A Fuller Discovery OF THE Dangerous Principles And lying spirit of the People called Quakers made manifest in George Whitehead John Whitehead and George Fox the younger In their Book against Iohn Horne and Thomas Moore of Lin Regis in NORTHFOLK Written by the said Thomas Moore and Iohn Horne for the fuller satisfaction of all such as desire to be further satisfied about the evil and erroniousnesse of the said People called Quakers Most men will proclame every man his own goodnesse but a faithful man to Christ and his Cause who can find Prov. 20. 6. I marvel yee are so soon removed from him that called you not into your selves but into the grace of Christ unto another Gospel which is not another but there be some that trouble you and would pervert the Gospel of Christ But though we even Apostles or an Angel from heaven persons of most Angel-like carriage and appearance preach any other Gospel unto you as the following Discourse shews that these Quakers do then that which we the Apostles have preached unto you let him be accursed Gal. 1. 6 7 8. LONDON Printed for John Allein at the signe of the Rising Sun in Pauls Church-yard 1660. THE EPISTLE TO THE READER ONce more we have herein presented thee Courteous Reader with a discovery of the People called Quakers in which thou mayest see from their own written and printed sayings by what manner of spirit they be led and what manner of Doctrine they publish and strive to maintain and indeed the naughtinesse of their way is made manifest partly by their Principles and Doctrines broachedly them and partly by the manner of their carriage in their managing and maintaining them Wee shall give thee here a brief account of both in a few Observations 1 For the Doctrines and Principles maintained by them thou mayest observe in their Queries sent us printed with our Answers to them at the close of our Answer to their Book against us as hintâ—d and in their book more clearly asserted or implyed these following viz. I. That Christ hath no other body but his Church no personal body and so that that body of his flesh in which he suffered and bare our sins and which rose again is not a body or is not in being Book pag. 7 8 9. answered by us in our Reply pag. 25. to pa. 42. and Quest 1 2 3 4 5 7 8 10 11. II. That the blood of Jesus Christ or his personal abasement sufferings in the flesh to the shedding and pouring out his blood and soul to Death sustained by him once in the end or last Ages of the World are not the foundation or of the foundation of their faith so that their faith is not faith in Christs blood as so considered nor is that precious blood or those sufferings of Christ that wherewith their conscience is purged or the spiritual drink of the soul but some other thing principle or spirit in men which they put the Name of the blood of Christ upon See if this conceit or Doctrine in both parts of it negative and affirmative be not hinted in their Quest 12 13 14. seeing the body of his flesh in which he suffered they deny to remain and yet say his blood is in his flesh what can they mean by his flesh but something of his Church which onely they grant to be his body and so that his blood is nothing but some seed principle or sufferings in his Church their pleading against his blood or suffering as the foundation or of the foundation of Faith thou mayst see in their book p. 14 15 16 17. answered by us here p. 52 53 54 c. III. That the lower parts of the earth into which Christ descended and the heavens into which he again ascended are no local places but some conditions or conceits in men Qu. 3 4 5 6â— Book p. 8 9. answered by us p. 26 27 33. IV. That the same body that dies shall not rise again in the Resurrection Book p. 10 11. Answered by us p. 42 to 46. and Quest 16 17. V. That the souls of the wicked shall not come out Hell at the great day of the Resurrection and judgement to be further judged they imply Quest 18. and so that neither the souls nor the bodies of the wicked shall rise again to judgement VI. That that coming of Christ in which the dead in him shall be raised and be caught up into the Ayr together to meet him and be ever with him and in which he shall descend from heaven with a short and the sound of the trumpet c. mentioned 1 Thess 4. 15 16. is already long since past For they say the Apostles and Believers of that Age in which the Apostle wrote remained to it Book p. â— Answered p. 32. Quest 15. and so they agree with Hymeneus and Philetus that said the Resurrection is already past 2 Tim. 16. to 18. VII That the Christ we look for to come from heaven again they desire not the knowledge of Book p. 10. Answered p. 41. VIII That they are sinless or have no sin in them they deny not and that those that are believers in Christ and born of God are perfectly freed from sin as to the being of it in them Book p. 1 to 6. and yet that the little children that John wrote to who were also born of God and know the Father might have sin in them Ans p. 9 10. to p. 24. IX That all sin is guide when as the scripture distinguishes guile from other sins and other sins from guile 1 Pet. 2. â— and sayes some have no guile in their spirits who yet have sins though forgiven and covered yet there to be covered Psalm 32. 1. 2. Book p. 4. 5. Answ p. 17 18. X. That Adam might have died the natural death if he had not sinned and so that the bodily or natural death came not in by sin Book p. 6 7. Ans p. 23. XI That Christ came not to redeem men from out of the natural or bodily death B. p. 7. Ans p. 25. XII That our faith that is not grounded in Christs appearing in us is to be turned up by the roots and so by consequence that all the faith that is grounded in Christs appearing and suffering for us without us and in his appearing in heaven for us and so such faith as that of the Elect mentioned Rom. 8. 33 34 35. is by these mens Doctrines to be rooted up Book p. 10. Ans p. 41 42. XIII That the Apostles and all that were led by the spirit of God c. witnessed the Redemption of the body spoken of Rom. 8. 23. when they were upon the earth and did not put it afar off as they deridingly phrase the looking and waiting for it till after death in which they say again in effect that the resurrection of the believers body is made in this life Book p 11 12. Ans p. 47 48 XIV That the knowledge
of Christ after the spirit as he was before the world was when as he was not come in the flesh or promised as one to come is the knowledge of him to Eternal Salvation Book p. 6 7 8. Answ p. 48 49 50. XV. That the Scriptures are not a medium of faith Book p. 18 Answ p. 58. 59. XVI That the light wherewith Christ lighteth men is not both natural and spiritual light or good Book p. 20. It seems he is not by their Doctrine the Authour and procurer of all good to men both natural and spiritual and so we are to thank him and God by him for both see our answer p. 61. XVII That they that speak not according to the Law and Testimony and whom we should not seek to for direction though they have no morning light in them yet have Christs evening or candle-light and so that by the Prophet Isaiahs counsel men should not listen to them that have but Christs evening or candle-light Isaiah 8 20. and yet the Apostle Peter by these mens Doctrine commended the Believers for taking heed to the evening or candle-light of Christ that was not the morning light 2 Pet. 1. 19 20. and as if Christs candle-light would lead men to speak otherwise than according to his Law and Testimony and yet is to be heeded to by men Answ p. 62. XVIII They deny the continuance and usefulnesse of the outward Ordinances of Baptisme and Lords Supper or eating Bread and Wine in remembrance of him till the end of the World in the Church of Christ in a manner deriding them Quest 19 20 21 22. XIX They intimately deny justification by a righteousnesse imputed to us contrary to Rom. 4. 5. 11. and maintain a justification by righteousnesse within which indeed in them is a meer unrighteousnesse as denying and evacuating the virtues of Christs sufferings in his own personal body and his sacrifice for us Quest 25. XX. That to endeavour to detect make manifest their delusions or the delusions of any others and to preserve people from them is a being impatient under raging against Gods judgements or else that it is no judgement of God to have delusions and Deluders sent amongst us to exercise and trouble us or that we ought not to contend against them Book p. 23. Answ 68 69. XXI That these Teachers whose hearers do sleight and neglect the truth preached by them and remain not withstanding it slothful formal covetous c. are false prophets by which conclusion they involve him who said he had laboured in vain and spent his strength for nought that would have gathered Jerusalems children often but yet they were not gathered even Christ himself Isa 49. 4 5. Mat. 23. 37. Yea and all the Prophets and Apostles of Christ who had many such hearers as if they also were false prophets Book p. 28 29. Answ p 7â— 74. XXII That Christ is a seed of God in men which in some wants Redemption and is burthened by corruption and desires to be free from the burthen of sin and alwayes to do his Fathers will and so hath not ceased from sin in them nor can do in all things his Fathers will but needs a power to reach to him where it is begotten to set him free redeem or raise him up in which power he arises in them that believe in the light for their Redemption Book p. 21. Answ 63 64 65. XXIII That Christ is first known as one without form or comâ—linesse and is in some a seed that yet suffers and in others reigns and is known to be Prince of peace so that he both suffers and reigns at once in divers persons Book p. 21 22. Answ p. 63 64 65. Such be the Doctrines discovered in their writings to us concerning the last two because therein is a discovery of that Imagination of theirs which they call Christ and which they preach as the true Christ or as James Naylor in his Book called Love to the Lost sayes is the seed of Abraham which Christ takes after the flesh We shall note some things here more particularly as 1. That by Flesh and Seed of Abraham after the flesh they mean not any natural Seed or Body of man but a certain seed or principle in every mans mind whether he know it or no which in some men is not fully able but desirous to follow after God and be free from sin they say not to free him in whom it is from sin but to be free it self from sin and yet this seed with them is the Christ the Word that was made flesh the true light that is in every man that comes into the World and that is manifested in men to take away their sins yet it cannot be said it seems of it that in it is no sin but for it desires to be free from sin and follow God but it seems doth not nor can yet in some men till raised by the power and when so manifested in men they are perfectly sinlesse 2. When they say this Seed or Christ is known in some men as suffering and burthened with corruption and desiring to be free from sin c. is not that the death of their Christ or do they not blaspheme the true Christ who is raised and made a quickening spirit while they represent him as one not able to do his Fathers will in some men and as one that needs Redemption and to be set free himself 3. When they say this seed the power reaches to where it is begotten and in the power it arises c. is not that the Resurrection of Christ with them for mans Redemption and Justification and so the believer in the light for redemption believes first in a dying Christ dying yet in him unlesse the light he believes in be another Christ or some thing besides Christ or rather their candle-light which is put out in the wicked is all one with their Christ suffering and making his grave with the wicked and their Christ Redeemed and rising in men is the light reviving as the morning light in them and then the man is redeemed and raised sinlesse too and so there is their and their Christs Resurrection together 4. And yet again mind their strange expressing of this Redemption and Resurrection of their Christ This Seed say they the Power reaches to where it is begotten and in the Power it ariseth What is this power that they say reaches to that Seed is it Christ or not Christ If it be not Christ then it seems their Christ crucified or burthened with corruption is not the power of God but needs another power to Redeem him that is not he no alas their Christ lies strugling under corruption as weak it seems as the poor believer himself that cryes out wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this Death So that what Paul said of himself as carnal and sold under sin is true of their Christ in some he
in his members and these two warring the one against the other but their arguing is like as if they should say the beleever hath no flesh or blood in his body because he hath a spirit in his body that hath neither flesh nor blood in it or that they be guilty of the imperfection of witlesness because they have something in them their gutts suppose that be witless and they are not divided from their nature they adde John said speaking of Christ as he is so are we in this world 1 Joh. 4. 17. and therefore that we have manifestly wronged them and the Apostles Rep. That we have either wronged them or the Apostles is false for that they hold what we said they do they deny not and that the Apostles so held they prove not the place they quote says not as Christ is without sin in himself so are we in this world no more then he saith as Christ is without a natural corruptible body or without pain ach or bodily death so are we in this world they may as well gather the one as the other from that saying and that the Apostle meant it not in respect of sinlesness as men is evident by comparing it with 1 John 1. 8. where he saith If we say we have no sin we deceive our selves and the truth is not in us we may not strain Scriptures beyond their scope nor may we say we are in every respect as Christ is either in himself or to the world or to beleevers Christ is God over all so are not the beleevers Christ is the second Adam a quickning spirit so are not the beleevers Christ is the only begotten Son of God so are not the beleevers on him The only begotten Son of God and they that beleeve on him are distinct and different persons Christ is the Saviour of the world so are not the beleevers not the Saviour though instruments of saving men Christ is the propitiation for our sins and for the sins of the whole world so are not the beleevers Christ is the Head and Husband of the Church so are not the beleevers but as Christ is so are the beleevers and in an eminent sense so were the Apostles in the world in the judgement knowledge account of the world as also in a measure set to be lights in the world But the main scope is that in respect of judgement account and estimate as Christ is so are we in this world for he says Herein is our love or love with us made perfect that we may have boldness in the day of judgement when we are judged of men here because as he is so are we in this world as to their receit approvement rejection or disapprovement we have our fellowship therein with him which also gives us strong consolation and confidence that when he comes to judge he will justifie us that were here condemned with him but what is this to their being sinless in themselves They add That they say not there is any perfection themselves without Christ who is their righteousness and they the righteousness of God in him Rep. That Christ is their righteousness c. is but their own testimony of themselves which we cannot receive because the true Christ whom we with the Apostles look for from heaven so to come again as they see him go up they say p. 10. they desire not the knowledge of nor doth their not saying that there is any perfection in them without Christ suffice to excuse them for its an Error to say that through Christ they have perfection in themselves so as to be perfectly sinless even the beleever in Christ though in Christ perfect is not as yet perfect in himself through Christ while here Paul though in Christ said he was not perfect nor had attained Phil. 3. 12 13. no not to be sinless Rom. 7. 20. 1 Tim. 1. 15. That Christ was manifested to take away our sin and in him is no sin we granted but added that its never said so of any else no where said by any of the Saints of themselves or of any of their brethren that they had no sin in them or were not sinners But they bid W. and F. mark how fairly we contradict our doctrine by telling its said indeed that he that abideth in him sinneth not and he that is born of God doth not commit or work sin because the seed of God abides in him neither can he sin that is commit work or yeeld up himself to sin because he is born of God which they render as inconsistent with our counting their maintaining a perfection of sinlesness in this life as a great error and say we would accuse the Saints or brethren with being sinners Rep. 1. Is this to accuse the Saints or brethren to observe what they have said or not said of themselves or one another If so then all are accusers of them that observe their sayings and so it seems they to avoid accusing of them observe them not If it be not then are they lyers and so not sinless that call our observing what they said or said not of themselves an accusing of them for we did no more in those sayings they have quoted as any impartial Reader may see 2. What we observed they said contradicts not what we noted they said not if they can find that they said of themselves or of their brethren that they had no sin in them or were not sinners they should produce it and prove us lyers if not then have they falsly charged us with self-contradiction These two contradict not John said He that abideth in him sinneth not and John said not he that abideth in him hath no sin in himself or is not in that respect a sinner or that any doth perfectly abide in Christ in every operation and act so as never to wander in his minde out of him Paul abode in Christ in the main and did not commit sin for he says It s no more I but sin that do it and yet Paul then had sin in him for he adds but sin that dwelleth in me Yea and said that with his flesh he served the law of sin and yet with his mind served the law of God Rom. 7. 20 25. Did Paul then contradict himself If yes then will we be counted contradictors of our selves also with him if no then neither do we contradict our selves but either they are ignorant of the nature of contradictions and so not perfect or else knowingly say falsly and so are vitious We then yet account what they maintain a great Error and yet say what the Apostle John said because he said not what they say that he that is born of God hath no sin in him but on the contrary If we say we have no sin in us we deceive our selves and yet they were born of God sure they beleeved Jesus to be the Christ and whosoever doth so is born of God 1 Joh. 5. 1. so that any that
〈◊〉 that signifies there is point out any 〈…〉 what is spoken should be bounded Is not there is one word in the Latine and therefore in the English not to be severed as they do in their Mark Is it not the sign of a Verb And not an Adverb of place Yea do they not know the word there is are not in the Hebrew Text neither For they are put in a small character to imply that they are not in the Hebrew Text and if the Text have no there where will they Mark it he saith for not upon earth a just man that doth good and sinneth not not one so perfectly and fully born of God in all things and surely men are upon earth so long as they are in this life their having their conversation in Heaven hinders not their being on earth and 2. Are not the just and fearers of God in a changeable State while in this life What means Joh else to say though he was a perfect man none like him in the earth all the daies of my appointed time I will waite till my change come Joh 1. 8. with 14. 14. He had it seems a change yet to come though a perfect man and therefore born of God without being born of whom is no perfection and if none among all in the changeable State is without sin or so just as not to sin then perfect men such as Joh was are not so perfect as to be without sin see how miserably they are ver thrown in all their arguings and subtersuges they say W. and F. John Horn and Thomas Moore say there is no man that sinneth not and it 's true indeed that Christ said of Nathaniel that he was an lsraelite in whom there is no guile and then to this they answer that we are confounded in what our selves bring there was some in whom was no guile contrary to what we affirmed before against perfection Rep. Here we have two or three of their lies more together 1. In saying we say there is no man that sinneth not when as it was not we but Solomon and the Spirit of God in him that said it and we expressed it thus Solomon also saith 1 Kings 8. 46. There is no man that sinneth not 2. In that they say we are confounded in what we bring and that that saying there are some in whom is no guile is contrary to what we affirmed before against perfection did we ever say any thing before against this that there are some in whom is no guile let the reader read what we said and judge 3. It 's false that we speak against perfection for it was not against perfection but against their corrupt and false Tenet about perfection of sinlesness in themselves or some mens being sinless here and the Scripture saies nothing against what we said but for it that in 1 King 8. 46. Most directly let us see how they shift the force of it W. and F. They say to it Mark the words for there again amongst those that sinned against God Rep. Miserable nonsensical shift which first pulls the word there from the word is which in the Latine is but one word as George Whitehead knows and therefore jugles and plays the Sophister to deceive simple people that take him for a Rabbi nor is it in the Hebrew Text as before we on the other place noted 2. Makes the wisest of men to speak nonâ—-sense or a Tautology to God and to say there is no man among them that sin that sinneth not wretched men that durst so abuse the Scriptures and the Holy men of God after this manner by that way of glosse when it is said there is no darkness nor shadow of death where the workers of iniquity may hide themselves Joh 34. 22. They may teach people to elude it thus Mark that there in mans goings there is none but there is some somewhere else and so when he said 't is said Isa 45. 6. That they may know me from the rising of the Sun and from the West there is none besides me I am the Lord and there is none else they may teach people as well to Mark the word there and so to conceit that though there be none in the East and West yet in the North and South there may be other Jehovahs or Lords and so when he saies verse 21. Tell ye and bring them near namely them that set up the wood of their graven image and pray to a God that cannot save yea let them take councel together who hath declared this c. Have not I the Lord and there is no God besides me a just God and a Saviour there is none besides me they may bid people Mark the word there as if it pointed onely to those that set up the wood of their graven image that among them there is no God nor Saviour but God but among other people there is Lord arise and scatter such enemies to thy truth in their abuses and perversions of it but as knowing that was but a silly shift they fly to another and adde W. and F. And this was in the time of the old covenant Solomon spake these words but now the Lord makes a new covenant when he takes away their sins not according to the old covenant which the Israelites brake Heb. 8. Rep. 1. What needed this gloss if the other was good 2. Then they will say either that in the time of the old covenant there was no man that sinned not none no where and then their Mark the word there is void or else that then there was none amongst them that sinned who sinned not but now there are some amongst them that sin that sin not else why do they oppose the new covenant and the old if the state of men under both be one and the same It seems then in this time they may be sinless and yet sin ly and forge and traduce and yet not sin in it all 3. But were not Paul and John and James under the new covenant and yet they say in many things we offend all and if we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves But if in the time of the old covenant there was none that sinned not why adde they a third refuge of vanity viz. W. and F. Solomon also said let your heart be perfect with the Lord your God and to walk in his statutes and to keep his commandements as at this day Rep. What doth this imply â—omparing it with their answer but that either under the old covenant men might be perfect and without sin and then their other answer was vain and foolish or else that the perfection of heart Solomon spake of was not such as excluded all sinning or being of sin in men for as much as that was said under the old covenant when there was no man that sinned not choose which they will take of these for one of them is necessarily implyed by them and either of them shews them
this life but which they partake of in this life but where can they shew us any that ever died that either had not sin in him or sin imputed to him They imply p. 6. l. 25 26. By their taxing us with the contrary that Adam might have died the naturall death if he had not sinned and to prove it adde for Christ died who had no sin To which we reply 1. Did Christ die a naturall death was it naturall to Christ to die 2. Had Christ no sin of ours upon him which occasioned his death or should he have died though he had not them laid upon him He bare our sins in his own body on the tree therefore he had sins though none of his own he did no sin neither was guile found in his mouth see there guile and sin distinguished as if all sin is not guile or guile not all sin yet he bare our sins 1 Pet. 2. 22 24. 3. Is this a good inference Christ died that did not sin yet had our sins charged or laid upon him therfore Adam should have died a natural death though he had not sinned let the reader judge they say Christ died to destroy the death that came by sin Rep. 1. If death came by sin as the Apostle testifies in Rom. 5. 12. What death was that if not the naturall death Or where doth the Apostle distinguish and say there is a death of men that came in by sin and the death of men that came not in by sin and that 's the natural death Or where find we mention of Adams dying before and without respect to his sinning in any kind of death 2. Did not Christ by death destroy the naturall death both in taking away its force for taking us out of favour and fellowship with God and in becoming the Resurrection and life from death by whom men shall be raised up out of it at the last day Did he not destroy that kind of death which he died and if that was the naturall death as they say the bodily death we may say then that he also destroyed and so destroying that death that came in by sin it follows that the naturall or bodily death came in by sin too and so that Adam should not have died had he not sinned Do they think that we will worship them and call them the masters of our faith to receive their dictates without proof Let them shew that Adam might have died the natural death or the believers either if they had not sinned They say They who die in the Lord are blessed and to die is gain to them Rep. True but it s by vertue of the Lord in whom they die that turns their curses into blessings death into life Nor is it natural to die in the Lord though to die be It s true too that the righteous mens dying was not charged upon them as a reward for their sin and yet true too that had they never been sinners or sinned in Adam they had never died for as much as by one mans sin death passed upon all as the Apostle witnesses as a reward of Adams sin and theirs in him it first was denounced and though through Christ the weight and destructiveness of it is removed yet the carcass of it remains upon men generally though through Christ turned to the believers gain W. and F. They say God said to Adam in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt die but Adam lost not his naturall life in the day he eat of the tree of knowledge for after that he lived in the body Rep. Herein again they shew their confusion for what though Adam lived in the body after he eat of the tree of knowledge follows it he had not lost his life that day he eat A man my loose or forfeit that which may not presently be taken from him men loose their lives in a Law sense when they do such things as subject them to the Law so as they are thereby condemned to die though death be not presently executed upon them That day he died then in the sentence of the Law though not as to its execution upon him which yet had been then executed too its probable had not Christ the Mediator interposed between him and death to die for him Besides that a thousand years being to the Lord but as one day and he dying in that space he might be said in that sense to have died on the day he sinned They say The covenant Adam was in before his fall was a covenant of life for he was in the image of God and a living soul having the breath of life in him and had dominion in it while he stood in his habitation c. Rep. That Adam was under a covenant of life before the fall is true nor opposes our sayings but their own that Adam might have died the naturall death though he had not sinned But they have weakly proved that it is so for sure the covenant made with him was with him alive and as a creature and not made with him before he was a living man and therefore his being in the image of God a living soul having the breath of life in him and dominion in it as they speak are not to the purpose The covenat might concern their continuance to him not his being made first in them they adde this state have the believers proved and witnessed that life and nature and image that was in man before the fall though they become further in the second Adam who is greater then the first Adam Rep. Still they dictate magisterially where have the believers proved that state of Adam and witness it let them shew it in all the Scriptures for as for their witnessings they are of no Authority with us it s the truth of their witnessings we would have them prove and not onely tell us they are true for we are not of the mind with some simple that believe every of their words to believe that their sayings are as good or better then the sayings of the Prophets and Apostle in the Scriptures have any believers ever witnessed that they were without sin as Adam under no more sentence of death then Adam while in his innocent condition let them shew us that that we may believe it have any believers proved that state of Adam to have life in themselves and not in Christ crucified as Adam had And how are they come further in the second Adam are they led to that and the second Adams state too Where prove they that Into the naturall life of Adam as earthly and fallen full of sin and death such as Adam fallen derived to them they are born and through it are led yea and out and beyond that in Christ in a measure here and fully hereafter but that Christ leads them first into the state of Adam innocent and then into the state of Christ they must prove and not onely dictate before it find credit with
