what their own Religion is which they would have us to receive We know not but the fag-end of it that is yet out of sight may be so abominable as to shame all the rest I am resolved to be of no Religion that is kept in the pockets of men and must not be all made known to the Church as the Papists keep things undetermined to make us new Articles of saith quoad nos as they speak when they please Reason 3. No man of Reason should be a Quaker considering that among those scraps of their Religion which is made known there is so much notorious falshood and ungodliness It s like to have a good end that hath such a beginning This falshood and wickedness cannot soder with saving truth The very person of Jesus Christ many of them blaspheme and speak allegorically and equivocally when they mention his name and nature and so shew that indeed they are not Christians One of them lately spoke to a Christian in these words I deny the God that thou worshippest The Scriptures many of them in my hearing and in others have denyed to be the rule of Faith and Life and the Hebrew and Greek text they expresly said they do deny They reproach the Catholick Church and the Ministers They deny many of Gods Ordinances not only the Baptism of Infants but of any and use not the Lords Supper They deprave the Doctrine of Justification denying the imputed righteousness of Christ and trusting to that which is in them only Many more such abominations they maintain which certainly tell us they are not of God If any man say that all of them are not of these opinions I answer What a fair distracted company are they already then when they are of so many minds and we are never the nearer knowing what they hold by hearing and reading the sayings of so many Reason 4. Besides their false pernicious Doctrines their Practical Religion doth much consist in notorious wickedness injustice and uncharitableness I shall here instance but in three parts of it 1. Their very preaching and zealous talk is much if not most of it malicious prating against Gods servants 3 Joh. 10. and railing accusations and reviling words yea lyes and slanders impudently charging that upon the Ministers of Christ which they have not so much as a reasonable pretence to accuse them of There is scarce a scold heard among us in seven years time that useth so many railing words to the basest that they quarrel with as these people will use familiarly in their Religious exercises against the faithful servants of Christ Nay I have had more railing language from one of them in one letter then I ever heard from all the scolds in the Countrey to my remembrance this twenty years And no servant of Christ who hath learnt of him to be meek and lowly can believe if he be well in his wits that this is the language of the Spirit of Christ He that being himself reviled reviled not again 1 Pet. 2. 23. and hath commanded us not to eat with a railer 1 Cor. 5. 11. and hath given such an odious Character of such 2 Pet. 2. 10 11 12. Jude 8 9 10 c. will hardly own them for his best servants If we may judge what Countrey men are of by their language these are not of heaven nor fellow-Citizens with the Saints that so reproach and rail at Saints And it is the more impious in that they entitle God to it and think they do him service by reviling his servants yea and abuse the phrases of Scriptures to it as if they might call such by any names which God hath called the worst of men by Even dogs wolves greedy dogs and hirelings children of the Devil and enemies of all righteousness hypocrites Devils with abundance such 2. They break the fifth Commandment by open dishonouring of Magistrates and Ministers and impenitently justifie themselves in all They will not only deny civil honour to the Magistrate but revile him if he displease them Their language is like the rebellious followers of Corah Numb. 16. 3. Ye take too much upon you wherefore list ye up your selves above the Congregation of the Lord 3. Many of them live idly and disorderly going up and down the Countrey and living on the bread of others and not working with their hands contrary to 2 Thes. 3. 6 11. Reason 5. The worst of all is that they behave themselves like Malignant enemies to the very Cause and Church and Gospel and Servants of Jesus Christ And if they be of the Serpentine brood they cannot be the only servants of Christ sure Most of them that I have seen have an altered countenance looking upon every man that they suspect to be a Minister or a friend to the Ministry with such detestation and hatred as if malice it self had chosen their faces to demonstrate its complexion in Their very design Religion and work is to make the people hate the Ministers and revile them as they do as if this were a mark of a converted man And besides this Ministry as much as they revile them who have we to carry on the work of the Gospel A mean wit may easily see what would come of the Gospel and of the Church and the souls of men if the Ministry were hated rejected or cast out Doth it go well with any Nation on earth without them Name me the place Will the Gospel be propagated without Preachers Or have you better enough if all these were down Where be they that we may see and know them He that would destroy the Commanders and Magistrates is like to be an enemy to the Army and the Common-wealth They take the same course against the Church and Cause of God as the malicious enemies in all ages have done even to oppose the best and painfullest Ministers Such as the Heathens tormented and the Papists burnt and others silenced these