we have seen in you and in some of those that are gone away with you and we are perswaded there is no judicious Christian this day in Bristol that hath known and observed you and us but will say the same thing so that there being so many such persons with your self gone from us we hope there is some Reformation in the Church but if there should still remain any such among us as we hope there doth not surely we shall be ready to deal with them as we have done with you and others onely we must know they are such for we must not take the railing accusations of our imbittered enemies for a sufficient proof Thirdly you say notwithstanding there is that in some of us after which your soul doth greatly long that the salvation of God were come out of Sion c. We do believe there is many a soul in this Congregation that doth long and groan day and night after more of the blessed Spirit of Jesus Christ that so they might know him better believe on him more love him more and live more to him and yet we trust there is never a soul in this Congregation but seeth sufficient ground to stand at a distance from your Principles and waies so that you may cease hoping for any of them to come unto you the Lord preserving them by his grace We come now to the five things in your Admonishing a Copy of which we having by us do here insert verbatiam First your leaving the Church which hath three sad consequences in it as we judge First the drawing of many away from the faith and waies of the Gospel Secondly the offending grieving and stumbling of many weak souls Thirdly the opening of the mouths of many to speak evil of the waies of Truth as 2 Pet. 2. 2. Secondly your contemning of some and neglecting of others of the Ordinances of Jesus Christ Thirdly your extream sensoriousness and rash judging not only of persons abroad but also of the Church contrary to Matt. 7. 1. Rom. 14. 3. also your calling the Church an Harlot Fourthly your asserting in the Church Doctrins contrary to Truth As first that we did not know what Faith was and that Faith was an eternal thing Secondly that Christ and Faith is all one Thirdly that Christ is not the object of Faith Fourthly your speaking reproachfully of the blessed Scriptures affirming they were blind and a plague to souls and further saying they are not the Word of God nor the Rule of Life Now because you say these are studied Accusations and from the Father of lies c. we shall therefore prove every title of these things to be true First that you have left the Church is true and that your so doing hath drawn away some grieved others and opened the mouthes of many to speak evil of the waies of Christ this is clear and plain and not a studied accusation but a real thing and that which hath been matter of grief and sadness to the Church and therefore we did send to admonish you of the evil of it Now in that you reply all judgment is given to the Son whom you say we are ignorant of and enemies to c. and therefore what is our judgment worth c. and then you go on to heap up fourteen dreadful Sentences against us such as the Spirit of God doth in Scripture give to Reprobates and cast-awaies and so conclude with that 2 Thes 2. 8. Now we desire any sober Christian to consider of this your Answer which you call your defence to our charge of which you complain you had much wrong because your Letter of defence was not read whether this be a Christian-like answer to the Admonition of a Church you not giving us herein one word or reason of your departing from us but onely heaping up 16. or 18. dreadful Sentences against us The second thing you were admonished of was your contemning of some and neglecting of others of the Ordinances of Christ First that Ordinance which you contemn is Baptism in Water which you utterly reject and cast away neither using it to your Children nor allowing it to Believers but calling it as you have often done that ugly thing of Baptism with other bitter and violent expressions against it to the grief of some of us Now we did not send to admonish you for not practising of it for we knew your judgment was against it but to admonish you of your great sin in speaking so contemptuously against it calling some of them that practised it ugly Anabaptists as you have done in some of our hearing Now whereas you call us hypocrites c. because as you say we sent to admonish you for not practising Baptism by Water you speak falsly and do us wrong for we did not so but onely for your contemning of it which we shall leave to the Lord of Ordinances to judge The second Ordinance which you neglect is the Lords Supper and such other Ordinances as are practised and to be practised in the Churches of Christ which that you do neglect is clear by your practise c. And whereas you demand whether we had medled in any such thing for some years past and then fall a threatning of us again as hypocrites with deceit and hypocrisie c. To which we answer you speak false again for the Church never neglected that Ordinance of the Lords Supper any years it is true that through your means and some others the Church did forbear the practise of it about a year together but it is one thing for a Church upon occasion to forbear an Ordinance and another thing totally to neglect it or deny it as you do but for your flying out as you do in the first part of your Reply to this particular against Inventions Traditions Imaginations of mens carnal wisdom c. We answer we use no Ordinance but the Institutions of our Lord Jesus Christ which he hath commanded to be observed in his Churches till his coming again in the mean while all men may see we had ground to admonish you for the contempt of some and neglect of other of the Ordinances of Christ so that this is no lie nor studied accusation as you call it and whereas you say in the close of this Reply that Baptism and the Lords Supper you own Oh! how durst you to publish such equivocation to the World when in your conscience you know you own neither of those two Ordinances neither Baptism by Water nor Breaking of Bread why then do you use such mental reservations deal plainly that men may know what you are did you not say in the words preceding that God requires truth in the inward parts and then presently write an abominable untruth is there any fear of God before your eyes c. The third branch of your Admonition is for your extream sensoriousness and rash judging not onlie of persons abroad but also of the Church calling it a
godly men I did sometimes hear expressions to this effect That there was a two-fold coming of the Spirit of Christ into the hearts of Believers The first was that by which the eyes of mens understandings are opened and they turned from darkness to light Faith and Repentance wrought in the Soul conversion regeneration or the new birth effected and so he that was once a dead sinner becomes a living Saint or Believer though as yet but weak a babe in Christ c. The Second work or coming of the Spirit is that by which the Soul is sealed confirmed established filled with joy and peace in believing and fitted and furnished to every good work that God calls them whether doing or suffering c. Now this put me upon the search of the Scripture as first Ephes 1. 13. After you believed you were sealed which Scripture relates to that Acts 19. 2. Have you received the holy Spirit since you believed c. So Acts 8. 14. to 17. Samaria having received the Word of God and believed in the Lord Jesus Christ were baptized by Philip the Deacon the Church at Jerusalem or rather the Apostles sent forth Peter and John that they should pray that they might receive the holy Ghost for as yet he was not fallen upon any of them c. Another Scripture I find Joh. 7. 37 38 39. In the last day the great day of the feast Jesus stood and cryed saying If any man thirst let him come unto me and drink he that believeth on me as the Scripture hath said out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water but this spake he of the Spirit which they that believe on him should receive for the holy Ghost was not yet given because that Jesus was not yet glorified So Luke 11. 