Then thou goest on to ask three Questions First Was the Light in mans Conscience that personal appearance that John bore witness to Second Was the Light in mans Conscience that word of God that was God by which all things were made that were made Third Was the Light in Conscience personally to be seen by the firmental eye to be felt with the outward hand And from these thy own words thou drawest a conclusion that if the Light of Conscience be not to be understood in these capcities our Doctrine is false Though thou hast brought no more reason to prove it then if thou hadst said I would have it so for as to the Apostles words we testifie and have learned in that Spirit which the carnal man could never discern nor the things thereof but the Apostle answers himself and hath declared of whom he testified by whom all things were made and that this was the true Light that enlightneth every man that cometh into the World and it was the Christ of God which he bore Testimony to so instead of proving us 〈◊〉 error that confess Christ the Light in every Conscience thou bringst thy self under the Plagues threatned for adding to the Scriptures For where did ever the Apostle in that place or any other speak of personal and firmental as thou dost and conclude all false that are not of thy mind And to answer thee further the Apostle did preach and testifie of Christ and as he taught him so is he learned in Light or Spirit is not this in the Conscience How wouldst thou have Christ seen felt and handled how is Christ with his people to the end of the World according to his Promise and how is he in them that was with them Is it to be seen firmental as thou callest though no other did the Apostle testifie of then he that became flesh and dwelt amongst us yet no more did they know him after the Flesh but after the Spirit but thou and such as thou who in your carnal minds would comprehend spiritual things bring forth your carnal apprehensions and having no knowledg but what you have sensually know neither Christ's Flesh nor glorious Body but that which could be pierced wounded and crucified all Image-makers are still oppressing for he is still slayn in spiritual Egypt where thou art and though thou knowest we that thou seemest to strike at did and do confess to him and no other that made a good confession before Pilate of whom John bear witness to be the Light of the World and this is true and they are found Liars before God that would set up any thing to be believed in but he that in Spirit is revealed for thousands of those that saw his personal appearance at Jerusalem knew him not to be the Christ nay by Spirit then was he to be learned as thou may read where Peter confesseth him and Christ saith Flesh and Blood hath not revealed this to thee but the Spirit of my Father and against this art thou fighting and those that are lead thereby for by Light and Spirit have we learned Christ and so teach him and this is he which is testified of that is the Eternal Gift of God and he that is sent of God whom to know is Eternal Life but of this are they all ignorant that call the Light in Conscience a formed thing and the Spirit of the humane earthly Soul but their ignorance of the great Power of God is not to be marvelled at that says The Light and Spirit is of the humane earthly soul and so would make all believe that the souls of men and women were no other then the Dogs or Cats and Beasts that must perish for what is of the Farth must to the Earth hast thou not read God breathed into man and he became a living Soul and thou callest this Human or Earthly needs then must they stumble and fall that walk in the dark as thou and all do that would comprehend the Light to dispute againâ—t but over thee and all vain Image-makers it shall rise that with your dark Images and inventions have filled the World with Idolatry Profainness and Athism and what doctrine more then thine doth it that preachest the Soul Human and Creaturely and the Light formed of it so neither Soul nor Light Immortal Eternal but of the Earth a beastly doctrine which hath manifested the Teacher to know nothing but what he knows sensually yet thou goest on repeating what Christ did and suffered when manifest at Jerusalem and then sayest this manifests Christ is Formative and not a Defusive Principle this like thy former stuff which thou hast got in thy dark mind so in dark words expressest it what manner of Christ thou wouldst have people believe in all in the Light see but the Christ of God is he that filleth all things as the Scriptures testifie And then thou goest on to confess that the Light of conscience was in the Apostles and by this Peter confessed Christ to be the Son of God How hath Satan blinded thee that loves darkness better then Light that thou shouldst bring this Scripture that callest the Light the Spirit of the human Soul and Christ saith the Spirit of the Father revealed it in Peter and was not and is not Christ in the Father so whatever thou hast denied thou hast now proved Father Spirit and Son the Light in the Conscience for they were never divided or else thou must hold after thy former dark doctrine the Father and the Spirit are but the Spirit of the human Soul thus shall all they be snared that invent against the Truth which is the same yesterday to day and for ever and let them all be so confounded as thou art that devise against the Light saith my soul for thou sayest Peter by his Light in Conscience bares witness to Christ the Son of God and Christ saith not Flesh and blood but the Spirit of my Father revealed it and knowest thou not that God is one not divided I in the Father and the Father in me saith Christ and none ascends to Heaven but he that comes down from Heaven the Son of man in Heaven but this thou nor any that saith the Light is the spirit of the humane soul could ever see but who in the Light and Spirit learn him know he filleth all things even the same to whom Peter confessed blest for ever as saith the Apostle One God and Father of all who is above all and thorow all and in you all Ephes 4. 