the few cunning men govern the majority and entitle their Conceits The Canons of Christs Church and all this comes from the ignorance and idleness of the People that give the Pride and Industry of the Clergy an opportunity to effect their Crafts upon them for so mean Spirited are the People as to take all upon trust for their Souls At present let thus much suffice on the occasion of the Second-days Meeting using of the word Rebellion And whereas in the Third Part of the Christian-Quaker pag. 9. We say that there is no ground either from the Scriptures of Truth without us or Light of Christ within us to believe that any Christian Professor can in truth affirm That there are Outward Prescriptions and Orders given forth by the Spirit of God through any one or more mortal men in this our day which others ought to obey and follow whether they see it their Duty or no this in the 122. page of the Accuser c. is termed very frivolous and loose and will serve only for a pretence to loose Spirits c. who will be apt to pretend they see it not their Duty I must confess it is cause of great amazement when I do but consider with what confidence the Pen-man of the Book stiled The Accuser c. writes touching Rebellion Confusion c. and that when all is said relative thereto I cannot find the least real ground for using those Terms nor yet any pretended ground more than such an one as in the view of a rational man may seem to bespeak the nameless Pen-man and his nameless Brethren dignifying themselves by their own Constitution and being pleased with a whimsical imagination of being as I take it from their 42 Dissafection pages 116. 117. c. visible Representatives of Christs Inward Government are even drunk with desire after Submission from such as were their Brethren Alas What sort of Dignity can Persons hiding their Names pretend unto or how can they expect that any should submit unto their Government They would be reputed to aim only at an Apostolick Dignity but therein the Pen-man hath evidently betrayed their Cause For who so ignorant as not to know that the Testimony of the Primitive Quakers seemed the more piercing when in the Name of the Lord they had declared unto the Sons of Men that as in the Apostles days the Lord was pleased to make use of mean Persons exercised in Outward Callings to publish the Everlasting Gospel so is it at this day but yet I doubt the Pride of the Penman of The Accuser c. is now so great as to account the Exercise of a poor Shoemaker therein to be contemptible for page 201. he thus signifies in his own very words By all which he endeavours to make G. F. as contemptibbe as he can Meaning my declaring in the Fourth Part of the Christian-Quaker c. page 64. that G. F. was a poor Shoemaker which G. F's Letter to John Wilkingson did naturally lead me to speak of but least any should think I was so irreligious as to think his Meanness or Trade matter of contempt I did thereupon thus write For his meaunèss he neither was PLACE = marg See 4th part C. Q. pag. 64. nor is despised as we know of for that cannot savour of a Christian Spirit And further also thus I can truly say and so I believe many more can PLACE = marg See 5th part p. 48. that in his Person I accounted the Testimony of the Apostle Paul fulfilled who said God hath chosen the foolish things of the World to confound the wise and God hath chosen the weak things of the World to confound the Mighty and base things of the World and things which are despised hath God chosen yea and things which are not to bring to nought things which are that no Flesh should glory in his presence And partly on this score can I in the Fear of the Lord say and that justly too that he was to me whil'st he kept his Place and Habitation in the Truth truly honourable This clearly shews that my Principle and Practice gives no countenance to such a Contempt spoken of by the aforesaid Penman and if â—is Pride had not led him really to believe that the knowledge of G. F's being a Shoemaker is matter of Contempt now why hath he not taken care to quit himself and his Brethren from that censure as I have done but of that I remember not a word in his whole Tract 'T is well known that the Sin usually besetting some sort of Governours is Pride and Scorn Tâ—is seems to be one part of them complexion of the nameless Pen-man of the Accuser c. For from his work he seems to me that he is not only proudly puffed up with the meer empty conceit of Government and with the thoughts of being a Governour whil'st in reality opposing the exaltation of Christs Government in the Heart but also as if he were perplext that the Trade of the Person whose Cause he hath espoused should be Recorded least it should eclipse the Glory of G. F. as no suitable Ornament to the Attendance and Outward Enjoyments wherewith he hath