self-evidence but the evidence of the truth of them depends on the veracity of God the Original Author of them the next thing to be enquired into is what is the great and most principal motive of Credibility to move and effectually perswade the Mind that they are the Words of God surely he who believes that there is a God cannot but assent to this proposition that whatever God hath said is true that all the Words of God are Words of truth it hath as immediate evidence to him that has the least true knowledge of God as that the whole is greater than the part That then which is only requisite to move the Mind of Man to assent to any words delivered to us as the words of God is to have a sufficient motive of Credibility given us why we should believe them to be indeed the words of God That the Prophets and Apostles knew that all the words they delivered to Men as the words of God were infallibly the words of God is generally granted by all that own the Truth of Divine Revelation the manner of their Conveyance to their Understanding being with such a Divine Power Majesty and Glory and making such a Divine Impression on them as infallibly assured them and this many times without all Miracles proposed to their outward Senses Section 8. That the Faithful have as good Assurance of the Truth and Divine Authority of the Holy Scriptures by the ordinary Inspirations of the Spirit in the use of the outward Means as the Prophets had by Extraordinary and Prophetical The Distinction betwixt them explained THE great Question therefore that remains now to be considered and resolved is Whither the Faithful cannot have and actually have not as good Assurance in respect of all Fundamentals and Essentials of the Christian Faith at least that the words delivered by the Holy Prophets and Apostles were the Words of God as if they had received them in the same way and manner as the Prophets and Apostles received them which was without any external Medium such as the Ministry of Men and Books whereas the way that we now receive those words is by some external Medium to wit the Ministry of Men and Books I shall not here insist upon the external Motives of Credibility taken either from so many Thousands of the best and wisest of Men in the several Ages of the World since the words were committed to writing who have received and embraced them to be what really they are even the Words of the Living and True God or such as are taken from the Words themselves as outwardly delivered such as the Simplicity Purity Majesty and Efficacy of their Doctrine the Harmony of the several Parts the fulfilling of the many Prophecies contained in them the many other incomparable Excellencies of them the wonderful Effects they have had on many Thousands and Millions of Men in being instrumental to their Conversion from Idolatry and Ungodliness to true Piety and Sanctity all which are of great weight to convince the Reason of Men but because all this doth amount to no more but a rational Conviction and doth not beget a Divine Assent or Perswasion Therefore I conclude with all Orthodox and Sound Christians that our full Perswasion and Assurance of the Infallible Truth and Divine Authority of them is from the inward Work of the Holy Spirit by his Internal and Supernatural Illumination Inspiration and Revelation and secret and most inward Teaching in our Hearts by sensible and perceptible Impressions Sealing to the Truth of them upon our Hearts and Minds And here I think fit to guard against a two-fold Extream that I find too many run into both greatly and dangerously erroneous the one is of some that grant indeed that the Spirit doth inwardly operate in the Souls of Men and more especially in the Souls of the Faithful but this Operation or Agency and Efficiency of the Spirit they will have it only to be effective and no-wise objective that is to say no-wise perceptible or sensible to the Soul in which the Spirit doth so operate Hence it is that some of them have called this Internal Operation of the Spirit even in the Faithful Medium incognitum assentiendi the which Assertion being so repugnant to the Scripture Testimonies in many places that hold forth the Spirits internal Operations and Virtues to be as sensible upon the internal and spiritual Senses of Souls in any good degree inwardly quickned and made alive to God as the Operations of outward Light Heat Cold or the most affecting Objects of Sight Taste Smelling and Feeling are upon our outward and bodily Senses and also being so contrary to the Experience of many Thousands of true experienced Christians I shall not insist here any further to refute it The other as dangerous and erroneous Extream is of such of whom is W.P. and his Party as plainly appears by what he layeth down in this Treatise and oft elsewhere in his Books who hold That the Manner and Kind of the Spirits Internal Inspirations Revelations Illuminations and inward Teachings is the same with that which the Prophets and Apostles had that is to say that whatever they think they have a Divine Knowledge and Faith of the words which are necessary to be the Rule and Medium to the obtaining this Knowledge and Faith must be given them as they were given to the Pen-men of the Holy Scriptures to wit without the external Medium of the Holy Scriptures and without any external Teaching whatsoever and that therefore their Faith and Knowledge so far as it is Divine hath no dependence on the words delivered in the Holy Scriptures but whatever they know or believe by a