the disingenious Snake both to laugh Scornfully Lye and Flatter because he acknowledges not for his Guide the Holy and Infallible Spirit of God But that W. P. laughs not as is falsly said we will now see Ibid. p. 37. W. P. in a sheet of his Entituled A Winding Sheet for Controversie ended catches up Hen. Hedworth for saying he had been mistaken in the good Opinion he had before of Mr. Penn 's Judgment and Conscience How can he chuse says Mr. Penn who denys Infallibility But if mistaken before why not in the Quakers now And so ad infinitum being fallible Judgment and Conscience in respect of Matters Spiritual in Articles of Faith can only be certainly and knowingly judged of by the Spirit of God and what Man soever shall judge of these things without the assistance thereof must of necessity be mistaken for the reason which the Apostle has given 1 Cor. 2.11 For the things of God knoweth no Man but the Spirit of God And if Hen. Hedworth did by Opinion not the assistance of the Spirit of God judge of W. Penn's Judgment and Conscience no marvel if he were mistaken and if by the same medium he would Judge of the Quakers he was equally lyable to be also mistaken in them and so ad infinitum in all his natural Guessings about Spiritual Things and so must this Snake also Ibid. p. 38. Quoted from p. 3. Sect. 2. of W. P's Winding Sheet c. He vindicates what G. F. had asserted of the Quakers Infallibility for having repeated these words of G. F. which were put as an Objection against him How can ye be Ministers of the Spirit and not be infallible And how can they but delude the People who are not infallible He makes this reply I Answer says he G. F's words stand immoveable for ever And he gives this strange reason to support himself and G. F. For says he He that is a Minister of the Spirit is Infallibly so and in that Ministry is Infallible otherwise the Spirit 's Ministry is Fallible I have here been large in transcribing the whole Quotation that the Reader may see whether the Wild Consequences which the Snake does falsly suggest can naturally follow from the Doctrine aforesaid His Consequences are these Ibid. p. 38. That if any Man who is Lighted by the Sun stumble or miss his way the fault is in the Sun which shewed him a false Light what else can be the meaning of that saying If a Minister be not infallible then the Ministry of the Spirit is fallible To make God himself Fallible rather than we should be Infallible O wretched false and perverse consequence of this Snake But truly and easily following is this Consequence If a Man who is Lighted by the Sun stumble or miss his way the fault is not in the Sun that shewed him a true Light but the fault is in his neglecting of it And according to this the meaning of that saying If a Minister of the here the Snake has basely and falsly left out the word Spirit be not infallible then the Spirits Ministry is Fallible The meaning is this God the Holy Spirit is Infallible and those whom he qualifies fits and prepares for his Ministry such are Infallibly assisted to be Ministers of the Spirit But if any who have been so assisted depart from the assistance of the Holy Spirit such in their Ministry are not Infallible tho' the Spirit is Ibid. p. 38. Quoted from Winding Sheet p. 4. Sect. 3. He roundly checks his Opponent H. Hedworth saying I bestowed 32 pages to prove G. F's Spirit to be Infallible for that belongs simply to God alone and then those that are Led by it which was my Question in which sense he is and all such persons are Infallible as he himself confesseth c. Here says the Snake H. Hedworth is made Infallible too But that is false for the words are plain that those that are Led by the Holy Spirit are infallibly Led By this G. F. might be infallibly Led by this any other may be infallibly Led This Hen. Hedworth hath confessed this is what W. P. saith but he could not say H. H. was infallible Because he had quoted him in p. 37. denying of infallibility Ibid. p. 39. Nay the Devil himself is infallible at this rate for he has his Knowledge as well as Being from God Knowledge is Light And if that Knowledge which comes from God be infallible then while the Devil follows that Light or Knowledge he must be infallible And if this be all the Infallibility which the Quakers ascribe to themselves it distinguishes them not from Wicked Men or Devils Profane perversion The Almighty God by his Almighty Fiat did create the several Species of Beings and Creatures and furnished each according to the order in which he placed them To Angels and Men he gives Knowledge and Understanding in their several Degrees by which they might answer the end of their Creation But some Angels and all Men have fallen yet have not thereby lost all that Knowledge which by the Degree of their Beings they had But in their fallen estate employ what Knowledge they have to other purposes than those for which it was given Hence the Devil goes about seeking whom he may Devour 1 Pet. 5.8 And the Devil did follow his Knowledge when in Mat. 4.5 8. he tempted our Saviour And did know that had our Saviour worshipped him he had been conquered Yet the Devil was not herein infallible Nay the Devils believe and tremble from the Knowledge which they have of the Eternal God and their own Eternal Damnation How profane Reader must it be to suppose that this their Knowledge makes them infallible that is guided by the Holy Spirit of God Which none can be unless obedient to it But the Infallibility which does distinguish us from Wicked Men and Devils and which we say is possessed by us Is no other than this That whereas all Men are fallen short of God's Glory and are by Nature Children of Wrath. Man cannot be restored out of this estate but by the benefits of the Propitiatory Sacrifice of Christ outwardly slain by which Sacrifice our High-Priest who was touched with the feeling of our Infirmities hath put Man into a capacity of accepting his Mediation And in order to our reconciliation with God hath given to every one a manifestation of the Infallible Holy Spirit in which he did the Will of the Father To this manifestation such as are obedient are infallibly led in all things that concern Salvation Redemption and Eternal Life which neither Devils nor Wicked Men can be because disobedient to it See Reader how much the Jugler this Snake plays in endeavouring to obtrude under a shew of reason a most dangerous notion and directly contrary to all Revealed Religion which doth agree that the Light and Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son is able as our Saviour saith to lead into all Truth
And that to this Holy Spirit Wicked Men and Devils are disobedient yet still have such degrees of Knowledge which are the proper Distinction of their Being Ibid. p. 39. Sometimes it makes them as Infallible as the Apostles nay as Christ himself But at other times when they are pressed they bring down this Infallibility to mean nothing in the World that does distinguish them from other Men. It is utterly false no Quaker hath said he was as Infallible as the Apostles or Christ himself I demand an Instance But without pressing we have often said that a Manifestation of the Light and Infallible Spirit or Grace is 1 Cor. 12.7 given to every Man to profit withal without distinction That which makes the Distinction is Obedience to it By this it was Paul could say 1 Cor. 15.10 By the Grace of God I am what I am and by the same Grace we say we are what we are Ibid. p. 40. But this will no more prove it to be Infallible or sufficient of it self to bring us to Heaven than it will follow that Man cannot die because God breathed into him the Breath of Life or that he is omnipotent because his strength comes from God That the Holy Spirit is Infallible and sufficient for the purposes for which God hath given to Men manifestations of it is very certain from the testimony of God himself 2 Cor. 12.9 My Grace is sufficient for thee But it follows not from this that Man cannot Die or that he is omnipotent because his Life and Strength came from God God hath been pleased to give to Men such Natural Powers as are agreeable to the Nature of their Humane Being And these Natural Powers being employed according to that Great Law of Order in which we stand in the Creation we may act in them our appointed time But the Principles of our Humane Being being finite their power to act is the same and must come to an end With Spirits It is otherwise They are more simple and uncompounded Beings therefore of eternal Duration And the God of the Spirits of all Flesh in Infinite Compassion when Man had forfeited his Title to Happiness to us that this Eternal Duration might be in happiness gave the Son of his Love that we who were afar off might be reconciled to himself which cannot be but as the Spirit of Man which hath rebelled and been in Disobedience comes by the Operation of the Spirit of God upon it to be restored into obedience to its Guidings Which if he will be in the day of his Visitation That Grace and Truth which comes by Jesus Christ will sufficiently and infallibly lead him into Reconciliation with God from whom through disobedience he was fallen And this is not as the Snake says p. 41. Derogatory to the Satisfaction paid by Christ for our Sins But on the contrary places the true value upon it It being that by which we are put into a capacity of being reconciled and not by any power of our own And when the Apostle bids Phil. 2.12 To work out our own Salvation We never understood it otherwise than by the assistance of that Grace which comes by Jesus Christ to Men during the day of their visitation Ibid. p. 41. That does not make the Light within the efficient cause of our Salvation or give it any Title to Infallibility more than vers 13. of the 4th Chap. in the same Epistle can entitle us to Omnipotence because St. Paul says there I can do all things That Christ in his Spiritual Appearance the Light within is the Efficient cause of our Salvation I need not give a greater proof than this same 13th vers which the Snake has quoted For there the Apostle Phil. 4.13 says I can do all things through Christ which strengthneth me that is all things relating to his Ministry as an Apostle or his Duty as a Christian. I come now to the Snake's 4th Head of Distinction which is little more than Profane and Scornful Banter after the first Paragraph p. 41. But if any could pretend to Infallibilty They will be found to have the best title to whom the Quakers would most unwillingly grant it For it is written Prov. 16.10 A Divine Sentence is in the Lip of the King and his Mouth transgresseth not in Judgment Why then does the Snake deny that best Title and not obey that Divine Sentence which confirmed the present Government Why would he flee the Judgment of a Mouth which transgresseth not in Judgment By fleeing and denying he loudly proclaims his unwillingness to grant it But as for us we do not unwillingly but readily grant That God is ready to supply Kings with Wisdom and Justice suitable to their High Station for the good of themselves and those they govern if they in humility will receive it But as with God there is no respect of persons so we do as readily grant That God by his Spirit does as infallibly teach the Governed in their private capacities all that is necessary to their Salvation if they will but attend and learn Ibid. p. 42. Do you think that the Quakers infallibility