if his citation from him be true and therefore finding this to pinch him he brings it up again p. 126. where bringing me in saying Infants are under no Law he answers but the Apostle saith the contrary He would have done charitably to have told me where that I might have observed it What he saith in this as wel as the former page in answer to my affirmation that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may relate to death and that it 's understood upon which occasion man sinned urging absurditys by the like application of Christ's Righteousness is solved by a serious observation of the comparison as stated by me betwixt Christ and Adam His arguing from Childrens dying doth not conclude untill he prove Death simply considered necessarily to infer guilt in the Party dying of which I have spoken before p. 126. n. 20. to my answer to Psal. 51 5. alledged by them wherein I shew that David saith not my Mother conceived me sinning and therefore it proves not his assertion His reply is after he has given a scoff it quite crosseth David's designe But why so because in that Psalm he expresseth his sorrow and humiliation for his sins and what then might not David lament upon that occasion that he was not only a sinner himself but also came of such as were so But when I urge this place further shewing their interpretation would make Infants guilty of the sin of their immediat Parents since there is no mention here of Adam his answer to this is a repetition of his own doctrin A rare method of debate very usual to him And then taking it for granted he asks me whether this originated Sin of which he supposed David spake for he never offers to prove it though it be the matter in debate came from another Original than Adam What he affirmed here of my insinuating Marriage-Dutys to be Sin is but a false conjectur but as to the hurt and loss that Man got by Adam which I ascribe to no other Original as being no Manichee I spake before but he should first prove before he obtrude such things upon others and I desire yet to be informed of him in what Scriptur he reads of Original Sin and whether if the Scriptur be the only Rule he can not find words in it fit enough to express his faith or must he shift for them elsewhere ¶ 8. Pag. 127. n. 21. He urges Paul's saying the wages of sin is death and to my saying This may be a consequence of the fall but that thence it can not at all be inferred that iniquity is in all those that are subject to death he saith it is in plain terms but my modesty dare not speak it out to say the Apostle speaketh not truth Answ. Is not this to take upon him to judge of another man's heart which elsewhere he accounts a great presumption why takes he no notice or gives he no answer to the absurdity I shew followed from thence since the whole Creation received a decay by Adam's fall and yet we say not Herbs and Trees are Sinners and while he would make-out this great charge of my contradicting the Apostle he forgets the half of his business which is to prove the Apostle meaned in that place Natural death and not Eternal since the Apostle opposeth it there to Eternal Life and eternal death he will confess is the wages of Sin which the Apostle shews they shun by Jesus Christ's obtaining Eternal Life whereas Natural death they do not avoid Likewise he should have proved that all the Scripturs mentioned by him p. 128. are meant of natural death which he will find not very easy As for his citing Death as mentioned by the Apostle 1 Cor. 15. the Apostle's words ver 56. confirm what I say That death is only a punishment to the wicked not to the Saints for the words are The sting of death is Sin so where sin is taken away there death has no sting and that is the Saints Victory Now he can not apply this to Infants without supposing that they have sin which were to begg the question And whereas he asks Whether Death be NO punishment for Sin I answer that I said not so neither is that needfull for me to affirm seing it is sufficient if it be not always a punishment of sin which if it be not it can not be concluded that because infants dye therefore they must be guilty of sin Since then the absurditys he after urges follow from his supposition that death is No punishment for sin which I say not they do not touch me He judgeth p. 128. n. 22. that I run wilder than Papists in saying we will rather admitt the supposed absurdity of saying all Infants are saved to follow from our doctrin than with them say that innumerable Infants perish eternally not for their own but only for Adam's fault This he reckons a contradicting of my doctrin of Christ's dying for all saying I here grant that all Infants will be saved without Christ. What horrible lye is this Where say I that all Infants will be saved without Christ If he say it is by consequence that I say so which he must needs do or els be an impudent unparallel'd lyar then he infers it either from my saying Christ dyed for all Therefore if all Infants are saved it must be without Christ or that If all Infants be saved Christ can not have dyed for all for one of these two must be if I contradict my self But such consequences are only fit for such an Author as seems to have abandoned all sense of honesty and Christian reputation and resolvs per fas aut nefas and without rime or reason as the proverb is to bespatter his adversary As for his adding they that have no sin have no need of a Saviour to save them from sin he overturns it all by asking me in which also lies the pinch of his matter since I affirm they have a seed of