9. to 13. such as God is a Father unto are bid to pray to ask to seek and to knock c. with assurance by many Arguments that they should receive the holy Spirit So in the 14 15 16 Chapters of John our Saviour speaking to such as did believe in him love him and keep his Commandments c. he promiseth to send the Comforter unto them even the holy Spirit which the world could not receive c and to this agree many of the Prophecies both in Isa Jer. Ezek. Joel Zach. and others Now then as to the first work or coming of the Spirit namely to make a man to become a Saint a Christian a Believer a new Creature c. I never denied but alwayes affirmed that whosoever did believe in the Lord Jesus Christ or had the least beginning of a work of Grace in their Souls it was by the Spirit of God and they had the Spirit of Christ in the first sense according to Rom. 8. 9. now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his c. But in the second or latter sense namely to seal stablish fill with joy and comfort c. with many other glorious effects which the Scripture speaks of and which the Saints in the primative times did enjoy in this sense I have often said that I did question Whether I then had or whether many others in the Church had received the Spirit and to this you did then assent c. And therefore I did often press it in the Church that we might pray more for that blessed Spirit according to the command and promise of Christ Luke 11. 9. 13. as before and this is that which I have often called the great legacie of the new Testament and as Jesus Christ was the great promise of the first or old Testament so this blessed Spirit is the great promise of the second or new Testament which all believers are to wait pray and long for as the believers under the first Testament were to wait and long for the Messiah and this was my meaning when I have sometimes said That a man may be a Christian a Believer a converted Soul or a babe in Christ and not as yet have received the Spirit I mean still in this latter sense in respect of sealing establishing c. yet I neither did nor do expect the Gift of tongues or working Miracles c. neither do I find that the great promise of the Spirit was principally to that end though that was accomplished by it when and how the Lord pleased as Heb. 2. 4. with divers miracles and gifts or distributions of the holy Ghost according to his own will but I find rather that the great promise of the Spirit is for such glorious ends as these c. 1. To open and reveal the hidden Mysteries of the kingdome of heaven as Matth. 13. 11. to you it is given to know the Mysteries of the kingdom of Heaven c. So 1 Cor. 2. 9. to the 14. we read that those things which the eyes of men as men have not seen neither can the natural man perceive yet God doth reveal by his Spirit c. So it is promised in John to lead and guide into all truth therefore Eph. 1. 17. the Apostle prayes for believers that they might receive the Spirit of wisdom and revelation c. 2. To comfort and chear up poor drooping believers filling them with all joy and peace consolation and refreshment which is one main end for which it is promised as in 14 15 16 Chapters of John to which agree many of the sayings of the Prophets c. 3. To heighten and strengthen the Saints with boldness courage constancy and resolution in their Spirits to do or to suffer for God as Acts 4 8. Then Peter filled with the Holy Ghost said c. so to the 19. vers So Acts 5. 41. And they rejoyced that they were counted worthy to suffer c. which thing neither they nor Peter could do a little before as Mark 14. 50 66 to 71. But observe they had not then received the Spirit so Acts 16. 25. Paul and Silas sang in prison 4. To purge and purifie clense and sanctifie believers and make them holy as Isa 4. 3 4. so Ezek. 36. 25. to 29. Joel 3. 17. then shall Jerusalem be holy that is when the Mountains shall drop new wine and the hills flow with milk as vers 18. And the fountain come forth of the house of the Lord to water the valley of Shittim 5. To make poor dry barren empty souls to become fruitful to God and to grow in grace Isa 32. 5. until the Spirit be poured from on high and the wilderness become a fruitful field Isa 44. 3 4. I will pour my Spirt upon thy seed c. and they shall spring up c. so Hos 14. 5. I will be as the dew unto Israel and he shall grow c. 6. To fill the Saints with meekness and love yea with end cared love towards Christ and bowels of pity towards men as we see it was with the Saints in the primitive times but is much wanting now 7. To unite
and were troubled until they understood what you and your company meant by such things and that it was because I would not joyn with you and your new Religion and with the people that call themselves Quakers Again Was this the ground upon which you did so often cry out against Judases in the Church a little before you left us but blessed be the Lord we can now rejoice that the innocencie of the upright is cleared and the Judases are discovered c. and whether I or you have betraied and crucified the Lord Jesus in his Saints in his waies in his name and in his truth I shall humbly leave c. I do not boast but desire with all humilitie and reverence to acknowledge and admire the power grace mercy and goodness of him by whom I a poor worm have been preserved whilst such a Cedar or Star as you were taken to be is so sadlie fallen but it is no more than what some have thought and said long ago That pride and arrogancie would have a fall as Prov. 29. 23. But let him that thinketh he stands take heed lest he fall c. 1 Cor. 10. 12. But now you say I openly oppose the appearance of Christ where it is found in life and power c. What because I said of that poor deluded Creature It were fitter she were sent to Bridwel O poor deceived man that you should be a professor of Religion so long and now come to publish such a piece of folly to the world as to call the Since this I have been three times disturbed for which one is now imprisoned fierce raylings c. of these people the appearances of Christ in life and power and my speaking that one word to her once an opposing of Christ c. whereas she had no hurt done her not a word spoken to any Magistrate against her nay though she and others of your way have 16 or 17 times opposed me and rayled at me yet never but one and that but once was questioned or imprisoned for it and yet I am cried out against in word and writing by you and your companie as the great persecutor which now you tell the world you have been warned by invisible lights some months past to beware of me But how can you call Sarah Latchet the Servants of God and Witnesses of Jesus in the plural number whereas it was but to she only and that but once I spake those words though she rayled at me many times but ask your own heart whether your Design were not to draw out my supposed Offence to the world and then consider whether instead thereof you have not let out your own folly envie and hypocrisi But where is that meekness and bearing that some of you boast of that you would not return evil for evil but being cursed you bless c. poor-creatures it is an easie thing to flatter your selves and speak words c. but let any one touch you though but in a word and they shall find you as rough both in rayling and writing as any But what would you have done unto me if I should have come into your Meetings and disturbed you and railed at you c. as she and others have done at me you would have sent me not to Bridwel but to the bottomless pit if words could have done it You close your Letter with many seeming expressions of love and pity as 1. That I might see the sandiness of my foundation 2. Know the things that belong to my peace 3. Escape the pit 4. Not shut up the kingdom of Heaven against my self and others c. 1. As for my foundation I know no other nor preach no other than that foundation and Corner stone which is laid in Sion even Jesus Christ the Son of God and Son of man in one person upon whom through grace I have cast my soul for eternity and other foundations I look not for c. 2. As to my knowing the things that belong to my peace c. I bless the Lord it is the groaning of my soul to him for that blessed Spirit of revelation in the knowledge of the Mysterie of God and of the Father and of Christ that I may believe more love more and obey more c. 3. As for my escaping the Pit I desire the like for you and in order to that I have consented to and helped on the Admonitions that have been sent by the Church to you and the other poor souls that are with you c. 4. But fourthly