the Gospel they are but the Letter The Gospel is as much as to say a good message or glad tidings 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Strange that they should not be glad tidings because they are the Letterâ— as if a good message or glad tidings were never written in this world And the Scripture brings no tidings of Christ because they are tidings in the most ample form viz. in writing or printing which will abide much longer than a breath or sound and may be better considered Take another to couple with him as very a Wiseaker as he And the knowledge of the Languages of Hebrew Greek and Latine which they call the Orignal is nothing worth as pertaining to the knowledge of God This Author did certainly lose the light or the light lose him when he wrote this I never heard the Latine called the Original of the Scripture Translations before Sure he believed that the Scriptures peept first out of Rome in that their Original Copy should be in the Roman Language as others of them that the Lords Supper and Baptism were from Rome and the Pope But however we have been hitherto of this mind the Quakers infallible monitor the Light within by which I am perswaded he wrote this will have it otherwise and I dare assure this learned person if he be alive and can but prove the Latine to be the Original the Pope of Rome will willingly give him a Cardinals Hat for his pains But this is not his original errour though an errour concerning the Original He saith the Original is nothing worth pertaining to the knowledge of God â—f so our Translations which we had from thence are less worth than nothing for they must give the upper hand to the Original I have sufficiently proved their denial of the Scriptures being any means by which we may come to the knowledge of God or Christ one Witness of the third viz. of our selves and I shall call in no more of them for the proof of this Charge Christ by his light within shews you in a glass your own faces which the Scriptures cannot do Here I find them in love yea so in love with a little Rhetorick that rather than go on plain ground they will kick their own shins and trip up their own heels Truly friends you have here gone on Glass or Ice which you will You teach or declare in almost all your Writings which concern teachings in a religious sense that you are taught immediately by the light within Was ever any thing in this world shewn in a Glass immediately that Glass may more congruously be called a Mirrour the ancient name of a Looking-Glass than any I ever saw or heard of however let whatever be the Glass or means by which or in which we may see our faces the Scriptures by your leave must not be it But whether you will or no the Scriptures are a Glass or as a Glass wherein if you or I will please to look with an honest mind God will by it in a good measure shew us what we are and they have one property above all the Looking Glasses in the world viz. that we can see your faces in and by them though you should not look into them nor suffer the Book wherein they are contained to be in the same house where you are SECT II. For the help of the unready in the Scriptures I shall quote a few of its testimonies to confute this Doctrine although the consciences of the greater number of themselves if they will but turn over their records placed in their memories will give verdict against them And for all those who have been at the pains to learn what the Scriptures are capable of teaching and have not engaged themselves right or wrong to the service of the light within I doubt not but they will subscribe themselves experimenters of the truth here by you opposed That all the people of the earth might know the hand of the Lord that it is mighty that ye might fear the Lord your God for ever As the heathen Nations so the Generations and Posterity of Israel who had not seen those works with their own eyes were helped to the knowledge of them and of the Lord who wrought them by the means of the Scripture History And it shall be when he sitteth on the throne of his Kingdom that he shall write him a Copy of this Law in a Book out of that which is before the Priests the Levites and it shall be with him and he shall read therein all the days of his life that he may learn to fear the Lord his God Here the Scriptures are not only a means to know God but also to fear God which cannot be without knowledge of him and is more than a meer notion of God And for the knowledge of Christ it is not possible that the Scriptures should be a prophetical historical and doctrinal account of the natures person and offices c. of Jesus Christ and yet no means for the knowledge of him And according to your own common phrase a testimony declaration and witness of Christ and that they are some means though not the only means that Text is enough to prove 2 Tim. 3. 