not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdome of God Be not deceived neither Fornicators nor Idolators nor Adulterers nor Effeminate nor Theeves nor Covetous nor Drunkards nor Revilers nor Extortioners shall inherit the Kingdome of God and of Christ For there shall in no wise inherit there any thing that defileth neither whatsoever worketh abomination or maketh a lie Therefore Christ who hath purchas'd his Church doth also purifie it and cleanse it that he might present it unto himself a glorious Church without spot or wrinkle or any such thing but that it should be holy without blemish For they are redeemed from their vaine Conversation which they learned from their Fathers and do not after they have once learned Christ and have heard him and are taught by him in truth and as the truth is in him they do not walk as other people walking in the vanities of their darkned minds being through the ignorance that is in them strangers from the life of God But being renewed in the spirits of their mind and the Image of God being restored in them by the power of their new creation in and by Christ Jesus they put off as to their former conversation and manner of life the old man which is corrupt by deceitfull lusts formerly mentioned But they now also put off all this lying and defrauding and stealing and bitternesse and wrath anger clamor evill-speaking foolish talking and unfitting jesting And putting on the new man they now use such language that do edifie and built up others in holinesse and such as ministers grace to the hearers Their conversation being now without Covetousnesse and such as becomes the Gospel And according to their hopes and expectation as knowing that though God of free grace chose them from the beginning to salvation yet the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ must be by and through the sanctification of the spirit and belief of the truth and saithfull obedience And now acknowledging no other Soveraigne but Christ and acted by a spirit of love as sons they live to him who died for them being contented to be or to be accounted any thing so Christ may be glorified in them and by them whether by life or by death And having no confidence in the fesh or fleshy priviledges they worship God in the spirit and rejoyce in Christ Jesus Counting all things losse and dung in comparison of the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus their Lord that they might obtaine him and be sound in him not having their own righteousness which is of the law or by the law of working but that righteousnesse which is by believing in Christ the righteousnesse which is of God by faith And although they know that whiles they are in the flesh they shall not be in all things perfect yet forgetting that which is behind that to which they have already attained as not answerable to their longings they presse forwards more and more toward perfection grieving under their imperfections and longing to be disburthened until they reach the mark they ayme at the price of their high calling whereunto God hath called them in by Christ Jesus desiring in the meane time so to know him by an operative and effectuall knowledge and the power of his resurrection and to have communion and fellowship with him in his sufferings that being conformed to him in his death they might by all or any attaine their part and portion in the blessed resurrection And to this duty of holy walking a believer holds himself bound by his very profession for having by baptisme put on Christ and Christian profession he thereby engages himself as the Jew by circumcision to keepe the whole law so he by baptisme to believe observe and keepe the whole Gospel That very ordinance in its intent purport and signification directing him and pointing out unto him his duty as one specially interested in the ends and benefits of Christs death thereby sealed and signified So that he doth and must conlude that where sin had abounded and reigned in him before even unto death that there now grace and favour through Christs righteousnes doth reign much more to eternall life yet he dares not he may not still continue in his sin that grace might stil abound Nay he concludes as it is indeed it is impossible For how shall they that are dead to sin and so have no more to do with it live any longer therein for they know if they know any thing that as many as are baptized into Jesus Christ thereby baptized into his death buriall and resurrection are baptized and thereby engaged not only to the name profession and calling of Christ and Christianity and to own him in these particular actings But also if they expect to finde reall benefit by the worth and merit of them that they finde the reall and efficacious fruit of all these powerfully by the spirit working in them So that he concludes the death of Christ to be the death of sin And the resurrection of Christ the resurrection of the life of his grace holines Reckoning himself now no longer debtor to live unto the flesh and its corruption but debtor to live unto the spirit and its holy motions And having alwaies an eye to the great love of Christ who by his death and blood shedding hath thus redeemed him He cannot but often thinke upon him and thankefully remember him in and by that ordinance which he appointed in an especiall manner a little before his death for that very purpose wherein he publikely owns him and makes profession to the world of his faith and hope and rejoycing in him And thus Reader thou hast a little of much more that might be written of this great mysterie of godlinesse in which thou hast a rude delineation of Gods method in restoring fallen man into his favour through the whole progresse whereof as is easily perceiveable there runs a continued line and cord of free grace and mercy thus contrived and ordered by him for a threefold reason The first reason respects God himself who hath ordered it in this manner is that he alone might have all the praise the glory If salvation had been attainable by the law of working man might have had somewhat whereof to have boasted and gloried in himself For although that working had come infinitely short in proportion to the reward proposed And although that reward therefore was but upon a free promise And so only to be claimed Not through the worthinesse of the work or worker And although that work had been performed but by strength received from him by whom the reward was promised yet if man had performed the condition on his part required the Lord would
