p. 301. Add to this another Instance given in the Further Discovery before Quoted wrote by Five Ministers p. 91. of a Quaker woman who came to Disturb one of their Congregations at Kellet in Lancashire she fell into a Trance her Belly puffed up her sides Extended her Back-bone thrust out her whole Body as a Bladder when it is in Blowing c. This is attested under the hand or Mr. Moore Minister at Kellâ—t But Instances are Endless See the General Account of it in a Book Printed at that time 1653. call'd A brief Relation of the Irreligion of the Northern Quakers Wrote by Francis Higgison p. 15. Those in their Assemblies that are taken with these Fits fall suddenly down as it were in a Swoon as tho' they were surpris'd with an Epilepsis or Apoplexy and ly Groveling on the Earth and strugling as it were for Life and sometimes more Quietly as tho' they were Departing While the Agony of their Fits is upon them their Lips Quiver their Flesh and Joints Tremble their Bellies swell as tho' Blown with Wind they Foam at the Mouth and sometimes Purge as if they had taken Phisick In this Fit they continue sometimes an Hour or two sometimes Longer before they come to themselves again And when it leaves them they Roar out Horribly with a Voice Greater than the Voice of a Man The Noise those say that have heard it is a very Horrid Fearfull Noise and Greater sometimes than any Bull can make The Speaker when any of them falls in this Fit will say to the rest that are sometimes Astonisht at this sight especially if they be Incipients let them alone trouble them not the Spirit is now strugling with the Flesh if the Spirit overcome they will Quickly come out of it again though it be sorrow now it will be Joy in the Morning c. And when they have said a few words to this Effect they go on with their Speaking Sometimes they carry those wretched Patients to Beds when they are near them and let them Ly on them till their Fit be over These Quakings they Maintain Saul's Errand p. 5. and in their Books and Papers call them the Marvelous works of the Lord Battels of Shaking and Trembling before the Presence of the Lord and call them that speak against them Ishmaelites that scoff at the works of the Lord They say also those that speak against this Quaking shew themselves to be Blasphemers and that it is Presumption and Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost to speak against it Thus that Account Take another two Years after this Wrote by Mr. Edmund Skipp then Minister of Bodenham in Hereford-shire but who as himself tells us had been before seduc'd by the fair Pretences of the Quakers and was one of them But by the Great Mercy of God having Discover'd their Gross Deceits he Return'd from them and then Gave notice of them to the World in a Book printed 1655. which he Intituled The Worlds wonder or The Quakers Blazing-Star c. there p. 22. he tells of these Mysterious Deceits of Anti-Christ Which I gather says he from those strange and unheard of Passions and Agonies those Great Burthens and Exercitations of Body in so much that they are sometimes in Trances and Soundings and if they are not brought into such a state of Deadness as it were yet they suffer most Extreme Tortures of Body that hath been Visible to me and several others many times nay so much Extremity that it maketh them Roar out for very Bitterness And I do clearly Judge that if the Lord did not Limit the Devil in their behalf as he did for Job saying Thou shalt not touch his Life it wou'd be Impossible for their Concaves to hold their Inwards in those Violent Motions for they are made under those Agonies to Tremble and Quake as though their Flesh must part from their Bones and Ligatures like unto Men in the strongest Fits of an Ague that ever you saw as tho' they had seen Belshazzar's Vision Dan. 10. that made his knees smite one against another In those strange Passions they are Exercised with so much Heat I know not of what sort that it maketh them cry out for Drink and maketh them Sweat like men in most violent Feavers Now they call these Agonies the Fiery-Trial and say it is the Power of the Holy Ghost burning up and Destroying their Corruptions and Purifying them like Gold that is tried seven times in the Fire And that which is very strange when they are thus in the midst of these Extreme Shakings Quakings Trials Roarings and Perplexities that one wou'd think ther cou'd be no more Torment upon the Damn'd Spirits than is upon them at the Present yet many times when they begin to come to their Speech for it falleth out often that they are not able to speak for a long time they will speak how much Joy and Pleasure they have mix'd with that