Concerning Sin Section 19. TO this Section also R. F. is wholly silent where I had noted from discourse with some of them in Scotland That sin is not a visible enemy to a Saint Sin visible in and to the Saint contrary to Rom. 7. 23. And I may adde Psalm 51. 3. And my sin is ever before me Isa 6. 5. Wo is me for I am undone because I am a man of unclean lips They that see not their pollutions have no part nor lot in the work of Sanctification and they that see not sin as an enemy and their in-dwelling enemy are friends and in fellowship with it As any are more or less sanctified they have the less or the more to see but the more a soul is sanctified the more he sees his motes to be beams and the more visible and sensible is the body of sin and of death to him Section 20. WHereas I had charged them for saying All the children of light are called to judge them that say the children of God are found groaning under the burthen of sin which I called an arrogant assertion contrary to Rom. 7. 24. R. F. * Page 12. minceth the matter by a new distinction For groaning under sin whilest it is working out that may be but to say that the children of God groan under it all their life time it Sin groaned under while here by the Saints contradicts the Scripture Thus R. F. To which I Reply 1. The new distinction and new because not founded in Scripture lies here that he makes a difference between the time whilest the Saints sin is working out and their life-time For let us consider how long they are working out their sin or the Spirit for them and in them is that but a part of their life-time It 's a truth we teach that groaning under a legal bondage of guilt and curse and fears of damnation is but for a time Luke 1. 74 75. Rom. 8. 15. But when they are formed Saints and endued with the Spirit of Adoption then they groan and sigh and cry out under another bondage not of guilt imputed but of guilt deserved and of corruption felt as tyrannizing In what respect over the whole soul and body of a Saint in part i. e. in every faculty of the soul and member of the body there is some presence of sin with them all their days 2. What Scripture is it that our assertion of continued groaning under the body of sin and death in the Saints doth contradict R. F. quotes Rom. 8. c. 1 john 3. Rev. 14. but never a Verse in all these Chapters he hath to produce for evidence What shuffling is this and cunning craftiness whereby he lyeth in wait to deceive the simple with appearances of that which is not to be found If so be would put off Errors by whole-sale he may do it this way After this he throws dirt in the face of that Scripture Rom. 7. which I had said from ver 14. to the end was spoken Rom 7. 14. to the end vindicated in the name of the regenerate Here though Paul did cry out of the body of death he did not always groan and sigh as dissemblers and Scots do Rep. 1. If he did it not as dissemblers he groaned as a real Saint then the truth is granted at least seemingly 2. Must all be dissemblers that always groan and are sighing all their life time under the body of sin and death then Paul was one 3. Hath the Lord no real Saints among the Scots Grant there is a formality of groaning among the common people not for the body of sin but the sin of their bodies or meerly in imitation and out of custom which latter I could not but tax a little when I was there dare any condemn the generation of the righteous or impute that formality to the whole fraternity or society of Professors at large among whom God hath hidden ones and some who do mourn for the abominations of the Land and pollutions of the Kirk and would willingly come forth to more visible shame for all that is amiss in their Worship and Government Ecclesiastical were they not over-powered partly by in-bred self partly by their super-intending and super-extensive Presbytery R. F. answereth and asperseth yet further Paul did not groan in the name of all regenerate as thou says but spoke his own condition there Rep. 1. Grant he speaks his own condition from ver 14. to the end it is either as he is regenerate or as wholly destitute of grace but he doth not speak it of himself as devoid of grace for when he opened his legal state as yet unregenerate from var. 8 and 9 to 14. he speaks in the Preter tense or of the time past but from ver 14 c. he expresseth himself all along in the Present tense and time and therefore he speaks of the present state wherein he was at the time of the writing of that Epistle Now was he a Saul or a Paul then Was he Paul the Saint or Saul the Persecuter and Blasphemer Was he not then Paul the Servant of Jesus Christ Chap. 1. 1. And have we not the characters he gives of himself as regenerate Ver. 15. What I hate that do I. Ver. 16. I consent to the Law that it is good Ver. 17. It is not I but sin that dwelleth in me where he divides his qualities into two sorts or kindes as Ver. 20. Ver. 18. To will is present with me Ver. 22. He speaks of his inner man and of his delight in the Law after that renewed principle Then he cries out Ver. 23 24. of what he sees and hates Now no man that is unregenerate can truly hate sin as sin which he did nor hath he two contrary principles in him all over of grace and sin nor hath he a will present with him to do a spiritual good action nor hath he an inner man the new man to delight in the spiritual law of God nor doth he feel the universal warring law or power of sin in his members as Paul doth Paul therefore speaks of himself as now he is at present regenerate yea he gives the account of himself as such and therefore he lays forth the estate which is peculiar to the regenerate and common to one and other as they are such more or less But saith R. F. Paul did not always groan under that body of sin and Law in his members but witnessed a Redemption from it for which he thanked God that made him more then a Conqueror Rep. 1. The Apostle writes of the present constant frame of his Spirit to see feel sin hate it and groan under it 2. The Redemption that he witnesseth and giveth thanks Rom. 7. 25. vindicated for ver 25. was first that the guilt of this in-dwelling sin was not imputed there being no condemnation to him nor to any in Christ Jesus which priviledge cap. 8. 1.
answer to Rom. 8. 10. though he quotes not the place but some of the words adding his own gloss The words of the Apostle are these And if Christ be in you the body is dead because of sin but the Spirit is life because of righteousness By the body here Rom. 8. 10. cleared in its genuine sense is meant the natural body consisting of flesh blood and bones as appeareth 1. By the scope of the Apostle to comfort them against the Law of death ver 2. 2. From the comfort which he raiseth grant the Body is dead frail corruptible mortal subject to death yet first it is not totally dead for the sting of death which is the guilt of sin is pluckt out ver 2. and the Spirit by the law of opposition here to be taken for the soul of a believer is life or a living soul immortal and shall live gloriously to immortality and may and doth live comfortably here because of righteousness i. e. while it takes up this consideration that Christs own personal righteousness is imputed as the cause of a glorious life and Christs infused holiness is the evidence of Justification-life and Glory-life Secondly the body shall not be always under the power of death v. 11. for he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies which epithete mortal is added to shew he spake of the natural body ver 10. and to strengthen and comfort in that the same spirit dwelling in Christ and true Christians look as he raised up Christs body so he shall raise up theirs This being the genuine sense of the Apostle we may grant a pious truth in something R. F. saith but not as properly grounded on this place The truth is the natural body is mortified in part to the acts of unrighteousness as the habits of sin are mortified in the soul Rom. 8. 10. vindicated from improper and abusive interpretation but the Apostle saith not the body is dead because of sin being destroyed as R. F. hath glossed but because of fin that is the natural body is a mortal dying body hath many partial deaths upon it and will dye at last soul and body will be separated for a time because of sin which remaineth in the soul dwelleth and acteth in and by the body and will not be absolutely and in all degrees rooted out till the body dies a natural death Sin is such a troublesome in-mate or like some old inhabitant pleading prescription that it will not out God suffering it so to be till the House be pulled down over its head therefore the Apostles reason because of sin discovers them to erre who deny sin to dwell in act where Christ reigneth Sin dwelleth in the soul the inward rooms chiefly but it so lodgeth within as it acteth and worketh in the outward room and shop of the body till body and soul be dissolved when this troublesome inmate is cast out totally finally and for ever from the Saints Let not R. F. go on to say here thou art contradicting the Scriptures and opposing the work of Christ which is to take away sin for there is not one Scripture which speaks of a perfect Saint absolutely free from the in-dwelling presence and in-working power of sin in the least degree while he lives here upon the earth and the work of Christ in taking away sin is in a way of Sanctification to carry it on by little and little as was his casting out of the Canaanites Exod. 23. 30. Let not him that puts on his armor boast as he that puts it off What is it for R. F. * Page 15. to reason And such as abide in him sins not then sin acts not he that acts sin commits sin and there Christ reigns not but Antichrist under whose dominion thou art that pleads for him and his work Rep. 1. Sin may and doth act in the Saints not they but sin is acting when as Saints and so far as regenerate they do act against sin This is not committing of sin in Johns sense as hath been cleared before Sect. 14. but as Paul speaking of himself in the name of all the regenerate as hath been proved Sect. 20. Rom. 7. 16 17. If I do that which I would not c. it is no more I that do it but sin that dwelleth in me 2. Although Christ reigns not where sin is committed in Johns sense yet he reigneth where that in-dwelling principle of sin is mortified in truth and in some degree and where the actings of sin are resistings of sin are hated resisted and unfulfilled Gal. 5. 16. They that walk in the Spirit do not fulfil the lusts of the flesh yet the flesh is lusting and acting what it can against a Christian to make him stumble while he is in a good walk 3. Antichrist reigns in none more then in filthy dreamers who while they preach perfection are found in their pollutions It is Antichrists design to represent a sinners Justification imperfect and his Sanctification perfect that he may glory in himself and not in Christ Antichrist pretendeth as much to Holiness as these men called Quakers but out of order and to a wrong end as they also 4. To plead for perfect inherent Holiness as the Believers Justification as J. Nayler * See Love to the lost p. 21. and 51. and R. F. do is to serve under Antichrists colors and to wear his livery and to make void the obedience and sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ 5. He is not under the dominion of Antichrist who pleads against his imaginary perfections is made perfect in his Justification by coming unto Christs sacrifice Heb. 10. 1 14. and in a way of Sanctification presseth after more of the power of Christs death and resurrection to be conformed thereunto But R. F. goes on * Page 15. to mis-apply Scripture and contradict the true scope and sense He that is begotten of God keepeth himself and that wicked one toucheth him not Rep. 1. It is true the words are so and I believe it is so as the Spirit speaketh in that place 1 John 5. 18. what then 1 John 5 18. vindicated Doth not sin dwell and stir therefore in the regenerate Look back to ver 16. and you may conclude That not onely sin is in every Christian Brother but you may sometimes have it visibly acted before your eyes for saith the Apostle If any man see his brother sin c. 2. Although he sinneth yet we know that whosoever is born of God as every true Brother is sinneth not i. e. unto death as every sin is not unto death so no sin of the truly godly is unto death but he keepeth himself as he is kept and he acteth as he is acted by the principle of the new creature by the Spirits and Christs fresh influence against such a sin and that wicked one Satan toucheth him not with his sting nor instills such deadly poison
allusion thereunto say Who shall compare the essence of the Creator to the essence of the creature and who shall liken the divine persons with the humane or the humane unto the divine I shall onely to clear out what hath been said of the holy Ghosts personality adde this argument If those actions are properly attributed to the holy Ghost which are proper to a person then he is a person But those actions are properly attributed to the holy Ghost which are proper to a person therefore he is a person I shall mention but some of many actions properly attributed to the holy Ghost as 1 Cor. 12. 11. all these worketh that one and self same Spirit dividing to every man severally as he will Here the Spirit is described not as a motion or operation but as a person properly acting willing working Act. 20. 28. he is said to constitute elders or make overseers over the Church the flock of God Luke 12. 12. to teach John 16. 8. to convince Acts 13. 2. to call and ver 4. to send forth Barnabas and Saul Act. 2. 4. to give utterance and that very action which R. F. granteth to the Spirit of dwelling in the Saints is so far from disproving him to be a person for which end he produceth it as it clearly proves him to be one For how doth he dwell in the Saints not personally yet properly more then by way of operation as a owner or inhabitant in his house as a God and as a Lord in his Temple this person dwels in the Saints though not personally yet mystically and in a true spiritual way of inhabitation 1 Cor. 3. 16. Know ye not that ye are the Temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you And do we-know that and shall we not know and acknowledge him a person and a person of note and eminency He is not a Person saith R. F. but he dwelleth in persons If that be a reason why the holy Ghost is no person the Father with this corrupt reason must be no person nor the Son any who yet have the very title given them Heb. 1. 3. Christ the express image of the Fathers person for the Father dwelleth in the Saints and the Son also John 14. 21. what have we next to make out R. E. his sense he dwelleth in persons or bodies of Saints It seems he accounts none to be persons but those that have bodies Why beasts have bodies yet are no persons and Angels are persons spiritual immaterial creatures * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 subsisting by themselves though not of themselves as not any creature doth thus subsist although they have no bodies of flesh and bones Luke 24. 39. as men have nor is the body of a Saint the person of a Saint as he is a man but a part of it his person or suppositum consisting of body and soul and of such a composition is every humane person but a divine person in the God-head and in particular the holy Ghost of whom I have briefly spoken for R. F. his conviction or for others consolation as information is no compositum or third thing made up of other things different from the Essence yet is he distinguished by his maner of subsisting as hath been shewed To little purpose doth R. F. * Page 8. conclude this subject with that Scripture 2 John ver 9. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ hath both the Father and the Son but against himself for as 1 John 2. 23. whosoever denyeth the Son the same hath not the Father so he that denyeth the holy Ghost in that maner as R. F. hath done abideth not in the doctrine of Christ and hath neither the Father nor the Son Let him well consider that the holy Ghost dwelleth in the souls of Saints as well as in their bodies let him beware of conceiving him with Samosatenus onely to be that * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 un-personal energy or operation which is in believers And let him be far from putting the Believer in the room of the Spirit or from making no more of the Spirit of God then the believing soul in the bodies of the Saints for this were to turn the glory of the Creator unto the Creature 3. Head of Scripture-contradiction Concerning the light within them and all men Section 8. IN this Section I had noted what they say about a light that Christ hath purchased for every man * Warning to Underbarrow by Ed. Burrough pag. 4. which leads to the Father These last words which lead to the Father as may appear by the Asterisk or note of reference like a Star * Pag. 8. between man and which I onely observed as Edward Burroughs words R. F. * in answer hath three things 1. Christ is the way to the Father John 14. 6. as Ed. Bur. saith Rep. This Ed. Bur. and he may affirm with us agreeable to the Scripture and yet contradict the Scriptures in saying that Christ is in every man or that the light in every man Light of a Deity in every man no redemption-light leads to the Father Christ God or as God is in every man and a spark of his God-head light is in every man but there is not in every man that Redemption-light which leads to the Father as a Father reconciling sinners to himself in Christ as Mediator nor is Christ given to every man as a Mediator to lead to the Father nor doth Christ give to every man that light which leads him to the Father 2. Saith R. F. There is not such a word as purchased in that page of E. B. Rep. 1. Nor did I say there was the word purchased in that or any other page of his book yet I have had that expression from others of their judgement in this particular concerning every mans light 2. If every mans light leads unto the Father effectivè so as to bring him into reconciliation and communion with the Father it is effectual light which warms and works the heart to the love of it But so doth not the light in every man and therefore deserves not the name of purchased light 3. I received this passage * In a Letter lately from a godly Preacher in Scotland and observer of their new vented Doctrines That he hath often wondred at one Expression of theirs and what they should mean by it viz. That the Elect cannot nor never did sin But of late one of them resolved the doubt viz. That the Elect is the Light within that Christ purchased for every one Sometimes it appears they make the Light within every man to be Christ which is the Savior and Redeemer of him that loveth it as Ed. Burrough * Warning c. pag. 14. expresseth himself Sometime the Elect as this man in Scotland sometime one thing sometime another that at last it will be found but an Idol of their own brain and fancy 3. R. F. for
better then two in the Bush a little of their own within them far beyond all Christs righteousness without them although we call for the witness within them that will not suffice they must have the ground-work of their justification within them as well as the evidence nay some work within shall be ground and evidence too or they fly off and will not believe till they see and feel but groping in the dark lose themselves in the wilderness of self-fulness and sufficiency 7. Head of their Scripture-contradiction Concerning Regeneration Section 27. I Had noted what they say He that believeth is born of God without Scripture and yet witnessed in Scripture contrary to James 1. 18. and 1 Pet. 1. 23 25. which Regeneration by the Scripture promise not onely bear witness of a new birth but saith also it is wrought by the word of truth the word of God the word that is preached which was never without or besides much less directly against but always according to the Scripture both as the Apostles preached it and others after them and their written doctrine R. F. * Page 15. returns me in a retorting way as is his wonted maner this for an answer If thou was not blind thou would see that thou contradicts the Scripture and not they that attributes the work of regeneration and the new birth to the Letter which thou calls the word and so therein denyes God who begets by his own will by that word which liveth and abideth for ever which was in the beginning with God and was God Rep. 1. Gods essential will and the free act of his love and good pleasure is the primary impulsive cause of his regenerating a soul 2. Christ by his death purchaseth the grace of regeneration and by the power of his resurrection applyes it 1 Pet. 1. 3. 3. The Spirit of the Father and the Son comes with the Scripture-promise and quickneth the soul to believing and by believing of the word of truth which at the beginning R. F. acknowledged the Scriptures to be and at that instant the believing soul is as Isaac conceived and formed a childe of promise a believer and a new-creature together by the word of grace which the Spirit useth as the external means of regeneration yea he carrieth the word and voice of the Son of God John 5. 25. from the ear to the heart and makes them hear and live That part of the Scripture which is pure Gospel is the ministration of the Spirit as of righteousness and life 2 Cor. 3. 8. 4. They that speak of a regeneration such as the Scripture helps them not to know and obtain speak wildely of it as J. Nayler in his new piece * Love to the lost page 34. treating of the new-birth he tells his lost creatures There is the old man and a new man but he doth not say there are two contrary qualities in the same regenerate soul lusting one against the other as the Apostle describes their state Gal. 5. 17. He saith * Page 35. Nicodemns knew not the new birth though he loved Christ He did not know the maner and mystery of it before his coming to Christ but if he loved Christ before it was a fruit of the new-born-seed of grace or spiritual principle for even J. N. confesseth as is the man so are his works and as is the Tree so is the fruit And I may adde as is J. N. so is his Book and his his love to the lost for if the man may be known by his writing he may haply know as little of the new-birth as Nicodemus did though he would be a great Teacher in our Israel Some may say he speaks * Love to the lost p. 35. of a Promise as well as a power that puts off the old man with his deeds lusts and affections but if you mark it it is to them who remain in the seed of God and it in them he doth not say the new-creature hath a promise that it shall remain although the Scripture saith it shall Joh 15. 16. 1 Joh. 2. 27. Well if he holds but to what he saith That all who remain in this seed and it in them hath the Promise I would have R. F. ask him whether it be the Promise that begets the new man which helps to put off the old if it be we shall finde the new man quickned as the old man crucified and slain by a word of promise in several places of Scripture scattered The word of promise serveth to regenerate and begin the work as well as to preserve nourish and maintain the regenerate man in his state He that shuts out Scripture from being Christs organ or the Spirits instrument and means of Regeneration it had been better for him he had never known the Scripture or written a word about it 8. Head of Scripture-contradiction Concerning Sanctification and its Perfection Section 28. I Had noted from a little conference with them in Scotland That sin dwelleth not in act where Christ reigneth Sin dwelleth and acteth in the Saints Rom. 7. 17. opened This R. F. defendeth as true though never so contrary as I hinted in my book to three as many more places of Scripture Rom. 7. 17. It is not I that do it but sin that dwelleth in me sin is doing as well as dwelling it will not be idle and in whom in Pauls heart where Christ reigned Gal. 5. 17. The flesh lusteth against the Spirit and Gal. 5. 7. cleared the Spirit against the flesh and these are contrary one to the other in whom in the Galatians the sons of God in whom considered in their better part Christ and Grace reigned yet they could not do what they would they could not be so gracious as their regenerate part would have them nor yet so sinful as their unregenerate part would have them Here is sin active enough and yet its force is broken that it cannot reign where Christ reigneth but there it dwells and remains very troublesome to a good heart Rom. 7. 23 25. Rom. 7. 23 25 explained I see another Law in my members warring against the Law of my minde and bringing me into captivity to the Law of sin that is in my members here is action and passion too here is fighting and scuffling a continual conflict Sin in the Saints is no sleepy habit it will be plotting using stratagems striking and serving it self and its own turn as ver 25. With my flesh I serve the Law of sin sin is very active in the Saints when so officious to its self and its own ends What weapons think you will R. F. finde for defence of the Tenet none spiritual I dare say but carnal and weak as followeth * Page 15. Where Christ reigneth the body is dead to the acts of unrighteousness because of sin being destroyed and the Spirit is life because of righteousness living and ruling Rep. I suppose he refers in this
