Untruth for both our Religion and Principles as well as our Personal Reputations are concern'd in our Charge against Tho. Hicks as appears plainly both in his Forgeries Perversions and Slanders which concern both Doctrine and Practice but it seems Jeremy is very raw and unversed in the Controversies between us and yet his Confidence will serve him to engage in the Quarrel for Tho. Hicks To the second He counts this another of our poor Put-offs and Unreasonable that he should make good any more then he has charg'd against us He counts it unreasonable then to personate T. H. in the Matter that we charge against him was it not then Unreasonable he should so deeply engage for him before But Jeremy sayes He is ready to make good what he has charged against us by the Grace of God if we DARE meet him But this is to be understood as a distinct Offer of it self without Respect to the Matter about Tho. Hicks However it is but single Daring and Vapouring Jeremy still whose Brags and Attempts we value not but slight his Folly therein To the third He counts this impertinent When saith he we tell them they are no Christians either of one sort or another This he tells the Quakers and it is but his own telling and I do not think but he doth in this violate some better Perswasions and Convictions that he has had in himself And while he confesseth that he is a good Christian that hath a Rule for his Faith and Practice in the Christian-Religion and endeavours to the uttermost of his Strength and Understanding to believe and live accordingly He concludes they are No Christians that have no Rule for their Faith and Practice in the Christian Religion and such are the Quakers saith he pag. 14. See what an Imperious and Censorious Judge this is He says we have No Rule though we prosess believe and practically own the Guidance of the Spirit of Christ and in Subjection thereto do own the Holy Scriptures And for our Lives and Conversations I hope he doth not conclude that either the People called Quakers in general are therein Unchristian or that his own is more Christian then theirs how comes he then to presume that we have not the Spirit of Christ or none of his Light in us for a Rule in affirming that the Quakers have No Rule for their Faith and Practice in the Christian Religion But this Presumption is not strange to us since he could openly tell William Gibson and me that We were not inlightened with the Light of Christ. I could not but then take notice of the Man's Insolency and Foolish Censoriousness but how doth he prove that the Quakers have No Rule for their Faith and Practice in the Christian Religion and therefore are no Christians He thus attempts it viz. That though George Keith to keep up your Credit with the People said The Scriptures were onned by you as a Seoundary Rule for your Faith and Practice yet Edw. Burroughs contradicts him and tells us in so many words That the Scriptures are NO Rule or Guide of Faith and Life to the Saints see his Works fol. 515. and reconcile your Prophets as well as you can Thus far Jeremy He would make the World believe that he has here given the Quakers a deadly Blow in rendring their Prophets irreconcileable yea and to fasten the Contradiction he saith that E. B. tells us in so many words That the Scriptures are NO RULE or Guide of Faith c. for this he bids us see his Works fol. 515. How now bold Jeremy I have seen the place quoted by thee and thou hast manifestly belyed Edw. Burroughs to prove thy false Charge for Edwards Words in the place are thus viz. The Scriptures are profitable and were given forth to be read and to be fulfilled yet they are not THE RULE and Guide of Faith and Life unto the Saints but the SPIRIT of God that gave forth the Scriptures that is THE RULE and Guide Teacher and Leader into all Truth See also his following words in the next Clause affirming That the Scriptures are the Words of God that the Spirit of God is THE RULE of Faith and Life to the Saints that men ought to search the Scriptures and believe what is therein written c. See now Jeremy that Edward Burroughs his words are not as thou citest them that the Scriptures are NO RULE but that they are not THE RULE and Guide of Faith and Life unto the Saints but the Spirit and yet the Scriptures to be Searched Read and Fulfilled so that he denyes them not but plainly implyes them to be A RULE but not THE RULE that is not the most Eminent or Highest Rule but the Spirit And how doth this contradict George Keith's saying That we own the Scriptures as a Secundary Rule which also implies a primary or Principal Rule to wit the Holy Spirit as well as E. B. doth in his words before For my part I cannot understand any more Contradiction between saying The Scriptures are a Secundary Rule and yet not THE RULE and Guide of Faith and Life