period after he had made a further blind Comment on the Text he glories in his shame with a Weigh this truth all ye Priests and P. 6. Professors and ponder it in your hearts No words big enough to express its madness Christianity made its way not only by the truth SECT II and purity of its Doctrine but also by such and so many signs and wonders wrought before multitudes as were convincing to its most malicious and prejudiced Adversaries and that not only by Christ himself but also by his Disciples and servants both before and after his death And all bare him witness and wondred at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth Luke 22. 4. but men may speak many good words and yet both say and do at other times bad enough but Christ appeals to the faces of his worst Adversaries If I have spoken evil bear witness of the evil John 18. 23. But if forcible right words would not make way Christ exhorts them to believe for the very works sake and these were not ordinary works or wonders and miracles neither If I had not done among them the works which none other man did they had not had sin And as himself so his servants introduced Christianity with the same holy pomp and state of the Mighty and miraculous works of the Power of God bearing witness to the truth of their Doctrine Long time therefore abode they speaking boldly in the Lord which gave Testimony unto the word of his grace and granted signes and wonders to be done by their hands Acts 1. 3. But Quakerism made its way by and began in blasphemies against the Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth whom the Apostles preached by gratifying the pride idleness and giddiness of both Professors and prophane as will appear abundantly in the following discourse and by decrying the Scripture of the Old and New Testament as a dead Letter and altogether useless if not mischievous * Sword of the Lord drawn p. 5 Fox the younger Gen. epist P. 4 Your imagined God beyond the Stars a day of calamity will come upon them who have worshipped and do worship an unknown God at a distance and pretend the worship of the true God And if we will not believe the Quakers for their words sake which swell big enough with vanity folly nonsense and errour we are like to continue in the truth still for all them There have been some of them who have been sensible of this defect and have attempted to supply it to the cracking of their credit some to the loss of their lives George Fox hath found a plaister for this sore which I shall produce that you may give your judgement whether it smell more of the Fox or of the Goose FOX Which many prayed by the Spirit and spake by § 3 the Spirit did not shew miracles at the Tempters Command The great Mystery of the great Whore p. 3. though among Believers there be miracles in Spirit which be signes and wonders to the world as Isaiah saith When I read this I had much ado to keep my self from laughing but the weightiness of my thoughts on this imposture soon helped me to reduce it to a compassionate smile Indeed I think him crafty like the Fox not to venture his carcase in attempting any miracle but in spirit and yet more a Goose to call them signes and wonders to the world which the world never saw nor could have wondred at if George Fox and such as he had not blabbed of them But I must not let pass his fathering his absurdity on the Prophet Isaiah the words he intends must be in Isa 8. 18. Behold I and the Children whom the Lord hath given me are for signes and for wonders in Israel I find not the word Signes any where else in that Prophecy He hath a strange spirit of discerning that can find in that Scripture any thing of Miracles wrought in spirit for indeed they themselves were the wonders that is they were wondred at So may the Quakers well be but in a far worse sense or for a worse cause I may the lesse wonder at George's boldness with Isaiah seeing a great Rabby of the Quakers hath said that he is as good a Prophet as Isaiah Who would conceive that so blockish a person as this should be the Fore-man and Chief in account among such a number of such singularly discerning spirits as the Quakers but as among wise men the wisest are most highly esteemed so among others the veriest Christianity entred into the world with ravishing SECT III Songs and Hatlelujahs of the Angels and heavenly Host the Songs and Thanksgivings of Mary Elizabeth Zechariah Simeon and others with the healing of all sorts of diseases casting out devils out of the possessed preaching the glad tidings of the Gospel of Peace and what might express the Sun of righteousness to be risen on the World with healing in his wings I need not find you out the places of Scripture which speak these things But Quakerism entred the world as if Hell were § 2 broke loose and possessions by Satan were to make way and fit souls for the Quakers spirit Instead of that serious compunction that seized gross and black sinners upon their conviction and the consolation that was let into their souls by the joyful sound of remission and salvation throuâ—h a crucified Jesus O the Hell-dark expressions of the Quakers Preachers the frightful and amazeing words both for matter and manner where with they first attempted poor silly men and women whom they frighted almost out of their wits with their dismal noise whose eccho remained in their ears when their words were forgotten What bitter Curses and Execrations did they pour forth against all that made any opposition though most mildly and rationally against their unheard of innovation What disturbing of Congregations and reviling the most serious and faithful Pastors while those whose faults they have made use of to bespatter the guiltless might remain quiet enough as not so dangerous and adverse to Satans interest and Kingdome How generally were their Meetings either silent or taken up with the sudden and violent irruptions of dismal howling and horrible roarings Persons suddenly taken as with the falling-sickness shaking and foaming at the Mouth and some lying flat on the ground as stark dead Some such things as these I have seen and heard and what there are undeniable Testimonies of are so numerous and notorious that though they have now almost if not altogether left the latter sort of them they dare not deny that it was so And if they dare to challenge this with untruth I may requite them with a good Part of a Volume of them to keep alive their remembrance I now proceed to my second consideration of the beginning of Quakerism with respect to time What I have already said in the opening the SECT IV term Christianity will save me much of the labour of proving in this
and Earth is in it To shut up this particular hear one of their prime § 4 Ministers who speaks plainly his mind and not in Parables I will make you know that I the light which G. Fox jun. p. 53. p. 54. p. 55. lighteth every man that cometh into the World that all through me should believe am the true eternal God which created all things that by me the light all things are upheld and that there is not another besides me can save And I will purge out all your iniquities and forgive all yâ—ur trespasses and I will change your Natures and I will make you new Creatures if you will bearken to me and obey me the light in you What I have here written is the words which the Father who is one with Christ the Son gave me to write in which words the true Christ is renewed and a Testimony given of him and no other But enough and too much of this Blasphemy I need not take pains to ravel into it for it s so plain that none but those who shut their eyes and are wilfully blind but may see it in an unexpressible deformity I now procced to the fourth proof of their equalling SECT III their Sayings Writings and Light within and preferring them before the Scriptures I place them in this Order that you may behold them at one view in their not only disproportion but opposition The CHARACTERS of the Scriptures given by the Quakers CHARACTERS of their own Teachers Writings and Sayings given by them Feeding Death with Death The Letter which killeth Declaration from the Ministers of the Word p. 7. The Voice of the Son of God was uttered forth by him by which the dead was raised F. H. Life of E. B. p. 20. Paper Ink and Writing Declar. from the Ministers of the Word p. 2. A Shield of the Truth Title of James Parnel's Book A dead letter The old letter Seeking the living among the dead Parnel Shield to the Truth Naylor Love to the Lost His words ministred Grace to the Hearers Fox jun. life of E. B.  Forcible and very pleasant as apples of gold in pictures of silver This in the freshness and quick sense of life Penington quest c. 41. Leave men in the dark and confusion Frequent Passage A clear Discovery Title of Smiths Prim.  O how certain a sound did his Trumpet give Life of E. B. p. 2. Part of it the words of the Devil and wicked men Wisdom of words Nayl Love to the lost c. 21. Written from the Spirit of the Lord. Title page Parnel Shield of truth  The Voice of the Son of God Life of E. B. 20. My upright desire to the Lord for you is that he would strip you of all your knowledge of the Scriptures according to the flesh Penington quest p. 12. And now Child hear Instruction and be wise Treasure it up in thy heart that thou mayest lay up for thy self a good foundation Smith Prim. p. 56. Shews you in a Glass your own faces which the Scriptures cannot do Scorned Quakers Account p. 20. A spiritual Glass opened Title of Smiths Cat. and part of the Title of his Morn Watch. Precept and Traditions of men Morning-Watch p. 18. Truths Principles Title of Crooks Book That light is in the Scriptures prove that or tell me what one Scripture hath light in it Lip of truth c. p. 7. Light risen out of darkness Title of Farnworths Book Natural Lawson Carnal Letter Shield of the truth p. 10. God is at liberty to speak by them the Scriptures if he please and where they are given by Inspiration he doth so and so he is at liberty to speak by any other created thing as to Balaam by his Ass Ja. Naylor Light of Christ c. p. 19. Earthly Root Morning-Watch 22.  Worship and obedience as to its direction The Harlots Child Morn Watch p. 23.  Hagar and Ismael Mother and Child after the Letter Penington Mysteries of the Kingdom Preface He proclaimed liberty to the Captives in the Power and Authority of God F. H. of E. B. p. 15. Letter without Swine feeding on the husk The shadow Parnel Shield of Truth p. 10. Let this be sent to be read in the fear of the Lord in the Holy Assemblies of the Church of the first-born where she is scattered to the ends of the Earth W. D. Doting on the Scriptures Parnel Christ exalted p. 4.  Betrayed into the words Smith Prim. p. 30.  Dangerous to feed on them Sm. Cat. 36.  I having sufficiently proved that they equal their SECT IV writings and sayings with and prefer them before the Scriptures it is not fit I should let them pass without contradiction I shall therefore review their Grounds for so doing and discover them to be but swelling words of vanity And I shall begin with their Infallibility I am confident that G. Fox the Ring-leader of the Sect understands not what he saith nor whereof he affirms It is one thing not to fail another to be infallible for that is to be without all possibility of falling or erring Again it is one thing to be infallible with a restriction to something another to be universally infallible and without limitation If G. Fox understands so much he is a Non-such § 2 for confidence and being void of reason that affirmeth as he doth let us examine but that one passage before-cited How can ye be Ministers of the Spirit and not of the Letter if ye be not infallible Here he puts Ministry of the Spirit and of the Letter in opposition which Christ and his Apostles joyned hand in hand as loving companions and meet helps each to other And there was delivered unto him the Book of Luke 4. 17. the Prophet Isaiah and when he had opened the Book he found the place where it was written the Spirit of the Lord is upon me c. verse 21. And he began to say unto them this day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears and all bare him witness and wondred at the gracious words c. was not Christ then a Minister of the Spirit it is by him said this day this Scripture is fulfilled in your ears viz. the Spirit of the Lord is upon me And was he not also a Minister of the Letter why he opened the Book and found where it was written and no doubt read it out of the Book to his Auditors or else it would have been very impertinent to tell them This Scripture is fulfilled for they must have divined or not known what Scripture he intended And I suppose none will doubt whether that which is written in a Book be written in Letters Well then either George Fox is fallible yea and hath grosly failed or Jesus Christ was not a Minister of the Spirit and which of these you who call your selves infallible Ministers of the Spirit will admit of I know not but I am sure every true Christian will
his mouth as eminently as any thing yea all things in the world and more For God spake by them to us more than by all other things he saith to Jeremy Jerem. 15. 19. Thou shalt be as my mouth As thou spakest by the hand of Moses 1 Kings 8. 53 2 Sam. 23. 2. The Spirit of the Lord spake by me and his word was in my tongue Hear the rod. c. Is it not a frequent phrase in the Scripture As saith the Scripture They believed the Scripture And what is that but God speaking by the Scripture and believing what God spake by the Scripture But now is made â—om 16. 26. manifest and by the Scriptures of the Prophets according to the â—â—mmand of the everlasting God made known unto all Nations for the obedience of faith What more plain that the Scriptures are the mouth of the Lord or those means by which the Lord doth manifest his mind to men But the Quakers will not have it so and therefore it must not be so But they who â—nquire of or at the Scriptures for the mind of the Spirit run another way than that the Spirit walks and is to be found in and sin against the Spirit of God And that you may see how they set the Spirit and Scripture together by the ears Naylor saith further For those only are the Children of God who are Love to lost c. p. 25. led by the Spirit of God so far is true as truth it self but as the old Serpent he never heads a saying with the Scripture but he brings in a lye at the end and tail of it to whom they who are led by the Letter were ever enemies Here you have two great Commanders or Leaders § 5 brought into the field as the most hostile implacable Enemies whose followers from the time there where any were foes each to other And what can render the Spirit and the Sâ—ripture more opposite than that whosoever follows the Letter is a foe to him that follows or is led by the Spirit And the Leaders are the formal cause of it too and therefore it was ever so and is as inseparable as natural cause and effect It this be all true well W. Pen Sp of truth â— might W. P. say We livingly witness against all the dry cavelling Letter-mongers in the world Having frequently met with that Scripture SECT II 1 Cor 3 6. By them produced to prove the Scriptures to have a contrary tendency to the Spirit I shall here open it and shew their mistake The words are Who alsâ— hath made us able Ministers of 1 Cor. 3 6. openeâ— 1. the new Testament not of the Letter but of the Spirit for the Letter killeth but the Spirit giveth â—ife Whereas they would have us by the Letter to § 2 understand the whole written word as written that is the body of the Scriptures both of the Old and New Testament Law and Gospel without distinction and by the Spirit the inward immediate teachings of the Spirit of God they are in both mistaken For it is as certain as that the following words are truth that by the Letter here is meant the Law as given forth by God from Mount Sinai and by the Spirit the Covenant of Grace especially as expressed in the New Testament under the administration of the Reedemer But if the ministration of death written and engraven Ver. 7. Ver 9. one stones was glorious c. for if the ministration of condemnation be glory c. Thâ—se passages express and explain the same § 3 thing called the Letter in the 6. Verse and that it was the Law given forth by God before it was written not only as written the matter and manner of which was glorious but in terribleness insomuch that Moses said I exceedingly fear Heb. 12. 21. and quake and it was death for any to touch the Mountain yea the Israelites were ready to dye Exod. 20. 19. with fear at the appearences of God on that Mount Sinai at the giving forth of the Law And as the manner of giving it forth by God so § 4 the matter of it was mortal nothing but death was written in the forehead of it going alone The Law worketh wrath That is the Law of meer Rom. 4. 15. Rom. 7. 11. 12. Commandments And the Commandment which was ordained to life I found to be unto death for sâ—n taking occasion by the commandment deceived me and by it slew me Thus it is plain what is meant by the Letter the Law of meer Commandments as given forth on Mount Sinai That by the Spirit is to be understood the Covenant § 5 of promise in the hand of the Mediator is as certain and not of the Scripture or written Word in general for in the 6. Verse it is opposed to the Letter of the New Testament not of the Letter that is the Gospel not the Law and it is called the Spirit in three respects First As the New Testament or Covenant of promise especially in the hand of Christ promiseth and conveyeth soul quickning grace in a good measure to sanctifie and enable and dispose the soul to keep the Laws of God Secondly As by the New Testament or Covenant life and spirit comfort and refreshment is put into the hearts of poor drooping sinners under the sense of the severity of the Law and their liableness to the punish of it Thirdly And chiefly the intent and mind of § 6 the Spirit in the terrible dispensation of the Law of Works was by discovering mans woful estate to make the promises of the Gospel or the new Covenant sweet and welcome and to put souls on embracing the redemption through Christ So that the matter of the pure New Testament or Covenant in the hand of the Mediator was that which God especially aimed at to promote by the Letter or the meer Law of Commandments in which alone there was not the least appearance of mercy or mans welfare implied CHAP. XII The Quakers hold it is a sin and the sin of Idolatry to believe and live according to the instructions and holy examples expressed in and by the Scriptures except we have them by imme iate inspiration and at first hand as the Apostles received them I Am now come to the highest round of their SECT I Ladder and I know not what one step of sin beyond it except the unpardonable one they could charge those with who walk by the light of Scripture day Samuel whole rebuke to Saul for his sin in the matter of the Amalekites was expressed in the keenest and highest terms compared his sin but to Witchcraft Iniquity and Idolatry And if this charge against us were as true as it is that they so charge us it is high time to serve the Scriptures as Hezekiah served the brazen Serpent And brake in peioes the Brazen Serpent that Moses had made 2 Kings 18. 4. for unto thâ—se days the Children