with which we are mystically united and in asmuch as it was fulfilled in our Head it is ours as surely by imputation as if it had been possessed in and performed by our own persons 3. Lest R. F. should think I have neglected him to attend his Brother-contradictor let us hear what he saith to the Scripture I quoted for a bottom of that truth we maintain against all gain-sayers viz. That the Saints are not in all degrees perfected in Holiness till they dye or be dissolved * Page 15. As thou hast lyed of James who witnesseth purity as the Saints did so also hast thou lyed of the Apostle and those spoken of Heb. 12. 23. saying that the spirits that is souls separated as thou says from the bodies of just men made perfect in holiness which is at death or at the instant of dissolution when the spirit is separated from the body Rep. 1. Whether I belyed James Nayler or no will appear before where I have cleared the faithfulness and freedom of my Spirit 2. How James witnesseth purity we have heard and proved it not to be after the Scripture-Saints judgement who never went about after they knew Christs fulness and their own emptiness to bottom their Justification upon their Sanctification and establish a righteousness of their own which is said to be our own if it be materially inhercut What is our righteousness in us 3. How I have lyed of the Apostle and of those spoken of Heb. 12. 23. let it come to the tryal First I shall clear out and strengthen the Exposition of that place Heb. 12. 23. cleared in the last clause by the scope Secondly examine what R. F. hath against it or the truth thence deduced of sins continuance in the Saints till death First The Exposition I gave is cleared and strengthned partly from the Scope partly from the Grammatical sense of the words 1. The Scope of the Apostle is to press the exhortations and consolations preceding Ver. 5. That Christians should not faint under afflictions Ver. 12. That weaklings in grace may be encouraged Ver. 14. That peace and holiness be pursued Ver. 16 17. That by no means Saint-ship be undervalued and why all this because they are not under the Old Testament administration at mount Sinai Ver. 18. which was terrible but Ver. 22. under a New Testament condition which is amiable the more by reason of that holy and sweet communion which is now cleared out as with God Christ and Angels so with the Saints in heaven described by this Character The spirits of just men made Communion of Saints on earth with Saints in heaven perfect with whom we that are but weak in Faith and imperfect in Holiness have 1. A communion of right our grounds of right to heaven are as good and firm as theirs who are now in possession 2. Of Interest Saints departed are in living communion with that God and Christ in heaven with whom we have communion on earth 3. Of Praises Begun praises by the Saints on earth are echoed and resounded by the perfect Spirits in Paradise 4. Of will and desires They are doing the will of God perfectly and we as Saints are aiming endeavoring praying striving after that state 5. Of Hopes They hope for the perfection of their Bodies at the resurrection and we hope for the perfection of Soul at death and of our Bodies at the same resurrection day 6. Of Membership They are a part of the Church-Catholique and so are the Saints on earth fellow-heirs we are of the same inheritance children of the family c. Thus for the Scope 2. The words themselves carry their sense with them at Heb. 12. 23. cleared in the terms the first look By spirits cannot be meant Angels for of them he had spoken before And he addeth We are come to the spirits of men The word in Acts 23. 8. is used for souls separated The Sadduces say there is no resurrection neither Angel nor Spirit that is souls of men separated from the bodies to which yet they retain a relation for they held the soul dyed with the body others in our time as in Calvins say it sleeps with the body But the word Spirit notes out a living intelligent substance in action or sensible passion as the souls of them that were disobedient before the Flood in Noahs time are 1 Pet. 3. 19. called spirits in prison those are souls of wicked men made miserable these in our Scripture controverted are souls of just men while they were here in the body perfectly justified and at parting out of the body made perfect in holiness In that it is said Spirits made perfect it implyeth they were not in that sense perfect in the body as they are now out of it Here in life the Saints have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a fulness of the Spirit comparatively in respect of what they had at first or that others have at present at death they have a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a final perfection as to a perfect freedom from the roots and remnants of sin and a fruition of as much inherent holiness as they are capable of Here the Lord findeth fault if our works be not perfect or filled up as the word * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth Rev. 3. 2. with acts and exercises of grace in all kindes but when we dye in the Lord then our works are perfect or finished * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in degrees and at an end The word for perfect in our Text to the Hebrew is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which comes of a verb * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that in its root * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth an end or the end therefore sometime put for death John 13. 1. To the end that is to the death he loved them And 2 Cor. 1. 13. I trust you shall acknowledge to the end i. e. to my death or yours or both When Christ was giving up the ghost and was ending the work of satisfaction with his life he cryed out It is finished * John 19. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 30. so shall we who have the first-fruits of the Spirit be then able to say with that clear conscience which now cannot in that maner and measure be exercised even as we give up our spirits into the hands of God now Lord the work of mortification and holiness is finished and not before The sense of the Scripture stands clear Secondly Let us examine what R. F. hath against it or against the Doctrine of sin's continuance in the godly till death Against the true meaning of the Apostle now cleared he excepteth * Page 16. Thâ—se that thou speaks of in Heb. 12. 22. did not say it should be at an instant of death when their bodies Heb. 12. 23. vindicated and souls parted that they should be perfected Rep. 1. I have had no revelations from them nor speech with Saints departed
since their departure nor need I I have Paul and other Pen-man of the holy Ghost to assure me it was not before The word in the Text is Spirits not bodies nor souls continuing in the bodies of just men made perfect and that is enough to me 2. For conviction of gainsayers and confirmation of the weak I might call to minde the sayings of several Saints before Christs coming and since who have had no other faith nor perswasion but that while they were here sin remained with them and within them and till death parted their souls from their bodies Christ parted not sin perfectly from their souls What will R. F. say to that cloud of Witnesses Heb. 11. who while they lived lived by Faith and when they dyed ver 13 they dyed in Faith not onely in respect of a heavenly countrey but that what they felt not the moment before they should be in sensible possession of the moment of and the moment after dissolution Then as Samson slew more at his death then in his life so Christ would and did give them a perfect revenge upon their old enemy sin and all the roots and remnants of corruption What will R. F. say to old Saint Jacob who on his Saints experimentally imperfect death-bed makes this confession Gen. 49. 18. I have waited for thy salvation O Lord. Salvation as to perfect sanctification being yet to be finished at death And what to precious Saint David 2 Sam. 23. 5. who quieted his heart with this on his death-bed that God had made with him an everlasting Covenant c. although things were not perfect in his house nor heart for then he had been perfect I speak still of perfection in all degrees in the discharge of his relative family duties but that he was not And were any in the New Testament as perfect in sanctification before as at and after death doth Paul for himself and the Saints speak of any more then the first fruits of the Spirit Rom. 8. 23. doth he not make mention of his and their infirmities ver 26. which are not onely afflictions but sins if not Rom. 8. 26. opened to know what to pray for in every prayer as we ought be a sin but so many ignorances and defects in prayer and duty which ought not to be in us are sins There ought not to be any sinful infirmity in us yet there are and will be do we our best Let R. F. hear what our English Saints have acknowledged at the instant of death or immediately before I am drawing on a pace to my dissolution said M. Bolton famous for piety hold out faith and patience your work will quickly be at an end His work of holy faith and patience was not at an end before his end his death Our English precious Jewel who by his Popish adversaries confession in his life was an Angel though in his faith as they deemed an Heretique immediately before his death he brake forth into these words Christ is my righteousness Father let thy will be done thy will I say not mine which is imperfect and depraved Our dear Countreyman M. Deering hath this farewel Poor wretch and miserable man that I am the least of all Saints and the greatest of sinners c. And again If I were the most excellent of all creatures in the world if I were equal in righteousness to Abraham Isaac and Jacob yet had I reason to confess my self to be a sinner Holy M. Bradford How oft doth he subscribe in letters to his friends either an Hypocrite or a very painted Hypocrite or The sinful John Bradford for the same man or person as he writeth in one Letter which describes and compares the old man and the new man a little better then Ja. Nayler in his Love to the lost may be called always just always sinful Even men perfectly justified are not made perfectly holy according to his faith and experience which as to this case is the same in all Saints while living here and hereupon when he hourly lookt for the Porter to open to him the gates to enter into desired rest from the very molestations of indwelling sin and was every moment expecting the executioner to dispatch him in a letter to his dear Fathers Dr. Cranmer Dr. Ridley and Dr. Latimer he is bewailing his unthankfulness and hypocrisie clear he was and sure of justification and heaven yet sensible of the remnants of corruption As also M. Philpot who leaped for joy when his martyrdom was at hand yet cryed for mercy against his present unthankfulness and unworthiness And if we look abroad instances are pregnant and plentiful I shall mention onely two or three one in Germany Melanchthon who not onely complained that old Adam was too hard for yong Melanchthon but continued in a sense of his sinful corruptions to his dying day confessing himself at last to be a miserable sinner So did blessed Calvin in France as appears in his last Will and Testament I close up with that noble French man Philip de Morney Lord of Plessis though he died with full assurance of a house not made with hands c. yet he put up this request a little before his death Lord make me to know my sins to weep for them to detest them and to have them in execration These with thousands like them have so believed in life and spoken to this effect at death that when their bodies and souls were parted and at that instant they should be perfected in holiness they felt it not believed not it would be before that time R. F. * Page 16. hath another exception Heb. 12. 22 23. In the present tense they there spoke and not in the future Rep. He that knows any thing of Grammar may well question whether R. F. understands himself or what is the difference between the present tense and future in the present Tense they there spoke who spoke There is but one Paul or some other Pen-man that wrote the Epistle by the dictate of the Spirit and he speaks of believers already come to mount Zion c. and to the Spirits of just men made perfect before he wrote the Epistle The word for made perfect in the Greek * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a Participle of the Preter Tense or time past not of the present nor did I say it was of the future onely what was a Truth then is now a Truth that Saints living in their bodies in imperfection of holiness have relation to and communion as hath been shewed with Saints living out of their bodies i. e. the spirits of just men made perfect A third exception R. F. hath against the simile I used sin is as the wild fig-tree thou sayes rooted in the joynts of a stone wall and when the wall is taken down the stones cast asunder body and soul separated then is sin thou sayes pluckt up by the roots as the roots of the fig-tree not before
Rep. This illustration of a light-some ancient writer * Epiphanius seems to dazle R. F. till he staggers again and swaggers twice or thrice against me for mentioning it Once he chewed upon it before * Page 13. out of its place and tels me thou hast no proof for thy saying but thy policy and that is contrary to Scripture Psal 37. 37 38. Mark the perfect man c. for the end of that man is peace But the wicked shall be cut off and the transgressors shall be destroyed together at their end as he reads them but according to the right reading viz. But the transgressors shall be destroyed together the end of the wicked shall be out off nothing will be found in these two verses contrary to or differing from what I held out by that simile for we have marked the end or death of many perfect or sincere Saints mentioned before and it was found to be peace their warsare then being at a ful period when they dyed as while they lived they had perfect peace with God by their perfect justification in Christ so at their death they had a full harvest and reward of peace such shall be the end of every upright soul Isaiah 57. 2. He shall enter into peace they shall rest in their beds each one while he lived walking in his uprightness This perfection of integrity and sincerity they have who have respect to all Gods commandements though no absolute conformity Sin continues in Saints Saints continue not in sin to them nor do they continue in sin though sin continueth in them till death As for the wicked it is not so with them in life they continue in the state love and practice and under the power of sin and when they dye their end and reward is to dye the second death with the first both the wages of sin Twice afterward * Page 16. doth R. F. let fly against me for the above mentioned simile Thou subtile Serpent and Scotch Politician how hast thou wrested the Scripture and By this thou hast manifested thy Scottish policy and Antichristian deceitful spirit and to be one that would uphold the kingdom of the Devil in people and so art an enemy to Christ and his work Rep. To all which I say no more but the Lord rebuke this reviling Spirit in R. F. my work is not to attend his ink-horn terms but what he pretendeth to from Scripture against the continuance of sin in the Saints during their abode in these vile bodies * Page 16. The Apostle saith that the word of the Lord is quick and powerful so is not the letter of the Scripture to divide asunder soul and spirit joynts and marrow and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart Heb. 4. 12. Here Soul and Spirit is divided by the living word and the ground of sin shaken at the roots and rooted out of such before their souls and bodies part asunder Rep. If I should deal with him at the weapon which he useth against me it were enough to ask But doth the Apostle indeed say expresly the living word is quick and powerful or findest thou these words the ground of sin shaken and rooted out of such before their souls and bodies part asunder in that Scripture and tell him he belieth the Apostle c. but I have not so learned Christ Better language there is a surer way of arguing then barely to word it the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but spiritual and mighty through God to cast down strong holds Mis-interpretation and mis-application of Scripture is a strong hold for error and delusion I shall first discover the true and genuine sense of that Scripture agreeable to the scope and then R. F. his mis-application and false inference from thence 1. The right and genuine interpretation is to be drawn Heb. 4. 12. cleared in its genuine sense from the context as high as Chap. 1. on-wards By the word of God Heb. 4. 12. is meant his word spoken and his word written and spoken according to what is written Chap. 1. ver 1 2. God in these last days hath spoken to us by his Son while he was upon earth What word was spoken Chap. 2. 2 3. That which concerned great salvation which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him And Chap. 3. 7. the word written is quoted out of Psalm 95. wherefore as the holy Ghost saith To day if ye will hear his voice Withal Chap. 4. 2. it is clear that the word preached according to what Christ preached and to what the holy Ghost hath written of Christ is the same with that he mentioneth ver 12. For saith the Apostle unto us was the Gospel preached as well as unto them in the wilderness and in Davids time but the word preached did not profit them c. This is no other then the declarative word of God which declaration made by Christ and by his Spirit in the Scripture and by preachers from and according to the Scripture is First quick or lively no dead letter though the Pen-men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or many preachers thereof be dead long since and though many that heard the Gospel heretofore be now dead yet it hath as much life in it self as ever Secondly 't is powerful of constant efficacy and operation even to the ransacking of consciences searching of hearts and to the critical discovery of thoughts and intents of the heart it is proved to be so ver 13. because God By the context whose word it is is omniscient hath all things before him with the face upward and therefore by the Scriptures and by his Ministers as by his Son by whom in these last days he spake first he can and doth discover and lay open the hearts of all men c. Of all men I say where the Gospel comes i. e. of those that believe not as of those that believe for that is the scope of the 12. ver as by its immediate connexion and scope with ver 11. appeareth Let us labor therefore to enter into that rest lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief For the word of God is lively in its effects c. It is and will be a swift witness against unbelievers and quick to their condemnation a favor of death unto death in them that perish as it is and will be a swift witness for believers and quick to their consolation a favor of life unto life in them that are saved To understand by the word of God here Christs person is not sutable to the context from the beginning of the Epistle Heb 4 12 and 13. compared and vindicated from 1. indirect glosses nor to the scope and this sense being brought to set aside the Scripture and the preaching upon it and from it is therefore to be suspected and waved Others