Torment in such an Inseperable Manner as they themselves Express as Heat and Fire mix'd together that they cou'd wish to be in it for Ever and Ever This they call Drinking of the Cup or the Undergoing the Curse and wrath of God as Christ did for here they speak to my Understanding most Blasphemously and say they must be brought to suffer as Christ did and to Undergo as Great a sense of Wrath as He did when he Cried out My God My God why hast thou forsaken me In a word as far as ever I cou'd Understand their Apprehensions by their Expressions in this last particular I did Judge this to be their Delusion that they must suffer Eternal Burnings bearing the full weight of Divine Justice and wrath as fully as though ther never had been any Christ Crucifi'd or acceptation of His Sacrifice untill as they say ther shou'd be no more left in them but the Pure seed of God in its own Perfect Likeness And they say that Condition or state which is call'd in Scripture Hell or Everlasting Torment is but a Dispensation which shall End at such a time as that Burning and Torment of the Soul and Conscience shall have Refin'd it and brought it into its former Purity and Likeness of God Thus far I have transcrib'd out of this Author not only as to this of their Quaking but because he do's withal open to us the very Heart and Bottom of the Quaker Heresie viz. That the Meritorious Cause of our Justification is not the Sufferings of Christ in His Body upon the Cross but that the same sufferings must be wrought over again in us that we must Bear our own Sins in our own Bodies and must be Healed by our own Stripes which likewise they call the Sufferings of Christ or the Light within them And that what he suffers thus within every man is the only Meritorious Cause of his Justification and Reconciliation to God That what He suffer'd Outwardly upon the Cross is nothing to us but an Example a History
And to Him Only Yet but the very page before p. 148. they fiercely oppose Justification by the Rightcousness which Christ hath fulfilled in His own Person for Vs wholly without Vs Not that the Effect is wholly without us for it is rather wholly within us that is the Application of that Justification which Christ hath wrought for Us when it is brought home to our Consciences But the Price the Satisfaction for our Sins which is our Justification that is Wholly without Vs we are no Part of the Meritorious and Procuring Cause of our Justification that is only Christ His Blessed Death Sufferings and Perfect Rightcousness Perform'd in His own Person wholly without us But this is far from the Quaker meaning tho' it seems to be the Import of their Words And in the above Quotation where they ascribe their Sanctification Justification c. to our Lord Jesus Christ to Him Only and to His Blood they mean the Blood within and Christ within But as for Justification by the outward Christ as above they Return this Prodigious Answer which I have before Quoted And indeed this we Deny and Boldly Affirm it In the Name of the Lord To be the Doctrin of Devils and an Arm of the Sea of Corruption which do's now Deluge the whole World This is within less than the Compass of one Page to the above Quotation And but two pages before this they Deny that Person who Suffer'd that is our Lord Jesus Christ to be Properly the Son of God whom in this Quotation they Seem to call His only Son And this is not Contradicting themselves For the Mystery lies here they allow that Christ took Flesh but not into His own Person so that it was not His own Flesh only as He Borrow'd and wore it for a while And therefore that it was not His Person which Suffer'd only the Person of that Man Jesus in which He Dwelt The Person they Deny to be the Son of God but the Light within that Person they call the Christ the only Son c. And all this comes upon them because they do not truly believe the Incarnation of Christ or that He took our Nature into His own Person Which is the Charge against them and these are all the Testimonies which they have brought to Clear themselves And these do by no means Clear them But have Detected their Artifice much the more And Render'd them Doubly Guilty I have taken All the Quotations before-mention'd upon Trust except that out of the Serious Apology which I had by me for I wou'd not Causelesly suspect others of Deceit tho' themselves do it And because these Testimonies here brought by Appen are nothing to their Purpose as has been shewn Of the Reality of the Sufferings and Death of Christ II. The next Sect. 3. in Appen p. 19. c. contains Testimonies to the Truth and Reality of Christ 's Death and Sufferings But I may save the Reader and my self the Pains