6. and this is he we testifie of that dwells in the Light in Conscience where thou confessest the Son of God is revealed and yet sayest the Light in Conscience is not Christ for he saith he is ascended far above all Heavens that he may fill all things and then goest on saying Now O man open thy eyes and see how dangerously thou standest that denies the Body of our Lord Jesus Christ in his Person
be known of God be manifest in man is it not in the conscience and is not that Light that manifests and doth not Christ say he is the Light and doth any bring to the Father but Christ and is any appointed to be hearkened unto for Life and Salvation but Christ and thou confessest in the Apostles words that what is to be known of God is manifest in man and can any reveal the Father but the Son which thou sayest thou wouldst not have any drawn forth from hearkning to that which manifests which is that and that only that the worshipers of the true God testifie of and to and if this thou wouldst not have any drawn forth from what meanest thy invented story of a created Habitation within and the Light of a human Soul so thou must confess thou hast been setting up other lords to attend to then the Lords Christ or else with us in the Truth that Christ only gives the knowledg of God in man but thy windings to and fro manifests what root bares thee so I not meaning to say any thing farther to thy twelf page who ends it with few of thy own words or thy Teacher Beamon I shall go on to thy 13th page where thou sayest that the promise is to the inward man of the heart being quickned by the holy Ghost to this I answer God is not divided whereever the Spirit is Christ is and of him have and do the Witnesses of the Light testifie the same yesterday to day and forever the gift of the Father that was never known nor learned but in the measure of his own Spirit as any may read when Christ was visible amongst them at Jerusalem and discoursed with the woman of Samaria he did not call her so much to the beholding of his visible Appearance or Person as to know the gift of God whereby she could only have the knowledg who he was and though he was present he doth not say believe in this Person at any time but believe in the Light that you may be Children of the Light and when he came that thou readest of that said Good master what shall I do that I may inherit eternal Life he doth not say come handle and feel this Person but saith he why callest thou me good there is none good but God for Christ knew then and now none could sell all for him but who in Spirit learned him to be God blessed forever and therefore he knew his going from them was expedient that the promise of the Father's Spirit of Life might be more fully poured out upon them in which he promised to be with them to the end of the world and all that have Faith in the Gift of God which is Eternal Life free unto every creature are witnesses thereof and the Resurrection of this Light and Truth hath and doth torment the whole World of Idolaters that have or are hunting in the many ways from the one thing needful the Kingdom Power and Spirit in them yea in the Heathen at which the professing Idolaters rage though the Scriptures in which they trust testifie of it that the very Crucifiers of Jesus had the Kingdom in them and so from they 12fth page to thy 15th I have little to meddle with of thy stolen words of an in-eye and internal root and of the stirring of the center which all that have read Jacob Beamon's mysterious mist of imaginations knows where thou hadst them though thou wouldst make people believe they were thy own and so namest not thy Aâ—thours as honest Writers use to do but letting all that pass and thy so often repeating as formerly the Light of Conscience is not the Christ I answer I never knew any but thee say it was so it seems thou hast been a confuting thy self hoping thereby to confound others but the Light only shews that in us is not of us but to the blind all is alike else surely thou wouldst not after all thy Arguments and framed Reasons to draw the mind from the Light within to eye the Person without to confound and destroy thy own Doctrine by saying my intent in this writing is not to draw the mind forth from waiting within it self for the manifestation of God in it self for that which is to be known of God is to be revealed in man what will the Scriptures think'st thou by thy winding adding and diminishing serve thee to prove or disprove as thou wouldst have it sure all that have an eye see thee that hast deny'd the Light within to be either God Christ or his Principle