make us all able wise vigilant faithfull and succesfull So prayes he who is The furtherer of thy faith and the helper of thy joy RA FARMER And now Reader having laid before thee this great mysterie of Godlinesse from the un-erring truth of the eternall word revealed in the scriptures I shall discover unto thee a great mysterie of ungodlinesse a mysteric of iniquity and of abhomination even that abhomination which maketh desolate destroyeth all Christian Religion from the writings and speakings in a generation of men called Quakers And here in â—he first place I shall communicate unto thee that which I confesse was the first ground of the discovere of this my sterie unto me and that you shall finde in a beok intitl'ed A Confession of Faith of the several Congregations or Churches of Christ in London which are commonly though unjustly as they say called Anabaptists Vnto which is added Hearts-bleedings for Professors abominations Or a faithfull generall Epistle from the same Churches Presented to all who have known the way of truth forewarning them to flee security and carelesse walking under the profession of the same discovering some of Satans wiles whereby also wanton persons and their ungodly wayes are disclaimed The fifth impression Which Book is signed in the name and by the appointment of the aforesaid severall Churches meeting in London By William Kiffen John Spilsberry and twelve more of them And these men I look upon as competent for this discovery for several reasons first in respect of their residence and habitations sc London a place where if any where all Religions Opinions Professions are to be found secondly the parties themselves sc the Anabaptists a sort of men in many things many of them neer of kin I charge no man in particular but generally they have bin a sort of people much given to Enthusiasmes and immediate Calls Revelations and apt to entertain fantastick dreams and fancies And concerning them I fully concurre with that precious Servant of Christ now in heaven Mr. Cuthbert Sidenham in an Epistle of his before his excellent Book concerning Infant-Baptism and singing of Psalms where speaking of the Opinion of Anabaptists denying Infants Baptism An opinion saith he which hath been alwayes ominous and of a powerfull strange influence accompanied with the most dangerous retinue of errors since the first Embryo of it was brought forth whether by a judgement of God or from its naturall or secret connexion with other principles of darknesse I will not determin Only God hath shewed some black Characters on it in every Nation where it hath prevailed though we cannot but say many Saints are innocently under the power of it Thus farre he Now these men therefore both in respect of the conveniency of the place but especially in the likelyhood of acquaintance and familiarity with this kind of people who mostly have been Members of their Congregations and have departed from them which may be one of the black works before spoken of these Anabaptists may have probablie plowed with their heyfer and so may best unfold their riddle and discover their ungodly Mysterie within their generall Epistle before mentioned after some little Preface they do in these words To all the Churches os God sanctified in Christ Jesus called to be Saints with all that in every place professe the Name of Jesus Christ our Lord both theirs and ours Beloved Brethren HAving these many years through the grace and free-mercy of our God been kept in the profession of the Name of Christ contained in the holy Scriptures of the Prophets and Apostles and findding the exceeding benefit and comfort of walking with God in some measure suitable to what he hath made known unto us and well knowing that we are called to live in the last ages of the world wherein iniquity abounds and the love of many waxeth cold as likewise considering those peculiar times spoken of in 2 Tim. 3. 1. c. are come upon us wherein men who sometimes have made a large profession of God and godliness are turned aside to commit all manner of uncleanness with greedines having turned the grace of our Lord Jesus into lasciviousness calling darkness light and light darkness by meanes of whom the way of truth is evill spoken of and many poor souls through temptations ready to quit their professions and to be taken with their snares We thought it our duty to declare our utter dislike abhorring and detestation of all such evill persons and wayes who shall under pretence whatsoever plead for or practise any way of ungodlinesse And having been through the goodness of our God inabled to discern the secret and subtill designs and snares of Satan which he hath laid to entrap poor souls in by carrying them from step to step untill they have bin wholly captivated in his snares and fitted by him to do him service We could doe no lesse then according to that measure of light we have received from the Lord to discover his wiles and stratagems and to caution all that professe the feare of the Lord to watch over their own hearts and ways and to take heed lest they fall into the same condemnation For this we have found that that way which God in his infinite wisedome taketh to bring souls unto himself by viz. the presenting unto men his great love in giving Jesus Christ to suffer death and his great salvation to all that believe in his name Satan that old serpent through his instruments under the specious pretences of beating men off from all false rests endeavours with all his strength to oppose and make void perswading the sonnes and daughters of men that what is declared concerning the death of Christ at Jerusalem and his bearing our iniquities in his own body upon the Crosse is but a meer History and shadow the Scriptures are but a letter and the Ordinances of God but fleshly forms thereby labouring to beget in the peoples mindes a contempt and sleight esteem of Christ his Word and Ordinances and that he might cheat them to purpose tells them of a God within and a Christ within and a Word within and that God and Christ and they are one without any true distinct knowledge of the true meaning of that which is expressed whereby poor souls with great and swelling words of vanity triumph in a great mysterie of meer nothing but emptiness and confusion speaking things whereof they know not and many poor souls knowing such expressions to be Scripture phrases do greedily embrace them without a true distinct and clear understanding the sense of what is spoken having the persons of those who speak such language in great admiration as the chief tender charitable knowing high and spiritual Christians Whereas indeed although the words spoken by them are many of them true in themselves without which Satan could not so effectually deceive as that God and Christ and the Spirit dwell in us and that God and Christ and the Saints are
