we affirm viz. 1st That Jesus Christ in the Flesh was more thâ—â— a meet Exemple of Holiness 2dly And his Blood was of peculiar Value and Estimation with God Thomas Hicks Proceeds in his Envy and Falshood stiâ—â—â—â— bring our Sufferings into Dis-esteem viz. 〈…〉 People that ever boasted so vainly of their Sufferings 〈◊〉 you do that scarce a Pamphlet can come out from yo◠〈◊〉 but the World must hear of your Brags of this kind Contin p. 6. A manifest and two-fold Falshood for 1st We do not vainly boast of our Sufferings but have rejâ—yced in Christ Jesus that we have been counted worthy to suffer for his Name when you who now enjoy our Prosperity durst not shew your Heads in publick for your Profession or Worship but fled into Corners and Obscurities and your publick Meetings were deserted and put by For thy part T.H. I do not think thou hast much Suffering for Conscience or any for Christ to boast of 2. Scarce a Pamphlet Is also false for many of our Bookes and Papers relate not our Sufferings but other Subjects much less vainly boast or brag thereof But it seems that it both judges and vexes thee and such Creeping Envious Spirits to hear of our deep Sufferings since they have had such a blessed Effect in the Nation as the inclining the Hearts of many to the Living Truth and the Increase of our Number in it Thou T.H. and such Envious Spirits are most quiet towards us when you see us under Persecution and appear most outragious against us when we have Liberty as if you were discontented and perplexed at our Liberties and as desirous of Persecution and Ruin upon us 3. I am not sorry that I was made Instrumental in obtaining the Liberty of some of thy Brethren the Baptists out of Prison the last Somâ—er who among a great Number of our Friends were released though I am but sorrily and badly requited by thee but thou art one of them who art more ready to persecute and scandalize our Sufferings then to suffer or sympathize with them that suffer for Conscience sake but have not some of thy Brethren both commended of our Sufferings and the Service thereof both to themselves and other Dissenters why then dost thou insinuate as if Carnal Interest Wills and Lusts were our chief Motive to suffer God and his Witness in many Consciences will judge thee for this gross Abuse Again T.H. did most falsly insinuate though by way of Query That our Sufferings were only to satisfie our Wills and Lusts and for Carnal Advantage which to excuse he now saith In this I only queried what it should be that doth influence you to suffer forasmuch as you deny that this Body shall rise And G.F. maintains that the Soul is part of God's Being Contin p. 6. 1. To the first I answer that every Seed shall have its own Body as it pleaseth God and every Man shall be reserved spiritually in his own proper Being though not in the gross fleshly Form Is this either to deny the Resurrection or an Eternal Advantage 2. To the second G.F. doth not so speak of the Soul or Spirit of Man nor are his Words directly and truly cited but of the Immediate Inspiration of God or original Life or Soul of Man's Soul by which Man became Living a Living Soul in this he queries Is not that of God which came out from God 3. It s an absurd and most abusive Insinuation that our Sufferings either were or could be for any carnal Advantage or Interest seeing we freely have often offered up our Lives and our All in this World therein 4. It s still a manifest Slander that we deny any Eternal Advantage to Persons after Death neither is it any much less direct Consequence of our saying Not that Body which thou sowest shall be and Flesh and Blood shall not inherit the Kingdom of God or That the Body which God giveth shall not be in a Fleshly but in a Spiritual Form as Tho. Collier confesseth dare he say this is to deny any Eternal Advantage But with T.H. This is no more then the Genuine and a direct Consequence of denying the Resurrection of this Body Is it not then the reaping Eternal Advantage must be placed upon this Earthly Tabernacle or Carnal Body though it must be dissolved and no New one to be created according to his former Doctrine Dial. p. 58. O wonderful Philosophy Eternal Advantage placed upon these same Earthly Bodies yet they not to be renewed by Creation after dissolved and turned to Dust and how contrary to the Apostles Testimony is his so much placing Eternal Advantage upon this Earthly disolvable Body see the 2. Cor. 5 1 2 8. Phil. 1.21.23 Our experiencing Christ's second Appearance without Sin unto Salvation in Answer to our Hope and testifying to Eternal Life and Felicity as Inwardly and Spiritually receiv'd by those that now suffer for Christ can be no Denyal of any Future or Eternal Advantage according to his Instance against me p. 7. seeing we know that to live is Christ and to dy is Gain unto us they that walk up to his Light in them here cannot miss of an Eternal Advantage hereafter Our light Affliction which is but for a moment worketh for is a far more exceeding weight of Glory see 2 Cor. 4 10 11. to the end of the Chapter Concerning Justification Imputation and Sanctification p. 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 wherein we differ he is fully answered in our Books viz. Divin Chr. Serious Apol. But where he saith viz. I know of none that hold Justification of Persons in their Vngodliness p. 55. Are there not those that hold Justification before Sanctification or in a sinful Estate by a meer Imputatation And those that thus argue for it by the Rule of Contraries As Christ was made to be Sin for us who knew no Sin i.e. by an inherent Guilt or Operations of Sin in him so we are made the Righteousness of God in him they adding as and so as he so we i.e. we are not actually made Righteous by any inherent Righteousness or Holiness of Christ wrought in us any more then Christ was made Sin but reckened Righteous only from his active and passive Obedience without us This Doctrine we have not only opposed but refuted Divin Christ Ser. Apol. The wicked Slander he calls upon us in this is his own T.H. we plead not for a Righteousness Imputed to overthrow a Righteousness Inherent or the Exercise of Christian Virtue p. 55. But do you not oppose a Righteousness inherent as to Justification or deny that those Christian Virtues within are reckoned or esteemed of God unto Justification T.H. 'T is you would separate and divide them not we p. 55. False we make no such Separation between Christ's Righteousness Inherent in us and Justification on the Imputation as ours we experiencing a Participation thereof Christ being made unto us both Righteousness Sanctification Redemption
him into all Truth as he obeyes it Bap. Abel Enoch Abraham Isaac Jacob Noah c. had a Sufficient Rule before the Scriptures were written viz. the Spirit 's Rule God's Speaking and Directions from his own Mouth and that they had a more Infallible Word to waâ—k by then now is to us For 't is possible that some Scriptures may be corrupted having been in the hands of corrupted Men. The Scriptures may be and is corrupted by Man This may be graâ—ted that the Spirit is the Rule Of more Efficacy then the Letter The Spirit is greater then the Letter Jo. Newman's Light Within page 19 20 104 105 106 108 110 112. VIII Qua. 'T is possible for True Believers through the Power and Help of Jesus Christ to attain to such a Perfection in this Life as the keeping the Commandments of God Bap. The Spirit of God assures us that they who are subject to and keep the Commandments of God are the Children of God and they who do not are Lyars 1 John 2.3 4. cap. 5.2 3. Contin p. 61. IX Qua. That Remission and Pardon of Sins past thrâ—ugh the Blood Righteousness of Christ Jesus tâ—e Justification of Persons whether it import the making or declaring them Righteous in Christ by a Living Faith are neither imputed nor reckon'd of God tâ— thâ—m in an Unconverted Unsanctified Disobedient or Ungodly State but to the truly Repentant Converted Believing and Obedient Souls Bap. I know of none that hold Justification of Persons in their Vngodliness We plead not for a Righteousness Imputed to overthrow a Righteousness Inherent or the Exercise of Christian Vertues He that is pardoned were a Sinner till justified not such that remain so being satiâ—fied Contin p. 55 56. The Saints are made the Righteousness of God that is God now as in Christ dâ—â—â—'s and â—â—â—s in the Saints hâ— hâ—â—â—pirit writes his Law in their Hearts makes them Partakers of his own Nature and so goes oâ— in Fulfilling his own Righteousness in thâ—â— For the Righteousness of the Law in the Spirit is fulfilled in us Marrow Christian p. 38. X. Qua. Though the Soul and Spirit of Man be not of God's Divine and Infinite Being but related â—o the Being of Man and as Corruptible hath a mutâ—blâ— Habit yet as we are his Off-spring and Man is the Image and Glory of God the Original â—ife oâ— Soul of the Soul that came from God and is immutable is of his own Being In short God in whom we live move and have our Being is the Life of Lives and Great Soul of Son's and the Soul thâ—t is Saved and United to God doth partake of his Divine Nature and he that is joyned to the Lord is one Spirit Bap. The Condescension of God and Christ into the Hearts of his People to woâ—k up his Saints into the sâ—â—â— Nature with himself c. God aâ—d Christ iâ— Holy so his Word is Holâ— and through Faith in tâ—is 〈◊〉 Christians are wrought up into the Nature of it self and into God J. Newman 's Book Light Within p 78 84 87 88. There were the Propeâ—ties oâ— Gâ—â— iâ— some measure imparted to Adam Adam was in the Image of God in respect of Eternity he hâ—d given hâ—m an Everlasting Being Marrow of Christianity pag. 4 5. Christ was both the Power and Wiâ—dom â—f God and as Christ so all the Saints are 〈◊〉 one iâ— thâ—s Wisdom Christ is made unto us Wisdom nâ—t only by wâ—y of Imputation but by the Operatiâ—n of the same â—pirit who dwells as truly in every Believer as in Christ ibid. pag. 34 35. And have not sâ—me of their Brethren confâ—st That there is a kind â—f Infiniteness in the Soul XI Qua. The Children of the Resurrection shall be equal unto the Angels of God in Heaven and their Bodies not Natural Earthly and 〈◊〉 the very Gross Mâ—ttâ—r that nâ—w they are 〈…〉 Celestial Spiritual like uâ—to Chriâ—â—'◠〈◊〉 Body God giveth a Body as it plâ—asâ—th 〈◊〉 in Subjection to whose Good Pleasure we 〈◊〉 quiesce till it be effected as he seâ—th 〈…〉 own Praise Bap. That there shall be a Resurrection of the â—ody at the Last Day is Evident John 5 〈◊〉 11. with 1 Cor. 15. Rev. 20. although 〈…〉 some denyed and by others too caâ—â—lly looke◠〈◊〉 Some thinking that our Bodies of Flesh shall be Raised in the same Form in which it Dyed c. The Form in which they shall be raised that is a Spiritual Form not in a Fleshly It is sown a Natural Body it is raised a Spiritual Body When Christ who is our Life shall pâ—eâ—r we shall appear with him in Glory all Flesh shall he swâ—llowed up in â—pirit and our Bodies shall be changed and made like unto his Glorious Body Marrow of Christianity by T.C. pag. 93 94 95. And those Saints who are alive at the Coming of Christ shall be changed in a Moment in the Twinkling of an Eâ—e 1 Cor. 15.51 52. and so shall be caught up in the Spirit to meet the Lord in the Air 1 Thes 4.17 Ibid. p. 92. XII Qua. The Son of God doth not consist or is not made up of a Humane Body of Flesh Blood and Bones For he was the Word and One in Being with the Father from Everlasting But in the Fulness of Time he took upon him Flesh or that Body prepared for him and being Ascended into Glory his Body is a Glorious Body surpassing all Humane Earthly Carnal and Corruptible Bodies Bap. Christ was a Son by a Spiritual Proceeding and Coming from the Father who was Eternally One in the Father Marrow of Châ— p. 30. Our Bodies shall be changed and made like his Glorious Body Ibid. p. 95. Theâ— shall be raised in a Spiritual Form not in a Fleshly p. 94. The â—on took Flesh upon him the Word took Fleâ—h the Father did prepare him a Body Dialogue p. â—5 4â— and 83. XIII Qua. Christ being so highly exalted and Glorified as it God's Right Hand as he is can be neither Proof nor Argument that he is not iâ— any Man nor that either Christ or God's Right Hand is limited and circumscribed to such Remotâ—ness as not to be in the True Believers to save and uphold their Souls Bap. When a Soul is satisfied from its Vnion with God and its Dwelling in God that all the Administrations and makings forth of God is Love unto it thus it dwells in Love and from hence is filled with Joy It causeth the Soul alwayes to dwell at the Right Hand of God where is Joy and Pleasure for evermore Marrow of Christian p. 28. Christ the Son was Eternally one in the Father so in him all Believers are made by the same Spirit the Adopted Sons of God being made Partakers of the same Divine Nature Marrow of Christian p. 30. Christ dwells Spiritually in all the Saints If Christ be in you you shall be sensible of it Ibid p 31.32 Tâ—is Indwelling of Christ in his People God and Christ cannot be
thy dark Mind and that thou art still in thy Imagination understanding neither the Redemption nor the Seed which however feign'd by himself against himself is so great a Truth that there is scarcely one Passage in his Dialogue more allowable But to his Argument and Question We do assert the Redemption of the Seed for the Light and Life which has been as sown in the Heart of Mankind has been loaded with Sin pressed down with Iniquity grieved and almost quenched through Disobedience which words are not properly but metaphorically to be taken as used by the holy Pen-Men whereby to make things the more plain and easie to common capacities It is said in Scripture Out of Egypt have I called my Son a Place of Bondage and grievous Weights Burdens and Oppressions from all which the Seed was to be redeemed and Christ came or God was manifested in the Flesh that the Seed of Light Truth and Righteousness might break through and arise over all Corruption by which it had been grieved and pressed down And it is no Contradiction to say That God did rid himfelf of the Enemies that opprest his own Righteous Life or that he brought Salvation to himself for the Scriptures frequently speak on that wise especially in those two notable Passages of Isaiah And he saw that there was no Man and wondered that there was no Intercessor therefore his Arm brought Salvation to him and this Righteousness it sustained him Again The Year of my Redeemed is come and I looked and there was none to help and I wondred that there was none to uphold therefore Mine own Arm brought Salvation unto Me and My Fury it upheld me Whence it is no wayes absurd that we affirm that the End of God's Manifesting himself in the Flesh was for the Redemption or Deliverance of his Holy Life that was in Man but as a small Seed even the smallest of Seeds that had been long vexed grieved bruised and pressed down by Sin and Iniquity For the End of that Appearance was that Sin might be destroyed and that Christ who had been as a Lamb slain from the Foundation of the World might be exalted in the Hearts of Men and Women and his and their Foes made his and their Footstool For the Work is Inward we do aver in the Name of the Lord for where the Devil hath Reigned and had Dominion to wit in Man there be must be defeated and subdued and Christ alone by whom that is brought to pass ought and must have the Power and the Kingdom forever And if this be the Folly and Gibberish the Quakers must be charged with from this Anabaptist Preacher we are content to use it as well as patient to bear his insolent Scoff only let all take notice that we understand not by the Seed's Redemption its being redeemed from the Pollution but the Weight of Sin and Iniquity for it was and is pure forever Now as to our Calling Christ-without a Creature I must tell him 't is not our Language but if he means by it the Body born of the Virgin I suppose T. Hicks is far from believing that to be the Creator though his manner of speaking shews a dislike of us that we don't because he sayes that we esteem the Christ without or the Outward and Visible Part of Christ but a Creature as if he believed it to be the Creator However manifest it is he believes that the Redemption wrought is not by that God who in those foregoing Passages speaks so expresly to that purpose and who in time manifested himself in the Flesh but the Flesh only by and through which he was so manifested CHAP. VIII Of the Soul of Man HIs next Abuse of us that I shall take notice of is this That G. Fox and others hold the Soul to be a part of God of God's Being and that it is without Beginning All which sayes he is as much as to say the Soul is God SO THAT GOD SETS UP A LIGHT IN HIMSELF WHICH HE HIMSELF IS TO OBEY AND IN SO DOING GOD SHALL BE SAVED Behold your Anabaptist Preacher A Man of Truth Tender Conscience of the first Form of Christians a Contender for the Faith once delivered to the Saints and what else he falsly pretends and in vain would have us think him to be What so Base What so Irreligious as this Perversion Men nor Devils could never study more our Wrong then this pretended Christian has done If this be his Christianity The God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob preserve my Soul from ever coming within the Borders of such Religion but Christianity is absurd by such Traducers and God's Spirit is grieved by such Injustice I would not use the worst of Men no not Devils themselves at that unequal Rate he deals with us who both mis-cites his Words and abuses the true Meaning of what is truly cited G. Fox sayes thus God breathed into Man the Breath of Life and he became a Living Soul and is not this of God of his Being c. and is not this that comes out from God part of God from God Where nothing can well be clearer than that G. F intends that Divine Life Power and Virtue by which Adam in Soul Body came to live to God Can T.H. say after all this that he cited G F. right and ask the Quaker in his Dialogue Darest thou say I have not quoted him truly Hardened Man Breathed that is Inspired Breathed being the English Word Inspired borrowed from the Latine Inspirare the Greek has it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Joh. 20.22 hath breathed into enlivened inspired quickened the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and he breathed or blowed on which R. Nachmanni and the Author Hiskuni in P. Fagins's Comment on the Place speak thus That God inspired Man with something of his own Substance that he contributed something to him and bestowed something of his own Divinity upon him and that God did inspire Man with the Holy Ghost and that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a proper Word for it Which is as much as can be collected or justly concluded from what G. Fox hath said concerning Man But this Ungodly Person would infer from our Asserting that the Breath God breathed into Adam's Soul whereby it lived to God was of God's own Divine Life that the Soul of Man as a meer Creature created Capacity is of God's own Being and Substance and when he his done with a Taunt becoming none but a Prophane Person tells us that then God sets up a Light in himself which being obeyed by him he comes to be saved as 〈◊〉 the Soul needed either a Light or Saviour in case it were God or that God could obey any thing or needed Salvation O monstrous Blasphemy against God and horrid Injustice to us For as God can obey none nor need Salvation neither in sense can we be thought so to believe of the Soul as by him represented since our