unto the Saints then there is between saying Jeremy Ives is a Baptist Preacher and yet not the principal Preacher among them or between Jeremy Ives's being a Man and yet not the Chief or Best of Men though I confess this too mean an Instance for the Subject before but only somewhat to illustrate the Distinction I was unwilling to have charged Jeremy with Forgery from the Place he quotes in saying that E. B. tells us in so many words that the Scriptures are NO Rule But now upon Enquiry and Search into his Falshood herein I am satisfied that I should do him no Wrong to charge It upon him and let the Place quoted by him in E. B's Works determine it Again I find no Inconsistency between William Smith's confessing Christ and the Spirit of God to be the Rule for trying Spirits searching the Heart and not the Scriptures yet confessing them to be of great Service and G. K.'s owning the Scriptures for a Secundary Rule that Christ should be preferred before and above the Scriptures both as to trying and discovering and yet they serviceable in their place as Christ opens the Understanding in them can be no Opposition But Jeremy objects That the Quakers deny the Scriptures to be a Rule of Faith and Practice comprehensive of the whole Duty of Man 1. That they are so comprehensive as declaring the whole Duty of Man respecting Faith and Practice as to the Sum and Substance thereof respecting Man's Salvation I know none of us deny But that they are not that Manifesting Rule of every particular Act of Faith and Obedience that God may require respectively I think this Opposer cannot deny but that he hath granted thus much at sundry Discourses as with respect to such Prophets and Messengers as God might for ought he knew raise up in these dayes and peculiarly commissionate and
also thy Brother T. Hicks whose Quarrel thou hast espoused hath used such Language to some of us as Knave Impudent Fellow Audacius Fellow Coxcomb c. which is much like thy Pittyful Fool Knave Loggerhead c. See now Jeremy how thy own Observation and Charge is deservedly retorted upon thy self Art not thou found a Huffer yea and a Puffer too a Railer a Scorner and Disdainer and thinks it a great Disparagement to be accounted short of an Honest Heathen but I must tell thee that there are many Heathens that are a great deal more sober serious and fearing God then thou art as thy Lightness and frothy Deportment at the late Meetings did evince However thou braggest of thy being able by the Grace of God to approve thy self as Honest in all thy Correspondencies in the World as the best of them and challengest us to produce the Person or Persons that shall say otherwise of thee How thou art able to approve thy self and how thou hast approved thy self have a different Sense But however I must tell thee It had been more proper and more credible for others to have thus commended thy Honesty then to have done it so highly thy self but as for these Things it is not my present Business to seek or enquire out Occasions against thee in the Concerns of this World let those speak that are offended if they have Occasion given them or have complained of thee I have enough against thee of other Concerns Whereas Jer. Ives untruly chargeth our Friends Papers too abound with Untruths pretending himself so much oblieged by the Laws of Good Manners as that he will not call them Lyes and Forgeries of which he shall mention but Two which are 1. That he pretended to be delegated by T. Hicks but was not 2. That in the Dispute when he was to prove us No Christians instead thereof he put us to prove our selves Christians To prove the first an Untruth he sayes he was concern'd by their Consent else how came we to direct our Letters to him with Mr. Kiffin and others Jeremy thou art besides the Business here for thy pretending to be delegated was in T. Hicks's Cause at the Meeting near Wheeler Street and that he might be concluded by thee as personating him Did not this concern those Matters whereof we charg'd him for thou may'st remember this was urg'd at the Dispute The Letters to thee and the rest did not concern thee to personate T. H. in his Absence there but only as an Assister of him in his Presence amongst the rest but that thou wast not so delegated to personate Thomas Hicks nor that he gave up his Cause to be concluded in Jer. Ives seems evident 1. In that Jeremy and those then with him durst not enter upon the Particulars charg'd against T. Hicks as Forgeries nor would suffer them to be read 2. In that we have a Certificate to the contrary under Tho. Chamberlain's hand signifying that John Gladman told him that T. Hicks said That Jeremy Ives was not deputed by him And to the second I wonder that thou canst call this an Untruth that when thou hadst said Thou wouldst prove us no Christians instead