the spirit detained in prison in the first Death this is that unquenchable fire ever burning and that can never be quenched no not to them that are cast into it the raised bodies of men being in that equal to the evil angels they can never more cease to be or be ever free from sencible Suffering nor will the Worm in their Spirits ever cease tormenting This is that lake of fire into which the first Death and Hell shall be cast when they have delivered up all the dead that was in them and so shall be destroyed and swallowed up in this that shall remain and burn on all the ungodly for ever see for this and who they are and when they shall be cast into it Rev. 20. 11. 15. and 21. 8. Mat. 25. 41. 46 with Mark 9. 43 48. so that out of this after men are in it here is no deliverance in any sence but none are in this until they be brought forth of their graves and delivered up by Death and Hell as forementioned except those that at his appearing shall be taken and cast alive into that lake of fire without being detained any time in prison as the rest are Rev. 19 20. with chap. 20. 10. Now had these men understood the Scripture and so these things as there distinguished and set forth they would not have counted it at all absurd that souls in Hell bodies in dust and spirits in prison should come forth again to receive their final judgement yea had they in the least believed God to be true in his sayings they would not have dared so plainly to have contradicted and blasphemed them though they could not have understood them seeing the Holy Ghost speaketh expresly of the Final and Eternal Judgement when all the dead that have died in their sins from the beginning of the World to the latter end of it shall at once be raised and brought forth to that judgement and there and to that faith Death and Hell delivered up the dead which were in them But they have clearly shewed themselves to be of that sort that deny the Resurrection of the dead and the Eternal Judgement of all men witnessed in the Scripture as yet to come and to be passed and executed upon them by that man Christ Jesus whom God hath ordained to judge the world in Righteousnes whereof he hath given assurance unto all men in that he hath raised him from the dead Question 19. Whether the receiving Bread and Wine to shew the Lords death be to continue an Ordinance in the Church till the end of the World yea or nay Answ This and the three following questions aptly follow the former to a further discovery of their Antichristian Spirit For As Jesus Christ having ascended on high and received gifts in the man hath given gifts unto men and therein set in the Church First Apostles that were chosen witnesses of his personal body in which he the Word was made flesh and humbled himself unto the death of the Cross as now raised from the dead and received up into glory having finished the works the Father gave him to do in that body on the earth that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name unto all Nations and so as wise Master builders layers of the foundation Doctrinally As likewise he hath given and appointed to be still in continual exercise a gift and office inferior to the Apostles for instructing in and opening out of the Scriptures of the Prophets and Apostles the foundation as already laid by them in the word of the beginning of Christ and for directing to and building on that foundation in witnessing him as already come in the flesh and having finished the works as aforesaid and so for Doctrinal shewing forth the Lords death and the pretiousnesse thereof with the Father for us and in his Name to us and to manifest the goodnesse and righteousnesse of God therein Luke 24. 44. 48. John 17. 18. 20. c. 1 John 1. 1. 5 Rom. 1. 1. 5 and 16. 25 26. 1 Cor. 3. 10. 11. Secondarily Prophets or the gift and office of prophesie to shew distinctly out of the Scriptures and from the foundation as already laid the things to come even the Resurrection of the dead and Eternal Judgement and so the grace and glory to be brought to us at the glorious appearing of Christ from Heaven for encouragement to look to him and for the edification and comfort of those that wait for him which gift office was primely given to the Apostles and is also included in that inferior gift office forementioned as given to believers since and the choise to be desired by them whence that is called prophesying 1 Cor. 14 1. 3 and 12. 28. which also is called Ephes 4 11. prophecying and evangelizing John 15. 26 27 and 16 13 14 Titus 2. 11. 13 14 15. Thirdly Teachers or the gift of teaching for applying instructing and directing to the usefulness of both namely of that which he hath already done and is become for us in himself the ground of all the Redemption already wrought and obtained by his Blood and the infinite and abiding efficacy of it in what he is now doing and of that Salvation ready to be revealed in the last time as the end of all from both together to teach Transgressors the way that sinners may be converted to him and to lead Believers into all truth teaching them that denying ungodlinesse and worldly lust they should live soberly righteously and godly in this present world looking for that blessed hope and the Glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ Tit. 2. 13 12 13. 1 Pet. 1. 10. 14. c. John 16. 8. 14. So on the other hand Anti-christ that was to come in these last dayes and is already come he hath his contrary gifts and work yet coming in the name of Christ and as Apostles and Prophets and Teachers of Christ but in a directly opposite and contrary strain though subtilly and with hidden things of dishonesty for such are false Apostles deceitful Workers c. They to prepare and make way for their false Apostolizing in which they lift up something else in the name and place of Christ in respect of what he hath already done and is become in himself for us and for their false prophecying in which they magnifie something else in the name and place of him in respect of what he will do in his second and glorious appearing and for their false Teaching in which they direct to another Light and Teacher and teach otherwise not consenting to sound words even the Words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Doctrine according to goodlinesse to this purpose we say they seek with design in the first place to cast him down from his excellency in his person and works and to render his Ordinances contemptible and that they may effectually pull down the house with both their hands as
would rise and cannot he wants power he would do the will of the Father but cannot it seems till the power reach to him and so he may say too as Paul said To will is present with me but how to perform what I would I find not If the power be the Christ then how was Christ there where he lies burthened with corruption in man and making his grave with the wicked before he was begotten for the power is not begotten in all that Christ is in as a suffering seed and so he suffers before he be begotten and he by whom all things were made is in some men and yet his power not begotten which when it reaches to the seed it rises in it by degrees surely as men in whom he is give way to him 5. Yea here we may see the reigning of their Christ too and of his Saints with him in that they say in some he suffers and in others he reigns and is known to be Prince of Peace Is Christ divided then or doth some part of him in some suffer and other part reign in others it seems he hath neither done dying nor been at any time without his Reigning and his to Reign with him so that here we have the Mystery of their Religion 6. Nay what is this seeds rising but the Redemption of the body with them for as for the Redemption of any Natural body of man from the Natural death on them or judgement on them after that death they plainly deny it onely they talk of a seed shall rise and what is that but this seed that they say Christ takes after the flesh 7. Note here also how this their imagined Christ differs from our Christ the true Christ witnessed to and Preached in the Scriptures for their Rock is not as our Rock their Christ as our Christ themselves being Judges Deut. 32. 31. with their Book pag 10 our Rock is God in Christ and so our Lord Jesus Christ between whom and their Christ consider these differences 1. Our Christ is that Holy and Innocent man that was born of the Virgin Mary and lived in his personal body upon the Earth in the dayes of Augustus and Tiberius Cesars amongst the Jews And who in that body of his was crucified or nayled on a Tree died and was buried and rose again the third day and appeared in the same body to his Disciples after which he in that his body left the World ascending up from the Earth into the highest Heavens where he is Glorified with Gods own Self the fulnesse of the Godhead dwelling in him bodily He being God over all blessed for ever This is he whom these perverters deny and jears at as having the form and body of a Man and set up another thing in his stead that hath neither personal head hands nor feet flesh or bones proper to himself but an imaginary seed within every man desiring to follow after God and be free from sin which they call the Light the Christ the Power of God c. 2. Our Christ in a personal body of his own distinst from and out of our bodies bare our sins to and on the Tree or Crosse and so in that body died for our sins and in the same body rose for our justification that we believing in him might be justified by his Blood and accepted in his Righteousnesse and from thence have sin die in us and we dying to sin might live to Righteousnesse These plead for a Christ without any body of man distinct from others or out of them but a certain seed with an imaginary flesh and blood dying and beating sin in every man and rising where the Power reaches to it in men having no other body but what is in some men dying yea in every man in its time and in some men rising but not in all 3. Our Christ in his said body did once and but once in the last Ages of the World little more then one thousand six hundred years since suffer and die and rise again and can now therein die no more death hath no more dominion over him but he is alive for evermore in that body Glorified in the Heavens which these perverters deny But their Christ is alwayes suffering and so dying in some men and rising in others and reigning in some and so hath been alwayes dying and rising in mâ—n from the beginning of the World and so will be to the end their words plainly enough import as much 4. Our Christ by that his death once suffered and in his Resurrection in that his body that body once in sacrifice offered up to God hath overcome Death and the Devil slain the enmity and taken out of the way all that was contrary to us redeemed us from the curse of the Law obtained eternal Redemption for us and received the immeasurable fulness of the Spirit in the man and for men and is become Wisdom Righteousnesse Sanctification and Redemption being by virtue of all his foresaid sufferings and sacrifice the propitiation for the sins of the whole World of man kind the Mediator of God and men that all that believe in him may by Faith be reckoned after him and receive of the virtues hereof a first fruits of the Spirit making their Spirits liâ—e for Righteousnesse sake and giving them the hope of the fulness in Soul and Body at his coming again to be enjoyed by them for which they wait of all which these Perverters make nothing as James Naylor writ to a certain Gentleman by way of reproach Thou lookest to be saved by a man that dyed 1600. years ago this is that they scoff at giving out in their words that the death they mean of is not the death of a man in a Mortal body which was Natural and must have dyed they say though sin had never been But the death they mean is the death of the Seed or Christ that is alwayes dying and rising sometime in one and sometime in another which death and resurrection they extol and account the other but a shadow and figure of 5. Our Christ being in his glorified Bodie in the Heavens the fulnesse of the Godhead dwelling in him bodily by his spirit draws in many to believe in him of whom he in his Personal body is the Head and they the Members are one spiritual body or Corporation But these Perverters denying that their Christ hath any Personal body made but one Body in and of all and that the Seed sure for the Natural Bodies of themselves and others they say must die and never rise again and therefore sure they are in their account no part of Christs Body that must live ever and sure that Seed is no Personal Body but a conceited spirit that is within them with a conceited flesh and blood in them to This is the fulnesse of God they say whereof they are every one of them in this Seed the Members such an Idol was scarce ever in any Generation
to prove that Adam might have died the natural death though he had not sinned they argue as thus Because Christ who had no sin not considering that Christ had our sins laid upon him and for them he died but Adam should have had no sin laid upon him or imputed to him had he not sinned himself But such like reasonings are too many to number up in them 4. They carry on their false designs and doctrines with lies and falshood most frequently as in saying often that we accuse the Saints and plead for sin p. 2 3 4 5. And in belying J. H. in saying that he turned G. Ws. words about his false Syllogisme above mentioned when as all that were at the dispute and heard and remembred his words may remember they were word for word as John Horn relates them Yea and in belying his own words in saying they were such as they indeed were not Again in saying we might as well have accused the true Prophets and Apostles with being Preachers of lies and deceivers as the Quakers and that the same Spirit in us that hath accused the Quakers with being deceivers that is the Spirit of Truth would have accused the true Prophets Christ and his Apostles for being deceivers page 5. That we contradict our selves in many things where we have made it we have made it evident there is no contradiction That we look for a Christ like our selves but that he hath no Blood in his Body as we imagine p. 10. That our expecting the Redemption of the Body to be waited for aster Death is contrary to the Saints expectations p. 11. and 12. In which words is both equivocation and falshood that what the Scriptures say of Christ and his Body they own in which they also either equivocate or say falsly or both they equivocate if by owning they mean as probably they do they own it as true of themselves the Quakers as if the things spoken of Christ and his Church are verified in and of them and may be affirmed of them Or if by owning they mean they believe and hold them true concerning Jesus of Nazareth and them that believe on him to be saved through the virtue of his sufferings Sacrifice and Mediation then they say falsly Yea whether this or the former be their meaning they are false therein as our reply makes manifest to the impartial Reader But who can number up their lies and falshoods in falsifying our sayings and otherwise which the following Reply will further evidence He that will procure and search and compare what Christopher Wade of Water-beach hath written against them with their writings against him may see a whole dozen of notorious lies of George Foxes clearly proved against him to which G. W. in his answer gives the go by most egregiously and in none of them disproves him 5. They misrelate and give the go-by to many of our charges and sayings as for instance We quoted Jam. 3. 2. to prove all believers here to have sin or sometime to offend to this they say nothing onely quote the place and give it the go-by telling us onely that James exhorted men to let patience have its perfect work c. Which is nothing to the purpose p. 3. So what we said of the Nature of man as it is in Christ discharged of sin Law and Death in his Resurrection p. 10. Of our former Book that they represent it as if we had said it of the Nature and being of man as in us to be discharged in our Resurrection p. 11. And whereas we charged them with denying the Humanity of Christ as to its being now in him they give it the go-by answering onely that they never denied the Man Christ for his flesh is their food p. 14. Whereas they had before denied him to have any other Body then his Church p. 8. And to our saying that Christ is not really and personally in the believer as in Heaven but by Faith they let go the words personally and as in Heaven in their answer and traduce us as denying any real being of him by Faith in the believer p. 14. More such like dealings thou mayst find in p. 15. and 18. and divers others 6. They carry their designes by reproaches Nick-names and abusive expressions in which also much hatred malice and spite against us is made evident to be in them and so that they are far from sinlessenesse to this purpose it is that in their Title page and Post-script they Nick-name us Calling us 1. Teachers of the People called Moorians or Manifestarians and called by some Free-willers and Independants which what can it proceed from but their hatred of us and indignation against us Seeing 1. The Names we own not nor are the People we Teach so called as Moorians that we know of T. M sen it seems for affirming not of himself as his own but from the Testimony of Christ and his Spirit recorded in the Scriptures that Jesus Christ is the Saviour of the World and gave himself a ransom for all men and is by virtue thereof the Mediator of God and men the propitiation for the sins of the whole World and extends to men meanes leading them to Repentance and is ready to receive such as in the means are prevailed with to believe and this a good ground and motive to Repentance Faith Love c. Was by some that opposed those truths standered and called Papists or Arminian and some of the same mind with him in those truths were by means of a certain Manciple in one of the Colledges that turned Almanack-maker and reproachfully devising that Name called Moorians by some drunkards profane and cavilling persons but never owned by him nor by any of his friends much less by us or the people we teach nor do we know of any civil people or others these revilers excepted that say or write of us or of any people that they are the people called Moorians as these men call themselves in divers of their writings the Quakers the people called Quakers which makes it lawful for us also without reproach to give them that name by way of distinction in our speaking or writing of them as the names Herodians Sadduces and Pharisees are given in the Scripture to and were owned by those people 's so called without reproach to them And the rather because the Name Quakers fathers their Doctrine upon no man as the name Moorian doth nor charges it with any particular evil Opinion as the other name Manifestarian and Free-Willers import though had they been thereby wronged and reproached yet the Spirit of Truth would have led them not to return reviling for reviling reproach for reproach and to joyn hands with drunkards and others so that herein they are convicted to be sinners being guilty of reviling As also in that 2. They add or Manifestarians as if Moorian and Manifestarian were the same with them this is another of their spiteful reproaches against
Epistle to the Reader as ours in which they shew their ignorance and deceit they be thus T. Moor say they affirmed That sin is a natural heritage in the beleevers while they be here To which T. Moor saith Ans This is falsly expressed his sayings were That sin is in the beleever as a natural heritage from Adam while he is in this mortal body And in noting this as erroneous they intimately deny the natural uncleanness of man by sin entring into the world by one mans sin and so that all have sinned in him and are fallen short of the glory of God in and unto which they were created Or else with the Papists imagine that its taken away by Baptism or Regeneration so as no more to be in men here But note that T. M. says its in them as a natural heritage from the first natural root fallen Adam in which is implied a distinction between what is the beleevers by nature as a son of the first Adam a man and what is his by grace as in Christ the second Adam and the Apostle tells us That by one man sin entred into the world and death by sin and that it abides in the beleever after beleeving is plain in that Paul says sin dwelt in him even then when he says it was not he that did sin but sin in him Rom. 7. 17 20. For I know that in me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing there his natural heritage In which also he implies that in his Spirit was that that is good dwelling as also he after says vers 22. and that sin abides not in the beleever till death we find no Scripture saith but the contrary That no man living shall be justified in the sight of God if he enter into judgement with him Psal 143. 2. If no man living but by Gods not entring into judgment with him then no man living here is without sin for if there were though God did enter into judgement with him he should be justified for God certainly cannot in judgment or will not condemn him in whom is no sin so that their ignorance and error herein appears in accusing T. M. of Error herein 2. T. M. say they affirmed that their nature is restored in Christ speaking of their own nature and that their nature is a filthy nature and Christ took upon him their nature Ans This also is falsly expressed and perverted for his sayings were to this effect That the nature or kind of man is perfectly redeemed and restored in one for all even in Christ the second Adam while yet sin is in and death upon the Individuals or particular persons of men for whom such Redemption is obtained in and by Jesus Christ Yea even the beleevers body is yet vile while not changed by death and they all waiting for the redemption of the body but here they confound things together and deal deceitfully they might as well have taxed the Apostle of confusion for saying men by nature do the things contained in the Law Rom. 2. 14. and yet by nature are children of wrath Eph. 2. 3. The word Nature signifies diversly when we say our nature is restored in Christ we speak of the nature or kind of man as it is distinguished from the nature or kind of Angels and other creatures which whole nature by reason of sin committed by it in Adam was fallen under wrath and curse but being assumed by Christ who was made flesh and man and not in the nature or kind of Angels he hath redeemed it even mans nature or being which is ours too inasmuch as we are men and restored it to favour and fellowship with God in himself and yet we say our nature kind or being as in us not in Christ for the same common nature kind or being of man is in every man though in divers persons diversly is corrupt and filthy in it self by reason of sin in it Isai 64. 6. and death upon us further then purified and purged by him yet Christ took upon him our nature as before not as it is filthy in us by sin in it but as it was under bondage to death and ourse without filth in him he being sanctified in his conception so as to be the Holy One even in his Birth Luke 1. 35. whereas others are conceived in sin and shapen in iniquity Psal 51. 5. so that there is neither error nor confusion in what is said by T. M. hereabout but they have mis-related his sayings and therefore tax them because they agree not with their Errors concerning mans natural sinfulness called Original sin and the humanity of Christ denied by them 3. John Horn they say holds that they that had no guile in them had sin in them that every sin is not guile Answ T is well they dared not to put in David with him as holding the same error for he says that man is blessed whose sins are covered and to whom the Lord will not impute sin and in whose spirit there is no guile so then it seems some men in whose spirit is no guile have sins in them though covered and not imputed to them there needs no cover for what is not yet John Horn did not say that every one that had no guile in him had sin in him for he excepts Jesus Christ who neither did sin nor had guile in him not that Principle then but the contradiction of it is the Error 4. T. M. say they affirmed That the blood of Christ shed is not in his person in heaven but the vertue of it To which T. M. saith Ans That herein also they have altered and falsified his sayings which in Answer to their Question where the blood of Christ is was to this effect That the material blood was shed and the vertue or preciousness thereof or of his bloodshedding is now with the Father in the person of Christ in Heaven forasmuch as by means and for the worth thereof he is raised from the dead and entred into heaven it self there to appear in the presence of God for us having by it obtained life from the dead even eternal life and redemption for us Mind also Reader that they say p. 15. that they blame us not nor did blame us for not asserting that the bloodshed is in the body of Christ Why then note they this as a dangerous principle had T. M. so said 5. T. M. say they affirmed That the blood of Christ shed is the foundation of their faith but where it is they answered not nor could they tell Ans The forementioned Answer to their Question was first often given and urged else what meant their reply to it to this effect That the vertue of a thing cannot be separated from the thing it self that it may be where the thing it self is not in a present reall sensible existence or being the contrary to which was then proved as is shewed in the Book they pretend to answer And further T.