and yet would have them wait within for it what then wouldst thou have them wait on thou talkest indeed of a Sword that God had set in the human Soul to keep the way of the Tree of Life then Robert is the Tree of Life where the human Soul is and yet neither Christ nor his Principle and in the sixth page thou sayest there is a Light in man that is the Habitation of God and in thy fourteenth page that God hath chosen the heart of man for his Habitable Place so it seems the Light thou speakest of and mans heart in thy sence are one and wouldst thou have man wait within his own heart from whence proceeds all manner of evil for thou concludest it is mans duty to wait in his heart for the promise of the Father and yet neither Christ nor his Principle there as thou saist and so if thou know'st another thing to he waited on or to open the heart then Christ thou shouldst have declared it for the internal Root what is it or that which can bring into the heavenly Canaan if not Christ then thou hast another root to be brought to or wait on then the Christ of God or to lead then he it is an Idol So thou that hast been so long crying against them that preach up the Light within the way to God cryes up an internal root an in-man of the heart and what not so thou mayst keep from the one thing needful in the many things Oh how vain is man in his imaginations and that continually witness this precedent relation of R. C. that would set up any thing of his own or others inventions to draw from the one safe sure and unalterable Way of Life and which all that are come to and have life in cannot but testifie that it is almighty and in the strength thereof as we receive must testifie against all and every one that would deceive or draw aside by subtil divising and craftiness of men to blind the eye of the mind presents that there is other wayes and means to be looked to and to be waited on then the only begotten of God which alone hath been testified of and witnessed to by us that have learned of the Light and therin received the earnest and assurance of a Kingdom that cannot be shaken the sure rock against which Hells strength shall never prevail And so knowing
and Truth and by us testified against that have cryed up no light but that which he that was sent of God bears witness to Christ Jesus These following Lines were added since Robert Cobbits Queries came to my hand and it is manifest his own Work therein hath and shall insnare him I Have read or heard of a Tyrannical Persecutor that among other cruelties invented to destroy the Christians and one was to have them rent in pieces with wild Beasts and to make the Beasts more eager of their prey would clothe the men designed for death in Beasts skins that which brought this to my remembrance is the late works of R. C. and one that writes her self E. A. they being in the same design as the Tyrant was to hinder the increase of Truth and to make the obedient thereto odious to all honest hearted people that are afraid of false gods and worships by declaring that the people called Quakers set up a Light to be trusted in and learned of and say it is God and Christ and then make a relation of such a light as they have invented which they call by many names and as far as I understand by several natures as in reading their writings any may see saying that the Light is the spirit of a man and the light of a humane soul and a formed light and the light of nature and the Accuser and the worm that never dies and yet also that is a Habitation or Dwelling for God and those that he hath given to Jesus Christ with many more such expressions of the insufficiency and badness of their imagined light and then again of the excellency of it to and fro for and against babble indeed and all this to make people believe that we call to such a light as they imagine and have set up in their own brains and that we believe not in Christ the true Light which manner of light which they would have people believe we preach up is their own and the burthen thereof which they would lay upon the Lord's people shall turn upon themselves and the snare they laid shall take them and the least of the many thousands of Israel know their light is darkness and thousands with me can witness that have constantly walked for these thirteen years with these people that these Instruments of envy and strife are risen up against and that in all our time we never heard of any such light as they declare of to be trusted in nay I am bold to say many thousands amongst us never heard of a formed light to be a dwelling place for God and those he will give Christ much less have we believed in such a created lye I answer for the Lord and his chosen and in his presence that searches every heart that I am perswaded that thousands of these people called Quakers would lay down their lives rather then ever confess or bow to such a Light as R. C's and E. A's whom I am willing to joyn together for they have joyned in one iniquity yet there is not much danger that her work will hurt any as her self being so contradictive in it self and to him that is in the same work with her to call that which R. C. calls The Principle of Christ and Gods Dwelling the Tree of Knowledge and in this confusion calls the Quakers Mystery Babylon and so all may see that give heed to the true Light how