Divine Knowledge and Faith it is wholly from words inwardly given them from the Spirit without all outward conveyance of Men or Books Hence it is that W.P. calls his and his Brethrens Rule of Faith and Life the eternal Precepts of the Spirit in Mens Consciences but as for the Precepts and Words outwardly delivered in Scripture they are but to him what Pythagoras and other Philosophers quoted by him Page 6. judged of other Writings to wit liveless Precepts Hence many of his Party have presumed to call them a Dead Letter Death and Carnal Yet Page 25. he is so yielding and seemingly kind to the Scriptures that he grants them to be a subordinate secondary and declaratory Rule Such a subordinate secondary and declaratory Rule saith he we never said several parts of Scripture were not Here observe for all his professed kindness to the Scriptures he will not allow all the parts of Scripture but only some parts of it to be so much as a subordinate secondary and declaratory Rule though even the Ceremonial Precepts he has as great reason to believe them to be the Words of God and consequently a Rule of Faith though not of Practise as touching the external Types as truly as any other parts of Scripture But seeing every subordinate
another Rule of Faith and Life than what is the true Rule indeed If he persist in so doing he will not only bring his own Blood upon himself but the Blood of many others that are and may be mislead by him And whether he will yet better consider it or not which I heartily wish and pray that God would be pleased to open his Eyes and give him Repentance and a better Understanding It is a plain Case That the true Knowledge of the true Rule of Faith and Life is very necessary yea so necessary that the Danger for want of it is Perishing or Destruction Yet I mean not that every Error in Circumstance about the true Rule is of that Danger or that some loose and indeliberate Expressions that some have used in Preaching or Printing while their Meaning hath been more sound than their Words even about the RULE are of that Consequence It hath happened to some well-meaning People as it had happened to my self that they and I have both spoke and writ unadvisedly As in some other Matters so in this running along or rather being carried along with the Stream of some of the ancient Friends so called of the Ministry in asserting both in Speech and Print too frequently that the Spirit within meaning the inward Evidence of the Spirit as touching the great Matters of the Christian Faith and Practise was the principal Rule of Faith and Life wherein I acknowledge my Error and great Mistake and do here particularly retract it notwithstanding the general Retractation I have lately made in my late Book called G. K ' s Explications and Retractations But tho' I was then in an Error and under a great Mistake in my way of wording the Matter and darkned too much and clouded in my Understanding in that very Point yet I crave leave of my Reader to shew that even then my Error was not Fundamental nor such as this is of W. Penn's and his Brethren whose Error in the Case has carried them to plain Deism My Mistake chiefly consisted in this in confounding the Term Rule of Faith with the Term Inward objective Medium which I ought to have distinguished for the Rule of Faith is not properly speaking that formal object of Faith called by some Objectum formale quo or objective Medium and Motive of Credibility but the material Objects of Faith to wit all the Credenda or things in Scripture that ought to be believed are the Rule of Faith And therefore instead of saying the Spirits inward Evidence and Testimony was the Rule of Faith and principal Rule I should have said it was the principal objective Medium of Credibility Which as I then did believe and assert so I do still and hope never to retract it And therefore while I continue adhering to this Perswasion I remain as to the main the same I was in my Judgment as when I wrote my former Books touching these Matters my chief Bent and Zeal being against that which I judged a very Erronious Opinion and Hurtful held by some counted Learned Men and which I judge still that so it is to wit That the inward Evidence of the Spirit in the Souls of the Faithful to the Truths of the Christian Religion is only Effective and not Objective and I pleaded warmly that the Spirits inward Evidence otherwise called Testimony Witness Inspiration Illumination or Operation in the Souls of the Faithful is not only Effective but Objective also to wit by way of formal Object or objective Medium and Motive of Credibility And this I reckoned then and do still the greatest Certainty and Assurance that the Scriptures are of Divine Authority and infallibly true wherein I knew and still know I had the best Protestant Authors both for Piety and solid Learning on my side as also my Feeling and Experience to the Praise of God's Grace I say it in the Case hath confirmed me though I know some called Learned Men who have more of that called Divinity Learning in their Heads than in their Hearts do contradict it yea to a Degree of Ridiculing it under the Name of Fanaticism and Enthusiasm not well regarding the Authority of their worthy and judicious Ancestors who in the Articles of the Church have expresly mentioned the Feeling of the Holy Ghost in his Operations and Motions But I erred in calling this either inward Feeling or the Object of it the principal Rule for properly and rightly speaking it is not the Rule of Faith but the principal