no Christians and that Quakerism is no Christianity However retaining still the Words wherein the Christian Faith is exprest though in an equivocal Sense and having some among them as George Keith and others who still believ'd the Gospel in the proper Sense they made a shift to be reputed generally Christians And indeed this Conduct of theirs deceived even many of their own Party which is manifest in William Rogers of Bristol Francis Bugg Thomas Crispe John Pennyman and especially in George Keith who having been a Quaker about 30 Years yet did not till within these three or four Years discover the Infidelity of the Primitive and true Quakers who are deservedly call'd Foxonians because holding the Principles of George Fox their Author But G. Keith living in Pensylvania where the Quakers were Governours and might be free to open their Minds plainly did then perceive they did not believe the Doctrine of the Apostles Creed the summary of Christian Faith which made him preach it and contend for it more earnestly This provok'd the Foxonians so far that it came to a Breach and Separation and at length to Impeachment Fines and Imprisonment Then G. Keich returns to London where the matters in Contest between him and the Foxonians of Pensylvania was taken into Consideration and had divers Hearings by the general Annual Meeting of Quakers 1694 who gave a kind of a Judgment in the Case but no clearer Determination of the principal Matter concerning Christ within and Christ without and the other Articles of Christian Faith than their former equivocal Expressions The next Year 1695 at the like General Meeting they absolutely excommunicate G. Keith and make this the Ground of it viz. that he had not given due observance to their former Order and was troublesome to them in his Declarations c. For he had still continued to preach frequently Christianity as before See a late Book titled Gross Error and Hypocrisy detected c. The Reader I hope will excuse it that I have detain'd him in this long Story because it was necessary for me first to prove the Quakers are Deists and then to proceed and shew Secondly That the Obscurity Ambiguity and Numerousness of Systematical Fundamentals is that which is the chief Cause of their being so For not being able to satisfy themselves in understanding and determining the Truth and Certainty of those Fundamentals for the proof of which Scriptures were alledg'd but those of so doubtful a sense and variously interpreted by opposite Parties that they readily embrac'd George Fox's only Fundamental of the Light in every Man that is in reality the natural Light whereby we distinguish between Good and Evil in ordinary whence it is that as saith the Apostle Paul We as the Gentiles are a Law to our selves and our Thoughts accuse or excuse Rom. 2. 14 15. Which is in Truth an excellent Doctrine and has great certainty and clearness in it But G. Fox preaches this not as a natural Principle but 1. As a supernatural Revelation And 2. Christ being call'd in Scripture the Light that lighteth every Man and the Light of the World because be brought the Light of the Gospel into the World George Fox applies these Terms and Phrases and almost every thing that is spoken of Christ to the Light in every Man and so turns the plain sense of the Gospel into a Parabolical or Mystical Sense and makes the Christian Scripture to speak nothing but Deism 3. G. Fox adds certain Observances of giving no respect in Word or Gesture or Title nor speaking as others speak nor saluting as others salute nor paying Tithes nor using the Sword nor swearing in common Form c. and all as inspired Dictates that so the only People of God might be separated from all the World and they serve admirably for that purpose Now if you consider the experimented certainty of their Principle the Light within that accuses and excuses and their Perswasion that it was a Divine Inspiration which also was confirm'd to them by their giving obedience to those Ceremonies which were so contrary and offensive to the World and expos'd them to much Suffering All suffering for Religion especially for a clear Revelation from God confirming the Sufferers in their Perswasion You may clearly perceive it was the Uncertainty Obscurity and Intricacy of their former Principles which induced them to embrace G. Fox's Religion which is all dictated by the Spirit of God in every Man Whence it is they upbraid other Professors with Doubtfulness and Fallibility and every one of them counts himself as infallible as the Papists do the Pope How can ye but delude People says G. Fox that are not infallible Myst p. 33. Lastly The Obscurity Uncertainty and Multiplicity of Fundamentals is that which has given an Argument to Popish Priests and Jesuits wherewith to seduce Protestants to Popery For evidence of this I shall mind you of a Paper written by a Jesuit in the late King James's time titled An Address presented to the Reverend and Learned Ministers of the Church of England c. The purport of which is That all things necessary to Salvation are not clearly contained in Scripture as Protestants hold because the Belief of a Trinity one God and three Persons is necessary to Salvation but not clearly contain'd in Scripture Then he goes about to shew that the Scriptures commonly alledged for the Trinity admit of another sense He goes the same way in the