was manifest in the flesh and therein fulfilling his work as Redeemer hath abolished those strait dispensations and broken down the partition-wall between Jew and Gentile making no difference but shining by his Ordinances and favour on either indifferently so rising as a Sun of righteousness to give light to the whole world without any restraint by his Ordinance or appointment whereby those Prophecies are fulfilled And he said It is a light thing that thou shouldest Isa 49. 6. be my servant to raise up the Tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved of Israel I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles that thou mayst be my salvation to the ends of the earth So it seems he was not so at the time of this Prophecy although he were then the Divine and Eternal Being and he who should in time come and redeem and save by his actual Merit I the Lord have called thee in righteousness Isa 42. 6. and will hold thine hand and I will keep thee and give thee for a Covenant to the people for a light to the Gentiles This speaks still of Christ to come as such a light Let us consider that passage in the Song of Simeon Luke 2. 30 31 32. For mine eyes have seen thy salvation which thou hast prepared before the face of all people a light to lighten the Gentiles c. So that the appearance of Christ in the flesh in that body which Simeon took up in his arms was his being prepared to be a light to lighten the Gentiles Now this light was present And in the Text agitated John 1. 9. This light was past that is that appearance and work of Christ which made way for the salvation of God to be divulged and its ordinary means to be enjoyed by all indifferently This was the true light God was 1 Tim. 3. 16. manifest in the flesh preached unto the Gentiles The second Text they usurp is in Romans 10. 8. SECT V Rom. 10. 8. opened But what saith it The Word is nigh thee even in thy mouth and in thy heart that is the Word of Faith which we preach This Text joyned with John 1. 1. In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God they build their Tenet upon that Christ the Word is within every man as upon the Text before agitated they affirm that he is within them as a saving light Let us first consider whether the Word in this Text be of the same sense and import with that in John 1. which speaks of Christ the Personal Word That it is not so but the Doctrinal Word is plain from these Considerations First The Apostle doth in these words allude to § 2 Deut. 30. 14 opened the words of Moses Deut. 30. 14. But the Word is very nigh unto thee in thy mouth and in thy heart that thou mayst do it This Word in Deuteronomy is said in Verse 10. to be the Commandments and Statutes which were written in the Book of the Law which Book they had among them and by that means had the contents of it in their heart either in the love of it or by rote as we use to say a writing is gotten by heart when it is treasured in the memory and it was in their mouth by profession or discourse Secondly the Apostle gives the same answer to a § 3 supposed Objection How shall we know what is our duty How we should please God and be blessed therein saith Moses 'T is no such difficult thing for you to know this for what you have gotten into your heart out of this Book of the Law and what you have in your mouth by discourse and profession that is it you should observe and do So the Apostle if you suppose while we preach salvation by Christ whom you must receive that we preach impossibilities for that the person of Christ if in Heaven or in the grave he is out of your reach this will cure your mistake to consider that as the Word of the Law which Moses taught and wrote was in the heart and mouth to do it so the Word of faith or to be believed is in your heart and mouth to believe and confess it And this will as effectually save you as if Christ in his person were in your arms yea and more too And that this is his sense is plain in Verse 9. That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe Rom 10. 9. in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead thou shalt be saved The third Consideration is That the word that § ◠〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Sam. 18 25. is said to be in the heart is said also to be in the mouth and we all know what manner of word uses to be in the mouth that it is a word saying or speaking while it is there such as that spoken of in Samuel tidings in his mouth or that in Esther As the word went out of the Kings mouth therefore it cannot be meant of Christ but that speech those sayings which are or may be spoken as in the Gospel when pâ—eaching or when written Fourthly Both that in Deuteronomy and this word § 5 in the Romans are said to be in the heart and mouth of those who were the Church of God as Israel was to whom Moses spake and the Romans to whom Paul wrote and so were taught by the one the truths of the Law by the other of the Gospel It sorrily follows from hence that it is in the hearts of all men Lastly The Apostle agitating this argument farther § 6 Verse 14. How shall they call on him of whom they have not heard He doth not tell them Christ Jesus the Word will preach himself and he is in the heart where if you will but stand still and wait and listen you shall hear him teach you all things as is the Quakers Rom. 10 17. Doctrine No but he tells them in Verse 17. So then faith cometh by hearing so say the Quakers too but of whom Verse 15. Of them that are sent them whose feet are beautifull for the sake of the glad tidings of the Gospel of peace which they bring And these are more than that one personal or as the Quakers phrase it eternal Word Christ for they are expressed by they them which are plurals but Christ is but one Yet from this Text do they most confidently avouch Christ the Word who was in the beginning § 7 and who is God to be in the heart and not only in the hearts of the Saints and Believers but in theirs also who are the most wicked and ignorant among the sons of men And I have by a grand Quaker been given the lye in the Pulpit for expoundâ—ng the Word in Jer. 23. 20. of the Word of the Lord Doctrinally confidered and this Text in the Romans produced with no more but confidence
in you Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his 1 Cor. 3. 16. So that every Babe in Christ hath the Spirit of Christ in its saving manifestations and opperations or effects though but a few were immediately inspired And God hath set some in the Church first Apostles secondarily Prophets c. Are all Apostles are all Prophets are all Teachers 1 Cor. 12. 28 29. The Apostle Paul doth plainly express this specifical § 3 difference or difference in the very kind of the Spirits teachings in and to his own person But she is happier if she so abide after my judgment and I think also that I have the Spirit of God 1 Cor. 7. 40. The Apostle doth in the case there agitated give his advice as a Saint who had the Spirit of God in the same kind of enlightning which other Saints had or all the Saints had but in an eminent measure yet this enlightning and teaching of the Spirit was not by way of immediate and Apostolical inspiration but by enlightning his judgment and enabling his natural faculty of discerning to pierce into and rightly decide the difference For if the Apostle had received what he here expressed by Divine inspiration or the Spirit of the Lord immediately inspiring it would have been not only unnecessary but very much injurious to the infallibility and authority of the Spirit of God to have made his judgment bear a part with it Yea it had been an usurping on the Divine Spirit which an exercisâ— of our judging faculty concerning its truth or falshood must needs be where it is evident that the Spirit of God doth its part by way of immediate inspiration to which ready and full credit ought to be given without hesitation Characters of Divine Apostolical Inspirations SECT V distinguishing them from all other Instructions That Divine inspiration whereby the Apostles and Prophets as such were illuminated came in without the use of the bodily senses as râ—ceptive o◠〈◊〉 outward Objects and carrying them to the rational and considering faculties to make conclusions from â—â—em and this is properly immediate Divine inspiration But Divine Truths received by the Saints as Saints ordinarily are received by such means as are Objects to the bodily senses as significative sounds to the ear visible Objects to the eye c. let the Quakers or any other shew me if they can that the knowledg of God comes ordinarily to men by any other way without these Faith comes by hearing that is ordinarily for a Babe may have the habits of saving faith whose hearing serves litle to that purpose or by reading that knowledg of God which the Heathen had or might have had without the Word revealed handed to them as to us it was by considering the works of God's Creation and Providence which were the Book wherein God wrote to them many Lessons concerning him and their duty So that in few words persons being illuminated by inspiration it was first within them others have it first from without them at least in the premises from whence the understanding assisted by God infers Truths The great Objection of the Quakers against the § 2 later Position is from this Scripture Rom. 1. 19 20. because that which may he known of God is manifest in them for God hath shewed it unto them for the invisible things of him c. The words in them in the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are either in or among them the later sense is to me the most probable because that while the far greater part of the Gentile-world were so bruitish that they little regarded or understood any thing of God but were so besotted with sensuality that they understood and minded nothing but what might gratifie a blind and impetuous appetite some among them whose intellects were better imployed came by the knowledge of excellent things concerning God which they not only taught but left in writing as a witness to Posterity But to put all out of doubt the 20 verse speaks what § 3 I affirm plainly For the invisible things of him from the Creation of the world are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made even his eternal power and Godhead c. Here you have an account what may be known of God by the Heathen who had neither revelation immediate to themselves nor handed to them from others by the Word heard or read viz. the eternal power and Godhead and that which they were condemned for ver 26. was not for not knowing or practising what had relation to the Mediator or not believing the word of promise which never was within the reach of their ears but for their miscarriages against God the Creator whom they might and ought to have known and acknowledged God is in his Essential Being the Invisible God but he was manifest among them How From the Creation of the World by the things that are made Take another Text for the confirmation of my Exposition of this Act. 14. 17. Nevertheless he left not himself without witness in that he did good and gave us rain from Heaven and fruitful seasons c. They were not without witness concerning the Divine Being and Attributes of Mercy and Goodness yet if the Rain and fruitful Seasons were without them the Witness was without them before it was within them But for the Quakers pretences of their conceits of § 4 Divine things to be by immediate inspiration of the Spirit to them when we hear of Pagans and Heathen who never had the least notice of or from the Scripture talk of Jesus Christ a Crucified Redeemer and the Promises and Covenant of God we may a little listen to them but for a people who live where the Scriptures are so much known to talk Scripture-phrases and Gospel-phrases and then tell us they had it all by Divine Revelation immediate to themselves is as ungrateful and foolish as for those who were born and bred in England and have learned their Mother-tongue from their Childhood after 30 or 40 years to affirm they learned every word of it by immediate Inspiration or could have known it as perfectly if man had never taught them while in the mean time those forreign Languages they never heard spoken they can neither speak nor understand one sentence of if it would save the world Again Those Gospel-illuminations for the matter § 5 which are by immediate inspiration are beyond the utmost reach of our natural faculties of the mind though sanctified to attain by their improvement and therefore it is said to be 2 Tim. 3. 16. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Divinely inspired It is not produced in the exercise of the Rational Faculties the Soul is purely passive or receptive therein and is to those Illuminations as the Wax is to the Seal according to 2 Pet. 1. 21. For the Prophesie came not in old time by the will of man but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the
written by or by the Direction of God himself his son or servants inspired by him so we call it the Word of God but with this distinction the written Word Now that the Scriptures are the Word of God in the SECT II senses aforesaid I shall vindicate from the violent contradictions of the Quakers They have these three Objections against this truth 1. That it is improper so to call them viz. The Word of God 2. That many things or sayings contained in them were spoken by wicked men or the devil 3. That this Title is peculiar to Jesus Christ the Son of God First they deny them to be the Word of God in the singular number I must therefore in dealing with this great Criticism reconcile the plural number to the singular I answer to the first it sounds methinks very harshly § 2 that not one word in the Scriptures should be the Word of God because there are in them more words then one Surely if the first second third fourth and so on be the Word of God then every word in it is the Word of God and never the less but rather the more for being united for that there are few single words which standing alone will signifie any thing whereas divers put together have a sense and signification And the whole body of the Scripture considered together doth signifie the mind of God more compleatly then if it were dismembred and considered apart But I know they aim at more then a meer Grammar-nicety at which kind of failings they use not much to quarrel but are rather affected with them as if the Spirit of God delighted in real non-sense though I think the causes to be three especially First that their first Authors could speak or write no better and they take it to be a perfection to write false English and nonsense after such infallible persons Secondly because they have so few of those they call their Ministry able to write true sense and English that those who can if they list will not lest they should disgrace their Brethren and rather then that should be admitted it shall become the fashion and obtain in time to be better English then sense A third reason may be their taking all matter and form to be infallibly from the Spirit and therefore dare not amend the sense of the Spirit But to what is the Question I return after this so § 4 long yet not altogether inexcusable digression One of their zealous Ministers as they call them thus exclaims And what an improper speech were this to call Fr. Howgil one of Antichrists Voluntiers â—efeated p. 26. twenty thousand Sentences one word and it is called a Declaration and what a Declaration would that be which consisted but of one word but where do we say the Scripture is but one word there is a great deal of difference between but one word and the Word And if the Scriptures be a Declaration in the singular number it must take many Declarations into one for it contains what was declared from Moses time to the Apostles and why not the word in the singular as well as a Declaration in the singular seeing the Scripture contains many Declarations But he gives one kick backward more at what he pleads for Pray have the patience to read this man passing the sentence against himself A Rod for the fools back Prov. 26. 3. And what a foolish man is this to assert his own imaginations and then imagines the Scriptures will prove it what an improper speech is this c. I know not the person he brands with folly but I am sure the Cause as laid down by Howgil himself deserves it not I am confident he understands not what improper means if he intend by improper that it is figurative he need not wonder and say what a figurative speech is this Alas the Scriptures and all Writings abound with figurative speeches but if he mean by improper incongruous or unmeet he offends greatly for then the Scriptures are very guilty herein as will appear by and by and I know not what else he should mean by proper unless not peculiar or a tall speech as we call a tall man or woman a proper and by improper a short speech Let a Propheâ— Naylors Love to the lost p. 17. of their own and he none of the small Prophets neither decide this Controversie Nay who never yet came so far as Balaam who had the Word of the Lord from his own Mouth But to cast this Objection out of doors we are to § 5 take it in a collective sence which is very frequent in the Scripture For instance the Scriptures themselves are sometimes expressed by a plural sometimes by a singular word Ye do erre not knowing the Scriptures Mat. 22. 23. Here it is plural It is contained in the Scripture 1 Pet 2. 6. Here it is singular A sentence is called a word Where the word of a King is there is Power Eccles 8. 3. They were astonished at his doctrine for his word was with Power Either of these instances contain more then one single word The ten Commandments graven on the Tables of Stone are in the Hebr. ten words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which you have so rendred in the margin of some of your Bibles Deut. 10. 40. Now divide these Commandments into ten single ones and then each will have but one word come to its share to express it by and some It is too frequent with them to call the holy Scriptures dead Letter and a letter is somewhat less then a word one viz. the fourth hath at least 60 single words in the Hebr. but many more in the English Rom. 2. 9 10. To the Jew not Jews and also to the Gentile not Gentiles can you suppose that one and but one single Jew or Gentile is hereby intended read the sixth verse and you shall have it explained Who will render to every man according to his deeds so that under the single word Jew is expressed all the Jews from first to last in every generation and under the word Gentile all the world of mankind besides Take one Text more to conclude with Isa 8. 20. To § 6 No Morning 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 non ei aurora Montanus the Law and to the Testimony if they speak not according to this Word it is because there is no light in them not so much as the dawning of the day Both Law and Testimony are here rendred by Word in the singular number in this one Text there is enough not only to silence this petty cavil but to pluck up both root and branch all the principles of Quakerism if they who profess them had any regard to the Authority and verity of the eternal and Almighty God and a few grains of understanding at liberty to consult it 2. Object Many passages in the Scriptures contain the SECT III sayings of wicked men Yea some have been so irreverent and
