not have been broken by all what that man could do and if your doctrine be true the Scriptures false and God made by Christs Apostles lyers and Christ suffered for man in vain but God is just his Scriptures true his Apostles justified in his sight but it being a so heterogene doctrine that all men in whom there is the faith will see through it I leave it to the condemnation of the Truth Page the Thirteenth Ask was his sufferings and death everlasting and say is the asserting of this good doctrine but say I is not your denying it for good doctrine damnable in that by them it is by which we can be saved they being the Gospel and the power for our salvation as Paul unto the Corinthians at large doth preach which Gospel is that that is called the everlasting Gospel that the Revelations speaks shall be preach't again after many dayes to Kindred Tongues People and Nations which Gospel abides for ever which being the death of Christ for our sins and resurrection from the dead for our justification abides for ever though he suffered not alwayes Page the Seventeenth stumble you at what declared of Christs being personal in a body proposing if Christ be not the light in every mans conscience how said he to his Disciples He that is with you shall be in you I in them and they in me that they may be one as thee and I am one Holy Father but say I why will you preach false doctrine not discerning the truth for is it not written that he saith That he that believes on me out of his belly shall flow forth living waters but saith John This he spake of his Spirit which as yet they had not received and the reason Christ was not as it ascended and that to them he might perform his promise saith that it is necessary for you that I go away for that unless I do the Comforter cannot come but if I go away I will send him and he shall be with you and in you and lead you into all truth and shall take of mine and show it unto you and testifie of me which the world cannot receive because said he they believe not on me 't is plain he spake of the spirit who was with them but not in them till his Ascention and when he was ascended up into his Glory having received all power in Heaven and in Earth according for what him was promised sends the spirit as he had promised who when he came sate upon them with cloven tongues and testified by the Apostles by Signs and Miracles showing wonders in their testifying to Christ the Saviour of men who filling their hearts with joy and gladness gave them to partake of the Union with God and Christ by which Communing they was one in the Union of the glorious Joyful life of God and Christ And this is the clear truth which if it be not hid from your eyes believe and fall down and worship the ancient of days and the Lamb upon his Throne who was dead and is alive and lives for evermore and if it should be otherwise interpreted according to what your inference of it would make it must follow that being one as God and Christ is one we are Gods as God is God and Christ as Christ is Christ and from what urged by the Scripture where Christ saith I am the light of the world the Scripture speaks the truth and can you rehearse the Scriptures and not believe the Truth for you may see if that you would not shut your eyes that Christ spake not of the light in the Jewes Consciences but of himself as he was with them in person for where he saith I am the Light of the World he saith not as I am Light in your Consciences by what follows but you will not come to me that you may have life and that this is his meaning is certain by what follows While I am in the world I am the light of the world and while you have the light walk in the light but the Prince of this world comes but in me he hath nothing and saith Christ He that believeth on me shall not enter into judgment but I will raise him up at the last day which he speaks not of any thing in himself that is distinct and apart from himself making his person not Christ but something that was in his person to wit the light to convince you of your mistake I present you with his own words wrote down by Luke That being arisen from the dead for their confirmation that he was Christ shews them his hands and his feet wherein was the print of the nails that nailed him unto the Cross saying handle me and see that it is I my self for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as you see me to have and to put them out of doubt calls to them for meat who gave him broyled fish and a honey comb and he took it and did eat before them which having done saith All must be fulfilled that was written of me in the Law of Moses Psalms and Prophets for said the Lord thus it is written and thus it behoved Christ to die and to rise from the dead the third day that Repentance and Remission of Sins should be preacht in his name amongst all Nations and ye are witnesses of these things but Thomas being not there when the Lord shewed himself sayes that except I see him and put my hands in his side and my finger into the print of his nails I will not believe the Lord appearing another time when Thomas was by calls to him and bids him put his hand in his side and his fingers into the print of the nails and be not faithless which Thomas having done cryes out My Lord and my God but said the Lord to Thomas Thou hast seen and felt and hast believed but blessed are they that have not felt nor seen and yet do believe and having promised to them to send his Spirit to endue them with power leads them to Betheny and blessed them which while he was doing was taken up into Heaven in their sight by which discourse it doth appear that Christ was not the light in his person but Christ as he was personally in his body of flesh to whom John bore witness as the Lamb of God that took away the sins of the World by which it doth appear that this fiction that sayes the light in Christ is Christ and not Christ the Christ in his person is a denying Christ come in flesh and to be fear'd that Anti-christ foretold by John that was to come and the affirming the blood of Christ not that that did Atone with God for sinful man the trampling under foot the blood of the Covenant making it an unholy thing doing despite to the spirit of Grace by which we are sanctified But this being so ridiculous a fiction is condemned of old by the Scriptures and this so great an
