Light and Lamb that taketh away the Sins of the World not only to take away Sins past through Remission but Cleanse from the Nature Root and Ground of Sin by His Holy Blood which sprinkles all Consciences that wait and walk in the Light the Just Man's Path from Dead Works to serve the Living Lord God in Uprightness for ever For this Cause are We brought out into the World behold the Vessel we are embark'd in our Lading and the Country we make for The Vessel Truth the Lading Faith and Good Works Our Souls the Passengers and the Country the Land of Everlasting Rest This I could not but present you with that no Endeavours of our Enemies may be able to lodge a False Character of us and our Principles with you Though I must faithfully tell you that I should wrong my own Reason as well as your Judgment and speak against my Conscience too if I should let in one Thought of this Man's Ability to do us any great Mischief with you for out of no Insult but in Real Truth I take Him for a very Unskilfull Pilot on our Coast a Man unacquainted with our Concerns and a most Incompetent Person for an Antagonist Accept for I can ask no Excuse for my Plainness I have not fawned I never could and now much less These Matters not only deserve but require greatest Plainness And Men that believe they shall have to do with God after they have left having to do with Men ought to act with greatest Circumspection and Sincerity Remember your Original remember your End and know assuredly that but Breath is in your Nostrils and for every Deed done in this Mortal Body whether it be good or whether it be evil will God the righteous Judge require an Account from You before his great Tribunal where may you all be able to answer with Joy I am Your Faithful Friend William Penn THE CONTENTS CHAPTER I. HIs Epistle considered page 13. CHAP. II. His Comparisons of us with ancient Hereticks considered p. 21. CHAP. III. His Comparison between us and the Familists p. 30. Of Christ's Ministration p. 31. Of Revelation p. 37. Of Miracles p. 40. Of Forms of Prayer p. 43. Of Baptism p. 45. Of the Supper p. 57. CHAP. IV. Of Holy Dayes p. 63. Of Holy Places p. 67. Of Tythes p. 72. Of Gospel-Ministers p. 81. CHAP. V. That Quakery is not Saduceism as charged p. 88. CHAP. VI. The People called Quakers not inconsistent with Government p. 92. Swearing not lawful to true Christians p. 96. CHAP. VII Of the Nature and Sufficiency of the Light within p. 101. CHAP. VIII Of Lyes and Slanders promoted by him against us p. 110. CHAP. IX Of Perfection p. 114. CHAP. X. Our Wayes of Conversion Scriptural and justified p. 117. The Conclusion to the Justices of the Peace p. 131. ERRATA READER SOme Faults have escaped the Press which thou art desired to Excuse and Correct the Book otherwise asks and I hope needs neither Page Line Error Corrected 13 14 he I 35 5 and who 44 26 it be it to be 66 1 I I should 67 9 any any thing 71 28 a House Houses 91 28 object and Faith and blot out and Faith 98 19 to to be  26 their his 100 22 Affirming Affronting 107 25 Jo. 1.1 Jo. 1.1 5. 112 1 was done was not done Wisdom Justified OF HER CHILDREN From the Ignorance Calumny of H. HALLYWELL CHAP. I. His Epistle considered THe Adversary we have to do withal begins his Dedicatory Epistle thus The daily and Numerous Encrease of the Heretical Generation of Quakers in these Parts made me a little more then ordinarily inquisitive into their Doctrines and Perswasions which â—â— found not only Destructive of Civil Government but Religion it self 'T is natural with Ignorance to be Proud and Envy to slander His Enquiry has been at our Adversaries Door not ours They that read him and those Books that lately came out may know his Informers without further Cost But Book-Robbery though to Untruth is an old Priest-trick If his Sort of rendring us Unconsistent with Government could incense the Civil Magistrate to our Destruction we know very well Traducers would not be wanting Truth has never been persecuted under that Name Heresy is an old Blot the Devil has cast upon it that it may become suspected with the Simple And Christians were of old worried in Beast Skins Such Coverings the present Heathen Spirit has provided for us But as we cannot but bless the Name of Almighty God that he has brought us to the Knowledge of his good old Way of Truth in the Inward Parts So do we affirm it to be neither averse from Government nor destructive of Religion right Government being according to it and pure Religion being to keep our selves Unspotted from the World and to do or suffer which we have ever done and God knows to that is the Tendency of our Holy Principle to wit Moderation Justice Industry Temperance and Upright Conversation But the true English of this wicked Suggestion is no more then this The Quakers and their Perswasion are inconsistent with Will-Worshippers Hirelings Men-Pleasers Persecutors Oppressors They give the World an Alarm for these things and Round their Ears with the Necessity of walking in so streight and narrow a Way as