Article of the Incarnation Thus supposing these Articles to be necessary to Salvation as Protestants hold and not clearly contain'd in Scripture it follows that the undoubted Certainty of them must be found in the Determinations of the Church and then that Church which professes Infallibility is the only Refuge and I believe as the Church believes supplies all other Articles No Certainty any where else but Certainty must be had in these Points Here the making of those Articles Fundamental which cannot be clearly prov'd from Scripture subverts the Sufficiency and Clearness of Scripture and sends poor Protestants to Rome for the Certainty and Infallibility of the Christian Faith They did so glory in the strength of this Argument that the Jesuit-Preacher in Limestreet read their Paper and made the same Challenge in his Pulpit where he had a great number of Protestants that went out of Curiosity to hear him Having thus as I presume vindicated our Author and shewn the Mischiefs of Mr. Edw's Fundamentals I may now take my leave of my Reader Only I am first willing to let Mr. Edw. know that I have not undertaken this Defence out of any ambitious Humour of contending with so Learned a Man as he is nor would I have made opposition to him in any other Point of Learning or Divinity but Fundamentals every Man is concern'd in and ought to know and to be assured that he holds them all Eternal Salvation is a greater thing by far than any Empire and will therefore justify and exact our utmost Care and Endeavour for the obtaining it So that in these Considerations of Mr. Edw's Exceptions I have done my Duty to my self and that I have publish'd them I am perswaded I have therein done a great Charity to my Neighbours the Poor and Bulk of Mankind for whose Salvation I hope I should not think it too much to lay down my Life however Mr. Edw. speaks so scoffingly of them even where their eternal Happiness or Misery is deeply concern'd THE END ERRATA Pag. 9. Col. 2 l. 0. for a read or P. 11. col 2. l. 14. r. perfect Man P. 14. col 2. l. 8. f. mine r. nine l. 14. r. palliate the.
its difficulty and variety of Senses may not be disbeliev'd in Mr. Edwards's Sense then I will be bold to say There 's no such Text in the whole Bible To it I say 1. He dares not trust his Reader with the clear Text but thrusts in his own Sense In the beginning was the Word Jesus Christ and then 2. Makes his Fundamental Article not from the Text but from what he has inserted into the Text thus Christ the Word is God But will Mr. Edw. stick to that Is he of Socinus's Mind that by the Word is meant the Man Jesus Christ born of the Blessed Virgin and anointed with the Holy Ghost I think he is not Or does he mean that Christ was the First-born of every Creature as he is called Col. 1. 14. The beginning of the Creation of God Rev. 3. 14. By whom God made the Worlds and is therefore a God I think Mr. Edw. might be call'd an Arian if that were his Sense What then does he mean He does not mean that either the Body or Soul or both united to constitute a Man or the Anointing of the Holy Ghost added to that Man was the Word though by reason of those he had the Name of Jesus and by reason of this he had the Name of Christ He means by the Word a second Person or Mode of God Now how fairly he calls this second Person a Mode of God Jesus Christ when it was neither Jesus nor Christ nor any part of him let his Reader judg In the beginning was the Word that is according to him before the Beginning and therefore from Eternity God in a second Mode or Person did exist and the Word was with God i. e. God in the second Mode was present with God even himself in the first Mode or Person and the Word was God i. e. God in his second Mode was himself or otherwise was the Father himself and the Holy Ghost for he tells us before that the three Persons or Modes are really the one God but if the Word is really the one God as Mr. Edw. understands the Term God in this Text then the Word is the three Persons or else he is not really the one God which the three Persons only are Now if this be a clear Text to build an Article necessary to Salvation and the Worship of another Almighty and only wise Person upon besides the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ let all that have any reverence for God or his Gospel judg Besides can he alledg one Text out of all the Old Testament or out of the three former Gospels where ever by the WORD or Logos as they love to speak is meant any such preexistent eternal Person If there be none such it seems to be no little Defect in the Holy Scriptures that the World should be 4000 Years old before any part of it heard any thing of a second personal God equal to the First and who had therefore as much Right to be known and worshipped as the First Nay and that that Person the Word should have no mention made of him in the Gospels or Sermons of Christ or the Apostles till above threescore Years after the Ascension for it for it was so long as Ecclesiastical Historians tell us before the Gospel of the Apostle John was written all the Churches and Believers we read of in Scripture having been gather'd and converted before Next Mr. Edw. tells us p. 107. there is added in verse 14. another indispensable point of Faith viz. That the Word was made Flesh i. e. That God was incarnate the same with 1 Tim. 3. 