again when they have done yet was it a gift obtained in the way of such active obedience to God as by the said Law or light of God in the heart men stand obliged to and to be coveted and desired and was given in a certain way that ye are so far out of that ye hate it of holy waiting on God and learning of him alone in silence in all subjection in order thereunto for which work there are now as there were of old but those are not Oxford and Cambridge Vniversities as it were Schools and Nurseries of young Prophets at Iericho and Bethel alias by interpretation the House of God where Truth and true Wisdom and true Religion was and is learnt as truly and fully as it is falsly taught or rather fully and universally forgotten at our now Vniversities or Nursing-mothers of that Wisdom and Religion from beneath which is but earthly sensual or animal and deceitful See 2 K. 2.7.15 2 King 6.1 2 K. 9.1 yea in order to Gods manifestation of himself to men in such wise as he will not to World that lyes in wickedness it 's required that men keep his commandments so far as they are made known already in the light in the conscience Ioh. 14 and seperate themselves from the sensual ones that have not the spirit and not together with them from the truth Prov. 18.1 2. and that they come out of all that defileth and become holy for no defiled thing falls into Wisdom but in all ages this as well as any of old though ye own none to be now in rerum natura entring into holy souls she maketh them friends of God and Prophets Wisd. 7.23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30. But the reason why so few Priests are ever made true Prophets is because for the most part they are more prophane then other people from of old and much more now insomuch that as heretofore I mind at present but two of all that numerous Tribe Race and Party of Priests that the Jewish Church was fill'd with that became Prophets viz. Ieremiah and Ezekiel Ier. 1. 1. Ezek. 1.3 So now velduo vel nemo of all sorts of persons few or none of our Academical Levitical Race of Rabbiâ—s arrive to so much honour and happiness as to become obedient to the Faith yet so far many of them came in the primitives times notwithstanding I can't find that ever any of them commenced Prophets Evangelists or Apostles much less are many to be found so highly graduated as to become such in the true Church or School of Christ at this day they are not upon the Tower upon their Watch toward the Light They hearken not with Habbakkuk to what God saith in them Hab. 2.1 They stand not in the Lords counsel nor receive the word from his own mouth but as the false Prophets of old Ier. 23. in which respect they were false Prophets that profited not at all and such as God was against though speaking true words they steal the word they speak out of the true Prophets Writings whom God sent and spake to when he neither sent nor ever said the same unto them and so run crying Thus saith the Lord as ours do hear the Word of the Lord as you shall find it in such a Text such a Chapter such a Verse when they never heard God's voice at any time themselves nor saw his shape They hate and fight against Gods own counsel the Light in the Conscience which would lead them to purity in their own persons and so never come to see much less to shew his Secret which is onely with them that fear him Psal. 25. whose sear which is the beginning of Wisdom is to depart from the evil which the light discovers and so as none can bring a clean thing out of an unclean so none can receive much of a clean thing into an unclean But as Isaiah who was of unclean lips had his lips first toucht and his iniquity taken away before he was sent of Gods errand Isa. 6. And Ieremiah was sanctified to the work of Prophesie Ier. 1. So there must be more Holiness of Truth found among their Holinesses the Pope and all the Priests and Praters for pay thorowout all Christendom before they know how to prophesie themselves or tell truly as much as they are found from the Text of their Transcripts tatling to the World of what they know not how and in what manner Gods Prophets prophesie Thou addest I.O. pag. 6. That in writing they were not enabled by any habitual light knowledge or conviction of Truth to declare Gods mind and will but onely acted as they were immediately moved by him their hand in what they wrote was no more at their own disposal then the Pen in the hand of an expert Writer And p. 23. That no rational Apprehensions had any place in their Writing And p. 25. That this was the first spring of the Scripture and beginning of its emanation from the Counsel of God it was brought by the Power of the Holy Ghost into its Organs and Instruments us'd for the Declaration of it and that it was not left to their understandings wisdoms minds memories to order dispose and give it out But that they were born acted moved to write all and nothing but that to every tittle that was so brought to them And that they invented not words themselves but the words were immediately supplyed to them and that in writing they were but passive instruments for the reception and representation of words And that every Apex of the written Word i.e. Writing secundum te was as immediately from God to the writers as his voice in the Prophets p. 26 27. And p. 7. That they were but as an Instrument of Musick giving a sound according to the hand onely of him that strikes it Rep. These things are false being written by thee of all the Writings and first Writers of the Scripture universally as they are without exception and distinction for so indistinct and confused art thou in thy delivery of thy mind about the Bible that though it be a Bulk of Heterogeneous Writings compiled together by men taking what they could find of the several sorts of Writings that are therein and trussing them all up into one Touch-stone crouding them into a Canon or Standard for the trial of all Spirits Doctrines Truths and by them alone Yet thou speak'st so Homogeneously of it as if whatever can be predicated of any may be as properly predicated of it all yea whatever thou sayest falsly of the Writing thou denominatest the self-same of it all and every Apex and Tittle yea every Tittle and Iota with thee is no less then the Word of the great God wherein the â—ternal concernment of souls lyes p. 168 169. And so every part of it a Rule and the perfect Rule for so 't was with thee when there were none but Moses five Books and 't is but so with thee now so much
is added So every Apex equally Divine and as immediately from God as any of it yea and as the voice whereby he spake in the Prophets pag. 27. But I say as written by thee so universally of the Writers and meer Writing of the Scriptures as they are they are for the most part as false as that foregoing and that I have said above concerning the Writing of much of the Scripture at first as it stands in your Bibles by Scribes that wrote either out of other Copies or from the mouths of men more immediately inspired or from what was commonly reported and generally believed and what they had heard as delivered to them by more immediate eye and ear witnesses and what they retain'd in their memories and some way or other comprehended beforehand may stand as a sufficient Answer to this parcel also wherein according to thy wonted habitual darkness ignorance and contradiction to the Truth thou deniest the Pors-men and holy Prophets in their Writings to be enabled to declare and write what they wrote by any habitual light knowledge or conviction of the Truth As if they wrote what they neither saw nor heard nor knew nor believed to be true but besides all sight and understanding discerning mental conception meditation Rational Apprehension Faith or any manner of Antecedent comprehension of the truths they told as if they were all acted and us'd in the Writing of every Tittle by the Lord just no otherwise but as a Musical Instrument in a man's hand or the Pen itself by an expert Writer which can yeeld no more then a meer passive concurrence having no principle of life within it self from whence to act any thing at all or to move a hairs breadth in any business but as it 's mov'd or as some stark dead Corps which can neither stir nor stand but as extrinsecally born up and carried forth because deest aliquid intus Whereas as I have shew'd above some of them wrote not by immediate inspiration or bringing of the things into their minds so by the spirit but mediately that is from the mouths or writings of such as received the truths more immediately as they were inspired wrote as they also spake no other things then what by some means or other they beforehand comprehended no other then what they heard and saw and believed and retained in their minds and memories whereinto the spirit of truth and the truths he guided them into which the world receives not were both received conceived and entertained yea and I here add no other then such as in the same light were more or less seen known understood and believed before any Scripture at all was though 't was by the same way then which I know no other that the Scripture speaks of of knowing God or Christ viz of internal spiritual Revelation Matth. 11.27 Ioh. 6.47 1 Cor. 2.9 10 11 12. Gal. 1.16 Did Paul believe or witness or write any other things when he wrote with his own hands what was immediately revealed in spired into him by the same holy spirit then what by the same spirit in which and no other way all the things of God are known and ever were holy men of God believed owned witnessed wrote and both in their Writings and Speakings acknowledged to be the truth see Act 24.14 26.22 23. 2 Cor. 1 13. 4.13 Did he write any other things then what they to whom he wrote might and did read elsewhere even in the light and spirit within themselves and did thereby acknowledge to be the truth And did not he himself before he wrote them in the movings of the spirit acknowledge them to be the truth himself And did he in the light in which he liv'd and saw them acknowledge them to be the truth and yet was not enabled by any habitual Light knowledge or conviction of the truth to declare them in writing as he did but wrote as one ignorant in the dark unbelieving and unconvinced of the truths he wrote and as senselesse unintelligently and passively without any active obedience to the spirit pressing him or yeelding any but a meer passive influence and concurrence of his rational faculties in the worker as a meer dead thing that is utterly devoid of all kind of life motion or principle of Action within it self and uncapable of any action at all or motion but as it is acted ab extra by some forensical force or compulsion as a Musical Woodden instrument or a pen by the hand of the writer what a weak crooked crazy piece of conception of Scripture in this of thine of which I may truly say there was not so much active concurrence of the rational faculties of the Scribes in their writing of the Scripture but there is as little in this of thine who writest as if all the Prophets of God that ever spake and wrote what of his minde they received from his own mouth by standing in his counsel and hearkning to what he said in them and waited on him to know and understand his will and word first that they might do it in the particular in their own persons and as moved or commanded in obedience to him declare it to others were absolutely and meerly as passive as Balaams Ass was whose mouth miraculously was opened and his minde indued with rational faculties supernatural to him as he was a Beast to Reason out the case with his unrighteous Master and to reprove the madness of that Prophet and as meerly passive in their work of Prophesie as Caiphas the High Priest was whose mouth was opened to speak truer than he was aware of and to prophesie of a thing out of his irrational faculties that was as high above the reach of the best rational faculties he had being a man degenerate from pure perfect reason and in the fall as fallen mans best reason is above the brute beasts of the field for as Herod and Pontius Pilate did with wicked hands the things that God before determined should come to pass fulfilling the Prophets words in slaying Christ little thinking they served the truth as they did in it as the Assyrian in the like case they meant not so nor did their heart think otherwise than to destroy Isa. 10.5 6 7. Act. 4.27 28. Act. 3.17 18. Act. 13.27 28 29. So that Priest with a wicked heart intentionally to counsel them to murther Christ had his mouth prepared to Prophesie a precious truth which as so he spake not of himself so as one that had the light knowledge or conviction of the truth but besides himself as the Ass in the other case Numb 22.28 29 30. Joh. 11.29 50 51 52 53. Joh. 10.14 Whereas most evident it is that the holy men of God who wrote any part of the Scripture by immediate inspiration with their own hands to let pass that which some wrote for and from them as dictated to by their mouthes were in the light sight knowledge prae-conviction comprehension
the Spirit by such as lived and walked in the Spirit and were in all they did led by the Spirit to some private Christians about some worldly Affairs as that of Paul to Philemon Some by Chief Captains to their Presidents and by Presidents to their Princes about Prisoners and Tumults and divers other sorts of passages So that as written in the Spirit the Holy Scriptures may be said to be Homogeneous Writings all of one kind but in respect of the several businesses written of therein they are at Heterogeneous I a body or bulk of as various Writings as any extant in the World-besides them Now by the Scriptures I mean these Writings that contain the matters abovesaid and many more and not the matters themselves therein contained And if thou mean by the Scriptures any other things then the Scriptures themselves as like a Reed shaken with the wind thou seemest sometimes to do and again sometimes not to do and which things the Scriptures are not or by any other things which are not the Scriptures when thou speakest of them viz. the Law Word of God the spiritual Light c. meanest the Scripture as sure enough thou dost well-nigh throughout thy confused discourses and disputations about it then thy meanings are too mean to be any otherwise at all then meanly accounted on among any that mean honestly and plainly and know the Truth as it is in Jesus By us when we talk of the Scriptures to use thy own words onely vice versa Ex. 1. Sect. 26. non sanctissima ista veritas seu materia Scripturarium sed scriptura formaliter considerata intenditur honestly and plainly we intend that onely which is so even the form of writing it self and not the matter or holy truths of the Scripture the Scripturam and not the Scriptum or at most the Litteram Scriptam not the rem scriptam not the Verbum Scriptum the Declaration and not the Doctrine declared the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the letter in the oldnesse of which thou art yet serving who knowest not the newness of the spirit the Scripture or Writings of the Prophecy and not the Prophesie of or contained in the writing nor the Prophetical VVord the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the writing for so the word is there translated truly 2 Chron. chapter 21. not the VVord Written or word of Prophesie that came to Elijah and was sent in a Writing to the King which thou falsly sayest p. 12. that Hebrew word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is used for in that Text and every wise man that is truly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 especially in a dispute where the Question is whether the writing of the Word of God be the Word of God Written of or no while sub judice lis est will till the thing in debate one way or other be clearly determined remember still to keep these two things as two asunder So thou dost thy self while thou art well in thy wits witness thy words above cited by myself Ex. 1. S. 28. where thou puttest a plain difference between the Scripture it self formally considered and the most Holy Truth or matter therein delivered yea when ever thou keepest in any measure of sober-mindednesse thou keep'st these two as distinct in thy discourse as the two sticks of Iudah and Ioseph Ezek. 37 19 17. that were superscribed with two several superscriptions vouchsafing to each its own proper name and not communicating the name of either unto the other but clearly dividing between them so as that any one may see thou thy self dost not believe one of them to be the other nor yet darest affirm them to be Synonymous witness p. 12 13. where thou makest them two and writest of one of them all along as in contradistinction to the other in these Terms viz. not the Doctrine in it but the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it self The Providence of God no lesse concerned in the preservation of the writings then the Doctrine contained in them the Writing it self being the product of his Counsel for the preservation of his Doctrine Satan hath no lesse raged against the Book then against the Truth contained in it it was no lesse crime of old to be Traditor libri then to be Abnegator fidel which sour last Assertions of thine though they are all four false tales for Providence is not so much concerned to preserve the Writings as the Doctrine neither is the Writing so necessary for the preserving of the Doctrine that as thou there hintest it must it must needs perish if the Writings perish for it was before them and may be without them and will be after them Neither thirdly is the malice of Satan so much against the Book called the Bible as against the Doctrine of the truth for he is willing to let hypocrites alone long enough to carry gaudy Bibles under their arms so be they serve him and abide not in Christs Doctrine nor in the Truth the Scripture tells of neither 4ly is it or ever was it so great a Crime to betray the Book called the Bible as to deny the Faith and the Word of Faith therein written of for the Book is not worth a Pin as to salvation without the Faith but the Faith is sufficient thereto without the Book and was so before the Book was witnesse the Worthies from Abel to Moses whose sufficient faith is written of Heb. 11. and would be if the Pope and the Devils rage should reach so far as to burn all the Bibles in the World so here 's four utter untruths asserted together neverthelesse as they are Tru-lies yet are they true enough to serve the truth I here summon them in proof of viz. that thou thy self who countest it as bad not to be as trusty to the Bible as to the Truth that 's in it as it is to betray the Truth and deny the Faith dost deny the Book or Scripture the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Writing to be one and the same with the Faith Truth and Doctrine or the Doctrine to be the Writing or that these can truly be denominated each of other I say then that here being more sober minded as to thy discerning between the writing and the written verity though drunk enough elsewise to lay so many lyes or at least so many tales that are not true upon the top one of another in so small a space as one short Section thou art freely willing fairly to distinguish them into two Yea further yet that thou dost not judge these two to be one it may appear plainly to thy self or any that are free to peruse the places in the 16. and 17. Sections of the same first Chapter for if thou didst then in the enjoyment of the one thou wouldest be satisfied as
about the manner and means and true bounds thereof for as to the Question whether it be a Canon that is a Rule at all yea or not I may defer it also to another place let me Expostulate with thee I O. yet more about it yet how and by whom your Standard comes to be so Bounded as ye say it is and to be limited to those Demensions of Latitude Longitude and Profundity that ad amussim exact Measure Heighth Depth Length and Breadth that is allotted to it as without the Apocripha it stands bound up within your late bound Bibles I mean that such and such Parcels Prophesies Proverbs Histories Epistles Holy Sentences Sacred Sayings shall stand Owned Honoured Signed and Authorized with the Sacred High and Holy Titles of Gods Word Gods Witnesse Foundation Rule inalterable Standard and not one piece of Holy Writing more or lesse then those already so Consecrated and Canonized so that such and such puta those that ye now commonly call Canonical shall shand as the Standard and all others viz. those called Apocryphal and whatever are mentioned in that Scripture ye so own shall stand out of and off from it as no part of the Standard while the World stands Who was it Was it God or was it Man that set such distinct Bounds to the Scripture so as to say such and such a set number of Books viz. Those those that are sum'd up together before your Bibles excepting the Apocrypha which stands between them shall be owned as Canonical and the rest though such as were of the same divine Inspiration be rejected as humane and no otherwise accounted on then other meer mens Writings not to be received with such high respect as the other Whence hast thou this Conceit that God himself Commanded the Close of the Canon of the Old Testament to be Malachi and the bounds of it to consist of such Books of the Prophets as ye now have exclusively of such Prophesies therein mentioned as ye have not and the Close of the Canon of the New to be the Revelation and the bulk of it to be those few Histories and Apostolical Epistles as ye have exclusively of such even therein mentioned as ye have not Who was it that said to the Spirit of God O Spirit blow no more inspire no more men make no more Prophets from Ezra's dayes and downwards till Christ and from Iohns dayes downward for ever But cease be silent and subject thy self as well as all Evil Spirits to be tryed by the Standard that 's made up of some of the Writings of some of those men thou hast moved to write already and let such and such of them as are bound up in the Bibles now used in England be the only means of measuring all Truth for ever Who was it God or Man the Spirit in the Scripture it self or the Scribes in their Synods Councels and Consistories that so Authorized or Canonized these and expunged those Was it not meer Men in their Imaginations Doth the Scripture do the Spirit and the Apostles therein give any order for or make any such mention in the least of such a matter Is it not meer man in his Imaginations that hath taken upon him according to the good or ill Conceit that he hath taken to him of these or those respectively to say which thou sayest is a Contradiction to say he will give Authority to the Scriptures Is it not man in his proud mind that comes in with his sic volo sic Iubeo so I 'le have it thus it shall be Saying to the Books of Scripture as God sayes to the Waves of the outward Ocean hitherto shall ye come and no further So many of the Prophets and Apostles Writings shall be in the Authority Nature Vse and Office of the Supream Determiner of all Truth for ever and all others even such as are written by the same men in the motion of the same Spirits shall be but as common mens Writings and be look'd on afar off as Apocryphal i.e. hidden or unknown Writings that no such notice shall be â—aken of as of the other And as for the Books which ye sprinkle with that Name of Apocryphal and give leave to to have a standing with it but not so as to make any part of your Standard What think ye of them upon second Thoughts Are they fit for nothing but to be Cashiered and cast out of your Canon by whole sale by Tradition one from another without trying them Is there nothing among them that may be judiciously Iudged to be of as divine an Original and Authority as some of those particular Letters to private men as that of Paul to Philemon about private personal or Domestick matters which ye own in such a transcendent manner as ye do Surely if some of hem be fictitious or fabulous or but humane so that ye will say no better of them then Vox hominem sonat yet is there none or nothing among them all that is to be noted or counted upon as of divine Authority and Original and of as self-evidencing Efficacy as some of those ye own None that ye can see cause to sign meliore lapillo with some better Name then ye vouchsafe them and standing in the Church then ye allow them As if they were a certain mongrel seed between that of Canaan and Ashdod that ye know not well what to make of nor how to entreat so ill altogether as not to afford them a middle place in some of your Bibles between the Old Testament Writings and those ye call the New nor yet so well as to entertain them into your Canon neither Surely there be some of them which when ye look them over again not so cursorily as to over-look them as ye ordinarily do ye may find ground to receive as such as have as fair a stamp of the beaming Majesty Truth Holinesse and Authority of God and his Spirit as some at least not to say the most of those ye ascribe to God as their main or only Author and that do favour as much of I. O's so much insisted on Theo-pneusty as some other Historical Doctrinal and Prophetical parts of your acknowledged divinely derived Scripture do of which what Infidels soever ye are as concerning them yet I together with many others whereof some are as Booklearn'd as your selves can say Credo Equidem nec vana Fides genus esse Deorum 'T is indeed the Faith or rather Infidelity of such as call themselves Reformed Churches that all those Books called the Apocrypha without exception are in no wise of such divine Original as them ye call Canonical but who first set the one upon the Bench and the other at the Bar I am yet to learn but this I know that howbeit ye second their depression and digradation of the one so far below the other yet as neither one nor t'other were ever Canonized by God himself if we speak of the Outward Text only about which
purpose howbeit sometimes again I O tells us truly enough that what ever means God appoints to any end it is sufficient thereunto and thereupon not imperfect but perfect and so fearing belike to loose his Word and Doctrine and not knowing any other way all others failing save that of Pen and Inke in his Providence betook himself to that way of Writing which Providence also saw it self concerned to this day to preserve entire Copies to a Tittle of all that Writing much of which yet is lost both to reduce men to a Consideration of it self in that one particular and also that his Word not a jot of which I confesse can ever fail though all Writing in the World come to perish might be secured for ever from perishing and altering by that most alterable and perishing way of Writing which if it should happen to be all lost he had no way to save his Word Doctrine and sacred Truth from dying irrecoverably by a very dreadful and mortal Distemper pag. 314. So seems I.O. summarily to say out of the sacred Secret of Gods Councel which was never with any save such as fear him more then I. O. does whose Position of it Credat Apella So Pag. 14. God by his Providence preserving the whole Text entire suffers lesser variety to fall out in or among the Copies we have for the quickning and exercising our diligence in our search into his Word Reply O nescio quo horrendo percusse Sentomate Whence came this whiffe and whimzy within the Circumference of thy Figmentitious Fancy Who told thee this Toy which thou preachest out for positive Truth Dost thou teach this for a true Doctrine of Christ if so from what Text Or wilt thou own it to be but a meer Tale of thy own a Tradition of I.O. which it thou wilt then own it that in vain thou worshippest God while thou art Teaching for Doctrine thy own Thoughts and the Traditions of thy self or any other men Thou talkest sometime at such a rate as if thou wouldst make all the World believe the variety of our Copies were absolutely none at all no not in the leaft not in one Apex Tittle Iota not in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which how contradictory it is to or consistent with that lesser variety here talk'd on who is so silly save I. O. whos 's own silliness and self Confoundings are never seen by himself as not to see But to let passe that ordinary matter of self-contradiction sifh it s as Common with thee almost as to Talk at all and to take it as it falls Is this the end why God who as thou sayest who knowest not whether thou hast the half or no of what was by Inspiration written preserved the whole entire suffered that variety that is in your Copies to quicken your diligence in your Search into his Word If that be the end as indeed it may well enough be of the total losse of so much of the Letter as there is and non-Integrity nor Indentity of your Transcript Texts that remain that ye should diligently search into his Word it were happy for you that there 's so much variety and uncertainty as there is in your Copies and nere the worse had you none of them at all so ye would betake your selves to the Hearing of the Word of God and the receiving it more immediately and purely from his mouth which the Letter of it tells you is nigh in your own hearts and mouths â—o that ye need not go any where ad extra for it that ye may both hear and do it But alas poor men by the Word ye mean the Letter still the External Text or Writing of it and then so far is your so diligent searching and poring and striving and scribling one to another as the Scribes of old did Iob. 5. that never heard the Voice and Word of God it self from being any end of God at all in giving it out at first or in deriving that part of the Scripture ye have down to you whether fully the same with or falsified from the first Copies that he loaths and detests your long Tales about its Tittles and your idle Treating away your pretious time in such Trivial talk as this That the whole Word of God and all saving Doctrine and sacred Truth is lost and fails for ever without Relief Remedy or Recovery if every Tittle of the Text without losse or variation be not upheld and preserved Entire to this day which yet is some not to say the sum of that unsound Doctrine the proof of which is driven on by thee I. O. As in pag. 18. 314. and many other Pages is to be seen throwout thy Book as well as by other Doctors and Divines So Pag 34. speaking of the Scriptures uncontroulably manifesting themselve so to be that on pain of eternal Damnation men are to receive them as the Word of God thou sayst that they afford unto us all the divine Evidence of themselves and that 's none at all as I shall shew anon of their being his Word which God is willing to grant us or can be granted us or is any way needful for us Reply Another odd Conceited saying this is as like thy self who urâ—erest thy self Doctor-like still as to thy usurped Authoritativenesse but seldom as to the truth of thy Assertions as if it were spit out of thy mouth Who told thee this Vntruth that thou so uncontrollably utterest here for truth that God is not willing to grant more divine evidence of the Scriptures being what thou falsly sayest they are or where they are indeed and that more neither can or need be granted then what the Scriptures themselves do afford sayest thou this of thy self or did others tell it thee of the Scripture of thy own head surely or very likely at least and neither from God nor the Spirit nor the Scriptures no nor the Synods nor the Congregational Churches of England to which thou belongest nor the Doctrinal Catechismes of late Divines for these thy brethren though erring with thee in stiling them the Word tell thee of another not humane onely but Divine Testimony or evidence that may be and is needful to be granted and that God is willing to and doth also grant of the Scriptures being what they call it beside that which thou here so absolutely assertest as the onely one that must or can be afforded viz. the Testimony of the Spirit of God in the heart and not that of the Scripture alone concerning itself or of the holy Spirit speaking without us ad extra onely in the Scripture which is the dream wherein thou drawest aside not onely from the truth but also if it were a truth that the Letter is Gâ—ds Word from the joynt Testimony of thy fellow Testifiers to it for they say the Testimony of the Spirit within us also not 〈◊〉 â—â—stimony without uâ— and onely in the Scripture divinely evidences the Scripture to be what