is limited to speaking only They can make an Infallible Judgment of Men's Hearts and tell who are Saints and who are Devils by very winks and glances At the first glance and so throughout this appears to be a very Lye for no Quaker hath so said But we do say that such who be in the Power and Life of Truth can discern between Saints and Devils for all true Spiritual Discerning is in the Holy Spirit Not but that there often are exteriour marks of inward wickedness Hence Gen. 4.5 When Cain was very wroth his Countenance fell Hence David saith Psal. 10.4 The wicked through the pride of his Countenance will not seek after God And the Prophet Isaiah chap. 3.9 The shew of their Countenance doth witness against them and in the 16th vers the Lord numbers up among the exterior marks of inward wickedness wanton Eyes mincing and tinkling with their Feet Yet these exterior infallible marks as they have been declared by God himself is in the language of this Profane Adversary p. 43. Dwindled down to a meer Gypsie a paultry Fortune-teller to nothing but a little skill in Physiognomy Reader Is it possible for one who so profanely ridicules both the Inward Discerning and the Outward Marks of Secret Iniquity to advance the great end of good Life and Conversation No such ridiculing is in direct opposition to them and is distructive to Exemplary Modesty how great soever his pretence may be of love to Souls I come now to his Fifth Head of Distinction of divers Stories of particular Failings which he brings in opposition to that Infallibility I have so largely spoken of which Plea the Snake says p. 48. leads us naturally into this sort of Redargution Though here as before he is altogether out For tho' to give a Man a Fall is it 's true a plain Conviction
Stranger when I was in Prison with these words Thy Name shall be no more James Naylor but Jesus This I judge to be written from the Imaginations and a Fear stroke me when I first saw it and so I put it in my Pocket close not intending any should see it which they finding on me spread it abroad which the simplicity of my Heart never occasioned So this I deny also that the Name of Christ Jesus is received instead of James Naylor or after the Flesh for the Name is to the Seed to all Generations and he that hath the Son hath the Name which is Life and Power the Salvation and the Unction into the which Name all the Children of Light are Baptized So the Name of Christ I confess before Men but not according to Men which Name to me hath been a Strong Tower in the Night and in the Day And this is the Name of Christ Jesus which I confess the Son and the Lamb in the Seed where he speaks in Male or Female but who hath not this in himself hath not Life neither can have by Idolizing my Person or the Person of any Flesh but in whom the Heir is born and hath spoken or doth speak there he must not be denied the Mouth to spake by who is Head over all and in all his own God blessed for ever And all those Ranting Wild Spirits which then gathered about me in that time of Darkness and all their Wild Actions and Wicked Words against the Honour of God and his pure Spirit and People I deny the Spirit the Power and the Works thereof and as far as I gave advantage through want of Judgment for that Evil Spirit in any to arise I take shame to my self justly having formerly had Power over that Spirit in Judgment and Discerning where-ever it was which Darkness came over me through want of Watchfulness and Obedience to the Pure Eye of God and diligently minding the Reproof of Life which condemns the Adulterous Spirit So the Adversary got advantage who ceases not to seek to devour and being taken Captive from the True Light walked in the Night where none can work as a wandring Bird fit for the prey And if the Lord of all my Mercies had not rescued me I had perished for I was as one appointed to Death and Destruction and there was none could deliver me And this I confess that God may be justified in his Judgment and magnified in his Mercies without end who did not forsake his Captive in the Night even when his Spirit was daily provoked and grieved but hath brought me forth to give Glory to his Name for ever And it is in my Heart to confess to God and before Men my Folly and Offence in that day Yet was there many things formed against me in that day to take away my Life and bring Scandal upon the Truth of which I am not Guilty at all as that accusation as if I had committed Adultery with some of those Women who came with us from Exeter Prison and also those who were with me at Bristol the Night before I suffered there of both which Accusations I am clear before God who kept me at that day both in Thought and Deed as to all Women as a little Child God is my Record and this I mention in Particular hearing of some who still cease not to reproach therewith God's Truth and People that the Mouth of Enmity might be shut from evil speaking though this touch not my Conscience And that Report as though I had raised Dorkas Erbury from the Dead carnally this I deny also and condemn that Testimony to be out of the Truth tho' that Power that quickens the Dead I deny not which is the Word of Eternal Life And this I give forth that it may go as far as the Offence against the Spirit of Truth hath gone abroad that all Burthens may be taken off with the Truth and the Truth cleared thereby and the True Light and all that walk therein and the Deeds of Darkness be condemned and that all that are in Darkness may not Act in the Night but stay upon God who walks in the Light who with the Workers of Iniquity hath not fellowship which had I done when first Darkness came upon me and not been led by others I had not run against the Rock to be broken which so long had born me and of whom I had so largely drank and of which I now drink in measure to whom be the glory of all and to him must every Tongue confess as Judge and Saviour God over all blessed for ever And this further is given me to say to every particular Person to whom this Writing shall come Whatever is thy Condition walk in the Light which lets thee see it there is thy Counsel and thy strength to be received to stay thee and recover thee Art thou tempted to Sin Abide in that which lets thee see it that there thou mayst come to feed on the Right Body not on the Temptation for if thou mind the Temptation it will overcome thee but in the Light is Salvation Or having Sinned art thou tempted to despair or to destroy thy self mind not the Temptation for it's Death that Sin hath brought forth feed not on it nor mind it least thou eat Condemnation for that 's the Wrong Body The Body of Christ is felt in the Light in which is Life from Death Grace and Truth to Feed on which will overcome for thee being followed but if thou follow the Temptation Fear and Condemnation will swallow thee up If there appear to thee Voices Visions and Revelations feed not thereon but abide in the Light and feel the Body of Christ and there wilt thou receive Faith and Power to judge of every appearance and Spirit the Good to hold fast and obey and the False to resist Art thou in Darkness mind it not for if thou do it will fill thee more but stand still and Act not and wait in patience till Light arise out of Darkness to lead thee Art thou wounded in Conscience feed not there but abide in the Light which leads to the Grace and Truth which teaches to deny and put off the Weight and removes the Cause and brings Saving Health to Light Yea this I say to thee in the Name of Jesus Christ that tho' thou has made thy Grave as deep as the nethermost Hell or were thy Afflictions as great as Job's and thy Darkness as the Depths of the Sea yet if thou wilt not run to vain helps as I have done but stay upon the Lord till he give thee sight by his word which commands Light to shine out of Darkness from thence will he bring thee forth thy Eye shall guide thee and thou shalt praise his Name as I do this day glory for evermore and this word is nigh thee which must give thee Light tho' Darkness Comprehends it not And hast thou Gifts Revelations Knowledge Wisdom or
he has left us to guess who set it up in England For he having enumerated some Instances in which Enthusiasm is owned in the Liturgy and Offices of the Church Does declare p. 317. There is not one Book of Devotion used among us that does not tell us the same What Same Why the same Enthusiasm or Inspiration p. 119. Full as much as any sober Quaker can mean by the Light within Now if this same Enthusiasm came chiefly from Rome and Labade a Jesuit set it up in Holland he will be yet more particular if he can help us to his Name and Character who set it up in England But the Snake says R. B. was tinctur'd with it in his younger Years in the Stotch Convent at Paris What it was R. B. tinctured with If with the same Enthusiasm that he says is allow'd and own'd in the Church full as much as any sober Quaker can mean by the Light within Can there be any fault in that And that it was not the same Enthusiasm he has no where prov'd nor attempted to do it no more than he has attempted to prove that it was the same Enthusiasm with which R. B. as he says was tinctur'd and which Labade set up in Holland But the Snake's Argument has yet another Branch to shew that Popish Emissaries set up Quakerism c. viz. John Vaughton and William Southby formerly Roman Catholicks are now Preachers one in London the other in Pensilvania Therefore c. Reader It may be worth thy while a little to consider the unconcluding Rodomantade of this our Adversary in this point Enthusiasm came chiefly from Rome Labade a Jesuit set it up in Holland Therefore Popish Emissaries first set it up in England Robert Barclay when Young was at the Scotch Convent in Paris J. Vaughton and W. Southby were formerly Roman Catholicks tho' neither of them were more than Infants if born when Quakers first appear'd in England yet he will have it hence follow that Popish Emissaries first set up Quakerism in England Besides that his reasoning is false I take it to be foolish for if all the Religious Societies of Men in England who have in their Communion Persons formerly Roman Catholicks were set up by Popish Emissaries it will be harder for the Snake to shew which of them Popish Emissaries did not set up than which they did because there is hardly any Community in which there is not one or more who have formerly been Roman Catholicks And to carry his Folly to its full length he might with as great force of concluding say That the Quakers set up the Church of England for Francis Bugg formerly a Quaker is now a Member of that Church Ibid. p. 188. But God has punished them by sending the same Spirit among themselves and has made a Great Fraction in the Church of Rome Here is a Soloecism could Rome dress Enthusiasm in several Shapes and set it up in Holland before they had it among themselves I think they could not But as much a Novelty as the Snake would insinuate Fraction to be in the Church of Rome If he will rub his Eyes and look upon the Church of England's Apology afore quoted p. 21. Art 50. He will find her there to object against the Romanists Vix enim unquam inter se conveniunt nisi forté ut olim Pharisaei Sadducaei aut Herodes PÃlatus contra Christum They scarce ever agree among themselves unless perchance as the Pharisees and Sadduces or as Herod and Pilate against Christ. This Character was given by at least as good an Authority