Oneness of Iudgment with God's People in the things of God than have puzzled their brains about Identity of Opinion and made themselves ridiculous by Cracking of their Converse with School-men But leaving them to their thoughts and the School-men to themselves they might have learnt from the Author of the Book they are so angry with if it had pleased them to have taken notice of it that there is a difference between Sameness of mind and Contrariness of mind between Oneness of Judgment and Opposition of Judgments But if I may tell them so without offending them too much the word Opinion with respect to Religious matters is fitter for the School-men thâ—n for any that would be taken for a Quaker Nor is it aptly or properly expounded by the word Iudgment For Iudgment implies Certainty and should be Positive whereas Opinion is but Suppositive importing uncertain or doubtful Thought They complain pag. 16. that the Author of the Book they would Answer hath not made a difference between Circumstantial things and such as are truly Essential Yet they themselves have not yet told us what things they account truly Essential They said indeed once pag. 5 There are some Outward things so far Essential to true Religion as those that do contrary to them may be detected of Error But they have not particularlized what those outward things are nor whether they intend them for absolute Essentials But they are in the dark and in Confusion and no wonder having kickt against the Light and that wholsome Order which the Children of the Light have in the Light received They say Though all that fear God must and will agree in things truly Essential yet there is no necessity that they must agree in Circumstantial things Rep. This seems to me as if they should say All must agree in things Essential but they may differ disagree wrangle jangle contend and fall to pieces as much as they will about Circumstantial things There is no necessity that they must agree in them Strange But whence should this Liberty of disagreeing proceed Are not all to be led by the One Spirit of Truth into all Truth into Circumstantials as well as into Essentials Or will the Adversaries say that in Essentials indeed the Spirits Guidance is to be expected but for Circumstantials every one may choose for himself and please his own humour If they will grant which methinks they should scarce care to deny that into Circumstantial things all ought to expect and may receive the Spirits guidance and leading as well as into those things which they call Essential will they then find any room for the Disagreement they contend for Can any one of a sound mind think that the one holy Spirit of Truth will lead his Followers to contradict one another in Practice any more than to contradict one another in Words If all are led by the Holy Spirit he will undoubtedly lead them to agree not to disagree in whatsoever he leads into Of the Primitive Christians it is written The Multitude of them that believed were of one Heart and of one Soul Acts 4.32 Was it only in such things as are accounted Essential Or was it in all things then relating to Religion amongst them even in those things that were rather Circumstantial than Essential It may seem to be spoken more immediatly of those things for it follows in the Text Neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own but they had all things Common Yet none I suppose will affirm that the Community they had of Goods and outward Substance was Essential to Religion for then they that hold not that Community of Goods would want an Essential part of Religion In their 17th page having surmised before that some Circumstantial things have been over-valued they say On the other hand some seeing this as a certain wrong the Enemy hath aggravated the matter to make both wrong c. Here they seem willing to own themselves faulty provided they may fix some fault too upon those they design to asperss But they may be supposed to understand their own Guilt better than anothers If they are truly sensible that the Enemy hath made them wrong let them return to that which can make them Right They add It is our danger and will continue until the Spirit of the Son of God be more plentifully poured forth upon us that can say Father forgive them they know not what they do This say they is that which we want and should truly wait for that the great Deceiver the Occasion of all Strife and Trouble among such as fear God might be cast out c. Rep. That saying Father forgive them they know not what they do if it be spoken according to Truth and in the Spirit of the Son can be spoken only of such as know not what they do The Iews of whom the Son of God so spake Luke 23.34 knew not what they did in Crucifying him that came to save them Paul bears them that witness 1 Cor. 2.8 Now it is one thing not to be able to say of Opposers Father forgive them they know not what they do from a belief or perswasion that they do know what they do And another thing not to be able to say of Opposers Father forgive them they know not what they do from a want of the Spirit of the Son which alone can inable in Truth to say so though there be a perswasion that the Opposers do not know what they do Now this it seems is the state of the Adversaries the want of the Spirit of the Son of God plentifully poured forth upon them that can say of such as oppose them Father forgive them they know not what they do This say they is that which we want and should truly wait for that the great Deceiver might be cast out c. That this relates to themselves appears by the Advertisement which they give at the end of their Preface where they say the word We may be understood in respect to those of the same mind with the Author of their Book Their want of this shews their Condition to be bad their not truly waiting for it shews it to be worse And since they acknowledge the great Deceiver the Occasion of all Strife and Trouble among such as fear God is not yet cast out it is no wonder that he hath thus long deceived them and yet doth deceive them out of whom he is not yet cast and through them occasions so much strife and trouble to those that truly fear God But as if they had already forgot what they have here acknowledged they in the next page say As we can truly say Father forgive them they know not what they do we are not without hope But they deceive themselves if they think they can truly say that while they want the pouring forth of the Spirit of the Son of God upon them in and by which alone that
can be truly said But blessed be God Friends whom these Adversaries oppose have received the pourings forth of the Spirit of the Son of God so plentifully as that they can therein say of many whom the great Deceiver hath through the Adversaries deceived and by Deceit drawn into the Separation with them Father forgive them they know not what they do But though they here acknowledge the great Deceiver is not cast out yet they say they hope his casting out is near for say they there seems but one grand Remove to know the Mystery of Iniquity finished and that is say they to know our habitation in God who we have professed hath appeared in us by his Light and Spirit Rep. It seems then they do not know their Habitation to be in God now But if they know not their Habitation in God in what do they know their Habitation to be Or do they not know where or in what their Habitation is Oh uncertain and sad estate Our Saviour Christ said Ioh. 65.6 He that eateth my Flesh and drinketh my Blood dwelleth in me and I in him If the Adversaries object that this is an high state let them know that all short of this is too low the same Mouth having expresly said vers 53. Verily verily I say unto you except ye eat the Flesh of the Son of man and drink his Blood ye have no Life in you The beloved Disciple said God is Love and he that dwelleth in Love dwelleth in God 1 John 4.16 Again He that keepeth his Commandments dwelleth in him chap. 3.24 And hereby says the same Apostle know we that we dwell in him and he in us because he hath given us of his Spirit chap. 4.13 The Apostle Paul dedicated two Epistles to the Church of the Thessalonians which is in God the Father and in the Lord Iesus Christ. By all which it appears that it is the proper state of God's People to have their Habitation in God and that God's People then had and did know their Habitation in him And surely I cannot but in Charity believe that some of those that are in the Separation have formerly known in some measure an Habitation in God also But not keeping in the true Love but going out of that into the Enmity not keeping his Commandments but rejecting opposing scorning slighting despising reviling and vilifying them and instead of Teaching others to keep them discouraging and diswading others from keeping them have like the Angels which kept not their first Estate or Principality Iude 6. left their Habitation in God and now by their own Acknowledgement do not know their Habitation in him who they have professed hath appeared in them by his Light and Spirit but must have one grand Remove more before they can come to know their Habitation in God again O that all the Beguiled ones among them would weigh this well and see and consider what their Separation hath brought them to even to be destitute of an Habitation in God! Nay if according to what they deliver in their 7th page As man must be made a new Creature before he can come into Christ so must he travel through the whole Mystery of iniquity In the last step of which travel they say the Mystery is finished then since with them the Mystery of Iniquity is not yet finished but there is one grand Remove yet behind to know the Mystery of Iniquity finished they are not it seems yet come in to Christ. In their 17th page they say To make lesser things than Essential things Terms of Communion we have observed to be a great Evil in others and shall we cry it up as good in our selves And in pag. 18. They speak of making Nothing Terms of Communion but Essential things And something to like purpose they toucht before p. 6. Rep. This is first an evil Insinuation to prejudice Peoples minds against Friends as if Friends did set up this that or t'other thing as Terms of Communion with us Secondly it is a plain Indication that the Adversaries do not truly and rightly understand the Saints Communion and the terms thereof Amongst other Religious Societies as the Communions are outward and visible so the Terms of such Communions consist only in outward and visible things as an outward verbal acknowledgement of Creeds Doctrines c. and an outward or actual Observance or Performance of such things as are reputed Ordinances Duties Rights c. the confessing the former and doing the latter of which intitles any one to those Communions But the Communion or Fellowship of the Saints in Light is another thing For as the Dispensation of the Gospel is Spiritual so the Communion or Fellowship which stands in the Gospel Phil. 1.5 is Spiritual also The Apostles declares the Terms thereof to be walking in the Light when he says if we walk in the Light as he is in the Light we have Fellowship one with another c. 1 Iohn 1.7 As therefore the Communion of God's People is Spiritual so the Terms of that Communion are to receive the Holy Spirit to be led by the Spirit to walk in or after the Spirit to obey the motions and requirings of the Spirit So that it is not an acknowledgement of Doctrines or an Observation of outward Practices that can bring any one into the Fellowship or Communion of the People of God for the one may be in Words acknowledged and the other in Act performed by such as neither believe the one nor regard the other But it is a being truly subjected to and led by the Spirit of God both to believe and confess to the Doctrines of Truth and to take up and appear in those Practices which the Spirit of Truth leads into that are indeed the true Terms of the true Spiritual Communion And as a coming under the Government and Guidance of the Spirit of Christ brings into Communion or Fellowship with the Church of Christ So the departing from the Government and Guidance of that Holy Spirit the grieving the quenching or resisting of the holy Spirit in its requirings shuts out of the Communion or Fellowship of Christ's Church And as such a departure from the Guidance of the holy Spirit may be felt and known by those that keep under the Spirit 's Guidance by the holy Unction and that Spiritual Sense so much at this day by the Adversaries set at naught which the People of God do from thence receive as the Lord is pleased to dispense it so may it also be certainly and safely concluded from either an Abrenunciation and Denyal of any of the Doctrinal Principles of Truth or from an opposing rejecting slighting or reviling of any Practice which the Church of Christ is by the Spirit of Christ led into So that though no outward things whether Doctrines or Practices are or can be the Terms of true Spiritual Communion yet the rejecting opposing despising and slighting such outward things as the Church of Christ is by
sign of a right Christian Mind and Spirit Again they say pag. 3. Either he believes his Answer is full to the Question or he believes and knows it is not If he believes and knows it is not full then must he not only not have asserted the Truth as above but also be conscious wherefore he did it not and we conceive there 's another of their Conceptions that must either be because he wanted ability or because he wanted Truth in his way Here are a pair of inconclusive Conclusions together pieced out with a shallow Conceit of their own which I should not have thought worth taking notice of but to shew the well-meaning Reader what false ways of Reasoning they work by to beguile the simple Amongst whom though such sort of Reasoning may pass for currant and perhaps be thought of some force by such as through yeilding to the Enemies suggestions against the Truth are become vailed and clouded in their understandings yet to the opened Eye the single Eye the inlightned mind it appears as indeed it is empty shallow trivial weak and false Now as to the Answer it self after all their vilifying of it it will appear to the honest-minded to be pertinent proper and full enough to the Question to which it was given The Adversaries I perceive expected an Answer to consist only in a Yea or Nay and they account the Answer not direct because as they think it does not directly affirm or deny But it is their want of skill if without offence they may be told so that makes them think an Answer not direct unless it be exprest by Yea or Nay As the Answer relates to the Question so the Question related to as being grounded on the Definition of spiritual Liberty which the Author had given before That therefore the Answer they except so much against may appear to be both proper full and direct enough to the Question I desire both the Question it self and the Definition of that Liberty propounded in it and on which it is grounded may be seriously and impartially weighed together The true spiritual Liberty on which the Question was grounded was defined to be Deliverance from Sin by the Perfect Law in the Heart the perfect Law of Liberty c. as is before set down at large And this Definition the Adversaries have subscribed to The Question that follows and is grounded upon this Definition of spiritual Liberty or freedom is this Since God hath given me a Manifestation of his Spirit to profit withal and that I have the Gift of God in my self should I not be left to act according as I am free and perswaded in my own mind in the things that relate to God c. Now consider since it is certain that this Gift of God is universal that the Manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal and yet no less certain that All who have this Gift in themselves are not subject to it that All to whom the Manifestation of the Spirit is given to profit withal have not received the Gift nay that of them who do profess to have received it All have not so received it as to profit therewithal to be redeemed thereby into the true Spiritual Liberty These things I say considered such a positive absolute undistinguishing Answer as the Adversaries expected and call for of a simple granting or denying the Question by a positive Yea or Nay without distinction or explanation could not in Truth have been given For that had been to say that none ought to be left to their freedom no not They who by receiving the divine Gift in themselves subjecting to it and growing up in it are truly thereby brought to the true Freedom indeed the Freedom that stands in Truth the true Spiritual Liberty Or that All ought to be left to their freedom in the things relating to Goâ—â— even they who through their alienation from God know nothing of either this true Libety or the Gift that leads to it or They that professing to know it and to have received it live not in subjection to it and so are not brought to the true Spiritual Liberty by it but have a freedom out of the Truth a freedom to do such things as the Truth condemns The Author therefore rightly distinguishing these different states answered aptly to the Terms of his Question granting the Question in a right sense but not in a wrong sense For the Question not opening the particular state of the Party demanding this freedom but being grounded only upon the Gift or Manifestation given which is applicable not only to all in the Profession of Truth how disorderly and scandalous so ever but even to all mankind and not mentioning the Parties having received the Gift in the love of it closed with it to an improvement of it to a profiting therewith and dwelt in a subjection thereunto which alone brings into the true Spiritual Liberty therefore the Author that he might divide his Answer aright said If thou art such an one that canst do nothing against the Truth but for the Truth as much as to say If thou art indeed come by thy subjection to the Heavenly Gift given thee into the true Spiritual Liberty and thy freedom stand in that then mayst thou safely be left to thy freedom in the things of God and the Reason said He is plain Because thy freedom the freedom thou wouldst be left to stands in the perfect Law of Liberty c. As much as to say thy freedom if this be thy state is the true spiritual Liberty before defined and therefore thou mayst safely be left to that both with respect to thy self and to the Church of Christ which thou art a Member of since that freedom will not lead thee to do any thing against the Truth but all for the Truth And herein it is evident the Author had direct Relation to that Definition of true Spiritual Liberty which he had given before and which the Adversary now agree to But on the other hand If thou who demandest to be left to thy freedom in the things of God art not come to this true spiritual Liberty but notwithstanding God hath given thee a manifestation of his Spirit to profit withal and that thou professest in words to have received this Gift yet thou hast not so closed with and subjected to this divine Gift as to have profited therewithal and so art not come into this true Spiritual Liberty but by rebelling against the perfect Law of Liberty in thy Heart thou art gotten into a false Liberty a false freedom a freedom to do such things as are out of Truth then it is not safe either for thy self or for the Church of Christ which thou seemest to joyn with for thee to be left to this freedom of thine since that will lead thee to act not for the Truth but against the Truth to bring dishonour to the Truth disturbance to the Church
