a Living Touch and Sence from his Pure Living and Eternal Spirit whereby to set our Spirits at work This is that Oyl which makes the Chariot Wheels go smoothly and without which they grate and jarr Those who have not Words especially in Publick Places have Sighs and Groans and a deep and silent Exercise of Spirit God-wards In which blessed Communion is joyned and Refreshments that out-do all Worldly Satisfaction That it is the Duty of all to wait upon God and that not only at Publick Meetings but at their own Houses also and therein as well at their Meals as at all other times for Worship If any have the Motion of God's Eternal Spirit upon their Hearts let it be answer'd to God's Praise and the Edification of others if not let none offer up an unsanctified dead Sacrifice to the Lord as all that comes from meer Man is for it will be their Burden neither prodigally spend their own Portion or that Bread upon others God has bestowed for their own Use Thus whether such Eat Drink Sleep or otherwise Enjoy of God's Benefits Let all be done with holy Aw and to the Glory of God our Father as it will certainly be if there be but a still and reverent Waiting in Spirit upon the Lord in the Light of Christ to be made sensible of his Goodness and Blessings upon us and Unity with us in our Undertakings and Enjoyments And let this be a Warning unto all in the Name and Fear of the Jealous God of Heaven and Earth that they do not offer up to God their halt and lame and blind Self-Sacrifices which my God abhorrs Especially you Professors whose Leaves are large but your Fruit little Think not to be heard by your Multitude of Words nor Variousness of Duties God regards the Root the Life the Power the Spirit that begets them and whose Life it is that animates them if they arise from God's Holy Spirit and Seed of Life they can they will interceed and prevail but if not God will say to you one Day who has required these things at your Hands O! for the Love of God and your own Souls offer not God a Worship out of His own Spirit much less Contend for it for you strengthen Satan's Bonds in so doing and feed the Mystery of Iniquity the painted Jezabel the Mother of Harlots from whom these false accursed Births have come who under outward Imitations and Performances holds People in Death and Darkness and perfect Enmity against God and his Living Spiritual Holy Seed in them and others that is able to bruise the Serpent's Head which is the Pure Way of God and in whom is the Blessing forever For the Devil the subtil Serpent having got into those outward Courts of Religion Signs and Shaddows of the Good Things which God had given Credit to by his Appearing once in them he pleads their Divine Institution against the very Life and Substance that like old Garments it hath put off And so all are deceived by his Transformations and subtil Twinings who come not to that Inward Sence of Life and Power which relish the very Spirit and can try the Inside Servants are not Masters because they wear their old Clothes neither is the Devil an Angel of Light because he puts on the Pure Ware the Spirits old Clothes God once appeared at the Mountain and Jerusalem therefore was either Worship to continue No God disappeared that he might set up a more Spiritual Worship where ends Meats and Drinks and all outward Services figurative of the Good things come § 8. Let it not be evilly taken by any of you neither be ye offended in me or the Doctrine I here defend For all Preachings Prayings Graces as they are called with the rest of the Worship of the Day which arise not from the Holy Power and Spirit of God it is at this time laid upon me and I am bold to declare in the Name of the Eternal Holy God A Blast an utter Blast is coming upon them all and they shall be found amongst the Chaff and not the Wheat in the Day of God's terrible Tempest where nothing but the solid and weighty Seed shall remain Stable and Unshaken O bow bow ye tall Cedars and sturdy Oaks Come out and be ye separated by the Power of my God from all your Inventions self-Contrivances self-Runnings and Willings ye Children of the Night and Lovers of your own Works more then Lovers of God's who out of the Living Pure Eternal Spirit of Life are holding forth Faith Worship Prayers and Ordinances and contending for them against the very Life it self that in a more plain Appearance is risen departed from them and come to know the one True Faith Worship and Great Ordinance of God by the Operation of his Spirit in all your Hearts and Consciences else you will dye in your Sins and Christ shall profit you nothing but your Dreams of Salvation shall vanish and utter Destruction will be your Portion for evermore CHAP. XV. His Charge of our Denial of Baptism and the Sacraments introduc'd with a Discourse of positive Commands Destructive of the Foundation of Religion The Priest against God Scripture and Reason He confounds himself Baptism of Water prov'd John's and not to continue Mat. 28. 19. 1 Cor. 1. 17. Ephes 4. 5. cleared and vindicated The One Spiritual Baptism defended § 1. I am now come to the two last Particulars of this Charge Baptism and the Lord's Supper which he introduceth with a short Discourse of the Nature of God's Commands respecting Gospel-Ordinances which he sayes we deny I shall onely take notice of this Passage where he tells us that the Ordinances hitherto consider'd are called Moral from their natural Obligation although respecting the Substance they deserve a more EVANGELICAL Denomination without which we cannot says he call them CHRISTIAN ORDINANCES But these two I come now to consider are purely positive and depend meerly upon divinely reveal'd Institution and God has so express'd his Jealousie over this Right of his that when Sins not onely against natural Light but superadded Precepts to confirm and strengthen its Doubtfulness and Decays have been passed by without any special Expressions of his Provocation Sins committed against his positive Laws as CIRCUMCISION and all Ceremonial Laws as well as Water-Baptism and what is generally call'd the Lord's Supper have been avenged with a high Hand To all I return these short Heads of Matter First that a Ministry grounded Internally upon the Grace and Gifts of God externally upon the Scriptures of Truth A well order'd Church consisting of Religious Members Preaching Praying and that Scripturally too by him call'd Christian-Ordinances are by him made Natural to all Nations antecedent to Christ's outward Coming and consequently there was the Thing Christianity before the Name Christianity which pleads our Cause against his first Chapter and a gross Self-Contradiction Next that those he calls Natural Ordinances and of Universal Obligation are far more
God are known for Sin which they shake off on another mistaken Account and in this Mystery the Devil works most subtilly and vigorously against the Light of Christ within and its True and Holy Birth § 3. But says he How Know God's Omnipotency experimentally Very well say I against the Folly of this cavilling Priest Experience is Demonstration and the World without and the Redemption I know within which no Power but what is Almighty could ever have effected make up that Demonstration which is that Experience therefore I only know God's Omnipotency by Experience § 4. But is it thus that you know Christ died that there shall be a Judgment and an Immortality I answer not altogether thus One Part is Matter of Story and is believed first Historically upon the Credit of History and then upon the Account of Inward Conviction too The other is Knowable only upon Experience For we feel in our selves Rewards and Punishments for Good and Evil in this Life and receive them as Earnests of what will attend Man-kind in the next And we have an inward Sence of a never dying Life which as we are Gather'd into it and Grow up in it we shall Inherit Eternal Felicity and as there is an Erring from that Holy Spirit of Life the Wages of such Rebellion will be the direful Portion of Death and Misery to every Soul forever § 5. Nor does this clash with Faith whatever the Priest would suggest For Faith is a believing in or relying upon God with respect to a further Knowledge and Enjoyment of him which no wayes impugnes or withstands a Knowledge of God upon Experience so far as Men do experience wherein they simply believe they do not yet so perfectly experience which ends Faith yet it abides certain that when they do experience that further Revelation of the Goodness and Mercy and Riches of the Love of God as the End of their Faith then and not before they may be said to know those things Why then should we be denyed to conclude and that most rightly that to Know and to Experience are equivalent Terms No Knowledge without Experience no Experience without Knowledge And though Men may believe in a further Enjoyment of what they now have but an Earnest of yet that as such they know not consequently they experience it not And so much this insolent Vilifier of that serious Expression confesseth to us and disputes for as he thinks against us when he sayes where is Faith all the while and if none but Believers be Saints such as W. P. are professedly none Since then my Affirming no Knowledge of God without Experience strikes not at Faith because Faith says our Adversary is not a clear knowing but believing or relying upon God as to things not yet clearly known and enjoyed what has the Man been a doing all the while But here was his shameful Mistake and Contradiction That Knowing and Believing are one and the same thing and this I will make appear from his own Words and a Contradiction to himself at the End of it § 6. He quarrels my affirming all Knowledge to rest upon Experience and opposes to it this question Can we experience his Omnipotency as much as to say yet we know it else he queries impertinently If so then that God's Omnipotency may be known and not Experienced the purport of his Query it must be only by Faith and if by Faith then a Man may certainly know any thing to be what it is and yet at the same time only believe it to be so which he as earnestly withstands when he asks Where is Faith all the while c. I would then sain be resolv'd whether that Man suppose J. Faldo who says that Knowing and Believing are One and Knowing and Experiencing are Contraries be more ridiculous or W. P. who affirms that Faith which stricktly taken is but an Evidence of things not yet clearly seen experienc'd or known and Knowing are not one and the same thing and that experiencing and knowing can never be Contraries § 7. I would advise this Priest to be less conceited and better grounded the next time he has to do with us for even in those places where he seems most Insulting he appeares most Weak Reader what we experience we know and from hence are taught to believe that Fulness to be in God which we can never comprehensively Know so that our Knowing God from Experience does not weaken Faith but as Enjoyment is the End of Faith so from thence great Encouragement is to be taken to press on from Faith to Faith till there is an Arriving at the Measure of the Stature of the Fulness of Christ But he leaves not off here § 8. I shall not Comment on his ravening comprehending Brain a most affected Pharisee among the Quakers nor his clear Mysteries as clear a Contradiction as it is nor Fleshly Comprehensions as much Untruth and Non-sense as according to their Meaning of it it Comprehends for I have not Room to spread all his Rubbish I wonder not at his course Usage of me 't is like a Man of his Breeding Fury and Profession there is abundantly more yet behind some of which will be observ'd in a more proper place But to reply Ravening is a most proper Word and due to J. Faldo with his whole Tribe of Priests and if he will Raving too some few more moderate ones excepted for we commonly understand by a Ravenous Dog one that is Greedy Sharp-set that hunts hard for Prey that snatches and ketches at every thing it likes or may answer his hungry Appetite now whether this may relate to that greedy pursuit of the Priests after Hire the Bason the Box the Purse or that insatiable Thirst they have after Knowledge of those Religious Matters which were the dear-bought Experiences of ancient Saints whilst Strangers to the Fiery and Refining Judgments of the Lord through which alone it is obtained certain it is that the Word is most aptly used by the Quakers against that Ravenous Generation § 9. Comprehending Brain is compassing or mastering of any thing in the Understanding and where People are more studious to fill their Heads with Knowledge then to adorn their Hearts with Righteousness we use those Words in a way of Reproof Since having learnt of God what we know of him through the Operation of his Light in our Consciences it is our Testimony and our work in the World to beat down that Thirsting Spirit after much Head-Knowledge and press all to the continual Observance of an humble and constant Obedience to the Grace of God manifested in their Hearts that teacheth to deny all Ungodliness and Worldy Lusts and to live Soberly Righteously and Godlikely in this present Evil World which is the Undefiled Religion Nor his Clear Mysteries as clear a Contradiction as it is It was not Clear but Clean in my Copy which I suppose I can produce and has been so corrected by me Ingenuous Men
serve thee with all Sincerity for the Truth 's sake as it is in Jesus William Penn. THE CONTENTS CHAP. I. THE Introduction Our Adversary's Definition of Christianity Defective True Christianity stated Quakerism mistaken by him It is prov'd True Christianity and a Quaker a Right Christian Page 1. CHAP. II. How Christianity was introduc'd it hurts not the Quakers The Question is not of Christ's Visible Coming that is Owned by them Nor is their Religion a New One from that of Christianity but the Recovery of Lost Primitive Christianity since the Reign of Anti-Christ in the World That Quakerism as call'd made its Way by Purity Sorrow and Rejoycing as well as Christianity The Priest's Vilifying Expressions Rebuk'd That the Distinct Times of their Appearance is no Argument against their Harmony or being but Two Words for the same Thing since the same Truth may appear at Two distinct Ages of the World It would strike out J. Faldo as well as the Quakers if the Contrary were admitted That he grosly Contradicts himself as to Time Christianity has more or less been in the World where Godly Men and Women have been as well before as since that Appearance We intend no New Dispensation but the Renewed Revelation of the same Power which is the True Gospel p. 11. CHAP. III. J. Faldo's Charge That the Scriptures are not the Word of God Reasons for it The Scriptures by him urg'd against us clear'd and prov'd to be for us They are the Words of the Word a Declaration of the great Law Word or Commandment but not that Law Word or Commandment p. 24. CHAP. IV. His Charge What he quotes proves it not Revelation Infallibility and Inspiration consider'd The Priest prov'd Uncertain of his own Faith Our Friends debase not the Scripture but Lift them up His Objection about our Books Titles answer'd The Use of Scripture asserted The Light vindicated from Insufficiency Something of the True Rule p. 32. CHAP. V. The Charge Stated not Proved The Scriptures not the most Excellent nor only General Rule God may speak by Instruments The Instruments not the Rule but that which useth them That the Scriptures being Obligatory does not conclude it the General Rule under the Gospel The Dis-ingenuity of our Adversary in citing the Apostle's Words Reprehended The Scriptures no Judge in that sense wherein they are not the General Rule The Scriptures Confest to p. 52. CHAP. VI. We deny the Charge His Proof no Proof but against himself We Own Believe and desire to Obey the Scriptures they afford Comfort and are as Lights in the World but not that True Light The Light and Spirit Superior to them p. 63. CHAP. VII Commands upon Conviction to be obeyed All General Commands Obligatory Particular not but upon particular Commission Our Adversary's Dis-ingenuity The Scriptures a Means by which God may be known but not the Principle p. 70. CHAP. VIII His Charge of our Denying the Scriptures any Means by which God doth enable Men to resist Temptations And that we say they are Dangerous to be read rejected His Proofs lame The Scriptures are believed to be a Means c. The true Knowledge of them Divine No Knowledge of Divine Things but upon Experience It does not destroy Faith W. Penn's Words safe and sound The Priest a meer Shuffler Learning a Servant to Truth Christ the Word of God Faith by our Adversary preferred before Scripture The Scriptures ought to be Read Believed and Obey'd p. 76. CHAP. IX That we do not put the Scripture and Holy Spirit in Opposition The Wickedness of the Priest in his Proof They accord and we acquiesce in their Testimony We do not say that they are not to be obeyed without extraordinary Apostolical Revelation as basely suggested His Proof fictitious and forged Such only are by us deny'd as are only Literal Formal Christians The Scriptures own'd and believ'd in by us according as they testifie of themselves p. 91. CHAP. X. He chargeth us with a Denial of all the Ordinances of the Gospel First in general then in particular His Proof of the first Invalid His great Dis-ingenuity in wresting our Words especially I. Pennington's p. 102. CHAP. XI The first of the particular Ordinances he says we deny is the Ministry His Proof lame W. P. and his Friends defended J. F. and his Gang Reproveable We own a Gospel one but not his The Calling abused by such Pretenders p. 105. CHAP. XII The Second particular Ordinance is a Gospel-Church His Definition for us by its gross Contrariety to the Scripture His base Inference of our Denial of Religious Societies and Outward Gifts from our Friends asserting of but one Catholick Church and that it is in God A Gospel-Church owned Our Adversary proved Heterodox about Apostolical Preaching Inward Sence preferr'd before Intelligence p. 112. CHAP. XIII We deny Preaching says he His Dis-ingenuity in stating our Principles We hold and practise true Gospel-Preaching No Difference between what the Light teacheth and the Scripture Our Gospel is Peace Our Adversary's is War c. True Preaching Converts our Adversary's not p. 117. CHAP. XIV His Charge of our Denial of Gospel-Prayer inverted The Prayer he pleads for Anti-Gospel True Prayer stated asserted and defended with plainness from Scripture and Reason That as well in Families as Meetings and at Meals as both False Worship detestable to God All False wherein God's Spirit is not the first and Chief Mover and Assister The Subtility of Satan in putting upon unacceptable Prayer to prevent true Prayer p. 121. CHAP. XV. His Charge of our Denial of Baptism and the Sacraments introduc'd with a Discourse of positive Commands Destructive of the Foundation of Religion The Priest against God Scripture and Reason He confounds himself Baptism of Water prov'd John's and not to continue Mat. 28. 19. 1 Cor. 1. 17. Ephes 4. 5. cleared and vindicated The One Spiritual Baptism defended p. 129. CHAP. XVI The Supper he says we deny not denyed but fulfill'd The Scriptures consulted No Perpetuity proved That it was a Sign and that Signs were done away in Christ demonstrated The present Practice in the Case not Primitive Our Faith left with God in the Matter p. 141. CHAP. XVII His Charge of our Denying Christ's Transactions to influence into our Justification consider'd His Proofs not for him His Abuse of our Friends words Justification distinguished upon as Remission and as daily Acceptance The Transactions of Christ largely own'd by us The Scriptures confirm our Faith in Christ as a general and particular Saviour No Works of Man Meritorious p. 147. CHAP. XVIII He says we disown the True Christ It is prov'd that He denies in Contradiction to himself what we deny and that we are Scriptural and sound in our Belief And though we cannot exclude that Divinity from the true Christ Yet we also own that the true Christ took Flesh that he appeared for the Salvation of Mankind and that his Bodily Appearance was instrumental in the Point Christ
with a more glorious Manifestation of the same Divine Power Purity Truth Wisdom and Righteousness then former Ages were either capable of or attended with To exclude then all Antecedent Times from any share in Christianity is both Weak and Cruel since it plainly shuts them out of all hopes of Eternal Salvation for if no Name be given but the Name of Christ under the whole Heaven by which Men can be saved then either Christ was alwayes in some measure or other a Saviour and such as were saved in some degree or other Christians or there was one Saviour before Christ's outward coming and another since or lastly all that were antecedent to that Appearance were damn'd § 6. I appeal then to the Consciences and Understandings of all impartial People if our Belief be not the most Just Merciful and True that however it pleased God to send his Son a Light into the World at that time more eminently then before yet that he was so far Spiritually manifested in all Ages as the Word of God nigh in the Heart and great Commandment in the Consciences of Men as who believed and obey'd obtain'd Remission of Sins and Eternal Salvation This is clear for if no man could ever see or know the Father but the Son and he to whom the Son reveals him then because many of the Holy Ancients both spiritually saw and knew God otherwise they could never be saved it follows that Christ did in all Ages reveal God who being Light and that it is Light alone which can Reveal or Manifest it was as a Light within that he communicated unto the Soul of Man which is within Man the Knowledge of the Pure God Whatever may be known of God is manifest within Man for God hath shewed it unto him so that the Contradiction and Error of the Man's Definition of Christianity is evident § 7. But yet a little further He plainly Heathenizes that notable Christian Passage of the refusing it all Priviledge within the bounds of Christianity viz. Whatsoever things are True Honest Just Pure Lovely of Good Report if there be any Vertue if there be any Praise think on these things Now if this Religious Chymist shall once extract all things that are Honest Just Pure Lovely and of Good Report from Christianity which the Apostle maketh the Sum of what he had been writing unless it is not a Christian Epistle and therefore ends with a Finally my Brethren tell me O sober Reader what a kind of Christianity there would be in the World O Monstruous Impiety Is this Man fit to write of Christianity that places it beneath the lowest step of Purity making manifest Difference betwixt being a Child of God and a Christian True the outward History of Christ's exceeding Love to Man-kind deserves all humble and reverent Credit as a Godly Tradition and it should forever bind Men to receive and fear and worship him yet I boldly affirm that though the Manifestation was clearer yet Salvation was Salvation and a Child of God a Child of God in all Ages For what is it but to say that Pure Religion and Undefiled which is to keep our selves unspotted from the World belongs not stricktly to the Christian but Jewish or Pagan Religion and that James was but a moral Man in the Matter and not writing on a Christian Subject What an empty Trunk a Vox praeterea nihil a sounding Brass and Tinckling Cymbal would this Man make of true Christianity Yet thus far we may force him to speak Truth though in double Contradiction to himself that since Christianity takes in all that was worthy in all Ages not as Alien then but related to her self something of the Nature of true Christianity was in the World before that more Visible and Glorious Manifestation of it unless Christianity be supposed to take into it self what is not of its own Nature thus was Christ the Rock the Ancients built on before Abraham was whose Day he had a Sight and Sence of and from it exulted greatly § 8. Christianity then is not an Historical Belief of the exteriour Acts the true Christ did in that bodily Appearance which is but Historical Christianity as our Adversary weakly argues for that was the least part of it since Christianity is that which brings to God which thousands that believe the other will never arrive at but a firm belief in him that so Appeared Lived Died Rose and Ascended both as testified of in the Scriptures of Truth and more especially as he breaks in upon the Soul by his Divine Discoveries as the true Light inlightning every Man this I call Christianity and that Man is a Child of Light who obeys that Light a true Christian who is Christ-like a Child of God and Heir of the Promise who is inwardly renewed and begot anew of the Incorruptible Seed and Word of God For those who were Christians of old were such as came to know Christ no more after the Flesh but as the second Adam the Lord from Heaven the Quickning Spirit who said I am the Resurrection and the Life really witnessing him to be that in themselves wherefore they Believed and upon Repentance received Remission of Sins and Eternal Salvation And I do affirm that Christianity stands in the Manifestation of a Measure of that Righteous Power Wisdom Truth and Life in the Soul which appear'd so largely and gloriously in that Body at Jerusalem to work Repentance then give Remission so Renew Redeem and finally Save and who came to be made sensible of that Heavenly Treasure in their mortal Bodies and to improve it as good Stewards were Possessors of true Christianity and therefore Right Christians The Distinction betwixt Moral and Christian the making holy Life Legal and Faith in the History of Christ's outward Christianity Manifestation has been a deadly Poyson these latter Ages have been infected with to the Destruction of Godly Living and Apostatizing of those Churches in whom there might once have been begotten some Earnest Living Thrist after the Inward Life of Righteousness § 9. By this I think it may be pretty well known what we mean by Christianity and a True Christian How far this will agree with his Definition of Quakerism and a Quaker I will proceed to examine Quakerism is a heap of Tenets with the usurped Names of true Christian Principles which are yet really no such thing but subverting both Foundation and Fabrick of true Christianity And I call him a Quaker that professes the Light within every Man to be the Lord and Saviour and very God So that then I say Quakerism is no Christianity § 10. Indeed if Quakerism respecting us were this I would say so too but because it is justly a Stranger to any such Imputation I rightly fasten that of Ignorance or great Malice upon our Adversary I have already exprest our Judgment of Christianity which I suppose to be the Quakerism struck at what ever may be pretended at
