to the faithlesse except ye be Reprobates and again Know you not that no unrighteous person inâ—eriteth the Kingdom of God where it is cleare that it does not possesse men as inheriting them for this implyes a contradiction but it is to be possessed of men and they to inherit it and from this inheritance the unrighteous are excepted and exempted too therefore it is certainly a most notorious lye to say Christ preached the Kingdome of God in unbeleevers though among them for he himselfe and all his excellencies that attended him in his Incarnation were among them but not in them and an error in the Translation makes not an error in Christs Doctrine Thus for the first I come now to clear the Apostle from your falshoods for you speaking of unbeleevers say he saith that all which may be known of God or of his glory is manifest in them This you pretend to be a proofe that there is a light in every man to reveale all that may be known of God or of his glory which I say can be nothing lesse then the Spirit of God when if you read the verse following for the first hath a dependency on the latter you shall see the extention of the former expression The invisible things of him from the Creation of the world are clearly seene being understood by the things that are made Now this cannot be the Spirit of God or Christ which teacheth all things needfull for salvation except you can prove him to be made at the Creation and so a creature and not a Creator and therefore it must be something in the creature which can be nothing else but the eye of the rational soule which is reason by which may be seen the invisible being of God and that he is so Cicero Aristotle Plato but meer Heathens have attain'd unto therefore this is humane not divine I shal not stand to state arguments to prove it experimentally because I intend brevity I Come unto the other Scripture which you adde that the Apostle saith that they speaking of unbeleevers still came to the knowledge of God and his glory by the light that shone in them A most notorious lye wresting the meaning of the Apostle unto your owne wills and I leave it to you to examine with feare and trembling whether it be not also unto your own destruction too for the words are these For God who commanded the light to shine out of darknesse hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the grace of God in the face of Jesus Christ Where is observable First what it was that shined God that commanded the light to shine out of darknesse hath shined Secondly the persons to and in whom he shined in our hearts Now the word our maketh a separation between Paul and the Corinthians to whom he writ who were Beleevers and Reprobates who beleeved not therefore you must needs acknowledge you have belyed him in saying he spoke of unbeleevers when he spoke to and of Saints in our hearts unlesse you can prove that that Paul and the Corinthians were such as you speak of even unbeleevers Thirdly the intent and purpose for which he shone to give it was not free to all as you say but particularly given to some the light of the knowledge of the glory of God And then Fourthly the manner how in the face of Jesus Christ I intend not to write an Exposition on the words but onely rightly to divide them and so to cleare them from the scandal laid on them by you which is clear So that your Query being thus handled I suppose there can be no more required in answer to it and farre be it from me to hold a judgement willingly any further then is concomitant to and with Scripture proofes and practice Learne to speak truth and cease to endeavour the building of so lying a Babel which is not in that one language of God but that of Satan For every lye is of Satan the Father of lyes Query 4. Whether that New Birth spoken of in the Scriptures be Christ within or some other thing and if not he then what is it and how people may know it by the Letter without the Light when they have Christ and when they have a spirit of delusion and whether the light of the Spirit alone be sufficient without the letter to reveale the Sonne of God the Father and all truth and judge of all spirits whatsoever without any addition to it An Answer to the Fourth Query The New Birth or Regeneration is a repairing of the Image of God once in the first Adam through the effectual working of the Spirit and grace of God by faith in the second Adam which they that looke unto the first Adam and in their own strength endeavour to renew cannot comprehend for it is spiritually discerned though the policy of the Serpent may so far prevaile as to cast them into a kinde of pleasing slumber of Security and so pretending to lead them back unto that earthly Eden by personal obedience which they lost by disobedience like lambs led to the slaughter they may passe a Celestial Paradise by and perhaps arrive at a perilous disconsolate place of eternal sorrow or if you will it is a remission of sinne and a renewment of sanctity called Sanctification on the whole Doctrine whereof to insist at large would require a greater volume then either I intend to trouble you to peruse or my selfe to compose but for the satisfaction of them among you or elsewhere whose intentions are to be informed out of sincerity not curiosity I shall speak a little unto some particulars of it In brief man hath no hand at all in this work but the spirit of God for even as in the compositure or