have told us They are sure their End is not to give Liberty to Evil they add But to Answer All the Objections that may be made as it would take up too much time so perhaps we may not know all that may be advanced so we shall Omit that till we are better informed of them as also till more fitting Opportunity do occur Rep. A dull Come-off Who that were shameless might not at this rate avoid Answering any Objection that lies hard upon them by pretending it would take up too much time to answer all Objections and that perhaps they may not know all that may be advanced They told us in their 5th page There is but one Objection and that is That this is to give Liberty to Evil and they made a kind of Promise to speak to that in another place Why did they not answer this One Objection which themselves had advanced Now because they know not what to say to it nor how to Answer that One Objection they pretend it would take up too much time to Answer all the Objections that may be made and that perhaps they may not know all that may be advanced Is not this pittiful Shuffling Is not this mean Trifling for men for such men for men so cryed up as some of them are Perhaps say they we may not know all that may be advanced What then should that hinder them from taking notice of what they did or might know of what was advanced Did not the Book they pretend to Answer enumerate several Particular Evils which the Enemy by that Plea of leaving every one to act as he is free c. is introducing a Liberty to as Paying Tythes to Hireling-Priests Marrying by the Priest Declining a publick Testimony in suffering times or hiding in times of Persecution Worshipping and respecting the Persons of men and Observing the World's Holy-days and Mass-days as they call them Why did they not Answer these that were advanced as there phrase is Did they want to be better inform'd whether These are Evils or no They could not but know that most of these Evils have been closely charged as the Fruits of that Spirit they are now joyned to And their so slightly slipping over them now is no good sign that they are wholly clear and free from them They boast indeed of Life and Conversation but distinguish not that I observe betwixt Conversation Civil and Religious betwixt that which relates to the World and that which more especially respects the Church of God 'T is true they say in general words p. 43. with respect to Lives and Conversations Place your Iudgment upon what is Evil and spare not for there it will stand for we plead not for Evil in any And again We grant that any may reporve Evil and what is Immoral c. p. 46. But their explaining Evil by the terms Immoral and simply Evil as in pag. 39. where they say If Nothing that is simply Evil or Immoral can be charged upon your Brethren c. And in p. 44. Though nothing that is Immoral or Evil in it self can be proved against them shews they mean by Immoral such open Prophaneness and Debaucheries as Human Laws correct And so notwithstanding their pretending Not to plead for Evil in any their Plea may indulge and countenance those Evils before mentioned of paying Tythes to the hireling Priest of being married by the Priest c. and of marrying such as are out of Truth yea out of the Profession of it yea and of all the Disorders that heady and unruly Persons are capable of committing against Church-Society by raising and fomenting Strife and Contention amongst Brethren by drawing and gathering into Parties Sides and Factions by making Schisms Rents and Breaches by running into down-right Division and open Separation All which are Evils and such Evils as the Judgment of Truth always was is and ought to be placed upon But seeing the Adversaries hide themselves under the Terms Simply Evil or Immoral let me ask them more particularly Whether it be not an Immoral Act for any one to deprive Another by force or fraud of his just Right and Property They know what of this kind has been done by some of their own Party at Reading and other Places where they have forcibly kept Friends out of their publick Meeting-Houses and deprived Friends of their just and lawful Right and Property in those Meeting-Houses contrary to all Right and Justice Now though Truth 's Judgment hath been placed and doth stand and abide upon this Evil and upon the Authors and Abettors thereof And though being so undeniable in fact and so gross in nature some of the Adversaries are ashamed or afraid to plead for it Yet which of them all has joyned with Friends in placing the Judgment of Truth upon it and upon them that are more immediatly guilty of it Nay do they not rather own and joyn with such as have been and are most guilty in this case and receive such of them as are Preachers to preach and pray amongst them In their 5th page they take a slight notice of the latter part of the Author's Answer where he said But if thou pleadest thy Freedom against such things yea Obstructest and Slightest such Good Wholsom and Requisit Things namely such things as are Holy Just Lovely Honest Comely and of good Report as he had mentioned just before thy freedom is naught dark perverse out of the Truth and against the perfect Law of Love and Liberty In the reciting of which I observe they slip over these words obstructest and slightest as being Conscious perhaps that they have done so and have no colourable defence to make for their so doing Their Answer to the rest is this This is still to the same Tune here is a Iudge implied but not set forth 't is not say they the Spirit of Truth but some outward thing whatever it is and they add We know not where he will fix c. Rep. To the same Tune They were in a jolly Humour sure when they borrowed this Phrase from the Ballad-mongers So pag. 17. they say Shall we Pipe to the same Tune for Company Truth would have taught them more Gravity and it is to be hoped their beguiled Proselites will observe and take notice what a frothy Spirit they are guided by But though they say The Judge is not set forth but only implied and by theâ—â— saying Whatever it is they imply they know not what it is nay they confess in plain Terms they know not where he will fix yet in this tuning strain they as boldly as blindly that is confessedly not seeing or knowing what it is adventure to affirm 'T is not the Spirit of Truth By which the Children of Truth know that the Adversaries in this Judgment are out of Truth In the same airy Vein they go on thus But since we know not where he will fix to say no more 't is dark to be sure Then as if on
rejected as a Novelty in the same Spirit wherein the World rejects the whole way of Truth as a Novelty Common and Universal matters therefore relating to the Church of God are not to be restrained to such things as have been commonly and universally received For the envious Seeds-Man was not backward to sow his evil Seed betimes and Captious Spirits have risen up early as well as now of late excepting against some one some an other thing in Doctrine or Practice yet pretending to own the Fundamental principle of Truth So that the most approved practice amongst Friends may perhaps fall short of having been in a strict Sense Universally received For Universal admits no Exception But by Common and Universal matters relating to the Church of God are to be understood matters of Common and Universal Vse and Service in the Church of God things not peculiar to this that or to'ther Member only but of common use or benefit to all the Members of the Body And that the Author so meant it his own words plainly shew page 5. Where he says Degree or Measure in the same Life can never contradict or obstruct that which is from the same Life for the common benefit of the Family of God Did Iude call the Salvation he writ of verse 3. Common because it was commonly received or because it was offered intended and tendred as a Common Benifit to all that would receive it And whereas the Adversaries say This of Conviction and Perswasion preceding Conformity hath been a Common and Vniversal matter or thing because commonly and universally received among us as a great Truth I Reply It is indeed a great Truth and hath been and is a common and universal Matter but not for the cause or reason they assign For if it had not been commonly and universally received among us as a great Truth yet it would have been a common and universal Matter relating to the Church of God because it is a Matter of common and universal Service and Benefit to all and every Member in the Church of God But since they here acknowledge that this Doctrine of Conviction and Perswasion preceding Conformity hath been commonly and universally received among us as a great Truth they do ill to insinuate which too frequently they do that Friends would draw any to a Conformity to any thing before or without Conviction or Perswasion In their 23d page They pick another piece of a Sentence out of the Book they pretend to Answer which they set down thus What comes from the Light Life and Spirit in one is the same in Truth and Vnity to the rest as if it rise in themselves This is seen in our Assemblies every day c. Now because they dare not directly gainsay this and yet are disposed to wrangle they pretend to know the Design of the Argument and quarrel with that The Design they say of this Argument is to gain a dependance upon the Teachings of God by Instruments equal at least to the Teaching of God immediately by his Spirit in our own hearts and this they say how plausible soever is not according to the Truth as 't is in Iesus Rep. Their surmise in this Case is wrong and Evil and therefore not according to Truth That which they suggest to be the Design was not the Design of that Argument as they call it But the plain and true Design of it was to obviat an Objection and cut off a false Plea for Disunion and Discord grounded upon variety of Measures and diversity of Gifts and Offices in the Body For the Author having put the Question page 4. Are there not various Measures diversities of Gifts and several Offices in the Body And having granted that there are proves that that variety and diversity of Measures Gifts and Offices in the Body administers no ground for Disunion Discord or Contrariety amongst the members of the Body since it is a false way of Reasoning to conclude Discord from Diversity Contrariety from Variety which having illustrated by an Instance of the various Senses in a natural Body without any Contrariety flowing from that variety he shews page 5. That Diversity of Gifts doth not infer Disagreement in Sense nor variety of Offices contrariety in Judgment concerning those Offices Then having from the concurrent Testimonies of the holy Scriptures set forth the Unity of God he infers that the Light Life and Spirit of God is at unity with it self in all and what comes from the Light Life or Spirit in one it is the same in Truth and Vnity to the rest as if it rise in themselves For this he appealed to the daily experience of Friends in our Meetings where the Living and sensible ones know that what comes from the Light Life or Spirit of God in any Friend that Ministers is felt received closed with and united to as Truth by those that in the same Light Life and Spirit wait as well as if it had arose in themselves this was the Design of the Author's words in that place as is apparent to any that fairly reads them and the Design was good But the Design of the Adversaries was Evil in surmising another Design without ground that they might make an occasion for Cavilling For they are fain to confess that there is no contrariety in the Spirit of God no Contradiction in the Spirit 's Teaching being all for one and the same end the good of Man by the Salvation of his Soul Nay they acknowledge There is so much Truth in what the Author hath said that when fairly stated they are content it should be as a Rule to measure the whole difference by And yet they spend about a couple of Pages in Carping at it They say betwixt God's Teaching by Instruments and Teaching immediately by his Spirit in our own hearts there is this Distinction or Difference that the first is but to prepare the latter to perfect Whereas the Scripture saith expresly When Christ ascended up on high he gave gifts unto Men some Apostles and some Prophets and some Evangelists and some Pastors and Teachers for the perfecting of the Saints c. Eph. 4.8 11 12. So that hence it appears that the Teaching of God through such Instruments as he gives his heavenly Gifts unto for the work of the Ministry hath a further tendency and Service than but or only to prepare for those Gifts were given for the Edifying that is building up or Establishing of the Body of Christ and for the Perfecting of the Saints This shews the Adversaries for all their high Notions and fluttering Pretences are short of a right understanding and to seek in the work of the Ministry being ignorant of the true and full end of Divine Ministerial Gifts So again they say page 23. When the things of God do come from God's holy Spirit immediately they are then as the Oracles of God this shews they do not reckon them as the Oracles of God if they come from
the Light Life or Spirit of God through Instruments But the Apostle Peter who knew as much as they and is fitter to be believed than they saith If any Man speak let him speak as the Oracles of God c. 1 Pet. 4.11 So that the Apostle it seems understood no other but that the things of God when Ministred as of the ability which God giveth were as the Oracles of God though spoken by or through Man To make way yet for more wrangling they reason after this manner either say they all that do speak in our Assemblies or Meetings speak from the Light Life and Spirit or all do not if all do so speak prove it if all do not so speak then you must give us a certain Rule to know who do so speak and who do not Rep. At the end of their Preface they give an Advertisement that where the Term You is found in the following Discourse namely in their Book they intend the Author viz. of the Book they pretend to Answer and those of his mind And where the term We is also used in their Book it may be understood in respect to those of the same mind with the Author of that Book of theirs So that You and We are there set for Characteristical Notes or distinguishing Terms between Friends and them Friends being intended and denoted by the word You and themselves by the word We. Now since Your and Our are but Derivatives from You and We each ought to follow its own Primitive And since by the term We they would have themselves to be understood it is but reason that by the term Our Assemblies or Meetings their own Assemblies or Meetings should be understood not the Assemblies or Meetings of Friends especially seeing they have Meetings of their own properly their own set up themselves in their own wills and choice in a Spirit of separation from the Meetings of Friends and in opposition to them Now if we take them in this Sense when they say as before Either all that do speak in Our Assemblies or Meetings speak from the Light Life and Spirit or all do not I shall easily grant what they say they take for granted that all that speak in their Assemblies or Meetings do not speak from the Light Life and Spirit of God if any do But if they mistook themselves here and by Our Assemblies or Meetings intended the Assemblies or Meetings of Friends and so put the Question whether all that speak in the Meetings of Friends do speak from the Light Life and Spirit of God or not I Reply No For many of the Adversaries themselves who are gone into a wicked separation from Friends and instead of abideing in the Light Life and Spirit of God are got into an ungodly Spirit of Wrangling and Quarrelling Rayling and Reviling Envy Bitterness and Restless Contention do notwithstanding thrust into Friends Meetings and there take upon them to speak though they or their Party have openly denyed Friends in Print This is such a work of darkness and horrible Hypocrysie as manifests that such speak not from the Light Life or Spirit of God But whereas they say You must give us a certain Rule to know who do so speak and who do not or otherwise you must leave us to receive or refuse according to the best of our understanding which they repeat over and over biding us Observe either you must give us a Rule as above or you must leave us free c. I Reply Friends have always directed and left them and all others to that which makes free indeed the Truth Iohn 8.32 And their insinuating the contrary is a foul Slander and a wicked Design I would to God they who are run into Enmity to and separation from Friends would leave us free and not impose upon us their Preaching and Praying which they have been often told Friends cannot receive or own And whereas they say both here in page 24. and elsewhere We take it for granted that you can give no such Rule I Reply They mistake taking that for granted which they ought not That Light Life Spirit Grace or Truth which Friends have always directed them and all unto is a Rule a certain Rule to know who speak from it and who do not And they that abide in it and are attentive to it do know who speak from it and who do not who are acted by it and who are not and know accordingly what and whom to receive and what and whom to refuse For the true Sheep know the true Shepherd's Voice Iohn 10.4 and 27. which is more than words But there is a difference between being left to this Light Grace or Spirit of God in our selves to receive or refuse according to that and being left to our own understanding to receive or refuse according to the best of that as the Adversaries would be left For Man's understanding as it is a natural Faculty must be illuminated by this heavenly Light and Spirit of God before it can receive or know the things of God because they are Spiritually discerned 1 Cor. 2.14 Well therefore did the Wise-man advise Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not to thine own understanding Prov. 3.5 In the close of their 24 page They say We may safely conclude where Conviction and Perswasion are disallowed that Government ceaseth to be true Rep. But where is that not amongst Friends I am sure This they have suggested over and over but without proof without colour The contrary has been asserted and proved over and over again and again and that by undenyable Evidences from that very Book they pretend to Answer As thou art not to conform to a thing ignorantly page 3. The People of God ought to be left to the Guidings of the Spirit of God in themselves page 9. It is a great Truth that all are to be left thereunto ibid. And again If thou dost not presently see that Service in a thing that the rest of thy Brethren agree in it is thy Duty what to do not to Conform without or against Conviction or Perswasion but to wait upon God in silence and patience out of all fleshly Consultations c. page 10. These plain Testimonies one would think were enough to stop the clamorous mouth of slanderous Envy They begin their 25th page with a Passage which they single out of the 6th page of the Book they pretend to Answer And they word it thus They that walk in the Light have Fellowship one with another 1 Iohn 1. Whence he saith 't is easy to conclude that those that go out of Fellowship go out of the Light c. Upon this they spend about four pages in meer Cavilling And to make the more way for their Cavilling they miscite the Passage leaving out a word of small sound but of great force in the present Case because a strong Emphasis lies upon it For whereas the Author's words were they that go out