men choose out to vilifie and oppose Mark when they come to any Town whether they do not ten times more oppose the Ministers that spend themselves in private and publick labours against sin then they do the most ignorant or vicious men Cannot we see whose servants they are when we see who they fight against even the choicest servants of Christ It is a wonderful thing that even Malignant enemies shall be thought to be Christs only servants by any that know what it is to serve him or what an enemy differeth from a friend Reason 6. Moreover that part of the Quakers peculiar Religion which consisteth not in errour and Malignant impiety is very much of it made up of childish unreasonable fopperies When they have called me Dog and Devil and abundance of such names and I have asked them what was my fault forsooth it was that I was called Master that I stood above the people in a pulpit that I preached by an hour-glass that I preacht by Doctrine and Use and such like And doth the
Christian Religion consist in such ridiculous accusations as these Doth God lay mens salvation upon an hour-glass or a Pulpit or being called Master Little do I care what they call me or where I stand so I may but be heard or whether I have glass or clock As for the grounds of these silly cavils I have shewed in The Quakers Catechism how weak they are Christ doth no more forbid the title of Master then of Father or then sitting in the uppermost seat as you may see in Mat. 23. And seriously would these wise men have no man called Father or sit uppermost It is the proud affectation of honour and the abuse of it that Christ doth forbid and not the thing when he hath made it the first Commandment with promise that children and so all subjects and inferiours must honour their parents and superious in the Lord See what a difference there is between this sort of prophetical people and the antient Prophets and Apostles of Christ The Apostles of Christ did preach up Faith and Hope and Love and a Kingdom consisting in Righteousness and Peace and Joy in the holy Ghost and not in meats or drinks Circumcision or uncircumcision But see now a new generation of preachers and what is their message I am ashamed to mention it They go about the world to preach down hour-glasses and pulpits and tithes and the title of Master Do you think that the salvation of the world doth lie upon this Doctrine They come to preach down ribbons and lace and points and cuffs O glorious and excellent Doctrine for children to make sport with Reason 7. Moreover their Malignity doth blind them to make that the principal Cause of their rage and revilings against the Ministry which is plainly agreeable to the will of God and necessary to the Churches good The principal sin which we must be hated reproached and cast out for is that we take either Tithes or other set maintenance And where is this forbidden They liken us to the covetous Priests among the Jews who neglected the work of the Lord and looked every one for his gain from his Quarters And do they believe that God was then against paying Tithes or that this was the sin of those Priests that they took Tithes Let them read Mal. 3. 8 9 10. and judge and be ashamed Will a man rob God yet ye have robbed me But ye say Wherein have we robbed thee In tithes and offerings Ye are cursed with a curse for ye have robbed me even this whole Nation Bring ye all the Tithes into the Store-house that there may be meat in my house and prove me now herewith saith the Lord if I will not open the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing And Christ himself saith of them that â—ithed Mint and Annise These things ought ye to have done and not to leave the other undone Mat. 23. 23. And Paul saith 1 Cor. 9. 6 7 11 12 13. Have not we power to forbear working Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charge who planteth a Vineyard and eateth not of the fruit thereof or who feedeth a flock and eateth not of the milk of the flock Say I these things as a man or saith not the Law the same also If we have sown to you spiritual things is it a great thing if we shall reap your carnal things Do ye not know that they which minister about holy things live of the things of the Temple and they which wait at the Altar are partakers with the Altar Even so hath the Lord ordained that they which preach the Gospel should live of the Gospel God ordaineth it and the Quakers make a new Religion of railing at it The Law of the Land ordaineth it and God bids every soul be subject to the higher powers and saith the resisters receive to themselves damnation Rom. 13. and yet the Quakers expect salvation by resisting The tenths are the Churches and not the peoples And God saith Thou shalt not steal And yet the Quakers make a Religion of teaching the people to steal or defraud others of the tenths In the Apostles daies men sold all and devoted it to God and laid it down at the Apostles feet But now we ask not men for a penny they are taught by the Quakers to deny those tenths which be none of their own forgetting that Aâ—anias and Sapphira were struck dead for retaining half their own when they had devoted it to God and the Church But I have said enough of this to them in two Books already viz. The Defence of the Worcestershire Petition and the Quakers Catechism Reason 8. The Quakers way is too cruel and uncharitable to be the way of God They damn the most humble holy faithful servants of God to whom God hath promised salvation All the Ministers and Churches of Christ that adhere to the Ministry they pronounce them children