abounding grace of God is plain in the 17 18 and 19 verses where the Apostle lays his argument for grace and righteousness through Christ in its similitude to the influence of Adam's sin by imputation For if by one mans offence death reigned by one verse 17. Therefore as by the offence of one judgement came upon all men verse 18. For as by one mans disobedience many were made sinners verse 19. much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one Jesus Christ verse 17. so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men to justification of life verse 18. so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous verse 19. And further to clear this truth if clearer evidence may be possible the consideration of verse 14. will contribute a good measure Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam ' s transgression who is the figure of him that was to come There are two respects wherein at least many of those over whom death reigned from Adam to Moses did not sin after the similitude of Adam's transgression First They did not sin against a revealed Law which Adam did in eating the forbidden fruit and there was no revealed Law or Covenant of life expresly given from God after Adam's time before the fall untill Moses Secondly They did not all sin actually and in their own persons as Adam did yet death reigned over Infants who were in respect of actual sin Innocents And by what Law did Infants suffer death if not as they were included in Adam the first man and his offence becoming theirs thereby according to those words 1 Cor. 15. 22. For as in Adam all die so in Christ shall all be made alive So that if it were not by the imputation of Adam's sin Children or Infants suffered a penalty without all Law which is contrary to the Apostles words Rom. 5. 13. But sin is not imputed when there is no Law But there was a Law then in force viz. the penalty of Adam's sin which by imputation reached to his posterity And in this very respect Adam was the figure of him that was to come viz. Jesus Christ So that if the righteousness of Christ of that one man Christ Jesus be not imputed to justification of all his children by faith or that are considered by God in Christ the whole frame of the Apostles arguing is but trifling and concludes nothing of what it seems to aim at which is not to be admitted by a Christian There are four Objections among others I have met with against the evidence of these Texts to the Doctrine I have vindicated Object 1. Christ was our example and therein did answer to Adam as his figure for sin came into the world by Adam's example and so righteousness by Christs Answ This is an old error and what error so old and rotten that the Quakers will not embrace who live in error as their element The Texts I have quoted have not the least appearance of sin entring the world by example and the Infants over whom death reigned were not capable of sinning by example Object 2. There might be a derivation of Adam's corrupted nature to all his posterity and so all of them might be guilty of sinfull dispositions and habits in their own persons yet by generation from Adam and not by imputation of his sin committed in his own person so the righteousness that justifies may be derived in spiritual regeneration whereby the soul is disposed and enabled to work righteousness by that spiritual life and vigour it receives from him as its root Answ That cannot be the meaning for then the condemnation spoken of would be by all and every one which though it be true that dispositions to sin are derived from Adam by natural generation and dispositions to holiness by regeneration from Christ yet cannot be the meaning of these Texts for the emphatical word which as upon the hinge the whole argument turns is the word one by one mans offence by the obedience of one whereas if the Objection did hit the meaning the Apostle must rather have said So by all or every mans offence condemnation came upon all But there is no mention of that middle thing mans corrupt disposition to knit condemnation to Adam's sin as a more original and remote cause Also it should then be in or into all and not upon all Object 3. The condemnation that came upon all and that reigned from Adam to Moses was but temporal death and what is that to eternal or to bear a proportion with justification to life spiritual and eternal Answ It is more than you prove or can prove that it was but corporal and temporal death and we can prove that it was the guilt of eternal death if we go no further to fetch the proof than from what is opposed to it in the last verse of the Chapter righteousness to eternal life And temporal death is not remitted or discharged to those who enjoy the benefit of the grace by the second Adam Jesus Christ Object 4. The Apostle James saith What doth it profit my brethren though a man say he hath faith and have no works can faith save him Was not Abraham our Father justified by works c. Ye see then how that by works a man is justified and not by faith only To the first Instance in the Objection I answer The saying a man hath faith is not sufficient to render him justified or to justifie him Secondly A dogmatical or historical faith cannot justifie or so act on the promise and Covenant as to put us under the imputation of justifying righteousness for such a faith the Devils have and there is a vast difference