pretended Line of true Judgement occasioned thee to let it lye for some time by thee c. I say Thou speakest great swelling words of vanity thereby to allure those who live with thee in Error crying out of the hypocrisie falshood of T. S. but is it not strange to hear one in whom abomination reigns to cry out of abomination in others And to hear a Hypocrite cry out of Hyocrisie and a lyar to cry out of falshood But by so doing he that is indeed the notorious lyar and the abominable hypocrite may have hopes to pass undiscovered Thou sayest Yet for Truth's sake and for the sakes of poor souls thou wilt give a very brief touch in a sheet of Paper c. To which I say It is not thy pretences will hide thee the light hath discovered thee and thy unclean spirit and thy fruits doth manifest thee to all who have an eye open to see thee and though thou pretend a care for truth poor souls yet thou art found to be one of Truth's greatest Enemies and one that labours to keep souls in blindness and ignorance and by this Work of wickedness thou haft endeavoured to touch the Lord 's Annointed and to harm his Prophets for which the Lord will reprove thee in the day of account which is near at hand Thou recitest some of T. S. his words in the Title Page of his Book where he saith The exaltation of the Spiritual Man with his Ordinances and Administrations above the Man of Sin with the weak and unprofitable Ordinances that doth not make the comers there unto perfect Which sound wholsome Words of his thou goest about most wickedly to pervert and his plain and honest intention most falsly and hypocritically to interpret saying The Spiritual Man must be the light within their own fancy and imagination which they perswade all to follow and Jesus Christ crucified raised and ascended and made Lord and Christ he must be the man of sin Truly if thou hadst not as it were a brow of Brass thou wouldst blush and even tremble to utter such blasphemous words as these Didst thou never think to give an account for these with other thy hard ungodly speeches which in the pride of thy heart thou hast uttered forth Thou accusest T. S. in thy Paper for Hypocrisie and wretched perverting Now let all sober-minded people judge whether thou be not manifestly guilty of that evil which thou falsly chargest upon him But because there is some words of truth mixed with thy unclean filthy language though it comes out of a polluted Vessel I shall separate it from the rest and when the Jewel is taken out of the Swine's snout the remainder may be bundled up for the fire Thou saist The Spiritual Man must be the light within To which I say The Spiritual Man is light and the light of Christ is spiritual and the Spiritual Man is within even the hidden man of the heart and he that knows not this Spiritual Man living in him is not a Member of the Church of Christ and he in whom the Spiritual Man lives doth thereby mortifie the deeds of the flesh and his mortal body comes to be quickened by the Spirit which dwelleth in him and hereby he is made a member of the Church of Christ and no otherwise and comes to partake of his Ordinances and knows his Administrations and so comes to be exalted above the Man of Sin and stands over all the beggarly rudiments and traditional invented Will-Worships set up in the imagination which doth not purifie the heart nor purge the conscience from dead works nor give victory over the World and so makes not the comers thereunto or practisers of them perfect but perisheth with the using and this is not fancy nor imagination but sound and wholesome Doctrine according to the Scripture of truth neither do we at any time perswade any to follow their own fancies imaginations as thou most wickedly and falsly chargest us but it is Christ the true light the Spiritual Man who leads out of darkness all that follow him and from every vain imagination it is him alone that we exhort all men to obey and follow And the reason that thou givest why Jesus Christ crucisied raised and ascended c. must be the Man of Sin is Because thou sayest it is his Ordinances you follow and plead for according to the Scriptures Thou sayest You own Jesus Christ crucified and justification by Faith in his blood which Faith purifies the heart though you confess that abomination reigns in your souls and that iniquity is apparently written on your fore-heads and that you are drawing it with cords of vanity and Baptism with Water after believing and Church-fellowship in breaking of Bread and Prayer c. and this thou sayest T. S. calls the Ordinances of the Man of Sin which is another most abominable falshood charged upon him When Or where did he ever call Justification by Faith in the blood of Christ Baptism breaking of Bread and Prayer c. which are Ordinances of Christ the Ordinances of the Man of Sin Thou hast made a great outcry of the hypocrisie and falshood of T. S. doubling it over to