of Examining these Because if Christ was not Truly In-Carnat He cou'd not Truly Suffer And tho' He be said to Suffer Die c. yet that is not cannot be meant Properly by those who think that the Person which Suffer'd was not Properly the Son of God But they call these the Sufferings of Christ only because He permitted that Body to be Crucify'd which He assum'd as a Cloak or Vail but did not take it into His own Person by which Means only those Sufferings cou'd be said to be His Properly Therefore all they can say of the Death and Sufferings of Christ will never Clear them while they tell us that they mean it not in a Plain and Proper Sense But as our Sufferings may be call'd the Sufferings of Christ Col 1.24 Which in a Large Sense is True But our Dispute proceeds of Christ's Sufferings only in the Strict and Proper Sense Not as the Quakers think their own Blood to be the Blood of Christ And that same Blood by which we are sav'd Thus they told some who they said had shed their Blood You will by no means be thence Cleansed but by the same Blood which you so Cruelly shed This is in a Book Publish'd by them An. 1657. call'd The Guilty Clergy-Man Vnvail'd c. p. 17. Many Quotations of the like Nature can be Produc'd out of their Books But I stay not here Of the Resurrection and Future Judgment III. Appen Sect. iv p. 25. begins the Contrary Testimonies concerning The Resurrection and Future Judgment Where observe first their stating of the Case ibid. p. 25. We are more Learned say they in the School of Christ than to Deny or be Ignorant of so Inestimable an Advantage as is The Resurrection by Christ to Eternal Glory and of that Future Judgment by which the States of Men must be Determined Now nothing at all of this is the Question The Quakers have been told in the Sn. and Sat. Dis. of their Notion of an Inward Resurrection of Christ or the Light in their Hearts and of a Judgment there likewise Past upon Sin But the Question is of the Resurrection of the Body of the Same Body that Dy'd And concerning this ther is not one word of a Contrary Testimony among all those here Produc'd The word Body is not so much as nam'd in all these Testimonies except one which is a Testimony brought from Will. Penn. p. 29. where he says as there Quoted We own the Resurrection of the Body according to the Pleasure of God And every Seed shall have its own Body What Body they mean by this is told in the Sn. Sect. xii That by a Spiritual Body they mean no Body at all but only the Soul freed from the Natural Body which Natural Body they do not allow ever to be Raised again or Joyn'd to the Soul And there it is shewn at large That Will. Penn allows no Resurrection of the Body that Dies and Denies Positively That that Description of the Resurrection 1 Cor. xv Relates to the Resurrection of the Body at all but to the two States of Man in the Natural and Spiritual Birth And this same Appen instead of Contradicting do's Re-assert and endeavours to Justifie the Testimonies of the Quakers against the Resurrection of the Body And Repeats their old Argument against it p. 31. thus As for the Body 1 Cor. xv 37. Thou sowest not that Body that shall be Thence they Inferr That it is not the Same Body that Rises This is fully Answer'd in the Sn. Sect. xii of which no Notice at all is taken by Appen But the old Objection still Insisted upon And this where they Pretend to bring Contrary Testimonies to those Produc'd which Deny the Resurrection of the Body Yet this hinders not their Constant Boast which concludes Every of their Arguments of having fully Clear'd themselves and totally Overthrown their Adversaries Here says Appen p. 30. I have brought Twelve Witnesses to Testifie contrary to this Man 's
or Facilt Representation of the Greater Mystery of what He Suffers and Acts within us Wherein only the Atonement and Satisfaction for Sin is Perform'd And this they suppos'd to be done in these Monstrous Possessions of Quaking c. And therefore were greatly Desirous of them as thinking their state not secure till they had gone thro' one of these Fits at least As Mr. Skipp tells of himself while he was a Quaker p. 25. I thought it was my unhappiness says he that I was not and it was great Cause of trouble and unspeakable sorrow to me and that which caus'd me to complain bitterly time after time but they wou'd tell me that I must wait for it and they said that they cou'd Believe for me and they were Confident I shou'd be a very Glorious Piece c. Here their Spirit of Discerning fail'd them But that which makes the long Quotation I have taken out of Mr. Skipp the more Valuable is because G. Fox has wrote an Answer to it in his Great Mystery where