Selected quad for the lemma: scripture_n

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scripture_n	church_n	faith_n	interpret_v	3,030	5	9.9078	5	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A82555	The Quakers confuted, being an answer unto nineteen queries; propounded by them, and sent to the elders of the church of Duckenfield in Cheshire; wherein is held forth much of the doctrine and practise concerning revelations, and immediate voices, and against the holy Scriptures, Christs ministry, churches and ordinances &c. Together with an answer to a letter which was written and sent by one of them to a family of note and quality in the said county, which pleaded for perfection in this life, and for quaking. By Samuel Eaton, teacher of the Church of Christ heretofore meeting at Duckenfield, now in Stockport in Cheshire.	Eaton, Samuel, 1596?-1665.; Waller, Richard, d. 1657.	1654 (1654)	Wing E125; Thomason E719_8; ESTC R9865	69,620	98

Dear friend Christian I have sent you a little book read it without partiality and you may see deceit discovered My wife desires you to present her service to her Master and Mistress and all the children and her love unto you and all the servants We are both well and our child grows fast As for me as I begun with my dear love unto you all so I end For I dare not complement because it is a Custom of the World Farewell A Copy of an answer to the forementioned Letter written in the name of the Church of Duckenfield now meeting in Stopport and sent unto the wife of Richard Waller for the setling and establishing of her in the faith of Christ being a member of the forementioned Church wherein all such Scriptures which were brought to prove an absolute Perfection and Quaking are Interpreted and the true sense given to them and freed from such corrupt fense for which they are alledged Sister Waller YOu are very precious to us though your miscarriage against God and us hath been very great We are apt to hope that the Lord either hath or will convince you of the sin you committed in your unadvised Marriage Which you so selfwilledly carried on against us And when your heart is kindly humbled we know you will give praise to God and justifie us And then we shall conceive as much can see of joy from your repentance as we have done grief from your sin We cannot yet think otherwise but that you do belong to the Lord And if so he will not suffer you to have rest in any evil way you have gone in till he have made you truly sensible and sorrowfull after a Godly manner which if ever you once manifest to us we shall with as much tenderness own you as in any time heretofore For you are very dear to us and our bowels do very much yearn after you Especially since we heard of a Letter which your husband wrote to Duckenfield which some of us have seen by which we discern what deadly poyson he hath sucked in to the undoing of his poor Soul if God be not very mercifull to him and bring him to Repentance And you also through your nearness of Relation to him are exposed to multiplicity of Temptations to forsake the faith of our Lord Jesus and to turn aside to such Satanical delusions which he is carried away with We do conceive hope that as yet the Lord hath kept you by observing one passage of his Letter which holds out your desire that your service may be presented to your Master and Mistress therein owning the relation they stood in to you and you to them which he declares against making it the worlds way and not Gods Our desire and prayer to God for you shall be that he will yet keep you even to the end And who can tell but that the Lord may bring out a great deal of good to your soul by this evil of your Husbands fearfull apostacy which his Letter holds out God may open your eyes thereby to see your sinfull haste which you made in that Marriage He may humble you for rushing upon it against Counsel he may make you to know that he was angry against you by leaving him to such fearful error of way He hath laid a sore affliction upon you by giving up one so near and dear to you to such fearfull Temptations You have offended God through him and now you must be chastned in him Be awakned be awakned and consider the Lords righteous hand in this matter The person whom you have chosen God seems to have forsaken at least for a time he is become the Devils Captive O fear you and repent you least he also forsake you But we hope better of you and our prayer is that you may be setled and established in the truth We foresee that you will be strongly sollicited He that thought himself bound to tempt persons by his Letters at so great a distance what alluring ways will not he take to cause you to forsake your integrity and to turn aside to such fleshly deceits of Satan take heed you be not bewitched with pretences and quotations of Scripture presented in the Letter there lyes the greatest danger The Devil tempted Christ by telling him that it was written and his Instruments will use the same fleights They will put false Glosses upon Scripture while they deny all senses to be put upon Scripture to deceive themselves and others thereby The Apostle Peter saith 2 Pet. 3. 