Sin in them wich is called Death and the Old man how can they put-off this and sing the Song of the Redeemed which all that enter into Glory must do Does not this then shew I believe they have need of Christ as a Saviour who dyed for them to deliver them from this and is not the contradiction his own in urging this question which I thus answer How are those he accounts elect Infants saved whom he affirms to be really guilty of Adam's sin and so in a worse condition than I affirm Infants to be for he will not say with Papists and Lutherans that the adminstiring of that they call the Sacrament of Baptism does it When he answers this he will solve his own argument To insinuat that some Infants are damned he asketh me what I think of those of Sodom Jude v. 7. the words are these Even as Sodom and Gomorrah and the Citys about them in like manner giving themselves over to fornication and going after strange
angry that I should condemne the Socinians and Pelagians but the reason is manifest because he would so willingly have it believed that I am one with them and albeit I could not in reason be obliged to say any thing more to these pages yet that none of these fictitious and false conjecturs may catch any unwary Reader I do freely affirm that I believe man fell and was degenerated both as to Soul and body and I understand the first Adam or earthly man to comprehend both but that there was something in Adam which was no part of his Soul and body nor yet constitutive of his being a man in my judgment which could not degenerate and which was in Adam by the fall reduced to a seed and could never have been raised in him again to his comfort but by a new visitation of Life which from Christ by the promise was administred unto him and is to all men in a day for to say the affirming such a Seed remained in Adam when he fell doth infer his understanding was not hurt and as he doth p. 94. is a consequence I deny and remains for him to prove That to believe there was such a thing in Adam which the Scriptur calleth spiraculum vitarum the breath of Lives is no new coin'd doctrin these may see that will read Athanasius de definitionibus and his third dialogue de Trinitate 4 oration against the Arians and Cyrillus Alexandrinus in his Treatise upon John lib. 2. 3. lib. 8. 47. and in his Thesaurus lib. 4. and others that might be mentioned As for his arguing p. 96. that because I affirm the Seed of God is a Substance therefore according to me the seed of sin must be a substance also which consequence I deny and therefore what he builds against me upon this supposition falls to the ground What he saith here and there scattered in these pages of the Light will in its proper place come more fully to be considered ¶ 2. Pag. 98. n. 17. after he has saluted me with the titles of effronted and impudent he will have me one with Socinians and Pelagians because I deny outward death to be a consequence of the fall but where he proves I do so I see not It 's true I say the death threatned Gen. 2 17. was not outward death for Adam did not so dye the day he did eat and I do still believe so neither offereth he me any thing to give me ground to alter my mind but to conclude thence I deny outward death to be a consequence of the fall was too hastily inferred But what if I were undetermined in this matter and that it remained a mystery to me for I believe not the being positive therein essential to my Salvation which if I were truly what he saith seems not to me sufficient to proselyt me to his opinion for albeit I willingly confess with him that sickness and all the other miseries attending this life yea and death it self considering the anguishes wherewith it is now generally accompanyed are the consequence of the fall and of sin yet I see not how it would thence follow that Adam should not have dyed seing death to him if he had not faln would have been freed of all these miseries and rather a pleasur than a pain which has been known to have befaln many Saints As for his n. 19. he confesseth the matter of it is left to the next chapter where I may meet him ¶ 3. Pag. 100. n. 20. he goes on at an high rate of perverting for after he has said Who would suspect but I mean honestly he applieth to me the saying of Solomon he that hateth dissembleth with his lips we must not believe him for there are seven abominations in his heart But why am I with him guilty of this great charge Because albeit I affirm that man is wholly degenerat yet I say Whatever good man doth in his natur that doth not proceed from him but from the Divine Seed in him Answ. These words are none of mine but a forgery of his own so incident it is for the man to lye and pervert and therefore all his vaporing and absurd inferences drawn from this throughout this Paragraph fall to the ground My words are that the natur by which the Apostle saith the Gentiles did the things contained in the Law cannot be understood of the proper corrupt natur of man but of a Spiritual natur which proceedeth from the Seed of God as he receiveth a new visitation of the Divine Love Where it is very plain I consider man as visited anew and that in the strength of that Grace thereby received not of his degenerat natur he doth that which is good Nor do I any where say as he falsly insinuats That this Spiritual Natur is in all men though I do say That all men are visited by God in order to beget this spiritual Natur in them as will after come in its place to be spoken of Now all his battering of this my assertion in the three following pages depends upon this