p. 314. he after his usual fashion Epitomizes and Falsifies Mr. Skipp's words above Quoted thus It is Blasphemy to say we must fill up the sufferings of Christ. Ther are no such words in Mr. Skipp not so put together but he referrs to that Part above Quoted where Mr. Skipp calls it Blasphemy to say that they must suffer as Christ did and are sav'd by Their own sufferings and not by Christs In which G. F. opposes Mr. Skipp and says in Answer Thou hast not Drunk the Cup of the Wrath and Judgment of the Almighty and that you must Drink before you come to know the seed of God come from under all the Power of Wickedness in thee And Christ who bore the Sin of the whole world felt it and was under it and was offered and over it all and makes his Enemies his Foot-stool This is all his Answer And shews what he means by considering what it is which he opposes for without seeing the Books which he Pretends to Answer of which few are now Extant ther is no Understanding by him either what they said for he seldom Quotes them True or what himself says who cou'd write neither Sense nor English But here you see he Denies nothing of Mr. Skipp's Charge against the Quakers but rather Justify's and Defends it in other words that we must suffer as Christ did till the Seed of God come from under the Power of Wickedness which are almost Mr. Skipp's own words And Fox do's not Deny that they Place the Meritorious Cause of ther Justification in those Sufferings within themselves and not in the outward Sufferings of Christ And that when these Inward Sufferings in their Consciences are over and the Seed Purged then that ther is an End of Hell that these Sufferings of the Seed in them is the only Hell this Fox do's not Deny tho positively Charg'd upon them Which is a Plain Confessing The Least one can do is to Deny as G. W. here in this Answer of his But when we Pretend to Answer and dare not so much as Plead Not Guilty it is a full and total yielding to the Charge The truth is the Light within is All things to the Quakers its Shining as they think they are sure within them they call Heaven its being obscur'd that is Hell And they Believe no other Heaven or Hell or God or Christ but their Light within And when they are Possest with their Quaking Fits they call it the Fighting of their Light within against their Darkness within which G. W. wou'd turn off here upon Convulsion Fits For which I leave him to be Chastis'd by those Quakers who have wrote Apologies for their Quaking as being the Effects of a Divine Inspiration And those who were much troubl'd because that Extraordinary Quaking had now in a Great measure left them as if thereby they had Lost that Measure of the Spirit which their Fathers Possest or which Possest their Fathers To Comfort whom Pat. Levingston wrote a Book call'd Plain and down right Dealing wherein he told them that their first years were Purging years but that when Phisick had Purg'd sufficiently then the Patient was more Still and Quiet See the Sn. p. 295. yes George and after Convulsion-fits too when they are over But George few Desire fits of Convulsion or any Natural Disease and Long for them as the Quakers for their Possessions None Express Extasies of Joy in Natural Diseases as we have heard of this Quaker Sickness And all this cou'd not be Counterfited for None can Counterfit such violent Convulsions and Distortions as Exceed the Power of Nature In the Next Place Young Children among the Quakers were often feiz'd with these Quaking Fits and these cou'd not Counterfit And many Earnestly Desir'd them but cou'd not have them when they wou'd And since they are neither Natural nor Counterfit they must be a Praeter Natural either Divine or Diabolical Possession And which of the two it is ther are some Rules whereby to Guess which are Mention'd in the Sn. Sect. xxi which G. W. wou'd do well to Consider and not Shuffle them off as he do's in this Answer But he gives up the Cause by Assigning such Contradictory Reasons for in the same breath within the Compass of one Page he makes three supposes for these Quakings First The word and Power of God Second Convulsion-Fits Third Exorcism or the Casting out of some Evil Spirit If he had said the Entrance of the Evil Spirit and its taking of Possession he had come nearer the Mark But however Why do's he make so many Guesses at the Causes of this Quaking Did he not know whether it was Convulsion or Inspiration or Exorcism or was he Asham'd to tell Well but as to our Present purpose from whatever Cause these Quakings do Proceed it is allow'd on all hands that the Possession is very Strong and carries with it the most visible Effects of Madness And as the Old