four times in thy title page and yet before thou concludest the same page how manifestly and publikely dost thou play the hypocrite with him in drawing such a damnable Conclusion from his Words and most wickedly and falsly to accuse him saying He calls the Ordinances of Christ the Ordinances of the man of sin when at the utmost it is but the deceit of thy own wicked heart and not his words nor intentions as may evidently appear to any who have but the least measure of honesty to judge But what though you in a hypocritical manner according to the vain and foolish imaginations of your dark hearts have fancied to your selves a Worship in your Wills and practise things in imitation of others which you say you plead for and follow and call Ordinances of Christ because the Scripture declares that such things were practised by those who were thereto led by the Spirit of God though you from that Spirit are erred and saith the Scripture is your Rule must it therefore follow that T S. doth account Jesus Christ crucified c. to be the Man of Sin and his Ordinances the Ordinances of the Man of Sin Oh wicked and damnable Conclusion drawn from such an Argument Thou tells of the Quaker's Logick surely this may truly be call'd the Devil's Logick for greater Wickedness and more horrible iniquity I believe never dropped from the Pen of any one that pretends to plead for and follow Ordinances of Christ but it is not your professing the Name of Christ or professing Justification by Faith in his Blood or practising things by imitation and calling it the Ordinances of Christ that will avail you any thing whilest the Man of Sin bears rule and is exalted in you for notwithstanding your profession
spirit and in the truth I say The Spiritual Man with his Ordinances and Administrations which are spiritual stands over the man of sin and over these his carnal weak unprofitable Ordinances beggarlie rudiments vain ceremonies and traditional imitations which although you call them the Ordinances of Christ yet they are but your own fancies and imaginations And thus by a just and a lawful Trial it plainly and evidently appears that you are neither Churches nor Ministers of Jesus Christ but in all the particulars before-mentioned you are found very much to differ from them and because you are not the church of Christ and that his Spirit doth not lead you to and guide you in the practise or performance of those things which you plead for and follow therefore those things by you pleaded for are not the Ordinances of Christ but the Ordinances of the man of sin and so the Spiritual Man with his Ordinances and Administrations are exalted above the man of sin with the weak and unprofitable Ordinances that doth not make the comers thereunto perfect according to the truth asserted by Thomas Salthouse which is hereby vindicated and fully confirmed And now I shall return to speak to some particulars in thy Paper wherein thou saist Because in the Tiverton Epistle there is a complaint against the sins that are remaining in the Churches T. S from hence suggesteth that they are no Churches of Christ I answer T. S. had sufficient ground from your own confession in the said Epistle to conclude that you are no churches of Christ as was by him fully proved and is now again more at large confirmed For the church of Christ which is his bodie is in all things answerable and proportionable to him who is the Head Now you will all confess that the Head is holie harmless undefiled seperate from sin and sinners and if the Bodie be unholie full of abomination and defiled with sin and iniquitie then is Christ the Head of a defiled polluted unclean sinful Body and this is not proportionable for as is the Head such are the members and they said As he is so are we in this present world 1 Joh. 4. 17. But in that Epistle you do not onely complain against those sins that are yet remaining in the churches but you there say that abominations are reigning in your churches and in your souls Now these expressions in thy Paper where thou speakest of sins remaining c. might seem very much to alter the case and to lessen the crime in the judgement of those that have not seen your Consession in the said Epistle and such might begin to think that T. S. had dealt something uncharitably with you to exhort all that fear God to seperate from you and to come out from among you because some sins were yet remaining amongst you for to speak of sins yet remaining might seem to imply that some sins were mortified and put off and as if you were warring against and waiting to receive power to overcome those that remain and such a condition as this we could own though we cannot own those for a church of Christ who live in sin for we own and witness a spiritual warfare which all must know before they can be Members of the church of Christ and had you been found in such a condition as this to be armed with