when that Caution is given in the love of God it is in the same love received But when under pretence of Cautioning against Formality some not distinguishing between Formality and Form endeavour to overturn subvert and take away all Form and Order from the Church of Christ we cannot receive but reject such Cautions and Cautioners as knowing that they come not from nor serve the God of Order but that Spirit which would bring all into disorder and Confusion In page 43 they say Pray let us know why Truth 's Testimonies may not be allowed and pass current where the Life and Conversation is suitable Rep. Truths Testimonies are allowed and do pass currant among Truth 's Followers But the Adversaries should have explained what they mean by Truth 's Testimonies For those Doctrinal Principles delivered of old by Truth himself and afterwards by his inspired Followers and Recorded in the Scriptures of Truth are Truth 's Testimonies especially as they are taken up and used by the same Spirit that gave them forth And the Testimonies that proceed from the Spirit of Truth speaking through any of his Servants in our Meetings or elsewhere at this day are the Testimonies of Truth also And all these are allowed and pass current amongst Friends But if the Adversaries mean by Truth 's Testimonies their own Testimonies those Testimonies that they bring and thrust upon Friends in our Meetings and ask why those Testimonies may not be allowed and pass currant the Answer is because those Testimonies are not Truth 's Testimonies how like soever they may seem to be neither come they in Truth 's way They proceed not from the Spirit of Truth but from that Spirit that Fights against Truth a Spirit of Dissention Division Disunion and Separation from Friends in Truth In page 45. they say Might not a little Charity help all this could you look upon such as trouble you to be Conscientious Again Certainly you cannot think that all is wrong that are dissatisfied c. We would perswade you better by assuring that some are right by being sincere Rep. They who have known these Troubles throughly and have seen and observed their manner of Troubling and in what Spirit they have done it had need have more than a little Charity to make them look on such to be Conscientious Was their publishing Friends in Print to be Apostates Innovators Setters up of Images Introducers of Popery Idolaters c. An Argument that they were Conscientious Was their exposing Truth and Friends by their printed Pamphlets to the Scorn Contempt and Derision of the Wicked and rendring them as much as in them lay obnoxious to the Government a token of their being Conscientious Was their shutting Friends out of their Meting-Houses wherein they had a rightful Interest and Propriety exposing antient and tender Bodies and some their nearest Relations to all Extremities of Weather and that for divers years together as at Reding and elsewhere an Effect of their being Conscientious O barbaroas Consciences O conscientious Barbarism where shall a Parallel to this be found unless in that which Christ foretold his Disciples Iohn 16.2 They shall put you out of the Synagogues yea the time cometh that whosoever killeth you will think that he doth God Service How far these conscientious Troublers have answered this Prophecy let themselves and others consider Nay have they not been worse than those forespoken of by Christ For they were open Enemies these feigned Friends and false Brethren Now whereas they say Certainly you can not think that all is wrong that are dissatisfied with those new things brought in at least as made Terms of Communion I Reply We do not think all that are so dissatisfied equally wrong for we are sensible those Troublers have by slanderous Suggestions and false Insinuations beguiled and betrayed some whose Recovery out of the Snare in which those Troublers have taken them we earnestly desire and travel for But though we do not think all alike wrong yet we do think and know that all who think new things are brought in and made Terms of Cummunion with Friends are wrong in thinking so whatever they are otherwise And whereas they say They would perswade us better by assuring that some are right by being sincere I Reply If they are they must not be any of those Troublers who notwithstanding they have separate Meetings of their own to which they have withdrawn and chosen to meet apart as some of themselves have elsewhere exprest it do yet frequently thrust in at some of our Meetings and impose themselves upon Friends for Preachers as if they did it on purpose to disturb and to make trouble in our Meetings Can any thing be more contrary to Sincerity than this Is not this an extream degree of Hypocrisie Let the Troublers therefore give over their Hypocrisie and make it appear that they themselves are sincere to what they themselves have chosen and set up before they take upon them to give assurance of the sincerity of others They bid us Remember They obtrude nothing upon you Rep. That 's false Those Troublers obtrude themselves their Preaching and their Praying upon Friends which they know having been often told Friends cannot receive than which what worse they could obtrude I know not And where they have had strength by numbers they have obtruded these upon Friends under the Penalty of being deprived of their Meeting House if they would not conform to this Imposition And because Friends could not conform thereunto those Troublers have actually shut Friends out of their Meeting-Houses and do yet continue to keep them out thereby depriving Friends of their just Right Therefore when any of those Troublers shall again come to obtrude themselves upon Friends in our Meetings Let them Remember this Again they say The Lord often spared those that are wrong for the sakes of those that are right Rep. We know he hath done so and we desire he may do so still but we leave that to him who best knows to whom and how long to extend that forbearance But let not the Adversaries abuse God's merciful forbearance by continuing in the wrong after that the Lord hath made them sensible that they are wrong They add And 't is our Doctrine Tares should be suffered to grow rather than destroy Wheat Rep. And 't is Christ's Doctrine and his own Exposition of his Parable of the Tares that the Field in which they should be suffered to grow is the World Mat. 13.38 This is a good Argument against Persecution or outward Violence for Religion's sake Men ought not to be killed destroyed pluckt up and rooted out of the World only because they are Tares or a wrong Seed of the Enemies sowing But I wish the Adversaries would speak plainly whether it be their Doctrine that such Tares called by Christ The Children of the wicked One should be suffered to grow in the Church the Garden of God after they are discovered discerned plainly perceived
as it concerns a holy Conversation or the worship of God is of any Service but until he come They err There are many outward Rules in the Scriptures of Truth that were given by the Spirit of God which have been and are of Service to many after Christ hath been witnessed come Again when they say Every latter Appearance of God is as death to the former The Expression is unsavoury and not sound For the Appearance of God or Christ do not kill one another but agree one with another and Co-operate to the work he intends thereby But when to this they add And this is our Case as well as any that did go before us c. They err egregiously For the Appearance of God in us did not bring Death to the former Appearance of God in others though to the false Appearances and Likenesses thereof it did Neither will any further Appearance of God hereafter bring Death or be Death or be as Death to this Appearance of God whereby God hath made known himself in and to his People in this Age. Again they say When the Appearance or Conversation must be measured by certain Rules it follows what is terms of Communion or is accepted with God may not be accepted with men This is a loose Expression and tends to let up Looseness Are not Sobriety Temperance Chastity Modesty Honesty c. certain Rules whereby Conversation ought to be measured If there must be no certain Rules for measuring Conversation how shall the most unruly Conversation be blamed reproved judged condemned and either reformed or rejected By these few Instances it may appear how much they are declined from Truth The God of Truth knows I have no other End in this Reply than to defend Truth and the Children of it against the slanderous Suggestions false Charges and wicked Insinuations of the Adversaries to lay Open their deceitful Dealing and to remove as the Lord shall enable me the stumbling-Blocks which they have laid in the way of the Week whereby they have caused some to fall into Misapprehensions and hard Thoughts of Friends without cause And I beseech the God of Mercy to open the Vnderstandings and clear the Sight of all those whose Simplicity has been betrayed by the Others Subtilty that they may see and escape the Enemies Snares and return to the true Fold from which they have been led astray A Reply to an Answer lately published to a Book long since written entituled A brief Examination and State of Liberty Spiritual c. THe Author of that Book called A brief Examination c. hath therein truly and soundly defined Spiritual Liberty declaring it to be two-fold True False according to the true and false Spirit which respectively leads into each The true Spiritual Liberty he defines to be Deliverance from Sin by the perfect Law in the Heart the perfect Law of Liberty Iames 2. otherwise called The Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus that makes free from the Law of Sin and Death elsewhere stiled The Law of Truth writ in the Heart which makes free indeed as saith Christ If the Truth make you free than are you free indeed So that the Liberty of God's People stands in the Truth and their Communion in it and in the Perfect Spiritual Law of Christ Jesus which delivers and preserves them from every Evil Thing that doth or would embondage In this blessed Liberty it is not the will or wisdom of man neither the vain Affections and Lusts that rule or give Law to the Soul for the minds of all such as are made free by the Truth are by the Truth conducted in doing and suffering through their earthly Pilgrimage The false Liberty he defines to be A departing from this blessed Spirit of Truth and a Rebelling against this Perfect Law of Liberty in the Heart and being at Liberty to do our own Wills upon which cometh Reproof and Judgment This being the Basis of the work I thought fit to transcribe at large that the Reader may plainly see and understand what that Liberty is both true and false which was the subject of that Book and is now of this Controversie Against this Definition of Spiritual Liberty I do not find the Answerers of that Book for the Answer runs in the plural Number take any Exception For in the entrance of their Answer they say As to the Definition of Liberty Spiritually explained page the first We agree upon the matter But passing by some Questions and Answers in that Book tending to shew in some general Instances wherein and how far the Members of the Church of Christ may be left to their freedom They take-hold of a Question and Answer in the second and third pages which are thus exprest Quest. But doth not Freedom extend further than this for since God hath given me a manifestation of his Spirit to profit withal and that I have the Gift of God in my self should I not be left to act according as I am free and perswaded in my own mind in the things that relate to God lest looking upon my self as obliged by what is revealed unto another though it be not revealed unto me I should be led out of my own measure and act upon another's Motion and so offer a blind Sacrifice to God Answ. This is true in a sense that is if thou art such a one that canst do nothing against the Truth but for the Truth then mayst thou safely be left to thy freedom in the things of God and the Reason is plain Because thy freedom stands in the perfect Law of Liberty in the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus and in the Truth which is Christ Jesus which makes thee free indeed that is perfectly free from all that is Bad and perfectly free to all that is Holy Just Lovely Honest Comely and of good Report But if thou pleadest thy Freedom against such things yea obstructest and slightest such good wholsome and requisit things Thy Freedom is naught dark perverse out of the Truth and against the perfect Law of Love and Liberty The Question as stated above the Adversaries find no fault with but approve and applaud often calling it a Weighty Question But for all that they either mistake or wilfully pervert it For whereas the plain and express Terms of the Question are these Since God hath given me a manifestation of his Spirit to profit withal and that I have the Gift of God in my self should I not be left c. They in their Sophistical Glosses upon it vary the Terms and instead of God 's having given c. They render it where the Gift of God is received to profit withal And instead of I have the Gift of God in my self They put such as do adhere to it As if there were no difference or They knew or regarded none betwen God's having given a manifestation of his Spirit to profit withal and man's having received this Gift of
in things too high for them They utter what they understand not yet they bring the matter to the same Issue and result that the Author 's own Answer left it in For they that are thus come through the Travel beyond the fitting and preparing beyond the whole Mystery of Iniquity into Christ and out of the Enemy's reach being entred where he cannot come These are sure in as high an Estate as those can be who the Author said may safely be left to their freedom in the things of God The difference then lies not between such as are in different growths in Christ but between Those that are really in him and Those that are not in him though they may profess to believe in him The danger is not of the Babe muchless of the strong Man in Christ But of the strong Man out of Christ him that is strong in his own Will in his own Conceit being heady high-minded Contentious Quarrelsom Impatient who if he cannot in all things be humoured and have his own way flies out into open Opposition to work Division and Separation as these Adversaries have done For however They now palliate and in words smooth over the Liberty and freedom They pretend to as if it were only a Liberty to chuse or refuse things according as they are perswaded yet their Practice which in this case is the best Discoverer of Intentions hath sufficiently manifested what freedom what Liberty They seek A Liberty to Oppose Friends in such Things as Friends are satisfied in A Liberty to reproach revile despise scoff and Jeer at those Things that are conscientiously received and practised by Friends and which Themselves neither have shewed nor can shew any Evil to be in but only pretend They are not Convinced of the Needfulness or Usefulness of them A Liberty to revile and vilifie Friends in Print under the names of Apostates Innovators Introducers of Popery and but one step from it Idolaters Setters up of Images Idol-Prophets a treacherous Company possest with the Spirit of Belial Mercinary Judges Self-seeking slavish Drudges led by Satan c. A Liberty to rend off divide and separate from Friends and set up separate-Meetings in divers parts and places out of the Unity of Friends and in direct Opposition to them And yet after all this and in the midst of all this and maintaining all this to come when and where They please to Friends Meetings as pretending to joyn with Friends in Worship and impose upon Friends their Preaching and Praying and expect that They who have given the highest Demonstrations of Their being our greatest Enemies and persist therein should notwithstanding be owned and received as Friends as Brethren as Preachers as Ministers of Christ amongst us This is the Liberty They have taken this the freedom they plead and press for And this is such a piece of Hypocrisie and gross Deceit as I verily believe cannot be paralleled among all the Pretenders to Christian Religion This to be sure is a Mystery of Iniquity And therefore seeing They pretend not to extend the Liberty of chusing and refusing things according as They are perswaded to any but such as are in Christ p. 4. And that They must travel through the whole Mystery of Iniquity before they can come into Christ p. 7. They must needs travel out of these things before mentioned before they can pretend to be within the compass of their own Plea In their 4th page They say Forasmuch as he neither hath nor we believe can give us any certain undoubted Rule how to know who these are that are so to be left all that he hath said by way of affirming this great Question is worth nothing for as it is altogether unintelligible 't is every way impracticable Again If any certain Rule can be given to know who may be left to their Liberty as above let us have it say they and by the contrary Rule we shall know who may not be so left Reply By this They shew themselves to be out of the Truth in the Uncertainty If they were in the Truth they would not be to seek of a certain Rule in this case the Spirit of Truth giving Certainty and Assurance to them that are guided by it though not to them that resist it Now though they have not explain'd what they mean by Who these are or how they expect a Description of them whether by Qualifications or by Personal Marks yet each way they are wrong For if they would have a Rule to know them by Qualifications they themselves with sufficient Contradiction to themselves while they make as if they believed no such Rule can be given have adventured to give it assigning them to be such as are in Christ even from the Babe in Christ to the strong Man and so to all states but still in Christ. Now that this cannot take in even in their own sense the whole promiscuous Number of those that go to Friends Meetings that hear Truth preached or that by Tongue or outward Profession only confess to the Truth of the Principle their own Description or Explanation of what it is to be in Christ pag. 7. will manifest For there they tell us that Man must be made a new Creature before he can come into Christ he must travel through the whole Mystery of Iniquity that the Rest is only by being in Christ the Travel is while he appears in us to fit us for himself for 't is say they the New Creature that only finds room in him So then the Travel must be over before they come to be in Christ For say they the Enemy that fallen Angel can go with Man into every Remove whilst man is fitting and preparing but into Christ he cannot come These are some of the Qualifications by which they describe who should be left to their freedom c. But if this may pass for a Rule with them why may not that as well which the Author of that Book they pretend to answer laid down therein viz. that they may safely be left to their freedom in the things of God who are such as can do nothing against the Truth but for the Truth such whose freedom stands in the perfect Law of Liberty If they ask But by what certain or undoubted Rule shall we know who are such I Reply When they have told me by what certain or undoubted Rule they know who are in Christ according to the Explanation they have given of being in Christ that is who they are that are certainly and undoubtedly made New Creatures who they are that have certainly and undoubtedly travelled through the whole Mystery of Iniquity who they are that have certainly and undoubtedly gone beyond where the Enemy can go into Christ where he cannat come I will then tell them who they are whose freedom stands in the perfect Law of Liberty c. They add But if no such Rule that is no certain or undoubted Rule can be given it