A WORD TO THE UPRIGHT For Help and Preservation in these ERRING DAYES By Errours detected in a BOOK Called A TESTIMONY FOR THE TRUTH CHRIST and his LIGHT By some that go by the Name of QUAKERS wherein they manifest their Foundation for Salvation which they call The CHRIST of GOD. By him who seeks the well-fare of all men ROBERT COBBET London Printed in the Year 1668 A Word to the Vpright for help and preservation in these Erring Dayes A Pamphlet that Entitles it self wrote by some people called Quakers coming to my hands which may blind the eyes of some from having their persons and principles in admiration from a knowledge by experiencing of some things by them taught am willing for your sakes that desire you may know the truth to the acknowledging of the truth to set the truth before you that you may escape the errours of perdition and in that it saith He that denies me before men him will I deny before my Father that is in Heaven put my Pen once more to paper to the clearing up the truth the cause the Pamphlet from its Allegorizing the Scriptures of truth and its Erronious Assertions against the truth that doth so deface the beautiful face of the truth declared by Law Psalms and Prophets Christ and his Apostles that their requirings of men to the obedience of faith to Christ the Saviour of men who bought us by his blood is in danger I fear to be had in scorn and contempt with many and Atheisme start up and over-spread by the corrupting the young sprouts of the Nation to an Opinion of late broach't in this Nation the Opinion asserted is That the Light in Conscience whereof every man that comes into the world is enlightned is Christ Redeemer Advocate Mediatour and Saviour which I suppose if you will bear with me to say is a Doctrine and Gospel that hath no footing in Scriptures nor in any foundation at any time amongst the Sons of men till it took rise in fifty two by the hands of George Fox which Doctrine of the light in Conscience had it been kept in its Office as a School-Master to bring unto Christ had been a Doctrine of good Morality but putting it up for Christ the Advocate Mediator Redeemer and Saviour stands in my spirit as a high mistake for that to me it doth utterly deny the Son of God and makes null the blood of the Covenant and that it doth so appear to be the intent of the Writers of the paper is manifest by what is said in the paper of all Proâ—… 〈…〉 having Faith on the Lord Jesus the Son of God for their Saviour and the sufferings of his person for their salvation in dirision called it Professors stuff querying whether it is good Doctrine to preach him in his person for Saviour and his death and sufferings the cause of salvation affirming that his sufferings are not everlasting and that the person Christ is not the Saviour of men but that that was Saviour something that was in that Christ to wit the Light in the Conscience positively declaring in a certain place that the blood of Christ was not that that did atone with God for man for the transgression of men But my business being to dissect the paper that if it may be to strengthen your Faith on the foundation the Prophets and Apostles have laid come to inspect the paper which paper pag. the 3. for what reason I know not unless this that the two first pages being to fence against the Scriptures that did at large confirm the truth being too plain a discovery of their bottom durst not stand to the judgment of men but say you contend not with me about the coming of the Lord in the flesh nor his death sufferings resurrection and ascention but if true that you said your paper had kept in we must intreat your patience to step along with us a little before you come to meet with an unfolding this mystery for truly I must tell you that my friends are in a cloud but by what above said you may have a guess of what they mean by their dark sayings but in that we shall meet with these particulars in the paper we pass to Page the 4. Where they tell you that Christ was truly a Light before and when he took upon him the form of a Servant both before he appeared in a bodily similitude in the likeness of sinfull flesh and then also and is Gods salvation to the ends of the Earth which extends farther then his personal presence did though therein he did bear witness to the truth to his inward and spiritual manifestation to the new and living way Friends pray be not offended with me to tell you the Serpent twinds about the Tree to catch you in his deep deceit for having told you that his appearing in flesh was to bear witness to his inward and spiritual appearing which they that know him so that know no man after the flesh that though so had known him yet so know him no more to make you believe they are some excellent things fly aloft by telling you the real end of his coming in flesh is known and reserved in the spirit which say you he directed his unto and in a caper cry that his name was from everlasting and is to everlasting the Lord is one and his name one receive it who can Friends I pray be