M. his Assertion was That as the blood of Christ is in heaven with the Father in the sense above expressed so it s the ground and foundation of our Faith it being that by means of which he is so and so we still say that the blood or sufferings of Christ and he through and by means thereof being raised from the dead and glorified in the same body in which he bare our sins without which his sufferings could have done us no good is the foundation of our faith it seems it is not of theirs and so they have not faith in his blood as the Apostles preached Rom. 3. 25. their faith is founded in something else and so they are men of dangerous Principles beware of them 6. T. M. They further say affirmed That the life of Christ is not in the blood of Christ whence they infer that the Foundation of our faith hath not the life of Christ in it Ans This also is a deceitful abuse and falsifying of his words which were in answer to their assertion That the blood of Christ is nothing else but the life of Christ the Spirit or power of God bringing those Scriptures for proof that speaking not so much as of man in his mortal state but of other mortal creatures say the blood is the life and the life of the flesh is in the blood Gen. 9. 4. Lev. 17. 11. In answer to which T. M. said that the life of Christs personal body which body they deny is not in or by the supply of material blood as the life of mortal creatures yet he said that the eternal life and redemption in Christ for us is the fruit of his blood being obtained by it So that their conclusion hath not the least colour from his saying but is contradicted by it for the material blood that was shed as to its present locallity or place of being as to its matter is not the foundation of our faith in whole or in part but his bloodshed or sufferings to the pouring out his soul to death for our sins and he by vertue thereof as is before said 7. T. M. affirmed say they again that the light wherewith Christ lighteth every man is both natural and spiritual Ans That Christ is the true light that lighteth every man coming into the world and that the light which he giveth or wherewith he lighteth them is all that is truly called light and good whether natural or spiritual we did and do assert as truth their denial of which implies an evil Principle held by them Viz. That they deprive Christ of the glory of being the Author and giver either of the natural light or good or of the spiritual 8. T. M. say they said That the person of Christ namely of flesh and bones is a quickning spirit and dwells in the beleevers by faith and to prove it he said that the Corinthians dwelt in the heart of Paul Ans There again they falsifie and pervert his sayings which were that the person of Christ that had and hath flesh and bones a person of flesh and bones we call him not that 's the term they put upon him by way of derision and reproach even Jesus Christ who was made of the seed of David according to the flesh is declared to be the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead even in the same body in which he bare our sins on the tree and he the second man the last Adam is made a quickning spirit which was answered against their seeking privily to insinuate to the people that that body of his flesh was abolished or annihilated so that now he hath not that body or possesses not his glory therein to shew the vanity and wickedness of their indeavours wherein it was urged that the manhood or body of his flesh is not annihilated by his becomming a quickning Spirit it being the man Christ Jesus the last Adam that 's made a quickning Spirit yea it s because this man continues for ever in the name glory of the Father for us that he hath an unchangeable Priesthood and is able to save to the utmost them that come to God by him God having given to the Son of man to have life in himself even as the Son hath life in himself As to the other part of the charge T. M. his saying was that its the man Christ Jesus as thus considered as a distinct person personally or bodily distant from them so as they are absent from him while they are at home in the mortal body that is and dwels in the beleevers heart by faith To their sensual scoffing at which as not being able to comprehend by their sensual imagination how such a thing might be such matters of faith being too high for them as even the least things in the wisedome of God are too high for a fool that seeks to be wise in himself we brought that of the Corinths and the Philippians being in the Apostles hearts by love 2 Cor. 7. 3. Philip. 1. 7. not to prove that Christ dwells in the beleevers hearts by faith that 's fully and plainly the assertion of the Scripture and needs no other proof Eph. 3 17. 2 Cor. 5. 7. But for illustration and discovery of the thing to the weakest of them whom they indeavoured to subvert to shew them how one might dwell in the heart of another and yet be personally distinct and as to bodily presence distant also 1 Thes 2. 17. But mind Reader that these men do flatly oppose the dwelling of the man Christ as a quickning spirit in the hearts of the beleevers by Faith which had they not been blinded with Antichristian Babilonish confusion they would not have done plainly therein without covert contradicting the Spirit in the Apostle that with so great earnestness prayed for the Ephesians That Christ might dwell in their hearts by faith but its manifest that these men know not what faith is but take it for a beleeving something of God or Christ from a knowing or experimenting it in themselves as the Devils believe James 2. 19. Which yet is not faith or having faith and their after abuse of and clipping 1 John 5. 10. in their p. 1. Gives occasion to think they take it so or for sense or sight as many of their words import but did they know that believing is the receiving a thing from a report and that every believing is not faith in Scripture account Prov. 14 15 2 Thes 2. 11. But the hearty believing of that report in which the true and saving Object of faith is set forth and brought nigh Isa 53. 1. John 7. 37 38. Rom. 10. 8 9 10. Whence believing receives the denomination of faith they would not thus have said and writ for those that are willing to understand this business we shall here take liberty to open what the Object of faith is which is often called faith though of many not believed and what
perfect in knowledge and then they are wretchedly unhappy that take them for Oracles that are so ignorant If they know this then dealt they guilfully and intended to deceive simple ignorant people that cannot distinguish things that differ by their Sophistry and then the case of their followers is yet more wretched which things being so 4. Their conclusion cannot follow from those premises viz. So that he that had no guile in him had no sin in him but the contrary so that he that had no guile in him might have ignorance and other sins in him G. W. They accuse J. H. also of turning George Whiteheads words in saying he said guile is a transgression of the law therefore guile is all sin which they say is falsly framed and that the words were to this effect Every transgression of the law is guile or sin and all guile includes all transgression of the law therefore every sin is guile Rep. I call God and men to witness whither George Whitehead be not herein a notorious lyer who hath shamefully turned his own words and belyed both himself and me why else should I match it and detect his Sophistry in his syllogisme by this as like it all sin is a transgression of the law but lying is transgression of the law therefore lying is all sin It is true that syllogism of his was falsly framed and so much I told him then but it was of his own framing nor does he repeate it here as I writ it rightly and as he framed it but leaves out the word all in the minor and the whole major proposition as any that compare our books may discern And when they say their words were to suâ—â— effect as they repeat why say they not directly they were their words may they not as boldly lye and falsifie in one thing as in another and what kind of argument have they framed here sure as corrupt as that he framed then for here is but onely the same falshood affirmed in three severall forms of words to the same sense and none of them proved and yet they would infer the last form of them from the two former just like this every transgression of the law is anger or sin and all anger includes all transgression therefore every sin is anger but why saies the first proposition every transgression of the law is guile or sin t is true it s one of them if their or disjoyn then they distinguish sin and guile if it but explicate then they beg the question instead of proving it Oh! Lord deliver this Nation and the poor ignorant people from such sophisters as these be that lead men to destruction They aske G. W. What sin can we prove that Nathaniel had in him when he had no guile in him and tell us we must prove some sin then in him or see our selves confuted Rep. They may as well say seeing the Scripture witnesses that the children of Korah dyed not in the judgement that befell Korah and his company what disease dyed they of and if we cannot prove that they dyed of some disease then we are confuted if we believe and hold that they dyed For as there are many diseases they might dye of though not in that judgement so there be divers sins besides guile secret sins distinct from presumptuous sins as David implies Psal 19. 1. When they tell us what were those secret sins David prayed to be cleansed from distinct from presumptuous sins then may we tell them what sins Nathaniel had distinct from guile David implies sins in them though forgiven and covered in whose Spirits is no guile Psal 32. 1 2. Which we also quoted and that will save us from being confuted though we can prove no one particular sin in Nathaniell but that Scripture they skip over in silence as afraid to meddle with it because thereby they are confuted To our Quotation of Ed. Borroughs saying that saints upon earth may be perfectly freed from the body of sin and death and our concluding them from their doctrine of sinlesness to be deceivers They say W. and F. Here we might as well have accused the true Prophets and Apostles Rep. It seems then by their own intimation they be not such but false Prophets and Apostles what needed that word true by way of distinction of them from themselves else if not to imply that they also be Prophets and Apostles but not true Mind this Reader and beware of them then for say they they witnessed to the same the Quakers witnesse to Rep. Here they own themselves Quakers too so that we may call them lawfully so whereas they traduce us by many Nick names that we own not as Moorians Manifestarians Freewillers c. Did the true Apostles and Prophets ever so nickname their Opponents as these false ones do But let us see their proof that the true Apostles and Prophets witnessed to the same things that the untrue ones the Quakers do They adde as said the Prophet Blessed are the undefiled in the way they also do no iniquity Psal 119. 1 2 3. And saith the Lord ye shall be clean from all your filthiness Ezek. 36. 25. And Christ exhorted his to be perfect as their heavenly Father is perfect Math. 5. 48. And every one that is perfect shall be as his Lord and the same Apostle who said ye are compleat in Christ said also in whom ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh Col. 2. 10. 11. Rep. Here is no place yet saies that either those Holy men themselves or any others then living were without sin in themselves which is the thing should have been proved 1. As for the Prophet David lived not he under the old Testament as well as Solomon whose saying there is no man that sinneth not they would therewith have eluded but undefiled in the way may signifie either in Christ who is the way John 14. 6. And that we granted or in the way of their walking so as Zachariah and Elizabeth were blameless in their walking in all the statutes and commandements of the Lord and yet Zachary had sin in him which discovered it self when tried with the vision for he believed not the Angel and therefore was punished with blindness Luke 1. 6. 20. And they do no iniquity perverse evil as the word signifies is all one with they do not commit sin yet even such as do not commit sin have sin in them yea and with their flesh serve the Law of sin as we may read Rom. 7. 20. 25. 2. In that of Ezek 36. 25. They confound things distinguished for it is not said as they quote it in one and the same period you shal be clean from all your filthiness but the words are distinguished thus I will sprinkle clean water upon you and you shall be clean there 's a half stop and then follows from all your filthiness and from all your
idols will I cleanse you And as God promised to do so doth and will he do the blood of Christ cleanseth us from all sin and yet it follows If we say we have no sin we deceive our selves and he is the propitiation for our sins 1 John 1. 7 8. and 2. 2. As was before noted he that forgives and cleanseth us by way of pardon from all sins bids us also pray as duly as for our daily bread forgive us our trespasses c. 3. As for exhortations to be perfect they prove not the being of the thing exhorted to They supposed above the little children to whom the Apostle wrote that they might not sin might have sin in them not withstanding Nor is all perfectiom perfection of sinlesness in mens selves Asa was perfect hearted all his daies and yet had sin and sinned 2 Chron. 15. 17. and 16. 9. And yet every one that is perfect shall be as his Lord he saies not he is so yea in saying he shall be he implies he is not yet so but when he shall appear we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is This we granted but they skipt it over 4. The Apostle said they were circumcised with the circumcisiou made without hands in the putting off the body of sins of the flesh but it was in Christ he saies for so much the words in whom signifies And the same Apostle in the same Epist Col. 1. 10. 11 to the same people therefore he saith but now you also Mark now also put off all these anger wrath malice blasphemy filthy communication c. Col 3. 8 9. it seems then they had those things yet to put off still for can any put off what is not So to the Ephesians too when he had said they had learned to put off the old man and put on the new he addes wherefore putting away lying speak every man truth to his brother a lesson these men have not yet learned To the Corimbians also he saith purge out the old leaven that ye may be a new lump even as ye are unleavened so that in some sense in Christ they were unleavened and yet in other sense needed to purge out the old leaven which implies it was yet in them for how can a man purge that out of him that is not in him but they through ignorance confound these things and run themselves and Auditors into delusion Again p. 5. l. 36. They distinguish the true Prophets Christ and his Apostles from themselves that are accused by us and so again imply that they be neither the true Christ nor his true Prophets or Apostles Reader mind it they give out themselves for Prophets and Apostles and some of them say they are Christ but they are false ones and why then plead they for their false prophecyings and witnessings But they indeed shew their confusion and rayling against us as after will appear to their own delection and shame as for their innocence no liers are innocent but they be over and over proved liers that perfect heartedness and compleateness in Christ may consist with sin being in men in this life we have shewed And they cannot disprove unloss they will blot out Col. 2. 10. with Chap. 3. 8. 2 Chron. 15. 17. so 1 Cor. 5. 8. 9. Which we noted above either let them say those Scripture sayings are false or else own their own words to be false in saying that we fight against our own words and that they that are compleate in Christ are perfectly freed from sin namely as to all inherency of it in themselves or they say nothing to purpose that sinners are out of the compleatness of Christ which though in some sense true viz. Of sinners out of Christ yet is not universally true except Paul when he said of sinners I am the chief was out of Christs compleatness that the heart that hath sin dwelling in it is not perfect contrary to 2 Chron. 15. 17. with 16 17. Where Isaiahs heart is said to have been perfect all his daies and yet he is charged with relying on the King of Asyria and not relying on the Lord his God and those were heart-sins surely and they dwell there too for some time as the verses before manifest p. 6. They accuse us of confusion that we say believers are come to a further state and covenant then Adam was in before his fall who then had no sin in him and yet accuse the believers they say with having the body of sin or not being perfect while here Rep. Here they shew their own confusion for the believers being in a better state or convenant in Christ hinders not their having sin yet in themselves to purge out as is evident in Col. 2. 10 11. with 3. 5. 8 9. No more then it hinders them from having infirmides and death which Adam unfallen had not besides they have added a lie or two as that we accuse the believers with having a body of sin then Paul accused them when he said the believers old man is crucified with Christ that the body of sin might be destroyed the words might be plainly imply it a thing not then done but to be done as in all like expressions is evident and that we accuse them with not being perfect when in divers respects we grant them to be perfect as perfect in Christ Jesus and many of them perfect with Christ in their Spirits without guile there and perfect comparatively to some others c. In the same page they wrong us in giving it as our saying that Adam might possibly sin and die but not so the believers whereas we added what they suppress to not so the believer not under a covenant of works here nor hereafter the resurrection capable of sinning and dying as Adam before his fall was again they say we would accuse the Quakers of being sinners because of their dying which is false let any man read our book p 3. What we said is thus that the Quakers are not in Adams state before the fall because Adam had no death then upon him as the Quakers have for they must die but they say here our darkness appears for believers dying the natural death doth not prove them sinners while here for through death they gain more of the peace and glory of God which they partake of in their life time which is both confused and inconcludent for what if the believer gain by his death may it not therefore argue he had sin in him while he lived is not the being freed from the body of death and inherency and combating with sin again think they Though we did not bring it for an argument to prove what they charge us with as we before discovered and for their confusion their words sound as if they believed that the greater gain by their death they have it all in this live for they say not more of the peace and glory of God then they partake of in
us or with any that know and believe the Scriptures but they imply That if Adam was under a covenant of works do this and live then he should not have lived when he was in innocency till he had done some thing to merit life Rep. The mistake of this is shewed above in that that covenant was not for the first giving but for the continuance of his life in the favour of God and that though he could not merit by any works and obedience was to be continued upon his working that that was good sinlesly otherwise he was to die as appeared in that he lost it by his sinning and fell under death from which that covenant afforded no Redemption as the covenant in Christ doth so that we have not spoken ignorantly as they charge us but the ignorance is found with them that confound what covenant Adam was under with what was given to the people of Israel for convincement of their sin when fallen The covenant of works or Law as given to fallen man in the hand of a Mediator entred because of transgression till the seed came and so was given with subordination to the covenant of grace even the grace of God in the Redeemer from the fall and the death that came by sin as the naturall death also did though they erroneously imply the contrary and no marvaile for if that death be by sin then there must be a Redemption out of that death and so a Resurrection of the body from it which seeing they deny how can they grant it comes in by sin and that the seed should Redeem the creature out of it So that herein also their iniquity and corrupt judgement is seen and the root of their deniall that the naturall death came in by sin namely their deniall of the Redemption by Christ from that death and so the Resurrection of the body from it as after will more appear so that here Reader we have a complication of errours in them Thus much to their defence of their first errour about their sinlesness let us see how they defend their second Our second charge of them was about the personall body of Christ in which he suffered which that it is ascended into Heaven the Heavens without all men and above the clouds opposed to the visible earth we say they would not be brought to acknowledge touching which whether we questioned severall times altering our words as they charge us let them judge that read our book But they say W. and F. We contradict our selves because we say that they said the same body that suffered was glorified at Gods right hand in heaven Rep. Nay not unless by that body and that Heaven we say they meant as we expressed in our question which we said they did not and they in their book clearly manifest the truth of what we therein said so that it 's but another falshood added to the former to say that we are stifled in our own confusion and another yet to say that we charge them ignorantly with what they meant for here they plainly say W. and F. It appears we hold Christ hath two bodies in telling of a mysticall body and not receiving that as in answer that his body is the Church the fulness of him that filleth all in all and in that from our words they say we would have Christ to have a body besides or distinct from the fulness of God when as the Scripture doth not say that Christ hath two bodies or that his body is a body of flesh and bones without the blood in it as they say we told them Rep. See here Reader did we ignorantly charge them that by the body they said was glorified in Heaven they meant his Church do not they here speak it out while they tax us with holding Christ hath two bodies because we say he hath his personall body in which he suffered and which he shewed to have flesh and bones in it as a Spirit hath not And is it more absurd for Christ to have in two senses a body or two bodies in different senses of the word body then for the believer to have two heads in two distinct senses hath not George Whitehead and the rest each of them their personall head in which they have tongues with which they smite them that are more righteous then themselves And if they were believers in truth should they not have Christ for their head too And why then may not Christ have a body of his own as a man the man Christ Jesus in which he shewed his Disciples flesh and bones and yet have a body mysticall or body signifying a Church society or congregation as he is the Ruler and Governour of them and in them by his Spirit And doth not the Scripture set forth both these to us as distinct bodies though those very words two bodies it hath not was it his body the Church in which he shewed his Disciples his flesh and bones hands and feet that were pierced with Nailes and in which he bare our sins on the tree And was it his personal body for which Paul filled up the remainder of the sufferings Col. 1. 24. Is there not expresly the body of his flesh mentioned Col. 1. 22. In which he reconciled us to God his now glorious body in the Heavens to which the body of his Church is to be fashioned into the likeness of it Phil. 3. 20. 21. And the body his Church Col. 1. 24. See here how these men broadly deny Christ as man and onely make him a Spirit filling the Church and so the Spirit and the Church to be Christ and is not that all the Christ they confess now to be And whereas they say we would have Christ to have a body besides and distinct from the fulness of God Col. 2. 9. We say we acknowledge a body in which dwells the fulness of the Godhead which we say is distinct from the fulness of the Godhead that dwells in it and is distinct too from the Church the fulness it is not said of God as God but of him that filleth all in all that is of Christ as Mediator in the power of God Ephes 4. 9 10. Yet that his body is a body of flesh and bones in Heaven without blood in it we determined not but that that body of flesh and bones or in which he shewed his Disciples flesh and bones is ascâ—nded up into Heaven and he as in it is glorified against which they reason thâ—â— W. and F. It 's not proper to say a body of flesh and bones is in the Heavens as if it were in many places at once for Heavens are more then one a silly reason for by that reason it 's not proper to say a body of flesh and bones is in the waters or a stone sinks in the waters for waters are more then one Heaven and Heavens are indifferently used in the Singular or Plurall number as water and waters be as we
