what their own Religion is which they would have us to receive We know not but the fag-end of it that is yet out of sight may be so abominable as to shame all the rest I am resolved to be of no Religion that is kept in the pockets of men and must not be all made known to the Church as the Papists keep things undetermined to make us new Articles of saith quoad nos as they speak when they please Reason 3. No man of Reason should be a Quaker considering that among those scraps of their Religion which is made known there is so much notorious falshood and ungodliness It s like to have a good end that hath such a beginning This falshood and wickedness cannot soder with saving truth The very person of Jesus Christ many of them blaspheme and speak allegorically and equivocally when they mention his name and nature and so shew that indeed they are not Christians One of them lately spoke to a Christian in these words I deny the God that thou worshippest The Scriptures many of them in my hearing and in others have denyed to be the rule of Faith and Life and the Hebrew and Greek text they expresly said they do deny They reproach the Catholick Church and the Ministers They deny many of Gods Ordinances not only the Baptism of Infants but of any and use not the Lords Supper They deprave the Doctrine of Justification denying the imputed righteousness of Christ and trusting to that which is in them only Many more such abominations they maintain which certainly tell us they are not of God If any man say that all of them are not of these opinions I answer What a fair distracted company are they already then when they are of so many minds and we are never the nearer knowing what they hold by hearing and reading the sayings of so many Reason 4. Besides their false pernicious Doctrines their Practical Religion doth much consist in notorious wickedness injustice and uncharitableness I shall here instance but in three parts of it 1. Their very preaching and zealous talk is much if not most of it malicious prating against Gods servants 3 Joh. 10. and railing accusations and reviling words yea lyes and slanders impudently charging that upon the Ministers of Christ which they have not so much as a reasonable pretence to accuse them of There is scarce a scold heard among us in seven years time that useth so many railing words to the basest that they quarrel with as these people will use familiarly in their Religious exercises against the faithful servants of Christ Nay I have had more railing language from one of them in one letter then I ever heard from all the scolds in the Countrey to my remembrance this twenty years And no servant of Christ who hath learnt of him to be meek and lowly can believe if he be well in his wits that this is the language of the Spirit of Christ He that being himself reviled reviled not again 1 Pet. 2. 23. and hath commanded us not to eat with a railer 1 Cor. 5. 11. and hath given such an odious Character of such 2 Pet. 2. 10 11 12. Jude 8 9 10 c. will hardly own them for his best servants If we may judge what Countrey men are of by their language these are not of heaven nor fellow-Citizens with the Saints that so reproach and rail at Saints And it is the more impious in that they entitle God to it and think they do him service by reviling his servants yea and abuse the phrases of Scriptures to it as if they might call such by any names which God hath called the worst of men by Even dogs wolves greedy dogs and hirelings children of the Devil and enemies of all righteousness hypocrites Devils with abundance such 2. They break the fifth Commandment by open dishonouring of Magistrates and Ministers and impenitently justifie themselves in all They will not only deny civil honour to the Magistrate but revile him if he displease them Their language is like the rebellious followers of Corah Numb. 16. 3. Ye take too much upon you wherefore list ye up your selves above the Congregation of the Lord 3. Many of them live idly and disorderly going up and down the Countrey and living on the bread of others and not working with their hands contrary to 2 Thes. 3. 6 11. Reason 5. The worst of all is that they behave themselves like Malignant enemies to the very Cause and Church and Gospel and Servants of Jesus Christ And if they be of the Serpentine brood they cannot be the only servants of Christ sure Most of them that I have seen have an altered countenance looking upon every man that they suspect to be a Minister or a friend to the Ministry with such detestation and hatred as if malice it self had chosen their faces to demonstrate its complexion in Their very design Religion and work is to make the people hate the Ministers and revile them as they do as if this were a mark of a converted man And besides this Ministry as much as they revile them who have we to carry on the work of the Gospel A mean wit may easily see what would come of the Gospel and of the Church and the souls of men if the Ministry were hated rejected or cast out Doth it go well with any Nation on earth without them Name me the place Will the Gospel be propagated without Preachers Or have you better enough if all these were down Where be they that we may see and know them He that would destroy the Commanders and Magistrates is like to be an enemy to the Army and the Common-wealth They take the same course against the Church and Cause of God as the malicious enemies in all ages have done even to oppose the best and painfullest Ministers Such as the Heathens tormented and the Papists burnt and others silenced these men choose out to vilifie and oppose Mark when they come to any Town whether they do not ten times more oppose the Ministers that spend themselves in private and publick labours against sin then they do the most ignorant or vicious men Cannot we see whose servants they are when we see who they fight against even the choicest servants of Christ It is a wonderful thing that even Malignant enemies shall be thought to be Christs only servants by any that know what it is to serve him or what an enemy differeth from a friend Reason 6. Moreover that part of the Quakers peculiar Religion which consisteth not in errour and Malignant impiety is very much of it made up of childish unreasonable fopperies When they have called me Dog and Devil and abundance of such names and I have asked them what was my fault forsooth it was that I was called Master that I stood above the people in a pulpit that I preached by an hour-glass that I preacht by Doctrine and Use and such like And doth the