and Women have been as well before as since that Appearance We intend no New Dispensation but the Renewed Revelation of the same Power which is the True Gospel § 1. THe next Mis-Representation is of the Manner of our Appearance and the Time of it by way of Comparence with that of Christianity little to his Purpose and in my Judgment much against him § 2. Christianity was introduc'd by Preaching the Promised Messias and Pointing at his Human Person but Quakerism by Preaching a Light within I answer that this is nothing injurious to the Quakers at all but highly on their side for had they preacht a Christ now coming in the Flesh they had deny'd his true and only great Visible Appearance at Jerusalem which all true Quakers own Since then they believe that Appearance and therefore need not preach what is not to be again and that the whole Christian-World besides have so long and lazyly depended on it without their Thirsting after his Inward Holy Appearance in the Conscience to Bind the Strong Man Spoyl his Goods and Cast him out in short to Discover Sin Wound for it and make an End of it by the Brightness of his Spiritual Coming into the Soul of all such as wait for him and will receive him in which Sense he was revealed in such and became in the Saints of old the Hope of their Glory I say since he has been so much talkt of and depended on as to his then Visible Manifestation of himself and so little if at all desired after as to his Spiritual and Invisible Coming into the Hearts of Men to finish Transgression and bring in Everlasting Righteousness Therefore God raised us up and we are now gone forth into the World to declare That he is Spiritually Manifested as then fully in that Body so now measurably in the Consciences of all People a Divine Light Reproving every Unfruitful Work of Darkness So that here is the Mischief the Malice and Ignorance of our Enemies do us in this World that because we Speak so much of and Preach up and Write for Christ's Inward and Spiritual Appearance as a Light to Mankind therefore they conclude with a mighty Confidence that we Deny his Outward Coming Life Death Resurrection and Ascension and the Benefits thereof O Darkness it self We have our Witness with the Lord of Heaven and Earth that we own Him to be the Saviour General of the whole World as to that Appearance and that he obtained precious Gifts for Men but we say and our Adversaries have not wherewith reasonably to unsay it that first the Divine Light Life or Power that shined through that Blessed Manhood was Excellently the Saviour and the Manhood but Instrumentally Thus the Scripture There is no Saviour besides me saith God a Body hast thou prepared me He then was greater then his Body for it is call'd a Vail and very properly for it vail'd much of that Divine Life which when it was withdrawn as he himself said it was expedient the Saints did witness inwardly Reveal'd Christ in them their Hope of Glory And secondly No Man or Woman in the World is savingly benefitted by his then Appearing as a Saviour and obtaining precious Gifts for Men but as every such Individual Person comes to experience his Internal Manifestation to Convince Condemn Wound Heal Break Bind up Slay make Alive in the Newness of the Spirit This is the State of Right Redemption and Salvation and thus is he particularly a Saviour and every such one is greatly benefitted by him as he was in that former Appearance the general Saviour of Mankind Behold then O You that are Impartial how unworthily he hath Injur'd us to make People believe that We testifie to Christ's Inward Appearance in Opposition to and Denial of his Outward which is far from our Hearts so much as to Conceive § 3. But again he tells us That Christianity made its way by the Purity of its Doctrine the gracious Words that Christ spoke by Sings and Wonders but Quakerism by Blasphemies against the Lord Jesus Christ and quotes E. B. saying Your Imagin'd God above the Stars and G. Fox There are Miracles among Believers in the Spirit c. frothily querying whether it smells more of the FOX or the GOOSE 'T is true the Purity of its Doctrine was and is an admirable Enforcement it had and hath above all other nor can he fasten justly any Impurity upon what we profess though he endeavours to detract from it by base Aspersions for indeed it is the same Sweet were the Words of Christ I grant but altogether as Severe and Terrible to Pharisaical Hypocrites who were both the greatest Scripturians and Haters of Him in that Age. § 4. Nor is it true that E. Burrough so exprest himself in Derision of God's Presence above the Stars but of Peoples Imagining him to be in the Likeness of Man and so denying his Omni-presence that He should not be as well below as above § 5. But Wonders and Miracles were wrought What then are not the Quakers true Christians without them see the Wickedness of this Spirit that works against us unless we will work Miracles to confirm that Doctrine in this Generation which was confirmed by Miracles 1600. Years ago either it is not True or we have no Right to it But by the way observe their Folly for they Unchristian at once Christianity and themselves too since Christianity must either be no longer such nor they Christians whilst they cannot work Wonders to prove it or them to be such or else the Quakers are never the less true Christians for not working those Wonders they boldly require from us We pretend not to a new Ministration and since the Question is not about the Visible Coming of the Messiah which call'd for Visible Miracles for that 's granted on all hands in Europe but the Spiritual Appearance of the Messiah in the Hearts and Consciences of his People that he might not have a bare and empty Title when he was call'd Jesus but really save his People now as then from their Sins the Case is plainly alter'd as to obvious Miracles to our Carnal Senses the present Work being to open the blind Eye and unstop the deaf Ear of the Mind blinded and stop't by the God of this World And these are greater Things of more Weight and the Consequence of them of far greater Importance And judge you how Vain Light and Unbecoming a Minister of the Gospel of Christ Jesus that requires an account for every Idle word was it in J. Faldo when treating of Christianity to say whether it smells more like the FOX or the GOOSE Vain and Frothy § 6. But once more Christianity entred the World with Ravishing Songs and Hallelujahs of the Angels Healing all Diseases Casting out Devils Preaching Peace But Quakerism entred the World as if Hell had broke loose and Possessions by Satan had made way and fit Souls for the Quakers
Spirit O the Hell-dark Expressions of the Quakers Spirit frightful and amazing Words bitter Curses Howlings and Roarings and what else J. Faldo's Devil pleaseth by which to render the Quakers Odious Well! But to Answer him It was a time of Joy and a time of Sorrow the Spirits of the Just rejoyced that he was born forth into the World and that Sun of Righteousness risen whose Discovering Light and Refreshing Beams would renew the World that had been in great measure bewilder'd since its first Innocent State but therefore was it not a time of Wo Sorrow Terror and Grievous Distress to all the Workers of Iniquity did not Christ come to bring War as well as Peace a Sword a Fire upon Earth Did not his Fore-runner come in an Astonishing Manner in Differing Attire of another Diet and from a Desolate Place to Preach Repentance and to Warn them with an O Generation of Vipers to flee the Wrath to come Did he not say that an Ax a Sharp and Terrible Instrument should be laid to every unfruitful Tree And did not the Apostles Preach to the Pricking of the Hearts of Thousands and Paul by name that Felix himself Trembled and all as knowing the Terrors of the Lord themselves they warn'd others wherefore Judgment is said to have begun at the House of God Finally did not the Devils Howl Roar and Tremble foreseeing they should be dislodg'd by one stronger then themselves Christ the Son of the Living God and was there no Terror Dread and Amazement in all this I perceive it may be a Vertue in the Primitive Christians but a Vice in the Quakers at least in J Faldo's Account § 7. But this know O Impartial People the Quakers were overtaken by the mighty Hand of God and great were their Travels and Pangs of Sorrow under the Righteous Terrors of the Lord whose hour of Just Judgments was come and being thereby made Witnesses of his handy Work and redeem'd through Judgment they became Ministers of Judgment unto others and the Terror of it struck Thousands the Devils Trembled and all Flesh at least in some was as Grass and the Beauty of their Carnal Outside Religion but as the Flower of the Field which in the Name of the Lord we testify fell and wither'd before the Brightness of his Appearance to us who put on Strength like a Giant that was to run his Race and girded himself with Power and who was able to stand before him the Hills melted at his Presence and the Mountains fled before him into the Sea And art thou given up J. Faldo to call Light Darkness and Darkness Light the Terrors of God the Possessions of Satan and the Remorse of Conscience Hell Broke Loose O Unhappy Man The Lord will reckon with thee for this Blasphemous Impiety and this I say to thee and all thy Associates that Eternal Misery will be the End of you for all your sweet Notions of Religion unless you obtain it through the Fire the firy Judgments of the Lord reveal'd in your Consciences For that end is Christ now as formerly manifested that Judgment might be laid to the Line and Righteousness to the Plummet in all and because we earnestly contend for the Inward Work of Christ as the most beneficial to Mankind therefore is it that you Priests have us in Hatred Scorn and Derision all the Day long and indeed we are grievously wronged by your Wickedness and Cruelty but the Lord is our Strength of whom therefore should we be afraid and why do you Rage and Imagine a Vain Thing concerning us § 7. Now for the time when Christianity and Quakerism came as he is pleas'd to distinguish them Some says he date Christianity from the Birth of Christ others WITH MUCH MORE REASON FROM THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST witness that place All Power is given unto me in Heaven and in Earth The Consequence of this Assertion is thus much That Christ taught not Christianity That his Disciples who believed in him were but better kind of Carnal Jews That Christ's Life Doctrine and Miracles were not perform'd under a State of Christianity That he had not all Power before his Resurrection contrary to the Scripture In short That Christ and Christianity did not go together and if you will that Christ was not Christ but a good extraordinary Jew before his Resurrection for I am sure his Notion of the Beginning of Christianity warrants the Consequence O the Orthodoxality of this Wiffling Priest Busy-Body and Conceited enough Well but this is not all we have a Contradiction to add to his Burden Christianity made its Way by many Signs and Wonders wrought before Multitudes and that not only by Christ himself but also by his Disciples and Servants BOTH BEFORE AND AFTER HIS DEATH If this be not Giving and Taking Granting and Denying there is no such Thing in the World For here is Christianity before Christ's Death and yet WITH MUCH MORE REASON here is a Denial of that Assertion and AFFIRMING THAT IT TOOK ITS RISE AFTER HIS RESURRECTION Truly we need not much fear the Consequence of such Encounters when our Adversary puts Weapons into our Hands to his own Shame and Overthrow § 8. But that he may be further kind to us he proceeds The Disciples were called Christians at Antioch Act. 11. 26. but the Thing Christianity might well be before the Name Christian Enough for us Sober Reader to defend our first Chapter but a Woful Contradiction to himself where we say that what was call'd Christ was before the Name and something of the Excellent Nature of Truth Purity Holiness which leads to Salvation c. which the Word Christianity with us imports at large unless they should be excluded as any parts thereof which supposeth a Christianity Destitute of Truth Purity Holiness c. like that of this Age though in no appearance so clear as in that in which Christ visibly manifested himself § 9. But upon Peter's Words If any Man suffer as a Christian let him not be ashamed 1. Pet. 4. he observes Here Christianity is Distinguisht both from Judaism and Heathenism Both the Gentiles and the Jews were bitter Enemies to the Christian Name and that not for the Name but the Thing 's sake This must either regard the Apostate Jew and Gentile and so we close or the Jew and Gentile upon their Inward Knowledge of God and Obedience to him and here we recede and must deny his Assertion nay it would be a Contradiction to that Justice Purity and Worth he allows them to have had since it were to say that such Qualifications could be Ignorant of Christianity the Perfection of them for the Good among them became Disciples at least Lovers of the Christian Religion then not Haters of either Name or Thing For where among Jews or Gentiles their Hearts were Upright to God according to that Discovery he made of himself to them and that they kept to the divine Sence and Relish which they
had of the Love Purity Justice Mercy Goodness and Recompence of God for such as in any Age could come to God did first know that God was and that he was a Rewarder of all those that did draw nigh unto him to obtain which knowledg God had manifested it in man for he had shown it there unto him I say those who so retained the Sence of God in their knowledg were not aggriev'd Christianity should take Place for they measuring things as they inwardly felt them were proper Judges of Gods Rising and Breaking forth among the Sons of Men they could feel him leading out of and beyond the Use of those Elements which were once added because of Weakness and now became beggarly by a brighter Glory An inward sense being that they kept to as the more sure Word as they felt a with-drawing of the divine Life Power Spirit out of those inferiour Institutions they followed it not staying in any outward dispensation because God had been there if he had once left it But such as were Litteral Formal Exact Critical they were the Persons who having least of the Divine Sight and Sense of God's goings among the Sons of Men they contended for God's Exteriour Appointments as that they were signally given Good Men had Practised them and are we Wiser then our Fathers No we will have our Reasons indeed Darkness satisfied in the Matter Behold the Pharisee and Greek of Old to whom Christ's outward Appearance was to the one a Stumbling Block and to the other Foolishness and the many-headed Professor now who esteems no better of his Spiritual Manifestation in the Hearts of the Children of Men. O! what will the End be of the Gawdy Obstinate Hypocrites of this Age who resist so great Salvation Tribulation and Anguish forever unless they repent for what Men Sow that they shall Reap and who have improved their Talent shall enter into the Joy of their Lord. § 10. Well But when came this Quakerism into the world he tells us about the year 1651. quoting E. B's Epistle before G. F's Gr. Mist also a small Treatise writ by J. Whitehead and J. Pennington from whence he infers that Quakerism is a Late Dispensation therefore not that of Christianity But certainly this Man hath taken a very Quick Course to Un-Christian himself and all the Presbyterians Independents and Anabaptists in the World as well as the Quakers For I would ask him if there was not a Time since the Primitive Age wherein Darkness had overspread the Earth the Beast did Reign and the Pure Religion was wholly Wildernest If So Consequently the Resurrection of Truth is no more a New Dispensation or not that of Christianity then a Man that is exiled his Country is not essentially the same Man when he returns that he was before And so far is my Argument for those Separatists that though I take them to be short of the True Evangelical Faith and Righteousness yet I acknowledg them to have a Reformation unknown in that thick Apostacy which has couer'd the World and Ecclipst the blessed Light of the Glorious Gospel that shin'd in the first Ages after Christ But since we are of another Religion by his Account then the Christian because we cannot say that we were alwayes successively from the Apostles Time I will argue that the Presbyterians Independents and Anabaptists are not Christians nor is what they profess to be esteem'd Christianity because they cannot prove a Regular Succession from the Apostles Times their Date also being of later years What will they say then The Church was fled into the Wilderness Truth exil'd God as a stranger in the Earth yet Truth still the same in it self Very well so say we God was pleas'd to Renew the Right Christian Dispensation to us and by us according to John's Vision that the Everlasting Gospel was preacht again intimating that their had been a Time wherein it was not preacht If this be not a New Gospel because anew or again preacht neither is that which J. Faldo calls Quakerism a New Dispensation because it is Preaching anew the Everlasting Gospel to the Sons of Men which is God's Power inwardly manifested for the Conviction Conversion Redemption and Salvation of the Souls of such as believe in it § 11. And though he particularly seems to Triumph over Isaac Pennington's Distinguishing between the Dispensation of Moses Christ and his Apostles and THIS of our Day as if they had been three several Dispensations and consequently if Christ's was not that of Moses because it swallow'd it up neither this the Dispensation of Christ which J. Pennington saith it swallows up yet to me it seems a pittiful Catch and shows he knows not how to take things with that Candor they are writ J. P. means not a Distinct Administration in Kind but Dispensation of one and the same Light Life and Power by Nature at several Times and sundry Manners to the World Christ was before the Law under the Law with the Prophets but never so revealed as in that Holy Manhood will it therefore follow he was not Antecedent to that Appearance or He that appeared then more gloriously had never shown himself before Or because of a Difference in Manifestation therefore not the same HE through all those several Manifestations in himself Certainly this Man is very Unjust to J. P. especially when the Words above quoted that speak of a Dispensation he experienced a little before God broke forth by us called Quakers could have informed him that he meant the Divers Breakin gs forth of God's Light and Truth in order to the full Discovery and Recovery of Lost Primitive Christianity So that this present Appearance swallowing up all going before it had so term'd it as he doth not and therefore wrong'd is no more then God's Retriving to us the Ancient Gospel with additional Blessings and Assistances giving us the same Life and Foundation they had and what else he pleased by way of Improvement which alters not the Nature no more then a Child in Christ is not that Numerical Creature but another Distinct Being when a Man And if this Account of Things will not satisfie him he may chuse I have thus far cleared the Truth and those who sincerely profess it and therein my own Conscience both to God and the World CHAP. III. J. Faldo's Charge That the Scriptures are not the Word of God Reasons for it The Scriptures by him urg'd against us clear'd and prov'd to be for us They are the Words of the Word a Declaration of the great Law Word or Commandment but not that Law Word or Commandment § 1. THis Chapter will concern the Scriptures more directly in which we hope to prove that not We but our Adversary is mistaken with respect to what he chargeth upon us § 2. He intitles his Chapter thus That the Quakers Deny the Scriptures I was almost astonisht at it because he pretended to prove all out of our own Books
and none such had ever yet come to my hand But upon my sober Perusal of the Matter I found this to be the Upshot That the Quakers Deny them to be the Word of God therefore they deny them altogether Whence I take good Heart to show his Ignorance or great Dishonesty § 3. I will allow to him without going any farther that the People called Quakers do deny the Scriptures to be the Word of God and therefore shall take for granted what he quotes out of J. N. F. Howgil J. Parnel and W. Smith But that we do consequently Deny the Scriptures we shall oppose we hope to the Death § 4. I do declare to the whole World that We believe the Scriptures to contain a Declaration of the Mind and Will of God in and to those Ages in which they were written being given forth by the Holy Ghost moving in the Hearts of holy Men of God That they ought also to be Believed Read and Fulfill'd in our Day being Useful for Reproof and Instruction that the Man of God may be perfect And that they have been and are Instrumental to great Good upon the Spirits of People by the secret Power of God which often strikes and presseth home to the very Conscience the weighty Truths declar'd therein yet We do Deny them to be the Word of God ascribing that alone to Christ himself and that not without Scripture and Reason § 5. First It is granted on all hands that Christ is expresly called in Scripture the Word of God but no where that the Scriptures are so styled Secondly That though I should allow it to be a Figurative Expression and therefore says our Adversary Improper yet because a Word among Men conveyes the Mind of one unto another and that Christ is the great Word of God that in all Ages hath convey'd or spoken the Mind of God unto Mankind and so the Author of all good Words he only may by way of Right and Excellency be so styl'd of Us. Thirdly I shall easily grant to him that one Word may stand representative of many and that the Ten Words were not Ten Numerical Words because each Word contained many yet this I will say that Word in Scripture is taken for Commandment and they have an equivalent Signification as in Deuteronomy may be seen And since that was the Import of the Ten Words to wit Ten Commandments each Word has its own Commandment Therefore it is no more against us to allow those Ten Words to be more then Ten Words then Ten Commandments to have more then Ten Words And whatever our Adversaries may say or think of us We therefore Decline to call the Scriptures the Word of God because we believe It to be a Title only due to that Living Quickning Word by which God vouchsafes to disclose his Mind and Will unto Man-kind Christ the Way to the Father § 6. But sayes our Adversary to this Argument The Word was God therefore the Scriptures cannot be the Word because they are not God Let me tell you that the Scripture may be the Word and Christ the Word also and yet though Christ be the Word of God the Scriptures the Word may be quite another thing Certain I am this is quite another thing then good Doctrine How can the Scriptures be the Word of God and Christ the Word of God too Are there two Distinct Words of God the one quite another thing from the other O shameful Arguing If he had said Christ is the Word of God and the Scriptures a Word of God he would have a little better hit the Mark But to assert Two General Comprehensive Words of God sounds Harsh and Inconsistent I would fain know in Case we should admit this absurd Assertion how he would distinguish between these Two General Comprehensive Words For my part I think it as good Sense to call a King's Letters King or an Ambassador's Credential's Ambassador O no says our Adversary you Mistake Christ is called a Light a Rock a Lyon will it thence follow that there are no other Lights Rocks or Lyons I Answer There is no other Light Rock or Lyon then Christ with respect to That for which He is so call'd Neither is there any other Word then Christ with respect to that for which he is so styl'd to wit God's Living Powerful Word And this decides the Controversie and plainly adjudges us the Matter against the utmost Force of our Adversary to the Contrary For if he is therefore a Light because he only can and doth Discover the Unfruitful Works of Darkness a Rock because whoever build on Him is Safe and a Lyon because the King of all whose Utterings are able to Terrifie all Destruction from his Walks but what he brings upon his Adversaries and therefore there is not another Light to inlighten Man's Soul or Rock for Christ's Church to be built on neither any other Lyon to secure them from the Devourer consequently because he is the Living Spiritual Powerful Word of God there is not another that 's The Word of God § 7. But he further says That the Word of God is so exprest in Scripture as it must needs be understood not of Christ but the Scriptures He that regardeth not the Word of the Lord. He that feared the Word of the Lord Stand thou still a while that I may shew thee the Word of God the Sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God And the Cares of the World choak the Word and it becometh Unfruitful Mark 4. 19. which saith he cannot be understood of Christ or God and that a little Skill in the Original would free us from these Mistakes and to that Purpose To which I answer that the Word of the Lord mention'd in Exodus and Samuel are properly to be understood of the Living Spiritual Word of God which spoke to the People through those Servants of the Lord For who Received or Rejected the Mind of that Word exprest in many Words received the Word and it had a place in their Hearts or else rejected it and it had no place in them This makes nothing against us in the least For that Passage in the Ephesians Beza whom he quotes I suppose as embracing his Judgment has determin'd the Matter for he has it the Spiritual Sword Then let us read the Words thus The Spiritual Sword is the Word of God or The Word of God is the Spiritual Sword For Christ is as truly a Sword an Ax a Fire which the Word of God is call'd as a Lyon a Rock a Door And for the last Passage out of Mark which seems to carry most of Weight in it for our Adversary it may rightly be understood of that Truth which Christ the Word livingly sows in the Hearts of Men Women the Word of Advice Reproof Instruction and the like But of the Scriptures it cannot be understood as neither can any of the other places For first those