15. And that from a Child thou hast known the holy Scriptures which are able to make the wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus And who will doubt but that which is a means to save is a means to know God and Christ I have met with such a silly cavil as this in some of your Writings viz. that they are no such means to them who have not faith i. e. that obey not the light and believe not in the light True if you understood Christ aright but yet they are a means of some kind or it is not true that they are able to make wise to salvation whatever else be in conjunction with them we never yet said that they alone can do it if we should say so we should be like unto you who deny they can contribute any thing towards it Concerning the knowledge it gives of our selves whether we are believers or unbelievers take two or three testimonies These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God that ye may know that ye have eternal life and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God Surely if they are a means to know if we have eternal life they thereby shew us our faces that we have the faces of Children not Swine or Swine and not Children and those characters and marks by which one Saint may know it self may be a means by which another Saint may know it self and so on the contrary Paul knew himself by the Law to be such a sinner as he knew not before But I shall give you one Scripture which answers the case in the Metaphor a Glass used by our Adversary For if any
commands c. yet in the intervals and mean whiles between inspirations and motions from the Spirit within we have no obligation to any duty nor can we commit any sin For where there is no Law there is no transgression take away the Scripture Precepts and to you there is none but as inspirations drop in and then I assure you for all your pretences you may live lawlesly enough inspirations being now so rare and when they were more plentiful but one Balaam among the wicked was so visited as we read of 3. Then the Scriptures signifie just nothing but a Romance to read to exercise the fancy or at most but as a prophane or common History from which we learn nothing but what others did and said and how it was with them If you read the Scripture commands they are nothing to you if you have a command in Spirit as you call it it is enough though it never were in the Scriptures yea though it be contrary to the Scripture reason and all modesty CHAP. VIII They deny the Scriptures to be any means by which we may come to know God Christ and our selves SECT I. THis is a bold and strange assertion from those who call the Scriptures the Scriptures of truth and would be thought not to deny but own them with some respect But seeing it is within them I love they should speak out If the Scriptures are thus impotent I know no use they are of in things of a religious concern all Religions aiming at and depending upon the knowledge of God and ourselves and the Christian Religion as such on the knowledge of Christ They may notwithstanding this affirmation call them Scriptures i. e. Writings still but sure they do but mock them in calling them holy Scriptures or they are greatly ignorant what the word holy imports If the Scriptures then were burned it would not be a half-penny loss and the world would be rid of a burden or a snare or both I proceed to the proof of this Charge and as I have done hitherto draw my Arrows out of their own Quiver Quest Is there not another way by which we may come to know God Answ Nay child there is not another way for Christ is the way The Scriptures which are Christs own words which say Christ is the way John 14. 6. is far from countenancing what this Author shelters under its wing Christ saith I am the way no man can come to the Father but by me But he doth not say nor is it in the least implyed in the words as their sense or consequence that there is no coming to the knowledge of God but by Christ for some knowledge of God may be attained not only without Christ as the means but without the Scripture also As the Apostle Paul affirms who we have reason to believe before all the Quakers in the world Rom. 1. 20. For the invisible things of him from thhe creation of the World are cleerly seen being understood by the things that are made even his Eternal Power and Godhead Either they never read this Scripture or the beam is in their eyes who shall say there is no other way to know God but Christ if he had said no other way to know God savingly without Christ he had saved his credit here and hit the mark but what will not men say that have a mind the Scripture should be silent The reason he grounds this upon is of like strength to most which they produce under that name or form For Christ is the way now this Scripture doth not speak of the knowledge of God but of coming to God which is somewhat more than a bare knowledge of God which must have a being in us before we can come or move towards him But suppose he had said there is no other way to come to God but Christ only he had spoken falsly For Though there is no other way to come to God without Christ yet there are many other ways to come to God by in conjunction with and subordination to Christ So our reading the Scripture knowledge of our alienation from God our sin guilt and danger sanctification c. these are all ways and means by which we come to God Add to these faith love yet who will say that any of these are Christ except James Naylor who saith Christ is the Word and Prayer but though we make these to be some ways and means of coming to God we make not any of them the way as the most excellent and only way nor do we make them our Saviours and Mediators and Intercessors with God for us nor that they by shedding