thereof thou calld'st for an Evidence of our Christianity or put us to prove our selves Christians and W. Penn to produce Evidence to distinguish himself as a true Minister that hath Immediate Inspiration for his Rule from an Impostor See the Narrative of that Day 's Meeting from page 52 to page 56. in the taking of which Discourse we had both Careful and Ready Writers and I am sure that Jeremy's Attempts to prove us No Christians and W. Penn an Impostor did amount to that miserable Shift of calling for an Evidence on our parts as before and he now confesseth That he did require an Evidence for the Rule of our Faith and Practice by Inspiration pag. 6. And was not this then for an Evidence of our Christianity while we do not profess any real Christianity without Faith and Practice by Inspiration An Evidence of our being Divinely inspired must be an Evidence of our Christianity for none are true Christians who deny Divine and Immediate Inspiration And I do not understand what Jeremy Ives scoffs at us as Idle Enthusiasts for Enthusiastick Principles but for holding this of Immediate Inspiration nor do I see but that his Charge of Untruth in those two things before is justly to be turn'd upon himself as an Untruth against us He concludes That he might by all Laws of Dispute require Evidence of Inspiration being the Rule of Faith and Practice he would make the World believe that he is very expert in all the Rules of Dispute but I tell him It had been more proper and reasonable for him to have required Evidence of our being Divinely inspired as a Man in an enquiring unsatisfied Condition that wants Information then as one that had given and promised before to prove his positive Charge of the Quakers being no Christians It was his Part to prove this or else to have acknowledged his Confident Rashness Folly for could he with any Seriousness demand an Evidence of our being inspired of God when before he had concluded us no Christians and promised Proof thereof and saith At this turn we could do no more then Muggleton which is a Reviling Aspersion But we are sure it was a sorry Shift in him instead of proving the Quakers no Christians to put W. P. upon either proving himself a Minister of Christ or to produce an Evidence for the Rule of his Faith by Inspiration and what that Evidence was he would have besides the Spirit 's own self-Evidence concurring with a Holy Conversation he did not shew us but this is like the rest of his uncertain Work against us to make a Buz and a Noise in the World to render such Odious as are more Righteous then himself as in his Hypocritical Audacious Daring Challenge he most falsly accuseth us 1. Where he saith That W. Penn ' s Confession of his Faith though in Scripture-Expressions was but a meer Equivocation 2. That though our Discourses and Confessions of Faith be cloathed with Scripture-Language now more then formerly they are but gross Equivocations 3. That our former Opinions I suppose since we were a People were Vile Absurd and Nonsensical and that he proved to our Faces to make Void all Rules of Faith and Christian Practice 4. That by Force of Argument he drove us to that streight that we could make no Reply 5. He chargeth us with base and insolent Behaviour in hic Absence These are notorious Falshoods and to these two last many Hundreds that were present can testifie the contrary and that Jeremy Ives herein is a most false and ridiculous Boaster These Falshoods together with his daringly challenging grosly reviling us in his Paper are notwithstanding entituled by him A sober Request but now since we find upon the same Challenge another Title put before
the late Wars against the King whenas that very Book quoted by him entituled The West answering to the North printed 1657. doth in the whole Tenour of it severely reprehend those then in Power to wit Oliver and his Ministers for their Oppressions Cruelties and Arbitrary Tyrannical Proceedings which they pretended to condemnin those before them though there might be some Words too harsh in the said Book as reflecting backward but with an Intent to judge them then in Power yet it is to be considered as chiefly writ by two Officers or Captains of the old Army being Common Wealths Men as I understand who had not as then wholy got over the Warring Spirit however did sympathize with our Poor Innocent Friends when they beheld their deep Sufferings as in some Degree sharing with them though its probable some Remainder of their former Sharpness of Spirit was left wherein they had been animated by such Zealous Chaplains as Jeremy yet those Books quoted by him were extant long before the King's Pardon which he pretends so greatly to respect but we have not gone about to serve him and his Brethren thus as to rake up all the Baptists Books that concerned the