16. God manifest in the Flesh One would have expected that Mr. Edw. undertaking in short to confute a Proposition that the Author had spent three quarters of his Book which consists of 300 Pages in proving and for which he had alledg'd perhaps an hundred clear Texts of Holy Scripture should have produc'd some clear Texts against him and not such as need Explanations and when he has explain'd them leaves them far more difficult than before We have spoken already of the Word that was said to be God in the first verse of that Chapter and now in the 14th the Word must signify God but 1. Are not the same Words and Terms taken in different senses in the same Context and that too when they come nearer together than at thirteen verses distance Thus the word Light in ver 5. signifies an impersonal Thing but in the 7 8 and 9th verses it denotes a Person which John was not but Jesus was to wit the Revealer of the Word or Gospel 2. The Father was God too and if God was Incarnate how will it be avoided that the Father was Incarnate And if it cannot then Mr. Edw. will be a Patripassian Heretick 3. It must be acknowledged that Mr. Edw. has given a wonderful learned Explanation of the Phrase was made Flesh far more Learned than that of the old Justice Invasion is Invasion The Vulgar and Unlearned may understand something when it is said that one Thing is made another Thing as when Water was made Wine but I doubt they will stare and know nothing when one tells 'em that a Person was Incarnate much more when they read Mr. Edw. saying That God was Incarnate will they not gladly return from the Explanation to the Text and then it will run thus God was made Flesh But was God indeed turn'd into Flesh and ceased to be God as the Water turn'd into Wine ceased to be Water I 'm sure Mr. Edw. never intends to make that an indispensable Point of Faith as he calls this That God was Incarnate But this is a very hard case that the generality of the World which God so loved that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting Life their Salvation or Damnation should still depend on the belief of not only obscure Texts but of much more obscure Interpretations of those Texts Whether shall we go for the Sense of God was Incarnate He sends us to 1 Tim. 3. 16. God manifest in the Flesh But he might know that that reading of the Word GOD in that Text is a Corruption and that instead of God was read which in the Council of Nice as the accurate Examination against Mr. Milbourn has fully prov'd however allowing that reading has given a rational Sense of it Thus we are sent for the Sense of an obscurer Interpretation of an obscure Text to a corrupt One Whither shall we go next It 's very like that Mr. Edw. may next time send us to the Athanasian Creed when the Scriptures fail him That Creed saith It is necessary to everlasting Salvation that one believe rightly the INCARNATION of our Lord Jesus Christ That he is God and Man perfect God and perfect Man One Christ not by Conversion of the Godhead into Flesh but by taking of the Manhood into God So then the
3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ 1 Tim. 1. 2. Grace Mercy and Peace from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord. Eph. 1. 17. That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ the Father of Glory may give unto you the Spirit c. Col. 1. 2. Grace be unto you and Peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ 1 Pet. 1. 3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ 2 Thess 2. 16. Now the Lord Jesus himself and God even our Father c. John 20. 17. Jesus saith to Mary I ascend to my Father and your Father and to my God and to your God Gal. 1. 4. Who gave himself for our Sins according to the will of God and our Father Mat. 27. 46. Jesus cried saying My God my God why hast thou forsaken me Philem. 3. Grace be to you and Peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ Rev. 3. 12. Him that overcometh will I make a Pillar in the Temple of my God and write upon him the Name of my God c. 2 Thess 1. 1. Unto the Church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ John 17. 1. Jesus lift up his Eyes to Heaven and said Father Glorify thy Son Mat. 23. 9. One is your Father which is in Heaven Psal 115. 3. Our God is in the Heavens Thus we see there is one God and Father of all Ephes 4. 6. both of Christ and Believers the Children of God the same Person is the God and Father of both It 's absurd to say that Christ the Son is his own Father or his own God so it 's plainly contrary to Scripture to say that any other Person is our God or our Father in the highest Sense but the same who is Christ's God and Father That it is so I appeal to the serious Thoughts of every Man and Woman that reads the Scriptures attentively without the prejudice of Scholastick and confus'd Distinctions Now I shall further produce you many couples of Scriptures which prove expresly that the Name of GOD when taken by way of Excellency and the Name of FATHER in Christ's Gospel do signify the same singular Person So that no one is or can be God who is not also the Father which Term is acknowledged to signify but one Person This appears from the Scripture attributing the sending of Christ or the Son sometimes to God sometimes to the Father and both frequently John 3. 34. He whom God hath sent speaketh the Words of God for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him Chap. 14. 