just a claim to them as any man has to his own Free-hold Estate I am sure their title to Tithes is much more antient than any mans title to his Temporal Inheritance and no one thing hath been oftner confirmed and ratified by the Acts and Statutes of this Kingdom than the Possessions Tithes and Rights of the Clergy SECT IV. Having proved by undeniable Arguments that God is to have a portion out of our Lands and Goods and that no man unless he be impiously prophane and Atheistical can deny the just payment of these Dues much less plead Conscience to excuse Sacrilege It remains only now to shew the grounds upon which the present Ministers of England claim these devoted Lands and Profits as their Inheritance The Foundation of their claim is this That they are true Ministers of the Lord Jesus or true Pastors under that great Shepherd and Bishop of all our souls Now 't is required in every true Minister of the Gospel that he be rightly and duly called to the executing of this his Function According to these express Scriptures Heb. 5. 4. No man taketh this Honour unto himself but he that is called of God as was Aaron And Rom. 10. 15. How shall they preach except they be sent Yea our Blessed Saviour himself did not take upon him publicly to preach the Gospel till he was solemnly inaugurated and installed in his Office by the descent of the Holy Ghost and a voice from heaven which said This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased Matth. 3. 16 17. And when the Lord Jesus was risen from the dead before he ascended into heaven he gives a Commission to his Disciples John 20. 21. As my Father hath sent me even so send I you Christ here rehearses his own Commission and then gives the Apostles theirs and when he had said this he breathed on them and saith unto them Receive ye the Holy Ghost And lastly v. 23. he declares to them the Power that he had invested them withal Whos 's soever sins ye remit they are remitted unto them and whose soever sins ye retain they are retained and this Power was not only inherent in them but is derived to all the succeeding Ministers of the Gospel to the end of the World But the most solemn and public Inauguration of the Apostles in their Office was by a bright and shining glorious Descent of the Holy Ghost upon them by this visibly ratifying and confirming the Commission that Christ had before given to them This being certain then that no man ought to execute that sacred Function of a Minister of the Gospel but he that is called thereto I shall now shew the manner of the Designation or Authorizing of any man to execute this holy Employment and that was by Imposition of hands according as it was used by the Apostles and commanded by them to their Successors and continued from thence in the Church unto this very day Insomuch that the great Apostle of the Gentiles St. Paul though he were honoured by a singular Prerogative and Call from Heaven by Christ himself yet was to stay till he had the ordinary Call of the Church too and was consecrated by the Imposition of hands Acts 13. 2 3. As they ministred to the Lord and fasted the Holy Ghost said Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have â—alled them and when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them they sent them away And these same very persons having in their travels converted whole Cities and Towns to the Gospel of Christ they leave them not as sheep without a Shepherd but they ordain them Elders in every Church Acts 14. 23. And St. Paul leaves the Ordination of Timothy upon record together with the manner of it that it was by the Imposition of his hands and the hands of the Presbytery 2 Tim. 1. 6. and 1 Tim. 4. 14. And because the Apostles could not live always they transmitted their Power to others and those likewise to their Successors As the Scripture informs us Tit. 1. 5. For this cause left I thee in Crete that thou shouldest ordain Elders i. e. Pastors and Ministers of the Gospel in every City as I had given thee order These things being so it follows First that the present Ministers of the Gospel in the Church of England are true Ministers of Jesus Christ and therefore have right to Tithes forasmuch as they have both an inward and outward call The inward call is the Testimony of their own Consciences in that they believe themselves furnished in a good measure with gifts for the discharge of their Office and desire to employ them for the advantage of mens souls And then they have the outward call of the Church being consecrated and set apart for that Office by Imposition of hands and Prayers Secondly it follows that no man though he have the inward call that is find himself gifted ought to take upon him the Office of a Priest or Minister of the Gospel without the outward call likewise And therefore it is an intolerable presumption for illiterate Mechanics and Tradesmen to take upon them the Office of a Minister of the Gospel and for this their boldness they may justly expect if not the same yet as great Judgments as befel Korah Vzzah and Vzziah for invading of and intermeddling with the Priests Function And it were easie to imagin the Idolatry and Heresie that must needs overspread a Nation where the Russet-Rabbies and Apron-Levites are the Instructers of the People CHAP. IV. That Quakery though it pretend high is mere Sadducism at the Bottom IT is well known that the Immortality of the Soul by the Doctrin of H. N. was nothing but the Perpetuation or Continuance of the Succession of the Family of Love and the Resurrection was nothing but a Mystical Rising into his Doctrin that the day of Judgment was then in being the Nations of the Earth being judged by him as by the Man whom God had appointed as he sacrilegiously arrogates that place which was spoken of Christ to himself Acts 17. 