of the Devil and as soon as they do but hear a man speak for the Ministry though they know nothing of his life they can presently tell that he is an Hypocrite and child of the Devil so quick and sagacious they are in damning men as if they were as forward to it as Christ to save and pleased as much in cursing as good men in blessing Yea they must venture into the Throne of God and ordinarily take on them to know mens hearts to judge them hypocrites Those that dwell and walk with God and have lain longer at his feet in prayers and tears then any of them and walk in uprightness in the midst of a malicious world and spend themselves in the work of God even these must be damned at a word by a boy or wench that 's but a Quaker as confidently as if God had bid them speak it And thus they repeal the Gospel it self the ground of our salvation which saith that Whosoever believeth shall not perish Reason 9. After all their sins they most impudently pretend to a sinless perfection They are not content that we allow of a perfection in kind which is our sincerity or a perfection of parts which is our integrity or a perfection of eminency or high degree all these we do allow of and we desire an absolute sinless perfection and confess it is our commanded duty But they maintain that many of them are without sin altogether Though James saith In many things we offend all James 3. 2. and John saith If we say that we have no sin we deceive our selves and the truth is not in us If we say that we have not sinned we make him a lyar and his word is not in us 1 John 1. 8 10. And Christ saith that the whole have no need of the Physitian but the sick Mat. 9. 12. So that by this you may see that the Quakers suppose themselves to have no need of Christ and so the word and truth is not in them They dare say it seems to God or to the Redeemer We
death as their Ancestors have done Reason 16. What reasonable man would turn Quaker that seeth the common fruit of their Doctrine What good do they where they come but make people hare both godly Teachers and people whom they loved and doubtless Love is Christs work and Sheep-mark and envy strife and hatred is the Devils They break people into Divisions and set them a reviling and cast their spirite into a malicious mould and tincture of bitterness and bring in confusion and abominable error And to say that this wisdom is from above is to glory and lye against the truth No it it earthly sensual devilish For the wisdom from above is first pure then peaceable gentle easie to be entreated c. Jam. 3. 13 14 15 17. The fruit of their labour is to make some silly professors turn Malignant enemies of the Church and to shew themselves humble to cast off some points or lace and wander about the Country and at last many of them fall into distraction Reason 17. And it s no great encouragement to us to turn Quaâ—ers when we consider who are their followers and society that make all this ado in the world Very few experienced humble soâ—er Christians that ever I heard of that turn to them but its the young raw professors and women and ignorant ungrounded people that were but novices and learners in the principles and such as are notorious for self-conceitedness and pride being wise in their own eyes And most of all these that ever I heard of were Anabaptists or the members of some such Sect that by their division and errour were prepared before Reason 18. So that t is an evident judgement of God upon those people that turn Quakers and a punishment for their former sin Because they received not the truth in the love of it that they might be saved God giveth them up to believe a lye 2 Thes. 2. 10 11. Because they were false to the light revealed and unprofitable under precious helps and proudly disobeyed and slighted their faithful guides God giveth them up as a prey to these devourers And who would choose that for his Religion which is nothing but a dreadful judgement of God upon proud dividing self-conceited ignorant men especially of the Anabaptists Reason 19. They are already in Divisions among themselves as few as they are As the contention between Naylor and his followers and Fox and his followers and others of them shew Reason 20. And to make all their delusion a more odious wickedness they father it upon the holy Ghost and would perswade the world that they speak all their most wicked speeches by his inspiration or command and say Thus saith the Lord and the Spirit of God within me saith thus or thus O horrible impiety when they dishonour the very Word of God the Righteousness yea the â—erson of Christ they say God bids them do it and indite all as from the Spirit of the Lord when they speak against the Doctrine of the Spirit They cry down the union and love of the Saints and the Ministers and Ordinances of Christ and say the Spirit bids them do it When they pronounce damnation against Gods Church or holy servants to whom Christ hath promised salvation and the Spirit sealed it yet do they prophanely make the Holy Ghost the author of their wickedness I think there 's not a whore or thief or swearer in the Town or Country but might as justly say The Holy Ghost commandeth them to whore or steal or swear Yea when some of them preach another Gospel they father it on the Spirit when Paul saith If an Angel from heaven preach other Gospel then had been preached he should be accursed Gal. 18. Reason 21. The Quakers themselves renounce in words the Ranters and the Papists as a deluded sort But the Ranters and Papists hold the substance or greatest part of the Quakers Doctrine