as is the Snake's and that long before Robert Barclay was at Paris or John Vaughton and William Southby were Preachers nay indeed many years before they were born Ibid. p. 188. The Quaker-Infallibility was contrived on purpose to bring Men back to the Infallibility of the Church of Rome It is both false and impossible that there should have been any such contrivance because they stand in direct opposition to each other For that Infallible assistance of the Holy Spirit of which we speak we say continues not with any Man or Men longer than they continue subject and in obedience to the workings of it But the Infallibility to which Rome pretends is from the Person of the Holy Apostle Peter by a Continual Succession or by Ordination not Qualification not alienable from the Church Concerning which I have more largely spoken in the Section particularly treating of Infallibility Ibid. p. 188. First the Infallibility was placed by G. Fox and all the Primitive Quakers in every single Quaker And all the Modern Quakers do continue to say with the Primitive ones that not only every single Quaker but every single and individual Person hath given him from Christ a manifestation of his Grace Light or Holy Spirit to which as People come to be obedient it will infallibly guide them into all Truth in all those things that pertain to Salvation Redemption and Eternal Life This tho' the Snake in his profane manner calls a Ridiculous pretence yet it is a Gospel Truth and will continue when his Profane and Ridiculous Attempts against it shall vanish Ibid. p. 188. And now there is but one step behind and that is to dispute the Infallibility betwixt the Two Churches that of Rome and that of the Quakers Yes there is one step more behind and that is the Infallibility of the Snake which is also to be disputed For it cannot be doubted but he too set up for Infallible certainty because of the frequent great assurance with which he delivers himself in Matters utterly false If the Snake had not an Infallible certainty that what he calls the Qua-Quaker-Infallibility was contriv'd on purpose to bring back Men to the Infallibility of the Church of Rome and that it was impossible it should be so contriv'd I have shewn what confidence must it be in him to affirm that to another of which he hath no such certainty himself Ibid. p. 188. And the Issue of this who does not see when their Succession and other Marks of the True Church come to be compared together The Issue may with more certainty be seen when the Dispute is ended and the Comparison made Tho' for the present I can see that if the Snake be the Manager Rome will not lose in any Question with any Protestant Dissenters whatsoever Ibid. p. 189. Of all the Dissenters now in England the Quakers have come nearest to the Church of Rome They only have taken the pretence of Infallibility unless they will bring in Muggleton for a Third Man none other except Papists and Quakers do set up for it Neither any of the Dissenters nor the Church of England do hold more Negatives in Doctrine to Rome than do the Quakers for we do not only hold all the Negatives which any of them do hold but also more And in the Doctrine of Infallibility as held by Rome there is not any manner of
Understanding and so the Disputer was raised to Life and that which was for Condemnation having darkned the Light of the Sun form'd it self in the shape of the True Light and so Deceit got the Power and led out of the true Obedience in things before related by which the Simple be-became exceedingly deceived But when he was restored by the Clear Light of Life being guided in that Obedience which was professed by those People among whom he was being the Quakers and his Witness Here is a Clear Testimony that the Truth and Light professed by the Quakers leads out of the Works of the Flesh to worship God in Spirit and in Truth And that by this J. Toldervy's Understanding was opened What hinder'd then that the Work of Regeneration did not go on in him Why they say that he being of a hasty and forward Mind it was in part a Covenant of his own which raised a Fiery Zeal by which he lost his Vnderstanding and thereby the Sun was darkned a very natural consequence of that Covenant which was his own and not of the Spirit of God and here it was that that which was for condemnation formed it self in the shape as they express it of the True Light And thus indeed the Enemy of Man the Devil works in a Mystery to drive Men to make Covenants in their own Wills for their Regeneration which as they can never last so according to the various Disposition of the Person so Covenanting are the extreams which they run into Thus they acknowledge in direct opposition to the Snake that that Deceit which was in J. Toldervy was so far from encouraging him in the Principles of Quakerism that it did lead him out of the True Obedience to that Prinliple which they say he learned from the Quakers Ibid. p. 291. He made a sort of a half Vindication and half Recantation not of the matters of Fact of his aforesaid Delusions for these were undeniable but to free the Quakers from the Imputation and Scandal of them and to clear himself to have been and still continue a true Quaker which makes the Cause much worse on their side Supposing John Toldervy did endeavour to clear himself to have been and still continue a true Quaker at a time and in things wherein we had by Word and Writing denied him I pray how shall that make the Cause much worse on our side any more than it makes bad of the side of the Church of England because the Snake a former Scandalous Member does pretend to have been and still continue a True Member in her Communion But to proceed the Snake is here forc'd to acknowledge that J. Toldervy did free the Quakers from the Imputation and Scandal of his Delusions which whether he had or not the Quakers had freed themselves from them by denying of him both by Word and Writing And as he stood thus denied by them so they could not be chargeable with any of his after Actions But if he had sincerely repented of his great Wickedness and thereby found favour in the sight of God to have restor'd to him the Light of his Countenance and had so been received again into fellowship with those from whom he had been separated this would have been far from making the Cause much worse on their side For with respect to their own satisfaction it would make the Cause much better Because the People of God in all Ages did always rejoice when one that had err'd and stray'd from the Fold did by sincere Repentance return into it again Ibid. p. 292. That same Year viz. the 24th of October 1656. all the Good and Evil Spirits entred into Naylor himself Profane Snake why must both Good and Evil Spirits be thus flouted It shews no true Sense of Religion in one who can with so much ease ridicule both the beginning of all true and saving Religion in Man viz. the entrance of the Good Spirit of God and the beginning of all Misery viz. the entrance of the Evil Spirit into Man But with respect to Jame Naylor and his Great Fall and yet greater deliverance from it I have already spoken from p. 111 to 118. and therefore need not enlarge further here The Snake now turns to Quotations again where in p. 295. he quotes Patrick Levingston in a Piece of his Entituled Plain and Downright Dealing with them that were with us and are gone out from us in p. 10 of which Book P. L. makes an Allusion of the Operations of Physick upon the Body to the Operation of the Spirit or Power of God upon the Soul and shews thence what melting into Tears and Shakings he had known upon his own Body and also what some others had known when the Lord did first appear with a mighty hand as he says p. 9. to bring his People out of Spiritual Egypt in this our Age. And he here goes on and shews that these emotions of Body and terrible breakings the Soul were but for a little time and that the Voice of the Lord was not distinctly discerned there they being only preparatory of that way of Peace Stilness and Quietness in which as they continued obedient they came to be established This briefly is the substance of what the Snake hath pick'd and quoted from p. 10. And I will now shew thee Reader his strange perversion of all this Ibid. p. 296. Now here is a Comparison made betwixt the State of the Quakers from 1650 to 1660. and from thence to this time No Snake the Comparison does not lie in any date of Years but in the Progress of the Work of God in Men. Ibid. Their first State was their time of Physick The first State of all who have been Regenerated and Born again may by allusion be called a time of Purging or Cleansing and so it hath been frequently term'd in Holy Writ Our Saviour speaks of this first State in such Pathetick Terms Mark 3.27 as does evidently denote it to be a State of Trouble For the binding the Strong Man of Sin by the Stonger Power of God is not to be effected while the Soul is at ease and secure in Sin Nor can the Strong Man's Goods be spoil'd in Man unless through Obedience he comes under the Workings of the Power of the Holy Spirit and that will not give Deliverance to Man before he sees the great necessity he is in of a Deliverer Ibid. But there was worse than that For as Levingston here informs us The Voice of the Lord was not distinctly discern'd among them the Mind was so Hurried and tossed so that there was not a clear discerning what might be done or left undone in many things This is a very sad Reckning For what will become of the first Quaker Infallibility This is nothing so Sad a Reckning as the Snake is like to make when he shall account for all that Profaneness Injustice and Hypocrisie which he hath delivered under the gilded pretence of advancing the Glory