31. Now according to this Doctrin if there be no other but a Mystical Resurrection and that Immortal Life be but the Continuance of H. N.'s Doctrin among his Followers for ever and that the day of Judgment be already past then it is certain that men have no Souls nor any thing to answer for in another world but die like beasts The full sense of H. N. concerning these things is expressed in his Euangel c. 34. Behold and consider my beloved how wonderfully God worketh in his holy ones and how that now in this day or light of the love the Judgment-seat of Christ is revealed and declared unto us out of heaven to a righteous Judgment upon Earth from the right hand of God and how that on the same Judgment-seat of Christ that the Scripture might be fulfilled there sitteth one now in Truth in the
Apostles ever claimed such a perfection in this life as not to sin at all and if there be any that are arrived to such a vast measure of Holiness Almighty God keeps them hid as his own Jewels from the eyes of the world And if we could speak with any of them I dare be confident they would own no such thing in themselves And I must needs say from the Testimony of our Lord and Saviour that the Publican who prayed God be merciful to me a sinner was of a more Christian-like temper than these proud censorious Quakers who are indeed the Devils Slaves when yet they pretend a freedom from sin It is evident therefore to me by what Spirit they are guided and from whence it is they assert themselves to be free from sin namely because they are above all Law and have no other Rule for their Actions but their own wills and fancies and to them nothing is a sin if they please not to call it so This was of old the perfection of H. N. and his illuminate Elders and this was the Doctrin of Dell Saltmarsh Town and all Antinomians and Familists and this is the ground likewise of the Quakers Pretence of Perfection For can any man think that takes the Word of God for his Rule that bitter Envy and Malice Railing and Censoriousness which make up perpetually the greatest part of their Speakings to the People should be no sins And if they be confessed to be sins it must needs follow that these Illuminado's release and set themselves at liberty from the Rule of Gods Word and that what are accounted sins by us and all Christians are not so to them but that let them wallow and tumble in sensual Delights and Pleasures and indulge their earthly and Animal Faculties to the full yet they have no Sin but are as bright and pure as the Sun beams and their Souls as white and clear as in the day of Innocence But let every man take heed of giving himself up to such a dangerous Principle for when once his Criterion and Discriminative Faculty shall be so vitiated as to put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter and so dull as not to distinguish between Darkness and Light he is then in the most deplorable condition and worst state that can befal a man in this Life For he sins and esteems it not but makes all Actions good and evil alike from which desperate course God of his mercy reclame these deluded People CHAP. IX The Ways and Arts which the Quakers use in gaining Proselytes THere is scarce any Error but endeavours to maintein and support its Credit in the world by some Truth or other and Error being so odious and ugly a thing in itself it hath always been and is still the Practice and Custom of Heretics to disguise and shape their Errors into the appearance and visage of Truth and therefore the first thing that they take care of in their making Proselytes and gaining upon the rude and unlearned Vulgar is 1. To utter and promote some known Truths that they may more easily instil their Poyson Our blessed Saviour foretold that there should come some in sheeps clothing who inwardly were ravening wolves Matth. 7. 15. Now what is that sheeps clothing but only the Innocence and Purity of the Christian Doctrin pretending nothing less than the Peace and eternal Welfare of mens Souls and that by the true Religion derived from Jesus and his Apostles whenas their main purpose is to ensnare and devour credulous Souls making a Prey of them by their dangerous Errors and leading them out of the known way into by-paths to their utter Ruine and Destruction Thus because the first Principle of Christianity is Faith in Jesus Christ and those who are baptized and bred up in the Christian Religion from their Infancy being not easily seduced from a thing so known and common to them therefore the Quaking Heretics will not at first plainly and bluntly tell them that there is no such Person in being as Jesus Christ but craftily insinuate their dangerous Doctrin by saying that it is true they expect to be saved by