sin in them or do at any time in any sort commit sin Slaying the Witness Disobeying the light within but especially a resolved rejecting it as our only Rule Teacher and Saviour Sons of God Only the Quakers Soul A part or measure of God Speaking in the Spirit By immediate Inspiration Spirit of Anti Christ That which leads to Forms though Christ's and Gospel-Forms All that opposes the light within to be Christ False Spirits They that ground their Doctrine on the Scripture or any mediate thing Spirit of Bondage Being under the power of any sin Spirit of God The light within every man God the Father Son Holy Ghost without distinction Spirit of the World Whatever is not conformable to the light within as Christ The Spiritual man Christ or Christ in every Quaker The Lord hath Spoken What comes to them by immediate inspiration The Lord hath not Spoken Whatever is not by immediate inspiration though it be written in the Scripture A true Christians State Being taught by God immediately not by the Letter The Statutes of God The Law in the heart or within They Steal my Word every one from his neighbour Teaching Doctrines as the Word of the Lord taken out of the Scripture Stoln words All that we have out of the Scriptures and not by immediate inspiration to our selves In the stilness An unactive attending to the light within Standing in the Counsels of God Conformity to the Teachings of the light within and abiding therein Studying for divine Knowledge what comes thereby from the Scripture Carnal toil birth and wisdom of the flesh  Scraping in the Scriptures The woman in Subjection Weakness must subject it self to the man Christ The Supper of the Lord. Spiritual joy or joy in the Spirit from the presence and influence of the light within all eating and drinking to God and in remembrance of Christ Sword of the Spirit Christ the light within  What is declared by immediate inspiration of the Spirit Synagogues of Satan The Assemblies of any sort of people for Divine Worship who are not Quakers T. Christ Tabernacling in the outward vessel Christs dwelling for a little time in the body born of the Virgin Mary The like of every Quaker Taking away the Tables All Forms and Books as useless in the things of God Taught of God Taught immediately from the light within Teachings of Men. All that is not immediately inspired though the sense and words of the Scripture Cease from man From the Teaching by man Outward Court of the Temple given to the Gentiles All Forms of Worship all visible Worship being the Worship of Heathens not of Christians Testifie to the light in the Conscience Appealing or speaking to Christ the light within Bearing Testimony to the light Declaring for and from the light within The Testimony and the Testaments Christ the light and Law within Thanksgiving Give Thanks in Spirit or inwardly Thieves and Robbers All that are Teachers by a mediate Call  All Ministers but the Quakers  All that walk by Scripture-light Traditions of men The Scripture or written-Word Trading with the Scripture Having maintenance for a Ministry Ministring from the Scripture or written-Word The Birth In Travel The time of wrestling betwixt convictions of the light within and perfection Trembling and Quaking The horrour and consternation that they are under from as they say the wrath of God while the flesh is judged and they are in the hell of condemnation which is all the hell they hold that I can find and this trembling and quaking they say is such as Moses and other Prophets were seized with at the appearance of God The Truth No other but Christ the light within Speaking Truth Truly When it is spoken from immediate inspiration and motion of the Spirit but however true without these it is falsly spoken Witnessing to the Truth Declaring or suffering for the light within and its dictates V. The flesh of the Vail The Body wherein Christ dwelt and tabernacled which for a while he took of the Virgin Mary but at the death of that left it no body knows where The Vail is over them The belief of the man Christ Jesus which was of our nature to be the Christ and now existing in Heaven in that body of flesh of our nature which he took of the Virgin Mary The Vessel The Body wherein for a while Christ dwelt also our bodies Victory over the Devil Sin Flesh World Perfection in this life resulting from the travail of the light within In the Vnbelief Not acknowledging the light within to be the onely Teacher and Saviour whatever the faith and life otherwise may be The Vncircumcised and Vnclean All that are not Quakers Vngodly The same Vnlearned and without Vnderstanding To be without the light within its teachings and immediate revelations The Voice of the Lord. The secret immediate lively touches and teachings within W. Hirelings serving for Wages Ministers who receive maintenance little less then Robbery at least very Jewish and Antichristian Wait on the light Desisting from a search after Truth by any external means and passively attending to the motions and teachings within Watch to the light To be so listning and attentive to the inward teachings as not either to let slip any of its motions or reject them Blinde-Watchmen Those Ministers who see and warn by Scripture-light and not their light within Watch to the Morning To be diligent to observe and improve the first breakin gs forth of the power of the light within The Way CHRIST The way of Truth Those into which they are led by the pure light within The Whore of Babylon All forms of Worship visible Worship all that is believed or practiced from the written Word Will of God The commands from within from the light Will of Man Will of the Flesh All that we Chuse by the direction of the understanding or in which the humane faculties have any thing to do Will-worship What ever Worship is not from the motions of the light within Children of Wisdom The Quakers born to the light within We Witness We experience we speak it from the testimony and feeling of the light and motions within And Pen saith This is right witnessing to witness what they experience But they that testifie what they believe from the Scriptures and right rational demonstrations go by hear-say and reports but cannot witness it The Word The Word of God No other but Christ the Eternal God The Word of the Lord. The secrets of the Work of God The inward power and motions neither wrought nor perceived by or with the use of the humane understanding and will Righteousness of works Whatever man hath any hand in or doth Chuse The World All that are not Quakers Worship in Spirit Not the Worship where the heart and will goes along with the outward appearance but what is from the motions of the light within Wrath of God Day of Wrath. The inward judgings and terrours by
in the Scriptures to be but vain janglings of men contending who should hit that white which when done would not be a Prize of a half-penny value yea when it concerns those prevailing Errors which would blot out and strikes directly at Christianity and would render Heathenism divested of its more noble and rational parts the highest perfection to be aimed at by mankind in this world and the life to come a fancy dwindled away to a just nothing It must be more than justifiable in the eyes of all men except theirs whose Sceptism or indifferency in matters of a Religious concern is arrived to that perfection as to have them all equally doubtful or acceptable to them The Doctrines of Christianity common to men called Episcopal Presbyterian Congregational Anabaptists are no farther here concerned than vindicated And for Worship and Order nothing is here agitated to the reproach or displeasure of any who are not against all things called by some reproachfully and as ignorantly Forms To be contentious is an offence the Scripture condemns with no little keenness whiles it exhorts to contend earnestly for the Faith once delivered to the Saints from which I conclude that though I contend against Quakerism with some symptoms of zeal I am not therefore contentious neither can I esteem it the part of a Neighbour to look on the deplorable estate of those wounded both in head and heart with this disease and like the Priest and Levite in the Parable pas by on the other side as unconcern'd nor yet to stand gazing with a seeming amazement and all the help I afford to them to be only to cry out Unclean Unclean whiles they who hear these clamors and whose soul-humours prepare them for the infection are not thereby one whit the more startled at their danger I have observed that of the sort last mentioned are those Professors especially whose Judgments are very weak and their Conceits very strong who have obstinately resolved into many sins and especially those of omission as attending conscientiously on the Ordinances of Christ Family Worship and serious Instructions of those under their Charge contrary to the plain mind of God revealed in his Word the serious and importunate solicitings and intreaties of their Teachers and the checks of their own Consciences to salve all have faln into Quakerism whereby their pride conceit idleness covetousness and disrespect have been adopted into and made a part of their Religion it self and thereby they have secured themselves from those batteries which were before somewhat wounding and grievous to them And it is no less matter of lamentation that the far greater number of men and women are so grosly ignorant in the things of God and regardless of their eternal concernments that brutish sensuality and the examples of a sottish benighted world are the only Compasses they steer the course of their lives by So that when they are by any means prevailed with to be serious and to consider the things of their everlasting Peace they know not which way to turn themselves the way of God is dark before them in which they are so little instructed that they know not their right hand from their left They are easily convinced that the way to Heaven lyes not thorow drunkenness swearing lying uncleanness injustice and such plain and reproachful Vices Religious they must and are willing to be but without the special and almost miraculous guidance of the good Spirit of the Lord they are most likely to fall in with the grossest delusions and mend their conditions at no better rate than removing out of one quarter of the Devils Kingdom into another far more dangerous and wherein they may more peaceably and confidently go down to the Chambers of death And when this is done Satan and they are agreed all is quiet again and the poor betrayed vanquished Souls triumph as the only Victors And it is no wonder that those should have undisturbed present peace who know no God above that they call the Light in their Consciences whiles they comply with its dictates how leud and erroneous soever they be Let such seriously weigh these two Texts of Scripture But if thine eye be evil thy whole body shall be full of darkness if therefore the light that is in thee be darkness how great is that darkness I know nothing by my self yet am I not thereby justified but he that judgeth me is the Lord. Those Histories that have derived to us the knowledge of those Errors and Heresies that sprang up among professed Christians in several places and ages have not been accounted superfluous nor their respect worn out in many hundreds of years continuance how much more concerned should we be to have the knowledge of those born in our own age and which is more dolorous brought forth in our own bowels the Land of our birth and abode but worst of all one such a Monster which hath devoured almost all the rest and digested them into one body with a vast addition a Monster whose description must alway be concluded with an caetera as Geographers leave a space for the Terra incognita And I believe that this piece is as full a compendium of the Quakers Tenets as any that have come forth with the like Proofs out of their own Authors which hath cost me more pains to collect and understand and digest into some order than their confutation Though I suppose who reads the Book thorow will find somewhat of advantage more than meerly concerns Quakerism I confess the Book hath exceeded in bulk my first intentions and indeed I found after I had launched a little into the work that the way of man is not in himself it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps I was launched into such an Ocean for vastness and saw so many Rocks in my passage that I could not satisfie my own Conscience to send this into the world without clearing the difficulties which for all my honest Narrative and downright Confutation might wrack the Faith of many a Soul I should be glad to see so publique a Christian Spirit as to be at the Charge of Printing many thousand small Pieces of four or five sheets fitted to the genius of the meanest capacities and distributed over the Nation gratis which might discover the Principles of the Quakers to the securing of many who being entangled with their outward appearance and profession in words of the great and main Principles of Christianity are soon ensnared past recovery without an extraordinary good hand of God And I doubt not some will be found who are well acquainted with their Tenets and evasions who will willingly undertake by Gods assistance the writing of what might be serviceable that way By this course have the Quakers more encreased in the Country than by all others for where you shall find one sheet against them you may find a hundred of their Pamphlets which are generally put into their hands