two Passages in Exodus and Samuel concern only particular Cases at a time when not a third part of the Scriptures were written as our Adversary will confess And for that in the Ephesians 't is manifest that the Scriptures are not the Spiritual Sword or Sword of the Spirit which are subject to so many Casualities as they are therefore not the Word of God whose Edge never blunts For as is the Spirit such is the Sword and such the Word to wit Living Spiritual Powerful which the Scriptures of themselves I think all will or should acknowledg are not I will not stick to confess also that a Word of Advice a Word of Counsel a Word of Reproof and a Word of Comfort lodge in the Scripture or the Scriptures with respect to the Times wherein they were given forth and now daily as brought home to the Conscience by the One Word of God who gave them first forth are Words of Truth Knowledg Wisdom Love Reproof Exhortation Edification c. yet never can we be brought to attribute unto the Declaration that Title which is peculiarly due to Him whose Declaration it is A Prince may express his Mind in Words but those Words are not that Prince neither can any one of his Titles as a Living Prince be properly given to his said Declaration Nor have we any other Way to Distinguish between the Word and Words Commandment and Commandments the Thing It self and those Expressions by which it doth declare it self then the Word of God and the Words of the Word which are Words of God or Holy Writings Holy with respect to the Matter or Truth they treat of § 8. But here J. Faldo steps in and seems to offer an Expedient in this Streight Says he Though you say they are not the Word of God eminently and I believe so too for the Scriptures cannot be the Word of God in that Sense wherein Christ is yet you may call them the Written Word of God for so we Distinguish them Truly this seems pretty modest though here we must part too unless he will come a little nearer For neither can the Word of God properly be said to be written The Words by which the Mind or Will of the Word is exprest may be recorded and as such a True Declaration but it is as Impossible for the Word of God to be written as it would be for a Prince or Senate to be written or contained in Letters though their Will and Pleasure may be largely declared by a Writing because it would be to say that the Word of God could grow Old Decay be Lost mis-Rendred Corrupted Transcribed Reprinted Corrected and be Subjected to Fire Water Vermin c. which were impossible So would it be an absolute Derogation from the Dignity peculiarly Due to the Living Word of God to give that which is its proper Title to any thing beneath its Living Powerful Quickning Self He has a Scripture or two for us I have written to him the great Things of my Law A sharp Rebuke says he to the Objecters against the Written Word of God but I don't see it for my share The great Things of the Law Word or Commandment which are required may be written but that doth not follow that the Eternal Law Word or Commandment Requiring is a written Law Word or Commandment but the Contrary And for Moses Writings of which Christ spoke 't is manifest they were not call'd the Word of God but the Word of God himself call'd them Writings § 9. But J. Faldo objects on t'other hand that he much feareth the Scriptures will lose of their Authority with People in case they should not be so acknowledg'd and at last he falls so down right upon us that he boldly but weakly concludes who Deny the Scriptures to be the Word of God deny them in every respect For who Denyes them that Title denyes what they have been generally Known by Distinguisht from and Lifted up above all other Writings and that Appellation on which is grounded their Authority and which puts an Awe upon the Consciences of Men. How Weak and Vain this is I could freely leave to the Reader without any further Consideration But that it might not be thought by any therefore Unanswerable I will say That to call them the Words of God and declared Mind and Will of God to Mankind is no such Diminutive Title but altogether Worthy of them § 10. If we do Deny to them what has been wrongly Attributed that no ways Lessens their Authority but Corrects the Mistake of those who thought of them beyond what they really are It is a poor Begging of the Question to say We Deny them that which many have Ascrib'd to them Their Authority is grounded upon the Living Word of God and who comes to that Honours the Scripture aright and who Err from the Holy Conduct of it their Verbal Praises of the Scripture are but like the Pharisees Painting the Prophets Sepulchres whilst they were Persecutors of One greater then the Prophets And who knows not how much the Shell hath had ascrib'd unto it the Honour only due to its Substance by those Watchmen of the Night whose Dark Minds could see no farther § 11. And for the Awe they have upon Men this is my Judgment and I am not asham'd of it that Attributing so much to the Letter of the Scriptures and Declining that Regard Men ought to have had unto the Holy Living Word of God that alone creates all things New and was the Author of and Rule to those sound Words themselves hath Rob'd the Living Word of God of its True and Rightfull Honour and rendred Mens Hearts more Formal and less Aweful then they would otherwise have been So that the only Way for People to come to a True Sight of Sincere Respect for and Grounded Belief in the Holy Scriptures is to be turned to the Voice of the Living Powerful Word of God from whom they came which is nigh unto every one to Direct and Order and Discipline to and in that Way of Holiness they testifie of and which Leads to Eternal Happiness CHAP. IV. His Charge What he quotes proves it not Revelation Infallibility and Inspiration consider'd The Priest prov'd Uncertain of his own Faith Our Friends debase not the Scripture but Lift them up His Objection about our Books-Titles answer'd The Use of Scripture asserted The Light vindicated from Insufficiency Something of the True Rule § 1. HIs Fourth and next Chapter to be examin'd endeavours to prove That we Equal our Writings and Sayings to the Scriptures and preferr them before the Scriptures In this Undertaking he must either prove what he asserts from our own Writings expresly or consequentially To run through every Quotation he makes would be as Tedious as Importinent But a few of what make most to his Purpose I will faithfully observe with his Inferences § 2. He begins with a Book Intituled Love to the Lost and so
will I The Things following which I have declared of are not the Things of Man nor by Man did I receive them but by the Revelation of Jesus Christ W. Dewsberry thus The Word of the Lord to his Beloved City through your Brother and Companion in the Tribulation and Kingdom of Patience in the Lord Jesus Christ Now what to say here in their Defence when he lays nothing to their Charge but what hath been generally exprest I know not Certain it is that No Man knows the Father but the Son and Him to whom the Son REVEALS him The Inspiration of the Almighty giveth Understanding and No Man can know the Things of God but by the Spirit of God Well may we conclude then that J. Faldo knows God no better then I do Terra Incognita for he denyes all Knowledge of him by any Internal Discoveries What he knows is by Man and from Man What Offence or Undervalue I would fain know can it be to the Scriptures that Men should know God that only Way by which they testifie God can be known of Men Or Why should he be Angry at his Author for Confessing to have known God that very Way by which the Scriptures declare him only to be known But indeed it happens ill to the Priest for all this is to prove too that We deny the Scriptures though hereby we fulfil them § 3. For W. D's Words they are also firm for God promised the Repouring out of his Spirit and the Repreaching of his Everlasting Gospel And since the Question is not whether we have it but whether it be an Invalidating the Scriptures for any under the plentiful Pourings out of the Spirit and Power of God to say This is the Word of the Lord I say it is firm that so Saying may therefore be in the Latter as well as Former Dayes allowable and no Detraction at all from the Scriptures And for the Conclusion of his Epistle it is what every good Christian Man can say What Folly what Impudence is it in J. Faldo to make that an Equaling our Writings to Scripture or Preferring them before it which both his own Tribe I am able to make appear hath frequently us'd though by Themselves Irreproveably And which indeed is the Condition of every good Christian-Man namely to be a Brother and Companion to the Children and Family of God in the Tribulation and Kingdom of Patience in the Lord Jesus Well! If this Man's manifest Weakness make not for our Cause I should very greatly strange § 4. And therefore says he Pennington prays seriously My Upright Desire to the Lord for you is That he would strip you of your Knowledg of the Scriptures according to the Flesh By Flesh says he their Sense is the Use of our Understandings though Sanctified as will appear in the Key c. But this Expression serves for a Notable Key to open his Ignorance and Dishonesty His Ignorance is evident in Reputing it a Slight of the Scriptures to desire that Men might be stript of their Fleshly Knowledg of them I do affirm it to be both Seasonable and Serious and did not J. Faldo stand upon a tottering Basis he would not so declaim against us for Undermining it But let all behold his Dishonesty to say that we desire to be Script of the Knowledge of the Scriptures after our Sanctified Understandings making a Sanctified Understanding and that Flesh which can never inherit the Kingdom of God to wit the Carnal Dead Dark Unregenerated Understanding to be all one O Disingenuous Man Art thou fit to be a Gospel Minister who hast not learnt to do as thou wouldst be done by I leave it with the Conscience of the Reader how Justly or Unjustly thou hast dealt with us in this Matter and what all or any of it concerns the Scriptures For if Men will not understand them as they are is it the Fault of the Scriptures No surely shall then Isaac Pennington's Desire that their wrong Knowledg of those weighty and Holy Writings be interpreted a Dis-Respect to them and a preferring our own Writings before them which so heartily seeks their Right Knowledge of them If this be the Way to prove Quakerism no Christianity we need not much fear the Issue of his Attempt § 5. But he proceeds to prove our Equaling of the Scriptures two Wayes First from our pretending to Infallibility Secondly our Plea for the Necessity of Inspiration He quotes G. Whitehead's Letter to him Whether Infallibility be attainable by any in these dayes which we affirm is to true Believers which if thou denyst we question thy Call Of Inspiration he cites J. Story 's short Discovery thus Therefore may I say much more it is not in the Power of that little Book either to throw down Self-Will in any in whom it is not yet subdued or to exalt the Truth in general because it is only Queries gather'd by the Author from the Letter of the Scriptures without and no Message of Heavenly Prophesie Doctrine or Exhortation received by the Author from the Lord through the Divine Inspiration of his Light and Spirit within Therefore I say It is a very Vain and Idolatrous Exhortation To all which sober Matter I have no other Answer from him then that the Quakers Writings are full to this Purpose Indeed I am glad of it or we had little Reason to Suffer what we do for our Descent from the Carnal Professors of Religion in the World But I have this to say to him He that doth not Infallibly know what he knows of God or Religion knows nothing certainly which concerns either Now if Men cannot attain to any such Certainty Farewell all Religion For That a Man should affirm and not know whereof That he should profess God and Religion yet be uncertain of both But that J. Faldo should Preach of both and profess himself Errable in all such Doctrine Who ought to believe him Why spends he his Breath at a Venture Rather let him Eat Drink for to Morrow he shall Dye for Death is certain This is your Independent Fallible Errable Uncertain J. Faldo Preacher to a People at Barnet and God knows a Lamentable one too What Reason have any to Believe him against Us who is Uncertain of the Truth of what he says against us by his own Principle § 6. For Inspiration the Scriptures are not more express in any one thing No man can know the things of God by the bare Spirit of a Man But the Spirit of a Man or a Man distinctly considered from the Inspiration of the Almighty can read Scripture and form Queries and call them Christian too yet who will dare affirm this Man's Queries to be Christian Can they beat down Self-Will They may talk of it or exalt the Living Truth that came not from it This is the Scope of J. Story 's Answer to the Questioner For what is this but Stealing the Prophets and Apostles Words when they are made Use of
possibly can be which he makes them but to be § 9. In short either the Scriptures are not obscure a thing we daily see or if so yet sufficient which is impossible or they must have a Judge which is most true and necessary and what Judge but the Spirit of Truth which leads into all Truth And so far are Decrees from determining because written that they are therefore determinative of Controversie because of that Conviction the Power from whence they came works upon the Conscience So that though what is true in it self is not the less so because written yet is not the Writing subject to an hundred Casualities nor Matter therein declared as there eminently the Rule much less the Judge after our Adversaries Notion of a Judge But that Living Powerful Spirit which gave it forth and who are made spiritual Men by it For the spiritual Man judges all things Such Writings may be declaratory of the Mind and Determination of the Living Rule or Judge I grant but also I utterly deny that the Writings themselves are that Rule how People are to believe them and a Judge how to determine of the Difficulties and Obscurities within themselves A meer Begging of the Question and a thing altogether absurd We cannot end this Chapter without an Acknowledgment of the Goodness of God in Opening things so clearly to the making known his Divine Light and Truth and manifestly Discovering the great Darkness and Blindness of its Opposers CHAP. VI. We deny the Charge His Proof no Proof but against himself We Own Believe and desire to Obey the Scriptures they afford Comfort and are as Lights in the World but not that True Light The Light and Spirit Superior to them § 1. THe next Charge he brings against us is a Consequence of his already mistaken Judgment and untrue Assertions concerning us viz. That we take People off from Reading the Scriptures and Looking into them for Instruction and Comfort to prove which as he thinks for none else can that is not either as deeply Ignorant of us or as Malicious against us as J. Faldo shows himself in almost every particular he brings out W. Smith speaking thus in his Catech. pag. 95. And this is the Meaning of our Doctrine to bring People to the Everlasting Word of God in themselves O Ungodly Man What Evil Spirit hath possest J. Faldo into this wretched and impious Consequence Certainly he is grosly blind or he has sinned against the Light of his own Conscience if he hath Conscience enough to think it a Sin which I profess I doubt when the Malignity Frothiness Envy and Impious Unjustice of the Man are set before me For 1 let any tell me if it be a Sin to bring People to the everlasting Word of God in themselves though he Dirts us not a little for so doing 2 If we do hereby take Men off from reading and looking into the Scriptures I do affirm against this Ungodly Priest and that by Authority from God the Scriptures Reason and the first Reformers too that no Man on Earth can understand them but by being first brought to the Everlasting Word of God nigh in the Heart by which the Lord speaks forth his Will to the Creature and the Scriptures themselves direct to this and never said that of themselves some over-doing Priests assert concerning them whose whole End is this that by Exalting the Letter and Excluding the Spirit they may lock up all Knowledge in their own Areanum and plead the Impossibility of Knowing the things of God any other way then by their literal Ministration for should Men be but turned to the Certain Witness of God in their own Consciences there placed of the Lord their whole Trade Power and Reputation would fall and their Deceits be made manifest in the View of the World which God the Righteous Judge of Heaven and Earth is now accomplishing § 2. But he says that J. Parnel censures such that draw Peoples Minds from the Light within to the Light without putting the Letter for the Light c. Shield of Tr. pag. 10. And what then Because we say that he who inlightens all Men God that is the Sun and Fountain of all Divine Light and in whom there is no Darkness at all is greater then the Scriptures therefore will it follow that we take People off from Reading or Looking into them Behold your Priest you that hear him Is this Man to be accounted of as a Minister of the Gospel that thus unrighteously deals with us But God will recompense upon his Head in the Day of his terrible Vengeance for all his Hard and Ungodly Sayings against us We do say and that rightly Whoever puts the Letter in Opposition to or above the Spirit is an Idolater For there can be no Comparison rightly made between them the Heavens don't excell the Earth more then the Spirit does the Letter and the Power the Form But if we do not therefore deny the Form of Godliness because we prefer and press more earnestly the Power neither do we exclude the Scriptures because we prefer and press the Everlasting Word of God nigh in the Heart And this I will tell him that to busie the Minds of Men with the Depth of those Truths the Scriptures declare of by reading and exercising their Minds in Meditating thereon before they have been turned unto the Measure of the Light or Grace of God in the Heart to believe and obey that in its secret Discoveries Reproofs and Strivings is to set Men about Images to conceive a God a Christ a Salvation a Damnation an Heaven an Hell by which the Inward Work of God is overlook't and they become Rich in Notion whilst most barren in Obedience and of all People that live upon the Earth the Greatest Idolaters because they bow down to their own Imaginations for real Truths And this is the State of every Opposer to the Sacred Light within how full soever of the meer Literal Knowledg of the very Scriptures themselves for indeed who knows the new Birth though the Scriptures declare of it but who really experience it § 3. But J. Story he thinks has Contributed much to prove his Assertion in this Passage And although the holy Scripture without and the Saints Practices are as Lights in the World yet far be it from all true Christian Men so to Idolize them as to set them in Esteem above the Light which is sufficient to guide or to esteem them Equal with the Light and Spirit of God within J. S. Short Discourse Pag. 2. To this he objects that J. S. confesses them to be as Lights but not a Light and that our Commendations of that Idol the Light within are such that if they were true he were a stark Fool that would direct his Eyes to the Scripture But here the Priest fail's egregiously For if the Scriptures are as Lights I cannot see how they should be denyed to be as in the
would allow some Grains for Ill-Printing to us especially who have not the Press open nor those Advantages for Well-Printing which our Adversaries Enjoy that Day is not yet come to us J. Faldo's Title is Imprimatur enough we swim against the Stream such as be with it But God can and will turn the Rivers of Waters and make the Sea Dry Land Vincit qui patitur § 10. But once more hear him What is to my present purpose is in the last part of his saying All must be as unlearned from their traditional read Knowledg as he is unman'd c. Where he falls out of all bounds upon us and draws this Consequence and asks these Questions Sure the Scripture-Knowledge being Read-Knowledge or Knowledge that comes by reading as one means is a most hateful thing to God That he will impart none of his Secrets to those that will understand any thing by his written Word How came God to fall out with his own Off-spring Did he write and cause it to be written and yet never intended we should read it or reading it that we should not believe a Word of it Shall they be judged by the Law who live under it and yet the Knowledge of God thereby be a Sin and Hinderance to their Salvation To what a height of Wickedness and Folly do they quickly go who are poysoned with that Abomination of holding the Light in every Man's Conscience to be God Father Son Spirit Christ Scripture all W. P. what means your Latine Greek Authors Logick Scripture-Quotations Did you learn all those things by Immediate Inspiration But I smell your Design you would have us throw away all the Knowledge we have by Reading or Tradition till we come to be regenerate that is Quakers But in the mean time you would have us without the Armour of Light For whatsoever makes manifest is Light that we may not be able to defend our selves against the most Ignorant Non-sense that the meanest of your Votaries can attempt us with But the GOD ABOVE and the Scriptures without have taught us better things I am not unwilling to quote a few Scriptures Put on the Armour of Light Rom. 13. 12. The Word of God is quick and powerful sharper then any two-edged Sword Hebr. 4. 12. Above all taking the Shield of Faith wherewith ye shall be able to quench c. and the Sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God Observe Faith in the 16th verse is preferred above the Words of God in the 17th verse therefore it is not Christ the Word but the Scripture the Word For Faith is not above Christ Jesus Christ who had less need of Scripture then any of us all resisted Satan's Temptation by Scriptures It is written It is written Mat. 4. I have Reader given his Mind at large and the rather that the Inconsistency of it with the Charge he begun his Chapter upon and the Contradiction of it to himself might more evidently appear My Meaning is too fouly conceal'd and disingenuously evaded by the Man How could he think that I should speak so reverently of the Scriptures and quote them diligently and very often to the Proof of my Assertions and yet mean nothing less abusive of them then his untrue Consequences I intended no more then this That Men in a State of Degeneracy from God may have a Profession of God and Religion taken up from the Words of Scripture and outward Practice of the Saints not being so much as sensible of the Remorse Convictions and Judgments God brings upon every Soul for Sin which is the Beginning of his Work of Redemption and that many are Rich in Notion and a Shew of Religion who never begun right but must know a being stript of all their Knowledge and those wrongly apply'd Promises they have taken as to themselves out of the Scriptures and those Imaginations they have raised thence towards a Fabrick of Religion and so become Poor and Naked and Hungry and Thirsty as a little Child or new Bottle fitted for the new Wine of the Spirit and to which the Scriptures testifie Many can talk of Christ from the Scriptures which crucifie him in themselves by Wicked Works and do render Praises to him as the Seed that hath bruised the Serpent's Head while the Serpent may be yet raigning in them All such Knowledge and Profession of Religion from the meer Letter of the Scriptures distinct from the Revelation and Operation of the Eternal Spirit within must be Unlearnt Unravill'd Unbottom'd one Stone must not be left standing upon one another that there may be a Beginning upon a right Foundation But far be it from me to say that a Man must unlearn that Knowledge he has had of the Scriptures from the Key of David the Living Word of God when it has opened the Mysteries therein declared of By no means for such Knowledge is Right Natural Sanctified from God and to be esteem'd very Excellent and Divine § 11. My Latin Greek Authors Logick Scripture-Quotations I therefore us'd and urg'd with plainness and brevity to prove and recommend the Truth I defended to the World that lying under great Discredit with too many they might see that ready to its Confirmation which they perhaps would not otherwise have thought upon But the Priest has been as Uncandid with me here as with my Friends and Self abundantly elsewhere for he infers general Affirmatives or Negatives from particular Propositions because I affirm'd that Unregenerate Men must begin again that their Religion must be unlearn't as to their way of acquiring it the Priest concludes the Quakers deny all Knowledge which comes from reading Meditation or any such Means however sanctified then which there can be nothing of that kind more Untrue since it were to say because we deny an erroneous Understanding therefore we deny all Understanding or in as much as we comdemn all ill-acquired or wrong-gotten Knowledge for that cause we are to be concluded Enemies to all true and well gotten Knowledge But we must bear this and a great deal more and the rather since he does so seasonably assist to his own Confutation by acknowledging that the Scriptures without and God above has taught him better things Now what is this Teaching of the God above If it be in the Scripture it was impertinent to say any more then that the Scriptures have taught them better things but if he meant that God taught by his immediate Discoveries with and beside the Seriptures then wherein do we differ Why has he taken so much Pains and flung so much Dirt He bids us also to put on the Armour of Light If he means that of the Scriptures he errs egregioussy for no Man can put them on neither are they that Light which manifests every Thought Word or Deed but that Light which we assert to have been before the Scriptures were and now is where they are not or at least when they are not thought upon which
