of Gods Publick Worship Lastly I must observe that it properly belongs to the Church-Guides and they are bound to see to the maintaining of decency and order in the Circumstances of Gods Publick Worship for seeing God commands to maintain decency and order therein and they are the Watchmen and Rulers who have the Care and Oversight of the Church Act. 20.28 Rom. 12.8 1 Thes 5.12 1 Tim. 3.5 and 5.17 Heb. 13.7 17. 1 Pet. 5.2 it must of necessity belong unto them and they must be thereunto obliged Having observed these things I hope I may assert that Church-Officers and Judicatures have Divine Warrant and Authority to make and set forth Church-Directories for regulating the External Circumstances of Gods Publick Worship in a decent and orderly way or so as they may be decent and orderly This assertion is clear from our preceeding Observations whereunto I shall add an Argument or two First therefore God commands Church-Officers and Judicacatures to maintain Decency and Order in the whole Circumstances of his Publick Worship as is clear from our preceeding Observations and yet he hath no where particularly condescended upon or defined these Circumstances as is before shewed also Therefore the Church-Officers and Judicatures have certainly Divine Warrant and Authority particularly to condescend upon define and determine them The Consequence which now only needs proving is easily proved for seeing God hath commanded Church-Officers and Judicatures to maintain Decency and Order in these Circumstances and yet hath not himself particularly defined and determined them either he hath given them Warrant and Authority particularly to define and determine the same which is the thing we plead for or else he hath commanded them to maintain Order and Decency in Circumstances never to be defined or ordered but left still to be confused undesined and unordered and so they must do it by random and blind chance Which is extreamly absurd seeing so he should have commanded Contradictions viz. order in Circumstances never to be ordered Secondly Church-Directories rightly regulating the External Circumstances of Gods Publick Worship so that they may be decent and well ordered according to the Scripture do conduce and contribute to set forward a Spiritual Good and Edification as is most clear from our preceeding Observations But it 's beyond all doubt that Church-Officers and Judicatories have Warrant and Authority to do such things as may conduce and contribute to set forward the Spiritual Good and Edification of the Churches of their Oversight or else they cannot have Warrant to do any thing Therefore sure it is Church-Officers and Judicatories have Authority and Warrant to make such Directories rightly regulating the External Circumstances of Gods Publick Worship in the Churches of their Oversight Thou wilt may be say that men can have no Authority to determine any part of Gods Worship not determined in the Scripture Therefore men can have no Authority particularly to determine these Circumstances not so determined in the Scriptures Ans The Antecedent I willingly yield but I utterly deny the Consequence seeing the things we now speak of and which alone are the immediate object of a Church-Directory in this strict and proper acception are no part of the Worship in their particular nature but are meer External Circumstances of that which is the Worship as is evident from all before-said These common Rules made by Church-Authority according to the general Precepts and Rules of Scripture do not of themselves bind Conscience nor doth the Authority from whence they immediately proceed of it self bind Conscience neither is their immediate object in its particular nature any part of Gods Worship as said is Nevertheless they being formed according to the general Precepts of Scripture for Order and Decency these bind Conscience and the general End of Edification it binds Conscience and Conscience is also bound not to despise but reverence lawful Church-Authority it being Gods Ordinance and we cannot contemn any of his Ordinances and be guiltless and therefore we may not in wilful conceit reject such Constitutions of the Church albeit out of the case of Scandal-giving and if it do not proceed from a contempt of Church-Authority or from some unruly Humor of Spirit we may upon causes just and reasonable lawfully sometimes intermit and forbear the observation of them These things I have said to prevent Objections And hence I hope it appears that Church-Officers have an Authority to Make and Constitute Church-Directories for ordering the External Circumstances of Gods Publick Worship according to the general Precepts of the Scripture albeit I grant that such Directories are not Infallible and so of themselves no Bond of Conscience nor Rule of Divine Faith As for our Confession and Catechism if the Quakers judge them to be unsound in any of their particular Definitions when the Quakers shall instance them it shall be time enough to make their Apology But while they declare themselves Enemies to the very common form of a Confession and Catechism in a Church herein they proclaim their Hostile mind against Ministers their feeding of the Flock and Edifying of the Body of Christ seeing these Compendious Breviaries of the most fundamental points of Scripture Doctrine and Christian Principles do exceedingly conduce for a method of easier learning and more distinct understanding of the same and that partly because of their succinct and compendious form shortly representing to us and quickly conducting and directing us to the most principal substance of the whole Scripture-Doctrine which is methodically summed in them and which by our own private Industry we could neither soon nor easily distinctly gather out of the whole body of the Scriptures and partly because of their greater Explication each of their Definitions or Enunciations being the perspicuous sentence of many parallel Scriptures compared together and so by their Consociated Beams and United Rays more powerfully Shining like so many Stars and Luminaries placed together into one Constellation and lastly because of their chained Conjunction being united placed and joyned together in a distinct and continual method These things do very much contribute not only to the more speedy learning but also to the more distinct understanding of the most necessary points of Scripture-Doctrine and so of the rest also as having some connexion with or relation unto these And hence also these methodized Models of the most Essential Principles of scripture-Scripture-Doctrine wisely formed from the Scriptures are a notable mean to guard people against Delusions and Errors which Corrupt Men are continually broaching in the Church seeing they being in that manner Succinctly and Methodically summed and so quickly learned and more distinctly understood are as it were a Measuring Line in every serious Mans hand to find out the truth or falshood of every Mans Doctrine What Ought not Ministers and have they not Authority to publish from the Scripture the Principles of Religion to the People and that in the most perspicuous and ready way they can have they
MY Lord Bishop of Edinburgh laving appointed me to reveiw and examine a Book Compiled by Mr. John Alexander Preacher of the Gospel Intituled Jesuitico Quakerism Examin'd or Quakers Confuted These are assuring that it not only Contains nothing contrary to the Christian Religion to the Doctrine Worship or Government of the Church of Scotland but that it exactly though briefly compriseth the Marrow of many great Truths in order to the vindication of those solid Articles of our Faith ignorantly and unreasonably invaded by that Heretical fry of Quakers and that with knowledge and care the Author hath Refuted their Irreligious and Blasphemous Positions so that it may prove a very useful Book And therefore I humbly judge it very deserving to be Imprinted This is Testified by John Hamilton Leith Octob. 16. 1679. Jesuitico-Quakerism Examined OR A CONFUTATION OF The Blasphemous and unreasonable Principles of THE QUAKERS With a Vindication of the Church of God IN BRITAIN FROM Their Malicious Clamours and Slanderous Aspersions By John Alexander Preacher of the Gospel Isaiah 8.20 Te the Law and to the Testimony if they speak not according to this word it is because there is no light in them Luk. 16.29 31. They have Moses and the Prophets let them hear them If they hear not Moses and the Prophets neither will they be perswaded though one rose from the dead 1 John 4.1 Beloved believe not every Spirit but trie the Spirits whether they are of God because many false Prophets are gone out into the world LONDON Printed for Dorman Newman at the Sign of the Kings Arms in the Poultry 1680. To the Right Honorable Sir Robert Clayton Knight Lord Mayor of the Famous City of London the Author wisheth Grace Mercy and Peace MY Lord this ensuing Treatise comes to Salute the World and appear upon the publick Stage under the Honorable Shade and Patrociny of your name not presuming to add any Lustre thereunto whereof it is uncapable and whereof your Lordships Prudence and Vertues have been such publick Heraulds to the World that I shall rather impose a Cessation to my Pen and enjoyn my self a necessary silence as my highest Encomium than be Guilty with Apelles in forming of the Image of interweaving the constrained Failzeurs of my best Rhetorick with your Lordships deserved Commendation But knowing the hazard of these publick Scenes and the Worlds view where there is always a Momus ready to carp it comes to seek shelter under your Lordships favorable Protection whereunto it is also encouraged with good hopes of obtaining the cheerful Countenance of your Authority because of your Pious and Laudable Zeal against all the enemies of our Orthodox Faith and the Divine Truth especially these pernicious and beyond all Heathens most inhumane Proto-plasta's of Quakerism I mean the Jesuits unto whom the latter Profession owes the Founding of their Order and a great many of their Principles be they never so shie and nice to Confess it It doth also with Modest humility lay claim to one interest into your Lordships Tutelage because albeit it was elsewhere conceived and had the form of one Embryo yet it hath received its just measures for a regular Birth within the precinct of your Honorable Jurisdiction and though of Scottish Parentage yet it is truly London Born I know very well there are many in this declining Age of Christianity who account all Disputations about Principles of Religion how necessary soever providing men live well to be but vain Jangling wherein they exactly Homologate the Quakers as I well know but their provision though it were granted to be enough which it is not is impossible if people be misled in necessary Principles seeing no man can live well who mistakes his Rode-way and follows wrong directions and lies and therefore as we are very heartily willing to Discharge all Debates about Opinions which yield no fruit to Edification and make us no sounder Christians so their great care is to have all the other Cashiered also But when the most necessary Truths are boldly invaded and our common Faith in danger to be supplanted it looks not like Christian Courage or Zeal but is rather a plain betraying of Truth for us to hold our peace and suffer the enemy how contemptible soever they may seem by their real Triumphs though but counterfeited Trophees of a pretended Victory erected meerly upon our Cowardise and Sloth not the overthrow of our Cause or their Strength to gather Proselytes and increase their numbers This is not to be valiant for the Truth upon the Earth Christ did not so let the Sadduces a contemptible and foolish people pass without a demonstrative Confutation Paul also fought with Beasts at Ephesus and his Epistles declare what care he took at the Spirits direction too to redargue the Errors of his time This Tractate shall not much value the obloquy and Sarcasms of these men nor of any other whom nothing can please which is not either the fruit of their proper Invention or else at least adequately adjusted to their prejudicate apprehensions and foreconceived Opinions if it be but which is its great ambition acceptable to your Lordship and Edifying to such as desire to know and love the Truth And though reflecting upon the Brutish absurdity of the party against whom I have Embarqu'd in this Province not only renouncing all true Principles of Religion but also stifling their very faculties of reason my adopting of this piece so high may almost seem unsutable yet when I contemplate the great Worth and Excellency of the Subject Matter and Theme I am to treat upon being no less then the whole Divine Ordinances of the Gospel and the most precious and many of them most necessary Truths of Jesus I hope my Nuncupation shall no ways be thought incongruous if I have but been so happy as rightly to encounter the Adversaries and dextrously to vindicate and display the Standard of the Sacred Truth which with what force and evidence I have done I submit to your Lordships Vmpirage and Judgment whom that God may bless and make prosperous here and eternally happy hereafter is the earnest Prayer of your Lordships most Obedient Servant John Alexander TO THE READER THese seventeen following Queries of the Quakers having come to my hand with a direction bearing my Name I did for some time stand in Bivio doubting with my self if it should be worth the while to bring them to the Anvil one while fearing lest Truth through my weakness should be at a disadvantage and another while accounting it almost an unnecessary undertaking to offer to redargue such distracted and Brutish Errors the very Grossness whereof might alone be sufficient to overthrow and Crush their Reputation with every man not depriv'd of sense and rob'd of a sound mind But after more mature and due consideration that an undervalued and neglected enemy proves ordinarily the most dangerous and that unsavory Hemlock except it be digged out and Exfundat may grow and