As for my shutting up the kingdom against my self and others c. I can say through grace it hath been and is daily my great care and work to preach the kingdom of God freely to sinners and to set forth the Lord Jesus Christ as the way to that kingdom and to invite and encourage all poor souls to come into that kingdom by Jesus Christ the true door or way and by the strait gate of believing which the Scribes and Pharisees by putting men upon working for life did shut up against themselves and others and who doth so now but those that bid all men turn to a Light within them and so take them off from believing on the person of Jesus Christ or looking to be saved by what he hath done and suffered wrought and accomplished for man c. But I suppose your meaning is That I should give over preaching and come to you and your way I know this hath been the longing desire of many of you a great while for these were the words of one of your way the last time I was in your house That I kept many from receiving or embracing the Light but I desire to bless the Lord that through the riches of his grace to my soul I have been hitherto preserved and I have seen my Call to and Work in this City clearer since you left us than ever I did before both as to this poor desolate Church and likewise to many precious souls in Bristol among both of which I trust I may say with humility and comfort that God hath made me of some use though I be as nothing c. And truly I do hope that God who chuseth the things that are not to confound the things that are c. wil yet use me as an instrument for good unto his people in this City and the rather because both you with them of your way and others that are of other waies do so violently and causelesly set against me which makes me sometimes take up the complaint of the Prophet Jeremiah Jer. 15. 10. Wo is me c. I have neither lent upon usury nor have men lent me upon usury and yet every one of them doth curse me or speak evil upon me as some translations read it but blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ that yet my lamp is not gone forth in obscure darkness c. And thus I have
that blessed Spirit of the Lord Jesus in any of its Offices operations effects or different administrations in and among the People or Church of God I say I should advise them to take heed lest when God sets the solitary in families the rebellious dwell in a dry land and whilst some are like trees planted by the waters never ceasing to yeild their fruit others be like the Heath in the Desart that should not see when God cometh but inhabite the parched places in the wilderness For all the Trees of the field shall know that the Lord can bring down the high Tree and exalt the low Tree he can dry up the green Tree and make the dry Tree to flourish yea and by the pouring forth of the Spirit from on high can make the Wilderness become a fruitful Field and the fruitful Field to be counted for a Forrest as Ezek. 17. 24. Isa 32. 15. He layes it upon some as a reproach page 62. That we teach by the Spirit c. I desire humbly to acknowledge and attribute it unto the blessed Spirit of Christ that I have at any time been or now am enabled in any measure to speak or publish any truth of God either to the conversion of sinners or to the edification or consolation of the Saints and People of God and truly if this man do not lean and depend upon the help of the Spirit in his work of preaching I shall not much wonder if his Ministry prove as I have sometimes said or feared many mens have done as a miscarrying Womb and dry breasts notwithstanding all their great learning of which they seem to boast He further demands page 62. whether all that have the Spirit can teach publickly c. First if by teaching publickly he mean preaching and publishing what God hath done for them and likewise declaring to others what the Lord hath taught them c. Then I answer it is the duty of all Christians so to do 1 Pet. 4. 10. As every man hath received the gift so let him minister the same c. as Eldad and Medad did Numb 11. though one man envitd and another complained as some do now yet Moses the man of God he approved of it c. But secondly if by preaching publickly he mean a publick and solemn undertaking the work of preaching c. Then I answer I do not think that every one that hath the Spirit of Christ in him or the work of grace in his soul is fit to be a publick Preacher for there are diversities of gifts and differences of administrations as appears 1 Cor. 12. 4. to the 11. Yet where the Spirit of God hath fitted any and the People of God that know them well do see them fit and judge them fit and approve of them publickly calling them thereunto these may be fit to teach publickly at lest to their own Nation as the 70 Disciples were Luke 10. 1. though they had no gifts of Tongues as we read of no more than the twelve Apostles had during the time of their preaching to their own Nation before the Assention of Christ and that they were to preach to all Nations according to their second Commission Matt. 28. Mark 16. yet I do not in the least slight despise or undervalue learning nor learned men that have grace with it and do not scornfully trample upon them that want it but to say that no man may preach without it is to make a law where Christ hath made none for the seventy Disciples and twelve Apostles did preach long before the day of Pentecost c. He likewise demands who will step forth and tell him and not lie that the Spirit doth teach them to understand the meaning of the word Justification or Adoption c. I answer if none but such as can speak Greek and Latin can understand what Justification and Adoption is c. how then can any that have not Greek or Latin believe they are justified or adopted seeing that it is another Maxim in the Schools that no man can believe more than he doth understand But surely those Souls that have been first enlightened by the Word and Spirit of Christ to see and know their lost condition while under sense of condemnation and hath also been led by the same Spirit through the Word of grace to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ with all ther hearts and by his pretious blood to see themselves freed from condemnation and in his righteousness to be made righteous aod so to find the comfort of it in some measure in their own souls they can speak of it to the praise of God and to the edification of others and that by the help and assistance of the same blessed Spirit yea perhaps more sensibly feelingly plainly and profitably than the most learned Doctor in the world that knows it onely speculatively by learning reading and studying As for that scornful word unlettered which he doth so often use and cast as a reproach upon some men c. I answer truly some of us do know our Letters as well and can put them together into Syllables and Sentences as right and pronounce them as distinct and plain perhaps as himself but I shall not ad to this onely conclude with Prov. 3. 34. Surely the Lord scorneth the scorner and giveth grace to the lowly And I desire seriously to weigh and to commend to all sober Christians those words of the Apostle 1 Cor. 1. from 19. to 29. and Chap. 2. from 1. to 15. and Chap. 3. 18 19 20. by all which it appears the great Apostle of Christ was of another mind than this man seems to be He demands page 65. what an unlettered Teacher or Ignoramus would say if he were to discourse with a Papist or an Adversary about Justification c. Truly I would say this if any should out of pride curiosity and vain confidence run without a call to discourse with an Adversary Papists or others about that or any other point of Christianity c. he might expect that the Lord might justly leave him to himself and so he might betray or shame the truth and so might it be with the most learned Teacher in the world But secondly if a godly man were providentially or clearly called to maintain or defend that or any other truth of God against an Adversary Papist or others he going in the fear of the Lord and in a sense of self-insufficiency in faith and hope of the presence and assistance of the grace and Spirit of Christ he might expect according to his promise Matt. 10. 9. Take no thought for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak And verse 20. For it is not ye which speak but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you And how truly was this fulfilled in the Martyrs both in plain Country-men and also Women yea young Youths and Mayds who discoursing about points of Christian Religion
