that either that passage of the Apostle or any other part of the word of God doth contradict Right Reason or prohibit whatever is so requisite to the relief of the common and evident necessities of Mankind 2. Other Scriptures do both allow and establish secular Government and enjoyn obedience to the Civil Powers even to those that were Heathen and call them God's Ordinance Rom. 13. 1 2. and command Magistrates to prosecute with all diligence and integrity all Acts of publick justice 2 Chron. 19. 6 7. Fsa 1. 17. And this implies the warrantableness of going to Law for how shall injur'd persons be righted and defended by the Magistrate if it be not lawful for them to bring their Causes before him that is to go to Law 3. If you read on in that Discourse of the Apostle you will find that the fault he reproves in the Corinthians is not all going to Law upon necessary and just occasions but their bringing their private quarrels and disorders before the unjust that is before the Unbelievers which were the Heathen and Infidel-Judges as he interprets himself in v. 6. But brother goeth to Law with brother and that before the unbelievers Which would have been to the scandal and reproach of Christianity among those who hated it and who would improve such occasions to bring it into greater derision And he exhorts them v. 7. rather to take a great deal of wrong and to suffer themselves to be defrauded viz. in their private rights than thus to go to Law one with another to expose their Christian Profession to so open Contempt and to give occasion to the enemies of God to blaspheme But fourthly Though the Apostle there forbid all such unbrotherly contentions and bringing them before Infidel-Judges yet he there if you mark appoints them a Judicature before which they might lawfully bring their reasonable and just Complaints that is a Christian Judicature consisting of Believers v. 1. And expostulates with them sharply for not having appointed such a Court among themselves before whom wronged persons might bring their Causes pertaining to this life v. 2 3 4 5. While therefore we live under a Christian Prince governing us by Christian Laws and appointing us Courts consisting of Christian Judges we cannot suppose our selves to be in the fore-cited Scripture forbidden to make application to them in cases just and necessary Par. I have given you diligent attention and cannot but thank you for the satisfactory account you have given me for I must needs acknowledge my self convinced by you of the unreasonableness of my scruple and of taking any Scripture in such a sense as makes void all Law and Government But when I come in a Quakers Meeting I fear new doubts will arise and when I hear them speak such things as I cannot answer I am apt to conclude their Arguments to be unanswerable Min. If so then you have reason to observe in your self such an unstableness of mind as is common to the vulgar no question but your wavering mind would be under the same perplexities did you frequent the meetings of other Separatists A Jesuite Socinian Pelagian nay A Turk or Jew might bring such arguments in vindication of their respective Heresies and Tenents as might puzle you to give a solution to would you therefore conclude them all in the right If you hear the Quakers bring such reasons in vindication of their tenents and ways as your self cannot answer will you conclude they are unanswerable And because you know not a way to China and Japan will you therefore suppose there are no such Countries at least no way to them The consideration of this instability of yours should teach you 1. Humility not to look upon your self as a person fit to trust to your own judgment not to be confident in your own opinion nor to lean to your own understanding Prov. 3. 5. 2. Prudence to withdraw your self wholly from the Meetings of those by whose Sophistries your judgment is in most danger to be perverted and to be carried away from those good Principles you have already recover'd and of the soundness and reasonableness whereof you have already confess'd your self convinced and satisfied For to be led away by a gadding humor to every Conventicle and irregular Meeting is a presumption which may provoke God to withdraw his protection from you and to give you up to a spirit of delusion which makes it very necessary to advise you to keep out of harms way and the reach of so taking an Infection And 3. it is hence fit and seasonable to exhort you to be willing to be taught and to that end to have recourse unto pious and sober men especially Ministers of the Gospel who being by their education and calling separated to Study and Devotion are the fitest persons to advise you and resolve your scruples they being such as by your own experience and acknowledgment have administer'd to you the most rational satisfaction You are ready to consult a Physitian in order to your health and to take the advice of a Lawyer for the settlement of your estate and methinks in matters of Religion and Conscience a Divine will be no less fit to be consulted with The Priests lips should keep knowledge and they should seek the Law at his mouth for he is the Messenger of the Lord of Hosts And in case of doubts our Church adviseth you to consult either your