is some thing more Immediate Living Spiritual and Inward and that brings Thoughts Words and Deeds to Light savours relishes discovers and accepts or condemns In short thus if whatever makes manifest is Light then because the Thoughts Words and Deeds of Men and Women have been manifested unto them in all Ages as well before Scritures were and where they have not been as since they were and where they have been it follows that they had Light and that the same Light cannot be the Scriptures though the Matter Written called Scriptures was manifested by that Light to the holy Pen-men before they were written which still makes for the Authority of the Light within The Priest exhorts us to that he endeavours to overthrow and with which holy Armour we have fairly foyl'd him in his own Field The same may be said of the Word of God though not of the Scriptures any further then the sharp-Word of God may speak or pierce through them into the Consciences for with good Reason do we affirm that the Scriptures or Writings are not that Sword but that from whence they came The word was a Fire an Hammer a Sword in the Prophets But the Words or Writings it spoke by were not that Fire Hammer nor Sword neither bad they any other Edge then what the Word put upon them To the same purpose may I argue against their being the Off spring of God properly for as such they could not be subject to Casuality God's Off-spring is more Living and Eternal that Word is to high for properly taken I mean as Writings they were the Off-spring of the Writers only but the Truth they declare of is of God and that will abide forever § 12. But upon the Shield of Faith and the Sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God he has a pretty Fetch Faith in the 16. verse is preferred above the Word in the 17. verse Therefore it is not Christ the Word but the Scriptures the Word for Faith is not above Christ But neither will this do his Business and a Shame it is that this Man should bring these Places to prove that the Scriptures are Means whereby to resist Temptation which concern them not especially this in hand unless he would have Faith to be the Scriptures or Word of God in his Sense which as it is absurd so it will by him be denied since he allows the Faith to be preferr'd above the Word of God therefore distinct from it and not Consequently the same with it And should we grant to him That Christ is not understood by the Word of God but the Scriptures yet observe the fatal Blow his Cause receives at his own Hand Every true Christian hath Faith that Faith is above the Scriptures therefore every true Christian hath some thing in him above the Scriptures Every true Faith overcomes the World and quenches the fiery Darts of Satan consequently Temptations therefore not so properly the Scriptures but true Faith which is preferred above them and resists Temptations and overcomes the World The just they live by Faith but Faith is above the Scripture Therefore the Just live by that which is above the Scriptures and of course the Scriptures are not the Rule of Faith for how can any thing be ruled by that which is inferiour to it Thus much we get granting to him that the Scriptures are that Word of God But we deny that Gloss too For the Spiritual Sword as he says Beza renders it which is that Word of God must be at least of the Nature of that rest of the Armour mentioned in that Chapter I mean of an Invisible Spiritual Nature which the Bible as a meer Writing is not If any should say but the Truth it declares of I say so to and the very Words when by the living Word brought into the Conscience do Pinch Prick and Wound but then that Operation comes from the Power of the Word which through them reacheth into the Heart of the Creature and so the Words without and the Word within carry a double Conviction with them But said Christ to the Devil it is written what then therefore must the Quakers needs deny the Scriptures to be any Means to resist Temptation Or rather are they not such Means when God is pleased to use them which I am sure no right Quaker ever denyed Besides it was Reasonable that Christ should so answer set that Power aside which fill'd up those Words and chained Satan because the Devil used Scripture to prevail upon him as the place proves However we deny not but confess that where-ever God is pleased to speak by any place of Scripture to a tempted Soul the Scripture may be very well acknowledg'd to be a Means by which God scatters such Doubts and Dispondencies and gives Power over Temptations and that it may often so occur Yet we would not have People fly to them as what of themselves may be sufficient but rather have Recourse to that Divine Faith which the Scriptures testifie is able to Quench the fiery Darts and Overcome the Temptations of this World and which J. Faldo has largely confest is to be preferred above the Scriptures themselves § 13. The other part of his Charge to wit That they are dangerous to be read has been answer'd again and again We say Let them that read understand fear believe and Obey and then they will read worthily otherwise men read their own Condemnation and Destruction For the Holy Truths they declare of are not to be seen known or injoyed by every Prophane nor yet professing Person that reads them they are a sealed Book to all who err from and despise that Word of God nigh in the Heart which originally gave them forth and now bears living record to them Blessed are they that rightly Understand and Do them to such they are of great Price CHAP. IX That we do not put the Scripture and Holy Spirit in Opposition The Wickedness of the Priest in his Proof They accord and we acquiesce in their Testimony We do not say that they are not to be obey'd without extraordinary Apostolical Revelation as basely suggested His Proof fictitious and forg'd Such only are by us deny'd as are only Literal Formal Christians The Scriptures own'd and believ'd in by us according as they testifie of themselves § 1. TO close up his false Charges against us about the Scriptures though I thought not to bestow so much time about him be pleased to hear him and his Testimonies which he thinks sufficient to prove what he sayes of us to be true § 2. That the Quakers put the Scriptures and the Spirit of God in Opposition to each other To make this good he quotes W. Smith thus Traditions of Men Earthly Root Darkness and Confusion Nebuchadnezar's Image Putrefaction and Corruption Rotten and Deceitful all out of the Life and Power of God Apostacy the Whore's Cup the Mark of the Beast Babylon the Mother Bastards brought forth of
Flesh and Blood the Birth that persecutes the Son and Heir Graven Images Morn Watch p. 22 23. It would amaze sayes he a Christian to read what is contain'd in the two Pages quoted of vilifying Reproach to the Scriptures and the Doctrines from them received If this be not Opposing the Spirit of God to the Scriptures and rendering them advers to each other the Devil himself must dispair of Inventing Words to express it by And now Reader it is time for me with a Soul full of Grief to make my Appeal to the Righteous Lord God of Heaven and Earth and his equal Witness in thy Conscience if ever Quakers writ or said any such thing of the Holy Scriptures O far be it from us and very great and heavy will the Damnation of J. Faldo be in the Day of the Lord unless he shall unfeignedly Repent because of these detestable Lyes that he seems wilfully to fasten upon our Writings What William Smith said reflected not in the least upon the Scriptures nor yet those Doctrines which were truly received thence No such words can be produced by our Adversaries had W. S. written any such thing he that adds so much that was not we are to suppose would not have omitted mentioning of that if it had been But W. Smith addrest himself to that Adulterated Spirit which had defiled Nations that nevertheless were under the Profession of God Scriptures and Religious Worship though in Works they deny'd God and as concerning Scripture and true Worship grosly err'd not knowing the Power of God nor how to Worship him in Spirit and in Truth not that he ever durst to entertain so Blasphemous an Apprehension of those Holy Writings or those Doctrines that are truly received thence as is suggested by our most unfair Adversary And is it not the height of all Unrighteousness to our Neighbour that when he condemns the Degenerated Spirit Knowledge and Worship of any People however professing the Scriptures and it may be pretending to believe accordingly as W. Smith does all Apostate Christians J. Faldo should infer that his Neighbour calls the Scriptures themselves and not a wrong Knowledge of them Will-Worship Corruption Rottenness Deceitful Whore's-Cup Apostacy Earthly Root Graven Images c. and that he should intend nothing less then Opposition betwixt the Spirit and its own Scriptures There needs no further Confutation then the gross and black Envy of our Adversary about this one Passage Be it known to all we do affirm the Scriptures never did jarr with the Spirit nor the Spirit oppose himself against the Scriptures and thus much our Writings can plentifully prove to all sober Enquirers § 3. But he offers another and the last Proof of his Charge from J. Naylor That of this sort are they false Prophets as I suppose he means who have their Preaching from Study and other Men's Mouthes and not from the Mouth of the Lord. From which he infers that what we have in the Scriptures is not from the Mouth of the Lord and queries I would know saith he of the Quakers what they will make of the Mouth of the Lord It was said to Jeremiah Jer. 15. 19. Thou shalt be as my Mouth Our Meaning is still over-look't by this disingenuous Adversary and a quite contrary thing substituted The natural Purport of the Words can be no more then this That though the Things declared of in the Scriptures were the Word of the Lord to the holy Ancients and Jeremiah as God's Mouth not his Mouth therefore to the People of Israel yea and much of it the Word of the Lord to us too yet for Men to say any part thereof by wrote especially if they add their own Comments and Glosses fraim'd from Study to any part of the Scriptures and cry Thus sayes the Lord or Hear the Word of the Lord and not in the same living Sense nor upon the like Commission every such one doth Rob his Neighbour and Steal his words And He is no more a True Prophet for so doing then a Parrat is a Man because he can talk If then no such Creature is therefore to be reputed Rational nor what he says Reason as to him though so in it self because it proceeds not from the Root and Principle of Reason but by meer Imitation and consequently a Prater in no case to be minded Neither is he a true Prophet nor that the Word of the Lord with respect to that Prophet who has not received what he delivers from the immediate Word of God himself but by Hear-say or meer Imitation No he is but a very Babbler and begets People no further then into meer Words and Imaginary Glosses which is the Ground of that Uncertainty that is in the World about Religion The Scriptures then are to us oblieging as the Things they declare of were the Word of the Lord to several Ages Temporal Commands excepted and they are not without a Mouth yet they and Jeremiah too are Inferior to the Mouth of the Eternal Word which speaks in this Evangelical Dispensation the Will of God unto Mankind after a more living and immediate Manner as was prophesied of old And I may thus far gratifie our Adversary's Curiosity about God's Mouth and tell him that the Word of God is the Mouth of God and the true Prophets and Apostles in all Ages have been the Mouth of the Word of God and the Scriptures are the Writings of those holy Prophets and Apostles as they were the Mouth of the Eternal Word revealing God's Will in their Hearts that they might declare it whether by Word of Mouth or Writing to the People and this is the true Order and Descent of things § 4. But he has one Kick more at us before he gives up the Ghost in his Mis-representation of us concerning the Scriptures The Quakers hold it is a sin and the sign of Idolatry to Believe and Live according to the Instructions and holy Examples expressed in and by the Scriptures except we have them by immediate Inspiration and at first hand as the Apostles received them And now says he I am come to the highest Round of their Ladder Indeed those Rounds of Ladders are very dangerous places I will not say how often nor for what an Army Chaplin might deserve to be so high exalted but since his eager pursuit after an Innocent People has brought him actually thither and it falls to my Lot to be his Executioner I shall take all the care I can to acquit my self well of my Employment I will warrant him for ever coming down the same way he went up In order to which let us first hear what kind of Speech he will make us to the Point in hand William Dewsbury in his Discovery of Mans Return pag. 21. All People may search the Scriptures and see how you have been deceived by your Teachers who have caused you to seek your lost God in Carnal and Dead Observations which they have not any
Scriptures for What this is to his purpose I cannot understand to be sure it is for ours For W. D. is so far from making it Idolatry to live up to the Scriptures that he condemns their seeking for the true God where he was not to be found which sayes he they HAVE NO SCRIPTURE FOR As much as to say that they seek after God not according to Scripture and therefore are both Deceivers and Deceived Certainly this is a Miserable Farewel he takes of the first part of his Book and the Quakers Denial of the Scriptures that they should therefore affirm a Practice according to Scripture without immediate Inspiration Idolatrous because they assert such to be deceived who seek after God not according to Scriptures If so much Impertinency should fall from a Poor Quaker's Pen what Reproach Insolence and Triumph would there be But he has another Witness that by the Mouthes of two Witnesses his Charge against us may be not establisht but evidently disprov'd § 5. And this is Babylon the Mother of Harlots viz. to read and practice as the Saints did and the Apostles of the Scriptures of the New Testament and the Abomination of all Uncleanness W. Smith's morning watch p. 23. Forgery in the abstract as base black and dishonest as Man can be to Man What! rob him of Truth of a good Conscience foist in put out alter gloss pervert and what he pleaseth What make us lve against God his Servants Scriptures the Light within and our own Souls But I have the less need to make our Defence where his manifest Corruption of our Words accuse him and my Answer to the first part of his Charge in this Chapter has done it at large Only thus much give me leave to say That if Words urg'd upon one Subject shall be apply'd to another of a different Nature and that our Adversary can never prove his Charge against us but by abusing corrupting mis-rendering and interlineating our Words there is no Reason that we should much concern our selves in the Consequence of such Debates that Way of Demonstration will save us the Labour of a Vindication with all Sober Persons But he has not done with us yet § 6. I am e'en tired with searching the sulphureous Veins of the Pit and Mire of Quakerism the Root of all which is the Deified Light Within if you have not enough of this Smoak to satisfie you it is the Bottomless Pit it rises out of I will give you two Ebullitions more and then leave you satisfied or to get better Senses So amongst the words you find how the Saints in some things walked and what they practised and then you strive to make that thing to your selves and to observe and do it as near as you can and here you are found Transgressors of the Just Law of God who saith Thou shalt not make to thy self any Graven Image nor the Likeness of any thing And sayes J. Faldo it follows now what Difference is there in the Ground betwixt you and the Pope though in the Appearance there seems to be such a great Space I have been the more punctual in the Recital of this that I might show to my Adversary I will be just to him though he be most egregiously Unmanly with us He says That he is e'en tired indeed he has Reason for it though for nothing else For who ever got any thing by Beating the Air or Spitting against the Heavens The Sulphureous Pit of Quakerism we can in one sense allow and J. F. may be better acquainted with it For the Plagues which the never-dying Worm the sharp reproving condemning Light Within will inflict upon the Spirits of them who resist and gainsay the Truth are aptly resembled to a Sulphureous Bottomless Pit Sulphureous because of the Insufferableness of the Smoak A Bottomless Pit by reason of a Dismal Endless State and Condition of Wo. And I doubt not but J. Faldo has an Earnest of this for his Attempts against the Light and the Children of it This long Discourse is no more to us then the rest of his Trash that we have already rejected as his own Invention and base Perversion of our real Meanings Take W. Smith in his own Sense and Belief and all is well But receive him in J. Faldo's Disguize and truly we should not know him our selves He intended that all those real Experiments of other Persons of which the Scriptures are full talkt unexperimentally over by Unregenerated Spirits can be no wayes beneficial Nay that what Ideas or Notions they may have to themselves of the Holy Ancients Enjoyments while altogether unacquainted with them are but a kind of Images which their believing in and bowing to as indispensible Gospel-Truths is to be reputed nothing below Idolatry it self Yet far be it from us to say that to believe the Truth as declared in the Scriptures is Idolatry as well as that it is manifest Folly in any so to say or think of us when not only we are most careful and desirous of rendering what we believe purely Scriptural But I do declare that as no man can live the Life of the Scriptures without the Operation of that Spirit which gave them forth so to live up to what they do exhort and declare is the highest Pitch of Purity Man's Nature is capable of aiming at and attaining to § 7. He now intends to wind up his Discourse on the present Subject with a retrospective and contracted Argument of all those particular distinct Charges viz. They who deny the Scripture to be the Word of God equal their own Writings Sayings deny them to be a Rule of Faith and Life a Judge of Religious Controversies take Men off from Reading them deny the Scripture to be any Means whereby we may come to know God or Christ or our selves affirm them to be no Means whereby to resist Temptation and are Dangerous to be read deny them to be Profitable but as Experienced put Scripture and Spirit in Opposition affirm the Doctrines Commands and Holy Examples expressed in the Scriptures as such to be not at all binding to us hold it as the Sin of Idolatry to believe and live according to the Instructions and Holy Examples expressed in and by the Scriptures except we have them by immediate Revelation as the Apostles They who do all these things mentioned in the fore-going Particulars Deny the Scriptures But the Quakers do all these things therefore they Deny the Scriptures To which I return this Argument If to Deny the Scriptures to be the Word of God to make what Writings are given forth by the same Spirit relative of the Scriptures if not to prefer any Writings before the Scriptures nor equal them to the Scriptures if to deny the Scriptures to be most properly the General Rule of Faith and Life and Judge of Controversie and not the Spirit rather if not to take Men off from Reading the Scriptures for Instruction c. if
he ow's all that he hath But why poor Non-Conformists after all their preacht up Battles Spoyls Plunders Sacriledges Decimations c. Rich and Covetous as ever As Rich because the Bason walks and takes its Rounds two to one of which it did and Covetous because they remain as discontented as if they were starving witness a Late begging Book from a Non-Conformist's hand which conjures their Hearers into larger Benevolence though by the style one would think it were their just Due I am perswaded their Preachings Christnings Burials Churchings alias Lying in Visits Exhortations Thanksgivings and Prayers have cheated People of more Gold and Silver then ever they did dare to make the least Pretence to though they alwayes dar'd to take what they could get in their former Dayes of Power But this is nothing to me further then that it is less dishonourable to William Penn or any other Quaker whom God hath blessed with a plentiful Subsistence that having Estates they notwithstanding should sustain the Labour and Suffering of Preaching the Gospel and that at all seasons then in J. Faldo and his Brethren who it's greatly to be feared preach what they call the Gospel that they might get Estates at least Livelyhoods by it let him or them say what they will I could give him a long List of more Exacting Jocky Hawking Mercenary Bargains of Presbyterians Independents Anabaptists then can readily be parallel'd by Parish-Priests A thing once denyed by them and ought still to be Detested of all others § 4. But he ends not here concerning the Ministry For says he The Quakers deny our Ministry because we preach from the Scripture A wicked Lye minted out of Hell it self We have laid down no such Proposition nor tending to it But he supposeth J. Parnel helps him to prove this Assertion And here is the Difference of the Ministers of the World and the Ministers of Christ The One of the Letter the other of the Spirit Strange Impudence to call this a Proof It is a Proof indeed but against him for if a False or Worldly Ministry under the Form of Godliness may not be Farewell Scripture But if such a Thing will be allow'd us then since the Letter or Scriptures are not by them rejected but in Shew most highly admired and that they pretend to collect all they believe or know from thence though indeed they understand them not we have great Reason to say that those who are Ministers only from the Letter with what they imaginarily comment upon it are not Christ's Ministers We are so far from making it a Reason why we deny your Ministry who are under that Qualification that we utterly deny you to have that Knowledge from the Scripture which we except against but your own Inventions and groundless Conceits alone For though J. Faldo thinks it very Heterodox to say that unless we are immediately assured from the Light within of the Truth of what we hold and that all Belief not so discover'd is a Lye deriding at Samuel Fisher's Answer in that Case Those who swore as the Lord lived swore falsly because they knew him not to Live affirming to us that they were such as did not believe him to live at all and therefore S. Fisher erred in his Construction I say though it be so yet we are not forelorn of Reason as well as Scripture to our Defence For no Truth is such to me which I either do not know to be true or have not some real Ground to believe to be such however true it may be in it self And that Sam. Fisher urg'd that Scripture pertinently and Consequently his return upon it is impertinent He himself has provided us with an Argument for if he will not have it that they therefore lyed in saying as the Lord liveth because they knew him not to live we must see what was the Reason that God gave their Asseveration the Lye Sayes J. Faldo they did not believe him to live at all Very well then the Narrow of the Difference lyes here That we say They knew him not to live And J. Faldo says That they believ'd him not to live Now I would fain know which are most excusable One sayes they who said as sure as the Lord liveth lyed because they know not God to live and the other that they believ'd him not to live If any thing be to be gotten it is this that they who know him not to live might believe him however to live whilst those who believ'd him not live would not believe a thing they had no Ground or Knowledge inducing them to it But he has lead us to a quick Expedient They did know God to live because he that lives may know from thence that God lives who holds every Soul in Life that lives To which I return that they did believe God to live because they lived for how could they doubt of his Living who held them in Life But enough of this To conclude A Living Spiritual Ministry we own that preaches the Everlasting Gospel in its own Power and that freely to the Raising of People dead in Trespasses and Sin to turn them from Darkness to Light that they might serve the Living Lord God of Heaven and Earth in the Newness of the Spirit who is worthy of all Honour and Glory forever CHAP. XII The Second particular Ordinance is a Gospel-Church His Definition for us by its gross Contrariety to the Scripture His base Inference of our Denial of Religious Societies and Outward Gifts from our Friends asserting of but one Catholick Church and that it is in God A Gospel-Church own'd Our Adversary proved Heterodox about Apostolical Preaching Inward Sence preferr'd before Intelligence § 1. THe Next Gospel-Ordinance he says we deny is a Gospel-Church Not to spend time about his Way of Phrasing it though uncooth enough We shall attend his Proof And the Church so gathered into God is the Pillar and Ground of Truth where the Spirit alone is Teacher J. N. Love to the Lost pag. 17. Upon which he argues thus The Gospel-Church is a Church which hath other Teachers and not the Spirit alone whereas the Apostles gave themselves to Preaching of the Word and Elders were ordained therefore the Quakers deny a Gospel-Church and they contradict themselves for they have more Teachers then All others A Lye to be sure There is greatly wanting to this Priest a better Understanding or more Honesty in using what he has for who is not blinded with Prejudice may discern that from our speaking of the Universal Church of God which says the Apostle as well the the Quakers is in God he infers that we deny all Visible Religious Societies commonly called by the Ancients the Churches of Asia Thessalonica Ephesus Corinth c. And from our Asserting the Spirit to be the only Gospel-Teacher of all who believe he concludes that we deny all Preaching of Men though by the Spirit O blind or else most disingenuous Man