And when I had spoken these words I went from her and she went her way and never was questioned nor punished for any of these abuses and those words I spake but once to her and this was all I did and the occasion of it upon which you build your great structure concluding that I am no Minister of the Gospel but a Persecutor of the truth c. as in your large Letter to me thereupon you declared and that now in the title page of your Pamphlet you proclaim to the Nation c. but I wish you lay a better foundation for your other buildings lest you prove a foolish builder Now I would ask you a few sober Questions First How comes it to pass that you can stile Sarah Latchet a Servant of Jesus and publish her so to the world who is an Apostate and an Excommunicate person going on in such a rayling reviling fierce manner as hath been now declared and as divers witnesses can prove whereas there are many pretious Servants of Jesus and Saints of the most High now living in England and Bristol that have been known to walk with God for many years in uprightness their foot having held its steps and not declined from the good wayes of the Lord neither gone back from the Commandments of his lips but have esteemed his words before their appointed food and have stood fast in the worst of Times and sorest of Tryals c. and yet they must be censured judged condemned and cryed out against by you as if they were the vilest Persons on earth and all because they cannot close in with you and your way c. Secondly How durst you in your Conscience say That those raylings revilings cursings and lies c. which she uttered are a testifying from the Lord Do you not blush to name or write such a word Will Jehovah the great and glorious God of Heaven and Earth ever own such raylings revilings c. to be a testifying from him Or will he ever justifie you in what you have here written and published to the world O be ashamed and confounded poor deceived man Thirdly How will you bring both ends of your Parallel together you endeavour in your Letter to parallel Sarah Latchet with Paul and Sarah Latchet 's sufferings with Paul 's sufferings and me with Paul 's Persecutors Now then let me a little examine your Parallel 1. Paul the Apostle of Jesus Christ having received a Commission from heaven doth accordingly preach and publish the glorious Gospel of the grace mercy and love of God in Christ to poor sinners and likewise sets forth the Lord Jesus in his person virtues and offices inviting and beseeching with all love and tenderness those where ever he came to receive this grace and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ c. And Sarah Latchet comes forth rayling reviling cursing c. Ergo Sarah Latchet and Paul are alike 2. After Paul had with meekness and love tendred the grace of God and the person and vertues of Jesus Christ the Saviour as before some did rise up against him beat him stone him imprison him and whip him so that five times he received forty strips save one with many other fore and cruel abuses as you mention in your Letter out of 2 Cor. 1. c. And Sarah Latchet after she had rayled reviled and pronounced curses against people it was said to her It were fitter such an idle Huswife were sent to Bridwel Ergo Sarah Latchets sufferings and Pauls sufferings are both alike c. 3. Pauls Persecutors after they had heard the pretions glad-tydings of the Gospel and the report of Jesus Christ made unto them as before did actually take and cruelly beat stone whip and imprison Paul c. And I after I had been revised rayled upon c. said of Sarah Latchet it were fitter she were whipt and sent to Bridwel Ergo Pauls Persecutors and I were both alike and under the same condemnation c. Is this good Logick May not all that read your lines read your folly c. But to go on Fourthly Will you ask your Conscience this question Did you not publish and set forth this thing to wit of my not being a Minister of the Gospel c. to lay me if you could under contempt and scorn both in the City and Nation though you know in what sence and upon what ground I had denyed the title and dignity of a Minister as I have before declared but you knowing that this was a nail that would go and therefore you strick here and was not this such another piece of envie and hypocrisie as poor Mris. Prince did manifest when she came to rayl at me and reproach me at my Lecture at Nicholas when in her Conscience she durst not object against any thing that was delivered though it were often put to her by me but instead thereof after much bitter revilings against me called to the People and bid them to beware of me for she had heard me say I had not the Spirit of God c. Now suppose this had been true That I had at any time uttered my complaint to her or any others in the sadness and bitterness of my soul when under temptation as the Lord knows what sad hours and dark dayes I have passed through since I came to Bristol though you and many others little observed it or enquired after it but suppose I say I had uttered my complaint to her as she and many others have done to me was it a Christian-like part in her to publish this in the face of a Congregation many of which might be apt enough to take up a prejudice against me c. would you or she or any other think it either honesty christianity ingenuity civility or humanity in me if I should publish to the world what you or she or they have at any time uttred to me as a matter of grief burden trouble sadness affliction or temptation that lay upon your or their spirits now both you and she also knew full well the sad complaints of my soul under the sense of my own weakness the fore and terrible temptations that I encountred with the greatness and weightiness of my work the many eyes that were upon me and the great dishonour that would have come to the name of Christ if I should have miscarried in my work which made me to see the necessity and prize the excellency and long for the supplies of the Spirit of Christ and often to complain of that small measure I apprehend I had of it c. But Secondly Both you and she and some others know in your Consciences that there was another ground upon which and another sense in which I had sometimes questioned whether I and many other Christians had yet received the Spirit which for the Readers information end my own vindication I shall now declare When I lived in London and sate under the Ministry of some choice
the Saints more together in judgement and affection into one heart and one way as the Scripture speaks 8. To make them more exact and spiritual in the use and practise of all Gospel Ordinances as Acts 2. 41. to 47. 9. To beautifie and adorn Christians with every spiritual gift and grace as Gall. 5. 22. Ezek 16. 10 11 12 13. 10. To fill them with a mighty Spirit of Faith and Prayer as the Saints in the primitive times after the pouring forth of the Spirit had In a word it is a Christians All for by it he can do all things as Phil. 1. 19. 4. 13. and without it he can do nothing well as John 15. 