who has not out-lived their dayes and on whom the night is not come among the Indians themselves but would readily say these are true and weighty And so he wipes himself and his Brother Burroughs as he thinks clean and acquits himself from all crime against the Scriptures and evades John Faldo's Charge But not to stand answering every word the sum of Penn's Defence and come off to give it the Reader in more intelligible words is this That such commands in Scripture as be of universal and perpetual obligation such as holiness purity innocency and generally all that concerns honest and godly living all these be obliging to all because there is no man so sottish and impious but his conscience assenteth to these commands But Mr. Penn what do you say if men be so sottish and impious as to be ignorant that these are commands of God and to live without God in the World and to have abominable and filthy and reprobate consciences It is plain from your Position and defence of it that you make conviction the ground and spring of obedience So that where there is no conviction there is no obedience due where the conviction is but partial the obedience due is but partial where the conviction is erroneous the obedience must be erroneous It this Divinity and is this your Religion Why then do you not speak out and say fully and plainly Every man follow his own Lusts every man follow his own conscience every man burn his Bible and make Conscience and Conviction your Bible For this is the genuine product of your Opinion It is a Rule in Logick That what is not in the premises cannot be in the conclusion and that every redundancy in the conclusion exceeding the Arguments laid down in the premises in vicious and that the conclusion is vertually contained in the two fore-going Propositions Now you make conviction one of your premises and you lay down this Proposition That where there is no conviction there is no obedience and that obedience can rise no higher than conviction Now may one not admire that a man of your reading and bringing up should be so perswaded of the holiness and goodness of Man-kind as to write and publish to the World That none that hath a reasonable soul no not among the Indians themselves can be unconvinced of that faith in God and an holy self-denying life are necessary both to temporal and eternal happiness Quis â—alia fando temperet à lachrymis The Lord forgive me my want of compassion to this man Alas how many thousands are there in the World that know not God not what faith in God is that know not what a holy self-denying life is that worship Devils that make the Belly their God and with them a holy self-denying life is to live as if the must never dye and follow their pleasures and Religion with them is meer Epicurism and sensuality let us eat and drink for to morrow we shall dye You would have us to believe that all the World is perfectly holy and that there is never a corrupted and defiled conscience in the World and that Adam's fall is no such thing and that the redemption of Man-kind by Christs blood and regeneration by the Holy Ghost and original sin and hereditary corruption and mans deadness in sins and trespasses by nature are no such things O marvellous that you can be perswaded no man that hath a reasonable soul not a savage Indian but he hath a conscience within him assenting to all the rules and precepts of holiness self-denyal godliness charity and heavenly conversation or that no man in the World hath a blind understanding a seared conscience an impotent foul needing no purgation and cure from Jesus Christ and his good spirit by the new covenant I do grant you this that no man stands bound to obey any command which it is utterly impossible for him to know and be convinced of And by granting this I do sufficiently assoil and clear the justice of God God doth not enjoyn any man that which is simply and totally impossible God and Conscience will never smite and condemn for meer and total impossibilities But where nothing hinders a man from knowing his duty but his own neglect and wilful carelesness and where a man shall by sin debauch and sear his Conscience and Conscience misguided and seduced shall put him on to worship Idols to bow to a wooden God to blaspheme the true God to murder persecute commit all or any crimes will you excuse this man from sin for going according to his Conscience and exempt him from all going against his erroneous Conscience If indeed the case were so that no conviction could be or none that I could any way compass then I were in no fault but where it is my fault if I be unconvinced and I might know my duty were I not wanting to my self and there is no defect in the means but all the defect is in me in such case God may justly charge me with the omission of duty and the commission of evil though I know not of it for I might have known if I would and my not knowing my duty which I might have known it cannot excuse me from sin nor nullify the command of God If God should command a Beast to do him reasonable worship it were an unreasonable command because the beast hath no reasonable powers or capacity thereto the command to him is simply impossible So if God should command a man to reach the Stars with his hands such a command would not oblige because it is naturally and simply impossible But when God commandeth the Jews to believe on the same Jesus and own him for the true Messias this command is reasonable because Jesus Christ doth abundantly testifie by his doctrine life and miracles that he is the Christ of God And if the Jews will not believe but contrariwise look upon Christ as a deliverer and put him to death and all this in blind zeal and think they do God good service shall we say These men are excused because they did it ignorantly and of errour In all cases where God doth afford due means of knowledge and conviction there ignorance and base want of conviction is sinful and Gods command both written and unwritten doth oblige though the sinner be never convinced For mans sin and neglect cannot make void Gods Law It is true I grant that without the light within we could not at all come to the knowledge of the Scriptures What then will it thence follow That no command in Scripture doth oblige without conviction Had we no light within we should be very brutes Every man hath a reasonable soul which soul doth essentially contain a principle or power of rational light by which man as man is differenced from a beast and is Animal rationale by the help of his reason or that light which is graven in his mind by the Creatour and cultivated by