What Charge that upon us which our Practice gives the Lye to every day But when we urge this against him and such like Adversaries then it is not that he hath Mis-represented us but that we have Contradicted our selves But to clear the Point if it can yet be doubtful We do believe there is One and but One Universal Church the Ground and Pillar of Truth and that is in God anchor'd establisht and built upon him the Rock of Ages and Foundation of many Generations and as such neither is every Visible Society making Profession of Religion nor are all of them together that Church but such alone who are washed in the Blood of the Lamb and ingrafted into the True Vine bringing forth the Fruits of Holiness to the Eternal Honour Glory and Renown of Christ the Head who is over all God blessed for evermore And though there be a Mediate Preaching which is to say that the Spirit speaks by such whom he hath anointed to preach yet it cannot be strictly said that Man preaches or it is Man's Ministry but rather the Spirit by Man and that it is the Spirit 's Ministry and Man only a Mean or Instrument through which the Teaching is convey'd or Direction rather to the true Teacher the Light in the Conscience Not that the Lord doth not sometimes plentifully teach his Children without any such Means too who are turned to the Grace in the Heart and believe and walk in his Holy Light where God is to be found and an Access to this Holy Blessed Presence administred for he hath both promised it of old and perform'd it in our Dayes Thus the Apostles were Preachers not from Man nor by Man but by the Revelation of the Son of God declaring of the Mysteries of God's Everlasting Kingdom as they were moved by the Holy Ghost And so none are exempted for all may Prophesie one by one that the Church may be edified Yet I cannot but observe that 1 the Man implicitely denies that to be a True Church which is the Ground and Pillar of Truth for such the Quakers style a Gospel-Church 2 That he affirms the True Church to have other Teachers then the Spirit which is to say that the Primitive Churches were not led guided and taught by the Spirit of God only but by some other Teachers also contrary to express Scripture the Promise of God and very End of the blessed Gospel If he sayes that he meant the Apostles that were inspired I answer that was never deny'd by us because that was the Teaching of the Spirit by them which was very little less then if it had been immediately in them So that one of these two things must follow from his kind of Arguing Either the Apostles preacht without the Motions of the Eternal Spirit Or Preaching as they were moved of God's Spirit was their Preaching and not the Holy Spirit 's that so plentifully dictated to them what they were to say But in as much as neither can be reputed true by true Christian Men I conclude the Quakers sound and their boasting Adversary Heretical § 2. But he thinks he hath clearly got the Point of us about a Quaker's telling him they knew that one of the Dutch Nation spoke by the Spirit in a Meeting of ours though in that Language which was not understood by the Meeting because they all found Refreshings I will be faithful in giving his Observation upon it Of the unknown Language he sayes This was orderly according to the Popish Mass who read Prayers in an Unknown Tongue to the People but herein he wrongs us for though we do acknowledge that the pure and single Power of the Almighty may both strike Astonishment and give Refreshment where the words utter'd are not alwayes understood since he doth both frequently without them and that Understanding and Sence are two things for the Devil may speak the best words in the Bible and be an undiscover'd Devil still except by this Divine Light Power or Spirit he be inwardly manifested consequently a right Sence may be had where words may not be understood which is the One Tongue to the Children of the Light Yet we not only decry all design'd Obscurity by Praying and Preaching in unknown Languages but with the Apostle say that we choose rather by far to speak in a known Tongue that the People may understand our Words as well as have a sence of our Spirits Nor did ever any Quaker yet pretend to be moved to pray in an Unknown Language whilst he was Master of that which was well known to the People since then we don't affect such Obscurity the Case of all those Papists who pray in Latin rather then in their Native and vulgar Tongue he is very disingenuous in that reflection § 3. Upon the Quakers Reason why they knew that Declaration was from the Spirit of God viz. because they found Refreshings he bestows this Confutation so have Children many a time AT PUPPET-PLAYES What a pass are these People come to who yet deny all Teachings of Man But what a Pass may I rather say hath this Man 's implacable Spirit against the Truth of God brought him to who to his Dishonesty before adds Prophaneness joyn'd with Scoff and Impudence when he denies all Refreshment that comes not by sound of Words in a known Tongue to be any more Certainty from God's Spirit then the Pleasure Children take at Puppet-Plays though he could not but think the Person that spoak to him meant by Refreshings what came from God that there can be no Proportion or Comparison betwixt that Pious Answer and the Ungodly Sport of Puppet-Playes Ben. Johnsons ALCHYMIST which all good Men detest and himself dying abhorr'd hath nothing in it half so gross in Abuse of Religion I even tremble at the Thoughts of that Hand writing upon the Wall which this Man's Impiety is writing I fear with indeleble Characters against him who will receive a just and certain Recompence at the hand of the Righteous Judge of Heaven and Earth for all his hard Speeches against the Holy Way of the Lord. § 4. But let me not omit to show the Blow he gives his own Cause in this Expression since by the same Reason that we know no Refreshment to be any more of God without known Words then that of a Puppet-Play he knows not any more the Teachings of the God above p. 113. nor the Motions of the Holy Ghost or Dictates of the Grace of God within 2. Part. 9 10. known Words being excepted to be of God then that Refreshment little Children have in a Puppet-Play The Consequence of which Diabolical Comparison is nothing less then to overthrow all inward sence of God's Presence or that Refreshment which comes from it And then indeed we must confess we should be necessitated either to deny all Teaching or conclude with this Antichristian Priest That Man 's Teaching or Ministry ought to be adhered to Where if Puppet-Playes be
he cites W. Smith's Catechism p. 107. Though some may not speak in such formal composed Words yet in the same Wisdom their Words are formal they can set their own Time to begin and end and when they will they can utter Words and when they will they can be silent and this is the Unclean Part which offers to God which he doth not accept Very well and what is this to the denying of Gospel-Prayer It seems then that what Prayer this Passage reflects upon is Gospel consequently if I understand any thing formal wise Words in Man's Time and Will which is Unclean is Gospel-Prayer in J. Faldo's account otherwise it is utterly false to say That W. Smith's Words prove the Quakers to contemn Gospel-Prayer But what can be more clear to the View of every Impartial Soul then that J Faldo's making that Prayer only which he is capable of himself that stands in his own Time Will Wisdom and Invention to be Gospel rather then to deny it and seek after one more truly Evangelical is not so much to maintain the Truth as himself § 2. Secondly he sayes That we own no Prayer that is not by immediate Inspiration and Motion of the Spirit and without the Use of our Conception and Direction of our Understanding His third I will add to this because to the same Purpose viz. That we own no Prayer but what is by and in the Light Within and here he brings 3. or 4. Testimonies which are to the same purpose I grant what he says of us in this particular to be our Faith and shall prove it to be sound Doctrine from the Scriptures of Truth The Worship of God is in the Spirit and in the Truth Now unless Men may perform Gospel-Worship without the Spirit and the Truth or if in the Spirit and the Truth yet not by the Motion of either a thing absurd it must needs be that Men ought only to pray or preach by the Motion of the Spirit and of the Truth If such only are Children of God who are led by the Spirit of God and walk in the Light as Christ is Light and that therein Access alone may be had to God who is Light and in whom is no Darkness at all then with good Reason may we say That no Prayer that ascends to God without the Leading of God's Spirit and which is not by and in the Light can be acceptable with him consequently Gospel-Prayer is only from the Motions of the Spirit of God and by and in the Light of Christ Again If no Prophecy or Preaching was to be of old but by the immediate Revelation or Motion of the Spirit though it was but to Men of far greater Reason should not any Prayer be made without a Motion of the same Spirit which is to the Eternal only Wise God § 3. Nay the Creature considered from under the Leadings of God's Spirit in all Religious Actions is unable to think a good Thought much less to perform one good Work and as the Professors say from the Crown of the Head to the Soal of the Foot are altogether unclean will it follow then that either such corrupt and sinful Duties are Gospel-Prayer and an Ordinance of God or else that what we assert of Praying by the Motions of the Spirit and in and by the Light of Christ in our Hearts must be the only Gospel-Worship which we are yet further inclined to believe For it is said in Scripture that the Word and Prayer sanctifieth all things Now if we take this Word in our sense to wit the Word of God then we are to consider whether the Word derives its Sanctifying Vertue from the Prayer or the Prayer from this Word Not the former to be sure If then it be allowed to be the latter since this Prayer which to be sure is Gospel or the Apostle would not have owned it hath a Sanctifying Vertue in it that no Prayer begun or carried on by meer Man can sanctifie because we are of our selves unable to think one good Thought it evidently follows That this Word of God which gives Prayer that Sanctifying Power doth begin or move first to that Sanctifying Acceptable Truly Gospel-Prayer § 4. But now suppose by Word is meant the Words either of Scripture or Preachings yet are we safe For since nothing can sanctifie but it must be from it self or something else and that meer Man in Preaching or Praying cannot and that God is that alone Power Wisdom and Eternal Spirit that is able to sanctifie it will follow also that God's Spirit or Power moving in the Heart is that alone which renders the Words or Prayers of any sanctifying Nor is this all The Pool of Bethesda is a notable Figure of the Matter in hand where the Certainty of being cured upon stepping into the Pool so soon as ever the Angel had moved the Waters doth very lively represent to us that what Benefit we may ever expect to receive from the Lord comes not from an hasty Rushing into any Religious Performance in our own time but our patient Waiting till the Lord's holy Angel stirs and moves the Waters and then to lay all aside to imbrace so blessed an Opportunity Further § 5. The Gospel-State is an Eternal Sabbath He that prayes in his own Will Time Wisdom Invention is picking Sticks and kindling a Fire and compassing himself about with the Sparks of the Fire of his own kindling This Man hath not Ceast from his own Works he will suffer loss in the Day of God and his Bed will be made in Sorrow § 6. Nor is this the utmost of our Force For whatever God hath not required just will it be with him to say who hath required these things at your hands 'T is true God loves that his People should pray and Christ injoyns it but he also bids all Watch unto Prayer that is wait to feel that Spirit of Life to stir which gives Life to Prayer the Key of David by which Heaven's Door is opened and the Soul comes to receive True and Heavenly Refreshment The Want of which maketh so much Complaint among some that their Duties are Unholy Things they want Power they have prayed long but to little purpose whereas had they pray'd aright that had never been Much more might be said to this but my Conscience is clear in the Matter and I shall conclude this Point with a general Confession and Caution § 7. We do acknowledge That God is That he ought to be worshipped That Worshipping of God is stricktly a bowing down before him in Fear and Holy Reverence according as he makes himself known to the Creature That Prayer is a Gospel-Ordinance That it is not only Good but Necessary to be used That God only can give us to pray aright as well to pray at all That therefore his Assistance is necessary to have which there ought to be a Waiting out of all Conceivings Inventions or Forms to receive
Let him find me says J. Faldo such a Scripture and I will be bound to turn Quaker I perceive the Man thinks he can turn Quaker much at the rate he can Pray I mean when he will but I will tell him so much that it is as hard a Task for him to turn True Quaker as to be a true primitive Christian a thing most difficult to be sure But to his Quibble about But that J. Parnel has told a I willfull Untruth in saying the Baptism is but One suppose it will be allow'd that there was one Baptism in the same sense that there was one Lord one Faith Now if there is but One Lord One Faith as it is to be supposed J. Faldo believes why should it be so Criminal to say there is but One Baptism If saying there is one Lord and one Faith be synonimous or equivalent with affirming that there is but one Lord and one Faith I cannot see how it should be an Untruth to say that there is One Baptism is one and the same thing wish our saying there is but One Baptism In short if there is more then One Baptism because the Apostle does not say there is but one Baptism then there are more Gospels Lords and Faiths because the Apostle did not say there was but one Gospel but one Lord and but one Faith consequently there may be many Gospels Lords and Faiths as well as Baptisms § 7. Enough of this Weakness His Strength follows Water-Baptism is the Sign the Baptism of the Spirit something but not all signified Now to call the Thing signifying and signified by the same Name doth not make them Two of that Name no more then there were two New Covenants because both the Matter contained in it Hebr. 8. 10. and Circumcision the Sign Gen. 17. 13. are called the Covenant I shall grant to him that the Thing signifying and signified are sometimes called by one and the same Name as Baptism But when distinguisht by Water and Holy Ghost I hope nothing that is not as blind or hardened as J. Faldo if yet he himself will say that therefore they are but One Baptism Christ himself distinguishes betwixt John's and his Baptism and himself and his Baptism And frequently his Apostles yea the Baptist himself seem'd to take all Occasions whereby to let People know that his Baptism was but that of Water and that the Baptism of Christ was not of Water but of the Holy Ghost as the Scriptures in the Margent plainly prove So in the Word Circumcision compounded of the same Letters and Syllables let it be used to express that of the Body or the Flesh or that of the Heart in Spirit Yet it is to be hoped that none will conclude there were not Two Circumcisions and so Two Jews the one Inward and the other Outward Though now he is no more a Jew that is one Outwardly neither is that Circumcision which is outward in the Flesh but he is a Jew which is one Inwardly and Circumcision is that of the Heart in the Spirit and not in the Letter whose Praise is not of Men but of God § 8. And should we grant him what he desires as to the same Name being applicable to the Sign and the Thing signified yet Weak and Wretched must his Sophism appear to all clear-sighted Readers For if therefore the Baptism of Water and of the Spirit are One because the same Word is applicable to the Sign and the Thing signified and in that sense they are both of them One Baptism Then by just Consequence must the Circumcision outwardly in the Flesh and the Circumcision of the Heart in the Spirit be One because the Word of it self is equally applicable to both and Consequently they are both of them One Circumcision And here but must and will be allow'd us What Jew Living could have reason'd better for the Continuation and Perpetuity of Circumcision But because he has said nothing here for Baptism more then what may be said for Circumcision and that Circumcision is utterly exploded of the Christian Religion as a Sign whose Signification is come and therefore no more a Sign our Assertion of the One Spiritual Baptism of Fire and the Holy Ghost as onely upon the same Fundation proper to Christ's Kingdom doth remain fix and Immoveable against all the Batteries of our Adversary CHAP. XVI The Supper he says we deny not deny'd but fulfil'd The Scriptures Consulted No Perpetuity prov'd That it was a Sign And that Signs were done away in Christ demonstrated The present Practice in the Case not primitive Our Faith left with God in the Matter § 1. BUt the Quakers he says disown the Ordinance of the Lord's Supper to be now a Gospel-Ordinance for which he cites J. Parnel a Young Man often in his Eye now dead as he was grieveously so to J. Faldo's Brethren the Independents at Cogshall in Essex who by unparallel'd and never to be forgotten Cruelties murder'd him as may be seen in my Second part of our serious Apology pag. 185. 186. 187. His words as he quotes them are these For the Bread which the World breaks is Natural and Carnal so also the Cup which they drink and here is no Communion but what is Outward and Carnal Shield of Truth pag. 13. Also W. Smith thus They Bread and Wine in the Lord's Supper are the Popes Invention His Primm pag. 39. To the first Citation I answer that the Bread and Wine being of an Outward Elementary Nature and Substance may with respect to what they signifie be very properly tearmed Natural and Carnal for so they are And the World that is those who are doing it upon meer Imitation and not from any Heavenly Commission they see no further and their Communion may well be said to be Natural Outward and Carnal To the second I do challenge J. Faldo to make it good and require it at his Hand in the View of the World to produce any such words out of W. Smiths Books and that he may not plead Mistake of Authors I will give him the Scope of all our Books Friends to prove that we ever call'd the Bread and Wine Christ blest the Invention of the Pope O ungodly Man What hast thou done that God should thus give thee up not onely to believe Lyes thy self but to endeavour to make others do the like Thy Book shall be a Milstone about thy Neck in the Day of the righteous and terrible Judgments of Almighty God We deny the Expression and lay the Slander at John Faldo's door § 2. But the Quakers main Objection says he is that Christ is come in Spirit to them and his Disciples were to do it in Remembrance of him till he came therefore this Precept doth not binde them J. Faldo pretends thus to answer But who would think that Christ in the Spirit was not come either in shedding it abroad miraculously as in the 2. of the Acts or as a
Justification that is to the Blotting out of former Iniquities for if Men could do more a thousand-fold then they do and that it were never so acceptable it is but their present Duty and cannot have Vertue enough in it to answer a present Obligation and cancel the old Debt of Disobedience too God only upon Faith in his Goodness Mercy and Holy Promise can give Remission Pardon or make free from the heavy Debt Transgression hath brought upon us and that not as thereby meriting but as obtaining such Remission from God upon his own free tender This is Evangelical Faith and Righteousness too of which Abraham was a Partaker as well before as after Circumcision that he might be the Father of all § 5. But Justification is not only taken for Remission of former Sins and Accounting of Believers as if they had never transgrest that is Righteous but for that Regenerate and Clean State of Soul and that Access to and Acceptance with God respecting Daily Duty In which sense no Man nor Woman ever was or ever will be Justified another way then by Inward and Real Righteousness Nor in this sense can any be further Justified and Accepted then as they are thus purified and regenerated Since it could be to say not only that God upon Repentance of former Sins and Belief in his Promise has blotted out their Iniquities which may be whilst habitual Sin is yet but a working out and not quite overcome for that is true enough but that God accepts such as purified sanctified and regenerated the other sense of Justification while they are actually Impure and Unregenerated this we abominate and then which nothing can be affirm'd more Reproachfull to and Destructive of his Eternal Holiness § 6. Having thus explained and exprest what we understand by the Word Justification I shall declare How far we believe Christ Jesus our Lord respecting his Coming both in the Flesh and Spirit influenceth into our Justification as the Priest terms it The Seed afterwards call'd Christ was and is God's free Gift Promise and Covenant of Light by whom alone Remission Justification and Eternal Salvation did or can come to Mankind That in the Fulness of time a Body was prepared in which he came to fulfill the Fathers good Pleasure that he preacht the Promise of Remission of Sin and Salvation to as many as believed in him and took up his Cross and followed him confirming the same by many Miracles For this Doctrine of Redemption and asserting himself to be the Off-spring of God one with God to whom all Power in Heaven and Earth was committed the Jews persecuted him stigmatizing him with the Name of Blasphemer and at last apprehended and crucified him We do say then that Faith in the same Christ who then appeared who so preached worked Miracles and lay'd down his Life for the World and not in another does give Remission of Sins and as follow'd as become all true Disciples Eternal Salvation yea that Outward Blood was then and is now to be reverently believed in as a Seal Ratification and strong Confirmation of that glad Tidings of Remission of Sin and Eternal Salvation which he held forth in the Name of his Father to those who would take up the Cross and follow him And therefore with good reason was Remission of Sins preached in his Blood because it was the most visible eminent Act of his Life both fittest to recommend his great Concernment for poor Man and confirm the Truth of that blessed Gospel he preached to him in the World § 7. And as for Satisfaction Though we deny any strickt and rigid Purchase as carnally understood and irreverently held by many yet that the Offering up his Innocent Life did and doth turn to Account to as many as truly receive him we faithfully believe yea that he did bear that for Man I mean his Iniquity he could not for himself And has by that Suffering obtained precious Gifts that is that Victory Man could never have obtain'd yet still we do ascribe all that was done but instrumentally to the bodily Sufferings and principally to the Will of that Divine Life whose Body it was which offered it up and by the which Will it was Sanctified and so acceptable with God Otherwise more nay all would be ascrib'd to the Body which I affirm to be Blasphemy it self for it was not the Body eminently which saved the People from theâ—r Sins but that which dwelt in it whose it was so that though the Body bore the Name of the Whole yet was it not the Whole but by Syneedoche a part for the whole which is very familiar in the Scriptures § 8. To his Spiritual Coming into the Soul do we ascribe the Inward Righteousness We say That Christ as he is the Light Power and Righteousness of God being received into the Soul and diligently obey'd and communed with he doth first Convince of Sin then brings Trouble for Sin and Sin thus becoming a Load to the Soul he administers Strength to shake off every such Load and Burthen and to conquer and subdue the Power of Sin and Satan in the Soul In which sense he is more properly and particularly a Saviour when he binds the strong Man spoils his Goods casts him out destroys the Works of the Devil finishes Transgression and brings in Everlasting Righteousness Otherwise in vain would he have that Title And thou shalt call his Name Jesus for he shall save his People from their Sins not the Effect Eternal Death without the Cause Sin For the Wages of Sin is Death As men sow so shall they reap And a dreadfull Disappointment will it be to the Hypocritical Professors of this day that dream of Justification Redemption and Salvation and are yet carried away with the Temptations of Satan at his will being ignorant of the inward Power of Christ to bruise the Serpent's Head To conclude that Righteousness which Christ as God's true Light Power and Righteousness works in us therefore is not of us is that which alone brings into true Union with God and Membership with his Unspotted Church consequently no Man without that Qualification can be so accepted with him or have Access to him for God is of purer Eyes then to behold Iniquity and without Holiness no Man shall ever see the Lord. But let none mistake me I do not intend that who is not quite Perfect is altogether to be condemned by no means but that Man is only so far accepted of God as he is really Regenerated and Beautified by the internal Righteousness of Christ And to this purpose is that other Scripture he quotes against us That as Sin has reigned unto Death even so might Grace reign through Righteousness unto Eternal Life by Jesus Christ our Lord For all Men having actually sinned and Sin so becoming inherent Grace that teacheth to deny all Ungodliness and Worldly Lusts and to live Soberly Righteously and Godly which is that Righteousness should also reign in all
by Jesus Christ Now unless it be an Evil for us to say that Men are accepted with God upon Christ's Inward Righteousness when the Scriptures say that the Reign of Grace through Righteousness where Sin reigned which was within Man certainly and therefore Inward is unto Eternal Life as full a word as being accepted with God I cannot see but in our holding forth Christ's Righteousness to be made ours by the Operation of his Holy Spirit in the Heart as the Efficient or Principal if not only Cause of our daily Acceptance with God we are Scripturally Orthodox § 9. We would also provide against the Malice of those Tongues who because we do allow Good Works or Fruits to be well-pleasing to God and necessary to Life Eternal do therefore rank us among the Papists as pleading for the Merit of Good Works For we lay not this second sort of Justification and much less the first upon any Exteriour Works that the very Spirit of Truth himself leads into as meerly Exteriour be they Acts of Justice Mercy Charity or such like But upon the holy Working of God's Power and Spirit in the Heart and the Creatures believing in and resigning himself up unto God to be by him renewed ordered led and disposed So that the Creature has no further Share then as he bows to the Requirings of God and contentedly acquiesceth in what it pleaseth Almighty God to do with him So our Wills there daily submitted to the Holy Will of God which is Sanctification is the Ground of our daily Acceptance with God and being received not as just by the Non-Imputation of Sins formerly committed for that alone depends upon Repentance and Faith in God's free Love to remit but as just by being actually and really made so through the Participation of the Just and Righteous Nature of Christ who is to all such Wisdom and Righteousness and Sanctification and plentious Redemption and here we will end this Argument leaving our Faith therein with God and sober Men. I shall omit here as well as else where taking any notice of his base Revilings sordid Pedantry unworthy of a Good Christian or Man of Learning and Civility and endeavour as God shall enable me to acquit my self of the Remainder of his Book with the same Honesty Truth Reason and Brevity that I hope I have done in what I have hitherto undertaken and dispatcht CHAP. XVIII He sayes we disown the True Christ It is proved that He denies in Contradiction to himself what we deny and that we are Scriptural and Sound in our Belief And though we cannot exclude that Divinity from the true Christ Yet we also own that the true Christ took Flesh that he appeared for the Salvation of Mankind and that his bodily Appearance was instrumental in the Point Christ owned according to Scriptures § 1. HE is now arriv'd at the Root-Error of the Quakers as he is pleased to name it who is a Man of Names and such too as are Beast enough too sometimes but they may pass perhaps for Gospel-Zeal or a pretty sort of Wit amongst some of his small Companions whose Disease is to be mistaken but let 's hear him patiently The Quakers disown and deny the Christ of God and set up a false Christ in his room and stead and attribute all to that false Christ which is due and peculiar to the true Christ This is that Non-such Lye which travels to bring forth that Babel therewith their Religion abound His Proof is at hand This we certainly know and can never call the bodily Garment Christ but that which appeared and dwelt in the Body Pennington's Quest 23 32. To which he sayes They do not deny that there was such a Man as Jesus the Son of Mary and that God or rather Christ was in him but this is no more then they profess of themselves that Christ as God is in them yet that Body of the Man Jesus which he calls here the bodily Garment he tells us they can never call Christ This Quotation he offers as explaining by another from the same Author and Book p. 20. For that which he took upon him was our Garment even the Flesh and Blood of our Nature VERY RIGHT but what followeth is wofully false which is of an Earthly Perishing Nature But he is of an Heavenly Nature From whence J. Faldo infers against us That the Body Christ took upon himself of our Nature is not the Christ But before we give him off we hope through the Help of our God to prove the Contrary to be highly against Christ Scriptures and sound Reason He has done us right in two respects which may a little answer for the Ill-Language he giveth us in our Charge First That he acknowledgeth we own that there was such a Man as Jesus the Son of Mary in Contradiction to abundance of our Adversaries and that God was in him which makes up our Christ Secondly That he whom we call Christ is not J. Faldo's Christ for he was that Body only that dyed else what mean those words inferred by way of Proof against us in Defence of the Charge The Body which Christ took on him of our Nature c. and therefore they can never call that Christ intimating he doth as the following Paragraph tells us This is a plain Denying the Man Christ Jesus yet behold the Babel of the Matter who after this dare say VERY RIGHT to this part of I. Pennington's words for that which he took upon him was our Garment even the Flesh and Blood of our Nature Where he manifestly implies that what he just now accounted the whole Christ and reproaches us for denying to be such is not the Christ Himself but his Garment only unless there be no Difference betwixt Christ and his Garment or that Christ was but the Garment of that more excellent Soul or Divine Being that dwelt therein which is Unscriptural and very Carnal If this Man had not charged us with what he cannot prove nay if he has not manifestly contradicted himself in his Endeavours to do it no Man was ever guilty in those Respects But that none may be stumbled by his untrue Characters of us We do believe and plainly declare and that with Holy Reverence and Fear that we cannot we dare not call the meer Body the Christ but the Body of Christ That he was after the Flesh born of the Virgin like unto us in all things Sin excepted and consequently that Body must have been of the same Nature with ours else it was not a Real but Phantastical Body is most true and if it had not been so neither could it have been a Garment of the Nature of our Flesh which is so and to which J. Faldo said just now VERY RIGHT nor could the cruel Instruments have prevail'd against his Life as they did And now whether it be most against Christ Scripture and Reason to say that that Body which was nailed upon the Cross was