agrees with the saying of Christ Matth. 6. 6. Matth 6. 6. vindicated when thou prayest enter into thy Closet c. as if the publique ordinance may not stand with the private for the most retired and secret duties are to fit and make ready for the publique onely 't is our Lords scope there to confine a private prayer to a private place as it is the Apostles order from the Lord 1 Cor. 14. 14 15 16. when 1 Cor. 14. 14 15 cleared vindicated we pray publiquely in Church-conventions all which have a publiqueness in them to pray so as others may be edified thereby who are Saints and those who occupy the room of the unlearned may testifie their consents by saying Amen which they could not do if either the person praying spoke onely to his own hearing or in the heart not with an audible voyce to others or when they heard him they could not understand him because he exprest himself in an unknown tongue All that I drive at with the Apostles and our Saviours scope is that every ordinance and outward part of worship be owned in its place and that this of publique prayer may not be disowned ere the more because of these mens crying up their praying by the Spirit in opposition to the Churches publique prayers which the Primitive Church at Jerusalem Act. 2. 42. attended and continued in and which the present Saints and Churches in these nations hold up according to president and precept R. F. in another Pamphlet of his * Truth cleared of Scandals pag. 2. saith they are led by the Spirit and he maketh intercession for them according to the minde and will of God But their practise shews they are not in this led by the Spirit when they cross the minde and will of God by refusing to joyn with the Saints in a publique prayer we acknowledge that no wicked mans prayer is accepted publiquely or privately made by him It is their duty to pray but not their priviledge who are destitute of the Spirit and out of Christ But to profess prayer from the second birth while yet they know not how to pray as they ought but as the Spirit maketh intercession with sighs and groans which are J. Parnells words * Shield of truth p. 14 15 is to contradict their doctrine of perfection And to give a dash at all our publique prayer as the long prayer of the Pharisees is to strike at the Spirit and contradict the Scripture allowance of the publiqueness and length of prayer upon occasion while we give no allowance to Pharisaical ends and pretences but can approve our persons and hearts to God in Jesus Christ our persons in Christs righteousness reckoned to us by faith our hearts so far as renewed by the grace and power of his in-dwelling Spirit James Nayler hath expressions one would think of this tendency that complies with our doctrine in his common place of Worship * Love to the Lost p. 8 9. wherein he instanceth in no part of worship but prayer he acknowledgeth as we teach The worship of the true and living God stands out of mans will and before any man can rightly worship God he must wait to know the Spirit But now let the lost soul beware of his counsel where should they wait you must saith he know the light and in it wait till therein you finde the Spirits leading acting and ordering This counsel if followed keeps men off from the positive parts of worship revealed in the Scripture The light that every man hath as he comes into the world which is the light they nourish up people in in opposition to Scripture-light makes known nothing of publique ministery Church officers therein of water-Baptism Lords Supper publique order of prayer c. nor of Christ mediator nor of the The Spirit of Prayer to be found in the publâ—que ministery Spirit of promise nor of one promise of grace or gracious acceptation in Christ Had not the lost soul better counsel while he was under publique ministery to attend there for the coming of the Spirit the Spirit of faith and prayer where God useth to give it Acts 10. 44. and promiseth to pour it out Prov. 1. 22 23. with 20. 21. verses How true is that which J. Nayler hath in the same place according to our Scripture-doctrine when a man hath been doing evil neglecting good and then he runs to act a worship to get peace the prayer becomes abomination for he that regards impurity the Lord will not hear his prayers nor accept his worships that 's Cains sacrifice and Esaus prayers but either must your worship be performed in one that never sinned or it cannot be accepted with the pure God Yet here is his mis-guidance of lost souls 1. That he would lead them off from joyning with him that makes long prayers such a one he seems to speak of who hides his wickedness with pretence of godliness but he makes no difference of any that serve Christ and his people publiquely in the nation as if they were all such to be separated from 2. He directs to the commands in Spirit in opposition to the Scripture-Letter for thus he delivers himself * Page 11. All the Saints have their commands in Spirit but yours is in the letter and so of another ministration for the literal ministration is done away in the spiritual As if the Spirit did not give out his commands by the written letter or the Scripture and his power also by the reading and hearing of it and by praying according to the rules and patterns of prayer therein contained But something O ye lost souls you will finde when the great Shepherd seeks up his lost ones and brings back that which is gone astray Ezek. 34. 16 ever and anon that alienated your hearts from the Scripture by the spirit of Contradiction that is in these mens Teachings and Writings 15. Head of their Scripture-contradiction Concerning Singing Section 42. I Gave account of their express words We are against all your Davids Praises and Prophecies in meeter contrary to Ephes 5. 19. Col. 3. 16. and other Scriptures R. F. * Page 21. makes me this return Singing of Psalms and Hymns and spiritual Songs we are not against but own but your Poetry we deny Rep. He might as well say your translation of them into English meeter we deny But if Psalms Hymns and spiritual Songs be owned they are either Davids and other of the Saints penning and the Spirits inditing in the Scripture or of their own composing if they own none but of their own composing they reject Davids and what was left for Psalms cannot be sung without meeter or due measures of speech our use in Scripture contradicting both it by that rejection and themselves also by owning Psalms Hymns and Songs and dis-owning meeter or Poetry for never was there Song Hymn or Psalm sung forth as it ought to be but it had
reason light and understanding though lighted up as a candle within me by Christ the true God working with the Father in all acts of Creation and Providence hitherto is truly called as it is natural light and seeing every man John 5. 17. hath some of it the most of whom have no saving light it is truly called as it is common and universal light Will R. F. allow Ed. Burroughs to call some light natural and not me so to phrase it or will he allow J. Nayler to distinguish between common light and saving and may not I and others with me have the same liberty First let Ed. Burroughs be heard * Warning to under barrow pag. 37. I write not as from man whose light Section 20 is onely natural and carnal and doth onely make manifest carnal transgressions c. And again By the natural light through the earthly law is no natural man able to judge of that which is spoken or declared from that which is eternal And again I deny to have this cause put into the judgement of carnal Lawyers who judge by the natural light c. Let us hear J. Nayler speak his minde * Discovery of the man of sin pag. 29. In your reply meaning the Ministers at Newcastle you deceitfully put in that word saving light which is not spoken by me for though Christ be the light of the world that enlightens all yet none are saved by him but who believe c. There is a light then which is in natural men unbelievers and all the Heathen which is but natural and a light which is not saving and therefore but common by their own confession what unreasonableness is it in them to except against the term of distinction what contradiction to their own reason 2. The preeminence of Scripture-light is this that it is our standing rule for faith and maners so are not immediate Revelations or Teachings of which see 1. Part Sect. 1. Here is the Letter or Scripture-fulness that I assert There is sufficient light in it to guide men to salvation seeing it is the Spirits light and given by the Spirit for a rule yea the Spirit gives out himself thereby for our clear understanding and satisfaction in the things of God insomuch as that very witness which a believer hath in himself the Scripture bears testimony of The Spirit tells us in the Scripture what he worketh in our hearts and he stamps upon our hearts what he had before caused to be stampt into Scripture or upon the Bible R. F. objecteth Thou wouldst have the Spirit to be bought and sold if it were in the Letter Rep. How the Spirit is in the Letter that is in the Scripture I have opened in its due place 2. Part Sect. 8. but that it followeth it may therefore be bought and sold is a weak and poor exception R. F. his minde goes along with his Pamphlet and his spirit is in his book yet it is not his person but the ink and paper that is bought and sold so the ink and paper of the Scriptures as other creatures of God are bought and sold not so the Spirit though he be more in them then R. F. is in his book for this poor man cannot change my minde nor many thousands more if they read his Pamphlet with me into his erroneous judgement when as the Spirit in the Scripture changeth my minde and all that are made to own the light and authority of it into the same truth that is there delivered Again he taunteth Thou wouldst have a Letter-Savior if the Letter could give the Spirit and eternal life Rep. 1. I never said the Letter could or did give the Spirit but the Spirit is given by it or as I even now exprest it the Spirit gives out himself by it and he gives out Christ or the knowledge of Christ and eternal life by it also who shall hinder him if he will begin and further our salvation by it 2. It is R. F. his disdainful expression not mine a Letter-Savior Christ a Savior according to Scripture but this I say from the Lord He that slights the Savior which the Scripture witnesseth and maketh known is not like to finde any Spirit-Savior of him or a Savior in vigor life and Spirit to his soul and if he be not such a Savior he is not at all a Savior to him Did ever any of the Apostles or such as had indeed immediate teachings from the Spirit vilifie and reproach Christ or the Scripture with such inkhorn terms Yet again With a Letter-fulness thou wouldst have no witness of God without the Letter Rep. 1. That follows not for his providential works are witnesses of him Acts 14. 17. to the very Heathens and much more to Christians But 2. He shall be no Christian to me or in my account who brings any testimony as from God without the Scriptureattestation But saith R. F. If the Scripture be lost the fulness and the witness would be lost and his people be without supply and strength according to thy account Rep. 1. Should they be lost that one way whereby God gives out his fulness and by which he witnesseth and worketh for his peoples supply and strength would be lost yet God loseth none of his fulness in himself and Christ hath other witnesses of him John 5. His Father his Works John Baptist But 2. Seeing there are Scriptures as they cannot be broken John 10. 35. they cannot be lost God hath and will ever preserve them for his peoples supply and strength 3. What vain jangling is here from R. F. his pen tending to no edification at all of the Reader but to the alienation of peoples mindes from the Scriptures and from those that teach according to them to seduce and draw poor souls after their pretended immediate teachings while yet they will be quoting of Scripture as if it were written and pen'd to destroy it self For thus R. F. gathers up the Rere of his forces * Page 28. He to wit Christ is before all things and by him all things consist and he is the Head of the body the Chruch who is the beginning and first-born from the dead that in all things he might have the preeminence for in him the fulness dwells Rep. 1. Are not these words written by the Spirits secretary Col. 1. 17 18 19. And is not R. F. beholden to the Scripture for that literal knowledge 2. If ever he feels the power of these as other Scriptures The Scripture magnifies Christ above it self God will teach him to honor the Scripture so much the more as it magnifies Christ above it self and to speak more wisely of it then to conclude as he doth In him the fulness dwells then not in the Letter yet the Letter declares of it Rep. 1. If the Letter declares of Christs fulness then we shall need to know no more of Christ then what for substance is in the Scripture there
inherent Graces who put off the Saints or believing sinners best robe I see not The Setters and Abettors of this Sect would be more narrowly watched and according to their crimes stigmatized There is one * This for each Parliament man by George Fox page ult hath suggested to the Right Honorable Parliament after this maner All that have a word from the Lord seek not to stop them and limit them from speaking it by the counsel of those Teachers which are made by the will of man and have not the word of the Lord according to the word of the Lord they are to be stopt and to be silent And after the same measure shall it not be meted out to them But whereas he concludeth with an Interrogation that hath a sting in the tayl Is there any law or limit to be made to limit the Spirit of God I shall close with Christ his own charge for the purity and peace of the Churches which some * Brightman Cotton of no mean account do conceive was partly fulfilled by the Edict of Darius Ezra 6. 11 13. * Cant. 2. 15. Take us the Foxes the little Foxes that spoil the Vines for our Vines have tender grapes Now that Your Highness and Your Honors may be all as Angels of God discerning the false spirits and the true such as proceed out of the mouth of the Dragon and out of the mouth of the Beast and out of the mouth of the false Prophet from Him that proceedeth from the Father and from the Son that Ye may be established in the old and present Truth that Ye may be preserved blameless that all men may acknowledge their Mercies under Your Government that Your Graces may be heightned yet to farther Service of the Lord and his peoples Interest in the three Nations And that Ye may be prospered in all Your high undertakings at home and abroad for Glory to the Highest is and shall be the Prayer of Your HIGHNES and Your HONORS Meanest Servant in the Gospel JOHN STALMAM TO THE CHURCH of CHRIST Which is at TERLING Grace be with you mercy and peace from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ the Son of the Father in Truth and Love Beloved in our Lord JESUS AS you were obedient in my absence while I was removed from you for a season so I have endeavored since my return that the Truth of the Gospel might continue with you and therefore have I not given place by subjection no not for an hour to any that have attempted to bring another Gospel among you though there is not another but there be some that have troubled others and would by perverting the Gospel have troubled you also Yet blessed and praised be God who hath kept you in the hour of temptation and helped you to keep the Word of his Patience and not deny his Name That you and yours may ever be preserved when this my earthly tabernacle shall be dissolved I have drawn up this REPLY and do commend it to your diligent perusal charging you in the Lord that you redeem some time for the reading of it especially such of you as have allowed spare hours for the reading of the Adversaries Pamphlets It is above a year since the first of the Sect called Quakers came into the Town and scattered his opinions You had then cautions given you from the Lord. Remember them I beseech you lest you be carried about as the stubble whisked and Heb. 13. 9. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whirl'd about here and there in a circle with the wind of diverse and strange doctrines diverse in colour from the truth and strange to the Scripture-language or meaning of the Spirit speaking in the Scripture Beware of wheeling to the right hand or to the left Take heed what you hear and how you hear Beware of the leaven of the Quaking Pharisees and Sadduces It argues weakness at the best and childishness in the best if they be tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine Children will run after a bubble in the wind or on the water a feather on the ground or froth upon the waves Be not like them or as giddy hearers that have no mould but what the next Novellist casts them into Diverse and strange doctrines such as these men I deal with especially open out of their packs tend much to the unsetling of the judgement and disquiet John 10. 5. of the conscience It is a Character of Christs sheep to keep the ear close to his voice they know not the voice of strangers whereas goats will receive those that come in their own name and they whose names are not written in the Lambs John 5. 43. Booke of Life will wonder and wander after thâ— beast and the Rev. 13. 8. false prophet the Doctors and Doctrines of Antichrist But it is a good thing * Heb. 13. 9. saith the Holy Spirit that the heart be established with grace It is eminently benâ—ficial against all distracting opinions to have your souls and consciences established with the doctrine faith and sense of Gods free Favor in Christ and with the experimental exercise of Grace in Gospel-worship 1. The doctrine of his redeeming purchasing grace his pardoning of sinners and reconciling them to himself according to his free electing love establisheth against the thoughts of our greatest unworthiness for the free gift of Christ and his righteousness for justification of life reigneth over all your guilt and the design of Grace is to bring all that obey the doctrine of Grace into a kingdom of Grace and to settle a crown of Life and Glory upon the poor unworthy sinner Hold fast to this as not onely it is free but full The Gospel of our salvation is so full as it answereth all the souls necessities partly from the fulness of the person the Son of God our Savior God and man in whom the fulness of the Godhead dwelleth bodily If there be all-sufficiency of power love will faithfulness in God to save 't is in Christ yea the fulness of Gods vindicative Justice is satisfied and glorified in him This we teach for your heart-satisfaction and settlement partly from the fulness of the covenant whereby God makes over Christ and Life to us which is heart-establishing as 't is founded in the blood of Christ as it is the efflux and issue of Gods everlasting love as all the promises are Yea and Amen in Christ and as the Covenant is of the nature of a Testament which is more absolute then ordinary contracts in full force Heb 9. 16. by the death of the Testator written not onely in the Scriptures the Old Copy and the New but in the hearts of Believers Heb. 8. 10. God begins with promises and writes them and then his Commands are all inlayed and inamel'd with the promises This Heb. 6. 17. Covenant is confirmed by an Oath to shew the immutability of his counsel and
to settle the hearts and hopes of them that flee thither for refuge with strong consolation In a word the Covenant of Grace excludes works as any condition of life for it is the declaration of Gods way of saving by Grace according to the Election of Grace which if it be of Grace as it is then Rom. 11. 6. is it not at all of works These meditations are heart-establishing you will say in wavering times and all Doctrines agreeable to the fulness of Christ and his Covenant are so David found it so so may you It was a soft pillow to David God 2 Sam. 23 5. hath made with me an everlasting Covenant ordered in all things and sure on his Death-bed whereon to rest his head so it will be to all that take hold on it and mix it with faith For secondly it is not the Doctrine of the Gospel abstractly considered but as believed that will establish you Faith establisheth Col. 1. 23. by its object acts reflections and fruits Continue in the faith grounded and setled and be not moved away from the hope of the Gospel which ye have heard Consider brethren what you believe and in whom ye have believed Christ and his righteousness without you is a sure foundation for your Faith to Isaiah 28. 18. build upon He that believeth on him shall not be ashamed unsetled beaten off Faith gives you an evidence of things not seen and makes things absent present Every act of Faith tends to your establishment having some certainty in its bosom and bowels and so much as strives against doubting and that shall not miscarry in the issue and event But reflections of Faith help on yet more to stedfastness When you know you do 1 Pet. 3. 21. believe then you have the answer of a good conscience wherewith comes peace and liberty Peace with God is discerned and peace with Conscience is setled hereby in much serenity with liberty of access to the Throne of Grace and of making your Appeals to God by vertue of Christs blood sprinkled on the Conscience and by reason of the Acquittance which Christ received for the Believer at his resurrection His discharge is ours and hence the other benefits which Faith brings along with it of Vnion with Christ Communion with God Justification Redemption Adoption and Sanctification But if with the Doctrine and Faith of the Gospel there comes thirdly the Grace of sense or the sense of Gods grace and love in all that is taught and believed how is the heart established by the holy Rom. 5. 5. Spirit that is given us This Spirit is both the seal of what is past the witness of what is present and the earnest of what is to come making all that is in reversion as sure to us as that which is already in our possession Adde unto this fourthly Experimental exercise of grace in all Gospel-institutions and what establishment shall your hearts want now or hereafter Communion with God in Gospel-Ordinances gives rest and satisfaction when we finde the effect of Water-baptism and of Infant-baptism in Christs blood and the Spirits regeneration when we discern the effect of Bread and Wine-Lords-supper in Christs presence at his Table and the quicknings of his Spirit in our singing Davids Psalms and Scripture-spiritual songs use of publique as private Prayer ministery of the Word c. Your souls brethren cannot but finde it eminently helpful to be established with this Gospel-grace First you have hereby an Antidote against all poison of diverse and strange Doctrines Your hearts are as ships well-ballasted against all contrary winds The Doctrine of Free-grace rightly understood believed and adhered to doth at once dispel and scatter all Popish and Arminian fogs The fulness of Christ believed lays open the emptiness of Quakerism The Covenant and Promises grasped by Faith are as the little stone which they say the Bee takes up to flie with in a high wind so as the biggest blasts shall not dash you to the ground Let who will say that Christ doth not justifie by a righteousness without us the Scripture saith We are made the righteousness of God in him 2 Cor. 5. 21. and the Grace of Faith carries out the Soul for righteousness and life in another viz. Christ of this the Spirit with the Conscience and Experience of Believers beareth witness Let the poor Quakers say that the Scriptures are not the word of God the heart that believeth and experienceth the power of the Scripture changing and transforming will finde him a liar and blasphemer Let them say that will they have no sin dwelling in them and their warfare is at an end a gracious heart will slight and despise these Contradictions to all the Experiences of the Saints held forth in Scripture Let them say there is no Baptism of water or let them call the Lords Supper as used by the Churches a humane Invention because they have found no comfort in it or by it the heart established in the faith of the Institution will give them the lie and although he findes not these seals always alike efficacious yet he knows and believeth them always to be the Lords Ordinances and to have a promise of efficacy annexed to them which God will make good at his day and hour and not at our season Secondly The fears which false doctrine terrifieth the Conscience withal are removed and made to vanish Fears of non-acceptance by reason of daily failings in duties fears of falling away totally and finally are expelled by the pure doctrine of faith and of justification by grace alone and by nothing inherent in us as a habit or adherent to us as an act c. Thirdly There is this advantage all pretended Revelations are cast off dreams are not hearkned unto leading from the Scriptures The faith of a Promise makes things as sure to your souls as if God had spoken immediately from the Clouds The sense of Gods Love is as sweet as a rapture into the third Heavens Moses and the Prophets are as sure to a gracious heart as if one arose from the dead for he could not bring up greater Truths or stronger Arguments of perswasion then are found in the Scriptures he could not speak more pathetically with higher strains and stronger lines with more majesty of stile and elegancy of phrase or sweeter floods of eloquence or with more plainness and godly simplicity then the Spirit expresseth himself in the Scripture holding forth all along an evidence and demonstration of himself with holy harmony and efficacy Fourthly When your hearts are established with Gospelgracious Doctrine Faith Sense and Experience thereof you are fortified against all powerful temptations Sometime the soul is tempted to forsake Ordinances but faith of that promise that the house of Jacob shall not seek God in vain keeps Isaiah 45. 19. the heart close to means of Gods appointment Sometime the Christian is tempted to go to a second Baptism or to