the New-Testament which is not of the Letter but the Spirit that Ministers and Testifies no more then what he hath meerly read in and stole out of the Letter and not what he hath seen felt heard and handled of the living Word inwardly in the spirit and further by thy own confession since thou saist the Apostles were not as other men are in their speakings and writings the figment and imaginations of whose hearts are the fountain of all they speak and ownest not thy self and thy fellows to be Apostles of Christ for thou deemest there are none so in these dayes but other men thou thereby ownest but speak for thy self and thy fellows however and not for all for we know some Apostles now as of old there were the figment and imagination of your own hearts to be the Fountain of all ye speak What need we further witness to this since we read it uttered from thy own mind and hand And lastly since thou sayest the Pen-men of the Scripture were so tyed up to the very individual words received by them and put into them by the holy Spirit And p. 25 26. were to deliver and write as all so nothing but that to every Tittle that was so brought unto them not altering nor adding c. of their own in their wisdoms and understandings it should seem then according to your own Principles that God gave out by them what was sufficient to guide men if outward Writing or Scripture was by him intended to be their Rule and if they themselves might not amplifie nor add nor enlarge nor comment upon the Word of God manifested by them in the Scripture by the exercising of their rational faculties but were to rest in so much as was revealed in them by the spirit and to others in Writing by them What need then is there of those infinite and endless odd Additions that the Doctors and Divines have made from generation to generation to the Scipture of their own voluminous inventions interpretations and as divided as devised Divinations extravagant Expositions incomprehensible Commentaries confus'd Contradictions Cantings one to another and to the world to the confounding of it with many more Humbles of their Senses Meanings Opinions Thoughts about the Bible then it can contain amounting in Bulk perhaps to a thousand times more then the Bible comes to And who gave you Text-men such a Liberty and Authority to take the Text and talk on it in your Wisdoms Wils Words and Vnderstandings opening amplifying paraphrasing prating out the plain truth as it there lyes so unprofitably to people in your own phrases to your own outward profit at your pleasure Did he that bounded and limited and hedg'd in the Writers saying according to thy sense hitherto thus far shall ye manifest my mind in Writing and no further lend you such a boundless latitude to prate out your own opinions and turn you loose and unmuzled in pratum vestrum ubi non est sepes Was not the mind of God in that Scripture given out by God himself full enough and plain enough at least in matters necessary to salvation for the meanest capacity to understand when it 's read to them in the words wherein it seemed good to the holy spirit and the holy Penmen to write it out without such a bottomless deal of adding amplifying and expounding as your excentrick Academical Exorcists make about it When Paul wrote to Timothy Titus Philemon and the Churches and Iohn to the Lady and Gaius and Luke his story of what Christ and the Apostles said and did were there need much more absolute necessity of a Priest to be sent for in all haste to open what they meant to such as they sent their Letters to in a tongue that they well understood And now the Scripture is translated into our own Mother-Tongue in England such as can read may read and understand it and such as can't read may have it read to them at their own Houses there being one or other in every House almost that can read now even very children if old folks cannot which being read is tenfold more plain in such places as pertain necessarily to salvation to every honest understanding and plain-minded man that is willing to do the will of God there written of then the costly Comments and manifold hampered handlings and more perplexize unfoldings of it that are made by our Schoolmen and Vniversity Theological Professors So that what more need then of old when the Letter came newly forth for a Priest to be placed in every Parish for pay to darken the counsel of God in the Scripture by his words without knowledge under a pretence of opening it or if it were an opening as it rather is a shutting of the Kingdom of Heaven against men as our Scribes Pharisees and Hypocrites like them of old manage that matter and use their Keys of Knowledge in another kind of manner then honest Peter What need of hundreds a year to be paid in Parishes for the opening of one or two Texts or Verses in a Week Or rather as some draw it out the talking on some one Text for a Month or a quarter of a year together against the Light and Spirit from whence it was written If those that wrote it might not meddle to say a little more as I.O. sayes in their Wisdoms though they were as spiritually fluent and learnt as National Ministers are spiritually ignorant It would be more useful then now it is through your miserable Mangonizations of it by your seâ—ces on open places if your Wisdoms would leave it as it is without making out your misty meanings on it to poormen for so much money J. O. Thou addest That the declaration of the New Testament gave out the minde and will of God in a way of morel's eâ—â—y and glory without that dread and terrour which was peculiar to the Old and to the Pedagogit thereof in which the coming of the word had oftentimes such a greatness and expression of the Majesty of God upon it as filled them with dread and reverence of him Hab. 3.16 and also greatly affected even their outward man Dan. 8.27 Rep. Here thou talkest again like thy self like a man ignorant as thou art for all thy high conceit of thy self of the Scriptures thou art scribling so for and of the things therein declared both before and since Christ which two Termes thou countest the times of the Old Testament and the New and so they figuratively are howbeit as to the thing it self which is yet far above out of thy sight the Gospel had children from Adam to this day under Moses his out outward Pedagogie and the Law whose children are of the Bond-woman and not Heirs according to the promise with the children of the Free hath its children as well since that juncture of Christs Incarnation as before And as for thy inconsiderate position concerning the peculiarity of dread and terrour in receiving of the word from
Paul said no other things then what Moses and the Prophets said should come John Baptist came for a witness to bear witness of the light that all through him might beleeve God sayes If the Israelites observe not all the words of the Law written in that Book of Deuteronomy he would make their Plagues wonderful Christ expounds to his Disciples all the Scriptures in Moses and the Prophets concerning himself bids Search the Scriptures as testifying of him Paul sayes Whatsoever was written afore time was for our learning that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope He says To write the same things to the Church is safe John sayes he writes his Epistles to the Saints that their joy might be full Therefore the outward Letter of the Scripture is the onely Rule of all faith and Divine worship and not the Light and Spirit of Christ ye only call to nor any internal Revelation whatsoever ficta vel facta In which of all these Scriptures the Title and Authority of the only most perfect standing Rule of Faith Life and Worship is either expresly or by any true mediate much more any immediate consequence ascribed to the Scriptures who can finde but he 's that not blinde There is but one of all the places viz. Gal. 6.16 where that term Rule is at all expressed by which as I have said and shewed above is not at all intended the Scriptures but Christ the Light and his Spirit and some of them mention expresly neither the term Scripture nor Rule 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and such as have in them terms equivalent to that of the Rule neither express nor imply at all the Letter of the Scripture as that of Psal. 19.7 8. and that of Isa. 8.19 20. and that of Rom. 10 17. and that of Eph. 2.19 20. where by the Law and Commandment and Testimony and Statutes of the Lord rejoicing the heart converting the soul enlightening the eyes making wise the simple is expressed the Lamp and the Light Prov. 6.23 and by the Word in the hearing of which Faith comes the Word hid in the heart nigh in the heart and mouth to hear and do Psal. 119.105 Deut. 30.12.14 Rom. 10.8 The Law in the heart Isa. 5 1.7 Psal. 37.31 The Law in the mind which the Law of sin and death in the members wars against Rom. 7.23 The Law of the spirit of life which is in Christ the life and light whose life is the light of men that made Paul free from the other Rom. 8.2 Which light shines in the darknesse that is in our very Doctors hearts but the darkness comprehends it not The Statutes of God and Judgements to be put into the minds of men according to the tenour of the New Covenant typified by the Old where the Statutes were with Pen and Ink written and engraven on Tables of stone and by the Foundation of the Prophets and Apostles Eph. 2. Christ the Light as is above declared and not the Writing and Letter and Text in which the internal truth is but ad extra declared and by that sure Word of Prophesie ' 2 Pet. 1. not the Scripture but somewhat within as I shall shew more abundantly by and by and by Moses and the Prophets Luke 16. Writings within as I shall shew anon All which were and were the onely perfect pure right inalterable standing Rule long before any external Text or Letter was and have not ceased so to be by the coming in of the outward writing with which they are since clothed upon nor yet have surrendered their ancient Authority of being the onely Rule by which all speakings and writings and doctrines are to be tryed nor resigned up that their Right to the Writing that testifies to their suprrmacy veracity and dignity above it self to this very day Nor have they submitted themselves that were once the chief Judge and Rule for the tryal of Truth to be now tryed ruled over judged sentenced and ultimately determined authoritatively to be received or rejected as true or false of God or the Devil Divine or diabolical Delusion Enthusiasme Figment Fanaticism and what nick-name men lift to stile them by in their learned lusts by the fallible Transcriptions Translations and Expositions of miserably mistaking men in which ways only and meerly some of that Scripture that was of old written by holy men as the spirit moved them is transmitted downward to these modern ages And as for those Texts that do make express mention of the Scriptures and outward Writings of the Apostles and of Moses and the Prophets and the Old Testament as Iohn 20. ult Luke 1.3 4. 16.29 Acts 1.1 2 Cor. 3.24 2 Tim. 3.14 15 16. do there is not the least considerable much less any cogent necessary or immediate consequence in any of them to conclude the outward Letter of the Scriptures to be the onely most perfect standing Rule Touchstone for all Truth to be tryed by so exclusively as I.O. states them Spiritus verbi Luminis cujuscunque tandem generis interni Revelatienis c. Of all inward Spirit Light Word or Revelation of what sort soever For what 's the vail's being over the Iews hearts in the reading of the Old Testament which Vail is done away in turning to Christ the Light to evince any such matter Doth it not rather evidence the very contrary For if the Old Testament which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Letter written with Ink or Pen or engraven on stones is as a Vail over the hearts of such as read it as the Iews do of whom I.O. sayes pag. 236. They read it without the administration of the Spirit so that its a dead Letter of no efficacy for the good of souls Which Vail is to be and is done away no otherwise then in Christ the Light and by turning to the Lord that Spirit as Paul sayes it is then doth it not rather appear that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Letter written and engraven outwardly is not the onely most proper standing Rule but Christ's Light the Spirit and the measure and manifestation thereof within given to every man to profit withal And what though Paul to Timothy doth commend the inspired Scripture if yet we shall take that for the outward Writing as profitable to make the man of God who onely knows how to use it wisely more and more wise and to furnish him perfectly to exhort c. and every good work against the gainsayers as I have shewed above that I deny not the outward Scripture so to be to such a one And what though Christ saies in order to escaping the place of torment Let men hear Moses and the Prophets if yet we shall take Moses and the Prophets for their outward Writings And what though John sayes Christ did more then he wrote of him as well he might For Matthew Mark and Luke wrote many things that he did not and others wrote other matters that were written by none of
perfect voluntary cause nothing but what is perfect is to be expected for nothing could hinder God being willing to reveal his will from revealing it perfectly but either because he could not which is not consistent with his infinite Wisdome and Omnipotency or because he would not which in no wise agrees with his goodness and grace therefore he hath given out a perfect Revelation of his will Reply This is the first medium whereby thou seem'st to thy self Artificially to have proved the minor of thy first Arâ—eficial Argument for the Scriptures being such an onely absolutely perfect Rule and Revelation of God and his Will that there 's now no need of any other way of Revelation either of him or it but all else whatsoever by his Spirit and Light within as in order to the knowing of God his Will and our duty to him and our obtaining eternal life beside the Scriptures are superfluous uselesse needlesse unprofitable fictitious and to be rejected as such with abhorrency and detestation And this minor of thy Prosyllogism should haue been thy expresse Conclusion in thy last Argument instead whereof being likely ashamed to infer it in its proper terms they are so fordid fottish false foolish blinde brutish beastly blasphemous grosly detestable and abominable thou entailest a conclusion at the tail of it which is not contradicted by any but aliud a negato quite another thing then that which is denyed yea even the same that we and all other men own viz. That God hath given out a perfect Revelation of his Will Which who doubts of Who denies but that God gives out his will certainly sufficiently to all men But whether that Revelation of his will be made to all men by a meer Letter without so certainly perfectly at this day that in order to knowing and doing it by every man savingly his Light and Spirit within is superfluous needlesse unnecessary uncertain and no less then fictitious and odious to assert needful which is the lye thou labourest to defend or by his Light Word and Spirit within certainly and perfectly sufficiently to every individual in order to his doing his own duty without an outward Letter or Writing as it was before any Writing was and is still where no such Writing is and no less so where such Writing is also which is the truth the Qua. maintain against thee this is the Question between thee I.O. and the Qua. which thou rovest and ramblest from making Premises which pretend to have Promises in them of proving thy absurd Opinion and then concluding at Random that which iâ— nihil ad Rhombum just nothing at all to thy purpose insomuch that as an old Cardinal that had been long absent from Rome going once to the Election of a Pope and seeing such shuffling and patching and and shifting and canvâ—sing ' and daubing doings in a business of such moment as the choice of the infallible Chair-man for the whole Church said no more but Siccine eliguntur Pontifices Romani and so took his horse and rode away turning his back upon Rome resolving never to see it more So seeing how little Logical the Theological Disputations of our Vniversity Doctors in Divinity are and what pinching and cutting and curtailing and serpentine twining and turning things upside down and shifting and shuffling to shut out the plain truth as held out to them by honest Country Qua. and to escape the force of the two edged sword of the Spirit or Word of God from wounding their hairy Scalp what moping and mincing and mangonizing there is among them who having left off to walk by Gods right Rules cannot walk well nor keep close to their own wrong Rules neither is it enough to make any well-meaning honest-hearted Countrified Schollars that have long discontinued from the Vniversities ashamed and sorry and sick to see such sorry doings at the Nursing Mothers and to say Siccine disputant Academici nostrates Do our Modern Doctors dispute thus at the Vniversities surely wee 'l never look after them more nor send our Sons thither to learn Logick or train them up there to know honestly and uprightly and rightly how to reason much less to make them Ministers of the Gospel But to let the illegitimacy of the conclusion pass and suppose it to have been expressed in its own due Terms let 's see how it will follow from those premises he infers it from that the Letter without the Light and Spirit within Memorandum still that he stiles those most blasphemously uncertain perillous unprofitable and in no wise necessary means of knowing Gods will and our duty and of coming to life and such as are to be rejected and detested as fictitious and counterfeit is the onely perfect Rule of Revelation of Gods will any more then from the self same premises it will follow contrarily to him that the Light and Spirit within are the only perfect certain sufficient Rule of Revealing Gods will without the Letter or Scripture without Surely had I.O. been Magister Avtis his Arts-master in this his Arteficial Argument he would have left it out altogether and not have urged it as he doth to the prejudice of his cause for it doth him ten times more detriment then advantage For whereas it is generally concluded among you all and by you two I.O. and T.D. my present Antagonists in particular as much by any thougâ— yet you both vilifie the the said inward Light what ye are able under the names of natural obscure darks dim low and to salvation insufficient principles and means of the Revelation of his will imagination figment Nescio quid nihil meer dictates of our own conscience blinde and corrupt that God declares and reveals himself his Soveraign Power Authority Righteousness Holiness good and evil many sins and duties and several divine Attributes and that indispensible moral obedience which he requireth of us as his creatures subject to his Law by some Light from himself and principles of conscience and his own voyce therein and those motions that are inlaid by his own hand in mens mindes and that they make a Revelation of him as to the purposes mentioned and shew the work of his own Law written in mens hearts and are able to plead their own divine original and discover their Author from whom they are and in whose name they speak even Gods without any other witnesses further evidence or reasoning without the advantage of any considerations but what are by themselves supplied without the least contribution or assistance from without Whereas I say all this is granted by you of the inward Light we plead for to be a â—erâ—ain profitable perfect sufficient Rule of knowing God and means of revealing of his will to us and our duty to him in order to life without a Letter against you who plead the Scripture and Letter only to be so without the inner Spirit and Light to say nothing how in effect the cause is little less than wholly
from it plead for it are proud of it yea who more busie about the Bible and in a more uncessant search of endless scraping for more the Scriptures then licentious luxurious lascivious ambitious unrighteous murderous envious maliciou lying persecuting Schollers and Bible-binders that hate light which reproves their evill deeds which those that love truth in the inward parts love and come to yea our professing Christians that say they are the Iews and are not but do lye and are the Synagogue of Satan are Iews in this pâ—iâ—t at least of searching Scripture and looking into the Letter for life which testifie of Christ as the life to whom they will not come in his own light that they may have it and of talking from the Letter of Christ the Son of God yet refusing to hear his voice when hee speaks to them in their own hearts and thereby leaves them without cloak for their sin and seeing and hating both Christ and his Father in the light that shews them as much as Christ and his children hate the Devil and his deeds Finally as the Text sayes every evill doer in the world hates the light but there are millions of evill doers that neither love nor hate the Letter nor the Bible which they never so much as saw or heard of therefore the Letter cannot be the light here spoken of men cannot hate that they have no way heard of as neither can they love or desire it for there is no odium toward that at all which is no way known at all neither savingly nor otherwise as there is ignoti null a cupido A word lastly to 2 Pet. 1.19 and then I have done at present with I. Os. whole dozen of his own chusing which agree altogether as one to give their Iudgement or juridical verdit against him As to this Text therefore which with the 20 and 21. vers is no less then nine or ten times over rehearsed one where or others in thy book I have had it so often under my eye that I have hardly forbore so long from talking with thee about it and there is yet a place behinde whereunto I thought I might have reserved the examination of it it being there urged with two more in the way thou callest Inartificial â—in proof of the Scriptures being the Word of God p. 65 66. But now I shall here consider it whilst it s under my hand where it s urged in vindication of the Letter to bee the Light which Letter if it be the Light there spoken of then I will yeeld it to be the Word of God there spoken of also for I shall grant its both of these if either and if it be not both thou must needs grant its neither the verse runs thus But we have a more sure word of Propesie or Prophetical word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to which ye do well to give heed as unto a light that shineth in a dark place untill the day dawn and the day star arise in your hearts And the two that follow it thus for no Prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation for the Prophesie came not at any time by the will of man but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the holy Spirit Rep. Thy often repetition of this Scripture upon every occasion imports the great stress thou puttest upon it and how great store thou settest by it as to the proof of the Scriptures being the Word of Prophesie and the light shining in the dark place of mens hearts here mentioned which Text with the Context both which thou improvest to the uttermost will sâ—rve us rather to reprove thy ignorance of Gods Word by and to prove thy heart to bee still a dark place then serve thee from which to prove the Scripture to bee the Word of God or to be the light here said to shine in the dark place there spoken of which is the heart Exitus acta probat From this Text considered together with the Context thou confidently concludest assertest and insistest on five things 1. That all the Scripture Letter or Writing in the original Texts of it which is now bound up in your Bibles and commonly called the Scriptures was written at fiâ—st by holy men as they were acted in it by the immediate inspiration of the Spirit of God and this I shall neither deny nor put thee to prove though if I should I see where thou wouldest falter and be foundred in it but to let that pass here this I am sure enough of that this place proves no such matter as that as t is above laid down neither in Terminis nor by Consequence for though it sayes holy men of God spake of old i.e. Prophesied as moved by the holy Spirit yet it from thence follows not that all that ever holy men of God wrote in point of History Chronicle c nor Prophesie neither was written by the same immmediate impulse of the Spirit on the spirits of the Penmen of all that is there for some was written from the mouth of such as were inspired by the hands of others that were not the men inspired nor moved to give forth the burden of the word of Prophesie that was on them as Baruch wrote from Ieremies mouth Tertius from Pauls and so others what they spake and was written by and from them was one thing and the Writing or Scripture of that true Word is another which yet I own to bee of God as far as ye can from it or any other rationally assert the Text to be even in matter of Chronicle or Story wherein men may possibly write true Scriptures of things done in their times and times before them from Records and other principles without that immediate inspiration or dictation of every Iota or Tittle to them as thou Tatlest somewhere from the holy Spirit of God And lest thou shouldest not take this for truth to me who am here in contest with thee being prejudiced against me hear what thy felâ—ow-fighter against the Qua. T.D. sayes for I can almost at any time as Paul did the Pharisees and Sadduces who when they were both upon the back of him threw a bone that set them together by the ears between themselves and so save himself add his testimony to the truth from them both Act. 23.6 7 8 9 10. set our Stribes Pharsees and Seducers at oddes within themselves and send them to learn the truth we tell and they will not take from us from the testimony of one another which T.D. saith it follows not that because Books are the Books of Prophets therefore they are divinely inspired for they might as well write from their own spirits or upon human credit as sometimes speak from their own spirits p 43. of his 1. Pamph. 2. That none of all the Scripture Letter or Writing aforesaid is of private interpretation that iâ— neither to be interpreted as meer private mens Writings written as other mens are p. 9. the figment and imagination of whose hearts are the foundation of all they speak And this I as readily grant they are not to be deemed as thine T. Ds and some other mens are who in your private narrow conceptions and thoughts of things thrust out what yee tkinke feign and fancy still to be truth though nothing so about both the Scriptures and many other matters for they are true Scriptures of holy publick spirited men who wrote or