own or some other discreet and learned Minister of Gods word c. And when you have compared the Discourses of the Quakers and the Ministers of our Church together and weigh'd them well and consider'd them in your heart I doubt not but you will judge our Doctrine to be in your Conscience most agreeable to right reason and to make most to the honour of God and the promoting of godliness righteousness and sobriety wherein the sum of Religion consists Iu which things you will find the Doctrine of our Church far to exceed the new upstart tenents of the Quakers Par. You cannot call their Doctrines new when they are the same which the Primitive Christians had in the Apostles days Min. You may easily perceive this to be a manifest untruth For you know the Primitive Christians were quite different from the Quakers They did not contemn the two great Ordinances of the Gospel Baptism and the Supper of the Lord but with due veneration received both as I am ready to make appear at large when there is occasion for it The Primitive Christians had Bishops and Deacons to govern and teach them and when they had them did not revile them as do the Quakers And these were ordained to their Functions by prayer and imposition of hands The Primitive Christians had no Women-teachers being observant of Saint Paul's injunctions who said in plain words that it was a shame for a woman to speak in the Church 1 Cor. 14. 35. The Primitive Christians had no silent Meetings as the
and thus he cannot sin not through any Natural but Moral impossibility I say he Morally cannot do so the powers of his Soul being acted and inflamed by such a Divine Principle of Grace and goodness as will not suffer him to live in any known sin whatsoever If he does he falls from that Holiness and forfeits the Divine relation and can no longer be said to be born of God no more than he that has carried the repute of an honest man can after wilful breaches of Justice and Honesty challenge that worthy Title Who can be so confident to say that he is free from all the Infirmities of his Nature Who dare say that he never speaks thinks or acts amiss he that saith he cannot fall by Errour is already faln by pride and he that saith he cannot sin sins even in saying so it 's true a good man makes not sin his work and he sins not so as to be lyable to that dismal sentence Depart from me ye workers of iniquity Mat. 7. 23. Par. But the Quakers will tell you that denying perfection in their notion of it you give incouragement to sin Min. If you examine the case truly you will find the quite contrary that the charge will fall upon themselves Pray who is your Friend he that saith you have no Enemy or he that informs you where he lurks when the Devil perswades man that he is clean and free a considerable part of his work is done there is small hopes of that mans conversion who thinks himself well enough already it 's one step to conversion to see our selves unconverted and one step to happiness to perceive that we are miserable nay even miserable sinners he is besotted with his condition that mistakes his Prison for a Palace I need not guard my House when I am sure that no Thieves can enter in it 's vain to offer him Physick who concludes himself well or to sue for redemption when free from thraldom Math. 9. 12. But if on the other hand I find my self weak then I lay hold on him that is strong from a sense of my infirmities I seek after help If I find many Enemies I prepare against them If I be throughly convinc't that I am beset round with temptations and such stratagems as are under the conduct of such a powerful and Politick Enemy as the Devil is without me and to compleat my misery that I have a false and treacherous heart within me being in those sad circumstances I see the necessity of a Saviour set my watch and fly from the confidence of flesh to the protection of an Almighty arm Par. I shall not yield the cause till you have more fully clear'd the point consult Eph. 5. 5. Rev. 21. 27 from whence we may learn that no unclean thing can enter into the Kingdom of Heaven which implies a necessity of an unsinning state even in this life that in order to our happiness in the next Min. I shall not need to spend much time in refutation of your mistakes in these Scriptures do but duly consult them and the best commentators on them and you will find they import no more than that no unregenerate and unsanctified person shall have any share in bliss and happiness Par. I will give you one Argument more for perfection as it is taught by the Quakers and then I have named all I have that are of any moment by denying perfection a fundamental in Divinity is overthrown viz. that the second Adam has gain'd what the first Adam lost Min. You cannot think that the first Adam had a state of such perfection as to make it impossible for him to sin for you know he did actually fall such a perfection he never lost nor did Christ gain such a state for us in this World We are indeed by Christ and the grace of God put into such a State as that we may perform that which is necessary to our Salvation under the Covenant of Grace even that which God will accept of through his mercy that is we may please God considering what he now expects and accepts through Christ as well as Adam could considering what God required then But if you will stretch this sentence to be meant of an equal perfection to Adam's in this life you discover gross Ignorance in the mis-timeing that fundamental of yours which you are not to apply to this present mortal state but to the life to come here we have but the earnest and first fruits of the Spirit Rom. 5. 