been acquainted of late years But this is not all to shew the Pride accompanying Truths Opposers For 't is known to many that G. F. hath been much disturbed at the relation signifying that he was a Shoemaker and is that which hath seemed to be uppermost in his Head when some Friends have had occasion of discourse with him which I take to be a meer badge of his Pride and Scorn Who can reasonably suppose that G. F. and his Adherents did ever make it the subject Matter of their Discourses to signifie that poor Fishermen and Tent-makers were called to the Work of the Ministry and that in order to the confounding those Learned Rabbies that despised their mean Education though now such like are searcht into by their Learned Rich. Richardson to save the Head of G. F's tottering Cause Alas 't is but too plain to me that G. F. c. are better affected with such Grandure as is obtained by the great pretended Successor of Peter than that little worldly Reputation that the Apostle Peter in his day was accompanied with and further to clear my Conscience on this subject let G. F. know whether he can receive it or no that in probability the Name of a Quaker might not have been so much despised by many as it now is had he but followed the Example of W. D. one of the first Preachers of the Light and other his Fellow Labourers keeping as they did at some honest Outward Calling instead of muddling his head to bring about a Conformity to his Outward Orders for I am fully satisfied in my Conscience that that noysome sent which hath arisen like a smoak from the bottomless Pit hath been occasioned from an Antichristian Promotion of his Outward Orders and indeed how can it be otherwise
Consciences of Believers we take to be contrary to the Principle of Truth and Liberty we have in Christ Jesus for that no Outward Sentence or Matter whatsoever can obliege the Conscience to be approving this or that Exercise or Practice or to be in the Belief of this or that Sentence Judgment or Decree until such time that the Conscience through the inshining of Christs Light therein comes to be satisfied and thereby to be bound and oblieged see Christian-Quaker First Part pag. 48. and Third Part pag. 53. to 69.128 and therein the Reader will not only find that the Book of Government given forth by R. B. wherein the said Doctrine is held forth was approved by the * Note 'T is certainly known that great Endeavours are frequently used to obstruct the Printing of Friends Papers unless they can submit the Contents thereof to the Second-day Meeting Sentence Let but the Description of the said Meeting be considered and that the Office assumed by such uncertain unselected Persons is that which renders them Judges in a Spiritual Concern of another mans Conscience whether gifted therein or no and I am perswaded that not one Canon of the Church of Rome admits of greater Darkness or more unwarrantable Presumption nor yet that any one Principle with respect to Government was ever read or heard of to be espoused by any sort of People on the Face of the Earth with respect to such as were accounted Members of their Society that hath a greater tendency to abridge the Conscience of her free Exercise or to introduce a more perfect Map of Confusion and Anarchy See more on this Subject the Third Part of the Christian-Quaker c. pag. 29.30.31.32 Second-days Meeting at London being a Meeting of uncertain numbers of Persons unknown by any Constitution of whom to consist before assembled but also a confutation from the Scriptures of Truth of these Arguments and Reasons given for the same further shewing that the Scriptures quoted for Proof thereof are misapplyed and remote from the purpose But yet notwithstanding I find in the aforesaid Treatise Stiled the * Note If by the word Rebellion they mean Rebellion against the Dignities which in a Tract Entituled Accuser c. That occasion is taken by the Pen-man thereof to render our Assertion PLACE = marg See Pages 64.65.66.108.109 or the Consequences deduced by him from it tending to Confusion * An exalted Diotrephes the Authors say I poured out contempt upon then I conclude the Rebellion is against sixty six Subscribers of a * Note The said Paper is detected in the 2 d. Part of the Christian-Quaker p. 72. to 92. Paper against John Story and John Wilkingson in the year 1677. Rebellion and Ranterism c. And forasmuch as it hath been declared that the said Paper was the Act of the Second-Days Meeting as well as of the Yearly-Meeting I may then reasonably query Whether the word Rebellion used on the aforesaid Occasion may not be taken as the Symptom of Abominable-Pride by subjecting the Authors thereof to the repute of sounding a Trumpet to their own imagined Dignity But should I now make three distinct Columes viz. one for the Names of the said sixty six Subscribers another for their qualifications and abilities or rather inabilities with respect to their being * See the Accuser c. p. 116. 