equalled by the expression of his mind by his Word they being much more imperfect and unintelligible then words the holy conversations of the sound and godly do eminently and effectually declare the mind of God yet had we them in its stead we should be great losers Not only the Writings and Sayings of intelligent § 5 creatures but also the inanimate part of the Creation is a Declaration of God and of his mind also in many things Psal 19. 1 2. And those Psalms wherein they are called upon and are said to praise the Lord. Rom. 1. 19 20. Acts 14. 17 The Heathen were blamed for not learning the Lesson taught by them after their kind no better yet who will say that the Declaration made by them is of equal value with the Word of God either for matter stile manner or perspicuity Fifthly They are a Declaration of the Word of God § 6 By the Word of God they mean Jesus Christ This is a true Character of a considerable part of the Scriptures but not of all and they often restrain them to this as if it were all the use were to be made of them So much of them the Scriptures as was given Smit◠Cat. p. 14. forth by the Holy Men of God through the Inspiration of the Almighty they testifie of Christ and that is only their service in their place You may observe what a skeleton they make of the Scriptures so much of them as if all of them were not of the same divine Abstract They say the Letter is it the Word which doth but Morning-Watch Farnworth Light out of darkness declare of it They do but testifie of me They testifie of him and it is with a but lest you should take them to have any more hand in conveying Christ and his benefits to the souls then a meer witness of who is or what is the Christ To clench the Nail I have been driving hitherto SECT VII I must demonstrate that to deny the Scriptures to be the Word of God is to deny the Scriptures which I shall do three ways in few words First to deny the Scriptures to be the Word of God is to deny them that title by which they are commonly known and distinguished from and lifted up above all other Writings whatsoever I will ask any man who understands sense and hath but one grain of reason if to deny the Supreme Magistrate of Great Britain to be the King of England were not to deny the King though he that doth so should allow him to be entituled a Man a Gentleman yea a Nobleman or Duke which are titles common to him with others or below him sure I am we Christians are else under an old musty mistake and guilty of great slander for affirming the Turks to deny Christ because they will not own him to be greater then their Prophet Mahomet or to be the Saviour of mens souls while they own him to be not only a Man but also a great Prophet and next to Mahomet himself I suppose a Quaker whose Child should own him to be a Man and a good man too and one that provides well for him and yet say He is not his Father and stand to it in earnest would say that Son denies him and is a naughty wicked Child It is said of the Jews they denied him in the Act. 13. 13 presence of Pilate vers 14. they denied the Holy One and the just Did they deny him to be a man or some common thing No they denied him to be Christ the Saviour and loaded him with reproaches in stead of his glorious and peculiar titles and this the Holy Ghost calls denying him To deny the Scriptures to be the Word of God § 2 is to deny that Appellation on which their Authority is grounded and which puts an awe upon the Consciences of men Though all truths as such so far as they are apprehended carry with them the countenance of Authority yet how much more when a Command Promise Doctrine c. comes with this written on its forehead the Word of God the Word of the Lord 't is said Where the Word of a King is Eccles 8. 4. there is Power and who shall say unto him What doest thou 't is natural to men to despise the best and most excellent things under common and contemptible titles It is all one in a plain and true construction as to § 3 deny that the matter and sense expressed by them was ever spoken by God Experience hath sufficiently taught this that no sooner this principle is taken in but the Scriptures become with such as weak as a burnt thread and whatever you may pretend to we know and shall prove that after this title is put off they become like Sampson when God was departed from him The Papists who are the more subtil will tell us that in their Image-worship they terminate their worship in God alone but alas the common people are for downright language and they poor souls being exhorted to worship the Images do it devoutly and think no◠on God all the while It is no otherwise in the present case people will understand after the common sense and acceptation of words I have sometimes been amazed and not without § 4 good Company and consideration that men of such dexterity in matters that concern not Religion should be so prodigiously blind and besotted as to deny this truth hitherto vindicated But since I have been better acquainted with their principles I find it to be the most necessary to maintain and support their Great delusion viz. The light within For that they do hereby rob the Scriptures of abundance of places wherein that phrase The Word and The Word of the Lord is found and deck their Idol with them And indeed so many are the excellent Characters given to the Scriptures under that notion that if they wear them and shine in their lustre the Quakers Glow-worm must sparkle no-where but in the dark and may still keep its Court and Confines in the Heathen-world CHAP. IV. The Quakers equal their own Writings and Sayings with the Scriptures and prefer them before the Scriptures I Need not spend time with those who are yet in SECT I their wits to prove that they who fall under the Charge expressed above deny the Scriptures To take all rubs out of the way I shall furnish you with a few Demonstrations First This is to unhallow them and make them common things or worse with the conceits of any who shall be so presumptuous as to pretend to Inspirations and Revelations and of this sort there are a crowd among the Men and Women also of the Quakers If they declare if they write yea whatever religious Action they move in they pretend all to be from the immediate Guidance and Impulse of the Spirit of God and that in as ample a manner as ever the Apostles and Prophets could pretend unto So that this principle being as
universally entertained as the name of Christ it might be said without an Hyperbole that the whole World could not contain the Pamphlets that would be written and called The Word or Words of the Lord and of what value the Holy Scriptures would be in such a crowd of its pretended betters it is not hard to conclude Naylor Love to the Lost Pref. W. D. printed in the year 1663. Hear what James Naylor saith The things following which I have declared of are not the things of man nor by man did I receive them but by the Revelation of Jesus Christ The Word of the Lord to his beloved City c. This is the Title He concludes Through your Brother and Companion in the Tribulation and Kingdom of Patience in the Lord Jesus imitating the words of John in Rev. 1. 9. This I say in Parnel shield of the Truth p. 41. the Presence of the living God and by the Spâ—rit of the living God Give a most undeniable Exposition of a Scripture against their way the Answer is thy carnal minde discerns not the things of God Thou puttest thy meanings to the Scriptures the Scriptures must be judged of by the light or the Spirit from whence they came but thou art in neither If we bring a plain text in so many words against their Tenets and practices the Answer then is Thou art in the Letter And therefore Penington prays seriously My Penington qu. p. 12. upright desire to the Lord for you is That he would strip you of your knowledge of the Scriptures according to the flesh By Flesh their sense is the use of our understandings though sanctified as will appear in the KEY at the end of this Book to which I must referre you for construing all such ambiguous and Parnel Christ exalted p. 3. hard words and Parnel stigmatizes those who prize them Doting on the Scriptures with your dark minds That the Quakers do thus equal their Writings and SECT II Sayings c. with the Scripture shall appear by four undeniable things First they pretend to Infallibility This they assert to be necessary in all their Ministers who ordinarily declare or write and that without it it were impossible to be fitted for that work Hear what the chiefest of their Apostles saith How can ye be Ministers of the Spirit and not of the Letter G. Fox great myst c. p. 12. if ye be not infallible And how can they but delude people who are not infallible and George Whitehead in a Letter to me writes thus Quest Whether Infallibility be attainable by any in these dayes which we affirm is to true believers which if thou deniest we question thy Call to the Ministry They pretend to speak and write by the immediate Inspiration of God and this is another part whereby they aspire to equality The Apostle Paul gives this Character of the Scripture All Scripture is given by Inspiration of God 2 Tim. 3. 16 c. And the Apostle Peter For the Prophesie came 2 Pet. 1. 21. not in old time by the Will of Man but holy Men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost Let us now compare Notes and see how far in these respects the Quakers will give the Scriptures the upper hand of their sayings or Writings And F. H. one of Antichrists Voluntiers defeated P. 18. how should he do otherwise seeing he hath denied the infallible spirit from which all the Ministers ministred and all the Prophets prophesied and spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost He was here pleading for their Mens and Womens prophesying and concludes that to deny the Infallible spirit to be and speak in the Quakers was to deny the infallible spirit by which all the Prophets prophesied c. Therefore may I say much more it is not in the Power Jo. Story short Discovery in Answer to Christian Queries of that little Book either to throw down self-will in any in whom it is not yet subdued or to exalt the truth in general because its only Queries gathered by the Author from the Letter of the Scriptures without and no Message of heavenly Prophesie Doctrine or Exhortation received by the Author from the Lord through the divine Inspiration of his light and spirit within therefore I say it is a very vain and idolatrous Exhortation The Writings of the Quakers are full to this purpose but my business in these instances being to prove matter of Fact only this may suffice Thirdly they pretend the Spirit of God to be in § 3 them in an essential consideration and in all his devine Properties and that it is Gods indwelling in them thus considered from which their sayings and writings proceed In this they arrogate to themselves and their expressions more then any of the Prophets and Apostles durst once imagine All they believe and declare they say is from the light within yea it is the light within that reveals it and not they and therefore they will not call them their sayings ordinarily but such as pass through them as if God spake through them as one may speak through a Trunk which is only a passage for the voice but no proper Organ of speech Through your Brother and Companion c. The W. D. Conclusion Voice of the Son of God was uttered forth through him by which the dead was raised And indeed this light within they pretend to be both Father Son and Life of Ed. Burroughs Spirit for they make no distinction But this being matter of fact I shall prove it out of their writings yet you must not suppose that I shall find any such words as essential or properties in their Authors for such words are too proper for them and expressive of the truth to such who understand them yet I shall find the things as very God cloathed with those Attributes which are peculiar to him And whoever reads what immediately follows and considers the Evidences to be but the Quakers own Confessions and shall not be touched with horrour and indignation against their principles let that man or woman know that a Conscience seared with a hot iron is too soft a term for their insensibleness G. B. true saith of the Gospel of Peace p. 18. Every man hath that which is one in union and like the Spirit of Christ even as good as the Spirit of Christ according to its measure Child I am sensible that there is something in my Smith Prim. p. 14. Conscience that lets me see my secret Thoughts and the Intents of my heart c. Father That is the true light of Christ within that lets thee see the thoughts and the intents of thy heart and God hath freely given in unto thee and requires thy obedience to it Ch. But if I should turn unto it and obey it when it reproves me for sin is there Power in it to save me from my sin Answ All Power in Heaven
celebrated Orders at this day in the Roman Church are the Bellar. de Pont. Rom. l. 3. c. 18. Benedictines Carthusians Dominicans Franciscans and Jesuits It is a very fair way towards the proof of it that Bellarmin confesseth concerning the four first and that of Romoaldus that they were at first instituted by S. Benedict S. Romoaldus S. Bruno S. Dominick S. Francis by the Inspiration of the Holy Ghost and for Ignatius Loyola if he do not appear as great a Fanatick i. e. Enthusiast as ever hath been in the World we shall be contented to be upbraided with the Charge of Fanaticism among us You may find the Doctor as good as his word in the p. 234. Bonaven vita Franc. c. 2. following Pages St. Francis is said by Bonaventure a canoniz'd Saint to be an illiterate man had no Teacher but Christ and learned all by Inspiration for a long time wherein he got his credit among the Papists once casting away his very breeches and being stark naked before them all he said thus to his Father Hitherto I called thee Father on Earth but henceforward I can securely say Our Father which is in Heaven I know not but the Quakers learned their going naked and denying to call any Father which was their practice at first but the light grows wiser and wiser from St. Francis rather then the Prophet Isaiah Let us cite a little of the doctrine and phrases some § 3 of which are pretended from Inspiration by the Popish Votaries and first of Mother Juliana That the soul is so deep-grounded in God and so endlesly p. 224. treasured that we may not come to the knowing thereof till we have first knowing of God which is the Maker to whom it is oned Our kindly substance is beclosed in Jesu with the blessed soul of Christ resting in the Godhead for into the time that it the soul p. 285. Pref. to Sanct. Sophia is in the full mights we may not be all holy The only proper disposition towards the receiving supernatural Irradiaâ—ions from Gods Holy Spirit is an Abstraction of life a sequestration from all business that concerns others and an attendance on God alone in the depth of the Spirit And a little after the lights here prayed for and desired are such as do expel all images of Creatures and do calm all manner of passions to the end that the soul being in a vacuity may be more capable of receiving and entertaining God in the pure fund of the spirit But they seek rather to purifie themselves and inflame their hearts to the love of God by internal quiet and pure actuations in spirit so disposing themselves to receive the influxes and inspirations of God whose Guidance chiefly they desire to follow in all things Rejecting and striving to forget all images and representations of him God or any thing else yea transcending all Operations of the imagination and all subtilty and curiosity of reasoning And lastly seeking an union with Sanct. Sophia c. 3. God only by the most pure and intime affections of the Spirit what possibility of illusion or errour can there be 289. The Approbations 519. to such a soul In which passive unions God after a wonderful and unconceivable manner affords them interiour illuminations and touches yet far more efficacious and divine then active Exercises in all which the soul is a meer Patient and only suffers God to work his divine pleasure in her The which unions though they last but even as it were a moment yet do more illuminate and pacifie the soul then many years spent in active exercises of spiritual Prayer and Mortification could Treat 3. sect 11. c. 1. 292. 215. do Yea so far is the soul from reflecting on her own Existence that it seems to her God and she are not distinct but only one thing That God only by his holy Inspirations is the Guide and Director of an internal and contemplative life Reynaldus tells of Nerius the Father of the Oratorians out of Bacius the Writer of his Life that he was so offended with the smâ—ll of filthy souls that he would desire the persons to empty the Jakes of their souls Such a divine Nose had this Saint among them a degree of Enthusiasm above the Quakers who can but discern not smell souls Some of you called Quakers pretend a great advantage § 4 from 1 John 2. 27. But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you and ye need not that any man teach you but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things and is truth and is no lie and even as it hath taught you ye shall abide in him The Anointing here cannot be understood of Christ neither do we find the Anointing any where to be understood of Father Son or Spirit essentially considered and indeed the phrase is not fit to be applied to God who is the Anointer or Christ who is the Anointed The teaching of the Anointing being understood of the Graces and the habitual and special Enlightnings of the Spirit these devote and addict the soul under the power of them to adhere to the true Christ For the all things it is to be considered as restrained to the matter agitated in the Chapter which is their adhering to the true Christ and this is plain in the 26. ver These things have I written to you concerning them that seduce you The summe then is this they knowing certainly the true Christ from any Antichrist that which they were mainly to look after was a heart cleaving to and improving him which the Graces of God in their souls actuated by the Spirit of God was sufficient in this matter to make their knowledge of Christ sanctifying and saving As for the words in him which render it Masc in the Gr. it may be rendred in any Gender These Considerations duly weighed if there § 5 were no more are sufficient to any who have respect to the pure truths of the Gospel to render the principles here detected and opposed not only suspicious but hateful It is no little absurdity in the Quakers to make an out-cry against Popery Babylon false worship formes that are not onely unscriptural but also idolatrous while in the mean time they plant and hug the root in their own bosomes from which all those evils and more and worse naturally spring It were no hard matter to prove a symbolizing and agreement in a multitude of particulars between the Papists and Quakers in those things wherein they are contrary to the Protestant Profession of Christianity and the Scripture Rule but more especially in the spiritual part of their errors which in the sight of God are of all other the most sinful and to men a snaâ—e most dangerous The Apostle speaks of more Antichrists then one § 6 though of one as the Chief of whose Characters Quakerism hath the blackest I shall mention only two the first expressed in 1. Ep. of John chap 2.