23. 2 Cor. 1. 22. Eph. 1. 14 therefore it is that here we know but in part and Prophesy but in part 1 Cor. 13. 9. The state of Grace here is gradual We grow by little and little but when that which is perfect is come then that which is in part shall be done away ver 10. Then mind ver 12. For now that is in this life we see through a glass darkly but then that is in the life to come face to face Seeing God face to face cannot be here for we cannot see the face of God and live Exod. 33. 20. for here we walk by faith not by sight 2 Cor. 5. 7. and it 's only in the life to come that we must expect the fruition of the beatifical vision 1 Joh. 3. 2. But that I may bring this subject to a conclusion give me leave to add that to argue a state here free from sin is to argue against matter of fact and the clearest conviction and experience for we read of failings in the best of men and have not such their shares of troubles and vexations in this life They suffer hunger and cold needs and necessities the tormenting diseases and anguishes of the body and at last yield up the Ghost to Death it self Par. What do you infer from hence Min. That Christians are not reinstated in this life in the outward part or appendages of that perfection which Adam lost that is not in a painless secure immortal state All the miseries we suffer here are but the dire effects and consequents of sin will you say then that the cause is taken away and the effects remain This impleads the Divine justice that some should feel the punishment of sin whilst they are not concerned in the guilt of it And shall not the judg of all the earth do right Par. If to be acquainted with sorrow grief sickness diseases and death be nothing but the effects of sin how shall our Saviour who suffered them all be himself free from the imputation of it Min. Those sorrows were the effects of our sins which he in compassion to us took voluntarily upon himself it was our sins which he bare upon his own body And taking upon himself our sorrows and infirmities he thereby became a more merciful high Priest For death entred by sin so consequently no sin no death nor any of its sad attendants We free Christ from the commission
but a small time of use because it could not give life none living under it but Adam all hopes of Salvation ever after depending upon the grace of the second Covenant which is the only plank after Shipwrack Par. But do we not read in Heb. 8. of an old Covenant which was to be done away and a new Covenant to succeed in the room of it Was not the old Covenant the Covenant of works and did not Abraham Moses and David live under it Min. That Abraham Moses and David lived under the old Covenant there mentioned I readily grant but that that was a Covenant of works I utterly deny which that you may apprehend you must know that the Covenant of grace though one and the same in substance from the first promulging of it to Adam unto the end of the World yet is according to the several forms or modes of its administration distinguished into Old which was to be abolished and New which was never to be antiquated In the times of the Old Testament the Covenant of Grace was administred by Promises Prophesies Sacrifices c. foresignifying Christ to come which for that time were sufficient to build up those who then lived in faith in the promised Messiah by whom they had remission of sins and eternal Salvation Under the Gospel when Christ the substance was come those Types and Ceremonies were abolished and the Ordinances in which this Covenant is dispensed are the preaching of the Word and the Administration of the Sacraments of Baptism and the Lords Supper So that the words Old and New are not applicable to the Covenant as to the substance of it but only to its various dispensation Now that the Covenant in Old Testament times was a Covenant of Grace the same in substance with that under which we live in Gospel times I prove thus That Covenant which teacheth Christ by whom eternal Salvation may be attained and which offereth pardon of sin and acceptance to favour upon repentance must needs be a Covenant of Grace but the Covenant delivered in the Old Testament as well as that in the New is such a Covenant as appears from these Scriptures John 5. 46 47. Luke 24. 25 26 27. with 44 45 46. John 1. 45. John 8. 56. Acts 26. 22 23. Deut. 4. 30 31. Exod. 34. 6 7. 2 Chron. 7. 14. and many other places Par. I thank you for the information you have given me in the nature of the two Covenants for I did think as many of the Quakers do that all that lived in the time of the Old Testament were under the Covenant of Works An I have heard some urge it as it seems Hubberthorn here doth to bring down the credit and authority of Old Testament Scriptures and Preachers but I perceive mine and their great mistake herein I would have you now return to the Query about Oaths and let us suppose Hubberthorn by first Covenant to understand the legal dispensation of the Covenant of Grace under which he saith Oaths were lawful Min. Indeed Hubberthorn yields they were then lawful and yet he brings in his proofs as if they were as unlawful then as now Par. What are those proofs Min. In the beginning of his Book against Mr. Tombs you will find Hos. 4. 