our You to a single Person since it has in it the fore-named Excellencies If you know not what belongs to a Synecdoche read 2 Cor. 4. and you shall find the plural Number put for the singular almost throughout the Chapter He that has look'd least into Ancient Authors will find long before Ignatius Loyola or the Pope the Plural put for the Singular and the Singular for the Plural and this Spiritual Fancy of Youing and Thouing cou'd never have taken place with any sort of Men that had not been Strangers to Grammar Logick Metaphysicks good Learning or Sense If the Quakers are so 't is Loss of time to spend it on so trifling a Subject Call in the Jury Friend Henry Verily Friends there 's enough said to convince us of great Folly in standing so much upon this odd proud conceited piece of Singularity Judge I 'm glad to find any one of your Party so truly ingenuous as once to confess you 're in the wrong the Court will hear you with greater Regard in what remains Here 's a Bill of Complaint or an Indictment against You and other Dissenters for using false Lights for having false Hearts false Spirits for being guided by such Principles as are not of God The Reasons of this Enquiry are from the many sorts of Lights and Spirits in the World as Light Uncreated and Created Light Proper and Metaphorical Light of Nature and of Scripture Light of Sense and Reason Light Innate and Light Created So there are many sorts of Spirits besides good Ones A Familiar Spirit a Lying Spirit a Spirit of Perverseness a Foul Spirit a Deaf and Dumb Spirit a Spirit of Errour and Delusion a Spirit of Slumber a Spirit of the World and a Spirit of God The Question is Which of these Lights or Spirits the Quakers and other Separatists are guided by Quak. We are not for troubling our selves with a speculative Discourse concerning Lights or Spirits but we declare that there is in us and in all Men a Light sufficient to instruct and govern us in Matters of Faith and Life This is it we desire to walk by and so long as we do so we hope none will blame or condemn us for it Judge Whom will you be try'd by Quak. By the Sturdiness and Strength of our own Perswasion which it is our will and pleasure to call the Testimony within us Judge You shou'd be try'd by God and the Country but if you wou'd be try'd by the Testimony within we must examine whether that be a sure Test or Rule of Trial For if the Test be false the Trial must be uncertain and foolish Let me ask How you know your Testimony within is from the Holy Ghost Quak. We know it by this That God has given us of his Spirit 1 John 4. 13. Judge How do you know he has given you of his Spirit Quak. We know it by this that we cannot sin 1 John 3. 9. Judge How are you assur'd that you cannot sin Quak. Because we are born of God 1 John 3. 9. Judge How know ye that ye are born of God Quak. We know it by this Because we have a new Name given us which no Man knows but he that hath it Rev. 2. 17. Judge How do you know of a new Name given you Quak. We know it by that Spirit which dwelleth in us Rom. 8. 11. Judge How do you know the Spirit of Truth from the Spirit of Error Quak. Our Answer is still at hand and out of the Scriptures too He that knoweth God heareth us and he that is not of God heareth not us 1 John 4. 6. Judge What Witness have you to prove it Quak. The Spirit beareth witness with our Spirits Rom. 8. 16. Judge Produce your Witness Quak. He that believeth hath the Witness in himself 1 John 5. 10. Judge Friends I have catechiz'd you till I have lost you you run in a circular identical way of Discourse turn round till you grow giddy you wrest and misapply the Word of Life God grant it may not be to your own Destruction You argue very weakly You have the Spirit of God because you are assur'd of it You are assâ—â—'d of it because of the Spirit that dwells in you The best that I like in you is your seeming to depend upon the Scriptures These are the best Criterion or Touch-stone to try whether your Spirit and Light be True or Counterfeit But then we must not fix upon dubious disputable Texts but the plainest and most easie whose Sense and Meaning is agreed on by Men of all Judgments Texts deliver'd in such clear and univocal Terms that opposite Parties do apprehend them in the very same way and these cannot well be Matter of Cavil and Dispute Quak. I may not object against this Judge The Spirit that is of God is 1. A Spirit of Truth 2. Of Holiness and Purity 3. Of Unity and Love 4. Of Meekness and Order 5. Of Knowledge Wisdom and Understanding If any Man who is outwardly of a seeming good Life is yet of very ill Judgment in Points essential to Christianity as to deny the Sacraments and other Parts of Religion instituted by the Spirit of Truth he must needs be misinstructed by the Spirit of Errour and Fascination let his outward Conversation be what it will let his visible Course of Life be never so plausible or severe On the contrary If a Man be Orthodox and at the same time Dishonest of some good Opinions but evil Practice holds the Truth but in Unrighteousness so as to allow abet and encourage Villanies he is not season'd by the Holy but the Unclean Spirit let his Judgment be what it can For an honest Heathen is not so bad as a Christian Knave If a Man makes Division in a Church or Kingdom dissolves the Bond of Peace and shall endeavour to crumble Religion into as many small Pieces as idle Heads can suggest they are misled by that Spirit whose Name is Legion that old cunning Serpent that deceives the World Mar. 5. 