caused to be written what was known and surely beleveed Luke 1.1 at least among Saints who were no liars if not all at the immediate motiâ—n of the Spirit they declared the things they had seen heard and witnessed within themselves to be the truth even when they wroâ—e from others in matter of Doctrine Prophesie or so and in Chronicle either immediately or from more credible testimony then I.O. and T.D. when they write at all adventure upon leastly hear-sayes from very goâ—d hands when the matters are in point of fact many if not most of them very lyes And in this sense thou strivest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be taken which thou sayest some think is put for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 19 20. and one Copy read◠〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by an evident error or mistake without ground and much more ado then needs thou there makest to have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 denote the writing of the Scriptures to be by men that were moved by the publick Spirit of God and not by mans private Spirit nor at his will but Gods which I grant and a little more too whether 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifie so much or not viz. That it neither is to be interpreted now it is so given forth at the Will of man or by mans private spirit or by our own coâ—siâ—â—ration of its sense and meaning p. 21. which sense I see thou wouldest fain exclude 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from bearing or having in any tollerable sense affixed to it and I cannot blame thee as thy principles are for else thou who deniest the presence and guidance of the infallible Spirit to all men in these dayes must cut off thy self and fellow Doctors Divines and Expositors of the Scriptures from medling much by your own conceptions thoughts understandings and wills to interpret open or give your senses and fancies on them by which craft you have your wealth but only alone by the publick Spirit of God which gave them out and only knows his own minde and meaning and reveals it to those that walk therein and not after the flesh as ye do For we saith Paul of himself and those Ministers have the minde of Christ 1 Cor. 2. So I give thee thy sense and more then thou wouldest willingly have as concerning the intâ—rpreting of the Scripture which men in their private thoughts are not to expound nor yet to deem it as meer private mens Writings Howbeit none of all this comes out of this place so clearly as thou conceivest for it speaks not of the Letter and Writing so much as thou in thy private spirit interpretest it to do but of the Truth or holy things written for whereas thou who doest not see that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is one thing and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is another takest the Prophesie of Scripture it intends the Prophesie it self that was as to the summe of it written but not the Writing that is of it which Prophesie whether written by the hands or spoken by the mouthes of holy men of God who live in the Spirit was not to bee interpreted as the written or spoken Doctrines of private men that speak and write from the conceivings of their own narrow private spirits the figment and imagination of whose hearts is the fountain of all they utter write or speake but as the undoubted infallible eternal truth of the living God made manifest in them which they wrote and spoke forth as moved by Gods publick holy Spirit 3. That the Letter Scripture or Writing ' or Copies of the original Texts as ye have them at this day are that Word of God called there the Word of Prophesie v. 19. 4. That they are a more sure Word in their evidence to us at least though not in themselves then any voice from heaven whatever yea then Gods own if hee should speak to us from heaven or then that voice by which hee spake from Heaven which Peter James and John heard when they were with Christ on the holy Mount 5. That the said Letter of the Scripture is the light said there to shine in the dark place of mans hearts with an eminent advantage to its own discovery as well as unto the benefit of others All which three last Assertions I not only deny to follow from this Text as I did the two first which yet I deny not the Truth of but do as much deny them all three or any one of them to bee Truth at all as I do absolutely deny all or either of them to bee possibly by any sound reason to bee deduced or inferred from this place and likewise affirm that measure of the Light and Spirit of God and Christ in the hearts and consciences of men which we bear testimony unto to be the more sure word of Prophesie and Light here testified to by Peter And the grounds of my denial of the one of these viz. That the Letter is it and of my affirming the other viz. that the Light is it are clear from two or three clauses of the Text it self which are proper and the very import of the phrases and truly and plainly agreeable to the Light or Spirit or Word of God within but not a tall true or proper or in truth agreeable to the Letter without if predicated thereof for First it is as much as I.O. jeers at the verbum seu lumen internum said to be the Word and Light within and so the Letter without is not if it were either the Word or the Light therefore it cannot bee the Letter ad extra which I O. labours for against the Light and T.D. also who p. 45. of his 1 Pamph. cotâ—s this same Text 2 Pet. 1 19. affirming the Scripture to be the sure word of Prophesie intended here but the Light ad intra wee stand up for against them both that which is said to be within is not intended of a thing that is without only as the formal Letter or the Scripture is formally considered according to its proper name and nature as I.O. dreams or that proper essential form quae dat effeci per quam Scriptura est id quod est which gives to it that very being whereby it is what it is but of something that is really within as the Light only is which the Litera scripta or Letter without declares of And that not the Letter or Scripture formally considered but that Word of God only and Divine
another that as the most must needs be false so 't is enough to confound and amaze mens minds they are so many to meddle to finde which is true among their meanings and to set a man out of his own senses to set himself so several are they to seek out their several senses on the Scriptures many bumbling Volumes larger then the Bible it self being written or some one Text of Sripture Is it for want of power or efficacy in the Letter Yea that is one reason for howbeit I.O. sayes It is absolutely called the power of God and effectual to salvation yet to his own confutation I. O sayes the Letter is dead and without the Spirit of no efficacy for the good of souls But another and that not the least is because they live in Rebellion against the light which while they turn not to though Moses is read and the Prophets also and all the Letter or Old Testament yet the Vail remaineth over Moses and the Prophets faces and as over the Iewes over the heart of these Christians also which Vail is done away only in Christ and in turning to his Light and the Spirit within their minds are blinded being off from the Light so that they know neither Christ nor Moses nor the Voyces of the Prophets that are so often read which through ignorance they fulfill as the Iews did in condemning Christ and putting him to open shame in his Light Doctrine and Disciples Nevertheless if their heart shall yet turn to the Lord that Spirit and to his Light which is within that vail shall be taken away and they shall see with open face behold the glory of God and be changed into his Image be led indeed to that true Repentance that is never to be repented of but if they continue in their unbeleef in the Light and their hearturn not to the Lord in and by the Light in the time and space that is given them for that Repentance yet at least the face of the covering that is now cast over all people and the vail that is yet spread over all Nations shall be so far removed and destroyed at last that there shall be repentance enough to no purpose when it is too late when the Gulph is once fixed and Abraham is seen by these rich worldlings and Belly-gods afar or and Lazarus in his bosome when every eye that look's for him shall see him who now cometh in the Clouds and they also that have pierced him and all Kindreds of the earth that are no kin to him shall wail because of him Even so AMEN The Fourth Apologeticall and Expostulatory Exercitation CHAP. I. NOw to proceed in way of answer to I. O's Arguments for the Scriptures and Letter and Book and Bible and Texts and outward Writings of Moses and the Prophets as the onely Rule in alterable Standard now compleated Canon Touchstone of all Truth to which since its close and consignation after Iohn had written no new Revelations Writings or Scriptures of the old Truth as from the old Spirit of it are to be added no immediate manifestations inspirations motions missions from God as of old to be expected or if pretended to be admitted or owned but to be damned down as Delusion Fanaticism Enthusiasm Quakerism Diabolism vain uncertain unprofitable fancy figment detestable meraae tenebrae caecitas fines salutares quod attinet as to salvation meere darknesse and blindnesse it self and what not that 's naught Seeing it is so as abovesaid that all these false Prophets and Divines can prevail no further then to tangle and hamper and hinder men and to hide the truth by that hideous heap of unharmoneous Heterogeneous Heterodox more then Orthodox volumes of Divinity and to smoother darken confound and drive men away from the naked truth and draw them off from the Scriptures themselves that are plain and cleare to honest and plain-hearted men by their Smoak and Clouds and Circumferences and by that boundlesse bottomlesse incomprehensible chafly Chaos of their contradictory and confused Commentaryes with which the world is now burdened even beyond what it can well bear and contain sith I say there 's none to guide these poor erring lost perishing and as yet more deformed then reformed Nations into the life of God and power of godlinesse from which they are alienated because of the blindnesse of their hearts among all the Sons whom they have brought forth Isa. 51.18 Neither any that can take them by the hand and lead them in the true way of eternall life of all the Sons whom they have brought up at their Vniversities who sit together with them under the shaddow of death notwithstanding all their Tumbling ore of so many Tames about the Scripture is it then for want of true Prophets or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 men divinely inspired and sent of God to call people to Repentance and to turn them to that light of God within that leads to Repentance by voice and writing to them as them elves have had the true way thereof manifested in them by the light as themselves being taught of God have learned and practiced it and are moved of the holy Spirit to preach and presse the practice of it upon others according to the scope of the Scriptures No! For there are many in England at this very day speaking reproving writing and prophecyâ—ng from the same light and by the same Spirit that the Scriptures came forth from and as themselves have received and heard from the voice and mouth of God and seen felt and handled of the word of life as the Prophets Amos 7. and the Messengers and Ministers of God and Christ of old Act. 26.16 17 18. 1 Ioh. 1.1 2 3 4 c. The Spirit of the Lord is not more straitned in these days from blowing where it lists then it was in the dayes of old howbeit because it lists not much as it never did to blow upon or inspire the learned Scribes Hypocritical Pharisees chief Priests aspiring Rabbies Divinity Doctors Proud Diotrepheses preheminence loving Praters hireling Preachers Fawning prudentiall Parasites Politicall Polliticians and such like but mostly upon a meaner sort of men as to outward account these wise men are most hardly brought to beleive it to be so and so as said the Priests Scribes Pharisees Rabbies and Doctors of old of Moses and the Prophets we own them know them and their Scriptures which yet they knew not nor the power of God We are their Disciples wee 'l stick to their writings that 's our compleat Canon our stable Standard our immutable measure to which nothing must be added and of Christ and his in the dayes of his flesh we know God spake to Moses as for this fellow and his fellows we know not whence he is and whence they are they are of the Devill have a Devill and are mad Why hear ye them they speak blasphemous words against Moses and the Law and this place the holy Temple and
turn away much people saying God is not worshipped in Temples made with hands but within onely in Spirit and Truth talking as if they would teach us as if they heard Gods voice and not we who search the Scriptures and expound the Law and have the Key of knowledge have been train'd up in the Scriptures in reading the holy letters but these we take notice of them that they are ignorant unlearned men yet they say we are unstable and unlearned and wrest Scriptures to own destruction but whence hath this man letters having never learnt at Universities as we have done away with them and their Scripture no more holy Scripture now the Canon is compleated the Standard sealed no immediate motion now no such mission as the Prophets had now no speaking by divine inspiration now no Divine authority in any mans writings now though they write not others but the same Divine truths as of old no extraordinary infallible â—uidance of men by the infallible Spirit of God now and suchlike Thus they said then and thus our wise Ignorants at Athens say now of the same Spirit that then spake in Paul pressing others now to write or speak to them of their woâ—shâ—pping an unknown God seeing their Universities given wholly to Idolatry and thus I.O. one of the sore men against the truth What will these Bablets say and in a manner so they say all But slay friend Gods arm is not shortned neither is the mouth of God more made up now then formerly from making out and manifesting his own mind immediately from himselfe in the minds and consciences of men and women so as that men may without manifest imprudence not to say impudence imagine so ignorantly as in effect I.O. doth that God spake his last to the Sons of men and all that ever he meant from his own mouth to make known of his will to any man when Iohn had at the command of Christ written that pretious Revelatio â—which God gave unto Christ to shew to his servants who was pleased to signifie it unto them by the hand of his servant Iohn and when once in after ages a Syned of some honest men who we know not upon some some mistakes and sailings which weâ— I.O. confesses Tr. 2. c 2. S. 4.5 They were lyable to establish so much as they could get together which was but little 't is like of that much that was written of the transcribed Copies of the holy mens Histories and Apostles Epistles and letters to particular Churches and private persons and canoniz'd it together with the writings of Moses and the Prophets into such a standing Rule of faith and manners for all ages to come that whatever should from thenceforth be found as not a little was even of the Apostles own and some of Christs own writings and whatever should be written after that with pretence as much hath been since then not in pretence onely but in truth of motion from the same holy spirit should be shut out for ever from standing in their Canon sith it came not in at that time to their hands and be ever of so low esteem as not to be own'd among the rest under so much as the name of holy Scriptures with them but as to all ends uses and purposes for which all holy Scripture is written be utterly raced out of the Record cancel'd made void and of none effect while those few they Authoriz'd because of their Stamp of the onely Standard upon them must be had in as high if not an higher Esteem Honour and Authority then the Light it selfe from which directing holy men in the writing thereof they had all the being they have at all as holy Scriptures Let not I.O. in any wise say so for there are yet though himselfe is none of them 7000 of the people of Christ in England that bow not the knee to Baal many of whom as they are under the new Testament i.e. the Spirit and not under the old i.e. the letter where thou yet art have even both men and women the promises thereof made good unto them concerning the gift of the holy Spirit of the Lord and power to prophecy which of old also the true had Mic. 2. and of judgment and of might to declare unto the rebellious house of Iacob and Israel even the Heads and Princes thereof if they abhor judgement and pervert all equity and the Priests and Prophets thereof that Preach for hire and Divine for money and build Sion with blood and Ierusalem with iniquity and yet leane on the Lord and say is not the Lord among us none evill shall come upon us their sins and their transgression And to use thy own words I.O. p. 331.332 to thy self who are much in the dark as thou utterest them to such as are further in the dark behind thy self much more to the same purpose will same of them be found to say when men of outward wisdome and learning who are as they think able to instruct them shall condescend personally so to do Yea of myself I will not speak who by the grace of God am what I am and if the least measure of that grace be imparted to me among other of his servants that I should Preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ it is to one that for ought I know is of all the rest least worthy or rather most unworthy of it but I am bold to say so much and no more then what will stand as truth against thine or any others gain sayings that there are some who do not more professe themselves to be then they are indeed inspired by the holy Spirit whose messages and ministrations whether by voice or writing are so immediate from the mouth of the Lord that your not receiving nor submitting to them on that account but rejecting and denyall thereof with such rigour as ye do doth justify your predecessors in all ages who rejected and slew those that spake to them in the name of the Lord and speakes out in plain terms your imagination to be this that you may with safety to your selves reject them whom God sends yea to go on yet for a while much what in thy own words Tr. 1. C. 3. S. 9 10.11 12 There are some whether they work miracles yea or nay as thou confessest most of the Prophets did not that 's nothing to thee who pretend not to this inspiration falsely but both can and do to youward insist upon this that being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 divinely inspired their doctrine is to be recieved by you as from God and in their so doing it will be found in due time to be your sin even unbeliefe and rebellion against God not to submit to what they speake in his name as that of his word they receive from his mouth and this is not onely pleaded and insisted on by some but also whether their Testimony be received or not received by you preachers and the
Sacred Truth 2. Let it be Considered that Ye who Plead such a Necessâ—y of such Integrity of your Foundation of Faith had need be sure of your hand yea Infallibly certain in your selves and in your Proof of it to others or else ye make your own Graves with your own Hands and pluck up your own Religion by the very Roots Ye stand Eminently concern'd upon the Concession of your Faiths Foundation not to be firm in case one Tittle of the Text ye frame all upon be found wanting or Points added since its giving out to make it not probably onely as incertum aut ignotum per incertius aut ignotius but Unquestionably clear that the Text hath every Tittle and that no Points are superadded since its first Penning or else to begin again with the Qakers at your A.B.C. in the things of God and lay a better Bottom for your Building and surer Ground for your Faith then ere ye have done for as J. O. sayes in another case it s but meet that men should be call'd to Account upon their own Principles and such as suppose Salvation to sinke if every Syllable be not seen and Repose so Eternal a Trust upon a Temporal External Text as to assert All Saving Truth to Fail for Ever if its Transcripts be not as Entire Now as they were some Thousands of Years ago and â—in the Everlasting Gospel of God on so Ticklish a Point as Mens Mistaking or Not Mistaking in Writing out the Bare Letter of it had need to be Not so Suppositive as J. O. is but Positive in Their Proof and Uncontrolably Demonstrative of Their Principall Proposition and Not Impositive of Their Own Thoughts Imaginations Apprehensions Uncertain Conjectures and Pretended Probabilities onely Sith the Stresse of a Case of such Dangerous Consequence Stands upon it that All Souls as J. O. sayes at least so Depend on it as to have No Means of Their Salvation if Their Proposition prove False and They happen to be Out or Miscarry in it Or else in Case Ye can't so Clear it then Confesse as J. O. seemes to do sometimes but that He is loath to stand Long to the Honour of such a Confession that Ye well Know Not Where Ye are nor What to Say about the Various Lections Ye finde to be Crept into Your Text nor What may be the Cause of its Being so and that Ye have Nothing to Blame but Your Own Ignorance of the Scriptures and other Cases And of the True Foundation which is the WORD it self and Not the Scripture or Writing of it And that Ye have Never with Your Shallow Comprehensions and Understandings Ye have Hitherto lean't to reached yet the Vtmoâ—t Depth of Truth and so think it Meet since Ye can make No Demonstration of Your Position to lay it Down Altogether and of Learned Men become meer Wormes not Captivating Others to Your Own Thoughts but Captivating Your Own Thoughts to the Truth and to the Authority of God in his Word nigh in the Heart and Not leaning Alone to the Lesbian Rule of a Naked Letter Without You See J. O. p. 303. 347. For as Error Minimus in Principio fit Major in Medio Maximus in Fine So there being but some Errours in Your Bottom O Ye Builders Your Building must needs stand Awry and be most crooked at the Top. Yea this is a most Vndeniable Truth That the Faith about that which is Beleeved to Be the Foundation of All Saving and Divine Faith in other Things must be Built upon an Undoubtedly Divine Basis and stand in a Ground that Can't be Shaken and on an Infallibly Sure and Unquestionable Foundation and Not on such A Flexible Thing as Mans Conjectures Thoughts Apprehensions Opinions This Way or That Nor on Meer Humane Fallible Perswasions Reports Writings Testimonies Traditions of Authors either on One side or Other Or else as J. O. sayes So say I We shall Quickly see and because of This See it We do Already what Wofull Estate and Condition the Truth that the Scripture Talks of will be brought Vnto And how Brittle the Belief is If the Foundation that any Fabrick Stands on should be Stone and the Ground that Foundation stands in should be but Sand That Building will not Abide when the Stormes and Waves come If the Foundation of Your Faith in other Things be the Integrity of the Text to a Tittle as at first Given Out for so it is with J. O. or else He gives All up for Gone and Your Faith about that Entireness to a Tittle of the Text be Founded no where but in Fancy Conceits Thoughts or in the Opinions of Your Selves and other Men Ye Side with Opposing as Learned as Your selves that Side Against You I here Affirm in Sober Sadness and in the Fear of God not Derisorily that All Your Faith is of No more Force then a Fiddle-â—tick is of to Fight withall as to the Effecting of that full Freedom from Sin and Salvation which Comes by Christ which is the End of his Coming to All those that Unfainedly Believe in his Name 3dly Let it be Weâ—l and Wisely Weighed how Wonderfully farre Short of Scientificall Syllogismes and Clear Demonstrations or of so much as True Topical Evidences either Your Arguments are in Proof of That Entirenesse and Integrity of Your Text in Every Tittle if there be No Better to be Vrged by You as in Truth there are Not then what are Vrged by J. O. in that Case on Behalf of the University and Clergy For after J. O. had stood out as long as He well could with Sticks and Straws against the Novelty of the Points and the Variety of Lections in the Texts of your Transcripts He plainly Yields and Confesses both as is shew'd hereafter 1st Vrging His false Conceits about Gods Promise and Providence and Loving and carefull Aspect over the Transcribers and such like Fancies of His own yea all along His own and others Thoughts against them and concluding thence thus Shall We think this and that Is it not very Improbable Shall We imagine so or so And then at last clearly confessing the same He before contended against Which Grants though when they are gone from him He would gather in again fearing He hath lost aâ—â— if He do not a little qualify them Yet in what a poor way He puts on to Reduce and Recover what He had given by His Yieldings and Acknowledgments and how they are of as little force and to as little purpose as Pharoahs endeavour was to bring Israel back when he had once let them go from him A very Fool may feel by the following Examination of what He uttereth toward the Regaining of His Ground again His Maxime or Main Proposition He fights for all along from first to last being that the Now Copies of the Originall Text are Entire to a Tittle without any losse by the Mistakes of the Transcribers or change by Addition of the Points His Main Medium of
that which is set down that is not in thy fâ—rst and that is not already answered by G. W. so that Tâ—y of a Sheet and half under which thou seekest to shroud thy self from the force of his Reply consists so much of References to thy Qâ— folly the folly of which foolish peice is by it self as well as by us manifested to all well meaning men that thou mightest as well have spared thy paines of putting out any thing under that name of a Book at all and have said no more but so viz. for a Reply to G. W. I referr the woâ—ld to the book of mine which G. W. 'sâ— Book is a Reply to insomuch that for all thy pretended care to prevent it every one that is truly a man will judge that like a Child thou hast skipped what thou could'st not Read so as to make any Reasonable Reply to As for Billingsgate Rhetorick its more found among the Scribes that are Scolding Scuffling and Scrambling for such petty Businesses as Muscles and Cockels-shells meer mouldring writings Externall Texts tritling Transcrips Letters pedlâ—ng points Syllables Triviall Tittles and Iota's thenâ—to the Qua. qui nucibus faciunt quaecunque relictis who if they do earnestly contend it is for more substantiall matters the faith that was once delivered to the Saints the Light Truth and Spirit it self ye Priests despise which were long before your letter Text and Scripture ye so scrabble for was at all in being And whereas thou sayest thou wouldest not I say that whether thou wouldest or no thou canst not be so hot as that light of the Sun which now scalds thee and thy fellow scolders about the Scriptures for the more ye foam fret fume fight and labour in the fire of your own fury against it the more the Sun of Righteousness arises daily and shines out to the tormenting of you Inhabitants of the earth that have in the dark night of your Apostacy from the truth slain made merry over the witnesses of God both within and without you and the earth is filling more and more with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the Sea and the Angels who have the Vials full of the wrath of God are pouring forth of the same not onely upon the Earth Sea Fountains and seat of the beast and the River Euphrates which hath been hitherto the chief fence of the great Whoreâ— of Babylon but also on the Sun it self so that men and ye men called Ministers above all others are to be scorched as with fire by the great heat thereof till ye rather knâ—w your tongues for pain and blaspheme the Name of God as ye now daily do who hath power over these plagues then repent from your deeds to give him glory and though all ye impenitent brood of the Babylonish Harlot band your selves together as it were with one mouth to blow out the light yet is it to as little purpose as if ye should go about to forbid the morning light from appearing when it begins to spread it self upon the mountains T. D. thou sayest That which Iob speaks of the Thief Iob 24.17 Is true of the Qua. If one know them they are in the terrours of the shadow of death Rep. That 's false of us but true of your selves there is one knows both you and us before whom your faces will wax pale and gather blackness ere long while we stand with boldness in his presence our hearts not condemning us of such wicked designs and deceits as are found among your selves T. D. That we endeavour to hide our meaning by doubtful words Rep. I. O. Ex. 3. S. 17. Layes the same falsly to our charge but no wonder that thou T. D. accusest us of that when as Christ himself cannot scape thy censure in that kind for as thou blamest and belyest us here as endeavouring to hide our meaning in doubtful words so pag. 7.1 Pamp. thou sayest It was an usual thing with Christ to speak words of a doubtful fense and that his meaning may be mistaken when his words aâ—e taken in the most ordinary and literal sense and so it would be if by every man we should understand him meaning as he sayes of every individual man indeed how can we look thou shouldst clear us who accusest him But if thou acquit him cease from thy accusing us as guilty for that which if 't were as surely as 't is sure it is neither Christs nor ours at all but your own common course and evil guise must needs as thou T. D. handlest the matter conclude Christ himself under the same guilt together with us but in truth so far as to peddle about the things of God with words of an uncertain and doubtful signification and when mens opinion is shameful and dishonest to dawb it over with deceitful covers and colours not to speak it out â—penly plainly to mangonize it in speeches sewed and patcht together on purpose to darken their Councel by words without knowledge to beware of nothing more then least they should understand and be understood so far as to hide their Councel by doubtful words so far as to speak one thing and mean another to make a shew in words and intend no such matter as they make a shew of so far as not to mean as men say is a matter justly lyable to the censure of hypocrisie and dissimulation we not onely clear God and Christ and the Spirit whom thou chargest as so doing while thou saist p. 6. 1. Pamph. the the meaning of their words cannot be as the Letter doth report it was usual with Christ to speak words of a doubtful sense p. 7. Salvation is offered or tendered by God to such as he never intends it to c. p. 40. 1. Pamph. But also are ourselves as clear from the guilt of it in the sight of God as capable to make it good out of your own handy-works that your selves are the men who are most deeply faulty in that particular T. D. Thou sayest Thou hopest the Reader will not be byassed by our seeming humility sith pride may be the root that bears that branch voluntary humility is the effect of being puft up by a fleshly mind Rep. True enough that pride bears the branch of meer seeming humility but among no men more then such as are used in Rime as the Priest or Clark reads a line at once to them to sing to the Tune of O Lord I am not puft in mind I have no scornful eye when yet for all that profession of humility they are puft up more proud and haughty scorners and dealing in more proud wrath against the Righteous then such as never heard of such a thing as humility from a Letter without as many Heathens have not save what they have seen from the light of God and Christ within themselves and among them that under the lowly titles of Ministers or Servants mount up into the Lordly titles