the Quakers Ergo not the Doctrine of the Quakers The Ten Commands are the Moral Laws Ergo not the Moral Law Is not that well Argued without Logick But what are not whole Sermons and Predictions of the Prophets and Christs whole Doctrine called by them and him the Word of the Lord and his Word as may be seen in almost all our preceeding Arguments Is not the whole Doctrine of the Scriptures called a Word of Prophecy 2 Pet. 1.19 20. Does not Paul call the whole Revealed Truths of God Sound Doctrine and the Doctrine of God 1 Tim. 1.10 and 6.1 Tit. 1.9 and 2.10 And must the Prophets and Apostles Christ and the Holy Ghost learn from the Quakers how their Doctrine should be named will they not allow the Scriptures their Essential Attribute which these gives them that they are the Word of God or albeit we very well know that there are many more words in the Scripture than one why will they not admit of that common Unity here which is not denied in other common Natures and a denomination conformable By these things the objection is both answered and overthrown Again they insinuate another Argument whereby they indeavour to wrest the Title of the Word of God from the Scriptures The Scriptures say they signifies Writings Therefore they mean to infer they are not the Word of God Ans It doth equally follow therefore they are not the Words of God as the Word of God as all may see and so the consequent of their present Argument contradicts the Antecedent of their former Objection and so we may see that the Quakers are but Jugling while they yield the Scriptures the Title of Gods Words whereof their present Argument again indeavours to rob them Secondly our Question is not what the word Scripture signifies but what the Doctrine written in the Scriptures is which the signification of that Word cannot Define But lastly for clear satisfaction I distinguish their Consequent thus viz. That because the Scriptures signifies Writings therefore as to the external Form and Mode which they have from the Writers Pen they are not the Word of God be it so therefore as to their enunciat Doctrine or Sentence they are not the Word of God it follows not For in the Scripture there are two things to be considered viz their Doctrine and Sentence which is the Word of God and their external Form or Mode which they have from the Pen of the Writer which gives the Word of God the Denomination of Written and therefore we call the Scriptures The Written Word Because we said that the Quakers by indeavouring to Wrest the Title of the Word of God from the Scriptures do strike at their Divine Authority therefore I shall here give a short Touch of the Notes and Arguments whereby the Scriptures are clearly Demonstrated to be from God and of Divine Inspiration such as are the Majesty of the Style of the Scriptures above all other Writings under great simplicity of words the Divine purity of the Doctrine savoring wholly of holiness and vertue The Divine Scope of the Doctrine which is to give all glory to God The Efficacy of the Doctrine in the hearts of men above all other Doctrines in the world The Infallible accomplishment of the Predictions therein contained as they were fore-told the wonderful consent of all the parts thereof being written by so many diverse Pen-men so far distant from one another both in time and place which was never to be seen in any other Book in the World especially of divers mens Writing The manifold Miracles whereby God hath born Witness thereunto which Satan could never so much as Counterfeit The irreconcilable hatred of Satan and the World against it more than against all other Books in the World The firm stability thereof and the special hand of God which appears in the preserving and transmitting thereof from Age to Age notwithstanding all the Malice of Satan and the Devices of him and his wicked Instruments against it The miserable end of the greatest Persecutors and enemies thereof The Testimony of the many Martyrs Sealing their Witness thereunto with their Blood and the Testimony of the whole Church thereunto which have a piece of weight in their own Order The Scriptures cannot be from evil men or Angels seeing they shew their villany denounce their Doom which Galls them and prescribe a Method of living quite contrary to their Inclination Nor can good Angels or Men be their Author for upon the one hand they durst not have so usurped upon God as to feign his Authority and Commission to so many Laws Ordinances Threatnings and Promises of their own meer Invention and upon the other hand if they had done it they could not have been good Angels or Men Therefore the Scriptures must be from God himself These things put together which I have but named are sufficient to convince that the Scriptures are from God and of Divine Authority and are enough irresistibly to stop the Mouths of all Contradicters Notwithstanding for the full assurance and through persuasion of Faith that the Scriptures are from God and of Divine Inspiration the Spirit is requisite by his effectual Working in with and by the same upon our hearts and minds to Seal up their Divine Authority unto us And yet this makes nothing in the least for the Quakers who Teach to follow a Spirit abstracted and separated from the Scriptures For beside that we shall shew at the following Query that the Spirit speaking in the Scriptures most straitly Ties us to the Scriptures as our Supreme Rule in all matters of Faith It is also evident that it is in with and by the Word of God written in the Scriptures that the Spirit manifests himself unto and in our hearts both in the enlightning of our Minds and renewing of our Wills and Affections as these Scriptures following Witness Psal 19.7.8 Joh. 4.41 Joh. 14.26 Joh. 15.3 Joh. 17.20 Act. 17.11.12 Rom. 15.4 Ephes 6.17 Heb. 4.12 Isai 59.21 These and a Thousand places more that I might instance do manifestly convince that the written Word of God is an Organ and Instrument in the Spirits hand whereby he Enlightens Renews and Sanctifies us more and more himself also as a Physical Cause does immediately influencing the Effect seeing all Effects must depend immediately upon God if they include any real being But say the Quakers whether or not is all that is written from Genesis to Revelation a Rule for your Faith and Manners Ans No doubt we are bound to believe all Scripture Enunciation from the beginning to the end seeing all of it was given by Inspiration of God and written for our Learning 2 Tim. 3.16 2 Pet. 1.21 Luke 24.25 Act. 24.14 1 Cor. 10.11 There is no more doubt we are bound to obey all the Commands of the Moral Law seeing that is of a perpetual binding force Mat. 5.18.19 with whatsoever is of common equity Philip. 4.8 9. or whatever injoyning any piece
is plain seeing they would never have been commended for examining and trying his Doctrine by the Scriptures except the Scriptures were the Rule or for making that a Rule for examining and receiving of Doctrines of Faith which is no Rule of matters of Faith Nay for this they would have been deservedly discommended Fifthly The Scriptures are able to make us Wise unto Salvation 2 Tim. 3.15 Therefore they contain the Rule of Faith and Duty The Consequence is easie seeing without the Rule of these we cannot be wise unto Salvation but plainly ignorant of the way thereunto having no Rule to direct us Sixthly the whole Scriptures were given by Inspiration of God and they were written purposely for the Churches Instruction and Learning as is before shewed Therefore they must surely be the Rule of Faith and Duty for I am sure there is nothing wanting here that is requisite to the Constituting of them for a publick Rule or else let the Quakers if they can shew us what that is for I can not perceive it without the Spectacles of their Eagle-eyed Inspirer Seventhly That Doctrine must be the Rule of Faith and Manners which in all matters of Faith and Manners we ought to observe and take heed to as a Doctrine full of shining light for our instruction and direction but that is the Scriptures Therefore the Scriptures are the Rule of Faith and Manners The Major is clear nor do the Quakers deny it The Minor is laid down in 2 Pet. 1.19 20. where Peter after his rehearsing of the glorious Revelation on the Mount at the Transfiguration which was as glorious a Revelation as any else he addeth That they had a more sure Word of Prophecy whereunto they did well to take heed as unto a light shining c. knowing this first that no Prophecy of the Scripture is of any private Interpretation here it is clear that it is the Scriptures which he calls the more sure Word of Prophecy and prefers before all transient Revelations not as if the Scriptures were more certain in themselves Quoad se than Gods immediate voice from Heaven but because they are a more sure way in regard of us Quoad nos they being a Written yea Sealed and Sworn Evidence and Contract of the whole Bargain and Terms of Salvation and Life delivered into our custody to be perused by us upon all occasions and this gives more assurance in regard of our weakness than a passing Revelation and is more ready for our constant direction than a transient Revelation which we cannot always command nor retain often in our memory till we understand nor are all men able to bear them That on the Mount made the Disciples roave and mistake exceedingly Mark 9.6 The Quakers answer in their Confession of Faith or Principles of Truth page 135 136 140. That by the more sure Word of Prophecy the Apostle means the Light within us and so they deny our Minor But contrariwise the 20 Verse there where he cautions the interpreting of the Scripture-Prophecy clearly coheres with the 19 Verse as a caution subjoyned concerning the same thing which he had there called The more sure Word of Prophecy and so by the more sure Word of Prophecy must be meant the Scriptures because of the clear coherence Secondly I must demand of the Quakers to shew if they can How the Dictat or Light within is more sure than Gods immediate Voice from Heaven such as that was at the Transfiguration I have shewed how the Scriptures are called and are so in regard of us but I cannot understand how the Light within can be or be called so Thirdly The Testimony of other Scriptures produced and to be produced will not permit this violent Gloss Again They ordinarily answer to this Scripture That in it we are only appointed to take heed to the Scriptures until the day dawn and the day-Star arise into our hearts that is as they expound till the Holy Ghost be bestowed on us but no longer But contrariwise First by this answer they retract their former Gloss upon the Text and confess the more sure Word of Prophecy here to be meant of the Scriptures and not the Light within Secondly By this answer they overturn one of their own chiefest Principles viz. That all men ought to follow the Light within for now they yield That such as have not received the Holy Ghost and these are not few are exhorted here to follow the Scriptures and not the Light within them Thirdly Hereby they insinuate That the Scriptures in their Opinion serve for nothing to Renewed Men and Believers who are born of the Spirit and Sealed therewith Joh. 3.5 Rom. 8.9 Eph. 1.13 and so the Scriptures as they will are recommended only to Men unrenewed and so that blessing pronounced upon the Readers Hearers and Keepers of the things written in the Scriptures Revel 1.3 and 22.7 is designed and belongs only to unrenewed Men seeing the reading hearing and keeping of the things written therein whereunto the blessing is annexed belongs only to them as the Quakers will What Does not Paul Peter and John direct all their Epistles and the Book of the Revelation to the Churches the Saints and them that had obtained like precious Faith with them delivering them many Rules of Faith and Manners therein See their Inscriptions I pray and these will inform you better Eightly That must be the Rule of Faith by which we are commanded to try the Spirits 1 John 4.1 seeing we cannot try the Spirits or Doctrines without the Rule for that were to try them by guess But that whereby we are commanded to try the Spirits must certainly be the Scriptures seeing the Quakers do not as yet openly profess the Popish Lesbian Rule of Believing as the Church of Rome does and it cannot be the dictat or light within that we are to try them by seeing that is as fallible as their Light whose Doctrines I try and George Keith a Ring-leading Quaker confesses the possibility of their declining from Infallibility both in Speaking and Writing and consequently in Examining or Judging too in his Quakerism no Popery page 33. and beside the Dictat within hath no Divine Institution to be the Rule and if it were the Rule then the Dictat within every diverse Man would be the Rule to try the Dictat or Dectrine proceeding from the Dictat in another which would make the Dictat of every Man both Superior and Inferior to the Dictat of another Superior when it tries and examines and Inferior when it or its Doctrine is tried and examined which is repugnant Ninthly John shews us 1 John 4.6 That the true and sound imbracing of their Doctrine now written in the Scriptures is a manifest evidence of the Spirit of Truth and the rejecting of it a manifest evidence of the Spirit of Error and so their Doctrine written in the Scriptures must be the Rule of Faith and Manners For How shall it be an evidence