9. Rev. 12. 9. If any in pretence of being meek ones who are by right of Promise to inherit the Earth demurely tread upon Crowns and Crosiers and would be levelling all that by God's Providence overtop them These must be guided by the Spirit of the bottomless Pit Rev. 9. 11. Lastly If Men do cite and urge Scripture against the whole Tenor and Stream of it and wander into the wrong way even by that very Word which does direct them into the right one we may soon discern what manner of Spirit they are of the Spirit of Slumber the Spirit of dead Sleep that has blinded the Mind Rom. 11. 8. Isa 29. 10. These Rules are proper for the Trying of our Quakers and other Men's Spirits But Gentlemen of the Jury there 's one thing more to be added That Vices are apt many times to pass for Vertues many Lies to Flesh and Blood are more plausible than
People with stronger Meat than with which the Church has fed her Children To preach the Doctrine of God's Secret Decrees To make the People Believe that the Lord has no more to lay to the Charge of an Elect Person yet in the height of Iniquity and Excess of Riot committing all the Abominations that can be committed than he has to lay to the Charge of a Saint Triumphant in Glory That God permits Sin that there may be room enough in the Play for Pardoning-Grace And many other such Doctrines as tend more to the Edification of the People than you can meet with in the Church of England Ch. Advoc. 'T is strange that Men should glory in their Shame value themselves for such wild Notions as never before obtain'd in the Church of God! Herein you excell the Church in Fancy in Errours but not in Truth Our Doctrines are Faith Hope Charity Humility Peace Meekness Justice Patience Obedience and Perseverance to the End Our Ministers teach the same Truths that our Dear Saviour and his Apostles taught Sound and Orthodox The Words of Eternal Life tending truly to Edification to build Men up in the Unity of the Church To grow in Grace in Knowledge and in all Vertue I would to God the Dissenters might be in Love with such Edifying Doctrines as these are But alas This talk of higher Notions of greater Edification is many times mere Wantonness and Instability of Humour and too often rather Fancy than Effect Men conceit that they are better edified not when they are more fully instructed in any weighty Point of Faith or more perfectly inform'd in some necessary Duty or more efficaciously mov'd to the Practice of what they know but when they are more gratified and pleas'd at the hearing of a Sermon or the like Those that are troubled with these itching Ears instead of being edified are commonly the most ignorant of all Men they often make an unwise choice in their Teacher and provoke God to leave them to the Vanity of their own Minds when they depend rather on the suppos'd Abilities of a Man than the Blessed Influences of the Holy Spirit and look more at Paul that plants and Apollos that waters than at God that gives the increase For it is the Blessing of God alone and not any Man's Skill in dispensing them that make the Word and Ordinances any way beneficial to us with the help of his Grace those Means of Instruction which we sometimes the most undervalue may be profitable to our Salvation without it our Ears or Fancies may be entertain'd But we cannot be edified by the most fluent and popular Tongue nor the most melting and pathetical Expressions in the World but much less by such Doctrines as were taught by the Dissenters when the Church was down I tremble to name them That the Scriptures cannot be said to be the Word of God and are no more to be credited than the Writings of Men being not a Divine but Humane Tradition That God has a hand in and is the Author of the Sinfulness of his People not of the Actions only but of the very Pravity which is in them That all Lies come out of his Mouth That the Prince of the Air that rules in the Children of Disobedience is God That in the Unity of the Godhead there is not a Trinity of Persons but that 't is a Popish Tradition That the Doctrine of Repentance is a Soul-destroying Doctrine That Children are not bound to obey their Parents at all if they be ungodly That the Soul of Man is mortal as the Soul of a Beast That there is no Resurrection on at all of the Bodies of