16. that some that are unlearned and unstable do wrest Scripture to their own destruction and he doth warn them lest they being led away by the error of the wicked do fall from their own stedfastness by such means And we also do beseech you to beware of this Snare viz of Scripture abused by misconstructions It is a misconstruction when the construction is made to follow the sound of the words though it be never so much repugnant to other Scripture You know that all Scripture is given by Inspiration of God 2 Tim 3 16. And that holy men spake as they were Inspired by the Holy Ghost 2 Pet. 1. 21. Now God is a God of Truth and the Spirit is a Spirit of Truth and cannot speak contrary things nor contradict himself therefore if there be any seeming contradiction in Scripture taken in the Letter of it we must seek after a right sense by which the seeming contradiction may be removed Your husband produceth many Scriptures to prove an absolute perfection without sin And the first Scripture he mentions is Phil. 3. 15. Let us saith Paul speaking of himself and the Philippians as many as be perfect be thus minded He Collects from hence that the Saints here have such a perfection that excludes all sin Alas poor Creature We thought he had been better acquainted with his own heart But he might have looked a little higher in the Chapter upon ver 12. and have discerned that Paul expresly denies Perfection in reference to himself Not as though I were already perfect saith he Was Paul perfect and yet was he not perfect In the Letter there is a contradiction But Paul speaking by the Spirit of God cannot contradict himself therefore we must look after the sense of the word Perfect It is many time taken for sincere 2 Kings 15. 14. Asa took not away the high places that was his failing Yet his heart was perfect In what sense perfect Was it perfect without sin Not so For it was his sin that the high places were not taken away But perfect that is Upright He did not serve God in pretence but in truth They say we must not give the sense of Scripture but must take it in the Letter but that is contrary to the examples of Scripture Those in Nehemiah 8. 8. read in the Book of the Law and gave the sense and it is necessary sometimes to avoid contradiction which is in the Letter to

THE Quakers Confuted BEING AN ANSWER Vnto Nineteen QUERIES Propounded by them and sent to the Elders of the Church of Duckenfield in Cheshire WHEREIN Is held forth much of the Doctrine and practise Concerning Revelations and immediate Voices and against the holy Scriptures Christs Ministry Churches and Ordinances c. TOGETHER With an Answer to a Letter which was Written and sent by one of them to a Family of Note and Quality in the said County which pleaded for perfection in this life and for Quaking By Samuel Eaton Teacher of the Church of Christ heretofore meeting at Duckenfield now in Stockport in Cheshire LONDON Printed by R. White for Thomas Brewster and are to be sold at the sign of the three Bibles at the West-end of Pauls 165● To the Supream Authority of the Nation the Parliament now sitting in Westminster Right Honourable IT is the Duty of all that Love the Lord Jesus Christ in Sincerity to contend for the Faith that was once given to the Saints every man in his place according to the Calling Office Power Interest Gift Ability that he hath received from God And I in my place though the weakest of many being yet led forth thereto by special inviting Providences have done it both formerly and at present And I Assume the boldness to present my poor plain weak and slender labours to your Honors view and most humbly beg your favorable construction of my design and scope in them It is not to asperse any who are innocent it is not to bring Saints who are weak and frail under contumelie Neither is it to exasperate the Supream Magistrate against any Persons in whom the visibility of Saintship shall be found Nor is it to conivnce these Persons betwixt whom and my self the contest lies of their Errour for had there been any hope of that I should have found out another way but it is to preserve those who are yet sound in the Faith from infection and it is to awaken others who are far more able in the Scriptures then my self to appear for God for Christ and for the Truth in such times of the great Apostasie of so very many from the Faith And it is to provoke your Honors to a self-reflection if thereby you may discern what your own Duty may be and whether there be not somewhat which the Supream Magistrate according to his Power Place and Interest is called to do in obedience to that command I know you will manifest very much tenderness to all Saints though in different forms and of different judgements in circumstantial Truths and no question Christ will take it kindly from your hands but there is a company of