not Authority to feed the Flock and edifie the Body of Jesus from his own Word in the nearest method and have they not Authority to furnish and guard their People against damnable Delusions and Soul-ruining Errors in the most easie and successful manner they can If they have not Authority for and be not bound to do these things then they have not Authority for nor are they bound to do any thing Let all the Quakers in Britain answer but one mouthful of sence to it if Ministers whose Office must continue in the Church to the end of the World and till that day when all the Saints shall be compleatly perfected Matth. 28.19 20. Ephes 4.11 12 13. be not given to the Church for the very forementioned ends and if these be not the Incumbent Works of their Office But it 's vain to demand an answer which can never be found or sence from these who Impugning Grammar declare themselves Enemies to Sencespeaking And have not the Quakers also published a Confession of their black Faith Entituled The Principles of Truth viz. Per Antiphrasin for they should have said of Falshood Fiction Error Blasphemy and Calumnies printed in the year 1668. and we have also seen several of their sweet Catechisms But say the Quakers Is not the Doctrine of Christian Religion as good in the Scriptures as in any Confession or Catechism Ans Yes no doubt but what of that will that infer any thing against a Confession or Catechism in a Church whereby that good Doctrine of the Scriptures may be more speedily and distinctly learned I would rather think that the better the Doctrine of the Scriptures is the means contributing to our more ready and distinct learning thereof should be the more useful and warrantable So unfortunate are the Quakers that their own Weapons turns upon themselves Observe that this Objection of the Quakers if it could have proved any thing at all would have Militated as much against all Preaching as against a Confession or Catechism Hence though the Scriptures be a better Book than any Confession or Catechism in the World as formally Constituted by Ecclesiastical Authority yet a Confession or Catechism are not therefore unlawful or unwarrantable in a Church as I think is clear enough from what I have said But say the Quakers Whether or not have ye an Infallible Spirit to give forth such a Directory Confession and Catechism as ye have done Ans Hereby the Quakers refuse that any Man may direct according to the Scripture the External Circumstances of Gods Publick Worship or that any Man may Catechize or give an Account or Confession of his Faith which every Man in due Circumstances is bound to do Matth. 10.32 33. Rom. 10.9 10. 1. Pet. 3.15 but much more a Church partly for satisfaction to other Churches partly for distinguishing Orthodox Churches from Heretical Synagogues and partly for a short and clear publick Test of the Principles of her own Members except he be Infallible which any Man may see to tend to the banishing of all these Duties out of the World seeing there is no Man now adays Infallibly Inspired for such things But what great need I pray is there of Mens Infallibility in this Affair They are not to assure their Doctrine from their own Infallibility but from the Infallible Scripture shall not that be sufficient to assure it I cannot but think so To the Law and to the Testimony then instead of your Inspired Parts What should be answered to the last Article of their Query is manifest from what we have said already concerning a Directory and it 's needless to repeat Tenth QUERY Whether or not is your Sanctification your Justification and your Faith and Grace the gifts of these without sin as they are manifested within you Yea or Nay SVRVEY Here is an obscure Riddle a dark Aenigma which where to find the sence of is a little difficult but if it hath any sence they seem to Query Whether or not our Justification Sanctification c. be the gifts of our Directory Confession and Catechism whereof they were last speaking in the preceeding Query But what that term Without Sin stands for here is not easily Divined nor can it have any Errand or Connexion with the present Question and therefore I must throw it by as an insignificant and no less impertinent Cipher I answer therefore to their present Question That our Justification Sanctification c. are the Gifts of God only Rom. 8.32 33. Ephes 2.8 Jam. 1.17 and that the Question is void of sence seeing the bestowing of a gift is an action properly relative to an Intelligent Being for we do not receive gifts from Stocks Stonee or Brutes Notwithstanding this does not presently exclude the use of all ordinary means for their meaning in this Query is plain that our Justification Sanctification c. cannot be the gifts of God but must be the gifts of our Confession Catechism c. because forsooth we make use of these as ordinary means allowed of God for their proper ends above described For albeit our Corns be not the gifts of our Ploughs and Harrows nor the continuance of our Lives the gifts of our Food and Raiment but all these things are the gifts of God yet we may not lay aside all Ploughing and Harrowing and the Quakers I believe will not reject Food and Raiment Let them therefore either permit us the use of Confessions Directories and other inferior helps and means conducible in their own order or else by their own example persuade the world if they can never to Plough or Sow more never to Eat or Drink more This is enough for Answer to this Query which comes in but by way of Objection and Cavillation Eleventh QUERY Whether or not your Directory and Catechism and Confession of Faith be Gospel Yea or Nay and if so Whether it be not another Gospel than that which the Apostles Preached who said the Gospel was the Power of God Rom. 1.16 SVRVEY I have above at the Survey of the Ninth Query abundantly justified our Directory in the general as was there explained and proved that God hath given Warrant and Authority to Church-Guides and Judicatories for Making and Constituting these according to the general Precepts of Scripture for maintaining Order and Decency and promoting Edification in the Church and therefore I shall not here needlesly repeat any thing to that purpose Only I shall take notice that seeing the Quakers oppose these things they therefore declare that it is their mind that Church-Officers and Judicatories should not give Obedience to Gods Commands should slight Order and Decency and the Churches Edification There is the new-coined Directory of the Quakers let all Men judge if it be not an Instrument of the Devil But for Answer to their Query I say That there are several Rules in our Directory that materially considered are very Scripture-Rules particularly delivered therein as I shewed before at the Survey of the
67. R COnditional redemption refuted pag. 143. External Reverence by signs and gestures warrantable vid. Courtesie and Capping Lawful and how The Righteousness whereby we are justified not inward in us pag. 181. The imputed Righteousness of Christ not inward in us ibid. The Righteousness of our good works do not merit life to us p. 186. S THe Christian Sabbath of Divine Institution pag. 104. The Christian Sabbath by whom and by what reasons proved to be changed pag. 106. Jewish Sabbaths abolish'd infer nothing against our Christian Sabbath pag. 105. The Scriptures of Divine Inspiration pag. 18. The Scriptures not a dead Letter pag. 11. The Scriptures the Word of God explained and proved pag. 12. The Scriptures pure pag. 16. The Scriptures a complete rule of Faith and Manners proved pag. 18. The Scriptures not meer Saints words proved pag. 20. The Scriptures a more sure way quoad nos then any Revelation how immediate soever explained pag. 25. The Scriptures have but one sense and no more pag. 216. The Scriptures are not every where Figurative pag. 215. Original sin in all men proved pag. 132. Original sin not the Devil pag. 131. Original sin not our punishment or temptation only but our sin also pag. 133. Swearing in due Circumstances lawful necessary religious p. 204. God not the substance of any Creature proved pag. 213. The Lords Supper of Divine Institution pag. 95. The Gospel-Supper described ibid. The Gospel-Supper not from below pag. 102. The Gospel-Supper to continue to the end of the world pag. 99. T TRuth distinguished and explained pag. 217. Christ how said to be the Truth pag. 218. W THe great Whore not our Wisdom sitting upon our will vid. the great Beast c. The Unction 1 Joh. 2.20 how said to teach all things p. 43. The title of the Word of God bereft from the Scriptures enervates their Authority and use pag. 16. The engrafted Word Jam. 1.21 how and whereof understood pag. 45. Works the condition of the first Covenant or the differencing Character of Law-righteousness pag. 183. None of our good works meritorious of Salvation pag. 186. Salvation by works denied by Protestants and how pag. 174. Rewarding of good works infers not merit proved pag. 187. Worthiness of the Saints to walk with Christ c. in Scripture-sense does not infer the merit of their works ibid. Gods esteem of the Saints vertues of meekness c. infers not their merit pag. 188. A Believers ceasing from his own works Heb. 4.10 how meant pag. 194. QUAKERS DISARM'D OR A Short Survey of some Queries lately Emitted by the Quakers where in the first place follows their Inscription INSCRIPTION Some Queries as followeth from the people called Quakers for one or all of the Ministers in Scotland to answer SVRVEY IT is indeed a Beautifying Ornament for sumptuous Buildings to have comely Frontispieces but for an empty Shop to have a rich and splendid Sign it is but small glory This Fore-runner advances with such a shew of Courage and Resolution that one would conjecture each of his Followers to be Companion to Achilles but they resembling nothing less than that which they were pretended to be it cannot but Coargue both the Arrogance and weakness of the Authors What great reason was there to have Bravado'd all the Ministers in Scotland with these Impious Queries Pray let not him that putteth on his Armour boast as he that putteth it off Do the Quakers think that all the Ministers in Scotland yea or that any of them shall be so amuzed with these Queries or puzled to answer them Nay then tell it not in Gath publish it not in Askelon lest the Daughters of the uncircumcised triumph We hope there are few Ministers in Scotland so daunted or consternat with the presumptuous bravery and windy Bravadoes of the Insolent Quakers but that if the Eagle might catch Flies they durst without Seconds undertake the cause against all the Quakers in Britain But because the Quakers are distemper'd with an high Feverish Fit of Intoxicating Delusion therefore I shall pass by the Insolence of their supercilious and haughty Inscription and proceed to their Queries which I shall not only answer but according to the brevity of my Scope shall perspicuously overthrow and refel the Heretical Positions of the Adversaries upon the several Heads therein contained to the stopping of the mouth of the reproachful Gainsayer If the Quakers then desire to be Instructed Let them not be as the Horse or as the Mule which have no understanding Psal 32.8 9. First QUERY Whether or not Grammar or Logick and the many Tongues and Languages which began in Babylon is an Infallible Rule to make a Minister of Christ and whether or not Elisha the Ploughman Amos the Herdsman Peter and John the Fishermen who could hardly read a Letter with many others who were not bred up in these things Logick and Grammar and the many Languages if they could not be Ministers of Christ Jesus yea or nay SVRVEY Very well does the Scope of this Query agree with their forenamed Book Entituled The principles of Truth wherein pag. 56. and 125. they condemn all humane Learning But the Questionist here doth either through malice or ignorance pervert the whole state of the Question for who ever heard that the Church of Scotland which here he endeavours to Slander or any other Church made humane Arts and Sciences an Infallible rule to make a Minister of Christ Then they should never have required more of any man in order to his admission to that Office but his alone sufficient skill in Grammar and Logick which the Adversaries themselves know to be most false and therefore we must hold them for malicious Slanderers The Infallible rule is set down in the first Epistle to Timothy Chapter third and to Titus Chapter first and not in Despauter or Aristotle's School Nevertheless Logick and Grammar are ordinary means of Knowledge exceedingly requisite in a Minister whose lips should preserve Knowledge Malac. 2.7 and should be apt to Teach and able to convince the gainsayers 1 Tim. 3.2 Tit. 1.9 and the Quakers should have distinguished betwixt that which is requisite and useful for a Minister and that which is sufficient to make a Minister seeing a rational faculty is requisite and useful for a Minister for Beasts and irrational Creatures would be but bad Ministers me-thinks and yet a rational faculty is not sufficient to make a Minister But what just ground of Quarrel can any man have against Learning Is it not commended in Daniel Dan. 1.4.17 and in Moses Act. 7.22 may they not see the excellency of Christs Ministery held forth by a comparison with the Tongue of the Learned as an high commendation thereof Isai 50.4 and may they not see the loss and disadvantage of the want of it from Isai 29.12 14. 2 Pet. 3.16 But more particularly Grammar is an Art teaching how to Speak or Write a Language right so as it may be Sence and