Men nor Heaven nor Hell after this Life These are only a Taste not all nor the hundredth part nor the worst of those Doctrines taught by Dissenters in the late unhappy times when the wholsome Food of the Soul and the Dispensers of it were quite laid aside So much for Doctrine Diss Advoc. I protest Brother you have been too hard for me in this but Gentlemen of the Jury Truth may be on our side next time If we don't excell the Church in Doctrine let 's try for Worship Do you think that our Spiritual way of Worship is not better than the Forms of the Church That a Liturgy though made and review'd with that Prudence and Moderation Care and Circumspection Wisdom and Piety as any thing extant in that kind can be so good as the sudden indigested extempore Effusions of our Gifted Men Do you imagine that Inspir'd Men can be guilty of any undecent incoherent irreverent Expressions as some will complain of 'em for Or that a Form of Prayer can be so prevalent with the God of Order as a saying just what the Spirit hints What say you to that Ch. Advoc. I am sorry you should so far undervalue the Prayers of our Church and your own Judgment in comparing any performances of Prayer in your way to the most excellent Liturgy of the Church of England I durst put it upon this Expedient Let any Prayer made occasionally and extempore by the ablest and most cautious of those that magnifie the Conventicle way and despise ours be taken exactly in Writing and publish'd to the World I am very well assur'd that one Man without any great pains may find more things exceptionable in that single Prayer in a short time than the several Parties of Dissenters with all the Diligence they have hitherto used have been able to discover in the whole Service of the Church in more than a hundred Years Our Prayers as to the Substance are what Christ and his Apostles us'd in a Language understood by all those that are concern'd in them to which we may all safely say Amen But for sudden Prayers though they may happen to be good yet for the greatest part they are dangerous something of Heresie in every Sentence some Indecencies and Absurdities may be in every Word Reflect upon the Dissenters in that time when this Liturgy was out of use and every one left to his own Liberty 'T is scarce possible to believe what wild and prodigious Extravagancies were upon all occasions used in Holy things especially in Prayer the most immediate Act of Worship and Address to God 'T is an Affront to the Majesty of Religion that there shou'd be any thing in it Childish and Trivial Absurd and Frivolous that its Sacred Mysteries shou'd be expos'd to Contempt and Scandal by that Levity and Distraction that Heat and Boldness those Weaknesses and Indiscretions those loose raw and incongruous Effusions which in most Congregations of those times did too commonly attend it How can there be that Sobriety that Sense and true Devotion in an Extempore Prayer where the Mind is employ'd to find out Words and looks more like studying or making of a Prayer than Praying as in those Publick Forms which are consider'd and fixt where the Spirit or Soul has no more to
do than to mount upon to Heaven with the Wings of true Devotion and offer her Requests in these Words at the Throne of Grace Was it any Amendment instead of praying From Fornication Goood Lord deliver us to say with a Dissenter Lord Unlust us To leave out our admirable Collects for the peaceable and orderly Government of the Church and instead of these to blaspheme the Almighty by telling him If he did not finish the good Work which he had begun in the Reformation of the Church he wou'd shew himself to be a God of Confusion and such an one as by cunning Stratagems had contriv'd the Destruction of his own Children That God wou'd bless the King and mollifie his hard Heart that delights in Blood For that he was fall'n from Faith in God and become an Enemy to his Church Let thy Hand we pray thee O Lord our God be upon him and upon his Father's House But not upon thy People that they should be plagu'd O God! O God! many are the Hands lift up against us But there is one God it is thou thy self O Father who dost us more mischief than they all We know O Lord that Abraham made a Covenant Moses and David made a Covenant and our Saviour made a Covenant But thy Parliament-Covenant is greater than all Covenants with abundance of such intolerable stuff as this I cou'd name Places Time and Persons but I forbear Judge Have you any more to say upon this Head concerning Worship for the Dissenters Dess Advoc. My Lord 'T is the Way they have been us'd to and 't will be hard to persuade them to try any other Judge If that be all go on to the Third Head about Discipline or Church-Government I am willing to hear all out Diss Advoc. We thank your Lordship and the Court we have not much to say in This But New Lords New Laws we are for Change and rather than not have