Jesus Christ but that it is a Christ within them a Christ which is not distinct from the Saints and a Christ which dwells not in heaven but in every one that believes as they do So that they build their Errors upon something though but a bare Notion of the old Foundation of Truth In like manner they deal with men concerning a Judgment to come and the Resurrection of the Body by persuading their Proselytes that indeed there is a Day of Judgment but that it is in this Life and the wicked are judged by their Doctrin and declaring and testifying against them and that the Resurrection is only performed within them by a Mystical Rising from sin And their Auditors being not aware of this but believing that all that these Inspirado's speak is Gospel they are easily captivated from the Apostolical Faith once delivered to the Saints Which way and manner of disguising and transforming the Truths of the Gospel from their genuine nature and simplicity is far more apt to take with the inconsiderate and unwary than a plain and downright Denial of them 2. The second way by which the Heretics proceed in seducing People is to bring them out of love with the Pastors and Ministers who have the Care and Overfight of them And in this business they use all the Arts and Invectives that Malice and Hatred can furnish them withal sometimes vilifying their Persons by odious Comparisons assimilating and likening them to Baals Priests to dumb Dogs to Serpents to Hirelings and what not sometimes declaming against them for their Maintenance and persuading the People that to pay Tithe is Popish and Antichristian and that both he that receives and he that gives are yet in blindness and darkness and not come to the Light that is as I suppose those who pay their due are not yet come to the Art and Perfection of cheating and defrauding At another time you shall have them taxing the Ministers with Lies and false Doctrin as if they taught not their Charge the true and saving Gospel of Jesus Christ but poysoned them with Errors and Delusions And in this Disgrace and Defamation of their Adversaries they craftily insinuate their own Praise and Commendation that they prate freely and good reason they have to say it for a Quakers speech though of three hours long was never worth a farthing That they never study for what they speak and I dare believe them for if they did they would certainly be ashamed to vent so much non-sense and ridiculous stuff as they do That they are induced to declare out of pure Love and Compassion I suppose to themselves and their hungry stomachs for oft-times the leathern Speakers guts pick a quarrel with his throat for a speedy supply However it be the Ministers are the subject of half an hours railing
for the praise of them that do well By which we are taught Obedience and Submission to all lawful Powers as the Christians to whom St. Peter wrote were to yield Obedience to the then Roman Emperor though a Heathen And St. Paul likewise from God enjoins Rom. 13. 1. Let every soul be subject to the higher Powers for there is no Power but of God But these men disown and deny every Magistrate that is not according to their own Description which is all one as if the Christians should have rebelled against the Government of Caesar because he was an Heathen So that if a Magistrate shall speak or act any thing contrary to their Humor he is so far from having Obedience that he is denied and disowned and after this if it lie in their power 't is easie to imagin what will become of him If a Magistrate be wicked there is still an Obedience due to him not out of Constraint but out of Conscience 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said the Tragedian Sophocles but Saint Paul with an Apostolical Gravity They are Gods Ministers But when men shall profess they will own none but such as are holy and righteous in their esteem how is any Magistrate secure in his place but when they shall get an opportunity into their hands he may presently be accounted wicked and fit for nothing but to be disowned and testified against Is not this now a Doctrin fitted to stir up Sedition and Rebellion If the Parent be never so harsh or severe there is still a duty of Honour and Obedience to be used to him by the child how much more to Magistrates who are Gods Vicegerents and his Ministers 2. They exauctorate and disclame the Civil Magistrates Right and Power in ordering the affairs of Religion and confine his Authority only to matters of right and wrong in Temporal concerns For such they declare their Judgment to be in the fore named Book p. 52. We believe that the outward Laws and Powers of the Earth are only to preserve mens Persons and Estates and not to preserve men in Opinions neither ought the Laws of the Nation to be laid upon mens Consciences to bind them to or from such a Judgment or Practice in Religion I cannot tell what can be spoken more plainly to take away from the King all Power and Authority in matters of Religion and the Service of God and if any of his Majesties Subjects will turn Turcs or Jews it seems he has nothing to do to meddle with them or punish them or to make Laws to the contrary A very fine Prerogative that the King shall have power to secure mens Estates from spoil and rapin but none