by the Quakers at the cheap rate of accepting though poyson taken into the Body and delusions into the Soul are ever dear and costly But to the unwillingly mistaken among the people called Quakers and such whose inclinations are towards their Principles and Practices known by the name of Quakerism I do solemnly profess That I have the witness of God and my own Conscience that I heartily desire the welfare and Salvation of all sorts of men whatever notions they fall under and however disobliging in their carriages towards me in particular And although I hope I shall not justifie the Opinions called Quakerism till I dye yet I am perswaded there are many called Quakers whom the Lord will turn from their way which is not Christs and sanctifie them by his Spirit and justifie them through his Grace by Jesus Christ even that Christ who as God is every where and as Man is ascended above the visible Heavens and Skies If sincere protestations of my righteousness and sincerity in this matter and the verity of what I have written would prevail with you my Spirit is clear and I doubt not but my Pen might be as serviceable to it as some of those whose interest is too great in you Yea I know not that suffering I might embrace without sinning against God but for Christ sake and yours I should not long to be baptized with I beg of you in the bowels of a Christian that you would not slight the Truth and Scripture-evidence here presented to your view The Quakers have no Miracles to bind you to their perswasion and sure the Truths contained in the Scripture and right reason may match all other visible demonstrations You venture hard to Father all your Opinions on the immediate inspirations and your affections and practices on the motions of that Spirit who is God which if it prove to be otherwise which will be as certainly as God is Truth your early repentance may be accepted but your late repentance will make little for your comfort I would not then be in your condition for more Worlds than there are Stars in the Firmament I beseech you do not think that God hath given you the reason of men to be serviceable to you only in the affairs of this world and not to be exercised at all in discerning truth from error good from evil of a Spiritual and Religious nature The new creature is the creature renewed that is Body Soul and Spirit so enlightned as to know God in Christ so sanctified as to be devoted to him in whatever service he shall command and to make a Heaven of nothing on this side the full Vision and enjoyment of his favour and glorious presence in the other world or the world to come and what will necessarily result from thence If you think me too smart in some passages in the Book be pleased to consider if against Persons it is against those your misleaders who are to be blamed at a sharper rate than good Eli chid his Sons and was therefore rebuked by God to the breaking his heart his neck and the loss of a great priviledge besides if against sayings or opinions I have fully proved them gross falshoods foolish and pernicious lusts and errors and I know not how to call gall and poyson by sweet and lovely names I must alter my stile according to the matter and occasion or they would agree like Harp and Harrow and I assure you it is neither my conscience duty nor design to commend their Opinions to the world Do not say I intend hereby your persecution for it is far from my principle and natural temper also and I know nothing that men who are your Adversaries can do more to promote your Tenets and Party though suffering without further evidences of truth as the cause is a poor foundation of Religion Your Souls Servant JOHN FALDO November 23. 1672. THE CONTENTS PART I. Chap. I. QVakerism affirmed to be no Christianity The tearms Quakerism Christianity Quaker Christian explained What Christianity is strictly considered and distinguished from Heathenism Judaism or any other character of Religion Chap. II. The beginning of Quakerism compared with the beginning of Christianity with respect to the manner and with respect to the time of its beginning from both Quakerism proved to be no Christianity or not the Christian administration Chap. III. Proving the Quakers denying the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be the word of God that the intent is more than a meer verbal matter that this is the gate and inlet of their other errors the grounds of their denying it to be the word of God all of which are examined and refuted the definition of a word and the Scriptures proved to be the word of God of that species contended about more properly than Christ the Son of God is the word of God the Scripture proved to be the word of God by its own undeniable evidence where it cannot be understood of any other than the written word denying the Scripture to be the word of God proved a denying of the Scripture the titles the Quakers give to the Scriptures examined and proved though taken altogether to come short of a fit and distinct character of the Scriptures the ends and necessity of the Quakers denying the Scripture this title for the support of their other fancies The sense we take the Scripture to be the word of God in the written word proved to be the word of God Chap. IV. The Quakers equal their own writings and sayings with the word of God and prefer them before the word of God So to do proved a denying the Scripture that they do so proved by their pretending them infallible that they speak and write by immediate inspiration that the Spirit of God dwells in them essentially and in all his divine properties and Christ speaks out of them as through a Trunk Proved by the characters they give of their own writings and sayings beyond and excelling the characters afforded by them to the holy Scriptures Infallibility explained the Quakers infallibility confuted by divers mediums their immediate inspiration considered and confuted the woful and absurd consequences of this error the Papists foundations of their orders and grossest absurdities and the foundation of the Quakers Religion proved to be the same thing and instances given on both sides viz. contempt of the Scripture as insufficient infallibility and immediate revelations and divine inspirations the Quakers proved to have the blackest marks of Antichrist upon them Chap. V. The Quakers deny the Scriptures to be a rule of faith and life or a Judge and determiner in religious controversies This charge proved to be a denying the Scriptures That charge it self proved Herein they agree with the Jesuites That whatever is by the Lord affirmed in the Scripture ought to be believed That what is there in commanded and not repealed ought to be obeyed That the holy Scriptures do in their kind determine
contempt of a Christ without which John preached and that faith and hope of the Saints which according to the Scripture are the substance of things not seen and the evidence of things hoped for reproached as a slumbring fancy and a nocturnal dream But if you would infallibly be convinced of the gross darkness wherewith this sort of men are benighted or their palpable knavery and impudence in abusing the Holy Scripture weigh the following instance out of the preceding Author Then God sent him John to bear witness to the light which in him was made manifest that all in the light might believe and he called unto others to behold him and said he was the Lamb of God and was to take away the sins of the world and least you should mistake him and guess that a man that could but write his name should not have so little wit or modesty as to expound that text of Scripture after this sort he quotes chapter and verse John 1. 9. and the next word is mark in a parenthesis lest his folly should not appear to all men who should have the hap to read him and moreover at the close of the period after he had made a further blind comment on the text he glories in his shame with a Weigh this truth all ye Priests and Professors and pouder it in your hearts no words big enough to express its madness SECT II. Christianity made its way not only by the truth and purity of its doctrine but also by such and so many signes and wonders wrought before multitudes as were convincing to its most malicious and prejudiced adversaries and that not only by Christ himself but also by his disciples and servants both before and after his death And all bare him witness and wondred at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth Luke 22. 4. but men may speak many good words and yet both say and do at other times bad enough but Christ appeals to the faces of his worst Adversaries If I have spoken evil bear witness of the evil John 18. 23 But if forcible right words would not make way Christ exhorts them to believe for the very works sake and these were not ordinary works or wonders and miracles neither If I had not done among them the works which none other man did they had not had sin And as himself so his servants introduced Christianity with the same holy pomp and state of the Mighty and miraculous works of the Power of God bearing witness to the truth of their doctrine Long time therefore abode they speaking boldly in the Lord which gave Testimony unto the word of his grace and granted signes and wonders to be done by their hands Acts 1. 3. But Quakerism made its way by and began in blasphemies against the Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth whom the Apostles preached by gratifying the pride idleness and giddiness of both Professors and prophane as will appear abundantly in the following discourse and by decrying the Scripture of the Old and New Testament as a dead Letter and altogether useless if not mischievous Your imagined God beyond the Stars a day of calamity will come upon them who have worshipped and do worship an unknown God at a distance and pretend the worship of the true God And if we will not believe the Quakers for their words sake which swell big enough with vanity folly non-sense and errour we are like to continue in the truth still for all them There have been some of them who have been sensible of this defect and have attempted to supply it to the cracking of their credit some to the loss of their lives George Fox hath found a plaister for this sore which I shall produce that you may give your judgement whether it smell more of the Fox or of the Goose Which many prayed by the Spirit and spake by the Spirit did not shew miracles at the Tempters Command though among Believers there be miracles â—n the Spirit which be signes and wonders to the world as Isaiah saith When I reade this I had much ado to keep my self from laughing but the weightiness of my thoughts on this imposture soon helped me to reduce it to a compassionate smile Indeed I think him crafty like the Fox not to venture his carcass in attempting any miracles but in spirit and yet more a Goose to call them signes and wonders to the world which the world never saw nor could have wondred at if George Fox and such as he had not blabbed of them But I must not let pass his fathering his absurdity on the Prophet Isaiah the words he intends must be in Isa 8. 18. Behold I and the Children whom the Lord hath given me are for signes and for wonders in Israel I find not the word Signes any where in that Prophecy he hath a strange spirit of discerning that can find in that Scripture any thing of Miracles wrought in the spirit for indeed they themselves were the wonders that is they were wondred at so may the Quakers well be but in a far worse sense or for a worse cause I may the lesse wonder at George's blodness with Isaiah seeing a great Rabbie of the Quakers hath said that he is as good a Prophet as Isaiah Who would conceive that so blockish a person as this should be the Fore-man and Chief in account among such a number of such singularly discerning spirits as the Quakers but as among wise men the wisest are most highly esteemed so among others the veriest SECT III. Christianity entred into the world with ravishing Songs and Hallelujahs of the Angels and heavenly Host the Songs and Thanksgivings of Mary Elizabeth Zechariah Simeon and others with the healing of all sorts of diseases casting out devils out of the possessed preaching the glad tidings of the Gospel of Peace and what might express the Sun of righteousness to be risen on the World with healing in his wings I need not finde you out the places of Scripture which speak these things But Quakerism entred the world as if Hell were broke loose and possessions by Satan were to make way and fit souls for the Quakers spirit Instead of that serious compunction that seized gross and black sinners upon their conviction and the consolation that was let into their souls by the joyful sound of remission and salvation through a crucified Jesus O the Hell-dark expressions of the Quakers Preachers the frightful and amazing words both for matter and manner wherewith they first attempted poor silly men and women whom they frighted almost out of their wits with their dismal noise whose eccho remained in their ears when their words were forgotten What bitter Curses and Execrations did they poure forth against all that made any opposition though most mildly and rationally against their unheard of innovation what disturbing of Congregations and reviling the most serious and faithful Pastors while those whose faults they have
made use of to bespatter the guiltless might remain quiet enough as not so dangerous and adverse to Satans interest and Kingdom How generally were their Meetings either silent or taken up with the sudden and violent irruptions of dismal howling and horrible roarings persons suddenly taken as with the falling-sickness shaking and foaming at the Mouth and some lying flat on the ground as stark dead some such things as these I have seen and heard and what there are undeniable Testimonies of are so numerous and notorious that though you have now almost if not altogether left the latter sort of them you dare not deny that it was so and if you dare to challenge this with untruth I may requite you with a good part of a Volume of them to keep alive their remembrance I now proceed to my second consideration of the beginnings of Quakerism with respect to time SECT IV. What I have already said in the opening the term Christianity will save me much of the labour of proving in this place when it began to take place I know none that assert Heathenism or the state of the Saints before the flood or of the Patriarchs after the flood or the Israelites under Moses's Administration to be in a proper and strict sense Christian except some of the Quakers who date it from the reign of the light within their only Christ and will needs have not only Jewes but Heathen and especially Adam in innoceney to be under that dispensation yet I doubt not to prove both from Scripture and also from their own Writings by necessary consequence that Christianity is not so old as the forementioned nor yet so young as Quakerism Some though but few date Christianity from the Birth of Christ Others with much more reason from the Resurrection of Christ when he had finished his Transaction for the merit of our salvation in the Person of God-Man and from that Declaration he made of the possession of the Power committed to him Matth. 28. 18. All Power is given unto me in Heaven and in Earth But all agree who make any distinction that it began immediately upon the abrogation and dissolution of the Mosaical Administration and Temple-Worship which was above sixteen hundred years since although as the Scripture speaks The Disciples were called Christians first at Antioch Acts 11. 