between believing the History of the Gospel and believing in Christ And this is the dead faith the Apostle speaks of verse 17. To the second Instance Abraham's works though they justified his faith yet they did not justifie his person And the History of his offering up his Son doth give evidence for this Exposition Now I know that thou fearest God seeing thou hast not with-held thy Son thine only Son from me And I will shew thee my faith by my works To the third Instance which seems to joyn works with faith in justification that is our works I answer That although justifying faith is not without works yet faith justifies without works as a man cannot have seeing eyes if he have not lungs and heart and brains which are essential to life and the living motion of every member yet the eye only sees and not the lungs or brains c. but if you should pluck the eyes out of the head they would so alone be to little purpose So works are essential to the being of justifying faith yet faith alone is in the act
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
reach of his natural entire and uncorrupted light and innate to his perfect frame and holy disposition had the obligation of a positive duty from God in the matter of the tree in the midst of the Garden And to me the main ground of it was that the absolute soveraignty of the Creator might be acknowledged and man might learn to render obedience to God not only because the matter of it is just in its self and would be so if God had never explicitely commanded it but also because it is the will of God yea where his will obliges singly without the respect of natural and unchangeable equity And God hath so expressed his jealousie over this right of his that when sins against not only natural light but superadded precepts to confirm and strengthen its doubtfulness and decayes have been passed by without any special expressions of his provocation sins committed against his positive Laws have been avenged with a high hand Adam's and Eve's transgression was against an institution and positive Law the commission of which so stirred up the displeasure of God that he banished them out of Paradise and imposed that curse under which the world groans to this day And it is not below our notice that although they were capable of sinning against God in many other respects yet God affixes the direfull penalty to this positive Law In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die The case of Nadab and Abihu when God bare witness against them from heaven by consuming them with fire was as a pillar of salt to season others with an awfull reverence of God in his purely instituted worship Vzzah was smitten and died on the spot when he miscarried so little as in sinning against a positive Law by putting forth his hand to save the Ark the intention of it being good and commendable And as under the Old so under the New Testament-dispensation God hath not left his positive Laws without the fence of his special displeasure witnessed against the contemners and abusers of them For this cause many are weak and sickly among you and many sleep that is are dead turned into the grave This was inflicted on them for their disorder at the Lords Supper although especially among the Corinthians we read of many great sins against moral precepts yet the Spirit of God assigns not them but this breach as the cause And if we consider the great inclination of man to pride himself in his own innate reason and wisdom and great unwillingness to subscribe to any thing that is not in its own nature within the reach of it we may suppose that something with respect to that which is so apt to break the bonds of meer authority even that of God himself the Lord hath put such a guard on positive Laws and will not no not now under the dispensation of the gracious Gospel leave men without a test of their resignation to his divine wisdom and absolute though never unjust soveraignty and authority And I having observed these Ordinances of the Gospel which are the only meerly positive Laws of the New Testament to be sleighted because in their own nature they seem of no tendency to edification have given my Reader this not superfluous Introduction SECT VI. I shall begin with Baptism it being the first in order of the two both in its institution and practice The Quakers deny Water-Baptism to be now an Ordinance of Christ The Baptism we own which is the Baptism of Christ with the holy Ghost and with fire but we deny all other Here is Water-Baptism plainly denied But this will not serve the turn it must be stigmatized also with all those who ever so conscientiously and regularly practise it And now I see the other Water-Baptism to be formal imitation and the invention of man and so a meer delusion and all are Heathens and no Christians who cannot witness this Baptism the Baptism of the Quakers spirit of delusion who can witness this denies all other Your brain-imaginations we deny Methinks they who have read the Scripture should not call Water-Baptism the invention of men that is too palpable an untruth though to call it formal imitation be an untruth also it is more tollerable than the other but to brand it with the Charge of a meer delusion is of such reflection on its Author as nothing but a heart steel-hard and a head dungeon-dark and both void of the fear and awe of God could thus suggest And