of Religious worship under the New Testament doth belong to Christians of our Calling and condition The Quakers must here be content with these clear generals But as far the Ceremonial Law of the Jews that is indeed totally Abrogated as to its Obligation albeit yet the same be many ways useful for our Instruction but especially to convince us of our Natural uncleanness and by the exact Accomplishment of its manifold Types in Jesus of Nazareth to assure us that he is our Saviour and the True Messias together with their Judicial Law which in so far as it particularly respected that State is exspired therewith though in so far as it is of common right it still obliges all men as is easie to be understood Lastly the Quakers inquire whether every tittle from Genesis to the Revelation be the Word or the Words of God Ans It cannot be that this member of the Query is the same with the first already discussed or else they have foolishly proposed it twice to us But to be short they seem here to inquire if any new thing at all whether every enunciation and sentence of the Scripture be of Divine Inspiration and from God Whereunto I answer affirmatively for first the main substantial Texts of Scripture cannot be doubted because of the Notes and Arguments before given most part whereof are Intrinsical and do brightly shine in these with their inlightening Beams to full conviction Secondly for other Sentences of lesser importance if the Quakers will say that some ill Seed-sower hath Inserted them or any of them since the Writing of the Scriptures and so that they are not of Divine Inspiration but a corruption of the Scripture we shall first desire them to prove their affirmative and until then we shall confirm our assertion For seeing they were found in the same original Language inserted with the rest seeing they have still some Connexion with or Relation to the rest seeing the Scriptures were by the Providence of God kept pure in the time of the Old Testament as appears in that that Christ and his Apostles in all reproofs to the Scribes and Pharisees never Taxed them for such a thing nor at any time touches such a Question seeing even the Writings of men may continue pure through many Ages and if they be vitiated it can hardly escape discovery seeing the Scriptures as they now are were transmitted to us by the Church unto whom the Oracles of God were committed and against whom the Gates of Hell shall not prevail Rom. 3.2 1 Tim. 3.15 Mat. 16.18 and attested by her to be the true Word of God seeing the very end of Gods committing his Word unto writing is for our Learning and Instruction and that we might have hope and be Saved Joh. 20.31 Rom. 15.4 1 Cor. 10.11 seeing God cares for the feeding of Ravens clothing of Lilies and for our Food and Raiment how much more to use Christs own Argument in a matter of smaller moment Luke 12.28 will he care for the purity of his own Word which is of so weighty concernment to his Glory and his peoples Salvation These things with Gods special Providence over his Church duely considered do sufficiently secure our assertion especially seeing the Quakers cannot prove any corruption in the Scriptures which if they affirm they are obliged to do But the Quakers will may be say that there are several mistakes of men yea and lies written of in the Scriptures such as the lies of Rahab the Gibeonites Sarah c. I and there are several Blasphemies written of in the Scriptures too But what shall follow from hence That any enunciation of the Scripture doth Lie or Blaspheme Nay by no means seeing these Lies and Blasphemies are not Taught and Enunciat by the Scripture or Enunciations and Doctrines thereof but the Narration and History of them is the thing Enunciat and Taught by the Scripture for the Scriptures do not affirm what these persons said and affirmed but only they affirm that such persons said and affirmed so which is no Lie nor Blasphemy as is clear These Lies therefore are not Scripture Enunciations but are only meer complex Predicats thereof which the Scripture Attributes to their Authors that said them as the subjects of its Enunciations in all such Cases Some Quakers are upon this Head so grosly Athiestical as to say that the Scriptures are but the Saints words and Testimony from their own particular Experiences unto which horrid Atheism their forementioned Confession of Faith called The Principles of Truth me-thinks in Derision and Scorn doth also positively subscribe pag. 100 101 102 103 127. But this impudent assertion of the Quakers cannot stand For first these foresaid Notes and Arguments that we above named do convince the Scriptures to be of Divine Inspiration and Authority and not the meer bare word of any Creature Secondly this Assertion of the Quakers involves a violent contradiction for the Pen-men of the Scriptures deliver their Doctrine in the Name and Authority of the Lord asserting it to be his Word his Will his Command whereof the Scriptures are every where so full that we need not stand to instance If then it was but their own meer Word and Testimony these Pen-men of the Scripture are so far from being Saints that of all men in the world they must have been the greatest Cheats and Archest Impostors and Villains seeing they have delivered us so many meer humane Precepts and Principles for the Rule of our Faith and Duty towards God and man promising Eternal Life and Glory to the Obedient and threatning Hell and Damnation to the Disobedient a terrible Presumption for them to do by their own meer Authority and that for Obedience or Disobedience to their meer Commands and beside have wickedly Fathered all this upon God To be Saints and yet live and die such Impostors and Villains is Incurably repugnant Thirdly except the Quakers shall proceed further in their Distraction and Atheism and Assert the Scriptures to be a Book of Falshoods Fictions and Lies they must acknowledge the Scriptures to be somewhat more than the meer bare Word and Testimony of any Saint seeing the Old Testament almost every where Asserts it self to be the Sayings of God and in the New Testament the Doctrine and Miracles declared in the four Evangels is expresly therein ascribed unto Christ who is God aswel as Man The Apostles also often Assert the Divine Authority of their Doctrine Except then they will conclude these Scriptures to be all meer Fictions and Lies they must yield the Scriptures to be the Word of the Living God either immediately declared by himself or mediately by his Servants by him unerringly directed Fourthly the Scriptures are full of Precepts Prohibitions Promises and Threatnings But the Relation or Narration of an experience is none of all these Ergo the Scriptures are not universally at least a Narration of Saints experiences Lastly there is much Doctrine Taught in the Scriptures that
could never be acquired by Experience such as the Doctrine of Predestination of the Hypostatical union of God and man in one Person of Justification by the Righteousness of Christ of the general Judgment of the three persons in the Godhead And what think the Quakers of the Prophetical part of Scripture Infallibly foretelling things at a great distance to come Are these Narrations of Saints Experiences Or was the knowledge of them got by Experience O learned Divines Hence we may see that at least some of the Quakers prefer themselves and their Doctrine to the Prophets and Apostles and their Doctrine which is say they but the Saints Words and Testimony from their own particular Experiences but the Quakers Doctrine must be Divinely Inspired forsooth Fourth QUERY Whether or not the Scriptures were the Rule of Enochs Faith Noahs Faith and Holy men in the Old World and Second World Whether or not they were a Rule to Abrahams Faith Isaac and Jacobs Faith and Moses 's Faith and all the Patriarchs And whether or not they had Scriptures till Moses did Write them Answer these things by plain Scripture SVRVEY This Query comprehends the great controversie with the Quakers concerning the Rule of Faith and Manners and therefore because my Survey will be large I shall divide it into three Sections In the first I shall prove the Scriptures to be the Rule of Faith and Manners In the Second I shall confute an exception or distinction which some of the more subtil of our adversaries offer to our Arguments In the third I shall answer their Objections SECT I. Proving the Scriptures to be the Infallible Rule The thing that the Quakers drive at in this Query is that because Enoch Noah and others in the Primitive world had not a written Word of God for the Rule of their Faith That therefore neither should the Written Word of God be the Rule of our Faith This beside that it is their known Principles as Witnesseth their foresaid Confession of Faith called The Principles of Truth wherein they most frequently cry up the Light within every man as his only Rule and decry the Scriptures and all external Ordinances to their utmost Breath as may be seen pag. 5 78 79 80 92 102 103 124 133 136 140 Is either the Scope of this their present Query or else it hath no Scope at all and so it must be the fruit of some Distraction they having thereby intended nothing Well then the Quakers must either acknowledge Scripture-Testimony for Truth as I hope they will seeing they here require us to answer by Scripture and then we shall soon see an end of the Question from the Scripture or else they must deny Scripture-Testimony to be true and shall proclaim God a Lyar whose Testimony the Scriptures are and by whose Inspiration they were given as is proved in the former Queries Survey which is the height of Blasphemy These things premised I Assert against the Quakers that the Scriptures are the Infallible Rule of our Faith and Manners That the Scriptures are Infallible is sufficiently proved at the Survey of their former Query where we proved them to be of Divine Inspiration and the Word of the Living God and not of any meer Creature and so they cannot deceive so that for their Infallibility we need say no more That therefore the Scriptures are the Rule of Faith and Manners I prove For first That must be the Rule of Faith and Manners by which every matter of Faith and Manners ought to be examin'd seeing every thing that is examined must be examined by its Rule or else it will be done by Guess and Rule of Thumb as the Jest is But every matter of Faith and Manners ought to be examined by the Scriptures Ergo the Scriptures are the Rule of Faith and Manners The Major is proved already I prove the Minor from Isai 8.20 Where we are expresly Commanded to go to the Law and the Testimony with every matter of Faith and Manners and it is positively declared that if it be not according to these there is no Light in it which is a sufficient Prohibition to receive it And the Law and Testimony are the Scriptures Exod. 32.15 and 34.29 Deut. 31.24 26. 2 King 22.8 Neh. 8.1 3 8. Psal 78.5 Secondly Christ says to the Sadducees upon a great Article of Faith that ignorance of the Scriptures caused them to err therein Ergo the Scriptures are the Rule of Faith The Antecedent is Taught by Christ himself Mat. 22.29 Mark 12.24 Ye err saith he not knowing the Scriptures and because ye know not the Scriptures I prove the Consequence because if the ignorance of any other Doctrine except the Rule of Faith should cause a man to err upon an Article of Faith then though a man did perfectly know the Rule of Faith yet he might err in the Faith through ignorance But the Consequent inferred is repugnant for then he knows all the Articles of his Faith and yet he believes wrong through ignorance that is because he knows not what to believe Therefore the Antecedent from which it is inferred is also repugnant Thirdly Christ sends all men to the Scriptures for the Rule of Faith and Duty Ergo the Scriptures are certainly the Rule of both The consequence is Infallible seeing Christ did not mistake himself The Antecedent is clear from Luke 16.28 29 30 31. Where while Christ is delivering his Doctrine for all men in the parable of the Rich Glutton he sends all men to the Scriptures for their Direction and Rule in the intire business of Repentance and Salvation and that they may not be Eternally Damned and so he shews we must stand to them upon pain of Damnation and delcares that if they listen not to the Scriptures there is no more hope of them and he 'l give them no other Rule to Guide and Direct them They have Moses and the Prophets says he that is the Scriptures written by them let them hear them and if they will not hear them one arisen from the Dead which he refuses to grant them will not get them perswaded There is a bundle of Arguments in one Text proving the Scriptures to be our Rule Fourthly the Jews at Berea are highly commended for examining by the Scripture the Doctrine of Grace Preached to them even by a Paul Act. 17.11 12. that they might know if the things which he Taught were so as the Text says for albeit Paul was an infallibly-inspired Apostle yet seeing they knew not that and he being but newly arrived unto them they had no proof of his Doctrine and there being great danger from abounding false Teachers they are therefore highly commended for putting his Doctrine to the Test and Tryal of the Fore-constitute Scriptures wherewith every Doctrine of Religion was in substance and matter to consent and agree and they otherwise not to receive it Isai 8.20 Therefore the Scriptures are the undoubted Rule of Faith and Duty The Consequence