was to remove an Offence taken against my Friend J. P. for using the same And it would have become this Adversary to have forborn his blasphemous Scoffing at my Light as George if thy Light has hitherto forgot to tell thee I bless the Lord my God who is my Light Life and Salvation he has shewn me the new and living way of the New Covenant which our blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ consecrated prepared or set open thro' the Veil that is to say his Flesh yea through his Sufferings and Death as being the Testator he hath enforced that New Testament or Second Covenant he took away the First that he might establish the Second and so hath open'd the Passage into eternal Life into the Holiest of Holies within the Veil and beyond all the Shadows and Veils under the Law It was in the most Holy Place within the Second Veil in the Tabernacle which was called the Holiest of all in the Old Covenant that the golden Censor and Ark of the Testament were put and the Golden Pot which had Manna and Aaron 's Rod that had budded and the Tables of the Testament and over the Ark the Cherubims of Glory shadowing the Mercy-Seat Heb. 9. Exod. 26. So the most excellent things were within the Veil tho' there was a Beauty and Glory also without it All which I doubt not were Shadows of the New Covenant and the Spiritual Dispensation thereof in Christ Jesus in whom the Most Holy Place of that Divine Service and Worship in the New Covenant-Sanctuary which the Lord has placed in the midst of his People is in the Spirit and in the Truth And all our Spiritual Blessings and Heavenly Treasures are in Christ Jesus who is our Sanctuary and Hiding-place And it is in the inmost or most inward and Spiritual Dispensation of the New Covenant that Mercy and Forgiveness is receiv'd and Christ most livingly and effectually known to us and enjoy'd and in him the most holy and heavenly Places wherein the true Spiritual Believers sit down with him and as being washed from their Sins in his Blood by his Spirit are his Church and Sanctuary also and thereby have boldness to enter into the Holy Place even by that new and living Way which Christ hath prepared for us through the Veil that is to say his Flesh Heb. 10. that we may follow him therein into Heaven it self And what entrance through Christ our Mediator we have here in Measure received into this new and living Way and Holy and Heavenly Places in him we doubt not but it is to us an Earnest of a more full Enjoyment of Heaven and Glory hereafter with Christ Jesus our Fore-runner Leader and Captain of our Salvation we continuing faithful to the end in this his new and living Way as true and constant Followers of him God in his great Love and Wisdom has afforded several Dispensations one higher and more glorious than another in order to bring Man nearer and nearer to himself as that of the Law and of Shadows and Types that of the Prophets that of John the Baptist that of Christ in the Flesh and that of Christ in the Spirit and New Covenant which is higher more powerful and more glorious than the former and therein a more clear knowledge of Christ than in all the former wherein there was some Sight of him through Shadows and Veils but by his Divine Light shining in our Hearts God is pleased to give us the Light of the knowledge of his Glory in the Face of his dear Son Christ Jesus that we all with open Face as in a Glass may behold the Glory of God and be changed into the same Image from Glory to Glory as by the Spirit of the Lord 2 Cor. 3.18 and Ch. 4.6 7. Now tho' our Adversary has made a deal of Dispute and Quarrel with us about calling Christ's Flesh the Veil as in Heb. 10. yet he is fain to grant That Christ's Body is called a Veil in Relation to its Type the Veil of the Temple p. 182. but he 'll have this not to be in the Quakers Sense They call it a Veil that is saith he a Garment in contra-distinction to its being Christ's Substance and of his Nature Whereas it 's rather in contra-distinction to its Being his Divine Nature or to its Being in the first place or principally or chiefly Christ himself who is the Son of God for whom the Body was prepared because he did pre-exist it or was in Being before he took upon him that Body even in his Father's Glory before the World began wherewith he is Glorified However the Veil which was Christ's Flesh through which he set open the new and living Way we never deny to be Christ's Body or to be a real Body but own it was and never believed it be a Fantastical Body as I have often said but that Christ the Son of God took upon him real Flesh and Blood of our Nature yet pure and incorrupted in him And as his Flesh was called the Veil it answers its Type or Figure i. e. the Veil of the most Holy Place or Oracle where God gave Answers 1 Kings 6.20 and 8.6 8. and 2 Chron. 3.10 16. And these Most Holy Places in the Tabernacle and Temple being Places of Divine Service then peculiar to the High-Priest to enter into their Antitype is in Christ Jesus the New Covenant where in Spirit and in the Truth God is truely worshipped and meets with and speaks to his People even by Christ Jesus their High-Priest who is present in the midst of his Church and Assemblies of his People the true and Spiritual Worshippers who meet in his Name Spirit and Power whose Light and Truth brings its Followers unto his Holy Tabernacles Psal. 43.3 And as to Christ's Substance and Nature what does our Opposer mean thereby how has he distinguished in this Point Christ has in him a Divine Nature as well as that of Man which he hath also in the purest Sense But which is the greatest Is not the Divine Nature the Deity in him greater than the Manhood As he said My Father is greater than all greater than I John 10.29 Nevertheless as our great and only Mediator and Intercessor it was necessary he should be Man as he is the most glorious heavenly Man and as the Christ of God he is Spiritually in Us in the Saints and Members in some measure by his Spirit Light Life and Power even as the incorruptible immortal Seed in Man is of the Father Son and Holy Ghost and therein all true spiritual Believers do in measure partake of the Divine Nature being born again of this incorruptible Seed SECT XXIII Some Reflections by G. W. upon A Supplement pretended upon occasion of his Answer to the Snake in the Grass p. 343. THE very Entrance into the said Supplement consisting of divers Falshoods I need take the less notice thereof and spend the less time in its strict Examination besides
Enthusiasts both born in the Year 1650. for then it was Muggleton says he got his Inspiration If Muggleton did come forth in the Spirit of Deceit in the same Year that G. F. came forth in the Spirit and Power of the Lord What can be inferr'd from thence Theudas and Judas of Galilee came forth with their Impostors not much differing in time from our Saviour's coming in the Flesh Yet to correct the Snake's Lying Chronology the Reader may please to know that G. F. did come forth in the Power and Spirit of the Lord some Years before the Date the Snake assigns Ibid. p. 6. It will be proper in this place once for all to obviate a Prejudice which some may take at a little Railery I am forc'd to now and then in answer to such Sensless Arguments and Pretences as deserve no otherwise to be Confuted The Sober and Judicious Reader will no doubt but be Prejudic'd against such prophane Railery and manifest Contradictions as frequently appear of which these Lines are one Instance In pag. 34. foregoing We are the most subtle in Distinction of any Hereticks and it is not usual for such who Distinguish Subtilly to Argue Senslesly But Contradictions of this sort are frequent with our Adversary who throughout his whole Book as the Sober Reader may hereafter Observe doth frequently Contradict himself that he may Bely Us Mistake our Principles that he might have the Glory of a Triumph and Pervert and false Quote our Books that he might have the Reputation of Great Discoveries Of all which having gone through his Introduction remains next in order to be spoken SECT I. Our Principle of the Light of Christ in Men shewn to be Scriptural and our Books herein agreeable thereto THE Light preached and testified to by us ever since we were a People is no other than Jesus Christ the Son of the Father's Love who in due time was born of the Virgin Mary dwelt on the Earth and was in all things like unto Us Sin only excepted Who was Crucify'd under Pontius Pilate died was buried and rose again the third Day and ascended into Heaven This Jesus Christ while he dwelt on Earth preached himself the Light and Way to the Father and speaking of himself to his Disciples John 14.17 said He Dwelleth with you and shall be in you And of this Jesus Christ John Testifies He was the Word in the Beginning with God and that this Word was God and that in him is Life and that Life the Light of Men and that this Light Lighteth every Man that cometh into the World John 1.1 4 9. This is that Glorious Truth testified unto by us which is not Notion except to those only who have barely an Historical Knowledge hereof For to those that do reverently attend its discoveries it is no more Notion but a Home-felt Truth With this Testimony it was that it pleased God to send forth his Servant George Fox who tho' despised mean and unlearned in the accounts of Men was of God made an Apostle in this Age and hath been instrumental in his hand for the directing of Thousands to the Light of Christ in Men. Upon which Light as Men come to attend it will fully teach them their Duty to God and enable them to perform it it will discover to them a System of Principles truly Orthodox with more certainty than Council or Synod can not taught by it for he is indeed a Wonderful Counsellor And this not in Notion not meerly Historical No! But in Practice according to their Obedience to it It will first fully and truly beyond any Casuist shew unto Man what is his Sin and if Man dispise not this Discovery but close with it it will beget in him a loathing of his Sin and then procede to work in him a repentance from Dead Works which if unfeigned it will go on to sanctify him and when Man by this Light Spirit or Grace is sanctified it will then witness to his Spirit that he is justified So will Man truly come to be redeemed This in short is the substance of what hath been by us declared concerning this Divine Light Christ in Men and which is not more than is witnessed of it in the Holy Scriptures in the words whereof our Friends have frequently given their belief in this as in other Articles and that with good reason for the Spirit of God in his Church in this Age can well agree with the Language of the same Spirit in and to the Churches in the former Ages And here I may fitly observe that too nice expressing and minute particularizing of Articles of Faith has been frequently one ground of Heresie and Schism and occasioned great disturbance in the World and indeed it 's no wonder that when Men forsake that teaching Grace which brings Salvation they should set up that Earthly Wisdom which in matters of Faith breeds confusion Ibid. p. 7 8. And this Notion of the Light within as a Ray only or Illumination from the Holy Spirit the Ingenious Mr. Penn has let us see in some of his late Books to draw us insensibly off the Scent of the Quaker Notion of the Light within This Adversary that he may scratch more undiscernedly he Hypocritically flatters W. Penn of which as we pass shall meet with divers instances But it is false that W. Penn hath in any of his Books explained our Belief of the Light within in terms contrary to what G. Fox or other our Ancient Friends have done He being a Scholar might use other terms but not contrary he might vary from the express words of G. Fox or others but not from their sense Of this Holy Writ affords instances The Holy Apostle Paul's rethorical forms of Speech might be more agreeable to the Rules of Art but not of the Holy Spirit than those of the rest of the Holy Apostles Yet his Learning and their Illiterature were both of excellent use the minds of the Persons being under subjection to the Spirit of God This was their great Rule so that though according to the Humane helps they had had they might use various yet not contrary terms in the same Article Ibid. p. 8. And that is to make this their Light within not only an Inspiration or Illumination sent from God but to be it self the Essential God and Christ. What Christ hath promised and by the Holy Spirit hath dictated concerning God and Christ's Dwelling in Men as in these places refer'd to among many others it may be seen is so experienced a Truth as well as good an Authority for such like Scriptural expressions that it will stand the Shock of any capricious Gramarian who would pretend to speak more properly and distinguish more nicely than it hath seemed good to the Holy Ghost to do John 14.17 20. Rom. 8.10 1 Cor. 10.4 2 Cor. 15.4.10.6 7.14.25.13.7 Gal. 2.20 Heb. 2.11 Col. 1.27.4.19.2.6 Ibid. 8. And from hence O Blasphemy to repeat it they