26. But the thing Christianity might well be before the name Christian so short a space And that the Christian-Name had about that time its Beginning appears by the reply of Agrippa to Paul Almost thou perswadest me to be a Christian Acts 28. 8. which then it seems was the common appellation of Believers and Professors of the Faith of Christ but if all this will not convince I will adde one Text more to make down-weight Yet if any man suffer as a Christian let him not be ashamed 1 Pet. 4. 16. Here Christianity is distinguished both from Heathenism and Judaism Both the Gentiles and the Jews were bitter enemies to the Christian Name and that not for the Name but the things sake the Gentiles for their denying Idol-worship the Jews for their deserting the Mosaical Constitution the Gentiles for their only worshipping the only true God the Jews for worshipping the true God by and through Jesus Christ the Mediatour And I brethren if I yet preach Circumcision why do I yet suffer persecution then is the offence of the Cross ceased Gal. 5. 11. Having adjusted the entrance of Christianity into the world in point of time let us now compare Notes whether it agree with the Birth of Quakerism I know but of two Arguments such as they be upon which they build their Antiquity and by both of them they date their Christianity either from Adam or Eternity The first is from Christ the Light who was in the Beginning with God But if they make the being of their Christianity commensurate with the being of Christ as God I confess 't is but folly for any other to number days with it But besides the notorious absurdity of this Fancy at first view to those that dream not waking I have already proved that Christianity had a beginning and that long since the Creation The other Argument is from Inspirations and immediate teaching which next to the light within is the main principle of Quakerism To this I answer by way of grant and concession that there was immediate teaching and revelation very early in the world but that wherever and whenever there was immediate teaching then and there was Christianity is a thing that men who have better skill in the Scriptures and more use of their reason then they will be ashamed to attempt the proof of But if it were granted That Inspirations divine and immediate did constitute Christianity and that all who are or were thereby conducted are to be accounted Christians it will be long enough ere the Quakers prove they are the persons and not long before I have proved that they are not as will appear when you come to that point handled at large in this Treatise But beside the notoriousness of the Quakers novelty I shall fully prove it from their own Assertions and if they oppose one another let them look to that and agree among themselves as well as they can It is now about seven years since the Lord raised us up in the North of England and opened our Mouths in this his spirit By the date of the Impression it should be about 51 that Quakerism brake forth in this Nation and England hath this unhappiness that it was the first Breeder of this Sect and the North of England the part first infected I remember there is an old Proverb I suppose grounded on manifold experiences All evil comes out of the North. But against this it may be objected that although they were the first in England and of late generations yet the Religion it self is ancient Let us therefore follow it to the root by their own direction After these things in the year 1648. God who had compassion on his people did cause a branch to spring forth of the root of David which was filled with vertue for the Covenant of Life and Peace was with him and he spread and shot forth many branches which did partake of the fatness of the Root and the weary came to rest under his branches in him also was the Word of Reconciliation which turned the hearts of the Fathers to the Children and the disobedient to the Wisdom of the just Observe the blasphemy of these expressions many of which are by the Scripture spoken of Christ and agreeing to him only but applied by this Wretch to the first of their Sect brought forth in their Spirit in the year 1648. who it should be except James Naylor I cannot guess and it follows immediately And in the Year 1655. I being a branch of this Tree viz. the Branch aforesaid the life of its Root caused me
Competition between Jesus Christ and G. Fox and what the Lord and Master did in this case so did his servants the Apostles as I might instance abundantly I will direct you only to Peters Sermons Acts 2. I need not instance in any more He that hath read the Scriptures may easily furnish himself And who can doubt but they who made use of the Letter of the Scriptures for evidence of what in their Ministry they preached or writ were Ministers of the Letter as well as of the Spirit And moreover if we consider the letter of the Scripture to be the letter of the Spirit written by its direction and to express in its kind the minde of the Spirit This Querie of George Fox may be turned upon himself thus and how can ye be Ministers of the Spirit if ye be not Ministers of the Letter also The latter part of his Sentence is a higher Demonstration of the fallibility of his Chair And how can they but delude people who are not infallible True indeed if they did perswade people that they could not in any thing be mistaken or be ignorant but seeing only the Quakers pretended Ministry and the Pope of Rome do assume this to themselves they only are in a necessity of deluding the people for our parts who live in all manner of pride as the Quakers by their spirit of Infallibility do charge us we are not yet come up to their Perfection for we freely acknowledge that we may erre in doctrine and do erre in practice which we bewail before God and men and also that the people may not be deluded by us we desire them and charge them not to pin their faith on our sleeves but repair to the Law and to the Testimony and search the Scriptures try whether the things we affirm be so or no And if we speak contrary to the Minde of God there expressed to reject our doctrine and also that they follow our Example no further then we follow Christ even that Man Christ Jesus who was for a time on Earth but is now in Heaven But what do you think of the Holy Apostles were they universally infallible could not they erre if you say so Paul will convict you of errour in his charging Peter none of the least of the Apostles with erring and in something deluding the people Gal. 2. 12 13 14. Peter dissembled the truth in practising the Mosaical distinction of Jewes and Gentiles and separating from the believing Gentiles as unclean And the other Jewes yea and Barnabas also was carried away with his dissimulation But then you will say how can we be sure that what they wrote and taught was truth I answer that although they might in some thingâ— be carried away by temptation as Peter was in thaâ— case yet their doctrine which they professed to bâ— from the Lord and by the Inspiration of God could not admit of erring or fallibility and that not because they had an habitual infallibility in all things buâ— because of the love of God to his people the regard of his honour and the firmness of his Promises which he made to them those especially John 14. 26. But the Comforter which is the Holy Ghost whom the Father will send in my Name he shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you John 16. 13. Howbeit when he the Spirit of Truth is come he will guide you into all truth for he shall not speak of himself but whatsoever he shall hear that shall he speak and he will shew you things to come Now these Promises being made to the Apostles for furnishing them with ability for their work as Apostles they may be concluded to be infallibly guided by the Spirit but in other things though by their eminent habitual grace they were not likely â—o fall as others who were not cloathed with such a measure and degree as they yet it was more then possible that they should fail but according to G. Fox's infallibility and without limitation the Apostles themselves could not but delude the people But to conclude this particular of Infallibility take beside what hath been said one considerable proof of their non-attainment of Infallibility and that is the most grossely absurd Exposition they give of the Scriptures See what follows with the eyes of Christian-men We are accused that we judge people It is written the Saints shall judge the world an infallible proof as if it were a Command or Prophecy of the Saints i. e. the Quakers calling men all â—o nought how serious soever who are not professedly conducted and saved by the light within but he goes on more and more infallibly And for Judgement am I come into the World saith Christ As if Christs coming into the World sixteen hundred years ago were to the end that they might pass their rash Censures freely But he grows still And where Christ ruleth in his Saints he judgeth the World as Paul witnessed It is no more I but Christ in me Where Paul witnessed this such a Spirit of discerning as they tell us of must finde out for the Scripture hath nothing like it only in two places Rom. 7. 17. It is no more I that do it but sin that dwelleth in me But I am sure Sin and Christ are two things Gal. 2. 20. Yet not I but Christ liveth in me But that was not to censure others but to comfort Paul under the hard censures and usages of others But the passage of coming into the World for Judgement brings into my minde one remarkable Expositor It is a right and sound doctrine to preach him as he is the light of the World and lighteth every man that cometh into the world But what world is this This is the great Prophet who is come into the World which is set in the heart Eccles 3. 11. which is in the midst out of which Moses saith the Lord world raise up a Prophet Lev. 8. 15. which Prophet being come he saith I am come a Light into the World John 1. 12. and 12. 35 36 46 The World being set in the heart there is the light of him who saith I am the light So that with him the World is the heart Christs coming into the World is his comeing into the heart and as he came into the world the heart so he is also raised up out of the world the heart but how like such a Prophet is to Moses I should too much suspect your understandings if I should trouble you with my sense he that is declined as far as dotage may perceive it without a Guide as also the gross darkness of this Expositor in the rest Let us see what sound Exposition the great Lanthorn of the Quakers gives for I must not call him their Great Light for that is in the Lanthorn 1 Cor. 14 34 35. Let your women keep silence in the Churches for it is not
your quarrel is not so much with the word Trinity as with the thing thereby expressed The next black mark of Antichrist which is upon you is that in 2 Thess 2. 4 who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God or that is worshipped so that he as God sitteth in the Temple of God shewing himself that he is God Do not you advance your light within above the Man Christ Jesus whom we worship as God and who is so called in the Scriptures even that man whose being is above the visible Heavens Do not you call your light within you God eternal Omnipotent c Yea you say it is the light in the Conscience which is the Temple of God and there it doth as if it were God rule govern judge execute in contempt of the written and true Laws of the divine being I beseech you consider these things and lay them to your hearts CHAP. V. The Quakers deny the Scriptures to be a Rule of Faith and Life or a Judge and Determiner of Religious Controversies SECT I. THat this is to deny the Scripture is obvious and plain to all who have not the beam in their eyes I have before proved them to deny its proper and most frequent appellation but if that be not sufficient to prove they deny the Scripture methinks denying their main use and employment should render them guilty of the full measure of that iniquity To little purpose will it be to call them the Scripture the Holy Scripture c. if after all a conformity to their guidance and conduct will render our belief and practice never the less prophane I shall not further perswade my Reader that to deny the Scripture to be a rule of Faith and Life c. is to deny the Scripture for if this suffice not I know nothing will carry the Question unless the Scripture should be brought in begging some boon at the Quakers hands and they proved so hard hearted as not to to grant it If this were necessary I should not fail in the proof notwithstanding For the proof of the Charge I shall first call sorth James Parnel an early and forward Quaker and much esteemed for his works sake And he also that saith the Letter is the rule and guide of the people of God is without feeding upon the husk and is ignorant of the true Light which was before the Letter was By this mans Verdict the Scripture is cast and condemned for husks a false light or but a shadow and its Observers charged with ignorance of Christ the true light for so doing But it were well if they could come off so Behold in the next Accusation a Charge of no less than the highest robbery and sacriledge And if thou lookest upon the Scripture to be for a rule and for trying thou givest that unto them which belongs unto Christ for he is the rule and leads his people and he alone searches the hearts and trys the reins and not the Scripture But if you will see a mouth full of blasphemy against the authority of the Scripture read with horrour and amazement the following words God is at liberty to speak to his people by them the Scripture if he please and where they are given by inspiration he doth so but the sting is behind in the tail of this non-such sentence and so he is at liberty to speak by any other created thing as to Balaam by his Ass Then such a thing as Balaams Ass may call up our expectations of Gods teachings guidance and rebukes as well as the Scriptures for God is at liberty to teach us by an Ass and he hath put no more authority into the Scripture unless he shall please to hand them to us by renewed and immediate inspiration But I shall not rake into this Dunghill further which of its self gives forth so offensive a savour I intended to have given you upon this head the assertions of some of the Romish Writers who trample on the neck of the Scripture with the same foot only the difference betwixt them and the Quakers lies in the aim and design the Jesuits spurn at them to advance the dictates of the Pope and the Romish pretended Church above the Scriptures but the Quakers to advance the conceit within above them all Yet I care not if I give you one instance at large