the Mouth and that the Ingrafted Word is able to save the Soul He did not preach a Visible Christ with Flesh and Bones as some others do So he taught them to pray Our Father not to look at his Person and to pray to him as a Person without them but within them Where we may observe that if they were not to pray to him as a Person without them by the same Reason they are not to believe in him as a Person without them but Christ not only consider'd as the Word who is Omnipresent and in all Men and Things but as made Flesh and having taken the true Nature of Man into a Personal Union therewith and replenishing the same with the fullness of the Godhead and with all fullness of Grace and Truth is the Object of the Christian Worship together with the Father and the holy Spirit dwelling and residing in him But of all this Antichristian Quaking Crew none have discovered more Indignity and Hatred to the Blessed Jesus Christ than William Shewen in a Book call'd A small Treatise concerning evil Thoughts p. 37. being about to conclude a Paragraph he saith Not to Jesus the Son of Abraham David and Mary Saint or Angel but to God the Father all Worship Honour and Glory is to be given A Mahometan would have expressed greater Reverence to Christ than this Quaker has done but what can be expected from such People as deny the Lord that bought them and count the Blood of Jesus as unprofitable to Mankind And whether these are not sufficient Reasons for leaving People of such Principles I leave the World to judge William Smith a great Man among them when he was alive in his Primmer Printed at London 1668 Asks this Question p. 8. Child but how may I know which are the True and which are the False Teachers seeing Words may be the same and makes Childs the Father thus instruct the Child Why they that are false Preach Christ without and bid People believe in him as he is in Heaven above but they that are true Ministers they Preach Christ within and direct People to wait to feel him in themselves and so to believe in him as he makes himself manifest in them And having given this as an infallible Sign of a Quaker he makes the Child ask but must I not try all things by the Scriptures and the Father answers Nay for the Scriptures were given forth by the Spirit and it is the Spirit that tries whether the things be true or false good or evil Here is another piece of the Old Serpents Subtilty for since the Spirit must try all things they laying a claim to the Spirit have invested themselves with a pretence to make their own Sentiments of greater Authority than the Sacred Scriptures Which is another good Reason for leaving them that deny the Word of God to be the Test of Christian Doctrines and though we are commanded to Search the Scriptures discharge us from doing it Through the Pride of their Hearts the Quakers pretend to Infallibility and a sinless Perfection in this Life * Nar. 4. p. 1 2. vilifying all those that deny them this Prerogative as under the Curse in another Spirit than Christ the Prophets and Apostles were in that gave forth the Scripture And George Whitehead affirms Those that Ministers that want Infallibity have not the Spirit of Christ but are out of the Truth and their Ministry is deceiful And this they as confidently and proudly affirm as the Pope himself But it is denied by all Oxthodox Christians as repugnant to the Doctrine of the New Testament who yet grant that all the Faithful are infallibly led into all Truths necessary to Salvation by the infallible Spirit in the use of the Holy Scriptures which contain the infallible Truths of the Gospel But as this Doctrine of the Quakers is contradictory to Scripture which brands all with the Infamous Character of Lyars that pretend to it so it is seldom claim'd but by those that are farthest from it as is manifest among the Quakers who though they pretend to be guided by an infallible Spirit 't is apparent that many of them are under great Delusions and Errors concerning the great Truths of the Evangelical Dispensation as has been proved by the foregoing Instances Again as to their pretence to Sinless perfection he that makes a Scrutiny into their Morals will scarce find them such a Church as is without Spot or Wrinkle but are as far from that Perfection which they boast to have attained to as any other sort of People that pretend to any exactitude in their Conversation and as to their Principles 't is certain that George Fox their Quondam Metropolitan Edward Burroughs Francis Hougil Richard Hubberthorn and some of their greatest Saints lived in great Ignorance Error and Unbelief in divers great Fundamentals of the Christian Faith and in great uncharitableness toward such as differ'd from them The same humour of Self-conceit that began with this People still continues among them and G.W. laughs at the Church of England who are always from Seven Years of Age to Seventy Praying Lord have mercy upon us miserable Sinners Is not this a plain Evidence of the intollerable Pride that reigns among the Quakers concerning their Sinless perfection who despise not only the Church of England but all other Christian Churches throughout the World who pray for Forgiveness of Sins tho' when Christ taught his Disciples to pray for their Daily-bread he enjoined them also to pray for the Forgiveness of their Sins Must not the Diseased come to the Physician till they are cured and