Apostate Christians who are dispersed all over the Land and who do sow much corrupt seed which comes up with great increase in many places who yet do pass with some for precious Saints But my hope is and my Prayer shall be that the Lord will make you wise to judg ef Saintship according to Scriptural Rules and not according to the large Charity of some who are truly good though too much friends to them You are not ignorant what a Character Christ himself gives of false Teachers though appearing a Righteous Innocent and Harmless People as these Quakers stile themselves he calls them Wolves in Sheeps clothing And Paul speaking of such compares them to Satan in this That they will transform themselves as he doth himself into an Angel of Light so they into Ministers of Righteousness And John in his Epistles makes them all Antichrists And the Scope Drift of all the Apostles in all their Epistles almost is to confirm the Faith which the Saints had received and to preserve from recover them out of Errour and it is to impugn such Doctrine as Seducers brought in among them the Zeal that they shewed is worthy of observation You know also that as God is a righteous God loves Righteousness and therefore if you advance Righteousness as my hope in God is that you wil you shall not lose your reward For he is also a jealous God in the things wherein his Glory is more immediately concerned And his Honor is not more concerned in any thing then it is in the Doctrines which men hold and teach and in the Worships which men give to him therefore if you also shew your selves jealous of his Glory in these things it will be assuredly written down in Gods Book of Remembrance what Zeal you had for your God and the Lord will bless you thence forward Are Magistrates for a Praise to good works and for a terrour to evil works while only they are good and evil but when they come to be best or worst as they alwayes be when Religion is in them is it so that they then have nothing to do neither are they to meddle with them If this be the sense of the Apostles words as all Persons which do exclude the Magistrate from having any thing to do with the matters of God will have it to be it is a strange one and hath nothing to bear it up either from that Text or any that I know of But you are sufficiently instructed I doubt not concerning your own power and your Zeal shewed where the honour of God is engaged will provoke many whereto they will the rather be carried considering that no sins do bring more greater plagues upon a Nat on that professeth Righteousness then sins against the first Table do Now Magistrates are the Fathers of the Commonwealth and therefore should study to preserve it from those judgments that would destroy it Or else why are Laws made against Oaths and such kind of Blasphemies if they be not to intermedle with matters of the first Table and are there no sins against the first Table that God hates so much as he hates Oaths yea there are Blasphemies of opinion that are of a more hateful and harrid nature But what ought to be done in this case I leave that to your Honors wisdom to find out by searching of the Scriptures knowing that the Lord hath made many of you very dextrous and skilful in the understanding of the Scripture When you meet with Crimes of a Civil Nature mentioned in the New Testament as Murther Adultery Theft c. You cannot Read their Penalties there which ought to be inflicted you find the sins but not the Punishments against such Offenders What course do you take you are forced to fly to the Old Testament and to fetch your Light thence There are Apostates from the true God from the true Christ from the true Faith in the great Fundamental of it and from the true Worship in the very Substantials of it and who also are Teachers of Apostasie who yet were once enlightned and knew the Truth What ought to be done to such or what course ought to be taken that Dishonour to God may not be increased nor the Land troubled by Gods Controversie against it I leave

Letter that was given me and the Answer which I sent unto it which was directed to his wife together with the Reply that the Quakers made unto it which indeed is too tedious to be read of any who have most time it is such a sottish and senseless piece of stuff and hath so much scurrilous language in it But by it and by the Queries the Saints and World may know what a people these are what little hope there is of any good to be wrought upon them if they would admit of any rational discourse from Scripture some encouragement would be given to spend time that way with them but they can easily evade all with such Answer as this Busie minds give senses to Scripture and are Persons that have nothing to do with Scripture can witness nothing of that they speak of They pretend to speak and act all by the Spirit and if any one will try the Spirit that they speak by their Reply is that such an one can neither witness Scripture nor Spirit and therefore hath nothing to do with