5. Without me ye can do nothing And thus I have declared my judgment fully about this blessed truth and what I mean by the pouring forth of the glorious Spirit which I so often mention in prayer and preaching as the great legacy privilege and portion of the Saints or believers in the New Testament c. Now then let me ask you this Question Whether it had not been better for you and those that are gone away with you that you had set your selves solemnly to seek the Lord by Supplication and Prayer and so have continued in the wayes and under the Ordinances of Christ waiting for that blessed spirit as many of the Servants of God have done and still do c. rather than to have taken up a Notion of a Light in every man and call that the eternal Spirit as some of your way do and then jeer and scoff at them that pray for the Spirit and reproach them which complain out of their sense of the want of it as poor Mris. Prince did when she came to revile me at my Lecture c. But blessed be the Lord there are many Churches in England and Wales that are now wrestling with the Lord day after day joyntly and day and night singly in the deep sense of their wants for the accomplishment of that glorious new-Testament promise and such an Answer is already given to some both Independant and Baptized as you call them that they have no cause to repent of the time they have set apart for that work and I verily believe That if the people whom you and others so much despise go on and continue praying as now they do for the pouring forth of the blessed Spirit there will shortly be such a breaking forth of the day of Christ that all the antichristian foggs of false doctrins and false worships will flie and fall as the darkness before the rising Sun And Oh that some men in England and Bristol that are now wrangling and quarrelling about their humane learning and scoffing and envying those that have it not would seriously consider this thing before their lamp go out in obscurity and their feet stumble upon the dark mountains before their arm be dried up and their eye utterly darkned c. Now before I part with this I will also clear my self about another expression that I have sometimes used and at which many have been offended and that is about an old and a new Testament Spirit though of late to avoid offence have forbore it now by those expressions I did not mean nor intend the Spirit of God so as to call that an old Testament Spirit for I know that Spirit was one and the same from everlasting but by an old or new-Testament Spirit 1. I mean the frame and temper of a mans own Spirit and so by an old-Testament Spirit I alwayes mean that dark weak childish and low frame and temper of Spirit which professors generally had in the time of the old Testament while under the Mosaical administration with that bondage and fear that weakness and sadness that did accompany it c. 2. By a new-Testament Spirit I alwayes mean that lively chearful active joyful bold son-like frame and temper of Spirit which the Saints generally in the primitive times under the new Testament did enjoy which is called a Spirit of Adoption as the other is called a Spirit of Bondage a full description of what I mean is set forth in two Scriptures as namely Gal. 4. from the 1. to the 7. and Heb. 12. from 18 to 24. In which two Scriptures is set forth First The weakness darkness childishness fear bondage c. of the old-Testament state which is that that I call the frame temper or spirit of the old-Testament And Secondly There is set forth the light life strength boldness comfort courage joy rejoycing of the new-Testament state which is that that I call the frame temper or Spirit of the new Testament c. And whether Christians be not generally more under the old-Testament frame than under the new I leave to their experiences and thus I have fully declared my self as to these two particulars and if any sober Christian into whose hands this may come shall apprehend that I am mistaken in either of them I shall be glad to receive a word from them in love but I do not expect it from you to whom I now write c. You farther tell me in your Letter that you were warned from invisible lights some months past to beware of me which you could not believe till now it breaks out like fire c. I conceive those invisible lights were some secret whisperers that did bring you many stories both of me and others c. but truly I could discern by visible light long before you left us that my speaking was but little acceptable to you and some others especially after I did begin to oppose your spleen and passion though whilst I sate still and silently approved of what you spake then I was the excellentest man that ever you met with you would often both to my face and behind my back applaud and extol me but when once I began a little to cross you as many others of the Brethren did and as some godly men had formerly done as they saw cause enough then you and your partie began to fume and fret and as it was often observed to go out of the Meetings when I had been to speak though I did oppose you with all the tenderness that possibly I could as knowing what a partie you had in the Church and what influence you had upon them but now you say the fruits doth appear and break out like fire c. Q. And what is it But that I should say That such an idle Huswife as is before mentioned should be sent to Bridwel rather than to go rayling about as she did Now I appeal to all Christians upon the face of the earth what hurt this was to this poor rayling cursing fierce creature c. Q. And was this the ground upon which some of your company spread it about the Country and place of my nativity what a persecutor I was become so that the good people there that had known me to be of another temper did wonder
their righteousness as the light and their just dealing as the noon day in the mean time we rest and remain Reader thy friends if thou be one that art grieved for the afflictions of Joseph and art sensible of this day of Jacobs trouble and art longing for the welfare of Sion and walking in the Faith of the Gospel Then are we thy companions in tribulation for the Faith and Testimony of Jesus The Brethren of the Church in BRISTOL R.P. T.E. I.A. R.M. R.S. B.H. READER THou art desired further to take notice that Separation from a true Church of Christ and Communion of Gods People is a dangerous thing First it is sharply threatned by God Heb. 10. 38 39. Secondly severely punished 2 Pet. 2. 20 21 22. Thirdly by this they discover themselves both to the Church with whom they walked and also to those that are without that they are the men and women who have not a true foundation but onely have received some large measures of illumination and common gifts and graces of the Holy Ghost and so fall away and by their Apostacy evidence their hypocrisie Let no man think that the good can depart from the Church wind blows not away the Wheat but the vain Chaff 1 John 2. 19. They went out from us but they were not of us for if they had been of us they would no doubt have continued with us but they went out that they might be made manifest that they were not of us Now to prevent the spreadings of the spirit of Anti-christ and his subtil endeavours to draw more from Jesus Christ ought not the Church from whom these persons are departed in obedience to the Command of God and out of love to the souls of those that have cast the Ordinances of God behind their backs send two or three of their Members in the Name of the Lord Jesus and in the tender bowels of pity to beseech admonish and warn them to repent of their sins and refrain from their evil waies and return to the Truth Faith and waies of the Lord Jesus Christ recorded in the Gospel 2 Tim. 2. 25 26. and so in meekness instruct those that oppose themselves if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the Devil who are taken captive by him at his will c. Let the Reader seriously consider whether the Church is not engaged by her Head and Husband Jesus Christ Mat. 18. from 15. to 20. vers compared with Titus 3. 10. c. thus to admonish and warn her deluded back-slidden Members although perhaps some of them will not hear as in Prov 10 17. Others reject both the Reproof and the Reprovers Prov 15 10 12. And lastly perhaps another laies open his folly to the whole Nation in casting dirt in the face not only of the Reprovers but on the whole Church it self that sent them and so endeavour to shame them both see Prov 9 7. compared with Prov 15 12. Our Saviour tels us Mat 11 19. that Wisdom is justified of none but of her Children and therefore his Church may not expect justification but rather condemnation from those that are gone out from her as the snuff of a Candle If it be sufficient to be accused who can be found innocent it is the crown of those that remain stedfast in their substantial Principles to be reproached by those that did once seemingly own them and afterwards for want of grace backslid from them c. An ANSWER of a Church of Christ in Bristol who desireth and endeavoureth according to the measure of light and strength that they have received from Christ their Head to comply with him in waiting upon him in all the Ordinances of the Gospel which many cast behind their backs unto Dennis Hollister once a visible Member but now a professed Quaker c. Dennis Hollister DId you never read that the Church of Christ in Scripture is resembled to a natural Body wherein are many Members united each to other and most of