all for their enmity to the Scripture Secondly to recover both Priests and people as much as may be from under those dark cloudy conceptions of the Scripture which these two men being overcast with themselves labour what they can to beget others into as if all the worlds were for ever utterly undone and under the losse of all saving truth and utterly without any possible way whereby to come to the knowledge of the will of God concerning them in order to their souls Salvation from sin and wrath to come if the outward Letter or External text of the Scripture be not Talkt up into the Throne as the onely Lapis Lydius ex 3.5 33 sure Word of God infallible guide Trusty Teacher Supream Iudge perfect Rule stâ—m foundation stable Standard fixt unerring unalterable measure and such like as I.O. states it to be by which all Doctrines Faiths Words Writings Spirits true or false must be toucht tried and determined or else no man can be at any certainty where to be what to believe how to walk with God which to take for Truth and which to turn from I shall first plainly shew what the Scriptures are and what we mean when we talk of Scriptures 2. Briefly take notice of some of the base unworthy absurd abuses and fowl aspersions and unjust accusations whereby thou I.O. what in thee lies labourest much more abundantly and abominably I must needs say then the other as to this point to render us odious to all men as despisers and deniers of them and then 3 dly addressing to the controversie it self leave all who shall read such Animadversions as are to be made by me of thy unfound Assertions about it to judge by that light of God in their own Consciences whether themselves or we erre most beside the Scripture or most duly deserve the Censure of Anti-scripturists First then I shall here give all men to understand more distinctly yet then I have hitherto done what it is that I intend and what I would be understood as speaking of by this term the Scripture which is to be so often agitated in this Discourse between me and I.O. in whose Book also it is so often agitated and what sort of those Holy Scriptures it is which is the common Subject of which so much is prated and predicated by I.O. that is as utterly denyed by the Quakers That we may not by hanging in universals only which are in no wise or sense truly seen but by considering the particulars wherein they exist conclude of things in a tumultuous mist of Confusion as thou dost distinguishing where thou shouldst not and jumbling things into a kind of Omnigatherum which should be more singly and severally spoken of whose Trumpet gives such an uncertain sound that its hard to know either how or where one must prepare to the battel The word Scripture then though it be an Vnivocal nor AEquivocal as us'd by us yet is it a General Term and so Ambiguous and doubtful unless it be explained by its particulars signifying not only all other kinds of Scriptures good and bad that ever were in the world but also more kinds then one of that kind of Scripture which Abstractively from and more eminently then the rest in regard of its worth we ordinarily call The Scripture and have singled out from all the rest as our Present Subject What thou meanst in thy heedlesse handiement of this more General Subject I can hardly find thou drivest it on when thou Praedicatest this and that of it in most parts of thy Dispute at Randome in general terms and run'st away with the word Scripture at all adventure scribling it over again and again The Scripture is this the Scripture is that the Scripture is written by Inspiration of God the Scripture is the Word of God the Scripture is entire to a tittle perfect c. scarcely shewing which of those Three several sorts of it which thy self hast divided it into thou wouldst have us to understand thee as speaking of when thou denominarest these high things of it viz. Whether first thou mean the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as thou caliest them pag. 13. I The individual and immediate Manuscripts of Moses the Prophets and Apostles and such holy and honest men as were the first Pen-men of the sundry Parcels of that holy Scripture which was copied cut the Copy whereof is bound up in the bulk now called the Bible Or secondly the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I the transcribed Copies thereof whether first immediate that were at first hand taken out of the first Copies Or secondly those mighty mediate and far remote ones taken by thou knowst not whom out of thou knowst not what Copies that were handed downwards successively not without some mixtures mistakes and for ought though knowest losse of much of what was at first throw all the dark Ages since then to this of ours by men that were some faithful and some unfaithful but none of them infallible by thy own confession p. 167. or divinely inspired so that it was impossible for them in any thing to mistake which uncertain Copies ye have as your only Rule and Canon at this day in which Copies neverthelesse of the Originals yet remaining that may secundum te I.O. according to thy Concession be more or lesse crooked as it happens and thy self granting there are varieties among them cannot be all true Thou dost not blush p. 173. to adde and say That the whole Scripture entire as given out from God is preserved without any losse and within them all is every Letter and Tittle c. Or Thirdly Whether thou mean the several and various Copies of the Translations of those various and several Transcriptions into several Tongues and Languages What thou meanest I say or which of all these Three sorts of Writings whether the first Manuscripts only or the Transcripts and Translations also or the Two first only and not the last or all the Three which are all Three commonly called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Holy Scriptures When thou Praedicatest these glorious things of the Scripture thou dost not very distinctly declare but goest on in generals and that Dolus latet in universalibus thou art not ignorant so that he had need to be wise that very easily discerns thy mind and what thou meanest yet this I know full well and 't is the more shame for thee if thou be ignorant of it that some things may be said tru'y of some one of these that cannot without falshood be affirmed of the other Two and some things of Two that cannot of the Third and he understands neither what he saith nor whereof he affirmeth whosoever he is that without distinction denominates all the things that thou dost of the Scriptures of these Three sorts all alike or of any Two of them either most of which will upon due examination not be found duly
applicable to the very best But whether thou intend one or two only or all these Three throughout thy Book when thou contendest for the Scriptures to be now entire to a tittle as at first giving forth to be the Light Word Power of God and such like is not easie to learn If ever we hear of thee again about the Scriptures I desire thee to speak home as to these particulars and to write thy mind more fully and plainly and singly out as in all places of thy Book thou hast not done but as one that hates the Light and is not willing to come to close pinchest in thy mind and winkest and twinklest and triflest and keepest back as if thou wert afraid as no doubt thou art though he that doth truth is not Ioh. 3.20 21. to look the Light too fully in the face or Ex. 4 S. 14. Subtilius Disputare to dive too deep in thy Dispuration about the Light or as the Elephant to drink more then needs must in fair water for fear of seeing a foul face but veritas non quaerit Aâ—gulos For my part I shall deal ingnuously with thee in this There are some things thou affirmest of the Scriptures which I can grant to be true of some one of these Three viz. of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that are not true of either the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Translations And there be some things to be said truly of these two that are not true of the first and some things of the second that are not true of the first nor of the third and somewhat of the third that 's not true of either of the other But when thou scarest so high as to affirm the Scriptures as thou dost in general to be the same in every tittle syllable and iota as at first to be the Word of God the Living Word the Spiritual Light the Power of God and much more as will appear when I come to Reckâ—n up and rank the things thou Praedicatest of the Scriptures in Order in order to my Answering of them I who shall ever put a difference between the Writing of the Word and the Word it self Written of do absolutely deny all these things of all the Three sorts above mentioned and if it stand so as that thou understandest all these Three as thou dost of one of them at least and that of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Transcriptions if but of one the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or first Manuscripts being all lost and mouldred and Translations all corrupted by thy own confession when thou affirmest all these things of the Scripture then so let it stand for me till I have tryed the truth of thy Positions after which I hope all that stands not upon good ground will of it self to the ground come tumbling down And as by the Word Scripture I mean excepting where such things only are Praedicated as are peculiar only to either One or Two of them and not to all the Three no less then all these three sorts of Scripture in the main Controversie with thee so no more then these three sorts and these not one jot more not yet any farther then quâ tales 1 So far only as they are Scriptures properly truly and formally so called and considered or outward Writings Expressions or Declarations ad extra by Letters legible to our bodily eyes however extant upon what ever outward matter capable to receive their impression Tables of Stone Walls Skin Parchment Paper by the finger of God or hands of men whether Writing the issue of which is Propriissime stiled Scripture or Cutting Graving Stamping Printing in which way since that Art came up the Scriptures are now most extant the effect of which though most properly it be called Print or Scuâ—pture yet not to be too close and curious in Criticizing about Cockle-shells shall be allowed by me as to our purpose properly enough to passe under that name of Scripture I say then 't is the Letter and not the Matter the Writings and not the Subjects Things Truths Doctrins or Word written of that is the Subject to come under Consideration between us whatever those things are that are therein declared though 't is like we shall not passe them by neither without taking some useful notice of them yet that makes nothing to us in the State of our Question as it stands before us nor will all thy tumultuous hudling it over in haste hinder this nor thy shuffles about it shuffle it off it is the Declaration that thy Disputation with the Quakers is about considered as abstract from what is thereby declared for by the Scripture I intend not the Law it self written nor the Gospel nor the Light nor the Faith therein exhibited to us and held forth to be read of in the Writing for these are not the Scripture nor is the Scripture any of these but the Writing it self that holds these forth I call no other thing the Scripture then that which is truly the Scripture and that is no other thing then the Scripture it self I call the Scripture or the outward Declaration no other things and by no other Names then those it calls it self by or are truly answerable to its nature and that is no other then the Scripture a Declaration of those things that were believed and of the Word of the Faith that was preached a Letter a Writing Holy Scriptures Scriptures of Truth Books of Writing that consist Treat of and Declare in forms of plain true suitable and sound words various true things sound Doctrines by which many unsound Doctrines of Divels of false Prophets Priests Scribes and Pharisees of false Brethren ungodly Men that creep in and turn the Grace of God into lasciviousness of false Apostles that brought in Doctrines contrary to that at first delivered and served their own bellies and not Christ Taught for Doctrines Traditions of men of Iannes and Iambes that resisted the Truth of Baldam the Nicolaitans of Iezebel and Satan which are all written of and declared in the Scriptures of Truth as well as those of God Christ the Spirit the Light and Truth it self do stand not approved but reproved and condemned useful Histories of what was done and spoken in sundry times and ages past by God and Christ and the Divel himself and Men good and bad and by Balaam and his Asse also Pretious Prophesies of things viz. of good to the good of bad to the bad Comfortable Promises to the seed that is the Heir of them Terrible Threatnings to the seed of Evil doers and Woes to the Wicked Profitable Epistles to such as they were Wrote to Blessings Curses Prohibitions Commands Copies of Psalms and Songs that were sung Proverbs that were spoken Letters that were written from men to men some by good men at the motion of the Spirit of God some by Evil men out of malice against Gods Servants at the motion of the Devil Some not without
judging thy self consequently enjoying the other but that thou art not in any wise for howbeit by thy own confession there Sect. 16. Capellus grants thee that the full enjoyment of the saving Doctrine of the Scripture is yet to be had or obtained by such as look chiefly after that let the Letter be never so corrupted yet thou art at no hand content with this but piteously pinest after something else which is not this saving Doctrine of the Scripture nor the Doctrine in it but another thing from which this contained Doctrine is distinguished and that is the Scripture it self which thou judged thou hast not notwithstanding thou hast its Doctrine unless thou have the Letter or Writing also and that so exactly and entire without alteration and ablation that not a tittle of it nor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be found lacking these are thy words Sect. 17. Nor is it enough to satisfie us that the Doctrines mentioned are preserved entire every tittle and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Scripture in that Writing see Sect. 13 in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we have must come under our care and consideration and to say the truth as thou putest a difference between the Scriptures of Truth and the Truth written of in the Scriptures sometimes as I ever do so it is the Scriptures of the Truth more then the Truth it self of which they are the Scriptures that thou mostly scrawlest for in those thy Scriptures for them which yet as is said above are not more for in shews and words then in deed and in truth they are against them nor is it the most substantial parts of that bare Letter that thou wranglest for so much as for the more accidental parts thereof viz. the points trivial tittles and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So then it is concluded hitherto on both hands First by thy self as well as â—ly by me that the Scripture and its Doctrine are not one but two several businesses whereof the First viz. the Scriptures are the subject matter so contended about between thee and the Quakers As for T.D. he draws his neck out of the Coller here and after he had engaged me to discourse it publickly with him whether the Scripture were the Word of God or not and at the dispute desiring to know what I held about it when he heard how I on the Quakers behalf declared what we meant by the Scriptures viz. the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Writing the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 viz. the Letter and that we onely deny that Denomination of the Word of God to that not to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Word or Doctrine or Truth of God written therein he gave us the Question without more ado saying thus You cannot believe us to be so simple surely as to affirm the Scriptures in that sense the Word of God but we mean the matter contained in the writing whether that be our Rule of Faith and Life P. 26. of his first Pamp. which subject matter or Doctrine and Truth contained in the Writing and testified to in it which was before ever the Writing was and is as to the substance of it eternally and unchangeably the same Christ the Word the Wisdom Righteousnesse of God the War Truth Life both yeaster-day to day and for ever we never denyed to be the Word and Rule and Foundation and what ever else I.O. and the whole School of our English Scribes do ignorantly and falsly say the Scripture is though we are mistaken by most as denying the holy Matter it Treats of so to be but the matter is not the Writing or the Scripture but that which is onely written oâ— in it but the outward written Letter or Scripture much more the Book in which the writing is which I.O. is so busy for and for every point written title and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this not onely we deny to be the Word of God but all our rash reproachers of us as denying the Scripture to be the Word when we come to their faces are fain to fall in and deny the same with us also so Christopher Fowler after a long hot Publick Dispute at Reading with E.B. and my self upon this question Whether the Scripture be the Word of God or no in which he contended a great while together it was at last confessed openly and plainly before all the People and Magistrates there present that the Scripture or Writing and I know not what else is properly and truly the Scripture but the Writing is not the Word of God after which concession of C.F. they would hear no longer dispute but the Quakers were driven out of doors But I.O. standeth stifly to it that the Word of God is the Proper Name of the Scripture and even of every tittle and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of it against the Quakers for that the Truth and Doctrine of it or of Christ declared in it is Spiritual Powerful saving Perfect so that Cursed will he be that adds to or detracts from it no Quaker will deny and to fight for the perfection and integrity of that with them is but to fight without an Adversary Howbeit I.O. when thy Brains as it were begin to crow as they often do like a man in a maze thou fetchest another turn back again upon the wheel and as inconsiderately as contradictorily to thy self thou blendest and confoundest these two sundry things that were before so severed by thy very self into one again so that as the two sticks aforesaid became one in the Prophets hands so these two that were sometime put asunder and with thy own hand inscribed with different Titles are joyned Indentically Intituled denominated each of other as Synonymous of two that stood divided made one individual of two sticks become one under thy own hand which writes of the writing and the thing written as of one and in its handling of them handles and feels no such matter of distinction between the Scripturam and the Scriptum the Literam Scriptam and the rem or Doctrinam or veritatem Scriptam the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Scriptiunculam Verbi de Verbo and the Verbum Scriptum the Letter or VVriting and the Doctrine or Truth written the Scripture of or concerning the Law Light Gospel and VVord of God and the Law Light Gospel and VVord of God it self of which the Scripture is but a true writing or Declration Yea whereas in that one single Section lastly cited Tr. 1. ch 1. S. 13. thou makes distinction in thy sound no lesse then four times between them first the VVritings and the Doctrine secondly the Writing and the Doctrine thirdly the Book and the Truth fourthly the Book and the Faith in the very Section immediately foregoing viz Sect. 12. which is as small as this thou all things well considered as they stand therein almost if not altogether as frequently dost confound them
accompanied with strange Devils is Dedicated so Ex. 3. S. 2.4 Fanatical Enthusiasts for their Enthusiams so Ex. 3. S. 19. Locustas hasce cum primum ex sumo purei prodierint these Locusts the Quakers when they came first out of the smoak of the Pit so Ex. 3. S. 17. Errones Vagrant Rogues or Vagabonds Reply 1. Thy Iudgement of us in general which is mearly that of mans-Day which is the night and a very small matter to us will prove a matter of moment that will fall heavy on thy self at last when the Judgement of God which we know is according to Truth and is against thee comes upon thee and all thy Iudgement before thy time and evil speakings of whom and what thou utterly know'st not And as for us if we judge thee again for many of the same things of which we are judged by thee yet our judgement is just and true and not our of its due time and place and will stand ore thy head for ever being passed in the light and day and Spirit of God in which the Saints are to Judge the World and the spiritual man discerns the Animal man and his matters but is not discerned by him But as to this of Knave it savouring much of that Billingsgate Rhetorick which T.D. hath so much of who called L.H. at his own door in Douer he knows what and ye sayes he is not able to match G.W. at it to render Reviling for Reviling Terms I shall forbear and be silent here giving I O. my Goliah-like 〈◊〉 who conflatis naribus inflans sets the Saints so much at his heels and to use his own words Gigantaeo quodam fastu E'atus like some Son of Anak looks on them as Grashoppers disgracing and disdaining the whole kind or Species of the Quakers what he is able sometimes as poor deluded foolish and yet sometimes again as more Knave then Fool leave to overcome me herein for though I can truly say having been at the Popes Palace which stands in Monte Caballino that fonte labra Prolui Caballino yet haud unquam me Prophetam somniasse tam altum memini ut Repentè sic Rabula prodirem Reply 2. Thou talkest much here and at the front and sag-end also of thy English Epistle in Commendation of thy Iunior Students valuing and studying the Holy Scriptures more then any thou knowest and of their bending the best of their wits that way how ye value the Scriptures wee 'l see by and by but till ye study the light and spirit more then ye do which the letter came from as ye are yet at best so at best ye will become but obtusè acuti homunciones sharp-witted men after your own blunt fashion who in truth are as sharp-sighted in the Mystery of the Holy Scriptures as a very Mole is into a Milstone Behold O thou Academical Student in Divinity who callest the Quakers Anti-scripturists thou art call'd the Scripturist the Text-man the Opener-of that Book called the Bible which is a Book as much sealed to thy supposed learned self as to the unlearnedst sort of men in the World that can but barely read it and thou art restlesse in wrestling against the Light and restest in the dead Letter of that Law which is Light and Life and makest thy boast of God as the man that knowest his will and tryest out the things that are most excellent being instructed no higher then so thy self and taking on thee to instruct all out of that life-less Letter which is all thy Law and yet much more then thou livest by and art confident that thou thy self art a guide of the blind a light of them which are in darknesse an instructer of the foolish poor deluded Quakers a Teacher of Babes which hast a form of formal Knowledge and of external Truth as it is in that meer Letter of the Law but thou being enmity to the light the Quakers live in art rather a rash Reprover of the things that are most excellent a blind Guide a dark Lanthorne an ignis fatuus a fleshly foolish Instructer an untaught Teacher that must yet come to be taught out of the mouths of Babes and Sucklings out of which the Lord is now ordaining strength that shall stop the Lyars mouth and still the stout Enemy and Avenger and from the stammering lips that thou standest amazed and astonished at as uttering non-sence in thy non-sensical Nodel shalt thou stoop to learn the Soul-saving Truth or else be left to perish in thy envious enmity against it in thy damnable darknesse in thy wilful blindnesse obstinate unbelief and unparallel'd ignorance of it for ever as the Pharisaical Iew was whose case this was before thee Rom. 2.17 to the end And though thou teachest others yet till thou teach thy self alias learn at thy own measure of Christs Light that teaches thee in thy own Conscience to know thy self more and live more like Christ's Teachers then thou dost thou shalt bring as few to God as thou hast done who hast left all that have learnt of thee yet where thou thy self yet art viz. in sin and not believing thou canst ever be out on 't as they and we tell thee truly thou mayst while thou livest or till the World to come where the Popes purgatory is which as truly thy self deniest and shalt bring men as near to God who is Light as those who are left out of his Kingdom which is Light in the Darknesse which is the Devils kingdom Thou teachest other 's should not commit Adultery but thou art the Adulteresse and Imperious Whorish Woman with whom all the Kings and People in the Anti-Christian World have committed Folly and Fornication and bewitched with thy Sorceries have run a Whoring after from the Lord. Thou teachest another should not Steal and professest to abhorre Idols but thou art that Sacred Thief that committest that sacrum furtum that fine sort of Sacriledge and stealest the words which thou sellest for Money when thou hast done after 10 20 30 or 40 shillings a Sermon out of the true Prophets Writings and Fathers and old Authors and so what thou learnedst in thy Accidence when a School-Boy in the Countrey thou makest use and witnessest the Truth of now thou art become of an University Scholler a Clerical Country-man again viz. in legendis veteribus Authoribus proficies in Reading of old Authors for so many Doctors do out of their Notes in the Pulpit thou shalt Profit for profit thou dost thy self in outward Goods but not the People in inward Goodnesse who are generally in all Parishes left as ignorant and prophane as the Priest finds them when he is called from them either by death or some Deanery or higher Divine degree of spiritual dignity Thou makest thy boast of the Letter but throw breaking the Letter thou dishonourest God and his Ministry while thou dost more docere facienda then facere docenda and as Accute and Accurate a Curate as thou art of Souls