117. and consider well the Contents of the 42 d. Disafection Representatives of Christs Inward Government and then in the third signifie these are the Dignities proclaiming something tending to Rebellion against themselves and that the Matter of Rebellion as well as the Rebels are known by this Doctrine viz. No outward Sentence can oblige the Conscience in point of faith duty before conviction by Christs Light Would they not then appear most miserable Objects of Derision and Scorn especially if in that dress presented to one of their learned Richard Richardsons Authors cited in favour of G. F ' s Errour namely * Note Who can otherwise think but that G. F's Cause is at a low Ebb since he is now beholding to a Presbyterians Works heretofore much despised by him to bear it up See R. R's Tract stiled A few Ingredients c. pages 13.18 Richard Baxter of Kiderminster great amongst the Presbyterians whose Directory I suppose doth not teach any thing so contradictory to their fundamental Principles as the aforesaid Doctrine rendred tending to Rebellion is known to be contrary to the antient Doctrine of the People called Quakers for thousands were convinced of the truth of these two plain Sentences namely First That every man that cometh into the World was lighted with a measure of Christs Light in his own Heart Secondly That 't was safer to have a dependency on this measure in our selves than to have an Eye out to the measures of others But if the first Publisher of these Doctrines did thus design that such as were convinced thereof should at any time after be excomunicated if they should not follow some Outward Order of his before convinced of its need or service from the measure of Light in themselves then it may in truth be said That a greater cheat never appeared under a religious pretence But I conclude that no such design was in the beginning and that when G. F. one of the first Preachers of the Light in these latter days did begin his Declaration with these words I am the Light of the World his meaning was that Christ was that Light and not himself To return to my Concern with the Second-days Meeting again But if this discourse should come to the view of the Author of a small Tract stiled Controversy ended 't is to be doubted that the Second-days Meeting though they may account themselves Dignities would then be more derided And why Because he was rendred a very Night-bird a Wanderer one that looks and creeps up and down like a Vagrant as in a small Tract Entituled A Winding-Sheet for Controversy ended appears being also reputed to be approved by the Second-days Meeting and the reason why he was so termed was because he put not his Name to his Book Of the like crime the Second-days Meeting are now guilty in relation to the Book stiled The Accuser c. and therefore very unfit to be accounted Dignities for dignified men are not usually ashamed of their Names Alas Who so blind as not to know that the Business of Church-Government amongst one part of the People called Quakers is so engrost between the Yearly and Second-days Meeting or amongst a few of them as that a Dislike whether by particular Churches or Persons to either of their Papers Prescriptions or Orders is become matter of scandal if not of Excommunication and now as worthily reprehended as those aimed at by W. P. in his adress to Prot. pag. 115. were by these his words Alas who knows not that loves not to be blind that the Church amongst them is the Priest-hood
since he himself hath testified in a General Epistle Printed for M. W. in these words They that do so viz. Set up Outward Things gathers to themselves not unto God which is a notable Proof that for many years past he hath been gathering to himself not unto God and what is the Fruit of such his gathering To answer that question would require a large volumn I shall only say it hath scattered many of the Flock from the green Pastures whereon they were feeding and Shilohs Streams wherewith their own Cisterns were filled to feed upon the four Leaven of some Hypocritical Pharisees to drink of their muddy waters If any shall think this a digression from the Matter expected to be treated on to such I say The ill Savour and groundless occasion of our Adversaries aforesaid words Confusion Rebellion Looseness and Ranterism from one whom I took to be in his own sense a Dignity were the occasion thereof and I question not but such as are gifted to discern things as they are will perceive that those words as applyed by the Pen-man of the Accuser are only to represent Men fearing God and loving Righteousness in a Bear-Skin to be worried 'T is very apparent that our Opposers have frequently shewn