supposition That the good acts done by the Gentiles are not done by vertue of any such visitation but only by a Light of corrupt natur which remained in them after the fall so that it is but a meer begging of the question untill that be first debated But he thinks he has brought me under a great dilemma p. 103. urging That since I say all their imaginations are evil I must say every Heathen has this Spiritual natur in him yea and the Devils must be partakers of it because they believe there is a God which is a good thought Answ. He is too hasty in his reasonings for that the knowledge a man may receive from the Divine Seed makes him instantly to partake of the Divine Natur is not proved by him and he knows I believe all men to be visited by this Divine Seed which may give them an head-knowledg which they may retain as some men do the Truth in unrighteousness and yet not receive it in the love of it so though they have it from a Divine Seed yet it will not follow they must necessarily so receive it as to become partakers of the Divine Natur. And as for the Devils he wil confess that once they had this knowledge from a Spiritual Natur and though they have faln yet they may retain the memory of it for that their fall and Man's is every way alike he will not affirm He saith p. 102. That to believe good done by Heathens that is by such as have not the benefit of the outward knowledge of Christ is done in vertue of a Divine Seed overturns the Gospel but he leavs the confirmation of it to the sequel where I shall attend him N. 25. he tels me very fairly the Apostle doth not contradict himself as if I had ever imagined he did but the question is whether the meaning he gives the Apostl's words implys not
Truth that the common People might maintain and admire them But have not Protestants and that truely asserted this of the Popish Clergy and is not the Thesis directed to such Will it not then hold true according to his own judgment of a great yea the greatest part of those to whom it is directed what then will become of his clamors Yea if it were needfull I could give instances of very mean thoughts he and his Party have of many of the Protestant Clergy yea and reflexions not much if any thing inferior to this to verifie with how little ground he quarrelleth me here As for his malitious aspersion that there are shrewd presumptions our stock lies at Rome he should have produc'd some of them if he could we could never yet obtain for this old calumny from our adversarys the least probation and it will be found as hard for him to prove it as he may think it for such who strongly affirm their great IDOL the COVENANT was contrived at Rome and came from thence As for his reflexions upon our Church as being all eyes and ears it will be proper to speak of it in its own place Next to prove the positions of the Quakers to be such as overturn and destroy the Gospel he bringeth pag. 11 divers citations out of Mr Norton and Mr Stalham as he terms them adding more may be had out of Mr Hicks but such witnesses will have small credit with impartial Readers If he himself had dealt impartially he should have first read our answers to them ere he had given them such authority It wer easy for me by way of reply to transcribe what our Friends have written particularly by way of answer to them did I as much affect to have my writings bulky as it seemes he doth He closeth up this with a fit of railing and after he has quarrelled me pag. 12. for having an high conceit as he imagines of my Theses he falls fresh to that work again telling they have weight to sink into the bottomless pit the poor Soul that embraces them I never sought any should receive doctrins as truth upon my bare testimony and therefore he needs not upbraid me with so doing and whereas on the contrary as himself immediatly observes I leave what I say to the LIGHT in every man's Conscience it shewes with how little reason he made his former alledgance after he has pleased himself with making an impertinent conjectur of the import of these words that so he might if he could render them ridiculous he cometh at last to the true understanding of them and truely he needed not fear at my being offended that he should make a judgment of what I writ according to his Conscience but he went the wrong way to work when his labour is to pervert and wrest and make them speak what they do not This apparently proceeds from malice and prejudice and the Light of his Conscience if he had minded it would never have prompted him so to do Thus I am come to the end of the first chapter ¶ 7. In the second chapter intituled Of the true ground of knowledge I find he can not contradict what is asserted by me only because he must be carping he makes a noise that Joh. 17 3. cited by me so much of the sentence was not set down in the first as second edition What a pittifull cavill this is the Reader may easily judge since the place was noted it was enough though never a word had been set down but this with him is a bad Omen let the judicious judge of this man's judgment in the matter But because he can not quarrel at what is said he will quarrel that so much is not said as he judged meet but he may be pleased to understand that I judged my self under no necessity to advise with him what was needfull for me to write But saith he since I take upon me to teach the whole world it is strange it should be so natural for this man to write untruths since I direct my Theses only to the Christian world but if it may render me odious such Peccadillo's pass with him it