a covenant of works His Doctrine is b Ib. 175. That there is no certain ordination from eternity upon any soul particularly which is yet to be born but onely a common universal foreseeing of grace which will suit with the light in every man held out by Quakers as the beginning of Christ and the good use of that light as that grace foreseen He jerks at c Ib. page 182 our feeding upon bread and cup of Christ and so doth R. F. In many other things they are agreed He hath stampt a name upon his book of Election d Ib. page 195 The longer the better liked the more sought the more found which I hope will among those that shall be saved never prove true but the contrary The longer the more loathed the more sought and searched the more detected and the more found the more rejected notwithstanding all his Teutonick Sublimations There is a Dialogue between Launcher and Love-well printed with J. Behme's two Letters which is said to be none of his but it harmonizeth with his Doctrine and the Quakers who build up a kingdom of works upon as sandy a foundation A passage most notorious is this * Dialogue between Launcher and Lovewel p 89 Christ hath his deserving and I shall have mine written in opposition to the application of Christ and of his merits by faith and another is like hereunto a Ib. page 112 He hits the nail on the head who perceiveth that all his wen-lacing is that men believe to become as Adam was before the fall Not Christ as a Redeemer then but the improvement of what Talent men have and trusting thereunto in the mutability of their own wills must bring them unto life if they will have it so Such kinde of stuff or worse if worse may be these men have learned haply at home from Will. Erbury of late in his Call to the Churches which book was brought me by the same She-disciple that brought R. F. his Answer before who gave it out that he was the fore-runner to the Quakers as John Baptist was to Christ it seems then he was to decrease as they were to increase but I am of the minde though he hath by his packet of Letters and pamphlets helpt towards their increase yet they shall decrease and consume away with the last piece of Antichrists skin and bones He denies it * Call to the Churches by W Erbury page 4. to be Gospel that few shall be saved and expostulates the matter in these terms What Gospel or glad tidings is it to tell the world that none shall be saved but the Elect and Believers He calls Christ a Legal Teacher and saith if you will believe him The Gospel he taught was but in part that which was proper onely to the Jewish Church not that to be preached to the world And * Ib. page 6. the gospel which the Apostles preached to the world 't was not that which they wrote to the Churches nor yet what they read in the Scriptures of the Prophets But the Gospel was a mystery which in the light of God they could manifest to men and make all men see themselves in God that 's in Christ and * Ib. page 9. God in our flesh as in Christs that is according to the Familistical conceit God dwelling as much and after the same way in our flesh as in Christs For the mystery of faith was more saith he then men imagine and it may be more then Paul wrote to the Romans and Churches of Galatia Here are sweet suggestions to set people a quaking indeed among the devils and to look from the Scripture for another Gospel though there be no other then that which Paul preached and wrote to the Galatians cap. 1. 6 7. in their own hearts and to lay down their lives in another way for the brethren as the fickle woman that brought me the book told me she had thereby learned then the Apostle intended 1 John 3. 16. viz. to die to the use of all our Gospel-ordinances for any of which he saith * Ib. page 19. we have not so much as Scripture As true as that * Ib. page 37. Christs coming again promised Acts 1. 11. was nothing but his coming in Spirit and Power in the Saints and in their flesh when they are most confused and dark Such kinde of cloudy interpretations in Scripture these men have drunk down no coming of Christ in body again is owned by many of them Christ had a body onely while he was upon the earth which W. E. intimateth in his marginal note * Ib. page 39. and inferreth Because the days of his flesh was when he was on earth therefore his being now in heaven is all in the Spirit for he is far above all heavens whereas the Apostle Heb. 5. 7. useth the phrase of days of his flesh to hold forth his state of infirmity and humiliation and not to deny his now being in Heaven in a true body glorified which Heaven where he is is far above all these heavens of air and sky visible to our eyes at present as his person which is not his manhood though the manhood is-united to his person is far above i. e. in dignity and immensity the Heavens as yet invisible to us and with the Godhead is not contained in the Heaven of Heavens But this of W. E. is like the notion and apprehension of J. Nayler who when he was asked by Justice Pearson Is Christ in thee as man answered Christ filleth all places and is not Sauls Errand to Damascus page 32. divided separate God and man and he is no more Christ whereas in Christ God-man his two natures are to be distinguished although his person is not divided Some strengthning to their fort of Babel our Quakers have received from the followers of Pelagius and Arminius who call Nature Grace as these magnifie Natures light and call it Christ within them who call the Notions of the Godhead the Elements and first Rudiments of Salvation as these call them the first Principles of Religion and the Corner-stone How come they to lead men from the Scriptures to the Creatures but that some had said before them Christ was and is preached in the Sun Moon and Stars And again how come they to say We cannot see how the Gospel of Christ is preached to every creature under heaven if it be not the Principle of light in the conscience if they were not acted by the same spirit Or how say they produce one Scripture that speaks of a natural light if they had not read or heard of some Arminian dictate to this purpose viz. The Scripture knows not the word natural in any such sense or signification wherein it should express or distinguish the unregenerate state of a man from the regenerate How do they jump in one minde concerning Peters being out of the state of justification when he denied his Master and about
which is delivered and preached to the Wicked to the Dissemblers and to the Ungodly is even as well Gods word as that which is preached to the good and godly upright Christians And I may adde even so are the Scriptures that word which condemneth unbelievers already But as he again The Sectaries understand not the strength of Gods word read or preached and we may wonder with him that they write and teach so much of the Scriptures or of Gods word seeing they so little regard the same For whatsoever R. F. saith of his and their owning of the Scriptures hearken to what follows in his backing of Scripture-contradiction That the Scriptures are the Word God and eternal The Scriptures are the word of God and truly so called Life as thou wouldest have them thou canst not prove nor all the Magicians to help thee Here is good stuff kitchin-stuff or smoak out of the bottomless pit 1. Take the Word for the Son of God where did I ever attempt to prove the Scriptures to be the Son of God God and eternal Life The Lord rebuke this false spirit 2. Because I with others call the Scriptures as they are and as they speak themselves to be the word of God are we therefore Magicians The Lord again rebuke this reviling spirit R. F. and others may talk of owning and owning the Scriptures as often as they fancy it but they honor them not I am sure who deny them that title of honor The Word of God Shall R. F. his Pamphlets be called his Books his Writings and his Words and shall not that which God hath written be called Gods written Word He answers nothing to that place in Hosea 8. 12. nor could that stripling J. P. * At Coggshall sometime give any reason against the Argument drawn from it viz. That which God hath written is the word of God But God hath written the Scriptures Therefore the Scriptures are the word of God R. F. Objecteth such as witness to the word and Gods power witness against thee to strengthen the new-coyned distinction is it which was given me in Scotland The Scripture is not the word of truth but the witness of Gods power Why I grant it to be both the word and the witness The Scriptures are Gods words and Gods testimonies some make The Scripture is Gods Word and Witness also them two witnesses Revel 11. But I reasoned thus by way of Quere How can the Scripture be Gods witness if not true how is it true if not the word of truth R. F. undertakes to answer That the Spirit of truth in the Prophets and in the Apostles did carry them forth to witness what of Christ is declared in the Scriptures by words that proceeded from the Spirit of truth Had he gone no further he had pretily well quitted himself but he addeth by way of objection The Spirit is not in the Letter neither is the Spirit given by the Letter but by God and Christ and yet he grants presently in the same Page 2. The Letter proceeded from the Spirit By the Letter I meant when I said pag. 22 of my book the Spirit is in the Letter c. the whole Scripture and so I suppose doth he Now the whole Scripture is given The Letter in a large sense and Scripture all one by inspiration of God the Father Son and Spirit who is 1. Where he breathes forth truth holiness c. all along 2. Where he speaketh The Scriptures are the Oracles of God Rom. 3. 2. Will R. F. by denying the Spirit to be in the Scriptures stop the mouth and breath of God What How the Spirit is in the Scripture-letter profane boldness is this Can he hold the winde in his fist and restrain the Spirit from giving forth himself by the Letter or Scripture when the Spirit will make good his promise to bless the reading of it I think he is not so full of presumption yet he presumes to say The Spirit is not given by the Letter What thinks he of Scripture-promises did he never finde the Spirit warming his heart by the reading of them He speaks as if he knew nothing of the Spirits consolations enlightnings teachings or convictions by the Scriptures And he writes as if he would have none read the Letter of Scriptures in faith of a blessing by them but to think when they are reading of them they are cracking a hollow shell that hath no kernell in it or drinking a draught of dilute wine that hath no spirits in it or reading of his and his fellows Pamphlets wherein the Spirit of God is not present by any gracious operation but the spirit of Satan for the most part unto efficacy of delusion His simple Reader may think the words that follow tend much to the honor of the Spirit of God The Letter proceeded from the Spirit but the Spirit did not proceed from the Letter but such expressions as disparage the Scriptures will never bring honor to the Spirit which is in them and worketh by them what disparagement is there in these words to the Scriptures will the simple-hearted say 1. The phrase Letter is extenuating as if all the The Letter taken strictly is but legal administration 2 Cor. 3. 6. explained Scripture were Law or had a Legal administration as the Apostle useth it 2 Cor. 3. 6. in a strict sence The Letter killeth i. e the bare legal command without a promise of power or pardon as a bare letter void of strength life and spirit it leaveth all men under a killing sentence and curse Now thus to represent all parts of the Scripture is to affright men from the reading hearing or regarding of it 2. The Letter or Scripture is set by R. F. in other passages in such opposition to the Spirit as if the Spirit disowned it after he hath caused it to be written no way accompanieth it with his power The Spirit proceeds not from How the Spirit proceeds not from the Scripture and how he doth proceed from by with it the Scripture-Letter in respect of his Essence or Being he is God of himself nor in respect of his personal subsistence which is of the Father or from the Father and from the Son of which R. F. is ignorant or inadvertent denying him page 8. to be a Person but in respect of his operation 1. Improperly it may be said the Spirit proceedeth from the Scripture as a man goes from his outward shop to work in his inner room so the Spirit proceedeth from that which he hath put within the Book or Bible into the heart to work a sweet ingraven work there 2. Properly and plainly he proceeds by the Scripture and with the Scripture to effect and beget that in the soul which is like himself Spiritual and like the Scripture holy and good That is but a bravado therefore which he addes in the close of his second Page Therein thou hast erred not
in the Old Testament and in the New the same yesterday to day and for ever He that followeth the Apostle as he followed Christ and followeth the Prophets as they spake and wrote by the Spirit of Christ doth the same thing 7. Reason Seeing we are not under the Law but under Grace the Spirit of Christ is our rule and guide Rep. This is added to no good purpose but still to contradict the Scripture and to blot it out from being a rule For Râ—m 6. 14. cleared 1. Albeit true believers are not under the Law in respect of its ceremony curse rigorous exaction and domination yet they are under the direction and rule that it holds forth and that as they are regenerate Rom. 7. 25. With the minde that is the regenerate part I my self saith Paul serve therefore am under the law of God So again 1 Cor. 9. 21. Vnder the Law to Christ as the rule of holiness and righteousness is dispensed in the hand of Christ and for obedience with a Gospel-frame of spirit unto Christ 2. When the Apostle saith We are under Grace he singleth not out a Sect of men called Quakers unknown in his days but he intendeth all true Christians and their condition under a covenant of Grace not Legally but Evangelically administred having the Spirit of liberty to lead them from under the dominion of sin to the obedience of Christ according to a written word or rule What if the vail be upon the hearts of unbelieving Jews 2 Cor. 3. 15. because they own not the Son of God and Son of the Virgin to be the Messias is the vail therefore upon my heart as R. F. reasoneth Yes because thou setst up Law in stead of Gospel Rep. I wish he well understood what it is to set up Law What 't is to set up Law instead of Gospel in stead of Gospel It is not onely to set up Jewish ceremonies and Typical shadows after Christs abolition of them as the Jews endeavored but to set up all or any act or work required in the Law or word of God whether done in natures strength or by moral abilities or by the Spirits strength to be a mans justifying righteousness before God this is far from what I urge and press when I plead for Moses writings c. to be a standing rule to direct to Christ and to direct in a way of sanctifying righteousness when a soul is come to Christ But we witness the glory that exceeds c. but thou art ignorant of that Rep. I confess I know that glory of Gospel-ministration which the Apostle speaks of 2 Cor. 3. but in part but this I know that when our Lord appoints men constantly to hear Moses and the Prophets as writing of him and as giving out the same rules for Faith and Holiness which himself gave he that shall take men off from attending their writings according to their true scope seduceth and draws off from Christ And as ignorant as I am I can see to the end of that which is abolished which is Christ the end of the Law for righteousness to every one that believeth and I can see that he that believeth not in the same Christ which Moses pointed at believeth not at all or but in a false Christ yea with half an eye through the same grace I can see that he who takes not Moses writings as he wrote of Christ and makes them the rule of his faith and maners and also refuseth the writings of the Prophets to be the like rule he doth more then implicitely refuse the writings of Christ and of the Apostles from being a rule also R. F. * Pag. 4. therefore holding to the first contradiction That the Scriptures are not a standing rule may well pass on to a second That they are not a more standing rule The Scriptures a more standing Rule then visions c. then visions and revelations as I had collected from Luke 16. 31. If they hear not Moses and the Prophets neither will they be perswaded though one rose from the dead The reason hereof is strong rising from the dead which is of the same nature with visions and revelations Matth. 27. 53. may be counterfeited as we finde 1 Sam. 28. Moses and the Prophets were extant in the volume of Gods book and their authority is owned among the Jews to this day and it is so authentique that when either particular Jews have been or the Nation shall be converted to the Lord they presently adhere to it as to their Rule so the Apostle prophesied 2 Cor. 3. 16. when it any poor Jew or rather 2 Cor 3. 16. with 14. opened collectively when the people and children of Israel the ten Tribes with the two Shall turn to the Lord the vail shall be taken away which is now upon their heart in the reading of the Old Testament that is of the books thereof The books and writings of the Old Testament stand and shall still abide at their conversion though the old administration of the Covenant of grace is abolished and they shall be their Rule together with the books of the New Testament which they will then understand own and imbrace as more certain to them then if one rose from the dead not in a faigned but real way Hence it is that Christ after himself was risen as others with him and appeared called his disciples to the Scriptures and opened them unto them Luke 24. 29. yea he urgeth his own death and resurrection that it ought to have been so And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets he expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself This made their hearts burn within them ver 32. when as the rest were cold at heart through fear at their first sight of Jesus supposing they had seen a spirit ver 37. Let visions and revelations be never so certain yet the Scriptures quoad nos as to us are a more standing Rule Why they are not so in R. F. his judgement and others we shall know by his reasons 1. Christ saith in Matth. 11. 27. No man knoweth the Son but the Father neither knoweth any man the Father save the Son and he to whomsoever the Son not the Scripture but the Son will reveal him here revelation is the surer rule of knowing God Rep. If I should deal as rudely with R. F. as he with me Matth. 11. 27. vindicated I should not onely say the assertion is thine not the Lords but therefore thou art a liar and accuser of the Lord but I will not exchange words I will prove him to be what he would fasten upon me He that sets the Son of God and the Scriptures at distance belies Christ accuseth the Lord R. F. doth thus by his Parenthesis not the Scripture but the Son his conscience will draw up the conclusion one day Again he that grants one part of truth and denieth another part wrongs the truth
in Tables of stone yet the Ceremonial Law which hath been disproved from being a covenant of works was given at the same time or in the same forty days that Moses was upon the Mount Now no man that I know saith the Ceremonial Law was given to Adam in Paradise or that he was under that Law before the fall 2. As Adam was under the Ceremonial Law after the fall above two thousand years before it was given to Moses so he might be and it hath been proved he was under the whole Moral Law as a covenant of works before the fall notwithstanding the long space of time between his innocency and the promulgation of the ten Commandments on Mount Sinai 3. The reason of R. F. to the contrary is of no more force then if one should argue The promise was given to Abraham two thousand and fourscore years after Adams sin therefore it was not given to the Patriarchs nor were they under a covenant of grace before Abraham which to say would be manifest contradiction to the Scripture and a Non sequitur in Reason and such is R. F. his Divinity and Logick also Section 18. OF this Section R. F. takes no notice wherein I had noted what Ed. Burroughs saith in his Answer to choice experiences page 6 7. not 9 10. as was printed before That is no command from God to me what he commands to another Scripture general commands include particular persons and oblige to acting by virtue of such commands contrary to the whole Decalogue Exod. 20. which speaks to all in speaking to one Thou And the mystery of iniquity in this kinde of doctrine lyes here The word Command in Scripture is not a command to them till they have a word within them neither as E. D. adds did any of the Saints which we read of in Scripture act by the command which was to another not having the command to them selves I challenge to finde an Example to it By this doctrine 1. All the Scripture-commands as such are made void The absurdities of the contrary doctrine stand for Cyphers are of no Authority by them selves and no ways binding to carnal men who want the perfect principle that Adam had or the Spirit of grace which the Saints have whereas moral commands in Scripture are of perpetual obligation whether men have a principle or a Spirit to hear or forbear Ezek. 2. 7. And 2. As if what God commands one Saint as a Saint he doth not command all Saints as such Mark 13. 37. and Luke 12. 4. I say unto you my friends Fear not them that kill the body c. is a command obliging all his friends Or 3. There must be a particular Scripture for every Saint and every action that he puts forth Or 4. A motion from within must be above the motion from without in the Scripture whereas the Spirit of God is of one and the same authority in the Scripture and in the heart and he moveth to duty by commands 1 Thes 4. 2. 1 John 3. 23. Josh 1. 8. Have not I commanded thee yea by the written commandements he presseth Christians upon duty Ephes 6. 2. Honor thy Father and thy Mother Ephes 6. 2. explained which is the first commandement with promise The motive here is threefold 1. The Commandement of the written moral Law 2. The promise annexed That it may be well with thee c. 3. This fifth commandement is the First of the second Table and the first of the Ten that hath a promise and a special promise expresly added to it All the ten have as the Decalogue is subservient to the covenant of Grace a general promise prefixed and the second a general promise inserted but this is the first and the last indeed the onely one of the ten that hath a special express promise added to the keeping of it A command so backt and supported is no small encouragement it being also a command of the holy Ghost as certain as any he brings to the heart Or 5. As if what is spoken to all is spoken to none till the person be named or pointed out by the finger It will be accounted negligence and carelesness in children or servants when the Governor of a family ordereth to them all that the doors be shut up at night if none of them look after what is ordered and in a troop of souldiers not to take the alarum at a distance but the Drum must be beaten close by the ear of every one or else none will stir from their quarters such an abuse of commands to Saints is made of Scripture-general commands by these men who list themselves for Saints The allegations and objections of Ed. Burroughs * Page 7. weighed in the ballance of truth will be too light 1. I challenge to finde an example 1 Objection answered Answ What are all the examples of the Saints actings after the patern of other Saints who had the express precept 1 Thes 1. 6. ye became followers of us and of the Lord c. so that ye were ensamples to all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia Christ gave the Apostles an example of Self-denial with a command of taking up the cross and following him The Saints at Thessalonica acted by this Command and after the Lords and the Apostles example and became exemplary themselves for others that believed to act after them and suffer also Commands of this nature to others they took to be to themselves and are commended for such kinde of obedience Acts 1. 4. The Apostles have a command to keep together and not to deport from Jerusalem c. and Act. 2. 42. the converted three thousand which are a superabundant number of examples continue stedfastly in the Apostles doctrine and fellowship and in breaking of bread and in prayers here is acting sufficiently and constantly by virtue of the command for keeping fellowship given to the Apostles more immediately and to them but remotely and at the second hand Object 2 2. 'T is alledged The Saints obeyed every one their own command one was sent to Baptize and to preach the Gospel another was sent not to Baptize but to preach the Gospel Answ 1. Saints as such have general duties incumbent upon them and none of the commandements of God that belong to them as Saints are grievous unto their regenerate heart and part 2. To Baptize and to preach the Gospel are duties imposed but upon some Saints and acts belonging to special office and commission or mission at least Some may be sent to preach the Gospel that have not office-commission of Baptizing as Act. 11. 19. But none were in officecommission to preach the Gospel but might and did as opportunity was offered baptize also as Act. 8. 35. 38. And Paul himself did Baptize and was commissionated for it though his principal work was preaching 1 Cor. 1. 15 1 Cor. 1. 15 16. cleared 16 17. Christ sent me not to Baptize not