to withstand this his Day of Visitation in the reproofs and discoveries of this Light it must of necessity once come to pass as to the Jews that it will be hid from their eyes and in this final impenitency they will according to Isa. 5.20 call good evil and evil good and of such the Apostle testifies Ephes. 4.18 They are strangers from the life of God through the Ignorance that is in them because of the hardness of their hearts And that 2 Thess. 2.11 They are given over to strong Delusion to believe a lye because they received not the Love of the Truth that they should be saved But they were not given over to strong Delusion till they had refused the Truth and they could not refuse the Love of it unknowingly To the Second Quaere Whether a Man may sin while he follows the Light It may be safely answer'd no! Because it is affirmed by the Apostle Ephes. 5.9 The fruit of the Spirit or Light is in all goodness righteousness and truth And the Christians were advised to walk in the Light that they might become Children of it And if they are Children of it they must of necessity bring forth the fruits of it for that it is sufficient to make Men able so to do these Scriptures among many others testifie Luke 9.21 22. Phil. 4.14 2 Cor. 12.9 And as what is said herein is agreeable to the Gospel so it is not contrary to the Law Because as the Apostle testifies Acts 17.30 In the times of Ignorance God winked But now he willeth all men every where to repent And Heb. 7.19 Tho' under the Law which made nothing perfect there were expiatory Sacrifices for the Sins of Ignorance yet now there needeth not for as much as by the Gospel the bringing in of a better hope made perfect For the several Texts urged by our Adversary as Luke 23.24 where Christ speaking of those who crucified him saith They know not what they do It is no wonder they should be so stupidly blind when we consider the Testimony of Stephen concerning them Acts 7.51 Ye always resisted the Holy Ghost And in John 16.2 where Christ foretels his Disciples the time shall come that whosoever killeth you shall think they do God service But the Snake has left out the reason of that Ignorance which in the next verse as our Saviour says is Because they have not known my Father nor me The like curtailing of the Text the Snake hath practised with that of 2 Thess. 2.11 where he only quotes the words They should believe a lye but left out the reason of it which the Apostle says was because they received not the love of the Truth The Snake's Perversion of that Text Mat. 6.13 is very remarkable where he quotes That the Light which is in some Men is Darkness When our Saviour said no such thing But is here shewing of us How that by Sin and Evil Man becomes Darkned and that a continuance herein leads into great Darkness and thus words it If thine Eye be evil thy whole body shall be full of Darkness wherefore if the Light that is in thee be Darkness how great is that Darkness The Eye is the Organ for Light That being blinded the whole Body is in Darkness so in the Mind with this addition of unhappiness that in this Blindness they think they see and therefore call good evil and evil good But our Saviour hath no where taught That tho' Men should fervently humbly and sincerely pray for the Gifts of his Grace Light or Spirit that it will still be so much a Guess so much in uncertainty as to be possible for these so sincerely seeking To take the Devil for God and his wicked Spirit and his bad Acts for the Holy Spirit and Innocent Life of Jesus Christ. No! It is a most abhorred imputation upon the Doctrine of our Saviour either to suppose it contradictory to it self or that he who according to Mat. 28.18 Has all power in Heaven and Earth given to him should yet be so short in his Power or in his Good Will that he hath not afforded to Man a most certain and infallible Guide to that Glory to which he calls him But further If herein Man can without a Crime be ignorant or disobedient The whole tenour of the Gospel is overthrown the New Covenant Joel 2.29 is of no force and we may with the Apostle in another case conclude 1 Cor. 15.14 Preaching is vain and Faith is vain For if the Light of Jesus Christ is not an Infallible Guide to Salvation Men are in utmost uncertainty of what concerns them most nearly viz. the Salvation of their Souls and are herein more at a Guess than they would care to be in the state of their Healths or the titles of their Estates But now if for Guide and Certainty for it is necessary Men should herein be certain he will turn us to the Holy Scriptures Traditions Councils Fathers Ordinances We shall find all of them declared even by Men of that Church this Snake says he is of such as are not void of uncertainty for that through ignorance iniquity and false pretences all these have been abused So that it remains of absolute necessity for all that would have an Infallible Guide to Salvation to attend the guidings of the Spirit of God which only can infallibly witness to their Spirits Rom. 8.16 thâ—â— they are the Children of God Ibid. p. 11. It would make one merry were therâ— not too much of tragedy in the miserable and distrâ—â—ctive error to see what pains G. Fox takes to strugglâ— from under this Objection If G. Fox's pains could make this Man merry the Priest's pains ought to make him laugh out because they were the greater of the two foâ— G. Fox hath answer'd 26 words of the Priests bâ— 25 of his own As for the Tragedy Misery anâ— Destruction which the Snake supposes in what hâ— calls our error there is nothing in it The Destructiâ—on c. will be eminently so to them that sell pretended Spiritual Ware and among them it will make havock for when Men come to feed upon that substantial Food John 6.35 48. The Bread of Life They will no longer give their Mony for that which is not Bread nor their labour for that which profitteth not Ibid. p. 11. He G. Fox repeats the Professor's objection against him in these words The Apostle Paul thought to do many things against the Church and thought he ought to do so and the Light within did not inform his Conscience To which G. Fox replies in these words did not Christ say that it was hard for him Paul to kick against that that prickt him and was not that within him that prickt him The Snake crys out against this Answer Ibid. p. 11. saying it is manifest perverting of Scripture when indeed the Answer is sound and true as appears by the verse immediately following Acts 9.6 And he trembling and astonished
said Lord what wilt thou have me to do Which shews his inward sense of Mind But the Apostle Rom. 7.9 is large in the account of the Work of his Regeneration and he does acknowledge he was alive without the Law once But when the Commandment came Sin revived and I died Which plainly shews the Command was inward and it was hard for Paul to kick against this Command which did thus slay him as in the 11th verse Our Adversary does acknowledge that the Pricks there are to be understood the Power of Christ. And this Power it was Acts 2.37 That prickt them at the heart who were witnesses of the sheddings abroad of the Spirit at the time of Pentecost And of this Power David speaks Psal. 73.21 Thus my heart was grieved and I was pricked in my reins Whence thus in short Paul a zealous Man and a Persecutor is by the Power of Christ let see that he was opposing his Power in his Saints by such Persecution At this in the Apostle's language Sin revived i. e. the sense of it whereby he saw his guiltiness and then he died from any further Life in it And whether this be not a heart work all experienced Readers may judge Ibid. p. 12. Besides they are in great confusion and contradictions amongst themselves concerning their Notion of the Light within denying and affirming backwards and forwards as you may see in Mr. Tho. Crisp his just and lawful Tryal of the Foxonian Quakers Reader This is one of those Instances wherein the great Injustice of this adversary appears in that he takes this false Charge from a Book writ against us by an open Enemy and takes no notice of any reply by us Which was largely and fully given to this Adversary by our Friend Ed. Penington And if after the same manner I should object and say The Church of England are in great Confusions and Contradictions amongst themselves in their Notion of the Trinity which has been abundantly treated of here of late affirming backwards and forwards and recommend for proof of this some Book disowned by that Church the Proof were much the same Or if I should object and say They are in great confusion and contradiction in their Notion of any other Article and bring for proof Harding Stapelton or any of the Romish Church who being Adversaries have so affirmed having no regard to the disallowance of the first or answers to the last I might deservedly be accounted a confident and prejudic'd but not a fair or reasonable Man Yet Reader this is the practice of this Snake with us SECT II. Shewing that we do not make our Souls of the same Person and Substance with God nor aspire to an Equality with him I Shall here consider and reply to his Second and Third Sections together the Charge being the same and the distinction unnecessary For in his mode of speaking a Sameness of Person and Substance imply an Equality concerning which before I procede to the Quotations in the Snake I shall observe to thee Friendly Reader That having in the beginning of the foregoing Section given a brief but real and true account of our Scriptural Belief concerning The Light of Christ in Men. Shewing that the Soul of Man being subjected thereunto he may by the guidance and assistance thereof without it he cannot attain unto Salvation I say having shewn thus much concerning our belief herein it is impossible that we so believing as we do should make our Souls to use his phrase of the same Person and Substance with God or Aspire to an Equality with him Our Friends according to Holy Writ have frequently said and writ and may safely That those who by walking in the Light are become Children of it are such for whom our Saviour Jesus Christ did pray to his Father John 17.21 22 23. That they all may be one as thou Father art in me and I in thee That they also may be one in us That they may be one even as we are one I in them and thou in me that they may be made perfect in one and that the world may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them as thou hast loved me This Oneness in the Holy Spirit our Friends have pressed and contended for in Opposition to the hurtful belief that had too much prevailed upon Men of an imagined Distance of God from Man at this Day and that Man was now no more to expect the Revelation of the Holy Spirit without which our Saviour hath testified Mat. 11.27 And no Man knoweth the Son but the Father neither knoweth any Man the Father but the Son and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him This testimony of Jesus Christ with many more to the same purpose do shew the certainty of Revelation as in many others the absolute necessity of it is shewn First By our Saviour who saith John 12.50 And I know that this Commandment is Life Everlasting and the Apostle 2 Cor. 13.5 Know ye not your own selves that Jesus Christ is in you except you be Reprobates And for our acknowledging to and witnessing of the truth of these Testimonies declared in Holy Writ have we met with great opposition and misrepresentation of which Reader there follows now divers instances in these Sections of the Snake's which he thus begins p. 13. Thou sayest says G. Fox to his Opponet Great Mystery p. 247. Christ doth not dwell in them Personally Doth not Christ dwell in his Saints as he is in the Person of the Father the Substance Reader This our Adversary gives for a quotation from G. Fox his Great Mystery and that we might see at what he carps he puts it in Large Black Characters which yet are not blacker than his Envy and Injustice which will appear thus First In that he hath left out the Priests Words which are unsound and unscriptural Secondly In that he hath left out the beginning and end of G. Fox his Answer For thy more certain knowledge of which I subjoin first the Priest's Words and then G. Fox his Answer Priest The Scriptures are the Word except yâ—u dare to deny Christ is God Let the Word of God meaning the Scripture dwell in you richly To this G. Fox thus Answers So he makes the Scripture Christ and God and he doth not say Let Christ dwell in you but means the Scripture and God dwells in you The Apostle saith Let Christ Dwell in your hearts by faith and God will dwell in you But thou sayst Christ doth not dwell in Them Personally Doth not Christ dwell in his Saints as he is in the Person of his Father the Substance And are they not of his Flesh and of his Bone Here Reader thou mayst see that the plain meaning and drift of G. Fox's words are to assert and maintain that Spiritual Oneness of which I have been speaking and shewing that Christ prayed that his Followers might witness and not to make the Soul of the same Person