Talking the other a Doing Christian I in short argue thus If none can enter into the Kingdom of Heaven but they that do the Father's Will then none are justified but they who do the Father's Will because none can enter into the Kingdom but such as are justified Since therefore there can be no Admittance had without Performing that Righteous Will and Doing those Holy and perfect Sayings Alas to what Value will an imputative Righteousness amount when a poor Soul shall awake polluted in his Sin by the hasty Calls of Death to make its Appearance before the Judgment Seat where 't is impossible to justifie the Wicked or that any should escape uncondemned but such as do the Will of God 2. For not the Hearers of the Law are just before God but the Doers of the Law shall be justified From whence how unanswerably may I observe Unless we become Doers of that Law which Christ came not to destroy but as our Example to fulfil we can never be justified before God wherefore Obedience is so absolutely necessary that short of it there can be no Acceptance Nor let any fancy that Christ hath so fulfill'd it for them as to exclude their Obedience from being requisite to their Acceptance but only as their Pattern For unless ye follow me saith Christ ye cannot be my Disciples And it is not only repugnant to Reason but in this place particularly refuted for if Christ had fulfill'd it on our behalf and we not enabled to follow his Example there would not be Doers but One Doer only of the Law justified before God In short if without Obedience to the Righteous Law none can be justified then all the Hearing of the Law with but the meer Imputation of anothers Righteousness whilst actually a Breaker of it is excluded as not justifying before God If you fulfill the Royal Law ye do well so speak ye and so DO as they that shall be judg'd thereby 3. If ye live after the Flesh ye shall dye but if ye through the Spirit do mortifie the Deeds of the Body ye shall live No Man can be dead and justified before God for so He may be justified that lives after the Flesh therefore they only can be justified that are alive from whence this follows If the Living are justified and not the Dead and that none can live to God but such as have mortified the Deeds of the Body through the Spirit then none can be justified but they who have mortified the Deeds of the Body through the Spirit so that justification does not go before but is subsequential to the Mortification of Lusts and Sanctification of the Soul through the Spirit 's operation 4. Was not Abraham our Father justified by Works when he had offered Isaak his Son upon the Altar Ye see then how that by Works a Man is justified and not by Faith only He that will seriously peruse this Chapter shall doubtless find some to whom this Epistle was writen of the same Spirit with the Satisfactionists and Imputarians of our tâ—me they fain would have found out a Justification from Faith in and the Imputation of anothers Righteousness but James an Apostle of the most high God who experimentally knew what true Faith and Justification meant gave them to understand from Abraham's self-denying Example that unless their Faith in the Purity and Power of God's Grace had that effectual Operation to subdue every beloved Lust wean from every Dallila and intirely to resign and sacrifice Isaak himself their Faith was a Fable or as a Body without a Spirit and as Righteousness therefore in one Person cannot justify another from Unrighteousness so whoever now pretends to be justified by Faith whilst not led and guided by the Spirit into all the Wayes of Truth and Works of Righteousness their Faith they will find at last Fiction Consequences Irreligious and Irrational 1. It makes God guilty of what the Scriptures say is an Abomination to wit that he justifieth the Wicked 2. It makes him look upon Persons as they are not or with respect which is unworthy of his most Equal Nature 3. He is hereby at Peace with the Wicked if justified whilst Sinners who said There is no Peace to the Wicked 4. It does only imply Communion with them here in an Imperfect State but so to all Eternity for whom he justifieth them he also glorifieth Therefore whom he justify'd whilst Sinners them he also glorify'd whilst Sinners 5. It only secures from the Wages not the Dominion of Sin whereby something that is sinful becomes justify'd and that which defileth to enter God's Kingdom 6. It renders a Man justify'd and condemn'd dead and alive redeemed and not redeemed at the same time the one by an Imputative Righteousness the last by a Personal Unrighteousness 7. It flatters Men whilst subject to the World's Lusts with a State of Justification and thereby invalids the very End of Christ's Appearance which was to destroy the Works of the Devil and take away the Sins of the World CHAP. X. Of the Doctrine of Sanctification and Perfection The Ignorance or Malice of T. Hicks Detected OF the Doctrine of Sanctification he has several Vnsanctified Passages though he bestows not much time upon that Important Subject some of which I shall take a little notice of Christ Let us understand your Opinion of Sanctification what it is Out of Ed. Burroughs he answereth himself thus Quak. 'T is Christ Hence we conclude to say Sanctification is Imperfect in this Life is as much as to say Christ is Imperfect To which he replies Christ 'T is true 't is Jesus Christ by his Spirit is the Author and Worker of Sanctification but will it therefore follow that the Work of Sanctification in us is Christ or that this Work is perfect in all its Degrees Now let any tell me wherein T. Hicks could have more grosly mistaken E. Burroughs who frequently insults over the Grave and Labours of that Faithful Servant of the Lord then he has done on purpose I doubt not to insinuate his Belief of the contrary to what he opposed But hear Edw. Burrough's Words at large in Answer to Priest Eaton Thou sayest Sanctification is not Perfect in this Life And the New Man the Spirit or Law of the Mind is that Grace or Imperfect Sanctification Then Christ is not Perfect in this Life for He is made of God unto us Sanctification 1 Cor. 1.30 In this it is evident First That the Priest did not so much strike at the Work done in the Creature as at the Perfection of the Principle by which the Work should be perfected in the Creature 2dly E. Burroughs did not in that place meerly intend the Work of Sanctification but the Author and Worker of it who is oftentimes called by the Name of the Work it self the Cause by the Effect as is plain from the Scripture quoted in which he used but Paul's Words How basely done was it
upon which shewing it to be none of his Faith or Practice and so no Spiritual Worshipper Yet the Men testified against in that Book were such as had been in Unity with us before and in going from that into differing and opposite Practices we imposed nothing upon them but they innovated Vnseemly Customs upon us so that which Thomas Hicks's Conscience had no Mind to observe least he should loose the Force of his Cavil removes it out of the Way Let Thomas Hicks tell me by what other Rule then God's Spirit Men's Spirits and the Inside of their Religion can be tryed relisht or favoured and he doth something The Devil can transform into all Outward Forms and subscribe the best Methodiz'd true Articles that ever were written Who or what shall unmask him God gave us the true Taste Savour and Discerning of that Spirit that leads out several from the Heavenly Unity and from thence we gave our Judgment If Men become darkn'd and led by a Delusive Spirit and call that the Light though it give the Lye to the Light and strikes at the Life they whilst faithful felt among us they must look to that You say Every Man ought to make the Scripture his Rule some that say they do you say do not do you think your Judgment the less valid By no means Neither do We. Will you not desist from censuring those that answer not the Scripture though they fancy that they do Why may not we also by the Light of Christ judge those to be deluded who notwithstanding pretend to be ruled by it Ye turn People to the Scripture and they mistake it We direct People to the Light but they mistake it So that here is the Difference between our Saying that Men should do nothing but what the Spirit requires and your Teaching that Men ought to do nothing but what the Scripture requires For if we disown them for not doing what we know the Spirit requires you daily disown such as do not somethings you suppose the Scriptures do require And as you think the Scripture to mean the same you ever did notwithstanding your Opposers Suggestion we are by you justified in mantaining our judgment against those Pretenders to the Guidance of the Light To conclude I see no Difference between Tho. Hick's saying to me William Penn thou bidst me obey the Light within me and because I do thou disownest me and my saying to him Thomas Hicks thou bidst me obey the Scriptures and because I do thou censurest me This dâ—ives unavoidably to an Infallible Spirit whereby to savour all Spirits Words and Works for the Anointing is Judge and meer Pretenders weaken not its Judgment And till Men come thither their best Duties are Unholy Things indeed Let none fancy an Impossibility of Trying Spirits by that without which it is utterly impossible to try them God's Spirit gives his Children to savour and discern Spiritual Bad as well as Spiritual Good Things It is not unknown to such as are led by God's Spirit of what Nature and to what Tendency such Words or Actions may be It was on this alone and upon no other Foundation the Spiritual Gospel Sound and Heavenly Fellowship stood of old for by One Spirit were the true Christians baptized into One Body O You that are Professors of Religion who in dayes past and years that are gone over your Head Prayed loud and fervently for the Spirit rise not up against it because it stains your Beauty subjects your Wills brings you out of Self and overturns your dead Forms where the Spirit of this World has had its Seat for Ages and in a Mystery insnared and beguiled you But wait upon God in deep Silence to all Fleshly Conceivings and Will-Worships so shall you come to feel God's Pure Quickening Spirit to Inliven Tender and Affect your Hearts in which State one Sigh or Groan is more Valuable then Years of unprepared and unsanctified Will-Sacrifice The next thing aimed at in this Cavil attended with so much Bitterness and rude Language is this that Thomas Hicks being desirous to represent the Quakers to greatest Disadvantage takes not a little Pains to incense Parents Magistrates and Masters against them as Neglecters of all Lawful Commands without an Immediate and Extraordinary Impulse to perform them Were we such Wretches as he would render us we should not deserve to live in Civil Societies What I shall say in our Defence is briefly this 1. The Quakers Principles and Practice have proved themselves consistent with Government because they have encouraged to Good Life Peace and Honest Industry I shall not here seek an Eye for an Eye nor tell any of those Black and Horrible Tragedies that go up and down the World under great Authors Atestations of the People called Anabaptists No I have more regard to the Sincere and Moderate among them though 't is a great Shame to the Profession that T.H. should be suffered among them at least as a Teacher after such Forged Prophane and Abusive Trash which lies more dangerously exposed to the Lash of Story then we do But for this time I spare him yet if he proceeds on this wise against us perhaps â—e may hear further of me and that People to whom he belongs if they take not some other Course with him 2. As to the Commands of Parents I have this to say and that by good Experience of more then one That those who have had Children of our Way though with great Disquiet and not a little Displeasure and Severity against them at the first they have left the World with this Testimony of their Children they never disobeyed them but for Conscience sake and from Threatning them with the Loss of all have become so Affectionate towards them and Confident in them as to entrust them with the Whole of their Worldly Substance 'T is true here and there a Crooked Perverse Professor whose Husbands Wives Children or Servants convinced have the worst of Lives through their extream Opposition and Watching for Evil may perhaps have spy'd an Indiscretion which though against his own Blood or Family his Enmity has aggravated to an Heinous Offence and then it must be given for a Demonstration of the Erroneousness of the Quakers Way But how Just Natural or Conscientious such Proceeding is against such Dissenting Relations or the People they associate with let all Impartial Persons judge This is not doing as they would be dealt by Liberty of Conscience Tyranny and Egyptian Oppressions I ask Would the Anabaptists be thus served concerning their own Proselytes Did they never any of them suffer from their Parents And have not their Parents complained of them And has that been taken by their Church alwayes for sufficient Proof And for the Story of the Woman that went rambling from her Family and Husband bidding him take another Woman c. with some pretending Revelations to refuse just Debts I shall say no more but thus We know of no