sure these men have the imperfection of irrationality if they cannot understand this difference We accused John Whitehead for arguing against the Redemption of the body to be expected after death and for saying the Apostles had it before death W. and F. Here they fault us for not expecting the Redemption of the body and our discharge from sin till after death because we said also p. 10. that the nature of man in the Resurrection is discharged of sin which we spake of Christ made under sin and Law and death for us and in the Resurrection namely his resurrection discharged thereof sayes that any thing of our not being discharged of sin as to forgivenesse of it till the resurrection What grosse abuses be these But they plead for John Whiteheads corrupt sayings reproaching our W. and F. expecting the redemption of the body after death as contrary to the Saints expectations for they waited and groaned they say for the redemption of the body from under corruption when they were upon earth and the creature it self was to be brought into the Glorious Liberty of the Sons of God which state was witnessed by as many as were led by the Spirit of God who were sanctified throughout in body in Soul and in Spirit and put not redemption afar off till after death as they say we do Reply Oh monstrous blind corrupted stuffe one would think that all men that read these things should abhor to listen to these Preachers for first they bely the Saints in saying the expecting the redemption of the body after Death is contrary to the Saints expectation did not the Saints expect that after death their bodies should be raised incorruptible Did they look to have their bodies immortal incorruptible powerful and glorious before their death read 1 Cor. 15. and see if these men be not lyars in grain and wofully corrupt like Hymeneus and Phyletus that said the resurrection was past Phil. 3. 20. 21. 2 Tim. 2 17. 18. 2. They aequivocate in saying they waited and groaned for the redemption of the body from under corruption when they were upon earth in one sense it is true and in another false It is true while they were upon earth they exercised their patient waiting and expectation but false that they expected that the redemption of their body should be proved by them before death the redemption of it I say either from all the being of sin therein or to the being of sin in it till death we spake before and proved it from Ps 143. 2. for they say it s sown in corruption and raised in incorruption if it be sown in corruption when it dies then it is not redeemed from corruption before it die 3. That the Creature it self is to be brought into the liberty of the Sons of God is true but that that state was witnessed that is proved by as many as were led by the Spirit of God is false for the Apostle was led by the Spirit of God and so are the Sons of God but if they witnessed the Creatures being brought into the liberty of the Sons of God and the Redemption of their bodies from corruption how sayes he then that the earnest expectation of the creature waits for the manifestation of the Sons of God seeing what they waited for they did not see and prove and so could not witnesse it for if they see it why did they yet wait for it Rom. 8. 14. 19 20. 23 24 25. Why say they the creature it self shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption and not rather is delivered from it yea and why say they expresly we that have the first fruits of the spirit even we our selves groaning within our selves wait for the Adoption the Redemption of the body for we are saved by hope c. Were not the Apostles led by the Spirit that had the first fruits of it And Paul sayes The Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the Law of Sin and Death Rom. 8. 2. And were not they sanctified throughout in Body Soul and Spirit at least in good measure And yet we see they did but wait for the Redemption of the Body they did not witnesse it as a thing which they had nor do we ever find them say they had it but they confound the Redemption of the body with the freeing it from sin in it as G. W. in his late dispute with J. H. declared himself alleadging Rom. 8. 2. his being set free from the Law of sin and death for proof that Paul witnessed the Redemption of the body when as Paul had that before he said he waited for this nor doth it prove any absolute freedom from the being of sin in his body Rom. 7. 26. shews So see all men how corrupt the Quakers be and how miserable out of the Apostles Doctrine and Faith And yet fourthly We say not that either we or the Apostles put Redemption far off till after death It is God that hath Ordered the Redemption there spoken of to be after Death that we might first bear the image of the Earthly in a vile Mortal body before we bear the Image of the Heavenly in a Glorious body it was their part and so is ours to groan after it and waite for it till the time of Christs descending from Heaven to change our vile body that it may be fashioned into the likenesse of his Glorious body was ever any mans body redeemed from Corruption and Death and Rottennesse before it died They may as well contradict the Apostle and say that which thou sowest is quickened before it die All men may see these be deniers of the Resurrection preached by the Apostles and therefore Teachers that are to be accounted accursed Gal. 1. 8. Note by the way Reader that these men never attempt to answer our Question propounded to them at both our former disputes whether that that shall rise a Spiritual body was ever dead surely they by their shunning it do declare that they do not believe it and therefore by consequence deny the Resurrection of the dead To our charge of them with Antichristianisme in intimately not confessing Christ come in the flesh while they make not the knowledge of him as so come the knowledge to Eternal Salvation but the knowledge of him after the Spirit as he was before the World was in Ed. Burroughs declaration of their faith which charge we managed against them and they could not make good their faith or prove it by Scriptures though they assayed it from 2 Cor. 5. 16. 1 John 1. 1 2 3. And therefore stood concluded Antichristians To this upon further thoughts they give now this answer That W. and F. To know Christ as he is the Power of God is to know him in the Spirit as he was before the World was and that we trust in the living God who is the Saviour of all men especially of them that believe but as he is
the living God he was before the World was Reply But this too is false and fallacious for Christ is the Power of God as he was Crucified 1 Cor. 1. 22 23 24. and to know him so is not to know him as he was before the World was he was the Power of God before the World was but to know him as he was the Power of God before the World was is not the knowledge of him to Salvation To assert it is not to confesse but vertually to deny him as come in the Flesh The like we may say of the other phrase he is not the living God the Saviour of all men as he was before the World was for he is the living God now in the Manhood or as Immanuel God with us as made flesh and dead and raised but so he was not before the World was and as not the living God in mans Nature or Incarnate or promised so to be as such considered or as therethrough made manifest he is not since the fall the object of our knowledge to Salvation and though they say they do not deny his knowledge as in his flesh that is an Equivocal deceitful speech its evident what they say puts no necessity or grants not the sufficiency of the knowledge of him as come in the Flesh and so doth not confesse or magnifie it but exalts as sufficient that that was before and without it W. and F. They say When we can prove nothing against them and yet we have made good all our charge against them hitherto we have invented these lies against them that they may and can in their canting Language say he is manifest in England and is persecuted and dies and rises as well as in Judea and Jerusalem and that however they make no thing of his being born suffering and dying in the flesh and there they say they utterly deny us and charge us as forgers of lies for they never use they say such canting Language against Christ but own his sufferings in Judea and Jerusalem as he was a true offering and propitiation for the sins of the whole World whose sufferings were effectual both for the pacifying the Fathers wrath and for the reconciling the whole World as is witnessed by them who receive the power of his life which was manifested through Death to them that truly believed through Christs sufferings Reply To which we say that they use such canting Language we call for witness John Toldervy in his Foot out of the Snare where he tells of the Quakers turning all the Scriptures into Allegories as about Adam Moses Christ Jerusalem c. Which neither James Naylor in his Book against him contradicts or faults him for nor doth himself retract in what he write by way of submission to James Naylor in his Book called the Naked Truth yea and in a Letter to us George Whitehead saith that the Blood of Christ suffereth mark suffereth with Christ where he suffers marke its in the Present Tense for the prisoner which by the Blood of the Covenant is to be brought out of the Pit which can hold no water Now if Judea and Jerusalem be in men and Christ suffereth yet for the prisoner to be brought out by the Blood of the Covenant cannot they say Judea and Jerusalem are in England as well as any where Yea said they not above that that our faith is to be rooted out that is not grounded in Christs appearing in us Now if their faith be grounded in Christs appearing in them must it not be in Christs dying and crucifying in them if at all in his dying But indeed it is not grounded in his dying at all if it be in the knowledge of him as he was before the World was and so to what purpose say they or what do they but cant when they say that they own his sufferings in Judea and Jerusalem as he was a true offering and propitiation for the sins of the whole World and that his sufferings were effectual both for the pacifying the Fathers wrath and reconciling the whole World Let them tell us when they write again where that Judea and Jerusalem is whether it be not in them yea or nay by his sufferings at which they are reconciled to God how do they own any sufferings in Judea else Not as any thing their faith is grounded in unless they were sufferings in them and he appeared in them in those sufferings and so the Judea and Jerusalem where he appeared and suffered be in them seeing they root up the Faith otherwise grounded and how was his suffering in Judea without or any sufferings past effectual for the reconciling the whole World or pacifying the Fathers wrath and yet Christ suffereth for the Prisoner to be brought forth by the blood of the Covenant which prisoner we shall finde by their sayings afterward to be Christ too and what need of the owning him as so suffering if it be not the knowledge of him to Salvation but as he was before the World was when he suffered not They that consult with their Books may see but canting in all this for if we may believe what is printed as their Answer to the Cambridge Queries they justified Richard Hubberthorns saying that Christs coming in the flesh was but a figure which since I writ the former expressions I see not disowned but justified by G. W. in his answer to them with one or two filly frivolous pleas as how could Christ else be said to have been transfigured And did not he namely the Scholer he answers never read that Christ is the figure his Fathers substance c Which may serve to cheat silly men and women but if Christs coming was but a figure then not the true Pacifier of Gods wrath nor reconciliation of the World they also falsifie our saying in the last clause recited for it was not as they repeat it but thus however in the foresaid expression they make nothing of his being born suffering c. Those words in the foresaid expression are subtilly left out the better to hide their deceit in faulting us from those that have not their Books to compare their sayings with and we appeal to all whether if the knowing him after the Spirit as he was before the World was be the knowledge of him to Eternal Salvation they therein make anything to purpose of all his dying and suffering in the flesh Seeing those things were not done or suffered by him in the Spirit as he was before the World was W. and F. p. 13. They charge us with belying Geo. Whitehead in saying he alleadged 2 Cor. 5. 16. To prove that the Apostles did not know Christ as one that suffered in the flesh or to be in the flesh but it was brought they say against our knowledge which is Carnal and stands in Immagination and neither truly know Christ as he was in the flesh nor after the Spirit but contend against the knowing him as he was before
baffled them as there it appears had the Book out of which it is quoted If it be not so as he sets it down let the fault lie at his door For J. H. never see the Book though he sent for it that he might have seen it he might be too rash in taking it upon trust not fathering it upon him whence he had it in that he confesses himself faulty and craves forgivenesse yet it appears that they were not herein led by an infallible Spirit for then they would have known J. H. was guilty only of overcredulousnesse not of impudent lying he would be loath wilfully to bely the Devil much lesse any man though his instruments VVhat follows in p. 21 22. sufficiently speaks out their deceitful way to the intimate denying of Christ come in the flesh as the Apostles preached him to them that can understand truth from deceit VVhile they justified James Naylors deceitfull and erroneous sayings alleadged by us out of his Book called Love to the lost never taking notice of or giving any answer to what was said in our Book to confute them Reader I pray minde it James Naylor in the Book aforesaid as I Jo. Horn testifie by my own sight of it treating of Redemption says few know the subject of it the seed to which the promise viz. of Redemption is made but sayes it is a certain seed or principle in men groaning for liberty from sin c. Now here G. W. and the rest say that seed of God is Christ and wherever he is known in such a low measure as a seed that suffers and is burthened in man by corruption there he desires to be free from the burthen of sin and alwayes to do his Fathers will Now mind what the Apostles say they say Christ is the Redeemer and Redemption but never that he himselfe is the thing to be redeemed as these say he is the Redeemer saith Isaiah shall come to Zion Isa 59. 20. And Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the Law being made a curse for us c. saith Paul but they never say Christ himself is to be redeemed or that he is burthened in men by corruption and it hath power over him to binder him from doing his Fathers will alwayes as he desires to do And so makes him a sinner contrary to 1 John 3. 5. but on the contrary Death hath no more dominion over him and so by consequence not sin for if it had Death would it being the wages of sin Well but see yet further their corrupt mystical stuffâ— the mystery of Iniquity that is in them They say And this seed the power reaches to where it is begotten and in the power it arises in them that believe in the Light for their Redemption Reply Was there ever such confused stuffe heard of One while it is the seed which is Christ that is burthened in man by corruption that is to be redeemed and another while its the believer in the Light for the Redemption so that both Christ and the believer are to be Redeemed But who must redeem the Seed which is Christ That 's but darkly and confusedly hinted Babel like The power sure that reaches to the seed but what is that Is it Christ Then Christ redeems Christ is it the Spirit Then the Spirit redeems Christ where he is begotten So that here is Christ begotten and Christ suffering and burthened with sin to be redeemed by the Power or Spirit and all in them that believe in the light for Redemption but what is that light they believe in Sure that must be Christ too unlesse it be somthing from him lesse then Christ but how should a Believer believe in a Christ for redemption that wants it himselfe and is the subject of it The Apostles preached a raised Christ for men to believe in These men a suffering and burthened Christ that wants Redemption himselfe And is not here too Christ and corruption both in the believer are they both Natural or both Spiritual heritages think we But in them that believe in the Light it rises say they in the Power c. and this is Christs dying in men for their sins and rising in them for their justification that believe in him that 's dying and rising in them for redemption in their Language rare Mysteries of confusion confounding the Spirit of man with Christ and putting it for him The Apostles preacht Christ dead and raised for all never that he is yet dying and rising for and in some But They say The Apostle travelled again for the Galathians till Christ was formed in them who first is known as one without form or comlinesse Reply That the Apostle traviled again in birth of the Galathians till Christ was formed in them is true But even as the Galathians were not personally and carnally in Paul though he traveled again in birth of them but onely in his love and affection So neither are we so carnally and fantastically to conceive of Christs forming in them as if he was a seed or principle to be begotten and redeemed in them and suffering and burthened in them and to be brought forth into form in them personally but onely the knowledge and faith of him was to be brought forth or formed in their hearts 2. Nor is it true but very false that Christ is first known as one without form or comlinesse but rather while he is so apprehended he is not known its mens ignorance unbelief and wrong thoughts of him makes them see no beauty in him Isaiah speaking of the Jews and in their person as one of that body and prophecying of the mean appearance of Christ in the flesh signifies how he should through Ignorance and unbelief be rejected by them and they should see no form or comelinesse in him wherefore they should desire him as the verses following also shew not that any knowing him first know him so They proceed thus And so the seed of God suffers in some and in others it reigns and is known to be Prince of Peace Reply Here is their sence of Christs death and Resurrection Christs dying and rising in men and this is the word that they say is in every man before outward Preaching The word of Faith nigh in the heart and in the mouth but what need Preachers be sent then to preach this or who be the Preachers sent of God in men to declare it without whose being sent of God they could not Preach it and without whose preaching men could not hear and believe Yea in this Mysterious and Babylonish stuffe here is Christ forming suffering and rising at once Suffering in some and rising in others and so the Apostles doctrine is turned up by the roots as not grounded in Christs appearing in men Where he says Nor yet that he Christ should offer himself often as the High Priest entereth into the holy Place every year with blood of others for then must he often have suffered since
Ear rings and Ornaments they were faulted and Aaron too for their casting them off to make an Idol of and sure men and women had better wear such things soberly as these men Pharisaically condemn then make an Idol or false Christ or righteousness to themselves of their casting them off as they led them to do as the false Apostles led their Disciples to do with their observations of times and dayes c. VVhat they say of J. H. he leaves to the Lord to judge the truth of and as for condemning our selves in what we judge others we say we desire to judge our selves and them too in what we are guilty but not in what they foolishly fault us like the Pharisees superstitiously faulting Christs Disciples for things he faulted them not That the Deceivers and Subverters of Souls spake things that the peoples Consciences became in bondage to and many things that through the effect of the Law in their Consciences they could not deny but close with is falsly denyed by them For how else were they transformed into Ministers of Righteousness if they speak nothing suteable to the Letter of the Law of Righteousness so as that the Consciences of people bearing witness to the truth of some of their sayings might be brought to listen to them and receive also their delusions They say The Law in men is Light and it is the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus that freeth men from the power of sin and death VVherein still they play the juglers for First neither doth the Apostles say the Law is in every man or in all the Gentiles but he sayes the effect or work of the Law Rom. 2. 14. Secondly The Apostle sayes The Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus had made him free from the Law of sin and death not onely from the power of sin and death but from the law that convinces of sin and holds in bondage for it and sentences to death as Rom. 7. 4. Gal. 3. 13. and 4. 4. clearly shew even from under that Law that is in it self holy and just and good yet by reason of the flesh could not justifie or save Now these to hide their deceit seeing that had they cited the Apostles words they insinuate that something reproves of sin that is not Christ as we said they subtilly change his phrase and turn it into another thing How they set themselves masters in mens Consciences for all their feigned humility in denying that title we have before shewed often in this Treatise and therefore here shall wave it W. and F. They say They suffer much for righteousnesse sake and for bearing Testimony against unrighteousnes and we oft cause it c. Who do they here commend themselves and the Jesuites for we said to get themselves a party as the Jesuites do they expose themselves to some sufferings c. and they deny not for they know its true that the Jesuites do so too and think we they do not say its for Righteousnesse sake and for witnessing against unrighteousness and that they may thank the Teachers often for it T is likely the Quakers and they are either the same or of very great affinity yet both their ends shall be according to their works as well as other false Apostles and false Prophets who have exposed themselves too to great sufferings partly of voluntary devotion and will-worship and partly from people against their wills for their falshood as Baals Priests and Prophets did 1 Kings 18. 28. 40. 2 Kings 10. 25. Collossians 2. 20. 21. 22. W. and F. That we have not God nor abide in the Doctrine of Christ they endeavour to prove against us because we say we of this Nation joyning our selves with them as not without guilt have neglected Christ and long abused the Truth But we deny their inference for every neglect of Christ and abuse of his truth deprives not of God nor is accompanied with such transgression as not to abide in his Doctrine for who then should stand as Psal 130. 3. the Apostles had fellowship with God and Christ when yet they had sins to confess and so neglects of Christ and abuses of truth to be cleansed from for in every sin is some neglect of Christ sure and abuse of Truth in some degree or other and such things David Daniel Isaiah and others confessed in effect and yet in so doing that is confessing their sins kept in with God receiving daily forgiveness of them and cleansing from them and though they had some failings in the way yet they abide in it and transgrest not so as to leave the way It is the Deceivers and deceived Generation who leave the Doctrine of Christ for some corrupt mysterie and false imagination that are guilty of such transgressions and abide not in the truth nor have either Father or Son whatever their false boastings be or selfe justifications they are fallen from Christ and be accursed And G. W. knows that the Quakers were proved to be such in our late dispute with him to that purpose The Pharisee that pleaded no sinner was out of the Doctrine of Christ when the Publican that durst not look up because of his sins was nearer in it they that say they have no sin deceive themselves the truth is not in them and so they have not God and Christ when they that confesse their neglects of Christ and abuses of his truth shall find him faithful to forgive their sins and to cleanse them from all unrighteousnesse they are in Gods Doctrine and way to life when the others are far wide of it for he that humbleth himself shall be exalted he that acknowledgeth his sin shall find Mercy when he that hides and dissembles it and lifts up himself as if innocent is out of God and Christ and shall be abased and confounded The rest being frothy and disdainful reproaches we leave them to the judgement of the Lord and shall look to him to plead our cause against them which also blessed be his holy Name he hath in some measure done since the first draught hereof in our latter conflict with G. W. to his no small confusion and to keep people from their strong delusions and specious but most pernicious deceits having we trust so laid open their nakednesse that all that will may see their folly manifest and avoid them and all their Serpent-like windings and insinuations Nor fear we to proceed against them in Print for ought that they threaten us with or can do against us for the more they Print the more shall their folly be made manifest as the Spirit of God hath before signified 2 Tim. 3. 6 7 8 9. In the strength of God therefore and of our Lord Jesus Christ we shall stand against them and all their assaults that their printing can make against us blessing him that he hath counted us worthy who in our selves are most unworthy to be made his instruments to draw out
