Had God commanded every day of our Lives to be wholly devoted to him it had been but Reason and Equity and since that out of regard to our Weakness and that condition of Mortality wherein he has placed us he requires but one day in a week to be more especially set apart for his Service it were most irrational not to give him that Besides our merciful Lord has a regard in this Commandment even to the Beasts themselves as a part of his Creation which surely are not to be worse used now under the Gospel than under the Law but have as much reason to be rested on the Sabbath day now as they had then 3. Since that this is reasonable what fitter day can we pitch upon than the first day of the week on which our blessed Saviour Jesus arose from the dead For if the Jews together with the Commemoration of the Creation of the World wherein God having perfected all his works rested on the seventh day did likewise keep holy that day with respect to their deliverance from the Tyranny of Pharaoh How much greater reason have we to solemnize the Christian Sabbath with them indeed to celebrate the Goodness Wisedom and Power of God in making of all things in remembring the glorious Resurrection of the Son of God wherein he rose as a triumphant Conquerour from his bed of Darkness after he had dis-mantled the Prisons of Hell and the Grave and wrought a mighty Salvation for Mankind 4. That as God did then so Christ having transmitted his Power to them the Apostles and succeeding Church of God now may very reasonably dispose of us in matters of this nature and direct all its Members into some uniform way at such set times of the Worship of God And that they have done so appears both by some mentions of the Lords day in the Holy Scriptures and by the constant suffrage of the Fathers of the Church since that time which is a sufficient Obligation on all Christians to a due constant and diligent Observation of the Christian Sabbath Remember to keep holy the Sabbath day And lest any man shall say that this Command was given by Moses and so at an end and therefore that Christians are not bound by it Let him take this for an Answer and consider it well and then he will see there is no weight in the Objection and so will not be moved when by impertinent cavilling Fellows 't is urged upon him I say therefore first That every one of the ten Commandments is moral and for that very reason binds all Christians still and therefore the Church of England though these rebellious Quakers disown their Mother hath made them a part of her Liturgy and all good people teach them to their Children in their Catechisms as knowing that all Christians are to give obedience to them under the Gospel Secondly our blessed Saviour says Matth. 5. 17. that he came not to dissolve the Law and the Prophets but to fulfil Think not says he that I am come to dissolve the Law and the Prophets that is to take away the Obligation of that Rule of the Duty of Man to God and his Neighbour given first by Moses and afterwards repeated and inculcated by the Prophets but to fulfil them that is to supply accomplish and perfect those Rules and Doctrins of just and unjust conteined in them by a more ample Interpretation and other Improvement befitting the state of the Gospel And if as these Familists persuade their unwary Proselytes to fulfil were to put an end to a thing the sense must be thus that Christ came not to destroy that is to put an end to the Law but to put an end to it But who can imagine without Blasphemy our blessed Saviour would be guilty of such an absurd speech Now if it shall be asked why then Christ did not improve the fourth Commandment touching the keeping holy of the Sabbath it is answered That this was already strictly observed among the Jews even unto Superstition and therefore there needed rather a Relaxation than an Addition to this Commandment For whereas the Jews on that day would not so much as kindle a Fire or dress the Meat they should eat or carry any Burden or take a Journey and hence accuse our Saviour for healing on the Sabbath and his Disciples for plucking the ears of Corn Jesus tells them that The Sabbath was made for Man and not Man for the Sabbath intimating that Works of Necessity and Mercy may lawfully be done on the Sabbath though not the Works of a mans ordinary Trade and Employment SECT II. Almighty God having given the whole Earth to Man for his Habitation common Reason and Justice require that Man should sanctisie and separate some peculiar place for the Service and Worship of his great Creator And accordingly we find in all Ages of the world and by all Persons professing any Religion at all some particular and set places appointed to invocate and worship the supreme Deity Among the Jews God had his Temple whither all the Tribes went up to worship And in Prophane Histories we read of Temples dedicated to the Use and Service of some Supreme Deity From whence it appears that the very Law of Nature commands to fix and set apart a place for the Service of God And God will have this of us too that as he hath reserved a portion of the Time of our Life for the celebration of his Honour so hath he also reserved a Portion out of the Place of our Residence Therefore in Ezek. 45. God commands the children of