unfit for the Work of Gods Ministry whereof they have rendred themselves unworthy and so put a stop to their Proceedings therein And if they Submit not to the Judgment of the Spirit of Christ in his People then ought they Publickly to be declared against and Warning given to the Flock of Christ in their several Meetings to beware of them and to have no fellowship with them that they may be ashamed and Lambs and Babes in Christ preserved 5. And if any man or Woman which are out of the Unity with the Body of Friends Print or cause to be Printed or published in Writing any thing which is not of Service for the Truth but tends to the Scandalizing and reproaching of faithful Friends or to beget or uphold Division and Faction then we do warn and Charge all Friends that do love Truth as they desire it may prosper and be kept clear to beware and take heed of having any hand in Printing republishing or spreading such Books or Writings And if at any time such Books be sent to any of you that sell Books in the Country after that you with the Advice of good and serious Friends have tryed them and find them faulty to send them back again whence they come And we further desire from time to time faithfull and sound Friends may have the view of such things as are Printed upon Truth 's account as formerly it hath used to be before they go to the Press that nothing but what is sound and Savory and that will answer the Witness of God even in our Adversaries may be exposed to publick Vieu 6. We do advise and counsel That such as are made Overseers of the Flock of God by the Holy Spirit and do Watch for the good of the Church Meeting together in their Respective Places do set and keeep the Affairs of it in good Order beware of Admitting or Encouraging such as are Weak and of little Faith to take such Trust upon them for by hearing things disputed that are doubtfull such may be hurt themselves and may hurt the Truth not being grown into a good understanding to judge of things Therefore We exhort That you who have received a true sence of things be diligent in the Lord's Business and keep the Meetings as to him that all may be kept pure and clean according to that of God which is just and equal We also advise That not any be admitted to order Publick business of the Church but such as have felt in a Measure of the Universal Spirit of Truth which seeks the Destruction of none but the General good of all and especially those that love it who are of the Houshold of Faith So Dear Friends and Brethren believing your Souls will be refreshed in the Sence of our Spirits and Integrity towards God at the reading of these things as ours were while we sate together at the opening of them and that you will be one with us on the behalf of the Lord and his Pretious Truth against those who would limit the Lord to speak without Instruments or by what Instruments they list and reject the Counsel of the Wise-men and the Testimony of the Prophets which God sanctifyed and sent among you in the day of his Love when you were gathered and would not allow him liberty in and by his Servants to appoint time and place wherein to meet together to wait upon and worship him according as he requireth in Spirit and calling it Formal and the Meeting of Man We say believing that you will have Fellowship with us herein as we have with you in the Truth we commit you to God and the Word of Life which hath been Preached to you from the beginning which is neither limited to place nor time nor persons but hath Power to limit us to each as pleaseth him that you with us and we with you may be built up in our most holy Faith and be Preserved to Partake of the Inheritance which is Heavenly amongst all them that are Sanctifyed Richard Farnsworth Alexander Parker George Whitehead Josiah Coale John Whitehead Thomas Loe. Stephen Crispe Thomas Green John Moon Thomas Briggs James Parkes The Summ of the Particulars handled in the preceeding Treatise DIvisions are no argument against the Truth of Christianity p. 1. The Holy Scriptures are by some thought too plain and by others too obscure p. 2. Quakers give better names to their own Books than to the Scriptures p. 3. Their beginning was in 1648. p. 4. Winstanley the Leveller was their Father p. 5. 6. They have a great resemblance to Rome p. 7. 8. The many disadvantages in Treating with them p. 9. Their unchristian temper in Controversies pag. 10. 11. They misapply Scripture words as the old Hereticks did p. 12. 13. T. Ellwood's Ignorance and Impudence about St. Basil p. 14. About St. Greg Nazianzene and Sosiades p. 15. And in calling the Martyrs our Godly Martyrs p. 16. 