their blood satisfied Gods Justice and appeased his anger and made reconciliation between God and man and yet without these any one of them at least such as are within their reach no person can be saved or be re-united to God I will give you a demonstration as easie as sense it self Suppose that over a great and deep River there were but one Bridge and he that would go to the other side must go by this Bridge and it should be said and truly no man can get to the other side of the River but by this Bridge would this conclude that you must not enquire where this Bridge is how you may pass over by it that you must not take those passages and steps that lead to the Bridge that you must not have and use your legs and your eyes and all because you cannot get over but by thy Bridge At no wiser a rate do the Quakers plead for Christ being the only way excluding all other as subservient But enough of this passage only observe that the Author quoted will not have the Scriptures nor any thing else Christ excepted to be any means of knowing God Let us hear him explain himself a little more Quest Doth God manifest himself within man Answ Yes and man cannot know him by any other way but by the manifestation of himself in his light within him Here he saith much more than in his former sentence there he saith there is no other way to know God but by Christ here but by his light Christ and that within him too lâ—st we should mistake and suppose that the light of Christ also is to be found in the Scripture Hear him speak plainer and yet more to the purpose Then he John declared him as he knew him not from any tradition or writing before him though then there was much written which did truly testifie of him This he brings in to prove that Christ is to be known and made known to others not by the Scripture but his own light or he himself the light within and that though the Scriptures were then in being he made no use of them to declare Christ by to the knowledge of those he preached to They are such people as tell the world that Matthew Mark Luke and John are
man be a hearer of the word and not a doer he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a Glass for he beholdeth himself c. I know you who are called Quakers will say I pervert this Text which is to be understood of the light within not of the Scriptures without and that it maketh directly against me I hint this to let people know what need we have to preserve that appellation of the Scriptures the Word of God which will preserve the due reputation and use of those holy and blessed Writings But I would ask any Quaker if it be not absurd and woful lame language to exhort a man to be a doer of Christ I must not dispute the same thing over and over but affirm this Text from what hath preceded and the particular Argument given just now to be a full and plain asserting the Doctrinal word to be a means by which we may know our selves SECT III. I shall express in the close of this Chapter those absurdities falsities and impieties that are the Bastards this Errour is travelling withall The Scriptures have less in them of demonstration with respect to God than the dumb Creation or the most despicable particle of it a Worm a Stone are some means to know God by A second consequence is that no Writing whatsoever can be any such means for the holy Scriptures deserve a preference in religious cases and that which will lye very heavy upon you who are called Quakers all your scribling neither hath been neither can be to any such good purpose as the knowledge of God Christ c. Experience and sense it self and that not of one but many millions are not all together worth a straw in point of evidence for so many have experienced as plainly as sense it self can demonstrate that by the means of the Scriptures they have come by the knowledge of God Christ and themselves The incomparably greater number of those whom you confess were Saints and had peace with God knocked and entered at the wrong door and so by your own Exposition of Scripture are Thieves and Robbers Then God Christ Prophets Apostles are all to be charged with folly who taught the knowledge of God Christ and man by the matter expressed by the Scriptures which was not to them immediately expressed by God but by Prophets and humane Teachers You cast those Worthies who both disputed and died to maintain not only some Truths concerning God Christ and man the knowledge of which they came to by the Scriptures but also for continuing in the possession and to the use of souls for such ends the Books of the written Word Yea you condemn them as a company of Fools who cast away and sold themselves to all the miseries they suffered for a thing of nought Then neither is Reading Preaching nor Instruction of any such use This I fear hath gotten too much credit with you who suffer your Families and Children to take their own courses except in the concerns of this world wherein few out-do you and I should blame you the less if you would so far keep to this principle as to keep your light within and your thundring too into which though a self contradiction it breaks forth with a noise without sense or truth to the amusing of the ignorant who take them who shew the greatest zeal or heat to be the most sincere and intelligent CHAP. IX The