making of any thing there must two things concurre First the Agent or Workman which giveth the forme shape or being to the Work Secondly the matter whereof the work must be made or formed the which cannot be said to work it selfe but onely to suffer the operation of the Worker This is the summe of Regeneration First the the spirit of God is the workman in this work he is the begetter of this new man the framer of this new creature and the re-builder of this sacred Fabrick Secondly the minde and will of man is the matter whereof this new creature or image of God in man is made not working together with the Spirit of God but onely suffering the operation of the holy Ghost this is the Epitomy of this whole work for Regeneration is nothing else but a sanctified minde and will so the begetter of this new man is God even the Holy Ghost For that which is borne of the flesh is flesh and that which is borne of the spirit is spirit So that this New Birth is the work of the Spirit and although by the Ministry of man as the matter yet not
without and in that you ask what that was which led the Primitive Saints before the Letter was written in wayes accepted I say when there was no Law there was no transgression so then it must needs follow that their sins were no sinnes because they were not imputed not that I beleeve this onely though perhaps more principally presented them excepted but it is probable and I partly beleeve it too that they had immediate Revelations of Gods will for before the Scriptures were in the Letter visible there was still a supply of Prophets whereby that which is now fully written was then by peece-meals revealed as occasion required and as Israel when they had no crop or vintage they were supply'd with a sufficiency of manna from Heaven but when they came into the land of their rest a land flowing with milk and honey where all things were setled in a competent standing order they had no more manna by piece-meals as their allowance they had all things supply'd by a constant course sufficient nay in redoundancy and lay as we use to say at rack and manger so when that which by peace-meals was revealed was written in an absolute literal method there needed no more revealing by degrees when we have alwayes in store the whole and despise them not for such offence hath certainly a reward Quere 2. Seeing you say the Scripture is a Rule declare in plainnesse is the whole Scriptures a rule to all men women to take up the practice thereof or how much of it is and to how many people and to whom in particular seeing the Saints in all Ages had their particular commands how may weak people know which of their commands they must take up and which they must not and when they have found the commands where they must have the power whether that which gives the commands be not the power only accepted for performance deal plain herein that people may know what to doe and what they have done that they be not alwayes learning and never able to come to the end of their labours and rest of God An Answer to the Second Query When first I considerately perused this your Query I in part determined to have returned it back as I found it holding it a thing cautious whether it were a subject lawful to dispute without a prejudice to conscience savouring so much of spiritual presumption that I leave it unto you to consider and examine whether it extend to heretical abomination or no But considering the instability of your vitiated braines which with a blast mounts upon the falatious clouds of vainglorious imaginations as to boast of the victory before the encounter I thought better to give it a curb then to passe it by uncorrected Forasmuch as you query how much of the Scripture is useful how much not it evidently appeares you suspect if not assert some of it to be uselesse which seemes unto me an apparent suspecting of Gods perfect wayes in his actings for if God hath made or composed any thing that is uselesse then hath he wrought in vain and this to believe and teach appeares unto my apprehension little better if any thing at all then blasphemy in a high degree for private Saints had never particular peculiar commands but that which was pleasing to God in one was also acceptable in another so the command was not particular or at the least not peculiar for this were to affirm mutability in God that the thing which pleased him now should not content him another time except upon some more then extraordinary occasions and this would be at the least partiality in him which is abominable to suppose but it is freely confessed that the Saints in their particular employments had particular commands as Noah that all mankinde might not be destroyed had a particular command to build an Ark and Moses to deliver Israel from their bondage had a peculiar command to Egypt to lead them through the Sea to hew forth Tables to receive the Commandements and to consecrate Aaron had a command to array himself in Priestly Ornaments St. John to Baptize and the Apostles to Preach and the like all except the two last were peculiar to them without others the two last particular to them with others and an innumerable more might be named but it is needlesse yet this is no inducement at all to occasion a division of that sort in that which God hath inseparably united although there be remedies for every malady cures for every contagion and medicines for