these Perverters have gone about to clothe the true Worshippers in their idolatrous and monstrous invented errors that by a Lye they might keep from believing the Truth which all the Worshippers in the Spirit of Jesus are led into and never did the People called Quakers since the day of their first coming forth to this day declare of any other Light then the Spirit of Jesus that Word of God that was with God before the World was made that as a two-edged Sword divides between Soul and Spirit but who of this Word have not learned sets up that spirit that is to be divided from for the Word and for the Light here the Mystery of Iniquity entred and is upheld to this day in a pretence of God Antichrist setting mans spirit above all that is called God as God Christ and his Spirit sets up a likeness or the spirit of man to draw from the one Spirit that can only lead into Truth and the obedient thereunto declare as they have learned that by obedience to the Spirit the Soul comes to be sanctified and separated as saith the Apostle Paul from all that separates from God but the Apostle did not say this of the Spirit of the Humane Soul or the Light of Nature but of the Eternal Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead and hath quickned your mortal bodies and this is the Light and Life that we have declared of the Spirit of Life that sets free from sin and death not divided from but proceeding of Father and Son but of this R. C. and E. A. are not learned as may be seen by their imaginations of the Light and Spirit of Christ which the People of God called Quakers have testified of but were it not for a full assurance I have that she and R. C. whom I am called to plead against are Fighters against God I should never have waded in such durt as they have brought forth but being on my heart as an addition to what I have eight months since writ to R. C's first now to speak a little to his many Queries I writ this as a preface thereto not so much for his sake do I writ though unfeignedly I wish he might find a place of repentance as for others whom he is seeking to betray and as the scope of his first work was to perswade people we preached of a false Light and Christ even such a one as he imagined so in these his Queries he would insinuatingly by asking questions and perverting the words of Truth that have formerly been given forth perswade the people as if we denied Christ Jesus of whom the Scriptures testifie And though I have no life in contention but have and do labour in all things to avoid such questions as gender to strife yet having faln on the vain janglings and unprofitable words that he hath filled his paper with for which he shall surely be called to an account with all other his idle words and though it be not my purpose to be large in the matter though in every Query and all his other words therein he manifests his folly and envy therein with his vain repetitions and unprofitable questions and may all be turned upon his head yet I shall only take a perticular notice of some few of them with some of the Lyes he charges the Lords people with and the wicked and blasphemous imaginations he hath of the Son of God and answer to him as our Saviour did to the subtil Generation that came by questions to insnare him who instead of
A TESTIMONY for God's Everlasting Truth As it hath been learned of and in JESUS Testifying against such as through unbelief have departed from or been disobedient to the Spirit that convinces the World of Sin Among whom R. C. hath appeared with his many things to oppose and withstand the one thing the Spirit of Life that sets free from Sin and Death which is the Truth which the People called Quakers have and do testifie to and of R. T. They went out from us but they were not of us for if they had been of us they would no doubt have continued with us but they went out that they might be made manifest that they were not of us 1 Joh. 2. 19. But ye have an Vnction from the holy One and ye know all things V. 20. This then is the message which we have heard of him and declare unto you that God is Light and in him is no Darkness at all 1 Joh. 1. 5. Beloved when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common Salvation it was needfull for me to write unto you and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered to the Saints Jude ver 3. Printed in the Year 1669. THese following Lines are to such as have or may meet with R. C's Writing Entituled God's Truth attested according to Scripture and I reading it over and finding it not only contrary to Scripture but in darkness opposing and contradicting the Light and Spirit that gave forth the Scriptures exalted and exalting his own image over and against the express Image of the Everlasting God I could not but in answer thereto give unto you what I have received of the Fountain of Life which all that make opposition against the Light and Spirit which is Everlasting are out from and know neither the Soul that God takes pleasure â—s nor the Salvation thereof but remains in darkness and under the power of Death not knowing the Gift of God which is Eternal Life but to so many as believe in him the Light of the World he giveth power to be the Sons of God Heirs with him yea Co-heirs of the Inheritance of Light and Glory So to all mankind I and all that partake of the