seems but for Piae fraudes I intended never to write of those things concerning which we do not differ from others But let us see wherein he accounts me defective I have written nothing saith he of the nature and attributes of God I write not to Atheists but Christians who already acknowledge and I judg it not my work to write books to persuade men of that they already profess to believe But I write not expressly and distinctly of the Trinity yet himself after acknowledges pag. 24 that it would seem I am orthodox herein that he finds not any clear ground to the contrary I writ as expressly and distinctly of that as is expressed in Scriptur which I hope I. B. will not say is defective in sufficiently expressing this article of Faith ¶ 8. The third challenge is I speak nothing of God's Decrees by which some are praedestinated to Life others fore-ordained to death for the man without ceremony takes the doctrin for granted But if I have spoken nothing of this though perhaps not in the method he would how extravagant must he be that writes a whole chapter upon Reprobation as pretending to refute what I have said concerning it With the like confidence not to say impudence he accuses me of silence in relation to the Covenants to the Redemption purchased by Christ his taking flesh upon him to the work of Grace and Sanctification to obedience to the Law of God Which gross abuse any one that reads my book will easily see considering how much and how particularly these things are spoken to in the explanation of the 5 6 7 8 Theses Last of all he accuseth me for giving no account of the Resurrection of the Body But do I not expressly in my conclusion affirm that those that accuse us of denying of it belye us and doth not that clearly import an owning But as to that matter because I love not repetitions as he doth who will be upon one matter often and out of its proper place I will referr what further I have to say untill I come to his last chapter At last after he has confessed in part to what I affirm he craves liberty because some may put a wrong Foundation for the right to examin what by me is placed for it which liberty is freely granted him for I am a great enemy to implicit Faith as wel the Popish as Presbyterian who in that are much what alike and I will take also liberty to re-examin his examination that I may free my self of those many abuses wherewith he has injured me Section III. Wherein his third Chapter of Inward and Immediat Revelations is considered ¶ 1. THat I may not trouble the Reader with a long and taedious pursuit of I. B. in all his extravagant rambls and unreasonable railings wherein
eat them Now these can make nothing for his purpose unless for this reason that because these people commonly and avowedly did these things therefore they had no Light that reproved them for them otherwise their doing of them will not import the Light did not bear witness against their so doing more than men under the Presbyterian Ministery committing adultery and murder will import there was no witness born against these sins by the Presbyterian Preachers But he has overthrown this his reason himself by affirming p. 232. 235. that there is a Natural Conscience or the Law of Nature left in every man as God's deputy informing of some good and testifiing against some evils of which elsewhere he particularizeth murder and adultery and yet here he saith it is observed there is hardly one poynt of the Law of Nature which some nation hath not violated not only by their customs but by their very Laws If then their thus violating the Law of Nature do not prove they had not the Law of Nature or were not reproved by it which he himself has confessed all had then neither will their doing those things prove they had no Divine Light nor Seed or were not thereby reproved for if it prove they had not that it will as much prove they had no Natural Conscience no Law of Nature which yet he confesseth is in Every man ¶ 4. In this chapter also he would insinuat and infer to render that which he writes against odious that the asserting of an Universal Gospel by which Salvation may be possible to such as want outward preaching renders outward preaching needless but this cavill used often before by him is already answered in the 3 4 Sections and therefore what he repeats of this again here p. 229. 236. 245. needs no further answer And whereas he asks upon this occasion p. 244. how can the believing of the history of the Gospel be necessary as I say it is to such as hear it if they may be saved without it Because God commands every one to believe these Truths to whom he bringeth the knowledge of them albeit not them to whom he hath rendred it impossible Has he forgotten their own distinction of some things being necessary necessitate praecepti that are not so necessitate medii Neither do I intend by this belief which the proposing of the outward knowledge requires a belief meerly historical as he malitiously would insinuat I shall now take notice of his gross perversions and calumnies which as he advances I observe grow thicker and are in this chapter very numerous as first from my saying that we understand by the Light or Seed a Spiritual and Heavenly Principle in which GOD as he is the Father the Son and the Spirit dwelleth from this he infers p. 231. It may be he doth not acknowledge a Trinity c. But if there be any ground for such an inference from these words of mine I leave it to all rational men to judge Pag. 255. Because I say it is Christ's flesh and blood which came down from Heaven