men as the others was before them both yea as thou savest of thy so called poor deluded fanatical Quakers Fanatici 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. So say I of these poor deluding Fantastical Anti-quakers Fanatici 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sunt erroribus stultitia bisce diebus notissimi quos hic inprimis aggredimur These Fantastical self-conceited Seers whom I here primarily Plead against are in these dayes most notoriously known by their errours and foolishnesse already not to a few of their own former followers and will be to ten times as many more in the dayes that are immediately hereafter following Thy many Taunting Terms wherein thou both belyest flingest and quippest at the Quakers being thus not in the same Taunting or Twitting way but in a way of true judgement turned upon thy self and thy own fellow-flouters at them I shall more closely examine what thou falsely accusest us of more particularly as concerning our deportment toward the Scriptures whom thou falsely declarest to be so grossely opposite thereunto as duely and deservedly to be denominated by those Terms by which thou also miscallest us of Fanatical Anti-scripturists p. 147. Ep. p. 28.30 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ex. 3. S. 26. i.e. Haters of the Scripture and to be rankt among the rudest Reproachers of them in such words of thine as are hereunder Repeated and Replied to I.O. Thou sayest Satan in these dayes assaults the Sacred Truth of the Word of God in its Authority Purity Integrity or Perfection especially in the poor deluded Fanatical Souls commonly called Quakers c. Ep. p. 28.30 That to this sort of men the Quakers it was not enough to joyn in with those in Ages past who cast Reproaches on the Scriptures and approve of all the opprobrious speeches that have been cast out against them but they also rejoyce that the care of this matter viz. of spoiling the holy Scriptures of its proper name that glorious Title of the Word of God is by Satan confer'd upon them That they the Quakers who would seem to bear away the Bell from all as to the stout opposing of the perfection of the Scriptures Thou principally encounterest and as 't is an honour to thee that God hath pleased to confer on thy unworthy self this Task of fighting against those enemies of his Word the Quakers so what thou shalt perform in prosecution of this function thou oughtest to ascribe to his grace c Reply Herein thou not onely shewest thy sâ—l to be of that sort of men to whom it is not enough to joyn with those in Ages past who cast Reproaches on the hearers of the Word of God and Tremblers at his Word Isa. 66. 5. now in scorn called Quakers and cast out by their Brethren for his Name sake as then they were and to be an Approver of all the opprobrious speeches that are cast out against them by this adulterous and sinful generation who bend their Tongues like bowes for lyes against the Truth which lyes thou shouldest be a valiant Reprover of but also to rejoyce that the care of this matter of fighting against the truest friends in the World to God and his Word the Quakers and of Raising such Reproaches false Reports scandals and opprobrious speeches as the Rabble of Junior Rabbies Reproach them with is confer'd upon thee by the Devil for thou egregiously belyest the Quakers in this particular who deny not but Purely and Perfectly own all that Authority Purity Integrity and Perfection of the Scriptures which the Scriptures Ascribe unto themselves and rob it not of any proper name or any Title at all which by it self is either Attributed or appropriated to it self as that of the Word of God is not as is seen hereafter much lesse are they such enemies to the Word of God or that Sacred Truth written of in the Scriptures as thou most abusively and blasphemously belyest them to be that thou needest to stand up as thou dost in thy meer demi-â—â—â—gested demications against them for the Scriptures and the Word of Truth between which and the Scriptures in which it is declared they divide aright so as to give its own proper name to each of these whilst ye Divinity Doctors in your deep dotage making no due distinction betwixt them for all your pretended friendship thereunto are found very enemies to them both So that whereas thou who in other matters then this gloriest in thy own shame seem'st to glory in this function of fighting against the Quakers as in some great grace peculiarly given of God to thy unworthy self more then any as if Praemium strenuae contra Trepidantium Perfectionem ac â—anocentiam oppositioni debitum nemini mortalium tibi Praereptum velles thou seemest to thy self to bear the Bell before all others in thy stout opposing of that Innocent Seed of God to which grace of his thou Ascribest what ever Relying on his help and assistance thou performest in thy function aforesaid I conclude against thee to the contrary thus in short that 't is Satan himself who set thee at work against the Quakers and helpt thee as well as he could and furnisht thee with many a lye both against the Quakers and the Truth and led thee in a meer fools Paradise to prate with malicious words and speak evil of thou knowest not whom nor what and left thee to bewray such weaknesse folly and false hood as falls not at all from such as have help and assistance from God but ever flows from the father of lyes and his children with whom thou wilt have thy reward J.O. Whatsoever the Jewes whatsoever the Papists have been bold at any time to utter in disgrace of the Scriptures every whit of that these impure men the Quakers stricken as 't were with some direful inordinate motion or rapture both say and assert so that its a shame to relate the horrid and most foolish Titles of Books the chief Vagrants and Ringleaders of this Flock being urged having spoken wickedly and blasphemously against the Scriptures What their Common Opiniin I have thought good to set down as taken and Collected from their own Books and set Conferrences held with them c. Reply 1 Here 's a most palpable Lye related of the Quakers on whose behalf I here openly professe against thee before the World that we own all those Writings not only of Moses and the Prophets of the Old but those of the Apostles and Evangelists also which are commonly called the Scriptures of the New Testament to be Scriptures of Truth written by holy men of God as those of the Old also were as they were moved by the Holy Spirit whereas the Iewes who own value study and stand for those of the Old to this day as zealously as your selves in words do for both do malitiously and lyingly affirm them to be false fictitious and full of lyes Reply 2. Whereas we say no such thing nay nothing at all in any disgraceful way
thou liftedest up thy self as thou dost in so vain a way of lifting up and advancing the Letter over all that which is to be preferred before it and was before it as that it came out from and points men to even the living Word and inward Light and spirit which as held out by the Quakers not in any way of that Devilish disparagement of as thou intimatest Ex. 1. S. 3. or spiteful disrespect to the Scripture thou settest at nought with all the Calumny thou canst likely cast on them yea as thou sayest of the Pope Ex. 2. S. 8. Papae Tempus erit c. So say I to thee Non Papae solum sed tibi tempus erit cum magno optaveris emptam intactam Scripturam And that I am no Iesuite nor sider with them about the Scripture so as to agree with them in upholding their seigned infallible Chaire besides what many can witnesse who have been Eye and Ear witnesses of my opposing them in other Nations I adde this as my Final Defence of my self as to that Aspersion of T. D. He that will give heed to it let him if otherwise let him chuse Non cum Jesu Itis qui Itis cum Jesuitis So then as to Evince it that I am none of those Idiots that Idolize any meer mens Writings as many do the un kilful scriblings of their Scribes for the Scriptures little lesse then Israel did the Golden Calves after which they dotingly ran from God himself saying of these Imuges in their own Imaginations These are thy Gods c. Nor yet any meer Writings of those holy men that wrote the Holy Scripture it self as most of our misty-Ministers and their people do because they were written by Divine Inspiration little lesse then Israel did the Brazen Serpent because it was hung up by Divine Institution I shall First take occasion to thrust down that enthroned Calf of thy Anti-scriptural Triobulary Treatises Theses and Atheological Thoughts upon the Scripture from that high place it hath in the Thoughts of such as fall down before it as Moses threw down that Molten Image which the High Priest made and ignorant people made a God of and stamped it to powder And Secondly As Hezekiah not without Gods own approbation took down the Brazen Serpent which had its being as the Holy Scripture it self had not without Gods own appointment when once men began to do Homage to it and called it no more then Nehushtan that is a piece of Brasse that they might know it was no God So shall I take down the dead Corps and bare Carcase of the best Copy of the Scripture since men begin to go a Whoring after it from God and Christ and the Word of Life it self out of that high and stately Throne wherein thou I. O. statest it and from those surpassing and lofty Titles of the Living Word of God the most glorious spiritual Light in the World above the Sun the most perfect Rule and many more such like with which thou as hereafter appears dost invest and exalt it over all even over the Light it came from which is by thee unjustly put behind it and dehased below it though both in time and worth 't is far before it and stile it by its own true Name of Writings of Truth or Holy Scripture that so men that seek to it more then to God himself for Salvation and search it and therein think to have eternal Life at the old Scribes did that never came to Christ the Light above whom they prefered it may recollect themselves and see that the Letter gives not the Life but doth only testifie outwardly of another whom being lost from him by looking to the Letter which bids look to him they never look to nor never yet came to that they might have Life So withal to evince it that I am none of those Popish Ignoramus's that deal so ignobly with the holy Scriptures as to set them at nought and pluck them down as they do not only below themselves which have as Real and Great an Excellency as any such thing as is no more then an External Writing of an External Truth can possibly have but also below that which is worse then naught viz. their leaden Legend of Lyes their trashy Traditions their mouldy Massora their invented Oral Law their vain verbum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that meer imagined Moon calf the unerring breast of their most erroneous holy Father and such like I shall in this Work before all the world prefer the bare body and letter of the Scripture which is legible to mens bodily Eyes far before that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as thou truly callest it for all their Abominations before that whole Body of Fools bawbles that bottomlesse pit of Paultrinesse that boundlesse bundle of Baby clouts that endlesse Ocean of Omnigatherums that dirty puddle and deep dunghil of Devility rather then Divinity which the more it s dived and raked into the more rotten it renders it self like some for did sink that stinkes the more the more 't is stirred in for such is the Traditionary Treasury of that saltlesse unsavoury Sea upon which therefore the plagues of the Vials which must be filled upon you also are fallen falling and to fall which Sea of Rome is as the blood of a dead man lifelesse putrid and corrupt so that every living Soul dies that lives therein Yea Consider the naked literal Aspect of the holy Scriptures nor in its highest not in its primitive best and purest as at first given forth but in its meer derivative in its lowest meanest and most altered and adulterated capacity wherein it stands at this day wrested and torn and like a Nose of Wax twisted and twined into more then twice if not ten or twenty times twenty several shapes by mens untrue and tottered Transcripts and Translations for Oh that vast variety of Lections besides the Infinity of Senses throw mens misrenderings corrupt copyings correctings of and commentings on it c. that the World is now loaded with and led out into yet as meer a graven Image as that is with Ink and Pen on Paper or skin of parchment for 't is so though I reject their jeers as improper and impious by whom it is scoffed at as Chartacea Membranae c. for 't is not so and as dead a Letter as it is bear with me in that Expression I. O. till I come to shew where thou so callest it as well as Papists and Quakers whom thou quarrellest with for so calling it and as very a Nose of Wax and Lesbian Rule and no certain stable standard as it is for I know not why what they wickedly because Tauntingly we may not honestly sith truly seriously and soberly so call which may so easily so endlesly be altered by the wills of men as they self I.O. shewest us in the 20 21 22 23 24. pages of they Preface the Scripture may and made to stand which way
everlasting to everlasting is unchangeably Authoritative over all inviolably pure every way entire and absolutely perfect as God is whose Word it is and so we assault it not in its Name nor in the Thing as thou sayest for we know and never did yet deny unlesse 't were before we knew it and while we were the same with you who yet know it not nor never heard it from his own mouth the Word of God to be the Word of God And also though thou Scandalize us so grossely as to say Satan sets us on work to bereave the Scripture of the glorious Title of the Word of God as its own Proper Name That 2. is also false for at the Will of God and in service and obedience to him and not of Satan we strip the meer Letter of that Glory wherewith thou unduly dost invest it and take it down from that high Throne and Authority wherein Satan sets thee on work to set it up â—that men may do homage to it and so run a Whoring after it from the Word of Life it only points at as Israel did after the Brazen Serpent and dance about it in their Idolatrous hearts as the God that must save and deliver out of Egypt But 3. Were that true yet howbeit we own the Word of God to be as truly and properly called the Word of God as in truth it is so and give to that still its own due proper Name of the Word of God somewhat more then yourselves do who call that by the Name of and make that Title of the Word of God the very proper Name of another thing which is not it but as inferiour to it as the Effect is to the Cause it came from viz. the outward Letter or Scripture that came forth from it and is but a Copy and Declaration or Images of it as much in worth and dignity below it as the painted Picture of a fire or a man on a Wall is to the true fire or Person which they do but outwardly represent And 4. As for the Writing or Scripture which thou sayest we deprive of its proper Name because we call it not the Word of God and by all those glorious Titles and Epithites thou stilest it by which we confesse are due to the Word viz. Light Living powerful Quickning Foundaiton most Perfect Rule and many more as we shall see anon thou sayest most falsly in that for these are as truly due so properly due to and the Proper Names of the Word it self only of which the Writing is but a Writing or meer Scriptural Declaration and not the Proper Name nor Properties of the Scriptures I.O. Thou tellest Ep. pag. 30. That the whole truth about the Word of God which thou falsly Slanderest us as confusedly opposing thou hast endeavoured to comprize in thy Theses Reply Thy Asserting that the Scripture ought to be called the Word of God as its proper Name and that it is in esse reali cognoscibili the Word of God and known so to be and consequently the Light Foundation Rule and whatever else the Word is known to be which is the main matter thou affirmest and puzlest thy self to prove against us is so far from being the whole Truth about the Word of God that it hath no Truth at all in it but in plain Truth is wholly a Lye in esse reali cognoscibili also to all but such as know not as thy self dost not in this point either what they say or whereof they affirm J. O. Thou sayest thou compleatest in thy Theses the Doctrine of the Scripture concerning the Scripture Reply Thy Doctrine concerning the Scripture which is that it is the Word of God and known so to be and is to be called or else it s stript out of its own proper Name this is not the Doctrine of the Scripture concerning it self but thy own Doctrine which though thou dignifie it with the Title of Pro Scripturis in thy Latine Title Page is more Con Anti then either Cum or Pro yea much more against then either according to or for the Scriptures I.O. Thou speakst of the Quakers as altogether rejecting the Word of God i. e. with thee the Scripture as to its whole use of spoiling the holy Scriptures of All Vse Authority Perfection And as those who if things had succeded according to their desires would no doubt long since have have utterly rejected them Yea as those who wish them quite blotted out that all men might more attend to the Light within themselves Reply Though what Use Authority and Perfection the Scripture is owned by us to be of will appear more anon in its proper place yet that we deny it not to have an Authority and Perfection and precious Use I here declare to the undeceiving of such as are deceived by thy Deceits and Lyes much lesse do we reject as thou falsly objects against us the Word of God it self which is a greater matter and of more moment then the Scripture as to its whole Vse and in proof of it against thy self that we own the very Bible and Letter to be of use and do also much use it as occasion is I shall here Cite I O. to give account to I.O. of this Lye that against I.O. I O. himself hath forged Yea I shall go no further at present then to thy self who as in at least Twenty things more in thy self-confounding Fardel thou dost confutest thy self as to this Lye in those very parcels above quoted For mark Art not thou the man who as brisk as thou art in bedirting us with this Slander of rejecting the Scripture which thou falsly callest the Word of God as to all its use its whole use and that altogether could we have had our Wills yet to the Contradicting of thy self which is as ordinary with thee as to eat and drink confessest and Commendest us thus far before all as follows in thy Latine piece where thy words Englished are to this purpose Ex. 1. S. 7. That the Quakers professe the Holy Scriptures to contain a certain Revelation of Gods Will and so far to have come forth from God as it proceeded from that inward Light which was from Christ in those who wrote those Books which ye name the Scriptures And Ex. 5. S. 18. That the Quakers acknowledge the Scriptures to contain a Manifestation of the Will and Mind of God both in respect of those who wrote them and of those also to whom they were delivered from the beginning and that this Declaration therein held proceeded from the Spirit of Christ which was so with the Writers thereof that they could declare the infallible Truth and that the things written therein are an undoubtedly true Declaration of the Mind of God And dost thou not add thus much That thus far we are right and that none that own them thus far can altogether reject the Scriptures unlesse he will declare himself to be
my businesse with I.O. lyes into that Name of his Word and into the Authority of the Foundation of Faith the infallible Rule of Interpretation of itself of Tryal and Examination of Spirits Doctrines c. of the Supream Iudge also by which all Controversies of Religion are to be determined the only pure Authentical Standard unto which the Church is finally to Appeal in whose Sentence it is to Rest into which all Faith is finally to be Resolved so if such Synods of men either Antient or Modern as have shouldred out all those at once from sharing with the other Writings in what they can lay just claim to had been as Spiritually discerning as they were Spiritually blind shallow and undiscerning they would have seen cause to have joyned some at least of those Apocryhal Scriptures to an Equal Participation of that Plea of divine Original and inspiration with the rest as without Cause they justled them all out from it by their joynt Consent And though it be the declared Faith of that Assembly of Divines that both Houses of Parliament advised with 1648. and of the Congregational Churches in England whose Confession is put out this instant 1659. as to that Article about the Scriptures word for word in the same words with the other That the Books commonly called Apocrypha not being of divine Inspiration are no part of the Canon of the Scriptures and therefore are of no Authority in the Church of God nor to be any otherwise approved or made use of then other humane Writings yet this I declare to the whole World as my Faith concerning them that though I own neither them nor the best bare Wriing or outward Text or Letter of the other Scripture at so high a Rate as I.O. does who makes the naked Letter in all things equivolent to the holy matter yet whatever is truly to be praedicated of the one or can solidly be pleaded on the behalf of the one which ye call your Canon as to the divinity of their Original the same may be pleaded on the behalf of not a few of the other And as they all that in general are stilled Apocryphal can plead their Authority from long before the Apostles dayes and also the special Care and Providence of God which is an Argument of such weight with I.O. and T.D. pag. 27. as swayes them not a little into their frivolous Faith about the rest in the preservation of them to this very day So that all of them have been kept by the Church that kept the rest bound up and Translated into various Languages and as publickly allowed to be publickly Read as the rest and highly esteemed by Austin and other Fathers ye Divines cannot easily be ignorant And as for sundry of them ye are ignorant with a witnesse if ye see them to be as ye say they are not of divine Inspiration or see them not to be of as divine an Original as some or even any of the other which ye own so to be As for that Fourth Book of Esdras which is but the Second as it stands in the Apocrypha besides that it s acknowledged by Clem Alexandrinus Faber and many more men of Renown among you and by many Holy men in these latter times as well learned as your selves at least in the Wisdom of Gods Spirit to be written by his immediate Inspiration so is it such a plain Prophecy consistent of many Particular Praedictions of things to be fulfilled in these last Ages as the like to it or a least clearer is hardly to be found in all the Scripture besides it insomuch that he who reads it in the 11 12 13 16 Chapters of it and some other places and sees not the beams of a divine Majesty in it and sees not the Matters now managing upon the Stage in the World that are there foretold in it reads not in the Light of that Holy Spirit that moved in the Writing both of that and all other Holy Scripture and may come before he is well aware to feel ere long the dint of that divine displeasure that is denounced against the Sinners of the latter Ages and thereby come to be convinced of the Divinity and Truth of that Scripture which our Divines that usually see altogether by the lump and are loath to see any Truth Sigillatim till they are all made to see it whether they will or no will hardly yield to if they be their Old-wonted-selves till very Necessity forces and frights them into the Faith of it And the same may be said as to the divine Original of Ieremiahs Epistle which was written and sent to them that were to go Captive into Babylon and of Ecclesiasticus and the Wisdom of Solomon which favours so much of the Wisdom of the Spirit that he is yet in that Wisdom only which is from beneath which is Earthly Animal Deceitful who doth not acknowledge the finger of God writing those deep and precious Truths and Praedictions in the heart of him whose hand was the Committer of them to outward Writing which whether it were not Solomon after whom it was so Entituled Nil ultra quaero he uttered 3000 Proverbs whereof scarce 300 are extant in that Book of his Proverbs some of which as standing inserted there in the Hebrew Text are not the Original Copy but a Transcript only at best out of that or some Second hand Copies taken and Copied cut long after Solomons dayes by the men of Hezekiah 8 or 9 Generations from him Prov. 25 1. The 30 Chapter of which Book also are the Words of one Aguâ— the son of Iaketh but sure I am that Book of Wisdom was inspired or breathed into the Penman that expired or breathed it out from no lesse then that Wisdom which is from above The main Argument that ever I have seen against the divine Original of these Books are First Their being not written in the Hebrew Tongue which what a poor pedling piece of Disproof it is he is no wiser then he should be that does not see for what warrant is there that all that was not Pen'd in the Hebrew Tongue is no Scripture of divine Inspiration Or if there be is it not as conclusive against much of the Scripture which I.O. counts Canonical the whole of wch he reckons at random was wrote in the Hebrew Tongue since its evident that much of that Book of Hester 9 Chapters and 3 Verses of which are set among the Canonical Scripture and oh the Wisdom the other 6 Chapters and 10 Verses of the 10 Chapter by you self-will'd Choppers and Changers because written in Greek are reckoned and rank'd with the Apocryphal was written not in the Hebrew but in the Caldee as much of Ezra Nehemiah and Daniel also were And besides if being written Originally in the Hebrew will avail toward the evincing of them to be Canonical this will help some of your Apocrypha into your Canon since that of Tobit or Tobias is not
guide and a Light to Davids Paths was not the outward Letter only of Moses Law for Moses Scriptures and Writings and Davids too did only Testifie of it Deut 30. 14. 18. Rom. 10.8 Psal. 119. 9105 But the Word that was nigh in the Heart which David had and hid also within him that he might not sin against God Psal. 119. 11. yea no lesse then a Canon that had its compleat Consignation and Bounding for all Truth which was the same then as it is now substanâ—ially to be Tryed by when no more then Moses Five were extant so long before it was enlarged into such a Volume as now the Bible is by adding to the Old Word were the Letter that Word of God that 's the standing Measure I know not what to make of all these Additions to the Word if the Letter be the Word which have been made from Moses downward to this day but matter of Plagues Woes and Reproofs to the Adders of their Writings to the First Writings but this I can say to the Excuse of such as call Moses Five only a compleat Canon and in compleat Authority as a Standard and a Rule and the Word of God and such like full well may Five or any one Book of Moses or any one Chapter or one Verse never so small in either his or any other Prophets Scripture be so when if wee l believe I. O. when he Lyes every Tittle and Iota of any of these outward Writings is not only Part of the Word but The Word of the Great God as Pag. 168.169 Yea every Apex of it equally Divine and as immediately from God as the Voice wherewith or whereby he spake to or in the Prophets and is therefore accompanied with the same Authority i.e. as the whole is both in it self and unto us Pag. 27. so then every Tittle is no lesse then a compleatly constituted Canon and the whole is no more then so And further as to the New Testament as ye call the Letter of it as there is not the least Evidence that any such thing as the specifying of what and whose Scriptures or Writings the Canon should consist of and what not so can any of you that stand up so stifly for your fancied stable Standard shew us where any Order is given out by Christ or his Apostles to such as should succeed them to take Care to gather up their Writings and Judge and try which of them they thought fit and which not to own as their Rule and Iudge and accordingly digrading the rest to Canonize such as liked them best to submit themselves to the Tryal and Iurisdiction of into the high Names and Authority of the Word of God the Iudge the Rule the standing Canon both to them and all the world and all after Ages of it to the Worlds end Doth 2 Tim 3.13.14 twice at least cited by I O. for fear of failing viz. Ex. 3. S 26.31 prove it And doth 2 Tim. 2.2 which is without either heed or wit urged and by heedlesse I. O. as well as others quoted though mis-quoted in the Margin of Pag. 166. to that purpose prove in the least any such matter If it do then say I am a Dunce if not then see whether they are fit to be Doctors or Teachers in Divinity that by reason of the beam in their eyes cannot behold but divine so darkly besides a businesse that is as clearly contrary to what their brain conceives about it as if it were written with a Sun beam For the words of Paul to Timothy are these viz. The things that thou hast heard of me among many Witnesses the same commit thou to faithful men who shall be Able to Teach others also And in the other place these But Evil men and Seducers shall wax worse and worse deceiving and being deceived and so they do at this day for all their scufling for the Scripture but continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and been assured of knowing of whom thou hast learned them Whence it is by many that would look upon themselves as wronged if not looked upon as learned as hastily concluded as the places are hand-over head alledged That Paul bids Timothy take the Scripture first committed to him by himself and commit it downwards to faithful men that must commit and continue it downwards still to others and so successively to the worlds end as a Common Continual Permanent perpetually remaining Canon and only Standard for all Nations and Spirits Gods and Mans and Doctrines true and false to stand or fall by from thenceforth even for ever Which what a crooked Consequence it is who but Ignoramus can be ignorant whenas if the Scripture had been the subject spoken of there by Paul either it had extended no further then to his own Scripture to Timothy which is but a petty Portion and poor Pittance of Pauls Epistles or if to all the rest of his Epistles then it had been conclusive of that to Laodicea and his first to Corinth and Ephesus which have no being in your Bibles which you say Contains all your Canon and are by T. D. excluded from any Claim to it but in very deed there 's no such thing at all as the Scripture or outward Text there either talkt on or intended but the things Timothy had learn't and heard from Paul by word of mouth as well as writing which though I own to be Truths and Doctrines and things which are evermore according to the Scripture the Spirit from which that was never contradicting it self yet were another thing then the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is the Writing or Scripture it self Paul sayes not those Scriptures which thou hadst of me c. commit to faithful men to make a Standard of but those Doctrines Truths which thou hast heard of me commit and those Truths were concerning the Light which Paul was sent to turn men to and not the Letter for he sayes God made him and the rest Ministers not of the Letter but of the Spirit Act. 26.18 2 Cor. 3.6 And the Gift of God within Timothy which he bids him stir up 2 Tim. 1.5 Neither did Paul go up and down testifying to the Scriptures as a Standard and telling men which should be the Touchstone and which Scriptures not but the things which were Witnessed to there testifying no other things Quod Essentiam to be believed or done then what were written in and spoken by the Law and the Prophets Acts 24. 14. 26. 22. And those things Timothy heard learned and was assured of from Pauls both Words and Writings As also the things the Thessalonians 2 Thess. 2.15 had delivered to them partly by Pauls Preachings and partly by his Epistles and were accordingly to stand fast and continue in but they were not the bare Bible it self or Writings or Scriptures themselves which were not then by Paul or any bundled up and carried about in a Book to take a Text and Talk out of