Omnis Judex praesertim supremus generalis ita debet dicere sententiam ut altera pars litigantium evidenter sciat se vicisse altera pars evidenter sciat se causam amisisse quantum est ex parte hujus judicis At hoc neque Scriptura Sacra neque Spiritus Sanctus loquens per Scripturam potest facere Ergo neque Sacra Scriptura nec Spiritus Sanctus loquens per Scripturam est talis judex Et minorem illustrabat his totidem verbis Stamus ego Collegae Domini adversarii in conspectu hujus judicis Bibliorum en contendimus an sit judex Controversiarum Jam ille judex debet pronunciare sententiam ut nobis constet evidenter Sumus hîc in conspectu Sacrae Scripturae Spiritus Sancti pronunciet sententiam sic dicat tu Jacobe Gretsere male sentis cecidisti causa tua Tu Jacobe Hailbrunnere vicisti Tunc ego statim transibo ad vestrum scamnum Et paulo post Adsit jam Spiritus Sanctus jam judicet jam me condemnet In English thus Every Judge especially who is supream and general ought so to give sentence that the one part of the contenders may plainly know they have overcome and the other that they have lost their cause so far as it is in the Judge But this neither the holy Scriptures nor the holy Spirit by the Scripture can do Therefore neither the holy Scripture nor the holy Spirit speaking by the Scripture is such a Judge The minor he illustrates in these very words I and my Collegues and the Lords Adversaries stand before this Judge the Scriptures behold we dispute whether it be a Judge of Controversies Now this Judge ought to give sentence so as it may be evidently manifest to us We are here before the holy Scripture and the Holy Spirit let him pronounce sentence and say thus thou Jacob Gretferus believest not aright thy cause is overthrown thou Jacob Hailbrunnerus hast overcome then I will quickly go over to you And a little after Now let the Holy Ghost come now let him judge me now let him condemn me If he had not had the metaphorical word to have played with the world had not been troubled with so impertinent an Argument and language so ludicrous abusive and daring to the Holy Spirit By this you may see that if the Quakers and Jesuits agreement in the same false Witness against the Scripture will carry it our cause is gone and the Scripture must not determine religious matters But 't is a sign 't is a bad step that so
Secondly The dispensations of the revealed and written Word render God nigher to a people than to those who are without it For what Nation is there so great who hath God so nigh unto them c. Read the Context and you will find that the means of God being so nigh was chiefly his written Laws And it is notorious that the Gentile Nations who were without the Scripture had lost sight of the true God so far that they worshipped the most despicable things in his stead and as the Apostle saith were without God in the world for all their light within which the Quakers say all men ever had The dispensations of God in and to his Church rise higher and higher in excellency and glory And this is a third Argument His first after the fall were some few revelations to some few persons and by them handed to others which might be then much more easie than now for that men lived so long that the days of Methuselah and Noah took hold of the days of Adam and Abraham But men increasing in number and no less in impiety they quickly lost that little was committed to them And before the Law and Covenants and Scripture in part were written notwithstanding Creation Providence and some revelation the knowledge of God was very thin and scant in the world among good and holy men And if you will not believe me believe Holy Job By his spirit he hath garnished the Heavens his hand hath formed the crooked Serpent lo these are part of his ways but how little a portion is heard of him He is speaking before of his works of Creation yet they were but a part of the ways whereby God conveyed the knowledge of himself but take all together even that of revelation with it it was but a little of him that was known whereas when his word was written the Israel of God who enjoyed it 't is said of them In Judah is God known his name is great in Israel But the 2 Cor. 3. 11. speaks close and home to my argument For if that which is done away was glorious much more that which remains is glorious A fourth proof may be from the slipperiness of our memories Who among the sons and daughters of men is able to retain in the memory such a multitude of particulars as concern faith and life that if it should be granted that every man at some time or other should have the whole mind of God contained in the Scripture immediately and by revelation imparted to him the memory would prove a very leaky Vessel and bad Steward and let slip a great part both matter and form without a miracle to raise our faculty not only above the common course or which is ordinary but above the faculty of any man that breaths whereas the word imparted by the Scripture abides to which as to an everlasting Record we may have recourse and supply that defect More certain to the knowledge of man Since man was corrupted and so long as there remains either corruption or defect in him the inward motions and notions of the soul will be affected therewith the first risings and bubling up of thoughts and imaginations which present themselves to the understanding judgment and conscience will abundantly vary from and be opposite each to other and the sentiments or apprehensions of them be warring and contending like pleaders at the bar of judgment and conscience and those who know and are concerned in the affairs and their management on the secret stage of the Soul must acknowledge if they will speak their consciences that whatever be the question agitated in the mind there will not want the appearances of truth and goodness offering themselves on both the affirmative and negative part and in matters of religious concern all pretend to the sanction and allowance of God himself And as their pleas so their importunities shall be impetuously violent that many times the poor creature is on the rack and which way soever its judgment and resolution inclines the adverse thoughts will attend it with their Checks and clamours In the multitude of my thoughts within me 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 my anxious perplexed careful troubled thoughts beating against one another like the boughs of a tree agitated with a fierce wind This was not only David's case but the Saints which are now upon the earth And if it were David's so good a man and a man so frequently under the power of special divine inspirations much more may it be ours Well in such cases what course should we take if we expect and depend upon immediate teachings from the spirit how shall we know they are such and not the delusions of Satan or a vision of our own fancifull brains we can give testimonies enough to convince a Heathen or Atheist if he will not abandon the use of reason that the Scriptures are the word and mind of the spirit of God and therefore what that speaks is the voice of the Spirit but it will be long enough e're the Quakers and those that plead for a sole dependance on the spirits immediate teachings will be able to give such proofs of theirs Moreover the Quakers who pretend to these teachings and guidances resolve against the exercise of a humane though sanctified understanding and resolve all into motions impulses and the sensation of them thereby depriving men of the direction of enlightned faculties leaving the most violent motions and appetites to carry away the undoubted evidence and character of the Spirits leadings But how far this is from a spiritual understanding or a right discerning I leave those to judge who are acquainted in themselves or others with violent temptations from Satan and the unbridled lusts of men and this pure sensation of stirrings and motions becomes better by far the stark blind than those who have eyes in their heads We grope for the wall like the blind and we grope as if we had no eyes we stumble at noon day as in the night One of the severest curses for disobedience threatned against Israel was and thou shalt grope at noon day as the blind gropeth in darkness and thou shalt not prosper in thy ways And what is this principle of the Quakers but to turn us again into the darkness and Chaos of Gentilism instead of beholding as in a Glass with open face the glory of the Lord to be feeling after him by the corrupt and half senseless touches of a natural conscience acting on the narrow and uncertain indications of Creation and providence which though they may teach something concerning God and our original duty to him will be as far from acquainting us with Gospel truths or such as concern Christ and our redemption by him as a stone or tree is from discerning and expressing the secret and bosom counsels of God or man I would not yet have you think that we deny or disown a
sensation and feeling of the holy and blessed mind of God for we look on nothing of greater moment than to have a heart and conscience delivered from searedness and being past feeling But our feeling and sense of the truths of God is by the faith of them revealed to us in and by his word into which we desire absolutely to resolve our belief and which is the objective rule to the understanding by the senses CHAP. VI. The Quakers take men off from reading the Scripture and looking into them for instruction and comfort SECT I. IT is no matter of wonder at all that they who are so far entred in the denial and contempt of the Scripture should advance this step further it being but the natural off-spring of what I have already proved to be their Tenets And whatever else is the round of their writings and declarings all centres in putting people upon looking to the light within as the only Counsellour and Comforter And this is the meaning of our Doctrine to bring people to the everlasting Word of God in themselves Smith Catech. p. 95. Whereby they steal away their esteem and use of the Scriptures insensibly and they are shut up and lost in another Book viz. The light within before they are aware whereas if they should in so many words forbid them to read the Scriptures it would make their hearts recoil Alas that men are such Children who suspect not a design to rob them of their Gold when a Counter a trifle iâ— commended to them and imposed upon them that they may not think of or mind that which is a Treasure and by this means the Scriptures are forgotten 'till the love and esteem of them be lost by doting on the new and gay fancy of a divine and perfect light within But to the proof further But turn your ears inward to the measure of light in you which is without guile So to that of God in thee I direct thee Their Pamphlets are stuffed so full with expressions of this nature that I should but shew you their great road in citing their words neither will any of them deny what they are brought to prove But if they intended the judgment and conscience enlightned and that this ought to be minded in its place we should not condemn for such directions but when it is made a God of and by consequence an Idol and those beams of divine light shining in the Scripture excluded as if they had the body of the Sun within themselves it is the highest instance of folly and proof of taking men off from reading the Scriptures for instruction and comfort Yet take their minds in express words And by the same light do we discern and testifie against him to be in darkness and blindness and is a deceiver who putteth the letter for the light and so draw peoples minds from the light within them to the light without them seeking the living among the dead You may here discern the confidence they have in their light within that they dare oppose it to the Scripture yea and take its false witness which it bears against the Scripture and with what a black coal he marks those who put the letter i. e. the Scriptures for the light and this he construes to be a drawing peoples minds from the light within them to the light without them so that by his own way of reasoning I have authority to say that putting the light within them for the Scripture the light without them they draw peoples minds from the Scripture But the close of this sentence is no less than a murtherer of the holy Scripture seeking the living among the dead yea a strangling the Scripture with one of its own silver Cords Why seek ye the living among the dead as if the Scripture were a very Grave and Charnel house from which the living Jesus is for ever departed or which is more congruous to their sense they are no more able to minister instruction and comfort than a dead Carâ—ase rotting in the Grave Hear one more of their Trumpets sounding to the same purpose 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 Christ within The Scriptures are as lights but they will not right them so far as to call the Scripture a light and the commendations of that Idol the light within are such as if they were true he were a stark fool who would direct his eyes to the Scripture having such an excelling light in his own bosom But lest after all these allurings they should not be understood and people should be so silly as to attempt to light their Candle at the Scripture Taper they will tell you in plain English the vanity of such an undertaking For he Christ the light within alone searches the hearts and not the Scripture Smith prim p. 12. So that to draw people from attending to the Scripture they do not only commend the light within being silent concerning the Scripture in the mean while but tell you in plain words the Scriptures are in this matter of no service at all as Parnel before cited he is the light and guide c. the Scriptures are not SECT II. A second Argument they assert the light within to be sufficient yea allsufficient This where it takes hold of the credulity will draw as hard from attending to the Scripture as the stoutest Team in England Alas it must then if this be true be but a piece of wantonness and the itching disease to read the Scriptures to which we must take a few steps though they lye open in the next room while we have enough in our own bosoms yea which we can be no farther from than from our selves to the use of which we may pass as quick as thought 't is but look inward not outward nor upward turn the ear inward and the turn is served But that this Argument may be heard John Story and some other such Chapmen vouch for its truth The light which is sufficient to guide Before cited And if thou waitest in the measure of the light of Christ within thou wilt be able to try all things Smith's prim p. 10. Quest But if I should turn to it and obey it when it reproves me for sin is there power in it to save me from sin c. Answ Yes Child all power in Heaven and Earth is in it Smith's prim p. 14. Reader canst thou withstand the astonishment wherewith a tender conscience of the true God is wont to be surprised by such an open mouth of blasphemy if thou canst I must conclude thou art acquainted with this sort of people and so custom hath made it no surprise or thou art