in which they differ from us Yea the Ranters did fall into trances as they do and spoke just as they against the Ministry and Scripture Yea the Drunkards and all Prophane ungodly Malignants cry out against the same Ministers and same exercises and ordinances and same Churches and godly people as the Quakers do Now let any man judge that hath not forsworn all wit and reason whether it be likely that the Holy Ghost would inspire a generation of new Prophets to acquaint them with the same points which Ranters Papists and Drunkards knew before and could have taught them without the Spirit Or whether the same point be Heavenly in a Quaker and Hellish in a Ranter Papist or Drunkard And whether the Quakers have not condemned themselves in condemning these sects that hold their opinions And whether it be likelyer that Ranters Drunkards and all Malignants or the holy and faithful Ministers and people of Christ should in these points be in the right Reason 22. And if I had any cause to be weary of the Christian Catholick Reformed Religion what reason have I to turn Quaker any more then to any other sect why not to the sect of Papists as well or to the Anabaptists or the Antinomians or Libertines or Familists or Socinians or such like How do they prove that they are more in the right then all these What do they bring to satisfie a wise man that they only among all these and many other sects are in the right Reason 23. Moreover the way by which they prevail is not by producing any evidence For they renounce that and offer you all on the Authority of the Spirit within them and therefore they must prove that Authority and their Revelations and Divine Mission by Miracles or such supernatural means before any reasonable man can believe them Unless you will believe every man that saith he is sent of God I have askt them to shew their Commission from God or prove that he sent them and not one of them would ever do it but tell me I was blind and he had the witness in himself But why must I believe him that saith this more then other men Can I see the witness in him He must be a witness to me if he will have credit The Ministers of Christ do not call you to receive their Doctrine upon the Authority of themselves or their own Mission but of the Apostles and their Mission from whom they prove they had it and who sealed it with Miracles long ago And therefore whether we were Ministers or no you have reason to believe us when we prove our Doctrine to be from God as delivered by Apostles in Scripture and Sealed by the Spirit But Quakers that give us their Doctrine on a new Authority within them and so Behmenists Paraceisians and all Enthusiasts and Papists that give it us on their own Authority as above or before the Scripture Authority these are bound to prove their pretended Authority by Miracles if they will be believed by wise men that love their salvation And we see that it is by the Novelty and the seriousness and earnestness of speech and threatning Hell to poor people that frightneth-in their followers to them and not by evidence of truth I have urged many of them to name one truth which the Quakers held but what we hold as well as they and I could never yet hear of any one Reason 24. Lastly they teach but such like Doctrines and take the like course as many of the antient Hereticks did of whom Epiphanius Irenaeus and other Antients will give you a full account Presently after the Apostles daies just such Hereticks as these arose and troubled the Church And they brought themselves to shame by their wickedness folly and division and God was still against them and brought them to confusion And so all along through most ages have they sped even down to the David-Georgians Wegelians Familists aad the like of late And shall we play an old game as if it were a new one where all have sped so ill before And shall we run our selves into the fire which hath consumed such Heresies through former ages To conclude as I am sure it is not an unwillingness to be informed but the knowledge of their gross deceits that hath caused me to oppose the Quakers So I beseech all young and raw Professors to consider impartially of these 24 REASONS and withall to bethink themselves 1. What a doleful case it is that Professors of Religion should be so ignorant loose and unstable and God and his word should have no more hold of them but that any confident sect that riseth up shall presently carry them away even with non-sense or that which a child might see through O what a shame is this to your profession 2. What an heavy judgement is it to your selves to be self-condemned and self-divided from the Church Tit. 3. 10 11. and carried away as chaff with every wind of Doctrine Ephes. 4. 14. and to prove rotten in a day of tryal Know you not that Heresies must arise that those that are approved may be made manifest 1 Cor. 11. 19. 3. Would you not turn Jews and Infidels and renounce Christ himself if you had but some body to â—ry you It s most likely that you would For an Infidel can put a far greater shew of reason upon his cause in opposing Christ then these Quakers have yet put on theirs Well Sirs as ever you would stand fast and be saved 1. See that you be serious Christians and true to the light received and prepare not by unholy hearts and lives to be forsaken of God 2. Stick close to the Word of God 3. And to a faithful Ministry and obey their Doctrine 4. And to the Unity and Catholick Peace of the Church 5. And to the communion of Saints 6. And to the Spirit which still concur's with these Sept. 5. 1657. FINIS