and if no crimes they were innocent yea laudable actions proceeding from a mind acting according to conviction 3. If this Position of Penn's be true then sins of errour are no sins but vertues and whatsoever is done through delusion and a perverted hereticated mind and judgment is laudable I verily thought saith Paul that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth Acts 26.9 and our Saviour saith The time cometh that whosoever killeth you will think that he doth God service Joh. 16.2 It it conviction saith Penn which can only oblige to obedience doth not this patronize the grossest crimes where the conscience is misconvinced and the understanding deceived doth not this justifie all erroneous Doctrines and all erroneous Conceits and practical Misapprehensions and whatsoever Vices lye in the understandings of Men for all conviction passeth into the Soul through this gate of the understanding Now the understanding is naturally full of darkness unbelief and errour every ungodly man is practically an Atheist an Heretick a false Teacher to his own soul at least and practical Ignorance and a perverted Judgement are the mother of all the sins and abominations in the world and what doth this Position but justifie them all When wicked men kill the Saints they look upon them at wicked men and so kill them all that have been martyr'd by persecuting Popes and Pagan Kings and Governours and all the Persecutions that have been done to the Saints have been through ignorance and practical errour Penn's Position doth justifie the Irish Rebellion the French Massacre the Mariâ—â— Persection the ten Persecutions of the Primitive Churches the Gun-powder Treason Judaism Mahometism Paganism Popery all erroneous Sects and Parties in the World with all their false Principles and Practices Christ saith it is life eternal to know God and Christ Jesus Joh. 17.3 Penn's Position saith if you are ignorant and unconvinced no Law can lay hold on you if you be deluded and practise according to the convictions of your deluded mind you are warranted by the command of God which do all center in conviction 4. If this Position off Penn's be true then conscience and conviction is God and whatsoever conscience says must be done be it right or wrong and it lyes in the power of conscience to abrogate and undo and make void all the Laws of God and to make new Laws in their room and stead and do whatsoever it pleaseth If no command be of any force further then conscience shall assent to it and if conviction and conviction only oblige to obedience then whatsoever conviction says must be done let God and Man say what tehy will If conviction bid us murder we must do it if to commit Treason we must do it and that under pain of damnation 5. Then also it will follow that he is the most free from all sin who hath the most sear'd conscience and that the ready way to obedience and salvation is to debauch and sear the conscience and and stuff it with the grossest errours and quite kill it with conscience-wasting sins and make it so void of life and feeling that we may may do the most horrid crimes and yet conscience stand to stand to them and not only not smite us for them but approve us and praise us and tell us we have done God good service 6. If conviction be the ground of obedience and the authority of Scripture depend upon the rectitude and purity of conscience then all rational Law Order and Government both Divine and Humane is over turned and a stop is put to all Religion and Piety towards God to all Conscience Honesty and Charity towards Men let God command what he will conscience may come and say I deny this command and him that commands it I know no such God as Pharaoh sayes to Moses and Aaron Who is the Lord that I should let Israel go I know not the Lord neither will I let Israel go Exod. 5.2 and as proud Nebuchadnezzar sayes to the three Witnesses who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hand Dan. 3.15 and as Sennacherib sent a railing Letter by his Captain Rabshakeh blaspheming the God of Jerusalem saying Who is your God that be should be able to deliver you out of my hand 2 Chron. 32.14 No God of any Nation or Kingdom was able to deliver out of my hand how much less shall your God deliver you out of my hand v. 15. And his servants spake yet more against the Lord God and his servant Hezekiah he wrote Letters also to rail on the Lord God of Israel and to speak against him c. v. 16 17. So also Princes and Rulers may command and make never so good Laws conscience may come and say I deny all these Laws and the maker of them Children may refuse to obey Parents and Servants their Masters and Inferiours their Superiours if conscience shall be unconvinced and if it be deluded Subjects may murder their Princes Children their Parents Servants their Masters one Man another there can be no Law but Conscience and whatsoever Conscience says must stand It is certain that since the fall of our first Parents Conscience in every man naturally is corrupted and by custom in sin it bâ—comes twice corrupted By nature Conscience is dead in trespasses and sins Eph. 2.1 and men live without God and Christ in the world v. 12. being without hope and aliens to the Common-wealth of Israel and strangers to the Covenants of Promise By nature there is not one righteous conscâ—ence in all the world Rom. 3.10 There is none that understandeth there is none that seeketh after God they are all gone out of the way they altogether become unprofitable there is none that doth good no not one v. 11.12 All the world is guilty before God of an evil conscience v. 19. The mind and conscience is defiled abominable disobedient and to every good work reprobate Tit. 1.15 16. Some mens consciences are twice dead Jud. 12. seared with a hot iron 1 Tim. 4. 