of the Spirit of Truth to imbrace a Doctrine that is not the Rule this is liker to be an evidence of the contrary Or How shall it be an evidence of the Spirit of Error to reject such Doctrine this also is rather an evidence of the contrary providing the Rule be retained Lastly God denounces all the plagues mentioned in the Scriptures quake that dreads then against every Man that shall presume to add in matters of Faith and Duty for of these its meant to the Doctrine and Rules written in the Scriptures Therefore the Scriptures do certainly contain the Rule and whole Rule of Faith and Manners The antecedent is laid down Rev. 22.18 where it is peremptorily said That if any Man shall add unto these things that are written in the Scriptures for there is the like reason and no other or more reason against adding to this Book of the Revelation and the rest of the holy Scriptures after the Canon is compleated and this Sanction is added here in the close of this Book as the close of the whole Scriptures God shall add to him all the plagues written in the Book The consequence is also evident For if not the Scriptures but some other Doctrine were the Rule then we not only might add to the Scriptures in matters of Faith and Duty but we ought of necessity to set up that other Doctrine as the Rule and Directory of both which is much worse methinks than any partial adding and so we could not be liable to such a doom for a partial adding And hence by a few arguments of many that may be produced we see that the Scriptures are the infallible Rule of our Faith and Manners that sure Word of Prophecy whereunto we ought to take heed and if an Angel from Heaven shall preach another Gospel to us than that which Christ and the Apostles did let him be accursed Every new Dispensation of the Covenant by the Ministery of Men though it were but only new in the manner was confirmed by Miracles and Wonders Exod. 4.28.30 Deut. 34.11 12. 2 Cor. 12.12 Heb. 2.4 much more need hath the Quakers Doctrine of such confirmations being new not only in the manner but also in the matter contrary to the Doctrine formerly dictated by the Holy Ghost and left upon Record unto us nor heard we ever of so great a company of Inspired Teachers as all the Doctors of the Quakers pretend to be and never one Miracle or Wonder to be had amongst them all excepting only their extream Infatuation and Brain-sickness or that they still retain the proportion and features of Human bodies having quite enervated their rational essence SECT II. Proving the Scriptures to be the principal Rule and overthrowing the Light within George Keith an Arch Quaker and a Man too learned as he imploys it doth here distinguish our Arguments yielding us That the Scriptures are the most compleat external Rule of Faith that is in the World but That they are not for all that the Principal Rule of Faith but only a Secundary Rule thereof and that the Spirit or his Dictat within is the Principal Rule in his Quakerism no Popery pages 9.13 25 59 108 109 110 111. and like Proteus turning himself into all shaces 〈…〉 â—mes designs Christ himself oftner the Spirit 〈…〉 he 〈…〉 of the Spirit within to be 〈…〉 oftnest the dictat◠〈…〉 But I am sure if George Keith be in earnest while he would have Christ himself or the Spirit himself to be our Rule he is beside himself For a Person cannot be a Rule of Faith for that must be some complex Proposition Direction or Precept and the like but Christ and the Spirit are Persons and so they cannot be a Rule of Faith The Major is already proved nor will the Quakers deny it But George Keith as many of his Brethren to my hearing doth flatly refuse the Minor as an uncertain unscriptural notion and a barbarous heathenish term to speak of a Person in the Godhead in his Quakerism no Popery page 97.104 and so according to him there are no Persons at all in the Godhead ah Blasphemy for if there be I am sure we may say there are and if Men believe that there are Three Persons in the Godhead they will not refuse to say the same The Quakers then do reject both the thing and notion and believe not there are Three Persons in the Godhead And therefore that there are I shall shortly prove First The Father Son and Holy Ghost are each of them an Intelligent Being subsisting incommunicably or distinctly from another Ergo each of them is a Person The consequence being from the Definition to the thing defined cannot be denied without a broad contradiction for if they grant the Antecedent that is the thing which all the World understands by a Person The Antecedent I prove for that each of them is an Intelligent Being Subsisting the Quakers dare not deny and their great Works declare it and that they subsist Incommunicably or distinctly from one another though in the same Godhead I prove because one and the same Subsistence cannot beget it Self or be begotten by it Self nor proceed from it Self as is palpable but the Father begets the Son the Son is begotten by him and the Holy Ghost proceeds from both and so they must be distinct Subsistences or subsist distinctly Secondly There are Three that bear Record in Heaven the Father Son and the Holy Ghost 1 John 5.7 Ergo they must either be Three Persons or Three Gods which is the beight of impossibility or let the Quakers shew how they will call them Three for though they also be one viz. one God yet the same Text cited says they are Three too I could never get any other answer to this from a Quaker but That they are three Manifestations viz. of Moses of Christ and of the Spicit But if these were the Father Son and Holy Ghost the World is much elder than they and then Who made it Thirdly While Christ proves Himself the Light of the World against the Jews who denied it He says John 8.17 18. It is also written in your Law That the Testimony of two Men is true I am one that bears Witness of my Self and the Father that sent Me beareth Witness of Me. Now Christ and the Father could not have been two Witnesses according to their Law except they be two distinct Persons for their Law admitted the Testimony of two Men proof enough because it was the Testimony of two Persons and otherwise the Testimony had not been admitted as proof enough Christ then clearly teaches Himself and the Father to be two Persons while he asserts that their Witnessing was proof enough according to their Laws demand Lastly Christ is said to be the express Image in the Original Language Character of the Fathers Person Heb. 1.3 Therefore the Father is a Person and Christ also and distinct Persons for the Father is plainly called so and
knowledge of these Truths amongst men of such Capacity though they should never so much Peruse the Scriptures than amongst Americans that never heard of them and in vain should such men be appointed to take heed to the Scriptures Isai 8.20 Luk. 16.29 Joh. 5.39 2 Pet. 1.19 if the Scriptures were every where so difficult and obscure that they could no ways understand them Thirdly I must premise that for Gods Holy and Wise ends for a view whereof see Mr. Durhams excellent Key presixed to his Exposition of the Song of Solomon pages 32 33 34. the Style of the Scriptures are in many other places so difficult and dark I mean in respect of our understanding that until they be Interpreted by men called of God though mediately and furnisht with Gifts for that end their particular meaning cannot be reached by men of no mean understanding yea even those of the greatest gift do not without much diligence joyned with great capacity nor yet fully as to all particulars understand them as is evident by the Song of Solomon and the many Mystical Prophecies contained in the Books of Ezekiel Daniel Zechariah Revelation c. And yet these same obscure places if they be skilfully Interpreted according to the Analogy of Faith in general and by comparison with other parallel places of Scripture more perspicuous and plain or by the scope connexion dependance and circumstances of the place it self will without difficulty be understood and the sence delivered from the foresaid grounds understood to be the true meaning of the Text by Men of very ordinary Judgment for many can discern the truth of an Exposition when the clear grounds thereof are represented distinctly before their eyes who cannot by themselves search out the methods to find these grounds and apply them thereunto as is both clear in all experience and also the one work in reason is much easier than the other Yea the Doctrine and grounds of a Scripture-Text not a little perspicuous being skilfully compared which a well gifted Interpreter and whose daily work it is is much more able to do than Men of ordinary reach common Endowments and other Imploys with the Doctrine and grounds delivered in other parallel places of Scripture in any measure clear though none of the clearest they do by their consociated beams and united rays more powerfully shine and more copiously send forth their light than any one of them apart could ever have done even as a number of bright shining Stars being placed into one Constellation do more powerfully shine than any one of them apart could have done Lastly I shall add that the whole Scriptures were written for our Learning and are useful for Edification as appears from Rom. 15.4 2 Tim. 3.16 These things premised I Assert against the Quakers who both here and many a time to my face have denied it That Scripture-Interpretation is necessary in the Church for Peoples understanding or better understanding of the Scriptures and Edification or further Edification by them and I prove it because If there be many Scriptures profitable for Edification and written for the Churches Learning which at least a great part yea the far most part of the Church cannot without Interpretation particularly understand or so fully understand and so be edified or so far edified by them and with the help of Interpretation may in some measure particularly understand or more fully understand and so receive edification or a further edification by them then Scripture Interpretation is needful in the Church that such People may understand or further understand these Scriptures and so be edified or further edified by them as is most evident But the former is true by our premised Discourse preceeding therefore the latter also must be true Secondly The Levites Expounded the Scriptures to the People Nehem. 8.7 8. Philip Expounded them to the Eunuch Act. 8.30 31 34 35. Christ Expounded his Parables which are now a part of the Scriptures to his Disciples Mark 4.34 He Expounded the Scriptures to the two Disciples Luk. 24.27 and albeit this was Christ Expounding them as the Quakers impertinently use to reply unto our Argument yet his expounding of them shews that Scripture-Interpretation is useful and necessary in the Church otherwise his Expounding had been a needless and idle work which is a piece of Blasphemy Matth. 12.36 Therefore Scripture-Interpretation is needful in the Church otherwise the Expounding thereof by the foresaid Persons had been a meer needless and idle work and the need thereof is yet further evident seeing it is plainly shewed Neh. 8.8 that Exposition is a mean for peoples understanding the Scriptures Nor did Christs own Disciples frequently understand his Parables until he Expounded them Matth. 13.36 Luk. 8.9 nor did the Eunuch understand what he read Act. 8.30 31. until it was Expounded to him Thirdly Peter affirms 2 Pet. 3.16 That there are some things in Pauls Epistles which are Scripture hard to be understood which the unlearned and unstable wrest together with several other Scriptures to their own destruction Therefore there is need of Scripture-Interpretation in the Church seeing Scriptures hard to be understood do need explaining that they may be understood and People instructed and edified by them for which purpose they were written and it 's needful to prevent as much as can be the mistaking and wresting of them and Peoples falling into Soul-destroying Errors thereby though all this happens through Mens ignorance and wavering humor as the Text says and is not the Scriptures fault Nor can it be answered as some do That by some things here Peter does not mean some of the Doctrine taught by Paul but some of the Extrinsecal Objects represented thereby seeing the things hard to be understood here mentioned are such as are liable to wresting which therefore must be understood of the Doctrine it self seeing that may be wrested but the Extrinsecal Objects cannot for wresting is a changing of the Sence which belongs to Discourse and Sayings Again where Peter says That the unlearned wrest these things hard to be understood as also they do the other Scriptures he plainly intimates that these things hard to be understood are themselves Scriptures too otherwise the Sence runs very ill I think viz. the unlearned wrest some of the External Objects of Pauls Doctrine as also they do the other Scriptures Fourthly I must enquire of the Quakers if in their Principles Men of mean capacities understand the Scriptures every where as for example all that is written in the Canticles Ezechiel Daniel Zechariah Revelation c. which yet was written and is useful for our Learning and Instruction if they say Yea I shall need no more to bring their Principles in discredit with all Men seeing the whole Christian World knoweth the contrary If they say Nay then there is need of Scripture-Interpretation in the Church for explaining such Scriptures by the foresaid means that People may understand them and be edified by them which is