needs be Christ And let it be so then if it must either be a meer Creature or else Christ though he is not revealedly in every Man neither do Reprobates know Christ in them and he that hates his Brother hath no Eternal Life abiding in him Well I affirm then that there is an Immediate Divine Light of God and Christ in every Man to which their Minds Reason and Understandings are to be directed and thus far or in this sense God and Christ is in all and through all even in them who yet know him not in whom his Light is vailed and obscured But mark T.H. his great Charge in his first Dialogue p. 3. 'T is Blasphemy to say that the Light in Man is God or Christ Is it so How agrees this with their saying That Christ in respect of his Divine Nature is in all places and that Christ is the Life and Light of Men If in respect of his Divine Nature he be Christ then is Christ in all places how then shall this agree with his saying 't is Blasphemy to say that God and Christ is the Light in Man Seeing he cannot do it let 's endeavour it I suppose by the Light in Man â—e means Natural Reason or else the Spirit of Man indeed that is neither God Christ nor the Light but Blasphemy to affirm it is But that Light in Man which we contend for and direct to is an Immediate In-shining of Divine Light upon Man's Conscience that kindleth and lighteth Man's Spirit and maketh it becâ—me the Candle of the Lord which shews him Good and Evil and moves him to decline Evil and excites him to Good and this with respâ—ct to God and his own Salvation 〈…〉 who deny Christ to be the Light through 〈…〉 every Man or him to be the Light and â—ife of 〈◊〉 are Aâ—â—ichrists as E.B. saith 〈…〉 T.H. opposeth this he opposeth his own Concession T.H. excepts against my saying In the New Covenant God is the Teacher of his People himself by his Immediate Spirit Power and Unction within which I still affirm and he cannot confute but questions If so 1st Wherefore were Apostles Prophets Evangelists Pastors Teachers given and set in the Church for the Work of the Ministry p. 65. Answ Hereby he hath implyed as if the Work of the Ministry did argue that God is not the Teacher of his People in the New Covenant when both true Prophets and Ministers are taught by â—im and tell us that he is and we must wait on him â—or that End which implies no Defect in the Anointing within any more then John's Epistle did wherein he directs them to and testifies of the Sufficiency of the Anointing within to teach them 1 John 2. 2. Why do you set up a Ministry among your selves p. 65. False 't is of God's setting up it proceeds from the Holy Unction within and God hath blest our Ministry with his Presence for the turning many from Darkness to Light and from Men's Corrupt and Lifeless Preaching to the Anointing within and this you Angry Water-Baptists cannot hinder with all your Quarrelling and Reviling 3. Why do you appoint your Ministers before-hand to speak at suâ—h a Place at such a Time p. 66. A gross Falshood we appoint them not so to do they attend each Man upon God's Call and Motion in themselves and in Subjection to him is our Society we do neither appoint them to Preach nor Pray as Baptists were wont â—o do saying Brother do you Preach or do â—ou Praâ— and then the Brother to make Answer Nay prâ—â— Brother do you â—ou are more able then I c. on such Motions you can Preach or Pray without feeling any immediate Motion from God's Spirit to either 4. You invite others to your Silent Meetings telling us they will be such how are you assurâ—d that those you invite may not be moved to speak p. 66. False â—gain we do not conclude before-hand they will be wholly Silent Meetings nor limit the Lord from moving any one to speak in them Whereas he abuseth our Distinction between the Soul of Man and its Saviour as if it were but the same that 's between Christ and his In shining Light or Gift in Man or between God and some part of himself supposed Answ Man's Soul and â—s Saviour are distinct Beings the one Creatural having a Beginning and the other Divine and Infinite Christ and his Light within which we vindicate are but one in Being It s grosly Falsâ— That the Meaning of my Distinction must bâ— That Christ is not Divine and Increated but his Light is p. â—0 For the Meaning of mine is between the Giver and the Immediate Gift as flowing from him the Fountain and the Stream the Sun and its immediate Shining God is the Fulness of Light and Life and yet it s by degrees that he makes known his Discoveries or In-shining in Man but my Distinction between the Soul of Man and its Saviour is of another kind as appears by my citing those Scriptures in the Casâ— viz. Rom. 2.9 and Isaiah 3.9 The Distiction is plain see Dipper Plunged pag. 15. and The NATVRE OF CHRISTIANITY pag. 15 17 and 27. I may not well omit briefly to retro-inspect some perverse and corrupt Passages in Tho. Hicks his Continuation I still affirm it a gross Slander that the Quakers account the Blood of Christ no more then an Vnholy or Common thing Dial. p. 9. and no more then the Blood of a Common Thief Contin p 4. And our asserting the Sufficiency of the Light of Christ-within to bring to eternal Life proves neither nor doth his Inference follow or amount to any Proof against us vizt where he saith Then the Shedding of Christ's Blood upon the Cross was needless Contin p. 4. which is as good an Argument as to say If God makes manifest any thing in Man that 's Saving then all the outward Testimonies of his Love to Man were needless and thus he might as well argue against the Sufficiency of his Spirit Ingrafted Word Life or Light of his Son in Man in what Age soever and tell us the shedding of Christs Blood on the Cross which was an Act of his Persecutors and Murderers supplies the Defect of all Inward Manifestations how Spiritual and Divine soever O what profund Divinity and exquisite Logick is this His other Proofs as charged upon the Quakers are but Additions to his Slander and Forgery before vizt 1 That the Sufferings of Christ were only Exemplary 2 That the Mystery of Iniquity lies in the Blood of Christ To the first I say only is added yet Christ left us an Example of perfect Obedience and Holiness that we should follow his Steps To the second 't is gross and blasphemous to say the Mystery of Iniquity lyes in the Blood of Christ and 〈◊〉 of the Quakers Assertion but that it lyes in the corrupt Mind that carnally and falsly applies it to â—â—se and cover it self in Sin and Iniquity For
or in any case He now to vinâ—icate himself from such Injustice hath given us a Second Part wherein he hopes to make good what he charged upon us in his First by Quotations out of our owâ— Books which if faithfully done I shall freely acknowledge that a Quaker is quite another thing than a Christian And as this may suffice all but such as are resolved never to be satisfied with any thing that comes from us of the Reason of deferring our further Answer so having now that Ground to proceed upon which we never had before I shall with God's Assistance make the best of it I can in Defence of the Truth and the Innocency of them that profess it only give me leave to hint at a few Things which may not be improper to the Matter in hand because they do not a little discriminate and give to relish the Spirit of our Adversary CHAP. II. Something of the manner of his Dealing with us FIrst then he has taken a very unequal Way to represent our Faith Doctrine and Practice to the World in that he hath rather delivered his own Fury then a true Quaker and shews to the World rather what he would have us to be then what we are Can it be fairly done to propose the most knotty Questions for himself and give the weakest Answers for us Had he but had the Generosity of a Roman he would have given us fair Dealing for our Reputations To make a Fool and an Heretick both and then call him a Quaker is no less then a Rape because a violent Robbery committed upon those that go under that Name The best of Men can never escape let their Adversaries have but the Characterizing of them It had become T. Hicks if he would have shown himself a Christian and a Champion too first to have set down our Principles and Arguments as delivered and urged by us and then have enervated both by his pretended greater Strength of Scripture and Reason before he had made so many Trophies of Conquest But because had we been in the wrong this had been the Practice of a true Christian and that this has not been his Practice we are taught to infer that T. Hicks is thus far Antichristian Secondly He has not only made us Weak and Ridiculous by Answers no wayes to the Purpose but to belye our very Consciences and Principles For when he asks us Do you believe the Scriptures to be true Sayings of God he makes us to answer So far as they agree to the Light in me An Answer never so delivered by us And when he queries Will you be so liberal of your Revilings whether your Adversary gives Occasion or not He answereth for us It concerns us to render them as Ridiculous as we can and to make our Friends believe they do nothing but contradict themselves which is enough to us Certainly these things shew such premeditated and wilful Obstinacy to be wicked that were we what he represents us to be in this very Matter the severest Plagues and Judgments of the Eternal God we might justly expect to be our Portion forever I fear T. Hicks measures us by himself and that the Answer he feigns to the Second part of his Dialogue will be his Lot as truly as he has there feignedly said it It would take up too much time to enlarge only thus much let me say That Man is hard put to it and Unjust with a Witness who not only invents Answers to dis-repute a Man or People but such as are very Lyes too against their Faith and Practice Thirdly Nor is this all but he hath managed the whole of his Dialogues in a Spirit of Prophanation by a tanting and inapplicable Use of many serious Words that have at one time or other been seasonably uttered by Sober Simple and Religious People to the insnaring Questions of such Trapanners as himself As for instance Thou manifests thy Darkness that thou art still in thy Imagination What dost thou witness in thy self I see thou art a poor dark Creature as by thy Talking is manifest yea it is manifest in the Light yea verily Alas for thee I bear witness against thee We are dead to Distinctions Thou manifestest a Perverse Spirit These Reader with the like Expressions doth this Ungodly Scoffer give to the World in the Name of a true Quaker as some of his best Answers and that to such Questions whose Matter hath been effectually considered and answered in many of our Books however his Spirit shows to whomsoever those Answers are improper in one sense they are not so to him But above all that a Man pretending to Religion himself and such a one too as next to us stands fairest for Reproach should give our serious Language in a Jeer as if we were fitter to be Derided than Informed is horridly wicked Can his Conscience be so seared as to handle holy Things without Fear Is Singularity grown so odious to an Anabaptist Preacher that he should make it a Subject for his Scorn and Drollery However this may resemble T. Hicks he does not herein answer the First Love of the People who go under that Name while he shews so much implacable Hatred to his Conscientious Neighbour thereby not discountenancing the prophane Rabble in their frequent Scoffs at us but furnishing them with such a Work of Darkness as excites them further to it making us to inherit those cruel Mockings which were once the Portion of his own Profession We know what answers not God's Witness shall never be able to abide the Tryal and therefore we are the less concerned in his Comical Abuses of us more becoming a Morefield or a Smithfield Stage-Play than a Christian Treatise Thus much and no more of the Spirit of the Man in general because more largely handled else-where CHAP. III. The Question Stated and accordingly Pursued Our Adversary proved false and weak WE shall now descend to the main Question and that which is the Ground of his Second Dialogue and without which there can be no Defence of his First viz. Whether those Doctrines and Expressions charged upon the People called Quakers by Tho. Hicks in both his Dialogues be really the Doctrines and Sayings of that People or not And afterwards Whether what we do own and is by him charged with Error is sufficiently opposed or proved such He affirms they are and undertakes to prove his Assertions out of their own Works which naturally leads me to consider what are those Doctrines and Expressions he hath charged upon us to be ours and what are those Proofs by which he endeavours to make good that Charge I shall first of all treat upon the more weighty Parts of Doctrine and reserve the more trivial Matters to the latter end The first considerable thing he endeavours to suggest against us is Our making the Light in every Man to be God which he undertakes to prove from G. Whitehead's Discourse upon John 1.4 In him
Christ Spirit Anointing Gift of God c. under the New Testament Two short Scripture Arguments spring in my Mind for the Divinity and Sufficiency of the Light and from thence I shall conside this Objections I. If God be Divine and sufficient to Salvation and the Word be God and the Life of the Word One with the Word and the Life of the Word the Light of Men then is the Light of Men Divine and Sufficient to Salvation But God is Divine and Sufficient to Salvation and the Word is God and the Life of the Word One with the Word and the Life of the Word the Light of Men. Therefore I conclude that the Light of Men which is the Life of the Word which Word is God is Divine and Sufficient to Eternal Salvation II. That which was in all Ages the just Man's Path and there where the Blood of Cleansing is known to cleanse and by which Fellowship is enjoyed and the Light of Eternal Life obtained is ever was and ever will be a Divine Sufficient and Saving Way But such a Way is the Light as the several Scriptures in the Margent will testifie Consequently the Light is Divine and Sufficient to Salvation The only Cavil at these Arguments will be this I deny this Light to be the Common Light in all Men. To which I say that there cannot be Two Spiritual Lights of the Life of the Word and not the same if Two could be For whatever is of the same Nature though not of the same Degree is still the same in Kind If there be another Light that is Saving tell us from whence it comes but first prove this not Saving And as these things are too Difficult I hope for him to compass so is it as Ridiculous and Blasphemous to think that God should give Man an Insufficient Light But why any if not Sufficient I have heard and read often That all God's Gifts are Perfeâ—t 'T is strange that his Light to Men should be so Lame Defective and Imperfect as T.H. represents it But suppose this Light to be so Why an Insufficient Light and a Saving Light both The lattâ—r would have done our Business It is Injurious to Man to let him have a Fallible Guide For when he may think himself certain he may be in the greatest Danger by mistaking one for the other or thinking not of them as they are But Thanks be to the God of Light we know for WE WITNESS better things how ill a Reason and how offensive soever Witnessing is to Thomas Hicks an Anabaptist-Teacher to whose Brethren Experiences once were the great Foundation of both their Knowledge and Comfort though now mockt at by him with great Derision in a Quaker But to his Objections faithfully contracted 1. If this Light ever was and is Sufficient how comes it that Men have been and are so degenerated in Faith Discipline and Worship They have all this Light by your Principle 2ly If this Light had been Sufficient wherefore should God have superadded so many other Wayes and Means they would be then needless 3ly Christ being the Only Saviour who was born of a Virgin at Bethlehem wrought Miracles was cut off bore our Sins c. I query how all this can be affirmed of the Light 4ly Are not all the Generations of Christians since Christ's time till within these very few Years certainly Lost and Damned forasmuch as they acknowledge not this Light within as the True Christ To the first I answer There is nothing therein which may be thought to reflect upon the Light but what falls as heavily upon all other Wayes Helps Ordinances Appointments yea the Scriptures and which is more upon God and Christ and the Holy Spirit too For if the Degeneracy of Man that is the sad Effect of his own Rebellion shall be a valid Proof of the Insufficiency of the Light within then must we conclude from the Degeneracy that hath been among Jews and Christians and which remains to this Day that all those Assistances Wayes and Helps which have been given in reality were not Potent nor Sufficient for the End they were given The Consequences of which Opinion of our Adversaries are these Two and sad enough 1. That God in his Wayes must have been and is Insufficient and 2. That Man never was neither is any wayes faulty In short that may be sufficient to Salvation which if neglected will never work Salvation as in the Parable of the Talents may be seen To the Second I briefly say That Man's Mind being so much abroad through unstable and vain Wandrings from God's Light the Lord in Wisdom and Condescension to the Weakness of Man and Darkness of that Carnal State did accommodate both his Discoveries to Man and that Worship he required from Man according to his Capacity to receive the one and perform the other If God went into Outward Things to meet with Man's Mind that was abroad to the End that gradually it might return home shall we infer Weakness in the Light Man in that State was incapable he must have been new-molded and as another Creation to have then received that Testimoy in all its Plainness which God hath brought forth in after Ages If any will undertake to charge Weakness upon Man let him But I warn all how they conclude it against the Light since the same falls on God and his good Spirit who made Use of such Wayes and Means in order to gain upon Man's Mind and beget a right Understanding and Sence of what was his Will concerning him Besides not only did the Divine Light and Life appear unto Man in and through those things as Vailes But that which gave Man true Discerning Repentance and to do the Thing that ever was acceptable with God in any measure and which was as the Soul Life and Spirit of all the true and well-pleasing Sacrifices was a measure of that Divine Light of Life in their Hearts at that time though as Samuel in a like Case they knew it not Let none then charge the Weakness of the Administration upon the Light but the Generation to whom he that is the Light of and in Men appeared as Mankind has been able to receive the Knowledge of him It was not Insufficiency in God nor in his Light or Spirit if Man's Eyes were not strong enough to behold the Brightness of what after Ages have beheld But it was his Mercy and Goodness that he proportioned both his Discoveries and Requirings according to Man's Ability To conclude The Light is still the same in it self through all Ages and not a whit the less Sufficient because through its Invisibility and Spirituallity and the Wandrings abroad and great Carnallity of Man's Mind some External Means were used suitable to Man's Weakness through which to reach into Man and raise up some further Knowledge of the Spirtuallity of God's Worship Nor because of the Light 's Sufficiency as to it self ought any to infer that those Wayes