Motive of Credibility That which is only strictly and properly speaking the Rule of the Christian Faith is the Doctrine of the Holy Scriptures especially respecting the great Fundamentals and Essentials thereof To give a preference to the inward Operation of the Spirit and his writing his Law in the Heart to the same Law as writ on leaves of Paper and to the experimental part of Christianity above all that can be outwardly told or heard or read I think no true Christian will deny but when it is askâ—d which is the greater Rule the Inward or the Outward they compare things that are not to be compared that cannot be said to be either the greater Rule or the lesser which is properly speaking no Rule at all but the moving or impulsive Cause that moves and inclines me to take the Holy Scriptures to be my Rule being infallibly true and of Divine Authority And whoever be yet in the same Mistake and Error that I then was in God forbid that I should judge so uncharitably of them as to conclude they err Fundamentally for want of not giving right Names to things or not having so clear inward Idea's and Conceptions of them when as to the main they mean well I am bold to appeal to my Books from first to last whither according to the Strain and Intent in all that I have Printed on that Subject I have not always acknowledged that the Doctrine of Christ Crucified and Remission of Sin by his Blood and other Doctrinal Principles of Christianity were absolutely necessary to be believed by us for our Eternal Salvation And that the Doctrine of the Holy Scriptures as outwardly conveighed to us by Preaching or Reading is the ordinary Means whereby God works Faith and Conversion and Regeneration in them that shall be Saved And that therefore so long as we live we are not to lay aside either that or any outward means of Grace and Salvation that God has afforded And how far I have formerly denied that the Scripture was the Rule of Faith I meant that as it was not the Letter or Writing so nor the Doctrine as simply and wholly limited and confined to the Letter As if it should happen by Divine Providence that a Person or Company of Persons should have the Holy Bible by Violence taken from them or not have it in any Language they can understand that therefore they are not in a possible State of Salvation For though in God's ordinary way the
Instrument of the Spirit in giving him and us all the Knowledge of Christian Doctrines and Mysteries peculiar to the Christian Religion he has all this time been fighting with his own Shadow for if so he agrees with them all from whom he seeks so much to differ and writ against That the Spirit of God can reveal in every Man all necessary Truth is granted by all Christians but the Question is not what he can do but what he doth in God's ordinary way of working Section 11. His eighth Argument answered That the Scriptures cannot give Faith therefore they are not the Rule of Faith And his ninth tenth Arguments answered Page 11. Arg. 8. HIS fourth Argument as he numbers them against the Scriptures being the Rule is Because the Scripture cannot give Faith therefore is cannot be the Rule of Faith Ans The Consequence is denied and he gives no offer of proof for it his Argument is as weak as to argue a Carpenter's Rule or Square cannot build a House therefore it cannot be a Rule or Instrument for him to work by in building a House This his way of arguing destroyeth all use of service of Instruments and secondary Causes the like Failure hath his arguing against the Scriptures being the Rule of Practise Arg. 9. Because it cannot distinguish of it self in all Cases what ought to be practised and what not Well but what if it cannot of it self as the Carpenter's Rule cannot of it self as measure one piece of Wood more than another without the hand of him that useth it doth it therefore follow that the Rule cannot do it when applied by the Hand of the Man himself Page 12. This saith he was the Case of Christ's Disciples who had no particular Rule in the Old Testament for the abolishing of some part of the Old Testament Religion on the contrary they might have pleaded for the perpetuity of it For instance God gave Cirumcision as a Sign for ever Answ By his favour he is mistaken in saying they had no such particular Rule for the abolishing he should rather have said expiring of some parts of the Old Testament Religion Let him read Jer. 3.16 and 31.31 32. compared with Heb. 8.8 and he may find the contrary the word for ever in the place mentioned by him in relation to Circumcision and other Jewish Types signified not to the end of the World far less endlesly but for a certain limited time as the Jews themselves confess at times it so signifies yea and some of the most judicious of them have confessed they were to cease before the end of the World In his tenth Argument he but too much gratifies his Deist Brethren and Profane Atheists by his bringing their and other Popish Arguments against the Scriptures being the Rule Page 13. As that they are not in the Original because that is not extant nor in the Copies because there are Thirty and above in number and it is undetermined and for ought we see saith he indeterminable And the variety of Readings among those Copies amount to several Thousands And if the Copies cannot how can the Translations saith he be the Rule And so goeth on disputing against the Translations being the Rule And then argueth against their being the Rule from diverse of the Books of Scripture being rejected by some