Proverb says Once Mad and Ever the worse so they who have been once Possess'd with these Quaking Fits seldom Ever after recover the state they were in before but have Raz'd Looks and something Frightful about them But it is not all the Quakers whom God has Deliver'd so far into the Power of the Devil And others have been Possess'd as well as the Quakers But this was more Peculiar to the Quakers than to any others of any sort of People otherwise they had not got the Name of Quakers from thence And at the time when the Devil was most Busie and these Quakings were most Violent and most Frequent about the year 1653 Quakerism was then but very young only three years old and the Quakers did not then bear Proportion of One to a Thousand speaking within Compass to the Rest of England so that we have had a Thousand of these sort of Mad-Men among the Quakers for One any where else And if we Reckon those Mad who
Sn. which he pretends to Answer This he must own Unless he can Produce Vouchers for their making Publick Confession of their Sins and Asking Pardon for them But since he himself the Eldest Preacher now among them cannot Vouch it I think we may Despair of any other If ther needed further Vouchers I cou'd Produce Many even as Many of their Hearers as will speak the Truth But I will give one Remarkable one which will shew that it is not Forgetfulness in them but against their Principle Mr. Thomas Crispe was of their Communion about 30 years a Constant Hearer and a Zealous Sufferer too among them But he took offence at their never having any Confession of Sin or Prayer for the Remission of it in their Publick Meetings and complain'd of it above 20 years ago But no Rectification No not at this Day when they are putting a new Face upon all their Matters But they will not be brought to this to Confess themselves Sinners for then they might be brought to Repentance of which they Declare themselves Incapable For this among other vile Heresies Mr. Crispe has seperated from them of which he has given us a very Good Account in Several Treaties he has wrote against the Quakers They who were of them must know them best Let me give another Authority of Daniel Leeds before mention'd in his News of a Trumpet Sounding in the wilderness c. p. 138 139. he Charges them in these words You do never in your Meetings Pray for Pardon or Forgiveness of Sin not that I have heard in Twenty years Due Attendance for seeing it is Christ in you that Prays ther is no need of it He being without Sin Secondly You do not Pray to Christ because it being Christ in you that Prays it is Absur'd for Christ to Pray to Himself Thus you see their Practice is Uniform all the world over yet not Consistent with it self For Rich. Hubberthorn p. 20. of his works Collected and Reprinted An. 1663. Repeating this Assertion of R. Sherlock his Opponent viz. Christ Himself was not Capable of Faith and Repentance Answers Here I Charge thee to be a Lyar and a Slanderer for He was Capable of Faith and Repentance Now How Christ Himself was Capable of Repentance who never did Sin And yet the Quakers to be above Repentance is left for them to Explain Fran. Bugg in his Picture of Quakerism Printed 1697. says p. 64. That he had been more than 25 years among the Quakers and a Principal-Member Yet never had heard any such thing among them Moreover that he had Read the Chief of their Books of which he there sets down a Catalogue and tho' ther are some Prayers in them yet nothing like Confession of Sin or Begging for Pardon of Sin is to be found in any of their Writings and he Provokes them to shew any Quotation of this sort out of all their Books He names p. 68. a Book of George Whitehead's call'd Judgment Fixed Printed 1682 where ther is a Long Prayer of near 5 pages beginning at p. 354. fill'd with nothing but Pharisaical Boast's of his own Perfections and Appeals to God with Imprecations and Reproches upon his Adversaries But not one sylable either of Confession of Sin or Asking Mercy for it I wou'd not take Bugg's word tho' I had no cause to doubt it lest G. W. shou'd Reproach me with trusting to his Authority But I procur'd this Book of G. W's and have it now before me with his Long Appeal and Supplication as he himself call's it which contains Prayers not so like Petitions As Overtures and Propositions And now upon the whole Matter after all the Wriggling and Dodging that G. W. or any of the Quakers can use it must be Known to all the World and without Contradiction what sort of Christians these Quakers are viz. such as cannot make use of The Lord's Prayer unless as one of their Preachers C. H. who taking occasion to Repeat it in one of his own Prayers