c. by the Scriptures and they that cleave to the Scripture teaching by the Spirit have forsaken the Spirit of God and his teachings we would owne our such profession to be a denying the Scriptures yea should take our selves bound in so many words to deny it and send it as far out of the way as may be as dangerous to the just prerogative of the Spirit of God And if those who profess what I shall instance and produce for proof to be truth had any honesty in them they would tell the world they utterly deny the Scriptures to be what the Christian world hath accounted them and in plain and open words and testimonies as far as they can produce exhort and move them to lay them aside and have no more to do with them nor give them one good word lest the adversary to the Spirit should in the hearts and lives of men be exalted against him For the proving of the Charge at the head of this Chapter take the words of James Naylor the Quakers proto-Confessor For all the Saints have their commands in Spirit but yours is in the Letter and so of another ministration for the literal ministration is done away in the spiritual Here you have the commands in Spirit or by the Spirit put in opposition to the Letter which is the written Word or the Scripture and so far in opposition that as heat being opposite to coldness and light to darkness the one so far as it prevails expelleth the other by its contrariety and opposite qualities so the spiritual ministration or ministration of the Spirit banishes and expelleth that of the Letter as its enemy and contrary But if you will have a prodigious instance a nonsuch for Blaspheming the Spirit of God in the Scriptures read what follows out of a great Writer of theirs William Smith And reading in the Scriptures that there were some who met together and exhorted one another and were edified and comforted one in another they observe and do as near as they can what they read of the Saints practice and so conceives a birth in the same Womb the Scriptures and brings it forth in the same strength as others do and they make haste thither and open their eyes to look at the things which are seen the Scriptures and this is pleasing to the carnal mind c. They Worship Order Ordinances Faith Practice understood by the written Word must all come under the severity of his judgment because they are Bastards and not Sons for these adulterous births have provoked the Lord and grieved his Spirit It would amaze a Christian and sound mind to read what is contained in the two pages in the Margin quoted of vilifying and reproach to the Scriptures and the Doctrines from thence received Traditions of men earthly root darkness and confusion Nebuchadnezzars Image putrefaction and corruption rotten and deceitful all out of the life and power of God Apostacy the Whores Cup the mark of the Beast Babylon the Mother of Harlots Bastards brought forth of flesh and blood the birth that persecutes the Son and Heir viz. the Spirit of God or light within Babylons Brats and Children Graven Images contrary to him the everlasting powerful God c. If this be not opposing the Spirit of God to the Scripture and rendring them adverse to each other the Devil himself must despair of inventing words to express it by I conclude the proof of this Charge with the words of Naylor And of this sort are they who have their preaching to study and to seek at other mens mouths or from the Letter and have it not from the mouth of the Lord. Then with him and the Quakers who are of his mind what we have from the Scriptures we have not from the mouth of the Lord. I would know of the Quakers what they will make of the mouth of the Lord Do they take it to be some part of his body which is like our mouths the Organs of speech We have thought hitherto that God being a Spirit hath no mouth at all only to express things to our understandings he speaks by similitudes taken from such things we are acquainted withall and so whatsoever God reveals his mind by may be called his mouth And it will follow that the Scriptures are his mouth as eminently as any thing yea all things in the world and more For God speaks by them to us more than by all other things he saith to Jeremy Jer. 15. 19. Thou shalt be as my mouth As thou spakest by the hand of Moses The Spirit of the Lord spake by me and his word was in my tongue Hear the rod c. Is it not a frequent phrase in the Scripture As saith the Scripture They believed the Scripture And what is that but God speaking by the Scripture and believing what God spake by the Scripture But now is made manifest and by the Scriptures of the Prophets according to the command of the everlasting God made known unto all Nations for the obedience of faith What more plain that the Scriptures are the mouth of the Lord or those means by which the Lord doth manifest his mind to men But the Quakers will not have it so and therefore it must not be so But they who enquire of or at the Scriptures for the mind of the Spirit run another way than that the Spirit walks and is to be found in and sin against the Spirit of God And that you may see how they set the Spirit and Scripture together by the ears Naylor saith further For those only are the Children of God who are led by the Spirit of God so far is true as truth it self but as the old Serpent he never heads a saying with the Scripture but he brings in a lye at the end and tail of it to whom they who are led by the Letter were ever enemies Here you have two great Commanders or Leaders brought into the field as the most hostile implacable Enemies whose followers from the time there were any were foes each to other And what can render the Spirit and the Scripture more opposite than that whosoever follows the Letter is a foe to him that follows or is led by the Spirit And the Leaders are the formal causes of it too and therefore it was ever so and is as inseparable as natural cause and effect If this be all true well might W. P. say We livingly witness against all the dry cavelling Letter-mongers in the world SECT II. Having frequently met with that Scripture 1 Cor. 3 6. by them produced to prove the Scriptures to have a contrary tendency to the Spirit I shall here open it and shew their mistake The words are Who also hath made us able Ministers of the new Testament not of the Letter but of the Spirit for the Letter killeth but the Spirit giveth life Whereas they would have us by the Letter to
letter but have it not from the mouth of the Lord. If the Scripture be not the mouth of the Lord there is no such thing as Gods mouth 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 For they are meer deceivers and witches bewitch people from the truth holding forth the shadow for the substance and what is the chaff to the wheat Here is not a bare denial of those to be Christs Ministers who preach the Word of God out of the Scriptures but charging them with witchcraft and what are the instruments of their witchcraft but the holy Scriptures most horrid doctrine and yet these wretches will tell you they honour the Scriptures and a Scripture Ministry But this is not all the tide rises yet higher And so he the Devil takes Scripture to maintain his kingdom and this he delivers by the mouth of his Ministers which he sends abroad to deceive the Nations leading people in blindness c. These words are plain and no parable therefore I leave you to behold without a glass the villany of these misleaders I have already proved that not only we ought but Christ and his Apostles did teach out of the Scriptures therefore by the Quakers account they were also as bad as they charge us to be witches and deceivers c. O but there is another inditement against us we are not infallible How can ye be Ministers of the Spirit and not of the Letter if ye be not infallible There is none but God alone absolutely infallible And for certainty of what we teach we dare weigh with the Quakers at any time But sure I am that I never met with one of their Teachers yet in Writing or otherwise but I found him more than fallible even foolish contradicting the Spirit of God speaking by the Scripture contrary to the clearest reason and themselves also But more than all this We are Hirelings preach for Hire and take Hire for preaching And a main question for a scrutiny into the truth of our Ministry is Whether is your Gospel free and without Charge yea or nay This is the nail they find will drive People love a Cheap Gospel they that will sell them such a one shall buy their souls into the bargain and vassalize their understandings to their most corrupt dictates To preach for Hire we call a Vile iniquity to receive Hire for preaching we dare not condemn because Christ hath said The labourer is worthy of his hire And the Apostle said He took wages of other Churches to serve them the Corinthians It is ordained that they that preach the Gospel should live of the Gospel and so hath the Lord ordained So that a Ministers maintenance for preaching the Gospel is Gods ordinance The Apostle exhorts Timothy To give himself to the work of the Ministry as it is the duty of every one ordinarily imployed therein And is God and Christ a hard Master to oblige his Ministers to give up themselves to that work and let them and theirs starve for it But moreover you may know if you please that there are thousands this day in England who preach the Gospel in poverty and distresses and cleave to their work when stripped of their wages which number there needs not one Quaker to make up yet take heed you commend them not for it Another objection is we study for our Sermons What is study but meditation and searching to understand the truth and to get it into our heads and hearts if this be a sin obedience to God is so And the Apostle bids Timothy who had excellent gifts and was brought up from a child in the holy Scripture study to shew thy self approved unto God a workman that needeth not to be ashamed rightly dividing the Word of truth Then it seems it is no idle task to preach like a workman and divide the Word of truth aright and that we may be approved to God and free from shame among men we must study But that which turns us all off hand-smooth is SECT V. That till we are taught by the light within immediately we cannot speak one word of truth but all lyes though the matter we deliver be the highest truth And all be in the Satanical delusions that be not in the immediate teachings from the Spirit But the greatest professors upon the earth are there of the Devil that speaketh the words of truth but not as they are in it as so saith Christ to the Jewes they were of their Father the Devil they speak of themselves they speak of themselves as the Devil doth but abide not in the truth but a lyar from the beginning The Devil speaks a lye from himself that is a truth for no body need teach the Devil to lye but how will it follow that whatever any man speaks of himself is a lye then it seems for a man to be first in telling any thing true or false 't is a lye whereas we use most to suspect the truth of that which comes by a second or third hand or more but the conclusion is what we have not by immediate inspiration and teach it we speak it of our selves and therefore are devilish lyars The learned Fisher will help the Fox at a dead lift and piece his tale And to such wise sayers and knowers as these God saith though ye say God lives yet as I live ye swear falsly and why falsly was not that a truth that God lives but not a truth truly testified unto by them any more than what is testified in foro hominum in mens Courts by such as being not eye-witnesses thereof have it only by hear-say from others because they witnessed to it but in stollen words Here is then the proof that we speak more than we know and therefore lye This is indeed pretty near a lye but that they who live in the light of the Creation and read and believe and know the Scripture to be the Word or the words of God and affirming no nicer a truth than that God liveth should lye because they know it not by immediate inspiration is very strange He that lives may know from thence that God lives who holdeth every soul in life that lives But the meaning of the Text may be and I will trust the sober Readers judgement to decide it betwixt us that they did not believe the Lord lived and swearing what they thought untrue or doubted of they therein sware falsly But I desire those who give credit to such teachers as infallible and inspired immediately from God to try by the instance I am now upon whether we are not likely to speak more rightly concerning God from the Scripture than their teachers without book In the quotation of this Text Fisher hath falsified beside his Exposition in three plain cases for they say he writes