such things Yet they deceive many and they increase in number continually but the time will come that they shall proceed no further In the mean time it ought to be sad to every godly spirit that Satan should have such power to work so effectually in and upon many who have been reputed Saints who are drawn into them but God will issue all to his Glory at the last and in this I rest and remain Thine in the Lord Jesus Samuel Eaton THE Quakers QUERIES For some Friends who call themselves Elders of the Church of Christ meeting at Stopport these c. A few Queries to you who profess your selves to be Teachers Pastors and Elders Querie 1. WHether you have the same eternal Spirit which gave forth the Scriptures yea or no Querie 2. Whether the Apostles did give a right meaking to the Scriptures when they gave them forth or left them to you to give a meaning to them yea or no Querie 3. Whether the Plagues be not added to them who add to the Prophesies written in the Book and whether his Name be not diminished out of the Book of Life that diminishes and whether you can witness this Name yea or no Querie 4. Whether you have an infallible Judgement to judge of things eternal yea or no Querie 5. Whether you be above the Apostle and are able to judge his Condition because you say he was not perfect who said he spoke wisdom among them that were perfect Querie 6. Whether you have the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the World was which the Apostle speaks of yea or no Querie 7. Whether you have heard the voice of the liveing God of Heaven and Earth or whether do you not take the Prophets words Christs words and the Apostles words and say he saith it when saith the Lord I never spoke to you Querie 8. Whether a man shall overcome the body of sin while he is upon the Earth yea or no Querie 9. Whether you preach no other Doctrine then that which the Apostles did that which was from the beginning which we have heard which we have seen with our eyes which we have looked upon and with our hands have handled of the word of life For this life is made manifest and we have seen it and bear witness and shew it unto you Querie 10. Whether you have this word which was from the beginning and this life manifested to you which was to the Apostles And if it be why do you take a Text from the Letter and Preach from it and shew the People the Letter Querie 11. And shew me where the Prophets did take a Text and preach from it but only Christ read a place and said it was fulfilled who said he was anointed to preach and which of you can witness you are anointed to preach by the living God yea or no Querie 12. Tell me why you sing Davids Conditions and Experiences in Meeter and when you read them hats you keep on and when you sing them hats you put off Querie 13. Whether you have the voice and whether you do know the voice of Christ from the voice of a Stranger My Sheep know my voice saith Christ seing that you are so forward to judge and sit as Judges of the Saints Conditions Querie 14. Whether that which is in you which Judgeth be eternal and infallible yea or no Querie 15. What is the Ordinance which is ordained of God that those which you call Quakers deny and where or when did God command you to observe them As to sprinkle Infants to pray before and after your Sermons as you call them or to set times dayes and hours which was in the Generation which were enemies to Christ who observed such things Querie 16. What these Ordinances of God be which you speak of And where God commanded them and to whom which you say those that you call Quakers do deny mention them in particular and declare them openly in Writing and give over accusing Querie 17. Whether you do not seduce the People to draw them from the anointing within them when as John saith they need no man teach them but as the anointing and the Promise was Eternal Life to him that did abide in the anointing Querie 18. Whether you do not bewitch the people to draw them from the Spirit of God within them to observe these things which God never commanded to tell people of a Sacrament and following your outward Teaching who stand praying in the Synagogues and are called of men-Masters which Christ did forbid Mat. 23. And have the chiefest places in the Assemblies Whether these be not Antichrists which act contrary to the Commands of Christ this yea or no Querie 19. Whether a man shall ever grow up that he need no man teach him under your Ministry yea or no seeing the Apostle saith you need no man teach you and you which have been long Teachers how many have you brought up into this Condition The Church of Christ is the Pillar and Ground of Truth which doth witness the eternal Spirit and if you be the same Church and have the same Spirit Answer me these Queries without any consequences or senses otherwise deny your Eldership and Pastorship and to be no Church of Christ From some Friends in the Truth in Lancashire whom the World calls Quakers An ANSWER to the forementioned Queries brought by one Richard Waller a Messenger of the Quakers and presented by him in the name of them unto the Elders of the Church common-called the Church of Duckenfield now meeting at Stockport in the face and presence of the whole Congregation and an Answer required fromthe above said Elders upon the 5th of Iune 1653. Querie 1. WHether you have the Eternal Spirit which gave forth the Scriptures yea or no Answ We do believe and assert that all Concering the indwelling of the Spirit in the Saints that do