the power of God and so to stand in the war against sin and Satan we could have owned you in such a state as a people whom the Lord was purging and cleanslng and sanctifying for himself sitting and preparing you to be a habitation for the Lord to dwell in that your bodies might become the Temples of the Holy Ghost and so you might be married to the Lord in righteousness become the Spouse of Christ which is his Church but it is far otherwise with you for sin is not onely remaining in you but reigning in you and apparently written upon you and where sin and abomination reigns it hath the sole dominion power and preheminence and as a strong man armed keeps the house and is at peace and the stronger is not come that should dis-possess him and make the keepers of the House to tremble and the strong to bow that should enter in and break his peace and spoile his goods neither are you in a condition to war against sin for you confess that all weapons are wrested from you with which you should maintain war against it so that sin abomination hath quiet peaceable possession in you hath got both strength weapons to defend it self upon all occasions And so you are altogether servants to sin slaves to Satan under Aegyptian darkness this is much more then to say Sins yet remaining in you and as I have said doth very much alter your case from what these expressions of thine might seem to render it And saist thou that which T. C. saith is That the true churches of Christ have had the same or as great sins and abominations in them as are mentioned in that Epistle and yet were the true churches of Christ owned of God as is fully proved c. to which Scriptures thou saist T. S. gives no answer To this I say It is a very light thing with T. C. to lay sin to the charge of Gods elect and to condemn the generation of the Just and also to plead Justification for those in whom abomination reigns and in whose fore-heads iniquitie is apparentlie written but T. C. will one day know that he which justifieth the wicked and he that condemneth the just even they both are abomination to the Lord Yet by all that T. C. hath said though he hath quoted so many Scriptures perverting them and even wresting them to his own destruction it doth not appear that ever the church of Christ was guilty of these or the like abominations as in the Tiverton Epistle is exprest neither doth any one of those Scriptures at all prove any such thing therefore it was needless for T. S to give any answer thereunto but forasmuch as thou seems to vaunt thy self because T. S. hath not spoken particularly in answer to those Scriptures which thou call'st T. C. his Cloud of Witnesses and that both in thy Paper and also in T. C. his Answer to T. S. his Epistle the perverting of the Scriptures especially what is written to the church of Corinth is made use of as a Stirrup whereby you may mount you selves upon the Throne of Iniquitie taking occasion from what the Apostle writes to them concerning such as had sinned to boast your selves to be the church of Christ notwithstanding your great abominations and apparent iniquities confest and exprest in Tiverton Writing I shall therefore speak something briefly to some of those Scriptures thereby to discover thy blindness and ignorance of the things of God of which the Scriptures of truth declares And first concerning the Church of the Romans chap. 13.
be considered what the Law and the Testimony is and that he further saith The Law is in the heart the Light is in the heart the testimony of Jesus the sure Word of Prophesie is in the heart the Word of Faith in the heart And now come to the matter to which thou scoffingly and wickedly saist Now he is fit for the work out with the Scriptures of truth and follow the Law of his own heart of his own imagination and be sure Salthouse will prevail and carry all before him Thou hypocrite Is this outing of the Scriptures of truth to speak truth in the very Scripture-language Hath not T. S. quoted the Scriptures for proof of what he asserts concerning the Law in the heart the Light in the heart the Word of Faith nigh in the heart the sure Word of Prophesie in the heart And yet thou art so impudent as to say Out with the Scriiptures of truth and follow the Law of his own heart Is the Law of God in the heart Or the Light of Christ in the heart Or the Word of Faith in the heart Or the sure Word of Prophesie which is the Testimony of Jesus in the heart Is this the Law or the imagination of his own heart Thou hast no cover for thy wickedness here but hast manifestly published thy folly and thy envy in charging T. S. for outing the Scriptures of truth when he hath cited the Scriptures of truth for proof of what he hath spoken therefore because thy wickedness is so plainly and openly discovered in setting thy self through envy to oppose gain-say and resist the truth the less needs be spoken in answer to it