here 's manifest and horrid violence offered to the Majesty of the Almighty both in his nature and essence and to the doctrine of the Trinity And now in the second place I shall shew thee that they offer violence to Jesus Christ the Lord our righteousness God over all blessed for ever For as for Christ though they often mention him yet in deed and truth they make no more use of him then they doe of Moses and the Prophets I say in deed and in truth for they are meer juglers they speak one thing and mean another jesuitically equivocating So that it is a harder matter to find out their doctrines then to confute them It s usual with them to say they witness Jesus Christ and the death of the man Christ Jesus which suffered at Jerusalem they own and witness But what do they mean by these words they own and witness Is it any more in truth then what the very Devil is forc'd unto sc that there was such a Christ and that he did such and such things But as for Christ and the death of Christ and his righteousness wrought and done in his own individual person to be relied upon by faith rested in for justification of the Saints to life without any thing wrought or done in them or by them for that end this they utterly deny And whereas the Word proposes Christ the rest of souls they on the contrary say that he is not to be rested in They say that we must go through him as we go through Moses and the Prophets as thou hast seen in Foxes and Nailors book called A word from the Lord where they blame the Ranters that they never came through the Prophets nor Moses house nor Christ I have in part opened this already but if thou wouldest Reader more fully know their meaning what it is to go through Moses and the Prophets and Christ read but a passage in that book of Fox and Hubberthorne the title whereof I have formerly given thee sc Truths defence and there p. 68. l. 24. thou shalt find the meaning for he that will understand the language of Cut-purses and pick-pockets must learn it of their fellows and there thou shalt find what it is to come through the Law The Answerer to the Queries says that many do profess the Gospel and the new law of righteousness and are not come through the Law And that is as he there explains himself that the Law hath no more power over a man and that he is dead to it misapplying that which the Apostle there speaks of the law of sin or sin ruling by the Law to death and condemnation to the holy Law of God the Moral Law it self the eternal rule of righteousness as if a Christian should ever be dead to that and free from that as not to be bound to observe it And that this is his meaning the next page shews there in the beginning he says the Law and the Prophets were until John and John until Christ and bids those that can receive it that is understand him receive it and if they can they may So he says implying a mysterie something more then ordinary to be intended by him in that expression And then tels them that when they come to go through Moses and through the Prophets and through John to come to Christ then they shall see the light is but one sc the light of Moses and the light of Christ for that was the question propounded Whether there were any distinction between them as thou mayst see in that book Quer. 4. There 's just ground of exception against that too but 't would be endless to follow them to every by-path But by this thou seest their meaning what it is to go through Moses the Prophets and John scil to go beyond them and to be dead and free from them And the same say those Quakers in their short Answer to the 7 Priests who stile themselvs those Quakers who shal make all the world to quake and tremble printed by Calvert 1654. In the first page of that book they give good words of the Law viz. that it is holy just and good and perfect and pure But for these good words they presently in the next line say that it is but a Schoolmaster till faith and when faith is come we are no longer under a schoolmaster And this say they is witnessed amongst us And in the 8 page of that book speaking of the Moral Law they say that 's without and there it shall stand as you are the Priests in the first nature and that in their tongue is the perishing nature Why now says Naylor and Fox the Ranters failed in that though they had a pure convincement and started up to be as Gods they did not proceed they never came through the Prophets nor Moses house nor Christ All must be gone through we must not so much as rest in Christ And indeed what need is there For if we be once come to be equal with God as they say perfectly righteous in our own persons so that we can perfectly keep the Law and not sin in any thing what need Christ as a Mediator or an Intercessor and so no need of him for any thing This one desperate opinion is the very cutthroat of Christ and Christianity and makes Christ especially as to a believer of none effect and useless They are now their own Christs they have gone through him and beyond him They have now no more to do with our imagined God beyond the stars and our carnal Christ which they say those precious and godly servants of Christ would make appear through their heathenish Philosophy Nay beloved Reader do they not make Christ altogether useless to the Saints whenas they say the Elect were never defiled as they do in their answer to the 4. Querie put by Reeve and answered by Borro and Howgill And in the answer to the 5. they say again the Elect are not nor ever were defiled And surely if so no need of a Christ a Saviour and if the Elect have no Saviour none else shall and so no need of Christ at all then he came in vain and dyed in vain unless it be only to be a figure an example which is the cursed doctrine of the Socinians and which as in the brief Relation of the irreligion of the Northern Quakers p. 5. error 13. stands charged and not answered in the Lancashire Charge against them And well may this be their opinion if every man have a light within him sufficient to lead him to salvation then sure there is no absolute necessity of a Saviour Thus doe they offer violence to Jesus Christ our Saviour making him a meer shadow a type a temporary manifestation to be gone through not to be rested in and making void the chief end of his coming in the flesh and nulling his death and sufferings I might farther manifest this unto thee