former War and Matters of State before the Kings coming in or Act of Indemnity However this we find Cause to believe that whatever Respect J. Ives his Brethren may pretend either to the Kings Gracious Pardon or the Law of Charity they would shew little Mercy if they had Power to execute their Enmity as well as to render us obnoxious to the Government such as Jer. Ives and his Brother T. Hicks would in all Probability be as busie Agents for our Ruine as they are now to endeavour it by such an Indictment as this that is made up of their present Accusations against us viz. That you justifie the late Wars against the King that you are No Christians nor worthy of so venerable a Name that your Doctrines are Destructive both to Scripture and Christian Religion that your Confessions are gross Equivocations that your Opinions do make void all Rules of Christian Faith and Practice that your Friends of the Ministry are Impostors false Prophets and Men of Lying Spirits Thus far J. Ives And then T. Hicks in his Dialogues against the Quakers viz. That you are Destructive to all Human Society Inconsistent with Government that you are as vile Impostors as ever were that your Religion is a meer Cheat calculated to the Service of the Devil and your own Lusts horrid Blasphemies that your chief Motive and Inducement to suffer is the Satisfaction of your Wills and Lusts or the promoting of your Carnal Interests that you are the Spawn of the wicked Brood the Ranters and have likt up their Vomit Romish Emissaries Hereticks Mad Men Infatuated such as esteem the Holy Scriptures of no more Auâ—hority then Esop ' s Fables and the Blood of Christ no more then an Unholy Thing or the Blood of a Common Thief yea worse that you reprobate the Holy Scriptures and the Person of Christ that you deny any future distinct Beings Rewards or Eternal Advantages to Men after Death that your owning Christ and the Christ you own is a meer Mystical Romance and that your Meetings are to Inveigle and Trapan People As also he recriminates the Quakers in General with the Enormities of some Particulars These with many more such like most bitter false and absurd Invectives by Tho. Hicks the Baptist-Agent O Persecuting Baptists But God be thanked that these Mens Horns are shortned for if they were not it is not unlikely but they would push and persecute asc ruelly as their Invectives are Inveterate and tend thereto or as their New-England Brethren whose Persecuting Spirits would not be satisfied without Innocent Blood Again Jer. Ive goes about to impeach us with an Inconsistency and to exhibit a pregnant Proof by Retortion of our being No Christians In that the Quakers refuse the Oath of Allegiance because they are against all Swearing as being Inconsistent with Christianity or living in the Life and Power of Christ or under his Government and yet reckons that some among us swear and for Instance he puts this Question What think you of William Mead who with Others took an Oath And what think you of Gerrard Roberts who together with John Osgood who with others took their Oathes as appears by their Answer to a Bill in Chancery To all which I reply from what I think 1. I tell this Inquisitor that I think they are all honest Men fearing God and Men conscientious towards him according to their Principle and that they would not injure or defraud or wrong any in their Properties or Rights and for what they do they dare appear before and answer the great God in the great Day of Judgment However if they were Conscious they are resolved they would not make this Inquisitor their Confessor for they neither expect Mercy nor Absolution from him 2. I also think and William Mead John Osgood Gerrard Roberts are satisfied that they are able to give an honest Account of their Conscientious Tenderness in this Case and that according to a good Conscience if in Love desired or out of an honest Intention or for a good End without any Design of Injury towards them or their Profession But they have no Cause to think that Ier. Ives doth enquire or accuse them to the World for any good End or out of any Friendship to them or Love to their Souls but rather from a Design of Mischief or Injury as the Tenour of his Discourse against them imports Therefore they are resolved rather to suffer his Revilings and endure his Clamours then gratifie a mischievous Spirit by giving him Account of their Affairs or Proceedings for their Properties Rights which only they seek for and not to injure their Neighbours or any Man else in their Names Persons or Estates 3. That if either Ieremy or any Baptists or others for him have made Search in Chancery or do enquire of any Officers belonging thereto whether any of the Quakers have given in their Answer upon Oath I think that he and such his Enquirers are Busibodies in other mens