's Defence pag 101. But the truth of the matter I will relate out of that Book it self which has been most partially and basely represented by him The Priest's Query lies thus Whether the Scripture being Carnal and the Letter Killing as you say we may read them without Danger Answ The Letter which killeth 2 Cor. 3.6 is Dangerous for thou takest it here to war withal against the Saints with thy Carnal Mind giving out thy Carnal Expositions upon it And the Ministers of the Lâ—tter are Ministers of Death which is to Condemnation and you take it to make a Trade with it and with what the Prophets Christ and the Apostles said so that some have Sixty some an Hundred pound a Year But Christ cryed Wo unto such Whited Walls And here you read with Danger who speak of them and speak a Lye because you speak of your selves and you wrest the Scriptures to your own Destruction and to you it is Dangerous to read or speak of it who know not the Liâ—e of it as the Pharisees who were learned in the Letter but knew not Châ—ist But I say Blessed is he that doth read and doth understand This is the true Account in brief â—f their Answer to the Priâ—st's Quâ—ry And I appeal to God's Witness in the Reader 's Conscience if any thing of whâ—t that Vile Man would suggest is to be found in these Mâ—ns Words who by Letter evidently mean the Legal State of Condemnation by Dangerous not what Edification was to be got with respect to reading but that Aggravation of Punishment which would be the Recompence of those who make a Trade of them and oppose them Pharisee like to the Life and Spirit of Christ Jesus wresting them to their own Destruction Reading to such End and Purpose will prove Dangerous with a Witness And that it was at such a sort of Reading they struck consider this Passage But I say Blessed is he that doth read and doth understand Let this Forgery so obvious ring through the Streets and Towns where-ever his Book or Name is known however this is little to what 's behind For my part I speak my Conscience in Sincerity I had rather perish off the Earth then live so great a Burden of foul Dishonesty as I doubt not but a little time will manifest him to be That the Baseness of his Intentions in this kind of Arguing may yet further appear let this gross Inference directly charged by him upon our Principle of the Light 's being our Rule be diligently considered From our Asserting the Light Within to be our Rule he tells the World That we mean the holy Qualification that is in us Which were it true he would hit the Mark when he sayes that Holiness being a Conformity to the Rule it cannot be the Rule But never yet certainly did any but Thomas Hicks so mis-represent the poor Quaker Nay he Confounds and Contradicts himself How can we be said to make our Holiness the Rule when we affirm it only to be a walking up to the Light within which is Holy He sayes that we assert the Light to be the Rule how then is our Obedience to it the Rule for that is true Holiness Is there no difference between a Rule and Obedience to it Holy Life and that which gives it or makes it so What a Meeting here is of Ignorance Malice and Lying Any thing to spoil the Quakers but God will break the Bow and Spear of their Enemies Again From his Quaker's telling him Thou takest up the Saints Words but if thou hast not the same Spirit what are the Words to thee he dares to suggest that our Opinion of the Light 's Sufficiency in every Man cannot be true And all the Reason he gives us for his strange Collusion is this That those Words imply that the Spirit or Light of God is not in all Men. Now what is more evident then first That it is not our Answer 2. That it concerns not the Sufficiency so much as the Universallity of it 3. By not having the Spirit or Light is not meant that we believe that God has not given a Measure of his Good Spirit unto all to profit with or that there be some whom he never enlightened but that they so have not the Spirit as to walk by it be benefitted by it or come to enjoy it as their Teacher and Comforter and that some may be said not to be Enlightened who are not through Faith in and Obedience to the Light come to be advantaged and made Children of Light by it Let this suffice at present to shew the Man's Ignorance of our Principles or his great Unrighteousness to pervert them I shall now attend the next Point by him handled and that is Christ's Person and our Faith in him which he sayes we deny and indeed he does but say it CHAP. VI. Of our Faith in Christ HIs next Cavil is at our Belief in Christ and which is worse he would be thought a Christian in doing so The great Stress lies here Tho. Hicks would have the World think we Equivocate about our Faith in That Christ which after the Flesh appeared and dyed at Jerusalem The Reason of all this Clamour and Injustice on the part of our angry and restless Adversary is this if I wrong him let him shew me The Quakers say that Christ is in them Christ is God is God Man in them Again The Quakers say that Christ is in them But since there is but One Christ who was born of a Virgin and that he suffered at Jerusalem being there crucified can that Christ be in Man The false Doctrine or Absurdity he would run us upon is one of these two Either that we deny Christ's Manhood or that He is actually in our Bodies with that Body he appeared in at Jerusalem which is Impossible witness this one Passage If God be Christ as Penn saith or If the Light within you be the Christ as Naylor and Hubberthorn affirm is it proper or safe to say God was Slain or the Light in you was Crucified To which I answer That as in other things so in this our Adversary has shewn his great Ignorance or Malice For is it reasonable to infer from our Affirming in Scripture Language Christ is in the Saints that we deny him as to his Visible and Bodily Appearance in the World and that because he is God therefore he was never Man or that the Word took not Flesh Is this to understand us right or give the World a true measure of our Belief who is it confesseth Christ to be every where and if so then in his People see Cont. p. 34. Ah God the Righteous Judge shall plead with thee in a Day that thou shalt not be able to escape his Terrible Recompence if thou repentest not Let it suffice to the sober Reader for of him I have little Hopes that we do believe that Christ who is God over all blessed
pleading for a Saving Light the necessity of Obedience to it the Eternal Reward of Life or Death Happiness or Misery as it is conformed to or rebelled against prove our Faith in that Matter to be quite another thing If this be your Champion I dare warrant his own Baseness shall be his own Overthrow we need no more against him then his own Ignorance Malice Lyes Forgeries and Slanders to his utter Confutation in the Minds of all Impartial Persons CHAP. IX Of Justification and something of Satisfaction THe Doctrine of Justification is the next Particular that I am to take notice of He begins with the Quaker thus Pray what is your Opinion of Justification by that Righteousness of Christ which He in his own Person fulfilled for us WHOLELY WITHOVT VS Quak. Justification by the Righteousness which Christ fulfills for us in his own Person WHOLELY WITHOUT US we boldly affirm it to be a Doctrine of Devils and an Arm of the Sea of Corruption which doth now deluge the World Will. Penn Apol. p. 148. This Apology cited was written against a Malicious Priest in Ireland who in a Book by him published not long afore laid it down as Unscriptural and a very heinous Thing in us to deny Justification without any Distinction exprest by the Righteousness which Christ wrought in his own Person WHOLELY WITHOUT US To whom I made the Answer given by T. Hicks And if therein I have crost the express Testimony of the Scriptures let any shew me But if I have only thwarted a most Sin-pleasing and therefore Dangerous Notion let such as hold it look to that He has not offered me one plain Scripture nor the Shadow of a Reason why this Passage ought to be reputed unsound or condemnable If any Living will produce me but one Passage out of Scripture that tells of a Justification by such a Righteousness as is WHOLELY WITHOUT US I shall fall under its Authority but if we only deny Men's corrupt Conceits and Sin-pleasing Glosses and they offer us nothing to our Confutation or better Information we shall not think bare Quotations of our Books to be sufficient Answers But to the end all may understand the Reason of my so Answering that Priest take those short Reasons then rendered with any one of which I am to suppose T. Hicks desired not to meddle First No Man can be Justified without Faith sayes Jenner No Man hath Faith without Works any more then a Body can live without a Spirit sayes James Therefore the Works of Righteousness by the Spirit of Jesus Christ are necessary to Justification Second If Men may be justified whilst Impure then God quits the Guilty contrary to the Scripture which cannot be I mean while in a Rebellious State Third Death came by Actual Sin not Imputative in his sense therefore Justification unto Life comes by actual Righteousness not Imputative Fourth This speaketh Peace to the Wicked whilst Wicked but there is no Peace to the Wicked saith my God Fifth Men are Dead and Alive at the same time saith this Doctrine for they may be dead in Sin and yet alive in another's Righteousness not Inherent and consequently Men may be damned actually and saved imputatively Sixth But since Men are to reap what they sow and that every one shall be rewarded according to his Works and that none are Justified but the Children of God and that none are Children but who are led by the Spirit of God and that none are so led but those that bring forth Fruits thereof which is Holiness 'T is not the Oyle in anothers Lamp but in our own only which will serve our turns I mean the Rejoycing must be in our selves and not in another yet to Christ's holy Power alone do we ascribe it who works all our Works in us All which was not only not answered but not cited by him He brings me in again thus Justification is not from the Imputation of another's Righteousness but from the actual Performing and Keeping God's Righteous Statutes Sand. Found p. 25. To which after this base and disingenuous Citation he returns me this only Answer Is it not written Rom. 5.19 By the Obedience of one many are made Righteous But before I explain the Truth of that Scripture be pleased to hear my Argument as it is laid down in my Book and then give thy Judgment Reader upon the Man The Son shall not bear the Iniquity of his Father The Righteousness of the Righteous shall be upon him and the Wickedness of the Wicked shall be upon him When a Righteous Man turneth away from his Righteousness for his Iniquity that he has done shall he dye Again When the Wicked Man turneth away from his Wickedness and doth that which is Lawful and Right he shall save his Soul alive yet saith the House of Israel The Wayes of the Lord are not Equal Are not my Wayes Equal If this was once Equal it s so still for God is Unchangeable And therefore I shall draw this Argument That the Condemnation or Justification of Persons is not from the Imputation of another's Righteousness but the actual Performance or not keeping of Gods righteous Statutes or Commandments otherwise God should forget to be Equal Therefore how wickedly Unequal are those who not from Scripture Evidences but their dark Conjectures Interpretations of obscure Passages would frame a Doctrine so manifestly inconsistent with God's most pure and equal Nature making him to condemn the Righteous to Death and justifie the Wicked to Life from the Imputation of another's Righteousness A most Unequal Way indeed Where observe that the Answer he makes me give in his Dialogue is delivered by me with an If it be so fetcht expresly from the Text it self so that the Scripture and not W. Penn is most struck at by him However it be he has offered us no Opposition yet but that Passage out of the Romans which will not be found inconsistent with Ezekiel's Testimony on which my Argument was grounded The whole Verse was thus For as by one Man's Disobedience many were made Sinners so by the Obedience of one shall many be made Righteous which if the whole Chapter be well considered is no more then this that as Adam representative of Mankind from whence he had that Name was he by whom Sin entred into the whole World So Christ was He by whose comeing and Obedience Righteousness had an entrance to the Justification of many In short the Work Christ had to do was two-fold 1 To remit forgive or justify from the Imputation of Sin past all such as truely repented believed and obeyed him And 2ly by his Power and Spirit operating in the Hearts of such to destroy and remove the very Ground and Nature of Sin whereby to make an End of Sin and finish Transgression present and to come that is the first removes the Guilt the second the very Cause of It. Now I grant
that God condemn'd and punish'd his Innocent Son for other Folkes Sins that he might be satisfied for pardon he neither could nor would And which is most absurd Christ being this same God he at once makes him the Party satisfying the Party satisfied which is absurd and impossible besides 't is such a Satisfaction as hath paid all Debts past present to come whereby all Inward Righteousness though of Christ's Working is not necessary to Justification in any Kind Secondly He has dealt Injuriously with me and that in two Respects 1. In not stating the Doctrine truly which I opposed and my Words at length that they might speak for themselves But in that case perhaps he thought he should have been oblieged to answer them a thing he every where seems afraid of his Trade â—s Caviâ—â—â—g And 2lâ— In that he brings this Passage which opposâ—d sucâ— a Satisfaction as is said to have paid for Sins pâ—st present and to come to answer a Scripture which concerns Justification and that part of it too which relates to Remission of Sins Insinuating that I make Men's own Works sufficient to Justification in the first sense I mean Remission in the second sense I mean daily Acceptance upon being made Just and lastly that I overturn all the Righteousness Death and Sufferings of Christ whilst in Truth and Sincerity of Soul 1. by Justification not by another's Righteousness WHOLELY WITHOUT I only meant That it was Christ's Righteousness wrought in us and not our own which made Inwardly Just and which gave daily Acceptance and brought into the heavenly Fellowship with the Father and with the Son the Justification then intended by me 2 ly Since God has made his Truth known to me I have ever understood Christ's being offered up to signifie the carrying away of Sin the bearing away of Iniquity that by which God declared Remission and Forgiveness of Sins past to all that repented And this Justification called Rom. 4. ver 5 6 7 8 God 's not Imputing Sin I have ever owned to be the Free Unmerited Love of God to the World And was not that Justification by me spoken of in the Passage cited 3 ly That which I opposed was so rigid a Satisfaction as made it absolutely unavoidable or necessary in God to require a Satisfaction thereby robbing him of the Power of his free Mercy and Loving-kindness to remit and pass by and that Christ did not answer or pay by the Act of his Suffering for Sins past present and to come but as he declared Remission by his Blood for the Sins past of the whole World the beginning of his Work so that he doth by his Power and Spirit subdue destroy and cast out Sin out of the Hearts of all who believe in him whereby their Consciences come to be made pure they sanctified throughout in Body Soul and Spirit which necessitates to Good Life and speaks no Peace to the Wicked in their Wickedness nor yet to the sloathful formal and carnal Professor of Religion Therefore such rage and imagine a vain thing against us That the Consequences of the common Notion of both Satisfaction and Justification are Irreligious and Irrational though what has been said might suffice with Sober and Impartial Readers yet I may anon have further Occasion to prove it In the mean time He tells the World that William Penn in Answer to this Question How did Christ fulfil the Law for Sinners says That Christ fulfilled the Law ONLY as our Pattern or Example S.F. p. 26. In which he has done exactly like himself For if he can find