own nor hold their Iâ—o in that height of honour as they do nor fall down and worship that golden corruptible Image that they set up though they honour the Truth that 's told in the Scripture and submit to it as the euerlasting powerful Word of God What are thy high English Transcendant Treatises about and thy exceeding ample Apologetical Latine Exercitations and thy many Execrations Anathcmaes thundred out and Subpoenaes pag 31.34 56. 59.60 81. sent abroad in those and sundry other Pages of thy Paper Summoning and Requiring all men as from God to the Subjection and Submission of Soul to the Scriptures which is due only and alone to the Word of God on peril pain and penalty of inexcusablnesse in damnable unbelief damnation eternal damnation eternal displeasure of God eternal Ruine c. in case it be not own'd as so What are all thy excessiue Commendations and direful Comminations and Condemnations denounced by thee against all that Commend it not so ignorantly as thy self and thy many needlesle Negotiations and pitiful Proofs and Pragmatical Pratings and prehemineâ—t Pleas for its Reception in Comparison with and Opposition to all other wayes of coming to the knowledge of God and Attendance and Submission to its Supream uncontroleable Authority pag 57.58 upon the account of its 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or divine inspiration as being the most perfect Rule firm Foundation staple Standard infallibly true Touâ—hstone entirely in every Tittle to the least 〈◊〉 the Word of the Great God the Writing that comes immediatly from God to us who live to many 〈◊〉 after the mouldring of the first Manuscripts of it without the leâ—st interveniency of any medium obnoxious to fallibility or capable to give Change to the least sota or Syllable of it pag 113. The Book which God wrote or at least immediately indited and commends men it thou could tell where to receive as his under the penalty of his eternal displeasure which Book makes a sufficient discovery of it self to be his pag â—20 reveals and â—clares and professes it self from the beginning to the ending that no where 〈◊〉 I shall shew anon to be unquestionably the Word of God pag. 140. And avers it self in euery place and that every place with 7 0. himself is 1.0 place at all if Ex. 1. Self 28 be true as will be seen anon to be the Word of God pag 117 the most glorious Light in the World above t'e Sun dearer to God then all the World besides and scores more of wonderful strict strains of Talk in which thou stretchest the Text and letter beyond its liue and screwest the Scripture within Diana's Shrine till thou crack'st thy own Credit with uttering ten times more then thou art ever able to stand under the tryal of or any wise man is to understand 〈◊〉 what is all this Adoratory ado thou makest about Is it not the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pag. 57. the Writing And what Writing Is it not the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 only confessing that all the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is long since lost And if thou should spend so much time as to Talk to this Age of that as the Rule Foundation Touchstone Standard that is not now standing but fallen and that as the inalterable incorruptible Word of God and yet whether the Decalogue of Gods own Writing were not as incorruptible as thy cobled Copies of it let who will judge that is already altered yea corrupted wholly out of the World thy folly would more fully shew it self Is it not if not the totteâ—ed Translations which the people at least magniste and make a God of as much as thou of the other thy meer Perigraphy or rather Typography that passes from under not the Pens of careful faithful infallible Transcribers but the Presses of carelesse fallible falsifying faithlesse Printers whose hands few Pamphlets passe without need of an after Errata sic Corrigas Thy meer Typographically correctible corruptible Copies of the Text are the Common Theame of all thy Laudatory labours and truthlesse Treatises and Theses that are thrust out about them As for all Translations that I may not wrong thee but give thee thy due thou givest them their due I confesse in some measure so as to slate them a little lower then either the true Word of God or the first true immediate Manuscripts of it either Yea I must needs say that though by some EXPRESSIONS and DENOMINATIONS thereof as namely that of the Word of God partly at least thou settest them above themselves yet thou pullest them down so far below thy Idolized meer imperfect Images of the frost Writings that to say the Truth within a little thou as much disparagest the very best of them as they are commonly counted as beyond measure thou manifiest thy own insomuch that well-nigh the whole Scene of Sections in thy last Chapter of thy Second Treatise seems to be set to drive on no other Design then a louder decrying of all Translations then that of theirs whom thou cryest out on for decrying thy Transcriptions or then thy own crying up of them Yea thou dost not more strictly and absolutely avouch that untruth concerning the absolute unity of your Copies of the Original both with the first Originals and among themselues without any discrepancy in the least then in that Chapter principally and partly elsewhere viz. pag. 15. thou avowest and purtest thy self to prove that vast variety that is in all Translations among themselves and that deep discrepancy that is in them also from both the first Original Text and your Transcripts of it which variety discrepancy and corruption yet that is in them thou art so far from covering from the view of the Vulgar whose Souls Interest lies mainly in Translations they being not able to read the Original Text as their Soul sayst thou and bodily Interests also say I are concerned in your Transcription that thou openly proclaimest it that all may see it as it were upon the house top and lest any should be startled at so strange a sight as thou presentest them with in that Chapter as that vast variety of Translations of the Text from the Originals of it and each from other and begin to question whether that be the incorruptible Word of God or no which so many Corruptions could creep and are crept into thou art so shamelesse as to help an Old lame Dog ore a stile as the Proverb is so as to render these so many mis-representations of the literal sense and meaning of the Original Words which the Translators moped into till they have torn and twined the Waxen Nose of your naked Letter whereby â—e may see what a sixt and firm Foundation true Touchstone stable Standard inalterable Rule infallible Guide incorruptible Word of God ye have among you while you trust and stand to no other Word then your outward Letter defying that within in the heart which the Quakers point you to into more then twice if not
or a whole Iury impannel'd to Try this Case of which this is the Foreman that speaks more then they all for it s insisted on or hinted at or'e and o're and or'e in I know not how many places of thy Book as if thou laydst more stresse and purrest more trust in this than in all the rest and indeed though it is a most piteous poor one yet seeing I know no better it may be called as its rank'r before the Rest the very best in all the pack Let 's see then what force this consideration viz. the love providence care and promise of God to his Church and Word Engaging for the preservation and continuance of it to a Tittle without losse hath in it to evince the entirenesse of the Hebrew and Greek Text to a Tittle That the Love Care and Providence of God is to or ore his Church and so ore his Word for his Churches sake I deny not in the least and that his Word he speaks he magnifies ore all his Name as the most glorious product of his Wisdom and Goodness as his great concernment in this world dearer to him than all the world besides which his Promise is for the continuance of it so inalterably entire and uncorrupt that Heaven and Earth it self shall pass away as Christ saies Matth. 5.18 before one jot and Tittle thereof shall fail or pass away and that not one Apex Tittle or Point of that hath yet failed or been altered or is liable for capable to be altered or corrupted All this I grant for his Word is the incorruptible Seed that lives and abides for ever But what 's all this to thy purpose I. O. whose talk is only about the outward Writings Image Copy Letter Text which talks of that Word and who producest all this to prove every Tittle of that Text to be entire Wilt thou never learn to put or at least to keep that difference which somtimes when thou art deliberate thy self puâ—test between the Word that is written of and the Text which is the meer Writing of it Dost not thou p. 12.13 though I know thou blindly blendest them together both there and throughout thy Book make the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Writing the Book the Letter one thing and the Faith Word Doctrine declared in it another Dost thou not distinguish now and then as every wise man does ever between the Text it self that talks of the Truth and the Truth it self which the Text talks on We know the Truth and Faith and Doctrine and Word of God which is but One and the same in its Nature Essence Being and Substance whether written or not written of whether cloathed or not cloathed in this or that outward accidental forme whether displaying it self through the vail of the Letter or shewing it self more immediately in its naked Native lustre is to a Tittle the same now that it ever was in Substance though all the shadowy Discoveries of it wax old and vanish and as a vesture are folded up and changed and Pass away as a Scrole that 's Roled up and grows out of Date when all Letters and Literal Appearances of it shall be mouldered away The Word was before the Letter was aud is neither more nor less what it was now the Letter is and will be no less than it was of old or what now it is as to its preservation in every point when the Letter shall be no more So that what are all thy Propositions about Gods Promise and Providence and Love and Care of his Church and Word to evince or prove the entire preservation of every Iot and Tittle of an outward Text or an old uncertain Transcript of what was by the Holy men of God some thousands of Years since written between which Word and the Writing or Light and the Letter which leads only to it there 's no more proportion as I may shew thee more anon than is between the Lanthorn and the Light the Glass Window and the Sun that shines through it or then as thy self intimatest there is between the Ark and the Testament or Covenant that for a while was used to be kept in it Dost not thou count the Letter the Ark p. 236. saying the Iews have now the Letter as somtimes they had the Aâ—k among the Philistims to their further ruine and p. 315. For my own part I am sollicitous for the Ark or the sacred Truth of the Original Yea such proportion say I as the Ark that kept it bore to the Letter of the old Testament that was laid up in it the same doth the Old Testament it self the whole 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or bare Letter or Shadowy Dispensation bear unto the Light Word of God or New Testament which is not a Literal but a Spiritual Administration Now as it would be fâ—lly and absurdity in the abstract for a man to Argue the Light to be the proper name of the Lanthorn which exhibits it the Sun the proper Name of the Glass it shines through and the Writing or Letter of the old Testament the proper name of the Ark in which it was laid up and then to affirm all the Properties that appertain peculiarly to the Light Sun Letter belong to the Lanthorn Glass Ark respectively and to plead from the unchangeableness of the Light the permanency of the Sun the long duration of the Letter Some of which in some uncertain Copies abides to this day that the Lanthorn is unalterable the Window inviolable the Ark abiding the self same and not one jor or inch of it is lost or altered to this day but in all points in the same that it was when Moset made it because some Copies Imagess and Pictures of it are found painted on Walls aud Printed in Books or so to this day Semblably as Ridiculous it is to the full to Argue the Letter is immediately come to us from God without interveniency of any Medium obnoxious to fallibility the Text is not capable to be altered not is altered in one Tittle so but that its intirely the same that it was at first in every Point Syllable and Iota because the Light Faith Doctrine Truth and Word which is as the Sun the same still and preserved in the Providence of God full firm and sure as all the Ordinances of Heaven are whether it shews it self through a Glass only or without it Now then howbeit we own all that which I. O. tells of the Providential care and Promise of God as to the preserving of his Word to his Church to be true as told of his Word yet as spoken of the Letter as Gods great Concernment in this World dearer to him than all the World the most glorious Product of his Wisdom and Goodness and such like and as urg'd in proof of the Text and each Tittle of that to be Entire and Eternal as the Heavens I say as so every Tittle of it is false And I would fain know of I
O's wisedom in this point yet I am not such a fool yet or not so wise or something as to believe him howbeit who e're believes or believes him not in such wise as this aforesaid he talks in effect while p. 12.13 he sayes thus without proof as he does most things according to his own vain thoughts as followes viz. I. O. The Providence of God hath manifested it self no lesse concerned in the preservation of the writings then the doctrine contained in them Rep. Which is a loud one for many Holy Prophets writings are lost but not a Doit of the Doctrine I. O. The writing it self being the product of his own eternall Councel for the preservation of the Doctrine after a sufficient discovery of the insufficiency of all other means for that end and purpose Rep. Which is another for the Doctrine can never perish if every Tittle of the Text should I. O. The malice of Satan hath raged no lesse against the Book than the Truth certained in it Rep. Which is a third For Satan will allow people Bibles and Texts enough to talk of Truth out of so they walk not in Truth I. O. It was no lesse Crime to be Traditor libri then Abnegator fidei Rep. Which is a fourth false Tale for the burning the Book can't murder the faith as having the light does which with it's fellows I have disproved and given Reasons against above and while p. 17.18.19 in answer to Capellus his honest Grants that the Saving Doctrine of the Scripture as to the matter and substance of it in all things of moment is preserved in the Copies of the Original and Translations that do remain J.O. assenting first to it as Truth to the overthrowing of himself as he often does that notwithstanding all the errours and mistakes in the most corrupt Translations yet every necessary saving fundamentall truth is found sufficiently Testified to therein or if he deny that of Translations let him do it and see what a pickle he puts poor people into who upon the account of that denyal will be found not to have all saving Truth in their Bibles he asserts I. O. That 't is not enough to satisfie him that in his doted on Transcribed Copies of the Original the doctrines mentioned are preserved entire every Tittle and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 must come under Care and consideration or else injury is done to the Providence of God towards his Church and care of his word and that it will not be found an easie matter upon a supposition of such corruptions of the Originals in Tittles and points c. as is pleaded for against him to evince unquestionably that the whole saving Doctrine it seâ—f at first given out from God continues entire and uncorrupt Rep. Oh grosse as if the entirenesse of the eternall Truth that was before all external Text was was now so subjected as to depend on the entirenesse of a tottering Text for its security or else is lost for ever and yet yielded to be preserved entire in Translations that are corrupt in more then Tittles but not possibâ—e to be kept entire in Transcriptions if any Tittle be mis-transcribed therein I O That the nature of the doctrine is such that there is no other principle and means of its discovery no other Rule or measure of Iudging and determining any thing about or concerning it but onely the writing out of which it is taken Rep. As if the Doctrine comes from the writing when as the writing came from the Truth and Doctrine I. O. It being wholly of divine Revelation and that revelation being exprest onely in that writing Rep. Absit absurdum de quo vere dicitur quod posito uno sequuntur millia As if Revelation were not made more truely clearly distinctly and immediately by the light and Spirit then mediante litera by the mediation of the letter that comes from it in which thou sayst Revelation only is made before which yet the doctrine was revealed I. O. That upon any corruption supposed in the Transcript Copies of the Originall but not the Translations there 's no means of rectifying the Doctrine Rep. No by no means its like as if the Spirit and Light could not now possibly reveal it as easily as at first and as if Truth were not as equally by the Spirit exposed to the understanding of men in all ages as in some and as if pure Revelation were not made now by the light and Spirit of Truth which depends solely on Revelation as it ever did and not on a letter that came from it Thus much to the first of those Scriptures urged by thee I. O. to prove the promise of God to preserve the Scripture even every Tittle of the external Texts in Transcripts not Translations for Ever and the second is like unto it viz Math. 5.18 where though Christ talks of not one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Tittle failing he that shall understand him speaking there of the outward writing and outward Tittles of the Law of it many Tittles and Books of which were lost before that and not of the light it self which is that Law the Letter is but a Copy of and of the word it self that Christ speaks which is that that is heard by his sheep onely in the heart and that comes immediately from his own mouth understands neither what he says nor whereof he affirmes yet in three places I. O. quotes it to evince the Integrity and Identity of every Tittle of the Text as 't was at first viz. p. 13.155.317 The Third is as little alias not one jot not Tittle to I. O's purpose viz. 1 Pet. 1.25 where Peter speaks no more of any outward Texts or Transcripts then if he had said nothing at all nor of such a corrupting thing as Manuscripts Texts and Transcripts Titles and dead Letters are but of the incorruptible seed the Word of God that liveth and endureth for ever ver 23. Even the word of the Gospel which was that word of faith Paul also writes of Rom. 10.8 which was preached by the Apostles and Testified to by them and their Scripture and Moses Scripture Deut. 30.14 and all outward Scripture that its nigh within in the heart and mouth The Fourth viz. 1 Cor. 11. no verse of which is quoted is so far from adding a cubit to I. O's cause about the Scripture that there 's no mention made of any Scripture at all thoroughout the whole Chapter so that what verse he should infer or scrue any thing from to evince the Scripture to be entire to a Tittle I can't imagine Paul tells of things he had delivered to them before which-whether it were by word of Mouth or Epistle he intimates not there but whether it were by Orall preaching or writing is much at one to I. O. for if by writing which serves I O. most yet he means not the writing it self or Epistle but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the things he delivered as he
lesse you have no sound assurance what ground ye stand on for the stresse of all sacred Truth is by I. O. put upon the true Transcription or mis-transcription of the Greek and Hebrew Text which if not entire to a Tittle and Iota p. 17.18 19. upon any corruption supposed in the writing and that may very well not to say must be supposed if all the Transcribers even the first as well as the latter cannot be supposed to be as infallibly guided in Transcribing as the holy men were in the first writing there is no means of rectifying or recovering or of discovering or determining or judging of Truth any other way And so thou givest upon a matter thy whole cause in granting the whole Series of Transcribers and Race of writers to this day to be but fallibly guided and thy most perfect infallible stable and to a Tittle true Touch-stone Rule Standard Foundation falls all to the ground as a mere falible uncertain questionable Basis to build so mighty a bulk upon as thou dost according to not others knowledge onely but also thy own acknowledgements and confessions I. O. Religious care and diligence in their work with a due Reverence of him with whom they had to do is all we ascribe unto them Not to acknowledge these freely in them without clear and unquestionable Evidence to the contrary is high uncharitablenesse impiety and ingratitude This care and diligence we say in a subserviency to the Promise and Providence of God hath produced the effect contended for Nor is any thing further necessary thereunto On this account to argue as some do from the miscarriages and mistakes of men their Oscitancy and negligence in transcribing the old Heathen Authors Homer Aristotle Tully we think it not tollerable in a Christian or any one that hath the least sense of the nature and importance of the Word or care of God towards his Church Shall we think that men who wrote out Books wherein themselves and others were no more concerned then it is possible for men to be in the writings of the Persons mentioned and others like them had as much reason to be careful and diligent in that they did as those who knew and considered that every Letter and Tittle that they were Transcribing was part of the Word of the great God wherein the eternal concerament of their own souls and the Souls of others did lye Certainly whatever may be looked for from the Religious care and diligence of men lying under a loving and careful Aspect from the Promise and Providence of God may be justly expected from them who undertook that work Rep. Of the loving and careful Aspect and Promise and Providence of God and how little he stands by any promise engaged to preserve outward Tittles as thou â—atlest I have spoken not a little before but if that were as true as thou sayest it is and as it is indeed most false that God were so engaged in order to the safe guarding his word and Church to save every Tittle of your Priests Transcribed Texts does not his love and care of his word and Church as strictly call for his careful Aspect over the peoples translated Texts and bind him in his providence according to the supposed promise to watch over and direct the Translators in Translating for the use of his Church but few of which can Read your Original Texts as well as the Transcribers in Transcribing which Translators if they happen to be one the Church saâ—ing that she must take some of her Clergies words for infallible Truth and as the sole foundation of her divine forth about the integrity of the Text is out also and hath nothing but uncertainty it self even the uncertain fallible conjectures of spiritually unskilful Scholars to trust to about the foundation of her salvation Neverthelesse thou wilt by no means allow that the Translators lay under the same loving Aspect who had as much to do with God and as religious a care and diligence in their work as Transcribers had in theirs with a due Reverence of him with whom they had to do yea not to acknowledge these freely in them which is the utmost thou darest ascribe to the others without clear and unquestionable Evidence to the contrary is as high uncharitablenesse and ingratitude by how much their pains was the greater of the two as not to acknowledge the same in the Transcribers the care and diligence of which said Translators yet who must be supposed to be as much in a subserviency to that thy supposed promise and providence of God I say hath no more produced the effect thou contendest for i. e the entire agreement of their Copies to a Tittle with the first Originals thou that of the Transcribers hath done which hath not produced the said effect so exactly as thou dreamest It is enough to make a wise man wonder but that Sapiens miratur â—ibil because he expects no other then solly to proceed from the foolish wisemen of this world to see how thou settest thy Transcribers up on high yet grantest them not to be infallibly guided of God neither who if he had no higher way to expresse his love to his word and Church then by saving every Tittle of thy Transcripts from alteration or corruption could as easily have guided the Transcribers infallibly as fallibly and more easily too since his Spirit guides none fallibly so far as I know and statest thy Transcribers under the loving and careful Aspect promise and providence of God in all they did in their work about thy Greek and Hebrew Copies from whom yet no more may be expected justly then from Translators in the undertaking of their work for Translators did consider what every Letter and Tittle that they were Translating was as well as Transcribers did what every Letter and Tittle and Iota was they were Transcribing and to argue them to be as Oscitant Neglective and mis-carrying and mistaking as those that translated Heathen Authors is as intolerable ad â—ominem I speak this for else I own it tolerable enough so to argue of both Transcribers and Translatoâ—s of Scripture for such as Transcribed and Translated Heathen Authors and their work as well as they could and such as Transcribed and Translated Scripture could do no more and were thy self confessing no more infallible nor infallibly guided then they onely a kind of care in them and in God over them which amounts not to his special spiritual guidance thou tellest â— I say as intollerable as thou sillyly sayest it would be to argue from the â—citancy and Negligence miscarriages and mistakes of Transcribers of Heathen Authors to the like in the Scripture Transcribers But as for Translators thou pullest them down and depressest them into a condition of as great carelesness and negligence and under as carelesse neglect of God toward them in their work as thou statedst the other in great care and diligence and under a careful Aspect and
