to feed us without our industry with Manna and Quails as he did his Church in the Wilderness or by the Ravens as he did Elisha or to make the small provisions we have to abound by an inexhaustible increase as he did the Widows barrel of meal and cruse of Oyl and in the Gospel the five loaves and two fishes though he could soon introduce the Golden Age to make it a perpetual Spring and to cause the earth to bring forth all her fruits and teem her riches to us of her own accord though God could quickly do all this and more though he could translate us instantly and carry us up into a better habitation though he could perfect us out of hand and the next minute wrap us into the third Heaven and rest us in Paradise though this be in his power yet we see it is not in his will It is not his pleasure thus to dispense his favours nor to pour out his blessings all at once For though the Divine power and Goodness too be both of them infinite yet do not engage God though an Almighty Father in doing good to act like natural Agents both alwayes and all he can For the acts of his Power and Goodness are determin'd by his infinite Wisdome And he dispenseth his gifts according as there is necessity and occasion for them That the Spirit helpeth us to understand old truths already revealed in Scripture we confess and pray for his assistance therein but to pretend to such miraculous inspirations as the Apostles once had or to new revelations beyond what was discover'd to them is a horrible cheat set up at first by St. Francis and St. Bridget and some other Fanatical Friers and Nuns of the Romish Church whose steps the Quakers do now follow but the delusion and falshood of such pretences will appear if you consider 1. How highly these new revelations disparage the Holy Scripture which if it be true and may be believed declares it self to be a perfect and sufficient rule in order to salvation 2 Tim. 3. 17. and accurseth all that shall preach any other Doctrine Gal. 1. 8 9. and in the close of that holy Book a woe is denounced to all that should add any thing to it or take any thing from it So that they who would make new additions by daily inspirations make God himself a lyar in commending that to us for a perfect rule which needs continual additions and the preaching of Christ and his Apostles at this rate must be thought imperfect and that Word which should try the Spirits must submit to every new revelation Nor do the Papists more dishonour Gods Word by making their Traditions of equal value to it than the Quakers by esteeming their new revelations to be as much from the Spirit of God 2. Consider how contrary these new revelations are to Gods constant method in regard they came naked without any miracles to attest them for when did God ever send any new Doctrine into the World and did not also give the Preachers thereof a power of working miracles to confirm that it was from him Moses had this power when he was to set up the Law Jesus when he was to preach the Gospel to the Jews the Apostles when they were to convert the Gentiles But as St. Austin notes when once the World did believe this power ceased which was only given that they might believe Now if God had sent the Quakers with any new revelations how comes it to pass he hath given them no power of doing miracles or why do any believe them whenas God doth not bear witness to them as in other cases he alwayes did shall we take their own words for it or esteem their new Doctrines not confirmed with any Divine Powers as highly as we do the Holy Gospel witnessed by many thousand miracles this were to make our selves as foolish as those who dote upon them and to encourage every Cheat to impose his fancies on us as Divine Revelations who hath the confidence to say he is inspired 3. New Revelations do manifestly contradict the Faith of the primitive Christians and holy Fathers who called the Scriptures the truest rule of Doctrine the ancient measure of Faith the Divine Standard the Repository of all things necessary either to Faith or Manners they esteemed it great impudence to affirm any thing without their Authority or to expect any truths beyond what was written they desired not to be believed unless they proved their assertions by Scripture Did they not in every Councel examin all Doctrines and Opinions by the written Word of God and condemn those for Hereticks who invented new fancies not agreeing to it And when the Gnosticks Montanists and Messalians pretended to Prophecy Raptures and Inspiration they were censur'd as Impostors and Deceivers By all which it appears that if the Quakers had held forth their new Revelations in those pure and zealous dayes they had also been solemnly convicted and denounced Hereticks and why should we embrace that for a truth in these last and worst of times which the best Ages of the Church did reject as a notorious falshood 4. And yet this new Doctrine of new Revelations is not more false than it is mischievous to those who do believe it for hereby their faith is uncertain as their Teachers fancy and poor deluded souls do receive falshood and railing non-sense and blasphemy as if they came from the Spirit of God They despise the ancient and pure certain and fixed principles of Christianity received from Jesus and his Apostles sealed with the blood of Martyrs and retained by all good Christians and admire the discourse of a bold and empty man above them all they take upon them to appoint new wayes of worship and reject the old even the very Sacraments which Jesus himself instituted they neglect Learning themselves contemn it in others and would bring the World into an Egyptian darkness if others were of their mind and all this and much more they do for a thing that never was nor never will be proved for a dream a meer fancy and a miserable mistake which none can believe till they have first bid adieu to all sense and reason So that in meer pity to those mis-guided souls who follow this false and fantaltick light I cannot but make this digression to convince them that they adore a lie for Divine Revelation to the great hazard of their eternal damnation Par. But do you deny all Revelations Min. I own those Revelations which are upon Râ—…cord in the Holy Bible which is the Word of God wherein he hath revealed his Will to the Church but no other Revelations do I hearken after Par. But the Quakers tell us the Bible is a dead Letter but the Word of God is quick and powerful so is not the Bible Min. By such like sottish wayes of Reasoning I conceive the Speakers among them