our own upon such Scriptures which they have given out which is not their sense but that which is Jeft to us is to find out the sense and meaneing which they have put as in Re2 13. 18. after some mystical things had been held out in which there was a meaning but hard to be understood it is is said Here is Wisdom let him that understandeth count the Number of the Beast that is let him set all his Wisdom and understanding that he hath on work to search it out Nevertheless it is not to be understood that the meaning which the Apostles intended in the Scripture which they gave out doth perpetually follow the sound of the Letter for the Letter contains contradiction many times in it but the Apostles meaning as he interprets himself hath sweet congruity in it without contradiction Querie 3. Whether Plagues be not added to them who add Concerning adding to and diminishing from the Scripture In what sense it is to be understood to the Prophecies Written in the Book And whether his name be not diminished out of the Book of Life who diminisheth And whether you can witness this name yea or no Answ It is plain and clear from Rev. 22. 18. that the Evils are great and terrible that are threatned against adding and diminishing But what this adding and diminishing is that hath such woes belonging to it is the question If expounding the Scripture and interpreting it and shewing the sense and meaning thereof be the adding or diminishing that the question intends against which such a fearful Sentence is pronounced then it would reach Ezra and those others with him mentioned Nehem. 8. 7 8. For they read and they gave the sense and caused the people to understand the reading And Christ also gave the sense of those words in Isai 61. 1 2 3. and declared how they were fulfilled in himself and he expounded Moses and the Prophets their Writings to those two Disciples who were travelling towards Emmaus And Philip guided the Eunuch in his reading unto the right sense of the Prophet Isar in Chap. 53. 7 8 9. He shewed the Prophet spake not of himself but of another via Christ Acts 8. 31. 34 And what was preaching the Gospal ordained of God for And why were Gifts given unto men but that the People might be brought to Knowledge and might come to understand the Scriptures Therefore the Apostles were much exercised in opening those sealed Prophesies which were often read and never understood which respected Christ and in proving out of them that Jesus was the Christ Therefore the interpreting of Scripture is not adding to it so long as it is not any private interpretation that is given which a mans heart hath found out and his fancy hath imagined but such an interpretation as agreeth to the Spirit of the Scripture in other places 2 Pet. 1. 20 21. and such as accords with the Analogy of Faith Rom. 12. 6. that is holds Proportion with the Doctrine of Faith as it is laid down in other Scriptures This is not adding but adding is when the sufficiency of the Scriptures to build men up to salvation and to make them perfect throughly furnished unto every good work is not acknowledged and thereupon Traditions Canons and Doctrines and Commandments of men are brought in and annexed and imposed upon the people As of old by the Scribes and Pharisees which Christ so often conflicted with and by the Roman Synagogue and by some of that stamp amongst our selves And when Persons assume an Authority and Power to themselves to be the Judges of the Scripture and expunge what they please out of it and introduce into it what liketh them and what sense they give unto it whether it agrees or not agres with other Scriptures yet that must be the sense of of it and none must question it Whereas Scripture it self ought to be its own interpreter else there would be no plain standing rule to try truth by but the Truth of God must be subjected to the various and opposite fancies of men And when Persons pretend the Spirit and say they have dreamed and come with their apprehensions and say it is made out so to them or it is so given in to them and though there be never so much repugnancy in it to other Scriptures yet that must be the sense by which means the Spirit of Truth comes to suffer many affronts in this Age This is adding And indeed the rigid adhering to the letter of Scriptures and to the sound of words therein without admitting a wholesom sense such as accords with other Scriptures is adding which is the way of all Seducers and Deceivers to make their blasphemous doctrine