he makes Choise of to send forth and imploy in the work of the Ministry So they who are so sent forth have or may have if they diligently attend to the Voice of this Infallible Holy Spirit speaking in them a certain Infallible Knowledge and Assurance of the Truth of what they so deliver And they who hear have or may have if they duly attend to that measure or manifestation of this Infallible Holy Spirit which they have received a like certain Infallible Knowledge and Assurance of the Truth of what they hear But tho' they who so minister and they who so hear have or may have this Infallible Assistance Yet this Assistance continues no longer with any than they to whom it is so given do continue faithful to it and herein is one remarkable difference between the Law and the Gospel the Law in its Offices went by Succession to the several Ages of the People of the Jews and was not alienable from them but fulfill'd and so ended by Christ Thus the Office of the Priesthood descended in that Tribe in which it was appointed at the giving of the Law so that in the execution of their Office they had the benefit of the promises made to the Priesthood at that time tho' some of them were wicked Men an Instance whereof is John 11.51 in Caiphas of whom it is there said He spake not of himself but being High Priest that Year he prophesied But in the Gospel Dispensation it is not so the Gifts of the Holy Spirit not being limited either to Person or Office in the Church nor can Man witness any Union with it or infallible Assistance from it but through obedience to and perseverance both in the Principles which it teacheth and that Holiness of Life which it leads into This thus briefly stated will plainly and truly shew the Inquiring Reader the great difference between us and the Romanists in this great Article of Infallibility Ibid. p. 32. But the Simplicity of our Quakers has deprived them of every one of these helps The Quakers as I have now shewn have no need of those helps because their Simplicity is Godly Sincerity which had the Snake had he would not have bely'd us as he does in the following words Ibid. p. 32. For as they place Infallibility in every single Quaker so they confine it not to matters of Faith but extend it to all Persons and Things To know all Mens Hearts and all things in the World by their Inward Light without being told by any Which are Abominable Lyes and Slanders as will be further manifested in detecting his Perversions and other Abuses of those quotations which he makes from our Friends Books to prove this Assertion Under the second head the Snake makes divers quotations Ibid. p. 33. he quotes from Great Mystery this Objection of the Priest's That is another Error of the Quakers that say he who is not Infallible in his Judgment when he gives Counsel and Advice is no Minister of Christ. The Snake has fairly as above put the Objection but hath falsly quoted G. F's Answer which is truly thus Now he that is not Infallible in his Counsel and Judgment and Advice is not he in Error And are not the Ministers of Christ the Ministers of the Spirit And is not that out of the Error which is Infallible in Counsel and Judgment And are they Ministers of Christ that are fallible And is not the Power the Gospel Infallible Which is briefly thus The Ministers of Christ ministring from the Gospel the Power of God which is Infallible are in such their Ministry Infallible This every Eye not blinded with Prejudice and Envy may by the context perceive to be the sense of the place But this Adversary hath here given a fair mark of his Prejudice and Envy in that he would rather false quote G. F's words by leaving out sentences in the middle of the Quotation than by setting it fairly down let it speak for it self Which practice of the Snake is base and cowardly as well as unchristian He hath posted himself Knight Errant like to Demand Reparation in the name of the Church of England And from this assumed Post he descends to call G. F. Valpoon one of poor Vnderstanding c. yet meanly and in very poor Manner false quotes his Books that he may be sure of a Triumph plainly enough intimating that G. F's words are sound till he has mangled them and which being restored do plainly shew that the Infallibility of which G. F. speaks is that of the Holy Spirit from which Holy Spirit so far as any do Minister so far and no farther are they Infallible in their Ministry Ibid. p. 33. quoted from Great Mystery p. 89. They can discern who are Saints who are Devils and who Apostates without speaking ever a word Tho' the Snake injuriously stop here G. F. goes on and in his next words shews who they be that can do so They that be in the Power and the Life of Truth Which does very plainly shew that G. F. did not attribute this Knowledge or Discerning to the Quakers or any Man but to the Power and Life of Truth where it is manifested And if the Snake will take upon him in his own name or others to deny and disown that any of the Church of England have the word of God or Christ in their Hearts or will say that Christ is not Eternal Infallible and Able to Judge of Persons or things which is the Doctrine that he opposes let him do it in plain terms Ibid. p. 33. quoted from Great Mystery p. 96. Thou not being Infallible thou art not in the Spirit and so art not a Minister and art not able to Judge of Powers that is not Infallible nor Magistrates nor Kingdoms nor Churches Here as I have just now observed the Snake breaks off too soon having purposely left out the very next following words which are these For who is in the Infallible Spirit is in the Spirit that Christ was in c. which words do very fully shew wherein the Infallibility of the true Ministry does stand And do as fully shew the injustice of this Adversary in the curtailing of them Ibid. p. 34. Quoted from p. 7. of E. B's Preface to Great Mystery The Snake says That E. B. says this Infallible Spirit was given to every one and then thus quotes him To us says he every one of us in particular And this Light gave us between Truth and Error and between every false and right way and it perfectly discover'd to us the true state of all things The Snake in this Quotation has treacherously abused and mangled E. B's Words and perverted his Sense I will desire the Reader 's patience to read what I have transcribed from E. B. his clear sense and true Gospel Doctrine will I hope answer the pains thou shalt be at in doing it And for the detection of the Snake in this his nibling practice I will
are these Light and Life c. p. 59. I do not make S. E's Expression therein especially as construed by our Adversaries an Article of our Faith And G. W. for himself does there declare He did own the Blood shed to be more than the Blood of another Saint Thus saith not only G. W. but thus also say the Quakers who at all times since a People have readily declared their true and scriptural Sense of it But with respect to S. E's words having first inform'd my Reader that no Quaker did ever approve much less justifie them and therefore surely not make them an Article of our Faith either of which if the Snake can prove he is required to do it I say having first acquainted my Reader thus much it will not I hope be expounded a defending of them words of S. E's if I do briefly shew that had this Snake had in himself any of that great Charity for others which he says p. 10. is more apt to have a good opinion of others than of our selves and which he makes one of the Marks of Divine Enthusiasm or Inspiration He would have looked to see whether S. E's words would not have born Sano sensu some honest and innocent Construction and accordingly have judged rather than put a bad Construction on words which if not safely exprest were however so intended That S. E. did so safely and scripturally intend them is I think plain in that he declares He had no light esteem of the Blood of Christ it self as it was made by Christ a part of that blessed Offering for Man and that what he spake of that part of the Blood which was let out by the Spear and which is that the Snake now makes his advantage of was with respect to the Soldiers Act and the time of doing it which was after his Death So that I think it may in truth appear That that upon which Solomon Eccles did ground the difference he put between the Blood of Christ in one respect and in another was that in the one it was a voluntary Offering of Christ himself in and by the Eternal Spirit before his Death In the other it was the forcible act of a Soldier after he was Dead and the Sacrifice compleated And this with much more our Friend Tho. Ellwood had heretofore said Truth Defended p. 111 112. in reply to G. Keith upon the same Charge and which the Snake might have reply'd to if he could before he had renew'd it Ibid. p. 140. They have evaded the most express Texts for Christ's Humanity even that Gen. 3.15 his being the Seed of the Woman They allegorize that too into a Spiritual Sense quite away from the Letter and to mean nothing else in the World but their Light within We have not evaded any Text of Scripture for Christ's Humanity therefore not that of Gen. 3.15 wherein he is testified of as The Seed of the Woman Nor have we allegoriz'd it into a Spiritual Sense beyond the Authority of express Texts of Scripture much less quite away from the Letter but as we now do so we always since a People have owned that it did mean something more than the manifestation of the Spirit or Light of Christ in Man But the Snake for Proof of this Charge makes a Quotation from W. P's part of The Christiâ—n Quaker p. 97 98. The Serpent says he is a Spirit Now nothing can bruise the Head of the Serpent but something that is Internal and the Snake has left out Spiritual as the Serpent is But if that Body of Christ were the Seed then could he not bruise the