gives great Disquiet to the Libertin and brings the Priests Qualification into great Question and his Trade into absolute Danger No wonder then so many hard Names are cast upon us to deter such as are unacquainted with us and beget Scruples in them that are Well disposed to us However this Contentment his Paragraph gives that notwithstanding all this Opposition we daily and numerously encrease for which my Soul is greatly glad and my Knees bow to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ that he would continue to prosper and speed his own great Work of Redemption in the Earth But he goes on For what else can be expected from them who deny the Scripture to be the Word of God and Rule and Guide in matters of Salvation Answ We do not deny the Scriptures to be the Word of God and Rule and Guide in matters of Salvation out of any Undervalue of them but from that reverent Regard we have to Chrâ—st the Great and Eminent Word who was with God and was God by whom all things were made Who is the Way Truth and Life the great Prophet Judge Law-giver and Priest to his People whose Lips preserve Knowledge He is the New Covenant Rule and Judge and without him we can neither understand nor believe the Scriptures as we should do Nay so far are they from being a Rule c. that a thousand Cases may happen wherein they cannot be a Direction to us Nay they may be burned drowned torn lost mistranslated added to diminisht Men may be robbed of them imprisoned from them but none of all this can or ought to be said of the Great Gospel-Rule
Impure and Antichristian But what have we Seduced People to Drunkenness Whoredom Perjury Wantonness Idleness or any such Unseemly or Irreligious Practice Let him tell me who of us are less Serious less Moral or worse Livers then we were before But the Truth of the Matter is this Our Way of Devouring Peoples Souls as he calls it is that which hinders the Hireling Pâ—iests from Devouring the Peoples Pockets and endangering their Souls too who teach for Hire and divine for Money and make Religion but a Stalk to Preferment who have the Shell without the Substance the Form without the Power From such in obedience to God's Spirit we have turned away and because we have dared no longer to put into their Mouthes their Covetous Spirit has swelled notwithstanding their Pretences and their Sheep-Skin burst and an arrant Woolf has come forth no true Sheep but a Sheep-Fleecer and a Sheep-Sucker of their Blood whose Innocency and Patience have plainly proved them such But the Wolf and the Fox's Skin have been always good enough for us any thing to disguise and make the Dogs fasten and worry to Death Our Conscience they call Enthusiasm and our solemn Confession Collusion and Equivocation our Perseverance is reputed Obstinacy our Plainness Singularity our Industry Worldly-mindedness and our Retired-Living Penuriousness our Rebukes of Evil they will have to be Censoriousness and our Disregard of Company Pride and Sullenness Whatever God by his Light has made Conscience to us there are a sort of Men that have so little Conscience as to construe it all backwards rendring us instead of Honest Conscientious Men A Pack of Fraudulent Cheating Fellows But we cannot help it if Men will Rage they must Their Shame and our Patience will the more appear He sayes Our Second Stratagem is to bring the People out of Love with their Pastors who have the Care of them Answ I know not a Quaker in the World that would not administer both Food and Rayment to the worst Persecutor as a necessitous Creature But I hope they would suffer unto Death before they would contribute either to him as a Priest No God's Witness in our Consciences never said Amen to their Ministry They have the Scriptures true But the Word of Reconciliation that brings to God and of which they declare they want I know that some of them can talk well so can some Mountebanks And Comedians Do they witness the Truth of what they speak Their Heads know but do their Hearts feel the Operation of That Truth they will sometimes in Words declare Have they travelled the Way and traced the many anxious Steps of that new Birth which is the only Door into the Heavenly Kingdom But alas Oxford and Cambridge make them and their Parents and Patrons prefer them a good round Maintenance is mostly their Aim on all hands Tell them of the Necessity of an Inward Work that it is the Spirit of God that only makes a Man a Minister of God and that the Anointing which true Christian-Men receive is Sufficient to their Instruction and presently the Cry is Donatism Pelagianism Familism Brownism Jesuitism Quakerism or any other Name that begets Jealousie Undervalue and Hatred In short we do believe that the setled Ministers of the World are so far from being Beneficial to People that on the contrary they excercise their minds with a sort of unexperienced unauthoriz'd Preaching from the secret Strivings Discoveries and Leadings of that Spiritual Minister of the Everlasting Covenant which is able to bring Man into