not big worded out of the truth I deny not but the ends of the coming of the Lord into the world was to beget his Children into fellowship by communion with his Father and Himself by giving to them his Life which is mans Light which my Brethren being our Salvation we have it by him who is our Saviour Christ Jesus who hath bought us to God by the price of his blood and for the big words the Lord is one and his name one receive it who can we own it for ever that our God is only one God but this is as he is unmanifested but as God is manifested he is Father Word and Spirit and although God is one of whom are all things yet there is the Lord Jesus Christ by whom are all things who is Mediatour betwixt God and man and Christ by whom is all things being the word that was made flesh for redemption of man did the Fathers will in that body of flesh through the offering it up to the death of the Cross by the Eternal Spirit according as he said I will give my flesh for the Life of the world who giving it up unto death reconciled us unto God by the body of his flesh that tasted death as saith the Scriptures and although he is Everlasting as he is the Word yet as he was the man Christ he was of time according to the saying Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee which you find was when the Holy Ghost over-shaddowed Mary which was saith Paul When the fulness of time
helper which is Christ in whom the Covenant of Grace that God hath made to man by Christs blood being incorporated God hath promised to send it forth as the prisoner of hope that is in the deep pit in which there is no waters Behold I shew you a mystery ye men in the Clouds Christ whom God hath sealed by the anointing for a Saviour being the product of the Holy Ghost to a coagelated substance from the properties of man in Mary is that holy thing the anointed in the womb that was born free whom 't was not possible for death to with-hold who being without sin had not that body of death that could be with-held by death but because the Children had the body of death he that was the Lord from Heaven having flesh of life laid down his life to wit his body into our dead bodies that we that were dead might live as said thy dead men shall rise with my dead body But this Lord Jesus through the guile of most of your Leaders is deny'd and Jesus being thus the Creation of God is the only begotten of the Father whom the Disciples saw and bore record unto who being the Fathers delight whom he foresaw from Everlasting that he would send when the fulness of time was come promiseth to him that the spirit should rest upon him to make him of a quick understanding the spirit of wisdom and counsel of might and knowledge and the fear of the Lord who being indued with the vertue of God by which he poured out his soul unto God in which travel knew of his justifying of many touching the body of our Lord this is the matter you know he saith that he proceeded from Heaven and that his flesh was meat indeed and his blood was drink indeed and that he would give his flesh for the life of the world and he that eates his flesh and drinks his blood hath Eternal Life which body of our Lord being of the Heavenly substance as it was circumscribed was the body of his personality that he gave for an offering for the Ransom of the world which body being of and from the nature of Heaven he gave it that we by it may have an interest through that body into the Heavens the Kingdome the Father hath prepared for them that love him and do believe on him whom God hath sent Thus have I given you an account of Jesus as to his Body Soul and Spirit who as he thus consisted was that form of God and express Image of his Fathers Substance whose day the Patriarchs and Prophets saw in the Spirit and rejoyced to see with whom the Apostles being conversers with bore witness to him who is the truth and to such a one confession was made in all ages by the believers till the coming of George Fox and his Disciples and being found in form and fashion as a man gave up his life into the grave of death by which he broke open the grave of eternal death by which he overcame him that had the power of death that is the Devil and delivered his Children from out of the Eternal Death by which they was held in bondage all their life long whence is that saying O Death where is thy Grave O Sin where is thy Sting O Hell where is thy Victory For know that the death of the Lord was a Revolution a passing out or through the principle of this visible world into the principle of the invisible world where saith Paul He now is an Advocate for man with God and being gone out of the visible into the invisible as he was in the visible I know him so no more but as man is brought into the invisible where he is there I have seen him and so did John Paul and Stephen Now God being in this man Christ as declared Christ is that God-man in his own person that hath brought again the dead to life Page the fifth Querie about Christ being Formity as if King was his humane body equal with God when in that body said My Father is greater then I Brethren we have proved before the personality of Christ and that he was the express Image of God in his person and since that you know that it is written that God at sundry times and in divers manners spake to the Fathers and Prophets but now saith he speaks to us by his Son on whose shoulders the Government for our peace should lie whom God hath made heir of all things who when he had by himself purged away our sins for that he was made a little lower then the Angels for the suffering of death that by his tasting of death for every man he might bring many Sons unto Glory for that it became