to make up the measure full all must be reproached as Heathens and no Christians whose eyes are not as blind and fore-heads as impudent as theirs and yet as rank Quakers as this will call me not only injurious but a blasphemer also for saying and proving they are no Christians But lyes and confidence with them are prerogativ'd things while truth must beg and have nothing but by their good leave and grace and then it may starve or flee where the Quakers rule the roast They Baptism Bread and Wine rose from the Popes invention and the whole practice of those things as they use them had their institution from the Pope c. Without doubt the light within is wonderfully learned in History and as some of the Quakers write doth declare to them the Creation the Fall and what not without the Scripture This regardfull Prophet can tell you that Baptism rose from the Pope yea and the Wine in the Sacrament too which the Pope indeed took away from the Laity but never instituted it And this Author as I have before cited him tells the world we call the Latin the original his mind is all on Rome and there I 'le leave him Yet that I may not imitate the Quakers who will not consider the weightiest Reasons and clearest against their Tenets I shall weigh theirs truly and justly before I determine this point They who would have one Baptism inward another outward would have two Baptisms when the Scripture saith the Baptism is but one I must tell him by the way that he tells an untruth wilfully and what that is he could tell another He uses or rather abuses the words of the Apostle just before repeated One Lord one Faith one Baptism and there he adds his but which the Text hath not And here the Scripture saith the Baptism is but one let him find such a Scripture and I will be bound to turn Quaker but there being no such I am sure he hath not the Spirit of God and is by it infallibly guided who thus forges Scripture But to the Objection take notice That Water-Baptism is the sign the Baptism of the Spirit the main thing but not all signified now to have the thing signifying and the thing signified called by the same name doth not make them to be two of that name no more than there were two new Covenants because the matter contained in the Covenant is called the Covenant
is come and his Disciples were to do it in remembrance of him till he was come but Christ is come in the Spirit to them and therefore this precept doth not bind them But who would think the Spirit or Christ in the Spirit was not come either in shedding it abroad miraculously as in the 2 Acts or as a sanctifier in the hearts of his people when the Disciples and whole Church at Jerusalem were so frequent in this Ordinance and when the Apostle Paul tells the Corinthians The Bread which we break c. But that none must be engaged by this Ordinance but those to whom Christ was not come by a Spirit of sanctification is exceeding cross for whereas the Ordinance is for the Saints this renders it to be peculiar to those in a state of sin and unconverted to Christ and they are not ashamed to own it to be so Which was the thing Christ in tender love to his Disciples at his departure warned them on knowing that their nature would draw to the earth-ward not yet being changed nor having Christ born in them to keep them and for all this warning and leaving this as a sign c. If Christ born in the soul be not till the light within be obeyed as Christ the Son of the living God we doubt not the truth of Nailor's speech and that the Apostles and Disciples of Christ were all strangers to such a conversion Before I part with this Subject it will not be unmeet to inform you what they mean by the Lords Supper which they own But if you eat in remembrance of him and so come to die to that which slew him then do you shew the Lords death till he come and when he comes he shall not find you eating and drinking with the drunken c. So that mortification to sin taken in the best sense is with him the Lords Supper but in his own sense it is a dying to all that doth not obey the Christ of the Quakers The light within At another turn it is somewhat else and quite contrary Which all know who come to his Supper where the Father and the Son are come in and sup with the creature which all the imitators and observers of times are ignorant of whose contention is about outsides In the words cited before It was a Fast a Popish cruciating Fast But this last cited a Feast a spiritual Feast and the Feast is constituted of the coming of the Father and the Son supping with the creature whereas before his mind was that when Christ comes the Supper is ended but now it is no other but Christ himself present But the strangest Supper of the Lord is expressed by the same Author in these words And this was to be done at all seasons when they eat and drink in their eating and drinking they were to do it to the Lord and therein to have communion with his Body and Bloud yea when they were to eat with Gentiles they were to partake of the Table of the Lord as is plain 1 Cor. 10. Thus hath the Lord given up these people to confusion Sometimes the Lords Supper is quite gone and done away Then it remains but 't is a fasting from and dying to sin and what they call excess Then it is spiritual and within and Christs coming makes the Supper And last of all 't is every meal you eat and every draught you drink you ought