other good work when called by him to it i.e. not without but with such an active obedience as by his Law or Light within they are obliged to not without an active concurrence of rational faculties reduced to their primitive perfection not without but with ability thereto from an habitual light knowledge and conviction of truth and use of their wisdomes and understandings memories not without but with an aforehand containing and comprehending of the truths they wrote in their mindes as things they had heard seen beleeved acknoledged c. God who who is the giver of every good gift and the chief Author and Actor of all good works in his Saints Isa. 26. using every instrument according to what he hath fitted it for a Beast as a Beast a Man as a Man a Saint as a Saint a Prophet as a Prophet and not a Man a Saint a Prophet a spiritual man as a stock or stone but being a reasonable creature and prepared by him naturally with such a soul such faculties and supernaturally and spiritually with such gifts and graces as whereby he is capable to act when by him commanded and a body suitable as a fit instrument to move in such a work as writing his will revealed when it is revealed also to be his will that he should write it he uses him so to write as that though himself be the principal or primum movens not only in act◠primo as he gives the pomer faculties gift graces c. but in actu secundo also he holds the hand of the Scrib◠so that he would else draw but mishapen characters and guides assists and acts in and by him yet he lets the action bear its denomination from its next and immediate Agent which is not God himself who gives the word for the writing of what he will have written in the penning of the Scripture except that little i.e. the ten words as is abovesaid but men as being moved by him to write or to dictate to others whom they willed to write from their mouthes so that the immediate spring and emanation of the Scripture was not from God but men who were the agents in it under him which overturns J. O's Apish opinion of every Apex of the writing being equally divine and as to its original as immediately from God and of the same Authority in itself and to us i e. of being received as his word sub paena c. on pain of peril of eternal condemnation as his voice in the Prophets which indeed was immediately from himself and his own witness whereas the letter was mostly but the immediate work of man witnessing for God as moved by him as first given out and as we now have it by so remote away of Transcription welnigh as far from being immediately from God to us as J.O. imagines it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And as it is with Saints indeed when they pray beleeve preach write c. as moved by the Lord it is not denominated ever by the Author of it all which is God who speaks and works all in such and is in such of a truth 1 Cor. 14. but the Saints who are said to pray beleeve preach write so was it in the giving out of that Scripture or writing that was of old called the Bible which J.O. calls his Canon to which no Title more must ever be counted which was not nor is not so immediate from God to us as his own voice is that is at this day to be heard in the heart but onely mediantibus manuscriptionibus yea by the interveniency of mediums and hands of Transcribers and Translators obnoxious to fallibility and capable to give change and alteration in more then the least syllables and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 's but at the first it was no more immediately from God than the writings of his moved and inspired Prophets are at this day whom he stirs up to reprove the madness of the Priests and false Prophets which is as that was but the spiritual mans testimony for God though specially assisted by him in it concerning all whom from the beginning of the world to this day so many as have spoken or written or done any thing for the truth in his name I here say and so conclude as to that above Certum est no ◠velle cum volumus dicere cum dicimus praedicare cum praedicamus scribere cum scribimus facere cum facimus sed Deus est qui facit ut faciamus J.O. Thou addest pag. 26. They invented not words themselves suitable to the things they had learned but only expressed the words they received their words were not their own but immediately supplied unto them from God himself and so they gave out the writing of uprightness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 words of truth Rep. And yet it 's said Eccles. 12.9 10 11 12. as concerning the Writings and Proverbs of Solomon the Wise the Preacher which very place thou alludest to though thou quotest it not which if thou hadst there 's few so unwise but they might see thy folly therein for that Scripture clearly confutes thy self who touchest at it that in teaching the people knowledge as he did by those Writings and Books of Proverbs he gave forth he took good heed and sought out and set in order many Proverbs even thousands more besides above a thousand Songs more then are systematiz'd into thy standing-Canon and that he sought to find out acceptable words or words of delight or rather as thy self expoundest it more clearly to the confounding of thy self as if thou wert accustomed and wonted to that work and course of self-contradiction words of will or choice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all which if it be not Tantamount to this He invented words suitable to what he himself had framed whereby to utter and express the wisdom he received to people in writing and yet what was written was upright too and words of truth not beside the spirit of truth and so I.O. consequently confuted by I.O. himself about the Scripture If the Scripture it self had not confuted him then self-confounding which I.O. is so often found in shall pass for me for current confirmation and confusion which I.O. is a most eminent Author of shall go from henceforth for good order and to dance the rounds as I. O. often doth in his shall be held the rightest way of sound Doctrine and of all Divinity Disputation For as if he had not been satisfied with his own gain-saying what he uttered concerning their not inventing of words and non-improving of their understandings wisdoms minds memories p. 25. to order dispute give out what truth they wrote in such words as they saw best suited for the things they had learned of God by saying to the contrary thus Viz. Their mind and understanding were used in the choice of words they did use 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 words of will or choice I.O. to go round again gain-sayes this latter
saying by which he had once gain-sayed the former returning to his former again Ex. 1. S. 29. where his Latine words Englisht are in this foolish wise viz. to express the sence they conceived of the mind and will of God the words in those tongues in which by the command and ordination of God the Scripture is written were both conceived and disposed by the holy Spirit and not permitted or left to the wisdom and will or arbitrement of the Writers themselves So of this sound piece of round Doctrine of I.O. this is the sum They that wrote the Scripture did not invent chuse or seeke words nor was it left to their minds understandings will wisdoms c. to express the truth yet to go round again they did use words of will or choice their mind and understanding were used in the choice of words yet to go round again to express the will and mind of God the words were not left to the will and wisdom of the writers Let the Reader chuse which of the two contradictory conclusions of I.O. he will take as true yet as one of them is and both cannot be true so true it is that I.O. runs the rounds and contradicts himself here as he doth in twenty places more of his self-consuting Fardel I. O. Thou addest p. 9 10. That in their writing they were not onely on a general account to utter the truth they were made acquainted with all and to speak the things they had heard and seen which was their common Preaching-work but also the very individual words they had received were to be declared And p. 9. quoting Mat. 10.10 That the Apostles were not the Speakers of what they delivered as other men are the Figment and Imagination of whose hearts are the Fountain of all that they speak but the spirit of the Father in them Rep. How hangs this true passage viz. They were to utter the truth they were acquainted withall and write the things they had heard and seen together by the ears with that false passage p. 5 6. Where thou sayest The Stories Laws Doctrines Instructions Promises Prophesies they gave out were not retained in their memories from what they had heard nor by any means before-hand comprehended by them c. What clouds of witnesses be here to the clearing of the Spirit by which thou writest to be a Spirit of self-contradiction 2. Was not their common Preaching-work and their common Writing-work all one as to the choice of Words wherein they declared Were they at liberty when they preached to ramble into words of their own meere will choice and invention and limited when they wrote so that they might not express themselves in such words as in the will and wisdome of God in which they dwelt and liv'd they saw meet for the matter in hand but just tyed to the individual words brought to them as immediately by inspiration as the matter or Word of God it self they wrote of Who acquainted thee with this whimsical non-sensical notion that they in their work of Preaching disposed and ordered their words as in wisdom they saw them acceptable or serviceable but in their work of Writing they might dispose order chuse and in wisdom seek to find out acceptable words but had every Tittle more immediately put into them then when they spake the Truth by word of mouth Dost not thou thy self say p. 9. Mat. 10.10 That the Apostles were not the Speakers of what they delivered but the Spirit in them Whereby the truer that is tthe more clearely thou contradictest thy self again and intimatest no less then thus much that the Spirit as immediately and distinctly brought to them gave and put into their minds and mouths what words they should use when they were speaking as what words they should use when they were Writing So that what ever was their common Preaching-Work and common Writing-Work in both which it 's true enough that they were assisted specially and in both equally by the holy spirit in the wisdom power evidence and demonstration of which speaking in them and moving them who were obedient to him to an active improvement and exercise of their rational faculties minds understandings wills memories thereunto they both preached and wrote 1 Cor. 2.4 2 Cor. 3.12 and so uttered no other truth then they were mostly made acquainted withall by the spirit within themselves and heard and saw by the light within as well as by hear-say and the Writings of one another from without Yet the common Preaching-work and Writing-work of thy self and thy fellow Ministers not of the Light and Spirit but of the Letter out of which ye surtively fetch filch and steal all your stuff and furniture wherewith ye feed people till they starve I say Your Preaching and Writing is of things that ye are not acquainted with from the Spirit of the Father nor from its manifestings the mind of God within you and moving you to utter them in words of his own immediate suggesting and supplying but a certain uttering forth in your own wills and times of what ye have no otherwise then by hearsay or from the Scriptures of those who spake and wrote as mov'd no more then what they both saw and heard and handled of the Word of Life a certain rude handling what ye never felt your selves nor your own hands ever yet handled of that Word of Life ye read others writing of a heedless holding forth of what ye hear not but onely hear of a talkative treating on what Truth ye do not truly taste of an impudent intruding of your selves into a self-ended shewing of what ye have not seen but as at second-hand ye see it shew'd in the Scripture by such as were in the true sight and substantial being of it vainly puffed up in your fleshly minds in which respect ye are no true Ministers nor true Witnesses for God but false Witnesses even when ye testifie the truth which is not yours as well as when ye tell lyes and teach the untruths which are your own as the old Truth stealers and Word-sellers were who though they said because they found it so said by such as felt it The Lord lives which is the truth yet they spake falsely forasmuch as they witnessed him nor risen and alive but murdered stew kill'd and crucified the holy and just one within themselves and spake not as Christ and his did what they knew Ioh. 3.11 and testified not what they had seen but worshipped and worded it about what they knew not Iohn 4.22 And so as a man can't be counted a Legal witness in foro hominum in a civil Court of Judicature among men that shall testifie of another's theft murder and scandal at second hand that is not as an immediate eye or ear-witnesse of it but on his reading in a Letter or hear-say from such as were so so much less in foro Dei Ecclesiae can any be owned as a true Minister of
God by the writers of the Scripture to the Pedagogie of the Old Testament and times before Christ such as greatly affected the outward man with trembling and astonishment for which thou citest both Habakkuk and Daniel as it the times since Christ knew no such matter as true Trembling or any such Quaking as may affect the outward man but what is fained and from Satan and the force and power of the evil Spirit imitating in his filthy Tripodes and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Dread and Terrour which is by the Power of God upon his people of which said fictitious sort thou falsely and foolishly fainest all that outward Trembling that is found among the Qua. to be at this day pag. 8. Ex. 1. S. 1. I say hadst thou been as well read and skilled in Scripture as by thy scribling pro Scripturis thou wouldest fain seem to be surely thou wouldest have found that Paul and John both were found in as great Tremblings and Astonishments Dread and Terrour to the great affecting of the outward man under the Appearances of the Lord to them in Visions and Revelations of his minde and will to them which they wrote as either Daniel Habakkuk or the rest of the Prophets before Christ that wrote them insomuch that they scarce knew sometimes where they were whether in or out of the body but were as dead with fear Act. 9 6.26.14 1 Cor. 2.3 2 Cor. 12.2 3. Rev. 1.17 But alas J.O. is so taken up and hurried in his thoughts in a hideous talking for the Scriptures that he hath little time to give any very great good heed to the Scriptures themselves he so talks for J.O. Thou addest pag. 6 7. That as far as their own personal concernments as Saints and beleevers did lye in the things they wrote they studied the writings and Prophesies of one another Dan. 9.2 and made a diligent enquiry thereby in order to the investigation of the things which the Spirit that spake in themselves did signifie 1 Pet. 1.10.10 without which though their Visions were express yet they understood them not and that they attained a saving useful habitual knowledge of the truths delivered by themselves and others by the illumination of the Holy Ghost through the study of the Word i.e. Scripture with thee still even as ye do Psal. 119 104. but as to the receiving of the Word from God as God Spoke in them they obtained nothing by study or meditation by enquiry or reading Am. 7.15 Rep. Here is such a parcel of uncouth prate about the Prophets and their Prophesie of Scriptures and the Scriptures of their Prophesies as favours of nothing but that illiterateness and ignorance of the true wayes of coming to the saving knowledge and understanding of the minde and will of God that abounds in Vniversities the supposed Nurseries as well of spiritual learning as any other well nigh as much as in any places of the so called Christian world besides What dreaming what darkness and confusion is here As if the Writers of the Scriptures because they were moved by the holy Spirit to write what they did therefore wrote they did not know what themselves nor in any wise sawingly understood every one his own piece of writing or Scripture pag. 5. whether of Histories or Prophesies or Proverbs or Psalms or Instructions or Doctrines or Laws or Promises or what ever tru he recorded delivered made known given out revealed by themselves revealed to them first from God as to their own concernment therein as Saints or beleevers by the Revelation thereof to them from God which as I said above is the only way of coming to the saving knowledge of any truth and not that of reading it as truth in anothers writings without running out to study and read the writings of some other men in order to their attaining any habitual saving useful intelligence of their own as if Isaiah that Evangelical Prophet did not savingly understand the Gospel Doctrines and Promises and Instructions and his own Recorded History of Senacherib and Hezekiah and other saving truths delivered and written by himself as they were revealed to him by the Lord nor by the voice Spirit and light of God himself manifesting them within him nor as he received the word so revealed and manifested in order to which receiving the word thou assertest also they obtained nothing by study or meditation enquiry or reading but onely as he made diligent enquiry study and search after the things the Spirit signified by him in the writings and Scriptures of some other Prophets I wonder what other parts of Scripture of the other Prophets he studied so to get that saving knowledge by since unless it were the Psalmes the last book of which is judged to have been compiled together by the Maccabees long after his dayes excepting also the three i.e. Hos a Amos and Micah that were co aetaneous with him all other Prophets that are ranked after him in your Bibles though not in the same order of time wherein they wrote wrote long after him and as if Ezekiel Jeremiah Daniel or the rest knew not savingly what they wrote themselves no more then we do as to themselves or any personal interest they had in the truths of their own writings but as they got an useful saving knowledges thereof out of each others writings in proof of which if a man would wrest them as thou doest to thine by the head and shoulders to such a purpose he might almost as easily evince the Pope to be head of Christs Church as draw any such matter as this thou concludest from Scripture That of 1 Pet. 1.10 11. Ministers no more matter of evidence to thy imagination in this particular that the Prophets searched other Prophets writings to finde out each the meaning of his own then Peters being at Rome if ever he were there doth to his being the Popes Predecessor there in the holy Chair 'T is true the Prophets are there said to enquire and search diligently after the salvation and the grace that comes unto the Saints at the revelation of Christ but is there no searching and enquiring after the salvation and the fulness of the grace of God but iâ— the letter is not the most succesful searching after these matters made in the light it self that teaches and shews it and brings the salvation nigh to all that wait for it therein which light or grace hath appeared to all men Tit. 2.11 12. and is tâ—eâ—e any way whereby God gives the knowledge of his own glory but the light from himself which the letter speaks of wherewith God who commands the light to shine out of darkness shines into the hearts of the Saints in order thereunto 2 Cor. 4.5 6. And are not all things that are manifested manifested in the light and is there any thing that doth make manifest but the said light and Spirit which the letter speaks of and which was before the letter was Eph. 5.13
and doth God reveal the hidden mysteries of the Gospel any way but by his Spirit to his Saints which searcheth all things even the deep things of God and doth any know the things of God but the Spirit of God and the spiritual men who in it and not by the letter which letter the world hath yet hath not the other have minde of Christ 1 Cor. 2.9 to the end And in that of Peter coted by thee is there the least hint of the Scriptures or of the Prophets searching the Scriptures or of any signification of the things they ministred to others in their writings by the Scriptures but only by the Spirit And as for Daniel it is true he understood by the books of Jeremiah the cerâ—ain number of seventy years how long the Captivity should last but what of that num ex puris particularibus aliquid sequitâ—â— universale Wilt thou argue from one to all much more wilt thou infer from thence that neither Daniel nor any other Prophets understood their own writings but by the Scriptures of the other Prophets which is the absurdity thou assertest And as for Davids saying Through thy Precepts I get understanding Hast thou got no more understanding yet then to beleeve that the Precepts Statutes â—udgements Laws Commandments Testimonies Word Ordinances Wayes Truth Name one or other of which names is either in the singular or in the plural number used in every individual verse excepting two throughout that long 119. Psalm consisting of an 176. verses no other thing is meant but the outward letter writing or Scripture of Moses five books very little more than which was extant in Davids dayes wherein the ten words which God wrote with his own hand and a few more Ceremonious matters were recorded by the hand of Moses Is not the Commandement or Word or Law of God as the letter speaks the Lamp or Light that the letter only speaks of Psal. 19.7 c. 119.105 Prov 6.23 And if all the other Prophets that succeeded Moses studied the writingâ— of Moses and one another in order to the knowledge of their own Prophetical writings without which they understood them not savingly as thou sillily sayest yet I wonder what other Prophets writingâ— Moses himself who was one of the Prophets not excepted by thee searched and studied that he might get a saving understanding of that truth that was penn'd by himself sith as thou thinkest at least there were no Scriptures extant before him for Enochs Prophesies have no standing in your Standard I wonder Quae colliquia cum Angelis vel ficta velfacta quis enthusiasmus quis afflatus caelestis aut reapse vis mali spiritus did suggest these fantasms into thy fancy Ex. 1. Ex. S. â—8 thou hast little need to detest the Qua. as Enthusiasis that entertainest and utterest to the world as undoubted truths such Amick Enthusiasmes as these Sundry other such shallow furmises and suppositions are very positively propounded and set down by thee in thy first Chapter of thy first Treatise which I shall let pass here some of which may possibly be touch't on elsewhere But this may suffice to give a taste of that untruth which thy two Treatises are under-propt with whereby from the falsenesse faultinesse foolishnesse and unsoundness of thy ground-work and foundation and from the brittleness of thy Basis so thou call'st p. 1.28.30 this Original part of thy Book concerning the Divine Original and immediate manner of the Scriptures coming forth from God to us the reasonable Reader may read aforehand what a Come-down Castle the rest of thy Babylonish Building is like to be for howbeit I grant that the Word of God and the holy truth in its first coming forth from God to the holy Pen-men that heard his voice and so wrote it as moved by him was of an immediate Divine original in which respect it is said no Prophesie of the Scripture is of private Interpretation or to be counted no more upon than a private mans wriâ—ing which writes of his own head as thou dost the figment and imagination of whose heart fancies thoughts are the fountain of all that is uttered but as that which holy men of God were moved to write and the outward Scripture it self may be said to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i.e. penned by men as they were inspired by God or the fruit and effect of no self-afflation but according to the motion or inflation of the holy Spirit yet that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thou makest such a deal of work about as the Original of the Copies of the Original of the Scripture and their coming forth from God was not so immediately from God to those that lived when they were first given out much less to us now as thou imaginest in thy vain mind who dotest that every Apex of that Text is equally Divine and as immediately from God to us as the very voice of God in the Prophets was to them without the least mixture or interveniency of any mediums or wayes obnoxious to fallibility or capable of giving change or alteration to the least 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or syllable thereof pag. 10.30.153 for that came from God at first excepting the Decalogue and that little to Belshazzar which ye have now but remote Copies of not without the interveniency medium and way of mans hand-writing which is it were as being infallibly guided by the Spirit obnoxious to no fallibility yet as it comes to you who own that and no other to be your inalterable Standard it s far from coming immediately from God sith it is not without the interveniency of the hands of welnigh innumerable unknown Transcribers the very first and best of whom were so far from non-obnoxiousness to fallibility that thou thy self sayest pag. 167. that neither all nor any of them were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 infallible or divinely inspired so that it was impossible for them to mistake and that religious care and diligence in their works with a due reverence of him with whom they had to do is all thou ascribest to them and p. 10. that the wisdome truth integrity knowledge and memory of the best of all men is obnoxious 〈◊〉 fallibility and also that it s known they did fail Neither if the Question were about the Autographae or first Manuscripts that were far more immediate then thy far fetcht Apographae or modern Copies are howbeit thy main business is about the magnifying thy confestedly mistranscribed Transcripts and fallible Copies and not the other which being acknowledged by thee to be lost perished and mouldred out of the world nemo post homines natos aequè ac tu delerasse censendus esset si pro scripturis ipsis scriptis hisce argumentare statueris thy dotage would justly be deemed of a deeper die than any mans to argue for them if he be a fool of al fool that fightâ— for the non-corruptibility of what is long since corrupted but I say were thy
from that sure Rock on which through mercy I stand into that deep pit of doubtful disputations into which such as are fell from God are fallen so as irreconcilably to fall out about things so little worth knowing that they are fit for nothing but to be forgotten left passing by and intermedling in a strife that directly concerns me not I not onely take a dog by the ears but raise also a Nest of Wasps or whole Hive of Hornets about my own who are striving to sting one another with what strength they can about stuff which on which side foe're the truth lyes is no more worth such a stirre and strife as they make for it then a very straw And since I see all the Builders that reject the Corner-stone are found in broiles and brabbles not onely about their several Superstructions and Fabricks built thereon but also their several Foundations and even the very Protestant Divines whose is the better of the two so long as the Papists have but Traditions at oddes within themse'ves about their own which being but the bare Letter is but brittle some with I.O. stickling to little purpose to prove it firm and uncorrupted whilst others with far more evidence to evince it to be decrepid I am minded to stand off from that Battel about the Points as to any earnest Interposition and deeper engagement therein then is above and become a looker on and leave the Clergy that are loud and clamorous and full of noiles to claw one another with their wonted Clubs and bang one another with their Branglings and vain janglings about Boy-Toy the Antiquity or Novelty of Hebrew Points And seeing they are hard at work in the Night and wrestling in Chaines of Darknesse like the foolish woman to pull down their own house with their own hands and to find out and fling about that all may see it the sandiness and crack's falsities and fallibilittes and flaws that are in their own crazie Corner-stone and faultring Foundation and to crush down their own Chaos they have rear'd thereupon with the curiosity of their own Criticisms and burn up their Babels with the confus'd fire of their angry quarrellings and contentions I rejoice more to see the Truth go on then sorrow to see their Trash come down thereby hoping that when they have laboured long enough in the fire of their own fury and find they have wearyed themselves for very vanity and see the Earth fill'd from the Lord 's own teachings without theirs with the knowledge of his glory from one end to another as the Waters cover the Sea and that when they begin to feele their old Heavens wax hot and be on fire o're their heads and their worldly Elements and Earthly Rudiments to melt away with fervent heat and the ragged Rocks they have carved out to themselves in their own conceits to rest upon to râ—ad in pieces and their Root to shew it self to themselves as it 's seen by others to be rottenness and their Blossom to go up as the dust and their boggy Foundation to shake and the ground they go upon to open crack cleave a sunder under their feet and themselves to cry out as I. O begins to do already 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Shâ—w me where I shall stand And that when they feel themseves sinking and going down alive with the uncircumcised into the pit they will then learn that from themselves which being wiser in their own eyes then the men that can render a reason they would never learn from others ' viz. That were they as truly built on the Letter of Scripture as they deem themselves to be and it 's most sure to some and infallibly true they are all beside it yet being not on the Light they are no better bottom'd then on the Sand trusting also as I said above that when the holy Thieves that steal the word they speake from one another to make a trade on and the Scribes have done Scolding and Scuffling together about the Scriptures then there wil be a restitution to every thing that hath been robb'd thereof of its own proper Name viz. Of the Rule to the Rule of the Foundation to the Foundation of the Light to the Light of the Witnesse of God to the Witnesse of God of the living Word to the living Word of God and of the bare Writing Text or Letter to the Letter and no more which in truth is no more then plainly so So then as positive as thou art in it I.O. that the outward Writing the close of the Canon of which as to any more immediate Revelation of his Will was immediately given out from God to us as a continent of the whole of his mind and will as a merciful and stedfast relief against all confusion darkness uncertainty loosenesse of mens minds c. ut supra and as it were a certain Standard to hush all Controversies Yet I who affirm the inward Light VVord and Spirit of God in the heart so to be do deny that the whole Scripture how immediately soever it had its being and beginning of God and however some little of it was Act. 15. was ever designed by him to such an end as the ending of strifes and contention or determining of all doubts and questions and disputings about his mind and will among men or that it ever prov'd succesful or effectual to such an end or else ut frustrâ est ista potentia quae ne unquaem reducitur in actum sic frustra istud medium quod nunquam obtinere potest suum finem As that 's a vain Power which never produces its effect so that 's a vain Means and therefore not so intended of God who appoints no means utterly in vain which never can obtaine its own end Nay verily though miserable man for his own ends cryes it up into that supremacy sets it up as the Ensign to the Nations in which he would have them put their trust that it will end and amend all matters that are out of tune in the world about truth and is a stedfast relief against all that fighting Andabatarum mors in their dark mindes that is among the Clergy of all kinds and colours Papists Prelates Presbyters who all three like Ammon Moab and Mount Seir making one head against the people of God do yet destroy each other and non secus as Sampsonis vulpeculae c. like Sampson's Fire-brand-tayl'd Foxes burn up the Churches true Bread-Corn as if such were the plenitudo Scripturarum the sufficiency power and perfect efficacy of the Scripture that if men will come all to a tryal of Doctrines Faiths Spirits and all by that tanquam ad Lydium lapidem Then all differences and dissentions in Religion of whatsoever sorts must cease and all the most detestable errors which flying the Scripture men are divided into must extempore vanish upon their looking there yet till men come to turn to the Light and Word within