he asks if Christ had no other flesh and blood then as if I had answered He had not he concludes Us deniers of the incarnation of Christ asking Whether the death of Christ his resurrection and ascension and all the history of his Life be but dreams and lyes which malitious insinuation and perversion is returned upon him as false and groundless And whereas he saith here he will ask one word more Where I read that Christ's flesh and blood came down from heaven for so my words should be translated it seems he is either very ignorant or forgetfull of the Scripturs and therefore let him read John 6 51. where Christ saith he is the Living Bread that came down from heaven adding that Bread to be his Flesh. In like manner is his other malitious perversion denied and returned upon him where he would infer upon us that each of us esteemed our selvs as much the Christ of God as Christ was so that the blasphemy he exclaims against is his own who speaks evil of others without a cause Another of his perversions is p. 236. where repeating my words he rendereth them thus out of the Latine this is that inward Christ of which we Only and so often speak whereas it should have been translated which we so much and so often speak for as the English edition doth verifie the Latine word tantum signifies so much as wel as only and was so intended here by me that it must be so both the context and what I say elsewhere sheweth But he would have it only that he might pervert and rail the more liberally albeit he can not be ignorant that the Latine word tantum signifies so much as ordinary Dictionaries shew and Cicero saying nec tantum proficiebam quantum volebam nec quicquam posthac non modo tantum sed ne tantulum quidem praeterîeris Those who debate fairly use not to strain their adversaries words to abuse them when they know they may bear a better interpretation His next perversion is yet more gross and abusive p. 238. where from my denying that we equalour selvs to that Holy Man the Lord Jesus Christ c. in whom the fulness of the Godhead dwelt bodily he concludes I affirm him to be no more but a Holy Man and because I use the words plenitudo Divinitatis that I deny his Deity which is an abominable falshood I detest that doctrine of the Socinians and deny there is any ground for their distinction and when I confess him to be a Holy Man I deny him not to be GOD as this man most injuriously would insinuat for I confess him to be really both true God and true Man And whereas he rails and exclaims here and in the following page at a monstrous rate as if the comparison I bring of the difference betwixt every saint and the Man Jesus from the sap its being other ways in the Root and Stock of the Tree than in the branches did further confirm our equalling our selvs to him he doth but shew his folly since Christ himself useth the same comparison Ioh 15 5. I am the Vine ye are the branches to which I alluded and upon this he runneth out in a vehement strain of railing p. 239. exclaiming against us as if we denied the Deity of Christ and his Incarnation which is utterly false and therefore his work there to prove what I deny not is in vain And yet he repeateth this calumny p. 242. adding that my saying that we believe what is written of the Conception Birth Life and Death of Christ c. to be true doth not vindicat us from it and then he subjoyns Do you believe that that Body which was crucified at Jerusalem rose again and is now in glory Speak your mind here if you dare this defiance to all men of reason will insinuat as if I did not believe
who arrogat righteousness to themselves though it do not belong to them and at these he carpeth saying the very first Exod. 23 7. is spoken of God of himself he should have said it is God speaking of the wicked that he will not justifie them some of them speak of a not justifying Job 9 20. 27 5. and what then the places were marked to shew the import of the word justify and to shew that many of them speak nothing of justifying at all whence he concludes in these words So unhappy is the man in his citations He notes first Esai 5 23 but it seems he has been in hast and therefore to rectifie his mistake let him read the words which are which justify the wicked for reward and what though where many Scripturs are noted together by the mistake of the transcriber or Printer the figurs may be misplaced and so miss Truely they must be very happy that can secure themselvs from this hazzard he has not been so happy who denied the words to be in a place where the knowing of it depended not upon the diligence of others but of his own looking to it as I have just now shewn Pag. 315. to prove that justified is not taken in the epistles of the Apostle Paul to the Rom. Corinth Gal. for making just as I affirmed in the passages cited by me he saith to take it so would make the Apostle contradict himself But this he affirms upon the meer supposition that the Apostle with him excludes all works from Justification which is but to begg the question as will after appear What he adds here and in the following page in answer to the citations I bring out of divers Protestant Authors I need not trouble the Reader with a reply to it because he turns by the most material of them as not having the Authors by him to examin them others he positivly rejects as not agreing with them as Forbes and Baxter and at last insinuats that the trial is not to be by humane Testimonies for such he accounts all the writings of his Brethren whereunto I do very wel agree only I brought some of his own folks