him that hates it and in him that loves it I have done with the first grand Argument and proved abundantly that the light within every man is not God That the Quakers own the light within every man to be God and profess it And these will prove that they are Idolaters or none will ever be so proved I shall now shew you another God of the Quakers owning or at least their Idol in another dress in managing the second proof of the Quakers owning that to be God which is not God My Argument is this They that own and profess the souls or spirits of all or some men which are constitutive parts of all or some men to be God do own and profess that to be God which is not God But the Quakers do so Therefore They own and profess that to be God which is not God Two things will prove the whole of this Syllogism First To prove that not the souls or spirits of any men are God Why I put in all or some in the Proposition you will see the reason when I prove Secondly That the Quakers hold the spirits or souls of all or some men to be God If the souls or spirits of any men were God then God may be polluted with sin But God cannot be polluted with sin Therefore The souls or spirits of any men are not God The second Proposition will be granted not only by Christians but Heathens Is there unrighteousness with God who taketh vengeance Godforbid He that reproveth God let him answer it The first Proposition I prove from Adam's pollution with sin who of all men except Jesus Christ was the most unlikely to have his soul polluted who was created upright and had the greatest advantages of maintaining his innocency yet his soul was polluted as may appear Gen. 3. Rom. 5. at large Let us cleanse our selves from all filthiness both of flesh and spirit Now the God of peace sanctifie you wholly and preserve you blameless in spirit and soul and body c. This is enough to prove that the spirits of men yea of the Saints and best of men may be and have been polluted with sin If the souls or spirits of men were God then God may be in prison But God cannot be in prison Therefore They are not God The first Proposition I prove from 1 Pet. 3. 19. By which he went and preached to the spirits in prison And these were the sinfull and disobedient spirits who provoked God in the dayes â—â— Noah The second Proposition all men will grant except the Quakers who often speak of the seed 〈…〉 captivity by which seed they mean no otheâ— but Christ or God within every man or the ligâ—â— within every man If the spirits or souls of men were God then Gâ—… might be condemned But God cannot so be Therefore The spirits or souls of men are 〈…〉 God That the spirits or souls of men may be so 〈…〉 tremble to write the word appears by that Text 1 Pet. 3. 19. The disobedient spirits in the dayes of Noah are now in prison which is a part of their torment The whole current of the Gospel saith it or implies it I shall now prove out of the Quakers chief and allowed Writers whom they account infallible and honour with their chief respects that they hold the spirits or souls of men or both to be God Every man hath that which is one in union and like the Spirit of Christ even as good as the Spirit of Christ according to its measure This he speaks of the Spirit in man which every man hath and sure if it be as good as the Spirit of Christ it must be God for the Spirit of Christ and of God are one and the same But to talk of its measure their usual phrase is a blaspheming God to speak his divine Being any thing less than infinite Now my soul and spirit is centered in its own Being with God and this form of person must return from whence it was taken The words of Ed. Burroughs the morning before he died Here he makes his soul and spirit one Being with God or God to be the souls own Being And what follows implies that as the body and soul are the form of man while in this world so at dissolution as the body resolves into dust its first Being so the soul to God its first Being A miserable Exposition of the Scripture which saith The body shall return to the dust and the spirit shall return to him that gave it He lived and died a true Quaker but a false Christian if he changed not his mind his last day Priest It is an expression of a dark deluded mind to say that God is not distinguished from the Saints Thus he brings in the Minister saying Answ But God and Christ is in the Saints and dwells in them and he the Priest is a reprobate and out of the Apostles Doctrine If it were only out of ignorance in not understanding the word distinguished or of the manner of Gods Being in his Saints it should not be his Charge in this place But you shall if you read further see he intends no less than the wicked import of his words But to call him reprobate and out of the Apostles Doctrine is over measure a great deal he might have spared him that in charity John Bunian saith He God is distinct from the Saints and Bunian is deceived who saith he is distinct from the Saints and so you are a company of pityfull Teachers By these expressions he renders not only tâ—… Souls and Spirits of the Saint the same bâ—… with God but their whole man without distinction Again thou makes a great pudder that any 〈…〉 should witness he is equal with God Answ A Catechism of the Assembly of the Priestâ— and put forth to the nation in which they have laid doâ—â— that the holy Ghost and the Son is equal in power anâ— glory with the Father yet if any come but to witnesâ—… the Son revealed in him or come to witness the Holy Ghost in them as they gave out the Scriptures or witness the mind of Christ and witness that equal with the Father they cry out horrid blasphemy Observe he doth not in the least deny the priests charge as he calls him but calls it a pudder he makes as if the most horrid blasphemies opposed or charged on the blasphemers were but making a pudder And to heal his sore he would wound the Assembly of Divines by laying the like monster at their door but herein he shews his ignorance with his malice and slander For the rest of his phrases I shall only say this that they make no difference between the Spirits of the Quakers yea of all men and the Son of God or the Holy Ghost And is not that of God which comes out from God is not that of his being the soul which he hath in his hand and so divine
spirit of the Quakers c. Charges the Quakers for having their hearts much set on a Heaven within them but not on the things above to which Pen replies and vindicates after his fashion the Kingdome of God within but saith not a word to assert their belief of and affections to the Heaven above from whence it is plain that they believe no such thing to have a being I wonder not therefore that this is so frequently their saying That if we are not perfect here we shall never be perfect It is easily deduceable from their more openly professed principles that they deny and disown a blessedness or misery in another world For if they deny the body to have life any more after it is dead and turned to dust and that the Soul and Spirit are of the being of God and that as the body returns to its former dust from whence it came and never revives again so the Soul and Spirit returns into God its first being all which I have already proved what then remains to be the subject of happiness or misery e'ne nothing at all except God and he is not man E. Boroughs the day he dyed expressed himself thus that he was now putting of this manner of person and returning to his own Being or words of the same import which I have quoted on the Chapter of their Idolatry When I have asked some of them what should become of their souls after death Their Answer hath been they shall be taken into God Let them profess that they believe a happiness to be enjoyed by men and women after their bodies are rotted to dust distinct from the Being of God or that which they had not a thousand years before they were born i. e. to be in God from whom as of his Being they say the soul came and it will be news to me and all that are acquainted with them In the mean time I. have given you Reasons enough to conclude they believe no future blessedness or misery in another world I shall now resume the Question and gather up all the proofs of what I have affirmed into an entire body If Quakerism be another dispensation than that of Christ setled and preached by the Apostles If it deny the Scripture If it deny all the Ordinances of the Gospel If it deny any influenne of Christs transactions in Judaea above 1600 years since into our justification and salvation If it deny Jesus the son of Mary the Christ of God If it own false Gods and be Idolatry If it professedly owns the worshiping of false Gods If it deny the resurrection of the dead If it affect not a future blessedness or misery in another world to men and women according to their deeds in this Then Quakerism is no Christianity But all these things are true and have been proved of Quakerism Therefore Quakerism is no Christianity PART III. BEING AN EXAMINATION Of the First Part of W. PEN'S Pamphlet CALLED The Spirit of Truth With a Rebuke of his Exorbitances SECT I. WHiles I was writing this Book I met with a Pamphlet of William Pen's intituled The Spirit of Truth vindicated against that of Error and Envy c. Which is pretended to be an answer to a malicious Libel intituled The Spirit of the Quakers tryed c. I having the Piece by me I once perused it In the general I resented it as one of the best and most ingeniously managed and beyond all material and just exceptions at least by the Quakers that ever I read against that sort of people But reading Pens Answer and finding his Epistle giving such a Character of his Adversaries Book and himself for malice lameness trifling and what not that might render it and him wicked and contemptible I began to mistrust my conclusion supposing a person of P.'s education and pretences would not say so much evil of it without great cause and therefore I compared them diligently But for P.'s sake I shall believe it more than possible that a man of the highest pretences having some more than ordinary means to deal rightly and ingeniously may yet so far deceive my expectations as to give the highest contradictions to them all I am altogether ignorant of the name or person of the Author of the Piece opposed by Pen and if he be a Socinian as Pen affirms I shall be far enough from vindicating him therein but for the Piece it self wherein Pen saith he could find neither head nor tail I will sell my eyes and brains for two pence if it deserve so contemptible a Character And for the Answerer Pen if he were not furnished with fore-head and tales beyond measure his Pamphlet would have had nothing remarkable in it I expecting next his Epistle and Preface an orderly combating his Adversaries Charge I find him taking up his Post in the Quakers conceited strong hold of the infallible guidance of the Spirit of God afforded to his people exclusive of any other means In the debating of which he roams and tosses to and fro like a man in a confused troubled dream for above thirty pages His pretences therein lying athwart my present work I thought meet to give some account of his Forces especially considering him to be a man of noise and no small prop◠to the Quakers cause in their own esteem His Question which he pretends to include the Quakers strength and which he saith he is resolved to stand by as such he states in these words SECT II. The Question stated Whether Gods holy and unerring Spirit is or should be the proper Judge of Truth Rule of Faith and Guide of Life among men especially under the administration of the blessed Gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ or not I affirm it and proceed to prove it by Scripture and Reason Considering his words foregoing which are too many and too worthless to transcribe and what he aims at in the handling of this Question I never read one so lame and deformed in my life come forth with such state and confidence and such a train or rout of mediums as deformed as it self There is in it neither Logick nor Honesty Certainly if he had not turned Quaker and in that fall put all out of joynt he could not likely after so good Nursing have been thus lamentably crepled in his Intellects and somewhat besides First of all here is a fallacy à bene divisis ad malè conjuncta many Questions confounded together Secondly no explanation of the terms most or all of which are metaphorical or amphibious and in that part especially affirmed the greatest ambiguity of all Vt quisque est lingua nequior Solvant ligantque quaestionum vincula Per syllogismos plectiles He tells us indeed pag. 37. that there is no more difference to him between a judge rule and guide than essentially there can be in the wisdom justice and holiness of God he should have added nor between truth faith and life
among men and then he would have shewed himself a workman indeed to have so stitched them together into one as would admit of no distinction I do not admire that his acumen cannot distinguish Essence and Subsistance three Persons in one Divine Being and God-Head who cannot distinguish these Attributes of God nor these acts with respect to men mentioned in the Question He is unlike to wade through a deep River who is so often over head and ears in a shallow Dish But these escapes are but the Dust of the ballance to what follows The word proper in a Question as modifying these Offices or acts of the Spirit is greatly improper Proper is sometimes in opposition to figurative sometimes in opposition to common sometimes in opposition to meet or fit in which sence he would be understood it doth not fit his purpose nor principles to tell us but this is an unworthy part of a Disputant and becoming none but those who are resolved not to be understood If he would assert the Quakers Tenet he must say it is the peculiar and immediate guide rule and judge and this is that he pleads for now and then after his fashion in his following arguments And all the Quakers I have read or discoursed plead for in plain terms but if it had been so expressed in the Question his nose would have been held too hard to the Grind-stone in attempting strictly to prove it and most would have smelt the Rankness of Quakerism But Mr. Pen do you deal fairly and honestly with your Adversaries to imply in your Question that we deny the Spirit of God to be a proper that is one that is fit and hath right to be a rule of Faith guide of Life judge of Truth You know that we own it to be such and that it dothboth in the Conscience and by the Scripture Creation and Providence perform such acts and is to such purposes and that of right Onely we deny that the Spirit alwayes performs these acts without the use of the Scripture or any external means or ordinances or that it doth so at any time contrary to its mind expressed in the Scripture this you should oppose or you do but trifle and abuse us and your unwary Readers The latter part of your question which expresses the administration of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ especially to countenance your tenet is playing at Blind-Mans buff You should have told us who or what you mean by Lord and Saviour If it be understood of the Quakers Lord and Saviour the light within every man that is none of our Lord and Saviour If it be understood of the Man Christ Jesus who was of the Seed of David according to the Flesh who was the Son of Mary crucified to death on the cross of wood by shedding his blood and is now in his humane or mans nature united to the God-head in one person ascended above the visible heavens he is none of your Saviour and can be no more within you personally considered than the body of one individual man can be intirely in all the men and women and children in the world and at the same time it must be a transubstantiation much more ridiculous than the Papists that must support such a fancy It is also no less strange that you should talk of the Gospel administration of our Lord and Saviour who hold nothing of a Saviour but what is eternal à parte ante nor any other Gospel but the light within and its immediate dictates which you generally affirm was within every man from the beginning of the world I shall not spend time and paper to shew the many other absurdities in your question I have left a harvest for gleaners For the proof of your affirmation such a blind one as it is you produce abundance of Scriptures which are as much to your purpose as if you had quoted onely the 36 Chap. of Genesis wherein is contained Esau's posterity and how many Dukes there were of his race Yet I shall produce your arguments for the Readers satisfaction that he may believe his own eyes and I shall be more honest than to frame a meer whimsie out of my own head to abuse you and say after this lofty manner of disputing you undertake our overthrow which is your guilt and baseness in the fourth page of your Book SECT III. Your first proof you pretend from Gen. 6. 