are as followeth For John Horn and Thomas Moor both Teachers who disputed against George Whitehead at Lin the 15. th day of the 7th month 59. A few questions of concernment for them or any that own them to answer directly 1. WHether do you own that Christ hath two Bodies one in Heaven and another on Earth yea or nay 2. Whether the body of Christ which is the sulnesse of God whereof the Saints are members is a Body of flesh and bones in the Heavens yea or nay 3. Whether did the body of flesh and bones wherein Christ suffered descend from Heaven into the lower parts of the Earth yea or nay Seeing no man hath ascended up to Heaven but the Son of man which came down from Heaven And it is the same that descended into the lower parts of the Earth that ascended far above all Heavens that be might fill all things Eph. 4. 9 10. Psal 68. 18. 4. What and where are the lower parts of the Earth whereinto Christ descended from his Father 5. And if he which descended into the lower parts of the Earth be a person of flesh and bones which ascended far above all Heavens what is that place he is in far above all Heavens which is not Heaven 6. Whether do you believe that all the Heavens are local places one above another and above the Firmament called Heaven yea or nay 7. Can a body of flesh and bone be both in the Heavens and far above them all and fill all things at one and the same time yea or nay 8. Seeing Thomas Moor did not own that Christs body is a carnal body in Heaven how is it that you say his body is a body of flesh and bones or a humane body without blood in it is not a fleshly body Carnal 9. Can any locall place containe that Glory which Christ had with the Father before the World was wherein he is Glorified 10. Where or how came Christ into the house where his Disciples were met after his Resurrection the doors being shut John 20. 19. 26. Have not some of you said that then his body being Spirituallized it glided in at the Key-hole of the door for so it hath been spoken concerning some of your way 11. Whether the same Christ who in the dayes of his flesh suffered persecution whose body was subject to hunger and afliction be not made a quickening Spirit 1 Cor. 15. 45. And yet his flesh and blood is so nigh to every true believer that his Flesh is his meat indeed and his Blood is his drink indeed 12. And if the Blood of Christ that was shed be the drink indeed and the purger of the Conscience where is that blood if not in Christs flesh as you affirmed Seeing that men must drink the Blood of Christ as well as eat his Flesh or else they have no life in them 13. And was the Blood of Christ that was shed seperate from his Body and then bearing Record in the Earth when John wrote these words in 1 John 5 8. 14. And how can the Blood of Christ either cleanse away from sin or give life to any if the Life of Christ be not in it as Thomas Moor affirmed 15. How many comings of Christ do you own seeing you yet have his second coming without sin unto Salvation to look for 16. What are these seeds that must every one have its own Body in the Resurrection and whether are they Natural or Spiritual 17. And must not every seed have a body of its own nature 18. And whether the wicked upon whom after Death Judgement is come whose souls are in Hell must afterward come out of Hell again to receive a second Judgement 19. Whether the receiving Bread and Wine to shew the Lords Death be to continue an Ordinance in the Church till the end of the World yea or nay 20. And whether doth the receiving Bread and Wine alone without an outward Passeover really figure forth the Death of Christ 21. And how must the life of Christ be shewen forth and when if People must receive Bread and Wine as a continuing Ordinance in this Life alwayes to shew forth the Death of Christ 22. What is your ground for sprinkling the Children of them you count believers have you ever a command from God or evident example for it if you have shew it 23. Whether do you own such Teachers as take Tythes or Preach for hire or for gifts and rewards yea or nay 24. What is the Soul of man which the Word of God is to save and what is the difference between the Soul and the Spirit seeing the word of God divides them asunder 25. Whether men must be justified by the same Righteousness of Christ in them which sanstifies them yea or nay 26. What is that Light with which Christ lighteth every man that cometh into the world which Thomas Moor said is both Natural and Spirituall Name one Light that every man is lighted with that is both Natural and Spiritual or else let your silence be an acknowledgement of your Ignorance touching the Light and that you have confuted your selves for Thomas Moor would not acknowledge that every man hath a Spiritual Light in him or is inlightned with a Spiritual Light But that every man should in due time be enlightned with such a Light when the seed is sown or by the Preaching of the Gospel what says he then to this the Gospel is preached in every Creature under Heaven Answer directly in simplicity without evading from these things propounded to you as you did evade and cavil at the dispute and Thomas Moor severall times fled from his own words and John Horn when you could not answer to our Question where the Blood of Christ is which you say is the foundation of Faith in his deceit asked us the same question again leave off such deceit for shame and come down to the simplicity of God in you and speak not evil of the things you know not And if you answer these questions send or give your answer to some of our friends in Lin to be conveyed to me Who am a friend to the Truth But a witnesse against all Deceit Hypocrisie and dead formality that is among you George Whitehead An Answer to the Questions forementioned THese Questions give so full intimation of their Antichristian Spirit and give us such occasion to discover it to others and so evidence the Truth of God in the great things of his Doctrine against their endeavours to make it void That since all the three forementioned have owned them as sent by them all We have judged it seasonable and tending to the profit of many that they may be saved to make them with this answer publick which answer is owned by John Horn and Thomas Moor senior and Thomas Moor junior And in it we desire the Readers to note that we direct not our speech to them because they have been already discovered and proved deceivers and
is God man the word made flesh in an insepable union for God sent forth his Son made of a woman and he humbled himself to death in the flesh Ephes 4 9 10. Further also 3. He saith That he that ascended is the same that descended into the lower parts of the earth he saith not simply or onely that he is the same that descended or came down from Heaven but further that he is the same that descended into the lower parts of the earth Now though in that first act of his descention and abasement in which he was made flesh of a woman he might as we hinted before be said to descend into and be curiously wrought or framed in the lower parts of the earth yet did he also descend into the lower parts of the earth in other and further sences and in further and following acts of his abasement in all which he was abased and humbled in that body of his flesh which he had taken or was made in the womb of the Virgin Now his descention into the lower parts of the earth was first even to the utmost step or point of it before his ascention there spoken of and after the Declaration of that t is said He that descended namely into the lower parts of the earth even in the utmost sence in which he did so he is the same that ascended up far above all Heavens Now he that was made sin and made a curse for us that humbled himself and became obedient to the death of the Cross that dyed and was buried all which as we shall further shew anon is evidently included in his descending into the lower parts of the earth he is Gods Son Jesus Christ our Lord not onely as the eternal word simply considered but as made flesh of a woman and so made of the Seed of David after the flesh and made under the law for us And that he that so descended into the lower parts of the earth and after the same consideration of him even Jesus of the Seed of David according to the flesh that that very he was raised in that very Body in which he Suffered having the same substance flesh and bones hands and feet though not in the same quality and therein mightily declared to be the Son of God in that raised Body Spiritual and immortal and carried up into Heaven yea that this man continues for ever we have already particularly proved and shewed by the Scriptures and shall further do it as we have occasion in answer to these Queries nor are they able to resist the wisdom and Spirit in the holy Scriptures by which this great thing of Gods Doctrine concerning Christ is evidently set forth and therefore seek privily to undermine and deny it by this snaring querie with the Argument annexed as before expressed whither did that body descend from Heaven c. To which likewise we give this further answer 4. He even the Son of man yea that body of his flesh in which he was made and became the Son of man might be and is truly said to have come down from Heaven thus or in these considerations 1. In that the grace appointment and gift in which he was given and sent forth to be so made flesh and humbled in that body was from Heaven the Father gave and sent forth his Son made of a woman made under the Law and so to be the propitiation for our sins and he came forth from the Father and came into the World Joh. 3. 14. 16 17. Gal. 4. 4. 1 John 4. 9 10 John 16. 28. 2. In that the power by which he was made flesh in that one body prepared him was from Heaven for the Birth of Jesus was on this wise The Holy Ghost did come upon a woman a Virgin that had not known man and the Power of the Highest did overshadow her and she was found with child of the Holy Ghost and so that which was conceived in her was of the Holy Ghost Therefore also that holy Thing that was born of her was called The Son of the Highest Mat. 1. 18. 21. Luke 1. 31. 35. And so even the Son of man yea that body of his flesh prepared for him on the earth in which he was made and became the Son of man descended and came forth from Heaven and came into the world forasmuch as he so came forth and was made flesh by the grace gift and appointment of the Father and by the operation of the Holy Ghost and in that body of his flesh he descended into the lower parts of the earth and he that descended is the same also that ascended up c. as before W. and F. 4. Qu. What and where are the lower parts of the earth whereinto Christ descended from his Father Answ We find in the Scriptures of Truth 1. That sometimes the Mothers womb is called the lowest parts of the earth as being a place of secresie darkness and obscurity Psal 139. 12 13 14 15 16. and so he descended into the lower parts of the Earth when the Word was made flesh in that one body prepared for him in the Womb of a Virgin in which also he was made lower than the Angels even partaker with us of flesh and blood of our nature in its mortal state for a time as hath been shewed that by the Grace of God he might taste death for every Man 2. As men in all the ends of the earth are sometimes called all the ends of the earth Isa 45. 22. and 49. 6. so men of the lowest rank poor despised and of mean esteem as Rom. 12. 16. may be as properly called the lower parts of the earth and may be included with those that sleep in the dust of the earth as those that also in a metaphorical sence dwell in dust Isa 44. 23. with chap. 26. 19. and in that sence also he descended into the lower parts of the earth for though he was in the form of God and thought it no robbery to be equal with God yet having his body prepared for him of the Father subject to all our infirmities that came by sin yet without sin and living amongst men he made himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a Servant he became as a worm and no Man a reproach of men and despised of the people Psal 22. 6 7. Isa 53. 2 3. Phil. 2. 5 6 7. 3. The words likewise are used to expresse a place and state of darknesse Banishment or Separation from God the portion of the wicked transgressors such as among whom he was numbred in his humiliation for us Psal 63. 9. as also those equivalent expressions Psal 86. 13. and 88. 5 6. 4. Likewise the grave or place where the dead body or bodies are buried appears to be clearly meant and expressed in those tearms as in that figurative speech Isa 44. 23. as compared with chap. 26. 19. And in these two last sences especially that of Eph. 4.
9. speaks of his having descended into the lower parts of the earth as may further appear by comparing it with that prediction of our Saviour Mat. 12. 40. as the fulfilling of it is opened by Peter Acts 2. 24. 27. 31. He was made sin and made a curse for us yea he dyed and was buried wonderful was his abasement and humiliation for us and the more wonderful considering the excellency of the person who so willingly humbled and abased himself and what we were for whom he did it the greater the sin of the enemies of his Cross that seek to render it as a common or prophane thing as if of no more worth or preciousnesse then the blood or Sufferings of or sustained in and by other persons may be and so wretchedly strive to abase him that abased himself for them But God hath mightily declared him to be the Son of God by raising him from the dead in the same body the third day for his Soul that was made an offering for sin was not left in bell neither did his flesh see corruption and in that body he is ascended and the Father hath exalted and received him even him whom they crucified slew and hung on a Tree the same that these men also crucifie to themselves and put to an open shame seeking to cast him down from his excellency Q. 5 W. and F. And if he which descended into the lower parts of the earth be a person of flesh and bones which ascended far above all Heavens What is that place he is in far above all Heavens which is not Heaven Answ It is not so hard to find confusion and non-sence in this Supposition and Querie grounded upon it as it is to find so much plainnesse and honesty as by which it may be understood what they mean or require answer to But the intention of this Querie by comparing it with the rest of their confusions of this nature appears to be First To suppose or implie this as the question Whether he that ascended up far above all Heavens be a person of flesh and bones the same that descended into the lower parts of the earth and then by that which follows as the main querie in this question to enforce a Negative answer by rendering the acknowledgement of that Person as being in that his own body in Heaven it self absurd and foolish because they think in their foolish imagination that to acknowledge him to be so in Heaven and yet also far above all Heavens cannot stand together Their inward thought its like is by these perverse disputings to draw us into some snare or confusion that they may glory over us and get advantage to insinuate to such as will listen to them that the plain declarations of these things concerning the Man Christ Jesus in the Scriptures are but cunningly Devised fables that must have some other Moral or Mysterie according to the Sensual or fleshly mind in which they are vainly puft up not holding the head however we shall put it to the issue giving our answers plainly and without hidden things of dishonesty as those that have received a word of truth a faithful saying worthy to be stuck too and of which we are not ashamed And so first to their supposition laid down as the ground of their following querie If he which descended c. be a person of flesh and bones To this we say first we know no person made up or wholly consisting of flesh and bones much lesse is his who is God man the onely begotten Son of God even as now made flesh and so as the Son of Man John 1. 14. now glorified with the Fathers own Self as the Fruits of his Sufferings for in him Col. 2. 9. dwelleth all the fulnesse of the God head bodily Joh. 17. 4 5. Therefore we reject their absurb expression as foolish and impious proceeding from their scorn of him and enmity to him though they in reproach and derision of us for his Sake would intimate it as ours as a little before that other expression not altogether so grosse as this a body of flesh and bones to which having spoken already we add no more to this But further assert in answer to their querie implyed in the Supposition That the Son of Man even Christ of the Seed of David Abraham yea of Noah and Adam after the flesh in that body of his flesh prepared for him when he came into the World in which he was sent forth made of a Woman made under the Law he being found in fashion as a man in the likenesse of sinsul flesh though without sin and in the form of a Servant did also descend into the lower parts of the earth even in the two last sences of the lower parts of the earth before mentioned For as Jonas was three dayes and three nights in the belly of the Whale so was the Son of Man in his finishing the works the Father gave him to do on the earth three dayes and three nights in the heart of the earth Mat. 12. 40. In that Body of his flesh he bore the Judgement of this World even that due to us for sin in which he was made for a time the banished or forsaken one and his Soul therein made an offering for our sin John 12. 27. 31. with Isa 53. 10 Luke 22. 42. 44. Psal 22. 1. c. with Mat. 37. 46. Mark 15. 34. in that his own Body himself bare our sins on the tree 1 Pet. 2. 24. and 3. 18. and once Suffered for Sins the just for the unjust being put to death in the flesh he dyed for our Sins according to the Scriptures and was buried 1 Cor. 15. 3 4. yea farther we assert with the Scriptures that Christ of the Seed of David after the flesh he even the same that dyed and was buried rose again the third day according to the Scriptures for if the dead rise not then is not Christ risen for though it was in or after the flesh that he dyed and was buried yet by reason of the inseparable union of the two natures in one person the word being made flesh It was Christ that died and was buried and therefore also it was not possible that he should be holden of Death 1 Cor. 15. 3 4. 12. 16. Acts 2. 22. 24. His soul was not left in hell neither did his flesh see corruption as Davids did but God raised him the third day even him whom they flew and hung on a tree and took down from the tree and laid in a Sepulcher God raised him from the dead and shewed him openly not to all the people but to witnesses chosen before of God even to those last Apostles who did eat and drink with him after he rose from the dead Acts 10. 39. 40 41. and 13. 29. 30 31 37. To whom he shewed himself alive after his passion even himself that suffered to death in the flesh alive after his suffering by many
partaker for a time that he might die for us That through Death he might destroy him that had the power of Death c. 3. To their parenchesis or a humane body we further say Doth the Light in them tell them that carnal and a body of Flesh and Bones and a humane body is alwayes one and the same Let us see if it be not darknesse Humane is alwayes used for the Nature or kind of man as Gods Creature as distinguished from other kinds of Creatures And so a humane body is the body of a man one that is verily a man whether sinful and mortal or not so either the one or the other And so the Body of Adam in his Innocency was humane the body of a man he was verily man yet sinless and so not subject to or in a state of Death though capable of becoming Immortal or mortal but when by sinning he fell from God then he became sinfult and mortal And such are all that by natural propagation come from him as of and from him while in this body not changed by Death yet still humane the nature or kinde remains though degenerated and corrupt God made man upright and t is man still that hath sought out inventions and is become carnal sold under sin Ecles 7. 21. with Gen. 5. 1. 2. and Chap. 8. 21. But the second Adam our Lord Jesus Christ is not a carnal but Spiritual man even from the first of his being made man for though his Body prepared for and taken by him when the word was made flesh was humane of mankinde and so he was a very man Yet he came not by propagation from Adam but though made of a woman of the seed of Abraham and so of Adam of whom Abraham was yet it was in a supernatural way a work of new Creation by the operation of the holy Ghost in the womb of a Virgin that had not known man and was holy being anointed of God with the Holy Ghost and power even in and from his conception and Birth And so that holy thing even before born of her and when born and alwayes without sin yet not Immortal but for a time partakers of Flesh and Blood as the Natural Children of Adam and because therein he was made subject to our infirmities that came on us naturally or as a natural heritage from Adam by reason of sin yet without sin he was said to be made in the likeness of sinful Flesh and his body might be said in some sence to be made a natural body as being partakers with us of Flesh and Blood and so mortal though not in every sence or in a full sence as the naturall Children of Adam are Yet to esteem him sinful Flesh or his body a carnal Body even then when he was on Earth partakers of Flesh and Blood and suffered in the Flesh we account blasphemie much more to esteem his raised and Glorified body in Heaven a carnal body For in his Resurrection form the dead all that weakness and mortality of the Flesh that came on the Nature of man by the first Adams sin and fall which he for a time was subject to in being partakers with us of Flesh Blood it was put off from him that he should no more return to it And so his body is become in a full and Glorious sence Spiritual Gloriously filled with the Spirit of Life and Power yea Immortal a Glorious body he being therein glorified with the Fathers own self and all by vertue of that his once suffering for our sins in the Fâ—esh in which he shed his blood and therein powered out his Soul unto Death laying down his Natural Mortal and Adam-like Life in the Flesh that he might take it again in the Spirit and Glory of the Father by which he was quickened raised from the dead now no more to return to corruption Yet still this raised and Glorious body is humane the body of a man even the man Christ Jesus having Flesh and bones hands and feet which by way of distinction from others and eminency above them is called his flâ—sh and his bones And had these men believed either the great Mystery as now revealed that God was manifested in the flesh in the words being made flesh and dwelling amongst men or the Resurrection of the body of Christ that dyed they would neither have cavelled at the denying his body to be carnal as if it could not stand with the acknowledgement of this man continuing for ever nor have spoken so contemptuously of the Glorious body of Christ And so neither would they have added this following query Is not a fleshly body Carnal To which we further Answer 1. Fleshly and carnal do not alwayes signify the same thing in Scripture for we read of a heart of flesh and fleshly Tables of the Heart Ezek. 36. 26. 2 Cor. 3. 3. whereby fleshly cannot be meant carnal but tender and fit to receive his impression or writing as opposed to a stony hard or carnal heart And though sometimes such expressions as to be flesh or fleshly named after it may be used to signify the weakness and brittleness of the outward man or a helpless withering worthlesse and decaying state which may stand with carnality in Scripture sence though distinct from it because all flesh in its present state is as Grass and the goodlinesse thereof as the flower of the Field fading and withering but the word of the Lord that was made flesh who is the spiritual and heavenly man and he abides for ever Yea though also sometimes a fleshly Mind and fleshly Lusts are equivalent with carnal mindedness and lusts as Rom. 8. 5. to 8. Col. 2. 18. 1 Pet. 2. 11 Yet 2. To have flesh and to be fleshly or named after it is two things whether we take flesh as signifying the outward man or body of man that hath flesh and bones and that whether as natural from Adam or as raised from the dead for there is a natural body and there is a spiritual body and both have flesh though not of or in the same quality or if we take flesh as Signifying the natural Sinfulness or carnal mind as the word is used for both yet to have flesh in either sence and to be fleshly or named after the flesh are not the same nor alwayes meeting in the same person The Apostles did live and walk in the flesh or natural body yet did not war after the flesh nor was fleshly or carnal in their knowings speakings or actings 2 Cor. 10. 3 4. with chap. 1 12 13 and 5. 16. Gal 2 20. with Phil. 1 2â— 24. and yet also they had flesh in the last sence even natural sinfulnesse and carnality still dwelling in them in their flesh members or outward man as from Adam though they were not reckoned after it nor did walk in or after it but did mind and walk in and after the spirit and so were not carnal but Spiritual