those that feel the Burden of Sin pray to be Eas'd How arrogantly does George Whitehead charge the Church of England for Confessing and not Forsaking their Sins How can he more prove his Charge against them than against his own Society or himself Many in the Church of England and among other Protestants may compare with the best of Quakers for Holiness of Life and far exceed them in many Vertues especially in Sobriety and Humility But pray tell me you Self-conceited Quakers are not they better employ'd who confess their Sins and yet through humane Frailty find they Relapse into some Sins than such proud Pharisees as you are that neither Confess nor forsake your Sins but employ your Selves in Railing against them that do They that Confess their Sins shew a Desire and pray for ability to forsake them whilst those that say they have no Sin deceive themselves into such a Security as is the ready Road to Damnation The next great Article of Faith which they deny and Fight against is the Resurrection of the Body but because the denying this in plain terms they think would make them be despised among all the various Professors of Christianity William Penn being urged to Answer the Proofs that were brought from the 1 Cor. 15. says in his Rejoinder That let the whole Chapter be considered and we shall find
What Scripture Proof is there that Christ subsisteth outwardly Bodily without us at God's Right-hand and where is God's Right-hand is it visible or invisible within us or without us only and is Christ a Saviour as an outward bodily Existence or Person without us distinct from God and on that consideration to be worshipped as God Yea or Nay This way of Talking and Writing is the peculiar knack of the Quakers who have more Shifts and Subterfuges to cloak their Heresies than any of the Ignation Tribe In writing about Justification by the Blood of Christ the same Authors contrary to the express words of Scripture say That 't is a Confusion a Labyrinth and Vncertainty to be directed to Christ for Justification and Salvation both as he suffer'd at Jerusalem and as he Rose again and is Ascended into Heaven above the Clouds and Firmaments and to fill up the Measure of their just Condemnation Solomon Eccles has published it in Print * Nar. 1. p. 27. That the Blood of Christ in respect of Justification is of no more efficacy than the Blood of another Saint and certainly if ever Comparisons were Odious this Quakeristical Absurdity is intolerable All their Writings are stuffed with such inexplicable and unintelligible Phrases and wild Notions that they seem rather intended to puzzle and distract than inlighten a Reader and notwithstanding all their fallacious Pretences of being an innocent plain simple People that are most affected with Scripture Language yet they are as far from it as Light from Darkness for in truth no Society of Men that are called Christians no not the Church of Rome it self have so much deviated from Scripture Language and Scripture Doctrine and Sence as the Quakers have done And as the Spirit of Pride and vain Glory does always abound in worthless Minds as empty Vessels and shallow Brooks are known to yield the loudest sound so the Quakers are always filling the World with their own Commendations as if there were no good wise nor vertuous Men upon Earth but what were enclosed within the narrow confines of a Quaking Conventicle whereas in truth the readiest way to know them rightly is read them in the reverse of the Characters they give themselves The Quakers also say that we are not Justified by the Blood of Christ outwardly shed which is a piece of Divinity more fit for Bedlam than any sober Society of People * Nar. 1. p. 33. but as if this was not sufficient to Stigmatize them with the approbius Name of Obstinate or Blind Hereticks they are pleas'd to add also That we are not Sanctified by that Blood of Christ that was shed without the Gates of Jerusalem but by an inward Blood whose Power and Vertue is unknown to any but the Quakers and if these are not bold Strokes against the whole Doctrine of the Bible and the Declarations and Confessions of the whole Christian World you may add to these another of their Tennets and that is * Nar. 1. p. 34. That the Body that dieth never riseth again which is expresly opposite and contradictory to many places of Scripture that especially in Acts the 26th That Christ should suffer and should be the first that should be raised from the Dead In all parts of the World where the Quakers have spread themselves there is a Universal Neglect among them of Preaching Christ Crucified and concerning Faith in him Preaching only the Light within and Christ within And when I began to preach up the Fundamental Principles of the Christian Religion among them they stood up against me and charg'd me with preaching up new Doctrines and one appeal'd to the Monthly Meeting whether they ever heard of such Doctrines preach'd in the Quakers Meetings directing them to Faith in a Christ without them I Reverence Divine Providence that I became a Quakers but if I had known they had had such Errors among them I would as soon have put my Head into the Fire as have associated with them They were so assiduous in maintaining their own Erroneous Principles that they did all they could to prevent me from opposing them by reporting that I was a False Teacher and accused me for setting up thre Heterodox Principles * Nar. 1. p. 38. 