therein to remember the Lords death till he come at breakfast dinner supper and afternoons luncheons also And yet this wretch Nailor to whom some of the Quakers sang Hosanna and worshipped him and called him the Son of God The Christ and none of the Quakers now but own him as a great Prophet and highly honoured and beloved of God and yet he dared to say concerning this false confused stuff What I have received of the Lord that I shall declare unto you And again And this is known from the Lord in the eternal to be the true end of the Supper of the Lord c. If denying the Ordinances of Christ after the manner proved of the Quakers in this Chapter be Christianity or consistent with a Christian the holy Scriptures have given us a very un-intelligible account of Christianity or a Christian and that mouth which said I deny that God did ever or will ever reveal himself by any of those things thou callest the meanes of grace was not full of blasphemy or in any fault against Scripture Prayer Hearing which were intended by it CHAP. XV. The Quakers deny the transactions of Jesus Christ when he was manifest in the flesh in Judea above sixteen hundred yeares since or as he is now at the right hand of God to have any influence into our Justification before God and our Salvation SECT I. IN this point they come not short of themselves who in every path of error out-strip all others who are found in the same crooked way I shall proceed to the proof All that are called Presbyterians and Independants with their feeding upon the report of a thing done many hundred years ago This he saith by way of reproach against all that act faith on and receive comfort from the blessed effects of Christs righteousness and sufferings by him wrought and suffered when he was in the world What righteousness Christ performed without me was not my justification neither was I saved by it I believe it of himself if he died in the same mind Can outward Bloud cleanse the conscience can outward Water wash the soul clean A plain denial of the efficacy of the Bloud of Christ shed on the Cross to cleanse the soul from the guilt of sin by its satisfaction to the justice of God Seeing the Apostle speaks of purifying the heavenly things themselves Heb. 9. 23. it would seriously be enquired into and the Lord waited on to know what nature those sacrifices must be of which cleanse the heavenly things Whether they must not of necessity be heavenly If so then whether it was the flesh and bloud of the Vail or the flesh and bloud within the Vail Whether was it the flesh and bloud of the outward earthly nature or the flesh and bloud of the inward spiritual nature Whether was it the flesh and bloud which Christ took of the first Adam ' s nature or the flesh and bloud of the second Adam ' s nature By these Queries you may see how far he is from believing that the offering up of the man Christ Jesus the seed of the woman hath any influence into our remission and cleansing from the guilt of sin contemning the value of the flesh and bloud of the man Christ Jesus as beneath and short of such an efficacy and that of necessity there must be flesh and bloud mysteriously included in the outward and visible flesh and bloud of a more heavenly and spiritual nature contrary to the words of
of justifying or so acts on Christ as to justifie the person in the sight of God by cloathing the soul with Christs righteousness And although in the Text it is translated not by faith only it may and I was going to say ought to be translated alone and then the sense is but this That faith which is alone without works doth not justifie a man in the sight of God And I shall give two good Reasons for it The one because it may be so without wrong to the Original Secondly It must be so because it will otherwise contradict the Apostle Paul and the truth also as expressed abundantly in other Scriptures 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth as well signifie alone as only and is very often so rendred as Joh. 8. 29. The Father hath not left me alone 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Joh. 16. 32. And shall leave me 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 alone Yea it is rendred apart Mat. 14. 23. He went up into a mountain apart to pray I could instance abundantly in the like Now whereas being rendred only it implies that works also justifie whereas if it were rendred alone or apart which is as fair in the Greek it would amount but to this a faith which hath not or is separate from works will not be a justifying faith And it must be so because else it opposes the great Doctrine of the Gospel or at least looks like such a thing Rom. 4. 2 5 6. For if Abraham were justified by works he hath whereof to glory c. But to him that worketh not that is aiming at justification thereby but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly his faith is counted for righteousness The blessedness of the man to whom God imputeth righteousness without works that is without respect to his works But enough of this only take one Text that needs no Comment to raise up this truth out of it viz. That the righteousness of Christ imputed is that alone or only which justifies by way of merit and which true faith looks to for this end For he hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him SECT III. I must not forget to do somewhat to satisfie the very weak of the influence the sufferings of Christ the Son of the Virgin Mary hath into the satisfaction of Gods justice appeasing wrath reconciling us to God c. Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree c. And the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all Surely he hath born our griefs and carried our sorrows c. But he was wounded for our transgressions he was bruised for our iniquities the chastisement of our peace was upon him and with his stripes we are healed That God was not is as George Fox hath quoted it to lose the truth and save his errour in Christ reconciling the world to himself not imputing their trespasses unto them Having made peace by the bloud of his Cross And without shedding of bloud there is no remission Much more then being now justified by his bloud we shall be saved from wrath through him Surely his salvation is nigh them that fear him that glory may dwell in our land mercy and truth have met together righteousness and peace have kissed each other Truth shall spring out of the earth and righteousness shall look down from heaven 'T is generally agreed these Verses respect Jesus Christ who is Gods salvation the triumph and glory of whose effects for his people are chiefly two First The reconciliation of Gods mercy to us with his truth and his righteousness to our peace The truth and righteousness of God were engaged to destroy and ruine the whole race of mankind for their sinning against him and breach of his Covenant in those words For in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die Now whatever inclinations God might have to shew mercy to man and bless him with peace the truth and righteousness of God he having that word gone out of his mouth seemed to oppose it as not consisting with mercy and peace towards man and to have bound up those hands and lockt up those bowels from whence mans peace through the Lords mercy might reach him But through Christ Gods salvation and what he did and suffered in our nature as our publick person and in our stead the mercy of God in reaching poor sinners is set free without any detriment to his truth and the peace of a believing sinner throws no scandal on the righteousness and justice of a gracious God but these his glorious Attributes of mercy truth righteousness are at a full agreement amity and union not only in God as they alwayes were and never can be otherwise but also in blessing man with a reconciliation with his offended Creator This Jesus arises like a divine Sun in his almighty strength with healing in his wings And this is no mean evidence of the satisfaction to the truth justice and righteousness of God by what Christ transacted in the world in the behalf of lost and undone man To declare I say at this time his righteousness that he might be just and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus The second glorious effect of this salvation of God Jesus Christ by his transacting our redemption is That righteousness shall look down from Heaven The righteousness in the 11th Verse I suppose is not the same with that in the 10th Verse the former in the 10th Verse being the essential righteousness and justice of God which was to be reconciled to sinners which could not be done with a salvo to his Word but by some means which might answer to and satisfie his justice But the righteousness in the 11th Verse seems to me to be that sinless state which Christ who came down from Heaven hath cloathed them with by imputing to them and putting upon them that divine and glorious righteousness which he wrought in his own person and in our nature when he was in the world and so renders his believing ones not only free from the direfull stroaks and heart-piercing frowns of a just and offended God but also the objects of his love of benevolence yea of delight and complacence To conclude The whole transaction of Jesus Christ as Redeemer is the ground of our justification and its effects and consequences we being instated therein although the righteousness of Christ considered as his obedience and fulfilling that Law under which he was made as man and imputed to us be the glory of the Saints wherewith they shine in the righteousness of God in him And with relation to our union with Christ all those holy fruits the Saints bring forth by the strength and life from Christ received are accepted of by God and shall be eternally rewarded yet have no part nor portion in this matter of justifying our persons
him that hates it and in him that loves it I have done with the first grand Argument and proved abundantly that the light within every man is not God That the Quakers own the light within every man to be God and profess it And these will prove that they are Idolaters or none will ever be so proved I shall now shew you another God of the Quakers owning or at least their Idol in another dress in managing the second proof of the Quakers owning that to be God which is not God My Argument is this They that own and profess the souls or spirits of all or some men which are constitutive parts of all or some men to be God do own and profess that to be God which is not God But the Quakers do so Therefore They own and profess that to be God which is not God Two things will prove the whole of this Syllogism First To prove that not the souls or spirits of any men are God Why I put in all or some in the