that way of Holiness without which no Soul shall ever see the Lord And this is the true reason why we are turned unto God's Minister Christ Jesus who says Learn of me of whom God said this is my beloved Son hear him reject the Ministry of Man Our Third Artifice by which he sayes we gain our Proselytes is decrying all Human Learning Use of Reason That we are the most sottish Ignorant Sect that ever appeared in the World Yet for our own turn we will be nibling at it as G.W. in mentioning a Moth-eaten Manuscript mentioned by Beza in his Annotations Answ We have already said enough to defend Christianity from the absolute Necessity of Human Learning either to understand or vindicate it and so false is his Assertion that since Prophecy has ceased in the Church secular Learning hath been of greatest Use and Benefit to Religion that there is nothing more true then the contrary as it is commonly understood promoted and practised in the World I would fain know how many Rabbies Greek and Latin Philosophers yielded themselves Proselytes to the Christian Religion though they had his Presence Ministry Miracles Death and Resurrection amongst them who was and is the Author and Master of it If such Learning be so great a Friend to Truth How comes it that the greatest things have fallen to the Share of Poor and Illiterate Men And that such have been most apt to receive and boldest to suffer for it Why not Rabbies rather then Fisher-Men which was before the Pouring out of the Spirit of Prophecy And for what Reason should so many learned Academies since the pretended * Ceasing of it be overrun with such Foul Idolatries Gross Superstitions and flagitious Living as 1200 years past will witness Nay on the Occasion of any Reformation with whom is there more to do and who harder to be brought to yield then Universities have been Scripture and Story give it clear against him Not that I would be thought to oppose a Sort of Learning neither It has been Man's Erring from his Divine Guide that has made way for those numerous Theses Distinctions Books and Controversies the World for Ages hath been infested with Such are the Obscure Unintelligible and Unprofitable Metaphysicks of the Heathen too greedily received and mischeiveously increased by Fathers Councils School Men and our modern Universities to the corrupting of Christian Doctrine and disputing away the Benefit of Christian Life An unbounded Curiosity and Phancy have been the Womb that hath brought forth so much troublesom and unprofitable matter which began with a Degeneration of Philosophers True Philosophy in the beginning of it being no more then the Way of Holy Living by the Mortification of Passions But Learning as Religion failing by Corruption of Men is now degenerated into quite another thing Socrates taught proper Speech and good Life and such a Course of Learning turned to daily Practice and Profit severely forbidding all Curiosities and Niceties as what turned not to Good Life which he reputed the best Science And Plato would have the Poets banished out of his Common-Wealth as corrupting it with Fables thus was Learning as Religion once pure and Simple In short all right Learning is to be divided into these two True Knowledge and proper Language This Knowledge relates first to God and that 's only to be received from the Spirit of God and 2 ly the things of this
of what ever stands in his Way and refuses to receive his Mark in his Forehead or in his Right Hand This has occasioned so much Trumpery in Religion Ceremonies Shew and meer Formality have swallowed up the greatest part of It Now were Men brought to God's Heavenly Gift in themselves it would reclaim and leaven the Mind chain the Affections and bring Religion into Holy and Selâ—-denying Living and erect an Holy Regiment in the Heart and Soul by which the Heavenly â—mage would be renewed and Man become as one born again without which Translation there can be no entring into God's Heavenly Kingdom This the first Protestants made to be their Reason of their Revolt from Rome For though 't is true that they charged the Papists with making God's Tradition the holy Scriptures void by their numerous dark Traditions yet That which begot that holy Loathing of Rom's Superstitions Idolatries and Will-Worship was God's Grace in their Hearts their best Argument against Rom's Assault was this The Scripture which I believe from the Testimony of the Spirit of God in me which I can only understand from the Illumination thereof owns no such thing and therefore I reject it Such as converse with Luther and his Followers Zuinglius and his Followers will find this to have been the Foundation of their whole Work And our own Martyrology is full to our Purpose particularly Tindal Times and Philpot. I omit to mention a whole Cloud of Witnesses because I intend not to dwell here only this I would be at and I intreat you all to weigh it If any thing can give to understand aright and enable to practise those things of God which it is necessary for Man both to know and