39. The first was That Christ's Body rose out of the Grave and they affirm'd it never did and dared me to give an Instance that one English Quaker was of my Opinion The Second Accusation was that I had said That it was lawful to pray to Jesus Christ Crucified And in this also challeng'd me to name one Quaker that I ever heard pray to Christ and when the 1 Cor. 1.2 was read To all that call upon the Lord Jesus Christ both their Lord and ours The Quakers answer'd That Paul was as Dark and as Ignorant as George Keith is adding for our part we know better The third piece of False Doctrine they accused me of was for saying That the best Saints had need to come always to God by the Mediator the Man Christ Jesus This they inveighed against as a gross Error and said they would come to God without him this sort of Doctrine is to be found in William Shewen's Book a Quaker in great esteem among them For these things they Excommunicated me first and afterwards presented me by a Grand Jury at Philadelphia in Pensilvania and they would have found me guilty of Death though I was wholy Innocent of indeavouring to change the Government which they accused me of if the Government had not been taken out of their Hands and I discharg'd from that false and malicious Accusation by Governour Fletcher George Whitehead and William Penn * Nar. 1. p. 38. 40. by Allegorizing Plain and Positive Texts of Scripture have endeavoured to overthrow the Belief of Christ's Birth his Death Resurrection Ascension and coming to Judgment and by this Artifice has left us no Scripture to prove that the Death of Christ was any benefit to us and as to Christ's coming to Judgment Whitehead says in an Answer to R. Gordon that he might look till his Eyes dropt out before he should see Christ appear again outwardly in a Bodily Existence After this having read over my Books they drew up ten Articles against me charging me with false Doctrine in ten Particulars and John Humphrey says in his first Letter that he perceives by those Articles That my Faith relished too much of Carnality a carnal Body of Christ in Heaven a carnal Election and Reprobation a carnal Justification and Adoption a carnal Day of Judgment and Resurrection beyond the Grave I am grieved says he to hear some say they did expect to be justified by that Blood of Christ that was shed at Jerusalem Is not this to be carnally Minded William Baily who was a great Preacher among the Quakers and whose Books * Nar. 3. p. 3.4 they have Re-printed says That the Apostle Preached Christ the word nigh in the Heart and in
Adversaries in Pensilvania and then it grew to Rupture and I withstood them to their Faces Another Objection that they raise against me is That the things which I now call Vile Errors and Heresies in them I had formerly Defended and declared that in so doing I had a Divine Sense and Acceptance to which I answer First by utterly denying that ever I defended them in those Vile Errors which oppose the four great Fundamental Doctrines of the Christian Religion which I have since charged them with or indeed any other Article of the Christian Faith properly so called or distinguished Those things wherein I defended them were only stating the Matter fairly between them and their Opponents in several Cases wherein I thought them unduly charged partly in the undue Use and Application of places of Scripture to prove certain Truths and partly in too much aggravating and widening through my too great Heat and preposterous Zeal and being too Biggotly affected though ignorantly to that Party who call all others Sects and Sectaries and themselves the Church yet are certainly more Biggoted into a Sect and more implicitely led by Sect-Masters than any People in Christendom that I know of And lastly I have acknowledged and lamented my Sinful Ignorance and Rashness in my former opposing any Divine Institution or reflecting in my Books upon any particular Persons or Religious Societies And to argue a little with my Adversaries who object That I have formerly defended the Quakers Principles I would fain know what Principles they mean Whether they relate to the Fundamentals of Religion if so let them name them that I may give the World Satisfaction by confessing my Fault or justifie my self where I am falsly accused And if through Humane Infirmity Weakness or Ignorance for humanum est Errari Labi Decipi I have misunderstood any thing which by a more diligent Examination and Application to the Holy Scriptures I have discoverd afterwards to be a misapprehension this will be no proof of my Insincerity or that I am an Apostate gone from all Divine Sense and Tenderness lost my good Condition without any inward Feeling for these are the lovely Epithets they bestow upon me But are not these Qaakers uncharitable Men Can a mistake in some things render a Man Universally mistaken in all things Because some are beguiled with Shews and Shadows of Reason Is there therefore no such thing as true and sound Reason in the World Because St. Paul once thought he ought to do many things against the Name of Jesus must his Conversion be call'd an Argument of his Insincerity Must he be thought an unsound Christian because he was once a Jew and continue a Persecutor and a Blind leader of the Blind for fear of being call'd an Apostate from the Principles which he imbibed in