him for whom are all things and by whom are all things to make the Captain of our Salvation perfect by sufferings by which dispute 't is out of doubt 't was Christ he spake of as he was in that form wherein he suffered death and not the light that is a principle of a diffusive property for the light is not his equal that he saith is his fellow to whom he said Sit thee at my right hand till I make thy enemies thy foot-stool but of him he saith Thy Throne O God is from Everlasting to everlasting the Scepter of thy Kingdom is a Scepter of Righteousness and of thy Rule there shall be no end and for his equallity with his Father it must be allowed for that it saith That having fulfilled the work that his Father gave him to do which was the finishing of mans Salvation ascended up unto the Throne of his Glory that God promised to him as his reward for the Redemption of man according to that that was the will of God But in that he said My Father is greater then I He speaks there as he was in his Servants state who while there stood differed nothing from a Servant though Lord of All for then he had not accomplished mans redemption which was the end for which he was sent into the world but having done the will by finishing mans Redemption takes the Throne of the Everlasting Kingdom that to him was promised and sits him down at the right hand of God in the Majesty on high where he is Gods fellow Now then is the confusion on my part who write to you the truth or on yours that deny the truth but if you will blind-fold your own understandings and trample the Pearle under your feet and turn again and rend me you shall be rebuked of God Now having cleared my self to you before God and my Lord and Master Jesus Christ if you will not receive it your destruction is of your selves Page the sixth Charge me with contradiction in saying Christ hath begotten us Children to God by his spirit and that by it he hath put us into a capacity to take of the waters of life and to drink freely in that I say that as to our Redemption it
are useful to help for the clearing of the Truth am I thence to be condemned since you make use of your Head-Leaders words and principles to fight against the Truth Brethren I will aske your selves if that it was not at all times my manner of Discourse when at any time as occasion offered that I did not as well acknowledge the Soveraignty of the Lord in the new re-generation as I did the sufferings of the Lord for our Salvation and should I have denyed the one by only crying up the other I should have been reproved by my Maker but in this I rejoyce that God hath pleased of his Grace to give to me of all men most unworthy to understand the whole Truth to which I bore Testimony in the paper For that if it be as you say that the light whereof every man that comes into the world be Christ and Saviour and not Christ that was born of the Virgin Mary as he was in person then the Scriptures Testimony of him are not true and his Apostles are found Lyers before God in that they are they that testifie to him see Luke the first and second Chapters Paul in all his Epistles as also all the Apostles in their Acts Recorded Isaiah the 7 th the 14 th verse Isa the 9 th and verse 6. To us a Child is born unto us a Son is given and the Government shall be upon his shoulders and his Name shall be called wonderful Counsellour the Mighty God the Everlasting Father the Prince of peace is not this he that came from Bosrah whose garment was died red and is not this Christ whose Garments was stained with his blood when pierc't with Longinos his sword if so not the light in conscience but the babe born you say that the Gospel by which we are saved is the power you feel the Scriptures say the sufferings of Christ is the Gospel and the power of God by which we are saved Corinthians the first Epistle the fifteenth Chapter and first second and third verses if so not the light in conscience you say not Christ the Saviour as he was man consisting of Body Soul and Spirit but the light in that body the Scriptures say that that man born of Mary that suffered by Pilate was the Christ and Saviour Luke the 24 and the 39. A Spirit hath not flesh and bones as I have and verse 46. speaking of his sufferings in his person saith That thus it behoved Christ to suffer and to rise the third day from the dead that Repentance and Forgiveness of sins should be preached in his Name to all Natiions this being truth not the light in conscience for that the light in conscience is a diffused principle and Christ was a compacted body you say that Christs sufferings was temporary and not Eternal but the power you feel eternal therefore not his sufferings the Gospel but the power the Scriptures say that at once by himself he offered up an offering once for all them that shall be made Heirs of eternal salvation Hebrews the tenth if so not the light in conscience in that it was not the offering but the person who by the offering up of his body once for all you say that Patriarks and Prophets giving heed unto the light in them it was sufficient to them for their salvation but the Scriptures say if the blood of Bulls and Goates serve for the sanctifying of the flesh how much more shall the blood of Christ who through the eternal spirit offered himself without spot to God Purge your Consciences from dead works to serve the Living God and for this cause he became the Mediator of the New Covenant and that by means of his death for the Redemption of the Transgressors that were under the first Testament that they that are called may receive the promise of eternal inheritance and since the offerings by the Law must be purged with blood or else there was no