if any wil believe thee or be deceived by thee herein it is such who are willingly ignorant and are given up to believe lyes and their blood will be upon their own heads But although T. C. hath cited the Law and Testimony for a Rule yet when T. S had proved by the Scriptures of Truth that this Law and Testimony is within in the heart it 's like T. C. had no mind to join Issue or plead with him for he well knows that should he speak no more of the Law of God or of the Testimony of Jesus then what is manifest in him and written in his heart his mouth and the mouths of many of his Brethren would soon be stopt for though that which may be known of God is manifest within according to the Scripture yet they that believe not in that which doth make manifest but are enemies to it they know little of God or of his Law or Testimony neither is it their rule Now that which doth make manifest is light Eph. 5. 13. But T. C. saith Your faith is not in a light within therefore your Faith is not in that which doth make manifest and how then should you know the things of God or his Law and Testimony of which the Scriptures of truth declares And thus though in words you profess God and talk of his Law and Testimony to be your rule yet in works you deny him and his Law of righteousness is cast behind your backs and the Testimony of Jesus which is the Spirit of Prophesie you have denyed and despised neither is his Law your Rule or his Light your Guide witness your own confession in Tiverton Epistle Therefore I say Should T. C. plead onely from what of God is manifest in him he would have very little to say and so no marvel if he refufe to joyn Issue with T. S. upon those terms Thou saist T. S. hath said That T. C. is against the Saints attaining to perfection and freedom from sin whilst in this mortal state And thou saist He is not against perfection by faith in Christ their perfection to be in another nor is he against pressing after perfection but such a perfection as the Quakers boast of he is against c. To which I say The perfection which the people call'd Quakers own and press after is the same which the Saints and Servants of God in all ages did press after of which the Scriptures of truth makes mention which is to perfect holiness in the fear of the Lord and to know him to work all their works for them and in them whose works are perfect in the sight of God whereby all boasters and boasting is excluded and this perfection thou saist T. C. is against and indeed I believe it and herein the truth of T. S. his words are verified But what perfection or freedom from sin such do own or press after who are drawing iniquity with cords of vanity and in whose souls such abominations reigns and out of whose hands all weapons are wrested with which they should make war against sin I leave to the wise in heart to judge It seems the perfection which you own is at a great distance from you and not holyness perfected in you but in another and so you imagine it shall be imputed yours hereafter when you are dead though you are perfecting wickedness and ungodliness all your life long and this imagination you call Faith in Christ But though we own no other perfection then that which is by Faith in Christ who is the perfection of his people and is all in all to them yet except you know him to live in you and know him to work in you both the will and the deed even he of whom its said That he came to do the will of God and so to know perfection and freedom from sin in your selves wrought by another it will avail you nothing to say you own perfection in another for what the better are you to tell of perfection and freedom from sin in another whilst you are imperfect and are servants unto sin And what pressing after perfection or freedom from sin is there like to be with such who affirm that God never had yet a church in the World without sin and that who ever affirm the contrary are Hypocrites Would any that believes this press after that which none yet could ever attain Or is not this to press after an impossibility And if by pressing after it they should attain to it and make confession of it it seems they must be accounted hypocrites this is small encouragement to any to press after perfection or freedom from sin But we are not ignorant what that imagined perfection is of which you speak and which you say you press after for although abominations reigns in your souls and iniquity apparently written on your foreheads heads and that you are even drawing it as with Cart-Ropes yet because you can sometimes make a hypocritical confession of this condition and therewith mock God as you confess you have done often this is call'd a pressing after perfection And because you have read in the Scriptures of the Righteousness of Christ you imagine that his Righteousness shall be imputed yours and serve to cover your unrighteousness and this is your perfection as