One Sheet against the QUAKERS By RICHARD BAXTER LONDON Printed by Robert White for Nevil Simmons Book-seller in Kederminster Anno Dom. 1657. One Sheet against the QUAKERS THE lamentable ignorance and ungodliness of too many of the common people and the pride and self-conceitedness of many Professors of godlyness and the weakness unsettledness and giddiness of others doth give advantage to all sorts of Hereticks and Deceivers to make their attempts with hope of success And to our wonder grief and shame we see that scarce any of them are so grosly unreasonable and vile but they get some followers in most places where they come And when this wind ariseth to try our Congregations and neighbours the light unstable chassie Professors are carried away And though one sect have carried away some of them and another hath risen and condemned that and carried away more and another and another have done the like by them yet still the next sect that riseth up is as confident that they are in the right and as zealously vent their own conceits and condemn all others as if they had never been warned by the examples of so many before them whose confidence hath left them in contempt like Prognosticators Wizards and false Prophets that will be bold to prophesie of uncertain events though so many of their predecessors have lest their names to the derision of posterity We cannot wonder therefore if among other sects the Quakers with their German Brethren the Paracelsians Behmenists and Seekers do step in and take their turns in the game who will come down with greater shame then most that have gone before them when they have plaid their part The man that will stand safe and look on the folly and misery of all these sects with prudence to his own advantage must be A sincere Cathoâ—â—ck Christian saved from Infidelity and Impiety Having one God one Mediator between God and man one holy Spirit being a member of that one Catholick Church which is not confined to the sect of Papists or the sect of Anabaptists or any sect but containeth all the true Christians in the world though some parts of it be Reformed and pure and others more deformed and corrupt having one Catholick Rule the Word of God and a Catholick Love to all Christians in the world with a care and desire of their welfare proportionable to their several degrees of loveliness Being my self a member of this Catholick Church and finding my self on the Rock which the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against the security of my station encourageth me the more boldly to do my part in defending the cause of God against the assaults of all these deluded ones and particularly the Quakers And if any man find in himself the least temptation to like of their way I shall here give him those Reasons in a little room that move me to conceive that no Christian or reasonable man should be a Quaker or approve of or excuse their way Reason 1. The Quakers with the Seekers deny and revile the Church and Ministers of Christ and yet cannot tell us of any Church or Ministry which is indeed the right and to be preferred before these that they do despise If the Quakers are of no Church themselves they are no Christians and then they are Infidels Atheists or Heathens If they be of the Church let them tell us which is the Church that they are of They renounce the Church that we are of and that is the only Church on earth containing all true believers in Christ They have not told us of any sect but their own which they take to be the true Church And he that takes the Quakers to be the only Catholick Church must deny the Church and Christ himself if he understand what he saith For the Quakers are but of a few years standing They rose from among the Papists Seekers Ranters and Anabaptists but a while ago And if Christ had not a Catholick Church before then and ever since his Ascension he ceased to be Christ in Office the Head and Saviour of the Church For no Church no Saviour No body no Head No School no Teacher No Kingdom no King No Wife no Husband So that its all one to say that the Quakers have made a new Catholick Church when there was none before and to say they have made a new Christ where was no Christ before This Argument the Papists abuse upon false suppositions but it is only the Catholick that can make just advantage of it and may better ask the Papists Where was your Roman Catholick Church before 400. or 500. or 600. years after Christ then they can ask us Where was your Church before Luther Where there were visible Societies of Christians there was a visible Church I dare not be of so narrow a Catholick Church as the Papal is much less as the Quakers or any upstart sect I profess my self a member of a far wider Catholick Church then all of them set together in which I hope to live and die Reason 2. No wise man can be a Quaker because their Religion is an uncertain thing And so is not that Religion that must save us The things that they agree in besides the furious opposition of others are but a few broken scraps of Doctrine which they never yet set together as making the substance of their faith I never met with man that heard of any sum or body of their Divinity Faith or Religion which they have published No not so much as in Catechism or short Confession Nor did I ever hear that one of their Speakers did ever recite the substance of their belief If they know not yet the contents of their own Religion they are too blame to be so zealous for it and thrust that upon others which they know not themselves and well may we stay till they know it better before we become their followers for we know not what The Christian faith is known long ago even this 1600 years and more If they say that they wait till the Spirit revealeth it I answer The Spirit hath revealed and sealed the Christian Faith long ago though it must transcribe it out of the Scripture into the heart of every believer The Spirit is not given now to make us a new Religion or new Gospel Gal. 1. 8 9. but to cause us to believe and receive the old one I abhor any Gospel or Religion that was not made 1600. years ago at least If they look for a Spirit to make them a new Religion or belief they have not and expect not the Christian Religion or belief Well and will any but a mad man let go his Christian Faith before he know where to have a better or for he knows not what shall we turn Quakers meerly because they bark and bawl at our Religion Ministry and Church before they once tell us where to find a better or give us so much as a Catechism or Confession to tell us
