Selected quad for the lemma: sense_n
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A43233
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Controversy ended, or, The sentence given by George Fox himself against himself and party in the persons of his adversaries ratified and aggravated by W. Penn (their ablest advocate) even in his huffing book of the vindication of G.F. &c. : being a defence of that little book intituled, The spirit of the Quakers tryed ...
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Hedworth, Henry.
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1673
(1673)
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Wing H1351; ESTC R19542
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43,134
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72
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was done to the Prophets and Apostles Therefore G. F. in the very beginning of his Mystery as I hinted before showing the ground of difference between the Priests and Professors and all Sects in these Nations and the Quakers saith That the controversie on their part is just and equal against them all and that they have sufficient cause to cry against them and to deny their Ministry their Church their Worship and their whole Religion as being not in the Power and by the Spirit of the living God Compare this with what I have cited before and then it plainly appears that all right Quakers in G. Fox's sense have renounced or denyed their Faith Worship and whole Christian Religion which they had before they were Quakers as being grounded as ours is upon Reason Scriptures the Preaching of Jesus and his Apostles and Prophets and Tradition with an assistance of the Holy Spirit elevating the mind but not upon immediate objective Revelation such as the Apostles and Prophets had and such as the Quakers now pretend to have For we and those that differ from them profess those things before mentioned to be the ground of our Faith they profess the last of Immediate Revelation to be the ground of their Faith and Religion and deny ours to be Divine Faith or true Religion Nay they cry out against it as foolishness and darkness literal and lifeless So then W. P. doth but make a fair flourish when he faith p. 39. The Scriptures we own and the Divine Truth therein contained we reverence and esteem as the Mind and Will of God to men For they cannot according to their Principles esteem any saying of Scripture be it that God raised up the Lord Jesus from the dead or any other word of any Apostle or of Christ himself I say they cannot esteem it as the Mind and Will of God except they have an immediate Revelation dictating the same unto them Which if they have then the Scripture is superfluous to them and they do no more esteem it the Mind and Will of God because it is written in the Bible than if it had been written in any other Book among Fables and Lies These things considered I argue thus If among the Professors of Religion in these Nations there be those that sincerely confess the Lord Jesus and heartily believe that God raised him from the dead upon the grounds forementioned and not upon the ground of immediate objective Revelation of God's Holy Spirit then G. Fox and the Quakers deny and cry out against true Christian Faith and Religion and consequently cannot have them Again If men in general cannot savingly believe without hearing a sent Preacher then men cannot believe by immediate inward Revelation and then they that assert they can and do and deny the Antecedent cannot have saving Faith The Antecedent is true from Rom. 10.13 14 15. The Consequent from the opposition between mediate and immediate 1 Cor. 1.18 They to whom the preaching of the Cross is foolishness and not the Power of God cannot have Gospel-Faith But to G. F. and some Quakers the preaching of the Cross without immediate Revelation is foolishness and not the Power of God Therefore G. F. c. cannot have Gospel-Faith Let us proceed now to the other Instances of Scripture abus'd and show the tendency of it to false Doctrine Inst 29. Next he would vindicate G. F. in correcting the Translators for rendring 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I protest by 1 Cor. 15.31 saying there is nothing in the Greek for I protest and yet Mr. P. cannot but grant that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is commonly at least a particle of Swearing and if but so it follows that there is something in the Greek that answers I protest by for supposing that not to be the sense of the place which the current of Interpretors say is yet there is that word there which will bear such a Translation there is something in the Greek for I protest which G. F. denies and therein imposes upon his Reader which is enough for my purpose Here W. P. p. 91 that he may be true to his presumptuous way of arguing though he venture the abusing God and Men tells us That an Oath having been made from the distrust of honesty in him that was to take it where the cause Lyes Equivocations c. is removed the effect Swearing should cease As if Christ or rather God himself had distrusted his own honesty when he sware unto Christ Thou art a Priest for ever after the Order of Melchisedec or the Patriarch Abraham the Father of the Faithful had distrusted God's honesty and therefore God sware to him to free him from his dissidence and not because as the Scripture speaks God was willing more abundantly to shew unto the Heirs of Promise the immutability of his Counsel Heb. 6.17 30. Next we come to that Text in Matth. 23. Neither be ye called Masters c. Here as his manner is he abuses my words as if he came out of Bedlam and then my Argument must be a Bedlam one Read both and compare for I may not now repeat If the Quakers restrain the Text where they have reason why may not others restrain it where they have as good reason and that without blaming the Text or strange irreverence to Holy Writ If my Neighbour be a Master of Servants why may I not treat him in compellation as such and not as if he had no Servant and were himself a Servant And by Mr. P's favour I count it no sin to call another Man's Wife Good Wife or another Man's She-Servant Maid Mr. P. doth but no sin to tell me I have told a plain lye when himself has made my words so by detracting from them And therefore the Reader has no reason to believe him when he saith Civil honour namely of calling Master is repugnant to common Truth and Christian Religion But I wonder W. P. should take so much pains to vindicate Stephen in calling the Counsel of the Jews Men Brethren and Fathers who yet were not his proper Fathers for he might with more ease have done it by saying He had a special impulse for it as the Quaker that came many score of miles as they said to perform his obeysance to Margaret Fell at her own House where at a solemn Meeting the Man rose up from his Seat and went and fell down upon his knees with his Hat in his hand directly before Margaret Fell and made his humble address to her by the compellation of my dear Mother and beseech'd her to pray for him In like manner on the third or fourth day after John Stubs at another Meeting requested the like favour of her with his Hat under his Arm standing and calling her My dear everlasting Mother The truth of these things can be prov'd by eye and ear-witnesses and I suppose there are some Quakers that will attest them This is that Margaret Fell who was formerly Judge Fell's