Proposition you will see the reason when I prove Secondly That the Quakers hold the spirits or souls of all or some men to be God If the souls or spirits of any men were God then God may be polluted with sin But God cannot be polluted with sin Therefore The souls or spirits of any men are not God The second Proposition will be granted not only by Christians but Heathens Is there unrighteousness with God who taketh vengeance Godforbid He that reproveth God let him answer it The first Proposition I prove from Adam's pollution with sin who of all men except Jesus Christ was the most unlikely to have his soul polluted who was created upright and had the greatest advantages of maintaining his innocency yet his soul was polluted as may appear Gen. 3. Rom. 5. at large Let us cleanse our selves from all filthiness both of flesh and spirit Now the God of peace sanctifie you wholly and preserve you blameless in spirit and soul and body c. This is enough to prove that the spirits of men yea of the Saints and best of men may be and have been polluted with sin If the souls or spirits of men were God then God may be in prison But God cannot be in prison Therefore They are not God The first Proposition I prove from 1 Pet. 3. 19. By which he went and preached to the spirits in prison And these were the sinfull and disobedient spirits who provoked God in the dayes â—â— Noah The second Proposition all men will grant except the Quakers who often speak of the seed 〈…〉 captivity by which seed they mean no otheâ— but Christ or God within every man or the ligâ—â— within every man If the spirits or souls of men were God then Gâ—… might be condemned But God cannot so be Therefore The spirits or souls of men are 〈…〉 God That the spirits or souls of men may be so 〈…〉 tremble to write the word appears by that Text 1 Pet. 3. 19. The disobedient spirits in the dayes of Noah are now in prison which is a part of their torment The whole current of the Gospel saith it or implies it I shall now prove out of the Quakers chief and allowed Writers whom they account infallible and honour with their chief respects that they hold the spirits or souls of men or both to be God Every man hath that which is one in union and like the Spirit of Christ even as good as the Spirit of Christ according to its measure This he speaks of the Spirit in man which every man hath and sure if it be as good as the Spirit of Christ it must be God for the Spirit of Christ and of God are one and the same But to talk of its measure their usual phrase is a blaspheming God to speak his divine Being any thing less than infinite Now my soul and spirit is centered in its own Being with God and this form of person must return from whence it was taken The words of Ed. Burroughs the morning before he died Here he makes his soul and spirit one Being with God or God to be the souls own Being And what follows implies that as the body and soul are the form of man while in this world so at dissolution as the body resolves into dust its first Being so the soul to God its first Being A miserable Exposition of the Scripture which saith The body shall return to the dust and the spirit shall return to him that gave it He lived and died a true Quaker but a false Christian if he changed not his mind his last day Priest It is an expression of a dark deluded mind to say that God is not distinguished from the Saints Thus he brings in the Minister saying Answ But God and Christ is in the Saints and dwells in them and he the Priest is a reprobate and out of the Apostles Doctrine If it were only out of ignorance in not understanding the word distinguished or of the manner of Gods Being in his Saints it should not be his Charge in this place But you shall if you read further see he intends no less than the wicked import of his words But to call him reprobate and out of the Apostles Doctrine is over measure a great deal he might have spared him that in charity John Bunian saith He God is distinct from the Saints and Bunian is deceived who saith he is distinct from the Saints and so you are a company of pityfull Teachers By these expressions he renders not only tâ—… Souls and Spirits of the Saint the same bâ—… with God but their whole man without distinction Again thou makes a great pudder that any 〈…〉 should witness he is equal with God Answ A Catechism of the Assembly of the Priestâ— and put forth to the nation in which they have laid doâ—â— that the holy Ghost and the Son is equal in power anâ— glory with the Father yet if any come but to witnesâ—… the Son revealed in him or come to witness the Holy Ghost in them as they gave out the Scriptures or witness the mind of Christ and witness that equal with the Father they cry out horrid blasphemy Observe he doth not in the least deny the priests charge as he calls him but calls it a pudder he makes as if the most horrid blasphemies opposed or charged on the blasphemers were but making a pudder And to heal his sore he would wound the Assembly of Divines by laying the like monster at their door but herein he shews his ignorance with his malice and slander For the rest of his phrases I shall only say this that they make no difference between the Spirits of the Quakers yea of all men and the Son of God or the Holy Ghost And is not that of God which comes out from God is not that of his being the soul which he hath in his hand and so divine