perhaps on Purpose left out the Petition for Forgiveness of our Trespasses as Useless forsooth to the Quakers It was not made for them Nor they for it Unless they can have Liberty to Mend it as they have done to the Creed and the Decalogue All of which Articles and Commands they have Reduc'd to One viz. Hearken to your Light within For this with them is the only Rule for all Matters both of Faith and Practice But to see the Artifice and snare of the Devil in which these men are Caught They who are too Good for The Lord's Prayer have Coppy'd exactly after the Prayer of the Pharisee Luk. xviii 11. George Whitehead's seems to be taken word for word out of it only Enlarges it and far Exceeds that Pharisee in High Pride and valuing of His own Worthiness The Pharisee only Thanked God That he was not as other men are Extortioners Vnjust Adulterers that he Fasted and Gave Tythes of All That he did Possess These all were Duties Incumbent upon all and the Neglect of which had been a Sin in any But that is nothing to George Whitehead's Rant Being Free from Sin that is the Prerogative of every Quaker That was a Poor Matter for the Top-Apostle He tells God in this Prayer of his Extraordinary Gifts for which he is so Civil as to thank Him for his Christian Spirit his Faith and not only Patience but Rejoycing under all his Sufferings for his Righteous Judgment and for his Vnderstanding too he wou'd not thank God for Nothing and for his Zeal which was Most of All And that Thou hast Raised me up Says he to God in Defence of thy Gospel to vindicate thy Truth c. Thou knowest Says he the Integrety of my Soul before Thee and that I have not sought to Exalt my Self nor any Popularity Party or Interest to my Self but only thy Glory and the Good of Souls Thou knowest that in the first Place my Soul hath sought for Peace Thou knowest that thou hast Endued me with a Christian Spirit and with Faith Patience c. Thou hast also Endued me with the Spirit of Righteous Judgment Vnderstanding c. O my God! as I have Eyed Thee so I Recommend to Thee to Plead and Justifie My Cause c. we say one Good turn Deserves another Was ther ever such High Arrogance and Setting forth his own Excellencies in the Presence of God And to His very Face Before whom the Holy Job said Job xlii 6. I Abhor my Self and Repent in Dust and Ashes But he was an Vnderling to George Whitehead or the Meanest Quaker They do not Abhor but Vaunt themselves they scorn to Repent for they have nothing to Repent of They are Clean and Pure as God! who Chargeth his Angels with folly Job iv 18. xv 15. See before Sect. vii p. 87. and the Heavens are not Clean in His Sight But the Quakers Dare Reckon with Him when He Pleases and think they can
desir'd them to begin with the Scriptures and prove the Contradiction of my Doctrine first to the holy Scriptures and then it was time to Consider these men's Books Samuel Jennings in a publick Meeting at Philadelphia on a first day said it was not necessary to prove me guilty of Heresie whereof they had accus'd me from the Scriptures but from Friends Books for said he the Question betwixt G. K. and them is not who is the best Christian but who is the best Quaker And though I still desir'd them to bring their Scripture proofs yet they for most part waved that and continued clamouring that my Doctrine contradicted Will. Pen. Geo. Whitehead and other Friends which I did not know all that time that it did for though the places they quoted out of their Books seemed much to favour my Adversaries yet I was not willing to think so but labour'd to retain my Charitable perswasion of them putting the most Charitable Constructions upon their Words as was possible so farr as I had read the passages in their Books that seemed to interfere with me At last I came to a firm Resolution in my mind to Come for England having first writ to George Whitehead and other Friends of the Ministry about our differences desiring to know their sense they seemed to blame me for the separation but in great part to approve of my Principles but the words in their Epistles were so dubious like the Heathen Oracles that as to the main difference of Principles betwixt my Adversaries and me in Pensilvania it was rather increas'd by their Epistles then allayd my Adversaries Construing them one way and I and my Friends another way After I arrived in England and came to London And had some private Conferrences with George Whitehead and William Penn about these very Principles of the sufficiency of the Light within to Salvation without any thing else by the something else that I did plead for declaring that I meant the man Christ Jesus and his most holy and perfect