lusts of men and this pure sensation of stirrings and motions becomes better by far the stark blind than those who have eyes in their heads We grope for the wall like the blind and we grope Isa 59. 10. as if we had no eyes we stumble at noon-day as in the night One of the severest curses for disobedience threatned against Israel was and thou shalt grope at Deu. 28. 29. noon-day as the blind gropeth in darkness and thou shalt not prosper in thy wayes And what is this principle of the Quakers but to turn us again into the darkness and Chaos of Gentilism instead of beholding as in a Glass with open face the glory of the Lord to be feeling after him by the corrupt and half senseless touches of a natural conscience acting on the narrow and uncertain indications of Creation and providence which though they may teach something concerning God and our original duty to him will be as far from acquainting us with Gospel truths or such as concern Christ and our redemption by him as a stone or tree is from discerning and expressing the secret and bosom counsels of God or man I would not yet have you think that we deny § 7 or disown a sensation and feeling of the holy and blessed mind of God for we look on nothing of greater moment than to have a heart and conscience delivered from searedness and being past feeling But our feeling and sense of the truths of God is by the Faith of them revealed to us in and by his Word into which we desire absolutely to resolve our belief and which is the objective rule to the understanding by the senses CHAP. VI. The Quakers take men off from reading the Scripture and looking into them for instruction and comfort IT is no matter of wonder at all that they who are SECT I so far entred in the denial and contempt of the Scripture should advance this step further it being but the natural off-spring of what I have already proved to be their Tenets And whatever else is the round of their writings and declarings all centres in putting people upon looking to the light within as the only Counsellor and Comforter And this is the Smith Ca◠p. 95. meaning of our Doctrine to bring people to the everlasting Word of God in themselves Whereby they steal away their esteem and use of the Scriptures insensibly and they are shut up and lost in another Book viz. The light within before they are aware whereas if they should in so many words forbid them to read the Scriptures it would make their hearts recoil Alas that men are such Children who suspect not a design to rob them of their Gold when a Counter a trifle is commended to them and imposed upon them that they may not think of or mind that which is a Treasure By this means the Scriptures are forgotten 'till the love and esteem of them be lost by doting on the new and gay fancy of a divine and perfect light within But to the proof further But turn your ears inward to the measure of light in § 2 Morning Watch Epist you which is without guile So to that of God in thee I will direct thee Their Pamphlets are stuffed so full with expressions of this nature that I should but shew you their great road in citing their words neither will any of them deny what they are brought to prove But if they intended the judgment and conscience enlightned and that this ought to be minded in its place we should not condemn for such directions but when it is made a God of and by consequence an Idol and those beams of Divine light shining in the Scripture excluded as if they had the body of the Sun within themselves it is the highest instance of folly and proof of taking men off from reading the Scriptures for instruction and comfort Yet take their minds in express words And by the § 3 Parnel ' s Shield of she truth p. 10. same light do we discern and testifie against him to be in darkness and blindness and is a deceiver who putteth the letter for the light and so draw peoples minds from the light within them to the light without them seeking the living among the dead You may here discern the confidence they have in their light within that they dare oppose it to the Scripture yea and take its false witness which it bears against the Scripture and with what a black coal he marks those who put the letter i. e. the Scriptures for the light and this he construes to be a drawing peoples minds from the light within them to the light without them so that by his own way of reasoning I have authority to say that putting the light within them for the Scripture the light without them they draw peoples minds from the Scripture But the close of this sentence is no less than a murtherer of the holy Scripture seeking the living among the dead yea a strangling the Scripture with one of its own silver Cords Why seek ye the living among the dead as if the Scripture Luke 24. 5. were a very Grave and Charnel-house from which the living Jesus is for ever departed or which is more congruous to their sense they are no more able to minister instruction and comfort than a dead Carcase rotting in the Grave Hear one more of their Trumpets sounding to the § 4 John Story short discovery c. p. 2. same purpose And although the holy Scripture without and the Saints practises are as lights in the world yet far be it from all true Christian men so to idolize them as to set them in esteem above the light which is sufficient to guide or to esteem them equal with the light and Spirit of Christ within The Scriptures are as lights but they will not right them so far as to call the Scripture a light and the commendations of that Idol the light within are such as if they were true he were a stark fool who would direct his eyes to the Scripture having such an excelling light in his own bosom But lest after all these allurings they should not be understood and people should be so silly as to attempt to light their Candle at the Scripture Taper they will tell you in plain English the vanity of such an undertaking For he Smith Prim. p. 12. Christ the light within alone searches the hearts and not the Scripture So that to draw people from attending to the Scripture they do not only commend the light within being silent concerning the Scripture in the mean while but tell you in plain words the Scriptures are in this matter of no service at all as Parnel before cited he is the light and guide c. the Scriptures are not They assert the light within to be sufficient yea all-sufficient SECT II This where it takes hold of the credulity will draw as hard from attending
verily nothing then but a Christ within you c. and the next sentence is come thou then O come with boldness to Gods faithful Witness within you If he had said the Scriptures without the knowledg of them or the notion of them without the power or without the Spirits concurrence he had spoken truth But to beat these Weapons out of their hands to cry out with a vehemency to throw down those Arms as useless and run away to that second Antichrist the light within this is horrid The true Christ is not so far from the Scriptures nor so disagreeing with them but he can dwell in one heart with them and arms all his Souldiers with the weapons of the truths therein contained but Christ Jesus the Christ of God and Redeemer of his people and the Quakers Christ are nothing of kin But one would think this should be but a slip of § 3 his Pen let us see if he speak not more favourably of the holy Scriptures in his following discourse but alas the darkness within hath so bewitched him that nothing but the Quakers Idol is good for any thing The Scriptures nor any other outward things Pag. 11. are able to grapple with him the Devil you must put on the armour of light light within and with that resist him or be taken captive by him What a rapture of zeal is here for the thing within though the Scriptures alone can do little yet sure if God Almighty undertake the combat either with or without the Scriptures he will be too hard for all the Devils or he had not kept his Throne from being usurped by them and if God be not without the Quakers or any other creature as well as within them he is not infinite as we have taken him to be by the light of Reason and more by the light of Scripture But what blasphemy will not men run into who have changed their God for that which is no God and have turned their backs on the Lord Jesus and taken so gross a delusion in the room of him Again he goes on to the same purpose least you Pag. 11. should not understand him If you use any other Weapons than the light within in this spiritual war yâ—u cannot prosper nor prevail against him I have lighted on a proof of the latter part of my Charge before I was aware viz. for then it is dangerous to read the Scriptures lest you should be tempted to try some of those inviting Arms which that Magazine is stored with and so spoil all your prosperity and prevalence in your spiritual Warfare However this shall not prevent the producing my SECT II intended proofs of the danger as the Quakers say that attend reading the Scriptures But seeing as the Quakers say we must try the Spirits by the Spirit let us try William Smith's spirit by Isaac Pennington's who speaking of knowledge gained by the Pennington's quest c. P. 12. Letter of the Scriptures speaks thus Making him wise and able there in his head to oppose truth and so bringing him into a state of condemnation wrath and misery beyond the Heathen and making him harder to be wrought upon by the light and power of truth than the very Heathen By opposing truth we must needs understand it of the Quakers truth and if reading the Scriptures and getting knowledge from or by them puts us in to a bad condition both as rendring conversion difficult and our misery and condemnation great beyond the Heathen I scarce know what is more dangerous than reading the Scriptures But the comfort is it doth but render us harder to be wrought on to entertain the pernicious Guide and Saviour the Quakers light within and therefore is exceeding safe and necessary It follows in the same Author My upright desire to the Lord for you is that he would strip you of all your knowledge or wisdom of the Scriptures after the flesh Their meaning of after the flesh is that which comes not by immediate inspiration For those only are the Children of God who are led by the Spirit of Naylors love to the lost p. 53. God to whom they who were led by the Letter were ever enemies So Naylor doth as certainly say 't is dangerous to read the Scriptures to be led by them as it is truly dangerous and evil to be Enemies to the Children of God That this abominable Tenet is the Quakers I know SECT III it sufficiently and that they look upon our adhering to the Scripture light as the greatest adversary in the world to their adored light within But I love not the Quakers way of demonstration viz. we witness this and that but if you would know how they witness it it is only their own experience which is a dumb kind of witness while they can make no proof or testimony of it to another nor will ordinarily attempt it and so their witness is to themselves alone But my witnessing of what I here charge them with shall have more light in it that all that read it may be convinced of its truth Therefore take one instance more out of their famous Author W. P. or William Pen. But I will assure them they shall yet grope in the dark § 4 W. Pen's Spirit of truth c. p. 23. till they come into the daily obedience of the light and there rest contented to know only as they experience and not from a ravening comprehending brain that would in its unregenerated state grasp at the clear mysteries of the Kingdom into which fleshly comprehensions and notions can never enter but all must be as unlearned from their first birth education and traditional read knowledge as he is unmanned that is again become a little Child before the secrets of Gods Work come to be made known That W. P. of all others should talk at this rate is most ridiculous What! know only as they experience know what God is no farther than they experience Can we experience his Omnipotency his infiniteness which is not within the experience of all finite beings put together What! know the death by Spear and Nails of Iron or Steel and Cross of wood of the man Christ Jesus which he suffered above 1600 years since only by experience What! know the life to come the judging of all men that are ever were or shall be by the Lord Jesus only by experience where is faith all the while what credit hath God with W. P. that he will know him nor any thing he saith no further than he sees feels in his experience If none but Believers be Saints such as W. P. are professedly none if he know not that objects of faith and experience as such are contradistinct things he is very unfit to assure who they are that grope in the dark and is very unlike to mend his confused scribling I shall not comment on his ravening comprehending brain a most affected phrase amongst the Quakers nor his clear
for it But moreover you may know if you please that there are thousands this day in England who § 6 preach the Gospel in poverty and distresses and cleave to their work when stripped of their wages which number there needs not one Quaker to make up yet take heed you commend them not for it Another objection is we study for our Sermons § 7 What is study but meditation and searching to understand the truth and to get it into our heads and hearts if this be a sin obedience to God is so And the Apostle bids Timothy who had excellent 2 Tim. 2. 15 gifts and was brought up from a child in the holy Scripture study to shew thy self approved unto God a workman that needeth not to be ashamed rightly dividing the Word of truth Then it seems it is no idle task to preach like a workman and divide the Word of truth aright and that we may be approved to God and free from shame among men we must study But that which turns us all off hand-smooth is SECT V That till we are taught by the light within immediately we cannot speak one word of truth but all lyes though the matter we deliver be the highest truth And all be in the Satanical delusions Fox great mystery p. 5. p. 62. that be not in the immediate teachings from the Spirit But the greatest professors upon the earth are there of the Devil that speaketh the words of truth but not as they are in it as so saith Christ to the Jewes they were of their Father the Devil they speak of themselves they speak of themselves as the Devil doth but abide not in the truth but a lyar from the beginning The Devil speaks a lye from himself that is a truth for no body need teach the Devil to lye But how will it follow that whatever any man speaks of himself is a lye then it seems for a man to be first in telling any thing true or false 't is a lye whereas we use most to suspect the truth of that which comes by a second or third hand or more but the conclusion is what we have not by immediate inspiration and teach it we speak it of our selves and therefore are devillish lyars § 2 The learned Fisher will help the Fox at a dead Velata quaedam revelata p. 7. Jer. 5. 2. lift and piece his tale And to such wise sayers and knowers as these God saith though ye say God lives yet as I live ye swear falsly and why falsly was not that a truth that God lives but not a truth truly testified unto by them ◠any more than what is testified in foro hominum in mens Courts by such as being not eye witnesses thereof have it only by hear-say from others because they witnessed to it but in stoln words Here is then the proof that we speak more than we know and therefore lye This is indeed pretty near a lye but that they who live in the light of the Creation and read and believe and know the Scripture to be the Word or the Words of God and affirming no nicer a truth than that God liveth should lye because they know it not by immediate Inspiration is very strange He that lives may know from thence that God lives who holdeth every soul in life that lives But the meaning of the Text may be and I will trust the sober Readers judgment to decide it betwixt us that they did not believe the Lord lived and swearing what they thought untrue or doubted of they therein swear falsly or that they dared to swear to a falshood and yet abuse the Name and Ordinance of God to confirm it But I desire those who give credit to such Teachers as infallible and inspired immediately from God to try by the instance I am now upon whether we are not likely to speak more rightly concerning God from the Scripture than their Teachers without book In the Quotation of this Text Fisher hath falsified beside his Exposition in three plain cases for they say he writes ye say for the Lord lives God lives there is both taking away a word and changing another and makes God swear too where there is not a word or tittle of it in the Text and so adds to the Word of the Lord these words yet as I live This is ordinary from these inspired Teachers and to tell us God saith so lest we should take them to be his own words adds to the boldness of the perverting the Scripture I could write a Catalogue of a thousand such faults in the Quakers citing of Scripture some adding some leaving a word or two out through carelesness or wilfulness I have from what is here evident reason to say to you as the Apostle to the Galatians O foolish Quakers who hath bewitched you Certainly Gal 3 1. it must be a strong delusion that thus blinds you He feedeth on ashes a deceived heart hath turned him aside Isa 44. 20. that he cannot deliver his soul nor say is there not a lye in my right hand The next Ordinance I shall prove them to deny is a Gospel-Church And the Church so gathered into Naylor love to the lost p. 17. God is the Pillar and ground of truth where the Spirit alone is Teacher The Gospel-Church is a Church which hath other Teachers and not the Spirit alone but such a Church is not James Naylor's nor the Quakers The Church wherein the Apostles were sure had some Teachers beside the Spirit whereas the Apostles gave themselves to preaching of the Word And Elders were ordained in every particular Acts 14. 23 1 Cor. 4. 17. 1 Cor 12. 28. 1 Pet. 5. 2. Church As I teach in every Church God hath set some in the Church first Apostles secondly Prophets thirdly Teachers The Elders are exhorted to feed the Flock of Christ which is among you Priest that is the Minister he brings in saying § 2 We utterly deny all their ways and doctrines who exclude Fox great mystery p. 32. all teachings of man Answ Contrary to the Prophets who bid people cease from man whose breath was in their nostrils a Text hugely to the purpose But most will conclude that these Authors do not speak the minds of the Quakers for that they have more Teachers than all others Men-Ministers Women-Ministers and any one of them when there is a motion to it It is confessed that in point of fact it is so but it § 3 is a most palpable contradiction to their professed Principle I should be glad to hear they were more true to it that the Light within might be their only Teacher and they would let others alone till that turned them Quakers But Satan is cunning and can give a dispensation where it may serve so greatly to the promoting of his Kingdom Sometimes they have silent meetings as is known to most then they say they attend to the Teacher within which is
within the Quakers only Christ is not only the word that commands prayer but prayer also in the abstract and they that have that cannot at any time be without prayer though they are altogether silent They also deny publick Ministerial prayer for although â— 5. they have some who utter Petitions they do it as I am informed always in the first person singular I pray thee not We pray thee So that although they may pray for others they pray not with them as their mouth which is contrary to Christs Directory and the Communion of Saints in the Ordinances of the Gospel And if uncontrolled Fame faâ—l not they give this reason for it That they both pray and declare for the sakes of others not their own who are obedient to the light for they need neither But there are three things that fully prove their SECT III denying of Gospel-prayer First Their contempt of true Gospel-prayer So the same Wisdom may deny Smith Cat p. 10â— the prescribed way as betng formal and may invent something instead of it in a higher mystery of iniquity and though they may not speak in such formal words composed yet in the same wisdom their words are formal they can set their own time to begin and end and when they will they can utter words and when they will they can be silent and this is the unclean part which offers to God which he doth not accept c. What the wisdom is intended by the Author you shall see by and by but the main formality inveighed against is keeping of set-times but they may forgive us this errour it being so well known that they have set-times and exceed their ordinary hours no more than we And the wisdom of the flesh is that we do it in our own wills If they mean not in obedience to the will of God 't is more then they know if it be according to the will of God and our wills comply with that it is so much the better for God likes no service against nor without the will To choose the things that please God pleases God very well But that conceived prayer as such should be with iniquity a mystery of iniquity and that to so high a degree is a bold charge It is well known that many of them when they come into our Congregations and are present when the minister is at prayer they will sit all Isa 56. 4 the while in the midst with their Hats on their heads in contempt which I my self have experienced more than once Secondly Owning no prayers that is not by immediate § 2 inspiration and motion of the Spirit and with out the use of our conception and direction of the understanding But as every creature is moved by the Spirit Naylor Love to lost p. 13. of the living God who is that Spirit who will be served with his own alone not with any thing in man which is come in since the fall so the imaginations thinkings and câ—nceivings Smith Cat. p. 100. are shut out So all must come to the Spirit of God by the Spirit to be ordered and cease from their own word and from their own time and learn to be silent till the Spirit give them utterance That we ought to pray in the Spirit and with the Spirit is far from us to deny but he that prayes according to the mind of the Spirit of God revealed in the Scripture which is the Spirits Directory and who by the commands exhortations and promises therein contained is moved to pray he prays in the Spirit and with the Spirit although he have no immediate motions from the Divine Being He that obeys Gods commands in his written Word doth his duty and is through Christ accepted of him But least you should mistake the Quakers meaning of the phrase traditions of men take notice That they hold the written Word and what is therein contained as its sence to be but the traditions of men except it come to us by immediate inspiration as to the Prophets and Apostles and not at second hand which I have already proved and therefore need not do it over again By what I have here produced you may learn That § 3 they deny any thing of man to be exercised in prayer If he intend hereby only the depravation that is come in since the fall it were every right but certainly faith in the Redeemer and the promises which in him are yea and amen the encouragement to prayer are come in since the fall though no part of the fall and all the Ordinances of Christ as such are come in since the fall and faith and Gospel-obedience are all in man most eminently But that the imaginations thinkings and conceivings must be shut out also is a most absurd notion What! must we pray and neither conceive nor think what we are to do what we ought to do nor how to express our selves no nor while we are praying Must all be done as if man in his faculties of conceiving knowing were not Gods nor to be concerned in his worship Certainly if nothing of man soul or body be active therein man doth not worship God nor pray at all and so God worships himself which is the true result of the Quakers Tenets But let us consider a Text or two out of the Word § 4 Job 23. 4. of God I would order my cause before him and fill my mouth with arguments The word Order in the Heb. fignifies a marshalling his words Prayer is not only a Petition but a humble pleading wrestling with God and sure there was somewhat of Job in ordering his cause and he used his spiritual skill in it 'T is render'd by Arias Montanus disponerem I would dispose my cause Give ear to my words O Lord. What Psal 5 1. 1 Cor 14 15. is it then I will pray with the spirit and I will pray with the understanding also c. Here is Paul's will in prayer I will and here is Paul's understanding also exercised in prayer vers 15. But my understanding is unfruitful which he blames as a companion of prayer that being supposed Thus I have proved the Quakers denying Gospel-prayer in this respect above mentioned and reproved their Anti-Gospel-notions by the Scriptures Lastly They own no prayer but what is by the light and in the light within And the prayers of § 5 Smith Cat. p. 112. such only are accepted and not the prayers of those who think to be heard for their much babling who have many words but not in the life So that their prayers only are acceptable who pray in the life that is with the Quakers by the motions of their light within and although we are far from thinking to be heard for the sake of much better things than much babling yet all the words of prayer that are not qualified by their principle the light within is in their account but babling For it's truth in the inward