that we plead for Lastly It is too clear in experiencce that Men of corrupt minds through addictedness to their own fore-conceived private Opinions or through ignorance which by docility and diligence might have been prevented or removed or through malice against the Truth or for advancing some Carnal design c. do frequently by false Glosses and wrested Sences and none busier than Quakers by violence indeavouring to make them speak the language of their Interest abuse and cast a mist upon very clear Scriptures in order to Peoples understanding especially of meaner capacities Therefore it is in this case necessary by the Context the Analogy of Faith and comparison with other Scriptures c. That these Scriptures be vindicated from such false Glosses and their Genuine and true Sence demonstated and cleared The Antecedent needs no more proving for alas it is too manifest in experience that every Erronious Teacher violently wrests and perverts the Sence of the Scriptures as much as he can in favour of his Heretical Doctrine and thereby leads many into damnable Delusions The Consequence is also manifest seeing when the Scriptures are abused and wrested it is necessary for the preservation of their true meaning and so of the truth in the Church and for preventing of black Soul-damning Errors and the manifest ruine of poor Souls to say nothing of the Glory of God which all Men are bound to defend according to their place and means that they be vindicated and their true sence and meaning demonstrated and cleared and this work is especially called for from such as labour in the Word and Doctrine who must be able to convince the Gain-sayers of the Truth and stop their Mouths Tit. 1.9 11. Secondly I Assert against the Quakers who we see from their Query deny it That the true Genuine and sound Interpretation of the Scriptures is an Ordinance of Divine appointment reaching even to the end of the World I prove it First To teach People the Mind and Will of God from the Scriptures is an Ordinance of Divine Institution reaching to the end of the World But to Interpret the Scriptures truly is to teach People the Mind and Will of God from the Scriptures Therefore to Interpret the Scriptures truly is an Ordinance of Divine Institution reaching to the end of the World I easily prove the Major because that God hath appointed Teachers and teaching in his Church and that unto the end of the World till that day when all the Saints shall come to a state of compleat Perfection is clear from Matth. 28.19 20. Ephes 4.11 12 13. and that it is the Mind and Will of God they are appointed to teach I am sure no man can deny and that it is from the Scriptures they ought to teach Gods Mind and Will is most evident seeing these are the Rule of our Faith and Manners and the Word of God as is proved before wherein Gods Mind and Will concerning our Faith and Manners is revealed And the immediate Inspiring of the Doctrine of Salvation is long since ceased in the Church as all the other extraordinary Gifts and George Keith himself may both speak and write in a mixture The Minor of the Argument is also manifest seeing to bring forth shew clear and demonstrate the Genuine and true meaning of the Scriptures or of the Spirit speaking therein is to teach the Mind and Will of God from the Scriptures or else we are not 〈…〉 the wiser concerning the Mind and Will of God in the Scriptures by knowing the true meaning thereof which is ◠flat contradiction But to Interpret the Scriptures truly is to bring forth shew clear and demonstrate the Genuine and true meaning thereof or of the Spirit speaking therein or else a true Interpretation does not make known the true meaning which again is a contradiction Therefore to Interpret the Scripture truly is to teach the Mind and Will of God from the Scriptures Secondly The Levites Expounded the Scriptures to the People Nehem. 8.7 8. and their doing thereof is Recorded there as highly commendable Therefore Scripture-Interpreting had certainly a Divine Institution at that time The Antecedent is clear in the place cited I prove the Consequence because if it had not been at that time of Divine Institution that practice and deed of these ordinary Officers of that Church would not have been commendable but most blameable as an Innovating an◠up-setting of a publick Office and Ordinance in Gods House of their own meer Invention and wanting a Divine Institutio◠to warrant it See Levit. 10.1 2. Deut. 5.32 Jerem. 19.5 6. I hope the Quakers will not say that that Practice and Dee◠of these Officers was extraordinary and done by a particula◠command relating only to that one single action of these Officers or only to these Individual Officers For first there is no ground can be given of such an Assertion and so it is altogether groundless Secondly if these had any particular Command let it be shewed Thirdly these were but ordinary Officers and there is no footstep of their acting extraordinarily in any thing can be be shewed Lastly I have shewed before that Scripture-Interpretation is ordinarily needful in the Church for her Instruction and Edification and so that practice of these Levites could not be of such an extraordinary nature as is pretended seeing practices of that nature are not wont to be ordinarily needful Having proved that Scripture-Interpreting had a Divine Institution under the Old Testament the Quakers must either yield it to be an Institution still as yet in force which we plead for or else they must say that Scripture-Interpreting was an Ordinance meerly Jewish and Ceremonial all which kind of Religious Ordinances are indeed abrogated But it 's most false that Scripture-Interpreting was a Jewish Ceremony for there can no ground be given for this and so it must be reckoned a groundless Fable Secondly Scripture-Interpretation is as yet needful in the Church we see but Jewish Ceremonies are not so as all know Thirdly The Apostles still continued and constantly retained Scripture-Interpretation in the New-Testament Church even while they were bending their Doctrine against the continuance and retaining of Jewish Ceremonies for an instance whereof see Pauls Epistles to the Romans Galatians and Hebrews where much of his work is the citing and explaining several Scripture-Texts of the Old-Testament But sure it is the Apostles did not still continue and constantly retain Jewish Ceremonies in the New Testament Church and even while they were bending their Doctrine against the doing thereof by others for though the Apostles might sometimes condescend to the practice of a smaller Ceremony for the weaks sake yet this was not a constant retaining of them but only done upon some occasional emergencies Therefore surely Scripture-Interpreting cannot be a Jewish Ceremony Thirdly If Scripture-Interpreting be not an Ordinance of Divine Institution and that to continue under the New Testament to the Worlds end Then though all
the black Hereticks that ever were in the World should at once arise from the dead and alass there are too many of them still alive in their Successors and should in favour of their accursed Delusions most grosly abuse and wrest the holy Scriptures as all Hereticks do and pervert invert and deprave the meaning thereof and so of God speaking therein Yet no man even the most eminently gifted Ministers of Christ were bound by vertue of any standing Appointment or Law of God otherwise Scripture-Interpreting will clearly have a standing Divine Institution to step out and by the grounds of Context the Analogy of Faith or comparison with other Scriptures more clear c. to refute these false wrested meanings vindicate the Texts abused and clear and demonstrate their Genuine and true meaning But that is most false absurd and impious For then the most eminently gifted and able Ministers of Christ whose special Office is to labour in the Word and Doctrine and are bound to their utmost or else to nothing at all to preserve and promote the purity of the meaning of the Scriptures among the people and to convince and stop the mouths of the Gainsayers thereof Tit. 1.9 11. might lawfully without the breach of any standing Divine Appointment or Law stand and look on and see the Scriptures abused perverted and depraved in their meaning and instead of their true meaning horrible falshoods fictions and blasphemies fathered upon them and so on God whose Word they are to the highest dishonour of God imaginable the treading under foot of the precious Truth the over-flowing of the Christian World with Soul-damning Errors and the manifest ruining of poor Souls without indeavouring to prevent remedy or hinder the same by the exercise of a talent that God hath given them If that be not absurd false and impious nothing can be such Nay it involves a contradiction to say that Ministers who are required to convince the Gainsayers of the Truth and so of the true meaning of the Scriptures and to stop their mouths might lawfully suffer these things to be done and not oppose themselves for the defence of Gods truth according to their abilities and occasions The Quakers being beaten from their former standing and being loth to allow us the benefit of Scripture-Interpretation as thereby fore-seeing the danger of their Heretical Interest do betake themselves to another shift and alledge that however necessary or Divinely appointed Scripture-Interpretation may be yet Men that are Fallible may not Interpret the Scriptures Therefore it will be necessary for us to prove the contrary which before we do that the state of the Question may be cleared I grant that these whose Explications formally as such and as raught by them are Authentical and Faith-worthy must of necessity be Infallible or immediately Inspired The Quakers must seek after such Explications as these in the Canonical Writings of the Prophets and Apostles For it is not so with the ordinary Ministers of the Church whose Explications are not formally as such and as taught by them Authentical and Faith-worthy nor is it lawful for any Man so to receive them but allanerly upon the accompt of their agreement with and demonstration from the Scriptures whose Infallible Testimony is sufficient to warrant and assure the meaning delivered Secondly I grant that in the matter of Scripture-Interpretation the Supream and Magisterial Authority from which there is no appeal but it ought to be simply stood to resideth in the Scriptures themselves or in the Spirit their Author speaking therein seeing their Verdict and Sentence in places speaking to the purpose more clearly and such means as reside in them are the alone Rule and Directory of our Interpretations thereof in places more dark and obscure as appears from many things aforesaid The Authority therefore which our Ministers have for Interpreting Scripture is only a Ministerial Authority for Interpreting the Scriptures by their own Verdict and Sentence as the Rule and Judge of their Interpretations whereunto they are Subjected and by whose determination they stand or fall as true Interpretations or forged wrestings seeing the Scriptures are the Rule of Faith by which we are to try and judge Mens Doctrines in matters of Faith having premised these things for clearing our mind and preventing mistakes I Assert that Men who are not endued with an Infallible gift and so are not Infallible but Fallible may Interpret the Scriptures And I prove it For first These Levites that expounded the Scriptures Neh. 8.8 were not Infallible in their Gift seeing there is no proof or evidence thereof possible to be produced nor had they any other extraordinary thing accompanying them in their Birth Call Doctrine or Works or else let it be shewed nor was it any Priviledge of the Ordinary Officers of that Church to be Infallible and yet their Practice thereof is there Recorded to their high Commendation and as Edifying to the People Therefore Teachers that are not Infallible may Interpret Scripture Or else their practice thereof should have been condemned as unlawful instead of being commended Secondly A Fallible Teacher may have a far greater and more distinct knowledge of the meaning of the Scriptures than many other Men also Fallible seeing it is his special Office to labour in the Word and Doctrine and if he does his Duty he is much more in searching of the Scriptures than Men of other particular Callings and hath many more helps and means for it than the commoner sort of Christians and bulk of the People neither have all Men an equal knowledge in any thing Therefore a Fallible Teacher may Interpret the Scriptures The consequence is easie seeing whatever measure of Scripture-meaning such a Man discerneth beyond others he may I hope seasonably make it known to them for their Instruction and Edification May he not Nay I do not see so well how he may not Thirdly if all that Interpret the Scriptures must necessarily upon that accompt be Infallible then no man now adays may presume to Interpret them seeing there is no man now adays Infallible as is before often shewed But that is most false seeing it is now proved that Scripture-Interpretation is an Ordinance of Divine Institution reaching to the end of the world and so it binds and obliges all according to their ability and the Churches exigency whose Office it is to labour in the Word and Doctrine and from the Word to Teach people the mind and Will of God even to the end of the world albeit they be not Infallible but fallible Nor heard I ever of a Divine Institution reaching to the end of the world and yet obliging no body and if this oblige any man it cannot miss the Teachers Lastly seeing the Quakers affirm that Scripture-Interpreting doth necessarily require an Infallible Gift we must require them to exhibit the grounds of their affirmation or else it will be readily thought that they affirm so without any ground and so it must be