the days of Ignorance Away with these ridiculous Notions which are but the Evasions Quiblings and Shiftings of the Party which by muddying the Water hope to escape undetected Why will they not be try'd by their own Rule and allow that Liberty to others that they exercise among themselves Have not some of the most Eminent among them been egregiously deceived and taken their Fanciful Imaginations for Divine Lights Their Consciences will tell them what particular Persons of great Note among them I could name that have been scandalously mistaken by their own Confession and took things upon Trust for Divine Breathings that upon better Examination proved to be Infamovs Delusions Did not some of the most celebrated Quakers nay even their Preachers follow the Blasphemous Enthusiastick Delusions and Waking Dreams of James Naylor and John Perrot Was it not one of their great Preachers Samuel Cater by Name now living that lead James Naylor's Horse by the Bridle when he Rid Triumphantly into Bristol Was that a Divine Sense in George Fox who said his Marriage with Widow Fell was a Figure of the Church coming out of the Wilderness and that the Figure might be compleat those that credited that Deceit concluded her to be with Child though she was past Sixty Years of Age and therefore accounted it Miraculous Other considerable Instances might be given of their extravagantly Wild and Frenetick Delusions than I thank God can be charg'd upon me for notwithstanding all the Mistakes and Errors I lay under yet as to the main I bless God I was preserved But what a sad and scandalous Inference does this way of Arguing cast upon themselves who generally in their Books Father all their Vilest Errors and Heresies upon the Spirit of Truth according to the Notion they have of the Spirit dwelling in them by which means they Hedge up their way and Baricado up themselves against all discoveries and acknowledgments of their Errors because they think they are guided by the Spirit and are sure they possess the Spirit because they think so otherwise by their own arguing they must be Apostates When a Man turns from Error to Truth must he be call'd an Apostate When a Man through humane Infirmity slides into Mistaken Notions without denying or opposing any Article of the Christian Faith can this be call'd Apostacy Surely in the Judgment of any sober and unprejudiced Party it cannot and therefore their censuring me is unchristian as well as uncharitable since I have only renounced the Errors I was tainted with whilst I lived and convers'd among them as for their Herisies I was never I bless God corrupten with them As Idle Impertinent and Vain is their arguing that 't was very unlikely that living thirty years among them I could be Ignorant of their Principles Which is a Fallacy in Terms for as they are a Body of People how could I or any Body else know their Principles when 't is known to all the World they have none and are profess'd Enemies to All Creeds and Confessions of Faith owned by all their Members without which 't is impossible without a Miracle to know what their Principles are for to this day never any Confession of Faith has been universally received by them but some are of one Opinion some of others and what is affirm'd to Day for Truth is denied to Morrow A Weather-Cock is not more variable in its Motion than the Quakers are dexterous in shifting their Opinions through all the parts of the Compass They are now more enraged against me than ever and call me the Epitome and very common place of all their Preceding Adversaries with other vile and abusive Names which is but acting like themselves and spewing out the Venom of their Hearts against me from the Infection of which I pray God preserve me and all Christian People and that if it please God he may give them a Sense of their great Sin of uncharitableness towards me and true Repentance and forgiveness of it who hate me and count me their Enemy for endeavouring to do them good and seeking sincerely to reduce them from their Errors to the Truth the Success of which my sincere
associate longer with them lest being tainted with their Erors I should be obnoxious to their Punishment I shall in the next place give you some of my Reasons that engaged me to Abandon Quakerism and to embrace Christianity according to the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of England And the first Reason I assign for leaving Quakerism is because they are at such great Vncertainties in what they profess that no Man can have any assurance where to bottom or whether that which they own to day will be allow'd to be Truth to Morrow They are constant in nothing but in Contradiction and 't is Reason enough for them to Disbelieve any Position and with all their Force and Powers to oppose it if it had not the â—onour of their Invention and became Current by the Stamp of their own Authority and if it were not for their Habits they would be all taken for Mahometans by refusing to believe or act like Christians All other Religious Societies have their Confessions of Faith under some Appellation or other by which Men may know what they believe but the Quakers are such Lattitudinarians that if a Stranger should ask what they were he could receive no other Answer than that they are what other Men are not but such as in Humour Gesture Garb Meinâ— and Pedantick Canting Nonsence are Antipodes