parts he seeks for wherein Naylor Love to lost p. 16. none of you can worship who know not the living Word in your hearts to keep them up to God in your worship and that worship which is not in the will of God is the worshipping of Devils If you ask any of them What is the truth in the inward parts They will not answer it is sincerity meanings suitable to our expressions and appearances but it is Christ the light within who is the truth And for knowing the living Word it is of the same sense it is all but the light within every man the Quakers Christ And for the Will of God that is nothing but the immediate life and motions of the light within I have said enough out of their Writings to prove these things neither will they deny them but Naylor telleth you and it is not for any Quaker to resist the Spirit by which he spake that worship not thus qualified is the worshipping of Devils It may be some of the Quakers though they know in their consciences that I speak but the very truth of their Tenets and Notions will say I put my meanings to their words but if they will but bate me speaking from their light within which they hold necessary to qualifie a man to speak truly I dare undertake to expound according to their meaning their ill-meant phrases as well as the most of them and their mystery is none to me at all And although they talk of praying in the Name of Christ yet as Naylor phrases it That is done in the Name of Christ which is done in his Light and Power But when all is done this Christ and Name and Light and Power is but the light within and its teachings and motions It is to me reported on all hands that they never § 5 pray in the Name of Christ as their Mediator much less then do they pray to God in or in the Name of Jesus of Nazareth the Son of Mary or of that one Mediator between God and Men the Man Christ Jesus even that Jesus who was Crucified at Jerusalem between two Thieves above 1600 years since I have put this to many of them and they denied not this Charge neither can I see how they can pray to the Father in the Name of Christ seeing God the Father and Christ with them admit of no distinction and for the Man Christ that was born of Mary they have nothing to do with him The Apostle saith A Mediator is not of one but God is one And whoever they are that deny and disown prayer in the Name of Christ are far from owning the Gospel-Ordinance of prayer Reading the Scriptures and Meditation which are Gospel-Ordinances SECT IV they also deny I need not tell you of the contempt they put upon the Scripture as a dead Letter the carnal Letter and on those who attend to it as dry Letter-mongers Take only one instance of William Pens But all must W. P. Spirit of truth be as unlearned as from their first Birth Education and Traditional read knowledge as he is unmanned that is again become a little child before the secrets of Gods work come to be made known And Fisher calls studying the Scripture scraping in the Scripture I wonder wherefore God ordered and commanded them to be written if they are not to be read and studied The Spirit of Christ within is the end of the Tables Great mystery p. 32. William Deusbuty Return p. 7. Law Works and Books and the Law is now in the heart Whatever thou be whether a Teacher of others or a Professor of what thou comprehends to be truth from the Letter of the Scripture under what form name or title soever thou be thou art a dead man and a dead woman and the wrath of God abides on thee though thou see it not Rom. 7. 9. Miserable man that talks at this rate and will father it on the Scripture too and such a one as is directly against him But we have had enough of this smoak I shall say somewhat of their abundant scorn of SECT V of the Lords Supper and Baptism wherein they express a superfluity of naughtiness not only in their Tenets but down-right railing The Ordinances I have hitherto considered in particular are called Moral from their natural obligation although that substantial and Essential part and qualification of them their respect to a Mediator will require a denomination more Evangelical and without which we cannot call them Gospel or Christian-Ordinances Those two Gospel-Ordinances I come now to consider are purely and perfectly positive and depend meerly upon Divinely-revealed Institution without which they had never come within our notice nor had they been any way obliging to us Yet such is the Sanction that the Lord hath put upon § 2 Institutions of this nature that not only since his revealed Law hath abounded to his Church but also when the Revelation of his mind immediately to his Servants was very rare he did not omit Injunctions of this kind The Sacrifices we read of as early as Cain and Abel Yea Adam in his state of Innocency who then needed not any indication of Moral duties beyond what was within the reach of his natural entire and uncorrupted light and innate to his perfect frame and holy disposition had the obligation of a positive duty from God in the matter of the Tree in the midst of the Garden And to me the main ground of it was that the absolute Soveraignty of the Creator might be acknowledged and man might learn to render obedience to God not only because the matter of it is just in its self and would be so if God had never explicitely commanded it but also because it is the Will of God yea where his Will obliges singly without the respect of natural and unchangeable Equity And God hath so expressed his jealousie over this ◠3. right of his that when sins against not only natural light but superadded Precepts to confirm and strengthen its doubtfulness and decays have been passed by without any special expressions of his provocations sins committed against his positive Laws have been avenged with a high hand Adam's and Eve's transgression was against an Institution and positive Law the Commission of which so stirred up the displeasure of God that he banished them out of Paradise and imposed that Curse under which the World groans to this day And it is not below our notice that although they were capable of sinning against God in many other respects yet God affixes the direful penalty to this positive Law In the day that thou 2 Gen 17. eatest thereof thou shalt surely die The case of Nadab and Ahihu when God bare § 4 witness against them from heaven by consuming them with fire was as a Pillar of Salt to season others with an awful Reverence of God in his purely instituted worship Vzzah was smitten and died on the spot when
doubt not the truth of Nailor's speech and that the Apostles and Disciples of Christ were all strangers to such a Conversion Before I part with this Subject it will not be unmeet § 3 to inform you what they mean by the Lords Supper which they own But if you eat in remembrance of him and so come to die to that which slew him then do you shew the Lords p. 57. Naylor Love to the lost death till he come and when he comes he shall not find you eating and drinking with the drunken c. So that mortification to sin taken in the best sense is with him the Lords Supper but in his own sense it is a dying to all that doth not obey the Christ of the Quakers The light within At another turn it is somewhat else and quite p. 56. contrary Which all know who come to his Supper where the Father and the Son are come in and sup with the Creature which all the Imitators and Observers of times are ignorant of whose contention is about outsides In the words cited before it was a Fast a Popish cruciating Fast But this last cited a Feast a Spiritual Feast and the Feast is constituted of the coming of the Father and the Son supping with the Creature whereas before his mind was that when Christ comes the Supper is ended but now it is no other but Christ himself present But the strangest Supper of the Lord is expressed by the same Author in these P. 54. words And this was to be done at all seasons when they eat and drink in their eating and drinking they were to do it to the Lord and therein to have Communion with his Body and Bloud yea when they were to eat with Gentiles they were to partake of the Table of the Lord as is plain 1 Cor. 10. Thus hath the Lord given up these people to confusion § 4 Sometimes the Lords Supper is quite gone and done away then it remains but 't is a fasting from and dying to sin and what they call Excess Then it is Spiritual and within and Christs coming makes the Supper And last of all 't is every meal you eat and every draught you drink you ought therein to remember the Lords death till he come at breakfast dinner supper and afternoons luncheons also And yet this Wretch Nailor to whom some of the Quakers sang Hosanna and worshipped him and calleâ— him the Son of God The Christ and none of the Quakers now that I can hear of but own him as a great Prophet and highly honoured and beloved of God and yet he dared to say concerning this false confused stuff What I have received of the Lord that p. 56. I shall declare unto you And again And this is known from the Lord in the Eternal to be the true end of the p. 57. Supper of the Lord c. If denying the Ordinances of Christ after the manner proved of the Quakers in this Chapter be Christianity or consistent with a Christian the holy Scriptures have given us a very unintelligible account of Christianity or a Christian And that mouth which said I deny that God did ever Ch Atkinson or will ever reveal himself by any of those things thâ—u callest the means of Grace was not full of blasphemy or in any fault against Scripture Prayer Hearing which were intended by it CHAP. XV. The Quakers deny the transactions of Jesus Christ when he was manifest in the flesh in Judea above sixteen hundred years since or as he is now at the right hand of God to have any influence into our Justification before God and our Salvation SECT I IN this point they come not short of themselves who in every path of Errour out-strip all others who are found in the same câ—ooked way I shall proceed to the proof All that are called Presbyterians Ed. Bur. Trumpet c. p. 17. and Independents with their feeding upon the report of a thing done many hundred years ago This he saith by way of reproach against all that act Faith on and receive comfort from the blessed Effects of Christs Righteousness and sufferingâ— by him wrought and suffered when he was in the world What Righteousness Christ performed without me was Farnworth not my Justification neither was I saved by it I believe it of himself if he died in the same mind Can outward Bloud cleâ—nse the Corscience Can outward Penningtons Questions p. 25. Water wash the Soul clean A plain denial of the Efficacy of the Bloud of Christ shed on the Cross to cleanse the Soul from the guilt of sin by its satisfaction to the Justice of God Seeing the Apostle speaks Pennington of purifying the heavenly things themselves Heb. 9. 23. it would seriously be enquired into and the Lord waitedon to know what nature thâ—se Sacrifices must be of which cleanse the heavenly things Whether they must not of necessity be heavenly If so then whether it was the flesh and bloud of the Vail or the flesh and bloud within the Vail Whether was it the flesh and bloud of the outward earthly nature or the flesh and bloud of the inward spiritual nature Whether was it the flesh and bloud which Christ took of the first Adam ' s nature or the flesh and bloud of the second Adam ' s nature § 2 By these Queries you may see how far he is from believing that the offering up of the Man Christ Jesus the Seed of the Woman hath any influence into our remission and cleansing from the guilt of sin contemning the value of the Flesh and Bloud of the Man Christ Jesus as beneath and short of such an Efficacy and that of necessity there must be flesh and bloud mysteriously included in the outward and visible flesh and bloud of a more heavenly and spiritual nature contrary to the words of the Apostle which he quotes Heb. 9. 23. which is the Apostles most forcible and plain argument to prove the Efficacy of the offering of Christs Flesh and Bloud For if the bloud of those Beasts as they were shadows and types of Christ were so effectual how much more the true Sacrifice shadowed out by them But we may with pity and horrour behold the woful shifts men are put to and bewildred in who forsake the plain paths of the Lord in his Word and are resolved to lay hold on any fancy and foolish imagination rather than let go the lye in their right hand § 3 And this we witness who through the Lamb our Saviour Parnel's Shield of the truth p. 30. do reign above the World Death Hell and the Devil but none can witness this whose eye is outward looking at a Redeemer afar off and still live in sin As for the qualification of living in sin they frequently express it to put a blind before the Readers eyes and are far from the true meaning of that phrase in the Scripture for whereas the Scripture
29. The Father hath not left me alone 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Joh. 16. 32. And shall leave me 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 alone Yea it is rendred apart Mat 14. 23. He went up into a mountain apart to pray I could instance abundantly in the like Now whereas being rendred only it implies that works also justifie whereas if it were rendred alone or apart which is as fair in the Greek it would amount but to this a faith which hath not or is separate from works will not be a justifying faith And it must be so because else it opposes the great Doctrine of the Gospel or at least looks like such a thing Rom. 4. 2 5 6. For if Abraham were justified by works he hath whereof to glory c. But to him that worketh not that is aiming at justification thereby but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly his faith is counted for righteousness The blessedness of the man to whom God imputeth righteousness without works that is without respect to his works But enough of this only take one Text that needs no Comment to raise up this truth out of it viz. That the righteousness of Christ imputed is that alone or only which justifies by way of merit and which true faith looks to for this end For he hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin that we 2 Cor. 5 2â— might be made the righteousness of God in him I must not forget to do somewhat to satisfie the SECT III very weak that the sufferings of Christ the Son of the Virgin Mary hath influence into the satisfaction of Gods justice appeasing wrath reconciling us to God c Who his own self bear our sins in his own body on the tree c. And the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all Surely he hath born our griefs and carried our sorrows c. But he was wounded for our transgressions he 1 Pet. 2. 24. Isa 53. 4 5 6. was bruised for our iniquities the chastisement of our peace was upon him and with his stripes we are healed That God was not is as George Fox hath quoted it to lose the truth and save his errour in Christ reconciling the world to himself not imputing their trespasses unto them Having made peace by the bloud of his Cross And without shedding of bloud there is no remission 2 Cor. 5. 19â— Col. 1 â—0 Heb. 9. 22. Rom 5. 9. Psal 85. 9 10 11. opened Much more then being now justified by his bloud we shall be saved from wrath through him Surely his salvation is nigh them that fear him that glory may dwell in our land mercy and truth have met to gether righteousness and peace have kissed each others Truth shall spring out of the earth and righteousness shall look down from heaven 'T is generally agreed these last verses respect Jesus § 2 Christ who is Gods salvation the triumph and glory of whose effects for his people are chiefly two First The reconciliation of Gods mercy to us with his truth and his righteousness to our peace The truth and righteousness of God were engaged to destroy and ruine the whole race of mankind for their sinning against him and breach of his Covenant in those words For in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt Gen 2. 17. surely die Now whatever inclinations God might have to shew mercy to man and bless him with peace the truth and righteousness of God he having that word gone out of his mouth seemed to oppose it as not consisting with mercy and peace towards man and to have bound up those hands and lockt up those bowels from whence mans peace through the Lords mercy might reach him But through Christ Gods salvation and what he did and suffered in our nature as our publick person and in our stead the mercy of God in reaching poor sinners is set free without any detriment to his truth and the peace of a believing sinner throws no scandal on the righteousness and justice of a gracious God but these his glorious Attributes of mercy truth righteousness are at a full agreement amity and union not only in God as they alwayes were and never can be otherwise but also in blessing man with a reconciliation with his offended Creator This Jesus arises like a divine Sun in his almighty strength with healing in his wings And this is no mean evidence of the satisfaction to the truth justice and righteousness of God by what Christ transacted in the world in the behalf of lost and undone To declare I say at this time his righteousness Rom. 3. 26. that he might be just and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus The second glorious effect of this salvation of God § 3 Jesus Christ by his transacting our redemption is That righteousness shall look down from Heaven The righteousness in the 11th verse I suppose is not the same with that in the 10th Verse the former in the 10th Verse being the essential righteousness and Iustice of God which was to be reconciled to sinners which could not be done with a salvo to his Word but by some means which might answer to and satisfiâ— his justice But the ighteousness in the 11th Verse seems to me to be that sinless state who which Christ came down from Heaven hath cloathed them with by imputing to them and putting upon them that divine and glorious righteousness which he wrought in his own person and in our nature when he was in the world and so renders his believing ones not only free from the direfull strokes and heart piercing frowns of a just and offended God but also the objects of his love of benevolence yea of delight and compâ—acence To conclude The whole transaction of Jesus § 4 Christ as Redeemer is the ground of our justification and its effects and consequences we being instated therein although the righteousness of Christ considered as his obedience and fulfilling that Law under which he was made as man and imputed to us be the glory of the Saints wherewith they shine in the righteousness of God in him And with relation to our union with Christ all those holy fruits the Saints bring forth by the strength and life from Christ received are accepted of by God and shall be eternally rewarded yet have no part nor portion in this matter of justifying our persons in the sight of God Having proved the Quakers disowning that justifying SECT IV righteousness which the Gospel holds forth and in some measure vindicated and explained it I shall now address my self to a discovery of that righteousness which the Quakers adventure their justification before God upon They will tell you They are justified by no other righteousness but the righteousness of Christ with abundance of confidence though as we shall prove they know not what they say nor whereof they affirm their righteousness being as far from what is pretended as darkness from light
