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A76704
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Two letters of Mr. Iohn Biddle, late prisoner in Nevvgate, but now hurried away to some remote island. One to the Lord Protector. The other to the Lord President Laurence. Wherein you have an account of his judgement concerning those opinions whereof he is accused.
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Biddle, John, 1615-1662.
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1655
(1655)
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Wing B2881; Thomason E854_11; ESTC R207481
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5,061
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8
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TWO LETTERS OF Mr. IOHN BIDDLE Late Prisoner in NEVVGATE But now hurried away to some remote ISLAND One to the Lord Protector The other to the Lord President Laurence WHEREIN You have an account of his Judgement concerning those Opinions whereof he is accused London Printed in the Yeer 1655. Two Letters from Mr. John Biddle late Prisoner in Newgate May it please your Highness I Should have esteemed it no small favour had I bin admitted to speech with your Highness before your ears had been preoccupated with the various Reproaches and calumnies that have been cast upon me by mine Adversaries for I am so assured both of your Highness wisdome and judgement and also of mine own innocencie and integrity that I should have prevented any evil surmizings concerning me But since it hath pleased God to suffer it to come to pass otherwise give me leave in all humility to put your Highness in remembrance of that just and wise demand proposed by Nicodemus to the Jewish Councel Doth our Law judge a man until it hear from him first and know what he doth Wherefore my request is That your Highness would be pleased to lay aside all prejudice and either admit my justification tendred in this letter and which my adversaries are not able to disprove or else vouchsafe me an hearing and if it be found that I practise unrighteousness and have done any thing worthy of death I refuse not to die My life for these many years is not unknown to sundry in London who can and are accordingly ready to testifie that I have made it my study to meditate on the word of God day and night and have not only exercised my self to have a conscience void of offence towards God and men but also used diligence to draw others to all manner of holy conversation putting them continually in mind to walk worthy of the calling wherewith God hath called us in Christ Jesus And indeed the sum of my Doctrine hath bin constantly this That as Almighty God hath by the exceeding greatness of his power exalted his Son Jesus Christ to be a Prince and Saviour so is he become the Author of eternal Salvation to none but such as obey him and consequently That the power of Religion consisteth in yeilding obedience to the commands of Christ Jesus Neither do I desire any longer to be protected by your Highness then whilest I walk in the way of peace godliness and honesty of which protection I conceived a great hope upon the sight of the Instrument of the Government which was published by your Highness speciall command where ful liberty is granted unto all that profess Faith in God by Jesus Christ as I do who by Jesus Christ believe in God that raised him from the dead and gave him glory that my faith hope might be in God provided that they neither disturb the publick peace on their parts nor be either popish prelaticall or licentious whether in Doctrine or practise all which cannot with any colour be by my greatest adversaries objected unto me wherefore I beseech your Highness that you would be pleased to make good what you have published unto the world and engaged your self by solemn oath to perform and restore me to my liberty that as other religious persons so I also may have a speciall Obligation to pray for the prosperity and continuance of your Highness Government amongst us Iuly 27. 1655. IOHN BIDDLE My Lord THough there be sundry considerations inviting me to address my self unto you yet none doth more encourage me than the information I have received concerning that spirit of Freedom which dwelleth in you joyned with an insight into those various questions that are wont to be agitated amongst dissenting Christians I make no doubt but I have been represented to you in very hideous colours whilest mine Adversaries one while attribute unto me such opinions as never came into my thoughts and which I utterly abhor another while describe the Opinions which I own with strange additions and alterations purposely devised to make both me and my Opinions odious But your Lorship is not ignorant that these are old sleights of Satan imployed by him in all ages to scare men from enquiring into the truth which he hideth from them under the frightfull Vizards of heresie and blasphemy wherefore in treating with you so wise intelligent a man who not only use your liberty in examining things commonly received but dare after examination to reject some of them notwithstanding their commonness because they were not delivered to the Saints from the beginning I perswade my selfe that I may use freedome without offence and disclose my judgement touching points even of the highest importance As to my belief therefore concerning Jesus Christ for in this matter I am chiefly traduced I herein proceed as in other matters of Religion which is to keep close to the Holy Scripture without turning either to the right hand or to the left I find then in the Scripture and believe accordingly that Jesus Christ is the Son of God whom he begot by his Spirit of a pure Virgin And this is the cause which the Angel Gabriel assigneth why Jesus should be called the Son of God Luke 1. 35 36. as for his being eternally begotten out of the substance of God this is neither any where delivered in the Scripture nor consistent with reason so that no man unless he wil be wise above what is written and above what is reasonable can accuse me for not acknowledging such a Mystery I believe also that God annointed Jesus with the Holy spirit and with power and that after he had dyed for the confirmation of the New-Covenant God raised him from the dead and set him at his own right hand in the Heavens making him both Lord and Christ Act. 2. 33 35 36. I likewise believe with Thomas that he is not only my Lord but also my God Iohn 20. 28. and with Paul That he is God over all blessed for evermore Rom. 9. 5. I believe further that he is to be honoured as the Father Iohn 5. 23. But the reason why notwithstanding all these glorious elogies I believe him not to be the most high God is First because it is contradictious to say the Son of the most high God is the very most high God for then He will of necessity be the Son of himself Secondly Because Christ himself saith to Mary Magdalen Iohn 20. 17. Goe unto my brethren and say unto them I ascend unto my Father and your Father and unto my God and your God Thirdly Because the Divine Author to the Hebrews doth in the words of the Psalmist speak thus chap. 1. 8 9. Thy Throne O God is for ever and ever a Scepter of uprightness is the Scepter of thy Kingdome Thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniqity therefore God even thy God hath annoynted thee with the oyle of gladness about thy Fellows Doth not this Scripture speak of Christ