3. For Oaths the Land mourns and Zach. 5. 3. Every one that sweareth shalâ—… be cut off these are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 do you gather from thence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 horrid abuse the Quakers put upon the Scriptures and the Spirit of God by which they were writ Par. How do you make it appear that they abuse the Scriptures Min. Doth it not appear very plainly when they confess that in the time of the Law Oaths were lawful yet do bring in Hosea and Zachary who lived in the time of the Law speaking against that usage which themselves confess was then lawful If Hosea and Zachary were true Prophets how can we think they contradict the truth If they were false Prophets why do the Quakers use their testimony Par. It may be Hosea and Zachary did not mean the unlawfulness of Oaths then but only prophesied of their unlawfulness in the times of the Gospel Min. That you make use of a pitiful shift will be very evident if you consider that there was then a heavy calamity threatned and hanging over the Land the Prophet gives the cause thereof to be for Oaths and if Oaths were then lawful must the people be cut off for doing what was just and lawful or is it reasonable to think the people should suffer for a sin to be committed afterwards Par. Do you suppose that Oaths were unlawful during the continuance of the Law Min. I suppose no such thing my design being only to shew that fallacious way of arguing which the Quakers use and that this Hubberthorn so much esteemed by them is trap't in his own net and confuted by himself while he confesses Oaths to be lawful during the continuance of the Law and yet contradicts himself again by bringing texts out of the Law to prove them otherwise and thus you see he brings in the Old Testament contradicting it self also which in Deut. 6. 13. commands it as a duty as also in other places Jer. 4. 2. I pray you judge of these things Par. You have highly and I think not untruly charged the Quakers in the use of these Texts of the Prophets for I cannot but acknowledge it an absurdity to alledge the Scripture against it self but I pray you discover the true meaning of them and what swearing the people were there threatned for Min. If you mind the scope of the Prophet Hosea and the sins which swearing is there joyned withal in the first verse of the Chapter you will discern that the cause why the Land mourned was not for taking Oaths for those are already proved and confessed to be then lawful but for taking them against Truth and Mercy with malicious or injurious designs But their bringing in Zachary's words to disprove the lawfulness of swearing discovers a most dishonest principle in the Quakers because they cannot but know that the Prophets words are wrested by them for the fourth verse expresly interprets swearing for which the people are threatned to be cut off to be false-swearing only Therefore consult both at large Zach. 5. 3 4. This is the curse that goeth forth over the face of the whole earth for every one that stealeth shall be cut off as on this side according to it and every one that sweareth shall be cut off as on that side according to it I will bring it forth saith the Lord of Hosts and it shall enter into the house of the thief and into the house of him that sweareth falsly by my Name Par. But what do you say to an Oath now under the dispensation of the Gospel Min. I say the Gospel has no where abolished the lawful use of it Par. You will fall under John Tombs his charge of Antichristianism for
to be the meaning of the words so as to make all Oaths unlawful Min. This objection of yours is so far from so doing that it hath in part forestall'd the explication which I was prepariâ—…g to give you of the scope of our Saviours discourse for by the relation you rightly take notice of it is evidently restrained to that abuse of the tongue in common talk and communication here particularly mentioned and so to that very prophanation whereby both Jews and Gentiles had then most licentiously corrupted their conversation yea and that by allowance from the Jewish Interpreters of the Law which therefore it was high time for our great Law-giver to correct and tell them that in ordinary communication those plain asseverations of yea and nay or yes and no which are the same or other words of the like importance either used singly or else for more vehemence sake repeated if need require are enough to give credit to what we say if we would use our selves to speak truth And that these are as much as can be safely used in such promiscuous discourses wherein passion interest transportation and too much haste or inconsiderateness do usually carry the tongue out of its bounds and therefore would provoke men to multiply words and Oaths and bring them in danger not only of rash irreverent swearing but even of perjury it self Par. But is not the explication of this place disproved by that passage in James 5. 