the Word ONLY there or such an Answer to such a Question or the Matter strictly contained in that Question he has not wronged me but sure I am there is no such Question and as sure that the Fulfilling of the Law was not the Subject treated on and very certain that the Word Only was not there therefore a Forger That which I said with the Scripture on which it was grounded follows If ye keep my Commandments ye shall abide in my Love even as I have kept my Father's Commandments and abide in his Love From whence this Argument doth naturally arise If none are truly Justified that abide not in Christ's Love and that none abide in his Love that keep not his Commandments then consequently none are justified but such as keep his Commandments Besides here is the most palpable Opposition to an Imputative Righteousness that may be For Christ is so far from telling them of such a Way of being Justified as that he infoâ—mâ—th them the Reason why he abode in his Father's Love was his Obedience and is so far from telling them of their being Justified whilst not abiding in his Love by Virtue of his Obedience imputed unto them that unless they keep his Commands and obey for themselves they shall be so remote from an Acceptance as wholely to be cast out in all which Christ is but our Example Now that this concerned not the Whole Law Christ came to fulfil The whole Law he fulfilled the place of Scripture quoted the Nature and Matter of the Argument clearly proves Next If Christ had been other then our Example in that case then he should have fulfilled his own Commandments in our stead who from Obeying his Father's taught us our Duty was to obey His. And supposing that he could have kept his own Commandments and obey'd himself for us or in our stead it would have followed 1. That we needed not to have kept them unless they were to be observed twice over And that 2ly in not keeping of them we had been notwithstanding justified from his alone Fulfilling of them unless his Answering them had been Insufficient The first of which if I understand any thing opens a Door to all Licentiousness however Upright some may be in their Intentions to the contrary And the last strikes dead their own Opinion of the Sufficiency of Christ's Personal Obedience to perfoâ—m all needful on our Account From hence he undertakes to charge me with the Merit of Works My words at length are these which he thought good to conceal Was not Abraham justified by Works when he offered Isaac and by Works was Faith made perfect and the Scripture was fulfilled which saith Abraham believed God and it was imputed to him for Righteousness By which we must not concâ—ive as do the dark Imputarians of this Age that Abraham ' s Offering Personally was not a Justifying Righteousness but that God was pleased to account it so since God never accounts a thing that which it is not nor was there any Imputation of another's Righteousness to Abraham but on the contrary his Personal Obedience was the Ground of that just Imputation therefore that any should be justified from the Imputation of another's Righteousness not inherent or actually possessed by them is both Ridiculous and Dangerous Ridiculous since it is to say A Man is Rich to
then in Tho. Hicks not only to leave out what the Priest asserted but to misconstrue E. B's Answer and that such Perversion might go the more Unquestionable omit the Insertion of that Scripture in which Christ is by the Aâ—stle said to be made Sanctification to the Saints the mention of which would have given a clear Understanding of E. Burroughs's Answer and broke the Neck of his Ungodly Purpose to misrepresent him We say and it was the Faith and Tendency of the Writings of that Just Man 1. To assert a Perfect Principle of Righteousness and Sanctification which is Sanctification and Perfection in the abstract 2. The Possibility of being Perfectly Sanctified by it 3. That such Sanctification when taken for the Author of it who is the Fountain of all Holiness and Purity is Compleat and Perfect 4. When taken for the Work of the Spirit in the Creature it is first Perfect in Degree only but as the Creature comes into perfect Subjection unto the Spirit and Power of him that raised up Jesus from the Dead which hath wrought that Perfection in Degree he comes to experience that Sanctification throughout in Body Soul and Spirit which the Apostle otherwise minded then T. Hicks prayed the Churches might witness which is that blessed State wherein he that 's born of God SINS NOT Old things are done away ALL IS BECOME NEW No more I but Christ that liveth in me I write unto you Young Men because ye have OVERCOME the Wicked One Be ye Perfect as your Heavenly Father is Perfect unto a PERFECT MAN That the Man of God may be PERFECT The God of Peace make you PERFECT IN EVERY GOOD WORK The God of all Peace make you PERFECT Let us cleanse our selves from ALL FILTHINESS OF FLESH AND SPIRIT Perfecting Holiness in the Fear of the Lord. With many more Places of like Importance But he objects Why doth the Apostle exhort Sanctified Persons to put off the Old Man from Coloss 3.5 If where the Old Man the Body of Sin remains none are Sanctified as saith E.B. This indeed is the Drift of the Man he would be Sanctified whilst Unsanctified as Dangerous as it is Absurd For what thing can be and not be the same thing at one and the same time But I deny they were then Sanctified who stood in need of that Reproof and Exhortation to wit that they should mortifie such Lusts as Fornication Vncleanness Inordinate Affection and Covetousness which is Idolatry Sanctifying such are who are Mortifying but when Sin is not Mortifying none are Sanctifying and where Sin is not Mortified no Man is Sanctified We may easily see what a Church-Fellowship T.H. can allow of and what a Gospel-Sanctification it is he pleads for Can Men be Sanctified and yet so Corrupt If they can tell me in what sense and from what they are cleansed Is this the End of pleading for Perfection in Degree to allow these Abominable Enormities as Church-Infirmities Away for Shame But that a perfect Sanctification is no Heresie suppose they had been Sanctify'd Persons to whom the Apostle wrote which could not be Sanctifying was the most yet since he exhorted them to put off the Old Man which Old Man is the Body of Sin and that when he is off he is not on and that the Apostle exhorted them Not to an Impossible thing I conclude from his Question that a State of Perfect Sanctification is attainable He pretended to correct E. B's Extravagancy but whatever Face he puts upon it this is the Mark he aims at To conclude and sum up his Ungodly Method E.B. speaks of a Perfect Sanctification in Christ T.H. infers that same perfect Sanctification immediately to the Creature not only confounding the Worker and Work the Cause and the Effect about which one piece of Baseness he bestows not a little Pains but suggesting thereby that we deny all Sanctification or Perfection in Degree and that we are as compleatly Perfect as Christ himself Next He leaves out those words that would best explain his Mind And Lastly All his Opposition is because the Quakers are for having Men Sanctify'd before they are Accounted so and New Creatures before they ought to be reputed Good Christians which so directly Vn-churches and Vn-christians T. Hicks that we may well believe it a main Reason for his Implacableness against them CHAP. XI Of COMMANDS MOTIONS and MINISTRY T. Hicks proved Vnjust to us and an Enemy to God's Law Gospel the Quakers and himself HE has not less abused and belyed us in these three Particulars then any thing he has written against us which I shall briefly shew To this Passage in E. Burroughs's Works That is no Command to me which is a Command to another neither did any of the Saints act by a Command that was given to another he thus answers Then that Law which forbids Idolatry Adultery Murder Theft and Bearing false Witness is no Law to you And after having made this indirect Consequence he breaketh forth Impiously Horrid Vngodly Irreverent Patronizers of Blasphemy Countenancers of such Novices Prophane Scribler and abundance more Now though I have said something to this before and have largely vindicated that Passage against J. Faldo yet I cannot well omit touching here upon it the Matter being so aggravated by this disingenuous Person These Commands must either relate to Ordinary or Extraordinary Duty I mean they must either be such Commands as that of Moses 's going to Pharaoh Isaiah's going Naked Jeremiah 's making Yoaks Amos 's going to the Kings's Chappel with many more And here I do affirm with that Faithful Young Man of God that the Command which came to them not coming to another that other Person is not only not warranted but condemnable in an Imitation of any of them If then such Extraordinary Commands as these before mentioned must not be intended then those that are Ordinary and Common to Mankind as Fearing God and working Righteousness towards God towards their Relations both Natural and Civil Now I would ask T.H. if he believes that Idolatry Murder Adultery Theft and Bearing false Witness be not reproved by the Common Light in all Men if not T.H. gives the Lye to all Mankind and his own Books too Nay what is it good for But if they be query If any can confess to one God love his Neighbour be Chaste be Just and speak Truth in his own and Neighbour's Cause without being thereto oblieged by that Light they have Did the Gentiles of old the things contained in the Law without a Word Commandment Law or Light within inducing them thereto I perceive T. Hicks owns no Command in himself against Idolatry Adultery Murder Theft and Bearing false Witness which is to say if the Scripture did not restrain him he should be guilty of all Farewell Grace Spirit Light and all Inward Rule or Judge by which to see taste relish and determine of things But in this Condition
and in which his Holy Spirit leads not by the which only Self is abas'd kept under and in perfect Obedience to and watchfull Observance of God's Holy Will But Tho. Hicks makes this a Strange and Dangerous Doctrine insinuating that we perform nothing but upon a kind of Spiritual Compulsion as if that God required Man to do all his Commandements without his holy Spirit alwayes ready to incline and help them either to begin or perform any such Duty or that there were no Difference between waiting for the natural Springs of Divine Power to assist and being compell'd to worship But this shews his great Ignorance of God's Spirit its dayly Movings upon the Heart of Men either as a Reprover or Comforter for Good for were he better acquainted with its Dealings it would not be so uncouth to him to hear of our Waiting to feel the holy Stirrings of it in order to every Religious Performance wherefore let not his Ignorance be any Argument against our holy Gospel Practice The Saints of old had a Warrant in themselves for what they did They were not wont to run into the Imitation of former Generations as to any External Appointments because then commanded and practised as proper but consulted the Anointing they had receiv'd about the Continuation or Dis-use of such Figures or outward Services and as they receiv'd Wisdom and Counsel therefrom either to use or decline the Practice of them they acted and no otherwise making good the Apostles Saying that as many as are led by the Spirit of God are the Sons of God Are we led by It in ALL things then in and about God's things Had it not been for this how could the Apostles have preach'd down the whole Ceremonial Worship of the Jews The meer Letter of Scriptures could never have been their Rule in the Case If any say they were extraordinarily Inspired I answer how did such as then believ'd know that if not from an Inward Testimony Nay what Rule had the many Thousands then to worship God by The Hebrew Bible was little or not at all known to the Gentiles The Scripture tells us that whole Churches were setled in the Faith before the Epistles were writ And it is hard to think when they were writ that they could be suddenly collected and when collected that every Individual could get a Coppy that to be sure ought to have a Rule for Printing was not so early in the World and Transscribing must needs have been to Irksome for every Person to obtain a Coppy for his or her peculiar Benefit But because we are taught to believe that they wanted not True Rule of Faith and Practice and that the Scriptures especially of the new Testament could not be all that to them our present Adversaries conclude to make the great Rule let them not be displeas'd if I infer from hence that a Measure of that Holy Spirit which was given to every one to profit with was their Rule and therefore ought to be our great Rule and Guide in all things relating to Faith and Worship And let it be remembred that Christ promised to send the Spirit of Truth to lead into all Truth as much as to say none are led into the Truth nor in the Truth but by the holy Spirit of Truth or that their Practice is a Ly or they are led into a Ly who are not led by the Spirit of Truth that alone leads into all the Wayes of Truth where by Truth is not to be understood the meer Letter of the Scripture which notwithstanding is True but the Living Powerful Truth Christ the Way the Truth and the Life of which the Scripture is but a Record or Declaration Many may run into a Practice of several Outward Things mentioned in the Scriptures to have been the Practices of the Saints of former Ages and yet not be led into the Truth for all that is but Will-Worship Imitation and Unwarrantable To be led into the Truth is to be led into God's Living Power Wisdom and Righteousness whose Fruits are Peace and Assurance for ever This is the Truth the Spirit leads and is all-sufficient to Certainly Christ intended This for the Great Evangelical Leader Rule Judge Law-giver and Guide through the whole course of Regeneration the only Way into the Everlasting Kingdom And all those who are not by this Holy Spirit prepared moved and assisted to perform Divine Worship unto God but run into that weighty Duty or any other supposed Ordinance without its pure Leadings which makes it a Spiritual and Living Worship they are but those anciently fore-told of LORD LORD-CRYERS whose Portion shall be that dismal Depart from me I know you not who has requir'd these things at your hands Let this therefore be a Warning unto all Professors in the Name of the Lord that they run no longer Vnsent nor think to be accepted for their many Words God regards the Heart that he has broken and is made contrite before him and which trembles at his Word 'T is not meer Worship but that which is Spiritual which he expects and accepts and to perform that Man must Cease from his own Spirit Strength Strivings and Imitations and become Dumb before the Lord and as a Man dead to Self-Performance and then will he breath into him the Spirit of Supplication and raise him up in the Newness of his own Divine Life whereby though but in Sighs and Groans a Spiritual and most Acceptable Worship shall be offered unto God in which his Soul will be well pleased and every such one come to be refresht and establisht in Righteousness For all Offerers and Vpholders of strange Fire of what sort of People soever they may be in the Great and Notable Day of the Lord God will he cause to lie down in Sorrow And because he thinks his Advantage is not small that he hath against us by basely inferring and aggravating such Consequences as this What of Duty we neglect we are to charge upon the Spirit 's not moving us to it or because we must not obey without a Motion we are acquitted from all Fault till then c. Let me tell him that he striketh himself and not the Quakers For they hold that God's Spirit ought to be daily waited for And that it is alwayes ready to inform and instruct Man's Soul and to move it to those Thoughts Words and Deeds with respect to God and Man as are Well-pleasing to the Almighty For we do not only teach that the Spirit of God is alwayes present to convince of Sin but to lead out of it and in that Way of holy Living which is well-pleasing unto God In short God's Worship stands in the Spirit and I testifie from the Eternal God all other Worship then what springs from a Mind touch'd sanctify'd and mov'd of his holy quickning Spirit is abominable to him His Righteous Soul loathes it And what else were their Sacrifices as theirs were who in my hearing said Pray