17. Quakers deny themselves to be Protestants p. 16. Thomas Ellwood's sauciness towards the King p. 18 19. Quakers have dangerous Doctrines about Kings and Magistrates p. 19 20. Their degrading of the Nobility p 20. And contempt of other Orders of men p. 21. Thomas Ellwood's manner of claiming Inspirations concludes as much for others as for themselves p. 22. God affords sufficient means of Conviction p. 23. Immediate Revelation should be attested with Evidences p. 24. Revelation is a more easy thing than studying p. 25. The various Claimers of Infallibility confute each other p. 26. Quakers Challenge the Internal work of the Spirit but deny the External p. 27. Thomas Ellwood and his party 's high demands p. 28. His seeming Concessions p. 29. Christ was the Apostles Instructer before the Spirit p. 31. Quakers make Christs Prophetick office to signify nothing p. 32. Or confound Jesus and the Spirit p. 33. The manner of the Apostles Instructions recited p. 34. Quakers differ about the Apostles knowledge p. 35. The Apostles were certain Witnesses of Christ and the Writers of the N. T. wrote upon their certain knowledge p. 36. No new books of Scriptures can now be written 37. The Holy Spirit did inwardly pursue what Christ had outwardly delivered p. 38. Enthusiasm destroys the settled grounds of Religion p. 39. Quakers called themselves Apostles and Prophets p. 40. They make the Apostacy to begin with the second Century p. 41. They are very unlike the Apostles p. 42. Successours cannot receive like predecessours p. 43. The first settling a Dispersation must not always continue p. 44. God is not prodigal of Miracles p. 45. Quakers Inspirations must be as unintelligible as those of St. Paul or others p. 46. The Texts produced by T. Ellwood prove against him p. 47. What was promised to the Apostles should not be inlarged to all p. 48. Quakers like Celsus and the Gnosticks pretend much knowledge p. 49 Thomas Ellwood borrows Renewing of Revelations from George Keith p. 51. Their damnable Essential of Religion p. 52. 53.
new Revelation of the good old things which are the Essentials of Religion The first of those two we do not plead for but the latter And elsewhere p. 33. The same Eternal Life which first breathed them forth doth either again breath or speak them forth in us or sendeth forth of his Living powerful Influences into them as they have a place in our Minds and Memories this latter as more modest is below Ellwoods purpose But though he taketh the Words and Notions of Keith the Revelation is still Immediate for their Institutor hath prettily determined Truth lifting up its head p. 38. If you would hear then acquaint your seives with such as can speak from a Testimony within for as they Received what they have from the pure teachings of the Father so this second hand teaching will be a pure Teaching unto you but be sure you do not prefer this second Teaching before the first for now the Everlasting Word and Gospel must reveal himself to you or else you cannot be satisfyed Their own or others is first and second hand teaching but instructing from the Scriptures is not so much as third hand Teaching and the Scriptures are now out of date The Writings of the Apostles are to cease Truth lifting c. p. 30. when the Lord himself who is the Everlasting Gospel doth manifest himself to Rule in the Flesh of Sons and Daughters They have no New Essentials of Religion this I thought spoke in our Acception about Fundamentals till further Converse in their Works discovered the Deceit Keith Im. Rev. p. 5. for though one tell us that less than one half of the Scriptures is a full and perfect Testimony of all the Essentials yet he spoyls all in saying That the knowledge and beliefe of the History of Christ his outward Coming Pag. 229. Birth Life Death Burial Resurrection c. are such parts of our Religion and Faith as serve to make up the Intiredness or Fulness of it yet so as true Religion may be without the express Knowledge and Beliefe of them So that a man may be a Quaker Christian without the express knowledge of Christ in the outward either of his Name Nature Laws or Offices The great Mogul hath true Religion as much as George Fox This lays aside all that Jesus Was Did Taught and Suffered and contains all Heresies in its Bowels even to the denying the Lord who bought them And another hath writ a Folio to shew that men should not be concern'd about Faith or Creeds Bishops looking glass for the times but leave all to the Conduct of the Light But what then are their Essentials of Religion nothing of Jesus our Lord and Saviour nothing that is a part of the four Gospels True Christianity and Religion may subsist without the History of Christ in the Letter to wit Im. Rev. p. 243. In the Mistery of the Life of Christ in the Spirit So that a Turk is a true Christian though he never owned but hated Christ rarely allegorized till our whole Christianity is shrunk up into those four insignificant words as so used which are fit for nothing but a Quakers Posy And George Bishop crouds all into that Everlasting Truth viz. A looking glass for the times p. 235. the Principle of God in Man which is in every man a measure thereof to lead him and guide him which is able to lead him into all truth and to deliver him from evil and which will bring him to God These are the new made Essentials of Religion which the ancient Heroes knew not of who required from all Baptised persons the Profession of their Faith about Christ in the outward who scrupled the change of one Letter in the Creed but Quakers disowning visible Baptism have sent away the Creed therewith lest the retaining of it should upbraid them In the mean time the Devil hath ordered their Scene rarely The Light Christ within renders the Christ without much useless he who shed his Blood for them is no Essential of their Religion and their Inspirations supply the place of Scripture being preferred