their Teeth by their clamorous Treatment but blessed be the Lord they have no power to Bite And having rejected many Warnings are now worthily discovered according to their Merit whereby if they are rendred a Derision to the Heathen and a Scorn to Fools Let them know 't is but a part of the Reward and Recompense of the Fruit of their own doings I shall now return to speak more particularly to the matter which from the Title Page may be expected In the Third Page of a small Tract Stiled A Brief Examination and State of Liberty Spiritual lately Published I find it written in these words 'T is a dangerous Principle and pernitious to True Religion and that which is worse 't is the Root of Ranterisme to assert That nothing is a Duty incumbent upon thee but what thou art perswaded is thy Duty This Doctrine is near of kin to the aforesaid Doctrine mentioned in the Accuser c. and as it relates to Christian Religion is Repugnant to the Testimony of W. P. in his Adress to Protestants Page 144. in these words Christian Religion ought to be carried on by that way by which it was Interoduced which was Perswasion But yet to do the Penman of the Tract Stiled A Brief Examination c. Right He in his following words makes the Application to seared dark and dead Consciences as if thereby such were uncondemned To take his meaning thereon yet it cannot reasonably be understood otherwise than thus Viz. That his aforesaid Notion must have a Tendency that some Religious Performance is incumbent on such though they are not perswaded thereof Let us now suppose that the seared dark and dead Conscience should strictly perform some Religious Exercise as his Duty meerly from the direction of another we are now to enquire What is the benefit thereof to such To this let W. P. in his aforesaid Adr. to Prot. pag. 146. answer his words are these If I believe what she that is to say the Church believes only because she believes it and not because I am convinced in my Understanding and Conscience of the truth of what she believes my Faith is false though hers be true And indeed well might W. P. so testifie for if a blind Offering under the Law was condemnable it is not justifiable under a Gospel Dispensation Having laid down the Doctrines on which our Opposers ungodly Constructions are founded I need not enlarge to remove such Constructions let the Reader peruse what he is already referred unto in the Christian-Quaker and compare the same with W. P. his Adress to Protestants pages 77. 91. 92. 93. 94. 95. 140. 141. 144. 146. and divers other Parts and the Righteousness of what we stand for and against will be sufficiently manifested One other Doctrine pertinent to my purpose occurs in my Memory it is in the eleventh Page of the aforesaid Tract stiled A Brief Examination c. namely that this is a loose Plea Viz. ' What hast thou to do with me ' leave me to my Freedom and the Grace of God in my self which leads me thus to Observe If our antient Friends John Story and John Wilkingson when articled against for not * acting in things against their Conscience PLACE = marg Witness a part of the 44 Articles exhibited against them should have told the busie Persons concerned therein What have you to do with us leave us to our Freedom and the Grace of God in our selves might not this have merited a just Approbation from the Primitive Preachers of Christs Light in these latter days whose Doctrine hath been That the Grace is sufficient and that every one is to be left to his own measure antiently understood by this manner of speech Viz. Our own Freedom Every Reader is now left free to consider whether a rendering such a Plea of being left to our own Freedom and the Grace of God in our selves to be a loose Plea is not the mark of one that is departed from the antient Principle of Truth a Discourager of having a Dependency on the measure of Grace in our selves and so by natural consequence may be looked upon as one holding forth a loose or false Liberty the tendency whereof is to depart from the Blessed Spirit of Truth and rebel against the perfect Law of Liberty in the Heart It needs no large Coment to shew that such as slightly esteem of a Plea to be left unto our Freedom and the Grace of God in our selves may easily be led like Blind men into any Ditch It is observable that G. F. his Party have not only slighted such a Plea of being left to the Grace of God in our selves but have a sort of Veneration for the Outward Directions of another C. T. his Epistle and the Accuser c. are to me an evidence of such a Veneration How much credit this may add to any so minded that have manifested a dislike of the Presbyterian Directory not altogether for the matter therein contained but also that an outward Directory should be exalted as a Christians Rule under the Ministration of Light in this Gospel Day let the wise in heart judge But to state a case in favour of the Doctrine which we oppose let us behold how it will then look Suppose that the Lord had in every Age under the Gospel Dispensation placed one outward and visible man to be an eye to see for the rest of the Body which I dare not grant and that on that foot G. F. should be declared to be that Eye in this our day yet it would be irrational to require submission to his Prescriptions or Decrees from such as are not convinced that he is placed as such an Eye If thus much be