every misery spiritual and as the Pooles of Bethesda for all persons and all diseases This hath been discoursed of at large by several reverend pens extant in many volumes to which I refer you And for the power to fulfill these commands and precepts in the word of God I shall be brief there is no power but of God Paul may plant and Apollo may water but it is God and he alone must work with their labours and give the increase Quere 3. Seeing Christ preached the Kingdome of God within unbeleevers and the Apostle saith That which may be known of God is manifest in them and that they came to the knowledge of God and his glory by the light that shone in their hearts which God shewed them c. Deale plainly and let people know how it now comes to be without and denyed within as it is by you Prove your practice and judgement herein by plain Scripture An Answer to the Third Query In this Query I finde no lesse then two lies at the least if not three The first laid on Christ God-man blessed for ever that he preached the Kingdome of God within unbeleevers The second on the Apostle in that you say he saith they came to the knowledge of God and his glory by the light that shone in their hearts And the third on me in that you say I deny that light which declares God and his glory to be within This I term a lye if you speak mean particuarly of Saints and a truth if you speak of Reprobates but I own it not wholly outwardly upon any account but I shall proceed to clear the Scriptures wrested and abused by your spiritual impious impudence and presumption For the first I have observed the Relatitions of all the Expositors who have upon any occasion commented upon that place that ever I could procure the sight of who all concur in one opinion and render it thus from the Original Language The kingdome of God is within or among you the word in the Greek signifying both and so you have it in the Margent of your larger Bibles Now if the word in the Original signifie both then the one so well as the other may be used but that must needs bee most proper which most concurs with other places and therefore among rather then within since Paul saith Christ in you writing to the faithful not
were informed of it by the outward teaching of Paul and then they beleeved on Jesus and so their saith and their knowledge too was from without not within but the Jewes who like you thought to inherit glory by a Covenant of works not of grace endeavoured to pervert and subdue all knowledge save of their way who professing obvious light were found to be in obscure darknesse and therefore persecuted the lights of the world the Apostles and Ministers of Christ fearing lest their deeds should be brought unto the light and be found evil as you doe and so they walked short both of the Spirit and the Letter too yet professing as much and as peculiar sanctity as your selves and you and your generation manifest as much malice as did they wanting only their might against those precious candles of the Gospel who waste themselves that we may grow up unto perfection and I speak sincerely and I suppose I may doe it without breath of Christian Charity That if ever we should live to see that dismal disconsolate day wherein Quakers should predominate in might as much as now they doe in malice I feare fire and faggot would be a deare commodity through the frequent use thereof for any may see with a single eye without a paire of spectacles not onely the persecuting and censorious Jew but also the Saint-murdering and truth-opposing Pope enthroned both in your malice and your Tenets The Lord defend us and his cause from your envious power Quere 13. What Scripture have you for your manner of worship as to read a Chapter and to give meanings to it and call it expounding to take a text of another mans words and raise points reasons and uses c. to sprinkle Infants to sing Davids words in order of your ballads to stand praying in the Synagogues at your set times before and after your glasse Prove your practice by command from Christ or practice of Gospel-Ministers else for shame cease to call it Gospel-worship since none of Christs Ministers worshipped in that manner An Answer to the thirteenth Query When first I read this common hackny and overthredbare worne Query which hath been the publick frequent Strumpet of all your blemished vitiated pens answered more then once and againe I could not but smile to see your so often battered armour wherewith you war against the cause of Christ become the harnesse of your resistance in the list of this controversie against the truth at this time also and though in respect it hath been as often answered as proposed by several learned pens who have writ on this occasion and by others who have treated on this subject whose abilities are manifest in their works of precious concernment which might induce me to wave my Answer But as I said before so say I now againe that since your intosticated braines are so soone lifted up on the haughty wings of vainglorious pride of the victory before the encounter I shall give it a curb if not a crush And I very much wonder that you should enquire for an outward evidence when you say yours is within and may not we say the same But that you and the whole world may know we practice not the dictates of our own minds but bow all to the commands of God be it known to thee and whosoever else shall enquire after