before it So that their two Principles Im. Rev. p. p. 43. the Light and Motions fairly lessen if not discharge the Essential and Written word of God Christ in Heaven and the Scriptures on Earth signifie little to these self-made Pagans who have enough within to carry them to all that Heaven which their Faith expects But to resume the claim of renewed and Repeated Revelations a Notion so strange that nothing but a search into their Writings can Discover the sense or design of it I must take the freedom to present their thoughts of the Holy Scriptures that by such preparatory tasts we may be drawn on to swallow this Camel of Repetition To begin with their Founder men must not walk by the Scriptures Winstanley in Truth lifting up p. 39. for this is to walk by the eyes of other men and the Spirit is not so scanty that a dozen ar twenty pair of eyes shall serve the World but every Son and Daughter have light within themselves You shall feed no longer upon the Oyl that was in other mens Lamps the Scriptures In the Title page now it is required that every one have Oyl in his own Lamp within himself Some walk by Example Mistery of God p. 35. The Saints Paradise p. 1.2 and have seen very little of the anointing in them some walk more in Spirit and Truth as the anoynting of the Father teacheth them teaching from Scripture is not but speaking from their own experience that is from God The like Notion breaths in T. E. Master Keith The old Revelations given unto the Saints cannot serve our turn the Faith of another man is not sufficient unto me but I must be saved by the Faith Knowledge and Experience given me of God of the self same things the Revelation of them given of God unto others cannot suffice me nor were these things recorded in Writ that I should sit down upon the History but to point us inward to that same Principle of life revealing and working the same things in us Pag. 34. c. We find it to hurt and deaden us to think any thoughts even from the Scriptures but as the Spirit influenceth if at any time we do it we find our selves rebuked and chastized of the Lord for it and in another place we must not obey Scripture without motions but we may obey motions without Scripture At this rate write others of them to cull out some few from among many G. W. and Fox in the gag for the Q. p. 14. what Paul wrote unto the Ephesians and Colossions doth not concern this Generation That is no Command from God to me which God hath given by way of Command to another Burroughs Works p. 47. neither did any of the Saints act by the Command which was to another every one obeyed their own Commands
Scriptures do conduce to Salvation but God is to be sought in his naked Majesty in Dreams Inspirations and Revelations of the Spirit 4. Henry Nicholas In the answer to the Families Supplication the first Illuminated Elder of the Family of Love put in as high for Visions and Revelations as any of the rest the power of the highest came upon his Godded man H N. and did instruct and speak such and such things to him as his words are at large set down H. N. by the Grace and Mercy of God through the Holy Spirit of the love of Jesus Christ raised up by the highest God from the Death anointed with the Holy Ghost Elected to be a Minister of the Gracious Word In the Evangel Regm C. 1. which is now in the last times raised up by God according to his Promises in the most Holy Scrvice of God under the Obedience of his Love and in a Manuscript Epistle written in an apish imitation of Clemens Ignatius or those times he declares his Divine Commission H. N. Jesu Christi Minister à Dco ad veritatem è Gratiae Solio Epistola H. N. ex Charitare Jesu Christi in Angl. missa c. Majestatis Dei testificandam Electus ad Bonum nuntium de Regno Dei ura Charitate retectae faciei Jesu Christi super terram annunciandum ac salutem in eadem manifest andam missus quemadmodum de adventu ejusdem charitatis per Prophetas Dei Apostolos Jesu Christi prius significatum Evangelizatum fuit Nos Dei Misericordiam sacerdotale munus nostrae Administrationis sub obedientia Charitatis Jesu Christi accepimus c. And he goeth on relating the great things that God was about to do the danger in not accepting his Ministery that God was about restoring all things the Earth to be full of his Glory applying twice that in Abac. 1. and Act. 13. Behold ye Despisers c. and the late New-England Families were high in the same pretence that the Quakers have much affinity with the Familists might easily be shewed and they seem to have the most kindness for them George Whitehead makes the Familists to have better Discoveries than other men In Cambridg debate p. 63. and Keith determines that we must examine Revelations Inspirations Visions and Openings by this of Divine Love Im. Rev. p. 241. Q◠love to mankind p. 3 A Brief Rehearsal of the Belief of the Good Willing in England which are named the Family of Love Print 1575. If it be alledged that Quakers of late do not so allegorize Jesus Christ as formerly I can produce the like outward ownings of Christ by the Familists the Apostles Creed at length owned by them Jesus acknowledged to be the Son of God c. in words much like the Nicene Creed born of a Virgin out of the Seed of David in whose name only and no other they obtain Salvation