common salvation that hath appeared unto all for deliverance from death and Deaths power again to recover into the good state that was before transgression entred or the Night of Apostacy over spread the Earth for Light was in the beginning and indeed the beginning of all and shall abide when all imaginations shall cease and by Faith therein have obtained Life have good will unto every one travelling therein to bring others thereto and to preserve out of the many snares which the evil One hath and doth lay to deceive but the increase of Light and the dominion thereof must never have end and the enlargment and growth hereof hath and doth inrage the whole World that love Darkness better then Light so they have bent their Bowes and prepared their Arrows and their tongues are become as a two-edged Sword to wound the Innocent for the poyson of Asps is under that which speaks dispitefully against the Spirit of Grace for no other have the Children of Light testified of or believed in but the Spirit of Jesus which they that do and have erred from are devising against and so cry up the greatness of their own Diana to turn aside or draw out of the way of peace but he has will rebuke them yea in his hot displeasure who either rage or imagine vain things against his Christ which he will exalt above all the Mountains and such is my love and the love of all that in the love of the Father live that we desire none might perish but have Life Everlasting which the Father giveth freely unto all without respect of persons that in his Light believe and walk to receive Salvation thereby and so this is testified of and spoke to in all that all that come to the Faith of it may with us witness it saves from sin and his Name was and is called Jesus but all out of the Faith discern it not how should they being carnally minded though it somtimes prick them they kick against it and to pervert from it lay stumblings in the way and bring forth their carnal imagination of God and Christ and of his Person and Flesh which was never learned but in that they resist for darkness cannot comprehend Light but in the Light is Life and Salvation and this they have and do bear testimony of who have learned the Truth as it is in Christ Jesus and for the Truth sake which must prevail over all the Opposers thereof and for your Souls sake this is written that no simple ones may be turned out of the way nor stumble or fall but come to believe in the Light and the redemption thereof they will come to be partakers of and there is no other that can work the work of God to free from evil and error but the Christ of God the express Image of the Father only learned in the Spirit and Light that cometh or proceeds from the Father Son and the obedient and faithful thereto have been and are led out of the World where Sin and Error are to the victory â—ver it and such will not believe only from what we declare of it though it be true but finding this heavenly Treasure in themselves and the freedom thereby attained shall confess this is the Son of God that maketh free indeed and I know they who are not captivated under the power of Sin and Darkness nor lovers of themselves more then of God will feel that in the Love of the Father to the Souls of all this is written R. T. A TESTIMONY for God's Everlasting TRUTH c. THe Light which I with many thousands have believed in and found saves from sin and none in the Faith of God are at a question what it is but know it is of the Father bringing to the Life Christ Jesus whose first appearance was and ever is to condemn sin in the flesh and being believed in quickneth in Spirit by which only the Son of God was is revealed and all that have gone another way to know the Father or the Son but in the Spirit of Jesus are vain Image-makers Robbers and Theeves leaving the Door to clime another way So none cometh unto me but whom the Father draws and by the Spirit only is the drawing saith Christ which is Life and Salvation witnessed by all that have Faith therein and this is that which according to his faithfulness that hath promised is and must be exalted over all that in darkness have and do invent against the Light amongst which R. C. will be found a worker to whom I have this to say that if they were and are accursed that come not forth to help the Lord against the mighty What shall become of thee and
beginst thy Queries of a witness that we affirm to be God and Christ and I answer so we do that faithfull and true one that made all things and we have this witness in our selves and is it honesty in thee to say this is but the spirit of a man it is like that the Witness thou witnesseth with is a false spirit but ours is the true thou shouldst not speak evil of that thou knowst not for thou art as unknowing it seems of what we declare as unbelieving that calls the Spirit or Witness we declare of the Worm that never dyes what no difference R. in the dark I see what wouldst thou have God and Divil one that I hear indeed is the Ranters principle which thou in this seems to be one with what no difference between him that judges in Righteousness and he that accuses all that can be said in this matter for thee is that thou hast more knowledg of the Worm that never dyes then of him we believe in but how thou canst make good thy former doctrine that the Light in Conscience should