24. The Word which ye hear is not mine but the Father's who sent me Acts 10. 36. The Word which God sent to the Children of Israel preaching Peace by Jesus Christ John 5. 30. I seek not mine own Will but the Will of the Father which hath sent me Acts 3. 26. God having raised up his Son Jesus sent him to bless you John 12. 49. The Father which sent me he gave me a Commandment what I should say and what I should speak 1 John 4. 10. Not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the Propitiation for our Sins Chap. 4. 14. And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the World Gal. 4. 4. God sent forth his Son made of a Woman John 6. 39. And this is the Father's Will that hath sent me See ver 44. 1 John 4. 9. In this was manifested the Love of God toward us because God sent his only begotten Son into the World c. John 5. 24. He that heareth my Word and believeth on the Father that hath sent me Rom. 8. 3. God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful Flesh John 20. 21. Then said Jesus As my Father sent me even so send I you Joh. 3. 17. God sent not his Son to condemn the World Chap. 5. 23. He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father which sent him Joh. 6. 29. Jesus answered This is the Work of God that ye believe on him whom he hath sent Chap. 17. 25. O Father these have known that thou hast sent me John 17. 3. This is Life Eternal that they might know thee Father the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent Chap. 10. 36. Say ye of him whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the World Thou blasphemest because I said I am the Son of God John 16. 27. The Father himself loveth you because ye have believed that I came out from God Ver. 28. I came forth from the Father and am come into the World again I leave the World and go to the Father Ver. 30. By this we believe that thou camest forth from God John 3. 16. God so loved the World that he gave his only begotten Son Chap. 8. 18. I am one that bear witness of my self and the Father that sent me beareth witness of me John 8. 42. For I proceeded forth and came from God neither came I of my self but he sent me Chap. 5. 36. The Works that I do bear witness that the Father hath sent me Hence it appears most evidently not only that God and the Father are the same Person and that the same is as plainly distinguisht from our Lord Christ as the Sender is distinct from him that is sent but that the Son is no more the same God that sent him than he is the same Father that sent him If Christians will still suffer themselves to be impos'd upon under the Notion of MYSTERY to believe that the Son of God is the same numerical God as his Father who sent him to do his Will not his own and to be the Propitiation or Mercy-seat Heb. 9. 5. for our Sins that the only begotten or well-beloved Son whom the Father first sanctified and then sent into the World is the same God who sanctified and sent him that the miraculous Works which the Son did did bear witness not that the Father even God had sent him but that the Son was that God c. they should no longer pretend that their Faith concerning God and his Son Christ Jesus in what is necessary to eternal Life is clearly and plainly reveal'd in Holy Scripture but that they have learnt it by Tradition from their Teachers which yet they can no more conceive the meaning of without contradiction to Scripture and Reason than the Papists can their Transubstantiation which they also believe under the Notion of Mystery Let none say there is a wide Difference between the Faith of Protestants and Papists in these Cases because Transubstantiation is contradicted by Sense the Trinity only by Reason for I appeal to any Man of Sense whether we may not be as certain that one Person is not three Persons nor three Persons one Person as that Bread is not Flesh If Protestants think themselves excusable in that let
or in Divine Revelation and for those Reasons cannot be made evident to the despised common People which the Lord Jesus came to save as well as the Learned He might also have charg'd the sixth Article of the Church of England with this Plausible Coneeit which has so much Evil and Mischief in it tending to reduce the Catholick Faith to nothing pag. 122. For that Article saith thus Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to Salvation so that whatsoever is not read therein nor may be proved thereby is not to be required of any Man that it should be believed as an Article of Faith Observe here that every necessary Article must be read expresly or at least proved thereby and to whom is this Proof to be made even to the WEAKEST NODDLES of those that are requir'd to believe it Absolutely there is not one Man or Woman of the venerable Mob that according to Mr. Edw. can be saved because they cannot possibly have the Article of the three Persons that are one prov'd to them from Scripture for it 's evident the Learned even of the Clergy cannot prove it to one another much less to vulgar Understandings And Mr. Chillingworth the ablest Defender of the Religion of Protestants that the Church ever had says and ingeminates it The BIBLE the BIBLE I say the BIBLE only is the Religion of Protestants whatsoever else they believe besides it and the plain IRREFRAGABLE and INDVBITABLE Consequences of it well may