little Observation that need to be informed How many that have walked for a while some for some years with Friends in the Profession of Truth have turned their backs thereon and gone off some into the Sea again some into Nets What has been the general pretence of these but want of Liberty the way of Truth was too strait for them they wanted a broader way How many even of them that retained the Profession of Truth have slept aside some into one odd thing some into another under pretence that they had Freedom so to do Did not they that ran out in I. Perot's business plead being left to their Freedom to their Liberty They did so and by that Plea were some to my knowledge betrayed into that snare Now since it is evident by the Instances given that in the true Church in all times there have been as to outward Profession Bad as well as Good wrong as well as right what can be more reasonable than that there should be in the true Church such a Power as may enable those that are right to acquit themselves their Principle and Profession from the Disorders of whatsoever kind committed by them that are wrong which they can never do if those that are wrong may exempt themselves from being called to account and reproved for their Disorders by alleadging that what they have done they had Liberty and Freedom in themselves to do Now this hath happened in a great part through a misunderstanding and misapplication of true Spiritual Liberty For though all that have received and are indeed guided by the Grace of God and Spirit of Truth are to be left to it to act for God in the Liberty and Freedom that it gives Yet for any to infer from thence that every one that pretends to the Grace of God and Spirit of Truth though it be too apparent that they are not subject thereunto must be left to that Freedom which they call and in one sense rightly enough their own to that Liberty which they have set up in and for themselves though it leads such to thwart oppose gain-say and disturb the rest of the same Society this is not right but whatever else may be pretended is both wrong it self and an Inlet for that which is wrong For the meaning of that Plea that every one ought to be left to his Freedom c. Is this that none should be accountable or answerable to the Church or Congregation they are reputed to be of for what they do that is not simply Evil or Evil in it self as the Adversaries in their Book distinguish so that although what they do be disorderly and that which either directly or by Consequence tends to bring scandal and trouble upon the whole Society it is enough to stop the Churches Mouth for such an one to say I have Liberty and Freedom in my self to do so or so And thereupon the Church may not judge may not reprove may not blame such an One but must be obliged to own and receive such an one as a Friend a Brother in the Truth though walking out of Truth as a member of the Body though acting against the Body This were to set up a false Liberty to overthrow the true Liberty to give Liberty to Particulars and take it from the General which to do were contrary to Truth and to true Reason For surely how much Liberty soever a Part may claim the whole may claim as much And therefore if each Particular hath Liberty to choose or refuse things according as they are perswaded the things are right or wrong which it is fit they should Why should not the whole have like Liberty to receive or refuse such Persons with respect to Membership according as they are perswaded that such Persons so acting are in or out of that Spirit in which the true Membership stands But this Liberty the Church should be deprived and debarred of if she were bound as the Adversaries would bind her to own and receive for members all such as make any Profession of Truth though walking and acting contrary to Her and as she believes to Truth under pretence that they walk and act according to their own Liberty and Freedom He that would shun the Cross of Christ in any Testimony that Truth leads to hath scope enough under this Plea to do it He that for advantage or fear will break Christ's Command and Swear can say he hath freedom so to do and is not perswaded in his own mind of the unlawfulness thereof He that to shun Sufferings will pay Tythes to the Hireling-Priest He that will Marry by the Priest or take in Marriage one that is not in the Profession of Truth hath the same Plea for his Shelter and so in other Cases of Evil. This the Adversaries saw but saw not how to Answer And therefore in their 5th page having said There 's but one Objection and that is that this leaving all to act according as they are free c. is to give Liberty to Evil they add Which we may speak to in another place And so they shift it off in this place And having thus given it the Go-by here never give any direct Answer to it that I observe throughout their whole Book In their 19th page they touch it but presently start back and slide off of it again There they say What can hinder the putting this in practice but the Devil in the likeness of Truth perswading this was to give Liberty to Evil Then add 'T is a mistake to think this is to give Liberty to Evil while our End we are sure bears witness to the contrary Rep. They are sure What Assurance doth their saying they are sure give to others Their witness-bearing as it is of themselves and for themselves may perhaps reach no further than to themselves But suppose Charity should extend it further and on that foot it should be granted that their End or Intention is not to give Liberty to Evil. Doth it therefore follow that that unlimitted Plea for leaving every one so to act according as they are free and perswaded in their own minds as not to be accountable for their actings may not give Liberty to Evil May not People have a wrong freedom a freedom to do Evil and a false Perswasion in their own minds that that wrong freedom is a right one notwithstanding that God hath given them a manifestation of his Spirit to profit withal if they do not and it is too plain that too many do not obey and follow the leadings of that good Spirit that they may profit thereby But what Answer do the Adversaries now give to that One Objection which they took notice of in their 5th page and then made a shew as if they would speak of it in another place Truly none at all But instead of answering it which was reasonably to be expected from them they excuse themselves but very poorly from Answering for after they
attendance thereunto that he may thereby come to see and know what yet he doth not For if the Adversaries do yet none else I think will think that every man doth at all times so watchfully attend upon the Gift of God in himself that he doth not at any time miss or fall short of knowing the mind of God thereby He to be sure thought otherwise who said God speaketh once yea twice yet man perceiveth it not Job 33.14 Now this Slanderous Suggestion of the Adversaries is the more vile and wicked in them in as much as they know it to be a Slander and that very Book which they pretend to Answer doth plainly prove it so For in the 10th page of that Book called A brief Examination and State of Liberty Spiritual to the Question But if I do not presently see that Service in a thing that the rest of my Brethren agree in in this case what is my Duty The Answer is It is thy Duty to wait upon God in silence and patience out of all fleshly Consultations and as thou abidest in the Simplicity of the Truth thou wilt receive an Vnderstanding with the rest of thy Brethren about the thing doubted Is this to draw from the Gift of God in ones self to depend upon others for Guidance Yet the Adversaries say pag. 12. This to wit that something may be a Duty incumbent upon one though he be not perswaded it is his Duty is to impeach the Grace of God and Spirit of Truth to whose sufficiency so many Testimonies have been born as not now sufficient to lead all into all Truth Rep. No such matter They had no cause to suggest this no ground for it The Book they pretend to Answer denys it positively for asking where the fault is it says pag. 3. Is it thy weakness or thy Carelesness or If thy weakness it is to be born with and to be informed If thy carelesness thou oughtest to be admonished And a little lower in the same page it follows thus So that though thou art not to conform to a thing ignorantly yet thou art seriously to consider why thou art ignorant and what the Cause of such Ignorance may be Certainly it can't be in God nor in his Gift to thee mark that it must then needs be in thy self c. This is plain enough and this they could not choose but see picking up matter just before and after it which shews they had a design to abuse Friends and that makes their guilt the greater Yet thus they go on adding Falshood to Falshood For in their same page they say The Consequence of his arguing is to make us believe that somthing is a Duty incumbent upon us that we do not know and yet at the same time doth not let us know on whom we may depend Whereas as I have cited before he said expresly pag. 10. It is thy Duty to wait upon God in silence and patience c. So that he did let them know on whom they were to depend namely upon God Again they insinuate as if their not understanding their Duty were placed upon their Inability Whenas they know it is laid upon Carelesness Disobedience Prejudice c. But this they do on purpose to render Friends odious to their separate Party as if we held that somthing may be a Duty incumbent upon one which he cannot know which he is in no capacity of being perswaded of whereas indeed we hold no such thing For what is impossible for a man to know to understand or be perswaded of cannot be said to be a Duty incumbent on him But what he may know what he hath sufficient means to understand what he is put into a Capacity to be convinced and perswaded of by the Gift and Manifestation of the Spirit which God hath given him for that end may be a Duty incumbent on him although he through his Carelesness Negligence Non-attendance on the Gift or prejudice against the thing hath not received a certain Knowledge Understanding Conviction or Perswasion that it is his Duty Had the Adversaries taken the matter plainly and fairly as it was laid down in the Book they pretend to Answer They had not thus run beside the line But their manner is as is obvious to an observing Reader when they have pickt out a Sentence which they intend to oppose to turn it this way and that way to shift it to and fro to alter the form of it till they have varied it from the Author's Terms and Sense and fitted it to their own turn and service and then triumph over it Thus besides other Instances they have done in this particular case The sentence as they first quarrelled with it was this It is a dangerous Principle and pernitious to true Religion and which is worse it is the Root of Ranterism to assert That nothing is a Duty incumbent upon thee but what thou art perswaded is thy Duty No sooner had they drawn this forth but in their first modelling of it they slip in the words Conformity and Performance whereas Duty is one thing Performance of it another as I have noted before Then in the next place they frame up another Sentence in terms as they apprehend directly opposit to this and argue from one to t'other till at length they have slipt it quite beside its first and right bottom and set it upon a bottom of their own an Inability to understand Whereas the sentence is not that it is a dangerous Principle to assert that nothing is a Duty incumbent on thee but what thou art in a Capacity or hast means to understand or be perswaded of for there were no danger in asserting that But it s a dangerous Principle c. to assert that nothing is a Duty incumbent on thee but what thou art perswaded is thy Duty There is some odds sure betwixt thou art perswaded and thou mayst be perswaded or thou art in a Capacity or thou hast means of being perswaded Yet the Adversaries confounding these Terms run on to the same effect For taking offence at the mentioning of seared dark dead Consciences in the Book they pretend to answer which the Author there mentioned to set forth the dangerousness of asserting as a Principle that nothing is a Duty incumbent on thee but what thou art perswaded is thy Duty for said he The seared Conscience pleads his Liberty against all Duty the dark Conscience is here unconcerned the dead Conscience is here uncondemned c. They say p. 13. There is a vast difference betwixt denying all Duty to God and believing nothing a Duty but what we are perswaded on The first say they deny all duty the latter owns all Duty that can be known Repl. This is a high and bold but not a safe expression To own all Duty that can be known is not an ordinary state But let us see who this first is that denys all Duty and who the latter The first that which pleads
that it may most evidently appear that all this Out-cry against the Author and Clamour against this Passage in his Book as tending to bring in blind Obedience and draw from a Dependance upon God to a Dependance upon Man for discovery of Duty c. is without ground and that his Book hath not given them any colourable Occasion for it but that they have wickedly perverted and wrested both his words and meaning in that Passage I desire the Reader more particularly to observe that Passage and consider the Occasion scope and drift of it For the Occasion it is manifest it was written with direct relation to the Careless state to those who through Heedlesness and Inadvertency neglect and disregard the divine Gift in themselves and so for want of attending thereunto are ignorant of its motions and what the Lord by it requires of them For having put this Question But must I conform to things whether I can receive them or no and answered directly and flatly Nay which positively excludes blind Obediences the Author thereupon puts the Questionist to consider what the Reason is that he cannot receive them that so he may find where the Fault lies whether in himself or elsewhere Therefore he subjoyns Is the fault in the things themselves Are they inconsistent with Truth or will not the Truth own or assent unto them As much as to say If thou canst make appear that thou canst not receive them because the things themselves are faulty as being inconsistent with Truth then thou wilt appear clear in not receiving them But if thou canst not rightly lay the fault upon the things themselves then consider whether the fault is not in thee that is to say Is it thy Weakness or thy Carelesness If thy weakness it is to be born with and to be informed if thy Carelesness thou oughtest to be admonished for though thou mightest have acquitted thy self if thou couldest justly have laid the fault upon the things themselves as inconsistent with Truth yet thou canst not clear or acquit thy self by laying the fault upon thy Ignorance if thy Ignorance proceed from or be occasioned by thy own Carelesness And because some have entrench't themselves in their own Ignorance and thought themselves secure from Obligation to Duty under a Plea of want of sight therefore to excite such to a closer Inquiry to a stricter Search to a more diligent waiting upon the Lord for a clear discovery and sight of his will the Author there adds that It is a dangerous Principle and pernitious to true Religion and which is worse it is the Root of Ranterism to assert that nothing is a Duty incumbent upon thee but what thou art perswaded is thy Duty And to evince the dangerousness of this Assertion and shew in particulars the Perniciousness of this Principle He adds For the seared Conscience pleads his Liberty against all Duty the dark Conscience is here unconcern'd reckons its Darkness its Ignorance it was want of sight and Conviction a sufficiet defence and excuse and so concerns it self no further the dead Conscience is here uncondemned unless this Distinction be allow'd of that there may be an Ignorance or an Insensibility from Inability or Incapacity or a dark Education which he comprehended before under the word Weakness and an Ignorance and Insensibility from Carelesness Disobedience Prejudice c. Hence it is most apparent that this Passage related to the careless disobedient dark Ones who make darkness their refuge want of sight there shelter To such it is said by way of Reproof and Admonition It is a dangerous Principle c. to assert that nothing is a Duty incumbent upon thee thou careless disobedient prejudiced dark One but what thou who by thy own Carelesness Disobedience or Prejudice hast brought Darkness upon thy self art perswaded is thy Duty Now this being the plain and clear import of the place it is not without violence and great Injustice that the Adversaries have strained and applied this so such as have received the Gift of God to profit withal and have truly adhered thereunto Then as to their Suggestion that the Author's drift and the tendency of his Discourse was to lead into blind Obedience and from a dependence on God it is utterly groundless His own words prove the contrary not only as I noted before in saying positively Nay to the Question Must I conform to things whether I can receive them or no But also when in the same page and on the same subject he says expresly afterwards Thou art not to conform to a thing ignorantly This fully shuts out blind Obedience And so far was he from drawing to a Dependence on Man for sight or understanding in point of Duty that he expresly says pag. 9. The People of God ought to be left to the Guidings of the Spirit of God in themselves And pag. 10. It is thy Duty to wait upon God in silence and patience out of all fleshly Consultations and as thou abidest in the simplicity of the Truth thou wilt receive an understanding with the rest of thy Brethren about the things doubted These are Evidences plain enough Yet because the Testimony of an Enemy is accounted of great force and unexceptionable take here for an over-plus the Adversaries own Confession in the case p. 16. where of the Author of that Book they are so offended at they say That he desires all should be guided by God's Spirit we believe Now if they believe this of him what Reader may we believe of them who have raised all this Noise and Clamour against him charging him that he would bring in blind Obedience frighten into blind Obedience and lead to a dependence on himself or some others and yet now after all this confess they believe He desires all should be guided by God's Spirit But notwithstanding they say they believe thus of him they presently blames him again p. â—6 for limiting it as they say to that one way with respect as they apprehend to Shadowy or Circumstantial things c. Reply Here again and frequently in their following Discourse they run into their former Error confounding Shadowy with Ceremonial and Circumstantial things as if they were all alike and had all but one and the same signification thereby rendring in their sense all Circumstantial things Shadowy things which to be a great mistake and such an one as would make all outward Acts of Gospel-Worship contrary to the Nature of the Gospel shadowy I have shewed before Yet upon this Shadowy Notion of theirs they take upon them with Confidence to pass Judgment upon him that Though he may have received a measure of God's Spirit yet in plain he is not truly born of it And this methinks is pretty briskly done for such whose common Theam and Cry was wont to be Iudge not Next whereas the Author of that Book they Cavil at in Answer to that part of the Question which was Ought I not to be left to the