do then God's Light Grace or Word in the Heart What else can give us to relish the Divine Authority of the Scriptures themselves or to believe the Things therein treated of to be undeniable Truths Indeed the Want of This has been a great Occasion of Atheism for Man making practising and enacting That for Religion of which People has had no Assurance in themselves But if they should speak their Hearts 't is more probable They do not believe it but instead thereof deride it and so under a Shew of Religion live as Men without God in the World To prevent which and to bring Men to the true Understanding of what God expects from them in order to that great Account they are to give unto Him at the Revelation of his Righteous Judgments when he will judge the Secrets of all Men by Jesus Christ we do exhort all to Christ's Pure Unerring Light in the Conscience which is sufficient to daily Understanding Duty that what they believe and profess in Matters of so high Importance They maybe convinced in their very Conscience by the good Understanding the Inspiration of the Almighty gives of the Truth and Necessity thereof and not suffer themselves to be carried away with the Torrent of Fathers Councils Synods Doctors Scholars National Constitutions c. big and most times untrue and too often empty Words without that inward Conviction and Testimony of God's Good Spirit in Your Own Consciences the old Protestant and only primitive Ground of Truâ— Faith and Obedience I know and shall alwayes acknowledge that in the time of Ignorance the Almighty winked and that in every Age he has expressed his Regard to those under the various Forms of Religion ever in the World who have been Sincere-hearted and of Sober and Conscientious Conversation But I must also tell you that by how much the more needless and unwarrantable Customs Will-Worship and Human Religion built upon the dark and uncertain Conjectures of Men are receeded from and the Minds of People engaged in a diligent attendance upon that Divine Principle which only can clear up their Understandings and give them an experimental Knowledge of the True God and that Way of Worship and Service which may be most acceptable with him by so much more certain will they be of the Truth of their Religion in as much as they have over and above all external Record the Assurance of Unquestionable Convictions in their own Consciences Thus God that made Heaven and Earth knows we came to receive that Knowledge of him Which we now expose our selves to all Hardships to mantain We profest God but like our Neighbours in Works we denyed him We worshipt him after Men's Conceivings insomuch that I may say we worshipt the Unknown God in a False Way No doubt but we were stockt with the Common Talk of Religion but the Cross of Christ we were Strangers to His Blood we extolled whilst by Wicked Works we trod it under Foot And believ'd our selves Saved by it Who were Uncleansed from Sin The whole End of His Coming we esteemed the top of all Love but never knew enough of It truly kindled in our Hearts whereby to work such Faith and Resignation as could give us Victory over the World Thus were we Jews-like Children of God whilst we crucifyed the Son of God and of the Seed of Abraham whilst the Serpents Seed reign'd Heirs of the Kingdom yet not born again Free yet the Bondslaves of Vanity Oh! at this time of day it was that God â—ound us out and broke in upon our Souls with his Righteous Judgments for Sin and laid Judgment to the Line Righteousness to the Plummet within us the Book of Conscience was Opened and great Fear surprised us and Deep Sorrow fell upon us which brought that sudden and Strange Change that made us both the Derision of Prophane and Wonderment of Sober Men. The Author of the Account of Familism for want of more Skill and Seriousness calls it the Hypochondria as if it only had been a Flux of Melancholy overpowring the Strength of Reason and carrying the Understanding captive at the Impetuosity of its Fancies But having been thus made sensible of the Terrors of the Lord for Sin and being brought into a True Understanding of that Religion and Worship which most please God some of us were constrained and in Conscience bound to go forth into the World and publish these Tidings of Judgment for Sin and Conversion through Righteousness wrought by the mighty Power of God in the Conscience that all might be awakened to try their Works Faiths Worships and whole Religions whether they were of God or Men or they had been doing their own Wills or the Will of God that so they might be brought to experience God to be a God nigh at hand reconciled in Christ blotting out Sin and renewing a Right Spirit within by which their Religion might not longer stand in the Traditions of Men nor only Education of Parents but upon the Convictions and Operations of God's Grace in the Conscience And thus is all that Christ did without brought nigh and home to the very Soul The Seed of the Woman is known to Bruise the Head of the Serpent Christ the