Serpent's Head in all because the Body of Christ is not so much as in any one And consequently the Seed of the Promise is an Holy and Spiritual the Snake has left out Principle of Light and Life and Power the Snake has left out that being received into the Heart bruiseth the Serpent's Head And because the Seed which cannot be that Body is Christ as testify the Scriptures the Seed is one and the Seed is Christ and which the Snake has cut off as not to his purpose and Christ God over all blessed for ever We do conclude and that most truly that Christ was and is the Divine Word of Light and Life that was in the beginning with God and was and is God over all blessed for ever Thus W. P. From which the Snake says p. 140. His consequence is that the promised Seed was not any Person but a Principle Which consequence is falsly drawn by the Snake from W. Penn's words the consequence of them being more truly that the Promised Seed was not only that but also a Principle of Light Life and Power which I shall now further shew as it is also declared by T. E. Truth Defended p. 113 114. that The Scope and design of W. P. in those words was to prove against his Opponents that the Son of God who in the fulness of time took upon him a Body of Flesh in which he suffered on the Cross was and was properly called Christ before he appeared in that outward Body which his Opponents denied not owning Christ as Christ to have any existence before that Body which was Born of the Virgin but confining Christ to that Body And because all acknowledge the Promised Seed to be Christ W. P. used that as a Medium to prove that Christ was before that outward Appearance Now this affirming Christ to be the Seed and that Seed to be Inward and Spiritual is not a denial of Christ having a bodily existence without us for he may have and hath a bodily existence without us and yet may be and is spiritually within us 'T is true he denied that that Body which Christ had from the Virgin Strictly considered as such was the Seed and he gave divers reasons for it And which are mentioned from p. 94. to p. 99. of his Christian Quaker From the consequence which the Snake hath falsly drawn from W. P's words viz. That the Seed is not a Person but a Principle He goes on p. 141. fighting against the Bugbear which himself hath conjured up and declares it to be A Supposition of so pernicious a nature that it Vn-christians any who holds it For the Faith of Christians is built upon that Man Jesus Christ as The Seed Promised to bruise the Serpent's Head His Supposition so far as respecting us the Quakers and W. P. in particular is false For we believe the Manhood of Christ gloriously united with the Godhead to be the Seed Promised Gen. 3.15 and also that that Seed being of a Divine and Spiritual Nature did inwardly work against the Serpent and did bruise his Head and break his Strength and Power in some measure in the Holy Men and Women in all Generations T. E. Truth Defended p. 114. and by this their inward experience of his Spirit and Power he was the object of their Faith to be made manifest in God's
of Richard Scoryer's And we do also certify that some Part or Portion of the Old or New Testament is daily Read in the said School beginning at Genesis and so Reading on in the said Scriptures untill both the Old and New Testament are Read throughout Wansworth 22 d August 1698. Law Ball Edm. Phillips Tho. Darking Steph. Webb Nich. Lesow Sam. Webb Thus Reader thou here hast this Story to a Demonstration proved a Lye as is also done in divers others foregoing and may be hereafter done in other Instances And if this our Adversary had not a natural propensity to tell Lyes he could not thus err from Truth For hiding and sculking as he generally does in the City he might with small pains have gone by Water to Wansworth 5 Miles or with less cost have sent a Penny-Post Letter to many Persons of that Town who could have better inform'd him herein if he had not been both Hypocritical and Unjust in that he pretends care to our Souls while he wilfully tells Lyes with purpose to destroy us This his practice leads me to observe of him that he is fitter to all the purposes of Destruction and Hate than to that one great purpose to which he falsly pretends viz. to promote the Vnity of the Church 〈◊〉 indeed pretends Great Charity Real Kindness and Good Wishes for the Generallity of us yet tells Lyes of us which in their end and design are to raise Persecution by influencing the Government against us if they would but take the Alarm from him But as it hath pleased God who hath the Hearts of all Men in his hand to incline the Government to give us some security against the evil practices of ill designing Men by affording us a Toleration in the matters of the Worship of our God so we are truly thankful to God and the Government herein and are at no time backward to give an account of the Faith which is in us and our agreeable practice however misrepresented by this Incendiary in Religion Ibid. p. 148. I will end this Section with shewing that the Quakers have in their Blasphemies against the Divinity of Jesus and Humanity of Christ only lick'd up and improv'd the Ancient most Anti-christian Heresies And I may fitly end this Section with shewing that whatsoever the Marcionites Manichees Eutychians and Saturnians might hold as to the Divinity and Incarnation of Christ yet we have always said and believed according to Scripture that Jesus so fore-named by the Angel and born of the Virgin in Bethlehem of Judea was truly and properly Man and in all respects Sin only excepted like unto us and that in this Man Jesus the Godhead dwelt Bodily and that through the Power of the Godhead in him he did open and consecrate a New and Living Way for Men to Salvation and Eternal Life through the Veil that is to say his Flesh And this Truth the Apostle does not deny when he allegorizes Eph. 5.30 The Spiritual Union and Fellowship of Christ with his Followers under the terms of being Members of his Body Flesh and Bones and in a like acceptation are very many other such expressions in Scripture to be understood yet is it not thence to be concluded unless falsly as this Snake does that they are Heretically agreeing with the Cerdonites the Eutychians and Manicheans Ibid. p. 149. But lastly because I must not stay here to deduce and compare all their Heresies those Ancient Heretickâ— the â—bonites and Naâ—areens from whom our Modern Socinians and from them the Quakers do derive their Doctrine did mightily undervalue the Scriptures Some of them pretended to mend the Scriptures and did boldly Adulterate them and set up other Scriptures against those received by the Church And this the Quakers have done beyond any that went before them The Snake does p. 336. Demand Reparation in the Name of the Church of England insinuating his real or assumed Power and if I should now do the like for or in the name of the People called Quakers I may be as much to seek for Reparation from him for this his abuse as I am to seek for proof in this Charge However I do at least demand a proof where ever the Quakers pretended to mend the Scriptures or did boldly Adulterate them or did set up other Scriptures against those received 'T is no Proof of this Charge to say p. 150. We have cannonized our own Writings If that were true it 's no proof but it is false We may have said and said truly that Writings given forth from the movings of the Spirit of God in any are given forth from the same Spirit which gave forth the Scriptures But we have always readily offered and submitted our Words and Writings to the Testimony of the Holy Scripture because tho' the Spirit of God in his People at this day is the same Holy Spirit which was in the Holy Apostles yet they had greater Manifestations of it So that tho' it is both now and then the same in kind the Degree of Manifestation differs But to return I do as above demand proof where ever we have pretended to mend the Scriptures or have boldly Adulterated them or set up others against them As Euseb. Hist. l. 5. c. 28. Theod. Haerit Fab. l. 2. c. 5. do mention instances of some that did and as he says we have beyond any that ever went before us yet gives not one instance The Snake's Ipse Dixit is no Proof and if he cannot give better it will at least be a fresh Proof both of his Impudence and Lyes SECT X. Concerning the Satisfaction of Christ in Opposition to the false Charges of the Snake herein IN the Section immediately foregoing the Divinity and Incarnation of Christ is largly treated of and I have therein shewn that we own and believe both as declared fully and truly in the Holy Scriptures and also that our Books rescued from the perversions of this our Adversary do speak according to that acknowledged Rule It remains that in this I now shew that we have always owned in like Scriptural sense that Jesus Christ in Life Doctrine and Death did fulfil his Father's Will and did offer up himself a most Satisfactory Sacrifice for the Sins of Mankind in opposition to the false Insinuations of the Snake herein who says p. 151. Herein the Quakers are direct Socinians for they positively deny the Satisfaction Under which cloudy Charge he insinuates as if we did deny what the Scriptures do declare herein Which is false and he might with equal Sincerity have said the Church of England do deny The Satisfaction For to come nearer The Satisfaction which is positively denied by us is as positively denied by the Church of England which is that rigid and strict Notion of Satisfaction which some had Doctrinally but unscripturally laid down in the terms following viz. That Man having transgressed the Righteous Law of God and so exposed to the Penalty of Eternal Wrath it 's