Grace and Spirit of God in my own Heart had answered Yea That is of all things most desirable since they are well left that are there left for there is no fear of want of Vnity where all are left with the one Spirit of Truth They must be of one mind they cannot be otherwise To this the Adversaries say That those that are truly left with the one Spirit of Truth must and will agree we grant and therefore where difference is carried on to the breach of Charity one side at least must be wrong but which ought in God's fear to be inquired the greater Number cannot determin it Rep. Here they grant that those that are truly left with the one Spirit must and will agree and yet at the same time suppose they will differ and which is more that they may differ and yet neither side be wrong if the difference be not carried on to the breach of Charity How they will reconcile these their different Notions I know not But since they yield that one side at least must be wrong where difference is carried on to the breath of Charity Let the Difference between them and Friends be looked into and inquiry made in God's fear on which side the Breach of Charity began that it may thence appear according to their own Proposition which side is wrong And in this Disquisition we will not expect any advantage from being the greater Number though they may give us leave to put them in mind that when and where an Argument from the greatest Number with respect to particular Places seemed to lie on their side they have not failed to urge it Now in order to a right understanding how Charity came to be broken in the carrying on of this Difference it should be remembred that when some things were recommended to the Churches relating to Christian Discipline in order to prevent such disorderly and scandalous Practices as under an abuse of our Principle of true Christian Liberty a Spirit of Looseness and Libertinism was introducing some shewed themselves dissatisfied therewith and unwilling to admit the use thereof pretending that they did not see the service of the things recommended Though this Plea was seen to proceed from weakness in some and want of a true watchfulness unto and waiting upon the heavenly Gift in themselves which would have given them a true sight and sense as it did their Brethren both of the want and of the usefulness of the things recommended yet while they kept quiet out of Contention and open Opposition Friends tenderly bore with them and carried themselves Brotherly towards them endeavouring in the love of God as occasion offered to open and inform their Minds in the things concerning which they profest to doubt But long it was not ere they abusing the tenderness of Friends towards them grew high and heady contentions and quarrelsome endeavouring publickly and labouring much in private to gather into a Faction and make a Party Which when they had in some measure effected having by evil Surmises and false Reports betrayed and misled many young Convinced Ones and some that were but weak in Judgment as well as picked up others that went discontented whose 〈◊〉 Spirits and disorderly Conversations had â—â—â—â—â—red them of the esteem they coveted amongst Friends they then appeared more openly to oppose revile and vilifie those things which before they pretended to the doubtful of and not to see a need of or service for calling them in Contempt and Derision Men's Orders human Edict Canons Constitutions Prescriptions Papists Impositions Innovations Bulls c. not sparing any reproachful Term which they thought might beget or increase in their Proselited Party a dislike of the things recommended and a dis-esteem of Friends This their unruly and turbulent behaviour gave occasion to Friends to reprove them and exhort them to study to be quiet and have regard to the Churches peace And surely had they indeed had any regard to the love of their Brethren to the peace of the Churches of Christ to the Reputation of Truth in the world or to the honour of that holy Name of the Lord by which we are called they would never have begun much less have carried on a Difference 〈◊〉 so high a Breach of Charity as they have done and that about such things as some of themselves have declared to be in their esteem but trifles small things of little or no 〈◊〉 But notwithstanding the Endeavours the Labours and Travels that were used by Friends to have reduced them to a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they grew still higher and higher in their Opposition and 〈◊〉 Carriage till at length they made not only a Breach of Charity but of Meetings also â—ending off from Friends and setting up separate Meetings of their own for themselves and their Party to meet apart in in separation from and opposition to the constant settled Meetings of Friends not only with respect to the outward Affairs and Business of the Church but even with respect to publick Worship too And in several printed Books and Papers written by some and industriously spread by others of them published the difference to the world exposing Friends as much as in them lay to the Contempt and scorn of the Prophane as Apostates Innovators Idolaters setters up of Images Idol-Prophets possessed with the Spirit of Belial and the like and not only to the Government but even to the Rabble also as a treacherous Company Introducers of Popery and but one step from it c. and that in a juncture of time when the then present discovery of the Popish Plot had exasperated the Nation against all that were but suspected to favour that Communion That this is the true state of the Case though but briefly set forth I appeal to all Friends that understand it and hereupon leave it to all such to judge in the fear of God whether the Adversaries be not they that have made this Difference and carried it on to the Breach of Charity and are therefore according to their own Conclusion WRONG The Adversaries having granted in their 16th page that those that are truly left with the one Spirit of Truth must and will agree they in the same page add But that there must be an Identity of Opinion as say they we think the School-men call it that is a Sameness of Mind and Oneness of Iudgment to Circumstantial Ceremonial or Shadowy things is sooner said than proved and savours more of Curiosity than any real Necessity Rep. It may perhaps be thought to savour more of Curiosity or something else as Vain-glory Self-conceit or a fond Affectation of being thought to have converst with School-men than of any real necessity or common Discretion for them to tell us what the School-men call Sameness of mind especially unless they could have done it upon better assurance than an as we think They had better have kept in the School of Christ where they might have learnt Sameness of mind and
rest to gaine a presumptive dependance upon men c. without true regard to Conviction or Perswasion Rep. If the drift of this Argument as they call it be like the rest then it cannot be to gain any dependence upon men on any consideration whatsoever without true regard to Conviction or Perswasion For that has not been the drift of any of the rest of the Arguments or matter in that Book But the drift of that Passage and of the rest also was to draw from a feigned pretence of being left to the Grace of God as a Cloak of Evil of any kind to a real acquaintance with subjection to and dependance on the Grace of God indeed This appears not only from several other Passages in that Book as Thou art not to conform to a thing ignorantly page 3. And It is thy Duty to wait upon God in silence aâ—d patience out of all fleshly Consultations page 10. The People of God ought to be left to the Guidings of the Spirit of God in themselves page 9. It is a great Truth that all are to be left thereunto Ibid but very plainly from the words immediately foregoing those which the Adversaries Cavil at For the Question being there put Ought I not to be left to the Grace of God in my own Heart The Answer there is That is of all things most desireable since they are well left that are there left for there is no fear of want of Vnity where all are left with the one Spirit of Truth page 4. This was far sure from a drift to gain a presumptive Dependence upon Men without true regard to Conviction or Perswasion And therefore it is evident that the drift of the Adversaries in suggesting this slander is to prejudice unwary Readers against Friends by misleading them into a wrong apprehension that Friends endeavour to draw them from the Divine Grace and holy Spirit in themselves to a dependence on men to act according as men shall direct them without true regard to Conviction or Perswasion in themselves But this is a foul slander upon Friends and a gross abuse to the Readers for indeed the contrary hereof is most true Friends as they have always done so now as much as ever do direct all to the heavenly Gift the saving-Grace that hath appeared the manifestation of the Spirit in themselves of it to learn and on it to depend for both Conviction and Conduct in their Religious Performances But as on the one hand they labour to bring every one to an acquaintance with this heavenly Gift in themselves and a true dependence on it for Guidence by it So on the other hand they caution all to beware that they be not beguiled by the Enemy in themselves who forms Likenesses of heavenly things on purpose to deceive and mislead thereby and for the same end transforms himself into an Angel of Light and take him for their Guide and Leader as too many have done instead of the Spirit of Truth and then demand to be left to the Grace of God in themselves when indeed they are gone from the Grace of God in themselves and oppose the manifestations operations and productions thereof in others So that the Controversy rightly stated and truly considered is not about being left or not left to the Grace of God for that all should be left to that was never doubted much less denyed by Friends but about being left or not left to that which is pretended to be the Grace of God but indeed and in truth is not it and by the fruits it brings forth sufficiently manifests that it is not it They say 't is true to plead this against our understanding is an abuse of the Plea and is little better than Heresie but none can be an Heretick that truly fears God therefore to plead this against this or that thing brought in by this or that Man or by this or that Assembly that we believe is wrong is so far from abusing the Plea that it may be a true using of it Rep. This is a very loose and trifling way of arguing having nothing cogent or conclusive in it The Passage they oppose is this To plead being left to the Grace of God against Vnity is to abuse the very Plea This was grounded upon and drawn from an undenyed Proposition that where all are left with the one Spirit of Truth they must be of one mind they can't be otherwise Now from this Proposition that All who are left with that is led by the one Spirit of Truth must be of one mind it fairly and naturally follows that for any to plead a being left to the Grace of God and led by the Spirit of God in themselves in order to countenance or defend a being of a contrary opposite mind from the rest that are led by the Spirit of God is to abuse the Plea and to commit as the Author of the Examination there says the greatest Contradiction to that very Doctrine of Scripture viz. that all should be guided by the Grace and Spirit of God in themselves for the End of that Doctrine is Certainty which the Author there confirms by several Scripture-Evidences as Ier. 32.39 Ezek. 11.19 Acts 4.32 c. This the Adversaries do not attempt to answer but turn the matter from pleading this against Unity to pleading it against Understanding which they say is little beâ—ter than Heresie and grant that to do thus is an abuse of the Plea But can nothing be an abuse of the Plea but using it against Understanding What if any have so little understanding in the things of God as to believe that God's People may be led by the one Spirit of Truth to disagree act contrary to and oppose one another in the things of God as the Adversaries say in their 16th page There is no necessity that they must agree in things Circumstantial is not this to abuse the Plea though it should not be done against Understanding but for want of Vnderstanding For the Plea of being left to the Grace of God in ones self is therefore said to be abused because used to an End and purpose directly contrary to that for which it was given For the end for which it was given is to bring men into Unity both with God from whom the Devil by Transgression divided them and with one another in the things of God in whom is no variableness nor shadow of turning And therefore to plead being led by it out of Unity and against Unity is to abuse the very Plea And surely if they go not against their Understandings they go much without Vnderstanding in concluding that because it is an abuse of the Plea to plead this against Understanding therefore for so they infer to plead this against this or that thing brought in by this or that man or by this or that Assembly that we believe is wrong is so far from abusing the Plea that it may be a true using of
it For here is not only no Coherence between their Premises and Conclusion but a plain departing from the terms of the Proposition which was a Pleading this of being left to the Grace of God in themselves against Vnity Which word they wholly leave out and instead thereof put in to plead this against this or that thing bâ—ought in by this or that man c. This shews their shuffling and idle way of arguing However we deny that any thing believed or practised as a Religious Duty among us was brought in by any man oâ— men as men but by the Spirit of the Lord opening Counsel in the hearts of his Servants and throuâ—h them recommending the use of such things to the Church of Christ and opening the hearts of such as waited singly in the same Spirit of Truth to receive close and joyn with the same from an inward sense Conviction and Perswasion that the things so recommended were of God In which we have been and are abundantly confirmed by the sweet and powerful presence of the Lord with and amongst us in the use thereof evidencing to our Spirits his accepting us therein And if the Adversaries believe those things to be wrong that doth not prove they are wrong though it may prove their belief and themselves wrong In their 21th page They quote another passage out of the said Book in these words I must say unto thee Friend what if thou wilt not be left unto the Grace and Spirit of God in thy self Here they break off with an c. omitting the rest of the Sentence which in the said Book follows thus nor wait for its mind nor be watchful to its Revelations nor humble and quiet till thou hast received such necessary manifestations but pleadest against the Counsel of the Spirit of the Lord in other faithful Persons under the pretence of being left to his Spirit in thy self by which means thou opposest the Spirit to the Spirit and pleadest for disunity under the name of Liberty Their Answer is Then such do the thing that is extreamly Evil. Rep. No doubt of that But when they do so what is to be done in the case Are they to be left to their Liberty and Freedom in doing the thing that is extreamly Evil Is the Church bound to own them receive them acknowledge and admit them not only for Members but Ministers and Preachers while they are doing the thing that is so extreamly Evil Or in case they disturb her godly Care and Practice and grow Contentious and exalt their Judgment against her as the Adversaries have done hath she power from God to exhort admonish and reprove them and if they persevere therein in his Name to refuse any further fellowship with them till they repent of their Evil as in the 10. pag. of the Book they pretend to Answer is laid down but not taken up answered or taken notice of by them that I find Having nimbly answered to the former Quotation Then such do the thing that is extreamly evil they immediately add but on the other hand what if they are left with the Grace and Spirit of God which they may or at least some for any thing that he hath said Rep. May they so That 's strange They that will not wait for the mind of God's Spirit not be watchful to its Revelations nor humble and quiet till they have received such necessary Manifestations but plead against the Counsel of the Spirit of the Lord in other faithful Persons under the pretence of being left to his Spirit in themselves and so oppose the Spirit to the Spirit and plead for Disunity under the name of Liberty may they for any thing that he hath said who hath said all this here and more elsewhere be left with that is led by the Grace and Spirit of God in this But say they What care has he taken What remedy has he provided that true Liberty and Freedom of Speech may be maintained Rep. Let them shew if they can when or where true Liberty and Freedom of Speech hath been denied by Friends That it hath been indeed by the Adversaries may be proved if need require But it may well be supposed what sort of Liberty and Freedom of Speech they would maintain by the Licencious Liberty they have taken and used in speaking of and against such Persons and things as they dislike a Liberty to rail at and revile those whom they call their Brethren under the Names of Apostates Innovators Introducers of Popery Setters up of Imâ—ges Idolaters Idol Prophets a treacherous Company c. a Liberty to mock at scoff jear and deride the order and discipline of the Church of Christ under the contemptuous names of Canons Constitutions human-Prescriptions Mens-Inventions Edicts Bulls c. This is the Liberty and Freedom they have hitherto used both in speaking and writing how true and fit to be maintained let all that live in Truth judge To the Author's Question whether he may not exhort to the practice of what he is moved to press to the practice of they Answer We graunt he may c. Adding It 's not our Duty to obey him because he says it but because we know or at least are perswaded that what he says is true page 22. Rep. Neither that Author nor any Friend besides ever exhorted or desired much less pressed as a Duty on any to obey him or to do any thing of a Religious concern because he said it but have alwayes directed to that which would give every one a certain knowledge and Perswasion of the thing so exhorted to There was therefore no need for the Adversaries to fence themselves against that which was never offered them But they delight by such suggestions to insinuate evil surmises into the minds of their beguiled Proselites In their 22. pag. They quibble upon the words Common and Universal for citing these words out of the Book they pretend to Answer viz. But therefore are not the Members of one mind and Iudgement in common and universal matters relating to the Church of God They answer There is not much doubt in this when truly understood but we are to mind say they that we be not deceived and imposed upon as to what is or ought to be accounted common and universal matters Hereupon they give us their notion thereof both affirmatively and negatively thus By common and universal matters we understand and we hope say they according to Truth what has been commonly and universally received and not new and novel things that have not been so received Rep. This is not according to Truth which is free and illimitable whereas this would lay a Limit and Restraint upon God from opening the way of Truth and Righteousness further and further and from adding such helps and means for the Propagation thereof and preservation of his People therein as he in his unsearchable Wisdom shall see need of For every fresh Discovery may on this pretence be slighted