reverence be it spoken must acquit the man though in himself ungodly for payment being made satisfaction given by the surety it is but just that the debtor be acquitted and discharged shall not the judge of all the world do right yea God is just and will declare his righteousnesse by justifying him that believeth in Jesus Now God the Father having thus reconciled the world unto himself by Christ for the farther carrying on of this work commits the ministery and service of this reconciliation to his Apostles and Ministers in their successive generations who as Heralds and Ambassadors authorized and commissionated by him should publish and in his na e preach the glad tydings of salvation this everlasting Gospell And to let all men even the Gentiles see what hope there is of their fellowship and participation of the blessings and benefits of this mysterie of godlinesse which from the begining of the world have bin hid in God who created all things by Jesus Christ no nation people or person being now excluded or shut out the partition wall of Jewish ordinances being broken down and both Jew Gentile bond and free male and female all may come drink freely of that well of salvation which Christ hath opened for all persons that will come unto him whereof for his part he is so free being no niggard of his blood and merits that he intreats all to come and partake of And by his servants making a full tender of himself as Priest Prophet and King to all that will receive him And to as many as thus receive him giving them right power and just claime to become the sons of God and heires of the kingdome which he had purchased But now man by his fall being dead in the dark yea darknesse it self and so in his natural state and blindness unable to receive and comprehend this glorious and gracious mysterie of being righteous by anothers righteousness and of being saved by anothers sufferings all men Jewes and Gentiles doting and being fruitlesly set upon seeking life and happiness by their own doings and performances Therefore together with the revelation of this mysterie by the ministry of his servants sent for that purpose Christ over and above that common work of the Spirit by which he enlightens every man that comes into the world gives unto those who are given him of the Father and who are to be called according to the eternal decree and purpose which he purposed in himself and whereby he surely knowes those that are and shal be his to them he gives a mind and understanding to know him and to receive him and to be in him and to be one with him who is the true God and eternal life And now a believer having Christ who is eternal life hath eternal life in and by Christ whereas those who thus have him not sc by believing have not eternal life because what in them lies they make God a liar not entertaining and closing with that testimony and record that he gave of his son which was that in him he was well pleased not onely with him for so he could not but be in justice forhe had never offended him But in him he was well pleased being in mercy and loving kindnes satisfied for the sins of all those who come unto God by him who therefore are received as sons and daughters by free grace and adoption And now that those who thus believe in Christ might have the witness in themselvs of their Sonship because they are sons God sends forth the Spirit of his Son into their hearts whereby they are imboldned to call upon God as Sons crying Abba Father being thereunto the more imboldned because by the same Spirit they are sealed and marked out unto the day of redemption And which is given to them as a pledge and earnest in hand for an assurance to them of their full inheritance when their adoption and son-ship shall be compleated by the redemption of their bodies from the power of Corruption as now their soules are from the reign and power of sin The same spirit also in the meane time leading them into all saving truth comforting them in all their troubles and helping them in all their infirmities And thus hath a Believer in himself the testimony both of blood and of the spirit witnessing to and with his spirit that he is a son and child of God But then as there are three in Heaven that bear record and give testimony to this great mysterie of godliness sc The Father the word the holy Ghost So there are must be three witnesses on earth i. The heart of a true believer before the work can be compleated which are three the Spirit Blood and Water For Christ came not by blood alone for justification nor by water onely for sanctification but by water and blood both which Sacramentally flowed forth from his precious body when he hung upon the Crosse a Sacrifice for our redemption thereby shewing forth the end of his suffering viz. both the justification sanctification of his people And therefore he that hath not the witness testim within himself of all three hath not the witness of either he whose heart conscience cannot witnes to him his faith believing in that blood of Christ shed for his justification cannot have the witness of this blood as water for cleanâ—ing and sanctification For Christ sanctifies none but whome he justifies he whose heart cannot witnes to him his faith operating on the blood of Christ as water for sanctification canot have the testimony of blood and his interest in it for justification For Christ justifies none but he also sanctifies the n. And he that hath not the testimony and witnesse in himself of his intrest in blood and water for justification sanctification cannot have the testimony and witnesse of the spirit sealing for these three agree in one all beare witness to one the same truth sc Christs comming dying to redeeme us from sin and all iniquity both in the guilt and in the filth of it both from the condemnation and from the domination of sin For the grace of God which bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men teacheth us that denying ungodlinesse and world y lusts we shâ—ud live soberly righteously and godlily in this present world looking for that blessed hope and glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ who gave himself for us that he might redeeme us from all iniquity and purifie unto himself a peculiar and choice people zealous of good works And for asmuch as no uncleane person can enter into the Kingdome of Heaven where the inheritance is For know ye