Christ was before his Appearance and consequently our former Chapter is justified on our part against his Notions of the Lord 's Christ For it was impossible That the Visible Body taken from the Virgin should have made all things which was hung upon a Tree and buried c. But J. Faldo expresly says As the Word is the Light of Men so or in that manner is Christ the Light of Men Nay he calls it Christ's Appearing in the Flesh therein transacting and declaring Salvation c. intimating That Christ was before he took that Flesh or appeared in that Body and that he therefore took it and appeared in it to transact work declare and bring to pass by and through it as a peculiar Vessel and prepared Holy Instrument the great Salvation c. and consequently Christ was and is that Word which was with God and is God and the Light of Men c. And lest we should yet mistake him he calls it God manifested in the Flesh for those Ends to wit Salvation and Eternal Life And that he might speak all for us in a little and give the Deaths-wound to his own Cause he tells us in so many Words That the Salvation and Life Eternal of poor Sinners was wrapt up in Christ as God Is not this pretty fair for an Adversary as ill-willing to us and to the Truth as J. Faldo one of Ten Thousand in his Displeasure against us Certainly if the Quakers are condemnable for believing It was and is Christ as the Word in whom was Life and that Life the Light of Men that he was and is a Saviour J. Faldo must not be the Man that shall give the Sentence who I know not how nor why but that God and his Truth may be glorified by his Self-overthrow hath asserted the Quakers Principle and that at an high rate and if it can be an Honour to him that he has assisted to the Conquest of himself he ought to have it without any Envy § 2. But he is as serviceable to us altogether in Defence of the Light however undesigned which I prove thus If Christ be properly that Light which manifests or discovers any thing the terms of his Concession and therefore it doth manifest the Purpose and Grace of God which was given in Christ before the World was whereby Death comes to be abolished and Life and Immortality brought to Light Then must Christ Jesus this manifesting Light be a Divine and Saving Light without all Dispute Now J. Faldo affirms Christ to be that Word and proper Light that so manifesteth discovereth as exprest consequently that Light which doth so Manifest and Discover is a Saving Light Again If the Light be not only a Manifesting Light which is to take it Properly but a Comforting Light also which is to take it Metaphorically as saith J. Faldo Then this Light as the Word-Creator is not therefore call'd Light from a bare Act of Discovery but is a Principle of Life Power Vertue c. by which such as obey it are consolated and by the Reason of Contraries who rebel against it are condemned Which makes up those two States of Light and Darkness and their Rewards Consolation and Misery And thus much our Adversary further proves for us In him was Life and the Life was the Light of Men that is the Salvation and Eternal Life of poor Sinners was wrapt up in Christ as God which is to say That the Life of the Word was and is the proper Light of Men and unto all such poor Sinners as did and do believe in it that Light is unto them Salvation and Eternal Life then which nothing can be more Orthodox in the Point Who would think that J. Faldo should ever undertake the Quakers so little understanding their Principles And if he did know them What should aile the Man to be so much our Friend to write against himself under Pretence of writing against us One would think he did it by the same Figure Irony that some call Fools Wits Yet he would fain distinguish Christ the Light as Creator and Redeemer making the first Common the other Peculiar and that spoils all To which I shall briefly answer for he only starts it himself There is but one Kind of Light which results from the Life of the Word and because it cannot be such but it must be Divine and Sufficient as well to Redemption as Conviction it will unanswerably follow that the manifesting Light of the Word J. Faldo confesseth all Mankind more or less to be lighted with is of a Divine and Saving Nature and that which strengthens this Conclusion is that Christ as God is by our Adversary made the Saviour and unless he would deny him that he calls God to have been before that Manifestation in Flesh a Redeemer to the Ancients which were to conclude the Damnation of all that died antecedent Christ the Word as that Light was the proper Redeemer through all Generations Though I will grant to him and that in the Name of all that People call'd Quakers the Discoveries made by Christ or God manifested in the Flesh transcended all former Manifestations and as in my Spirit of Truth Vindicated it is largely confest had this Adversary been Ingenuous enough to have weigh'd it So again I declare that eminently whatever was before or hath been since might in a sense be said of that Manifestation because he that then appeared was the Fulness of that Light Life and Power which measurably was is and may be dispensed to the Sons of Men wherefore in that sense he was both before and after the same Convincer Converter Redeemer and Saviour to the Souls of Men. § 3. But he is much stumbl'd and not a little abusive because I would have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 render'd Enlightneth rather then Lighteth in my Spir. of Truth Vindic. saying of me I perceive he is as very as those Physicians who impose severe Abstinence on others but they themselves will take their Cups off and their good Cheer to Wantonness and Giddiness How far this Character may be by any thought to resemble William Penn a Man he often strickes at I know not but I dare say for him he never was so Disingenuous as to deserve it and least of all from J. Faldo with whom he never had to do and who must needs make a Random-guess in the Matter But this is not the only Scurrility William Penn however unconcern'd he be has receiv'd at the hands of that Rude Priest nor that he is able to bear He takes it for granted that W. P's Passive Religion is like to be a Protection to his base Tongue and so long the Priest sleeps in a whole Skin I cannot imagine what his dashoe should signifie But it is ill done of a Priest to quarrell his next Order and one too which if I am not mistaken the Non-Conforming Priests have swarm'd after as the next way of Maintenance to their displac'd Carkasses
be the outward Commandments and Statutés For the Question was not about them but about the Commandment of Commandments and Word of Words which he resolves thus Let none say who shall ascend descend or go beyond the Seas to fetch the Great Word and Commandment But the Word is very nigh thee 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies the Innermost parts of Men. Whereinto the Outward Commandments could never come Nay I do affirm and that with holy Boldness in the Spirit Power and Illumination of the blessed Gospel that all the by rote Learning of the Letter of either Law or Gospel as they are conâ—â—â—-distinguisht is of no more Value to the true Knowledge or Worship of God then the Cutting off a Dog's Neck either to God's Honour or Man's profit without the Inward Living Word should powerfully write and engrave upon the Soul its Holy Precepts neither could there be any Conviction in the Conscience concerning the Truth of those Statutes nor indeed any Conscience at all since Conscience is no other then that manifest Judgment Man makes of the Truth or Falshood of things with respect to his own Soul from the Word or Light of God in his Heart according to the Practice of the Apostle who was manifest and desir'd to Commend himself to the Consciences of all Men Not as to a blind unsensible Thing but that Judgment in Man though not from him which was right and not learned of Man but received of God Whereas J. Faldo scoffs at such kind of Knowledge the Perniciousness of which Doctrine ought to antidote all sober Persons from ever adhering to it or him that preacheth it For I will be bound to make it appear that by his own Principles he is assured of nothing and must set down under the extreamest Scepticism in the World Or if concludable by any thing it must be by the way Rome takes to resolve all Scruples that is Plurality of Votes however directed and this too rather for Peace sake then any Certainty there can be in it For who bars out of all Inward Senses Motions Revelations Inspirations or Enlightnings resolving only to insist upon what may arrive them from meer Books because of the Fallibility of Man and Difficulty of the Matter they do contain which Way can there be to compass any tolerable Certainty to rest Men's Souls upon This is your once Phanatical t'other day Enthusiastical now Pragmatical and Scoffing J. Faldo The first in the very beginning of Independency in the World the best part that belong'd to it I meane Enthusiasm but now deserted by many as much as the true Religion is by the Church of Rome § 9. The third and last Scripture he undertakes to secure us from all Share in is that of Peter We have also a more sure Word of Prophecy whereunto ye do well to take heed as unto a Light that shineth in a dark Place until the Day dawn and the Day-Star arise in your Hearts By this more sure Word of Prophecy says J. Faldo is meant those Prophecies written in the Old Testament which are call'd Verse 20. Prophecy of Scripture and are called the Light that shineth in a dark Place I hope it will be alwayes forreign to me to detract from the holy Scriptures But the Truth I will take Liberty to defend The whole Chapter is a very weighty and zealous Recommendation of the Gospel to the Churches pressing them to call to Mind the Love of God unto them and to mind their Duty to him who had so loved them And as a great Ground both of their Faith Love and Duty the Apostle in the 16th verse tells them For we have not followed cunningly divised Fables when we made known unto you the Power and Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ But were Eye-Witnesses of his Majesty for he received from God the Father Honour and Glory when there came such a Voice to him from the Excellent Glory THIS IS MY BELOVED SON IN WHOM I AM WELL PLEASED And this Voice which comes from Heaven we heard when we were with him in the Holy Mount We have also a more sure Word of Prophecy c. Now that this cannot be meant of the Scriptures and take in the Comparison I thus prove If the Reason of their Assurance that what they delivered to the Churches was not Fabulous but true was their being Eye-Witnesses of his Majesty and Eye and Ear-Witnesses of that Testimony God gave of his Son in the Mount by that Honour Glory and Voice of Words which were there utter'd and did in that Plaee uppear then the Scriptures not only were not a surer Word of Prophecy but not so sure because they never heard nor saw them so delivered nor yet had any of the Prophets so Glorious so Transcendent and Unquestionable a Testimony to their outward Eyes and Ears that we read of J. Faldo's most infallible Way of true Knowledge see pag. 91. as was that which God gave to the Disciples when he testified This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased But we may inform our selves from the Verses recited that they were a more eminent Ground for their Knowledge Assurance and Belief then the meer Scriptures And consequently the Scriptures are not the more sure Word of Prophecy Again the written Account of another's Revelation cannot be more sure to me then that Revelation which I do immediately receive from God suppose it be from God But this was a Revelation to the Disciples and they were sure it was from God Consequently the writen Account of another's Revelation as were the Prophecies of the Old Testament so called to the Disciples could not be a more sure Word of Prophecy For it were to say that they were more sure that he among them who was called Jesus was the Son of God from Isaiah's Testimony That he would give him for a Light to lighten the Gentiles c. then the Immediate Voice of God when he pointed so clearly at him This is my beloved Son He that is amongst you whom you have followed This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased Then which what could be more demonstrable on God's part and incredulous on their side who should yet subject that living Testimony to any the best Tradition Let me not forget to add That what the Disciples then saw and heard from God and the Epistle Peter wrot by the holy Ghost being made part of the New Testament-Writings and they accounted more eminent by far then the Old with respect to the more eminent Pouring forth of the Holy Ghost in that Day which the Prophets fore-saw and they enjoyed the Old cannot in any wise be reputed a more sure Word of Prophecy as J. Faldo asserts therefore this more sure Word of Prophecy must be another thing § 10. What that is which may be reputed a more sure Word of Prophecy will much deserve our serious Consideration If it was not the Voice in the Mount which
we have invincibly proved to be more Immediate Living Fresh Convincing and Confirming to the Disciples then any the best written Prophecies they had It will follow that it was meant of the holy Anointing that Spirit and measure of the Grace or blessed Light of Christ which is Internal and out of the Reach of all Visible Things to sophisticate corrupt mis-represent mis-render or mis-translate all which have greatly befallen the Scriptures For I do affirm that Sense it self is not so certain as Reason and what clearly and fully occurs to the Understanding part of Man is a more solid Ground for Faith and Knowledge then those External Sights and Visions which Man might be attended with to Confirmation For what shall be the Rule for trying the Certainty and Truth of any such Visions and Prophecies It must be some measure of that Anointing which was afterwards given more largely to them in order to try Spirits and in all other Cases which concern the Gospel otherwise they should not have believ'd with any Certainty or upon spiritual Conviction as to themselves For if a Man has not something Divine to direct and inform his Understanding as to the true Relish Judgment and Application of what he may read in any Book or externally might appear to his Sences in the Way of extraordinary Vision there could be no probable much less certain Ground for his Belief in or Knowledge of the Truth of that thing however true in it self In short That which is Truth it self which is able to teach all things to try all things and to lead into all Truth which the Scriptures though Truth cannot do for then they would be Clear Plain Perfect uncapable of Additions Diminutions Corruptions Mistranslations c. must be this more sure Word of Prophecy But that the Anointing which the Saints had received of him was able to do as saith the Apostle John but the Anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you and need not that any Man teach you but as the same Anointing teacheth you of all things and is Truth and is no Lye And even as it hath taught you ye shall abide in him Therefore this Anointing thus able to do all things must needs be that more sure Word of Prophecy if more shall be allowed In short The Law written in the Heart is a more sure Covenant Law and Word then the Law written upon Stones or the Outward Book of the Law else the Dispensation of the Law of Life within the Gospel-State would be less Sure and therefore less Noble then the Law without and the Prophecies of the Old Testament so call'd more Certain then the Scriptures of the New that belong to a more excellent Dispensation and are an Account of the fulfilling of those very Prophecies Nay it would be to assert that the Words of both Scriptures are more sure and certain and our Regard ought to be more eminently after them then the very Spirit from whence they came which at least in the Church of God every one has received a Measure to profit with and so perfectly subvert the very State of the Gospel which was and is the Time of the Pouring out of the Spirit upon all Flesh and bringing Mankind to a more near sure and living Word of Prophecy then any Outward Writings whatever can possibly be § 11. But because he tells us in another place that a little Skill in the Original would free us from many Absurdities we shall a little examine both what the Original Text will make for the clearing the Point in Controversie and what may be the sense of some Men of Learning a thing he pretends to and Impartiality which I hope he has not Confidence enough to pretend to I will suppose then the Prophecies of the Ancients to be intended but deny any Comparison at all to have been made between them and that Voice in the Mount 2 Pet. 1. 19. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. We also have a More sure Word of Prophecy as by our late Translation render'd I cannot perceive that Comparison in the Greek so hugg'd by the Priests and insisted upon by our Adversary with manifest Design to prefer the Writings before the Spirit that gave them forth the great Evangelical Word of Prophecy for the Words without any wrong not only may which were enough but ought to be rendred thus Also we have a very sure Word of Prophecy which neither questions the certainty of the Voice nor so much as intends any the least Comparison at all with it which I take to be the very Ground of that Opposition which is made against us The Reason why I so render it is ready 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Also I know our Translation hath but it is commonly understood by our Adversaries for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But which is a great Injury to the sense for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Also is conjunctive and signifies onely another confirmatory Testimony whereas 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or But is a word that mostly doth and to be sure in that place would signifie a Comparison and Opposition Also then not being taken in the same sense with But there is nothing therein that can make for the Comparison or any Opposition whatsoever Now the Comparison it self 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lately rendred more sure is in the ancient Translations more truly interpreted sure and very sure in which there is no room for any Comparison or Opposition in the least And if J. Faldo has but Greek and Honesty enough he must needs acknowledge that Positives Comparatives and Superlatives are used promiscuously in the Greek See Acts 25. 10. where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is rendred as thou very well knowest whereas in J. Faldo's sense 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 would be interpreted as thou knowest better then I which certainly the Apostle Paul never intended when he spoke to Festus And as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Also is connective and joyns the 19th Verse to the 18th Verse so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the expositive and distinctive Article doth not preceed but follow 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Syriack one of the most approv'd Versions by learned Men has it thus We have over and above a true or sure Word of Prophecy The Arabick We have beside a very true Prophetick Word The Aethiopick has a Comparison not respecting the Sureness but the Antiquity of the Voices We have over and above an ancienter Word or Testimony which is so respecting time The French German Low-Dutch Swedish and several of our ancient English Traslations run thus We have also the sure Prophetick Word We have also the right sure Word of Prophecy We have also the very sure Word of the Prophets All which imports no more then that they had over and above their own particular Assurances of the Truth of the Christian Religion the Testimony of the Prophets whose Prophecies were fulfilled by the Coming of Christ and the Pouring out of
Velata quaedam Revelata pag. 13. of which he is very cheery As to the Spirit of Man which concurs to the Constituting of Man in his primitive Perfection it is the Breath of Life which God breathed into his Soul after he had formed him as to his Body of the Dust of the Earth whereby he came to be a Living Soul a Soul that did partake something of God's own Life This Spirit of Man is that living Principle of the Divine Nature which Man did before his Degeneration and shall again after his Regeneration partake of This Charge sayes our Adversary being of so black and horrid a Nature I did judge it meet to prove it by abounding Instances and now Reader put on the largest Charity and give me thy Verdict if I have not made appear that the Quakers are gross Idolaters c. To answer which briefly and to Purpose and to close this Chapter with a contrary Conclusion I say That the Spirit of Man is not to be taken as of or from Man or that it is any part of Man's Nature take Man in an Abstractive sense And had he been so fair as to give us S. Fisher's Words at large they would have prov'd themselves of Age enough to answer for themselves S. Fisher is to be understood of that Spirit or Breath of Life not that made Man simply a Living Creature of a meer Reasonable Capacity but that Divine Life or Breath which makes alive to God and gives a kind of Heavenly Animation Motion or Life to live to him which constituted Adam not a meer Man but a blessed holy heavenly-minded Man before his Degeneration And that S. Fisher did never intend it of the Natural Soul of Man but rather of the Divine Life of the Soul without which the Soul is destitute of the Knowledge of the True and Living God his own Words very plainly show For if S. Fisher intended that Spirit which is the Divine Principle that Man did partake of before his Degeneration certain and clear it is that since Man did under that Degeneration partake of his own Soul or else he could not have been a Man S. Fisher never meant the meer Soul of Man but the Life of that Divine Principle which regenerates and renews the Soul unto a Life of Purity and Blessedness So that we conclude the Quakers not believing any such Strange and Unscriptural Doctrine as that the Soul of Man is the God that made the Heavens and the Earth for so it would make it self and what is greater then itself They are not those Idolaters they have been represented and fouly charactered by J. Faldo But Innocent and Free of all such Imputation and he their Accuser most of all Condemnable yea and that for Idolatry too who professeth no Knowledge of God but from Outward Sense by Hearing Reading c. p. 91. So that being destitute of the Revelation of the Son that only can make known the Living Father what Apprehensions he has of God are not Experimental but Imaginary and worshipping such an Idea he worshippeth not the true God but the Images of his own Brain therefore an Idolater See Bish Andrews upon the Command and Pagnin upon the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 CHAP. XXI Our Adversary at a loss to prove his Charge We own so much of the Resurrection as the Scriptures express more Curiosity Dangerous and Condemnable Eternal Rewards own'd by us J. Faldo's Book will prove it to Him and our Tribulations to Us. § 1. THe two last Charges of this second Part of his Discourse are our Denyal of the Resurrection of the Dead that is Dead Bodies and future Rewards To the First he brings in I. Pennington thus We say that Christ is the Resurrection to raise up that which Adam lost and to destroy him who deceived him viz. Adam so Christ is the Resurrection unto Life of Body Soul and Spirit and so renews Man c. Princ. Elem. Peop. cal Quak. p. 34. Upon which he comments What is this Resurrection but what they call Regeneration it seems he does not and the Resurrection of the Body is but in the same sense as the Soul and Spirit is raised I can't help it if J. Faldo has made so unapplicable a Quotation out of I. P. to his Business I hope none are so Blind or Partial as to be angry that I. P. did not write to his Purpose it was sufficient that he spake to his own or rather to the Truth 's Our Adversary falls down right upon us with a Charge of Denying the Resurrection of the Body and is angry that the Place he produces helps not his Design Certainly with sober Men the Blame will not lie at our doors for not making good his Charge but at his own that he exhibited one he could not prove But will he deny the Resurrection in I. P's Words If he does I pronounce him no Christian nor indeed will a bare Confessing to it render him One And where he stands I fear he is but too far from both Let it suffice that those Words are a modest serious and full Answer to this Caviller since he does plainly acknowledge All that the first Adam lost to be restored by Christ the second Adam and all that the Sin of one incurr'd the Righteousness of the other redeem'd from Now let his Notions of the Way and Method of Effecting this be what they will we desire not to be wise beyond what the Lord sees convenient for us as this busie Intruder into sacred Mysteries hath done that lives in the Land not of Light but gross Darkness within and whose very borrowed made framed Light from Reading Art Study and his own Conceptions is the very Blackness of Darkness § 2. But he affirms that George Whitehead should say being prest in the Matter that he did not believe his Body should rise again after its Death which he can prove by many Witnesses I know not if ever G. Whitehead did so express himself But I see every Expression must be treasured up to defend a decrepit Cause Truth stands in no need of such Watchings that would make a Man an Offender for a Word But what if he did say so and I should second him would it follow that we deny a Resurrection I am sure I will deny all such Consequences Doth not the Apostle say expresly Thou Fool thou sowest not THAT BODY THAT SHALL BE. Is Scripture grown into such mean Request with J. Faldo or doth his Rage against the Quakers so transport him that he knows not Scripture when he meets it from a Quaker But sayes our Adversary upon a like place and to this purpose viz. We shall all be changed I would ask if they would be content to be refused their Debts if contracted before Quakers and demanded when Quakers I suppose they would believe that the Change in a Person is not the Change of a Person and that they are the same still to