matter did affirm That he did not believe that his body should rise again after its Death I never knew any of them affirm the Resurrection § 2 of the Body intending thereby the Body which is such in a proper sense and common acceptation I have often discoursed them about it and when I have proposed the question so plainly that they had no room to evade by their Allegories their Answers have been Thou art upon the Catch we shall not answer thee Or Flesh and Blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God Sometimes with that in Job If a man die shall he live again and as the Beast dieth so dieth Man But when all their Arguments are answered which they think are lodged in their Scriptures their last refuge is their false interpretation of 15 Cor. 38. God giveth it a Body as it pleaseth him Who will doubt but that such who will not give a plain answer yea or nay when questioned about the Resurrection of the Dead but instead thereof produce all those Texts which to them seem to deny the Resurrection I say who will doubt that such do deny the Resurrection of the Dead before I discharge this subject I shall answer their Cavils about this point prove the truth and give some inferences from their corrupt wicked Religion and soul-destroying Tenet First their Cavil from that Scripture 1 Cor 15. 50. Flesh and Blood cannot inherit the Kingdome of God By § 3 Flesh and Blood here is to be understood Corruptible flesh and blood which is clear from the consideration of the following words neither doth corruption inherit incorruption compare this with ver 42. it is sâ—wn in corruption it is raised in incorruption and ver 49. and as we have born the Image of the Earthly so also we shall bear the Image of the Heavenly So that it is still the same body only with the Change to spiritual and incorruptible For that in Job if a Man die shall he live again the meaning can be no more than this if Job understood himself he shall not live again in this world and in that state in which he liveth before death which is plain from what he most confidently affirms Job 19. 26 27. And though after my skin Worms destroy this body yet in my flesh shall I see God whom I shall see for my self and mine eyes shall behold and not another though my Reins be consumed within me And it is remarkable that God whom he here speaks of seeing is intended by him Christ the Redeemer who shall stand at the latter day upon the Earth verse 25 for that in Fcclesiastes 3. 19. As the one dieth so dieth the other It is expounded in the next verse all go unto one place all are of the dust and all turn to dust again But this doth not at all oppose Mans Resurrection out of his dust again But that silly evasion which is very frequent with § 4 them but God giveth it a Body as pleaseth him It doth no way deny the resurrection of the Body or condemn those that enquire into the manner of its being after the Resurrection For if God be pleased to acquaint us in his word that there shall be such a resurrection and that it shall be then spiritual and incorruptible it is our duty to take his word and to understand what he is pleased to manifest to us of this great truth Another text they frame an objection out of is 1 Cor. 19. 36 37. Thou fool that which thou sowest is not quickned except it die and that which thou sowest thou sowest not that body that shall be I answer that the Apostle doth not call him a Fool who enquires concerning the resurrection which is the common charge of the Quakers from this Text but him that doubts of the resurrection from its seeming impossibility and for the sameness of the body though not in all circumstances yet that it shall be the same essence is plain from the relative it all along which hath for its antecedent the body of flesh and blood wherein we now live and are visible to the bodily eyes of one another and ver 38. to every seed it s own body I have met with some of them who could not or would not understand it of the same body because the § 5 Apostle saith vers 51. We shall all be changed From whence they conclude it cannot be the same body I would ask such if they would be content to be refused their debt owing to them when young being demanded when old or owing when well if demanded when sick or contracted when they were not Quakers and demanded when Quakers for as to the latter they will affirm they are changed and that from natural to spiritual But I suppose in such cases they will shew more sagacity and be content to believe that a change in a person is not the change of a person and for all those changes they are the same persons still to whom the money both was and is due I might say moreover that if it be another and not the same body that shall be raised again it is a § 6 contradiction for then it must not be a resurrection but a creation and who will guess so wide of the mark that God should create another body which was never in this world and did either good or evil to be rewarded or punished in stead of the body concerned in those actions which in the mean time shall be free among the dead and buried in everlasting forgetfulness Some of them have denyed the resurrection of the body of Christ and stood by their error upon the account of his entering the room when the coors were shut and his appearing in such forms that his Disciples did not know him To which I shall say only this that Christ as God could convey himself how and where he pleased and that the Disciples not knowing him was not because he was not in the same form as before but because their eyes were withholden that they should not know him Luk 24. 16. The woful companions and consequences of the error SECT III here charged on the Quakers and proved to be theirs take a few of which are enough and great enough to make any who are not resolved to be Atheists or Infidels to tremble at the first motions to such a delusion First This tenet of the Quakers doth naturally eat out the heart and vitals of all Religion if the dead rise not Let us eat and drink for to morrow we shall die All Religion obliges with a respect to the life to come The opinion of no resurrection le ts loose the reins to the most extream sensuality an Epicure is then the wisest Man Secondly this errour renders it a meer humour § 2 and a peice of foolish obstinacy to persist in the profession and practice of any thing Religious when indangering our temporal concernments If the dead rise not at all and why stand we
diligently But for P's sake I shall believe it more than possible § 2 that a man of the highest pretences having some more than ordinary means to deal rightly and ingenuously may yet so far deceive my expectations as to give the highest contradictions to them all I am altogether ignorant of the name or person of the Author of the Piece opposed by Pen and if he be a Socinian as Pen affirms I shall be far enough from vindicating him therein but for the Piece it self wherein Pen saith he could find neither head nor tail I will sell my eyes and brains for two pence if it deserve so contemptible a Character And for the Answerer Pen if he were not furnished with forehead and tales beyond measure his Pamphlet would have had nothing remarkable in it I expecting next his Epistle and Preface an â—rderly § 3 combating his Adversaries Charge I find him taking up his Post in the Quakers conceited strong hold of the infallible guidance of the Spirit of God afforded to his people exclusive of any other means In the debating of which he roams and tosses to and fro like a man in a confused troubled dream for above thirty pages His pretences therein lying athwart my present work I thought meet to give some account of his Forces especially considering him to be a man of noise and no small prop to the Quakers Cause in their own esteem His Question in which he pretends to include the Quakers strength and which he saith he is resolved to stand by as such he states in these words The Question stated Whether Gods holy and unerring Spirit is or should SECT II be the proper Judge of Truth Rule of Faith and Guide of Life among men especially under the Administration of the blessed Gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ or not I affirm it and proceed to prove it by Scripture and Reason Considering his words foregoing which are too many and too worthless to transcribe and what he aims at in the handling of this Question I never read one so lame and deformed in my life come forth with such state and confidence and such a train or rout of mediums as deformed as it self There is in it neither Logick nor Honesty Certainly if he had not turned Quaker and in that fall put all out of joynt he could not likely after so good Nursing have been thus lamentably cripled in his Intellect and somewhat besides First of all here is a fallacy à bene divisis ad malè § 2 conjuncta many Questions confounded together Secondly no explanation of the terms most all of which are metaphorical or amphibious and in that part especially affirmed the greatest ambiguity of all Vt quisque est linguâ nequior Solvans ligantque quaestionum vincula Per syllogismos plectiles He tells us indeed pag. â—7 that there is no more difference to him between a Judge Rule and Guide than essentially there can be in the Wisdom Justice and Holiness of God he should have added nor between truth faith and life among men and then he would have shewed himself a work-man indeed to have so stitched them together into one as would admit of no distinction I do not admire that his Acumen cannot distinguish Essence and Subsistence three Persons in one Divine Being and God-Head who cannot distinguish these Attributes of God nor these acts with respect to men mentioned in the Question He is unlike to wade through a deep River who is so often over head and ears in a shallow Dish But these escapes are but the Dâ—st of the Ballance § 3 to what follows The word proper in a Question as modifying these Offices or Acts of the Spirit is greatly improper Proper is sometimes in opposition to figurative sometimes in opposition to common sometimes in opposition to meet or fit in which sense he would be understood it doth not fit his purpose nor principles to tell us but this is an unworthy part of a Disputant and becoming none but those who are resolved not to be understood If he would assert the Quakers Tenet he must say it is the peculiar sole and immediate Guide Rule and Judge and this is that he pleads for now and then after his fashion in his following arguments and all the Quakers I have read or discoursed plead for in plain terms But if it had been so expressed in the Question his Nose would have been held too hard to the Grind-stone in attempting strictly to prove it and most would have smelt the Rankness of Quakerism But Mr. Pen do you deal fairly and honestly with your Adversaries to imply in your Question that we deny the Spirit of God to be a proper that is one that is fit and hath right to be a Rule of Faith Guide of Life Judge of Truth You know that we own it to be such and that it doth both in the Conscience and by the Scripture Creation and Providence perform such acts to such purposes and that of right only we deny that the Spirit always performs these acts without the use of the Scripture or any external means or Ordinances or that it doth so at any time contrary to its mind expressed in the Scripture This you should oppose or you do but trifle and abuse us and your unwary Readers The latter part of your Question which expresses § 4 the Administration of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ especially to countenance your Tenet is playing at Blind-mans-buff You should have told us who or what you mean by Lord and Saviour If it be understood of the Quakers Lord and Saviour the light within every man that is none of our Lord and Saviour If it be understood of the Man Christ Jesus who was of the seed of David according to the flesh who was the Son of Mary crucified to death on the Cross of Wood by shedding his blood and is now in his humane or mans nature united to the God-head in one person ascended above the visible heavens he is none of your Saviour and can be no more within you personally considered than the body of one individual man can be entirely in all the men and women and children in the world and at the same time It must be a Transubstantiation much more ridiculous than the Papists that must support such a fancy It is also no less strange that you should talk of the § 5 Gospel Administration of our Lord and Saviour who hold nothing of a Saviour but what is Eternal à parte ante nor any other Gospel but the light within and its immediate Dictates which you generally affirm was within every man from the beginning of the world I shall not spend time and paper to shew the many other absurdities in your question I have left a Hâ—rvest for Gleaners For the proof of your affirmation such a blind one as it is you produce abundance of Scriptures which are as much to your purpose as if you had quoted
only the 36. Chap. of Genesis wherein is contained Esau's posterity and how many Dukes there were of his Race Yet I shall produce your arguments for the Readers satisfaction that he may believe his own eyes and I shall be more honest than to frame a meer whimsie out of my own head to abuse you and say after this lofty manner of disputing you undertake our overthrow which is your guilt in the fourth page of your Book Your first proof you pretend from Gen. 6. 1. And SECT III the Lord said my Spirit shall not always strive with man for that he also is flesh yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years I will for once transcribe your Argument verbatim that it may be notorious how loftily you dispute If God's unerring Spirit has been wont to strive with men either to convince them of or convert them from the evil of their thoughts words or deeds or else to provoke them yet more fully to do the will of God so as to press on from one degree of glory to another then men hâ—ve had an unerring Spirit to be their Teacher and Judge and Rule and Guide of that Truth concerning that Faith and in that most holy way which leads to Eternal Life But the Scripture proves the first Proposition that Gods Spirit hath frequently strove with men and for the ends before-mentioned and câ—nsequently they have not been without an holy unerring Spirit to teach judge regulate and guide them If I should only say your whole Argument is a § 2 meer confused thicket of impertinencies and non seâ—uitur's I believe your conclusion would be most absolute that it was for want of eyes and that I dare not touch a bough of it for fear of pricking my fingers A man had need of good Arithmetick also to numbâ—r the terms You tell us the Scripture proves your first Proposition You are a non Such for diving if you can fetch up from this Scripture what is expressed in your first proposition especially the latter member of it It is more than probable that the Spirit did strive with them to make them better than they were yet none of those ends are expressed in the Text but that it should be that they might more fully do the Will of God and press on from one degree of Glory to another is a guess wonderfully well becoming your infalliblity Why did you not say or to turn them into Suns Moons and Stars which were all out as much in the Text as the other and I dare say some of your Friends would have taken themselves bound to believe it who find no fault with greater absurditiâ—s dropt from their admired Dictâ—tors but Quos Dâ—us vult perdere hos dementat There were eight persons saved in the Ark but one Noah said to be righteous before God and all the â—est overwhelmed by the Deluge for their extreme impieties yet these were pressed on from one degree of Glory to another The consequence of your first Proposition is all manner of Fruits which you had a mind should be grafted on this Stock but as the Text will not impart its Sap to your Proposition so your Proposition is as dry to your Consâ—quence but that 's no matter if they will not grow one upon another you 'l make them hang together right or wrong Yea and if the Spirit do but strive it must be how you will have it and for what ends you please or you 'l rack the letter for it but the'res no cruelty to a dead letter Bâ—t Mr. Pen if your conscience have any eyes § 3 I intreat you make use of the light here afforded you to compare the Text and what you lay at its doors and see how alike they look Your Question is of the Spirits teaching among men c. indefinitely and your proof speaks of the Spirits striving with wicked men Your aim is to prove it an immediate and peculiar Teacher c. of Gods people the Text speaks of neither If I affirm the Spirit strove with them by providential Chastisements ominous presages of Calamities at hand by his goodness which leads to Reâ—entance by the Ark which Noah built moved by faith and fear and by which he condemned the unbelieving besotted World by his Preaching righteousness I can prove my being guided therein by the unerring Spirit of God at another rate than you 2 Pet 2. 5. can your contradiction But your wandrings from truth and reason can § 4 hardly have a higher instance and evidence than that you should be so infatuated as to conclude from a Text which saith my Spirit shall not always strive with man that it doth now teach c. and God hath not left his people in our present nor will in future ages without his Spirit to teach them immediately and solely which is in your Question or your prosecution of it and should have been expressed there if you had had so much ingenuity Instead of being angry that I have shewed your vanity and made your folly in this argument such a spectacle to the world you have reason to give me thanks that I examine it no further However before we part I will try you at another SECT III weapon which you forge out of Neh. 3. 19 20. Yet thou in thy manifold mercies forsookest them not in the wilderness the pillar of the Cloud departed not from them by day to lead them in the way c. This part of your quotation is not onely no friend to your affirmation and principles but an invincible adversary No man in his wits will say the pillar of the cloud and fire were the Spirit of God and if God led his people by them they were not led onely and immediately by the Spirit of God It may be the latter part of your citation may do more for you Thou gavest also thy good Spirit to instruct them This good Spirit was mainly the Spirit of God which he put upon Moses and Joshua and some other their chief Persons by God's appointment as is evident from these Texts And I will take off the Spirit which is upon thee and § 2 will put it upon them and they shall bear the burthen of the people with thee Num. 11. 17. And the Lord said unto Moses take thou Joshua the Sun of Nun a man in whom is the Spirit and lay thy hand upon him Num. 27. 18. Thou leadest thy people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron Psal 77. 20. Now God is said to give them his good Spirit to instruct them by bestowing it in such a way and measure on their instructers and guides though I deny not but every true Israelite had the Spirit also dwelling in him yet they were never the less but the more submiss to the conduct of their mediat or if you will men-teachers and guides for that Your third chosen Scripture for your service is SECT III But there is a Spirit in man
and the inspiration of the Job 32 3. Almighty giveth him understanding I shall explain this text by another which carries the full sense of it and almost the same words For the Lord giveth wisdome out of his mouth cometh knowledg and understanding But doth this incourage men to cast off all external means and the use of their reason Nothing less It is given as an encouragement to the use of the means expressed in the four first verses which are made conditional of being blessed with that knowledg and wisdom which comes from the Lord. If thou searchest If thou triest It will now be more easie to take in the right sense of your cited Scriptures There is a Spirit in man that is a rational Soul § 2 say some yet knowledge and understanding doth not so depend upon its improvement as to shut out the breathing and blessing of God from the chief efficiency A young man as Elihu may attain a measure by that divine blessing beyond the aged and more experienced If you can prove that those holy men who carried on that debate of which the Book of Job is a history did neglect the external means which the Lord afforded them for informing their judgments about divine and spiritual concernments upon the grounds of the inward teachings of the Spirit of God Eris mihi magnus Apollo and unless you can do that your arguing from this Text is but meer trifling beating of the air and contending for what is granted on all hands but nothing at all to your purpose And it is not beside the purpose to consider that those holy eminent Saints who contended with Job were rebuked by God for not speaking rightly of God as Job did and Job did not pass free without a chiding also for his miscarriages and presumptions Job 42. verse 7. and forward To conclude this Argument you talk at a miserable § â— lame rate to say that because the inspiration of the Divine Spirit giveth understanding therefore it is not from the strength of mans reason memory or utmost câ—eature-ablities that his knowledge of religious and heavenly things comes but from the revelation and discovery of the inspiration of the Almighty Let me tell you once for all that if reason memory and humane abilities have nothing at all to do in the search and understanding of Divine things a meer animal or such an ideot as Jack Adams may know as much of the Divine and Heavenly mysteries as W. Pen but if I should say such a one is as able a Teacher or Writer as you I doubt not but you would take your self to be not a little affronted And it is as lame arguing to conclude because some § 4 men had Divine inspirations and teachings of some Divine truths when there was not one Book of the written Word in being as I dare undertake to prove and they who had those Inspirations made use also of their reason to know Divine things by all external means within their reach therefore all Gods people i. e. Quakers have in these days wherein God hath blessed us with so large a portion of his written Word or Word without us sufficient teachings by immediate Divine Revelations to lead them infallibly in the way that is most acceptable with the Lord without the use of their created faculties or any outward means is no good consequence The next Scripture you abuse is Psal 139 7. Whither SECT V Psal 139. 7. shall I go from thy Spirit or whither shall I flee from thy presence from whence you scribble thus If Gods unerring Spirit be so nigh and the sense of it so certain it must be either to reprove for evil done or to inform uphold lead and preserve in reference to all good now in which of the two senses it shall be taken the presence of Gods Eternal Spirit and his being the Saints Instructor Judge Rule and Guide are evidently deduceable from the words Rudis indigestaque moles worse than ever Bear brought forth her Cubs which with her licking may be brought into some shape but your products are so defective both in Truth Right Reasoning Syntax and Sense that it is no dis-reputation to your Adversary to be confounded by them It is an effectual but an impudent course to silence all the world from opposing you by writing such confident confused non-sense Were it not for the sake of many who conceit your infallibility which you are here so blindly pleading for I would as soon abandon my time to dispute with a distracted man in his raving fits as with W. Pen till he come better to himself than I can find him in this Pamphlet If Gods infinite Being Omnipresence Omniscience § 2 wonderful works of Creation all-disposing Providence which is the scope of the Psalm and his Omnipresence especially the sense of the Text do prove that which you produce it for and infer from it you have found out a way of seeing that may tempt us to dig out our eyes punish them for meer Cheats and for ever hereafter commend the blind Archer for the best Marks-man We may presume that you intend this Text to § 3 prove that all Gods people are upheld ruled guided c. In reference to all good by the Spirit of God which you say is evidently deduceable from the words But who would have thought that such desirable considerations and the certain sense of them should put so holy a man as David on such expressions of going and flying from the Spirit and presence of the Lord No doubt the presence of God is every where in the Skies the Seas the Wilderness what then doth he therefore perform all these acts where ever he is present in his infinite Being even where there are no intelligible Creatures Doth he judge inform instruct stones and trees and mountains I and must do so too or else he doth not answer the end of his presence being so nigh Truly Mr. Pen we have had more reverend thoughts of the Eternal and Omnipresent God than to assign any thing as the end of his Being but himself But it may be you lay your stress on the certain § 4 sense of it and this joyned to his Omnipresence will do your work Is the sense of it so certain to every good man was it so to David when he so long time was tainted with a heap of impieties Was it so with Jonah when he fled as he thought from the presence of the Lord or was it so with you when you wrote some things in this book of yours which I shall acquaint you with before I have done If it should be granted you that all Gods people have the certain sense of it without doubting or alteration it would be nihil adrhombum far from proving Gods Spirit to be the peculiar Teacher of his people and so to teach them as to render them infallible which is the mark you aim at The next Scripture you produce is Teach me