Israel and in them all the Nations of the World that when they come to inhabit the Land he gives them they must divide it into three Parts one for the People another for the King but the first for God himself But and if it shall be said that this was a Command under the Levitical Law and so not obligatory to us Christians who live not under that Law It must be remembred that though God commanded a House and Place for his Service to be built and set apart yet all Mankind were tied to the same Duty by a Law more Antient than that of Moses even by the very Law of Nature which lays a perpetual and indispensable Injunction upon all men that God have his Place of Worship and as it were Residence among them that they might live in a continual Dependence upon him and remember that that they receive the very Places of their Abode and Habitation from his Gift and Benevolence And it was some hundreds of years before the Law of Moses was given that Jacob when he was poor and had not wherewithal to build God an House yet consecrated a Portion of Ground by erecting a Stone and pouring oil on the head thereof calling the Place Bethel that is The House of God and vowed to build it when God should bless and make him able to do it Gen. 28. 22. So that
habitation of David which judgeth uprightly thinketh upon Equity and requireth righteousness Through him God will now in this day which he himself hath appointed or ordained thereunto judge the compass of the Earth with righteousness Again Chap. 35 he speaks thus Behold in this present day is this Scripture fulfilled and according to the testimony of the Scripture the raising up and the Resurrection of the Lords dead cometh also to pass presently in this same day through the appearing of the coming of Christ in his Majesty Which Resurrection of the dead seeing that the same is come unto us from Gods grace we do likewise in this present day to an Evangelie or joyful message of the Kingdom of God and Christ publish in all the world under the obedience of the love in which Resurrection of the dead God sheweth unto us that the time is now fulfilled that his dead or the dead which are fallen asleep in the Lord rise up in this day of his Judgment and appear unto us in godly glory It is plain from hence that both the day of Judgment and the Resurrection of the Dead are in this life and that H. N. doth both raise them up and judge them by his Doctrine And because the Reader shall be sully satisfied and see that it is not without cause that I lay this charge upon this beastly Generation of Quakers I shall produce some Testimonies from their Writings wherein they deliver themselves after the same manner with H. N. Thomas Forster in a certain Pamphlet which he calls A Guide to the Blind when the blind lead the blind the consequence is apparent speaks thus Christs first appearance to the world was in flesh and the fleshly eye saw him but his second appearance is in spirit which no fleshly eye can behold and live for as the Lightning cometh from one part of Heaven to lighten another part under Heaven so shall the coming of the Son of man be and blessed are all they who wait for his second coming to wit without sin unto salvation for his second coming is to put an end to sin to finish transgression and to bring in everlasting righteousness He that hath an ear to hear let him hear From hence it appears that Christs second coming is made only his spiritual coming into mens hearts to make them without sin and to bring in everlasting Righteousness and that when he thus comes no fleshly eye can see him all which make Christs coming to Judgment to be nothing but his appearing in the Generation of Quakers But the Scripture is express that Christ shall at the end of the world descend from Heaven as he went thither Act. 1. 11. that is visibly and bodily for so he ascended And in Revel 1. 7. it is said Behold he cometh with clouds and every eye shall see him and they also which pierced him Therefore his second coming to Judgment is not his coming into mens hearts by his Spirit but his coming with thousands of Angels to give sentence upon all men and this by a visible descent from Heaven to be seen by the wicked as well as the righteous The same person in another place expresly denies the second coming of our Lord and Saviour to Judgment in the plain and literal sense The Children of the Light says he that is the Quakers can tell you that as Christs first appearance to the world was in the flesh and the fleshly eye saw him so his second appearance is in spirit and no fleshly eye can behold him he being a spirit Is not this a denial of Christs coming to Judgment besides a manifest falshood For Christ is no more a Spirit now than he was in the days of his flesh but sits in his Body at the right hand of God and in the same Body that now he hath in Heaven shall he come to Judgment and be seen of all by their natural sight as we behold one another Now for the glorious Immortality and blessed Rest that every holy Soul expects in the life to come it is perfectly allegorized away and made nothing but a certain condition and state of mind in this life So that Sadducee Forster in the Book before-named pag. 45. declares Our Captain says he is able to make War with the Enemy and