And if to have flesh and to be fleshly be not the same nor doth the latter at all necessarily follow upon the former in mortal men How durst these men speak of them as necessarily one in him who is raised from the dead in the Glory of the Father and who saw no corruption as if his having flesh and bones should render him a fleshly man or body but that they are vainly puft up with their fleshly mind not holding the head c. Yea 3. Neither is his body a fleshly body nor any where by us or the Scripture so called for though sometime as we shewed it was subject to the weakness and infirmities of the flesh that are natural to us from fallen Adam and so in some sence might be said to be a natural body though he was therein made that which naturally he was not and that in a supernatural way as aforesaid and was therein as alwayes perfectly without sin yet taking part with us of flesh and blood that he might dye our death c. as before is hinted yet now being raised from the dead even that body of his flesh which God hath raised up from the dead is now in Heaven with the Father a spiritual heavenly and glorious body so as yet the bodies of any of his members on earth are not But their bodies also that now are vile and see corruption as his never did even the same that are now living on the earth or sleeping in the dust shall be raised by him in the first Resurrection at his appearing not carnal bodies or vile and corruptible as now they are but fashioned into the likeness of his glorious body when this corruptible shall put on incorruption and this mortal immortality Quest 9. Can any local place contain that Glory which Christ had with the Father before the world was wherein he is glorified Ans Nay but the heavenly places or places on high where he is received till the times of restitution may contain his Glorious Body though they cannot contain the glory wherewith he is glorified and which he possesseth therein for place cannot contain infinite power wisdom eternity glorious Majesty c. The heaven heaven of heavens cannot contain that glory of the Fathers own self which is the glory that Christ had with him before the world was and wherewith he is now glorified in the Body of his flesh how much less can earthen Vessels or Clay Tabernacles contain that Glory that is set above the Heavens we say the heavens cannot contain it so that it should not Shine forth and operate in heaven and in earth and in all places yet the heaven is his Throne the earth his footstool yea the heaven of heavens is that place of his habitation from whence he beholdeth all things and doth whatsoever he pleaseth in heaven and in earth and in all places 1 Kings 8. 27 Isa 66. 1. Eccles 5. 2. Psal 33. 13 14. And so the personal body of Christ in which he bore our sins on the Tree being now raised from the dead is received and taken up into heaven set down on the right hand of the Majesty and Power of God in the heavens and not now on the earth personally yet the heavens cannot contain his Glory from Shining forth to us and operating in and with us and in all things and places in the influences thereof because the fulness of the God-head dwells in him bodily and all power is given unto him in heaven and in earth yea because he is in heaven with the father therefore he is able to fill all things with the fruits of his mediation and influences of his power for if he were now on earthor had not been received up into heaven set down on the right hand of Majesty upon his finishing the Works the Father gave him to do on earth and offering up that spotless body of his flesh to God he could not have been such a Priest and such a mighty King of Righteousness Prince and Saviour for us and to us And therefore those that deny his being in heaven in that body of his flesh his now glorious body in which he is the head distinct from every body and spirit of his members and as their fore-runner entred before them as these Spirits in all their discourse and perverse disputings against it at least privily do and have done they do therein as much deny that Jesus is the Christ and so are the great lyars and Antichrists foretold to come in the last dayes that deny the Father and the Son And surely in frameing this query to that purpose not onely their wicked enmity against the man Christ Jesus as in the former appears but also in this their brutish folly to which God justly leaves them is so made manifest that all of any understanding in naturall things or things within the reach of mans reason may easily see it For in such things its evident not onely that the power excellency and efficacy of some man or men on earth may reach much further then his personal body or then the place in which that is yea the farther and the more fruitfully for his standing or abiding in some one place where he may be more profitable and fruitful to others then if he were personally with them according to which our Saviour instructs his Disciples in the necessity and usefulness to them ward of his leaving the World and going away from them to the Father to appear in his presence and stand in his Name for our help John 14. 2. 3. and 16. 7. 28 with Heb. 7. 8. 9. 4. 14. c. 1 John 2. 1 2. But farther also its evident to all that know anything and therein may be also some resemblance of this business that even the Visible Sun is placed in the firmament to run and keep its course there yet those heavens cannot contain its glory that it should not Shine to us and have its effects on the earth nor could it so generally Shine and have such Universal influences and effects if its body were not set or placed at such a distance from us Quest 10. Where or how came Christ into the house where his Disciples were met after his Resurrection the doors being shut John 20. 19. 26. Have not some of you said that then his body being spirituallized it glided in at the key hole of the door for so it hath been spoken concerning some of your way An. This hath two or three questions in it the two first are foolish and unlearned and to be avoided by us as where he came in or how it being not revealed otherwise or farther then thus That the same Jesus that dyed and rose did when his Disciples were in a house together come the doors being shut and stand in the midst of them even in that body of his flesh that saw no corruption having flesh and bones hands and feet the same body that was
signifies Christ as come in the flesh and so takes in that body of his flesh upon the taking whereof that Name was given him as is before noted yea he whom God hath raised from the dead and made both Lord and Christ and so a quickening spirit is said to be Christ of the Seed of David after the flesh Rom. 1. 3 4 with Acts 2. 30. 36. the same that dyed and was buried 1 Cor. 15 3. 4 45. The last Adam as also before is hinted in not confessing which they privily deny what they pretend to grant and their seeming grant is like John VVhiteheads concerning the Resurrection of Christ who at our meeting with him at Gedney pretended to believe that the same Christ that took flesh in a body prepared for him of the Seed of Abraham and David and in that body served and suffered for at a time that the same Christ was raised and glorified with the Fathers own self And yet then would by no means acknowledge though oft intreated and urged to speak plainly to the Question that he was raised and did live again and continue for ever in the same body in which he so served and suffered or that the same body that then once in the last ages suffered and was hung on the Tree was raised again from the dead and is now alive for evermore yea at last he deneyed that the same dead bodies of men that dye in Adam shall be raised and made alive again from the dead that even the same that sleep in the dust of the earth shall come forth of their Graves by Christ and so consequently that Christ is raised for if the dead rise not then is not Christ raised for Jesus Christ was dead and buried as before we have shewed So then their immagination or meaning in this equivocal grant appears to be this That the same Christ that had a body distinct from all other in which in the dayes of his flesh he suffered is now raised ascended and gone out of that body of his flesh into some imaginary spiritual being which in that body of his flesh he could not be made yet that in that his spiritual being he is in the bodies or bodies and souls of divers persons working doing or suffering the same things in them which were typically or as a Pattern suffered and done in that body of his flesh and so they neither confess him already come in the flesh or as having finished that his coming in the flesh or first appearing to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself and so the works the Father gave him to do on the earth in that his once suffering for sin nor do they confesse yea they deny Jesus to be the very Christ who is made a quickening spirit and therefore we have laid down our answer plainly and distinctly that it s not onely the same that had a body and therein once suffered but also that it s he in the same body of his flesh in which he once suffered for sins even the same Jesus whom they crucified slew and hung on a Tree that God hath made the Lord and Christ and so a quickening spirit and have explained and confirmed our answer in the expressions of the Scripture quoted by them that its the last Adam c. of which they take no notice for that fully shews the fulnesse and ungodlinesse of their immagination which therefore we again desire the Reader to mind viz. that that Scripture 1 Cor. 15. 45. speaks of two Adams the first Adam the last Adam so then they were both men and had each the personal body of a man when those things there spoken of were verified in them yea so expresly called vers 47. the first man the second man It was the first man Adam that was made a living Soul and so it is the last Adam the second man that was made a quickening spirit The Lord formed the body of the first Adam of the dust of the earth and then breathed into his nostrils the breath of life Gen. 2. 7. and man became a living Soul the breath of Life did not annihilate the body formed of the dust but enlive and quicken it by possessing it and defusing it self in and through all the parts and members of it so that that breath of Life and the body of the man united the man became a Living Soul it is not said it or the breath of life became so but the man upon Gods breathing in that breath of life he even the first man Adam became a living Soul And had he abode in that uprightnesse and innocency in which he was made he might have lived for ever but as there was then none dead for him to quicken so neither was he fitted for such a work so that when he this first man Adam not keeping his first estate but seeking out inventions sinned and fell from God under the Sentence of and into a state of death and Separation from God and so death passed upon all men and they are all partakers of flesh and blood forasmuch as all have sinned in that offence of one they must all have been shut out and perished for ever in that losse and misery if God had not found out and prepared a second man Adam and made him a quickening Spirit for as by man came death so by man also the abolishing of and resurrection from the dead such was mans condition by reason of sin entered and overspreading the nature and death already passed on him in the Sentence of God that without another man a second Adam in whom Gods Truth might be fulfilled and his Justice satisfied in the punishment of sin death of the sinner and through whose Sufferings by his overcoming death the Righteousnesse of God might appear and shine forth therein we could not have been quickened or made alive Therefore for the recovery of fallen man that he might not be utterly expelled or shut out in the first death and banishment but such Redemption wrought and obtained for him that through the Redeemer he might be saved and that they might be all in due time made alive or raised from the first death to appear before the judgement Seat of their Redeemer therefore God found out and prepared a second Adam and made him a quickening spirit Now this second Adam was even his onely begotten Son the Word that was in the beginning with God and so before the first Adam and he by whom and for whom the first Adam and all things were made that were made the proper Lord and Heir of all things for he onely was able and meet to undertake such a work and to have help laid upon him for us but he was made flesh of a woman and so made man the second Adam in the fulnesse of time once in the end of the World and that by a wonderful work of new Creation by the Grace Gift and Appointment of the Father and by the Operation
of the Holy Ghost as is foreshewed and so was the Lord from Heaven Heavenly even when he was made flesh in that body so prepared for him yet very Man made of the Seed of David after the flesh and therein partaker with us of flesh and blood and so like to natural fallen sinful men from birth to death in all things except sin This second man the last Adam because he so humbled himself in that body prepared for him to that purpose God hath raised from the dead and exalted with his Right hand and Glorified him with his own self in that body in which he bore our sins with the Glory he had with him as his onely begotten Son before the World was and therein actually made him in a full and Glorious sence a quickning Spirit to quicken and raise others as is fore-shew'n So that his being made a quickning Spirit no more Annihilates his risen and Glorified body having flesh and bones from being truly a living Spiritual and personal body then the Breath of Life did Annihilate the first Adams body yea without that body he is not the man Jesus Christ us he is affirmed to be that was so made whereas if he were onely a Spirit without the body of a man the assertion must have been contrariwise thus He that was the last Adam is now the quickening Spirit and not Adam But the Text serves not these mens turn for it saith The first man Adam was made a living Soul the last Adam who is also called the second man ver 47. was made a quickening Spirit Nor was or is there any other man made a quickening Spirit but He in that his own personal body onely the second and last Adam or publick man who being made perfect through sufferings offered up himself once for all through the offering up of which body of Christ we are sanctified Heb. 10. 5. 10. For it pleased the Father that in all things he might have the preheminence that in him all fulnesse should dwell even the fulnesse of the God-head bodily Col. â— 1â— 19. and 2. 9. T is of his fulnesse that his members receive and that of this measure which they here receive from him they have it in earthen vessels and though by what they receive from him and are made in him their spirit is made alive for Righteousnesse sake yet the body is still dead because of sin and so vile while in this Mortal state that is while not changed in the natural bodily Death that in the Resurrection it may be fashioned into the likenesse of his Glorious body John 1. 14. 16. 18. 2 Cor. 4. 7. Rom. 8. 10. 2 Col. 3. 3 4. Phil. 3. 2. The second part further shews their Ignorance and being void of judgement in the things about which they query as also their sensualnesse not having the Spirit 1. Their Ignorance and being void of Judgement appeares in their saying and yet c. Or notwithstanding that he is made a quickening Spirit yet his flesh and blood is so nigh to every true believer that his flesh is his meat indeed c. In this saying and yet they imply that his being made a quickening Spirit renders it more difficult to understand that his flesh should be meat indeed and his blood drink indeed whereas our Saviour when he had affirmed his flesh to be meat indeed and his blood to be drink indeed and some thought it a hard or difficult saying John 6. 55. 60 c That he might demonstrate and make it more easie to their understandings he saith what and if ye shall see the Son of Man ascend up where he was before It is the Spirit that quickeneth the flesh profiteth nothing the words that I speak unto you they are Spirit and they are Life in all which he signifies as is more fully opened by the Apostles after his having finished the works the Father gave him to do on the Earth that even the flesh of Christ as in its mortal state and so all his abasement and sufferings for us in the flesh could not have profited us and so not have been bread of life for us if he in the same body of his flesh the Son of Man had not risen from the dead ascended and offered up himself to his Father in and by the Power of the Eternal Spirit according to that 1 Cor. 15. If Christ had not risen from the dead even Jesus Christ of the seed of David after the flesh that was dead and buried we had been yet in our sins and the Preaching of him and Faith in him had been vain But he being in due time by means of his once suffering in the flesh for sins quickened raised from the dead and Glorified by the Power of the Eternall Spirit and so made a quickening Spirit He therefore in that body of his flesh which saw no corruption and so his once suffering in the flesh for sin by means of which he was so Glorified is spiritual meat indeed the Bread of Life and was vertually so before but is now fully made so for us and also manifested so to us by that Spirit that raised him from the dead breathing in and present with the Preaching of his Crosse in which Preaching the preciousnesse of his Crosse is commended in this that he that suffered is raised and Glorified in the same body and now appearing in the presence of God for us by vertue of which it is made in the Preaching of it Bread of Life indeed and so his words declaring him that once suffered in the flesh to be so raised and glorified as aforesaid are Spirit and life as also Rom. 10. 9. These men therefore are of no Judgement concerning the Faith forasmuch as that which our Saviour gives as the Reason why his flesh is meat indeed and his Blood drink indeed namely that God would give him Glory as the fruit of it they imply at least as a thing rendering it more hard to be understood yea secretly they imply it as a reason against the understanding Christs flesh and Christs blood that is meat indeed and drink indeed according to the plain import of his words And so in this implication they signifie not onely as we have noted of them upon the first part of this question that in his being made a quickning Spirit they fancy a nullifying of the real being of that Body of his flesh in which they grant he once suffered but also that by his flesh and his blood which is meat and drink indeed they mean not that flesh once given for the life of the World nor that blood once shed for the Remission of sins or his once suffering in the flesh to the sheding of his blood as also more plainly appears in their next question 2. Their sensuality not having the Spirit appeares at least if we consider their sence of its being nigh in their saying that the flesh and blood of Christ is so nigh to
every true beliver that his flesh is his meat indeed c. In which they imply that it cannot be meat to them and so not fed upon by them except nigh to them and explain not themselves in what sence they mean nigh which had been very needfull in such a case when they lay so much stress upon its being nigh especially seeing the expressions are not found in the Scripture that the flesh and blood of Christ is nigh to every true believer much less that its being nigh is the cause of its being meat and drink unto them the Scripture saith that the word of Faith which the Apostles preached the Preaching of the Crosse declaring Christ to be risen from the dead was made nigh to them in and through the Preaching of it even so in their mouth and and in their heart that it might be believed and confessed by them but he saith not that the flesh and blood of Christ was nigh to every true believer yea doubtlesse even that flesh and blood of Christ vertually of which our Saviour speaks was meat and drink indeed Spiritually and by Faith to Abraham and other true believers in Moses and the Prophets times and yet they received not the promises in which they were actually brought forth and manifested but saw them afar off and rejoyced in them We say therefore seeing the expressions are not found in the Scripture there was the more need for them to have explained in what sence they mean that it is so nigh them which though they do not yet the whole question compared with the former yea the following Question more clearly shewes their meaning to be that except the flesh and blood of Christ be nigh them as to time and place in a present sencible being it cannot be meat drink indeed to them By which it appears that that which they mean by the flesh and blood of Christ which is meat and drink to the believer it is something alwayes in a present sencible being nigh to with and in them in which they shew themselves sensual not having the Spirit living by sence and not by Faith which is the evidence of things not seen as also the ground or confidence of things hoped for We shall here therefore for the help of others and that none may be beguiled with inticing words positively assert and shew by the Scriptures 1. What is meant by Christs Flesh and Christs Blood that is meat and drink indeed 2. How or wherein that was actually so made and from what reason it is evidenced to be such meat and drink indeed 3. How and by what means it is brought to us that it may be fed on by us 1. By his flesh and his blood when mentioned together and so by each and either of them when expressed by it self as the Bread or Drink of Life is meant Jesus Christ and him crucified himself as come in the flesh and having finished the the works the Father gave him to do on the Earth in his whole abasement and humiliation in which he once suffered for sins the Just for the unjust that he might bring us to God Our Saviour comprehends both his flesh that is meat indeed and his blood that is drink indeed in those sayings the Bread of God is he which cometh down from Heaven and giveth life unto the World I am the living Bread that came down from Heaven and the Bread which I will give is my flesh which I will give for the life of the World John 6. 33. 48. 50 51. Whence also both the eating and drinking in the Supper of the Lord is appointed to be done in remembrance of him Now remembrance implyes something actually done finished and passed through in and by him as he is the object of remembrance which is therefore alwayes to be remembred because of its infinite and abiding vertue and usefulnesse he being by means thereof made both Lord and Christ and so that which is remembred and shewed forth is the Lords death the whole abasement humiliation and sufferings sustained and finished by him in that body of his flesh the Crosse of Christ with the glorious ends vertues and preciousnesse thereof 1 Cor. 11. 24 25 26. Therefore the whole Gospel of Christ is called the preaching of his Crosse even of Christ crucified 1 Cor. 1. 17. 18. 23. and 2. 2. Yet in the distinct mention of his flesh and his blood there is some distinct considerations of him and him crucified or of the Crosse of Christ as he is so and by means thereof the Bread of God signified to us And that both in his Humiliation and sufferings and in the ends of them and their powerful efficacy with the Father to those ends for us First Distinct things considerable in his Humiliation and sufferings for us and so by his flesh as distinguished from his blood is meant His whole abasement in being made flesh and sufferings in the flesh unto the shedding his blood or laying down his Life even all that sustained and endured by him in the dayes of his flesh or weaknesse for he was crucified through weaknesse of which he was made partaker that therein he might be capable of suffering and dying our death as well as that he might bear our infirmities and sorrowes And so his taking mans Nature or kind in being made flesh of a woman so as in that preparation of his Body he took part of flesh and blood like as the Children of men are partakers of it as the fruit of sin and so was made in the likenesse of sinful flesh subject to all our infirmities that came on us by reason of sin yet without sin in that body of his flesh therefore his flesh so prepared and given him of the Father was meet to be given by him for the Life of the World whereas in our flesh as we are partakers of it in its mortal state there dwells no good thing therefore nothing that can be done or suffered by us in our flesh is in it self clean or meet to be offered in sacrifice to God But his flesh as distinguished from and in some sence opposed to our flesh as we in our particular persons are partakers of it and so his humbling himself to be made flesh in the likenesse of our sinfull flesh and to come as a weak and dispicable man in the form of a Servant and being therein made a man of sorrows and acquainted with griefs and giving his flesh to be broken bruised torn wounded and pierced for our transgressions this is that which God hath accepted and therefore crowned him with this Honour when made flesh and in that body of his flesh lower then the Angels even partaker with us of flesh and blood that his sufferings unto death and so his death in the flesh should be by the Grace of God for every man therefore his flesh is meat indeed for us even his flesh given for the Life of the World his body