Brother will you Pray No Brother I am not so well able as you are Let Brother such a one Pray he is better gifted for the Work c. Complementing Shifting and at last Praying c. in their own Wills and not in God's Motion This God hates Next Since the Pouring forth of the Spirit is the great Gospel Gift and that the Children of God are to be led by it In what should we more diligently wait for its Heavenly Assistance then in that part of our Duty which we owe to God Is his Worship Spiritual and can we perform it out of the Motion of his own Spirit For what then was his Spirit given Again If Men should pray in a known Tongue much more with the Spirit as the Apostle speaks No Wonder the Professors ask Pardon for their Prayers Indeed God's Spirit gives them to see the Emptiness of their Righteousness and condemns them for it wherfore they are at times dissatisfy'd in them yet they will not learn of him to be guided by him who would cover them with Everlasting Righteousness Blessed would they be if their Minds were stayed in his Counsel But instead thereof T.H. does as good as say that if he should stay till the Spirit moved him he might stay long enough rendring the Spirit Wanting in that for which he was shed abroad in the Heart Because through his Enmity and Darkness hasty Running in his own Spirit he feels it not to lead him else he would never infer from our Asserting the Necessity of the Spirit 's Moving to Right Acceptable Worship that we are acquitted from any Fault in omitting to do that which is Good and the Blame must be laid upon the Spirit But let me ask him Can any Man do Good of himself Surely he will say No. How then shall Man do that Good he ought to do but by the Holy Ghost Canst thou call Jesus Lord by any other Power or Spirit Read the Scriptures What greater Contradiction can there be then to believe Man of himself can do no Good and yet to say he can do it without God's Spirit to incline and assist him thereunto But if the Spirit do not what does Tell me what can tender the Heart prepare the Soul raise the Affections give true Feeling of Wants and help to perform all in that Fear Reverence and deep Sense which becomes all New Covenant Spiritual Worshippers if this cannot or do not Nay what an Affront is it to God since it is to suppose that Man wants him not that his Spirit neither moves to Duty that ought to be performed nor yet condemns for Duty omitted Behold the Impudence of the Man He talks of Gospel Christ the Mysteries of his Glorious Kingdom c. What grosser Opposer of the New Covenant can there be who denies the very Life Virtue and Soul of all true Gospel-Worship and Discipline and without which the otherwise best Christian-Church that ever was would be worse then Legal For they that worship not from the Motions of God's Spirit offer strange Fire set up their own Worship and are Image Makers such ask but they receive not because they ask not aright For if no Man can call Jesus Lord but by the Holy Ghost no Man can pray to the Lord or in his Name without the Holy Ghost yet a Sigh or Groan from its holy Operation that Sacrifice though without Words is manifold more engaging and effectual with the Lord then the most excellent Performance of Man 's own Spirit 'T is the Fear and Heavenly Sense of God in the Soul that recommends the Performance and that the holy Spirit begets And as the Minds of Men and Women are exercised in the Law of this pure and quickening Spirit as it appears in them they shall know the true Worship which stands in Life and Power whose End is Everlasting Peace when the LORD LORD-CRYERS that have Prayed and Preached in their own Wills and Wisdom as well as to their own Ends and Advantages shall be cast out forever with a DEPART FROM ME YE WORKERS OF INIQUITY But there is one Objection taken from my Book called The Spirit of Alexander the Copper-Smith c. which he thinks splits us irrecoverably It runs thus Either there is such a thing as a Christian-Church or there is not if there be then this Church either hath Power or hath not If no Power then no Church If a Body or a Church then there must be a Power within it self to determine To which sayes Tho. Hicks For Christians to plead this who own the Scriptures for their Rule and not the meer Light within the Argument may safely be allowed But you cannot stand by this For will you say what a Man doth without an Inward Motion is accurst and yet disown him for not doing what he is not moved unto But though this be plausible it is no more For the Difficulty remains in Case the Scripture be admitted for the Rule for Instance The Church unto which Tho. Hicks belongs own the Scripture to be the Rule But suppose Tho. Hicks in some one Point believes the Scripture not to intend the same thing the rest of the Church understand it to mean as in Case of Free-Will I query how this Matter shall be reconciled They affirm the Scripture to be the Rule and say This is the true Sense of the Scripture Thomas Hicks also affirms the Scripture to be the Rule but that his Sense is the Mind of the Scripture This occurs almost daily among those who believe the Scripture to be the Rule of Faith Now observe the Parallel The Quakers by the Light within them as their Rule judge that rude Imagination of keeping the Hat on in time of publick Prayer The Anabaptists by the Scripture as their Rule censure Thomas Hicks for upholding a Contrary Sense to the Scripture The Dissenter from the Quakers sayes The Light which he calls his Rule manifests no such thing to him nor doth he believe it to be the Mind of the Light to him Thomas Hicks makes Answer to the Church that by the Scripture he understands quite another thing and the Scripture is his Rule for what he sayes and maintains in the Matter I would ask any Man of Common Sence if the Scripture is not as well set in Opposition to it self by these two Pretenders as the Light within and if the Church of Anabaptists would not therefore doubt the Truth of their Interpretation but proceed to censure Thomas Hicks as a Disturber of their Church in its Doctrine or Discipline by the Introduction of New and Unprofitable Opinions Neither are the Body of the Quakers to question their Judgment given by the Light within as their Rule to be a true and unquestionable Determination against such Alexanders and Enemies to the Peace of their Jerusalem But I would further tell Thomas Hicks that though we renounce all Worship not led to by God's Spirit his Reflection
cited in Defence of his gross Conceit of the Râ—surrection are either relative of another Matter or directly opposite to and inconsistent with his Assertion 1. And this Mortal shall put on Immortality this Corruptible shall put on Incorruption 1 Cor 15.53 I grant that this implies a Change but I deny that it so much as intimates that Men shall rise with those very Carnal Bodies that were buried No the Apostle not only tells us that the Body sown is not the Body that shall be but that Flesh and Blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God vers 50. If the Flesh and Blood be transmuted or changed into no Flesh and Blood I query and I think I may do it safely too Whether It be the same Flesh and Blood that is changed into no Flesh and Blood that is the Body raised O Absurd Dark and Carnal Man Nor am I afraid to tell him that the Scripture cannot rationally be taken strictly as translated neither ought many more for there are certain Figures Modes and Wayes proper to that Language in which this Epistle was written which are to be understood with Allowances for how can the Mortal taken for Mortality and not him who in part is Mortal put on Immortality It is Impossible Can Mortality be cloathed with Immortality then it seems that Mortality is the Person and Immortality the Garment If Thomas Hicks should tell me No it is meant that the Mortal Body should be changed into an Immortal Body it follows that he is gone from the Letter of the Text into an Interpretation as well as that it contradicts his absurd Identity or Sameness of Body If so it is as Lawful for me and more if in the Right to construe It thus That we who are Mortals respecting our Bodies put off the Mortal Part and put on instead thereof Immortality suitable to that weighty Passage of the Apostle Paul For We know that if our Earthly House of this Tabernacle were dissolved we have a Building of God an House not made with Hands Eternal in Heavens which as directly concludes the Charge not of Accidents but Bodies from an Earthly House or Tabernacle to an Heavenly House or Building as ever any thing can be spoken by Men or Angels To conclude Since Mortality can not properly put on Immortality but Man that is cloathed with Mortality may put off or exchange Mortality for Immortality because otherwise Mortality would have Immortality for its Garment a thing impossible and absurd I do infer that this place yields no Strength at all to Thomas Hicks's gross Apprehension of the Resurrection 2. His next Scripture is that in the Romans But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the Dead dwell in you he that rais'd up Christ from the Dead shall also quicken your Mortal Bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you But this is nothing to T. H's Purpose in the least For the Apostle treats not here of the Resurrection of Dead Carnal Bodies in our Adversary's Sence as the whole Chapter seriously read proves but of the Inward Work of the Spirit in order to the making Man's Body a fit Temple for the holy Ghost to dwell in as he writ to the Corrinthians 3. The third place he brings is out of the Epistle Paul writ to the Philippians He shall change our Vile Bodies Upon which he sayâ—s This cannot be meant of a New-created Bodâ— because such a Body cannot be said to be either Vile or Changed But what makes this for his Conceit Surely nothing For if the Vile Body he changed then it is not that Vile Body therefore not the same Body Again to say that Scripture can't be meant of a New-Created Body because such one can't be said to be either Vile or Changed makes much against him For 1. It is to say that the Body that shall be is Vile else what means his Saying Because such a Body cannot be said TO BE not to have been either Vile or Changed 2. Though the Body That shall be may not be said to be either Vile or Changed yet it may be given of God in lieu of a Vile Body and so the Vile Body Changed for one that is Glorious It was either Ignorantly or Sophistically done in Thomas Hicks to imply That Body that shall be could not be said to be Changed since the Change lies on the side of the Vile Body that is exchanged for a more Glorious Body Therefore all along we must conclude it is not the same but another Body But how Disingenuous is Tho Hicks to repute G. W's Answer in the Apostle's Words a pressing the Metaphor too far and yet by so doing runs himself into this Dark Imagination of a Fleshly Resurrection But Tho. Hicks thinks The Joyes of Heaven Imperfect else I Answer Is the Joy of the Ancients now in Glory Imperfect or are they in Heaven but by halfes If it be so Unequitable that the Body which hath suffered should not partake of the Joyes Celestial Is it not in measure Unequal that the Soul should be rewarded so long before the Body This Principle brings to the Mortality of the Soul held by many Baptists or I am mistaken But why must the Felicity of the Soul depend upon that of the Body Is it not to make the Soul a kind of Widdow and so in a State of Mourning and Disconsolateness to be without its Beloved Body which State is but a better sort of Purgatory See T.V. and T.D. What made the Apostle willing to be absent from the Body that he might be present with the Lord if such a Dissolution brought Sadness instead of Joy as our Adversaries in the Point of the Resurrection suggest if not boldly affirm In short If the compleat Happiness of the Soul rests in a Re-union to a Carnal Body for such it is sown then never cry out upon the Turks Alcoran for such a Heaven and the Joyes of it suite admirably well with such a Resurrection The Reasons I have to give against this Barbarous Conceit I thus Contract 1. Because that the Scripture speaks of a Dissolution and no Resurrection of that which is dissolved being Earthly and Unfit for a Celestial Paradice and therefore holds forth a Building of God and House Eternal in the Heavens 2. If the Body be the same it must have the same Nature otherwise not the same Body But if it have the same Nature it will be Corruptible still Mortal Seeds bring forth Mortal Natures not Immortal Neither can Mortal be Immortal and yet the same Nature as before for that Change made tell me What remains of the Old Earthly Body 3. It makes the Soul Uncapable of Compleat Happiness without a Fleshly Body as if Heaven were an Earthly Place to see walk in and all our Outward Senses to be enjoyed and exercised as in this World though in an higher Degree which I call Mahometism For what Spiritual Happiness the Body now can have
reject their Lyes and lay their Slanders at their own Door they report us a sort of Foul-Mouth'd-People Censorious and Judging and which is most intollerable they account such Carriage towards us Gospel-Zeal Plain-Dealing which are only better Words for Reviling and Railing But whilst some have thus shewn themselves against us upon close Encounters with our Books Tho. Hicks that he may be Extraordinary though in Wickedness forges Ill Language under our Name that he may the better practise Railing against the Quakers and insinuate with the Vulgar for a Reality a very Fiction but since the Answers as they are he pretends to condemn as bad he is at once to be blamed for Forgery and forging that which is Reprovable too But that which deserves our notice is that Tho. Hicks should be the Man of all others that takes most upon him to rate the Quakers for their Sharp Dealing with their Adversaries who is not only Unjust in doing so but Excessive in his Bitterness against them witness thâ—se Scurrilous Invective Expressions A Dialogue between a Christian and a Quaker Their owning Christ and the Christ they own a meer Mystical Romance Cheats and Impostures Lyars Malignant Errors Their Hypocrisie Deceit Equivocations The way they arived to that Degree of Perfection was by Quaking Foaming at the Mouth with dreadfâ—l Roarings and Howlings and this he sayes the Devil Influenced us unto Again Delusions Impertinent Canting Non-sense Blasphemy The Devil's Slaves Paganism Satan's Snares Pernicious and Perilous Errors They are inspired and influenced by that grand Impostor the Devil Blasphemous and Ridiculous Canting Enthusiastical They decoy and trapan Your Idle Non-sensical and Blasphemous Prating Inspired by Satan You are as Vile Impostors as ever were Thus much of Us and our Way in general besides his Knaves Cox-combs Impudent and Audacious Fellows that he has called our Friends in Religious Conferences I think it not unseasonable to say something of that Entertainment I have had at his hand I am wholely a Stranger to him I ever had an Esteem and tender Regard to the Sober and Tender-hearted among that People with whom he walks I know not that ever I had to do with them in general and I am sure nothing at all with Tho. Hicks in particular as to Religious Controversie I may further say that some of them have known me long my Temper Education early Dissent from National Worships my Sufferings upon it and if they will be true to me they must say I have had the keeping of a Good Conscience above the one half of my Life in my Eye being now about twenty nine Years old Now that T. Hicks in the midst of his severe Rebukes of us as abusive to our Adversaries should treat me with such Unhandsome Reflections as Confident Dictates intoxicated with Pride Tinkling and Ridiculous Words Arrogant and Conceited Man Confident Dictator Rash Inconsiderate and Opinionated I appeal from W. Penn in his Rage and Fury His Talk beray'd his Arrogancy transported with Pride and Error Brazen'd with Impudence Rage and Folly Presipitate into Blasphemy I say that he should thus vent his Passion and Displeasure upon me who never had to do with him is certainly very Unchristian and altogether Unworthy of any Man that pretends to correct others But why Transported with Pride and Error only because I said in Defence of God's revealing his Will to Man that methinks this one Demonstration should satisfie all viz. when neither Man nor Scriptures are near us there continually attends us that Spirit that immediately informs us of our Words Thoughts and Deeds and gives us true Directions what to do and what to leave undone And this is the whole Provocation or Reason assigned by him for such Rude and Unhandsom Expressions and that to a Man that never had to do with him God's Witness in all Consciences judge betwixt us if so true an Expression deserves such Affronts and if such an Answer ought to pass for a Confutation Besides it is basely done of any Man to run down the Labours of any Man by Shreads and Scraps of Matter or to fall upon a Conclusion without so much as encountring one of those many Arguments that leads to it A Way T. Hicks of all Men has proved himself most Expert and most Unjust in But why Confident Dictator and brazened with Impudence Rage and Folly Because in my Second Part of the Apology in Answer to T. Jenner a Priest in Ireland who had publisht scores of Lyes Scandals and Personal Defamations against many of our Friends and particularly against my self that his Book seemed but an Epitome of Lyes and Abuse I did say O wretched Impudence Could any but a Priest brazn'd with Rage and Folly ever pronounce so great a Lye as that we should persecute the Truth and its Followers with bitter Revilings and Reproachings when yet sayes T. Hicks that to which Penn thus replyes is such a matter of Fact that Thousands can bear Witness to the Truth of it But herein has he done foolishly for it being yet disputable betwixt us what is Truth and what is Persecuting and what is Reviling Can he have so little Modesty in his Cryes against Impudence as to make our Accusers Parties either Judges or Witnesses We shall submit it to an Impartial Judgment but not to Tho. Hicks's Pride and Passion However this is most true that to call Christ's Light an Ignis Fatuus a dim Light the Spirit of the Devil that we are of the Devil that we are possest are Witches acted and mov'd by Satan Enemies to God Christ the Spirit Religion humane Societies with many Stories that we have offered to prove Lyes in the Sight of all Men and particularly what he charged upon my self viz. That Penn another of their Teachers did boldly affirm to a Friend of mine in Dublin that whosoever shall expect to be saved by that Jesus Christ that was born in Judea and suffered at Jerusalem shall be deceiv'd which I declare to be a Lye in the whole and every part of it I say this is certain that so much evil Treatment may well extort that sharp and just Rebuke from me But if it be Criminal I know in T. Hicks's account it is for me so to Character a Priest that had written an entire Book against us in which he had most wickedly belyed our Principles and abused our Friends and bespattered my self in particular What can He think of himself to say so much more of me who never writ against the Anabaptists in general nor Tho. Hicks in particular much less that I have vented or aggravated so many horrible Lyes against either them or him If his Conscience condemn him not of Baseness Passion and Partiality it is feared and if the Party he belongs to judge him not for such Unjust Procedure they will be condemn'd of God's Light that will bring every Unfruitfâ—l Word and Work into judgment His Insinuating that I entitule J. Nailors Blasphemy