1. And the Lord said my Spirit shall not alwaies strive with man for that he also is flesh yet his dayes shall be an hundred and twenty years I will for once transcribe your Argument verbatim that it may be notorious how loftily you dispute If God's unerring Spirit has been wont to strive with men either to convince them of or convert them from the evil of their thoughts words or deeds or else to provoke them yet more fully to do the will of God so as to press on from one degree of glory to another then men have had an unerring Spirit to be their teacher and judge and rule and guid of that truth concerning that faith and in that most holy way which leads to eternal life But the Scripture proves the first Proposition that Gods Spirit hath frequently strove with men and for the ends before mentioned and consequently they have not been without an holy unerring Spirit to teach judge regulate and guid them If I should only say your whole Argument is a meer confused thicket of impertinencies and non sequitur's I believe your conclusion would be most absolute that it wae for want of eyes and that I dare not touch a bough of it for fear of pricking my fingers A man had need of good arithmetick also to number the terms You tell us the Scripture proves your first Proposition you are a non Such for diving if you can fetch up from this Scripture what is expressed in your first Proposition especially the latter member of it It is more than probable that the Spirit did strive with them to make them better than they were yet none of those ends are expressed in the Text but that it should be that they might more fully do the Will of God and press on from one degree of Glory to another is a guess wonderfully well becoming your infallibility Why did you not say or to turn them into Suns Moons and Stars which were all out as much in the Text as the other and I dare say some of your Friends would have taken themselves bound to believe it who find no fault with greater absurdities dropt from their admired inspired Dictators but Quos Deus vult perdere hos dementat There were eight persons saved in the Ark but one Noah said to be righteous before God and all the rest overwhelmed by the Deluge for their extreme impieties yet these were pressed on from one degree of Glory to another The consequence of your first Proposition is all manner of Fruits
which you had a mind should be grafted on this Stock but as the Text will not impart its Sap to your Proposition so your Proposition is as dry to your Consequence but that 's no matter if they will not grow one upon another you 'l make them hang together right or wrong Ay and if the Spirit do but strive it must be how you will have it and for what ends you please or you 'l rack the letter for it but there 's no cruelty to a dead letter But Mr. Pen if your conscience have any eyes I intreat you make use of the light here afforded you to compare the Text and what you lay at its door and see how alike they look Your Question is of the Spirits teaching among men c. indefinitely and your proof speaks of the Spirits striving with wicked men Your aim is to prove it an immediate and peculiar Teacher c. of Gods people the Text speaks of neither If I affirm the Spirit strove with them by providential Chastisements ominous presages of Calamities at hand by his goodness which leads to Repentance by the Ark which Noah built moved by faith and fear and by which he condemned the unbelieving besotted World by his Preaching righteousness I can prove my being guided therein by the unerring Spirit of God at another rate than you can your contradiction But your wandrings from truth and reason can hardly have a higher instance and evidence than that you should be so infatuated as to conclude from a Text which saith my Spirit shall not always strive with man that it doth now teach c. and God hath not left his people in our present nor will in future ages without his Spirit to teach them immediately and solely which is in your Question or your prosecution of it and should have been expressed there if you had had so much ingenuity Instead of being angry that I have shewed your vanity and made your folly in this argument such a spectacle to the world you have reason to give me thanks that I examine it no further SECT III. However before we part I will try you at another weapon which you forge out of Neh. 3. 19 â—0 Yet thou in thy manifold mercies forsookest them not in the wilderness the pillar of the Cloud departed not from them by day to lead them in the way c. This part of your quotation is not onely no friend to your affirmation and principles but an invincible adversary No man in his wits will say the pillar of the cloud and fire were the Spirit of God and if God led his people by them they were not led onely and immediately by the Spirit of God It may be the latter part of your citation may do more for you Thou gavest also thy good Spirit to instruct them This good Spirit was mainly the Spirit of God which he put upon Moses and Joshua and some other their chief Persons by Gods appointment as is evident from these Texts And I will take off the Spirit which is upon thee and will put it upon them and they shall bear the burthen of the people with thee Num. 1â— 17. And the Lord said unto Moses take thou Joshua the Son of Nun a man in whom is the Spirit and lay thy hand upon him Num. 27. 18. Thou leadest thy people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron Psal 77. 20. Now God is said to give them his good Spirit to instruct them by bestowing it in such a way and measure on their instructers and guides though I deny not but every true Israelite had the Spirit also dwelling in him yet they were never the less but the more submiss to the conduct of their mediate or if you will men-teachers and guides for that SECT III. Your third chosen Scripture for your service is But there is a Spirit in man and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth him understanding I shall explain this text by another which carries the full sense of it and almost the same words For the Lord giveth wisedome out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding But doth this incourage men to cast off all external means and the use of their reason Nothing less It is given as an encouragement to the use of the means expressed in the four first verses which are made conditional of being blessed with that knowledge and wisedom which comes from the Lord. If thou searchest If thou triest It will now be more easie to take in the right sense of your cited Scripture There is a Spirit in man that is a rational soul say some yet knowledg and understanding doth not so depend upon its improvement as to shut out the breathing and blessing of God from the chief efficiency A young man as Elihu may attain a measure by that divine blessing beyond the aged and more experienced If you can prove that those holy men who carried on that debate of which the Book of Job is a history did neglect the external means which the Lord afforded them for informing their judgments about divine and spiritual concernments upon the grounds of the inward teachings of the Spirit of God Eris mihi magnus Apollo and unless you can do that your arguing from this Text is but meer trifling beating of the air and contending for what is granted on all hands but nothing at all to your purpose who are very busie at doing nothing And it is not beside the purpose to consider that those holy eminent Saints who contended with Job were rebuked by God for not speaking rightly of God as Job did and Job did not pass free without a chiding also for his miscarriages and presumptions Job 42. vers 7. and forward To conclude this Argument you talk at a miserable lame rate to say that because the inspiration of the Divine Spirit giveth understanding therefore it is not from the strength of mans reason memory or utmost creature-abilities that his knowledge of religious and heavenly things comes but from the revelation and discovery of the inspiration of the Almighty Let me tell you once for all that if reason memory and humane abilities have nothing at all to do in the search and understanding of Divine things a meer animal or such an ideot as Jack Adams may know as much of the Divine and Heavenly mysteries as W. Pen but if I should say such a one is as able a Teacher or Writer as you I doubt not but you would take your self to be not a little affronted And it is as lame arguing to conclude because some men had Divine inspirations and teachings of some Divine truths when there was not one Book of the written Word in being as I dare undertake to prove and they who had those inspirations made use also of their reason to know Divine things by all external means within their reach therefore all Gods people i. e. Quakers have in
other sense Also what did that clause do there viz. thy Spirit is good Can the Spirit be good for nothing if the external word be good for something as a teacher I mistrust not the eyes of any but the Quakers but that they will see at first glance what a feeble Champion you are without my pointing Parvas habet spes Troja si tales habet I shall trace you foot by foot no further you shoot at so many marks at once that 't is hard to find which you level at only in the conclusion you presume you have hit the Pin of the white Vnisonat cuâ—ulis rudibus geminantibus odis Your Arguments are generally sick of one disease you argue from the presence of the Spirit of God in and with his people by his motions influences manifestations gifts graces means to his essential being as the sense of those texts which is fallacious and as I prove by this argument answer it when you can The Spirit of God essentially considered or as very God is every where at all times without the least change or alteration for ever But the Spirit of God in and with his people according to the import of those texts of Scripture which you produce is not every where at all times without any the least change or alteration for ever Therefore the Spirit of God in and with his people according to the import of those texts of Scripture which you produce is not the Spirit of God essentially considered or very God The First Proposition is proved from Mal. 3. 6 For I am the Lord I change not The Second Proposition I prove from Joel 2. 28 29. which you cite Pag. 21. And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out my Spirit on all Flesh and your Sons and your Daughters shall prophesie c. This was in time what and where it was not before Ezek. 36. 27. Pag. 20. And I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my Statutes c. it was future what it was not before and is spoken of the gathering of the Jews from all Countreys Then the Spirit of God shall be put within them but this is not alway the same without alteration 1 Cor. 6. 19. cited by you Pag. 30. What know you not that your Body is the Temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you The Holy-Ghost did not dwell in them according to the import of that Text before their conversion The Lord was in the Temple at Jerusalem and dwelt therein I have built a House of habitation for thee and a place for thy dwelling Who is able to build him an House seeing the Heaven and Heaven of Heavens cannot contain him How did God dwell there more then elsewhere but by placing his name owning a relation to it as his house sanctifying it to his own use manifesting himself in it to those who waited on his Ordinances there solemnized But now the place is void of all the footsteps of that presence I deny not I doubt not but the presence of God by his Spirit in and with his people is much more glorious than that Type posessed yea such a Mystery of union and Glory as will be matter of intellectual exercise and delight for ever yet it is most certainly no more his essential Presence than is every where The difference is his being related to actuating of effecting in and manifesting himself to and union with the Souls of his people so as none in the world but they are blessed withal And here in the Saints are so happy they may well be content and not put the name of the Godhead in a strict and proper sense on these his blessings Such conceits are the natural sourse and have been of opinions and practices dishonourable to God and unworthy of his Grace Another fallacy in your arguings is from the Spirits teachings indefinitely to the Spirits teaching universally at least all that concerns the duty of the People of God in religious things The People of God have the Spirit therefore they could not be destitute of an unerring Spirit in what concerned them either towards God or men SECT VII But your main fallacies are these two from an infallible Spirit teaching to the infallability of the Subjects in which the Spirit dwels as a Teacher And from the Spirits teaching to its immediate and peculiar teaching For the first of these I shall produce some of your wild reasonings 1 Thes 15. 19. Quench not the Spirit Those to whom he gave the caution had the Spirit if those could not quench the Spirit who had it not Consequently the Primitive Churches were not without an unerring Spirit But I believe and can prove that they who had not the Spirit themselves might quench it in others by despising prophesyings in the exercise of its gifts 20. ver and those who have the motions of the Spirit as you sâ—… the old world had before the flood may be faiâ— from having the Spirit in the Scripture sense i. e. dwelling in them to sanctification But supposing they had the Spirit dwelling and teaching in them 't is a miserable erroneouâ— and weak Conclusion that they were infallible That this is that you would conclude from such improper premises is apparently your drift all a long A taste of this you give up p. 32. in these words If God sends forth his Spirit into the hearts of his children then are they not without an infallible Spirit but the express letter of the Scripture affirms iâ— and consequently our Adversaries reflection upon us for making it part of our belief is unsound and condemnable 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 If the latter be it you say is unsound it is upon no other grounds than your arguing from the infallibility of Gods Spirit to the infallibility of your spirits or of theirs who are Gods people But we are not ignorant that your principles make no distinction much less a difference between the spirits of Gods people and the Spirit of God which is indeed the secret bias which moves you so obliquely of which I shall give a more ample account in its place But you are yet so unwilling to speak plainly your mind that you appear in many shapes to insinuate this untruth but are industrious to be uncertain and amphibious Quo teneam vultus mutantum Protea nodâ— You say Page 31. And how this man can be esteemed a good Christian who would render Christ Jesus the Head of a fallible body by divesting Christians of an infallible Spirit I leave to persons of better judgement more honesty and greater moderation to judge By this we may more than guess your mind but verily if the asserting Christ to be the Head of a fallible