Christ were redeemed How can ye but deny the truth when as ye act those things which the Ministers of truth were sent to declare against therefore let shame cover you and let your mouthes be stopped in the dust for ever professing Christ or his Gospel who are found enemies to it And now ye covetous Priests who seek for your gain from your quarters ye may be ashamed of your profession How often have ye declared against the covetous practice of the world in words outwardly and yet your selves are found acting in them in covetousness and and extortion as is daily made manifest by you and is contrary to the practice of the Apostles For shame ye covetous Priests give over your wicked practices and your beastly actings lest the Lord rip off your coverings and lay you naked to all men Thus have I cleared my conscience to you and to all the world in the presence of the Lord whether you will hear or forbear There is another which is all I have read thorough of theirs that I would have inserted but because I feared it would make my Book swell too much I have omitted it only I shall give you the Title of it because I shall make use of it to discover their opinions And those who have the Book may examine my Quotations which I shall do faithfully reserving the Book by me to satisfie any that have it not and may desire to see it to that purpose The Title is thus Truths defence against the refined subtilty of the Serpent Held forth in divers Answers to several Queries made by men called Ministers in the North Given forth by the light and power of God appearing in George Fox and Richard Hubberthorn Printed for Tho. Wayte at his house in the Pavement in York 1653. And now having given you a view of these pieces of the Quakers which are their own and received from one of their Proselytes in this City I shall desire thy patience Reader to go a little further with me and thou shalt see these Quakers acted by the same spirit of delusion and doing Satans work though seemingly otherwise That deceiver of the Nations being now almost cast out of the prophane Ranters who made such foul work that I suppose the devil himself was ashamed of them And now he will appear in his white garments as an angel of light under the disguise of humility and mortification to carry on his dark design of divelism to the overthrow of all Religion And first let me tell the Reader I have very good ground to conclude as I suppose the mystery of the Quakers to be the same with the Ranters for this reason besides that it will manifestly appear afterwards when I come to lay part to part as I promised because I finde the Quakers in a book of theirs called A word from the Lord unto all the faithless generation of the world c. Printed 1654 By George Fox and James Nayler wherein they have a word among others to the Ranters I finde these Quakers giving this Testimony 13 page of the book to the Ranters in these words The word of the Lord God say they to you which are called Ranters You had a pure convincement I witness which did convince you but having fled the Cross and now to it are become enemies which turns the Grace of God into wantonness c. and then they blame them as justly they may for their abominable prophane conversation But however it seems they had a pure convincement that he witnesses So that their light their Doctrine was good however they abused it They had a convincement under the Law as they say and started up to be as Gods by that pure convincement it seems that God and they were one and not distinct but as they still say there they never came through the Prophets nor Moses house nor Christ Mark their language They never came through the Prophets nor Christ Here the Prophets Moses and Christ are all proposed not to be rested in but to be gone thorow They must go thorow Christ as they go thorow the Prophets and Moses Christ as well as Moses must cease and be gone thorow not rested in And the Ranters it seems abused their good Principles their pure convincement whereby they started up as gods but falling into prophaneness did not rightly improve their Godship And so came short of their Christ ship which these Quakers by hearkening to the light of their own Godhead within them attain unto Thus for the Ranters but now as for the Anabaptists Independents and Presbyterians they fall upon them and quarrel their very light and doctrine as living and teaching in the letter and taking up outward commands are witches c. As may be seen in that book of theirs So that the light and principles of the Ranters is more pure in these mens eys It s true the Levellers to whom they there spake also they have some indifferent esteem with these men if they had gone on for they tell them that they had a flesh in their minds I suppose some of this pure light for they add a simplicity but their minds run into the earth they say and smothered it and much of it they say is withered not all it seems So that Reader thou maist hereby plainly see what Principles and Lights these Quakers most approve of and so consequently follow sc the Ranters in the mystery of ungodliness before discovered And you will not think it strange that one and the same Principles are made use of to such seemingly differing ends as these are by the Ranters and these Quakers if you consider that even the sacred truths of God by the subtilty of the Serpent working in mans heart are abused and the Grace of God turned into wantonness by lascivious and fleshly spirits For observe Reader one of the same perswasion or opinion yea or truth works diversly as it is diversly received as they are that entertain it A Truth meeting with a sober and temperate spirit will strengthen and encrease his temperance For men naturall improve every thing that agrees with their temper and constitution and the same Truth meeting with an unsober and intemperate spirit shall finde the same entertainment sc advance his actings according to his temper either to excuse him and uphold him in his intemperancy or by irritation to provoke him to more intemperance So that let truth be what it will most men are what they were Only they know and can say more then they did before And in truth this is the Religion if I may give it that name of all men in the world except of those whose hearts the Lord changes makes suitable to spiritual truths they made new men as hath been opened in the mystery of godliness which onely makes a man a Christian whatever the Quakers Arminians and Papists say of general Light universal Grace and Free-Will to the contrary And which one truth is able and sufficient