the same that an evidential command we have and what we doe is of an obediential submission to Gods revealed will And for expounding of Scriptures I answer if thou knowest not but art ignorant I shall doe my endeavour to informe thee that it was the practice of the Church in all Ages to read the Scriptures distinctly and give the senses and is not this expounding and be there not doctrines reasons and uses in all the Sermons and Epistles of the Apostles and did not our Saviour himself take a Text expouned it and apply it who also began at Moses and all the Prophets expounding unto the Disciples in all the Scriptures the things concerning himselfe insomuch that the hearers hearts burned within them at his doctrine whose words were with power Philip also took a Text and expounded it and beginning at the same Scripture preached Jesus unto the Eunuch Paul also expounded unto the Romans the testimony of the Kingdom of God and the things concerning Jesus both out of the Law and the Prophets from the morning until evening who also testifieth this unto Timothy That the Scriptrues are able to make a soule exceeding wise unto salvation and are profitable for doctrine for reproofe for correction and observe this for instruction in righteousnesse which I suppose comprehends all things mentioned by you except you can prove them not necessary to that end to direct in matters of righteousnesse that the man of God may be made perfect So having thus proved that Scriptures were expounded by the Apostles and Ministers of Christ our practice is justified and further yet we have this not onely as a President but a Precept rightly to divide the word of truth as workmen that need not to be ashamed Now if there can be any right division without parts prove it if you can nay further still study is required in this exercise and commanded also by Pauls spirit although cryed out against by yours and though you dare boldly blaspheme the word of God and call it the words of men and so call God a man by consequence I feare you will finde it a terrible word in the last day of Christs judgements when you shall be found a lyar and Paul a Preacher of truth who calls it in truth the word of God and the commands of the Lord And for your questioning of Baptism administred unto children I now finde the root from which you spring even from that well-spring and fountaine-head from whence flow streames unto every heresie for the truest Relations that ever I could come unto the perusal of since John of Leyden that grand fomenter and prick-louse Preacher the founder of that Sect I have not read of any grand Apostate or heretick but what sprung from that truth-corrupting Faction as witnesse most of your Society for to hinder the children of Believers The priviledge of Baptism seemes unto me a dividing of that Covenant I will be a God unto thee and to thy seed after thee observe that to thy seed as well as unto thee Now I shall leave it unto you to examine whether it be not a clipping of the wings of Gods dominions and a limiting of and setting a bound unto his Authority that when he hath said I will be a God unto thee and to thy seed and this shall be a Covenant between me and thee for ever yet you shall put a period uno the time and a limitation unto the condition and so allow him onely the first and deny him the latter and certainly there were children in the house of Israel when they marched
and therefore was justified in that his actions were counted to him for righteousness so that his righteousness was of faith not of works for then would it have been an action of the body when faith is an act of the soule by which he and every beleever is and shall be saved and by faith was he satisfied so as to be accepted and that faith which then was sufficient is the same still even unto the end for he that beleeves shall be saved And by grace are we saved through faith and that not of our selves observe that it is the gift of God And the difference is not of the matter whereof it was and is wrought but in the means and manner at which you are offended in that because he then wrought himselfe immediately he doth not the same now but by his Ambassadors beseeching us to be reconciled unto him But if this be not a limiting of God what is then for shame cease to professe thy selfe the servant of God when thou seekest to pervert his will for that cannot be the spirit of God in thee which so fighteth against it in the Primitive Saints Query 11. Can any preach Christ who have not Christ in them and where he is is he not sole teacher what to preach and pray and how and when and to whom and is he to be limited by any external thing or to any external thing or is any ordinance to be practised but what he in spirit leads the creature to An Answer to the Eleventh Query It is possible that there may now be as in the Primitive times there were them which may preach Christ and yet not have Christ within them for far be it from me to deny or to imagine otherwise but that Judas the Tray tor preached Christ as well as any other of the Apostles and Paul testifieth as much unto the Church of Philippi that some there were that preached Christ out of envy to his cause Such I feare thou art and many more of thy society and some of strife and some of good will but yet still of them all thus testifieth Paul that whether in pretence or in truth Christ is preached I doe rejoyce yea