they hold it as a Matter of Opinion but not as a Matter of Faith or Religion neither can they with consistence to their own Grounds believe it themselves nor require the Belief of it from others without most High and most Schismatical Presumption Ch. 6. N. 56. Will Mr. Edwards say His Fundamentals are such irrefragable and indubitable Truths about which there are among Protestants such hot and irreconcileable Contentions Again that most judicious Author lays this as the unmoveable Foundation of his whole Discourse against the Papists viz. That all things necessary to Salvation are evidently contain'd in Scripture as the Church of England does see Pref. N. 30. And he shows in the following Paragraphs to N. 38. That all the Jesuits Arguments against Protestants are confuted by it But that 's not all the same Author after Dr. Potter affirms That the Apostles Creed contains all those points of Belief which were by God's Command of Necessity to be preached to all and believed by all And yet he says in the same Paragraph That all Points in the Creed are not thus necessary See Chap. 4. N. 23. Now what more or less hath our Author asserted in his whole Book For I have shewed out of him and it 's evident to the Impartial that his Proposition that Jesus is the Messiah or Christ does comprehend or clearly imply all the Articles of necessary Christian Faith in the Creed For though it was sufficient to constitute a Believer during the Life of Christ to believe him to be the Christ although they had no explicite Belief of his Death and Resurrection to come yet afterwards those Articles were necessary being undoubted Evidences of his being the Messiah as our Author pag. 31. And therefore Mr. Edw. is very injurious to him in representing his Proposition as if it were only the believing the Man called Jesus to be the Messiah an Hebrew word that signifies in English Anointed without understanding what is meant by that Term see pag. 121. But why should I expect that Mr. Edw. should have any regard to Mr. Chillingworth's Judgment and all those the Vice Chancellour the Divinity-professors and others that licensed and approved his Book when he has none for the Pious and Learned Bishop Jer. Taylor and those others Nay when those numerous plain Testimonies which our Author has quoted out of the Holy Scriptures themselves do but provoke his Opposition and Contempt though the Divine Writers add these Sanctions to the Belief of our Author's Proposition or of those Words and Sentences that are of the same Import and comprehended in it viz. He that believeth shall be saved or shall never thirst or shall have eternal Life and the like On the contrary He that believeth not shall be condemned or shall die in his Sin or perish and the like However I doubt not but my impartial Reader will consider both what my Author and what my self have said in this Point Having thus made it appear that the reducing of the Fundamentals of Christian Faith to a few or even to one plain Article deliver'd in Scripture expresly and often repeated there and in divers equipollent Phrases easy to be understood by the POOR and strongly enforcing the Obedience of the Messiah as is our Author's Proposition is far from having any tendency to Atheism or Deism I shall now retort this charge upon Mr. Edw. and show that on the contrary the multiplying of speculative and mysterious Articles as necessary which are neither contain'd in Scripture expresly nor drawn thence by any clear and evident Consequence but are hard to be understood especially by the common People having no rational Tendency to promote a good Life but directly to the high Dishonour of the one God the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and the subversion of the Hope and Peace of Christians as I have manifested in one and the chief of Mr. Edw's Fundamentals and of other Systemers This I say has been and is one great Cause or chief occasion of that Atheism and Deism that is in the World 1. Mr. Edw. himself tells us That Undue Apprehensions of a Deity join'd with superstition are the high road to Atheism pag. 34. Therefore imposing of false Doctrines concerning the Attributes of God is very pernicious for they are destructive of his very Being and Nature But I have shew'd that the imposing of the Doctrine of three Almighty Persons or personal Gods is a false Doctrine and destroys one of the chief Attributes of God therefore is according to Mr. Edw. destructive of his very Being and Nature pag. 35. Again another of Mr. Edw's Fundamentals is That full Satisfaction is made by the Death of Christ to the Divine Justice which Doctrine does clearly destroy the Attribute of the Divine Mercy for every one may readily perceive that full satisfaction to Justice by Punishment cannot consist with Pardoning Mercy when a Judg punishes according to full Justice he does not at all forgive or shew Mercy But that they may not be seen to destroy altogether the Mercy of God they make him to inflict that Punishment upon himself in a Human Body and Soul Will not these false conceptions of the Deity expunge at last the Belief of the true one Mr. Edw. says false ones will 2ly Another occasion Mr. Edw. says Atheists take from our Divisions Broils and Animosities from the many Parties and Squadrons of Sects that are in the World to bid defiance to all Religion And is it not manifest