Wife and is now G. Fox's concerning whom he gave forth a Paper that his marriage with her was a sigure of the Marriage between Chirst and the Church Likewise that his Marriage was above the state of Adam in his Innocency in the state of the second Adam who never fell Thus I find it reported by a certain Quaker in a Letter a notable piece to his Friend The same person faith That upon two occasions persons kneel before G. Fox though 't is done in a very private manner and but by a few the one is when he sends them forth to Administer the other is upon some misdemeanour committed by a Minister who acknowledging his fault upon his bended knees George absolves him My next Argument was thus Christ saith Be ye not called Kathegetai but he doth not forbid them to be called Kyrioi and we find in Scripture Philip called by Strangers Kyrie and Paul and Silas Kyrioi and Chirst himself mistaken for a Gardener by a notable Disciple called Kyrie and all without rebuke therefore the compellation of Kyrie is not forbid in Kathegetes If it be our Lord Jesus himself as well as the Apostles will be brought under suspicion of conniving at sin in a place where he had opportunity to correct it And besides the inspired Writers giving us no notice of any failure in any of these cases the Scripture and practice of Christ and the Apostles and Primitive Believers will be so far from being of Example and Teaching to us that they will be a temptation to us unto evil and as Mr. P. sayes like the shadow of the true Rule that is an evening shadow which is five times as long as the substance it self Let the Reader see now if he can pick any thing out of W. P's answer but evasion and shuffle He saith indeed in excuse of our Lord's silence in the case that he never particularly check't Peter for denying him which how parallel to this case let the sober Reader judge and how boldly our Lords innocence is called into question and how lamely defended And whether G. F. would have incurred that suspicion of guilt in the like Circumstances or the only Scripture of his Life and Doctrine wrote by the Quakers left him under it 31. As for his defence of Women speaking in the Church it 's like the rest meer shuffle Judge what a pliant Conscience this man has who can accuse some that he had nothing to do with of making John speak equivocatingly because they do not expound Scripture to his sense and me a little before of strange irreverence to Holy Writ for restranining the Text which himself also restrains and here behold what a sense he puts upon 1 Cor. 14.34 35. as if he were expounding one of the old Poetical Fables But at length he comes to this I permit not an unlearned or ignorant Woman to speak in the Church And Did the Apostle permit or Do the Quakers permit unlearned or ignorant men to speak in the Church I said The Apostle forbids Women by Sex in those cases wherein he allows men by Sex to speak in the Church Where 's his Answer Find it that can He tells us of Women's labouring in the Lord Helpers in Christ Jesus Servants of the Church as if they might not do all that without speaking in the Church where there were men enough qualified for that work He tells us of Women prophesying for among them the Quakers any profound vehement prattle may serve for that but I never yet heard of a Quaker that spake an unknown Tongue And yet one would think they needed it enough when they are sent to the Indians or to the Great Turk 32 33 34 35 36. These five Instances Jam. 3.2 Ephes 5.25 Heb. 10.27 Joh 2.10 2 Pet. 1.4 the change of the Phrase in the two first and last and the defect in the third and fourth do all favour their doctrine of Perfection which is indeed a Doctrine of Sin and Imperfection for he is a persect Man according to them who sins not against his immediate Light or Conscience and so their Persection is consistent with all manner of sins of Ignorance of Error proceeding from any passion as is most manifest in these two G. F. and W. P. who must be accounted perfect men notwithstanding all their blasphemics against God and Christ and conrumelies against men which I have evidently demonstrated And then it 's consistent with sins of Omission in great plenty for whil'st they deny the Worship and whole Religson of all but themselves they must of necessity want that love toward them which is due to Christian Brethren Behold here a sort of Christians without either Faith in the true Christ or love to his faithful Servants 37. And it 's not a little mischief that has been wrought by that Notion of God's working all in us and for us which G. F. will have the Apostle to say and W. P. beings three Texts from whence he infers it as if I had charged G. F. with a false Infexence and not false Scripture 38. Our Translation hath Isa 8.20 If they speak not according to this Word it is because there is no Light in them But G. F. You that speak not according to that Rule it is because you hate the Light in you And W. P. instead of vindicating him rails at me Who knows not what that change meant 39. That G. F. may disparage the places wherein other Christians worship God saith Is God worshipped in Temples made with hands And would have his Reader take that for Scripture W. P. saith nothing to it 40. I shew'd in my Epistle p. 27. what Error of the Quakers is countenanced by G. F.'s putting is for was 2 Cor. 5.19 as if there were no work done by Christ for reconciling men which he was not and is not alwayes a doing I shew'd also that G. F. said God was in Christ reconciling himself to the World But W. P. takes no notice of it He seems to have wrote his Book only for the Quakers or those that either never read my Epistle or else have forgot it Upon the whole Matter for I have exceeded my intended brevity let the impartial Reader judge of W. P's and my performance in tals Argument And whether I have not prov'd by evidence of sense what I undertook viz. That G. F. is a false Prophet a Lyar or Impostor Yea whether W. P. himself hath not confirm'd unawares this Sentence concerning him Whether it is not horrid impiety for these men to pretend the guidance of God's infallible Spirit in what they write and to run in to such Absurdities Falsities and pernicious Errors as I have prov'd them guilty of Whether it will not be great folly in me or any man henceforward to write or indeed to speak to these men concerning Matters of Religion except perhaps further to discover their deceit whilst they practise such unheard-of Equivocation in their words as