Quakers affirm the Scriptures to be no means whereby to resist temptation and that they are dangerous to be read SECT I. I Join these into one Argument the latter being a high instance for the proof of the former and both together engage against the life of the Scriptures with a strong hand What shall we say of those mens owning the Scripture who turn this standing Table of the Lord into a snare and render them not only no Weapons to resist Satan and Lust our grand Enemies but to be as Gunpowder to blow up our selves yea as if God himself who is the Father of mercies and who in his abundant goodness hath afforded us this Armour of light did thereby rather set a trap for our souls than a means to deliver us from the snare of the Devil who leads the blind and unarmed captive at his will I shall not go about to give demonstrations that so to affirm is to deny the Scriptures when I have proved that they are criminal according to this Charge I know not what impartial person will judge them guiltless of denying the Scriptures And therefore I shall attend to it as carrying the question 'T is not your flying to the Scripture that can save you from the fire of his wrath nor overcome the least corruption for you no verily nothing then but a Christ within you c. and the next sentence is come thou then O come with boldness to Gods faithful Witness within you If he had said the Scriptures without the knowledge of them or the notion of them without the power or without the Spirits concurrence he had spoken truth But to beat these Weapons out of their hands to cry out with a vehemency to throw down those Arms as useless and run away to that second Antichrist the light within this is horrid The true Christ is not so far from the Scriptures nor so disagreeing with them but he can dwell in one heart with them and arms all his Souldiers with the Weapons of the truths therein contained but Christ Jesus the Christ of God and Redeemer of his people and the Quakers Christ are nothing of kin But one would think this should be but a slip of his Pen let us see if he speak not more favourably of the holy Scriptures in his following discourse but alas the darkness within hath so bewitched him that nothing but the Quakers Idol is good for any thing The Scriptures nor any other outward things are able to graple with him the Devil you must put on the armour of light light within and with that resist him or be taken captive by him What a rapture of zeal is here for the thing within though the Scriptures alone can do little yet sure if God Almighty undertake the combat either with or without the Scriptures he will be too hard for all the Devils or he had not kept his Throne from being usurped by him and if God be not without the Quakers or any other person as well as within them he is not infinite as we have taken him to be by the light of Reason and more by the light of Scripture But what blasphemy will not men run into who have changed their God for that which is no God and have turned their backs on the Lord Jesus and taken so gross a delusion in the room of him Again he goes on to the same purpose lest you should not understand him If you use any other Weapons than the
great power his understanding is infinite To say That which is infinite is not beyond measure is a contradiction in its self The second Proposition I prove by their own concession and grant There is scarcely any one thing more frequent in their Writings than to talk of the measure of God the measure of Christ the measure of the light in men But turn your ear inward to that measure of light in you I could fill a volume with Instances of this nature how they measure out the light within and Christ and God and the Spirit but none of them will deny this It is a horrible abomination for men through their gross and dark conceits thus to dishonour God to share him into more and less degrees and measures who is entire infinite indivisible who is not with respect to his Being less in one place than in another This measuring would agree well to his manifestations and discoveries of himself to his creatures and by his works it would agree well to those graces wrought by his Spirit in the hearts of his people which in some is more some less and capable of growing in all but God cannot be more or less than he is and ever was That which may be darkness in a sinfull and evil sense and that in the abstract cannot be God But the light within some men may be darkness in a sinfull and evil sense in the abstract Therefore The light within every man is not God I suppose and hope they are not yet arrived to that height of wickedness as to charge God with ignorance or sin in the least degree or that he is capable of so degenerating therefore I will take the first Proposition for granted For the second I shall prove from Scripture Eph. 5â—8 For ye were sometimes darkness but now are ye light in the Lord. What can be more exclusive of all spiritual light or light in spiritual things than to be darkness in the very abstract But if you who adore the light within shall say this is meant of man but the light within is God and Christ and that is not man of whom the Apostle speaks I answer That sometimes you plead hard that the lighteth in Joh. 1. 