and received by others all which Pleas both of Deists and Papists have been abundantly answered by Protestant Writers see Dr. Tillâ—tson's Book called The Rule of Faith in answer to J.S. a Papist whole Arguments against the Scriptures being the Rule of Faith are so much of the same sort with these here of W.P. as if he had taken them from him And the inward Testimony of the Spirit sufficiently asserted to the Truth and Divine Authority of the Holy Scriptures without taking away from them their due Honour Use and Service of their being the Rule of Faith and Life in all things necessary to Salvation which yet W.P. labours to rob them of under a pretence of exalting the Spirit but really is a degrading and dishonouring both as is above proved beside the great Mischief it causeth in casting all People who believe W.P. and his Party loose from the Scriptures that Satan may have the more advantage over them to deceive them as he hath wofully done for if the whole Scripture and every part of them be not to them the Rule of Faith they may chuse what to believe and what not to be believe and to believe no more than what the Spirit within which as it may be and often is not the Spirit of God teacheth them to believe for they may hence infer since the Spirit that is the primary Rule teacheth them not to believe any such Doctrines or Precepts it is but Spurious and Apocryphal and no part of the Secondary Rule as sometimes they are pleased to call it though the distinction of primary and secondary Rule will not be found in their first Authors for then the Spirit was the only Rule and the only Means and the Scriptures were Carnal and the dead Letter and liâ—eless Precepts as W.P. seemeth to call them else why doth he quote Philo and Phythagoras and others that called all outward Precepts such Section 12. His eleventh twelfth and thirteenth Arguments answered Arg. 11. HIS eighth Argument is That the Scriptures are not the Rule of Faith and Life because they cannot be the Rule in their Translations Page 26. Supposing the ancient Copies were exact it cannot be the Rule to far the greatest part of Mankind Indeed saith he to none but learned Men which neither answers the Promise relating to Gospel-times which is universal nor the Necessity of all Mankind for a Rule of Faith and Life Ans Why not in their Translations by the help of the Spirit as above declared It may be supposed that W. P's Learning is not so great that he needs not the Translation as well as other Men it is well known that the Translations and all the various Copies and Readings make not the least Alteration in any of the Fundamental or Essential Doctrines of Christianity yea scarcely in any much material whatsoever Arg. 12. His ninth Argument is from those voluminous Discourses of Cases of Conscience that are extant among us For saith he had the Scriptures been as Sufficient Note here his fling at their Sufficiency as the Nature of the Rule of Faith and Life requireth there had been no need of such Tracts Answ This Argument equally fighteth against the Light within being the Rule of Faith and Life for if it actually doth all that the Nature of a Rule of Faith and Life requireth then pray What need had there been of so many Tracts of the Quakers Writings about Doctrines and Principles as well as Cases of Conscience which have amounted to a prodigious Number within these Fifty Years seeing all Men have the same Light within them to be the same Rule in all Is not that sufficient without any
without them but only within them that is the Light in the Conscience and so there is no High-Priest without us nor no Heaven without us into which the Man Christ Jesus is gone nor King Christ without us but only within us for to say he is both without us and within us also will spoil W. P's Argument altogether and mar his Analogy betwixt the Law without under Moses and the Law within under Christ the High-Priest without then and the High-Priest within now If he grant there is a High-Priest without us and who is also King as well as Priest and that he is more without us than within us as all true Christians believe who have not the fulness within them but receive of his fulness and Grace for Grace and therefore that fulness is in the Man Christ without them he must also grant that the Law and Rule of Faith is as well without us as within us and so his Argument is spoiled but that he will be loth to grant for then the fundamental Principle of him and his Brethren is pluck'd up by the Roots by confessing to the Man Christ a High-Priest without us or King without us which will necessarily infer the Law and Rule of Faith delivered us by Christ without us is not within us only but without us also as Christ the Law-giver is Thus we see for Love of their supposed Rule of Faith only within them W.P. and his Brethren who approve his Book abandon and reject utterly any Christ High-Priest or King without them as also he has done in his Christian Quaker where he will have P. 97. The Lamb without in the Passover to shew forth the Lamb within to wit the Light in the Conscience but not the Lamb Christ without as he was outwardly slain And yet W.P. for all this hath said in his late answer to the Bishop of Cork That the Quakers differ little in Doctrine from the Church of England setting aside some School Terms And in his answer to the Bishop of Cork P. 97. he saith We i. e. he and his Brethren plainly and intirely believe the Truths contained in the Creed commonly called the Apostles Creed But possibly