and Remission of their Sins 5. Some time after the Reformation Jacob Behmen appeared who received if we will believe him his Mystical dark terms from the Father of Lights there is but a glimpse of the Mystery Signatura rerum p. 209 in these writings for a man cannot write them if any man shall be accounted worthy of God to have the Light inkindled in his own Soul he shall see unspeakable things there is the Theosophick School of Pentecost wherein the Soul is Taught of God Joh. 6.45 Joel 2.28 he that can read his own Book aright needs no other for therein lyeth the unction from the Holy one In the Preface which teacheth him aright of all things none can understand these obscurely clear Writings but they that have tasted of the Feast of Pentecost saith Ellistone the Translator and the Author himself saith I have set before the Readers eyes p. 201. what the Lord of all Beings hath given me and in the Preface to his 177 Questions without Divine Light p. 223. none can be able to expound them it is only the Spirit of Christ that gives their understanding and he wrote from his own experimental Science His Notion of the Signature opened by the Spirit p. 1. 2. imprinting his Similitude in my Similitude entring into another mans form and awakening in the other such a form in the Signature So that both forms do mutually assimilate together in one form and then there is one comprehension is much like the Quakers Seed or Birth which is the Susceptive Principle conveying Inspiration from God into the Soul there being a Revelation required as well in the Hearer as in the Speaker Im. Rev. p. 209. Theophilus had the Spirit Witnessing to the truth of the things which gave the certainty or assurance what the Apostles declared in words from the life of Jesus Christ revealed in them the same Spirit answered and testifyed to the truth of those things in their hearers It seems it was not the Apostles certain knowledge of Christ Idem p. 58. and the Miracles they wrought which inclined men to believe their Doctrine but it was a light in them which met with a Signature or Seed or a congenial Principle in others that perswaded them to become I dare not say Christians but Illuminado's Having tasted of Jacob Behmens Style and the Subject being unpleasant a cage of unclean Birds or an Herd of lying Prophets of which but one Sect be it which it will can but possibly be true Before we descend to view the last Scene of our own Countries Abominations it may be a Diversion to present fome of Geo. Foxes Divinity and Oratory which if you have the Patience to read you shall not be Obliged to the pains of Studying or Understanding The Worlds Original Some Princi ples of the Elect People of God called Quakers p. 51. is the many Languages whose Original is Babel which make Divines as they call them sit a top of Christ And the Whore sits upon the Waters as it is spoken in the Revelation and John saith the Waters are Nations Multitudes People and Tongues which Tongues they call their Original To which Waters the Gospel must be Preached before they can be established And ye are to be redeemed from Tongues and Tongues shall cease saith the Apostle and so from this Worlds Original the beginning of which is Babel and which keeps in Babylon the Saints are Redeemed and this hath been set up as an Original among them who are alieniated from the Spirit of God in Babel where the Original of Tongues was in the days of Nimrod that Heretick who began to build Babel The same Curious Writer hath a rare gift in proposing Queries Ibidem p. 70. 12. Q. Whether ever any Man came to see so far as Balaam's Ass who saw the Angel of the Lord 13. Q. What are the Graves and the Tombs and the Sepulchres and the Fowls of the Air and the Nests they sit in which Christ spake of
themselves and being in such a passive stilness they Interpret each forward Fancy to be the Whispering of the Spirit that silent Attendance throws down the mounds and Fences of our Spirits and whilst we ly waiting we shall not want the Entertainment and Variety of Suggestions but be bewildred and run on from one Imagination to another But what need T. E. wait Dr Causabons Enthu p. 162 the Spirit of Truth dwells in them p. 228. and being Resyant a short Attendance might be Sufficient Christ thus dwelt in the Holy Maid Catherine of Jesus as well as in Quakers and their Inspirations coming to none but Expecters that is a sing of their Wrong Original for we cannot Imagine that God will Reveal his mind to such as do nothing sooner than to such as read and pray The ground for this Waiting is taken from Acts 1.4 where the Greek is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to tarry or bodily to stay there till the Spirit descended as the last verses of Chronicles are resumed at the beginning of Ezra So the History Luc. 24.49 where the Greek is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 reside or sit you down there is resumed Acts. 1. But it is not waiting in their sence but bodily staying and the very time is limited ver 5. not many days hence Cateches 16. how many days must we wait ten or more why goes not T. E. to Jerusalem and there attend at the right place and time Cyril of Jerusalem saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those very