not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdome of God Be not deceived neither Fornicators nor Idolators nor Adulterers nor Effeminate nor Theeves nor Covetous nor Drunkards nor Revilers nor Extortioners shall inherit the Kingdome of God and of Christ For there shall in no wise inherit there any thing that defileth neither whatsoever worketh abomination or maketh a lie Therefore Christ who hath purchas'd his Church doth also purifie it and cleanse it that he might present it unto himself a glorious Church without spot or wrinkle or any such thing but that it should be holy without blemish For they are redeemed from their vaine Conversation which they learned from their Fathers and do not after they have once learned Christ and have heard him and are taught by him in truth and as the truth is in him they do not walk as other people walking in the vanities of their darkned minds being through the ignorance that is in them strangers from the life of God But being renewed in the spirits of their mind and the Image of God being restored in them by the power of their new creation in and by Christ Jesus they put off as to their former conversation and manner of life the old man which is corrupt by deceitfull lusts formerly mentioned But they now also put off all this lying and defrauding and stealing and bitternesse and wrath anger clamor evill-speaking foolish talking and unfitting jesting And putting on the new man they now use such language that do edifie and built up others in holinesse and such as ministers grace to the hearers Their conversation being now without Covetousnesse and such as becomes the Gospel And according to their hopes and expectation as knowing that though God of free grace chose them from the beginning to salvation yet the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ must be by and through the sanctification of the spirit and belief of the truth and saithfull obedience And now acknowledging no other Soveraigne but Christ and acted by a spirit of love as sons they live to him who died for them being contented to be or to be accounted any thing so Christ may be glorified in them and by them whether by life or by death And having no confidence in the fesh or fleshy priviledges they worship God in the spirit and rejoyce in Christ Jesus Counting all things losse and dung in comparison of the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus their Lord that they might obtaine him and be sound in him not having their own righteousness which is of the law or by the law of working but that righteousnesse which is by believing in Christ the righteousnesse which is of God by faith And although they know that whiles they are in the flesh they shall not be in all things perfect yet forgetting that which is behind that to which they have already attained as not answerable to their longings they presse forwards more and more toward perfection grieving under their imperfections and longing to be disburthened until they reach the mark they ayme at the price of their high calling whereunto God hath called them in by Christ Jesus desiring in the meane time so to know him by an operative and effectuall knowledge and the power of his resurrection and to have communion and fellowship with him in his sufferings that being conformed to him in his death they might by all or any attaine their part and portion in the blessed resurrection And to this duty of holy walking a believer holds himself bound by his very profession for having by baptisme put on Christ and Christian profession he thereby engages himself as the Jew by circumcision to keepe the whole law so he by baptisme to believe observe and keepe the whole Gospel That very ordinance in its intent purport and signification directing him and pointing out unto him his duty as one specially interested in the ends and benefits of Christs death thereby sealed and signified So that he doth and must conlude that where sin had abounded and reigned in him before even unto death that there now grace and favour through Christs righteousnes doth reign much more to eternall life yet he dares not he may not still continue in his sin that grace might stil abound Nay he concludes as it is indeed it is impossible For how shall they that are dead to sin and so have no more to do with it live any longer therein for they know if they know any thing that as many as are baptized into Jesus Christ thereby baptized into his death buriall and resurrection are baptized and thereby engaged not only to the name profession and calling of Christ and Christianity and to own him in these particular actings But also if they expect to finde reall benefit by the worth and merit of them that they finde the reall and efficacious fruit of all these powerfully by the spirit working in them So that he concludes the death of Christ to be the death of sin And the resurrection of Christ the resurrection of the life of his grace holines Reckoning himself now no longer debtor to live unto the flesh and its corruption but debtor to live unto the spirit and its holy motions And having alwaies an eye to the great love of Christ who by his death and blood shedding hath thus redeemed him He cannot but often thinke upon him and thankefully remember him in and by that ordinance which he appointed in an especiall manner a little before his death for that very purpose wherein he publikely owns him and makes profession to the world of his faith and hope and rejoycing in him And thus Reader thou hast a little of much more that might be written of this great mysterie of godlinesse in which thou hast a rude delineation of Gods method in restoring fallen man into his favour through the whole progresse whereof as is easily perceiveable there runs a continued line and cord of free grace and mercy thus contrived and ordered by him for a threefold reason The first reason respects God himself who hath ordered it in this manner is that he alone might have all the praise the glory If salvation had been attainable by the law of working man might have had somewhat whereof to have boasted and gloried in himself For although that working had come infinitely short in proportion to the reward proposed And although that reward therefore was but upon a free promise And so only to be claimed Not through the worthinesse of the work or worker And although that work had been performed but by strength received from him by whom the reward was promised yet if man had performed the condition on his part required the Lord would