the more vendible For the letter of Scripture in some places without searching out a sound sense will countenance Papists Arrians Ranters and whom not in their Tenents This is the introducing of another Scripture then that which is Scripture indeed and it is properly such adding to the Scripture against which such plagues are denounced Let these Persons who are called Quakers look to this for it is their grand imposture wherewith they beguilc the people they bring the Letter where it serves for their purpose as the Papists were wont to bring their hoc est corpus meum This is my Body to prove the bodily presence of Christ in the Sacrament And these press upon the people the Letter and cry out upon the Ministers of Christ and say they are lying Priests and they lead the people in darkness and so by the Letter destroy the sense of Scripture and bring in another sense which is not Scripture-sense and so themselves are found both adders to and diminishers from the Scripture Querie 4. Whether you have an infallible Judgement to judge of things eternal yea or no Concering Infalibility in judging how fat men may have it and how far not Answ The first state of every man is darkness the natural man understands not the things that are of God they are foolishness unto him neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned 1 Cor. 2. 14. When any man is brought from darkness to light even then he knoweth but in part Paul himself was in some darkness now we see through a glass darkly said he of himself and others 1 Cor. 13. 12. Those to whom John wrote who had the annointment to teach them all things and of whom John said that they knew all things which was but an hyperbolical expression and did import only much knowledge to be in them 1 Ioh. 2. 20 21 27. yet those were not all light without any darkness but they were such who might be deceived and were subject to errour therefore the Apostle warns them of Seducers not withstanding the unction that they have received They had not an infallible judgement but might be mistaken in some of the things of God though they had the Spirit for the Spirit gives himself out

Davids Psalms be sung Many strick at that who will assent unto the singing of other Psalms which are compiled by a special gift Answ There are reasons which are weighty which do carry thereunto 1. Psalms which were immediately inspired by the Spirit of God are most Divine and Heavenly and do contain the most admirable Doctrine 2. The Scripture is given for every use to be read sung pre●ched out of confened of medicated on and to be the matter of our prayers also And those parts of it which we finde to be Psalms we ought to make use of as Psalms and sing them And though we have liberty to sing other spiritual Songs of our own or others making after we have wel digested them as well as to read other godly Books besides the Scriptures yet as our reading of other Books will not excuse our omission of reading the Scripture so our singing of other spiritual Songs will not excuse our omission of singing Scriptures Psalms 3. Davids Psalms were brought into the Church of God in Hezekiahs time and an express command given to the Levites to sing praise to the Lord with the words of David and of Asaph the Seer which is a president and a pattern for Saints to follow 4. There are Commands laid upon the Churches of Christ and upon particular Christians to sing Psalms Hymns and spiritual Songs unto the Lord and nothing suggested unto them concerning the matter of them And doth Christ put a service upon use people and nor afford them any straw or matter to perform the same with There was no need else Christ would not have been wanting There were Psalms Hymns and spiritual Songs complied by David to their hands for such Titles we shall meet with in the Book of the Psalms A Psalm of David familiarly a Song often in Hymn sometimes as in the Title of 145 Psalm 5. The Ex 〈…〉 of the Apostle to the Church at Coloss is to let the word of Christ dwell in them 〈◊〉 in all wisedom teaching and admonishing them selves in psalms c. what is this but a clear suggestion that the word of Christ which is some part of Scripture should be famliar unto them and become the matter of their Psalms for their instruction For is there not first an injunction Let the word of Christ dwell in your And is there not after wards a direction how to perfom it and one way is by teaching and admonishing themselves in Psalms 6. It is less warrantable because there is no president for it and more dangerous because of some evil consequences that may attend it to bring in other Psalms of mens compiling and not Scriptural into the Church of God and to impose them upon the people For the people that must act in singing must first know them to be consonant to the Scripture and must have a right understanding of them that they may sing to their edification and them there must either be a book of such Psalms so brought in and imposed which every Saint must have or else the whole Church must be gathered together every time there is singing to peruse such Psalms which must be allowed to be sung amongst them but Scripture is silent concerning such wayes and seemes to give other direction And though he that had a gift brought his Psalm into the Church 1 Cor. 14. 