will not be beholden to thee for the patdon of any more sin or for the blood of Christ to that end They will not say Forgive us our trespasses For what need they a Christ and pardon that have no sin And thus they suppose themselves to be in heaven already For if they are perfect and sinless what 's that but a great part of heaven and how is it that they have not the beatifical vision and be not with the Angels for what can hinder them but sin Nay it seems they take themselves to be as perfect as Christ himself For what can they have more then a sinless perfection And see here what an unhumbled people these are that dare think so highly of themselves and how shameless to boast of finless perfection even with railing and other sin in their mouths or open in their practices and Doctrine Reason 10. And in this and many other Doctrines they do so openly comply with the Papists that we may plainly see that the Jesuites and Fryers are their Leaders This hath been proved by many Confessions as I have shewed elsewhere The Papists make the Scripture a dead letter no sufficient Rule of faith or Judge of Controversies and so do they The Papists cry down our Church and Ministry and so do they The Jesuites cry up free-will and sufficient grace to all and a common sufficient Light and so do they The Papists do extenuate imputed righteousness in setting up inherent and so do they The Papists place most in external abstinence and observances and seeming austerity and so do they The Papists say the Pope is not the Antichrist and so do they The Papists say that they can keep all Gods Commandments and have a sinless perfection and so do they Many other of their Doctrines they maintain So that you may easily conjecture that Quakers do but prepare you to be either Papists or open Infidels at last Reason 11. Their Doctrines are self-contradictory and therefore they cannot be of God They say that all men have a sufficient light within them And yet they go up and down preaching with great zeal and violence And what do they preach is it light or darkness If darkness who would have such Preachers If light what needless labour is this when all men have sufficient Light already And they will revile the Ministers as blind guides and tell their people they are all in darkness and the way to damnation And yet all have sufficient Light within them If all why not the Ministers and their people Are not they men Reason 12. Consider also how suitable their Doctrine is to the Interest and Pleasure both of the Papists and the Devil When they damn all the Ministers and Churches of Christ how can they please the Devil better O what would he give them that this were but true Now the Kings of France and Spain are striving for part of Italy or Flanders if you say This Countrey is all the King of Spains and none of it the Kings of France is not this for the interest of Spain So Christ and the Devil are striving about the souls of men and you step in and say of almost all the Church of Christ yea of the most eminent godly Christians all these are hypocrites and the children of the Devil is not this for the Devils interest and are you not the Patrons of his cause against Christ And if you do but unchurch all the Reformed Churches the Papists will give you a see Reason 13. The Doctrine and practice of the Quakers is contrary to the experience and holy nature of the Saints They have found a renewing light and life by this Scripture and Ministry which the Quakers make so light of They tell our people that our Ministry doth no good and none are the better for it which the experience of many thousands doth confute who can say as the man in John 9. 25. One thing I know that whereas I was blind now I see Moreover the Christians nature containeth in it a Catholick Love to all the Saints and they honour them that fear the Lord Psal. 15. 4. And therefore it is quite against their holy nature to damn and reproach the Saints and call them the children of the Devil and to dishonour and spit in the faces of them that are their fathers or guides in Christ that watch for their souls as men that must give an account 1 Thes. 5. 12. Heb. 13. 17. They cannot be so barbarously ungrateful and so rebellious Reason 14. The Quakers are unlikely to be better then other men seeing they are so notoriously Proud Pride is an high esteem of our selves with a desire to be highly esteemed by others And this they manifest openly without all shame some may take them to be humble that judge by their cloaths and crying down high titles But alas it is a childish Pride to be Proud of fine cloathes This is too low a game for them to play The greater the matter is that men are proud of usually the greater is their pride It is the supposed Spirit of God and extraordinary holiness and inspiration and abilities that they are Proud of Do you need any proof How could the Devil himself shew Pride more notoriously when they proclaim themselves perfect without sin can they yet think highlier of themselves or speak highlier of themselves then this What is proud boasting if this be not And when they pretend to know mens hearts which is the prerogative of God and to speak by inspiration when they condemn almost all the Church of God and vilifie the holyest of his people as if they should say Stand by we are more holy then you you are all ungodly in comparison of us When they revile the ablest godly Ministers as if they said Come down thou deceiver thou ignorant man thou hypocrite thou dog and let us be the Speakers that can do it far better then thou that are more understanding holy self-denying and sincere Is not one half of this their ordinary speech and the other half their practice when they set up themselves to speak in the stead of Ministers yea and proclaim their own goodness to the world I confess I never saw greater appearance of Pride in men Reason 15. They plainly discover a persenting spirit For what man can in reason think but that they that run up and down the world to bring the Ministry into hatred and call them greedy dogs and Devils and judge them to damnation and call on the Magistrates and people to cast them out as dung would quickly use them thus themselves if it were in their power Will they perswade others with such exceeding pains and zeal to that which they would not do themselves And they that so damn our godly hearers would not they persecute them also I confess I make no doubt of it but if they had power many of them would do more then silence the ministry even persecute them to