as God by which means the usual evasion of the adversaries is quite excluded who when other places of the Scripture are alledged either that the Father is greater than the Son Iohn 14. 28. or that God is the head of Christ 1 Cor. 11. 3. or that neither the Angels not the Son but the Father and he only sometimes knew the day and hour of JUDGEMENT Mark 13. 32. Mat. 24. 3. or that the SON Himself having delivered up the KINGDOME to God even the Father shall become subject to him that subdued all things unto him that God may be all in all 1 Cor. 25. 24. 28. think they can easily put off all these passages by telling us though without warrant of the Scripture that all these things are spoken of Christ only as man for the fore-quoted passage of the Hebrews speaking of Christ saith O God thy God hath annoynted thee with Oyle of gladness above thy fellows thereby plainly giving us to understand that it speaketh of Christ as God As for the efficacy of the death of Christ I believe with the holy pen-men of the Scripture that we have remission of sins by it Neither doth any Christian attribute greater force and vertue thereunto onely the way whereby it procureth remission of sins unto us cometh into controversie I believe therefore that the death of Christ giveth us a right to remission of sins either as it was the death of the Testator of the New Testament for according to the reasoning of the Divine Author to the Hebrewes where a Testament is there must of necessity be also the death of the Testator for a Testament is firm after men be dead otherwise it is of no force whilest the Testator liveth Heb. 9. 15 16 17. and therefore if remission of sins was bequeathed to us in the New Testament we could not claim it unless the Testator had dyed or if which I take to be the truer notion as it was the death of the Mediator of the New Covenant it is because it did confirm and ratifie the same and the promises therein contained amongst which remission of sins is a principal one For Covenants were anciently wont to be confirmed or dedicated with blood see Exod 24. To this sense Christ himself alludeth Mat. 24. 28. if the word Diatheke be as is else where see Heb. 8. 8 9. Gal. 3. 15. and Chap. 4 vers 24. rendred Covenant for so it ought to be else there wil be an Old Testament of which you shal no where read throughout the whole Volume commonly but erroniously called the Old Testament Now what relation hath the blood of a Testament or Covenant to satisfaction of justice And how dare men to wave that efficacy which the Scripture intimateth to be in Christs death to procure remission of sins and substitute another that hath no footing there The last thing which I shal propose to your Lordship is the omnipresence of God which I never denied for I acknowledge him to be every where by his knowledge power and providence But because I wil not contrary to Scripture Reason and Sense it self say that the person shape or glory of God the two first of which expressions are as wel used of God in the Scripture as the last see Heb. 1. 3. Ioh. 5. 37. is elsewhere resident than in the heaven only therefore mine adversaries have maliciously imposed upon me as if I should hold that God is confined to a certain place whereas to be confined is a kind of imprisonment when a person is so limited to a certain place as that he ought not to go out of it But what impiety would it be to say that God is imprisoned or limited to a certain place out of which he may not stir Now that the person shape or glory of God is in the highest heaven and not else-where resident is not only evident from the Dictate of Nature observed by Aristotle in his Book De Mundo who saith That all Nations whatsoever give attestation thereunto in as much as when they pray they lift up their face and hands towards heaven but is to be found every where in the holy Scripture Thus is it said Psal 33. God looketh down from heaven the place of his habitation And Psal 8. He hath set his glory above the heavens And our Saviour Christ doth almost perpetually use this description of God that He is in heaven And lest any man should doubt whether God's being in heaven only as to his person and glory and Christ's being at his right hand is to be plainly and properly understood and not in a figure the thing hath been brought down to the very sense for it is Recorded of Stephen Act. 7. 55. that Being ful of the Holy Spirit he looked stedfastly up into Heaven and saw the glory of God and Iesus standing at the right hand of God And he said Behold I see the heavens opened and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God Why should the heavens here be opened to Stephen if the person and glory of God are as much in other places as there How could it be said of him that he looked up stedfastly into heaven an expression elsewhere used of the Apostles and taken litterally see Act. 1. 10. and saw Jesus at the right hand of God if he saw it only by faith which very evasion so incident it is to error to ensnare it self doth shew that the thing was indeed so for can a man see by faith that which is not so and there was indeed no such thing as a right and left hand of God Now if we shall not credit the sight of Stephen filled with the Holy Spirit how shall we believe what the Apostles deliver to us as most certain upon the authority of their sight See 1 Ioh. 1. 1 2 3 Ioh. 19. 34 35. Thus my Lord you have my perswasion concerning these sublime points of Religion the last whereof is of so great consequence that the ignorance thereof hath proved an in-let to sundry of those truly blasphemous assertions of the Ranters which I forbear to name partly out of detestation towards them partly because I know your Lordship is not ignorant of them As for my persecutors they are wel known to be of that partie which never wished wel to the present Government as for other reasons so also because it doth in the constitution thereof hold forth liberty to all that profess faith in God by Jesus Christ and I could wish that this glory wherewith it hath hitherto shined were not in any case somwhat stained but I trust in God that this stain wil ere long be done away by restoring me to my liberty these are the men my Lord that formerly prosecuted Mr. Kiffâ—n as he himself wil tel you and other godly persons wherefore I beseech your Lordship that if there be any consolation in Christ any comfort of love any Communion of the Spirit any bowels and mercies you would be pleased to imploy your interest in rescuing me out of the hands of these blood-thirsty men whose malice if it prevail against me wil not stop there but extend it self to all other dissenters whatsoever and consequently even to your Lordship it self In so doing you shall exceedingly oblige one whose rejoycing is this even the testimony of his conscience that in simplicity and godly sincerity not in Carnall wisedome but in the Grace of God he hath conversed in the world and who wil ever remain Iuly 29. 1655. Your Honours Servant in the Lord. I. Biddle FINIS