them to one Head and by one Spirit now as in the natural Body there may be many infirmities so also in the mistical Body sometimes it may be subject to distempers by undigested humors the want of through closing with divine truths or the receiving in of untruths may occasion a surfeit sometimes windy humors pride high mindedness and giving heed to lying Spirits by some of its Members may distemper it sometimes feverish heats of violent headiness instead of well tempered zeal for God and godliness may inflame it so that many parts of it are sorely laid open to infections from divers that seem to be of it or converse with it Art not thou the man or at least one of them oh who hath his eyes in his head and doth not see who hath his ears open and doth not hear who hath his tongue untyed and doth not speak to vindicate the undeceived's innocency as well as to publish your folly in answer to a little Pamphlet called The Shirts of the Whore discoveyed c. containing in it many things too low and beneath a serious Christians perusing or reading much more the answering it being in the middle and both ends stuft with so many unsavoury and unchristian like expressions yet we shall take the Lords connsel Prov. 26 5. and so answer the Author lest he should be wise in his own conceit in which Answer we shall not recite all the Absurdities and vain hoastings and untruths c. yet being as before beneath a Christian much more a whole Church to spend pretious time either to read or answer c. neither shall we at present so lay open your folly in all things that we have heard or seen lest our Answer should be seven times as big as your charge Now to proceed consider that as every word of God is true so hath it some more special time of fulfilling now we read Acts 20. 30. Also of your own selves shall men arise speaking perverse things to draw away disciples after them O how truly is this Scripture fulfilled this day upon us and you first in your departing from us and now in those perverse things written and spoken by you to draw away disciples after you as is clear in many of those expressions in your Letter We have of late met with a little Book put forth by you the Title of which when we had read and seriously considered the People included and intended by you in those expressions we could not but even stand amazed to think unto what a height of Impudency and Malignity you are already come and whither may not a poor fallen creature run if God stop him not Is it not a high degree of Luciferian pride for a poor creature to set his foot upon the necks of all the Assemblies and Churches of the Saints this day in England and Wales calling them the Whore as your
Harlot the truth of which sensoriousness the whole Church can testifie yea we could give many particular instances were it necessary but what need we go further than your present Letter where in your Reply to this third particular you call the Church a Harlot c. and page 20. where you rehearsing what you had said amongst us before you left us confess that you did at last say our Church was but a Harlot and yet now you say this charge is false and from the Father of lies and that the Church of Christ you do own dearly c. Now here you come in again with your mental reservation saying you did not call the Church of Christ so but the People in Bristol which you say is a Harlot now is this honesty or any thing else but deceit and hypocrisie did not we send to admonish you for calling this Church in Bristol a Harlot which you confess you did and yet you say this charge is false and from the Father of lies we wonder who is your Father in this thing and what appears in you but meer deceit and subtilty equivocation and mental reservation O! for shame lay aside these unchristian practises and here we desire all Christians to consider whether this were a studied and false accusation as you say The fourth branch of your Admonition is your asserting in the Church Doctrins contrary to truth three of which are mentioned many more might have been c. First you asserted at a Meeting in your own house that as Christ was the great light of the World so he was the great Faith of the World and that Christ and Faith was all one and that Christ was not the object of Faith Our question was not about the oneness or nearness that there is between Christ and Faith but whether the person of Christ and the grace of Faith were not to be distinguished and whether Jesus Christ in his person as God-Man be not the object of Faith as him whom man is to believe in for Salvation Your assertion was we did not know what Faith was and that Faith was an eternal thing alleging that Scripture 2 Cor. 4. last But the things which are not seen are eternal This occasioned many Scriptures to be brought to prove that Christ and Faith were to be distinguished and that Christ was the object of Faith and though the word object be not used in Scripture in that sense yet we are often bid to look unto Christ for Salvation as Isa 45. 22. Zach. 12. 10 Heb 12 2. which Scriptures were then alleged against what you asserted Now in your Reply you allege 1 Tim. 1. 9 you say faith is a Mistery held in a pure conscience hid from al ignorant and vulturous eyes c. in which Reply of yours you shew your weakness in abusing the words and sense of the Apostle as any judicious Christian may perceive by comparing your Book with that Scripture c. but upon the matter you do now say as much as we did then admonish you of And whereas you demand why we did not then question you and that if it be for conscience sake why had we not done it sooner and why had we not disproved you by the Scripture and why would we suffer things contrary to truth to be asserted among us without rebuke c. We answer you were presently opposed and blamed for asserting such things as you were at several other times for asserting such things which in the 20 page of your Book you call some manifestation of truth that was breaking forth in you some years past at which some were offended and contradicted it c. though for a solemn dealing with you we did not till you left the Church which perhaps was our sin and your misery but considering your spirit and the state of the Church we knew not how to set about it though some saw ground enough to do it c. The fifth branch of your Admonition which was for speaking against the Scriptures affirming they were blind and a plague to souls and that they were not the Word of God nor the Rule of Life c. For the first part of this branch you did at a Meeting again at your own house affirm which many took notice of as well those that were not of the Church as those that were whereby the thing was publickly known in the Citie and became a reproach to the Church an eminent person of the Citie enquiring of one of us about it and that you did speak these words is as certain as ever you did speak word in your life some of us sitting over against you do well remember with what kind of passion you spake it clapping your hand upon the Book or Table saying that that Book or Scripture was one of the greatest blinds and plagues to mens souls this day in England and these words became a reproach to the Church upon which we did admonish you and though now in your Book you say that this charge is utterly false and from the Father of lies and invented by his instruments yet we do again affirm and will set our hands to it that you did speak these very words Secondly for that expression that the Scriptures are not the Word of God c. did not you at the red Lodge in the Gardenhouse before near twenty people say so when one of us being by bid you for shame not to speak so it is true you did at a Meeting a little before you left us propose it to consideration as a thing wherein we had been mistaken yet so as your very proposing of it did imply the negative other instances also we could give at private conferences that some of us had with you about the same thing but what need we say more do you not demand in your Book page 19. where doth the Scripture call it self the Word of God to which we answer we shall give you four plain places instead of many Jer. 30. 2 4. Rev. 17. 17. Prov. 30. 5. Mark 7. 8 9 13. But what should we go to light a candle to the Sun have not many judicious and godly Writers long ago proved against former Athiests and Hereticks that the Scripture is the Word of God though neither they nor we deny that glorious Tittle that God the Father hath put upon the person of Jesus Christ that his Name should be called the Word of God Rev. 19. 13. And thirdly whereas you demand to whom was the Scripture the Rule of Life We answer to all the People of God to whom they were given Deut. 4. 8. and 5 31 32. Mat. 5. 6. 7. chap. Rom. 12. All which containeth Rules and Directions for Christians to walk by but it is the character of wicked men that they cast the Law of God behind their backs And thus we have proved every tittle you are charged with in your Admonition to be true and clear so that we are no liars