That Jesus Christ is God and man in one person which as before most blasphemously they answer was a lie What doth he mean to alter their words and to call him only the man of God not God and man as they express it Whereas you say in the eight saith he that this Christ the man of God is God and man in one person it is a lye If he did believe him to be God and man would he have altered their words and given him such a diminishing appellation as the man of God a title given to meer creatures And as for the humane nature of Christ his distinct particular and proper body do they not deny it For a query being put to George Fox Whether Jesus Christ have a body in heaven and whether it be the same that appeared among men in the flesh c. Thou shalt find him answering That Christ hath but one body which is saith he the Church and he saies he remains in the heavens but he will not say he hath a humane body there And being asked as before Whether it be the same that appeared amongst men He answers It is the same that did descend the same did ascend not acknowledging any other body than what did descend And in the eighty page being asked with what bodies the Saints shall arise and dwell and live in for ever And whether every particular Saint shall have a particular body He answers The Saints shall arise in that body which Christ doth live in for saith he he is the Saviour of the body he is the head of the body and the resurrection and the life of the body and his body is but one So that here thou seest that Christ and the Saints have no distinct bodies of their own and but one common body all blended together And as they thus offer violence to Jesus Christ in his nature and person so do they also to him in his death bloudshed and merits This in part appears by what hath been shewed already in their scoffing at our hopes of being saved by that Jesus Christ that died at Jerusalem and in saying that they are redeemed by the blood of Christ but not at Jerusalem onely but say they made manifest in us So that there is something in themselves whereby they are redeemed Truths Defence pag. 95. and in the 86. page of the same Book they say There is that light and power in every man which if he take heed to it and wait within there he shall find his Saviour Mark there within he shall find his Saviour And affirming the elect were never defiled c. But it appears further in that they hold the sufferings of Christ now in the Saints to be satisfactory for sins past present and to come For Howgill and Borr. as thou maist see in their Answer herewith printed before to the seven Queries say thus Thou blasphemer askes thou knows not what is not Christ the same now as ever and is not the sufferings of Christ satisfactory wherever Nay which is more horrid if we take the question and answer together do they not in effest say for they will not yet speak out all their mind that the sufferings of Christ now in the Saints is all the satisfaction to or which the Justice of God looks for for sins past present and to come For that as thou maist see was the question and they answer as thou seest Are not these men their own saviours and as they make satisfaction for their sin by their own sufferings so they hold they are justified by their own righteousness This also shalt thou find in the last quoted book in their answer to the 9 query where they rail upon the querist for asking Whether there be not another righteousness by which the Saints are justified meaning the righteousness of Christ as in the former query then that righteousness which Christ works in them and by them viz. the saints For this they most wretchedly revile and rail upon the querist because he would have another righteousness then the righteousness of Christ which he works in the Saints and by them Reader if thou be a Christian and knowst any thing of Christ and the Gospel tell me woulst not thou have another righteousness than that righteousness of Christ which he works in thee and by thee I know thou wouldst have and shalt and must have if ever thou be saved the righteousness of Christ wrought in thee and by thee for thy sanctification But dost thou not look for and rely upon another righteousness for thy justification viz. the righteousness of Christ wrought in his own person and made thine by faith and imputation Reader as I told thee before so I tell thee again I am weary with raking in the filthy puddle of their blasphemous opinions and I will follow them no further here If thou wouldst be confirmed in this that these are their received opinions and more of the same nature I refer thee to two Books written by those who dwell amongst them and have most to do with them and have known them longest viz. The perfect Pharisee and The brief relation of the Irreligion of the Northern Quakers both before mentioned But as for these men and their opinions and particularly as to the last mentioned I profess in the presence of the great God were I to chuse my Religion I would rather be a Papist then of these Quakers perswasion for the Papist though he bring in inherent righteousness and righteousness wrought in us and by us as the matter of justification yet he grants and owns another righteousness as necessary yea as most necessary viz. the righteousness of Christ wrought in his own person which these Quakers deny as thou hast seen Nay further in express English they deny it In their answer to the 15 Query I own no righteousness but what is of Christ and wrought by thee Oh fearful blasphemy against the Gospel Thus they offer violence to Jesus Christ And lastly which naturally and must necessarily follow they offer violence to all the ordinances of the Gospel As they deny an outward Christ or a Christ without as they call him so do they deny all outward ordinances So Fox and Nailor in their book A word from the Lord We deny them whose law is without their law without their Church without their baptism prayers and singing without their Christ without their righteousness without c. If they had denied that which is only without they had said somthing but thou seest it is otherwise here 's all outward ordinances worship and Christ and righteousness without struck off at one blow And those Quakers before mentioned in their Answer to the seven Priests say that who are of the Lord are freed from the ordinances of men so they call Gospel-ordinances and outward means and for it most wratchedly abuse these words For where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty And Truths Defence says