all his Vagaries who hath the faculty only to the stupidly ignorant Fallere mille modis nâ—c non intexere fraudes In the winding up of your intangled bottom you frame an Objection thus Object 1. Though you have said a great deal to Page 37. prove that Christians should have an infallible Spirit in general Yet you prove nothing distinctly but confound a Judge Rule and Guide together Habemus confitentem reum Least you eat your words I shall put good proof § 2 of the truth of your confession upon Record You say in your answer to your own Objection That to me there is no more difference then essentially there can be in the Wisdom Justice and Holiness of God They are so interwovâ—n that the one goes not without the other P. 17. 6 Thus it is in being a Judge Rule and Guide c. What would you say of a man that should affirm his brains heart and lungs being essential to the life of the body and so interwoven that the one goes not without the other are but one and the same thing the one cannot live and be in good state without the other and therefore they are but one and the same thing without difference or distinction And the man suppose John-a-Nokes should upon this ground when he hath a Delirium or Vertigo diseases seated in the brain be very busie to enquire what is good for the Pthysick or Cough of the Lungs or palpitation of the heart but being rebuked for his impertinencies should reply they cannot be one without the other They are essential to the body of man its perfection therefore what is said of the one may be said of the other and what is good against the Pthysick or Cough is good must be good for a Vertigo or Delirium Let me advise you next time you write to frame no Objections against your self unless you shall have learned better to solve them A second Objection you frame thus But at this § 3. Page 38. rate you utterly contemn and seclude the Scriptures as having no part nor portion in being a Rule Judge or Guide to Christians I would your whole book had consisted of Objections for you have spoken more truth of your own framing in two Objections than in most of your affirmations You attempt to solve this with much the like success as the other you praise the Scriptures and hug them hugely till you have reduced them to much like the shadow of the true Rule And then you illustrate the sense of their Authority in these very words He that is so inward with a Prince as to know vivâ voce what his mind is heeds not so much the same when he meets it in print because in print as because he hath received a more living touch and sensible impression from the Prince himself to whose secrets he is privy And this the Scriptures teach us to believe is a right Christian state and priviledge For said the Apostle we have the mind of Christ and the secrets of God are with them that fear him And guide me by thy counsel and bring me to thy glory What Friends but when they read this Princely § 4 flourish but will conclude not only that he hath done it neatly but hit the Nail o' th' head full and spoken their minds e'n as right as if he had been inspir'd by them all and no doubt he shall be their White Boy for all his defects who strokes them so finely and advances them to such a singular Dignity of privacy and inwardness with God that not only his revealed will in print is known by them in a more honourable and immediate way but also his secrets which never stooped so low as to be wrapt in letters Here we have as in a glass W. P.'s Opinion of the immediate teachings of the Spirit to be not only above his teachings by the Scripture as to have a thing whispered in the ear from the Princes own mouth doth excel any Narrative by a Declaration but also so much above them that he who enjoys this favour which must still be no other but a Quaker heeds not so much the same in print How much just not at all For if this viva vox more living touch and sensible impression do not put Authority into them they are but meer Cyphers And if this living touch c. as he believes be without or contrary to the Scripture 't is all as good and Authentick It is upon my Spirit is of much more Divine Obligation than it is written But Mr. Pen That the Scriptures teach us to believe this is a right Christians state and priviledge is a hard-hearted saying The Scripture knows nothing of it nor could I ever yet have a proof that any of you all ever heard the Voice of God as vivâ voce is to be understood and I am very well satisfied the Quakers may be mistaken if they should presume they did ever since some of them took Paul Hobsons mumbling through a Trunk and a hole in the wall to be the voice or the Lord. But that this should be the state of a right Christian wo worth the days past for so many Ages wherein among all professed Christians but now and then one were in this state and that but a little while e're their folly appeared to all men only now and then the Papists had a Job to do for which a viva vox was a fit pretence But you have little Charity in unchristianing all the § 5 world whose very state is not according to these Characters A man in the dark especially if his fancy be strong is full of Visions which have no other being than his imagination affords them this appears to be your state and the part you are acting I shall in short consider your warrants which you § 6 annex to your rare Harangue For said the Apostles we have the mind of Christ Sure he had a good part of it by Tradition from the other Apostles who were Christs Witnesses of what he said and did and we have it in the Scripture And the Secrets of God are with them that fear him But where did the Apostle say this 'T is no matter if it was not the Apostle Paul it was the Apostle David and that 's as good Psa 25. 14. Nay it is all one if it had been the Apostle G. Fox or the Apostle W. Pen whose words and writings are of Prophetical and Apostolical Authority and may be numbred among the Scriptures as well as Pauls or Davids or any other witness your audacious lines put in a different letter to be so understood You say but the Scriptures are herein fulfilled the holy way the vulturous eye did never see Pag. 84. and that same ravenous Spirit after knowledge our adversary must come to know judged c. It is further to be considered that the words you quote out of the Scripture you pervert and the sense also
divine things read the 46 â—7 Verses where he is said to be disputing with the Doctors and that his answers were astonishing to the Hearers Fifthly Apostolical inspirations were intended by the Spirit for a divine and authoritative Obligation to the Faith Order Life and Consciences of others and arâ— therefore rightly placed among the Scriptures or written Word If any man think himself to be a Prophet or Spiritual let him acknowledge that the things that I write are the Commandments of the Lord. But the teachings of the Spirit to the Saints as Saints are no such obligation any farther than they agree with and have their authority from the mind of God revealed in the Scriptures Sixthly Apostolical teachings and inspirations § 11 were of authority to constitâ—te a new order and poâ—ity of the Church to which the former though of divine authority in their season were to give place Yea those Doctrines and Promises so revealed to them by God and by them declared as such are binding to our faith and practice although we cannot discern any of the like import in the Scripture before written But the teachings and illuminations by the Spirit of the Saints as such do not add to or change any thing of the Doctrine or Order established by Christ and his Apostles neither are they contrary to the written Word nor in point of Doctrine beside the sense of it or beyond it To conclude the teachings of the Spirit and its § 12 motions in the Saints which are most purely divine and immediate in our days are the bringing to remembrance explaining to the understanding imprinting on the affections the matter contained in the Scripture and directing them to understand Providences to act in their occurrent occasions suitable to his will revealed in the Scripture and moving their wills to â— compliance with his but are all to be tryed by the Scripture and not the Scripture by them Some I believe will reply How did the Prophets SECT VI and Apostlâ—s when they received immediate Revelations â—nâ— were inspired of God know it was no delâ—sion and it they knew it being men as we are why may not we I dâ—râ— not attempt to pry into the most secret ways of God and undertake to give you a history and description to the full of the Spirits workings on the Souls of his Prophets in conveying his will to them and satisfying their judgments and Consciences that they were the inspirations of God Yet I shall say so much of them as may satisfie any willing Reader to be informed that they had more to evince it than any have now and we have enough to convince us that they were inspired First Whoever they were that were givers forth § 2 of the Law or the Covenants in their first promulgation had the Testimonies of God for them by Gods outward Call to that as their special Office and his promise of guidance in the discharge thereof signs and wonders wrought either by God immediately or by their hands as the Apostles Jesus Christ Mâ—ses Secondly All the Prophets have a Testimony of their being inspired of God by Miracles which they wrought or by the quoting Scripture out of the Books written by them or bearing their names in the New Testament by Christ or his Apostles Thirdly For the Historical part which hath a § 3 respect to the things done within their knowledge as men the Writers of that or those parts of the Scripture were either under the Testimonies of Miracles or were by some express Testimony of God rendred holy men and being so qualified they would not write more than they knew and could not easily be mistaken in matter of fact and being Scripture is said by Paul to be of Divine inspiration Fourthly All those Books of the Old Testament § 4 out of which somewhat is not quoted in the New as Scriptuer were received as Scripture by the Jews and then Church of God and that in the time of many Prophets to whom Divine Testimony hath been given and it cannot with any shew of Reason be supposed that those Writings should be falsly fathered on God or taken for Authentick Scripture and the Prophets not discover and reprove it whereas far less heinous evils than that would have been were often the subject matter of their sharp reprehensions Let any Quaker or other give me or themselves § 5 the like satisfaction of their being immediately inspired and they shall have my leave to hold such an Opinion of it But for those inspirations which they say many had before the Scriptures were written the mention of their time will give full satisfaction it will be a poor Argument to prove men are now inspired as they considering they had not the revealed written Word at all and we have iâ— sâ— fâ—ll 〈…〉 necessary for any to know are therein included and thereby expressed The second thing I must reply to is what the Quakers § 6 frequently object viz. That we make the Scripture the Judge of the Spirit whereas the Spirit gave forth the Scriptures I answer this is for want of judgment in the Objectors Far be it from us to bring the to-be-adored Spirit of God to any mans Bar for judgment to be passed on it or any thing that is his immediate work or word All we profess in this matter to make the Scripture a Judge or Determiner of is whether this or that be the mind of the Spirit or no but if once it appear to be the voice and mind of the Spirit we profess it our duty to reverence and submit to it And we being certain that the holy Scriptures were given forth from God and that God is not opposite to himself we conclude that what is contrary to the Scripture cannot be the Word of the Spirit because then the Spirit should bear witness against it self and the word of the Spirit would be contrary to the word of the Spirit And moreover if any shall pretend to abolish by § 7 the Authority or inspiration of the Spirit those Ordinances and Institutions which were setled by Christ or Christ in his Apostles it would be unreasonable to credit them without the same Testimonials such Miracles as they wrought by which they were erected But the Quakers are far enough from shewing such a zeal for their pretended Ministry and Order And further we are obliged not to receive another Gospel and that by the Holy Spirit though an Angel from Heaven should preach it and we are warned not to believe any other as Truth Divine against it though many wonders should be wrought for confirmation The third thing I must reply to is that our knowledge § 8 of the mind of God by the Scriptures is uncertain I answer If you mean a knowledge of all Gods mind you are not to expect it if you mean all that is there contained it is not necessary and you may go to Heaven and do your duty without such a vast knowledge and if you
endeavour it in your places and as God hath given you the means it will not be your sin much less your condemnation that you do not know it all Sure there are many Babes in Christs Family yet they are Children and all are first Babes and that would be a Monster never yet seen in the Church of Christ a new-born Babe knowing the mind of God contained in the Scripture as fully as the most serious Christians of the longest standing Jesus Christ himself grew in wisdom and in stature and I intreat you be content to leave a little of the mind of God to be found out in the Scripture by the Generations to come If you mean our knowledg of the mind of the Spirit is uncertain so far as it is necessary for our living in an acceptable mâ—nner to God soberly righteously and godly in this present world and to attain Heaven at last it is a great mistake for if pride lust and idleness stand not in our way there is no person that hath a few grains of reason but may understand so much of the mind of God by the Scripture as is necessary for him to know to his Eternal Salvation But if you talk of the Scriptures being a dead Letter § 9 and not moving and teaching with a voice or impulse without our reading praying and applying it in the Lords strength you talk at a strange random as if God had given us our eyes and brams only to look after the world and the things thereof but in the knowledge of God we must be meerly passive A KEY TO THE QUAKERS Usurped and to most Unintelligible PHRASES THere is not any thing in the Quakers Method of delu ding which doth more tend to the insnaring of unwary Souls than their asserting their False Antichristian and Anti-Scriptural Tenets under scripture-Scripture-words and Phrases and in those very terms wherein are expressed the Truths of God while in the mean time they mean nothing less than their true import and what people who are not well acquainted with their Tenets suppose them to mean By this Artifice they beget a good Opinion of themselves and Errours with too many and by degrees so vitiate their Principles that in a short time they are prepared to imbrace the grossest Errours bare-faced I shall therefore as a work of no small use to such who are attempted by them or who have a Call or opportunity to deal with them for their convincing or confuting or the securing others who are in danger by them give you a true and candid account of their sense and meaning of a multitude of Scripture and Religious Phrases which they utter and apply to their falshoods and also of their new-coyn'd Words and Phrases which are more peculiar to their Sect and Notions I dispose them Alphabetically for their more easie finding on any occasion A. Above NOt in locality but excellency so Christ and Heaven they say are above i. e. excellent and may therefore be nothing but what is within them The Anointing The Light within Christ the Spirit essentially Assembling Meeting in Spirit Assurance What they feel in themselves not what they believe from the Scripture the inward witness viz. experience teachings of the light within B. Babylon All the Ordinances Worship Faith Obedience that have any thing of a form or visible in them or that are gathered from the written Word or pretended to be so Baptism Not any thing by Water but the Spirit i. e. the Quakers Spirit to an obedience and devotedness to the light within and inspirations and immediate teachings Blasphemy To speak against the light within every man to be Christ and God and what they hold it to be Blind Not to acknowledge the light within to be Christ not to know him by immediate imspiration The Blood of Christ The Life of Christ i. e. the power of the light in them The Spiritual Blood which they say came down from Heaven and was part of a Spiritual Body which Christ brought with him from thence which dwelt for a while in the Man Jesus who died at Jerusalem Salvation purifying reconciling by the Blood of Christ Not by the Blood of Christ shed on the Cross but by the Blood of the Spiritual Body of flesh blood and bones which they say Christ descended in which is in every Quaker as really as in the Man that was the Son of Mary and so Salvation is by no other blood but what is in themselves The Body of Christ Not that which was crucified without the Gates of Jerusalem in Judea but the spiritual Body aforesaid which they say took up its Habitation and Tabernacled in the Body of Jesus the Son of Mary and so the Body of Christ is as much in them as it was in him Bondage Not only our selves in bondage to sin but the light within the seed of God or Christ being in bondage under the disobedience of men Born again Regeneration Perfect obedience to the light within as Christ and God Comprehending Brain A large understanding or a desire of Knowledge by the use of the Rational Faculty C. Call The motions of the Light Christ in the Conscience Christ Not the Man Christ Jesus the Son of Mary which the Godhead assumed and united to its self in one person but the light within every man a Christ that had nothing of Adams Nature whose Body now in being was not created or had a beginning in time which was never visible to the bodily eye Not in any respect distinct from God the Father and God the Holy Ghost Christ in the Saints Not Christ without them an Object of the faith and love within them but his very Being his Divinity his Soul and his Body consisting of spiritual Flesh Blood and Bones not his Image and Likness but the self-same in his Being and Essence Christs coming In the Spirit or his spiritual coming into his people i. e. no other but the prevailing motions of the light within or by inspiration The Command in Spirit By immediate inspiration and motion Comprehension Fleshly Comprehensions That Opinion or Belief which is grounded on a rational demonstration though from the written Word of God Carnal All things of a Religious concern which we are not enlightned about and moved to by immediate inspiration yea whatever hath a form or is visible to the bodily eye Fleshly Conceivings Those Opinions or expressions whose beginning and birth are in the humane faculties very great weakness if not sin and unbelief contrary to the assured and undoubted dictates of the Infallible Light and Spirit within them Condemnation The reproofs and sentencings of the light in the Conscience Conversion A full obedience to the light in the Conscience a total freedom from the prevailing of any sin such a state as the Disciples of Christ had not attained when Christ was crucified nor Paul when he wrote the Epistle to the Romans Crucifying of Christ Not that crucifying on the Cross of Wood but a