a ranting Spirit I doubt not but that G. F. and many of his Party are in a high degree guilty thereof with respect to their conceptions of him as well as his own conceptions of himself for I doubt not but that he and others on his behalf are so puft up with vain Imagination or that which is worse as that they conclude that for many years past if not from his Childhood he neither hath nor can err and on that foot let his tongue run ever so extravagantly evil I am perfwaded that neither he nor many of his Adherents do put any difference between that and the thing that is good See the Fourth Fifth and Seventh Parts of the Christian-Quaker for further manifestation of Principles and practises whereof G. F. and his Party are guilty to the dishonour of God his Truth and People and when compared with all that is said against any of the said Parts then consider whether many things therein contained and not denyed by G. F. or his Party do not worthily merit the censure of a grand deviation from the antiâ—nt professed Principle and Practise of the People called Quakers and so far as they have a tendency slightly to esteem of leaving Friends to the Grace of God in themselves and instead thereof to introduce a Submission to some proud Persons endeavouring to dignifie themselves by a zealous promoting of G. F.'s Orders amongst such as are dissatisfie therewith whether they may not properly be termed the very marks and tokens of such a loose libertine Spirit That by the measure of Gods Grace in the Children of Light is and for ever will be condemned The very mentioning a zealous promotion of G. F.'s Orders brings to my remembrance that W. P. in his Adr. to Prot. pag. 91. tells us That it meaning the Scriptures concerns the whole Life and Conversation of a man but every Passage in it is not therefore fit to be such an Article of Faith as upon which Christian Communion ought or ought not to be maintained This leads me thus to query First Whether then such amongst G. F's Party as declare disunion with another Person on the meer foot of that other Persons conscientious refusal to propose the Intentions of his Marriage to a Meeting-of Women distinct from Men be not a Badge of Apostacy especially when the least Footsteps of such a Proceeding is not to be found in the Seriptures of Truth Secondly Whether the declaration of disunion on no other ground compared with the last cited words of W. P. carries not with it this Construction Viz. Though Christian-Communion may be maintained without making every Passage in Scripture an Article of Faith as essential to such Communion yet not one Jota of an Order approved by G. F 's Party can be dispensed with to maintain the antient Fellowship of the People called Quakers Thirdly Whether this be not to put a greater esteem on such an Order than the very Scriptures of Truth themselves let the ingenious Reader judge What Credit can our Opposers think will ever accrew to their Cause whilest W. P's Adr. to Prot. shall pass for sound and Christian Doctrine Our Adversaries must needs be reduced to this Dilemma either to condemn the Christian Discourses contained therein and so in opposition thereto hold up their Ensign of Church-Authority and Imposition saying Lo here is Christ by which the antient Principle and Practice of the People called Quakers will be condemned or else to stand by the same and then their late flight of leaving to the Grace of God in our selves and approving the Doctrine of Submission to the Church whether Believers see it their Duty or no must be repudiated as that which can nourish no better Devotion than that whereof Blindness and Ignorance is the Mother And though the nameless Pen-man of the Accuser c. hath endeavoured to render himself and Brethren as acquitted of Apostacy and Innovation yet he hath been as successless therein as if he had undertaken to sodder Iron and Clay together And why Because he hath become an Advocate for men who have departed from the antient Paths as is largely manifested in the first seven Parts of the Christian-Quaker the Footsteps of purest Antiquity and best Examples which is such a sort of Presumption as that W. P. Adr. to Prot. pag. 92. tells us That it was just with God that Error and Confusion should be the Consequences