into and preserved in it I find the Author of the Book I am Replying to doth not weigh his matter in the true Ballance before he brings it forth but runs on in a dark way of natural Reasoning wherein his greatest strength seems to ly which leads him to lay hold too suddenly of Crude and indigested Notions which will not stand when brought to the true Tryal But to manifest more directly to him and his Party their mistake in the present Instance I recommend to their Consideration whether they among themselves have or pretend to have any Fellowship one with another or no. If they have whether All in that Fellowship can in truth say they are cleansed from All Sin If they cannot then whether according to their own Position before laid down that Fellowship of theirs is not ineffectual This concerns all them that value that Fellowship or themselves for being in it to consider In their 27th and 28th pages having spoken of the Church 's going into the Wilderness and of her being led out of it again by Christ they say As we believe there is to be no end of the Increase of his Government now begun we are to consider there is some alteration in the work it then decreased it must now increase and if it must increase we may will consider as God is infinite and eternal he hath still more Wisdom Power and Glory to reveal Rep. There is no doubt but he hath And in his Wisdom he hath revealed such things as his Wisdom saw needful and useful to his Church and People which by his glorious Power he hath confirmed them in And which the Adversaries in their carnal Wisdom judging too mean and low for them to receive have despised reproached rejected and opposed But while they here admit that God hath still more Wisdom Power and Glory to reveal they seem to have forgotten how oft throughout their Book they have scornfully rejected things as New and Novel and bounded all to their beginning Again they say there must be a looking forward and not backward for the mind of Christ. Rep. Why then would they limit us to their beginning as in their 5th and 9th pages as if nothing were to be received but what is in their esteem Essential to true Religion or which hath been from their beginning Is not that looking backward instead of forward Besides if there must be a looking forward and not backward as they say for the mind of Christ why then do they twit us with unscriptural Orders and peremptorily call for a plain Scripture Proof for this or that Practice Is not this looking backward instead of forward For the Scriptures they know were written many hundred years ago Thus their weakness and self Contradiction appears But this is not all Their Position is unsound in it self They say there must be a looking forward and not backward for the mind of Christ. This Negative part of their Position is false and Erronious excluding the Scriptures of Truth to be looked in for the mind of Christ. Herein they Err to one Extream as the World 's People do to the other They are for looking backward not forward for the mind of Christ backward to the Scriptures which they call such a compleat Canon as admits no Addition or further discovery of the mind of God not forward as believing God hath so bound himself up to what is revealed in the holy Scripture that he will not reveal his mind any further These on the other hand are for looking forward not backward for the mind of Christ. The Truth lies between these two Extreams There ought to be a looking both forward and backward for the minde of Christ. not only forward to every fresh and further manifestation discovery or Revelation of his minde but also backward to those Revelations discoveries or manifestations of the minde of Christ which we have already received from him in our selves and which the Church of Christ in Ages past received from him through the holy Spirit and are recorded in the holy Scriptures which were written for our Instruction Thus running on headily and in haste the Adversaries have shut out the use and Service of the Scriptures of Truth from being look'd into for the minde of Christ. They say We should not think by what we know to measure what is to come and they add we hereby limit the holy One as much as is in our power c. Rep. They directed us before at the end of their Preface to understand the term We of those that are of the same minde with the Author of their Book Now this which they here say of limitting the holy One c. They speak in the term We. So that this is applicable to themselves by their own direction I am sensible indeed that what they here speak concerning themselves is true and I am sorry for it for hence has proceeded their hurt and the loss that is come upon them They have measured the Lord 's Appearances by the false Metwand of their own conceited Knowledge and the things they so measured not answering their expectation by that measure they have rejected despised and vilified the things themselves blasphemed the Power which led Friends into the practice of them turn'd head against their Brethren disquieted and disturbed the Church of Christ proclaimed in Print open War and set up their separate Meetings as Ensigns and Standards thereof Their 29th page contains a Quotation out of the Book they pretend to Answer It is too long to transcribe being almost a page consisting of many particulars pickt out of the 6th and 8th pages of that Book but not fairly for besides other Variations there is this material one that whereas the Author 's own words are If I will not comply with him that God hath made an Eye c. They have cited it If I will not comply with him that is made an Eye c. leaving out God that they might make room for an evil minde to furmise that the Eye there spoken of might be of Man's making not of God 's though the Author had expresly said Him that GOD hath made an Eye This shews as they elsewhere reflect page 25th more Cunning in Daubing than honesty in Dealing In their Answer they say 't is plain the Author intended to gain a dependance upon what he calls the Church Rep. 'T is plain they herein abuse the Author and endeavour to mislead their Reader 'T is plain the Author had no intention nor doth his Discourse tend to gain a dependence upon the Church or upon any thing else than what the Church it self is built and depends upon Christ Jesus the Head thereof That which they Carp at is a Scripture-Metaphor borrowed from the Apostle Paul 1 Cor. 12. And the Author 's intention in using it was no other than to reprove and refute the folly of those who from the variety of Measures diversity of Gifts and Offices in the
Spiritual Body would infer and bring in a Liberty and allowance for the members of that Body to disagree among themselves to contradict and oppose each other in and about the self same matter and thing relating to the Family or Church of God That this was his Intention appears most plainly in his 4th page Now in order to convince such of the weakness unreasonableness and falseness of that Plea he used the Comparison which the Apostle had made drawn from a natural Body wherein notwithstanding there are divers Members and various Offices to which they are adapted yet is there no disagreement among them no Contrariety Contradiction or Opposition So that the Adversaries in this Cavil do but in effect carp at the Apostle at the Holy Scripture and at the Spirit of Truth by which it was written But I come to particulars of their Answer Having said 't is plain his intention is to gain a Dependance upon what he calls the Church they add And that he makes infallible as she relates to Men. Rep. This is a notorious Falsehood not to be fastned on any thing in his Book and that I suppose they were sensible of for they do not attempt to quote any passage of his in proof of it but endeavour to prop up this by setting another Falsehood to it which is this That she must relate to Men is clear the Difference say they being betwixt Men and Men. This is false as well as the former The Difference is not betwixt Men and Men if it were it would relate to the things of Men such things as are common to Men as Men. But the Difference is between Spirit and Spirit and relates to the things of the Church not of the World of Christians not of Men as Men. But the Adversaries in their carnal minds distinguish not between Men and Christians Next they say He makes no provision in all his Book to the contrary by allowing Conviction to precede Conformity Rep. Doubtless the Adversaries are come to an high degree of obstinate hardness that without remorse they can so often repeat so foul a Falsehood as this How many places have I already cited out of that Book in which they say he makes no provision at all for this which plainly convict them of Falsehood and Slander therein when he said page 3. Thou art not to conform to a thing ignorantly was here no Provision at all made for Conviction to precede Conformity If they were not to conform ignorantly then surely they were to know be perswaded convinced before they conformed So that here was a good provision made that Conviction should precede Conformity When to the Question Ought I not to be left to the Grace and Spirit of God in my own heart He Answered Yea that is of all things most desireable c. page 3. and 4. when he said page 9. The People of God ought to be left to the Guidings of the Spirit of God in themselves and again It is a great Truth that all are to be thereunto left was here no Provision at all for Conviction to precede Conformity what better Provision could have been made for allowing Conviction to precede Conformity than to declare that God 's People ought to be left to the Guidings of God 's Spirit in themselves Is it not from the Spirit of God in ones self that Conviction or Perswasion of Duty is to be accepted and received will the Spirit of God lead them that â—e left to the Guidings of it to Conformity before Conviction no sure The leaving therefore of God 's People to the Guidings of God 's Spirit in themselves was the best Provision could have been made for Conviction to precede Conformity When to the Question If I do not presently see that Service in a thing that the rest of my Brethren agree in in this case what is my Duty He Answered It is thy Duty to wait upon God in silence and Patience out of all fleshly Consultation and as thou abidest in the simplicity of Truth thou wilt receive an understanding with the rest of thy Brethren about the thing doubted was there no Provision at all here for allowing Conviction to precede Conformity Did he say thou must Conform before or without Coviction whether thou seest the Service or no Whether thou hast received an Understanding about it or no Nay did he not positively exclude that and obviate this Cavil by saying directly It is thy Duty to waite upon God c. And what was such an one to wait upon God for to be lead into Conformity before Conviction no sure but to receive Conviction from God therefore he there added And as thou abidest in the simplicity of Truth thou wilt receive an Vnderstanding c. Nay so far was he from favouring much more from pressing Conformity before Conviction that having declared as before the Duty of such an unconvinced doubting one he adds also what is the Duty of the Brethren towards such an one thus And it is their Duty whilst thou behavest thy self in meekness and humility to bear with thee and carry themselves tenderly and lovingly towards thee Can any be so impudent as yet to say that he makes no Provision in all his Book to the contrary by allowing Conviction to precede Conformity Nay the Adversaries themselves say of him page 16. That they believe he desires all should be Guided by God's Spirit Doth this look like leading into blind Obedience like drawing to Conformity before Conviction like drawing to a Dependence upon Men as they often suggest against him how abominably wicked are they herein In their 30 page they quarrel at some particular passages in the large Quotation they gave before relating to the Metaphor of a natural Body As first they say The Author seems to make the Church immediately joyned to Christ for her Head as the natural Body 〈◊〉 joyned to the natural Head Rep. Doth this offend them It is then because they do not know the true Church nor her strict Conjunction with or to her Head Do they indeed think the true Church is not immediately joyned to Christ for her Head were they of that Church they would think otherwise It concerns them to consider whether they are not such as the Apostle complained of Col. 2.19 for not holding the Head from which all the body by joynts and bands having nourishment ministred and knit together increaseth with the increase of God The same Apostle exhorting the Ephesians not to be tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of Doctrine by the slight of Men and cunning Craftiness whereby they ly in wait to deceive Ephes. 4.14 adds But speaking the Truth in love may grow up into him in all things which is the Head even Christ from whom the whole Body fitly joyned together and compacted by that which every joynt supplyeth according to the effectual working in the measure of every part maketh increase of the Body unto the edifying of
it self in love And Baeza on these words thus noteth Thereof it followeth saith he that neither this Body can live without Christ neither can any Man grow up Spiritually that separateth himself from the other Members A fit Note and worthy to be noted by all those who have separated themselves from that Church which yet they acknowledge to be true They Cavil yet further at the parts of the Metaphor taken from a natural Body which shews they do not well understand the nature of a Metaphor Comparison or Sinicle which as the saying is runs not on all four nor agrees in every particular but it is enough if it square in these parts wherein the Comparison lies When Christ compared his Coming called by the Apostles the coming of the day of the Lord 1 Thes. 5.2 and 2 Pet. 3.10 to the coming of a Theif Matth. 24.43 44. it was not with respect to the end or intention of the coming of each for the Thief cometh not but to steal kill and destroy Iohn 10.10 Whereas Christ came to give Life and to Save But it was with respect to the unexpected suddenness of the coming of each The comparing the Members of Christ 's Body to the Members of a natural Body was not to tie the Spiritual Members to a strict and exact proportion and agreement in every respect to the Members of a natural Body in all and singular the Offices Properties Qualifications and Faculties of the Members of a natural Bedy But to shew that as all the Members of a natural Body being influenced animated and acted by one and the same vital Spirit do harmoniously agree and not thwart one another in their various Offices and Actions So the Members of the true Spiritual Body being all influenced animated acted moved led and guided by the one Spirit of Life and Truth do harmoniously agree and sweetly consent together in the performing of their several Offices according to the divers Gifts and various Measures that they have received thereof Which cuts off and wholly excludes that pernicious Plea which the dividing Enemy hath furnished some with for maintaining Disagreement Discord and opposite Senses Judgments and Practices amongst the Members of the same Body in and about the same Religious Performances Had the Adversaries rightly considered this they would not perhaps have thought there had been any inconsistency between the Church of Christ seeing hearing speaking with the same Eye Ear Mouth and particular Members being made by God an Eye Ear or Mouth at such seasons or such occasions and for such Services as he sees meet to use them in For there is no inconsistency in this at all though they labour to make one by a carnal way of Reasoning not suitable to the nature of Spiritual Senses For though they say In the first of these Cases they all seem to hear for themselves in the latter some hear immediately and some secondarily and that the first hear not only for themselves but for others also the second only for themselves by others They err not knowing the Mystery of true Spiritual Hearing For in the true Church All whose Ear the Lord hath truly opened and who attentively listen to his Voice hear for themselves and that immediately by the Spiritual Ear which God hath opened in them at the same time that with the outward Ear they hear the Testimony of Truth sounded forth by the Spirit of Truth through any Instrument unto them But Oh! the darkness that comes over those who give scope and liberty to their minds to rove and range in the way of carnal Reasoning about the things of God which are and only can be Spiritually discerned by them that wait in the Light Let us know say the Adversaries here what Member is this Eye that we must see by and what Member is this Ear that we must hear by and what Member is this Mouth that we must speak by in those things that relate to Christ and his Church that so we may not be imposed upon by such as may pretend to be that Eye that Ear and Mouth and are not Rep. This looks too like that impertinent Curiosity which drew from the Apostle the Rebuke of thou Fool to him that asked How are the Dead raised up and with what Bodies do they come 1 Cor. 15.35 36. The Adversaries here bewray an Imagination that some particular Members are determinately appointed to the constant and continual performance and execution of those Offices of Eye Ear Mouth c. to and for the Body And they seem to expect we should describe those Persons to them by name or other outward Character But how carnally minded must they be that could conceive so strange an Imagination They bid us let them know that which none but God knows For as no Member can be rightly a Mouth to the rest but that which God makes so by speaking through it to the rest and that only at such times as it is so made use of by God So none but God knows what Member he will make use of as a Mouth to speak his mind by But as all the Members wait upon God in their own respective measures of the heavenly Gift in themselves all are in their proper places ready to be ordered and disposed of by the Lord to whatsoever Office in or Service for the Body he shall see meet to use them in And every one thus truly waiting in that which gives a true discerning none such can be imposed upon by any false Pretender Hence it is that when any of these Adversaries that are gone out of the Unity into a separation inwardly in Spirit and outwardly in Meetings also from Friends thrust into our Meetings and take upon them to be a Mouth either from God to the Assembly by Preaching or from the Assembly to God by Prayer they are savoured felt feen and known to be but false Pretenders and as such rejected and denied by Friends But is it not strange blindness in them to Cavil at the Expression of a Member being made a Mouth by God to the rest of the Members when it is plain matter of Fact that divers of themselves pretend to that Office of being a Mouth to or from the Assembly and on that pretence obtrude and impose their Preaching and Praying on Friends Does not this shew they are devoted to Cavilling They say in their 31 page Will he leave us to depend and not certainly tell us what on Rep. By this they would insinuate that the Author of the Book they pretend to Answer would have some of the Members depend upon others Yet they immediately add He doth not intend that sure But if they really believe he doth not intend that why would they suggest that he doth so intend by saying will he have us to depend and not certainly tell us what on when it is certain he had certainly and expresly told what all God's People ought to depend on namely the Guidings of the