some fallacy is latent here also as if he had said they believe the Truths Contained in the Jews Talmud or Turks Alcoran for doubtless there are some Truths contained in them both but many Falshoods and so he may think there are in that Creed for all his seeming fair Confession to it and I offer to prove they have disbelieved them all But how this consists with their having only their High Priest King and Prophet within them as they have the Law and Rule of their Faith only within them as W.P. here doth Argue I leave to the intelligent to Judge and whither this palpable contradiction bewrayes not their great disingenuity considering that they will not grant that they are in any one point changed in their Faith or Doctrine from what they were ever since they were a People but as God and Truth is the same so his People to wit the Quakers are the same as they have in so many express words lately Printed in the Book called the Quakers Cleared c. 3. As concerning the several places of Scripture quoted by him that he brings to prove the inward Teachings of God Christ and the Holy Spirit and God's writing his Laws in the Hearts of the Faithful all this is granted by all Sound Christians but that is not the true State of the Controversie betwixt the People called Quakers and their Opponents But the true State of the Controversie is this whither the inward Teachings of God of Christ and of the Holy Spirit come to believers without all outward means and without all outward Ministry and Service of Men or Books and whither the Law and Rule of Faith that Believers have in them put in them yea and writ in their Hearts by the Lord himself is without all outward Instruction and Teaching or Service of Men or Books or whither the Law and Rule of Faith and Practise within in respect of all the peculiar Doctrines and Precepts of the Christian Religion be not so to speak a Transcript or Copy from the Law and Rule of Faith without us as delivered in the Holy Scriptures which therefore may be called the Original as to us though that Original Law and Rule without us came from an inward Original in the Holy Prophets and in the Man Christ and his Holy Evangelists and Apostles which yet had a higher Original to wit the Archetypal Law as it was in God before the Copy or Transcript of it came to be in the Prophets and from them committed to writing outwardly and from that outward writing transferred and transcribed into the Hearts of the Faithful where it becomes an inward Law or Rule in them And thus the Faithful have the Law and Rule of Faith both without them and within them first without them in the Holy Scriptures next within them put in them by the Lord in their Hearts by means of outward Instruction as Preaching Reading c. And if the Question be asked Whither is best to have it without them or within them I answer to have it both ways is very necessary for in God's ordinary way of working we cannot have it within us if we had it not first without us no more than we can have Food within us if we had it not first without us for as our outward and bodily Food that nourisheth our Bodies comes into our Bodies from without us by the Door so to speak of our Mouth so the wholsome Doctrine of eternal Salvation by Christ our Blessed Saviour and Redeemer by means of which our Souls and inward Man are nourished being accompanied with the Divine Influences of the Grace and Spirit of God and of Christ comes into our Souls by the Door of our outward Hearing and Reading in the Holy Scriptures Again though there be ever so good Food and ever so Plentiful without us yet if we receive it not within us it neither doth nor can nourish us And as the clean Beasts under the Law did chew the Cud of what they did eat for their Nourishment so the Faithful what they outwardly hear and read of God's Word in the Holy Scriptures must meditate upon inwardly for their Spiritual Food Thus the great necessity of having the Law and Word of God both without us and within us the Rule of our Faith and Life is evidently apparent so long as we live in these mortal Bodies And therefore God hath appointed and Christ hath given an outward Ministry together with his other Gifts and Graces to his Church to continue to the end of the World and to his last coming But again if it be asked Is there not an Internal word Voice or Teaching of Christ distinct from the outward word Voice and Teaching that outwardly soundeth in our outward Ears I answer There is but in God's
Light within which all Mankind had as well as the Jews but the outward Word of Doctrine delivered by the Prophets according to Psal 147.19 He shewed his Word unto Jacob c. The which external Word he calls Sect. 1. Aliud melius adminiculum i. e. another and better help which was necessary to direct us rightly to the Creator of the World comparing it with whatever other helps God had given to Mankind without them or within them which he calls Communia illa Documenta those common Documents the which external Word he saith is Rectior certior ad ipsum Cognoscendum nota i. e. a more right and more sure Mark whereby to know him which also he calls the Rule of the Eternal verity and cap. 9. Sect. 1. l. 1. inst He calleth them Nebulones i. e. Knaves and chargeth them with Nefarious Sacriledge that divide the Word to wit the external Word from the Spirit which God hath Joyned together by an inviolable Bond and in the Title of that Chapter he calleth them Fanaticks and saith They overthrow all the Principles of Piety who despising the