nakedness the Fruit of Transgression and that Adam and Eve were not ashamed of their Nakedness doth not adds he imply their Innocency but rather their Impudency and too great boldness that they had after the Fall See p. 24. 25. To this I say the Scripture give us an account of their eating the forbidden Fruit Gen. 3. 6. and in the next Verse of an effect thereof thus And the Eyes of them both were opened and they knew that they were naked and they sewed Fig leaves together and made themselves Aprons v. 7. What sign or token of Impudence is it in People to endeavour to cover their Nakedness But here was the difference between their two States before their Fall they were Innocent They were both naked and were not ashamed chap. 2. 25. after the Fall they knew that they were naked and sewed Fig leaves c. chap. 3. 7. and hid themselves v. 8. whereby they betrayed both Shame and Fear He goes on and Expounds their hiding themselves among the Trees of the Garden to be in a Tree of the Garden and that one Tree may be well understood to be the Divine Mercy or Clemency saith he p. 25. But how got they thither say I The Divine Mercy is in Christ Jesus and if they were got there methinks when they heard the Voice of the Lord God walking in the Garden they should not have been afraid for they were already safe But his whimsical Notions â—o interfere as doth their Author Now as to their Clothing he tells you what that was if ye can believe him Whereas saith he p. 27. the Man and his Wife by Sin had contracted a two-fold Nakedness one of the Soul the other of the Body or one inward the other outward he provided a Clothing to both Clothing them inwardly with the Righteousness of the Lamb and Clothing them outwardly with the Skin and Flesh of this Frail Mortal and Corruptible Body Qu. Did he Cloth them with the Righteousness of the Lamb and yet at the same time debar them access to the Tree of Life See Gen. 3. 21. 22. What strange Doctrine is this I thought whoever were Clothed with the Lamb's Righteousness had right to the Tree of Life This is Doctrinally unsound the other Monstrous that we should have a Body a top of a Body and Clothes over them But it seems the first Body had no Skin for Skin he gives as the additional Clothing Query Whether it had Belly Guts and Draught which he denies the Resurrection Bodies to have p. 111. or whether it had need if its Food was to be Paradisical In p. 28. He is for mending or marring our Translation again The word Rib he renders Side The Woman saith he therefore is one side of the Man as to say one half of him as when a round or square Body is split or divided into two sides or halves Whether this Separation was made before oâ— after the Fall is much questioned by many adds he and then enumerates the Reasons oâ— them that think it was after the Fall From all which they conclude saith he that the Woman being separated from the Man was a consequent of the Fall