not as if I needed them to confirm me in my opinion but as having weight with those among whom they are esteemed Doctors In this page answering what I urge from Rom. 8 30. shewing how in that golden chain sanctification must be excluded or justification must be taken in its proper sense he saith that sanctification is comprehended under Vocation If this be true which he asserts then he gives again away his cause for then no man is sooner called than he is sanctified and since he will not say seing he disclaims to be an Antinomian that any man is justified before he be called it follows then necessarily that no man is justified before he be sanctified and then to what purpose has he been fighting and wrestling all this while Pag. 316 n. 33. he accuses me of unparalleled falshood impudency and boldness for saying that I have sufficiently proven that by justification ought to be understood to be made really just whereas I undertook only to prove that the word might be so understood without absurdity adding I wonderfully conclude a must be from a may be c. but the best is his greatest charges are built either upon forged calumnies or his own pittyfull mistakes I never concluded by justification ought to be understood to be made really just only upon that which I said from the etymology of the word nor by justification there did I understand meerly the word but I conclude from all my Scriptur arguments of the thing as my following words manifest where I say We know it from sensible experience but he may be sure it is not the etymology of the word we know so And if thence he urge that this falleth not under the inward sensation of the Soul he but fights with his own mistake for that the real justification of the Saints falleth under the inward sensation of the Soul I think no man of sense will deny for Christ is formed in the mind where he is said to be revealed inwardly and that gives a sense of justification albeit he seem to wonder at it asking what Scriptur speaketh so he may read Gal. 1 16. Whether was not the Apostle here justified and under the sense of it He is angry p. 317. that I call the life of Christ an inward and spiritual thing but will he say it is an outward and carnal thing But what thinks he of 2 Cor. 4 10 11. He confesseth this Life of Christ supported and carryed the persecuted Apostles through many miseries and deaths will he say then it was not an inward and spiritual thing that carryed them through these trials But he addeth But who except a Quaker could say that the Apostle sayes we are justified by this life I answer all except such absurd men as will deny that where we are said to be saved by a thing we are said to be justified by it Rom. 5 10. Tit. 3 5. we are said to be saved by regeneration And whereas he saith the Apostle saith not that this is the Formal Objective Cause of Iustification these are words the Apostle useth not at all and therefore no wonder there be no word of it here He looks upon it as being absurd for me to think that Reprobation is Non-Iustification but I would know of him if there be any Reprobats who are justified That the marks and evidences are not always taken from the Immediat Nearest and Formal Cause I confess but that therefore the not having Christ revealed in the Soul is only a sign and no cause of Reprobation remains for him to prove wickedness is a signe of Reprobation will he therefore affirm it is not the Immediat nor Formal Cause of it After the same manner he denieth p. 31. 9. that we must lean to that which the Apostle calleth Col. 1 27 28. Christ within the hope of Glory his reason is because the Apostle saith Phil. 1 28. And in nothing terrified by your advarsarys which is to you an evident token of salvation asking must we also lean to that in Justification But will he say there is no difference betwixt that which is only a token and Christ within If there be his reason concludes nothing ¶ 6. Lastly he comes to answer what I say of the necessity of good works to Iustification and what I urge from Isai. 2. he confesseth that Good Works are an Instrumental cause which concession doth prove all I affirm if they be an instrumental cause they must be a cause sine qua non and necessary since the instrumental cause of a thing must be necessary towards its being What though Abraham was justified before he offer'd up his son it will not follow that he was justified without works His absurdity as if it would thence follow that no man is justified when he sleeps or is
to meek lowly Iesus of whom it is said he learned obedience by the things which he suffered Surely none who read thy language will say this man hath been with Jesus but rather say whosesoevers company thou hast been in thou hast learned to be a cunning Artist at the scolding trade and art therein vainly puffed-up that thou even fleest aloft though with waxen wings above the lowly harmeless meek Spirit of Christ. And verily had I all thy Rhetorik whether natural or acquired which thou so much misimprov'st to the gratifying of that which needs more to be crucified in thy self and many who are ready implicitly to follow thee it is not in my desire to follow thy example nor shall I wish that ever thou have an answer from any of the Lord's People in thy own terms which are such as all sober unprejudiced People who read them will see thy Spirit most strongly imbittered when thy pen is so dipt in gall I say it is not in my desire to bring forth one railing accusation against thee neither to answer many things thou hast vented against the Lord's present