Petition p. 5. the other from his Saul's Errand p. 7. which are both to this purpose All that speak and not from the Mouth of the Lord are false Prophets and Diviners At this the Snake is wonderfully offended and taking his Copy from other Adversaries for he is not the first herein no more than in his other Charges makes many false Inferences from them As for the Assertion of G. F's it was as I have just now hinted objected against in the Year 1656. by Jeremy Ives and answer'd by James Nayler in a Peice of his printed that Year Entituled Weakness above Wickedness In p. 12 13. of which Book answering to this Charge he saith What is done now by such Diviners as deny the Faith of Christ and his Call and Spirit in them what such raiseth must needs be Conjuration who denies the Faith and Spirit of God And in like manner we find God by his Prophets hath often rebuked them who spake Lyes in his Name and who were Strangers to his Holy Spirit by the name of Diviners Jer. 27.9 Micah 3.7 Zach. 10.2 And their False Prophesies are frequently called Lying and Flattering Divinations which were Truths they could hardly bear any more than those to whom this was spoken But whether it can be born by them or not it will remain a Truth that such who deny the Faith and Spirit of God and shall yet pretend to speak in his Name it can be no other than the Lying Divinations of their own Brain Ibid. p. 285. If all the False and Foolish Miracles which G. F. tells of himself If all these were not from God then was he and those who recommended that Journal all Conjurers That the Miracles there related are False or Foolish is Gratis Dictum it is boldly said but not prov'd Prove them False and Foolish and then there needs no If they were not from God but till they be so prov'd their Authority and Being from God remains a Truth SECT XIX The Charge of Visible Possessions by the Devil Examined and Refuted HAving hitherto trac'd the Snake through the Twinings of his several Charges and discover'd at least in some measure his Falshood Hypocrisie and Malice in them I am not less in hope to perform the same in this His Charge is that many Quakers have been Visibly Possest by the Devil A Charge which if upon Inquiry it prove not true upon the Quakers will at least prove some such thing in the Charger who from a collected Malice cou'd with so much Confidence and bold Effrontry pretend to tell such Visible Falshoods Ibid. p. 286. A Visible effect of this Possession by the Devil was that extraordinary Shaking and Quaking like Fits of Convulsions which these Quakers at the first either acted or like the Heathen Priests of old were possess'd with If the Snake will venture to affirm that all Extraordinary Shaking and Quaking is a Visible effect of Possession by the Devil I can give him two Instances wherein himself has been so possessed The one was when he was seized at Lidd in Kent by Tompson the Messenger and the other was not very long since in the City when he was under some Apprehension of being retaken by the same Person from whom he run away And I make no Question but he hath frequently been attended with the like visible effects of Possession which whether he will attribute to the strong Impression made by the Devil upon his Imagination as I know not so I shall not trouble my self to inquire nor should I have in this place told this Truth but to redargue the Confidence of one who from a course of Clandestine and Base Practices shuns Day-light and is thereby justly subjected to the Frights which the ugly shapes of Fear can terrifie him with from his Superiours yet not that I might thereby pass over his False Allegation which I shall now consider And here concerning Quaking and Shaking I make no Doubt or Scruple to own and acknowledge agreeable to the Instances thereof Recorded in Holy Writ That God by his Power sometimes in this Age hath brought Holy Fear Trembling Quivering and Quaking upon the Bodies of some as in the former Ages we read he frequently did of which some few follow Thus the Israelites in the Camp Exod. 19.16 Trembled Thus Moses Acts 7.32 Trembled Thus the Psalmist 119 120. saith My Flesh trembleth Thus Habakkuk 3.16 saith My Lips quivered Thus God Commanded the Prophet Ezekiel 12.18 Son of Man eat thy bread with Quaking Thus Daniel 10.7 testifies of the Men that were with him Great Quaking fell upon them And many more such Instances there are of the visible effects of God's ower which howsoever Ridicul'd or Stigmatis'd by such who are Strangers to it are not to be despised or profanely contemn'd by any who are at all acquainted with the Work of Christ in them How much less then ought they Blasphemously to be call'd the visible effects of possession by the Devil which are really the visible effects of the Power of God And it is nothing strange that when God by the Discoveries of his Light in the Heart lets Men see their undone Estate without him that then they should be in trouble and cry out with the Apostle of that Body of Sin and Death by which they are held in Bondage And as many as have come to this Discovery and patiently abode under the Judgment of God's Grace by which they might be made Victors do know that through the gradual workings of the Power of God in the binding of the strong Man in the spoiling of his Goods and finally in casting him out of the Heart they can say it was the Day of Jacob's Troubles and these oft-times are such as do affect the Body And while the Soul is in this Conflict and the Creature groaning to be delivered the Tempter who as he always opposes the Work of God in Men so in this Day of Trouble he aims to Subvert the Soul by his Stratagems sometimes by Imitating the Discoveries of God and endeavouring to lead the Mind into Imaginations and False Appearances thereby to lift it up above the Sense of the Operation of God's Grace Sometimes by Imitating the Judgments of God and by endeavouring to lead the Mind down into Despair and a Distrust of God's Mercy An Instance of this sort is Martin Luther concerning whom Harding the Jesuit objected to the Bishop of Salisbury That the Devil in a Night Vision did reason with him against the Sacrifice of the Mass as the Jesuit calls it and the Jesuit quoted for this a Book of Luther's entituled De Missa Angulari Vnctione Sacerdotali and infers from it that the Reformation sprung in the School of Satan The Bishop in his Reply to Harding Printed 1565 p. 2 saith D. Luther sheweth what terrible Temptations the Devil hath to trap Men withall taking occasion sometime of well-doing sometime of Evil sometime of Truth sometime of Falshood And for example
he sheweth that the Devil on a time Assaulted him not in visible Form but by dreadful Suggestions in his Conscience as it were thus calling him to remembrance These many Years thou hast said Mass thou hast shew'd up Bread and Wine to be Worshipped as God yet now thou knowest it was a Creature and not God thereof follow'd Idolatry and thou wert the Cause thereof All these things he saw to be true by the Testimony and Light of his own Conscience and therefore confess'd he had offended and yielded himself unto God The Devil's purpose was to lead him to Despair but God mercifully deliver'd him If he think it so heinous a Matter for a Godly Man to be vex'd by the Devil perhaps he will also find some fault with Christ who was carried by the Devil into the Mount or with St. Paul that had the Angel of Satan to buffet him Thus the Bishop who seems to have had another Sense of this Matter than this our Adversary I shall only add to this before I come to his particular Instances to my Reader That if any Person Professing Unity with us in whom was began the work of Reformation hath not abode Faithful but run into the Temptations of the Enemy and hath had freakish Actions and Gestures and loose and wild Imaginations and have Falsly and Blasphemously Ascrib'd them to be the Operations of the Spirit of God We are not accountable for them as the Apostle was not for those in his time who were given up to strong Delusion because they receiv'd not the Truth in the Love of it All that we find the Apostle did to them that we have done to such that is testifie against them and their ways For we do not own such Inspirations as have not for their Origen the Holy Spirit and are warranted by the Scriptures of Truth I come now to the Snake's Instances His first is thus p. 288. John Gilpin of Kendal in Westmerland has given us a strange and wonderful account of his own Possession by the Devil while he was a Quaker in a Book which he Entituled The Quakers shaken Printed 1653. In Answer to this there was Published in that same Year 1653 a Book Entituled The Standard of the Lord c. to which Book E. Burroughs writ the Epistle to the Reader In which speaking of this same John Gilpin p. 2. he saith By hearing of the Truth declared through the Witness in his own Conscience he was Convinced of the Everlasting Truth c. This was very well but it seems he continued not under that Convincement for he ran out into Airy Imaginations and Imitations as E. B. saith who speaking further of him says I was mov'd to go to see him and his Will was at liberty got above the Judgment though the Judgment was upon the head of the Beast in him and a true Power working but his Will not being kept in Subjection it led him into Impatiency and into Rebelling against the Lord who was made manifest to destroy the unruly Will and wandring Mind And then I did declare against him and shewed him the deceit where it lodged in him Thus E. B. who it hereby appears did shew the Man his state and did also deny him and his doings But the Matter issu'd thus This Gilpin continu'd to go on in that same Rebellion of which E. B. speaks so that he quite run from under the Judgment and Gilpin in this his worst Estate endeavoured with the help of the then Priest of Kendal in a Book Publish'd under Gilpin's Name to charge the Wicked and Blasphemous Actions and Sayings which he had been guilty of upon that Principle of the Light of Christ in Men which the Quakers Profest though Gilpin being Charg'd with it did deny it in these Words I have neither written nor spoken any thing against the Quakers So that by this it should seem the Book was writ by the Priest and Gilpin's Name put for a Cover And if it had not been so but that Gilpin did really write it there was a fair opportunity given them to have prov'd it because the Words above-mentioned spoke by Gilpin were Publish'd in the Answer before-mention'd Entituled The Standard of the Lord c. which came forth in the same Year which that Book Subscrib'd by Gilpin did Ibid. Attested by the then Mayor of Kendal the Minister of Kendal and several other Persons It was not strange that the Mayor of Kendal should be procur'd to Subscribe what the Priest had so eminent a Hand in though he owns it no further than a Fellow Subscriber But as this was an early Instance viz. 1653. wherein the Priest did lead the Civil Magistrate into such a Mistake which a prudent Inquiry wou'd have prevented so we have often since found they have endeavoured to Ride the Civil Power blindly into Mistakes and Prejudices against us and where such have been able to Hood-wink a Magistrate we have seldom found so little disadvantage from it as is the setting his Name to Partial and Untrue Relations of Fact In fine the Case is thus Gilpin as before related was once under a Convincement of Truth but he abode not under the Judgment of God manifested in him for Sin but started aside as a broken Bow He got into Wild Blasphemous and Airy Whimsies and Notions In all this he was presently denied and testified against For Edw. Burroughs did while this Gilpin was under these Extravagancies deny him and we were sufficiently discharg'd of him And what may further shew the Degeneracy of the Man was the Dissoluteness of his After-time for some Actions of which a Warrant was it seems Issuâ—d out for his Apprehension but he like this Snake ran away from it as is express'd in the Book aforesaid which was writ in Answer to him The Snake's next Story is of one James Milner mention'd p. 66. fore-going This Man and some others did as the former start aside from under the Judgment but the Event was not the same as is seen in G. F's Journal p. 103. where speaking of this Man and his Condition he saith James Milner and some of his Company had true Openings at the first but getting up into Pride and Exaltation of Spirit they run out from Truth I was sent for to them and was mov'd of the Lord to go and shew them their Goings forth And they came to see their Folly and Condemn'd it and came into the way of Truth again That he did see and condemn his Folly was very well and it was yet better for him that he return'd into the way of Truth Ibid. p. 289. But then as an Excuse for his false Prophesies and his Blasphemies in calling himself Christ c. he G. F. makes this Comical Apology In some things his mind runn'd out and that he Condemns and yet these wicked Men will go tell the Nation of it Great Mystery Page 298. It is not very Comical but very Provoking to find one who