to make Laws to secure their Souls from the Devil The Donatists of old taught this as Petilian in St. Austin Quid vobis c. What have you to do with worldly Emperors And as that other in Optatus Quid Imperatori cum Ecclesia What has the Emperor to do with the Church And our Brownists learned the same ditty and the Quaker he comes on with the third Part to the same Tune Belike they cannot think themselves good Christians except they be Rebels But certainly his Majesty as a Christian Prince may and ought to have the same Power that the Kings of Israel and Judah enjoyed who were commended by the Spirit of God or condemned according as either they established or neglected Religion and the Service of God among their People So that certainly he must by his Authority preserve and secure Religion as well as mens Estates And God be thanked the Church and its Rights are the Care of his Majesty and his thoughts are daily for the promoting the Interest and Welfare of it 3. P. 50. of the fore-named Principles of Truth mis-called for Heresie they say We believe that all Governours and Rulers ought to be accountable to the People and to the next succeeding Rulers for all their actions which may be enquired into upon Occasion and that the chiefest of the Rulers be subject under the Law and punishable by it if they be transgressors as well as the poorest of the People We know that his Majesty the King is the chiefest of the Rulers or chief Ruler in the Kingdom of England and all other his Majesties Dominions but by this wicked Principle of Quakers he is to be accountable to the People and punishable by them How near this borders upon Treason I leave the Civil Magistrate to judge And if it were possible to make a more favourable Interpretation of their words yet when they express their Loyalty in such doubtful terms and their obedience grounded upon such a ticklish hold it is easie to imagin what sense they themselves own and considering withal how obstinate and deaf they are to all good Principles and Instructions and how numerous in many Counties of England it must needs be an Act worthy the supreme Power to suppress the growing Evil that those who are yet good Christians and Subjects may not be seduced and corrupted by such dangerous Doctrins 4. They affirm that the taking of an Oath in any case whatever though before a lawful Magistrate is unlawful and contrary to the Word of God Which whether it were at first instilled into them by the Jesuite to avoid the Oath of Supremacy or taken up to give themselves a greater Latitude and Liberty to the commission of all that Villany and Wickedness which in many cases the Imposition of an Oath may and does frequently obstruct and hinder I know not But this I know that to deny the Lawfulness of taking an Oath is to throw away the greatest Tie and Security that any King hath upon his public Officers Ministers and Subjects and by which all mens Titles are cleared in Civil Causes and Justice executed in Causes Criminal and indeed that by which all human Society is preserved And in all these cases the taking of an Oath hath been and is still used by all nations under the heavens In the Old Testament it is commanded as a thing that is lawful and necessary in the forementioned Instances Deut. 6. 13. Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God and serve him and swear by his Name So Deut. 10. 20. Jer. 4. 2. Thou shalt swear the Lord liveth in Truth in Judgment and in Righteousness And to such as swear in such a holy and religious manner God promises a blessing Jer. 12. 16. If they will diligently learn the ways of my people to swear by my Name then shall they be built in the midst of my people And if the Quaking Generation shall object and say that this was under the Law therefore now not to be used they may remember that the exacting and taking of an Oath was used long before the Law of Moses thus Abraham sware to Abimelech Gen. 21. and he requires an Oath of his Servant Gen. 24. And Jacob requires an Oath of his Son Joseph Gen. 47. 31. But what if a Duty
I find it in the Collection of his Scribble lately printed in Folio By Order and Authority given unto me by the Spirit of the living God King of Kings and Lord of Lords the 31 day of the 10 month in the year of the Worlds account 1655. about the fourth hour in the morning when my Meditations were on my God upon my Bed in Kilkenny City in the Nation of Ireland at that time the Word of the Lord came unto me saying Write my Controversie with all the Inhabitants of the Earth unto all sorts of people as I will shew thee Given under my hand and sealed by the Spirit of the Eternal God who lives for ever E. B. Then follows O Earth Earth Earth hear the Word of the Lord. After this he lays about him on all sides as if he were mad and like a ravening Wolf worries every thing that comes in his way threatning Plagues and Vengeance to all that are not Quakers But I must not forget his Prophetical Epistle to the Pope in the conclusion of which he tells him That he has many more things to write to him when he receives his answer and if the Pope will give him ground to accuse him he will thresh him and lay it to his charge by the Authority and Spirit of the Lord. Then this Postscript Return your Answer to me