work and witnesses whom thou despisest and abhorrest more than dung under thy feet and crowest over yet if the Living God a part of whose host they are see it meet he can raise up the least of them and make thee feel worm Iacob a threshing instrument with teeth to deal with thee and thresh that Iofty malitious spirit of prejudice that breaths through thee the consideration whereof upon thy own Soul's account is the occasion of this Letter wherein I desire to lay somethings before thee which are with weight upon me my compassions being kindled towards thee that when the Lord cometh to visit the earth thou shouldst be found among them who are beating their fellow-servants the hazard of which state thou knowst and many will feel when the Lord riseth up to the prey for his eyes are upon the righteous and his ears are open to their cries though now he be trying the children of men and permitting some to suffer and others to do hard things yet a hope lives in me the time approacheth wherein the Lord will more manifestly appear to the joy and refreshment of the single in heart who suffer with him and patiently wait for him and for the shame and utter overthrow of his malitious opposers And so One of the Particulars I would lay before thee is a desire thou wouldst yet in the Lord's Light search thy own heart more till thou findst out what secret affinity hath remained with thee to any of the Lord's enemies in thy own heart for if all were brought under the government of the Son of God inwardly I am fully perswaded thy outward opposition to the Lord's work could not long stand The outward is a true figure of the inward and I know by true experience all that despight and disdainfull under valuing epithets thou squeezest up thy engine to coyn which one may feel answers not fully thy own satisfaction for bespattering and loading that People and their principles is but alas a mirrour-glass set up to represent the low mean unworthy esteem thou bearest to the Light of Christ in its inward appearance in thee as a reprover for whosoever turneth universally at the reproofs of God's Light in the Conscience shall witness the pouring forth of his Spirit in larger manifestations according to Prov. 1 23. But that Spirit speaketh in thee of which Ifaiah prophesied Isa. 53 2 3 c. concerning the outward appearance of the same Christ our Head and the Captain of our Salvation whose sufferings death resurrection and glory we dearly own and wait from day to day more to feel the pretious vertue thereof although he then was and now is rejected and despised of men who hide as it were their faces from him because his outward appearance was as a root out of a dry ground in whom there was no form nor comelyness nor beauty that he should be desired by that mind which was looking after great things and expecting much outward glory and advantage and so Christ's appearance was mistaken by the learned Rabbies in that day notwithstanding they had Moses and the Prophets testimonys and were not wanting in reading the letter as others now for as it was then it is now he was is mistaken by all who seek any thing to glory in save the Cross of Christ for the wisdom of the flesh hath and doth lift faln man above the innocent Seed in themselvs onely through which they can see the invisible glory of the Kingdom of God and find an abundant entrance unto the righteousness peace and joy in the Holy Ghost whereof it consists wherefore take heed of being lifted up above the Seed Light Life and Spirit of Christ in thee and so thou wilt see matter to work out thy Salvation in fear and trembling and wilt not sit down upon former attainments or experiences when the Life is gone Another thing I would put thee in remembrance of in these present times is the great danger of sinning at the waters of strife whereof Moses his example may be a standing monument to all generations of whom it was said he was the meekest man upon the earth yet at the waters of strife he spake unadvisedly with his lips because of which he was debarred from entring into the promised rest And are there not some living at this day who with sorrow of heart have observed the heat and bitterness of spirit that hath arisen because of differences and controversy concerning Religion hath eaten out the life of that love and tenderness that was with many and having hurt the green thing in themselves and one another hath brought on death darkness dryness and sensible withering and can not chuse but so to do seing bitterness of spirit and prejudice and such like frames in man or woman separats from God while there any one abides For God is Love and he that dwels in God dwells in love and Christ hath said Unless ye abide in me ye can not bring forth much fruit so not abiding in that pure Love to God and his Image in his Children hath caused many fall short and hath letted their progress and made many lose sight of their way and the Guide of their youth and so they have not followed the Lord fully nor followed him in the regeneration renewing according to the increase of Light and the measurs of his manifestation whereby they should know even in this life a being changed from glory to glory as by the Spirit of the Lord. Thou mention'st in thy Postscript to J. B. pag. 557. Many who may remember with shame and confusion of face their laughing at and making light of the apperance of that prodigie and that it may cause some go groaning to their grave being an evidence that ye knew not the signs of the time and what they called you to do To which I answer Lightness