to and fro or at the least word of yours sent to me to desire it and I judge I should not have denied it But I conceive you had not spoke when you did but that you were heared by that fire that is sure from beneath by my contesting against that held out by you which I desire to war against by the Spirit and spirituall weapons so long as I have any being and not otherwise as being fully satisfied Rom. 6. 13. 2 Cor. 10. 4 5 6. that onely such a war of that kind and nature is to be maintained the wrath of man and carnal weapons not being appointed of God and so not under a promise of 2 Thess 2. 8. 2 Tim. 2. 24 25 26. 1 Tim. 1. 18 19. 1 Sam. 17. 45. 47. 50. Rev. 12 7 8 9 11. a blessing from him to bring down and to naught such wickedness And indeed I am clearly and in some measure satisfied by God from that most sure word of prophesie whereunto we do well to take heed that one main cause why the Lambs Warriours and Souldiers gain no more ground than they do against the Lambs and their enemies and opposers both those enemies within and those enemies they combat withall without is because such contests and combats with them the war is so little maintained by the Spirit and spiritual weapons which if it were sure they would she and fall before them And immediatly after you have subscribed the Letter you sent me in the third line of the next page you say concerning your Letter that you sent me you have received no answer of me this is true but did I promise to send you an answer If so you might charge me home which I know you would not spare But I did not neither indeed could you groundedly expect any answer from me of it if in a sober mind but yet that had been done but that the bearer by whom you sent the Letter to me by some thing that he proposed to me which had weight in it did perswade me not to meddle in such vain fruitless janglings as to that effect some of his words was to me by which I was detained from writing to you and indeed his counsell in that was sound and savourie And whereas you mention that Festus a Heathen Roman Governor was so noble that he heard Pauls defence as to the accusation made against him by his own Countreymen and King Agrippa said Thou art permitted to speak for thy self but say you you are falsly accused condemned and refused to make your defence First I say you are not falsly accused condemned and refused to make your defence that is but your own saying it is a meer a rie vapour Secondly were you not desired nay intreated to come and appear and so if you had any thing to say to speak and make your defence Do you not wel know that libertie was never denied unto you but what ground I pray you hath one in your case to expect the making his defence that way you would do by a Proxes as I may say with refusing to come face to face as Paul did before Agrippa and Festus that you know you were intreated and desired to do and therefore in your naming of them in order to that you name them for you speak nothing at all you were permitted to do it as they were and might have done as Paul did and I hope that groundedly an evener Rule and another kind of dealing had you found than what Paul was tried by or he found from them though I know you are more than apt to conclude otherwise of all that is not of your stature but I fear sense of guilt lay so open upon you as that if you speak truth that was it that kept you away from making your defence in that way that was clear by that Rule we are to go by in the managing of the things of Gods House and so not any would have denied or excepted against you in a warrantable way which you had free liberty to do and then before your self it not falling down under the sins charged upon you all in every particular had been proved so as that you could not justly have excepted against the Charge in no part of it and I believe that would have been done by some of those if not all for whose sakes as you say you made that you sent and was not read visibly So simple honest hearted they were and so remain as that they to save you out of the snare of the Divel would have in soberness of Spirit in conscience of their duty to God and in love to your soul witnessed before you that which was charged upon you But I forget my self now a true Answer you have of all that Letter which in particular you sent to me with a small Isal 43. 2. 1 Pet. 4. 19. 1 Pet. 2. 15. 3. 1. 16. Psal 37 5 touch upon some thing that in order to the not sending you an answer you speak to me afterward I confess I have more words in my answer than I would or intended But I could not tell how plainly to answer it so as to satisfie the Reader in a briefer way It is probable a flood you will cast after me but I pass not such floods shall not drown me nor such fire burn me I resolve in the strength of Christ in the way of wel doing to commit my self to him who in this I know will bring forth my righteousness as the light and my judgement as the noon-day and so to labour by well doing to put you to silence in this as not knowing any way otherwise better to do it And for your self I have if my heart deceive me not no coar at all against you but could be glad I might be of any use unto you and could rejoyce to see God recovering of you out of the snare of the Divel by giving of you repentance to the acknowledging of the truth the which I am sure you are departed from which is the groans of your Friend who is a lover of your Soul though a Witness against your falshood and deceit Robert Simpson A WORD to DENNIS HOLLISTER BY THOMAS EWEN Dennis Hollister I Have of late met with a Book put forth by you in which there is a Letter formerly written by you to me which Letter I acknowledge I received above a year since and having read it I laid it by intending never to have Answered you lest as Solomon saith Prov. 26. 4. I also should be like unto you but now you having published it with your folly to the world I take my self bound to Answer you lest as Prov. 26. 5. you should be wise in your own conceit c. In the second Branch of your Title page you say That I have before several witnesses often denied my self to be a Minister of the Gospel in which you deal like your self though not like a friend nor like
and disputing with men of as profound Learning as some are now who boast so much of it namely the Popish Bishops and Doctors and how those poor Martyrs did by the help of the blessed Spirit without Latin or Greek confound those enemies of truth and assert and maintain both the Doctrin of Justification and other points of Christian Religion as the History of Acts and Monuments do sufficiently declare and though we have no cause to presume yet we have good ground to hope and believe that the same God will by the same Spirit give in the same supplies to his Servants in the same case if he should again call them to it or if he should call any of us to assert and maintain the blesâ—â— Doctrin of Justification or to despute the glorious privilege of Adoption And whereas he saith page 56. That we give out our selves to be gifted Brethren and so fit for the work of the Ministry c. For my own part I do not know that ever I gave out such a word and the Lord knows that I have lower and meaner thoughts of my self and truly had not the importunity and perswasions of some prevailed with me beyond what I thought of my self I think I had never been an eye-sore to this man in Bristol nor a trouble to any others in the work of preaching and if he or any other can make it appear to me that it is the will of God that I should give over my present work I trust it is not all the Gold and Silver in Bristol that should hire me to continue in it but truly as other things so the violent opposition