whom the Money was and is due But how clever any may think this Simile we will prove it Lame and Defective For the Change was not of the Body any further then as the Soul govern'd it after a new Way of Living I cannot think that J. Faldo will dare to say that a Man's Body is rendered ever the less Corruptible by any the best Change the Soul can make in this World The Question is about what that Change must be which makes a Corruptible an Incorruptible Body I mean not by Corrupt Sinful but that gross Elementary Matter which is subject to those Impressions Influences Mutations and Passions which we see all Sublunary Bodies are subject to Either the Resurrection of the Body must be without that Matter or it must not If it must then it is not that same Numerical Body and so their proper and strict taking of the Word Resurrection they must let go If it must not be without that same gross Matter it dyed with then I affirm it cannot be Incorruptible because it will carry with it that which will render it Corruptible ad Infinitum And what can be more Unreasonable then that Bodies compounded of this Elementary World which sayes our Adversary shall and must by Nature have an End should out live their own Matter and which is more never end I say we cannot see how that which is of Dust should be Eternal whilst that from whence it came is by Nature but Temporal And that which is yet most of all Irreconcileable with Scripture and right Reason is that the Loss and Change of Nature from Corruptible to Incorruptible Natural to Spiritual should not make it another Body In vain do such dispute against the Popish Transubstantiation as an Absurd and Impossible Thing who themselves are guilty in a Case of the like Nature The Romanists affirm a Change in the Sacrament though our senses tell us it is the same thing that ever it was Our Adversaries in the Point of the Resurrection boldly affirm that it is the same Body and yet Transubstantiated from Natural to Spiritual or chang'd from what it was to something it never was For my part I think the Last not less Impertinent and the Former more expresly Scriptural But because such things run Men into Unprofitable Questions various Searches and a Philosophical Way of Discoursing no wayes tending to God's Honour nor the Soul's Profit and Comfort I will Conclude this Head with our Confession That every Seed shall have its own Body and that such an one as it will please Almighty God to give and Thou Fool belongs most rightfully to him who acquiesceth not in an humble Contentedness with the good Will of God and that manner of Body he shall give And I think it would make more for Love Peace and Good-Will if our Enemies would leave those things with God quicquid supra nos nihil ad nos whose Will be done in Earth as it is in Heaven § 3. To the Second Head of the Charge to be consider'd in this Chapter to wit Our not Professing of Eternal Rewards needs no other Answer then That none ever read so He quotes no such thing nay he says that he has searcht but to no Purpose and I challenge him to name one Person reputed by us to be of us that has ever affirmed so gross a Thing Well then may I call this the Last great Lye of his Second Part of Lyes and Slanders too such as he will be found much to weak to defend before the Tribunal of our God where we have whereof both to Answer and justly Accuse him before Angels as well as that we have now plainly refuted him before Men. But he makes this a Consequence of Denying the Resurrection which is obviously weak since whatever we have scrupled of the common gross Notion of the Resurrection of this Corruptible Body we have ever held an Eternal State of Recompence But so mean are his Proofs for this Conjecture if I may give them that Name that they show far more of his Ignorance and Malice then our Faith in that Atheistical Opinion However hear them R. Farnsworth said he was not saved by what Christ did at Jerusalem therefore says he already saved But can any in their Wits think he meant saved from Sin here to be the whole of Salvation and Blessedness O weak Man Well but I Pennington says Who forget God are to be turn'd into Hell What Hell says J. F. only in this Life A very Lye and Infamous Slander J. Faldo's Book against us unrepented of will prove we believe that Eternal Wo and Vengeance shall be the Wages of that Hellish Work We say That in this Life Men have an Earnest of Heaven and Hell and some Sence of both States as they are Good or Bad but never did we affirm Men to enjoy that full Measure of Joy or Torment they shall have as their Eternal Reward or Recompence hereafter But E. Bourrough the Day he died said he was now putting off this Manner of Person and returning to his own Being Those are not his very Words but what then Is this to prove we deny an Eternal Recompence to produce his own Testimony to an Everlasting State of Blessedness that he Himself was just entering into But W. Penn vindicates an Heaven within after his fashion against the Author of the Spirit of the Quakers tried And what is this to denying an Eternal Heaven for the Righteous Did not the Saints enjoy Heavenly Places in Spirit when on Earth O Carnal Man Be-nighted by the Power of Darkness whose Understanding the thick Fogs and Mists of Ignorance Malice and Revenge have over-cast that thou call'st Good Evil and Evil Good Light Darkness and Darkness Light § 3. I shall here after his Example resume the Question and collect all that has been said and made evidently to appear on the behalf of True Christianity and the Apostolically Professors of it I mean the People of God call'd Quakers and so end this Discourse respecting the main of the Book If QUAKERISM so call'd be not another Dispensation then that of Christ preached and settled by the Apostles If it deny not the Scriptures If it deny not all nor any of the Ordinances of the Gospel If it deny not any Influence of Christ's Transactions above 1600 Years since into our Justification and Salvation as he phraises it If it deny not Jesus the Son of Mary after the Flesh otherwise God over all to be the Christ of God If it own not false Gods and be not Idolatry If it deny not the true Resurrection of the Dead If it doth affect an affected Expression of our Adversaries or rather hold forth a future Blessedness or Misery in another World according to the Deeds done in this Then Quakerism in our Adversary's account must be Christianity But all these things are true and have been proved of Quakerism so called Therefore Quakerism so call'd is true
and Saviour in my Question I thought them sober and I am sure I meant them of him that was before Abraham that in time appeared for the Salvation of his People however he would disinterest us in them but indeed the Way he takes to do it will do us no harm For that he may insinuate we mean another thing he calls it Playing at Blind-Man's-Buff which is worse then a Buffle headed Expression Is this your Gospel-Minister Let him go Wrastle at Morefields play Foot-ball Matches turn Ringer a Practice he pleads for in his Book leave off Prophaning the Holy Name of God with such an unhallowed Mouth and unbridled Tongue Some of my Scripture-Arguments he pretends to refute I shall mention and what he objects that both may be weighed in an equal Ballance § 5. The first Scripture by me urged is that in Genes 6. 3. My Spirit shall not alwayes strive with Man c. From whence I infer that God's unerring Spirit both did so strive either for Conviction and Conversion or to prompt to further Attainments and that they were not at that time of the World without an Infallible Spirit to Teach Rule Judge c. To which he sayes My Argument is a Thicket of Impertinences that a Body had need of good Arithmetick to number the Terms that I am a none-such for Diving if I can fetch up from this Scripture what is mention'd in this Proposition What need there is of all this little Wit a better Word for Pedantry I know not and I believe more are of my Mind but if my Consequences are so Impertinent and so Numerous that ordinary Arithmetick will not serve to reckon them and lastly so Unnatural as the Scripture will afford me not one of them I am greatly to be blamed But because what he sayes for me may be of more Force then all that I can offer let this Passage be weighed It is more then probable that the Spirit did strive with them to make them better then they were yet none of these Ends are expressed in the Text An eminent Contradiction to him and which is more to it self For if the Spirit strove to make them better then since that better consisted in a Discovery of Good and Evil with an Election of the Good and a Denyal of the Evil I would fain know of J. Faldo how that could be and the Spirit of Truth not be what I have instanced in my Argument Was it not then a Judge of what was Good from Evil A Rule how to chuse one and refuse the other A Guide to lead direct enable to the Choice and preserve in it O Weak Man Is this the Upshot of all thy poor Insults But why may not William Penn express the Scope of any Scripture in his Argument though he find not the very Words in the Text if it will bear them especially since J. Faldo himself allows it both in granting that the Spirit strove to make them better which is not verbally exprest and by his Weekly Practice of Preaching where nothing is more frequent then his Exposition and after a sort too which the Text many times will not bear But he tells me that my Question is to prove the Spirit 's Teaching indefinitely or without Difference of Persons and my Proof speaks of the Spirit 's Striving with Wicked Men. For this he cries out that I wander from Truth and Reason and am Infatuated questioning if my Conscience have any Eyes and has Impudence enough to tell me that I am beholding to him for giving no further Discovery of my Vanity and Folly c. How groundless his Cavil and Reflection are and with what rude and unhandsom Terms he is pleased to give them I need not trouble my self to shew But certainly if God affords Bad Men his Spirit to strive with them then Good Men who cannot be such without it but Sensual and Devilish rather must needs have this Holy Spirit as well to preserve them as that is made them such if so then may we conclude our Adversary Weak as well as Envious who from that Text denies my Proof of the Universality of God's Spirit For what is it but to say that though all Wicked Men have the Spirit striving Good Men have it not Whose Conscience wants Eyes at this time will not be hard to determine but sure I am it was his Wisdom to leave off where he did since his reputing my Sober Scriptural Argument Infatuation Folly c was the most evident Mark of his own he could well have given us § 6. The Second Scripture I urge and which he perverts is that in Neh. 3. 20 Thou gavest also thy Goo◠Spirit to instruct them which sayes he without being so Ingenuous as to mention much less consider and answer my Argument upon it is mainly the Spirit of God which he put upon Moses and Joshua for which he quotes Numb 11. 17. 27. 18 Psal 77. 20. But does he think us so Credulous as to receive this Stuff for Gospel Certainly we must commit the greatest Cruelty upon our Understandings to strain them to such a Fiction He might with as good Reason have said that the Pillar of Cloud by Day and Fire by Night were seen of none but Moses and Joshua as to grant they had the immediate and general Benefit of them and at the same time deny them to have had the immediate Benefit of the Spirit 's Teachings Beside had they not had some Measure of the Spirit of God they could never have known that Moses had been so inspired nor have so willingly bowed under Moses as they did and have shewn themselves so well assured of his Conduct Nor can the Objection of their Rebellion at times invalid our Reason since it were to say that they sinned not against the Spirit of God in themselves but in Moses only But because they did sin against the Holy Ghost in themselves and that it was the greatest Ground for Charging of Rebellion against them we may well conclude that they had the Spirit that is to Conviction The Scriptures he brings are no more to his purpose then the Story of Toby and his Dog For though there was the Gift of Spirit poured out upon Moses Joshua and others that was not common to the People yet this proves not that they were not without a Measure of the Unerring Spirit to teach them what was acceptable with God The Difference was not that Moses c. had the Spirit and the People had it not but that he and some others had the Spirit of Government and the People had it not But what is this for him Doth not the same Eternal Spirit that teacheth to Rule also teach People to be ruled Nay I affirm that as God did gift several by his Holy Spirit to Govern and consequently they had the Spirit so did he bestow of his Holy Spirit upon the People to enable them to live according to the
Government and consequently they had as truly their Measure of the Holy Unerring Spirit as had Moses Joshua c. theirs § 7. The Third Scripture he would unconcern me in is this And the Inspiration of the Almighty giveth them Understanding Upon this he asks me this Question But doth this Incourage Men to cast off all External Means and the Use of their Reason Nothing less says he Nothing less say I too And who can help it if he understands me so But that he may be as base as base can be he askes this Question as the Result of my Argument upon the Place and never yet answers it at all But I cannot help it if J Faldo will render me a Fool that he may shew himself Wise I confess he wants some such Fool for his Work and his own Weakness may tempt him to that Dishonesty Only I would have the Reader know that Reason Memory and Understanding are all useful Servants we deny them not a Place in the Heavenly Work but as Instruments not Agents what should not move of themselves to Religious Worship but in and by the Motions of the Holy Spirit of God § 8. The next Scripture he thinks I abuse is this Whither shall I go from thy Spirit or Whither shall I flee from thy Presence From whence sayes he you can scribble thus If God's unerring Spirit be so nigh and the Sence or it so certain it must be either to Reprove for Evil done or to Inform Uphold Lead and Preserve in reference to all Good Now in which of the two senses it shall be taken the Presence of God's Eternal Spirit his being the Saints Instructer Judge Rule and Guide are evidently deduceable from the Words rudis indigestaque moles worse then ever Bear brought forth her Cubbs says J. Falde But this is not all hear him further which with her Licking may be brought into some Shape but your Products are so defective both in Truth right Reason and Syntax and Sense that it is no Dis-reputation to your Adversary to be confounded by them A notable Excuse for no Answer but Silence which is always counted Answer enough by him that hath never another to give Again It is an effectual but an impudent Course to Silence all the World from Opposing you by writing such confident confused Non-sense We may suppose then that there is such a thing as confused Sense Yet again Were it not for the sake of many who conceit your Infallibility which you are here so blindly pleading for I would as soon abandon my Time Non-sense to dispute witha distracted Man in his Raving Fits as with W. Penn till he come better to himself then I find him in his Pamphlet And Reader Canst thou think that my Adversary has taken a fair or probable Way to bring me to my self again whose best Arguments are sordid ill-bred Names down-right Lyes and Slanders I challenge any Man that can soberly pretend to Religion to so much as abet this manner of Proceeding against me and the Way I profess if this were to be Christian as it is Antichristian were I a Turk I should take great Care I came not within the very Suburbs of so base a Profession Where 's J. Faldo's Reading Learning Conscience in this one Passage I will not so much as attempt the Defence of my Argument for it were to say it needed my Assistance or that my Adversary had done somthing to indanger its Security who has so pleaded the Sobriety and Truth of it by an Opposition that could become none but a Creature as for-lorn of all Honesty as himself that it is a Credit to my Cause almost equal with our Clearness that so much Rancour and Ignorance set themselves against it This is no less Man then your Vaunting Struting J. Faldo his own self who thinks as well of himself and deserves as little of it from other Men as any Person that has come within my Ken a long time In short whether I am out of my Wits or he out of all Bounds of good Sense or Manners shall be left with the Reader to determine For my part if this be the Way he intends to take to confute his Opposers he is like to answer himself And give him his due he is as good at it as most Men I know and 't is not to be doubted but he may increase in that Science § 9. But he tells me that my main Fallacies are these two First from an Infallible Spirit-Teaching to the Infallibility of the Subjects in which the Spirit dwells as a Teacher Next from the Spirit 's Teaching to its Immediate and Peculiar Teaching If the First be true without any Consideration had to the Obedience of the Creature and his being guided by the Holy Spirit I will yield it to him that I am mistaken though not fall aciously that implying a Design to do so which I had not And for the Second I am content to stand by the Charge not of a Fallacy but our Faith and such as is Defensible both from Scripture and Reason For if the Truth of no Argument I have made nor any Expression that has fallen from me doth so much as imply his Charge let him not be angry with me that I say He is one of the basest Perverters among Men And if that very Passage by which he hopes to prove this great Deceit of mine is found mute in the Case I hope no Reader will be so unjust as to refuse me the Censure of his being an Unfair Adversary § 10. The first Place he thinks to make for him is this Quench not the Spirit On which I argu'd thus Those to whom he gave the Caution had the Spirit if those could not quench it that had it not consequently the primitive Churches were not without an Unerring Spirit To which he sayes but suppose they had the Spirit it is a miserable erronious and weak Conclusion that they were Infallible How far this makes for him or rather how greatly he has mistaken me is evident if it may be considered that there is not one Word of any Man 's being Infallible in all my Argument only that the primitive Churches had an Infallible Spirit not of their own or from themselves but from God and that they were only so in their Knowledge or Determinations from the unerring Guidance of God's Spirit unless they either were without the Anointing or that the Anointing was Fallible both which are contradicted by the Apostle John in that noted passage 1. 2. 27. So that my Adversary is manifestly guilty of that Fault He doth with no small Aggravation charge upon me viz That from my Arguing the Certainty of the primitive Churches having the Holy Spirit of God to direct them from the Impossibility of their Quenching what they had not he makes me to conclude the Infallibility of the Churches whether they were led by it or no As if I intended to plead the Infallibility
of private Spirits and not rather of the Holy Spirit of God and such only as were conformable to it § 11. His other Cavil confirms the Truth of my former Argument and his own great Ignorance or Baseness My words are these If God sends forth his Spirit into the Hearts of his Children then are they not without an Infallible Spirit grounded upon that Scripture Because ye are Sons God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your Hearts Gal. 4. 6. To which he sayes Your Adversaries have not so little Knowledge of the Spirit of God as to say the Spirit of God is Fallible nor yet so Ignorant of your Spirits and of the Scripture as to say you are Infallible Now I have two things to desire of the Ingenuous Reader First to find me out so much as one Syllable in my Argument that infers or concludes the Spirits of such to be Infallible into whose Hearts God has shed abroad his Infallible Spirit whether they are led by it or not or that I could intend a concluding of the Spirit of Man Infallible because God has given his own unto Men that is unquestionably so I am sure such a Thought never entred my Mind as fruitful of them as our Adversary may be Adversary I may well say not only because he is one but that he acknowledges to me as much which let him know however I am not such to him The Second thing I have to desire of the Candid Reader is that he would weigh with himself how Unjust this Man is to me to infer Infallibility to Men from my Affirming it to belong only to the Spirit of God And as if he fear'd I should not be as Heterodox as his Envy would have me to conclude on my Account from what I urged to prove That God's Children in all Ages had an Infallible Spirit to Judge Rule and Guide them the Affirmative of the very Question debated that is God's Spirit That every such one was Infallible in and from his own private Spirit Oh Monstrous Perversion I would impute it to his Mistake of me it being far better to be Ignorant than Dishonest but he will not let me who a little below has Impudence enough to write but we are NOT IGNORANT that your Principles make no Difference or Distinction between the Spirits of God's People and the Spirit of God manifestly intending not that they are at variance for so we should esteem his Charge a piece of Justice but that the Spirit of the Creature and the Spirit of God are but one Spirit An Absurdity that never fell from us How many times hath J. Faldo been guilty in his Discourse of plain Forgery and Dishonesty against us So certain as there is a God in Heaven terrible will his Judgment be in that great Day of Inquest if he repent not § 12. He makes a great Stir about my Checking the late Socinian for making Christ the Head of a Fallible Body saying If Christ be Head to none but the Infallible Wo to the poor Saints who have trusted hitherto they had a Head in Heaven who hath Pitty on the Ignorant and those that are out of the Way and I am sure Christ is then none of your Head We have enough and leave his very Ill Language out 1. It is granted to us that Christ is Head to a Fallible Body or at least to Fallible as well as Infallible I charge him to give us one Scripture for this or he is gone for all his idle Puns Shifts and scoffing Flings at us 2. That a Man may be a Saint which if we take it strictly is one of that Number the Apostle prayed the Churches might be of I mean those which were sanctified throughout in Body Soul and Spirit I say that a Man may be such a Saint and yet be Fallible or Erring 3. That the Saints are Ignorant and out of the Way Truly this Doctrine very well becomes J. Faldo I had rather it should be his then mine I will venture them in the Scale of Truth without thinking I run an Hazard in the Matter especially when if I err that hinders not from being a Saint Member of Christ But J. Faldo can a Man be a Saint and yet Ignorant of so much of God as is requisit to constitute him such Or can he be such and yet out of that Way which renders him a true Saint It is the first time that I ever heard in so many words that a Man might be a Saint and out of God's Way Oh Doctrine of Devils No Marvel so many Unclean Fowls flock to this Carkass What! Saints and err from God's Way Strange Saints and ignorant of God's Mind It seems then that neither Ignorance nor Erring from God's Way indispose any to be Saints If this be not a plain Contradiction to the whole Record of Scripture none ever was is or shall be esteemed such to the End of the World How many how grievous and how sharp have God's Complaints been against those who have left the Right Way of the Lord which has been the Way of Light and Righteousness the Just Man's Path through every Generation No Wonder that such Doctrines are hoth greedily received and furiously maintained that sooth up People in the Belief of such Pernicious Soul-murdering Doctrines And the Truth is and I do boldly affirm it and that in the Counsel of the Eternal God it is our striking so constantly and earnestly at this and such like Sin-pleasing Principles that makes the Devil thus bestir himself in his ready Agents to raise up and bespatter us with such heavy Calumnies as almost every one produceth against us But we lose not an Inch of Ground nor a Dram of Courage our Godly Resolution redoubles with our Adversaries On-sets and whatever may befall us here as our Hope so our Reward is from God in that high and heavenly Place which is above the Reach of Time and every Assault of our Implacable Adversaries § 13. He tells me He might proceed to my fallacious Arguing from the Spirit 's Teaching indefinitely expressed that is by Scripture Visions Providences c. means our Adversary to its Teaching peculiarly frequently in my Pampblet pag. 18 29 c. that is to the Spirit 's Teaching Men and Women by its daily and Inward Discoveries Motions and Operations But he will not the Reason is he dare not For if the Spirit be not an Immediate Living Teacher and works not as such to the Information Conviction and Conversion of Men to God in these dayes let him for Shame relinquish all Pretence to Gospel or an Evangelical Dispensation of which it is the peculiar Promise and Priviledge § 14. Though for want of better Language he is pleased to bestow upon this Godly Proposition the Term of Beetle-headed Saying and affirms that the Scripture knows nothing of it For which I may more reasonably affirm that He knows nothing of it For can this Man be