And pag 43. by way of reproach Thou saist it because the Scripture saith it Nay do they not in page 90 of the same book answer to the second querie call the letter of the Scripture dust And calls him Serpent for asserting the word preacht as the means of Faith Serpent like saith he thou feedest upon dust And in the next page Answer to the fourth query All thy hearing and all thy pratling of that which thou callest the word by it thou shalt never get Faith which is the gift of God but it is all the Serpents meat which feeds thee thou serpent which art curst above all the beasts of the field And do not they say page 104 of that book Answer to querie the thirtieth That their giving forth of papers or printed books it is from the immediate eternal Spirit of God And then what difference between their stinking rotten blasphemous papers and the sacred Scriptures Yea to make up the measure of their blasphemie do they not say the same spirit which gave forth the Scriptures which gives forth now is as true as the Scriptures and not contrary to the Scriptures The charge being against them for magnifying papers equal to the holy Scriptures what damnable hypocrites are these to say they establish the Scriptures If we take their words in every honest mans sense But what mean these hypocrites then in saying they establish and they confirm and they witness the Scriptures Why forsooth it pleaseth their Godship and Christship or rather devilship to speak from their eternal spirit in the Scripture language and so add their Authority to it as the Papists The Scriptures are but as Aesops Fables with them if not allowed of and confirmed by the authority of their Church Or else they establish it by asserting it to be within them in the power of it For I would allow them all fair interpretation But I pray are not the Scriptures truth and the written and sacred Word of God in themselves whether man doth believe or entertain them yea or no Doth mans believing them make them the Word of God more then they were before It s true as to his comfort or advantage that receives them not to him they are not as the Word of God But in themselves they are and will be though all men in the world reject them They speak lies therefore in hypocrisie in saying they establish the word But further to discover their lying hypocrisie they speak not forsooth from the letter of the Scripture i. not as taught by or from the letter i. what they get by reading of the Scripture in the letter No though the Scripture had never been written they could have spoken as they do from and by the eternal and immediate and infallible spirit But oh ye hypocrites I 'le ask you a question did our English Translators of the Scriptures teach the eternal Spirit to speak English Or if you would speak without lying Did you never read the Scripture in our English translation that you speak the very words for the most part except your canting language from Jacob Behmen as the straying of Eves minde and lust into the visibles and being redeemed out of the perishing nature and such like stuffe will any man believe that the spirit which gives the gift of utterance and expression could not have spoken the same truths in other English As every one knows may be done and yet keep the same sense and truth But it must pedantically teach you like school-boys to speak so by rote Fye for shame It smels leave your hypocritical lying and do not so poorly and basely belye the spirit and speak against that light which is within you But once more and a little further to this what leads your Holiness forth to speak in Scripture language Is it not hypocrite-like that thereby you might catch poor simple plain-hearted people in your snares who having a due and reverent esteem of the Scriptures you allure by pretences of establishing the Scripture to insinuate those poisonous doctrines which I have before discovered you to be guilty of As for Antichrists other two Doctrines of forbidding to marry and abstaining from meats I shall not now prosecute I may speak of that when I shall a little open the effects of their teachings But before I speak to that I shall but suggest my apprehensions of the end these men may have in their undertakings and on whose errand they are come I will present them and leave them to thy judgement They may come in their own Anti-christs or the Devils errand First they may come in their own to cheat the people of the money and this hypocritical lying too For though they raile upon Ministers as Preaching for hire which who so doth let him answer for himself yet they themselves do teach That where they have planted and sown there they may reap Which in plain English is this Those whom they have seduced they may take money of and whether they do or no time will discover Sure I am they have necessary supplies for nature which some able Ministers have not and no doubt a large Diocess which these ramble over will yield more then any particular Parish And they plead hard for Community for in their Answer to the seven Priests page 22. whereas it seems they had charged them with reading for it The Quakers there answer and say Here you are against the Spirit of life For say they they that did believe were of one heart and they that do believe are born of God and amongst such there was no oppressor no taskmaster and it s said all things were common and no man said this is my own And conclude thus You who are not come to Christs Doctrine who is not come to give your coat yet who hath two you we deny So that though they come not for money before-hand they can take it afterwards and though with the Fryars they may not touch money they have a poak in their sleeve into which if you put it some can take it out and know what to doe with it So that this may be one end of their coming Secondly they may come upon Anti-Christs errand and not much improbable for Lancashire and those parts is as famous for Papists as Witches and on good grounds we may conceive them to be Anti-Christs factors if we consider their doctrins For any intelligent Reader may easily discover the doctrines of Vniversal grace Free-will Satisfaction by our own sufferings Justification by inherent holiness Ability to keep the Law Perfection Nulling the Doctrine of Original sin and the Popish real presence All which with some other things I intended particularly to evidence from their writings but I fear being too large There are many other wretched opinions of theirs worse then the Papists which others have discovered from other of their writings which I have not seen and I leave it to others who have more strength and leisure if they