remission it was saith he necessary that since the patterns of the true to wit the things in the Heavens should be purified with these that the Heavenly things themselves should with better sacrifice then these not that he should offer himself often as the High-Priests that entred into the Holy place every year with blood of others but now in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself and as it is appointed to men once to dye but after death to come to Judgment So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation Hebrews the 9 th the latter end of the Chapter If so the Scriptures True your Doctrine is out of Truth That sayes Patriarks and Prophets had Salvation by the Light in their Consciences since that was but the hand that guided them to him that was to come that purified all by blood without which no remission therefore not the light in conscience the Christ and Saviour but he that offered up himself a living Sacrifice for the putting away sin you say that you are beyond Faith but say I was you ever in it if you had and received the Promise upon your believing sure you would have held out unto the end that you might have been saved but you turning away to another Christ and another Gospel then the sufferings of Christ shows you either never had the Faith of the Lord Jesus or that you are Apostatized from it for the Scriptures say that we are kept by Faith through the Mighty Power of God unto Salvation The Galathians Witch-craft that having received the Spirit by the hearing of Faith the Concition bewitcht them to another Gospel Obedience to the Law you say that the Soul of man is no creture the Scriptures saith What will it profit thee to gain the whole World and lose thy owne soul and thou fool This night shall thy soul be taken from thee and saith God I will not for ever contend with man nor be wroth for the spirit would fail before me and the soul that I have made so that say I unto you O you children of men is it I that deny the Christ of God or is it you that say he the Word that was made flesh is not Christ and Saviour but that is he that was in that Christs person which you call Light saying that a measure of it is in the Conscience of every man that comes into the world and thence affirm that he was but a manifestation for our Example as saith Solomon Eccl. and J. P. in their papers Now we know this that it is written that that thaâ— was in Christ was God who being in Christ did by Christ reconcile the world unto himself not imputing to them their sins who having by Christ reconciled the world unto himself requires all men to believe on him that by him they may have Everlasting Life which the Scriptures concludes that whosoever believes on him shall be saved and he that believes not shall be damned for Christ being come a light into the world men will not come unto him that they may have life for which they shall dye in their sins for this is the will of God unto men that they believe on him whom God hath sent and Christ who is the enlightner of those that come to him by faith he gives to them his spirit by which they become the Sons of God who will raise them up at the last day from whence I conclude that you are they that deny Christ the Son of God who is the enlightner of men and the Saviour of his people Israel And Brethren am I become your Enemy because that I tell you the Truth well although by you condemned by God justified and thence pray that your sins be not laid to your charge giving you to know that I go not from the Truth because I declare to the Truth that doth convince of your mistake owning that in you that is to be owned in those things that is true and trust so shall be kept unto the end but if you will have it that I am no Quaker thinking thereby to expose me to outward troubles know that I fear none of these things for I have not so learned Christ that I should stand in fear of you or any man that shall gain-say the Truth your accusing me of coming amongst you for to shelter under your Cloke doth manifest you what you are but wickedness comes from the hands of the wicked as for me my hand shall not be upon you and do rejoyce since that to be a Quaker is to deny my Lord and Master that you though from Envie do declare me to be none and to help forward your desires in this matter do say that I am and ever was far from your opinion touching Christ the Lord and in this matter do say I am no Quaker and â—aving much to say of the cause of my leaving you from prinâ—iples and practises I forbear till a further time supposing by â—ou thereunto shall be provok't but if it might be the will â—f my God do much rather desire your Repentance to the blotâ—…g out for ever your reproach and shall not forget to make 〈◊〉 Supplication to God for you to vouchsafe to you his Grace 〈◊〉 that it be his Heavenly will and if that I must be judged â—…r Enemy because I tell you the Truth he who shewed me by his Visions on my bed in the dayes of my youth thiâ—… that I see now are brought to pass who hath preserved me 〈◊〉 to this day in that he is my rock will keep me I trust in 〈◊〉 fear for that he is my God Peace and good will to all men from God our Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ who hath loved us and washed us in his own blood for that he dyed for us to purchase us to God even Jesus the Mediator of the Covenant of Grace by the good will of God and our Father sanctifie all men to the Resurrection from the dead by the putting on the New Man hiddeâ— in the heart the birth of God by Jesus Christ through the â—…bounding of his love by his own spirit Is the prayer of 〈◊〉 that desires the welfare of all men and known by the Nâ—… of ROBERT COBBET FINIS