9. should be rendred enlightneth and W. P. tugs hard for it in his Pamphlet called The Spirit of Truth c. but it will be granted with less ado Well then if the light within every man be the enlightning of every man at least virtually so that if he be willing to be guided by its conduct it will lead him as you dream then it must be within him as a qualification of his conscience though it be not produced into exercise And you tell men they have that within them that will be a sufficient guide if they will but listen to it therefore this Text reaches the light within you which saith there was a time when they were darkness It would be a strange affirmation to say the world or Creation were darkness while the body of the Sun were in it shining although not one man should move by its light And it is worth the noting that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Text rendred darkness signifies such a darkness as is the total absence of light A second Scripture that proves this is Mat. 6.23 But if the light that is in thee be darkness how great is that darkness It is the same word in the Greek as in the fore-cited Scripture And lest you should cavil and say Christ doth but suppose it he doth not affirm that the light in any one is darkness the fore-going Verse tells you That if thine eye â—e evil that is not single and sincere in its aims thy whole body shall be full of darkness And sure you will not say but there are many in the world whose eyes are evil who account all such that are not Quakers And it may be considered that where the whole body is full of darkness there cannot possibly be in it any light And that this which men conceit to be light and are conducted and led by it as if it were such is sinfull ignorance and darkness I shall not think it calls for proof Well then 't is as clear as day that the best light some men have within them is but perfect night therefore it cannot be God Thus I have proved by three Arguments That the light within every man is not God I will but name a few more and leave them to the judgement of the Reader without further proof That which may be kept under and in captivity by the lusts of men is not God But the light in some men not only may be but is kept under and in captivity by the lusts of men and that by the Quakers own confession Therefore The light in every man is not God That which may be crucified and put to pain in a proper sense is not God But the light within every man which the Quakers call God may by their own confession be put to pain and crucified and that in a proper sense or they talk but madly of being saved by its being crucified within them Therefore It is not God I proceed to the proof of the Minor or second Proposition Viz. That the Quakers do own and profess the light within every man to be God This I must prove from their own Writings which will easily be done it being the grand foundation of the whole Fabrick of Quakerism so that I may say its first stone is laid in gross Idolatry It would be needless to bring Instances of their asserting the light in every man to be that Word which John speaks of Joh. 1. 1. Which was in the beginning which was with God which was God It is the first thing they teach and that not suddenly and amphibiously as they do many other points but in so many words But I shall furnish you with proofs enough over and above that I will make you know that I the light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world that all through me should believe am the true eternal God which created all things that by me the light all things are upheld and that there is not another besides me can save Although in this passage he doth not call it the light in every man yet it being a personating the light within in a large and continued discourse he doth often express it the light within as in pag. 50. You scorn me the light in you Pag. 54. Which will not own me the light in them All power in Heaven and Earth is in it the light in the conscience They that cannot read out of these passages and that without spelling that the Quakers own and profess the light in every man to be God are not like to be much the wiser for whatever they read That it is in every one hear one speak his mind who would be believed Light is the same in
have so much good nature left as is able to work with it SECT IX And now Mr. Pen to shut up this Discourse I shall shew you your face in the glass of sense if you think your eyes worth the using to that end If you had dress'd your self by the glass of the Scripture at this coming abroad you had certainly been free of these spots Foul Epethites as knave puppy fool rascal logger-head Cheat. This you say was the language of your adversaries small Cryer but as you call it of a loathsome scent so you blow it on the Author of the book within five lines tryers of other mens spirits who have so little proof of the knowledge of their own as to be wanting in the alphabet or first principles of common civility This is not fair to charge him with anothers faults But compare this Civility of yours with your own thus far this impertinent man To all this I say he obtrudes an arrant lie upon our very senses Wretched scribler how idle how frivolous and how very troublesome is he with his ridiculous remarks If you are not guilty of the obtrusion you impute to your adversary