26. yet for ought appears he sung it alone and then the rest might judge and say Amen or not say Amen as they approved or disapproved of it And it was not imposed upon the Church to be sung But the Apostle Paul layes singing of Pslams Hymns and spiritual songs upon the whole Chruch and there are no orders of Musitians now or office of singing Choriston as in the Old Testment but all the people are the Choristers in the dayes of the New Testament to sing Psalms and Songs c. And the Apostle James layes at injunction upon every particular Saint if he be merry to sing Psalmi Jam. 5. 13. But hath every particular Saint a gift to compile a Psalm If not what must such a Saint do Therefore there must of necessity be use made of Scripture-Psalms And as for singing them in Meeter the Hebrews had their Poetrie according to which they both compiled and sung their Psalms And it is but sutable that every Nation should have the liberty of their own proper and peculiar Poetrie among themselves to praise God by and meeter is that which is congruons to our English Poetry Concerning putting on of Hats in reading Psalms and putting them off in singing them I shall not much contest But this I say that reverence is that which is sutable to all Gods Ordinances and because the putting off the Hat doth shew reverence it would be very comely when Scripture is read but if it be otherwise I judge it not to be want of reverence in such a person because reverence may be shewed and not tied to one posture therefore I leave persons to their liberty Yet there is a difference in Ordinances in some we have an immediate address to God and in such we use more reverence as when we pray or give thanks we do not send one to God with our requests but we go our selves to him immediately but in preaching and reading it is otherwise we have not immediate communion with God but God sends by whom he will send his Message to us and speaketh not immediately but by another and so there is no irreverence though the like degree of reverence be not given And hence it comes that we may use a different posture and gesture though the same words be spoken if they be spoken in an Ordinance of a divers nature As if words of prayer he read as a part of Scripture then they are Gods speaking to us by another but if we our selves make use of such words and put them into our own prayers then they become our speaking to God in our immediate addresses unto him and so the Hat may be put on in the former and yet ought to be put off in the latter the like may be said of singing and reading Davids Psalms They are different Ordinances and may require different postures There is also difference betwixt speaking and hearing he that is the speaker though it be but in a civil Assembly shews more reverence speaking to many then they that hear him do to him and is usually uncovered when they that are spoken to are covered and in Religious Assemblies it is so also he that speaketh though it be in the name of God is uncovered when yet the people that are spoken to are usually covered But in singing of Psalms they are all Speakers and have to do with God shewing their holy joy in him and in his word and therefore are all uncovered But the custome of the Churches of God in these things if there be not palpable superstition in them is much to be respected and not rashly departed from

further attainments we ingenously confess that no man is ever like to grow up so high as to need no teaching nor are we our selves come up to such a perfection and we think our selves to be but Children in knowledge in comparison of that which we hope to attain unto in heaven nor do we think it any dishonour to us to confess so much especially while we medicate upon the Apostles expression 1 Cor. 13. 12. Now we see through a glass darkly speaking of the time of this life but then we shall see face to face speaking of the time after this life Nor do we find that Christ himself or the Apostles ever bred up persons to such a condition as these men speak of to need none to teach them in their sense Paul bred up Timothy and to a great height he bred him under his Ministery whom he cals Son because he had been with him as a Son yet he exhorts him to meditate upon such things and to give himself wholly unto them that his profiting might appear unto all 1 Tim. 4. 15. And Peter exhorcs those that he wrote to of whom he Iaith that he did ouly put them in remembrance of things and that they knew them already and were established in the present truth that they would grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ 2 Pet. 3. 