there is hyperbolical That seems simply and absolutely to be denyed which is to be understood but in part and comparatively in respect of the greater and more constant elaborate employment of preaching as is the Lords maner of speech Jer. 7. 22 23. But such as Paul Baptized as few as they were he did not Baptize short of besides or without a command And in short every one in his particular vocation the Apostle in his place the Pastor in his the Church in their relation the Husband in his place the wife in hers c. are to obey the commands given to those relations But Object 3 3. You go to duty as you call it by imitation from the Letter without Answ 1. Imitation properly respecteth examples and obedience precepts and it is but duty and obedience to hearken to Scripture-commands for imitation of holy and godly examples Jer. 6. 16. Philip. 3. 15 16 17. and chap. 4. 9. 2. While professors old and new decline the old and good paths let them beware of dangerous precipices of Apish Popish Monkish imitations and of un-warrantable pretences to the Prophets extraordinary Raptures and Postures such as those Isa 20. 2. Ezek. 4. 9 10. c. Object 4 4. You go to duty in your own wills and time your sacrifice is not accepted Answ 1. They that look rightly to a Scripture-command will eye the maner end and other circumstances and watch unto seasons of prayer reading hearing c. required in Gospel-times 2. Every duty or performance to which a Saint is duly tyed by a command respecting his relation and calling and consequently his person is accepted by God for the matter of it because he requireth it but his person is accepted as he is a Believer within the covenant of Grace and hath Christs righteousness reckoned to him for his justification and he is also accepted in the sincere Gospel performance of a duty not for the works sake but for Christs fake Object 5 5. You go without the moving of the Spirit in your own strength and you know not what a command from God in the Spirit is Answ This might be laid in a carnal mans dish and at an unbelievers door but being an objection against Saints to beat them off from performing duties by reason of a Scripture-command is as false as it is bold and daring For 1. Every true Saint hath the Spirit dwelling in him 2. There is no warrantable evidence that the motion is from Gods Spirit if it be not according to a Scripture command and if it be according to it it is as uncharitable as untrue to say the holy soul goes without the moving of the Spirit A command from God in the Spirit is no other What a command from God in the Spirit is for the matter of it then what already he hath commanded in the word of Scripture and that which he forms and stamps upon the fleshy tables of the heart by the Spirit of the living God so effectually that the mind understands it and the will obeyeth it in newness of spirit 3. The Spirit of God is free to move when he pleaseth in and upon the heart but the Saint is obliged to duty when through the flesh he is very dull and indisposed to it Matth. 26. 41. 4. He goes in his own strength to duty who follows Who act in their own strength the light of a natural conscience onely or undertakes it in the strength of his natural parts or moral abilities or common gifts of the Spirit but it is one of the greatest scandals which I have known cast upon the Scriptures and upon the Saints together to say they go in their own strength to duty who act by virtue of a Scripture-command for although Who in the strength of Christ they have not such movings and stirrings of the Spirit at one time as at another yet in sense of greatest deadness they act their faith for acceptation of their persons and believing the work is duty indeed trust not to the stock of grace within them but act faith again upon Christ for fresh influence and new supply in the present performance ordinance or exercise And another is like unto this that they know not what a command from God in the Spirit is when as Saints experience about a command 1 Past every Saint more or less hath had a twofold experience about the commandements of God and from him one in a legal way of ministration when the commandement comes as Paul speaketh of himself Rom. 7. ver 9. 10. that Rom. 7. 9. 10. opened is in the light of its spirituality striking at heart-corruptions which in their native rebellion rise up sin revived the more against the commandement and by the way it was the written-commandment as that opposed the Pharisaical pride of his heart and I died here is yet no Gospel mortification but legal consternation Paul is slain in his false perswasions and presumptuous hopes of getting life by his own blameless obedience to the Law Thus the Spirit of God sets home the law in its vigor of spirituality and rigor of exacting absolute freedom from the least swerving thought and takes off a soul from expecting life in his own righteousness or by the best frame of heart that he may reach unto and keeps him for longer or shorter time as he please under fears of the second death and of the first because of the second The other in a Gospel dispensation 2 Present is experience by the Saints when they are through Gospel-enlightning faith and renovation made to understand what the covenant of Grace is and what a Gospel-command The covenant of Grace calls for satisfaction at Christs hands and hath it The Gospel command from God in the Spirit is not some sudden impulse or rare impression upon the soul which few Saints meet with but it is every Scripture-precept which the Spirit of faith holiness and liberty works the heart to a sweet compliance withall according to the measures of grace received amidst the present and constant conflict with in-dwelling sin This was Pauls experience after conversion as he lays it forth Rom. 7. from ver 14. to the end and in the following Chapter The command wherewith he had no compliance before as to the spirituality of it now he consenteth to and delighteth in and complains against that contrary frame of corrupt nature which remained though it reigned not and rebelled in him but as sin served it self and its own ends grace and the new creature made him serviceable to the law of God the Scripture-command with which he and his new nature was reconciled and he that cannot finde something of this experience will not finde himself a Saint he that elasheth with Scripture-commands so far discovers himself to be unregenerate Let E. B. and R. F. a little more examine themselves by what spirit they are acted while they decline the Scripture-Gospel-Rule 5. Head of Scripture-contradiction
as to the guilt curse and damnation which he bare in his own body on the Tree Yea and such as are in him are at present redeemed out of sin as to the dominion and reign of it but we are not therefore justified and when sin shall wholly be rooted out of us that shall not be our justification at Gods tribunal because we are perfectly holy but because Christ died for us to justifie us by his blood Let him that throws off Christs imputed righteousness go shift for his justification where he can get it He is a foolish bewitched Galatian and Christ shall profit him nothing For bring in any one act of ours though wrought by the Spirit whether of mortification self-denyal love or faith as an act to be an ingredient to the essence of our justification and it is as bad as to be circumcised and as destructive to the souls peace and safety as to be a debtor to keep the whole Law Section 26. I Had noted what I found in J. Nayler That no imperfect thing can be reconciled to God is plain Scripture plainly contradicting Rom. 5. 10. If he meaneth by no imperfect thing no man that is not perfectly sanctified But R. F. makes out the sense thus * Page 14. No sin can be reconciled to God nor any such imperfect thing Rep. 1. If this were the onely sense why was it not spoken at first for we know by the Spirit in the Scriptures Our persons are perfectly reconciled before our natures are perfectly sanctified that it was Gods design to reconcile sinners onely to himself persons as I hinted before in my book imperfect enough and to abolish sin in guilt and power as first and in the presence at the last and we can prove it by clearer Scriptures then R. F. produceth which is onely Rev. 21. 27. that sin and God cannot be reconciled and as Psalm 5. 4. Thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness neither shall evil dwell with thee Hab. 1. 13. Thou art of purer eyes then to behold evil and canst not look on iniquity But 2. The scope of J. Nayler * Answ to perfect Phar. page 9. was to prove that we are not justified by a righteousness without us but by what is perfectly wrought within us and therefore I mistook him not in my former piece when I subjoyned Their meaning is till sin be wholly abolished in its residence out of the heart and all imperfections in sanctification be done away there is no reconciliation of our persons with God or to him whatever be R. F. * Page 14. his flourish And as for our meaning thou speaks of thou art without our minde and so knowest not our meaning by thy imagining therein thou shewest a spirit of error It sufficeth that by Scripture-truth wherein the Spirit of truth reigneth I can detect this for an error viz. Christs work in us is that which justifies our persons before God and what if his work for us be joyned with his work in us if they mean no more then what is inherent righteousness wrought by Christs strength in himself and in us together so F. Howgill must be construed if he quadrates with his other passages in the Book when he saith * The inheritance of Jacob. pag. 29 Christ fulfilled the Law and he fulfils it in them who know him and his work and herein man comes to be justified in Gods sight by Christ who works all our works in us and for us Christs obedience and ours his work for us and his work in us put together for our justification is Babylonish mixture but this I can maintain as a clear and pure truth viz. That it is not the work of Christ in us which justifieth and reconcileth our persons but his sole working for us by his own personal obedience and satisfaction to justice The plain Scripture is this Heb. 10. 14. Christ by one offering hath perfected for ever them that are Heb. 10. 14. cleared sanctified It is not said in any Scripture that Christ hath first perfectly sanctified any persons and then reconciled them unto God but the sense of that as of other Scriptures is that Christ by one offering of himself hath perfected their justification and reconciliation whom he doth also sanctifie in the truth of it at what instant he applyeth their perfect justification And the plain truth according to Scripture is this That no person is reconciled to God How the sinner and yet none but the perfect person is reconciled to God who hath not a perfect Mediator of his reconciliation and who is not accepted as perfectly righteous in the righteousness of Christ his surety and so t is true none but the perfect person is reconciled to God but how not by his qualifications at first an enemy and always carrying about with him while here some wisdom of the flesh which is emnity against God but as he had on Christs Cross his person represented in Christ his head and his sins not imputed upon the account of Christs righteousness made or reckoned to be his 2 Cor. 5. 19. 21. To clear this a little further we must distinguish between the reconciling of our individual persons and the reconciling of our individual natures dispositions or qualities and acts both are a fruit of Christs satisfactory obedience and sufferings and they cannot as J. N. * Love to the lost pag. 50. acknowledgeth this truth though not truely be divided in the possession But personal reconcilement is done at once by imputation of the perfect righteousness of the Lord Jesus nature-reconcilement admits of degrees according to the measure of the Spirit of sanctification As for J. Nayler and R. F. and such as imagine that while sinful imperfections remain in the Saints they in their persons are not cannot be perfectly reconciled to God then not themselves nor any that adhere to their doctrine are or can be reconciled to God in person as not in judgement and affection while they harbor such fleshly and legal conceits of a poor sinners justification and reconciliation and they shall see if by this they get no eye-salve Oh that it might not be too late how till they be better bottom'd with contradictions of Scripture they contradict and come short of true salvation-light right and possession For I judge it 's absolutely necessary to salvation rightly to discern the way of a mans justification before God and reconciliation to him which discerning I perceive not in these mens writings although sometime in discourse with some of this Sect I have had their confession of the truth yet their bad principles make them fly off again as it fares with many a natural ignorant countreyman I wish there be not more then a few such in Cities and populous places who have a notion of the Gospel-truth but practically and experimentally cannot for their hearts but stick in themselves and think a Bird in the hand is
who seem not to deny the authority of the holy Scriptures yet would have it meant of Christ for this reason because the word of God ver 12. is in the 13. ver described as a person in his sight and the eyes of him with whom we have to do Now this is but their mistake for albeit Christ in person is the living word yet it is the Apostles scope to gain honor to him by gaining honor to the declarative word which being Christs word spoken by him written by the inspiration of his Spirit and preached accordingly is therefore quick and lively powerful and piercing because it is his word and the words of the 13. ver are not a description of Christs person as he is the living word nor of the declarative word spoken written preached but of God the Father Son and holy Ghost who being the living God his declarative word is like himself and from the knowledge of his nature we may know what his word is If God hath an all-seeing eye his word hath an all-searching power He puts not one but two edges upon this sword of his Spirit Ephes 6. 17. and makes it sharp and piercing for conversion or conviction at least and for such ends as he hath intended by his word and the ministery of it to effect and work out therefore the words of ver 13. his and him with whom must be referred to God ver 12. distinguished into Father Son and Spirit i. e. to all three or any of the three Let sinners in whom sin reigns and Saints in whom sin remains look to it for God by his Scripture-word is able to finde them out even them that pretend to present perfection and have it not for whom these words speak nothing at all Should we take God ver 12. not onely at large and personally for any of the three but strictly for Christs person yet we must take the word to be as I have said the word declarative and read it thus The word of Christ is quick or lively c. We cannot read it out of the Greek the word-Christ nor the living word is lively nor the living word is powerful but as 't is read in our new Translation The word of God is quick and powerful or as in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Geneva Translation The word of God is lively and mighty in operation that is as their Note is The Doctrine of God is so and so hath lively and mighty effects why because it is Gods Doctrine Gods Word Gods Scripture if it be but his Letter or outward ministery it is Christs two-edged sword which serveth unto his design of searching hearts of comforting the believer of cutting off and excluding the unbeliever from rest But this place of Scripture will not serve R. F. his design hitherto 2. Let us observe his application and inference Here the ground of sin is by the living word shaken at the roots and rooted out of such before their bodies and souls part asunder Rep. 1. Granting it is divine power that makes efficacious Mis-application the divine truths of the Scripture and that the Spirit doth by conviction shake a sinner at the very heart-root and by conversion shake yea kill sin at the roots for sound conversion is more then lopping of branches or moral restraints the best fruits of Quakerism yet is not all sin at first conversion nor all the life time extirpated or pluckt up absolutely totally and as perfectly as at death and if R. F. proves not this from the place as he doth not but onely say it he had better never have quoted it Nay he dare not affirm it in plain words but obscure The ground of sin c. What makes he the ground of sin If he meaneth the subject where sin dwelleth and is rooted what is that subject but the faculties of the Soul Minde Will and Affections Conscience c Now these are shaken I confess but not rooted out for neither Law nor Gospel the word of Terror or Grace and Peace nor the Power and Grace of the Word doth abolish or destroy the faculties and being of the soul If he meaneth by Ground of sin the cause of sin it must either be guilt of sin or the original stain and filth if the guilt 't is granted that sin is abolished and there is no ground or cause why a Believer justified and discharged from guilt and curse by the imputation of Christs obedience should be condemned Rom. 8 1 33 34. and the abolishing of guilt is the cause and reason why the inherent roots of sin are shaken and mortified in their regency or reigning power for the present and why they shall be rooted out as to residency and inherency at the last yea why no justified believer should allow the least sin that yet remaineth in him If by ground of sin he meaneth the original stain and filth it is the same with the roots of sin and then he proves nothing but idem per idem the same thing by the same namely that the roots of sin are shaken at the roots and rooted out when they are rooted out but the question is when are they perfectly and in all degrees rooted out I have said and proved it from Scripture it is not till the parting of Soul and Body The truth then and the illustration by the simile of the fig-tree stands firm and good for ought that R. F. hath objected to the contrary yet we must hear him * Page 16. out It is Christs work to take away sin here and to sanctifie by his Spirit 1 Cor. 6. 11. 1 John 3. 5. Rep. We know that he was manifest to take away sin in 1 Cor. 6. 11. 1 John 3 5. compared cleared and vindicated and from us as in him is no sin according to that in John and that of Paul to the Corinthians expressing two ways whereby he taketh away sin by the way of justification from defiling guilt and damning curse this is perfectly done here as to Gods act of reckoning and account though as to manifestation in us to us and concerning us it comes by degrees and not till the day of Judgement will all the world know who are now Gods justified ones By the way of Sanctification he takes away the dominion of sin in the very root and the strength of the roots of filth is mortified here in some Saints more in some less as he pleaseth who puts forth the power but in none are the roots of every sin nor of any sin wholly perfectly pluckt up till bodily death I am for purity and holiness here in heart and life but I am for purity of the Scriptures also according to their pure sense What saith the Scripture which R. F. next calleth forth As he that hath called you is holy so be ye holy in all maner of conversation 1 Pet. 1. 15. 2 Pet. 1. 15. vindicated Rep. This is a command of and
No reason is given for his denial of sprinkling Infants with water which I called Sacramental water but he puts it upon a Quere Canst thou prove it Rep. What I affirm and practise I am not without grounds of proof from the Scripture as touching these three things 1. Sacramental water or Baptismal water or Baptism with water let it be called any of these it matters not which 2. Baptism of Children or Infants 3. A sprinkling Baptism or application of water by sprinkling or putting water upon the party baptized First What more clear then the appointment and use of Baptism with Water proved water-Baptism 1. Water was appointed by God to be used as the outward material sign of inward spiritual washing and cleansing by the Blood and Spirit of Christ John 1. 33. He that sent me to baptize with water c. 2. Where there was much water there were many baptized and the sooner dispatched as not onely at Jordan but in Aenon near to Salim John 3. 23. and at Jerusalem Acts 2. 41. Where there was no water the ordinance could not be administred and therefore the Eunuch till he came where water was called not for it Acts 8. 36. See here is water what doth hinder me to be baptized Philips answer If thou believest with all thy heart thou mayest hath no such intendment as * Martin Mason in his Reply to Jonathan Johnson p 8 one puts upon it to intimate water-Baptism to be a thing indifferent nor any such sense as he would dawb upon it with his untempered morter viz. As much as if he had said If thou believest outward water to be necessary to salvation thou mayest be baptized c. For the Eunuchs Reply out of which the scope and sense of Philips answer is to be gathered is not touching his faith of the necessity of water of which he stood convinced that the use of it in Baptism was an ordinance but respecting his faith of Jesus Christ to be the Son of God 3. When the inward Baptism of the Spirit and that by extraordinary gifts of Tongues was obtained it sufficed not but the ordinance of Sacramental-water must be obeyed Acts 10. 47. Can any man forbid water that these should not be baptized c. And ver 48. He commanded them to be baptized Whosoever is against Baptismal-water forbids or denies that which Peter by the Lords authority dares any man to forbid 4. When Paul baptized Lydia and her houshold the Jaylor and all his Crispus Gaius and the houshold of Stephanas what was it but with water He could do no more then John Baptist except in exercise of gift of tongues and miracles and laying on of hands upon those that were baptized before Acts 19. 6. with 4. 5. Baptism with water is by Christs institution to continue Mat. 28. 19 20. opened as long as Christs presence is with the Apostles or such as teach the same Gospel they taught and make Disciples as they did which is to the end of the world Matth. 28. 20. The words * in the Greek are the same with them in Mat. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 13. 40. * except a small variation of the Preposition and Case or addition of a Pronoun so shall it be in the end of this world which is not the end of the Age wherein the Apostles lived but of all Ages then and yet to come And that baptizing with water is meant in Matth. 28. is clear enough because Christ reserved the gift of the inward Baptism to himself but he commandeth his Apostles and Ministers to give forth the outward as subservient to his saving ends and purposes And although we prefer the inward before the outward part of one and the same Baptism yet we must not reject the outward part because the inward is to be preferred It will not excuse R. F. * Page 20. or any man to tell us Yet Baptism by one Spirit we own while water-Baptism is wholly dis-owned Nor do the Scriptures which he produceth for the Baptism by the Spirit exclude the Baptism with water 1 Cor. 12. 12 13. The Apostles scope in 1 Cor. 12. 12 13. cleared and vindicated the Chapter is to press on to a right use of spiritual gifts by every member for the good of the whole body as from other Arguments so from this ver 12. The body is one though the members are many How is it proved that the Church is one body because ver 13. by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body Hence the force of his Argument for right imparting of gifts If we all agree in the same Spirit and are taught by one Spirit and baptized into one body why should not our gifts be used for the mutual good of the members the whole and every part of the body Now what is in the inward part of Baptism among other things incorporation that is held forth by the outward part Water-Baptism declares and ratifies our being set ingraffed and joyned to the body mystical Ephes 4. 4 5. There is one Body one Lord one Faith one Baptism Is it Ephes 4. 4 5. vindicated enough for R. F. to mention this Here is nothing intended against Baptismal-water by the Apostle what ever be mens intentions now adays It 's a wresting of the Scriptures though the bare words be but mentioned to quote them for another end then they were written Both the inward and outward washing are appointed by one Lord to confirm one and the same Faith and they make but one and the same Baptism which consisteth of the sign and the thing signified He that would divide them or more then distinguish them crosseth the minde of the Lord Jesus Whatsoever R. F. addeth Such as are baptized into Christ have put on Christ and that we witness as doth the Scripture which is not contradiction Gal. 3. 27. The Scripture witnesseth the Gal. 3 27. vindicated outward part and the inward and the Apostle intendeth both in this place for pressing faith in Christ alone for Justification without dependence upon any of our acts in obedience to the Law he draweth an Argument from Baptism the outward part as well as the inward As many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ for Justification alone as if he should say Ye did sacramentally put on Christ in Baptism you must not now put him off and be clothed with your own rags again in stead of his robes He that denieth either part of compleat Baptism as the Scripture expresseth it of Water and of the Spirit hath so much Contradiction to the Scripture in his denial Secondly As to the Baptism of Infants what ever R. F. Infant Baptism Christs institution thinketh with many others that it is an Invention and none of Christs Institution The grounds from Scripture for the Affirmative must be raised otherwise then he undertakes it ere I will clear him of his Christ and