that I meet with from men of divers sorts do much confirm that it is the will of God that I should continue in my work of preaching c. And so long though I should meet with greater difficulties than over I have yet done I trust I shall go on with it expecting the presence of Christ with me and his blessing upon me therein I do not at all reflect upon those godly men that he quotes page 66 67. though I cannot but wonder that a man should express so much bitterness against Anabaptists as he doth in his Book and yet seem so to applaud a baptized man that is a person of honor c. Likewise how a man can speak so contemptuously against Separation and separated Churches and yet seem so to applaud that eminent Dr. Owen who is a man so eminently for the Congregational way that some men call Independency or Separation which makes me to think that if all the people in England and Bristol which are called Independents or Anabaptists were great or in high places he would love them or make them believe so c. But thirdly for that godly man Mr. Baxter whose face I never saw yet do I highly honor esteem for some of his works and for what good I hear of him yet I see no ground why I should so understand Mr. Baxter or the other two as this man seems to force their meaning for admit it be true that an ungodly learned man may know as much or more of the literal and grammatical sense 〈◊〉 Scripture than a gracious man may do which is all that they affirm doth it therefore follow that a godly unlearned man if it were proper to call any so may not understand and know publish and declare the truth of Christ to their own comfort and the edification of others for my own part I cannot see this to be an infallible consequence and I am confident that two of those men are otherwise minded and if godly Mr. Baxter should mean so yet I know there are many others of like eminency both for Learning and Godliness that are of another mind in this particular as I might abundantly shew from their works that are extant as likewise that experience God hath given us in this later age of his owning blessing and prospering such in the preaching of the Gospel to the conversion of many souls both in England and Wales c. But what I have here written may be sufficient to disprove what he doth falsly assert page 67. that the pretence of preaching by the Spirit is but a pious fraud to set up our selves in the hearts and consciences and consequently in the purses of people c which thing he again mentions pag 51 52 where he jeers at my contribution calling it a Feeling argument c. wherein he seems to compare me to the Lawyers who account a good Fee to be a feeling argument in their Clyents cause But I shall not answer him onely as the Proverb is It is the property of a covetous Man to think every thing too much that another hath But he draws up the result of all pag. 68. and concludes that the in-let and out-let the fore-door and back-door of all our miseries is an ignorant unlettered and contemptible Ministery If by the word Our he mean our misery in Bristoll then I answer Surely it is strange that so great a flood of evill and misery should come in at so narrow a door there being but one unlettered uncalled Minister in Bristoll in his sense all the rest be they what they will are learned and called constituted and established Ministers as he mentions again pag. 60 c. No doubt but the Princes of Israel through the instigation of the Prophets thought the like of Jeremiah when they were wroth with him smote him and put him in prison and when they said unto the King We beseech thee let this man be Jer. 37. 15. 38. 4 put to death for he seeketh not the welfare of this people but the hurt So likewise Amaziah the Priest of Bethel when he sent to Jeroboam King of Israel saying Amos hath conspired against Amos 7. 10. 14 thee c. Poor Amos he had not indeed been bred a Prophet neither was he the son of a Prophet but a Herdsman and a gatherer of Summer fruit and now he must be banished the Kings Chappel as a conspirator this was hard measure but God provided better for him Reader I do not compare my self with Jeremiah and Amos but onely to let thee see that as Solomon saith That which hath been is now and there is no new thing under the Sun But secondly if by the word Our misery he mean the misery and calamity of England first or last truly then I shall grant and say as he doth that the in let and out let fore-door and back-door of much of Englands misery and consequently of Bristols is an ignorant ungodly â—asie proud scandalous soul murdering Ministery who have made themselves contemptible and base in the eyes of all good men and in the consciences of many bad And though as I have heard there were two thousand of them petitioned against in the time of the long Parliament and many of them then pluckt up by the roots both in England and Wales besides what
by Iames Naylor a man then highly admired and cried up by you or those of your way as a man of great infallibility which perhaps might help to puff him up with pride by which he came to fall into this fad condemnation c. Now whereas some of your way boast much of your being all led by one and the same Spirit so that though they were at a great distance yet they all speak but one thing c. Now let any man read and compare your answers with Iames Naylors and see how near they come together unless it be in railing judging and censuring though therein I must needs say his answers are more moderate than yours And whereas a late Writer for your way puts it by way of derision to the Preachers in England that if six of the most able Doctors should have a portion of Scripture given them to interpret and they shut up in six several rooms c. that perhaps not two of the six agree in their interpretation Now suppose you had taken four more of your Teachers such as some of you had challenged the whole world to accuse of sin and made them six in number and have given them these sixteen Quaeries apart to answer perhaps they would have come as rear as you and Naylor do in your answers or as six of the weakest Preachers in England might have done in their interpreting a place of Scripture As for your word to England I shall say little to that but desire rather to mourn for the evils and abominations therein as I know it is my duty and yours also if you knew how to do it and so I conclude expecting that I shall have many sharp Arrows of bitter words shot at me both by you and others but for that I matter not much being conscious to my self that I have written in plainness words of truth and soberness and that I have been pressed by others to do what I have done and that rather for the vindication of truth than of my self and rather for the sakes of some godly people who may read it than for your sakes to whom I direct it and if you or others shall dip your pens in Vineger or Gall to write again I hope I shall bear it or modestly reply to it though my thoughts are rather to suffer my self to be trampled upon then again to answer a word seeing that of making many Books there is no end and much study is a weariness of the flesh Eccles 12. 12. And knowing also that neither you nor others can speak or write me so vile as I can and do see and acknowledge my self to be as in my self yet is my perfection and compleatness in another even in Christ Jesus my Lord in whom is all righteousness all strength and all fulness laid up for all those that sensibly see and feel that in them that is in their flesh dwelleth no good thing c. and thereupon do look unto him to receive of his fulness grace for grace in which glorious person all that do believe are justified and by whose grace and blessed Spirit they are in a measure sanctified and through whose pretious blood and perfect righteousness mediation and intercession they shall be eternally saved and in whose way I could as gladly now as ever subscribe my self Your Friend T. E. FINIS There is now in the Press a Book written by Robert Purnel entituled A little Cabbinet richly stored with all sorts of heavenly varieties wherein there is a Remedy for every Malady viz. Milk for Babes and Meat for strong Men and the ready way for both to obtain and retain assurance of Salvation being an Abridgment of the sum and substance of the true Christian Religion and to be fold at the Three Bibles in Paul's Church-yard