understood what he wrote of the Creation Hear a third that by the mouth of more than two witnesses what I have said may be confirmed John Story Short Discovery c. pag. 2. And though the holy Scripture without and the Saints practises are as lights in the world yet far be it from all true Christian men so to idolize them the Scripture and Saints practises 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 Christ within from which the Scriptures were given forth and are but branches of that holy root and as it were fruits of that heavenly Tree viz. the appearances of God in the hearts of his people You may see then whence their Opinion of Divine Inspiration to be the inlet of their Notions arises and that the Scriptures are but branches growing from the same root viz. the light within That I may arm those who are willing to be defended against such a strong delâ—sion where-ever it hath once seized the belief by Scripture-light I shall take she pains to lay down some certain Characters of all the Apostles divinely inspired all their Doctrines that flowed from the Spirit of God by way of inspiration immediate contained in the Scripture and having the ame divine Authority SECT III. Characters of the Persons who were Christs Apostles and preached or wrote the Gospel by Inspiration of God which we call the Scripture or Word of God They had an immediate Mission and Call from without them by Jesus Christ to preach and declare the Gospel That Call and Commission which the Apostles had Mat. 28. 16. to the end of the Chapter was from without it was Christ who conversed with them and was the Object of their bodily eyes It was that Christ whom the women held by the feet ver 9. and his Call as his person was without them the sound of which was received by their bodily ears in those words ver 18 19. And Jesus came and spake unto them saying All power is given to me in heaven and in earth Go ye therefore c. And it is a strong Argument to prove this immediate outward Call to be essential to the Apostolical Office and Power that when by Judas's fall the number was imperfect he that was chosen in his room was chosen and called by an outward Call the Spirit of God determining by a Lot Matthias to be the twelfth Apostle as Christ did the rest by his voice without them Acts 1. 24 25 verses they had a large measure of the Spirit within and Matthias in particular but that was not sufficient Yea the Apostle Paul who was born out of due time had this immediate outward Call when Christ appeared to him in that glorious and terrible form Acts 26. 13. At mid day O King I saw in the way not in the heart or I in the way saw a light from heaven above the brightness of the Sun the light in the Quakers I am sure would be seen by any who are not bodily blind if it were such shining round about me then it could not be a light only within and them that journeyed with me if it had not been without him they could not have seen it Verse 14. I heard a Voice speaking unto me not within me I am Jesus Chap. 10. Ver. 22. Jesus of Nazareth and I am sure the light within is not of Nazareth These things are enough to prove the Apostles had all of them an outward Call or a Call from Christ without them to their Ministry and Apostleship and that the Quakers apostleship and inspired ministry is far from Apostolical They were all such as had seen and conversed with the Lord Jesus in an outward visible form to the bodily senses And that I take to be the literal sense and import of that Scripture 1 John 1. 1. That which was from the beginning which we have heard which we have seen with our eyes which we have looked upon and our hands have handled of the Word of Life All these expressions cannot with any shew of reason be construed of a mental or spiritual converse with Christ as an object of faith but must be understood of the exercise of the bodily senses and faculties upon the visible humane nature of the Lord Jesus And if it be objected that it is said this Object was from the beginning which his humane Nature and body could not be I answer There is a communication of both Natures in the person of Christ by which the properties and concerns of the one are attributed to the other as I might give abundant proof of But I will instance in one which may be sufficient Acts 20. 28. To feed the Church of God which he hath purchased with his own bloud God is not a being made up of flesh and bloud but a pure impassible Spirit yet Christ being God as well as man the bloud of his Man-hood is called the bloud of God It is observable that the Apostle John brings these proofs of his Apostleship in the front of his Epistle as being necessary for obtaining Credence to what follows To put all out of doubt consider what is expressed 1 Cor. 9 ch 1 ver Am I not an Apostle am I not free have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord Some did probably object against Pauls Apostleship because he had not seen Christ in the flesh as all the rest of the Apostles had done but he answers this Objection Have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord It could not be meant of seeing him by the spiritual eye of Faith for so all the Saints have seen the Lord that is common to the weakest babe in the Faith And where did he see him but in the way to Damascus Compare the fore-cited Text with 1 Cor. 15. 8 ver And last of all he was seen of me also as of one born out of due time He was not born a Saint or Believer out of due time for conversion will be in season to the end of the world But he was born an Apostle out of due time the Lord Jesus visibly appearing to him to that end in an extraordinay season Thus we see that to Apostleship the sight of the person of Christ as an outward visible object to the bodily sense is necessary A third distinguishing Character is they were all enabled to work Miracles such Miracles as were neither in secret for the place nor doubtful for the matter I should but waste time and paper to give instances of this the Histories of the Evangelists and Acts of the Apostles will furnish you with enough The Quakers having been conscious of the necessity of this have some of them pretended to Miracles to credit their Apostolical pretended inspirations but none can they prove Some have attempted such like performances but have failed in the undertaking so that if we will not believe them for their bold
saith was the Lamb of God whom John bid the Jews behold and the force of the light and life within which with them is the blood i. e. the life of the Lamb. P. Put Christ to pain Resisting the motions of the light within The painted Whore Not only the Papals with their irreligious Pomp but all the good words thoughts and actions of any sort of men who derive them not from the immediate teachings and motions of the light within yea all forms of Worship according with the precepts and examples of the Scripture and they are with them the most painted who come nearest to the Scripture as a Rule The People of God They and none but they who profess the light within every man to be Christ the only Saviour and Teacher and give up themselves to its conduct as such Perfect Perfection Not that which is sincere or a Perfection of Parts or sanctification throughout in part but a being without sin in the least remains or stains of it Persecution Not only a penalty or hurt inflicted on their Bodies or Estates but also a speaking or writing against their Principles in the most purely rational and Scriptural Authority The sâ—ed in Prison and Captivity and Bondage Pictures and Images The light within not obeyed as Christ and God  Not only those Images and Pictures that to the bodily-Eye represent Christ or God or the Saints and are adored with religious worship but all Worship Opinions Actions Words that are in imitation of the Examples and in obedience to the Precepts contained in the Scripture Mâ—n-pleasers They who comply with men though in things not only lawful but also to edifification Pollutions of the world Not only things in themselves sinful as drunkenness swearing lying c. but also what ever customs they dislike and decline As Cuffs Ribands putting off the Hat signes of respect c. which they say are from the Devil all recreations as bowling ringing though used seasonably and moderately The Power of God The Light within the Christ within Praying in Spirit Secretly or inwardly not with the voice by the immediate impulses of the light and power within without the exercise of so much as the conceptions of man Prayer Christ the light within is sometimes by them so called The presence of the Lord. The powerful influences and impressions of the light within either to terrour or peace and joy The pride of Man A not submitting to their light and especially receiving tokens of respect and wearing Ribands Cuffs and Lace The Priests A word of scorn put on all indifferently who are separated to the work of the Gospel-Ministry by men or that receive maintenance for their work The Worlds Professors All that are not Quakers Formal hypocritical Professors All that walk in the Ordinances of Christ commanded or prescribed in the Scripture or in the order of the Gospel Spirit of Prophecy Immediate impulses and inspirations False Prophets All that act not by immediate revelation Prophecying falsly How true soever in it self if not from their spirit Publicans and Sinners All that are not Quakers Walking in the pare Walking after the dictates of the light within Purifying the heart by the Bloud of Christ Acting and being disposed according to inward motions by the light and life of the Christ within them Q. Quenching the Spirit Resisting the motions of the Light within Quickned in the Life Stirred up by the power within R. Raised to life Conversion to Quakerisme Ravening brain Studying and following after divine knowledge or the knowledge of divine things Inwardly ravening from the Spirit A recourse to the Scripture or any thing else except their spirit for light and understanding in the things of God Carnal reasonings Reasonings of the Flesh All use of the understanding and judgment of man for searching and finding out truths about divine and spiritual things Received from the Lord. By immediate Revelation Reconciliation Giving up themselves to the light within The Word of Reconciliation Christ the light within The Lords Redeemed Those who are conformed to the light within Redemption A being reduced into the state of Adam in innocency not what was wrought by Christ in the Flesh 1600 years since The Redeemer Not that Jesus Christ who is ascended above and beyond the Stars but the light and power within every man as such Refreshings in Spirit Something they are pleased with they know not why and come by they know not how As the Quakers who were refreshed at the Dutch-womans declaring while they understood not a word she spake The New Man CHRIST The rest of the people of God A quiet and peace within though from a blind deluded conscience The Resurrection of Life Obedience to the light in this world Resurrection of the Body Resurrection of the light within to a dominion in the man for with them the body is Christ and Christ is the light within Also the Body which was a servant to sin being acted by the light and power within Revelations Not Scripture-Revelations but what come by immediate inspiration to them Righteous ones Such as are without sin Righteousness of Christ That which is wrought by the power and conduct of their Christ the light within The Root of Jesse The Light within The Royal seed Christ and every Quaker They who run and not sent All that teach the Gospel from the Scripture and not by immediate inspiration Reprobation Sin S. The Sabbath Every day the present Rest and Heaven of the Quakers The Sacrifice of Christ The light within obeying or they obeying in the light within Having Salt in themselves Having Christ in themselves The Salt of the Earth Christ the light within Salvation Conversion to the obedience of the light within Sanctification All one with Justification all one with Christ obedience to the light Building on the Sand. Making the Scripture a rule of faith and life The Saviour The light within every man According to the Scriptures By immediate inspiration as the Prophets and Apostles received the minde of God The Seed The light within or the Christ essentially within the Eternal Word that which was in the beginning with God The Seed of Abraham according to the Flesh The Eternal Word Christ as God  All that is not from the immediate motions within Self-righteousness Shadows All Forms and external worship  The Scriptures which Pen saith are as the shadow of the true rule viz. living touches Idol-Shepherds The Ministers who have a mediate call or teach out of the Scripture Shut out of the Scriptures Cannot understand them have nothing to do with them Signes and Miracles in Spirit No body can tell what All flesh must be silent Nothing must be said but what comes by immediate revelation from the Spirit for all else is the voice of man and of the flesh In the simplicity Without the use of humane understanding or if you will out of your wits To live in Sin Sinners Such as have any remains of