hire The Mystical sense viz. the still further intendment of that Law was a Divine ordination that they who preach the Gospel should live of the Gospel i. e. the Ministers of the Gospel ought to be provided for 1 Cor. 9. 9 12. Now as some Scriptures will bear a literal sense with the moral and the mystical there are yet other Scriptures that will not therefore in the fourth place such Texts as these are to be interpreted tropically Par. What do you mean by that Min. Such a figurative expression whereof there are several sorts which you will meet with in the reading of the Scriptures Some are metaphorical which is a borrowed expression when another thing is made use of to express our meanings by and cannot be taken literally as that of John 15. 1. I am the true Vine and my Father is the Husbandman The Prophet Isaiah prophecying of the admirable effects of Christianity useth these expressions Chap. 11. 6 7 8. The Wolf shall dwell with the Lamb and the Leopard shall lie down with the Kid and the Calf and the young Lion and the Fatling together and a little Child shall lead them And the Cow and the Bear shall feed their young ones shall lie down together and the Lion shall eat straw like the Ox and the sucking Child shall play on the hole of the Asp and the weaned Child shall put his hand on the Cockatrice den Do you suppose that this Scripture is to be understood literally as if a time were coming when there should be a perfect reconcilement among the Creatures their natural antipathies being taken away No these are but so many metaphorical representations of the excellent temper of Christianity that the doctrine thereof will effect a real change in our natures That that savage waspish crusty humour of our natural dispositions shall by the Christian laws and the Spirit of Christ be transformed even into the meekness and innocency of a Lamb. And when our Lord bids us put out and cut off our offending eyes and hands he hath no design to provoke us to dismember our selves no 't is our darling sins and beloved vices which he levels at Again as some Scriptures are to be interpreted metaphorically so others allegovically which is by continuing of a Trope and this you have in the case of Hagar and Sarah Sinai and Sion which the Apostle calls the two Covenants and saith they are an Allegory Gal. 4. 24. c. to the Chapters end for so far you will find the explication of the Allegory continued Again there are other Scriptures which must be interpreted by an Hyperbole which is another kind of Trope or Figure when the truth of the thing affirmed lies not in the letters but in the priviledge of the phrase as John 21. 25. And there are also many other things which Jesus did which if they should be written every one I suppose that the World it self could not contain the Books that should be written Where the Evangelist takes a Rhetorical liberty that he might with greater elegancy express that our Saviour was not idle in this life but marvellously busie and active in it In other places God represents himself to us after the manner of men as attributing to himself eyes ears and hands walking sleeping repenting and the like it being the great mercy of God in so revealing himself and his dispensations to mankind that thereby he may accommodate himself to the understandings of men in such expressions as suit most with their weak capacities and common apprehensions by which he may make the more sensible impressions on us like to that Prophet who shrunk himself into the proportions of that Child whom he meant to revive Par. What do you infer from all this discourse Min. The necessary use of Learning lest we confound the senses of Scripture and take that Allegorically which we ought to take literally and that literally which we ought to take figuratively And what disorder this may create I leave to your self to judge After all these there remains a necessity of being acquainted with such Histories as give us a relation of those Rites Opinions Customes and Proverbs in use among the Jews and neighbouring Nations to which the Scriptures in many places have particular references without the knowledge whereof 't is impossible we should understand a Book of so great Antiquity or read it with that judgment estimation relish and delight as we should do did we discern the references and allusions that in it are frequently made to them Par. If you please we will pass to the next particular you told me of viz. That there is great use of Learning now for the right timing of Scripture What mean you by that phrase Min. That is to observe to what period of time the Histories and especially the prophecies in Scripture have a peculiar and proper relation and if due care be not taken therein the mischiefs that may arise from your want of circumspection will be innumerable Par. Explain your meaning by some instance and shew where any one Prophecy hath been mis-timed by the Quakers Min. What do you think of that famous Prophecy of Joel so much abused by Quakers Joel 2. 28. And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh and your sons and your daughters shall prophecy your old men shall dream dreams your young men shall see visions Which Prophecy they apply to this present Age therefore they say That the Quakers have an extraordinary Spirit according to the prediction thereof Par. But have not the Quakers reason to time that Prophecy to this present Age wherein we live and do we not see the Prophecy fulfilled in them Min. I cannot tell how to undeceive you better than in the words of a Learned Commentator upon that place who tells us that that Prophecy was cited and applyed by St. Peter Acts 2. to the times of the Gospel It shall come to pass afterward or in the last dayes saith God that I will pour out my Spirit or of my Spirit upon all flesh and your sons and your daughters shall prophecy your old men shall dream dreams your young men shall see visions And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those dayes will I pour out my Spirit or of my Spirit and they shall prophecy Whatsoever can be collected from this place to the benefit of the Pretenders will receive a short and clear answer by considering the time to which this prediction and the completion of it belonged and that is expresly the last dayes in the notion wherein the Writers of the New Testament constantly use that phrase not for these dayes of ours so far advanced toward the end of the world which yet no man knows how far distant it still is but for the time immediately preceding the destruction of the Jewish Polity their City and Temple That this is it appears not