given and broken for us and so alwayes to be remembered and fed upon by us Luke 22. 19. 1 Cor. 11 24. John 6. 5â— Again by his Blood as distinguished from his flesh is meant that blood of his Crosse which was shed for us for the Remission of sins Col â— 14. 20. Mat. 26. 28. Not only nor so directly his being sometime partakers of material and mortal blood in that body of his flesh that is included in the forementioned sence of his flesh as distinguished from his blood and when mentioned together with it such blood being in and with his flesh all the dayes of his mortallity untill his death in which it was so fully shed forth and powered out that water followed but by his blood as distinct from his flesh is directly meant his humbling himself to that death in the finishing of his sufferings wherein that blood in which was his natural life in the flesh as of man was shed and so therein his Soul or Life in the flesh powered out yeilded up and laid down for our sins that were caused to meet together upon him that so he might by means of that his death in the flesh take his Life again in the Power of God and live for ever in the Glory of his Father even in that raised body of his flesh And this is very usual in the Scripture by blood to signifie the shedding of blood to Death or the natural and bodily death by any other means so Abels death by Cain called his blood Gen. 4. 10. with Heb. 12. 24. So Naboths death by stoning called his blood 2 Kings 9. 2â— generally the Martyrdom and death of the Servants of God for his sake 2 Kings 9. 7. Deut. 32. 43. Psal 72. 14. with Psal 116. 15. Yea the natural or bodily Death however it come on a man is called his blood Psal 30. 9. Heb. 12. 4. So also that by Christs own blood the blood of his Crosse by which peace was made Redemption obtained and so by which he entered into Heaven it self and so by the Spirituall sprinkling of which in the Preaching of the Crosse he purgeth the conscience is meant his Death his shedding of his blood his once suffiring even to the death of the Crosse his being put to death in the flesh see it in the foreceited Scriptures Col. 1. 14 20. Mat. 26. 28. with Phil. 2. 8. 1 Pet. 2. 24 and 3. 18. so also in Heb 9. 2. 14. with ver 15 16. 22. 26. Again Secondly By the distinct mention of his flesh and blood is signified some distinct considerations of the ends and powerfull efficacies of his own suffering in that body of his flesh for our sins As 1. For making peace and atonement with God for our sins in which we have all sinned in the disobedience of one and in which we are from thence become altogether filthy and as such justly banished and dead at Law and so it s said he gave his flesh for the life of the World and by suffering the judgement of this World and being made a Curse for us he hath abolished death obtained a Redemption and release of mankinde from under the power of that judgement that came on all in and by the first man Adam and so from the curse of the Law to be under his dispose and judgement by whom the Kingdom of God is brought unto us that through him we might be saved As the offence of one was unto all to condemnation so the Righteousnesse of one in laying down his Life that he might take it again is unto all to Justification of Life from under the power of the first death and banishment that they may not perish therein or be held out from God thereby but that they might live to him that dyed for them and rose again Rom. 5. 18. 2 Cor. 5. 1â— 15. 19. Col. 1. 20. John 6. 51. and 12. 31 32. Gal. 3. 13. 11. His shedding of his blood laying down his Life or powering out his Soul unto death for our sins was also to obtaine into himself for us a better life yea better then that we lost in the first Adam even Eternal Life Yea all fulnesse of all things pertaining to life and Godlinesse even the fulnesse of the Godhead bodily that of his fulnesse we might receive And so the immeasurable fulnesse of that Holy and Eternal Spirit to rest upon him in that body in which he so suffered that he should Teach sinners in the way and guide the meek in Judgement Yea further he hath by his blood or by means of that his death which was for the Redemption of the Transgressions under the first Testament obtained plentious and Eternal Redemption even the forgivenesse of such sins as are after the similitude of Adams transgression he hath received power in the name of the Father and as the fruit of his sufferings to take away such sins by his dayly appearing in the presence of God for us and so all such gifts as may serve for the good of the Rebellious while it is to day for forbearing and renewing mercies to them that yet through him they might be saved and that he might be just and the Justifier of him that believeth in Jesus even from such sins yea from all things from which they could not be justified by the Law of Moses And so he is a Saviour from the wrath to come being now by means of his death a Mediator and propitiation for such sins as deserve it John 17. 4 5. 1 John 5. 11. Heb. 9. 12. Col. 1. 14. 19. and 2. 9. Acts 2. 33. Psal 68. 18 19. with Ephes 4. 8. 10. Heb. 9. 15. 1 Thes 1. 10. 1 John 2. 2. He was bruised wounded and put to death in the body of his flesh for our transgressions that through death he might abolish death in his Resurrection and make such peace and healing for us that through him we might be delivered and saved that were all our life time through fear of death subject to bondage Yea therefore also he shed his blood and powered out his Soul unto death that he might by vertue thereof obtaine and receive into himself a better even Eternal life for us with all such gifts for men yea for the Rebellious also as was needful that yet while it is to day they might be brought back to God and that he might be able to save to the utmost them that come to God by him 2. This his flesh and his blood was evidenced to be meat indeed and drink indeed for men spiritually to feed upon by the Resurrection of Christ from the dead and his offering up his spotlesse body a Ransom or price of Redemption once for all as being made perfect through sufferings and his being accepted and set down on the Right hand of God and Glorified with the Fathers own self Immeasurebly filled with all gifts in the man for men as before we have shewed all as the fruit of
his precious blood sufferings and death Yea therein was he and so his past and finished sufferings actually and fully made and mightily declared to be such bread of Life For if he had not rose and revived or lived again in the same body in which he bore our sins to offer himself to God in Heaven it self and there to appear in his presence for us his flesh could have profited us nothing but now its profitable to all things If he had been still and often suffering for sins or could die or shed blood any more then had there been no such vertue in that which he hath already done if therein he had not finished the works of abasement and blood-shedding the Father gave him to do on the Earth and thereby obtained the Resurrection and Glory of Eternal Redemption and Life in himself for us we had been yet in our sins and the Preaching of his Crosse and Faith therein had been vain which is not in blood now shedding but shed the sufferings and Death finished and past as to the acting or actuall bearing or sustaining them but God hath raised him from the dead and given him Glory because he so humbled himself c. That by him our Faith and hope might be in God and so the vertue or preciousnesse of his blood the love testified in it the peace made and Redemption obtained by it remaines ever with the Father for us treasured up in him even in that his now Glorious body in which he once suffered for our sins that in his name it may be Spiritually shed forth upon us which precious vertues and fruits of his blood may be also called his blood in a like sence as the water fetcht out of the well of Bethlehem with the jeopardy of their lives that fetcht it is called the blood of those men 2 Sam. 23. 15 16 17. And as that which is bought with a mans money may be called his money yea his having obtained by shedding his blood the Spirit of life in the man more excellent in degree then the breath of Life first breathed into Adam with all power Authority and fitnesse to send forth thereof to men and having also confirmed the Precious promises of it in his blood This his fulnesse and fitnesse to dispence is Wine mingled and so that Spirit powered forth in and with the Preaching of his Crosse opening and making known his words is drink indeed John 6. 27. to the end with Prov. 9. Jer. 15. 16. Psal 119. 103. And may be called his blood as being the precious fruit of it but still that which Originally and properly beares that Name and from whence such precious fruits of it may be also so called is as before that blood blood-shedding or Death of his Crosse and that being the Root and foundation of all these precious fruits is the drink indeed the bottom matter of all Spiritual quickenings and retreshings because by means of it Christ is raised and Glorified in the man for men and made such a quickning Spirit as hath been shewed before therefore we shall add no more to it here 3. This is brought to us that it may be Spiritually fed on by us not in the material or sencible being of that flesh and blood in us or sencibly nigh to us nor in a dayly coming in the flesh and so suffering for sin and offering himself often either within us or without before us that we might be eye witnesses of these things as those that lived in the dayes of his flesh or being manifested in the flesh were For then must he often have suffered from the foundation of the World but now once in the end of the World hath he appeared to put away sin by the Sacrifice of himself he once suffered and died for sin and can die no more either in his own Person or for sin and for the putting away sin in any other person But that which he hath already done and compleated in himself by means thereof is brought to us by the evidence and demonstration of the Spirit in the Gospel and other witnesses of his goodnesse and Name given us in which he that was dead is witnessed by means thereof to be alive for ever more and appearing in the presence of God for us Therefore it s said that he gave himself a Ransom once for all not that he should offer himself often or any more but to be testified in due time in what he hath already done and is become thereby or that he should now be a Testimonie thereof to men and of the Grace and Glory of the Father therein 1 Tim. 2. 6. So that now for the making us partakers of the blessed benefit and fruit of what he hath done and is become for us he is not doing the same things over again once finished on the Earth But first executing the office of an Apostle Messenger or Preacher of the peace that ho hath made thereby therein shewing his sulnesse and fitness for us by means thereof and commending the Grace of God through it and then also executing the Office of a great high Priest appearing in the presence of God for us that we may not fail of his Grace through our manifold weaknesse follies But still that his appearing there as a Priest and Advocate and so as the propitiation for our sins is by vertue of and with that one offering of his one body perfected through sufferings once for all whence we are exhorted to consider the Apostle and high Priest of our profession Christ Jesus who was faithfull to him that appointed him even in the finishing those works of which he is an Apostle to us and by which he is an high Priest for us and that laid down as the ground of our confidence of his goodness and faithfulness in what remains Heb. 3. And so as we have before hinted the Scripture saith not as these men that the flesh and blood of Christ is nigh them but the word of Faith which declares it and its vertues and efficacies with the Father in shewing himself in that body in which he so suffered by means thereof to be risen from the dead made both Lord and Christ and appearing in the presence of God for us that Preaching of the Cross is made nigh to men in the Proaching of it vouchsafed they being in the evidence and demonstration of the Spirit with power revealing the object and opening the eyes and strengthening the heart that they might believe and confess that God hath raised Christ from the dead and so that Christ might dwell in their hearts by Faith of him in what he hath done and is become for them yea it is the Power of God to Salvation to them that believe though foolishness to them that perish from it Rom. 10. 6. 10. 1 Cor. 1. 18. c. 12. Query And if the blood of Christ that was shed be the drink indeed and the purger of the conscience where
preciousness thereof for our help which is shewed in the discovery of him as now raised from the dead in the same body in which he Suffered those things and standing by means of that his death the prOpitiation for our sins and our advocate with the Father c. as before in which all True Believers have the ground of their peace rejoycing and hope and so in Christ Jesus all other rejoycings are fleshly and after the sensual mind whence the Apostle determined not to know any thing among believers but Jesus Christ and him crucified not crucifying or often Suffering from the foundation of the world yea God forbid that we should rejoyce in any thing save in the Cross of Christ by whom the world is crucified to us and we to the world for the Preaching of that is to them that perish foolishness but to us that are saved the Power of God 1 Cor. 1. 18. 24. and 2. 2. Heb. 9. 25 26. and Gal. 6. 14. 2 That such things as are done and past as to the actual accomplishment of them long before Men had their particular beings in the world yet may be spiritually fed on by those Men and so eaten and drunk in a like sence as in which the flesh and blood of Christ is said to be eaten and drunk though not remaining in a present or sencible being to them or otherwise then in the virtue and fruit of then this might be shewed in other things mentioned in the Scripture as Types and patterns of this as the Lords passing over the houses of the Children of Israel in Aegypt when he smote the Aegyptians was to be remembred and rejoyced in throughout their Generations and therefore that day to be kept for a memorial a feast to the Lord by an ordinance for ever Exod. 12. 12 14 27. So we also are instructed to keep the feast of rejoycing in Christ in thankful commemmoration of what he hath done for saith the Text Christ our Passover is sacrificed not sacrificing or daily and often offering himself but this he did once that is the ground of our rejoycing in him evermore he is sacrificed for us 1 Cor. 5. 7 8. Again Gods dividing the Sea by his strength and breaking the heads of the Dragons in the waters and so the broken heads of Leviathan even Pharaoh and his host as broken and destroyed in the Red Sea was given for meat to the people inhabiting in the Wildernesse Psal 74. 13 14. though yet Pharaoh and his host was not in a present sensible being near that people all the time they were meat for them nor yet their drowning or destruction actually done in their sight or before them all along but once finished and therefore so worthy to be remembred and such matter of feeding and rejoycing to them in after ages Psal 81. 5. 10. and 78. and 105. and 106. but it is so clear in this which is the Truth and fulnesse of all those Types and Patterns namely the flesh of Christ and the blood of Christ and so evident in what is already said of it that more need not be said to shew and prove that that flesh of Christ even the words being made flesh in the similitude of sinful flesh and so his whole abasement and sufferings in the flesh the dayes of which are past Heb. 5. 7. 1 Pet. 3. 18. and so his blood his sufferings even to blood to death in the flesh which as to the actual accomplishment and sustaining of it is now past and finished yea therefore because his sufferings and death is so finished that he is in the virtue and bye means thereof raised and glorified in the same body for us as is before shewed so that he can die no more therefore is his flesh meat indeed and his blood drink indeed the Lords Death worthy for ever to be remembred and rejoyced in himself in the Infinite Grace of it and everlasting Virtue and Fruit of it that Bread of God the Bread of Life c. As aforesaid But for a little further demonstration how such a thing may be and is that even his personal Sufferings and Abasement in the flesh and so the Lords death may be eaten and drunk now so long after the actual accomplishment and sustaining of it is past as also that it might be so before its manifestation or coming forth into actual and sensible being for he did not often Suffer for sin from the Foundation of the world but once in the end of the world as Heb. 9. 26. 1 Pet. 3. 18. For some further demonstration of this we say We shall here add a word or two to shew what the eating his flesh and drinking his blood is or how and in what manner it may be eaten and drunk and so how the Blood of Christ purgeth the Conscience The eating and drinking here is not naturally or bodily with the mouth but mentally with the Mind Spirit or inner man and that not in or by a sensual immagination or apprehension of seeing feeling or proving the works Sufferings or things that are the bottom matter of feeding and rejoycing to the heart as acted in them or in the present time before them but it is by faith as Ephes 3. 16 17. yea the eating and drinking is an act and exercise of faith as opposed to sight or sence we walk saies the Apostle and so the Just shall live Rom. 1. 17. Heb. 10. 38 by faith not by sight and so the life that I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself note that he saith not is giving or giveth but gave himself for me the love that was manifested in that unspeakable gift and perfect offering of himself already prepared and perfected and so those works already finished on the earth through which that love is still manifested and commended are mentioned as the bottom ground of his faith and so matter of his feeding so that though the Apostles had seen the Lord yet they did not now live by that sight but by faith as opposed to sight yea blessed are those that have not so seen and yet believed saith our Saviour And the Apostle Peter saith That even those that were partakers of like precious faith with them yet had not so seen him as they had done but did believe and rejoyce in him though now they see him not John 20. 29. 1 Pet. 1. 8. and it is in such believing on him as the Scripture hath said that himself and him crucified and so his flesh and his blood is eaten and drunk as may be seen in John 6. 35. with chap. 7. 37 38 39. A man believing in and with the heart the record that God hath given of Christ that is receiving withal acceptation loving and closing with it according to the understanding given him as a good and faithful saying letting it dwell in him and so having his heart exercised in it and by
it to consider him and stay on his Name as therein set forth seeking Satisfaction Rest Righteousnesse and Strength in him in such believing mindfulnesse and dependance on him and so believing on him as the Scripture hath said he is therein said to Eat him and Drink him or the Bread and Drink he giveth because therein the heart and mind is so stayed in him Isa 26. 5 and exercised with delight and well-pleasednesse about him and the things of him as to a tasting how Gracious the Lord is and proving the sweetness fitness and excellency of him in and according to the knowledge of him so Jeremy saith Thy words were found and I did eat them Jer. 15. 16. and because also in such spiritual eating a man certainly comes to taste prove and meet with such peace refreshing joy strength and blessedness in the first fruits of the Spirit as answers to the instruction and ground therein set before him as also follows in that of Jeremy thy word was to me the joy and the rejoycing of mine heart as David also professeth How sweet are thy words unto my taste yea sweeter than Honey to my mouth Psal 119. 103 for the Word of God works effectually in them that believe and receive it as such 1 Thes 2. 13. unto them therefore that believe Christ is precious for so Christ comes to dwell in their heart in or by the Faith of him in what he hath done and is become for us and in the hope set before us in him yea he himself as so known believed by them is in their hearts by faith the hope of Glory the ground of it in what he hath done and the thing hoped for in what is further to be revealed and done by him Now faith is the evidence of things not seen as well as the confidence of things hoped for by it our fathers saw and rejoyced in the promises of the Sufferings of Christ and the Glory that should follow when both were yet afar off to come Heb. 11. with 1 Pet. 1. 10 11 12. And we have much more advantage to behold and rejoyce in him the works being finished which the Father gave him to do upon the earth and now the word of faith manifested the Preaching fully made known with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven yea therefore because the works are now actually finished as vertually they were from the foundation of the world because God hath raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead who was delivered for our offences and raised again for our justification therefore being Justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ by whom also having now received the atonement as already made by his blood we have access by faith into this Grace in which we stand and rejoyce in hope of the Glory of God and not onely so but we glory in tribulations also proving a blessed fruit of them because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given us in this Preaching of the Cross that when we were yet without strength in due time Christ dyed for the ungodly c. see Rom. 4. 22. 24 25. with chap. 5. 1. 11. And so the eating his flesh and drinking his blood as we are now instructed to it since the works were finished in the Person of Christ which the Father gave him to do on the earth is signified to be in a believing mindfulnesse and remembrance of the Lords death as already actually finished and past and so of him in what he hath therein and thereby compleated in himself for us therein considering him in the infinite and abiding vertue and preciousnesse of that blood or death of his Cross as mightily declared in his being raised and glorified in that body by means thereof and as brought to us in the preaching of that his Cross with the evidence and demonstration of the spirit and power and so in seeking rest righteousness strength and rejoycing in him in and by such believing in him So likewise the Blood of Christ purgeth the Conscience through Faith in that his Blood Blood shed or death and not by shedding blood again or by doing or causing to be done or 〈◊〉 the â—ame oâ— like things in their persons that were done and suffered in his person for sin for to him give all the Prophets witnesse that through his Name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins while through his Name the heart is stayed on him in a believing mindfulness and remembrance of him in what he hath done and so closing with and considering him in what he is thereby become for Sinners he further powers out his spirit opening and making known his words and so sprinkling upon the heart his Blood viz. the discoveries and openings of his blood shedding or death the infinite vertue and pretiousness of it with the Father The Grace manifested in and through it and so makes the Truth even the Preaching of the Cross powerful in their so knowing it to make them free from the Law and from the Dominion of sin by it John 8 32. 1 Cor. 1. 18. Acts 20. 32. and 10. 43. with Heb. 9 14. and this the Apostle confirms by his experiment Rom 8. 2 3. for the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus which is no other but the Glorious Gospel with the Light and Power of Gods Spirit in it Rom. 1. 16 17. 2 Cor. 3. that sayes he hath made me free from the Law of sin and death and then speaking to the reason of that efficacy and the means by which it did it he shews that it was not by accomplishing those or like works in him as was finished in the Person of Christ in his being delivered for our offences and raised for our justification but in and by the opening and spiritual sprinkling on his Soul that Bloodshedding or Death and Sufferings of Christ for the Remission of sins and that in and through the Preaching of it shewing the pretiousness pertinency and fulness of that to the purpose for saith he What the Law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin condemned sin in the flesh that the Righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit minding the things of the spirit who takes off the things of Christ that he hath suffered done and shewing them glorifies him as the end of the Law for Righteousness to every one that believeth compare it with Rom. 5. 1. 11. and chap. 1â—3 John 16. 8. 10. 13 14 15. and so the Lords death his once suffering in the flesh for sins the just for the unjust which as to the actual accomplishment or sustaining of it is over and past but for ever accepted and had in everlasting remembrance with the Father and in the Fountain of