12. where he saith But above all things my brethren swear not neither by heaven nor by the earth nor by any other Oath Doth not the Apostle here expresly forbid all manner of Oaths Min. The Apostle St. James do's mean only all Oaths of that kind there mentioned and then so much used by Jew and Gentile for he leaves out some of those which our Saviour had instanced in and breaks off with this clause nor by any other oath which implyes his meaning to be that as we are not to swear by heaven nor the earth so neither by any other such like Oath which our Saviour had forbidden viz. neither by Jerusalem nor by the Temple the Altar c. and consequently by no created being for if Christ has not forbidden all kinds of Oaths St. James has not for the servant is not greater than his Lord either to institute any new law or to repeal any which Christ left in force Neither can we think St. James intended any thing he said to charge St. Paul's Oaths with sin which we find in those Epistles he writ by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost and which were used by him for the more solemn confirmation of those truths he wrote to several Churches And as little can we think that he accuseth the holy Angel in Revel 10. for swearing Without doubt St. James offers at a repetition of our Saviours doctrine for while he saith Let your yea be yea and your nay nay his meaning is Let your promise be performance and let your word be the truth to the end that amongst all with whom you converse you may be believed without an Oath And so he adds lest you fall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as some authentick Copies have it that is into hypocrisie and so into lying and perjury by occasion whether of your passions of any sort or of those frequent inadvertences which we are so subject to in our common talk Par. I thank you for the large pains you have taken in giving me the sense of this Scripture which has so much puzled me and that you may see I have not heard you without attention I thus apprehend your meaning An Oath being in it self an act of Religion towards God and of so much justice and charity towards my Neighbour in determining publick causes it remains that it is a part of that Moral Law which our Saviour came not to repeal and therefore this Text must not be interpreted to do so but hath a peculiar reference to those errours in doctrine and practice among the Jews which the words are designed to correct that is all swearing by the Creature which the Jewes falsly suppos'd to be no Oaths and so not binding and all swearing by the Name of God in our common talk because such a license might daily expose men both to rash and false swearing in place whereof our Saviour hath therefore substituted those plain asseverations of yea yea nay nay or such like but the use and lawfulness of swearing remains when I am called by lawful Authority to declare my conscience in order to the ending of any controversie wherein my evidence may be concern'd I shall give you no further disturbance in the case of an Oath having had all my scruples about it sufficiently answer'd I shall now only desire to know whether the Quakers tying themselves to the strict use of yea and nay in all their communication do not live in a stricter conformity to that precept of the Gospel then those who neglect the use of them Min. I wish the Quakers did as seriously consider the meaning and occcasion of these phrases as they superstitiously affect the use of them Our obedience to this command of Christs consists not in the precise use of the words yea and nay but in the truth and integrity of the speakers heart in what forms and phrases soever he expresseth himself No words being of further use than as they are the Interpreters of the heart For it is not words and phrases wherein good and evil consisteth but truth and honesty which commends us to God and the only thing commanded in his Law Par. I have no other objection concerning Oaths I pray therefore let us pass to some other subject of Controversie wherein if you can give me as much satisfaction as I have received in this beyond my expectation I hope neither will you have cause to think your pains nor I my time ill bestow'd Min. I shall readily embrace your motion and therefore let me hear what your other scruples are Par. You pretend your selves to be the Apostles successors and imitators if so how comes it to pass that you preach not as they did but single out a Text out of which you compose your Sermons What warrant have you for so doing Min. The Apostles themselves took texts out of Scripture to expound and apply them St. Peter did so in his Sermon Acts 2. and St. Paul in the Synagogue at Antioch Act. 16. And they both preached Christ out of the same text namely Psal. 16. 10. And the whole fourth Chapter to the Romans is but an enlarged discourse upon Gen. 15. 6. Again you may consider the Apostles and we act under different circumstances They might sometimes without a Book speak by the sole authority of infallible inspiration But now such extraordinary gifts being ceased we take texts to shew we have no other Doctrine to deliver but what is taken out of the written Word of God And our only work is