and Railing wherewith he was charged at Bristol upon the Holy Spirit and that neither he had nor I have Words enough to signifie our Venom and Malignity because I said of James Nailors Book writ long before his being so charged That if he had treated that accursed Stock of Hirelings ten thousand times more sharply it had been but enough is like the rest of his Vngodly Perversions already noted For first I speak against Hirâ—lings and I have said nothing of them that the Holy Prophets have not exceeded who called them Dumb Dâ—gs Greedy Dogs Wolves and such like But T. Hicks's Concern for Hirelings shews both that he is one himself and indeed has been so a long time and next that he is fallen with many more from the fiâ—st Love and Principle of that People called Anabaptists 2. From my Justifying James Nailor's Sharpness in a particular Contrâ—vâ—â—sie â—gainst a Deceitful Lâ—ing Prâ—eâ—â— he infeâ—s thâ—t I dâ—fend him as to his pâ—blick Miscâ—riâ—gâ—s at Bristol Iâ— this thy Conscience hath all thy pretended Scâ—iptural Doctrines Knowledge â—tudy Preachmâ—nts c. brought thee no further God will bâ—â—â—t it all and bring thee to Judgmâ—nt for â— clerâ—â—â—gs Well may I return the third particular against thy self and Warn all People how they adhere to a Man fâ—â—'d with so much Vnâ—ruth Slander Perversion and Forgery who art alienâ—ted from Gâ—d's Light as near as it is to thee and that Heavenly Life that is felt therein of all those who believe and obey the Light Reader Let us not be esteemed Railers because we rebuke Railing Nor our Relâ—gious â—ensure of their Perversions Forgeries and Prophâ—ness be accounted Reviling 'T is Trouble enough to us to be thus conceâ—ned in Controversie We would find other Employment if such Envious Spirits found not this for us 'T is not our Choice but theirs They began and which is worse when the Powers left off Their Restlesâ— Spirit shows it must have its Vent some way Policy and Enmity together have turn'd it upon us so that our Peace from the Powers proves a Persecution from some of the Professors as the Experience of the base Cowardize of many among them gives us to remember that the Powers Peâ—secution was the time of their Peace who like Insects lay dead during those Winter Seasons We were then their made Walls to flat the Shot and Bulworks to resist the Assaults and the more Moderate prayed that we might be enabled to stand But no sooner were we come out of that Fiery Furnace then we were saluted with an Imposture from Lincoln and a Lâ—e from Dover both subscribed by Anabaptist â—reâ—chers with several Clamorâ—us Books since An Ill Recâ—mpencâ— indeed for our Love and Sufferings But frâ—m God is our Reward therefore we are not moved with whom we leave our Innocency and â—e will Effectually plead our Cause with our Adversaries His SCOFFS or slight ESTEEM of WITNESSING With a Word to Professors With a Conclusive Supplication to the Lord. Arg. VI. He that Slights and Scoffs at Witnessing is no True Christian but that doth Tho. Hicks therefore no true Christian It was the Way of the True Prophets Apostles and Churches of Christ to declare of what they had known Experimentally of God and his Work otherwise they must have been uncertain of the Truth of those Things they have recommended to us And since the Times of Reformation from the Thickness of Popery Experiences have been very Excellent Things I remember though very young to Thousands what a great Stir and Flockings there has been in my time after such Preachers who could by any Experiences approach the Consciences and tell People upon Tryal what God was and what Christ was and the Holy Spirit with respect to the Soul of Man as to Manifestation Operation Conviction Faith Temptation Victory over Sin Regeneration and the like Indeed it was the Want of this Preaching that gave such a Dis-relish to People of the National Priests and they suffered not a little for their Change Sure I am some Forms reputed less Phanatical then that in which T. Hicks is prest closely after such a Ministry and utterly decryed all other to be Beneficial in the Church of Christ But the Lord God having appeared in a more Immediate and Spiritual Manner some having taken up their Rest by the way therby losing their first Desire and Love and so the more Insensible of these further Breakin gs forth of God's Power amongst them under the more refined Form they have sat down in and where the Lord in some Measure might have appeared to them do they in this Day set themselves to War against the Light and Life of Christ within For indeed it is a State too Inward Self-less and Spiritual for their Carnal Minds that can only perform an Outward and Formal Worship to arrive at Now such being closely beset in their Fading and Dying Forms and many on all hands in whom there are any tender Desires after God's Invisible Presence falling from them like Men that seek themselves and not the Lord they are belabouring hard to prevent such a Separation from them and indeed they are grown so Dry Barren of all Good by their Opposition to the Lord's Truth as now revealed among us that they come to lose with their former good Desires their very Doctrine And that which above all things was once most desirable to the better Sort of them and applauded by all is become a Theam for Scorn and Derision I mean WITNESSING Thomas Hicks though an Anabaptist-Preacher cannot abide to hear of Witnessing He had as lieu meet with the Lye as Witnessing for an Answer He commonly bestows Ignorance Folly or such like upon It for a Companion And though another Return might be as easily found out by him yet because it may not so well suite the Scoffer and Prophane WE WITNESS IT is to go in its room To which kind of Answer he usually replies What is Thy Witnessing to Me Do not put us off with your Witnessings which signifie nothing to us Thy Commands and Witnessing are much alike to me with more of this kind My Friends In the Love of God that would have you redeemed and saved I beseech you turn away from such Blind Guides their Paths are Darkness and the End thereof Death If ever you will know and worship God aright you must come to the measure of his Spirit in you that is given to convince the World of Sin and you must know the Work thereof Experimentally in you or your Souls perish for ever My Friends I have a great Stress upon me concerning you would I could reach into every Soul of you that you might be toucht with this true Testimony for I know not more truly that God is then that I feel him to be a Rewarder of every Man according to his Works and such as Men sow they must reap And truly my Friends Time passeth away apace and the Day
Conscience to appeal to God as one not guilty of such vile Injustâ—ce as that of charging us with false things and refer the Reader to Examine the Quotations when here â—s not one Quotation nor the colour of one that the Quakers did ever thus speak of or render the Holy Scriptures to be of no more Authority then the Fables of Aesop What will not Envy and Wickedness had this Man to say against us Doth this agree with â—is Pretence That all he intended was only our Conviction and Recovery Dial. p. 10. Is it not rather to do us what Injury and Mischief he can by Slanders and Forgeries Tho. Hicks's Charge against Nicolas Lucas viz. That N.L. a Real Quaker was moved to declare his Mind thus to one I know very well Thou mayst burn thy Bible and when that is done thou mayst serve God as well without it and if thou hast a mind to have a Scripture thou mayst write as good a one thy self N. L's Answer follows These words whereof T. Hicks hath thus publickly and positively accused me and that divers times over in his Pamphlet were never spoken by me nor was it ever my Principle Way or Motion to Dis-esteem Undervalue or speak evil of the Holy Scriptures for I really believe that Holy Men of God spake them forth as moved by the Holy Spirit Therefore this Charge against me is an Abominable Lye and Wicked Slander And with a clear Consience I speak it I do neither know nor remember that ever any words past from me whereby Tho. Hicks could so much as colour this Lye and Slander against me And I cannot but look upon my self to be greatly Injur'd and Abus'd by T.H. until he oâ— his Brethren do me Right in this thing in as publick a Manner to the World as he hath done me Wrong Which iâ— they do not I commit my Cause to God to judge between us and clear my Innocency herein London the 29 th of the 3 d Moneth 1673. Nicolas Lucas Whereas Nicolas Lucas was referr'd to Owen Horton and his Wife for Proof of Tho. Hicks's Charge before to whom Nicolas spoke about it and she referr'd her self to Hen. Stout to witness the Charge to which Hen. Stout answers thus viz I Hen. Stout of Hertford never in all my dayes heard Nicolas Lucas speak the Words nor any of the like Import or Tendency as charged on him before nor any Man else before Tho. Hicks that I can call to mind But am satisfied in my Conscience that he hath most grosly Wronged Nicolas Lucas To which I subscribe H. Stout Another Accusation is viz. That S. Eccles discoursing with a Friend of his in London told him The Scriptures were a Lye But that this may appear a very likely Lye against S.E. he adds 'T was replyed Why then dost thou mention them that The Quaker answer'd To silence thee That he should say the Scriptures were a Lye or that he made use of a Lye to silence his Opposer appears a most absurd Slander and where is his Quotation the Reader must examine for Proof Hath he not here Abused his Reader But let S. Eccles's own Words clear him of this Lye and Slander In his Book Mus Lect. he often cites the Scriptures calls them The Holy Scriptures pag. 13. Thou that sayst the Quakers deny the Scriptures belyest the Innocent pag. 20. Do not belye the Scriptures nor the Spirit that gave it forth for Holy Men wrote as they were moved by the Holy Ghost pag. 22 Whereas Tho. Hicks begins his Continuation thus Chr. I have formerly detected you of several Pernicious Opinions concerning the Scriptures the Light Within the Person of Christ and the Resurrection c. I presume by this time you have considered what say you thereunto To this he feigns the Answer thus viz. Quak. I say the Plagues and Judgments of God will follow thee G. Whitehead Rep. I testifie against this as a Fiction for this was not my Answer neither has he referred us to any Quotations of mine though upon this he is pleased to accuse me with Passion Furious Replies and Sarcasms for his own Fiction to which he hath counterfeited my Name I question not but the Judgments of God will follow him and such Forgers and Spreaders of Lyes But that was not my Answer to the said Objection This Dialogue-Man's Liberty in these Forgeries and silly Botcheries is neither Christian nor Civil As to what he sayes pag. 3. I answer 1. That the Life which is the Light of Men John 1. is not a Creature but Divine and of the very Being of God I still affirm and have else-where proved though the whole Essence or Being of God is not contained in Man yet enlightens all Men. And 2. That the Inward Speaking or Living Ministration of the Spirit of Truth is of greater Authority then the Scriptures or Writings in the Abstract 3. S. Crisp doth own the True and Real Christ the Son of the Living God in his Spiritual Divine Being to be without either Beginning Date or End This he hath fully answered else-where 4. That the Soul or Spirit of Man as it relates to the Creaturely Being is a distinct Being from the Infinite Being of God and is not properly a Part of God For he is not divided into Parts or Particles but with respect to its Original Life whereby it immortally subsists we are God's Off-spring and the Breath of Life or Immediate Inspiration of God by which Man became a Living Soul or the Original Life of Man's Soul Of this G.F. spoke when he said Is not that of God which cometh out from God viz. the Breath of Life His words are perverted and mis-cited by T.H. For in another Consideration and State he owns the Infinite Being of God and the Soul or Spirit of Man to be distinct Beings where he speaks of the Soul being in Death in Transgression Man's Spirit Vnsanctified the Soul being in Death Transgressing the Law see Great Myst p. 91. This he could never intend or speak of the Infinite Incorruptible Being of God for that never sinned 5. That G.W. denies the Resurrection of the Body that is of the Dead or any Body at all is false nor is this prov'd against G.W. from his Saying Thou sowest not the Body that shall be it 's raised a Spiritual Body and Flesh Blood shall not inherit the Kingdom of God 1. Cor. 15. And T.H. may as well charge it upon the Apostle and upon his Brother Tho. Collier who in his Marrow of Christianity p. 40 94 95. plainly saith The Form in which they shall be raised that is in a Spiritual Form not in a Fleshly c. All Flesh shall be swallowed up in Spirit and our Body shall be changed and made like his glorious Body But Tho. Hicks plainly contradicts him saying That the Apostles and all true Christians say This Body of Flesh and Bones shall rise again Dial. p. 59 60. which he could never yet