Spirit of God in themselves page 9. And indeed so far are Friends from having or referring any to a dependence on any Instrument through which God at any time spake that they have always recommended all to the Grace and Spirit of God in themselves which says Amen to the Testimony that proceeds from the same Grace and Spirit in another that their dependence might be upon God in that And had the Adversaries look'd with an indifferent Eye they might have observed what the Author of the Book they are so angry at hath written in the 8th and 9th pages thereof viz. That the same lowly frame of mind that receives and answers the mind of the Spirit of the Lord in a Man's self will receive and have Unity with the mind of the same Spirit through another and the reason is plain because the same self evidencing Power and virtue that ariseth from the measure of the Spirit of Truth in one self and that convinceth a Man in his own heart doth also attend the discovery of the mind of the same Spirit when delivered by another They speak of the Church that is perfectly redeemed c. But this say they is that Church that is hid from the World Rep. By this they would make as if Christ had two Churches one hid from the World and another known to the World But is the Church or was it ever known to the World Was not his Church always hid from the World Can the Church of Christ be seen but by a Spiritual Eye And hath the World that Eye to see her with In their 32 page they say Why do you impose upon your Brethren Rep. The Insinuation is false and malicious Friends impose not upon any But what God hath manifested as his mind unto us for the Service and good of his Church that in his Fear we practice our selves and that we have recommended to others When some have said they saw not the Service of it such have been exhorted and desired to wait upon God in the measure of his Light Grace and Spirit manifested in themselves that thereby they might come to a Sight and â—ense thereof and have Unity with their Brethren therein and in the mean time to be quiet and not oppose those things which their Brethren were conscientiously concerned in and which they themselves confessed that they had not a sight whether the things so recommended were of God or not But instead of taking this good Counsel some Factious Spirits amongst them set themselves to obstruct and hinder Friends from proceeding in the way which the Lord had led them into working against Friends at first in a more hidden manner by sly Insinuations and evil Surmises secretly conveyed from House to House among such as were weak of Vnderstanding or but young in the Convincement and knowledge of Truth or under some discontent of mind or such as wanted a broader way than Truth allows These they smoothly and craftily insinuated themselves into entertained them with Stories and false Reports against this that and the other Friend labouring to perswade them that such sought to set up a Lordly Dominion over them to make themselves Rulers of the Church and bring others in subjection under them Than which nothing could be more false But after that those wicked Agents had by these and such like ungodly Courses beguiled many and formed to themselves as they thought a sufficient party in divers parts of the Nation they then brake forth into open Opposition gain-saying withstanding and disturbing Friends in the practice of those things which friends were convinced of and satisfied the Lord had led them into and owned them in calling them in scorn and derision by the reproachful and despightful Terms of Canons Constitutions Decrees Mens-Inventions Human Traditions Popish-Prescriptions Edicts Orders Bulls c. And when Friends seeing them thus run out from Truth and bandying together against Truth could no longer receive their Testimonies in our publick Meetings as Preachers amongst us but were necessitated to shew some open dislike thereof then did the Adversaries impose their Preaching and Praying upon Friends requiring Friends to bow in Conformity to their Prayers and that not only before and without but even against and contrary to Conviction and Perswasion for Friends gave them to understand that they were convinced and satisfied in their Judgments and Consciences that they being gone from the Spirit of Truth and Gospel of Peace ought not to be owned as Ministers thereof Nay to that height did the Adversaries proceed in obtruding their Ministry upon Friends that in some places where they had gotten strength by Numbers sufficient to carry on their evil Designs they imposed Conformity to their own Ministry under an outward Penalty and that no less than a being excluded from debarred and deprived of the use of their publick Meeting-places in which the Friends so deprived had and have a true Right and legal Property Nor did they only threaten this but were as bad as their words and did actually shut and keep the Friends out and refuse them entrance into their own Meeting-places unless they would first promise to conform This was Imposition with a witness And Reding is a witness of this The Cavils they make in their 34. and 35. pages on occasion of the Differences mentioned Rom. 14. about Observation of Meats and Days are very trivial They do not prove that the Instances of abstaining from Meats and observing Days are Parallels to those parts of Church-Discipline which they fight so much against They confess indeed that the instance of Meats Rom. 14. is an Instance of Weakness but they urge that the Apostle's Advice was that those weak ones notwithstanding their weakness should be received Rep. We agree with the Apostle's Advice and have testified our Consent thereto by our Practice For so long as the Adversaries kept within the bounds of weakness only alleadging want of sight their weakness was born with and they were received by Friends in hopes that if they waited humbly and honestly upon the Lord he would open their understandings and give them a sight and satisfaction concerning the things they then doubted about But when not content with this bearing and forbearing they grew heady and quarrelsome and sought by running into jangling disputations to stagger others and spread the Leaven of their own doubts that by making others as doubtful as themselves they might raise a party to carry on strife and contention by they then put themselves out of the Protection of the Apostle's Advise For as he advised to receive him that is weak in the Faith so he also cautioned not to receive him to doubtful Disputations He was to be received if he would be quiet and his weakness to be born with but not if he would be alwayes wrangling and raising Dissentions in the Church So far as the cases will admit Comparison the Adversaries Representative was that weak one who could not eat what his Brethren
could He through weakness could not eat They through weakness of sight could not see what their Brethren saw could not Act as their Brethren did at least pretended so Now as the Apostle gave a cautionary Let not to him that was strong Let not him that eateth dispise him that eateth not Rom. 14.3 which Friends observed towards the Adversaries not despising nor rejecting them for their apparent weakness but bearing with them and carrying themselves tenderly towards them So he gave another cautionary Let not to him that was weak by whom as I noted the Adversaries are here represented Let not him that eateth not judge him that eateth Had the Adversaries observed this Caution 〈◊〉 the Apostle and not judged their Brethren in and for those things which their Brethren saw to be their Duty and were satisfied and conscientiously concerned in and which themselves acknowledged they had not a clear sight of the Difference in probability had not come to what it now is But the Adversaries forgeting the Apostles Counsel fell to judge their Brethren and that in the most provoking and reflecting manner under the names of Apostates Innovators Idolaters Setters up of lordly Dominion Vsurpers of Authority over Conscience Introducers of Popery c. and that in Print And never gave over till they run themselves by open war into that open Separation in which they now stand In their 35th page they fall again upon their old odd Notion of making Circumstantial and Shadowy to signifie the same thing Rep. Herein they err for want of considering the proper nature of each Every Shadow is a Representation of some particular Substance which it is a shadow of But every Circumstance is not Representative There are Circumstances of Time Place Gesture c. belonging to every Action yet is not every such Circumstance a Representation of some particular Substance Therefore every Circumstance is not a Shadow In meeting together to worship God there must be a time to meet at a Place to meet in These are Circumstantial to the worship for which the Meeting is but they are not Shadows If the Adversaries think they are pray let them assign the particular Substances of which they are Shadows and which as Shadows they represent But for ought I see they make all things to be Shadows but the Spirit of God For they say they must be Substance or Shadow and they admit nothing to be Substance but that which leads into all Truth and they add The Substance is God's holy Spirit that only and alone guides into all Truth So that after their Shadowy way of Reasoning the Gospel Dispensation should be as Shadowy as the Legal was or else there must be no external Appearance of Worship under the Gospel And yet they acknowledge There should be no Shadows in Christ's Government But if there should be no Shadows in Christ's Government and all External Acts of Worship according to their notion are but Shadowy then there must be no external Appearance or Acts of Worship under Christ's Government And what then would this shadowy shady dark Reasoning of theirs bring things to I wish the more single-hearted of their beguiled Proselites would well observe this and consider what Shadows of Christians they have made or would make them In like manner they blunder about the Circumstantial and Essential puzzling themselves and their Reader to no purpose for want of applying the words Circumstantial and Essential to their respective and proper Relatives for they must relate to something that which is but Circumstantial to one thing may be Essential to another Outward Motion or motion of the outward Members is Circumstantial to man not Essential to his being for a man may be a man without outward motion But this outward motion though it be not Essential to man's Being yet it is Essential to his Walking Talking Eating c. For walking talking eating cannot be without some outward motion of the outward Members As it is thus in Natural so in Religious Matters Outward Performances are but Circumstantial not Essential to Religion simply considered as in it self and strictly taken in the abstract But those very Performances which are not Essential to Religion it self in that strict fense may be Essential to the Outward Profession and external Exercise of Religion And indeed no outward Profession of Religion can be made no external Exercise of Religion performed without the Circumstance of some outward Act or Medium Which shews that outward Performances outward Acts or Mediums are Essential to the Being of outward Profession or Exercise of Relion though not to Religion it self in that strict and abstractive sense before mentioned I write this not with respect to any particular Medium Act or Performance but in a general way with respect to every Outward Performance that relates to the right Exercise of true Religion And to check the too confident Conclusion which the Adversaries over hastily draw thâ—â— whatsoever is not Essential to Religion according to their undistinguished sense of Essentials is without more ado a meer-Shadow The Author of the Book they pretend to Answer in his 9th page thereof having shew'd that the Plea which the Adversaries make viz. I must mind the Spirit of God in my self though true in it self yet ought not to be so applied as to disregard the Preaching or Writings of Christ's enlightned Servants because by them applied properly to the Preaching or Writing of false Prophets and Seducers concluded thus I say the Doctrine is true but not exclusively of all external Counsel or direction therefore false in application where men are allowed to have had the fear of God and the mind of his Spirit and are not proved to have acted in their own Wills and Wisdom or without the Guidance of the Spirit of God about the things of his Church and Kingdom Here the Adversaries open wide and a grevious Out cry they make p. â—7 c. Two main Exceptions they take against this One at the words have had the fear of God and the other at the words are not proved to have acted c. Against the first they alledge that such as may have had the fear of God may now be without it And to give a flurt at the Author they add As well as himself who used to have good Arguments but now wants them Against the second they urge that since every fact must be committed before proved they may have acted in their own will and not yet fully proved Now that this is a meer empty Cavil and carping at words only will appear by the Author 's own words in the place fore-cited where he expresly calls the Persons he spake of Faithful Brethren and Christ's enlightned Servants So that it is evident he used that other way of Speech afterwards upon the Adversaries Concession and to bind them the faster who how meanly soever they thought of Friends then allowed them to have had the fear of God and the mind of his
omit the doing of what you may believe is good in this Sense than for others to receive what they believe is wrong And this they speak in order as they pretend to discontinue the Difference Rep. They state not the Case fairly on either hand for what they would have us omit they call only what we may believe is good whereas they are not ignorant that we have declared we believe those things to be not only good but required by God of us as our Duty On the other hand when they speak of others not receiving them they call it what they believe is wrong whereas they have not adventured to charge those things with being positively wrong but have alleadged they did not see the Service of them or as some of their Party have elsewhere stated it they had great cause to be jealous several things proposed were not from Heaven but of Man for in their Birth into the Church they seemed not to bear the heavenly Image There is some ods surely between Belief and Iealousy between Believing a thing to be wrong and having a jealousy that it was not from Heaven but of Man especially when that Jealousy hath no greater ground than a seeming not to bear the havenly Image Thus they craftily extenuate on the one hand and aggravate on the other But when each comes to be rightly stated and set on its true bottom it will appear to be no more according to Truth for Friends to omit the doing of that which they believe to be not only good but their required Duty than for the Adversaries to receive what they did not see the Service of but were jealous was of Man because it seemed not to bear the heavenly Image However sure I am it had been more according to Truth for the Adversaries to have been Quiet and not run headily against what through want of sight and true Sense they were jealous of than either for them to have made the Opposition Disturbance Division and Separation they have made Or for Friends to have omitted the doing that good which they believed the Lord required of them and felt him by his Spirit leading them into and by his good presence owning them in And indeed a readier way could hardly be proposed for obstructing all Duty in any Society than to injoyn those who believe it to be their Duty to omit the doing of it because others are jealous of it However their here proposing that Friends should omit the doing of what they believe is good c. as a way or means to discontinue the Difference shews that notwithstanding their loud Clamours and reiterated Outcries against Friends for Imposition Imposition Imposition it was not Friends imposing upon them that gave the occasion of the Difference but it was Friends refusing to be imposed upon by them to omit the doing of their believed Duty and to be driven by their impetuous Opposition out of the practice of those things which they believed were required of them It was not enough to the Adversaries not to be imposed on themselves but they must have us omit the doing of what we believed to be good and our Duty to do Was not this Imposition on their parts who so often cry out of being imposed upon What they say in their 41 page with Allusion to the building of Babel of Old and Confusion of Tongues that ensued therupon needs no more in this place than their own Application there of to themselves for they deliver it in the first Person Plural WE Was not We of one Language say they whilst We truly travelled c. But when We found Shinar a Plain and took up Our dwelling there in the likeness of Truth then did not We as others before Us begin to build c. Now this they appropriate to themselves by the Advertisement they have given at the end of their Preface to the Reader where after they have said Where the Term You is found in the following Discourse we intend the Author and those of his mind they add And as the Term We is also used it may be understood in respect to those of the same mind with the Author of this that is their Book Let them take it therefore to themselves to whom if to any it of right belongs For they have been long hunting for a Plain a place of more Room Scope and Liberty finding Truth 's way too strait and narrow for them and at length have found one where they have taken up their Dwelling in but the likeness of Truth if in that They have built up a Separation which they designed for a lofty Tower to preserve them from what they were in no danger of In position from those they call their Brethren How they have sped in their undertaking may in some measure be gathered by this that some of their Fellow-Builders in that work have since submitted to the Ministry of the Parish-Priests to go no further So that as those Babel Builders of old met with that they shunn'd viz. to be scattered abroad c. Gen. 11.4 8. So these to avoid an imagined Danger of Imposition from their Brethren have betook themselves to the Parish Priests where Imposition is avowed How far they are divided in Language while some are mumbling their Mattins in the old Mass-Houses I leave themselves to consider But that they do agree and are one in Spirit as well such of them as are already gone off to the Priest as such as are not yet to write against the Innocent to Reproach Revile Raile at Slander and wickedly bely Friends a late scurrilous Book of Francis Bugg's and another of Iohn Pennyman's compared with others written by other of the Adversaries plainly shew Which Books came out so near in time with that I am now Replying to as if there had been an Intelligence held and Correspondence carried on between the respective Authors They say page 41 For you to call such Pleas as those Leave me to the Grace of God and to the Spirit of Truth loose Pleas c. We look upon it as of dangerous Consequence what though some may abuse them will you take them away and with them freedom of Speech Rep. We do not call those Pleas looâ—e with respect to the Pleas themselves which we acknowledge are sound and good but with respect to the Spirit by which and the end to which those Pleas have been pleaded by the Adversaries which was by a loose Spirit in order to let up Looseness without controul Therefore we take not away the Pleas but the abuse of them Nor do we take away freedom of Speech but in Truth 's Authority reprove that exorbitant Liberty of Rayling at Reviling and Reproaching Friends and exposing Truth to the Worlds contempt and scorn under pretence of freedom of Speech In page 42 they ask Why may not you be cautioned to beware of Formality Rep. We are often cautioned so as they that frequent our Meetings know And