Scripture-contradiction in this very particular To those two Arguments I produced from Acts 2. and 1 Cor. 7. mentioned in the beginning of this Section he saith little or nothing nothing at all to the latter and little to the former and that as falsly as weakly according to his wonted language But thou perverts the Scripture Acts 2. 38 39. saying Be baptized every one of you you and your children Here thou art a lyar it doth not command Children to be baptized with water neither did they ever so baptize them that thou canst prove by one plain Scripture Rep. 1. He attends not my reason which I must repeat for help to his memory or others understanding The Command there reacheth as far as the Promise the Promise extends it self to Children not to all but to their children To you and to your children is the Promise made and therefore the Command Be baptized every one of you is made to the Parent and concerning the Childe and Children also of such Parents as gladly receive the word of Promise for them and theirs as it is said they did ver 41. And although it is not there plainly exprest the Children and Infants were baptized yet the Promise is plain enough and the Precept is explained and enforced by the Promise which had been of far less force to the Jew and Proselyte also if their Children formerly circumcised upon their Parents taking hold of the Covenant Isa 56. 6. had been excluded and left un-baptized and why may not the yongest be included with the eldest among those three thousand souls according to Scripture-phrase elsewhere Gen. 46. 26 27. 2. Why should R. F. if he were not unreasonable tye me or himself to one plain Scripture That which one place giveth not forth so plainly another compared with it may explain that and its self also Let him consult Ephes 5. 26. opened Ephes 5. 26. There is plain mention of water and washing of water by whom by Christ He that sanctifies and cleanseth the soul Whom doth he sanctifie and cleanse or whose souls His Church his mystical body ver 23. How By water and the word both which are the outward means by which he applies his Blood and Spirit to all that he cleanseth The water distinguisht here from the grace of sanctifying and cleansing can be no other then Baptismal-water The word * Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in this place distinguisht from Christ himself can be no other then the Scripture-command for the use of water and the Scripture-promise for the blessing of water to the ends he hath appointed it in Baptism The Scripture-promise we have found belongeth to Children and the Scripture-command for the use of water to all that have the Promise and to all that are of Christs mystical body Now some Children will be found to belong to his body the Church I hope R. F. will think if he doth not others will believe the Scripture is plain enough for that Luke 18. 15 16 17. In one Verse we read of Infants in another of little Children whom Christ owned as belonging to the Kingdom of God The Kingdom of God and the true Church that is in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus 1 Thes 1. 1. differ not an hairs-breadth of some of that age or non-age we may call it of yong ones and little ones is Christs body made up in part yea he is so far from setting all Infants by and shutting them out that he professeth with vehemency ver 17. Verily whosoever shall not receive the Kingdom of God as a little Childe shall in no wise enter therein Let R. F. be humblypassively capable of what a little Childe is capable and he may enter with Christs little ones into the knowledge of this mystery and benefit of Infant-baptism Thirdly I shall prove the sprinkling of Infants or application A sprinkling Baptism warrantable by Scrâ—pture 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of water to them or others that way by plain and sound consequence from Scripture 1. Although the word Bapto signifieth to dip the word Baptizo signifieth to wash diverse ways The Jews had diverse Baptisms as the words are Heb. 9. 10. * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 translated diverse washings Some by sprinkling or putting water upon persons or things to which Ezek. 36. 25. and Heb. 10. 22. alludeth Some civil or superstitious as Mark 7. 4. washing of vessels tables or beds which way was by casting water upon them as by dipping some things into the water so that the command for baptizing is a command for sprinkling as for dipping as the word is used 1 Cor. 10. 2. They were all baptized in the cloud and in the sea some might be more drencht or wet then others but they whether yong or old whether more or less washed or moistned with water were all baptized It is not the quantity but the quality and use of water that was then and is now significative in Baptism The general end and use of water is washing the effect whereof is cleansing and such is the use and force of the word as before hence I reason That action which fully representeth the main end and use of Baptismal-water is lawful and sufficient But sprinkling pouring or putting water upon the body doth represent this main end and use c. For the main general end and use of Water-baptism is to signifie spiritual washing and cleansing of the soul from sin Acts 22. 16. Arise and be baptized and wash away thy sins and this is done significatively by a sprinkling-Baptism of yong or old as well as by a dipping 2. When John baptized Christ and Philip the Eunuch their going down to the water was one action and the baptizing another I stand not convinced by any plain or forcible Scripture-phrase or by any circumstance in Scripture-history that there was any other action or rite of baptizing when it came to that then sprinkling or casting water upon the person baptized 3. Sprinkling or putting water upon the baptized is the more ready and easie action and Christ hath not burthened his Church in the New Testament with painful Ceremonies Dipping and plunging is either of the whole body or of a part onely if but of a part it is hazardous and troublesom not onely to Infants but to persons of years Once upon a time I asked a neighbor of mine who was for Dipping how Paul dipped the Jaylor his answer was He took him plum up from the ground and put him into the water By the way I told him there had need be good store of strength in all Administrators of Baptism in this maner and little Paul might not be strong enough for the service if Silas was I asked again whether there was a pond or river in the yard betwixt the prison and the Jaylors proper lodgings and was answered there might be a brook running through the yard These are strange conjectures which men will assume and fancy to themselves
the institution end and use during our corporal eating and drinking of them at that Supper of the Lord. The word which I used in the Concrete Spiritual he turns to the Abstract Spirit and thus clamors me * Therefore it is thy reason is so weak that saith The bread which you break although it be bread in the nature and substance yet it is Spirit in the institution c. What blasphemy is this to say that the Spirit is in the bread which is natural in the substance Here is a Papistical trick indeed Oh horrible delusion Rep. 1. I brought not 1 Cor. 10. 16. or any reason from thence to prove the bread to be material and outward though I could as above I have from the 11. Chap. but to shew it was not carnal in R. F. his sense set in opposition to the spiritual institution end and use For that which is appointed by Christ to be used for signification and assurance of many a souls interest in and communion of his natural body and blood broken and shed upon the Cross that is not meer carnal bread and drink But the bread and wine is after Christs institution to be so used as Paul admonisheth the Corinthians and not to be abused and profaned i. e. used in a common maner as if it were but ordinary bread and wine and had no special signification and end stampt upon it That natural body and blood of Christ which we remember in the Supper as broken and shed at his Passion was and is a true natural body then on earth now in heaven and yet it was and is spiritual food his flesh meat indeed his blood drink indeed there is no sweeter no better there 's none to that So the bread and wine is truly bread materially wine and yet withal in the Lords Supper it is Christs body and it is his blood How significatively a spiritual memorial of Christs death and a pledge of what Christ is to us that believe in him dying for us 2. This man R. F. coyneth phrases and then fathers them upon me The Spirit in the institution and the Spirit is in the bread and would make the world believe he were as ignorant of Popery as of true Protestant Doctrine The Doctrine I held forth according to Scripture was and is in professed opposition to all Papisticall tricks and devices touching the Lords Supper I said the bread as the wine was so and is so in its nature and substance but spiritual in the institution end and use And I adde neither Christs Institution nor the Ministers Blessing doth transubstantiate them or turn them into the natural body and blood of Christ as the Papists imagine after their consecration They do not say that I know the Spirit is in the bread nor did I ever so express my self in preaching at Edinburgh or elsewhere and what I wrote there * page 20. is to be seen and read of all men yet more then this of confused stuff would R. F. in his return to the Agreement of 42. Ministers * Contradiction of the Quakers so called p. 16. make the world believe he can produce under my hand and the hands of other Preachers in that City Had his mistake * See page 18. with the marginal not been onely in a letter of my name to put e for a it were a very venial offence but to refer as he doth to my whole name except that letter is a most impudent forgery But to return to the Pontificians this they hold Popish Transubstantiation a blinde dotage The body of Christ is corporally under the shew of bread and the blood of Christ is substantially under the colour of wine as if the accidents or qualities of roundness redness or whiteness could be without the subject and substance of those creatures and as if Christs natural body and blood for substance could be there and neither be seen felt nor tasted and as if Christ had laid down the qualities of a true natural body and were in moe places then one at once with many such blinde dotages this is to make a very carnal Supper of it indeed Hence it is that they maintaining in words onely and with fire and faggot not by any Scripture rightly understood nor sound Argument from thence the real corporal carnal presence of Christ we protest against them as Antichristian And so must we enter a protestation against R. F. and men of his way to be yet more mysteriously Babylonish For the grosser Papists speak broadly and make a nullity of the Lords Supper by their feigned Transubstantiation and carnal-corporal presence but these speak subtilly and nullifie it by transforming of the Institution and spreading the Lords Table with another cloth as it were and as will more appear anon while we hold up the Ordinance according to Gospel-primitive simplicity and do maintain upon sufficient Scripture-grounds both the outward and inward matter and form of the Lords Supper with the spiritualness of the Institution and the truly-spiritual presence of Christ with his own ordained signs who in relation to them and to his own promise and his peoples faith is there as at Baptism Matth. 28. 19 20. Lo I am with you c. by his Spirit to quicken confirm and seal up our communion with himself as crucified for us Hence The benefit of the Lords Supper it is that the Churches of Christ and every true believer active in his faith have found it and do still experience it to be a faith-strengthning conscience-refreshing soul-comforting love-increasing sin-mortifying salvation-assuring Ordinance although they have not always a like sense of his presence But to cast off this Ordinance and call it a carnal invention as R. F. hath done for want of expected assurance at the participation of it is a rash fruit of unbelief and proud impatience and to call us Deceivers * Page 20. for keeping to the Institution which remaineth firm in it self while it proves ineffectual to many an unworthy communicant is to hide himself in his self-deceivings Finally to cry out Oh horrible delusion is to cast a mist before others eyes that they may not see where the jugling and the jugler lie close together For what saith he further The Kingdom of God consists not in meat and drink but in righteousness peace and joy in the holy Ghost and in that Kingdom wheat-bread and red wine is not the souls food but the precious blood of Christ Rep. 1. Where the Apostle speaks of the choice things wherein the Kingdom of God consists viz. righteousness c. Rom. 14. 17. he is not treating of bread and wine at Rom 14. 17. vindicated the Lords Table but of meats and drinks which Jews and Gentiles made a difference about ver 2. One believeth he may eat all things another that is weak eateth herbs He was the stronger Christian who found his liberty to eat of all things i. e. all creatures appointed for
that in Chap. 17. or after his distinct consecrating words of blessing and thanksgiving and his giving and their taking of the bread and wine at the end of the whole action for John 18. 1. compared with Mat. 26. 30. the prayer after the Sermon ended and the * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hymn sung by them all they go forth over the Brook Kedron into a Garden in Gethsemane near to the Mount of Olives It appeareth by what is said it was a distinct Supper from the rest attended with solemn Speeches Prayers and Praises in prose and in a Song If all the Quakers drink in James Naylers Doctrine they will then take up Prayer and Thanks at meals which many have laid down they will be frequent in singing Hymns even as oft as they eat and drink it must be done if they will believe what he saith the lord hath revealed unto him But some will be wiser I hope then some other and hear reason as it divinely lyeth in the Scripture The Scripture calleth the instituted bread and wine this bread and this cup and this cup of the Lord 1 Cor. 11. 26 27. And this bread it calls Christs body and this cup the cup of the new Testament and the wine Christs blood Will J. N. or any of his friends be so profane as to call every piece of bread he eateth and every draught of drink with such an Emphasis and such a title Will he make no meals of any thing but of bread and drink or will he have all his own and Believers drink to be of the fruit of the vine Thus the Scripture describeth the Lords Supper to consist for the outward matter of bread and wine as I have before proved for R. F. his conviction The Scripture neither from Christs mouth nor Pauls pen saith As oft as ye eat and drink it is the Lords Supper but as oft as ye do this eat of this bread drink of this cup ye do shew the Lords death till he come What boldness is it to make that temporary and of short continuance which the Apostle saith is to be held up till he cometh 1 Cor. 11. 26. And such a coming he speaks of there as in other of his Epistles but especially consult 1 Thess 5. 2. 2 Thess 2. 1 2. Secondly You will finde him suggesting to the lost bewildred soul * Love to the lost pag. 43. That the Church at Jerusalem did continue in the Apostles doctrine c. and breaking bread from house to house did eat their meat with gladness c. What then If their breaking bread and eating meat be confounded that in ver 42. with that in ver 46. here was confusion in the Churches greatest purity which J. N. denieth If bread and wine was distinctly used after the Lords institution and apart from their civil repasts and meals then he hath nothing makes for his transfigured Supper from this Scripture But ver 42. speaks of Church-ordinances by themselves Acts 2. 42. 46. cleared and ver 46. of Family-repast as distinct from the other and the latter words explain but the former their breaking bread domatim or at home is said to be eating meat which was not the Lords Supper J. Nayler reads it daily breaking bread from house to house but 't is not so read or to be read though 't is a truth to be supposed they did daily take their ordinary repasts more then once a day but they continuing daily with one accord in the Temple c. There is nothing of certain ground for daily use of the Lords Supper but Acts 20. 7. will shew us the primitive practise of assembling every first day of the week for that breaking of bread at the Lords Table and so Tremelius out of the Syriack hath it 1 Cor. 11. 20. When ye come together In die Domini nostri on our Lords day ye do not eat and drink as is meet And if it be read after the Greek as we read it When ye come together into one place c. it sheweth the eating and drinking of the Lords Supper was and should be by the Churches respectively as that at Corinth for one in some one place together and civil ordinary meals should be as they were at Jerusalem at first in their own houses 1 Cor. 11. 34. Thirdly saith J. N. * pag as above In their eating and drinking at all seasons they were to do it to the Lord and therein to have communion with his Body and his Blood and for that end were to keep themselves pure from all pollution It is a truth nor they nor we are to sin in any action but whether we eat or drink c. do all to the Lord and his glory we are not to feed without fear we are to keep from all excess do all in a mortified way think and speak of Christ at dinner and supper but this must not nullifie or make void the peculiar Ordinance of the Lords Supper but rather we must frequently observe it as a solemn help to purity and mortification influential into our whole conversation Communion with Christ and his Body and Blood is to be perpetually held up in all our actions natural civil and sacred by faith and the communion of his Spirit but the communion with him in the use of the memorative signs of his body and his blood viz. bread and wine solemnly set apart by his special appointment for that end is yet an advancing work distinct by it self from other actions of ordinary communion Fourthly J. Nayler in the place aforesaid presumeth when the Christians were to eat with Gentiles-unbelieving they were to partake of the Table of the Lord as is plain 1 Cor. 10. which is neither plain nor true understood of the same time place and company as this man holds it forth for their eating with the Infidels was at best when there was no meat offered to idols or no knowledge of it no scruple made about it but a civil correspondence and there was more then Bread and Wine the onely outward materials at the Lords Table even whatsoever was sold in the shambles ver 25. Besides the place and company where and with whom they did eat and drink at the Lords Table was in some one Meeting-house or other as the house of Gaius Rom. 16. 23. for one where the whole Church and onely the Church did participate It is to no purpose what he saith afterwards * Page 44. Whether they eat or drank they were to do it to the Lord as at his Table for every like is not the same and although different actions meet in the same general ultimate end yet there are special subordinate ends to each of them Fifthly he addes There is no other thing can keep from feeding in the lust and eating to the lust but to eat in remembrance of Christs death til he come c. And I subjoyn It is not our eating every day in fear