and that frequently and apparently I cannot read and transcribe english But this I take the trouble of to let the world know that W. Pen will daub his Adversary and that Per fas per nefas and like one greedy of victory Aut inveniam aut faciam You will find him in faults or make gross ones and charge upon him G. Fox he thinks has miscited a Scripture ergo he is an Impostor and the Quakers a pack of Hereticks It is after this lofty manner of disputing c. I never read a more confident untruth The Authors Argument is too large to transcribe here Your adversary saith some of you excell in many things which are in themselves good and laudable You say If we excel in all things as he confesseth which is to say that there are but few things wherein we don't transcend all others and you direct us to page the first where we may prove your falsifying Your adversary saith it is rare with him Fox to use any text and not abuse it You say A few Scriptures he mostly confesseth that but one of us hath miscited either in reference to a disorderly quotation of the words or unsuitable application of them you know he pretends to deal but with G. Fox's abuses Your Adversary saith And indeed I have found it very fruitless to deal with you by way of reason and Scripture and Page 3. I will not now deal with you so much by Arguments drawn from reason or Scripture and depending purely on the understanding and mind c. You say He promiseth for the future to avoid the use of both Scripture and reason and direct to Page 2. I could produce in your Spirit of Truth many more such falsities in point of fact and you saying page 1. you carefully perused the Book you prove your self to be more than a meer careless even a wilful transgressor But if this be your way of answering your adversaries and throwing contempt and reproach upon them 't is not possible for any to escape your hardest censures And I am perswaded you are secure of your Friends considering what is objected against your principles and practices of a Religious concern by any of your adversaries writings or you would not thus adventure your reputation with them I would desire you if you will hereafter pretend to be an answerer you would be more solid and rational then when you find your adversarie appealing to the light within you to judg whether G. Fox have rightly transcribed the texts of Scripture he pretends to use which may be done with a little measure of natural light and common sense to conclude with a high rant and charging your adversary with infatuation that he hath given himself the lie and you the cause as if thereby he acknowledg'd the light within you to be so alsufficient as you pretend and that if a man can judg infallibly when he reads and compares a few written or printed lines whether they agree in the same words The Quakers light must needs be infallible and indefinitely and without any bounds at least in Religious and Divine Concerns But above all let me intreat you that if your Adversary give you your due saying moreover The light in every man is not to be extended to all cases whatever as if every man that attends to the light in him did certainly know what is good what is evil right or wrong in every case That then you will not gratifie him with such Reason and Rhetorick as in the following words of yours I heartily pity the man and am really afraid he has overcharged the strength of his brain for with me such manifest contradiction is but a smaller degree of distraction I would fain have a rational answer from him if he be yet capable of one How can the Light be a judge of good and evil and not be so And all within the space of ten lines If the light as by him acknowledged be a judge of good from evil and the contrary then in all cases wherein good and evil right and wrong make up the Question the light cannot be secluded as wanting in true judgment because good and evil are part of the Question in the granted Proposition deny that the light is sufficient in any case of right and wrong and deny all Verily Mr. Pen you seem to lay a Plot here to blow at least all the Judges off from the Bench to make room for any Quaker though the most witless of them all For if he can but discern right and wrong in any case Suppose whether in changing a shilling he hath wrong done him if he receive but two groats for 〈…〉 and right if he receive three he can then discern right and wrong in all cases whatsoever and he that shall say the contrary you will chastise him with Sarcasms as keen as a Badgeâ—s Teeth Though I am a little pleasant for I cannot sudare circa nuces pray bear with me I assure you I have had some heart-akes for you when I have deeply considered that a man of your hopes should be thus left of God I fear for pride and giddiness as to be made a Pillar of Salt to caution others to take heed lest they fall into the same snare which whatever conceit you may have of your self is too apparent Do not affect to be a Chief of a party learn that Lesson by Scripture-light It is better to hear the rebukes of the wise I mean not my self than for a man to hear the Song of fools It is great pity that what parts God hath given you should be fettered and â—meared with the polluted Chains of the grossest delusions expect no other but that God will wither you in your Rationals