be a Habitation for God and those that he has given to Christ and yet should be the Worm that never dyes I know not for we believe no such confusion for thou might'st as well have said Hell Heaven are one and the Divil will never break the Serpents head as that thou hast said and these are thy own for we testifie of no such witness but against that and thee that so invents for we are joyned to and believe in him in whom the Accuser hath no part And in thy twelf page thou repeats some Scriptures that our Friends its like have put forth which testifies to Truth as these words He that hath not the Spirit of Christ is none of his and that none receives the Spirit but he that believes in Christ that is giver of the Spirit to which thou addest these words as a Query Whether the Spirit you walk by is the Spirit of Christ or the power of Magick Answer to which I Answer may not all that have an eye to see see what spirit thou art of that so much speaks of Scripture and when such Scriptures are brought as smites thy Image and testifies to the Truth thou art so far from answering any thing in plainness to it that thou turnest into a Query whether our Spirit we walk by be the Spirit of Christ or the spirit of Magick O how do thy evil thoughts and imaginations gender to strife what ground hast thou to question this but a lye of thy own framing saying we deny him to be the Christ that was the offering for sin which lye must turn upon thy own head for he that did and doth live make to intercession for all that come to God by him we confess to and there is no offering for sin but Jesus whom we witness to save from sin so for thy Magick and Sorcery it is thy own for we have no fellowship with them that work it but know that such as withstand the Truth as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses by bringing forth likenesses of what Moses wrought in and by the Finger and Arm of God they that bring forth a likeness by their Sorceries whereby the hearts of the Oppressors were hardened and the Seed which God would have delivered kept the longer in bondage and how deeply thou hast been in this work of Jannes and Jambres thou wilt one day know And many of thy Queries yea the most tending only to insnare in asking if that Christ which was and did the things mentioned in Scriptures be the Christ or Light in the Conscience to this I Answer thou art speaking as one that hath many Gods and many Lords but we who walk in the Light have but one God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and he and his Spirit is one so he that said to his Disciples that he which was with them not divided would be in them so one God do the Children of Light confess to made manifest by his Son in Spirit and these are one but thou in the second page of thy Queries sayest Christ is not the Eternal Father and that he and his Father is not one and thy carnal Reason for it is that he that gives is one and he to whom it is given another and this to prove or maintain Christ and God to be two well mayest thou fight against us and our words of Truth that goes about to make void or disprove the words of Christ that saith My Father and I are one when he was in the Person thou so much speak'st of but thou sayest they are two and the Apostle John says John 1. 3. all things were made by him and without him was nothing made that was made and the Apostle Paul says all things were made by him and for him but thou R. C. art not ashamed to deny the words of the Apostles and sayest plainly all things were not made by him thou blasphemously going to comprehend the things of God in thy dark mind denies the words of Christ And in thy nineth page sayst I see not wherein you are wronged in being charged to deny God and Christ in a Place above Sun Moon and Stars and Elements nay it is like thou dost not nor will not see our wrong that art so great a Wronger of us that in so many years as thou watched us with an evil eye yet not having from our own words to charge us of error or evil comes forth as publickly as thou canst to set the World against us by telling them we cry up and worship such a light as thou hast invented and thou mightest as truly have said that we denied God any where as that thou had said but let Truth come over all thy former Lyes as this God being our Witness that we lye not but have and do confess before men that our Lord is above and over all created things the Earth the Heavens and all therein the works of his Hands in whom we believe God blessed for evermore whose Throne is Heaven above all and the Earth his Foot-stool and under his Feet shall all his Enemies be put then will every Image-makers be brought down and every Lyars mouth be stoped and false Accuser and he that invents wrong shall have no place but that which is prepared for him And in thy nineth page thou Queriest if the Christ which John said was the Christ or the Light in man be the Christ which G. F. saith is the Christ explain sayst thou To which I Answer without guile in the Truth I have known G. F. as thou neither hast nor canst know him while thou fightest against the true Light and thousands can witness that of God he was sent to bear witness of the same Light and Christ which the Apostle John bear witness to and there is but one Christ what ever thou imagins in whom was and is Life and this Life