as it is made manifest in me and to declare what Faith we own and practise and what we do deny to that end that the simple may be informed and the way of truth cleered from such deceivers who are perverters of the Scriptures who would constrain people to follow their imaginations instead of truth as these men have done whose names are subscribed And now a few words in answer to that you call your first Principle First Principle That the Scripture is the rule of knowing God and living unto him which whoso doth not believe but betakes himself to any other way of discovering God instead thereof cannot be saved Answ The Scriptures are not the Saints rule of knowing God and living unto him but that which was before the Scriptures were written by which all the holy men of God knew him and here ye have made your selves manifest that ye have not the rule which Moses had which is the spirit of light by which he made himself known unto the sons of men and ye that teach people to walk in another rule are those that put light for darkness and darkness for light shewing forth the spirit of error and here ye pervert the Scripture and Moses words which prophesied of Christ Moses bad not the people walk by the Scripture neither did he tell them that living therein was the rule of knowing God but he directed them to the Life without which all their profession was abominable but ye are not come to walk in the Letter whose lips and practice doth not concord with it who are found acting those things which it declares against Matth. 23. who are called of men Master stand praying in the Synagogues which our Lord Jesus Christ cryed wo against and here your Faith and your Principle is descryed who are not so much as found acting in that which you call your rule Now lest you should boast in your glory and the simple be stumbled by your subtilty I am moved of the Lord to open and discover unto all that your Faith is no more then all the ungodly in this Nation doth profess and also that the Rule whereby the Saints are guided is that which was before the Scripture was First it is professed generally in this Nation that believing in the Scriptures is the rule of knowing God this have you preached for Doctrine among the people and yet the way of God is hidden from their eys who are found acting in the abominations of the Heathen as doth plainly appear by the sins of this people nay what sin is there that is not committed amongst this people which have professed the Scripture to be their rule and you that pretend to be their teachers are the greatest examples of their wicked practices Crying peace peace unto them when there is no peace one building a wall and another dawbing it with untempered morter but ye shall proceed no further but your folly shall be made manifest to all men Our rule is that whiâ—h Moses walked in and Abraham and David and all the Prophets which is Christ Jesus the light of the world which whosoever believeth not in him hath not God Moses walked in him Abraham believed in him and David delighted in his Law which is perfect and here we deny you who deny that rule in which the holy men of God walked in Second Principle That there is a God who is the Creator and Judge and Governor of the world and is to be known by Faith Answ The Saints God ye are ignorant of who put light for darkness and darkness for light and before him ye cannot stand in judgement who are found working wickedness making people believe that believing in a thing without them will bring them to the knowledge of God which none can know or understand but through death and if ever ye come to know this God whom the Saints worship in Spirit and Truth ye must witness a day of vengeance to pass through therefore stop your mouths ye proud and lustful ones the day of recompence is come in which ye shall receive double for all your wickedness The Lord is our Iudge our Law-giver and our King and this we witness though we had never seen the Scripture And here we deny you and your principles which is no more than that which the world professeth Therefore be ye ashamed ye wicked and ungodly ones who live in the beastly nature who knows no more of God than what ye have without in the Scriptures which they spoke forth that witnessed him before the Scriptures were written him we own and witness to be our King by him we are redeemed out of your generation glory to his name for ever who hath made himself manifest in us and hath brought us to that which was before the Scripture was Third Principle That this God who is Creator is eternally distinct from all other Creatures in his being and blessedness Ans God ye know not neither can ye see him but are found persecutors of him who would divide him from what he is by heathenish inventions which ariseth out of the corrupt sensual part which never shall inherit the Kingdom The being of God is not distinct from them that are begotten by him For as the Father and the Son are one without distinction so are they that are begotten by him and here you perverters of the truth are shut forth from God with all your distinctions and imaginations which ariseth out of the dark mind by which ye have all this while deceived the people Woe unto you ye enemies of God your foundation your compass and your end is made manifest unto the children of light who would divide God from his children whom he hath begotten unto himself through the word of faith in which we live and abide for ever And here I challenge you before the Lord to produce one Scripture which speaks of God being distinct from them that are begotten by him and if you cannot prove your words by plain Scripture let shame cover your faces and stop your mouthes for ever And for your fourth thing That God is three persons or substances this is also another of your lies never such a word is declared of in Scripture and thus have you made your folly manifest to all men and have cleared your selves from the Scriptures God is a mystery in whom the foundation of all things stands and he is but one in all though ten thousand times ten thousand Woe unto ye you perverters of the truth who blinds the eyes of the simple making them believe your imaginations and conceivings in stead of truth and this you run to the powers of the earth to propagate Ye men of sin did ever the Prophets declare of such Gospel as this or did ever the Apostles preach any such doctrine as this which ye would compel people to believe and would have the powers of the earth to propagate Here I challenge you again to prove your example