and will therein rejoyce And the same Apostle though to another Church renders it a matter possible that whilest a Minister teaches to save others he may become a castaway himselfe when this is an assured certainty that where Christ hath begun a good work of faith in any he will perform also it and the rest of this your Query I suppose tends to that which you and more of your Apostatiz'd Brethren have asserted as that we ought to wait in silence till the Spirit move us and that whoso useth the Scriptures are robbers and stealers of others mens words This you once asserted to me and so consequently urging all to forsake reading teaching and praying or any such like exercises unlesse the Spirit by irresistable motions move us thereunto against which I utterly declare as have others done for this were first to bereave us of that glorious priviledge of communion with God he speaking unto us in his word we unto him in prayer Secondly to shut up the Kingdome of God in some sort from the sons of men in bereaving us of the meanes for discipline and observance is the security of an Army in war and what are glad tydings if they are not told Thirdly this is to presse us to the omission of duty which is questionlesse commission of offence And fourthly this leaves all open to the assaults of Satan we laying downe in our infirmities and not standing up against his invasions and temptations And lastly this giveth way to sluggishnesse of spirit and to an unwatchfulness in matters of salvation and endeavour to engage us to a confidence of beliefe in and to every thing that shall come in the name of Christ and so to receive Antichrist not leaving us the priviledge of the braines to try the words of an Apostle by the umpi of all controversies the sacred Scriptures which is absolutely opposite unto the truth and contrary yea far exorbitant from the known will and temporal expressive word of God for though he hath said The Spirit shall teach us all things yet hath it said againe Meditate on these things give thy selfe wholly to them Now wholly excludes all negligent intermission and the manner how is prescribed too for Study to shew thy selfe approved and stir up the gift in thee as fire which sometimes is covered with ashes and againe Be constant and instant in prayer and pray continually which includes all times and seasons wherefore we ought to put up our supplications at the throne of grace not onely when the spirit especially moveth us but when our occasions or necessities require and far be it from me to imagine that the Spirit of God moved the Apostles to preach when they did onely and at no other time and that they alwayes waited in silence till then for then it stirred up it selfe they stirred it not but rather hid their talents of grace in the earth and so were unprofitable if not unfaithful servants and since the holy Ghost advised and the the Apostles so practised as to meditate study and pray without ceasing it appeares plainly unto me that Christ neither limited or constrained them respectively in particular but onely notionally in general so to doe giving them repenitent hearts to sorrow for sinne and grace to beleeve and power thorow that grace to exercise faith in the performance of those duties and when they prayed Christ also prayed with them and as a faithful Mediatour making continual intercession at the throne of grace that the fruition of their prayers might be the accomplishment of their desires and far be it from me to imagine that Christ can be limited by any external thing though I suppose and really beleeve that it is possible for any man to limit himselfe and then much more for Christ who is God and therefore with him all things are possible and so may limit himselfe in any thing if he please Quere 12. What is the ground and rise of your knowledge whether it be received within man from God or without from the Letter And if without whether this be not the knowledge which all the vaine janglers comes out of and the generation of persecutors comes out of as the Jewes was in which professed the Letter and were strangers to the life of God And whether this generation of men and Professors in our Age do not begin to manifest the same as the persecuting Jewes did yea or nay An Answer to the Twefth Query My knowledge as was Pauls is neither perfectly the one nor the other and yet partly both for as the disciples of Ephesus were ignorant of Jesus though baptized unto John and had not so much as heard of that name or that there was a holy Ghost notwithstanding any inward light until they
trance of Security and whether it be a blessing or a curse that you know not your sins and whether Satan drill you not to himselfe with the lure of present perfection and whether all this be not inflicted on you as judgements for your Apostacy Qu. 2. Whether there ought not to be a special distinction made betwixt the dictates of the spirit of God and the spirit of man and whether it be not of the latter that proceeds from you if not worse and whether you are not in laying it on Christ Qu. 3. Whether that expression of Paul quoted by you That he was an Apostle not of man nor by man was spoke of officiating that Office as being an Apostle and therefore a Teacher of Christ not of man or the manner of his choice and election to that Office or is that a warrant to assure any that there can none be Ministers of Christ but who are