only by the mention of Sion and the destruction approaching it in the beginning of that Chapter of Joel which signifies it to belong to Jerusalem that then was but also by two further undeceivable evidences 1. By the mention of the wonders immediately subjoyn'd in the heavens and the earth c. as forerunners of the great and terrible day of the Lord the same that had been before described in Joel v. 2. c. and applyed by Christ in the very words to this destruction of Jerusalem Matth. 24. 29 30. 2. By the occasion for which St. Peter produceth it Acis 2. 14. the effusion of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles v. 2. 4. which saith he was no effect of drunkenness in them but the very thing which was foretold by that place of Joel before that great and notable day of the Lord that was to fall upon that People to an utter destruction This being a prediction of what should come before the destruction of Jerusalem and the completion whereof was so visible and remarkable in that Age to which by the Prophet it was assigned and this as a peculiar character of those times wherein the Gospel was to be first propagated by this means and to which it had a propriety as a last act of God's miraculous and gracious oeconomy for the full conviction of this peoples sins before they were destroyed it must needs be impertinently and fallaciously applyed to any men or women old or young of this Age so distant from that to which it belonged and so well provided for by the ordinary means the setled Office of Ministry in Christ's Church as to have no such need of extraordinary So that they have no more right to charge God to perform this promise over again than a Creditor hath reason to exact a sum of money by vertue of a cancel'd Bond. The Quakers I perceive pretend to an interest in these Prophesies But then why do not these pretenders to new lights speak with new tongues heal diseases raise the dead and do other miraculous acts according to the tenor of those Prophesies Par. But they will tell you of as great acts for they gain many Proselites and thereby enlarge the Kingdom of Christ. Min. If counting numbers be the thing to establish the truth of their Religion in all probability they will renounce Christianity it self and turn Mahometans for Mahomet has more that follow him than Christ Then wo be to that little flock to whom a Kingdom is promised Par. But what do you say to the third particular in order to applying Scripture seasonably and properly Min. I say if a due regard be not had thereof there is scarce that irregularity in the World which you may not make the Scripture to patronize therefore saith the Evangelical Prophet Isaiah cap. 50. 4. The Lord hath given me the tongue of the Learned to speak in due season And so Prov. 15. 23. A word spoken in season is like Apples of gold in pictures of silver A good thing improperly applyed may be made instead of good the occasion of evil for good things do loose the grace of their goodness when they are not in a good and convenient manner performed Suppose a Carpenter frames a building with great Art and Skill and makes a proper mortise for every tenon as the terms are when this building comes to be set up if you place not the joynts aright the whole building will be in disorder So God Almighty the wise Architect has framed his Word to proper times occasions and emergencies Now if you do not suit the Text to the occasion to which it was originally framed and to the season proper to it you spoil all Though the words be good yet if the application be wrong they will prove like salt which hath lost its savour Suppose a Physician prepares a great many excellent remedies there must be a due application otherwise an antidote may prove a poyson So the great Physician of Souls has prepar'd for all maladies their proper remedies and if we expect any benefit by them we must make a seasonable application of them And to make this more plain you may consult Psalm 91. 11 12. For he shall give his Angels charge over thee to keep thee in all thy wayes they shall bear thee up in their hands lest thou dash thy foot against a stone Should I say that in this Scripture is represented to us Gods especial providence over his servants and whilst that I am performing my duty to God either in his immediate service or in an honest attendance on my lawful Calling I may expect the Divine protection in this sense I apply the Text seasonably and properly But should I get upon the top of a Pinacle and cast my self down upon confidence of this promise that the Angels shall bear me up then I wrest and misapply the Scripture which no where gives incouragement to a desperate attempt For it is written Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God that is thou shalt not tempt him to work a miracle by casting thy self down from a desperate Precipice when the ordinary means of his Providence may effect thy preservation Par. What rule have you to prevent mistakes in this kind Min. Take this for one when any Text hath a relation to a particular case that Text must not stand for a general rule but must be applyed to a like occasion for it's a most grand fallacy to draw an universal conclusion from particular premisses take an instance of my meaning from 2 Cor. 9. 22. I am made all things to all men Make this a general rule and Christianity which is the most pure Religion in the World will from this Text be a sanctuary for all villany and impurity For if I may be all things to all men then may I lawfully comply with all the irregularities of whatsoever company I come in But suit the Text to its proper occasion and it imports only this That all customs and constitutions of an indifferent nature for the peace of the Church ought to be conformed unto As for the Holy Scriptures they are the lively Oracles of God and contain in them the words of eternal life but in the Quakers impertinent application of them they look like so many Jewels in a Swines snout or like good liquor that is lost by the badness of the vessel that contains it Having thus shewed you at large the first cause of the Scriptures being wrested viz. the want of Learning I need say but little upon the other the instability of mens minds Par. However let me hear what you can say upon that subject Min. Little need be said for 't is no wonder if those who are unlearned especially if they be bold and confident be unstable for it 's the empty cloud which is carried away with every wind Old truths ought to be most loved but commonly they have the same fate with the Manna in the Wilderness