prove The Contradiction I placed upon T. Hicks was not between his Denying the Light within to be a Sufficient Rule and his Granting it ought to be obeyed as he falsly states it Contin p. 8. but between his Saying the Light within which we attend to hath in many things misguided thee and his granting it ought to be obeyed appealing to it See Dip. plung p. 5. Is that which ought to be obeyed or appealed to in things relating to Salvation a misguiding Light T.H. his Comparison between those Signs wrought by the Light within and what is spoken of the Man of Sin 2 Thess 2 9. or that what we have said thereof may as well prove Mahomet to be the true Christ as the Light within Dial. p. 11.12 I say still this is Blasphemy and contradicted by T.H. himself in his Saying that Christ is the Life and Light of Men Dial. p. 22. Of which Contradiction he takes no notice but abuseth and accuseth me with Deceit and Falshood His sleighting our Obeying the Commands of the Living Eternal Word in us and reflecting upon our owning Jesus Christ as being with such a mental and mystical Reservation as he falsly saith which that it is no other than a meer Mystical Romance Dial. p. 10. and now to mend the Matter that the Christ we own is no other then a Mystical Romance Herein I must still look upon him to have acted the Prophane Romancer and Irreligious Miscreant And the Condemnation and Deceit he would cast upon me falls on his own Head and not mine I speak my Conscience We attending upon the Light of Jesus Christ in us it naturally leads us to know and own Him who is our Life and Light whom to call a Mystical Romance is Horrible Blasphemy He puts me off at an easie Rate when he saith Thâ—se other things are so frivolous that I think â—hem not worth any Reply Contin p. 9. Will this reconcile his many Contradictions which I have jusâ—ly charged him with in his own words He hath only seemed to take notice of one before and that he has falsly stated as is hinted Why should he charge me with affirming the Light within to be the Divine Essence p. 10. though they are not my words when he himself has confessed Christ to be the Light and Life of Men And Philip Bennit whose Queries are cited and commended by him confesseth Query 17. That Christ in respect of his Divine Nature is in all Places p 34. What sayest thou T.H. to this Dost thou not believe this If not why didst thou cite it without opposing it It was never my Assertion that the Principle of Divine Light within is but an Effect of Power or Thing made as thou beggest the Question in calling the Light within but an Effect or meer Creature Dial. p. 3 4 46. but that God's Immediate Illumination or In-shining is a Natural Effect flowing from himself which therefore is Divine I never could intend much less affirm that all kinds of Effects were in every Respect such as the Cause though in some sense they are but God's Immediate Illumination or Shining in Man is Natural to himself and so Divine as the Effects of the Law written in the Gentiles Hearts were agreeable and natural to the Law it self which is Spiritual Holy Just and Good and so were the Effects His Proof that we deny the Person of Christ without us is veâ— lame being from something he would lay hold on since he did first so accuse us and that is Jesus Christ a Person without us is not Scripture-Language pag. 10. Mark here he vaâ—ies fâ—â—m the Person of Christ to Jesus Christ a Person without us wherein he has also vaâ—â—â— in his own words in â—is first Dialogue p. 9. Jesus Christ God-Man a Person without thee Which Phrase I did and do say is not Scripture-Language but the Anthropomorphites who prosest a Personal God denying him to be an Infinite Spirit Doth it therefore follow that I deny the Man Christ Jesus in his Being either without or within us But T.H. his words God-Man a Person without thee equally excluding God under the Limitation of Man and Person without us he is pleased now to leave out the word God-Man and to accuse us of Denying the Person of Christ without us he should have explained what he means by the Word PERSON for though we are not satisfied with the Words before being Unscriptural this is no Denying of Jesus Christ in his being either as without us or within us We confessing that he is ascended into Glory far above all Heavens and that he is at the Father's Right Hand of Power in his Glorious Being which yet doth not exclude or limit him from being within us Of Election T.H. saith viz. Why art thou so much concerned about Election who believes no such thing of Persons either absolute or Conditional That Election you generally hold is only of the Seed which is Christ himself p. 11. He sayes I do not know his Belief in this Matter but I am sure he mistakes our's If he counteth us in Error he should have informed and not reproacht us Though we own That God's Election or Choice is originally of and in the Seed Behold mine Elect. c. Isa 42. yet this also extends to Men and Women as chosen in him through Sanctification of the Spirit and Belief of the Truth I have chosen you out of the World saith Christ The Saints are a chosen Generation But an Eternal Absolute Personal Election or Reprobation as held by some Predestinarian Anabaptists and others I own not nor a Perpetual Hatred to particular Persons as absolutely and unchangeably designed of God fâ—om all Eternity but that in the first place God's Free Love and Saving Grace is free to all Mankind till Men rejâ—ct it He calls all Men to Repentance tenders Life and Salvation in his Son to all and condemns none upon meer Will and Pleasure but for Unbelief and Rebellion which God is not the Author of If T.H. deem us in Error herein he should have Informed and not Reviled and Abused us And seeing he often in his Continuation mentions Election without explaining his Belief therein if he have any settled Belief in the Point I ask him 1. First Whether doth he not intend it as absolutely designed and unchangeably decreed of God from Eternity to particular Persons 2. Whether this be not one main Ground of his and some others consining or limiting Saving Grace or Divine Light to such a narrow Compass as only afforded of God to a few particular Persons 3. How should I believe that God doth not afford a Divine or Saving Light to every Man but only to some few or that the Light within that is given to every Man is but a meer Creature Natural Vncertain Variable and no Sufficient Rule to direct to God unless it can be proved unto me Either that God hath from all Eternity particularly and absolutely designed and decreed
the Eternal Destruction of and Hatred to the greater part of Mankind or the Passing them by with Displeasure for that End Whereas T.H. quotes me for saying That I cannot believe that he Christ hath a Personal Being at the right hand of God without all Men To this he subscribed G. Whitehead Christ ascended p. 18. Those are not my Words he hath falsly cited them but these are mine I cannot believe his Body to be a Carnal Body in Heaven or that he consists of a Carnal Existence See Christ Ascended p. 18. It seems that by Personal Being he means such a Carnal Body but he doth not vindicate his Brother Newman his asserting Christ to be a Body of Flesh and Blood in Heaven a Personal Being at the right Hand of God without all Men remote c. and this to prove that Christ doth not dwell in any Man Which I opposed The â—oâ—ition as Uâ—scriptural the Consequence as false as not only confining and limiting Christ from his Saints but God and his right hand also unto a remoteness from his Temple how then doth his Right Hand save and uphold us In all which thâ—se Baptists shew their too carnal and mean Thâ—ughts of Jesus Christ as in Glory and of God and is right hand of Power wherein they are fully answered as also about Christ's Second Coming to Salvation Christ ascended p. 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 and 69 But when T.H. can neither vindicate his Brother Newman's Limitation or Confinement put upon Christ and Gâ—â—'s Right Hand nor answer my Objections against him he Queries viz. Is Christ no â—tâ—â—rw scâ—â— God's Right Hand then as he is in you p. 43. and wiâ—h this agrees the Socinians false Inference drawn from my Words Controversie ended p. 48.49 his Words are It seems then that Jesus Christ is no otherwise in Heaven then he is in the Saints which is as false as his Saying that we do absolutely deny Christ to be a Man p. 47. herein both the Water-Baptist Socinian have drawn a false Inference upon my Objection for though I 〈…〉 that Christs being in Glory at God's râ—â—â—thâ—â—d of Power is no Proof that he is not in Man 〈◊〉 is 〈◊〉 be proved that God and his right hand are 〈◊〉 only to a remoteness from all Men and so that he is not Infinite God or that his right hand is meerly to be taken Literally as a Man's hand It follows not that I intend that Jesus Christ is not otherwise in Heaven at God's right hand then as in the Saints on Earth for his Exaltation and Glory into which he is ascended not only into the Heavens but far above the Heavens Transcends that Degree attained in these Suffering Earthly Tabernacles his inaccessible Glory is above Men and Angels above all Suffering Natures and Conditions he is made higher then the Heavens in all things hath the Preheminence yet not excluded nor limited from his People so far as they are made capable to receive him nor from being touched with the feeling of their Infirmities And it is said whilst we are at home or Strangers in the Body we are absent from the Lord. 2 Cor. 5. which though it cannot be as remotely separate from his Presence yet in Comparison of that more Full and Glorious Enjoyment that we shall have of him when absent from the Body there is a Degree of Absence while Strangers in the Body howbeit by Faith whereby we now walk we have both a living Knowledge and Enjoyment of him and walk with him being the Sons of God though it appears not what we shall be The Socinian tells uâ— of a Personal Christ Con. End Pag 47. and that the Man Jesus our Lord although he is the Eternal God has in Heaven a place remote from Earth a Humane Body p 49. But doth he believe that Jesus Christ is the Eternal God I cannot think it while he imagins him to be a Personal Christ or Humane Body so â—â—â—â—ted or confined into a Remoteness But seeing these Anabaptists Socinians do so much concur in their opposing us because we cannot own their Limitations and Unscriptural Terms about Christ's Being I ask both the Author of Controversie Ended and Tho Hicks If they really believe that Jesus Christ is a Humane Body of Flesh Blood and Bones and in that Sense a Personal Being not in Man according to J. Newman or that he consists of a Humane Body of Flesh and Bones according to Henry Grigg in his Light from the Sun p. 30 31.33 But is it good Doctrine to say that his Glorious Body that we shall be fashioned like unto is a Humane Body If in thâ—se things they agree as they seem to do then doth it not follow that they must concur in the Consequences viz That though they own three distinct Persons in the Deity yet not Coeternal Persons but that Jesus Christ is a meer Creature a Personal Being or Humane Body of Flesh Blood and Bones and therein limited But if Socinians do not look upon Christ's Personal Being in that gross Sense but rather with respect to his Spiritual Existence then is not Christ confined to a Remoteness from the Saints for they have received of the Spirit of the Son but then what mean these Men by Humane Body in Heaven Is not Humane Body an Earthly Body Hence it seems we must look upon Personal Being as applicable to the Father Son and Spirit in a different Sense viz. 1. To the Being of God 2. To the Being of Christ as a Creature 3. Else to the Body that he took upon him in time whereas Christ the Son of God who took upon him that Body that was prepared for him did pre-exist or was before that Body and therefore he himself consists not of such a Personal Created Being or Humane gross Body as is limitable like our Earthly Bodies the Asserters of a Trinity of three distinct Persons do not call them so many Personal Beings but distinguish the Personallity from the Being and though Christ was made a little lower then the Angels in his Suffering State in the dayes of his Flesh on Earth yet he is above Angels in his Glorified Estate and surely then his Glorious Being and Body must not be inferiour to their's If T.H. would strictly limit us to confess our Creed in his terms 't is meet they should be strictly defined and he to be at some Certainty without varying therein as from Jesus Christ God Man a Person without thee to Jesus Christ hath a Personal Being at God's Right Hand without us I question whether he rightly knows either what Person Being Essence or Substance is In the first he concludes God as well as Man under the Limitation of Person without in the second that Christ hath a Personal Being without us how then doth God and Christ consist thereof or is that Personal Being But if by Personal Being he intends an Intelligent Being or Rational Substance I grant Christ is such a Being
T.H. Doth not this import that a Man must be formally Just before he be Justified for nothing is imputed or reckoned to us according to your Reasoning but what is inherent in us p. 55. Answ Your Reasoning It seems 't is not his then would he not here separate and divide between a Righteousness imputed and a Righteousness inherent or the Exercise of Christian Virtues if so be that a man must be justified i.e. in his Sense imputed or accounted Righteous before he be formally just how agrees this with his Concession before viz. that they would not separate divide between Imputed Inherent Righteousness T.H. I would ask you Whether Remission of Sins be not one part of Justification Answ yes 't is a Degreee of it the next Step to an absolute Justification Remission is of Sins past receiv'd upon true Repentance and Conversion from â—in to newness of Life Justification and Acceptance with God in Christ is enjoyed in the Newness of Life by such as continue in sincere Obedience to Christ This Remission Pardon or Justification from Sins past though not inherent in the Natural Fallen or Sinful Man yet 't is inwardly received through Faith in the Name of Christ by such as truly depart from Sin and Evil and give up to serve the Living God T.H. Certainly he that 's pardon'd must be a Sinner p. 56. Answ No He must be one that ceaseth from Sin for if I sin then thou markest me and thou wilt not acquit me from mine Iniquity Job 10.14 And certainly he that 's not acquited is not pardon'd nor justify'd But I must confess â—e somewhat mends the Matter in adding viz. That is such that were so viz. Sinners till Justified not such as remain so being Justified p. 56. At length we agree in this 1st That such as are pardoned were sometimes Sinners Disobedient before 2. But being pardoned and justified by the Grace of God in his beloved Son they do not remain Disobedient therefore they that remain Sinners and Disobedient are not in a Justified State I had writ something against T. Hicks's gross Abuse of our Reputation as we are Men as well as Christians by his most false and Unjust Consequences he draws from our Owning the Light within as the Rule Immediate Motions Directions of the Spirit of Christ within especially in Matters of Worship T.H. his Persecuting Spirit in his falsly Accusing us with Disrespect to Parents Magistrates c. being destructive to all Humane Society But W.P. having reprehended him in these things in his part before I forbear to publish mine at present for I have in this endeavoured Brevity G.W. THE Present Controversie Drawing to an End Or those Doctrines and Principles which have been chiefly Controverted between us Granted and Confest to by our present Opposer Thomas Hicks and his Brethren Here the Reader may see how like to us called Quakers divers of the Baptist-Teachers have been made some times to speak and hold forth Truth in Words which I would have them seriously to review and lay aside all Envy and Prejudice which hath caused so much Contradiction and Gain-saying on their parts both to themselves and the Truth professed by us Our Principles and their Concessions truly Stated and Compared 1. Quaker THat God is and that he is Light the Eternal Word of Life and Power which was with God c was God was that in which was Life and the Life was the Light of Men and that was the True Light that enlightens every Man coming into the World John 1.1 4 9. Baptist Christ in you and he is the Life and Light of Men Dial. p. 22. And Jesus Christ is God the most high God of the same Substance and Essence H.G. Light from the Sun p. 83 84 c. II. Qua. The Light of Christ or the Eternal Word in Man is Divine and Increated Bap. The Lord Jesus Christ as the Eternal Word enlightens all Men and Women that come into the World Light from the Sun of Righteousness p. 8. III. Qua. God is Infinite and Omni-present and his Presence doth both afford Life Virtue and Light to Man and Jesus Christ as God over all in respect of his Divinity or Divine Nature is therefore in all through all and over all though not revealedly nor unitedly Bap. Christ in respect of his Divine Nature is in all places Contin pag. 34. How could you call the Light Within Christ if some Scriptures had not mentioned Christ in you and that he is the Life and Light of Men Dial. p. 22. IV. Qua. The Light of Christ in Man is a certain Rule and Guide to direct Man out of Sin and Death into the Way of Life and Peace and for that End ought to be obeyed Bap. I grant it ought to be Obeyed I acknowledge there is something within that checks for many Evils and excites to many Good Things and that I ought to shun those Evils and do that Good It will be our Wisdom yea our Duty to attend to the Light Within we being accountable to God for every Dispensation of Light Dial. p. 7 8 13. V. Qua. Though this Divine Life or Light of the Son of God be manifest by Degrees in Man yet the Degrees alter not the Property of it and it ought to be obeyed with respect to God and Man 's own Salvation Bap. No Disparagement to the Light Within Each Degree of Light is Serviceable to its End Dial. p. 36. VI. Qua. This Light Within is that General Rule extending to Man alwayes or throughout Ages and that is the Will of God that Man should alwayes be under the Obligation of this Rule that he might acknowledg God's Soveraignity and Power and be in Subjection to him as having the sole right to Rule in the Creation that Man may truly discharge the Duty he owes to his Maker in true Obedience and Worship Bap. Indeed 't is not to be denyed but that Man was alwayes under an Obligation of a Rule that God's Soveraignity over him and his Inferiority unto God might be acknowledged This Rule must be the Will of God revealed to us for it is the Will of God which is the Formal Reason of the Obligation The Will of God being the Ground of the Creation of Men and Angeâ—s therefore as it is the Ground of their Being it must be the Rule of their Acting Dial. pag. 31. There was something commendable in the Heathens p. 36. That Light in every Man that doth convince of Sin and reprove him for Sin Christ as he was the Woâ—â— with Gâ—d so he was the Light of the World c. W. Burnet's Capitâ—â— pâ—in p. 8 10 16 17. VII Qua. That the Holy Spirit Unction or Living Word within which is received by them that wait in and obey the Light thereof is to be preferred as a more Eminent and Universal Rule then the Scriptures and it opens them and brings Man to the true Understanding of them and leads