Scripture to wit considered as the Rule flee over to Revelation pretending to be taught by the Spirit without the external Word Where it is evident he doth not mean that whoever are taught by the outward Word are sufficiently taught without the Spirit but that whoever are taught Savingly to know God as the Creator or Christ the Redeemer they are taught of the Spirit with and by the external Word as the instrument of the Spirit which he hath given to us for a Rule of Faith and Life not that it 's the Rule to the Spirit but the Rule to us of the Spirits giving and preparing and which he perswades us to be Truth by his secret operation in us And as unfair and fallacious as W.P. hath been in wresting misapplying and abusing Calvin's words to prove that he was not of another Mind than W.P. viz. That the Scriptures is not the Rule of Faith and Life he is as unfair absurd and fallacious in his quoting other late Protestant Authors as Bish Jewel Dr. Ames Dr. Owen all which are sufficiently known by their Books to be of a contrary Mind as much as one thing can be to another The Quotations indeed taken out of those Authors prove that they did assert the necessity of the Spirits inward Operation in the Souls of Men to perswade them to believe the Truth of the Scriptures and the necessity of his Internal Illumination to give the Saving understanding of them as particularly the quotation given out of J. Calvin instit lib. 1. c. 8. who gives the Sense of all those Authors and indeed of all true Christians viz. It is necessary the same Spirit that spake by the Mouth of the Prophets should pierce into our Hearts to perswade us that they faithfully delivered that which was committed to them of God which he illustrates by the word Obsignare elsewhere in that Book that is by Sealing to the truth of them but this does not prove that this inward Obsignation of the Spirit is the Rule of Faith even in Calvin's sense or that the Scripture was not that Rule Page 36 It 's strange that W.P. should bring a proof against the Lawfulness of Swearing from the Conviction of the Light within some Jews long before Christ came to wit the Esseni that when the Scriptures of the Old Testament made it lawful to Swear in some Cases if W.P. believes that the Spirit of God did Dictate these Scriptures that the same Spirit in the Esseni should teach them that it was unlawful even while the Mosaical dispensation was yet standing But how proves he that the Esseni did think Swearing unlawful from a Conviction of the Light within them when others of the most faithful of the Jews both then and before that time did Judge Swearing Lawful and that from the declared and revealed Will of God in the Old Testament that came from the Light within in Moses and the Prophets that was in force until Christ suffered as to all the other parts of it If he will allow that the eternal Precepts of the Spirit in the Conscience command one thing to some and the quite contradictory to another surely at this rate the Light within must be a very uncertain Rule for by this Concession one may take the liberty to say his Light within commands him to Kill to Steal to commit Adultery though the same Light in another forbids it I had thought that by the Eterprecepts in the Conscience W.P. had meant those unchangeable Precepts and Laws of Justice and Temperance c which in all Ages have been the same to all Men and will ever be the same to all so long as the World lasteth But now it seems even the Precepts of Light within are not Eternal but Temporal and may be changed and one may be commanded to Swear or permitted without Sin to Swear and another forbidden But there are two things that W.P. in his instance of the Esseni that would not Swear which he quotes out of Josephus and Philo. That they shun Oaths worse than Perjury for they esteem him Condemned for a Lyer who without it is not believed should prove neither of which he hath done First That they held it Unlawful in any Case to Swear even when called before Authority for it may rather be thought it was common Swearing they were against a thing that was too ordinary among the Jews seeing the Law did allow Swearing in a Judicial way Levit. 5. that was then in force Secondly Suppose they were against all Swearing that they had this from the Light within them it is much more probable it was an erronious Opinion in them which could not proceed from the Light within otherwise it had contradicted the standing Law of God without then in force which not only allowed Swearing but commanded it upon necessary Occasions And as idle and impertinent are his Instances of Pythagoras the Scythians in King Alexander's time and Clinias all which lived some hundreds of Years before Christ came in the Flesh Now if Swearing was lawful by the Law of God among the Jews in those Ages How can we suppose it unlawful among the Gentiles since I know not one Instance can be given that the Light in any Gentile did condemn what the Light within or Law of God without in the Jews did justifie for this were to set Light against Light It 's nothing to the purpose if some in these ancient Times were against Swearing but the Question is Whither it was the Light in them that taught them so or rather whither it was not an erronious Opinion like that of not eating Flesh said to be taught also by Pythagoras was that thinks W.P. from the Light within If so How does the Light in him allow him to eat it and to take his liberty in diverse things that the Severity of Pythagoras's Doctrine did not