to all the World of which nothing is a greater instance than carrying dead Men to their Graves with their Heads foremost And if enquiry should be made what Faith they profess it must be answered that no Body knows nor themselves neither and their Meeting-Houses might be Dedicated to the unknown God A second Reason is That if their Principles may be collected out of the Books they publish they are too Erroneous Heretical and Blasphemous for any good Christian to comply with some of which I shall recite in this Discourse and refer you in the Margin to such Places in my Narratives where the Quotations are proved beyond contradiction Now the first thing I shall charge the Quakers with is That the Scriptures according the Dictate of their greatest Teachers are not the Word of God This Notion is so common among all their Authors and so frequent in the Mouths of their Proselites that it is almost lost labour to prove it upon them One of their famed Authors is so angry with his Opponent for affirming that the Scriptures are the Word of God that he charges him with Blasphemy * Nar. 4 p. 22. for Asserting it and by consequence makes the Church of England and all other Protestant Churches to be guilty of that direful Imputation Nor is this Doctrine of theirs a strife about Words but the Foundation of their Deism and a handle for the Overthrowing Christianity and therefore the Quakers have very lately Reprinted William Penn's Discourse concerning the General Rule of Faith and Practice who brings Fourteen Arguments to prove that the Scriptures are not the General Rule of Faith and Practice in Three of which Arguments he accuses them of Imperfection Vncertainty and Obscurity And this is a most dangerous Heresie for by this Principle they are not obliged to believe one intire Doctrine in the Apostles Creed as indeed I could easily prove they do not George Fox does not only deny the Scriptures to be the Word of God * Nar. 4. p. 24. but gives them contemptible Names as Ink and Paper Dust and Serpent Meat But that the Scriptures are the Word of God is clear from abundant of Places in the Scriptures Our Gospel came unto you said Paul to the Thessalonians not in Word only by Word here is meant Doctrine Isai 28.13 The word of the Lord was made unto them Precept upon Precept Line upon Line here the Precepts and written Lines of the Prophets are called the Word of the Lord and John 15.25 it is called the written Word which was a short Sentence written in one of the Psalms And when Paul bid Timothy preach the Word it cannot be justly thought that he would have him only preach the Inward Word but by the Word he meant the Doctrine of the Gospel and all that the Quakers say against this received Truth is but mere trifling and humouring their Spirit of Contradiction The next stroke the Quakers make towards the Destruction of Christianity is against the Divinity of Christ and to this purpose William Penn in a Controversie between himself and some Presbyterian Ministers in Ireland where the Question was whither he that suffered Death without the Gates of Jerusalem was not and is properly the Son of God William Penn in his Book called a Serious Apology p. 146. saith That the Outward Person which suffered was properly the Son of God we utterly deny With the like Confidence G.W. assaults the Humanity of Christ in pos 〈…〉 tively denying that Christ consisted of Flesh and Bones in those words I distinguish says he between consisting and having Christ had Flesh and Bones but did not consist of them as a Man has a Coat or Garment but does not consist of it and that outward Person that suffered at Jerusalem was Christ by a Metoning of the the thing containing for the thing contained But all Sound and Orthodox Christians say according to the Scriptures that Christ is both God and Man having his Godhead and Manhood so united as to constitute one Christ which is a miraculous and extraordinary Vnion that no other Creatures neither Angels nor Men are dignified with And though Christ as Man was the Son of God miraculously conceived and born in time and also as God was by a Generation from all Eternity yet he is but one Son of God and because of the personal Union of the Godhead with his Manhood both as God and Man is properly the Son of God The Excuse the Quakers make that Christ did not meerly consist of Flesh Blood and Bones signifies nothing for none ever affirm'd any such thing Whatsoever has Parts consists of those Parts Incompleatly of one or more Parts Compleatly of them all The Foundation of the Quakers great Error on this Head lieth here That because Christ was before the Body was therefore that Body is no part of him which is easily answered thus Christ was before that Body was but he was not compleatly and in all respects fitted to be the Anointed Saviour of the World until the Word was made Flesh that is till the Word did take our Flesh and whole Nature into a personal Union with him which was necessary to the compleat Performance of his Mediatory Offices of King Priest and Prophet and especially of his Priestly Office The next thing I charge as abominable Blasphemy upon the Quakers especially G.F. and G W is for affirming That Christ's coming in the Flesh and his Suffering without us in the Flesh and his outward Flesh and Blood was a Figure and but a Figure of Christ of what he suffered in us and his Blood shed in us Thus