not only give us Victory but also an entrance into the Holy of Holies within the Veil here By which it appears that if we enter into the Holy of Holies here that is into Heaven in this life then there is no Heaven nor happiness to be expected in the life to come But to make all sure and compleat the Quaker a perfect Sadducee George Fox in his Great Mystery affirms That the Soul is a part of the Essence and Being of God This was the very thing which caused such an irreconcileable hatred between the Pharisees and Sadducees in our Saviour Christs time But the Fox was not so cunning here as he might have been nor did he well weigh the monstrous and wicked consequences of this his Assertion For if the Soul be a part of the Essence of God it will follow 1. That the Essence and Being of God is discerpible and may be shred and divided into millions of pieces which is a notorious Blasphemy against the sacred Majesty and Perfection of God 2. It will follow That God must reward and punish himself because every mans Soul after death returns according to this opinion and is joined to and lost in the Essence of God and there being nothing but God if he reward and punish any thing it must be himself 3. It will follow that a part of God must be sinful for every mans Soul being fallen into sin and yet is a part of Gods Essence it follows of necessity that a part of God must be sinful A prodigious Blasphemy I forbear any further Citations because the thing it self is so obvious to every man that understands but the drift and purpose of Familism wherein the chiefest Articles of a Christians Faith are made but a Fable whose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Moral is the mystical meaning which they put upon it And are not these brave Guides think you of the Gospel when they frustrate and make void the greatest Arguments that Christ Jesus has thought fit to excite and stir men up to holiness withal that is the consideration of a Judgment to come and a blessed Immortality in the Kingdom of Heaven I grant that there is to be a Resurrection from sin and all men are to be conformable to the Resurrection of Jesus by their rising to a new and holy life and placing their affections upon heavenly and divine Objects according as the Apostle speaks Col. 3. 1. If ye then be risen with Christ seek those things that are above But besides this there is likewise a Resurrection of the natural body to be expected at the end of the world which St. Paul charges those Hereticks Hymeneus and Philetus with
great deal of poison I shall therefore for the sake of the Ignorant and such as lie most obnoxious to their snares discover the Cheat. To omit that this Expression Several Ministrations before and after the Law by Moses and after by John Baptist and Christ and his Apostles can scarce be made tolerable sense a fault pardonable enough in Mechanics and the Brethren of the Family but a notorious instance of their Hypocrisie in pretending immediate Inspiration from the Spirit when they write nonsense In the Discourse such as it is we learn these three things 1. That the Ministration of Christ was but a temporary Ministration to continue only till the Dispensation of the Spirit came and therefore was disliked and rejected of God as wanting that full Measure Rule and Power of the Spirit which should afterwards come into the world Whereas the Ministration of Christ was indeed the Ministration of the Spirit and therefore to set up a Dispensation of the Spirit above and in opposition to that of the Lord Jesus in the Gospel is a blasphemous derogation from the honour of our blessed Saviour who said to his Apostles Joh. 16. 14. He shall receive of mine and shall shew it unto you 2. It follows from the forementioned passage that the Spirit of God equally moves and acts in them as it did in the Apostles therefore say they As the Apostles were commanded to wait at Jerusalem for the gracious illapse and descent of the Holy Spirit so they and this signifies to them both what and when to speak But will any sober person believe that a Quaking Speaker is divinely inspired when he commits endless Tautologies and vain repetitions and makes inconsequent illations and especially when the greatest part of his Harangue shall be downright railing Shall the eternal Spirit of Wisedom and Reason be guilty of nonsense and absurdities 3. It will follow that what they speak or write must be as good Canonical Scripture as the Bible and we are as much bound to believe George Fox and James Nailor as S. Paul and S. Peter I shall instance but in one Quaker more to prove this first part of their Doctrin all one with Familism and that shall be out of Humphrey Smith's Discourse of the three Ministrations of Moses Christ and the Spirit If Moses says he with all his Priests Tythes and long Prayers were now upon earth and Christ in his own body with his Miracles Baptism and Supper then whether those obey not Moses who leave the Priests and come to Christ And whether such when they are come to Christ should always be looking and following after his Body Miracles Baptism or Supper without them or tarry and wait to receive the Spirit within them And then which of these now should all people that profess Christ be led by in these days either