or any of the people called Quakers for me in London from whence this is sent being written the 24 of the 8 month 1658. A pretty way of prophesying to threaten destruction from the Lord against the Pope and then to desire an Answer I suppose how he liked of it The man it seems had a strong faith and if he did believe that his Prophetical Letter should come to the Popes hands yet he was but a fool if he thought either that would convert him or that the Pope would trouble himself to answer it Having discovered from their Writings that they conceit themselves to be divinely inspired which is a thing common to all Enthusiastical Hereticks I shall give two or three Examples of the folly and ridiculousness of their Inspirations A Gentleman of Newcastle affirmed that some Quakers came to Kendale Church and said They had a Commission from the Lord to pull down the Steeple One Thomas Castley a Quaker came to Kendale Church in the time of the Sermon and said That he was commanded from God to pull down the Hour-Glass And the same man went a long mile with no other Message from God as he pretended but this to tell one of the Ministers of Newcastle Thou art an High Priest which words having spoken he went his way A certain Quaking Woman at Cambridge stript her self of her Cloths by the River side and went stark naked through the midst of the Town and being asked the reason of such a shameful action she answered That she was commanded in that manner to go to the House of the Mayor of the Town and deliver a Message from God unto him But so unhappily it fell out that the Mayor was gone a Journey and came not home till some days after Either such Revelations as these must be meer Cheats or else it must be said that the Spirit of God took no notice whether the Mayor were at home or not One Williamson's Wife coming to Appleby to see James Milner a Disciple of Foxes said in the hearing of divers there That she was the Eternal Son of God and when the men that heard her told her that she was a woman and therefore could not be the Son of God she said No you are women but I am a man This I mention that the Reader may see to what absurd Impieties these Enthusiastick people are lead by their own Dreams At Weighton a little Town in Yorkshire a woman of this Goatish Herd came naked from her own Bed to another womans husband a companion of hers it seems of the same Sect and bid him Open his Bed to her for the Father had sent her to him the man had at that time another man lying in Bed with him who rose to give place to this woman and left this honest couple to lie together according to the womans Revelation By this taste which I have here given there is no rational person but will conclude the Quakers to be a simple deluded people taking their own Dreams and Melancholick Fancies for Divine Inspirations and having cast off the use of Reason and the written Word of God are made obnoxious to all the Impostures and Injections of the Devil and till they return to that Guide I mean the voice of Reason and Scripture which they have so wilfully abandoned and forsaken must inevitably lie under everlasting Errours and Deceits CHAP. VIII Of the Quakers Perfection THe Quakers talk much of Perfection and Freedom from sin in this life and that they have already attained to it but he that shall look into the Manners and Conversations of the most of them shall find their Pretensions to this high state no greater than for a common Strumpet to brag of her honesty for the very boasting of a thing they have so little of does evidently declare their enormous and monstrous pride and those to whom they upbraid the want of it do better deserve the name than they in that their lives are indeed not worse but their spirits in not pretending to it far more humble and modest For if the Pharisees Litany God I thank thee that I am not as other men are stand upon record as a mark of the Pharisaical arrogance and pride I know not how these high-flown Enthusiasts can justifie themselves And certainly for them to arrogate to themselves a freedom from sin and perfection above all other men when yet the vulgar and common people discern and take them tripping in daily faults and miscarriages even in their ordinary converse with the world it must needs appear that either they do the most unjustly challenge this state of perfection or else by an Antinomian liberty they conceive themselves to have a freedom to act any thing and that after they are arrived to such a way and dispensation they are no longer obliged by any Law nor can any thing they do be called a sin And as hitherto I have proved by undeniable Instances that the Familists and Quakers are one and the same in their Opinions and Judgments so in this boast of their perfection and freedom from sin they both walk in the same Path. And in them is that of the Apostle St. Peter verified 2 Pet 2. 18 9. When they speak great swelling words of vanity such as perfection and freedom from sin they allure through the lusts of the flesh through much wantonness those that were clean escaped from them who live in errour While they promise them liberty they themselves are the servants of corruption for of whom a man is overcome of the same is he brought in bondage I do not find that any of the holy