and certainly known as the Tares in the Parable at the first sight were to be Tares Ah how would this loose Spirit that is got up in some turn Spiritual Zion the inclosed Garden of God into a Plowed-Field However it is to be hoped Their applying the Parable of Tares to themselves may help to make some others understand them better than hither to they have done And their pleading for a Toleration for Tares to grow in the Church for of the Church and its Members they here treat not of the World may give some a further sight of their Design for sheltring Evil and what they aim at in this Plea than ever they had before After they have shewed the utmost of Immoderation in managing the Difference on their own part they now at length begin to preach Moderation to Others If say they this Difference cannot be ended manage it with more Moderation they might have added than themselves have done and in that love of God that it may be shewed the Lord is at hand to gather different apprehensions into a better Temper They might have added than Themselves have hitherto been in Rep. But why did they not think of this Moderation before they published their many scandalous and malicious Books to the defaming of Truth and Friends to the world as much as in them lay Why did they not preach this Moderation to their own Party at Reding and other Places to have gathered them into a better temper for a worse they could hardly have been in than to keep Friends out of their Meeting-Houses wherein they had a just and legal Property and expose them for divers Years together to those hardships that Heat and Cold Rain and Storms of Weather bring They who have done the greatest mischief by their Immoderation that they can begin now to recommend Moderation to others And they who have done their utmost to dishonour the God of Truth and Peace before the People by publishing their wicked Books and setting up their separate Meetings do now take upon them to exhort Others to Moderation Otherwise say they you will dishonour the God of Truth and Peace before the People Is not this Hyprocrisie in grain They add pag. 46. You must agree together quietly or part friendly or you are no Preachers of Righteousness whatever your Principles of Truth may be Rep. To what end do they propose this now so long after they have actually parted from us They have had their separate Meetings these many years And more than a year ago some of them gave us to understand in Print that they had chosen to meet apart and had withdrawn But since they did neither agree quietly with us while together nor did part Friendly when they withdrew does it not follow upon them according to their own words that They are no Preachers of Righteousness whatever Principles of Truth they may hold They urge the Example of Abraham and Lot for parting by agreement But they do not take notice that that was only a parting of outward Habitations and that through Necessity because the place was not large enough to hold them So that this was not a Religious parting muchless a parting through Opposition of their Spirits Yet this was in the Vncircumcised state too for Circumcision was not instituted till after this But they would do well to consider that Lot who took his Choice and parted from Abraham the Friend of God came to great Loss and suffered deeply thereby For though at first remove he pitched his Tent but towards Sodom Gen. 13.12 yet quickly after we find him settled in Sodom chap. 14.12 And he had not long been there before he was made a Captive and was glad to be rescued by him he had parted from O that all that are in danger of being beguiled betrayed and led away by this Dividing Spirit and its Agents would consider these things in a Spiritual Application and beware of Separating from God's Friends lest by the pleasantness of the Plains where liberty freedom room and scope may be had to walk at will they be allured to pitch their Tents towards mystical Sodom and by degrees drawn into it It follows in their Book But why cannot you agree together whilst you own one and the same righteous Principle Rep. By this it seems as if owning a Principle were Terms of their Communion To own the Principle of Truth is one thing to hold it keep to it and obey it is another Many do the one that do not the other Many own the Principle of Truth in words that never came into Obedience to it and some that have departed from obedience to the Principle have yet retained a verbal Acknowledgement of it And of them that have made Profession of the Truth and afterwards turned their Backs upon it how few are there that do not own the Principle They find fault with something or other in the Society to make themselves an Out-let that they may thereby slip out and shake off the Yoke of Christ which is as uneasie to the Wrong as easie to the Right But they commonly cry up the Principle still Do not Pennyman Crisp and Bugg own in words the same righteous Principle still Let me turn the Question then upon the Adversaries and ask them Why cannot you and those men agree together whilst you and they own one and the same righteous Principle Nay why cannot you and they agree in other things as well as in contending against Truth and writing Books against Friends They add You came out together have you not done the greater and cannot you do the less That 's strange Rep. That 's not so strange as they would make it Israel of old came out of Egypt together and with them a mixt multitude Exod. 12.38 or as in the Margin a great Mixture But all they that came out together did not agree to travel on together No some grumbled and murmured at the Hardships in the way Some emulated and repined at the superior Gifts and Graces of their Brethren Some let in and cherished Evil Surmises and false Iealousies concerning their Brethren as if some of their Brethren took too much upon them and lifted themselves up above the Congregation and sought a Principality or Lordly Dominion over the rest Numb 16. Thus wrought the subtil Enemy after divers manners to divide scatter and turn aside some after one manner some after another Some were swallowed up of the Earth and perished in their Gain-saying Some were for making themselves a Captain in opposition to the Captain God had made and for returning again into Egypt the Land of Darkness out of which they came up together Others were consumed by the Fire of the Lord which in hot Indignation brake forth against them And all the Murmurers fell in the Wilderness Now all these things as the Apostle says hapned unto them for Examples and they are written for our Admonition 1 Cor. 10.11 Therefore Murmur not ye as some of them also Murmured and were destroyed of the Destroyer ver 10. That which remains of the Adversaries Book is mostly a Recapitulation or contracted Repetition of their foregoing Reasonings grounded upon a false Hypothesis or Supposition that Friends would impose new things as matters of Faith and terms of Communion and would bring in blind Obedience by pressing Conformity before Conviction and the like which I hope the Reader will find to his Satisfaction refuted before That therefore I may not swell this Book with unnecessary Repetitions I will only recommend to the Reader 's Observation what after all their Outcry against bringing in new things as they call them the Adversaries themselves grant in page 48. in these words Any Particular or any Assembly of the Community may offer what is new if they sincerely believe it good and Serviceable without breach of Vnity or at least of Communion but say they we cannot find to the bringing of new things in as matters of Faith or terms of Communion that any Assembly have any more power than a particular Person Rep What Power an Assembly may have more than a particular Person I list not here to dispute because I would not like them pick occasion of Debate and Quarrelling But since Friends have not offered any of the things the Adversaries except against under the Notion of new things as matters of Faith to others or as terms of Communion but have only offered such things as they sincerely believe are good and Serviceable let it suffice that Friends have herein done no more than the Adversaries here grant may be done by any Particular or any Assembly of the Community without breach of Unity or Communion The Breach therefore of Unity and Communion that now is betwixt them and Friends must lie and doth at the Adversaries Door who by the heady willful violent and turbulent Opposition they made to obstruct and hinder Friends from proceeding on in the use and practice of those things which the Friends sincerely believed and do yet believe to be good and Serviceable have run themselves into open War and that in Print against Friends and into open Division and Separation from Friends So that it is They have broken themselves off from the Unity Communion and Society of Friends both inwardly in Spirit and outwardly also in Religious Exercises The Lord if it be his good pleasure give them yet a clear sight and true sense of the great Evil and Mischief they have done against God his Truth and People that in the sense thereof they may be truly humbled and bowed down before him and brought to such an honest and sensible Acknowledgment thereof as may evidence their sincere Repentance that through Judgment they may find Mercy and obtain Remission from him THE END Of the Mistakes committed in Printing the most material that have been yet observed are here noted to be Corrected Others of less moment as mis-spellings mis-placing of Letters or Stops the Reader is desired to amend in reading PAge 10. line 21. read is in pag. 20. line 8. r. reprove l. 13. for immoral r. Evil p. 22. l. 33. for not yet r. nor yet p. 23. l. 25. after dispensation make Commâ— p. 40. l. 13. f. present r. recent p. 44. l. 1. r. Iohn 6.56 p. 50. l. 27. r. Peter p. 52. l. 9. f. of Evil r. for Evil. p. 63. l. 12. f. prevent r. pervert
A REPLY TO AN ANSWER Lately Published to a BOOK Long since written by W. P. Entituled A Brief Examination and State of Liberty Spiritual c. By Thomas Ellwood 2 Tim. 3.13 Evil men and Seducers shall wax worse and worse deceiving and being deceived Rom. 16.17 Now I beseech you Brethren mark them which cause Divisions and Offences contrary to the Doctrine which ye have learned and avoid them Printed and Sold by T. Sowle at the Crooked-Billet in Holloway-Lane in Shoreditch 1691. THE PREFACE IN the Year 1681. there was a small Treatise published by a Friend under the Title of A Brief Examination of Liberty Spiritual c. The occasion of writing that Treatise was a sense the Author thereof had and an Observation he had made how much the Nature of that true Spiritual Liberty was misunderstood by some and the Name thereof abused by others in the Profession of the Truth who under pretence of being left to that Liberty in themselves and to their own Freedom therein both took liberty to do such things as were inconsistent with that true Liberty and with the Principle of Truth which they professed and despising those useful good and necessary Helps and Means which the Lord hath provided and furnished his Church or People with for the preventing and keeping out such Disorders Evils and Scandals as the unruly Nature of man through such a mistake of true Liberty might and would bring in did reject the Counsel Admonition or Reproof of their Brethren with a What hast thou to do with me Leave me to my own Freedom To reclaim if it might be those that were thus deceived and prevent others from being so the Author being pressed in Spirit for Zion's sake and for the Peace of Jerusalem and having a deep Sense as himself expresses of the working of the Enemy of Zion's Peace to rend and divide the Heritage of God did write the fore-mentioned Treatise for the Establishment of the Faithful Information of the Simple-hearted and Reproof of the Arrogant and High-minded as his Title Page sets forth As that Treatise had its Service and Acceptance with the Faithful and Simple-hearted So it has passed hitherto for between nine and ten Years free from the Cavils at least Publick of the Arrogant and High-minded till now that of late some of them who are of a restless Spirit and to whom it is uneasie to be or to let others be quiet have singled out that Book for a fresh Butt to shoot at make that a new Occasion to renew Contention and revive the old Controversie In order to this they have very lately published a Book in Answer as is pretended to several material Passages in that Book That Answer hath in the Title Page the Letters J. H. as standing for the Author's Name But since I have no certain knowledge who is meant by those two Letters and I find the general stile of the Answer both in the Preface and Book it self to run in the first Person Plural We which by the Advertisement at the End of the Preface I am told may be understood in respect of those of the same mind with the Author of that Book I chose in my Reply to entitle the Adverse Party to it without regard to any particular Person They labour much throughout their Book to fasten an ugly Imputation or Charge upon the Author of that Treatise they pretend to Answer of endeavouring to bring in a blind Obedience an implicit Faith Conformity before and without Conviction a Dependence on Men instead of a Dependence on God endeavouring to obtrude or set up Opinion or the likeness of Truth instead of Truth c. How far from Truth this Charge is the following Reply is intended to manifest How far from true Christianity a man must be that could be guilty of all this is manifest of it self The Adversaries therefore that they might not hereby too much disgust such of their Favourers as have not wholly cast off all good thoughts of him they thus traduce make as if they would in Charity excuse the Author from doing those things knowingly pretending to believe him both a better Man and more a Christian. But how unlike Christians they have dealt with him in Answering his Book the following Reply will in part discover Here in their Preface for the reason of his doing the things they slanderously tax him with they assign his being deceived through the mysterious working of the Enemy which that it may not seem strange they wish their Reader to consider how many have been deceived thereby both great and small and some at times hurried into things grosly Evil as killing their fellow-Creatures and yet at the same time think they did God service But as no good Christian ever did so So by the Comparison they have made they sufficiently shew what a sort of Christian they in reality esteem him to be Their Preface is so much both for matter and manner of the same Piece with their Book that much of what is in the Preface will be taken notice of in the Reply to the Book to which therefore for avoiding needless Repetitions I refer Yet because they have loosely scattered through their Preface many unsound Expressions which perhaps may not so fitly be handled in the Reply I will briefly touch a few of them here As Their calling the likeness of Truth a Third thing besides what is Evil and Good and saying that it stands betwixt Evil and Good though they bring it in with as As we may say will not hold weight but unsound For that which is only like Truth but is not Truth doth not stand betwixt Evil and Good but whatever it seems to be is really and directly Evil and stands in and with the Evil. So their making the Covering of the Soul where the likeness of Truth is received for Truth c. to be as the Linnen and Wollen-Garment forbid to be worm under the Law is an unfit and unsound Comparison For neither the Linnen nor the Wollen was Evil though as a Type of Sincerity and Singleness of Heart they were then forbidden to be worn in one Garment together but either the Linnen might lawfully be worn by it self or the Wollen by it self But the likeness of Truth that which is only like Truth but is not Truth may neither be received together with any thing that is Truth nor alone by it self without Truth So when they speak of Outward Rules they say Every adding of outward Rules shews a want of Christ's Government by his holy Spirit They mistake If it shews a want of any thing it shews a want of Subjection to his Government by his holy Spirit not a want of that Government Neither is Christ's Government by his holy Spirit incompatible with outward Rules but whatever outward Rules Christ by his Spirit gives are consistent with and agreeable to his Government by his Spirit So again when they say It is certain that no outward Rule