Obedience unto death for our Sins and his Intercession for us in Heaven I began easily to perceive that they greatly differed from me in those great things yet they did seek to hide themselves as much as they well could mainly and almost only blaming me for the Separation and making a breach in Pensilvania and the neighbouring Provinces among Friends But by degrees the difference in Principles betwixt them and me began plainly to appear before they Excommunicated me at their yearly Meeting in the Year 1695. For at a large Meeting of Friends of the Ministry where were many Country Friends about two days before the yearly meeting in 1694. William Penn accused me for seeking to bring in a new method of Preaching Christ and Faith in him differing from that of Friends and that new method was to preach the Man Christ without us and his Death and Sufferings in order to bring people to know the Divine Principle within them and the work of Regeneration And at the said Meeting G. W. blamed me for affirming that all the Light and Grace that any men had in any age of the World was the effect of Christ's Obedience unto death for us and argued against it thus Men had Light and Grace before Christ came in the Flesh to perform that obedience can the Effect be before the Cause this plainly enough let me see into G. Whitehead's Principles he had the same strength of Argument but that 's none at all against any mens having Remission of Sin by Christ's death before he came in the Flesh why can the effect be before the Cause I told him a Moral effect can be before its cause and oft times is and gave an Example how a man by a Contract or Covenant buyeth a House or Field and posesseth it before the Money is paid the Condition of the Covenant being that the Money is not to be paid until such a time so by Virtue of the Covenant of Grace which respected Christ to Come and the satisfaction he was to make to divine justice by his Death and Sufferings for mens sins past as well as to come all the faithful had remission of sin and inward Light and Grace as well before he came as since And some Months after this at a publick Meeting of the Quakers at Ratcliff by London William Penn did publickly oppose my testimony and charged me to be an Apostate and that I endevoured to pluck up the testimony of truth by the roots And at the same time He told the Auditory that Friends saw no great need to preach the Faith of Christ's Death and Sufferings for all England had that Faith and all Christendom had it but it did not profit them * Reader by this Argument it should not be Preached at all With many Abusive words all which he father'd upon a transport of the glorious power of God at the next yearly Meeting when I Complain'd upon his so abusing me Yet they have after all this sought to hide the differences in Doctrine betwixt them and me from publick notice so that in their sentence of Excommunication they blame not my Doctrine nor Morals in any particular thing but cast out some general charges against me for being turbulent c. and seperating my self from the Church of Christ But their unchristian dealings with me as well as Antichristian Principles have sufficiently proved them not to be a Church of Christ though still I have that charity to diverse among them that they belong to Christ and his Church but not as respecting that visible Society that has less the face of a Church than any Society of Protestants any where in the world A third Reason is that this publication of the foregoing Relation will be a true Evidence and Witness for me that as to the great fundamentals of the Christian Faith I am not changed from what I was Twenty years ago when own'd among them and for many years after acknowledg'd by them that I was in the Unity And that therefore it is manifest to be a Calumny and false Accusation rais'd by some Malicious Persons among the Quakers against me that I am Apostatised from my former Principles of Christianity and have embraced new notions or Priests and Professors Principles as they are pleased 〈…〉 that formerly I had relinquished and from a tentation that I had let prevail over me to seek and affect preheminence over my Brethren and not finding my desire and end answered in that I sought occasion to differ from them and purposely chang'd my Principles that I might have a ground of Strife and Contention with them all which the Righteous Judge of the whole Earth and the searcher of hearts knoweth to be false and injurious charges I have sufficiently in my late Printed Books proved that I am the same in all Principles of Truth that I was formerly and wherein I am changed in some lesser matters of Perswasion it is to