Moses or the Person of Christ or the Spirit of Truth There is no sober Christian that can read this passage without anger and disdain to see such wicked wretches scoff and flearingly insult upon the sacred Person of our Lord Jesus the whole History of whose blessed Life and Death in the Letter of it they esteem no better than one of Esop's Fables Again the same Person hath this Whether they be not compassed about with a cloud of error who are upholding that Ministry of the Law which Christ is the end of and likewise such as are upholding and keeping up that which Christ said he had finished And being that Moses nor indeed his true Ministers of the Law are upon Earth neither the body of Christ which by the Professors was murdered at Jerusalem visibly to be seen upon earth then what was it these have to follow who have not received the Spirit to be led by Here again the Personal Offices of the blessed Jesus are laid aside SECT II. The second thing wherein the Familists and Quakers are all one is the Pretence of immediate Revelation David George and H. N. both pretended to receive their Doctrin from the Angel Gabriel And Wil. Gibson the Quaker says that the Gospel which they preach they have not received it from men nor from books nor from writings but by the Revelation of Jesus Christ in them and then he goes on and denies the Scriptures of the old and new Testament to be the revealed Will of God There are two things especially by which our Saviour Jesus Christ and his Apostles demonstrated the Truth of their Doctrin 1. The Miracles which they did And these were so many infallible Seals and Marks of the Divinity of the Doctrin they communicated to the World that God was the Author of it For there can be no surer evidence of any thing being delivered from heaven than when a man in favour of it is enabled to work Miracles And this was the sign which Moses gave the children of Israel when they asked how they should know the word which God has not spoken Deut. 18. 22. When a Prophet speaks in the name of the Lord if the thing follow not nor come to pass that is if he do no Miracle that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken 2. The Reasonableness of the Doctrin which they delivered To this S. Peter seems to appeal 2 Pet. 3. 15. when he bids us be ready 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 always to give an answer to every man that asks us a reason of the hope that is in us Now let us examin a little the Doctrin of these Modern Familists or Quakers by these two foregoing Rules they pretend Divine Revelation and would fain have the World believe that they are divinely inspired but is any man so simple as to believe they are so merely because they say it so a man may believe all the Cheats and Impostors in the World What sign do they shew or what evidence do they bring that they have received their Doctrin immediately from God If they can work any Miracles to confirm it we will believe them otherwise we have no more faith to believe them than we have to believe that Mahomet discoursed with the Angel Gabriel and received his Alchoran from him As for the Reasonableness of their Doctrin a very easie and mean capacity can find none in it for how should there be any Reason in what they teach when they themselves deny the use of Reason and tell the world they are guided by a Light within them that is neither Reason nor Conscience which yet is but like a dark Lanthorn that gives light to none but themselves And besides by this Principle it is impossible they should ever convince any man that is not merely besotted As for Example the Quakers Light says that the Sacrament of the Lords Supper is needless but the Light within me tells me it is not And is not my Light as good as his nay much better for I have the warrant of Christ and his Apostles but he has only his own bare blind Fansie And the man
Christ and he is no where else H. N. first Exhort Sect. 13. And that this is the very Doctrine of the Quakers I prove 1. Because Tho. Forster in the above-mentioned Treatise p. 13. saith That the Light which is Christ within is not natural but it is sufficient to Salvation But we know that Reason and Conscience are natural and insufficient in themselves to Salvation by which it is plain they are excluded from having any thing to do in this Light 2. G. Fox in his Great Mystery pag. 207. 210. saith That Christ is not distinct from the Saints and he that eats the flesh of Christ hath it within him And in pag. 206. he declares That if there be any Christ but he that was crucified within he is a false Christ and he that hath not this Christ that was crucified within is a Reprobate To this purpose is that of Richard Stubbs a Quaker who asking Elizabeth Whetherly How she expected to be saved she answered By that Jesus who was born of a Virgin and died at Jerusalem Stubbs told her that was the false Christ and an Antichrist Whereby it is plain that the Quakers lay aside the Person of Christ as he is God and Man without us What then can this Light within which they say is Christ be but the coming into the way or dispensation of Quakers which is such a state wherein a man leaves the written Word of God and hearkens wholly to inward Revelations And if any man shall object and