so besotted as to think that when a Measure of the Spirit was given to all to profit with and that the Children of God were led by the Spirit of God and the Spirit that was sent into the Hearts of the Sons of God and the Anointing that was in the Saints that was able to teach them all things was any Measure Part or Parcel of the Prophets or Apostles Writings I cannot yet think him so Blinded as Ignorant or Envious as he is Either these Passages are no Scripture or that gross Absurdity must follow § 15. But he tells us that we may be mistaken ever since some of us thought Paul Hobson ' s Mumbling through a Trunck an Hole in the Wall to be the Voice of the Lord. But were it as true as it is in many things false it shews the Prophaneness of that Anabaptist who dar'd to take the Lord's Name in his Mouth and counterfeit a Solemn Commission to a poor whimsical Wretch and as it happened out of a Spirit of Covetousness and Inhospitality for he had no Mind to give him longer Entertainment so that not knowing how better to be rid of him then to forge a Commission wickedly contrived a Passage into the Chamber where the Man lay and through a Trunk prophanely utterred a kind of Commission to go to a certain place where I cannot tell but I am sure as the Story goes out of his House to whom his little Victuals had been a Burden A Practice for the Avarice Prophaneness and Abuse of it to be abhorred and detested of all sober Men. And I think the Man more excusable under his Mistake then Major Hobson who ventur'd into so much Wickedness that with Design to bring him into it 'T is true that such a Man there was that he went to Major Hobsons House that he dealt so wickedly by the Man to be rid of him that the Man had been among us but as his Practice shew'd him to be none of us so was not any of his Imaginations countenanced by us but sharply rebuk'd and therefore that part of J. Faldo's Reflection a Lye Yet since he has gotten this Story by the End I will see how much better grounded J. Faldo would be upon his Principles against a Quaker should he be so Impious as to put the same prophane Abuse upon him Suppose J. Faldo either by a Trunk or Hole through a Wall or one of the new invented Trumpets that carry a Voice a Mile should have as far as Words go a very solemn Commission to go preach the Gospel in any other Place then Barnet where I hear he now lives within this Isle or some more remote Part of the World and that not only once or twice but many times joyn'd with Threats and Promises I will suppose his Inclinations will lie at home unless more be to be gotten an Infallible Ground of Motion with many of his Tribe But I would know of him which Way or upon what Foot he would Receive or Reject such a Commission The Scripture makes no mention of any such thing in Particular in General it will not reach it because this is no other Gospel that he should be required to preach then that which he pretends to be according to Scripture I say with what would he relish savour or try this Voice Would he reject it because the Scripture did not particularly own it There is the same Reason why he should embrace it because it does not particularly deny it How will he do then Why perhaps he will go because there is no General in Scripture that withstands it But how does he know that so many good Words in themselves were spoken from God and not to deceive tempt or abuse him 'T is true the Scripture has general Denials to False Spirits and general Testimonies to the Motions of the True One but still here 's but a Begging of the Question for how shall I know that the Voice or Spirit be True or False It is not Unscriptural Unreasonable nor Improbable Alas for John Faldo Have all his Preaching Praying Writing c. no better Foundation then Hear-say Imitation strong Fancy and external Sense Can he not savour and relish Spirits as well as Words If not he may truly be styled a Man of Words but void of that Spirit which tryes Spirits and gives right Discerning to all that believe in it and are led by it of those things that may concern them I might say much upon this Theme but let this suffice to detect the Weak Foundation of J. Faldo's Faith Knowledge and Practice and that such as he though pretendedly 2 or 3 degrees more refined then the present Protestants are miserably apostatized from the First Revolters from Romes Idolatries who asserted none could understand the Scriptures themselves much less benefit by them who had not the same Spirit that gave them forth consequently the Spirit and not the Scriptures were the Principal Cause of Right Knowledge and Rule for our very Understanding of them And truly though J. Faldo would have the World think he both understands the Quakers Principles very well and has refuted them very clearly yet whether he will give me leave or no I will make him speak the Language of the Quakers passing well in this particular of the Spirits being the Judge Rule and Guide of Faith Worship and Conversation the thing aim'd at in that First Part of my Spirit of Truth Vindicated by him so much quarrell'd at perverted and scurrilously abused or else I greatly mistake his Mind And which will be much to my Defence he must likewise have done so himself Hear him § 16. But Mr. Penn do you deal fairely and honestly with your Adversaries to imply in your Question that we deny the Spirit of God to be a proper Rule of Faith Guide of Life Judge of Truth You know that we own it to be such and that it doth both IN THE CONSCIENCE and by the Scripture Creation and Providence perform such Acts c. and is to such Purposes that of Right What can we say more Has he not strangly mis-understood us Again Only we deny that the Spirit alwayes performs these Acts without the Use of the Scripture or any External Means Truly and so do we For we daily enjoy the Benefit both of God's Spirit by the Scripture and publick Worship as Means If this be the Grindstone my Nose is to be held at and by not mentioning of which as he falsly sayes of me I abuse and trifle him and my unwary Reader I am contented to abide here while I live as my Discourse at large upon the Scriptures must needs have informed those who have read it But I am of the Mind that J. Faldo will finde it too hot for him and I am assured that so much Concession overturnes him for ever as to his present Basis For that he should oppose my Discourse that intended nothing more then to prove God's Spirit
and moves and inclines to Purity Mercy Righteousness which are of God We deny and abominate that Ranting Spirit that would charge the Spirit of God with their Unholy Liberty God's Spirit makes free from Sin not to Sin Neither can we distinguish as they wickedly do between the Act and the Evil of it wherefore we say that as the Tree is known and denominated from the Fruit so the Spirits by their Motions and Inclinations and the Spirit of God never did incline to Evil. So we renounce that Construction of their esteeming Evil no Evil when any pretend to be lead to it by God's Spirit for that is not the Way and Method of his Spirit that is Pure and Holy forever Priest The Quakers must be all Infallible and Perfect if they have such a Light Quaker This also is a great Abuse of our true Meaning We say the Principle is Pure Perfect Unerrable in it self but we never did assert our selves such meerly because it was in us by no means but that all who are lead by it are so far Perfect and Infallible and no Jot further Who can lay down a more independent Doctrine upon Self and hourly depending upon the Grace or Gift of God Let us not be mistaken nor suffer for these things Priest The Quakers deny the Scriptures for they deny them to be the Word of God Quaker We own the Scriptures as they own themselves a Declaration of those things most truly believ'd given forth in all Ages by the Inspiration of the Holy Spirit That they are profitable for Reading for Exhortation for Reproof in Righteousness that the Man of God may be perfectly furnished They are the Form of sound Words We believe in them read them and it is the Work we have to do in this World and the Reason why we are so separated from it and the earnest Desire of our Souls to Almighty God that we may witness the Fulfilling of them That God's will may be done in Earth as it is in Heaven But to call them the Word of God which they never did themselves but which they peculiarly denominate Christ by in Reverence to Christ alone and no Slight to them do we as in Duty and Reason bound attribute that Title to him only Priest They deny them to be any Means whereby to resist Temptation Quaker This is a very Aspersion True it is that we deny the Scriptures of themselves to be sufficient to resist Temptation But that we should deny them to be any Means whereby to do it when we allow our own Writings may be such is either great Ignorance or Malice God has doth and will make Use of them for Reproof Comfort and Edification Priest The Quakers assert the Spirit of God to be the Immediate Teacher and that there is no other Means now to be used Quaker We never spoak such Language but perceive the Subtilty of the Devil in this thing as in others For since he cannot hinder the Exaltation of the Spirit above all visible Instruments and the Necessity of its Motions and Operations in the Hearts of Men and the great Suitableness of it to the Gospel Administration he would spoile us by Overdoing that is by inferring beyond that our Assertion will allow For we never denyed Means but to this Day from the Beginning we have been in the Use of them But then they are such Means as are used in the Life and Power of God and not in and from Man's meer Wit Will or Imitation the thing we strike at Strange because we deny all false Means or Means not used in the Leadings of God's Power and Spirit that therefore we must deny all Means however rightly employed Behold the Injustice of our Enemies Wherefore be it known unto all that Evangelical Means and Order we love and keep For we Assemble Our-selves together to Worship God where we Pray in the Motion of the Spirit and Prophesie One by One as any thing is revealed Nor are we without Spiritual Songs making Melody in our Hearts to God our Redeemer Priest The Quakers deny the two Great Ordinances of the Gospel Baptism and the Supper Quaker What ever is a Gospel-Ordinance we own and practise We know no such Language in the Scriptures as in the Calumny of our Adversary 'T is true those two Practices are found but that is no Institution That they were then proper we believe but that they were at most but Figures and Signs you acknowledge that are called Protestants Now prove to us that there ought to be any Figures or Signs under the Gospel-Administration when Christ who is the Substance is come 'T is to overthrow the whole Dispensation and to make his Coming of none Effect If it be said But they were used after his Coming and Ascension too I answer So were many Jewish Ceremonies not easily abolished If any say But Christ bid that one should be done till he came Very well and he that said so told his Disciples that He would come to them Some should not taste of Death till they saw him come And he that was then with them should be in them And he would drink no more of the Fruit of the Vine till he drank it New that is the New Wine that was to be put in the new Bottel which is the Wine of the Kingdom as he expresseth it in the same place which Kingdom also is within Luk. 17. 20. He was and is the Heavenly Bread that they had not yet known nor his Flesh and his Blood as they were to know it So that though Christ was come to end all Signs yet till he was known to be the Substance to the Soul as the Great Bread of Life from Heaven Signs were usefull to shew forth and keep in hand especially the People of that Day whose Religion was attended with a Multitude of the like Types Shaddows and Signs of the One Good Thing and Substance of all Hence it is that we don't deny them that is too hard a Word but truly witnessing the very thing they signified to be come we leave them off as fulfill'd and henceforth have but One Lord One Faith One Baptism One Bread and but One Cup of Blessings which is the New Wine of the Kingdom Priest The Quakers deny Christ's Transactions at Jerusalem and the Shedding of his Blood to be Beneficial unto them It is the Light within only they expect to be saved by Quaker This is a wicked Suggestion against us We do say That the Appearance of that Second Adam the Lord from Heaven the Quickning Spirit in that Holy Body prepared of the Father for him was for the Salvation of the World who had fain in the First That whatever he then did both Living Dying had a great Influence for Good upon all that then believed and hath still for all that now believe in him as he manifests himself to us by his Light in the Conscience For we do affirm that to come to that is
those they Preach to W. P. This is done like the Fox indeed He would suggest because we deny Hirelings that is Bargainers Men that make it their Trade that have no other will seek no other and yet preach perhaps but once a Week if then and bestow the Six Days that might be otherwise employ'd to Study for that Day instead of Preaching most of those Dayes that therefore we are such Cruel Hard-hearted People that is such as Preach and are Poor either through a numerous Family low Estate many Losses or a continual Attendance from Day to Day upon the Ministry they have receiv'd of God we will not minister to their Necessities for such as so receive any Assistance are Hirelings and we should contribute to make them so No no J. Faldo the Quakers are no such People but for all that they can do and I will renounce Thee and such as Thou art for Hirelings First in that you have not received the Living Heavenly Gift of the Ministry And secondly because you do generally Bargain will not preach without it and can basely leave an Honester People for a better Allowance This is Notorious therefore stop thy Mouth J. F. pag. 72. THE LUST sayes he all Desires that accord not to the Light within and proceed not from thence W. P. What accords not with the Light within is not of God and so far we own his Explanation but to say that all Desires about such ordinary things as are left to the common Understanding Prudence and Liberty of Man to do or not to do are Lust if they come not from the immediate Impulse of the Light within is his own Notion not the Quakers We do not subject that heavenly Principle to nor concern it with every Inferior and Frivolous thing belonging to this World J. F. pag. 75. CHRIST THE OFFERING says he the Light within W. P. This is no Quakers Expression and unless we are to answer for J. Faldo's Mistakes we are unconcern'd in it Only his Malice is manifest for he would by this insinuate that we deny Christ to be an Offering as in the Flesh and the Body then offered up to be concern'd in our Belief of the Offering But I do declare it to have been an holy Offering and such an one too as was to be once for all Therefore let none receive his Abuse of us for our Faith J. F. pag. 79. MEN-PLEASERS says he They who comply with Men though in things not only Lawful but also to Edification W. P. We Charge this upon him as an Arrant Lye We are so far from reputing such Men-pleasers that we account them Sober Courteous and Commendable Persons provided he means by Lawful and to Edification what we do otherwise he is not Honest to obtrude Matters in Question for our Meanings J. F. pag. 81. RAVENING BRAIN sayes he Studying and following after Divine Knowledge W. P. This is not fair The Word studying and following we own in a sense Studying that is Meditating Following that is Obeying the Light and Spirit of God But because we deny the Dark and Heathenish Metaphysicks the prolix and abstruse Niceties of the School-men and affirm There is no way to become vers'd in the Things of God but by being an humble Student and diligent Disciple in the School of Christ that is to be taught of his Light Grace or holy Spirit Therefore all right Study and all right Wayes to come to the Knowledge of Divine Things we must be charg'd with the Denyal of Disingenuous Man J. F. pag. 86. TRADITIONS OF MEN that is says he The Scripture or Written Word W. P. Show us that in any Book that is subscrib'd by an acknowledg'd Quaker Tradition is a Delivering any thing down From one Generation to another and as such the word is Inoffensive but to say They are the Traditions of Men in the sense Christ reprov'd the Pharisaical Religion God forbid I had rather my Tongue were cut out of my Head O Base Man To abuse an innocent People thus grosly The Scripture is a Godly Tradition or Writing given forth by Inspiration and preserv'd through Generations which we read believe and desire to fulfil through the Power of God J. F. pag. 63 82 83 87. BABYLON Shaddows Spirit of Anti-Christ Outward Court that is says he all Ordinances Worship Faith Obedience that have any Form though Christ's and Gospel Forms being with them the Worship of Heathens not of Christians W. P. This Key opens into as many Forgeries as ever I knew one Key do in my Life Certainly were not this Man left of God for his Enmity he could never run into such extravagant Dishonesty What! Belye us in the Sight of all Indeed it turns upon himself For Visible Worship the Form of Godliness Faith and Obedience to every Ordinance of God we own profess and practise daily and publickly through the Power of our God in whose Name we renounce his Constructions and trample upon all his Malice black and enrag'd as it is J. F. pag. 89. THE VAIL IS OVER THEM that is says J. Faldo the Belief of the Man Christ Jesus which was of our Nature to be the Christ c. W. P. Let this be the Last though several more might be observed which at this time shall be consider'd in which we shall see that J. Faldo has done like himself and the Man we have all along taken him to be The Vail is over them it is a Scripture-Phrase 2 Cor. 3. 15. used by the Apostle to express the Darkness and Ignorance that to that time remain'd over the Understanding of the Jews in reading the Law and this Vail he makes us to interpret after this gross and absurd manner namely That the Vail is the Man Christ Wicked Man Did ever Quaker so irreverently express himself Give us his Name or tell us in what Book we may find it What greater Malice couldst thou have shown then thus unjustly to pervert the Scripture in our Name belying and abusing both As if because Christ's Flesh is called a Vail and the Ignorance of the Jews a Vail that therefore the Quakers must of Necessity mean by Vail in the first sense Vail in the second sense as if the Way to have the Vail rent were to deny the Man Christ Jesus which were to make Christ rend and destroy himself who as the Quickning Spirit alone rends all Vails of the Hearts of Unbelievers Nor indeed have I met with one Term absurd or un-intelligible unless the Scripture use such therefore 't is an Untruth to stile them absurd and a Contradiction in him to offer at Explaining any thing that is truly un-intelligible And that all the World may behold the Spirit of J. Faldo how Ill he governs himself against the Quakers which makes not a little for them let his following Epithetes and Expressions be well weighed I think they are so naked they want no Key and glad we are he found no such Subjects from us to
the Holy Spirit but if it were more it was only so in point of Authority with their Adversaries Not that the Voice the Disciples heard in the Mount was less sure in it self or that Knowledge of God and Christ through the Operation of the Power of the Gospel in the Hearts of those Believers then the ancient Prophecies of the Prophets But perhaps they were not so effectual to perswade as the words of the ancient undoubted Prophets to confirm their Allegations Thus Christ in our Translation Search the Scriptures not that they were a more sure Testimony then what he himself livingly and immediately gave forth But they so reputing them whilst they opposed him his Direction to search the Scriptures was for Confirmation of the Truth they seem'd to gain-say from the Scriptures What then Shall we say that the Prophets are a more sure Testimony then what Christ the Living Word of God himself declar'd or the Saints became Witnesses of By no means But rather that the old Prophecies are also a true Prophetical Testimony like a small Light in a dark Night they do shew forth a Prophetick Light till the Day-Star of fulfilling them which some then knew and others prest after should arise in their Hearts which is that Blessed State of Witnessing J. Faldo and T. Hicks have bestow'd so many impious Scoffs upon To this agree many learned Men. I will begin with Erasmus If so be that the Prophets plain Oracles be in great weighty Estimation among you which Prophecy by figurative dark Shaddows of Christ of much more Gravity or Weight ought so evident a Declaration by the Father himself of his Son be They with their Prophecies prepare the Minds of Men to the Truth of his Gospel In that they Shaddow and covertly point out the thing that the Gospel doth preach The Prophets agree with the Father's Voice if a Man do rightly interpret them The thing that Men set forth by Man's Device may be perceiv'd by Man's Wit But the thing that is set forth by the Inspiration of the Holy Ghost requires an Interpreter inspir'd by the like Spirit A severe Check to the Contra-Spirituality of J. Faldo and those other of the Carnal and Apostate Professors of Religion in our time who have forgot the Ground of their Fore-fathers Revolt from the Idolatry of Rome and Superstitions of a degenerated Prelacy as well as that is shows how much more Erasmus inclines to give the Preference if any there be to the Voice of God then to the Ancient Prophecies He also quotes Aug. to his Defence Beza not only renders it we have also a very firm Word of Prophecy shutting out all Comparison the Priests Break-neck but affirms if it should be accepted as a firmer Word of Prophecy it can only relate to such who might have entertain'd such an Extraordinary Belief of the Writings of the Prophets and not that in themselves they were a surer Word of Prophecy Vatablus in short tells us that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or more sure is a Comparative for a Positive more sure for sure usual with the Greeks So sayes Clarius And Grotius that great Man thus renders this part of the Verse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is sayes he the Writings of the Prophets have been alwayes in Credit and of Force with us But now much more because we have seen the Fulfilling of them by the Messiah and their Agreement with him Certainly then others besides the Quakers must needs have been Perverters of this place of the Scripture in J. Faldo's sense But he may hear from Grotius that the Scriptures are never the less valuable by those who witness their Accomplishment but the more A Notion very rife in J. Faldo's head Let it suffice that we have stated and Vindicated the true Christ to wit God manifest in Flesh That we have attributed to God manifested in that visible Body what we believe to be congruous and according to Scripture and sound Reason And lastly that those Scriptures which he thought to disinterest us in are fully and clearly vindicated from his false Glosses proving their express Design perfectly destructive of those Ends our Adversary endeavour'd to bend them to which were his own and not the Truth 's CHAP. XX. Our Adversaries Charges deny'd His Proofs fail him The Quakers are True Christians and Quakerism True Christianity We own and profess the only True God that made Heaven and Earth § 1 HE has hitherto charg'd us one would think as home as ever Man did for what is beyond Denying the Lord's Christ and that Love he manifested in the World for the Salvation of Mankind But it is our Happiness that his Proofs have been alwayes found as Weak as his Charge Desperate and the little Quarter promised us by the One more then made up by the faint Performances of the Other else how terrible would this Grim Character be to our selves and much more to others who do and yet will we hope believe better things of us viz. The Quakers are gross Idolaters and Quakerism gross Idolatry And he assures us if there be any such thing as Idolatry in the World he will prove us guilty in the highest degree The Way he takes to prove this heavy Charge is this Those which own and profess that to be God which is not are gross Idolaters but the Quakers do so The second Proposition the first being granted by all he endeavours to prove thus Who own and profess the Light within and the Soul of every Man to be God own and profess that to be God which is not God But the Quakers do so therefore Idolaters The making good this Charge will lie upon the Testimony he brings out of our Friends Writings since he pretends to no less Demonstration for every thing he has to lay against us I deny in the Name of all that abused People first that we ever own'd or profest the Light within every Man to be God though we say it is of God much less that we worship it as such And secondly we do forever renounce any such Principle As that the Soul of Man simply as such is the very Essence or Being of God If he fails in his Proofs he must fall with Infamy to the Ground The first Man he hopes to make sure with is G. Fox the Younger The words as he quotes them are these I will make you know that I the Light which lighteth every Man that cometh into the World that all through me should believe am the True Eternal God which created all things that by me the Light all things are upheld and that there is not another beside me can save Fox Young p. 53. Although sayes he in this Passage be doth not call it the Light within Pag. 50. You scorn me the Light in you p. 54. which will not own me the Light in them They he says that cannot from hence read the Quakers own and profess the Light within