Matters while 't is not their own Concernments And whilst their Design and End therein is for Evil against our Friends it might be supected by those Officers in trust concerned as not to be for Good towards them or us in their Inquiry and that therefore such busie Inquisitors might justly have met with a Repulse and been rejected and not answer'd in their captious Attempts 4. To his falsly accusing the Quakers with daily impleading People at Law I say That though some of them have Occasion sometimes to make use of the Law they are necessitated thereto to maintain their just Rights Properties from such Unconscionable Men as would otherwise make a Prey upon them to Ruin them and theirs and not to injure others or defraud any of their Rights in
his Practice as well as they It seems Immediate Inspiration is of a very little Esteem with thee and of as little Use with thee If because some falsly pretend it for that which is Absurd others cannot thereby Reprove him for it at this rate of Arguing the True Prophets Mouthes should have been stopt from Reproving the False because they pretended the same the True did and could say Thus saith the Lord c. And likewise the True Apostles should not have Reproved the False because they pretended the same thing doubtless when they transform'd themselves as the Ministers of Christ. But if by Immediate Inspiration Absurd or Evil Actions cannot be reproved where the same is but pretended then farewel all true Christianity true Savour true Sence and Judgment But doth not the Spirit of God search all things and the Spiritual Man judge all things Surely if this man did really own that there 's any such thing in being now as either Revelation from Heaven or Immediate Inspiration or that there is a True God and that He is Known he durst not talk at this idle sleighting rate as he doth about Immediate Inspiration as not a sufficient Rule to reprove Absurdities where It can but be pretended for them But yet a little before he grants a super-natural Evidence that if we can give some super-natural Evidence why we should be received as namely in writing against the absurd Opinions of such as pretend they are revealed to them but what Super-natural Evidence this is that he means he tells us not while he does not own the Sufficiency of Immediate Inspiration to reprove absurd or evil Practices Opinions by for if a supernatural Evidence doth not attend Immediate Inspiration or Revelation from Heaven it is no where to be found then it follows the Spirit is insufficient to evidence it self or it is not Self evidencing and such Doctrine as this will at length lead some to be such Fools and Atheists as to say in their Hearts There is No God But I tell this Adversary to Immediate Inspiration That the Spirit of God can no more be without a super-natural Evidence then the Sun can be without its Light God has given an Universal Evidence thereof by his Light in all men's Consciences which answers to the Spirit 's Testimony and Ministry in the Ministers of the Spirit which men may evidently see if they close not their Eyes or harden not their Hearts to cause their own Stumbling and Overthrow In order to a manifest Decision of the chief Matters in Controversie I desire Jez Ives or any of his Brethren for him to give a plain and ingenuous Answer to these Questions distinctly I. Whether Immediate Inspiration and Revelation from Heaven are in Being in the True Church in these dayes yea or nay II. Whether Immediate Inspiration be not necessary to the being of a True Christian or Jew inward III. What super-natural Evidence or necessary Proof doth J. I. require of any ones having Immediate Inspiration from God IV. Whether any one be fit to try or judge of a Super-natural Evidence or Immediate Inspiration in another but such a one as doth acknowledge and partake of immediate Inspiration in himself V. Whether he that undertakes to prove others No Christians ought not to be a True Christian and first to approve himself such a one upon a true and undeniable Definition of a True Christian Thou Hypocrite first cast out the Beam out of thine own Eye c. VI. What is the true and proper Signification and Discrimination of Enthusiast and Impostor and so the real Derivation of Enthusiasm and Imposture And whether there be not a plain Difference in the Nature of the Words For Words and Terms where either difficult or doubtful must be explaind before Matters can be clearly discussed thereupon VII Whether it be not an Undervaluing of immediate Inspiration for any to hold That thereby men cannot Reprove an Absurd Opinion or Practice in such as pretend a Revelation from Heaven for it VIII Whether the Apostles and primitive Christians were oblieged to produce an Evidence of their Faith and Practice by Inspiration at the Demand of their Enemies