immediately called and chosen by Christ himselfe as was Paul and then are not such Apostles of Christ as well as Paul and whether hereby you intend not to claim equal authority with Paul both in your preaching and writing and so set your selfe free from obedience to any of his Epistles and injoyn others to observe yours as well as his and whether we may not smell the Pope in this your practice as well as in many others and is not this spiritual pride Qu. 4. And since Paul chose Silas was not Paul a man or was Silas no Minister and was not Matthias who succeeded Judas chose by man or was he not an Apostle or was it by usurpation that Paul took unto himselfe that authority to transmit power to others to ordaine Elders in every City or did he erre when he gave instructions to Timothy whom to make Bishops and whether were they of Paul false or of Christ true Ministers so chosen and since Timothy received the gift of Prophesie by the laying on of the hands of the Presbyter was that Presbyter a man or no man if a man was it not then by man though not of man if no man what then was he and what hinders that there should not be the same power in man now the state of man being the same still that it was then Qu. 5. And since you say there is a light in every man and woman that comes into the world sufficient if minded to lead out of all the wayes and works of darknesse is not this a leading to perfection and if it be so that there is that in every man which is sufficient was it not then a needlesse light that the Lord sent by Ananias to Saul by Peter to Cornelius by Philip to the Eunuch or was it not that there was no sufficiency in them And then do you not lye to say there is in all a sufficiency or was it that it then was unsufficient although it now is sufficient and how came it now to be sufficient more then then it was or was it not this indeed that God thereby gave them and us and all future posterity an evidential example of his manner and way of conversion by the concurrence of two the ministration of man and the operation of the spirit and if so why doe you resist it or is not your opposing of it a fighting against God and a spirit of delusion in you which calls it selfe Christ and why was it that Apollo though he was zealous in what he knew which was onely the baptism of John yet understood nothing of Jesus till he was taught it of Aquila and Priscilla is it not an apparent evidence that there is nothing in man to bring him to that knowledge without either an extraordinary inspiration or an ordinary tuition Qu. 6. And if Christ preached the Kingdome of God within unbelievers as you say he did what then is the difference between the faithful and the faithlesse and wherein doth it consist or is there none or shall both be saved if yes how so if no what is the reason since there is power in all as you say why is not the Redemption to all or is it that the light is sufficient in one and not in another or doth God will all to salvation but some men superwill and so come to condemnation Qu. 7. And whether is your spirit a lying one which saith the Scriptures are not the words of God but of men or Pauls spirit which saith Of a truth it is the word of God and that what he writ was the commands of the Lord or is a command consistent of words or no if not of what then doth it consist or if yes how can the command be Gods and the words mans Speak out plainly in truth according to Scripture and cease to equivocate sophistically to delude silly souls Qu. 8. Whether it be any better then hypocrisie to prate of and call for Scripture and yet deny the prerogative of Scripture that it is not the word of God and what doe you say unto the commandements are they the words of God yea or not if not what is meant by that phrase God spake all these words saying was that God or was it something else that called it selfe God and was not so and if they are the words of God why are not other Scriptures the same and how is it that some of you say the word of God cannot be contained in ink and paper Q. 9. And since you say that Christ only is the word of God I query whether he be meet to be a Teacher of others nay hath he not need himselfe to learn the first principles of Religion that cannot discerne between the temporal expressive word of God and the co-essential and co-eternal word with God for so is Christ Q. 10. And if that the Law written in every mans heart were since Adams fall and now is sufficient to teach us what to do observe as to sanctity wherefore then did the Law in the Letter enter on Mount Sinai and if you say that so offences might abound which were not made manifest in the eyes of sinners this I grant but then how could that Law in ' mans heart be sufficient if it were in some sort unsufficient and not perfect in every degree to its end and wherefore afterwards entred the Gospel the Law of Faith on mount Sion and to what end if not to direct in a new way by a Mediator which neither the Law in mans heart or on Mount Sinai could doe or was it once of such force and is it not the same still if not how came it to be disannulled Q. 11. What be those first principles of the Oracles of God made mention of by Paul as needful for believers to know what the oracles be whether the Scriptures or what else be the Oracles or the Principles how learnt and after what manner by what means or if the Scriptures be the Oracles of God