Jerusalem the promise of the Father of which he had told them before his death which they were to shew so often as they broke bread till he came and after he was come to the Apostles they continued it for their sakes which were weak in the faith to whom he was not yet appeared Where by the coming of Christ he would have his lost Souls understand his coming in the Spirit onely and not minde what Paul saith of the after-continuance of the Lords Supper till his visible glorious appearance onely if he hath appeared in the Spirit it is enough the Lord is come they are now perfect and may cast off Gods instituted Forms of Worship in the former figure onely for others sake they may keep them up but then poor souls what will follow You that are not yet arrived at their perfection must hold fellowship with them that may forget Christs death for they eat and drink no longer in remembrance of him and put dooms-day out of their thoughts and then the sensuality charged by James Nayler upon others seizeth upon themselves But against this poyson let me give you a few Antidotes 1. No Believer is without the Spirit and the Lords coming Antidotes in Spirit as it came at first to the Apostles before Christs death and to the Corinthians by Pauls ministery at their first conversion 1 Cor. 2. 4. and to the Thessalonians 1 Thess 1. 5. 2. There are none that have the greatest measures of the Spirit in a sanctified way but have need of more Phil. 3. 12. 3. The Apostles continued the Lords Supper after the pourings out of the Spirit Acts 2. 1. for their own use and benefit for 't is said Acts 2. 42. The converts continued in the Apostles doctrine and fellowship and breaking of bread and prayers not that the Apostles continued it for their sakes onely who were weak in the faith The strongest Believer walks but by faith here and not by sight 2 Cor. 5. 7. and will have need of such wheat-bread and red-wine as a bait in his walk and journey And although the Apostles had gifts extraordinary Acts 2. 1 c. conferred upon them their Sanctification was not then perfected Peter one most forward slipt and stumbled now and then Acts 10. 14 15. Gal. 2. 12 13 14. Barnabas a good man and full of the Holy Ghost and of faith Acts 11. 24. yet fell into sharp contention with Paul stumbled on the blinde side in siding with Mark his sisters son Col. 4. 10. Acts 15. 37 c. and halted with Peter Gal. 2. to instance in no more 3. The comings and manifestations of the Lord in his Spirit may be lost in a great degree by the Saints as the experiences of David Psal 51. 11 12. Heman Psal 88. 11. 15. and others are upon Record in Scripture Famous is that of Mr. Robert Glover Martyr who two or three days before his death was lumpish and desolate of all spiritual Consolation till going to the Stake the Lord restored his Joys and then he cryed out to his friend Mr. Bernher Austine he is come he is come Christ is free to come or go and withdraw as he pleaseth both as to the in-comes of joy and of power also and look to it O ye lost souls who trust to these deceivers that trust to their present manifestations were they never so true their hearts deceive them and their doctrines deceive you if onely you keep to ordinances and that of the Lords Supper till you have got a little comfort and then bid farewell to all Great is the pride and unthankfulness of such who after they have been enlightned and have tasted of the heavenly gift and were made partakers of the holy Ghost and have tasted of the good word of God the sweetness of the promises and the powers of of the world to come do fall off from the means and ordinances a great forerunner it is to the unpardonable sin to wilful malitious Apostasie which if it be totall will be final and irrecoverable Heb. 6. 4 5 6. c. 14. Head of their Scripture-contradiction Concerning Prayer Section 41. I Had noted their express contradiction we are against publique Prayer to what we have 1 Cor. 14. 14. and 1 Tim. 2. 8. for prayer in the publique meetings of the Church and in every place R. F. * Page 21. Publique prayer not forbidden by Christ tells me I have wronged the words by turning them into a wrong sense Rep. What is their sense He saith they are against a publique prayer which is in the state of the Pharisee Rep. What is a prayer in the state of the Pharisee He tells us that which Christ forbids Matth 6. 5. Matth. 6 5. vindicated Rep. 1. What have we there let the words be read And when thou prayest thou shalt not be as the hypocrites for they love to pray standing in the Synagogues and in the corners of the streets that they may be seen of men Here is no prohibition of publique prayers in publique places but of affectation of private prayers in publique places to be seen and observed of men It is indeed Pharisaical to fall to private devotion when a publique work is in hand in the same place or when there is none yet there is company to observe it is without and against rule to pray by a mans self when the company cannot be edified by that which a man speaks unto God and not in the hearing of the persons present and to their understanding but R. F. hath not this sense but judgeth rather we are all in the state of the Pharisee who are the mouth to the rest in our publique meeting places 2. We have found their practical opposition and refusal of joyning with our publique prayer which is the best interpreter of their sense and speaks more what is in their hearts then R. F. his gloss upon it Once at Edinburgh one of theirs went out at the end of my Sermon after he had spoken what he had to say when I told him I would go to prayer for the discovery where the error laid on his part or ours Another time since at Cogges-hall in Essex on a day of prayer and fasting when I was about to pray before Sermon one J. Parnell first being called upon by the magistrate to put off his Hat ask't why he bade not him in the Pulpit put off his Cap and then turned his back upon the ordinance although he was offered liberty to speak further if he would stay quietly till our work was ended if this be their maner of owning publique prayer it is neither after the way of truth love or peace nor after the order of the Spirit of God who teacheth better maners and behaviour before God and men R. F. must not think to put us off with but the praying with the Spirit we own as if they that pray in publique did not pray with the Spirit or that it
the Scripture Rep. 1. How would I have him that believeth born of the Letter my words were these If the Scripture be in the heart of every one sure he that believeth is born of that seed even of the Scripture-promise set into the heart by the holy Ghost hence he that is born of the Spirit is born of the word written and preached which the Spirit useth as the instrumental means of our regeneration as upon that place in Peter 1 Ep. Chap. 1. ver 23 and 25. hath been cleared heretofore Part 1. Sect. 5. 2. The Scripture-promise declaring Christ is the more apt means by which the Spirit begets a soul to Christ or formeth him in the soul 3. That the Letter declareth Christ doth not contradict the Scripture but it contradicteth the Scripture to say the declaration of Christ is not a means of begetting a soul to Christ 4. To say Let all see whether we do not set the Scripture in the heart of every one and yet to deny the Scripture to be a means of the new birth or that the believer is born of God without the Scripture is to say and un-say But R. F. * page 26. would retort this upon my self and why I have not the same minde with them and know not their meaning and so raise lyes as he chargeth upon me by my imaginations Rep. 1. If I have the minde of Christ as it is in Scripture I shall not be ambitious of nor much regard their meaning but as I know it to be cross to the minde of Christ I have according to the grace given unto me witnessed against it and yet studied to put the most candid and favorable construction upon their words 2. If their sense of setting Scripture in the heart of every one be nothing else but telling people they have a light of Conscience within them and stirring up that light which every man hath that cometh into the world First they delude poor people who never heard that Light called Scripture before yet this is more then probably their best Scripture for their Tenents and Doctrines as might be gathered from the answer that J. P. a yong stripling who came into this Town last summer gave to a weak re-baptized woman shattered by his discourse whose question was But may I not read the Scriptures The answer was Read thy heart woman as she told me that was all she could get of him There is a book of Conscience to be read indeed but is not the book of the Scriptures and Gods Statutes to be read according to which beyond the book of every mans Conscience all that have that written rule shall be judged Secondly If every mans light be the onely Scripture in the minde that these men are in why doth R. F. * In his Book entituled A true testimony c. pag. 53. appeal to that which is the alone proper perfect Scripture in our judgement and which he calls for to stand as judge betwixt them and 42. Ministers Will he stand to the judgement of the Prophets and Apostles as it is the minde of Christ the word of God Will he not appeal when all is done to a higher Court of immediate Teachings in the heart If the Scripture be judge it must be so from its own light that is superior not onely to every mans light but also to the degree of light that is in every Saint and that is superior to our meanings and theirs for the Scripture must judge by its own words and meaning together and from its own rule we must not separate the Letter of the Law and the true interpretation of the Letter The Law-makers we say are best able to give the right sense of the Law The great Law-giver gives out his sense of one part of Scripture by another Can any Law judge of Heresie but the Law of God saith R. F. in the Book and Page last referred unto in the margent If he intends there any Law of God but the written word and text of the Bible Gods great Law-book he contradicts in heart what he pretends to in words If he understands by the Law of God the holy Scriptures of God called the Bible then he pretends to that acknowledgement of them as a standing rule and a more standing rule then visions and revelations and if he intends what he pretends to then he must recant what he wrote in the 3. and 4. Page of his imaginary Scripture-vindication or else lie setter'd in his Self-contradictions 2. Head of their Self-contradiction Concerning hearing of the Word Section 10. I Had granted they say and say truly because the Scripture saith so Joh. 8. 47. They that are of God hear his word and they that hear his word hear his voice and yet they deny the hearing of Ministers that speak this word and consequently they do either un-say what truth they spake before or deny themselves to be of God in that they both refuse themselves to hear and call off others from hearing R. F. * Page 26. because I granted the first part of their contradiction to be a Scripture truth runs away with the conceit of an advantage when 't is nothing so Thou says They say and say truly then they lye not neither do they say and un-say and so thou art taken with the lye again and clears them thy self Rep. How weak and giddy this mans apprehension is may appear many ways by the review of this passage 1. I attributed truth to their words no further then they agree with the word of God in Scripture and so far I will acknowledge truth because I love it and the Scripture of truth but this man when I grant an inch will take an ell 2. It followeth not if men say true in one thing that they speak the truth in every thing The devil can speak a truth the more cunningly to put off his lyes That may be a truth materially which will not be found in mens practical experience so acknowledged 3. It is beyond all controversie that in this as many other instances they say and unsay first owning the Scriptures and ministery and hearing of the word and then dis-owning all teachers and teaching but what is within first saying * A discovery of some fruits c. pag. 9. the peoples Teacher cannot be removed into a corner and by and by telling them you will finde your teacher as you lye in your beds Even as customary swearers reproved for their sin will swear they did not swear so men habituated in Self-contradiction will vehemently protest against it but it helps them never a whit 4. It is no new thing to have the reproach of lying cast upon me or others by one who cannot judge or understand what is truth or when 't is spoken truly 5. I am so far from clearing them that I renew my charge against them if they be all like R. F. in this maner and form following The more candidly the
sometimes uttered First The Apostles sense 2 Cor. 4. 6. is by allusion to 2 Cor. 4. 6. vindicated Gods work in the old creation to witness his power in the new In the old he commanded light to shine out of darkness He said Let there be light and there was light creating it of nothing There was a pre-existent subject before light was created viz. darkness of the air but no pre-existent matter which light was made of much less was light there before within the darkness for though God commanded the light to shine out of darkness it doth not follow that light was there before So God working by his Almighty power in the new creation he hath saith the Apostle shined in our hearts to give the light which was not there before of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ The faculty of the natural understanding was there as the pre-existing subject but there was no fore-existing matter out of which this light is produced The Apostles sense again in Gal. 1. 16. is not to Gal 1. 16. vindicated favor these mens opinion as if Christ had been in Paul vailed over before conversion and then revealed in him as being there but Paul did not know it till his conversion But God revealed his Son in Paul when he did immediately effectually and experimentally shine into his heart and gave him the knowledge of the glorious mysteries of the Gospel in the clear knowledge of Christ given for him given to him and now dwelling in him and he doth reveal his Son in others ordinarily when after he hath knockt at their hearts he opens the door by his Spirit gives faith to consent that Christ shall come in and dwell there Ephes 3. 17. Before faith Christ is kept out of the heart but when a soul believes and his faith worketh by love and love by obedience as Christ came in and took possession from first believing so in his good time he doth manifest himself unto the soul John 14. 21. The Apostles sense Col. 1. 27. Col. 1. 27. vindicated is not as if the light of Christ for salvation had been in the Gentiles hearts in a mystery before their effectual calling The mystery of salvation by Christ was wrapt up in the Scriptures of the old Testament and in Types and Figures among the Jews not in the least hinted to the Gentiles mindes before the Gospel came But when the Apostles When and how Christ is in the soul came to preach Christ crucified to their ears through grace they believed the report for themselves at Coloss as elsewhere and knew the grace of God in truth had Christ his image stampt upon their hearts and the Spirit of Christ dwelling in them This was not light breaking forth from their hearts as having been there before their union with Christ and Christs taking up their hearts as his Temple but the light of the glorious Gospel breaking into their hearts which 1. Is called the riches of the glory and the Pronoun which before is Christ in you refers not to mystery for that is of the Neuter and the Pronoun * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Masculine Gender but to riches * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the same Gender with which in the Greek The glorious treasure and substance of the mystery which rich glorious treasure is Christ in you the light in every man is a poor base beggerly scrap to this Gospel-pearl and treasure 2. This riches summ'd up in Christ and Christ the substance of the Mystery is confined to the Saints ver 26. and is onely in them ever after their closing with Christ reigning and prevailing to the purity peace and joy of their souls and evidential hope of their future glory Secondly The assertion of Christs being within men before conversion contradicts themselves as I discovered in my former piece who say In the Ages past Christ was not revealed every man had not that light The Son of God is not revealed as Christ but as he is Mediator in the Ages past Christ was not so revealed they had not say they that light viz. as he is Mediator therefore Christ as Mediator was not within men by the light given to every man And here I leave them R. F. among them as I found them and discovered them in this Section in their own darkness of Confusion and Self-contradiction till the Lord shall convince them thereof and bring them out of it Section 12. ANother Contradiction of themselves concerning the Light in every man I noted in this Section viz. That they magnifie it and vilifie it in the same respect as it is the light of the first nature and of every man in his first state since the fall R. F. * Page 26. takes up two of the passages to answer but takes not off their Self-contradiction The first They magnifie every mans light to be a Law written in the heart to judge and condemn all sin and therefore they say the day of judgement is come and anon they vilifie the light of natural men who are a part of mankinde as filthy waters and every man in his first state is a beast To this all that R. F. hath to say is Where judgement is brought forth into victory sin is condemned in the flesh and there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus c. and such have boldness in the day of judgement for as some mens deeds goes before-hand to judgement others they come after and therefore a day of judgement is to come Rep. If these men would disparage every mans light in respect of the Saints light they would be something ingenuous and if they did not put every mans light in the place of Christ the Spirit and his writing in the heart and then call them waters of Babylon nor sometimes say upon Adams fall pure reason was destroyed c. and anon call every mans light pure light they would not be so Scripture and self-contradictious as they are nor would they confound what they ought to distinguish as R. F. confounds the judgement of a natural conscience and the Spirits Gospel-conviction of sin Righteousness and Judgement together Justification he confounds with Sanctification and a day of Judgement present with the day of Judgement which is to come Scripture-expressions he useth here as elsewhere but not with the Scripture-scope and meaning The passage I quoted out of Ben. Nicholson his Returns to a Letter Page 13. speaks of the Law written in the heart of The Spirits conviction of judgement beyond the judgement of a natural conscience every man which they say doth judge and condemn all sin R. F. tells us of a Judgement brought forth into victory and when that is done sin is condemned in the flesh but say I according to Scripture the Law written in the heart of every man neither condemns all sin nor discovers either the root of
all sin nor half the branches of it and Judgement is far from coming forth into victory till Christ brings it forth not onely by Gospel-conviction which is far beyond and above the conviction of a meer natural conscience but by Gospel-sanctification and by his second writing of the Law not in old stony hearts but in new and softned hearts But if natural conscience be so potent to be victorious at last why do they call every man in his first state a beast his reason corrupt but to manifest their Self-confusions Again he speaks of sin being condemned in the flesh a Scripture-expression Rom. 8. 3. used by the Apostle to set Rom. 8. 3. cleared forth Christs condemning sin in his own flesh putting of it out of office and power to condemn believers by his suffering Christs condemning sin in his flesh far beyond the conscience condemnation of sin of the punishment of their sin in that flesh of his yea fulfilling the Law for them in the same flesh Hence no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus but this is another kinde of condemning sin then what comes meerly by and from a natural conscience for that 1. Doth but condemn sin in part not all sin not original sin not unbelief c. 2. By way of discovery not by way of satisfaction for sin and of justification from guilt as is Christs maner of condemning sin 3. Natural conscience is never victorious as to deliverance of a soul from the state of sin though it be never so far obeyed but Christs condemning sin in his own humanity assumed to that end is victorious both by merit with God and by application in the conscience of a believer to stop its own and Satans accusations and throughout the Saint to set up reigning holiness in him to prevail over corruption by degrees in the state of a new creature Lastly The Apostles words 1 Tim. 5. 24. of some mens sins going before-hand to Judgement others coming after 1 â—im 5. 24. vindicated are used to another purpose as appeareth from ver 20. concerning Gospel and Church-offences and offenders some mens sins are discovered before-hand these the Church may judge others are not disclosed these God will judge It is well that R. F. grants a Judgement to come I wish he could consider it better and judge no man so deeply as he doth me before the time reckoning me with the wicked who indeed will finde it to be a day of torment for he that judgeth now shall himself be judged at that day and he that will shew no mercy in judging others shall then have judgement without mercy to his little ease joy or rejoycing The second passage which R. F. * Page 27. undertakes to defend is that of John Cam Every man in his first birth and state may see himself to be natural but is not able to judge of the things of God This is contradictious in the first part of it to Ben. Nicholson who said Every man in his first state is a beast for then he can reflect upon himself and judge of his state before God no more then a beast And the second part of it is contradictious to the first for if every man in his first birth may see himself to be natural guilty liable to sin and the curse before God then he may judge something of the things of God but that is denied why then is the other affirmed but that the man fought with himself in the dark R. F. his defence is 1. By railing and falshood Let that Book Particulars concerning the Law by J. Cam be a witness to the truth against thy ignorance and sottishness that sees thy corruptions and pleads for them Rep. This I pass by with prayer that the Lord may rebuke and remit him 2. By a truth and a falshood together The light which doth discover the natural corruptions is not natural as thou says but it is spiritual Here is a truth in Scripture-sense not in his meaning that the light which discovers natural corruption is spiritual but a falshood mixt with it that I said it was natural This will no where be found in my former or this present piece for I every where deny the natural light of every man to be able to discover a mans corrupt state Reason cannot reach the breadth nor fathom the depth of this fallen condition But let R. F. compare his own words last spoken with John Cam's and consider if one doth not clash with the other His brother saith Every man in his first birth may see himself to be natural Himself saith The light which doth discover natural corruptions is not natural but spiritual Now I ask Is it by the light of the first birth as in the first birth that every man may see himself to be natural then that light is either natural or spiritual It is not natural saith R. F. It is in the first birth saith J. Cam either these men do agree or not if they do agree with themselves it is more then we can make out by their words onely I finde what their sense is of the word spiritual not after the Scripture sense The Scripture meaneth by spiritual that which is born of the Spirit by spiritual light the light of the new or second birth but these men understand by spiritual light that which comes with the first birth a light in the soul of every man We know saith James Nayler * Antichrist in man by J. Nayler p 7 8 there is a light in spirit that testifies of Christ before Christ be known in the Creature this light is that which the Gentiles had whereby saith he they became a law unto themselves and were Jews in spirit whose praise was of God and not of men This light led them to shew the works of that Law God had written in their hearts their conscience bearing witness and excusing them in the day when God shall judge the world by his Gospel This light and the fruits of it he concludes will stand at the day of judgement praised of God but not of men Which magnifying expressions of the Heathens light are disparaged by what * Ben. Nicholson Returns to a Letter p 16. another of them saith viz. upon Adams fall pure reason was destroyed and corrupt reason took place as it doth this day in every natural man And if this man speaks the truth as he doth the other speaks what is false 1. In that he boldly affirmeth the Gentiles light made them Jews in spirit the Apostle Rom. 2. 29. hath no Rom. 2. 29. rescued such meaning He describeth a Jew in spirit to be one who is circumcised in heart or who hath the circumcision of the heart whose praise is not of men but of God Heart-circumcision and the Gentiles light are two things vastly discrepant the Gentiles light never attained to the mystery of heart-circumcision Fond men that write and speak after this maner