say That the Quakers speak of Christ and say that he was born of the Virgin and crucified upon the Cross and therefore shall think that they acknowledge a Christ without them Let him not be gulled and cheated into a good opinion of them for this for H. N. says as much and repeats the very words of most of the Articles of the Apostles Creed as the Christian Church hath them and yet turns them all into a mystical and allegorical sense And I have above cited the Testimony of G. Fox a prime Quaker that if there be any Christ but he that was crucified within he is a false Christ and James Naylor wrote a Letter to one in Lancashire that he that expected to be saved by him that died at Jerusalem should be deceived Therefore it is undoubted that they account the Conception Birth Life Death Resurrection and Ascension of our Lord Jesus as they were in the History and Letter transacted in Judea to be a mere Fable So that this may serve as a Caution once for all to every one that reads their Writings that when they meet with any thing about our Saviour Jesus Christ or Heaven or Hell or the day of Judgment they may know the Quakers understand it in a Mystical sense There is no Rational Person but will at first sight discover the horrid and wicked Blasphemy of the Quakers in asserting their Light within and that whoever follows them must deny the Lord Jesus as a Person without them beside whom there is no name given under heaven whereby any man can be saved And is not this a very sad Light that shall lead a man down to Hell and the Devil that shall carry a man like an Ignis fatuus from his right way into Bogs and Ditches and cause him at last to fall into the pit of everlasting Destruction CHAP. VII The Quakers Pretence of Immediate Revelations BEcause the true Religion justly entitles God to be its Author who immediately inspired the Prophets and Apostles therefore the Devil who was always Gods Ape countenances the Impostures and Deceits he sets abroad by his servants with the false Pretence of Divine Inspiration And herein these Seducers have a double advantage first by amusing the common People and telling them that what they speak comes from God And then secondly they hope to secure themselves from any Disputes and Examination of their Doctrin for none are so bold as to question any thing that truly comes from God Now all such People as these are called Enthusiasts that is such as falsly conceit themselves to be inspired now to be inspired is to be moved in an extraordinary manner by the Power or Spirit of God to act speak or think what is holy just and true from whence it follows that Enthusiasm is a full but false Persuasion in a man that he is inspired And this false Persuasion in the Quakers of being immediately inspired arises from the Melancholiness of their Temper for the Dejectedness of their Countenances and the alteration of their Visages from that chearfulness that is in other men shew them to be the most Melancholic Sect that ever came into the World When therefore the Melancholic and Hypochondriacal Humor which is extraordinarily predominant in them mixing with the Blood and Spirits is somewhat refined in the Heart and being warmed there ascends copiously into the Brain it affects the mind with varieties of Imaginations and intoxicates and makes the man as it were drunk for the present till by stretching his Voice and the Earnestness and Motion of his body it becomes in some degree evaporated And all that time that his brains are turgid and full of this Humor he is wonderful eloquent and bewitchingly taking and the poor ignorant People loook upon him as a Prophet sent immediately from God and admire the Overflowings of the Lord as the Quakers phrase it in the man who is so sweet and affectionate as if he would pour his whole Soul into the good womens Mouths Whereas all this is only an effect of his Melancholic Temper the Hypochondria rising into the Region of the Brain which is ordinary in Poets and Orators according to that Est Deus in nobis agitante calescimus illo But lest these Juglers should say that they are scandalized and that they pretend to no such thing as an immediate Inspiration from God I think it not amiss to give the Reader a brief Account of some of them That it is their Judgment and Opinion I prove from their Writings William Gibson in a Pamphlet of his says expresly thus The Gospel which we preach we have not received it from Man nor from Books nor from Writings but by the Revelation of Jesus Christ in us Thomas Forster in the often above mentioned piece says That immediate Revelation is not ceased but that the Saints must now expect as glorious Manifestations as were in the Primitive times I shall add to these that famous Commission of Edward Burroughs whom the Quakers stile A worthy and true Prophet and a Martyr for the Testimony of Jesus because he died sottishly in the Goal at London for his Rebellion against and contempt of the known Laws of the Land and over whom Francis Howgil laments with the lamentation of David over Saul and Jonathan I am greatly distressed for thee my brother Edward c. then that of David over Abner Died Ed. Burroughs as a fool dieth Ah no. His Commission then is this as
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