here 's manifest and horrid violence offered to the Majesty of the Almighty both in his nature and essence and to the doctrine of the Trinity And now in the second place I shall shew thee that they offer violence to Jesus Christ the Lord our righteousness God over all blessed for ever For as for Christ though they often mention him yet in deed and truth they make no more use of him then they doe of Moses and the Prophets I say in deed and in truth for they are meer juglers they speak one thing and mean another jesuitically equivocating So that it is a harder matter to find out their doctrines then to confute them It s usual with them to say they witness Jesus Christ and the death of the man Christ Jesus which suffered at Jerusalem they own and witness But what do they mean by these words they own and witness Is it any more in truth then what the very Devil is forc'd unto sc that there was such a Christ and that he did such and such things But as for Christ and the death of Christ and his righteousness wrought and done in his own individual person to be relied upon by faith rested in for justification of the Saints to life without any thing wrought or done in them or by them for that end this they utterly deny And whereas the Word proposes Christ the rest of souls they on the contrary say that he is not to be rested in They say that we must go through him as we go through Moses and the Prophets as thou hast seen in Foxes and Nailors book called A word from the Lord where they blame the Ranters that they never came through the Prophets nor Moses house nor Christ I have in part opened this already but if thou wouldest Reader more fully know their meaning what it is to go through Moses and the Prophets and Christ read but a passage in that book of Fox and Hubberthorne the title whereof I have formerly given thee sc Truths defence and there p. 68. l. 24. thou shalt find the meaning for he that will understand the language of Cut-purses and pick-pockets must learn it of their fellows and there thou shalt find what it is to come through the Law The Answerer to the Queries says that many do profess the Gospel and the new law of righteousness and are not come through the Law And that is as he there explains himself that the Law hath no more power over a man and that he is dead to it misapplying that which the Apostle there speaks of the law of sin or sin ruling by the Law to death and condemnation to the holy Law of God the Moral Law it self the eternal rule of righteousness as if a Christian should ever be dead to that and free from that as not to be bound to observe it And that this is his meaning the next page shews there in the beginning he says the Law and the Prophets were until John and John until Christ and bids those that can receive it that is understand him receive it and if they can they may So he says implying a mysterie something more then ordinary to be intended by him in that expression And then tels them that when they come to go through Moses and through the Prophets and through John to come to Christ then they shall see the light is but one sc the light of Moses and the light of Christ for that was the question propounded Whether there were any distinction between them as thou mayst see in that book Quer. 4. There 's just ground of exception against that too but 't would be endless to follow them to every by-path But by this thou seest their meaning what it is to go through Moses the Prophets and John scil to go beyond them and to be dead and free from them And the same say those Quakers in their short Answer to the 7 Priests who stile themselvs those Quakers who shal make all the world to quake and tremble printed by Calvert 1654. In the first page of that book they give good words of the Law viz. that it is holy just and good and perfect and pure But for these good words they presently in the next line say that it is but a Schoolmaster till faith and when faith is come we are no longer under a schoolmaster And this say they is witnessed amongst us And in the 8 page of that book speaking of the Moral Law they say that 's without and there it shall stand as you are the Priests in the first nature and that in their tongue is the perishing nature Why now says Naylor and Fox the Ranters failed in that though they had a pure convincement and started up to be as Gods they did not proceed they never came through the Prophets nor Moses house nor Christ All must be gone through we must not so much as rest in Christ And indeed what need is there For if we be once come to be equal with God as they say perfectly righteous in our own persons so that we can perfectly keep the Law and not sin in any thing what need Christ as a Mediator or an Intercessor and so no need of him for any thing This one desperate opinion is the very cutthroat of Christ and Christianity and makes Christ especially as to a believer of none effect and useless They are now their own Christs they have gone through him and beyond him They have now no more to do with our imagined God beyond the stars and our carnal Christ which they say those precious and godly servants of Christ would make appear through their heathenish Philosophy Nay beloved Reader do they not make Christ altogether useless to the Saints whenas they say the Elect were never defiled as they do in their answer to the 4. Querie put by Reeve and answered by Borro and Howgill And in the answer to the 5. they say again the Elect are not nor ever were defiled And surely if so no need of a Christ a Saviour and if the Elect have no Saviour none else shall and so no need of Christ at all then he came in vain and dyed in vain unless it be only to be a figure an example which is the cursed doctrine of the Socinians and which as in the brief Relation of the irreligion of the Northern Quakers p. 5. error 13. stands charged and not answered in the Lancashire Charge against them And well may this be their opinion if every man have a light within him sufficient to lead him to salvation then sure there is no absolute necessity of a Saviour Thus doe they offer violence to Jesus Christ our Saviour making him a meer shadow a type a temporary manifestation to be gone through not to be rested in and making void the chief end of his coming in the flesh and nulling his death and sufferings I might farther manifest this unto thee