2. past feeling given over to lasciviousness to work all uncleanness with greediness Eph. 4.19 hard as the adamant stone Zach. 7.12 having a whores forehead without shame Jer. 3.3 impudent and stiff-hearted Ezek. 2.4 rebellious v. 5. doing evil with both hands earnestly Mich. 7.3 insatiable Ezek. 16.28 full of subtilty and mischief children of the Devil enemies of all righteousness not ceasing to pervert the right ways of the Lord Act. 13.10 and infinite more might be gathered out of the Scriptures reporting the wickedness of man and the corruptions of his Conscience and all his powers Experience witnesseth the same what woful consciences have many professing Christians Penn himself saith of the Protestants and them of the Church of England That they abound in evil equalizing if not outstripping Papists and Heathens in all kinds of impiety Truth exalted p. 10. how then can such a conscience be a law or rule to
education he may know that there is a God and a Life to come and many things pertaining to Religion and Morality Will it hence follow that because we are men and have reasonable faculties there lyes no obligation upon us to obey any command of God further then our reason shall acquaint and certifie us and further then the light shall inform us What if the light be negligent idle sleepy unfaithful and bribed and shall let the sinner sin and dye in sin is God unjust for taking vengeance If the Coach-man sleep and the Horses run wood or if he drive so that the Coach is over-turned doth he not deserve correction But Penn and all his partakers conceit strange things of the light within and set it above Scriptures above all written and unwritten Laws and this is their very Principle That the light within in all things is to be our Rule and that the Scripture is inferiour to it and to be ruled by it and so God and Christ and the Spirit and Scripture and all Duty and Religion are made servants to the light within Whereas it is evident That the light within gives the Drunkard leave to be drunk the Worldlng to be a worldling and the impenitent man to be impenitent there is never a soul in Hell but he may have the light within for if the light within were faithful to God and the Soul it would not suffer sin to dwell in the soul it would not suffer any man to live in sin and dye in sin God charges man to be holy in all manner of conversation and man being so charged by God doth quire the contrary The light within which should be his guide like a negligent drunken Coach-man sleeps and the Horses run wood or he drives into pits and bogs So doth the light within take part with the flesh and Satan against God and suffers the soul to be sensual worldly and ungodly and so is at least a permissive cause of the sinners sin and damnation being charged to watch over the soul and doth not Now comes Penn and a Sect of people called Quakers and cry Vp with this light within and tell us that we must hearken to this in all things and further then the light within shall teach and lead us we are to give no hearkning to any thing that Scripture saith and if Scripture go farewell God and Christ and Heaven and all Law and Rule This is that Penn whose zeal for Quakerism exceeds that hath written sundry Books for it and in the end of his Book Reason against Railing pag. 185. doth commend unto us his own with other his Brethrens Works for an account of the Quakers Principles confessing That they do contain much of what can be said in behalf of their Principles and Practices vaunting as though they could not by reason be silenced nor confuted by sober Argument pag. 186. I refer my self and what I have here writ to impartial censure warning and entreating all people as they love their souls to take heed of Quakerism I would be glad to make the best I can of your Position but I must protest my Conscience and Conviction I cannot find out what to say to solve your Position and make it but a tolerable Errour All this while I speak not against you but your Errour you make bold and free to publish such matter to the World allow us the same boldness and freedom to detect your Errours and to do our best to save the Souls which be in danger to be subverted by your Principles Keep your poyson to your self and none will perish by it but your self but if you will needs vend it and in the view of all the Nation and such at least as know the English tongues set up a Position subverting all Religion and all Law and Government and levelling all holy and profitable Rules and Commands to mens lusts leaving no man in the World under any obligation to any duty to God or Man further then he is convinced in his conscience be it known to you that Jesus Christ hath his servants abroad to bear testimony for him against such God-baspheming and Soul-damning Errours and if you repent not this that I have writ shall rise up in judgment against you and shall be an aggravation of your misery in that day Prepare to answer the righteous Judge if your Conscience be blinded and seared now it will be open and awaken then Sept. 6. 1676. FINIS