see cause to discover to the world And truely it is not improbable that some of these fellows themselves may be of the Popish tribe and Schollers though professing themselves mechanick for is it not usual And there is a notable story to this purpose lately printed alled The false Jew wherein is expressed his designe and his discovery from his own acknowledgment how that he was sent over from Rome by a special order from the Jesuits and with personal unction and benediction from the Pope and how one while he was to have come over under the notion of a Tailor with direction to joyn with the Anabaptists and to preach Notions But now he came over under the pretext of being a Converted Jew being an excellent Hebritian and circumcised at Rome for this purpose To what and whither will not a deluded spirit lead a man And in that relation you shall find how he joyned with the Anabaptists at Wrexham and was rebaptized by them where he preached notions among them Amongst others this was one That that place Luke 17. 21. where it is said The Kingdom of God is within you he gave this as the most proper sence of the Original sc The Kingdom of God is so within you as that it is not without you in Forms and Ordinances with which interpretation he said Lieutenant Col. Paul Hobson a Teacher among the Anabaptists was mightily taken How many flies may the blind man swallow Another design of this deceiver was to bring the authority of our Translation of the Scripture into question And prevailed so far that some of them entertained scruples about it But now the design is new moulded And now not translations onely but all outward Scriptures must be denyed and rejected And these men can from their infallible spirit make new ones Witness the daring boldness and impudence of these Quakers and their hypocritical lying and belying the Scriptures For Fox and Hubberthorn in their book bring in these words Take heed to the light of God within you And not onely produce them in another character the same with their Scripture quotations But also urge them as the Apostles words thus sc As the Apostle said Take heed to the light of God within you Neither citing what Apostle or where As indeed 't is no where in all the Scripture And Farnworth in his late piece of womens speaking in the Church Printed by Calvert 1654. In the head of his discourse where usually in printed books the Text is placed He hath these words in a distinct character as his Authority for his following discourse But the spirit of truth may declare through the Temple and dwell in it which the world cannot receive And then quotes 1 Cor. 6. 19. Joh. 14. 16 17. Now what man in the world can finde any such words as the former part in all the Scriptures Should we add to and mangle the Scriptures thus how should we be curst and raild at as well we might by every true Christian but not by these men Indeed Reader 't is manifest these mens intents are to fetch people off from the Scripture altogether That so the Authority thereof being rejected they may be the better prepared upon a new assault in another disguise to entertain the infallible Authority of the Romish Chair For the same course the Papists take to render them of small esteem do these men run For the learnedst of them pick out all such places as seem contrary one unto another and urge them to the people denying to any a power of reconciliation referving that to their own un-erring spirit And from thence assume a power to make the whole Authentical or otherwise And do not these men the same It may therefore be very probable all forewritten considered they come of Antichrists errand And thirdly and lastly They may come of the devils errand He hath many messengers and servants and some serve him more eminently and immediately then others And they are Hereticks False Teachers and Seducers I shall take this for the present granted And that these men are sent by him in a more especial manner is extremely probable If you consider the manner of their coming and their matter Their matter you have seen sc reviling railing reproaching lying falsifying blaspheming c. And for the manner entitling the Eternal Holy most pure and unerring Lord God to all these horrid abominations Being seconded with preternatural obsessions possessions operations upon the bodies and spirits of men women and children by violent impulsions motions and actions The parties being so carryed on without confederacies and fore-contrived designes And meerly patients in the business and not able to withstand them And being for confirmation of such diabolical doctrines must needs be the devils operations For this is a sure Conclusion The blessed spirit of Truth will never give testimony to lies And indeed the very nastiness and beastliness of their quakings purging upwards and downwards with most distorted gestures may easily perswade they come from that unclean spirit And that they are swinish possessions not divine raptures I shall not enter upon discourse of these things It hath been done by others I shall therefore give the Reader in two stories from the North which may give some satisfaction in this particular Both stories I have taken out of the Mirrour for Saints and Sinners written by that industrious servant of Christ Mr Samuel Clark Pastor of Benet-Finck London the second Edition The second story is by him contracted and I was the more willing to to take it so to save labour I had the story it self at large in print but having lent it forth could never recover it The first is this ANno Christi 1653. about the month of October came some Quakers out of the North into Wales about Wrexham endeavouring to win some professors to their party Their principal design was to disgrace the Ministry and all publike Ordinances They held Universal redemption Free-will and falling from grace They published that all men have the pure seed of God in them boasting that themselves were perfect and without sin that they knew at the first sight sincere Christians from hypocrites At meetings after long silence sometimes one sometimes more fell into a great and dreadfull shaking and trembling in their whole bodies and all their joynts with such risings and swellings in their bellies and bowels sending forth such shreekings yellings howlings and roarings as not only affrighted the spectaters but caused the dogs to bark the swine to cry and the cattel to run about to the astonishment of all that heard them By these artifices one William Spencer was drawn to leave the Church and to follow them whereupon at several times he fell into the same quaking fits and lying with one of them three several nights the last night being much troubled and not able to sleep upon a sudden he heard something buzzing and humming about the Quakers head like an humble-bee