is no necessity then of immediate teachings setting Scripture aside nor ought we to receive any against the Scripture 2. Why may not fulness be in Christ and in the Letter How fulness is in Christ how in the Scripture conjoyned still with the sense of Scripture also The fuller the fountain is the more full is the conduit and its pipes The more full the heart is the fuller the mouth out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh and the pen writeth what is good or bad truth or error In Christ is the fulness of the fountain in the Scriptures is the fulness of the stream flowing from and carrying to the fountain and and abiding inexhausted as a well fed by a continual spring Sect. 21 22 23. Christ having all fulness superabundantly in himself he doth abundantly and sufficiently fill the Scriptures with the savor and sweetness of his good oyntments which make the virgins and the upright love him and seek after him in these footsteps of the flocks the good and old ways of Scripture-teaching 8. Head of Self-contradiction Concerning Perfection Sections 21 22. IN the former of these Sections I noted their profession of Perfection and of Quaking after Moses example at the foot of mount Sinai to cross-shins one with the other R. F. returns me nothing in answer as if convinced it is no better then I judged it a Self-contradiction and one of his own In the latter the contradiction to themselves is as gross they speak of perfection in holiness here attained before death and yet acknowledge sin dwelleth in them though not in act R. F. hath nothing to say to this also and so it must stand as a testimony against them with the rest when he and all his fraternity have said what they can their self-justifications will end in self-confusion 9. Head of Self-contradiction Concerning Quaking and Trembling Section 23. HEre I had noted the Contradiction between their profession of Quaking and trembling and prosessed boldness never having observed more daring creatures to open their lips or put pen to paper It fell out that R. F. his Reply to the Priests about Beverley was quoted for an instance he is therefore the more concerned in vindication but how doth he take off the self-contradiction even as along the Book by persisting in his evil cause * Page 28. The same power that made Moses c. to quake shake and tremble the same power we witness Rep. But Moses was under a Legal administration and at Legal what that time when he said I exceedingly fear and quake he was under a type of that Legal bondage which believers are freed from The false Apostles indeed by their corrupting the Doctrine of Justification carried Christians as much as laid in their power under the Law again for which the true Apostle Paul blames the Galatians Chap. 4. 21. Tell me ye that desire to be under the Law c. So these pretenders to a new Apostleship are discovered by their Doctrine of a Righteousness within them that is their Justification to lead people the same way as the ring-leaders among the Jews and Galatians did and would make them children of the bond-woman whom Christ hath made children of the free-woman yet boldly they will profess they are come from mount Sinai to mount Zion while their Doctrine of Justification hath no other tendency then to carry back to bondage R. F. yet seems to bleat more like a sheep then bark like a wolf in this passage We witness working out our salvation with fear and trembling Rep. 1. The fear and trembling which Paul speaks of Phil 2 12. vindicated Phil. 2. 12. as proper to believers is not that which Moses did typically represent at the foot of mount Sinai for the Apostle to the Hebrews Chap. 12. 18. to 21 denies that believers are under that state or that Legal administration with the effects of it 2. The fear and trembling wherewith believers are to Evangelical trembling what work out their salvation issueth from faith and love and Gospel-humility and is not the fruit of Legal humiliation 3. The Gospel-fear and trembling is not to be found visible or legibly to be discerned in all R. F. his vindication hitherto But he rounds me in the ear with this Thou speaks against the power of God that worketh effectually in his people as it did in Moses Habakkuk David Paul and other witnessed in Scripture thou there in contradicts the Scripture Rep. 1. To contradict the Scripture is worse then to contradict a mans self and therefore I desire the first part of this Reply may be minded by R. F. before the latter Yet there is scarce a Self-contradiction which I have mentioned and charged upon these men but the Reader will finde in it one contradiction or other to the Scripture If I should deny that Moses quaked or that Habakkuk or Paul trembled I should deny the Scripture and the Power of God but I deny that such a quaking as Moses Habakkuk or Paul when fallen to the earth Act. 9. 5 6. were taken with is the fear and trembling believers are to work out their salvation withal as for Davids it coming from the power of piety I desire we all had his measure of love to the word of God then should we tremble as he did Psal 119. 120. at the footstool of the Lord at the threatnings and judgements written and executed even upon Nations and the wicked ones and at the fatherly righteous chastenings upon our selves or his own people 2. When Gods power of majesty in visible manifestations to the eye of the body discovers it self to any as to Moses or to Paul or in visions as to Habakkuks spirit such a bodily trembling becomes them and they will not be able to avoid it but the power of Gods Majesty in visible manifestations to body or minde is not that power which worketh effectually to salvation in his people take it alone for Balaam had such a work but the Power of his love and grace in Christ which in the majesty of the Gospel is made known to us from the efficacy of our high Priest sat down Heb. 8. 1. at the right hand of the Majesty of God in the heavens is that power whereby he worketh in us and whereon he commands us humbly to rest and depend for the finishing of our salvation the same way as it was begun according to Gods good pleasure 3. How contradictious these men are to the profession of trembling I instanced for demonstration in their standing in an evil cause before magistrates without Quaking or fear R. F. * Page 29. in answer hereunto makes good the former branch of demonstration which I mentioned the boldness of his pen This is a fallacy of thine where thou hast shot out thy sting in thy tail herein thou art taught thy gradations methodically in old Antichrists school to lye slander accuse falsly and jeer and
cannot prove what thou hast said Rep. 1. Neither do my words sound as if I jeered nor was it my sense nor do I mis-report their practise 2. The proofs I shall give will evidence the truth of the charge They stand in an evil cause who being convented before magistrates deny the Scriptures to be the word of God disturb the Churches in their publique worship and that sometimes on a solemn day of humiliation All this did J. P. last summer in Essex at Cogs-hall yea and that without quaking and fear witness his challenge of him that had preached witness his question to the magistrate when he was bidden pull off his Hat why he did not bid him in the Pulpit pull off his Cap witness his skipping up the Table before four Justices of the Peace placed at it with his back towards them in the room where they examined him after the publique work was ended pretending he should be heard the better witness his denyal of the Scriptures to be what they are the word of God neither regarding what was held forth to him from Hosea 8. 12. what God hath written is his written word c. nor from Prov. 30. 5 6. Every word of God is pure c. Adde thou not unto his words c. Again that is standing in an evil cause not to own and confess the Scripture to be a Rule to walk by when called to such an acknowledgement before the magistrate this William Dewsbery and Hen Williamson would not directly afford to Judge Windham when he askt the question but put it off another way as their maner is and that Discovery of persecution in Northamp pag. 12. without fear or due respect of the Power ordained by God for they would not stand uncovered till their Hats were taken off R. F. may shoot out his arrow against me Stop thy mouth deceiver and take in thy slander again but it will light upon his own pate or he thinks to answer all with what follows The Lord makes the righteous as bold as Lyons but it cannot be applied here when men will be silent in a good cause and bold in a bad one There is a bad Lion as well as a good the roaring Lion that goes about seeking whom he may devour and that first by seducing the minde to error and then come forth the effects of bodily shaking falling to the ground and roaring as lately at Witham in Essex hath been visible and audible enough The late Teachers hereabouts some of them have been so bold as they will not give over till they knock down people as Butchers do their calves although one of the last that came by name Will Dewsbery was against such violent dealing The boldness of J. P. lately in Colchester Castle is legible enough in Print * Fruits of a Fast p. 5. 6. c. What a bold falshood is that to say our Intent was to ensnare him and bring his body into bonds or that we were gathered against the truth a bold calumny That the four Teachers as he names them of Independent companies are all Parish-Priests a bold lye as is that which followeth that I spake to the Rulers in the publique place thereby to stir up their spirits to persecute The chiefest passage which I had in my Sermon none of which he heard reflecting upon this Sect was occasionally taken up by reason of his interrupting our work viz. that in stead of the term Quakers henceforth they may be stiled Church-disturbers That this was plotted among the Priests and gathered Churches to appoint meetings to insnare the innocent is still more impudent our meeting on a solemn day of seeking God was designed to bear witness against their errors to strengthen the hands of one another in the truth and to preserve the innocent in the way of truth but for insnaring it was far from our intendment the Lord knows nor did we know that J. P. would be there till we met But all these passages with his bold Letters to the Justices after his Commitment and to the Judge after the Assizes and his bold entituling his Book The Fruits of a Fast the Lord hath rebuked after his bold undertaking a Fast of his own for many days together in the aforesaid Castle and therefore I say no more but the Lord rebuke all those of his way by this warning piece though if it be his will I desire not one of them should perish either by death or by imprisonment Section 24. Section 24. 25. THey deny as I noted from their Books all them that deny Quaking and one saith Moses was a Quaker and yet they think it scorn to be called Quakers R. F. who was concerned in this seeing of all that I have read it is he that expresly affirmeth * A return to the Priests about Beverly page 14. Moses was a Quaker hath not a word for reconcilement what I noted therefore must stand with the rest of their Self-contradictions as a Testimony against them 10. Head of Self-contradiction Concerning growth in Grace Section 25. HEre I observed their witnessing as they say of the Saints growth and the time of their pressing after perfection and weighed it with their exclamations against those who deny perfection of degrees and affirm sin to dwell in the Saints all their life time R. F. cunningly asks me * Page 29. Art thou offended that we witness the Saints growth and the time of pressing on to perfection but hides from the Reader the contradiction that follows The time of prossing after perfection is not the time of perfect attainment by their condemning those that deny perfection of gradual holiness in this life For they that are yet to grow further are not at their full and perfect growth and if the time of this life be but a time to press after perfection it is not the time of the Saints attainment to those degrees which at death their souls are filled withal And if they that witness a time of pressing on do not therein cross nor contradict the Scripture as R. F. acknowledgeth and I acknowledge that their witness doth not cross us why then will they by their acclamations of some here already perfect and without sin both cross us and contradict themselves 11. Head of Self-contradiction Concerning Forms of Religion Section 26. WHereas they pretend against all mens Forms and are against Gods Forms of administring water-Baptism and a Bread and Wine-Supper yet they take up a Form of keeping on the Hat a Form of words Thou and Thee c. All this R. F. passeth over as having said enough to the latter at least in a Pamphlet of a sheet that he entituleth The pure language of the Spirit of truth where also he defendeth nakedness or some mens going naked in these times as a figure and sign of their nakedness who are naked from God and clothed with filthy garments all this upon supposition if the Lord bid them
following the Light of Christ in the conscience To inform the ignorant we teach out of Scripture that the new-birth is not wrought by our following work but by Gods preventing Grace casting the promise into the heart and quickning that seed by the in-coming of the Spirit James 1. 18. with John 3. 5. Regeneration is not acquired by our acts but infused of God by his will and power John 1. 13. That Again c Ib. page 21. Shew if ever any natural man did get power over sin and abstain from things forbidden throughout the Scripture When before he had asked By what is the new-birth wrought if not by following c. If a natural man may get the new-birth by following the Light of Christ in his conscience then he may by such an act of obedience get some kinde of power over sin and far sooner abstain from many things forbidden then ever get the new-birth thereby There is a two-fold power over sin the one by the restraining power of God called Restraining Grace the other by the special influence of Christ and his Spirit uniting himself to the soul and taking up his habitation in a Believer as in his Temple The natural man hath the former more or less and yet remaineth a natural man and in his natural state because he wants the latter Was not Herod a natural man Mark 6. 20. and so remained even while he heard John gladly and did many things Did not Paul while in his natural state following the light in his conscience abstain from things forbidden Phil. 3. 6. was he not touching the righteousness of the Law blameless Were not those Peter speaks of escaped from 2 Pet. 2. 18 20 the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of Christ yea clean or really escaped as by a common or inferior 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 work of the Spirit and yet were in their natural state first and last What wilful ignorance is in that Querie d Ishmael and his mother cast out p. 1◠Where is such a Scripture that the most eminent believer sins in any things This is subscribed by three or four of them as if they had never read or having read not regarded James 3. 2. or will not understand Rom. 7. 21. that not onely in all the good they do or would do evil by a tyrannizing law of the old man is present with them but in many things they all offend or sin And what affected blindness in that demand e The skirts of the whore discovered by Dennis Hollister page 19. Where doth the Scripture call it self the Word of God and to whom was it the Rule of Life Who please may read over the 119 Psalm once more and view the 40 page and then consult Gal. 6. 14. and view the explanation page 44. of this Reply and the Scriptures will stand right in his thoughts by Gods blessing and he be affected to them 7. Much of Mystical Babylon and Confusion is in their writings and ways They confound common and saving gifts we not onely distinguish them but divide them Common are in many persons where saving are not saving are in all the Saints but on some of the Saints many common gifts are not conferred They confound Justification and Sanctification We distinguish them but divide them not so but they are present to the same subject or person the believer although they are not the same Grace They confound the Price of our Redemption and the application of it by power We distinguish them and divide them not so but where one goes before the other follows after according to the riches of Gods grace and the unchangeableness of his Covenant in Christ There is enough in the fore-going Reply and in the third and fifth of these Animadversions for a plain demonstration hereof It may be hoped upon no weak grounds this Sect is acting one of the last parts upon the tottering Stage of the Romish Antichrist Never I conceive did any as these so masked and disguised servire scenae suit the present occasion and times for Romes advantage but it began and will end in their confusion 8. Their Doctrines and Practices end in Apostacy of the deepest stain and Blasphemy against Christ of the highest strain The experience of James Nayler and his Comrades give sad and dreadful proof hereof When the humane Nature of Christ is not adored for its self but as it subsists in the person of the onely begotten Son of God they give and take by their doctrine of God and Christ manifested in their individual flesh the same divine Honor which is peculiar to the person of Christ alone God blessed for ever 9. There needs no farther proof of their Scripture and Self-contradictions Their Blasphemies evidence the former and their Grandees giving one another the lye demonstrates the latter We had a notorious evidence hereof the last Summer at Witham in Essex After that a blustring fellow said to be one Hubberthorn had driven divers to quaking falling down and roaring out that the flesh might be cast forth by the Spirit as he said there followed him William Deusbery in his circuit and course and tells the poor people they were fools and beasts if they minded any such quaking postures and much more to that purpose And the Narrative of their Letters and Examinations thereupon at Bristol put forth by Mr. Farmer sets a broad seal to this as the former Animadversion 10. Their Sufferings in defence of corrupt and false doctrines are no part of the sufferings of Christ in his mystical body That their doctrines are false which they attempt and labor to defend hath sufficiently been evinced and cleared The other follows by undeniable consequence It is not the punishment but the Cause that makes the Martyr as he Martyrem facit Causa non supplicium Aug. said of old who was a famous Assertor of the Truth in his time The Philistines died by the fall of the house as well as Samson sed diver so fine ac fato but with a differing scope and that through a wise-ordering Providence They suffered for their Riot Idolatry Cruelty and Impenitency he died in Faith and with zealous calling upon the name of the Lord for a publique Revenge upon his and the Church its enemies Who sees not a vast difference between James Naylers Pillory and Mr. Burtons between the Imprisonment of many disturbing Quakers in our times and of the peaceable Confessors and Sufferers in Queen Maries days Who so blinde as they that will not see Lord open the eyes and hearts of deluded Quakers and Papists Being thy people quite out of the Babylonish wilderness Forgive them that know not what they do write they know not what suffer out of devout ignorant intentions which will not justifie their unwarrantable actions or passions FINIS THE TABLE A. Acting IN a mans own strength or Christs 110 Adam In innocency under a Covenant of works pag. 100 B.
Singing See Psalms Spirit of God How in the Scripture-Letter 4 254 How proceeding from the Letter how not 5 How given by it 6 10 255 Leads to the Scripture-Rule and and by it 9 10 His Prerogative above the Scripture 31 Swearing By creatures forbidden 235 By God commanded ibid. Not in ordinary speech 237 Oaths lawful 238 Vnlawful 239 By a book unlawful ibid. Upon a book superstitious 240 T. Teaching All Believers not immediately taught 216 Who were or were not immediately taught in the Apostles days 217 220 They that pretend to immediate Teaching have had it by men and means 279 280 Transubstantiation A blinde dotage 189 Trembling True at and by the word or Scripture rightly understood 6 286 Trinity A Trinity of Persons in the Godhead proved 46 W. Warfare Saints not out of it till out of their bodies 167 Woman A woman not to speak in the Church 33 Word of God Essential or spiritual 22 25 Language of the Spirit and Word of the Scripture all one 292 Scriptures vindicated and explained  Psalm page Ps 119. 105 40 Proverbs Cap. Verse  20 9 158 22 20 21 32 Eccles 7 20 166 Isaiah 8 20 23 24 64 65 20 2 291 30 20 42 48 16 17 30 Jeremiah 5 31 42 20 9 41 23 29 Ibid. Daniel 9 1 219 Matthew 5 8 158  34 to 36 235  37 237  48 228 6 5 201  6 202 11 27 14 23 8 10 245 28 19 47  19 20 177 Luke 16 29 7 17 21 Ep. to Ch. 22 32 129 John 1 1 25 1 1 to 14 54 to 58 1 9 53 55 261 5 44 232 6 45 216 8 12 53 260 15 5 42 16 13 10 Acts 2 17 18 34  38 39 179  42 46 195 13 2 46 208  39 122 20 28 160 207  34 209  35 210 Romans 1 18 19 274 2 4 170  12 63  15 16 269  29 268 3 3 2  21 92 5 12 63  13 99 6 14 11 7 9 10 110  14 to the end 113  17 138  23 25 139  25 12 115 8 1 115  2 168 8 3 266  3 4 144  4 145  10 139 140  14 9  26 149  37 169 10 8 41  18 82 12 3 62 14 17 190 16 1 2 6 12 35 1 Cor. 1 15 16 108  21 72 2 6 162 164  9   10 17 6 11 156 9 14 209 11 1 11  26 191 198  29 197 12 7 30  12 13 178 14 14 15 202  26 29 217  31 34  34 35 33 16 19 35 2 Cor. 3 2 71  6 5  16 with 14 13 17 9 4 6 23   24 263 5 21 132 11 7 209  9 208 12 7 c. App. 2 13 11 164 Gal. 1 1 211  16 263 2 17 18 19 123  20 21 124 3 19 104  20 89  21 99  27 178 5 17 138 6 17 44 Ephes 1 17 15 2 17 18   20 81 3 17  4 4 5  5 1 9  26 179 6 2 106  17 25 Phil. 2 5 226 2 12 286 3 12 161  15 16 162 4 3 35  13 42 Col. 1 23 82  27 264  27 28 62 2 17 89 1 Tim. 2 11 33 5 18 35  24 267 Titus 2 11 75 Heb. 4 12 41   152  12 13 154  15 153 5 7 Ep. to R. 11 6 1 162  16 238 7 16 24 8 7 94 10 14 135 12 1 116  23 146 to 150 13 8 277 1 9 10 234 5 12 237 240 1 Pet. 1 13 16  15 156  22 160  23 with 25 28 4 7 App. 2 2 Pet. 1 16 19 15  19 36  20 21 37 219  21 248 1 John 1 5 68   77  8 78 2 27 41  29 142 3 3 117  5 156  6 78   79 165  10 142 4 4 169  17 164 5 7 45 46  10 245  12 73  18  Rev. 19 10 39 20 12 45 FINIS ERRATA sic emendanda in the Book PAge 4. Line 8. read the two witnesses p. 9. l. 35 r. is to make p. 21. l. 15 r. Blockhouses p. 33. l. 26. r. he may p. 39. l. 31. for immediately r. mediately p. 41. Marg. r. Jer 23. 29. p. 55. l. 21. r. re-assumeth p. 58. l. 2. r. arbitrement p. 60. l. 21. r. Rom. 1. 18. p. 91. l. 2. dele is the old p. 100. l. 24. dele to be p. 103. Marg. r. Gen. 3. last p. 106. l. 8. r. the word of p. 117. f. 28. for now r. know p. 120. l. 11. for form r. from p. 124. l. 34. for that r. but. p. 134. l. 4. the parenthesis to end at Book p. 137. l. ult dele his p. 138. Marg. r. Gal. 5. 17. p. 209. l. 26. r. Acts 20. 34. p. 215. l. 23. for to r. till p. 221. l. 2. for we are r. were p. 238. l. 13. dele to them p. 245. l. 11. r. we should p. 256. l. 1. r. be not p. 258. l. 32. for that r. the. In the Epistles Epist Ded. for debate r. debase Epist to the Reader for Bellarmine r. Bellarmine p. 9. l. 9. for professed r. possessed Julii 18. 1656. Imprimatur JOSEPH CARYL