some Amendment in those things we have so long preach'd against nay if all that old Discipline is not laid aside we 'll venture the losing of all the Religion we have rather than submit to the Church Ch. Advoc. I 'm sorry you have no better Argument than Obstinacy When People cannot but acknowledge the Doctrine and Worship of a Church to be according to Truth 't is a Weakness an Absurdity to find fault with its Discipline which was appointed for the better Performance of Religion And the parting from that which is well establish'd the dis-setling of that which is well fixt is not the way to greater Purity and Perfection but to the Corruption and Decay of Religion unless you can shew that the Church was so much over-seen as to constitute Canons and Orders inconsistent with or destructive of the Establish'd Religion Wou'd the Church be so careful to Reform from Popery and to deliver a Pure Religion down to Posterity and not likewise take care of such a Discipline as might preserve the Esteem and Practice of that holy Religion Prove any Order of our Church sinful or not correspondent with Religion that Order that Usage shall immediately be discontinu'd This I am sure you and all the Dissenters in England cannot prove The single and plain Question then is Whether the Government of the Church or That among Dissenters is to be chosen by any Wise Man Look back upon the Changes made in Church-matters by Dissenters in the late Sanctified Times Those Changes those Alterations were not so conducive in their Nature for the Edifying and Well-governing of the Church as those things which they illegally remov'd As for Instance The Ordination by a Bishop accompanied with Presbyters was more certain and satisfactory than that by Presbyters without a Bishop Was it not better to have Forms of well-compos'd Prayers than to petition or rather affront the Almighty with Noise and Nonsense Was it not better to repeat the Creed standing than to leave it quite out of the Directory Was it an Advantage to Christian Piety to change the Gesture of Kneeling in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper when the Sacred Elements are given together with Prayer for that less-reverent one of Sitting of Sitting especially with the Hat on as the most uncomely Practice of some was and is The People being taught to cover the Head while the Minister was to remain bare among them Was the Alteration of giving the Elements an Amendment Read the Directory for Publick Worship in the time when the Dissenters did their best to excell the Church Take ye eat ye This is the Body of Christ which is broken for you This City is the New-Testament in the Blood of Christ which is shed for the Remission of the Sins of may The Words denoting Christ's present Crucifixion and either actually or in the future certainty of it give countenance to the Romish Sacrifice of the Mass Nor was the Civil Pledge of the Ring in Marriage better'd by the Invention of some Pastors who took a Ring of their Women-converts upon admittance into their Church The Forbidding the Observation of Christ's Nativity and other Holy-days did not add one Hairs-breadth to the Piety of the Nation but on the other Hand it took at least from the Common People one ready Means of fixing in their Memories the most useful History of the Christian Religion 'T is possible for meer Dwarfs in Understanding and Policy to contrive an Alteration in Government that may be pleasing to themselves for a time during their Passion and the Novelty of the Model in their own Fancy not yet disturb'd by some unforeseen Mischief or Inconvenience But 't is extreme difficult upon the whole matter to make a true and lasting Improvement fitted and fram'd to all Cases and Circumstances of Affairs in Religious Observances So that if we make a fair Comparison and let Experience and Reason rule in this Case we must say That the Government of the Church is Best still Diss Advoc. If we have got no Ground of the Establish'd Church in Matters of Doctrine Worship and Discipline I hope it may be granted we have the Advantage by much in the Purity of Life We are holier and less offensive than other Men. If you 'll not allow That we are certainly far more demure and private in our Vices more wary and cautious in letting 〈◊〉 Faults be seen by the World while the Church-men are most care 〈…〉 n that Point and seem far worse than they really are Ch. Advoc. 'T is worth our observation That no Argument has hitherto been offer'd in favour of the Dissenters but carries a sufficient Confutation along with it I have the Charity to think well of some Men who out of a true desire of pleasing God having no worldly Design at the bottom do in some Circumstances differ from us I am perswaded there are many well-meaning Dissenters who from their Hearts detest all known Wickedness And such only will rightly consider the Mischiefs of Separation which every one