or only when God call'd them thereunto IX Whether to require an Evidence for our Faith by immediate Inspiration be not all one as to put us upon proving our selves Christians or equivalent thereto X. Whether it be proper or reasonable for one that has charged us with being Impostors and Men of Lying Spirits and promised to prove it insteed thereof to require a Proof or Evidence from us of our being immediately or divinely inspired and if we do not at his Demand produce such Evidence as he requireth to conclude us Impostors XI And how does Jeremy Ives prove his Call to Dip or Plunge People in Water Or what Evidence can he produce for His particular Call thereto XII And whether he does profess any Immediate Inspiration and Revelation from Heaven for his Dipping People if he doth what super natural Evidence can he produce for it if he doth not whether he may not be deemed an Impostor therein XIII Whether divers of the Baptist-Preachers have not heretofore imposed their Water-Bapitsm as Gospel or as a thing necessary to Salvation and so to the being of a Christian and Church of Christ threatning affrighting many simple People into Water upon pain of Damnation or the Curse some by telling them They must Dip or Damn XIV Whether the Baptists are of the same Opinion still That their Water-Baptism or Dipping is Gospel necessary to Salvation or to be practised upon pain of Damnation XV. And how proves Jeremy Ives that the One Baptism spoaken of Ephes. 4. is that of Water And whether his Instance of Lords many for divers Baptisms as of Water Affliction and the Holy Ghost were a pertinent and meet Instance and Comparison as between One Lord Jesus and but One proper Baptism to wit that of Water and between the Lords many divers Baptisms to wit of Afflictions and the Holy Ghost see his Quakers Quaking p. 38. XVI And what Call Gospel-Rule or Precept have Baptists for Night Dipping and Fleeing or Absenting from Meetings in Times of Persecution And whether their envious Invectives and abusive Pamphlets now in Times of Peace against their Neighbours do not proceed from the same cowardly Spirit which acted them in Times of Suffering XVII After the Baptists have try'd their Strength made Enquiry of Apostates and searched Books and Courts to pick out Occasions against us to render us as Vile as they can and not only no Christians but inconsistent with Government and all this if possible to destroy us May they not justly expect that their Mischief will return upon their own Heads and that they will fall into the Pit which they dig for others XVIII If they persist in this their course of Envy against us whether they may not as men conscious justly expect a publick Reprehension we having Occasion sufficient out of their own Books and former Proceedings to exhibit a History of Anabaptists both with relation to Religion and Government For our parts we value not their Envy nor the Worst they can do but are at Defiance with it knowing also that Christian-Life and Spirit that shall out-live their inveterate Enmity who are Confederates a gainst us and we shall therein be further manifest and Encrease but they shall Decrease XIX I would further ask if Jer Ives and his Brethren do not own them to be Christians whom they Baptize XX. And what Evidence of their Faith or Christianity do those their Baptiz'd Believers produce Answer these I have taken Occasion of late Time to take Notice of Jeremy Ives's former Envy Confusion Ignorance and Abuse that he has shewn against the People call'd Quakers in his two Books the one entituled The Quakers Quaking printed in the Year 1656. and the other entituled Ianocency above Impudency printed 1656. which I had a mind to have given the Reader some Hints of but for Brevity's sake I reserve them to a further Opportunity if Occasion be given me Though I am rather desirous that our Daring Opposer may by the Light of Christ consider his Wayes and Repent of his Evil then be concerned in Contests with him For God knows I contend not for Contention but for Truth 's sake Reader If that Passage in the 8th Page of this Treatise touching Jer. Ives his calling Arthur Cook Pittiful Fool and Knave and Loggerhead on the Exchange should be doubted of This may inform that I have several Certificates thereof under the hands of credible Persons G. W. Pag. 12 lin 21. for of Faith read of our Faith p. 16. l. 24. r. a Meeting again pag. 23. l. 12. f. had 1. hath p 30. l. 12 r. saith that now God is pag. 32. lin 14. f his r is p. 36. l. 7. r. confound and break THE END ‖ E. B. being really satisfied thâ—y could convert no real Quaker to the Church of Rome. 1 Kings 18. * As in his Primer pag. 10 11 12. * As the World knew him not should only be the Antecedent to so it may be said of this true Prophet G. F. and not that the World was made by him