words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. which he renews Cat. 17. and applyes those Texts of John wrested by T. E. to them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and makes the Visible descent of the Holy Ghost on them to be their being baptized therewith and with fire Saint Paul advized Timothy to other means than waiting and whether is likelier to know Gods mind he who in pursuance of his waiting entertaineth in the mildest terms the first motions of his own Spirit as Divine discoveries and so quicquid dixerint hoc legem Dei putant ad sensum suum incongrua aptant testimonia ad-Voluntatem suam sacram Scripturam repugnantem trahunt take what they say St. Hierome in his Epistle to Paultnus to be Gods Law c. or he who looking on the Scriptures as the word of God Reads Compares searches out their sence taking the draughts of their Religion thence and leading a Conversation suitable Theophylact was of a different mind from Quakers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Argumento Epis ad Rom. c. the dayly constant Reading of the Scriptures brings unto the knowledge of them for he cannot ly who said Seek and you shall find knock and it shall be opned unto you T. E. doth also Contradict himself making the Spirit alone to Reveal and yet p. 238. he saith Christ the Lamb doth open them for he cannot make that Lamb whom John Baptised and pointed at to be that Holy Ghost that descended on that Lamb though he make no Distinction between Father Son and Spirit yet he must not confound the Visible Lamb with the Invisible Spirit but whilst he Repaires his sandy Foundation we shall view his Structure raised The Socinians for the Explaining of Prophecies Cateh Eccl. Poâ—lon C. 3. especially the obscurer where Divine men have not already done it or given some hints that way or where the event doth not unfold them require the peculiar help of the Divine Spirit applying 2 Pet. Mr. Boyls style of Scrip. p. 38. 1.21 to that purpose and all may accord with that noble person that Obscureness is wont to attend prophetick Raptures and the assigning the exact completion of many of them hic labor hoc opus est but whether the History or their Motions be more truly serviceable thereto may appear in this Chapter But Thomas Elwood excepts no part the whole is a Sealed Book to him even that David begat Solomon till his supposed Interpreter unfold it The Difference then is whether the Scriptures be penned in such a Style that they need a second Immediate Revelation to confer their true Sence and that Art Study Industry or humane learning which is to be conversant in natural humane or civil affairs p. 218 219. are no wayes serviceable which T. E. maintains which though it was true yet we have no evidences to satisfy that the Quakers Inclose and are Intrusted with handing these Inspired Expositions to mankind for taking our selves for Believers we might put in for our share rather than they we owning the Scriptures and those he calleth Martyrs more than they do and so granting his whole Article we are no nearer Satisfaction with whom that whole sole Power is lodged Protestants on the other hand assert That the Scriptures are so penned that weaker Parts upon reading hearing the word praying and endeavouring may attain so much knowledge as will save their souls and that the more Recondite and abstrucer parts may be understood by such helps as God hath afforded and doth bless to his Church as Tongues Historys Idioms Comparing obscurer with clearer texts c. So far as is necessary to Salvation it not being required thereto to to be able to give an Infallible Exposition on each line in those sacred pages Now 1. This doth not Exclude Holyness of life as a help to discern the Excellency of Divine truths His secret is with the Righteous Prov. 3.32 with them that fear him Psal 25.14 if any man do his will he shall know of the Doctrine whether it be of God Joh. 7.17 Sapientia Christiani est timor est amor Christi Salvian 2. Nor Indifferency of Judgement in our search Mr. Mede Mr. Chillingworth freedom from the Studium partium or the travellers Indifferency as two great names worded it 3. Nor the Assistance of the Spirit which assists to know as well as to will or do inclines inlightens gives a Right Judgment in all things he seeth necessary going along from the first preventing to the utmost Persevering but the Difference lyeth in the kind and the manner of its operation This Secret Working and Breathing or as Mr. Pen words it more safely than T. E. secret strivings Winding sh p. 4. discoveries and operations fresh and lively touches is as much different from Immediate Apostolical Inspiration as Gods minutely Concourse is from the Power of Miracles when he alters or exceeds the Regular Established course of Nature so that we allow the Spirit to all purposes but assert God doth not Multiply things unnecessary T. E. folds his hands and waits and Inspired Expositions drop into him we are gratefull for Scripture and use our best means to Understand it and think the Spirit helps the most when we are the most Diligent he is for such Revelations as the Apostles had conferred instantly we are for Gods ordinary Assistance to our Endeavours which yet Render us more Infallible than his calls do offer Violence to