of the Church meeting together in their respective places do set and keep 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 doubtful such may be hurt themselves and may hunt the Truth not being grown into a good understanding to judge of things Therefore we exhort That you who have received a ture sense 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 of those that love it who are of the Houshold of Faith So dear Friends and Brethren believing that your souls will be refreshed in the sense 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 precious 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 sanctified 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 sanctified Richard â—arnsworth Alexander Parker George Whitehead Josiah Coale John Whitehead Thomas Loe Stephen Crispe Thomas Green John Moone Thomas Briggs James Parkes It will not be lost-labour to give my Reader an Account of the occasions of this Testimony and of those things contained in it which are of special remark The first and chief Principle which the Quakers cried up and endeavoured to obtrude on all they attempted to draw off from the common Principles of the Christian Religion and to prâ—selyte to themselves was That every man hath a light in him which is no less than Christ and the Spirit Christ the Word of God the Life the Power c. and that this Light is sufficient to lead into the knowledge of all Truth and to move men by its Power to the compleat and perfect Obedience And as upon this Principle they did and do discard the Scriptures from being a Rule of Faith and Life and from bearing the name of the Word of God So many of them believed it as rationally followed That all their Ministry and ordered Meetings to declare what they called their Testimony was not only superfluous but also a contradiction to their main Principle which is indeed rightly inferred Another Principle grounded on the former Foundation was To exclude all Forms of Worship Order or Discipline and every one to be left to his own proper liberty to meet or not to meet to speak or be silent as he or she should be guided by his or her private Light c. But the practices which suited to this Principle as it rendred its Professors discordant and contrary to each other and ridiculous to Observers So also it deprived their Heads and Leaders of that Denomination which was as ambitiously sought by them as by any Sect-Masters heretofore Upon these Considerations those who were chief in esteem and interest among them began to impose upon the rest what they pretended was by the Spirit dictated to them although it did not meet with the same inward relishes and sentiments of the rest Many of the Quakers who kept to their first Principle were hereat greatly offended and made opposition against those Obtrusions as Tyrannical and subverting their Foundation One of whom was the Author of that large Letter of Complaint published in a little Piece entituled THE SPIRIT OF THE HAT Muclow In which may be seen the main Grounds of difference between the Ruling and Non-Conforming Quakers and as well penn'd as was ever any thing by a Quaker But to reconcile these Impositions with the Principle of the Sufficiency and Divinity of the Light within every man the Imposers pretend That the Light of the Body i e. Such who bear the sway can taste and discern what is from the true Light in any and therefore what answers not to that Discerning-Spirit in the Body is to be exploded as not from the true Principle In this Testimony alias The Quakers Canons and Constitutions I shall remark these following particulars 1. That in the Title it is ordered to be read in all their Meetings and kept by them as a Testimony Which are Priviledges that the Scriptures obtain not with them 2. That the Subscribers and those others who joyned with them in their Convocations pretend to have met by the Operation of the Spirit and to have had in that Negotiation the presence of the Lord with them and that hereupon they ground the following Dictates and Impositions 3. That although they take it so grievously that they should be accounted no Christians by us yet they own no other to be the Church of Christ but themselves and have the Charity to reckon of all others as Without and as Heathen and Infidels among which sort they are to be numbered whom they Excommunicate 4. That notwithstanding their former decrying a stated and ordained Ministry Rule and Dignities in the Church as Tyrannical and Antichristian they have now a Ministry Rulers Dignities Offices and Dominions erected among themselves as necessary to the subsisting of their Fellowship And affirm That it is abominable Pride for any particular not to submit to the judgment given by them called The judgment of the Body 5. That although they have with their Authors the Romists and Jesuites reproached the holy Scriptures as a lame and insufficient Rule yea as no Rule Countenancing this their Distraction from the diversities of Opinions Parties and Factions which are found among those who own it for their Rule yet they themselves for all the All-sufficiency of their Light within have Doubts Discords and Factions among themselves and each pretending the Light for its Authority So that their pretended Remedy is an early breeder of those Diseases for which
the present posture of the Quakers Religion as may render it no great strain to jump into it when-ever they find it their interest For why should it be thought unreasonable that they should rather choose to submit their particular Sentiments to the Determinations of a Pope and Council who pretend to the Spirits guidance infallibly therein than to the Determinations of George Fox and his silly Adherents called the Body who can give no better assurance of their Infallibility or common Reason either than mere pretences mounted on confident Ignorance and Arrogancy Especially considering that such a change will better bear the fine affected Mystery of being felt in a measure of the Vniversal Spirit which seems to be no other than the so-much vaunted Universality of Rome cast in the Canting Mould of the Quakers Phraseology Besides they will then have the Accession of the numerous Auxiliaries of Rome not needing to be so straitned and put to their shifts as now by laying the weight of their yet unformed Cause on so many Equivocations and thin Subterfuges defended by only two or three unskilful and unwary Patrons And what if they shall think meet to embrace the Traditions of Rome instead of THE DOCTRINES OF GOOD ANCIENT FRIENDS I am sure it would be short of a Miracle And the things being the same in Substance why should a mere verbal difference be a Gulph unpâ—ssable And if many of the more devout sort of Quakers should be loth to part with their Darling Singularities and Morosities If Rome be pleased so far to indulge to them as to afford them a Dispensation till time and other things have weaned them it is not the first time she hath been so kind a Mother However if they will but own the Roman Head as far as they now own George Fox they may have their Religion with all or most of its other Disorders and be owned good Catholicks of the Foxonian Order and George Fox Sainted to boot for his good service I desire the Quakers to be but so just to themselves as to consider whether what hath been said do not at least call them to a suspicion that their Leaders are rowing towards Tybur whatever face they put upon it And what an exchange they have made in rejecting the Scriptures from being their Rule taking at length the Impositions of men in its room which are so much the more wicked and blasphemous as they lay them to the Spirit of God as their Father and so much the more dangerous as the Opinion these men have obtained among them will render it neither pleasant nor credible for them now to question any thing they say or reject any thing they impose A Summary of the Capital Errours and Blasphemies of the Quakers Concerning the Godhead THey deny a Trinity of distinct Persons to subsist in the Godhead They own the Father Son and Holy Ghost to be God under those distinct terms yet deny either of them to have any relation or property incommunicable to each other They divide the Divine Being and Godhead into measures and parts Concerning the Scriptures They hold That the Scriptures are not the Word of God and that Christ only is the Word of God That much of them were the Words of God but those things are not now the words of God That a great part of the Scriptures were the words of wicked men and the Devil therefore cannot be the Words of God Not considering those parts of the Scriptures to be the Historical Word or Words of God containing in them a Divine Truth of History That the Scriptures are not a Rule of faith and life That not any part of the Scripture hath Authority to oblige us to any matter of faith or practice unless it be dictated to us or inspired into us by the Spirit immediately as the Prophets Apostles and Penmen of the Scriptures received it That those who determine their faith and practice by the Scripture are begotten into the words without the life and power That he that preaches the Doctrines of the Apostles and Prophets expressed in the Scriptures not having them by Inspiration as they and yet calls them the Word or Words of the Lord tells lies is a Thief and a Robber stealing the Prophets words c. and runs into other mens lines and labours That to follow the examples of the Church in those things which were commanded to them and practised by them under the Gospel or New-Testament-Administration is to commit Idolatry and to offend God by making to our selves Graven Images and Likenesses That to own and embrace the Scriptures for our Rule is Idolatry placing them in the room of Christ the Light within Concerning Christ. They hold That the Son of God is Christ and also that the Father or the Spirit is Christ as well as he That God or the Godhead only is the Christ That Christ is not of the Humane Nature or Man according to Adam's nature That the Body of Jesus the Son of Mary which died on the Cross without the Gates of Jerusalem was never nor is not an Essential Constitutive part of the Christ of God That the aforesaid Body is not now glorified and in Heaven and that it is not now alive That Christ was never seen with bodily eyes That Christ never died in a proper sense he being only God and so immortal That God is now manifested in the flesh as he was in the Son of Mary above 1600 year since That Christ hath Manhood but is not a Man of our nature That there is a heavenly Body of Christ consisting of Spiritual flesh blood and bones which came down from Heaven and dwelt in the Body that was born of the Virgin Mary and dwells now at least in every Quaker That every man hath a Light in him which is Christ the Eternal Word of God Concerning Christianity They hold That the Quakers only are true Christians and own the true Christ and all who own not and submit not unto the Light within as Christ are Infidels That those whom we call the Heathen have somewhat of Christianity because they have some justice and common naural Vertues although they believed not on Jesus the Son of Mary nor have any knowledg of him nor make any Profession of him to be their Lord and Saviour Concerning the Soul of man They hold That the Souls of men are a part of the Being of God of his very Life and Substance came out of God are no Creatures are Infinite in themselves and shall return into God again Concerning Redemption They hold That Christ came to Redeem the Seed which is no other but Christ himself That Christ before man's Conversion is the lost in man That the Redemption by Christ is to obedience to the Light within and thereby to Peace and Righteousness That we are not redeemed by what was done and suffered by the Son of Mary above 1600 years since and without us in respect of place That Christ
Israel know assuredly that God hath made the same Jesus whom ye have crucified both Lord and Christ Acts 3. 6. These were new Articles of their Creed without the belief of which they were such as had nothing to do with Christ as their Mediator Again the whole frame of the Administration was altered from Moses to Christ even the man Christ Jesus as well as God Hath in these last days spoken to us by his Son Heb. 1. 1. And Moses verily was faithful in all his House as a servant for a Testimony of those things which were to be spoken after but Christ as a Son over his own House Heb. 3. 5. We have now nothing to do with Moses Law as such and also the manner of Administration which is not in a multitude of carnal observancies types and resebmlances but in that way which is more real and more purely spiritual But the hour cometh and now is when the true Worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth John 4. 23. They were to worship him in spirit before for where the heart was not in the â—eremonial and typical worship they were not accepted and God never indulged hypocrisie The meaning must therefore be That spirit must be taken in opposition to those carnal Ordinances and the material Temple and Truth in opposition to thofe Types which were not a Lie but were only the shadows of good things to come I might enlarge to the Officers Offices and restrained § 8 Extent of the Mosaical Administration and shew that in all it is Alien to the Administration of Christ come and that wherein Christianity consists For if that Ministration which is done a way was glorious much more that which remaineth is glorious 2 Cor. 3. 11. Now to resume the intent of what I have said § 9 observe that neither the natural light and practices of Heathen nor the revealed light law and practices Judaical were Christian as such though the latter a great part of them had a respect to Christ and the medicinal and remedying part of Religion And the Jews who were immediately before the Church of God yet when the Administration was changed they were cut off from the Church though they retained their Morals and those Ceremonial Respects to an expected Messiah if they did not admit into their Creed or Faith the Articles aforesaid viz. a Christ come That Jesus who was crucified was the Christ and that he was the Supreme Head and Administrator to the Church of God and those who did so were transmitted into the Christian Church the other being dissolved Having expressed with what brevity I could SECT III what Christianity as such is I shall in a few lines give an Account what I intend by the term Quakerism I do not mean thereby that all that are called and reputed Quakers are no Christians for my charity is large enough to believe That many of them would abhorr the Principles of their Leaders did they but well understand them for whose sakes in part I have undertaken this Discovery Quakerism is a Heap of Tenets with the usurped Names of true Christian Principles which are yet really no such things but subverting both Foundation and Fabrick of Christianity And I call him a Quaker that professes the Light within every man to be the only Lord and Saviour and very God So that when I say Quakerism is no Christianity I do not say that common Civility Justice among men or whatever of their principles or practices which are morally good for these are generally owned as the principles of those Christians whom they separate from and bitterly reproach as Antichristian And it cannot be for want of Instructions or Examples in such kind of goodness that they withdraw from the serious Professors that are as far from their opinions as the East is from the West CHAP. II. The Beginning of Quakerism different from and opposite to Christianity THe first Argument which I shall begin my attempt SECT I with shall be from the beginning of Quakerism which I shall take notice of under two Considerations First The manner of the beginning of Quakerism Secondly The time of its beginning Both of which I shall prove exceedingly to oppose and differ from the beginning of Christianity The Christian Religion or Christianity was first § 2 introduced by the preaching of the promised Messias to be come into the world whose humane Nature was pointed at by John the Baptist and visible to the bodily eyes of a multitude of beholders The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him and saith of the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world This is he of whom I said after me cometh a man which is preferred before me for he was before me But Quakerism was introduced by preaching a § 3 Christ within every man born within every man which was never seen with the bodily eyes of any man and this Testimony of John concerning the true Christ perverted for the maintaining of their feigned Christ And as you give up to that measure of light in your Morning-Watch p. 41 own Consciences and wait to be guided by it and exercised in it you will know Christ revealed within you whom you are looking for without you and put his day far off from you and so you live in want of him and know not how to come to him nor the place where to find him but live in the dreamings and night-visions and have a talk of him and what he hath done for you and so spend your precious time in slumbring and dreaming c. This Quakers Text will bear a large Comment but I will take notice of that only which is to the present purpose Here is preached a Christ within in opposition to and contempt of a Christ without which John preached and that faith and hope of the Saints which according to the Scripture are the substance of things not seen and the evidence of Heb. 11. 11. things hoped for reproached as a slumbring fancy and a nocturnal dream But if you would infallibly be convinced of the gross darkness wherewith this sort of men are benighted or their palpable dishonesty in abusing the Holy Scripture weigh the following instance out of the preceding Author Then God sent him John to bear witness to the § 4 light which in him was made manifest that all in Morning-Watch p. 5. the light might believe and he called unto others to behold him and said he was the Lamb of God and was to take away the sins of the world Least you should mistake him and gâ—â—ss that a man that could but write his name should not have so little wit or modesty as to expound that Text of Scripture after this sort he quotes chapter and verse John 1. 9. and the next word is mark in a Parenthesis lest his folly should not appear to all men who should have the hap to read him And moreover at the close of the
and of that enough to prove me so There is a passage of Willam Pen's either in his Book called Sandy foundation c. or else The Spirit of Truth c. which is this at least the matter of it That Christ is most eminently the Word all will agree or none will deny I have not time to look it But I shall say thus much to antidote that fancy That that is most eminently the Word of that species about which we contend which is most properly so though other considerations may render Christ the Word more eminent in another kind and not that which is sometimes but improperly so called Christ is called a Lion a Door 'T is true Christ as God is more eminent than all things beside in Heaven and Earth and we use to say and do not yet repent it that all uncompounded good things are eminently in God So as there is strength and courage in a Lion with respect to strength and courage Christ may be said to be eminently most eminently strong and couragious but to be the most eminently a Lion would be a strange and untrue expression of Christ For Forma dat esse and he that is without the form that gives the being cannot be so eminently such as the meanest that hath the true form And that the Word Christ is only so analogically I have shewed and the definition of a Word in the second Chapter I desire Mr. Pen to consider better next time and not think every body else not a hairs breadth beyond his size A third Scripture I am willing to explain to fence SECT VI the weak against the Quakers seductions is 2 Pet. 1. 19. We have also a more sure word of prophecy whereunto ye do well to take heed as unto a light that shineth in a dark place until the day dawn and the day star arise in your hearts This more sure word of prophecy compared with a voice from Heaven which Peter James and John heard expressed in Verse 17. is by Peter affirmed to be rather to be credited than that or any other immediate Revelation By the more sure word of prophecy is meant those prophecies written in the Old Testament which are called verse 20. Prophecy of Scripture and are called The light that shineth in a dark place as Prophecies shine but with a dim light yet are welcom and give some light comparatively with Providences which are the fulfilling of those Prophecies The dawning of the day and the day-star arising in their hearts cannot be meant of Christ known and received by faith to salvation and sanctification too in some measure for so he was risen in their hearts when the Apostle wrote this or else he would not have said them to have obtained like precious faith with him and others the Apostles and Saints which he doth in verse 1. as the direction of his Epistle I therefore conclude that the sense is this He exhorts § 2 them to be intent on the Propheciâ—s whether verbal or figurative which had respect to not only the coming of the Messiah which they believed already but also the abolishing of the Mosaical Rites and constituting in their room the spiritual and Gospel-administration till thereby they were convinced of that truth which is called the dawning of the day and the day-star with respect to its light and beauty and reality above the Mosaical Ceremonies and Rites which were but dim night-stars in comparison or till they were convinced that the day of the Gospel-realities was come and so the night-shadows of the Law to be done away .. The grounds I have for this Exposition are these § 3 added to the former Peter the Pâ—n-man of this Epistle is said to be the Apostle to the Circumcision as the Gospel of Circumcision was to Peter And Gal. 2. 7. therefore we may gather that those to whom he wrote were Jews whom the Scripture speaks to be zealously addicted to the Law of Moses And this is farther confirmed by his direction of them to the heeding of the Scripture-Prophecies which few but the Jews were acquainted with or did own as worth the heeding except the converted Gentiles of whom there was no danger that they should Judaize unless moved thereunto by such of the Jews as needed this conviction This to me is sufficient I leave the grounds for others to consider One Text more I shall weigh and then I judge I § 4 have done enough to satisfie those that are willing how the Quakers abuse those Texts which are not so easily understood as some others to their own and others destruction To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among Col. 1. 27. opened the Gentiles which is Christ in you the hope of glory From hence they conclude they have very Christ his Being and Essence within them It will not be easily refuted that the hope of glory is to be understood to be in them which being a hope in Christ the crucified Jesus was such a mystery as the Gentiles called foolishness But we preach Christ 1 Cor. 1. 2. crucified to the Jâ—ws a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness For Christ to be in them rightly understood would be no such hard matter for the Gentiles to believe who understood Metonymical phrases very well as to believe such a glory to be attained by faith in and obedience to the Laws of a man who died as a Malefactor and that this death of his should reconcile God to man with the addition of such a purchase But because it is a truth that Christ is in Believers I shall therefore say that which with the blessing of the Lord to a willing mind to be instructed will prove convincing First The man Christ that was nail'd to the § 5 Cross the Quakers do not believe to be in them nor that he hath a being or life nor can he be in them in his person as a man if they had a sounder faith For the God-head of Christ that is with respect to his Being and Essence is every where and every where alike Do not I fill heaven and earth saith the Jer. 23. 24. Lord So that with respect to the infinite Being of God who comprehends all things he is in every thing at all times and nothing can be void of his presence So that if this be it you mean the Saints have no more priviledge than any other creature whatsoever But it remains that Christ is in his people by his graces wrought by his Spirit which is his Image and Likeness by his love which hath a uniting nature to its object as we say such are one who love dearly Every man is where he loves more than where he lives And so also where he is beloved for that will make him frequently thought on and a man to be sensible of his good or hurts as if he himself enjoyed the one or suffered the other And he is said to