he may be on the Street in a cold Frost and Snow Such a fire would burn all by the way I fear Would it not be a long Dagger that wounding or killing him at London would also reach him at Jerusalem and wound or kill him there too And yet it would be a strong Contradiction to be otherwise It would be strange if he lost his eyes at London where no body is troubling him because some body hath pluckt them out at Jerusalem and yet it behooved to be so or else he should be blind and yet not blind both at once and behooved also to have before more eyes then two seeing he hath lost two as is supposed and yet he sees Would it not be very strange if the man being a hanging at Jerusalem should by some secret and blind Influence of the Hang-man there be also forced to the Gibbet at London where no man is offering him any Violence nay albeit all in the City were by force endeavouring his rescue for hang and die he must in the one place as well as in the other or else he shall be hang'd and yet not hang'd dead and yet not dead both at once So also if the same Individual man could be in many diverse and distant places at once let him be in London York and New-Castle all at once let him remain still at York some days at London let him take journey upon some occasion to York from New-Castle also let him take journey to Edinburgh Now this man is both drawing nearer and removing further from himself at York and that in respect of local nearness and he is both moving and not moving in respect of local motion all at once and he is also both distant and yet not distant from York at once seeing by the way in his journey to York and Edinburgh he behooved to be distant there-from and not present therein and yet this is in one and the same respect viz. of local distance Let not the Jesuits then tell us of diverse respects here Are not these a number of brave Contradictions Nursed in the bosom of the Quakers exception Vindicating them as they hope from a Popish Justification nay by this addition of Contradictions they have made their Justification much worse in place of bettering it and have laid the way also fairly for the Popish transubstantiation seeing their exception here includes the very Grounds wherewith the Papists endeavour but without success to support that Seventeenth QUERY Whether or not the Scriptures do not say that he that believes hathceased from his own works as God did from his and entred into his rest and whether or not your directory and Church-maid Faith and Catechisms and Confessions be not your own works and ye follow them and worship them and not cease from them And whether or not in so doing ye keep people and your selves in your own works and from the rest or we desire you shew us what difference their is betwixt Spiritual Babylon and Sodom and Egypts works of their hands and Temporal Babylon and Sodom and Egypts works of their hands and their worship Of each distinguish I desire you Distinguish the mystery from a plain outward Idol SVRVEY The Quakers are still in the same tune here the scope of their query is mostly to throw calumnies upon the Church of God in Britain and to persuade the World if they could to believe that she did set up her Directory Confession and Catechism as an outward Idol for people to worship O impudent slanderers men of seared Consciences whom did ever our Church bid worship these or who ever did it in our Church But this is no new thing with the Quakers who it seems have Monopolized the whole trade of accusing the Brethren and outed the Devil of a great part of his Imployment For they never almost open their mouth without either Blaspheming God and his truth or slandering of men They are certainly extreamly galled at the heart with our Confession Catechism c. For though these had been the intire Subject of three of their queries and a part of a Fourth before yet here they cannot forget them and if truth will not take their part against them they 'l out brave the Devil in lying Flectere si nequeant superos acheronta movebunt In the next place the Ground whereby the Quakers Condemn here our Confession Catechism c. is because they are our own works But by our own works the Quakers either mean of evil works or of good works if of evil works they should have proved them to be evil before they had condemned them which I defie them and their inspirer both to do But why do they enveigh here against our Faith also they have long since rejected Faith as it s taken Correlatively and as related to its object which it apprehends and relies upon And do they now Condemn it absolutely as it is a quality and a work nay then I am sure they have neither Faith nor Truth Or is it only our Faith in the Concret and in Hypothesi which they Condemn here they should have given some grounds for that then or else their Sentence is unjust If the Quakers by our own works mean of good works then they Condemn our good works What then would they have us to do viz. evil or nothing if evil the advice is evil if nothing then they would have a Christian to be a meer dead Corps or a Lots wife Metamorphosed into a pillar of Salt never imployed in doing any thing but continuing as a sensles Trunk to be a prodigie on Earth and a mocking-stock to Heaven Is this the Quakers vaunted of perfection consisting in the omission of all manner of works and doing nothing This would agree better to a dog after he is dead then to Christians alive who if they do not something and that good neglect a duty whereunto they are obliged The Scripture which they here hint at from Heb. 4 10. does not Condemn our good works which are every where in Scripture exhorted to and Commanded The Apostle therefore means there only of our works proceeding from our Corrupt Nature which works are evil from which he asserts that every believer hath ceased viz. Inchoatively as the Apostle in the very place Intimats while he calls it an entering into rest the work of Sanctification and Holiness being Begun in us and we Entered into the rest thereof though it be not Perfected till we be going hence But say the Quakers whether or not in so doing do ye not keep people and your selves in your own works and from the rest But what kind of rest do the Quakers mean of here if they mean the rest of Sanctification Holiness or Heaven I have before shewed that our Confessions Catechisms c. Are inferior helps and means Conducing to set us forward to that rest they are so far from keeping us from it Or do they mean the rest of Idleness and
Ministers with a sutable maintenance and if ye please ye may see 1 Cor. 9 chap. How the Apostle at large proves that Ministers have a jus personae that is a right in Law and Reason unto a competency to live by and that decently for it reflects upon the Gospel and their Master to see them beggars and brings contempt upon their Ministery But Sir it s suspected ye have more Incouragement under hand then others have above board Your Ninth parallel of our Popish principles alleadged by you wherein ye divide parties of the same Religion and state them as it were into factions I do not incline to meddle with for I would rather be ambitious to heal or hide than to enlarge or widen these differences which are to wide already Tenthly ye alleadge we are Popish because we affirm that men should not delay their worshiping of God till they be Actually Influenced thereunto by the Spirit Ans I have shewed your Atheism in this point already at my preface and how ye hereby overturn almost the duty of all men both to God and man and I am sure we shall never be Papists for opposing you in that Doctrine of Hells broatching Eleventhly twelfthly and thirteenthly ye say we are Popish in affirming Baptism with Water Infants-Baptism and the Lords Supper to be Ordinances of the Gospel of a standing Nature Ans We affirm they are and have proved above that they are from the Scripture and therefore no Popery here to be found Fourteenthly ye alleadge we are Popish because we hold it lawful for Christians to Swear Ans But in this we are no more Popish then the Scriptures are which shew it to be a duty being duely Circumstantiated see Isai 19 18 and 65 16. Jer. 12 16. nor do I think that Abraham was Popish when he swore to Abimelech and caused his own servant to swear to him Genes 21.24 and 24.3.9 And I wonder if Paul was so Popish 2 Cor. 1.18.23 or was the Angel Popish that swore by him that liveth for ever and ever Revel 10.6 Nay what think ye when God himself swears Isai 54.9 and 62.8 Heb. 6.17 Will ye impute Popery unto God too But you will say we are forbidden to swear at all Matt. 5.34 Jam. 5.12 Ans We are there forbidden to swear by creatures whereof both places speaks and enumerats several of them and all idle and rash swearing is there also forbidden no doubt but we are not forbidden there to swear Holy oaths Oaths in judgment when called thereunto or Oaths upon necessity for vindicating truth as the Apostle Pauls was And that no more is meant in these two Texts is both clear in the very places themselves and likewise from the Scriptures and examples which I have brought for swearing as is explained Fifteenthly You alleadge we are Popish because we hold it lawful for Christians to fight and kill there opposits in the quarrel Ans Truly I do not think any offensive war lawful where any Prince or people Invades another without just cause But when a Prince or his People are unjustly abused by their evil neighbours of whom they can have no legal redress because they can get no Court that they will answer to on Earth then I am sure it is lawful nay necessary for him and his subjects to redress their abuses by Arms. There are so many Instances of this in Scripture that I will not cite one of them only I shall propose a case which may and does often fall out betwixt neighbouring Princes What if any neighbouring Christian Prince should invade unjustly the Isle of Britain should our King and his subjects sit still and let him take it and not resist him All the World then might call us both fools and cowards I assure you George I would both fight in the quarrel and kill all I could till we were once masters of them what ever ye would do and judge it my duty thus to serve my King and save my Countrey from slavery Sixteenthly ye alleadge we are Popish because we say the civil Magistrate may punish men for their errours in doctrine and worship Ans Do you think that these are not punishable when a man must be hang'd for stealing a horse what shall he deserve for murthering of a Soul by Damnable Heresies is not a Soul more worth then a horse think ye Are not false Prophets ordained to be even put to death who lead people away from the worship of the true God Deut. 13.5 And I am sure ye do not worship the true God seeing ye acknowledge no person in the Deity and so can not worship any of them The Magistrate bears not the sword in vain but is to be a revenger of wrath upon them that do evil Rom. 13.4 which soul-destroyers are highly guilty of contradict if ye dare and therefore he is bound to punish them Lastly Ye alleadge we are Popish in affirming it lawful for men to kneel bow and take off their hats to one another Ans Seeing ye think it unlawful then we see ye place worship into it and count it a duty to keep on your hats c. which I must think the heighth of Superstition and Folly till you produce scripture-precept for it which I can never expect to see When two horses meet they will neigh to one another What! will you not be so civil as a horse Sir But I shall say no more to this here having in my Preface in touching the fifth Commandment proved that external reverence in the general what ever is the custom of the Country in these things if they hold of Divine worship is thereby enjoyned For that which ye tell us Eighteenthly concerning peoples ornaments and recreations I thought it not worthy to be numbred For Albeit I know these things are too often abused and I am sure we are sorrier for it than you are yet seeing all the gifts of God have a lawful use and these ornaments are such they may be lawfully used and were used when Popery was not known And as for games though some may be unlawful and others unfit yet others of them are very lawful and healthful too And as for sporting and Comedies I am sure ye may suffer me to break a jest upon you without thinking me Popish and school-boyes for putting them to diligence to act an innocent comedy which only we allow You say Sir you could have instanced several other particulars of our Popishness But none of these that ye have instanced holds good And I doubt nothing of your willingness but that if ye could have found any thing to charge us with of that nature it would soon have been laid to our door especially seeing ye have libelled so many Popish principles against us which we see clearly do not hold good and ye are therein found a traducing calumniator greatly allied to the Devil the accuser of the brethren I say not this for your hurt Sir but that you may consider what state
the creatures for their Subsistences and Persons without whom if we will believe the Doctor they would never have been It s all Blasphemous Again the Doctor teaches pag. 284.285 part first that throughout the Old Testament from the beginning of Genesis to the last of the Prophets there runs an Allegory and pag. 86. part second all the Scriptures says he are Figurative But in the Old Testament it is said That there is a God that we ought to worship him that God created man That man fell and sinned That we ought to repent and believe that God will be merciful to returning penitent sinners that he is a blessed man whose sins are forgiven Are these and many the like expressions to be Allegorically understood If the Doctor denyed the things asserted by these expressions and we to prove the affirmatives thereof against him urged these Scripture-sayings would he distinguish with an Allegorically true Properly false If that distinction were valid or relevant then all were gone And are the whole Scriptures Figurative Then beside what is just now said That Christ was born suffered satisfied Justice is risen again Ascended That there is a life to come a Heaven a Hell a day of General judgment that believers shall be saved and the rest damned these I say shall be all Figurative sayings and to be understood Figuratively And what can be said worse for so the whole foundations are destroyed if these sayings be Improperly meant Lastly for I will stand no longer that Allegoricall Doctor teaches also pag. 289.294.318.320 322.323.334.342.347.348 part first That the whole Scriptures have two meanings one whereof he calls Outward Grammatical and Literal The other Inward Hidden and Spiritual Where if he had said that one and the same meaning of the Scripture may be understood with two sorts of Evidences one of them External Historicall and Grammatical only The other Internal Supernatural and Spiritual he had not aberred from the truth Or if he had said that there may be sometimes in one text two meanings the one subordinate to and typified by the other which yet is not Properly two meanings but one and the same compounded meaning or meaning compounded he had likewise said truth But so he neither says nor can be meaned for in the places cited he often affirms that the Outward and Literal meaning of the Scripture is but Excrements good for nothing can give no nourishment is not only dead but killing and destructive yea in some of these places he denies the literal sense to