not in it as Thomas Moor affirmed Ans They wrest Thomas Moors words as is shewed in the reply to them pa. 3 and 4. therefore we shall say the lesse to it here What he said was by way of return to their saying that the life is in the blood as applying it to Christ in answer to which he spake to this purpose That those sayings Gen. 9. 4. Levit. 17. 11. 14 are spoken of other mortal Creatures distinct from mortal man and though it may be truly affirmed of mortal man also as to the natural life of the Body Yet it neither is nor can be truly affirmed of him whom God hath raised from the dead that his life which he now liveth by the power of God by which he was raised from the dead is in or by the supply of material blood as the natural life of the natural and mortal body is for in him being raised from the dead all mortality is put off But that the life he now liveth by the Father and in the Power of God for us is by means and in the virtue of his blood or death in the flesh once suffered for our sins by which he hath obtained eternal redemption and life into himself for us and is the Mediator between God and men the Apostle and High Priest of our Profession And that the life he giveth to the World is by virtue of that his Blood And the life he giveth to them that feed on him by faith is not onely by virtue of it but in the Spiritual discoveries of it and love commended through it in the Preaching of his Cross as before shewed this he also then and still affirmeth as also is shewed in our former Answers Quest 15. How many comings of Christ do you own seeing you have his second coming without sin to salvation yet to look for Ans Hitherto they have played the part of the false Christs foretold by our Saviour Mat. 24. 24. privily denying the Lord that bought them as 2 Pet. 2. 1. in the excellency of his personal Body and the works finished by him in that his own Body on the earth and in his infinite fulnesse and glory by means of death possessed by him for us in that body raised from the dead that so they might make way for their lifting up something else in the name anâ— place thereof as Mat. 24. 5. And now they proceed more plainly to act the part also of the false Prophets there also foretold vers 11. 23. 26. scoffing at â—he promise of his second coming his glorious personal appearing as it is owned and acknowledged by all that believe through and according to the Apostles Doctrine as that which is yet to be looked and waited for all the time of this present World 2 Pet. 3. 3 4. 10. 12. with Tit. 2. 12 13. plainly implying they have it not yet to look for and so intimately saying Lo here or lo there in this or that present operation or sensual imagination Christs appearing the second time without sin to salvation and so consequently the resurrection is already made and past to them as Mat. 24. 23. 26. with 2 Tim. 2. 18. Nor is this any more then is expresly affirmed by them in their pretended answer to J. H. and T. M. Junior called A brief discovery of the dangerous Principles of J. H. and T. M. c. where page 9. They say That the Saints which then were alive remained unto that coming of Christ spoken of 1 Thes 4. 15. and Phil. 3. 20. 21. The groundlesnesse falsenesse and wickednesse of which is shewen in the reply to it see the fuller discovery of the Dangerous Principles and lying spirit of the people called Quakers page to which we refer the Reader And here also that we may further shew by the Scriptures the Truth of God reproached by them and manifest the folly and wickednesse of their spirit we further answer to this question 1. There are comings of Christ in a divers sence mentioned in the Scripture for there are comings of Christ in respect of which it is said he came unto his own even to Israel after the flesh to gather them c. often from the beginning of their being a people John 1. 11. Mat. 23. 37. yea he was in the World and went by his Spirit in the ministration of Noah to the Spirits of men then John 1. 5. 10. 1 Pet. 3. 19 20 And there are comings of Christ in such a sence spoken of in Scripture as in respect of which it is said he appeared and came into the World not often but once in the end of the World personally to Minister and to give his life a ransome for many and so to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself Matthew 20. 28. 1 Pet. 3. 18. with Heber 9. 26. There are providential comings of Christ to men both more particularly and more generally and that both in more then ordinary demonstrations of his power and goodnesse in special mercies and blessings as John â— 11. and in like manifestations of his severity in some great and signal corrections or judgements as Rev. 2. 5. and 3. 3. There are also spiritual comings and manifestations of himself to men severally in their several times to the opening and enlightening the blind minds and moving sinners to repentance Isa 50. 2 with c. 42. 1. 7 and 55. 1. 6. 1 Tim. 2. 6. and to the quickening refreshing and satisfying the souls of such as hear and receive his sayings with the further discoveries openings tastes and operations of his goodnesse such as John 14. 16. 18. 21. 23. Rev. 3. 20. and of his comings in both these sences there are more then can be numbred nor of these read we of first or second so called but then there are also personal and bodily appearances and comings of Christ into the World or his coming into the world and appearing on the earth in a real body prepared for him spoken of in the Scripture and called the comings and dayes of the Son of man of Christ of the Seed of David after the flesh and of these a first and a second The first was when that Body of his flesh was prepared for him in the womb of a Virgin when the fulnesse of time was come God sent forth his Son made of a woman c. wherefore when he cometh into the world he saith A body hast thou prepared me Lo I come c. Gal. 4. 4. Heb. 10. 5. 10. And so he once in the end of the World and not often from the foundation of the World appeared to put away sin by the Sacrifice of himself even by and through the offering up his body once for all which was therefore prepared for him that he might therein be capable of doing and do the Will of the Father for the Redemption and sanctification of sinful men even that he might in that body finish the Works the Father gave him to do on
generation or sort of men have finished their course as well as they But after this the Judgement even after this appointment of the whole kind once to die is fulfilled on all generations then will be the general final and Eternal judgement And though those that now sleep in Jesus and have suffered with him shall have their judgement come upon them their Kingdom glory given them to possess first before the rest of the dead yet that will not be till the time and state of the Resurrection of the just that have suffered with him for they shall first rise from the dead neither will that be till the beginning of that great day of Christ when the dayes of sufferings and trouble to that generation will be ended So that the judgement that properly so called as distinguished from other Judgements in this life that are temporal and reversible even the Eternal judgement that is after death it is in the time and state of the Resurrection for there shall be a General Resurrection of both the just and unjust in which they shall come forth to their judgement and that shall be to both at the hour or day of Christ even at his appearing and his Kingdom Acts 24. 15. John 5. 28 29. 2 Tim. 4. 1. and so much also appears in that which follows Heb. 9. 28. where after he hath said as it is appointed to men once to die but after this the judgement he adds as a remedy against the evil that otherwise might be unto men in that death or that judgement following so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin to salvation now as his first appearing to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself answers to the first death and misery and was effectual that by Christ we should be saved from perishing in it and that through him we might be saved so his second appearing without sin to Salvation answers to the judgement after death and is such as by it all those that now through his grace bringing salvation to all men in due time do look for him shall be saved from wrath through him even from the wrath to come when it shall come forth in that judgement so as they shall stand in the judgement even before the Son of man when he appears and the second death shall have no power on them yea they shall then be saved to the utmost by that his appearing yea he shall then appear to their salvation in that judgement which implies his appearing the second time to be first and the judgement after death following upon it at that his appearing and his Kingdome to come upon men in the time and state of the resurrection as before is shewed compare with the forementioned Scriptures Heb. 6. 2. Rev. 20. 12 13. Again their folly is manifest in taking up a sence of the Word Hell from some common contradions without examination as if in every place it signified that place and state of torment in which the wicked are to be punished for ever after the passing of the Eternal judgement upon them whereas they might have known the word Hell is used in Scripture generally for that which is deep and low obscure and dark And so 1. Sometime for the Grave or disappearing state of death whence t is often translated grave from which and from the power of it there is a redemption and deliverance though no man can redeem himself c. Psal 49. 8 9. 15. and 89. 48. Job 17. 13. 16. with Hos 13. 14. 2. Sometime for any such distress or misery as threatens death and as in which a man is in darknesse that he can see no way out or how deliverance should come out of which yet there may be deliverance though he see not how as Jonahs being in the Whales belly Jonah 2. 2 3. c. see also Psalm 86. 13. 88. 6. and 116. 3 4 c. 3. Sometime for that place and state of darkness and separation from God into which the Spirits of ungodly sinners that dy in their sins are cast and shut up from the time of their departing out of the body unto the judgement of the great day for when the body returns to its dust then the spirit returns to God who gave it Ecles 3. 21. and 12. 7. by him to be appointed to its proper place by whom the Spirits of Believers such as die in the Lord are received into Paradise a place and state of pleasure and rest in heaven under the altar on which the perfect Sacrifice was offered sometimes called Abrahams bosom t is such as in which they are from the time of their departure out of the flesh or body with the Lord made perfect so much as the Spirit without the body is capable yet still waiting for the redemption of the Body and Glorious Kingdom promised And so likewise by him the Spirits of the disobedient that persisted in the refusal of him till their sin was finished are when they depart out of the body at the death of the body driven away shut cut from his presence shut up as prisoners in some place and state of darknesse where they are reserved to the judgement of the great day Prov. 14. 32. Isa 24. 22. 1 Pet. 3. 19 20. And this is called hell Psal 9. 17. Luke 16. 23. Rev. 20. 13. that hell that follows or goes along with the first death Rev. 6. 8. That might have been an everlasting Prison to the Souls or Spirits of all mankind had not Christ abolished death by his appearing and obtained a release of all Mankind unto him and the Keys of Hell and Death into his hand But now by him that Hell going with or pertaining to the first death as in this last sence is onely appointed for a prison for all the ungodly in which they shall be reserved as in chains of darknesse to the judgement of the great day where also they are fil'd with unspeakable horror and torment in their spirit in the remembrance and sence of what they have lost and for what lying vanities and what they must shortly and for ever suffer in soul and body together reunited And out of this Hell there shall be such a deliverance as may be resembled by the deliverance of Prisoners to judgement so Rev. 20. 13. John 8. 28 29. in which yet they are not delivered out of darknesse but still in a state of separation from God and the Light of his countenance brought forth to receive their bodies that slept in dust and in them to receive their final conviction and judgement Again 4. Sometime and but seldome the word Hell singly but Hell fire is used for that wrath to come the lake of fire prepared for the Devil and his angels which is to man the second death into which they are not cast while the body is held in the grave and
the foolish woman they pursue their wicked enterprize in this order as may be seen in these Queries 1. Seeking to make void and of no effect the Personal Cross of Christ in what he hath already done and compleated in himself thereby for men and so privily to deny the Lord that bought them and render the Preaching of his Cross and faith in him of no effect 2. To overthrow the Hope of the Gospel even of the second personal coming of Christ from Heaven and the Salvation then to be revealed and so to undermine the Doctrine of the Resurrection of the dead and of eternal judgment by the man Christ Jesus 3. Thereby to render needless useless and contemptible those his wayes and Ordinances in which he hath appointed us to remember him in what he hath done and thence to consider him in what he is thereby become for us and to us and to be exercised in our waiting for his second coming and the salvation then to be revealed and surely where they can prevail in the two first they may easily prevail in the latter for to what end or purpose should they observe any of those his wayes and Ordinances that are appointed for remembering and shewing forth the Lords death and the infinite and abiding virtue and pretiousnesse of that and that in them we should be exercised to an expectation and waiting for his second coming who believe neither so as to have their faith in the first and from thence their hope of the second for if the dead rise not then is not Christ risen from the dead and then neither can there be any expectation of his coming again in that body in which he suffered or of any hope by him in or of another life after death and then the Apostles preaching is vain and the Ordinances as delivered by them of no use or worth to be kept by us baptizing in the Name of Christ as delivered by them and so the Supper of the Lord empty and unprofitable things And doublesse if these men as they seem to intimate do grant any use of such an Ordinance for shewing forth the Lords Death at any time yet then either they mean it not otherwise then as for commemorating and shewing forth a type or shadow whose truth and body is to be sought for in something else and not in the thing commemorated or else by the Lord they mean not that Jesus of Nazareth whom God hath made Lord and Christ and by that they call the Lords death they mean not that death of his Crosse which he once suffered in that body of his flesh for our sins and can suffer or die no more And however that they have no Faith in him or these things of him is fully manifested in their former questions but seek to lift up something else in the Name and place of him and then what profit can there be to them in treating with them about his Ordinances while they are so wholly void of judgement in the great things of his Law as before is shewed But for the help of others that are not yet wholly turned aside after Satan we answer to this Query That the taking blessing and breaking Bread and the taking and blessing the cup and so eating and drinking of them as Christ hath appointed to shew forth the Lords death is an Ordinance to continue in the Church till the end of the World or which is all one till his coming again 1 Cor. 11. 23 24 25 26 and 10. 16. Mat. 24 3. and 28. 20. And for further helpfulnesse in the understanding and use of it we add I. The thing to be commemorated and shewed forth in that Ordinance is not our Mortifications sufferings qualifications or works wrought in or by us but the Lords death 1. The death of him that was the Lord from Heaven before he died even in the beginning with God the proper Lord and heir of all the Kingdom and glory of God for the Father sent forth his onely begotten Son by his Grace to taste death for us which shews our sinfulnesse miserie and helplesnesse and so the necessity of his death for us in respect of us as also its Excellency for our help likewise 2. It s the death of him that is the Lord Gloriously made both Lord and Christ in that body in which he died and by means of his death for us for he died once and can die no more but is now alive for evermore and hath the keyes of Hell and Death which shewes the preciousnesse of his death for us seeing by means of it he ever liveth for us in the Power and Glory of God II. This is to be remembered and so commemorated and shewed forth in that Ordinance as that which is alwayes and for ever to be remembred and that imports 1. That the thing itself the Lords death as to the actual accomplishment and sustaining of it is already past and over being finished in his own body For remembrance is of things past as is fore hinted 2. And that the precious virtue and efficacie of it abides for ever with the Father for us in his appearing in his presence in that body Glorified as Lord and Christ by means thereof and so remaines in and through him that is the Lord in the Name of the Father to us Likewise 3. That the vertue efficacy and fruit of it is brought to us in the Preachin of his Crosse and through the witnesses of it and of the Grace in and through it and to be met within the believing remembrance and acknowledgment of it for with the heart man believeth unto Righteousnesse and with the mouth confession is made to Salvation III. That therefore he hath appointed together with the Preaching of the Crosse this outward Ordinance for the remembering and shewing forth the Lords death till he come Which implyes that there is even in believers in their several ages till that his coming again natural dulnesse and pronenesse to forget it and with that also a natural aptnesse to be either looking singly on their sins or enemies to their discouragement and fainting in the way or else on their personal Mortifications Sufferings Victories or Works to a rejoycing and lifting up themselves in something that is not the Lord and therefore need of such mementoes And it shews the Gratious mind of God to us that we should have the Lords death alwayes in remembrance and in our acknowledgement which onely will keep us from fainting in the way and instruct and strengthen to relinquish all rejoycing in the flesh for the Excellency of the knowledge of him and therefore he hath appointed such means to stir us up by putting in remembrance often IV. This Ordinance is by the Lord appointed to the Church and so to be used in it and in the societies of it whereever two or three are gathered in his Name in the beliefe of his sayings and of the Grace commended through his death drawn
Thes 4. 14. 16. Phil. 2. 20 21. Untill he comes there is much Hypocrisie and hidden things of dishonesty covered over with good words fair speeches and formes of Godlinesse but when he comes he will bring to light the hidden things of darknesse and make manifest the counsels of the hearts so as there is nothing covered that shall not then be revealed Mat. 10. 26. 1 Cor. 4. 5. until he come The Earth and Aire is corrupt and the Creatures subject to Bondage but when he comes he shall restore all things Rom. 8. 19. 22. with Acts 3. 19. 21. Until he come his Saints on Earth are under reproach and persecution 2 Tim. 3. 12. But at his coming he shall give them full restand deliverance that they shall so suffer no more 2 Thes 1. 7. By all which it appeares that the second coming of the Lord and the end of this World contemporize and so till both the Ordinances are to be kept as delivered by the Apostles 20. Que. And whether doth the receiving Bread and Wine alone without on outward passeover really figure forth the death of Christ Answ Having been large to the former Question it shall suffice in answer to this to give some briefe notice of their folly Antichristianisme and prophane scoffing at Christs appointments here more fully manifest and so we say 1. It is not the receiving of Bread and Wine alone that is the supper of the Lord or his Ordinance appointed for the Church to shew forth his death in nor is it that about which they query however their light failed them in propounding their question For 1. That may be by them that do not then eat and drink them 2. That may be done also in eating and drinking by such as these that do what they can privily to hide and deny the Lords death the ends vertue and pretiousnesse of it as also by such as do it to gluttony and drunkenesse and by others more sober who yet do it profanely without belief or acknowledgement of their Redeemer as by his death he hath procured these mercies for them and through it extends them In all which receivings of Bread and Wine there is no commemoration of the Lords death or shewing it forth by them yea 3. It may be by unfeigned believers for the preservation of their natural life and cheering and strengthening the outward man as 1 Tim. 5. 23. And this with belief and acknowledgement of the Redemption wrought and obtained by the blood of Christ and of these Mercies as procured and Sanctified for their 〈◊〉 thereby for which they give him thanks And as through Christ every Creature of God is good and Mercy and Blessing in them for and unto men the use of them lawful and good in it self so are they also in a peculiar sence clean to them 1 Tim. 4. 3 4. Tit. 1. 14 15. And in such use of them as aforesaid they do remember and in a sort may shew forth the Lords death as before is hinted yet neither is this that solemn and profest celebrating the memorial of and shewing forth the Lords death which is appointed to be done in the use of the Lords Supper or that his Ordinance to be observed in the Church to that purpose nor would an outward passeover joyned with any such receivings as forementioned make it so But to eat the Lords Supper and to do it worthily or as is meet according to his appointment is for a man upon hearing and in minding the instructions of the Gospel concerning the Lords Body that was broken for us examining and judging himself as therein discovered and reproved so to eat of that Bread and drink of that cup in remembrance and acknowledgement of the Lords death and in the Assemblies of believers when met together in his Name to that purpose and so celebrating that memorial according to his Ordinance and institution as is before shewed see 1 Cor 11. 20. to the end Chap. 10. 16 17. compared with Acts 2. 42. and 20. 7. with the instructions about it as mentioned by the Evangelists See the instructions to it also from the consideration of Israel after the flesh in their observance of the Ordinance of the passeover unto which this of the Supper hath much answerablenesse as in other of their typical Ordinanes 1 Cor. 10 18. But 2. They also shew their Antichristian denial of Christs being already come in the flesh and having finished the works given him to do on the Earth in that his first appearing to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself in their intimation that the Lords death cannot be shewed forth in that Ordinance of the Supper appointed by him to that purpose without an outward passeover For in the Ordinance of the passeover which was outward there was blood shed and sprinckled and the Lamb roasted and eaten and so there was not onely a commemoration of that passing over them by the destroying Angel and their deliverance out of Egypt but also a Type of Christ the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the World who then was to come and to be slain and sacrificed for us And so his blood his virtuous sufferings and death to be presented to God in his ascending in that spotlesse body to appear in the presence of God for us that in his Name it might be Spiritually sprinkled on us in the Preaching of the Crosse and so he fed upon by Faith as come in the flesh But this Grace was not yet so brought forth and manifested the works of the first appearing of Christ not finished the offering of his body once for all not actually perfected and while they were not so the first Tabernacle and Typical Ordinances of Divine service had their standing and usefulness as Types and shadowes of good things to come in which was not a lively Image of them But now he who is the Body and Truth of all even the fountaine of Grace and Truth being come in the flesh and having been slain and offered up himself in Sacrifice for us and by his blood even by means of his death and with the virtue of it entered into Heaven it self and there appearing in the presence of God for us from thence to quicken cleanse and feed us with his own blood as aforesaid All such like bloody and Typical Sacrifices and observances are taken away that he may confirm the truth of all fulnesse and compleatnesse now found in him and establish his appointments who and not Moses is the Apostle and High Priest of our profession yea there being herein a change of the Priesthood there must also be of necessity a change of the Law Heb. 7. and 9. Therefore we are instructed to keep the feast with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth and to celebrate the memorial of the Lords death in such manner and in such an Ordinance as aforesaid without any outward passeover because Christ our passeover is not now slaying or