18. The Conclusion that they put to all these Questions is this The Church of Christ say they is a pillan and ground of Truth which doth witness the eternal Spirit and if you be the same Church and have the same Spirit answer me these Queries without any consequencies or senses otherwise diny your Eldership and Pastorship and to be no Church of Christ Answ The Church of Christ is the ground and pillar of Truth and doth witnese the truth of all that is contained in the holy Scriptures and more especially that the mysterie of godliness is gteat viz. That God was manifest in the flesh justified in the Spirit seen of Angels preached unto the Gentiles believed on in the World received up into Glory And this we assert without any Consequencies or senses many of which if not all you that urge us thus most desperately deny As for your questions we have answered them agreeablyto Scripture and have made such inferences and necessary consequences and have put such senses as cannot be contradicted by any knowing Christian nor indeed by any but those whose design is to destroy all Scripture and utterly to subvert the Faith of the Gospel and to lead men captive after their own delusions and instead of denying a Pastorship and Eldership and our selves to be the Church of Christ we shall pray God to open the eyes of so many of these poor creatures who are thus sold over to delusions that so many of them as belong to Gods Election may be recovered out of the snare of the devil who are led captive for the present after his will A Coppy of a Letter which Richard Waller a Quaker sent to a Gentlemans Family near Stockport in Cheshire in which both he and his wife had been formerly servants Wherein he pleads for an absolute perfection and for Quaking Dear Friends MY dear love in the Lord presents it self unto you all in the power of the truth desiring the Lord to establish you all in the truth it self that you may grow and become faithfull unto the Lord to bring forth much fruit that the Lord in all things may be glorified by you Dear friends I did long stand in opposition against a company of people by the World called Quakers So it pleased the Lord in his time to let me see my condition So that I did plainly see that I had got the Saints words to talk of before I came to witness the Saints condition Now the Scripture saith Jesus Christ was made manifest to destroy the works of the Devil Whosoever can witness Christ manifest in him can witness sin destroyed But he that saith Christ is manifest in him and committeth sin is a lyar For whosoever is born of God sinneth not 1 Job 2. 4. For his seed remaineth in him and he cannot sin because he is born of God Now the Priests of the World tell us we cannot be perfect here So they leave a hole for Satan here contrary to Scriptures and when will they have him cast out As for me I deny all the Teachers of the World For I can really witness that I have found my Teacher within me which is a mysterie to all the World Now I and the rest that can witness that Christ is made manifest in us we are hated of the World for we disown the Worlds ways Worlds worships and Worlds Customs and they disown us Now the Scriptures saith He that is a friend to the World is an enemy to God The World calls us witches and mad men they did so by Christ they said he was a Devil and they said Paul was mad and Stephen spoke Blasphemy It is just so now as it was then they Jear and say Never any of the Saints Quaked and Trembled Read these Scriptures at your leasure and you may find them lyars Heb. 12. 25 26. Ezra 9. 3 4. Heb. 12. 21. Moses quaked and trembled David trembled Psal 119. 120. Psal 18. 7. Heb. 3. 16. When I heard my belly trembled my lips quivered Jerem. 23. 9. Isa 66. 2. Ezek. 32. 10. Dan. 10. 7. and 11. Daniel Trembled Acts 9. 6. Joel 2. 10. Job 26. 11. Amos 8. 8. Jer. 30. 6 7. Acts 13. 40. 41. See here is a Cloud of Witnesses against them And whereas they deny that perfection is to be attained here they are found lyars See Phil. 3. 15 Let us as many as are perfect be thus minded Col. 1. 28. Col. 4. 12. 2 Tim. 3. 17. Heb. 6. 1. Heb. 10. 14. He. 12. 23. Heb. 13. 21. Jam. 1. 4. Col. 4. 12. Deut. 18. 13. Joh. 17. 21. I in thee and thou in me that they may be made perfect in one I plainly see the Priests taught deceit and we believed them But the Lord hath discovered their deceit to his and he will teach all his himself Oh therefore wait upon the Lord and cease from man whose breath is in his nostrils and mind the light of God in you which discovers deceit and the peace of God be with you all and keep you all in the sense of him staid in your minds that you may be kept in his feare which keepeth the mind clear and pure and open to receive his teachings and to forsake the evil and choose the good and so bring you into obedience and it will suffer you to joyn with nothing but what is of it own nature pure and clear and it will keep you from the evil of the World The Lord cause you all to grow up as trees of Righteousness and stablish your hearts in the living truth that his name in all thing may be glorified