be Gods mind and affirms it to be but humane Nay he flatly also denies the Scriptures to be the Word of God or that ever any man did as yet see hear or read the truth The other sense of the Scriptures he calls saving and an excellent mean of life to us These things declare that the Doctor means of two Co-ordinate and Inconnexed meanings and not of Subordinate meanings seeing these meanings devised by him have no Respect Connexion or Relation with one another seeing the one is but dead Destructive Excrements and the other is Saving and nourishing But it is not so with causes Subordinate which joyntly concur to produce the effect each in their own sphere and order as is known Now to affix two Co-ordinat Inconnexed meanings upon the Scriptures is to make the true meaning thereof utterly uncertain and to make them a clear Fraud and a Cheat put upon the World to deceive with their uncertain and Ambiguous senses and consequently their Author to be an Impostor and deceiver Absit Blasphemia with his Doubtful and two-fac'd meanings and his variable and Proteus-like Intended senses for they can have no more meanings then their Author intended therein seeing a meaning affix'd on the Scriptures which there Author never intended therein is not the meaning of the Scriptures or else every wrested meaning would be their meaning But Secondly more particularly against the Doctor Is the literal sense of the Scriptures that teach us very plainly Christs Incarnation Death Resurrection Ascension and the use and ends thereof good for nothing but a non-nourishing and destroying Excrement He seems indeed to say so pag. 52. part first where he affirms that we must first wave the knowledge of the History of Christ Externally before we come to the knowledge of the true Christ hereby he Insinuats that the External Christ is no true Christ that is able to save our Souls But if these things asserted by the Doctor be true Then it s no matter or harm to us Albeit the letter and History of the knowledge of Christ were all false seeing that is good for nothing can give no nourishment as he will and must be waved before we come to know the true and saving Christ What can it matter to us then though it were all false seeing it can do us no good is but non-nourishing and destructive Excrements nay it hinders us to know the true and saving Christ for we cannot know him as the Doctor alleadges until it be first waved and so it s an opposit enemy to the knowledge of him Secondly If it be true that the literal sense of the Scriptures is not Gods mind as the Doctor affirms then we may Counter-act the whole Scriptures in their literal sense and yet be guiltles seeing though we do so yet we do nothing against the mind and meaning of God in his Word according to the Doctors doctrine and then we may commit Idolatry Adultery and what not Thirdly If the Literal sense of the Scriptures be not Gods meaning how comes the Doctor to call it Scripture-sense at all or Scripture-meaning The Doctor herein manifestly contradicts himself seeing the Scripture can never have any sense or meaning beside the mind and meaning of its Author therein by him intended as is both clear in it self and just now I proved Fourthly For his denying the Scriptures to be the Word of God I shall oppose unto this the Survey of the Quakers Third Query above where I have discussed that question But when he denies that ever any man as yet heard or read the truth he speaks a little too Transcendentally for if he means of the truth of Proposition or Enunciation which is only to the purpose for we are not concerned with the Metaphysical Incomplex truth of Being but with the Complex truth of Oration here then he either takes truth in the Abstract form and so never man henceforth shall hear or read it more then heretofore seeing in the Abstract form it is not a thing Legible or Audible or else he takes truth Concretively and as it denominats some particular Enunciation or Enunciations true so that the means that never man as yet heard or read a true saying or Enunciation to this day and then he denies that himself ever spake or wrote a true word to any mans hearing or reading and cuts his own Throat and I cannot help it But which is much worse so he denies the Scriptures which many man hath read and heard to be true It s a very strange and a sad business too if we never heard a word of truth But the Doctor I know will say that only Christ is the truth Ans Christ cannot be the Formal truth of any Enunciation or Oration which is nothing but a meer relation of Conformity betwixt it and its Object but Christ is called the truth because he is the Author and Revealer the Object and End of the Divine truth for he makes it known it treats of him as the main Subject and it leads unto him Albeit the Doctor makes many wranglings to clear himself of being thought a contemner and vilifier of the Literal sense of Scripture yet all comes to this at the last and most which he never parts with that the literal sense of the Scripture can do no good but will kill and destroy us except we reach another sense beyond that and hidden under it having no connexion therewith or relation thereunto The absurdity whereof I have very briefly shewed And beside we see he refuses to own the literal sense as Divine but as a thing meerly Humane denying it to be the mind of God And so no Apology can bring him fairly off But the Doctor objects pag. 52.318 part first that the Literal sense of the Scripture is not saving nor the mind of God seeing the Devil and natural men can reach that Ans But the Doctor supposes here a manifest falshood viz. that the Scriptures have one sense reached by the Devil and natural men and another which they know nothing of and cannot reach which I have shewed to be most absurd the Devil and some men unrenewed know as many senses of Scripture as the Doctor does But the difference betwixt a Natural and Spiritual mans knowledge of the Scripture is not that the one of them knowes a sense of the Scripture more than the other and which the other cannot reach but that the one knows the same sense of Scripture with an Internal Spiritual Supernatural and saving evidence which the other knows only with an Historical Grammatical External and Common evidence and so there are very diverse kinds of evidences in their acts of knowledge proceeding from Essentially diverse principles of light and Eyes to see with But the Object known is the same I have therefore here Inserted and briefly confuted these principles of the Doctor which indeed are a considerable part though not all of the substance of that his foresaid book because the Quakers know and I in sure experience too by the necessary and Inevitable though Involuntary converse I have had with them who are deeply concerned with the same principles and as I hinted before I never almost knew any and I have known too many that once became the Disciples and Proselyts of that book but in end they became professed Quakers and therefore I judged it very convenient here though shortly to give an Antidote against it FINIS
greater or not the Scriptures we see are Divinely appointed to be the Rule and principal Rule and nothing can Infer against that that the utmost of racked Invention is able to devise Nor did or does God always make use of the greater Witnesses for Testifying his Will to us or else he had still imployed Angels and not men to Teach us and Christ had continued to this day and the worlds end in his Ministery upon the Earth instead of giving us men of like Passions to Teach us It is plentiful security unto us that we have a Rule of Faith and Duty altogether Infallible and an Evidence Written Sealed and Sworn to Heb. 6.17 18. delivered into our hand for our more chearful assurance to be perused by us upon all occasions for resolving our doubts directing our Duty and confirming our Faith George Keith uses a number of more Arguments in his Quakerism no Popery pages 108 109 110 111. indeavouring to prove the Dictate within and sometimes the Spirit himself and sometimes Christ himself as his Arguments run to be a better Rule than the Scriptures But in general they are all Guilty of the same very Impertinence that his Argument now Discussed was liable to and therefore the very same Answers that are given to this Argument destroy them every one so that we need not Arraign them particularly But George Keith brings one Argument to prove that God Teaches us by an immediate Dictate within viz. because its absurd to say that God Speaks no more Intelligibly and perceptibly in an immediate way to the Souls of his people than to the Earth to bring forth Grass or to the Fish to Vomit out Jonah Ans That he speaks more Intelligibly or perceptibly to his people than to such unreasonably Creatures as these is granted But that he does it in an immediate way to us I deny it let George prove it He does indeed immediately inlighten us with a Divine Beam of Light in our understandings Effectively opening our Eyes yea he always works with his Word made by himself effectual as the immediate principal efficient of its gracious effects in us that we may understand what is written in the Scriptures and know assuredly that it is he that speaks to us therein and so speaks to us much more Intelligibly than to unreasonable Creatures whom he never dealt so with But that it is absurd if he do it not by an Objective immediate inward Dictate I utterly deny let him prove it if he can But does not George Keith think it absurd to say that a man is Taught by an unerring immediate Dictate within who cannot upon his Life tell how many Gods there are or who is the Redeemer And so much for the Rule of Faith and Manners shall suffice Fifth QUERY Whether is there any Scripture or Command in all the New Testament for the Sprinkling of Infants Let us see Scripture without Adding or Diminishing for it that ye do not bring the Plagues upon you for it for the Plagues are Added to them that Add for we do expect plain Scripture from you for this without any Shuffling Meanings or Consequences or else never pretend Scripture Rule more but acknowledge that it hath been your Meanings and Consequences that hath been your Rule SVRVEY This Query very well Homologates with their Confession of Faith often forementioned pag. 25 77 79 96 126. where they deny not only Infant-Baptism but moreover all Baptism with Water to be any Divine Ordinance belonging to the New Testament But they here impose upon us two Conditions or Laws of our Disputation being the absurd fruit of their foolish Dictate within which before we handle the main Subject of the Query which is Baptism it will not be amiss to Discuss These two Conditions are That we neither interpret Scripture nor draw Consequences there-from for Establishing of our Doctrine or Thesis or else that we never pretend Scripture Rule more This Certification is so Important and Peremptory that it will not be unworthy of the while to enquire into their Demands whereunto it is annexed Therefore we must divide our Survey of this Query into four parts The first shall be concerning Scripture-Interpretation The second concerning Scripture-consequence or Consequential Scripture The third concerning Baptism with Water and the fourth concerning Infant-Baptism SECT I. Concerning Scripture-Interpretation While the Quakers here oppose Scripture-Interpretation they are indeed very like themselves and Speak in their own Language for what external Ordinance can a Quaker taking his Dictate within for his Rule like to hear of Therefore when they cannot get the Scriptures overthrown from being our Rule their next indeavour is that at least they may render useless and unedifying to the Bulk and Body of the people asmuch of them as they can even all the Texts thereof and these are not a few which without the help and labours of a Gifted Interpreter they cannot understand and all the Doctrine thereof which is not explicitly and formerly Enunciat therein though yet it be materially really and truly therein contained and by sound Consequence Infallibly follows there-from One thing I shall here promise to the Quakers and more no man can demand and that is that whatever Scripture I shall bring for proving of our Doctrine the meaning thereof which I shall alledge shall either be undeniably even to a Quaker clear of it self or else I shall evidently and irresistibly prove and make good the same and manifestly overthrow the forged meaning of the Quakers thereupon and I think that is very fair But that we may come to the Questions to be here handled I must premise first that the Scriptures ought not to be Expounded according to any mans fore-conceived private Judgment and Opinion that is 〈…〉 2 Pâ—â— 1.20 But they are to be Expounded according to the Analogy of Faith in general and by Comparison with other Scriptures that Speak more clearly to the matter or by the Scope Connexion and Dependence of the purpose in the place it self compared with its Antecedents and Consequents Thus the Apostle Paul says Let us Prophesie according to the proportion in the Original Analogy of Faith Rom. 12.6 and I think it is proved before that the Scriptures are the Rule of all Doctrines of Faith and Manners Secondly I must premise that the Scriptures are in several places so plain and easie especially in respect of things Essential and simply necessary to Salvation that men of very common Capacities may even without an Interpreter attain in some measure to understand them as is clear both in the Scripture Deut. 30.11 Psal 19.7 and 119.130 and also from Experience For thus we see that the attentive Reading or Hearing of the Scriptures though without Commentaries does beget some measure of Knowledge especially of the most Important and Essential Truths which are therein with most frequency and plainness delivered in men of very ordinary and common Capacities yea and otherwise we could expect no more