of those Adventures nor has it ever failed to follow them Our Opposers may come in as Living Witnesses to the truth of such his Testimony or their work is manifested in the seven Parts of the Christian-Quaker To be the very Map of Confusion and Errour shewing no more Charity so far as I can perceive for some such as were their Brethren now dissenting from them than Bishop Bâ—nner did for such as answered not to his satisfaction this Question What say you to the Sacrament of the Altar Blessed be the Lord that our Opposers have not so much Power as he had How remote the uncharitable Constructions of such as were our Brethren are from the Discourse mentioned in 92 pag. of the Adr. to Prot. he that runs may read The words are these What man loves God and Christ seeks Peace and Concord that would not rejoyce if all our Animosities and Vexations about Matters of Religion were buryed in this one Confession of Jesus the great Author and Lord of the Christian-Religion so often lost in pretending to contest for it And pag. 95. is cited by way of Approbation the words of that great man J. Hales VIZ. That it is the Vnity of the Spirit in the Bond of Peace and not the Identity or oneness of conceit which the Holy Ghost requires at the hands of Christians Much more might be cited out of the said Adr. to Prot. in our favour with respect to what we stand for and against but at present let this suffice as a proper Umpirage in the case I shall now conclude with what doth freshly occur in my memory as the sum and substance of many sweet and heavenly Declarations in the Name of the Lord by our antient Brethren on this wise Draw water out of your own Wells let it be your own and not anothers Look not unto us but unto the Lord. We can be taken from you but your Teacher can never be removed into a Corner We preach not our selves but Christ in you We are but Ambassadors in his Name to turn you from Darkness to Light from the power of Satan unto God that so by the measure of the Light of Christ in your selves you might be establish in the Truth which changeth not It is the Gift of the Fathers Love that we come to exalt over all Christ in Male and Female the Hope of Glory Our Labour is that you who were not natural Branches may come to be engrafted into Christ the Vine and then to live under your own Vine that so if in your day the Voice of a Stranger should be sounded in your Ears saying Lo here is Christ or There is Christ you might no more go forth but stay at home as those who are ingaged in a Spiritual Warfare having this incouragement from the Psalmist She that stays at home divides the Spoil This was the sound of the Antients of Israel in the Spirit when the Word of the Lord through them was piercing like a Dart to the Liver terrible to the Man of Sin but yet as a lovely Song to those whose Faces were Sion ward and the same Spirit that led them to treat as aforesaid did frequently move on their Spirits to enform us of those Rocks whereon the Sons of Men have been enclined to split and those By-paths wherein the wayfaring man hath been apt to err on this wise In Ages past the Sons of Men have been inclined to set up or be in the Observation of some Outward thing and to have their Eye thereto more than unto the Word nigh in the Heart This was Israel Sin before then appearance of Christ in the Flesh when they made unto themselves a Golden Calf saying These are thy Gods Oh Israel Exod. 32. This was the Sin reproved by Paul on this wise But now seeing ye know God yea rather are known by him How turn ye again unto the weak and beggerly Elements This was and is the mistake in most Societies and Churches professing Christianity in Modern Times whereon I need not dilate The Testimony of our antient Friends by Declarations Disputes and Printing are yet as living Evidences in many Breasts the Remembrance whereof seems to be cause of Astonishment That any of the antient Flock should give occasion to Jew or Gentile or the Church of God to Impeach them of falling into the like Snare But that which seems to render the matter yet worse is this That they should speak well of those Antient Labourers whose Doctrines as aforesaid dropt as the Dew whilst Persecuting others abiding therein much like unto those Who Garnished the Sepulchers of the Prophets that Prophesied of Christ but when He came were found Persecutors of Him and his Followers The Lord Establish his People on CHRIST JESUS The ROCK OF AGES and turn the Hearts of our Persecuting Opposers that in a sense of their Backsliding and Errours They may confess unto God and through True Repentance be made partakers of his Mercy and then no doubt but the Antient Love and Fellowship in the Truth will be again Renewed to the Consolation of one anothers Soules in the Lord. Amen Amen saith my Soul William Rogers FINIS