Inhabitants of that earthly Jerusalem which is from beneath the fleshly Church of Jews and Christians according to the meer Letter which is in bondage with her children Isa. 8.14 28.16 1 Pet. 2. And that it is Christ Iesus alone and not the Scriptures that is there call'd the Foundation is most evident not onely from the Text it self wherein Jesus Christ himself is instanced in as such for the same that is call'd the Foundation is there also call'd the Corner-stone but also from other Scriptures whereby the truth hereof is yet more illustrated viz. Isa. 28.18 where speaking both in the foregoing and following Verses of the false Foundations short beds narrow coverings and lying refuges that the Drunkards of Ephraim that erred from the simple plain truth thorow the Wine of their own Wisdom and were out of the way and stumbled in Wisdom and Iudgement thorow the strong Drink of their own devised Doctrines so that they could not discern nor learn the Lords Doctrine that was divined to them thorow the stammering lips of such as ministred Precept upon Precept Line upon Line here a little and there a little among them he summons all to fix their Faith on the one onely true and firm Foundation saying Behold I lay in Sion for a Foundation a Stone a tryed Stone a precious Corner-stone a sure Foundation he that believeth shall not make haste Where it 's very observable as it is in Eph. 2.20 That the self-same that is called the Corner-stone is also ca'led the sure Foundation Likewise 1 Cor 11. where it's expresly said That other Foundation can no man lay then that is laid which is JESUS CHRIST Now if no man can lay any other Foundation of the Church which is God's Building then Christ whom the Apostle sayes ver 10. He himself laid as a wise Master-Builder according to the Grace of God given unto him Then all things else besides Christ the Word of God the Light of the World and that measure of Light that shines from him which is not divided from him any more then that of the Sun from it but one with him whatsoever men go about to lay as the Foundation of the Church and her Faith Hope and Obedience are not truly really and properly so but imaginarily supposively fictitiously so and but falsly so called meerly seigned found out and founded onely in the Fancies of foolish blind Babel-builders which Founders and their fictitious Foundations must be confounded For the layers of a false Foundation and such are all they that with I.O. lay the Letter or Traditions with the Papists and Iesuits he justles with or any other then Christ the Light must come to confusion as wel as the meer Formalists their Wood Hey Stubble Trash Imitations empty forms and such like Superstitions and all sorts of Superstructions of the Babilonish Builders upon the true Whereupon as much as J.O. blesses himself in his holding the Foundation and feeds himself with hopes of salvation so long as he is found holding that though he build Hay and Stubble upon it and his Works come to be consumed saying p. 160. It will be well for us if we be found holding the Foundation if we build hay and stubble upon it though our Work perish we shall be saved Yet alas poor deluded man J.O. thou mistakest thy self exceedingly it would be well for thee indeed if thou held'st the Foundation Christ the Head the Light of men thy person might then be saved though thy Work of wood hay stubble will assuredly perish in the fire But thou art far from being found holding that Foundation then which there is no other and found laying another even thy uncertain Transcripts of the Greek and Hebrew Texts and an outward fallible Letter and its Points and Syllables and Tittles and Iota's one jot or tittle of which if it fail thou confessest all thy Faith and Fabrick of Religion falls to the ground confessing also that 't was not impossible for the chiefest Transcribers thereof to mistake in any thing yea that they did fail in their Work so rasing thy false feigned and fallible Foundation to the ground and pulling down thy House with thy own hands like the foolish woman And as for the true Foundation Christ the Light and Spirit which are infallible stable firm fixt sure and certain as every true laid Foundation ought to be and is though thy flexible Letter is not so which is of it self an Argument of its not being the Churches Foundation of Faith and Obedience This true one I say is by thee trampled on and flouted at under the Names of Nescio quod Lumen quem Deum seu 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Deo quopiam melius merae Tenebrae aecitas fines salutares quod attines non sufficiens ad salutem Christus Fanaticorum imaginarius fictitius qualitas nescio quae divina seu anima Mundi omnibus misia quae 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sit i.e. vere nihil Ex. 4. S. 15.17.21 Doctorem infallibilem nihil habens commune cum Scripturis Ex. 3. S. 22. I know not what Light what God or cornucopia better then any God infallible Doctor inconsonant utterly with the Scripture imaginary Christ of the Qua. I know not what Divine Quality or Soul of the World made up of all things that is all things and truly nothing Moreover if none can lay other Foundation then Christ then Paul himself by these words Ephes. 2.20 Ye are built on the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets cannot rationally be concluded as he is both senselesly and reasonlesly conceived by I.O. to intend any other Foundation then Christ himself neither can he be understood by any that have common understanding to intend himself and other Prophets and Apostles or his own and their meer outward Writings for then there are two whereof they must have one Foundation of Faith and Obedience and we another they Christ the Light and we them and their Letter which is an absurdity utterly unbecoming men call'd Christs Ministers to imagine seeing the Foundation quicquid id est of the Church and her faith hope and obedience from the beginning of the world to this day is but one and not many yea as the Faith is one and the Baptism one and the Temple and building one and the Body one and the Spirit one and the Lord and God and Father of all saints is one so the Foundation is but one what ever it is Eph. 4 5 6. Or else secondly if there be but one foundation for us and them to stand upon and that be the Apostles and Prophets themselves or thei Writings then Incidit in Scyllam c. the Apostles and Prophets must be supposed to be built not upon Christ but upon themselves their own Writings as to their faith and saving knowledge of the truth or at least on the Writings one of another which is an Imagination as if not more absolutely absurd than the former yet of the two I.O. having
contradicts himself ye are for all your siding to vindicate the same Points of false Doctrine against the Qua. so frequently sound contradicting each other that in order to the consutation of you both a man may finde contradiction enough either in each of your Writings within themselves or in the Writing of one of you unto the other and so 't is in this case for I.O. owns no other Principle or Foundation of discovery of Divine Truth then the Scriptures for the Faith to stand on p. 18. But thou ownest the Spirit to be the Principle of obedience 2. If the phrase denotes the Principle only and not the Rule as it does not for it denotes both yet the other places mentioned do denote more expresly the Light and Spirit and not the Letter to be the Rule which said Light and Spirit that is the Power of God to say the truth is both the Principle upon which all true Faith is founded and is to stand 1 Cor 2.5 in the movings of which obedience is to be acted and also the Rule according to which as it moves leads guides directs impowers and no otherwise all things that are at all are to be both done and believed And no less do all those phrases however denote viz Rom. 8. 1.4.5.13 Who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit then a being taught led guided ruled directed by as well as moved acted and enabled from the Spirit so or so to believe or do for it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Praeposition though join'd with the Genitive signifies contra against as Gal. 5. The flesh lusteth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 against the Spirit yet with the accusative is secundum after according to so that the Light and Spirit of Christ within is not onely the Foundation upon which the Principle from which but also that in which the Standard Measure Guide and Rule of direction by after or according to which the Saints are to walk believe and do whatever they do in order to their pleasing of God and standing uncondemned in his sight And no less then so doth Phil. 3.16 import where Paul to the Saints at Philippi with the Bishop and Deacons according to their several statures and degrees of growth in the Light and Spirit of Christ wishes all that were perfect as every one is that is faithful to his own measure to be so minded as himself yet leaving every one to believe and judge by his own measure of Light not binding any one to his till God himself should reveal things as he knew them to those that were yet otherwise minded Neverthelesse quoth he whereunto we have already attained let us walk or steere our course by the same Rule let us mind the same thing Which same Rule or same thing that he wills all though their measures of Light may be different to mind and walk by He that shall dream it to be the Letter of the Scripture without and not the inward Light Grace and Spirit of Christ a measure and manifestation of which is according to the measure of the gift of Christ distributing to every one severally as he will to some more some less some one some two yet to every one one talent at least given to every man to profit withall to improve trade with and thrive by Matth. 25.15 Rom. 12.3.6 1 Cor. 12. 7.11 Eph. 4.7 8. compared with Psal. 68.18 Gifts to the Rebellious also 1 Pet. 4.10 11. I shall deem him to be more deservedly denominated a Doter then a Doctor in Divinity or a true Teacher of the things of God and the Gospel seeing the so-call'd Scripture-Rule or Canon so much counted on as that no other neither inward light nor Word nor Revelations of the Spirit Post completum ejus Canonem as J.O. sayes are at all to be admitted to the Name Title Honour and Authority of a Rule to the Church according to J. O's and T. D's Principles was not yet bounded nor compleated nor come to its full Coronation Canonization Consecration and Consignation by any Clerical Convocation of Divines as it did afterwards while Paul wrote thus to the Philippians there being more of his own and other holy men's Writings penned after this besides the Revelation of John which J.O. on his own head p. 18. calls the Close of the immediate Revelation of Gods will in that way of Writing And whether the Philippians had seen any Scripture at all much lesse any of the Books ye call the New-Testament more then this that Paul now wrote when he wrote this to them unless it may be conjectured from Ph. 3.1 that he himself wrote to them before to the same purpose as now and therefore sayes to write the same things to you is safe for you is questionable and more then J.O. and T.D. with both their heads laid together are able to prove therefore the same Rule he bids them all walk by according to their respective measures and the same thing he bids them mind was not the Scripture but the Light and Spirit which having reveal'd something to them would as they walked perfectly by the Rule thereof reveal all things to them in due time that he knew and they were ignorant of For though the Rule appointed design'd and authoriz'd by God for all men to mind as one man and to walk by from the beginning of the World to this day is but one i. e. the Light Word and Spirit in the heart and conscience yet the Degrees in which it is dispenced are different and every one that is found faithful in the improvement of what is committed to him be it little or more is crowned with the just account of Faithfulness V prightnesse and Perfection and title to the joy and right to have more committed to him Yea as if any man walk up to what he hath already attained to the understanding of the same shall have more abundance If any will do his will saith Christ i.e. so far as he knows the same shall know of the Doctrines that are taught whether they are of God or whether the Teachers thereof speak of themselve Joh. 7.15.16 Such shall discern and distinguish and see and grow into the Spirit of Iudgement and of a sound mind and into a cleare sight of the mind of God who manifests himself to such as he does not to the world who receive not the Spirit of Truth which he gives to all in some measure to convince them of sin righteousnesse and judgement and so to guide them out of sin but that some resist him but to such as own truth as receive him and love and come to the Light which â—evil ones hate loving flesh and darknesse more then it because it reproves their ill deeds that their deeds may be manifested more and more and come to be wrought in God he leads into all truth while such proud Pharisaical Praters as Vniversity-bred Schollars stubborn Students and rebellious Rabbies Scripture-searching
beleeving and obeying then it seems with thee faith is to be begun and begotten and born by the Spirit but kept preserved and nourished up to perfection by the letter which is a Doctrine of deep dotage and deceit for it is the Spirit of Christ and the light that is both the Creator and Preserver the Author and finisher of the faith insomuch that I may truly and do here justly cry out against you blind bewitching broachers and your blind bewitched beleevers of it as Paul on the Galatians I marvel that ye should be so sottishly departed and degenerated from the simplicity of the primitive Gospel so plainly declared in the very letter it self which asserts the Light Spirit and Word within to be both the principle and the Rule O ye foolish Prophets and foolish People who hath bewitched you that ye should be so reprobate as to the knowledge of the truth Are ye so foolish as to fancy that when men have once begun in the Spirit they must be preserved in their faith and regulated and made perfect by their fleshly attendences to the Letter that the Vniversiâ—ies and Ministers meerly of it and not of the Spirit are so lost about and wrangling about that to this day they are not agreed about the integrity of its Text They that ministed the spirit among men at first and were even by the very letter they wrote Ministers by whom men beleeved in the light did they call them so much to the heeding or hearing of the letter themselves wrote as to the hearing of the Word of faith they preached and testified to both in their Writings and by Word of mouth even that which before they wrote to them at all was nigh in their heart and in their mouth that they might do it Tell me ye that desire to be under the teachings of the letter only not the light do you not hear the letter telling of another Rule besides it self which it self doth only point to doth not the letter teach you the Spirit and light is both the principle and principal means also of discovery of right and wrong as is shewed above doth the letter part the business of our obedience as your party coloured discourses thereof would seem to make it do between it self and the Spirit or say any where that the Spirit is the principle but the letter it self the Rule of our obedience that the spirit creates and the letter preserves faith as T.D. dreamingly divines saith it not that the Spirit is both And yet O the muddinâ—ss not to say madness of our now Ministers Another while again even within the space of one page behold O ye wandring wonderers and wondering wâ—nderers after these vain men and their whisling Butterfly-businesses that would seem wise though they are but as wilde Asses colâ—s and ye shall see T.D. who affirms the spirit to be the Principle and that which creates faith and the letter the Rule that preseâ—ves it affirming the letter to be both i.e. not only the only Rule of it but the Principle of it also and ascribing in these words p. 28. of his fiâ—st as also in the 17. page of his second God did not intend nor give order for them i.e. for more writings than we have in our Bibles to be the Rule but hath assured us as much as is sufficient to create and preserve faith in the Gospel we have both the first being begetting and beginning of faith to the Scripture as also I.O. who jumps with him in one as they do together in most things in these words Ex. 3. s. 39. Not only the begetting of faith but also the building up in it while we live here is the end of the Scripture What more is uttered by T.D. as to this head of the Scriptures being the only rule is in answer to this Argument was urged against him as himself relates it but to disadvantage p. 29.30 of his first Pamph. at the dispute on this wise If the Rule of faith and life was before the Scripture was then the Scripture is not the Rule c. but the Rule was before the Scripture therefore c. To which said Answer of T. D's is no other than a giving of the whole cause in question between us viz. whether the Scripture i.e. the Writing or Letter is the Rule or no sor quoth T.D. Your Argument concludes nothing against us for we assert the matier contained in the Scripture is a standing Rule yâ—ur Argument proves but that there was a Rule before this Writing we grant that God revealed himself by Visions Dreams Since the Gospel preached to Adam there hath not been any increase of Truths Quoad essentiam sed tantum quoad explicationem as the Learned speak of the Articles of our faith the manner of conveyance is different then and now but the matter or doctrines conveyed still the same Rep. If this conclude nothing against you for as much as ye own doctrine or matter only contained in and declared by the Scripture and not the letter to be the Rule how conclusive you outcries are against the Qua. as that they are denyers of the Scripture a Fool may feel since they own the holy doctrine and matter in the Scripture which is the Light Spirit and Word in the heart to be the Rule as your selves do and so to have been also before the Scripture was though they deny the meer Writing to be the Rule which with your selves is not the matter conveyed but meerly the manner of conveyance not the essential truth it self but only the form of its explication which manner of conveyance or form of explication your selves it seems do deny here to be the Rule as well as we with us asserting only the matter truth or doctrine contained and conveyed in the Writing so to be If ye assert no more than the truth doctrine or matters contained in the Scriptures to be the Rule which matters thou thy self T.D. p. 30 31. of thy first Pamph. sayest is that Word of faith the Apostles preached which was the Word we assert to be the Rule that is nigh in the heart Rom. 10 and dare not assert your selves the meer letter or Scripture so to be I trow wherein differ you from the Quae. whom you quarrel with as deniers of the Scriptures Will you never be at quiet with the Qua. but quarrelling against them when they affirm the truths wherein your selves assent to them as much as when they deny the untruths wherein ye dissent from them Will you allow them neither to say the sound doctrines which your selves are forced to confess to nor to gainsay the errors and false doctrines which ye would fain force you false faith of upon them ye assert no more but that the matter or doctrine conveyed and truth explicated therein which is the light spirit or living Word it self is the Rule as thou sayest here so denying the letter writing or meer Text to be it we
affirm nor more nor less yet ye own and justifie your selves as owners and deny and judge us as deniers as of of the Scriptures Ye challenge us to dispute it against us that the Scripture is the Word of God the only Rule c. when we meet you before hundreds to that end you confess with us as Christopher Fowler did at Reading T.D. at Sandwich and I.O. doth in his Declartion or Latine Divinity Disputations that you mean not the Scripture formally considered the Letter or Text it self ye talk for not the Writing but the holy matter and doctrine contained held forth testified to therein the Word in the heart of which we say its a Light a Rule denying the letter only so to be yet the same truth when ye tell it is the truth when we tell it as a lye Ye venture upon the open stage against us a vile persons in our Tenets about the Scriptures when ye are there ye verefie the very self-same truth we vindicate against you and say with us the Scripture or Writing which is the formality of the Scripture quae dat esse Rei sormally considered is not the Word nor the Rule nor any thing but a dead letter only the matter and truth of the Text testified to is the Word Rule Light c. as we say it is only Yet when ye go away though from the first to the last ye give us the cause yet we must give you leave or else you will steal it to carry away the colours and boast and brag and vapour as the men that had the victory till by venting your lyes so fast to manifest the Qua. folly ye fling out your own folly to the view of all men T.D. But quoth T.D. p. 30.1 Pamph. All this while you go about to delude the simple as if you denied only this way of writing to have alwayes been the only way of conveyance and you magnifie the Spirit that with more security ye may throw down the letter of the Scripture and if you would speak out plainly that ye call the Spirit will be found to be the dictates of your consciences blinde and corrupt as they are the Lord knows and you are no further bound to obey the letter of the Scripture then you are willing to obey it Rep. As for thy lyes of the friends of truth that light stuff like the chaffe the winde will drive away The Lord knows whose consciences are blind and corrupt yours or ours and as to thy slighting the dictates of conscience which work I.O. is not behinde thee in flouting at what is dictated by the Light of God in it and by the light therein from it to men as Figment Fannaticism Enthusiasm and such like dirty denominations I need refer no further then too I.O. whose magnifications of the dictates of conscience otherwhiles may well serve to the contradiction and confutation of himself and thee too and stop both thy mouth and his own too who â—ayes pag. 42. â—3 44,45 of the conscience and the voice of God therein and the instinct of good and evil and self-judgement God hath placed and indeleably planted therein it declares it self to be from God by its own light and Authority there is no need to convince a man by substantial witnesses that what his conscience speaks it speaks from God whether it bear testimony to the righteousness of God or that obedience which is eternally and indispensably due to him it shews the work of the Law written in the heart and discovers its Author in whole name it speaks and much more to the like purpose so that he and thou too may with shame enough reflect upon your ignorant vilifications of it As for our obedience to the Letter we are by the Spirit so bound to that not so far only as we are willing as thou belieâ—t us but in a cross to our own wills that while we walk in the Spirit which is our Rule we cannot disobey the Letter but fulfill it while your selves who prate of your being bound to obey it walk at large after your own wills and lusts in the liberty of your flesh and through your boundless boasting of that ye as boundlesly break do dishonour both God and your selves As for our going about to deceive the simple we deny all Deceivers and Deceit teaching no other Doctrine nor Gospel then what Paul delivered then which whoever it is that brings or broaches another whether it be we who are hated as Devils or you who are honoured as Angels of light from heaven by such as dwell in the depths and darkness of hell I say with Paul let him be accursed but those are now marked and manifested plainly enough who cause the Divisions and offences contrary to the Doctrine the Saints learned of old by the children of the day are avoided also for they that are such serve not the Lord Iesus Christ but their own bellies and yet by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple Rom. 16.17 18. What T.D. sayes in his second Pamph. as to this question of the Scriptures being a Rule is no new thing but a Reference of men for an answer to G. Whiteheads Queries which he was shye of saying much to seeing he had not much to say to his old trite trivial Toy entituled the Qua. Folly the very book that G. Whitehead had Routed before and so dry is T.D. pumped that most of his two Butter-flyes excepting the wings it flyes with i. e. His Epistle and his Narrative consists of Repetitions of what he had uttered in the other that was Routed and new References of his Reader to that old one notwithstanding so much is added to to this head in p. 16. of his second Pamph. as more fully gives us the cause we contend for against him viz. That the Truth Doctrine Matter and not the Scripture Text or Letter is the Rule to men I must quoth he again refer the Reader for an answer to these Queries meaning G.Ws. to Qua. Folly in which yet none of them are answered and I adde the matter contained in the Scriptures is a Rule to all men so far as t is revealed to them and was so before it was put into writing and so much of it as is written upon the hearts of Heathens is a Rule to them Rep. Minde Reader how T.D. yeelds the Question to the Qua. again in his late last Lazy labours which Question between the Qua and the Priests is not about the holy Doctrine Truth and matter for the Qua. still own that to be as to the substantials before which the shadowy figurative part thereof flyes away everlastingly the same an inalterable fixt firm inward spiritual Word and Light which neither doth not can ever perish corrupt or pass away but about the outward Scripture Writing Text or Letter which uno ore with one voice all our Priests and people vote to be the Rule Touchstone Word c.
of which no inward Light or Spirit or new Revelations about the faith and Divine worship of the Saints are either to be expected or admitted it lyes more in the negative then the positive or affirmative consisting for more largely of disproofs such as they are of any inward Light Spirit or spiritual Revelation to be at all then of proofs of the Letter or Scripture yet some pedling ones are puzled out to such a purpose to be altogether and alone the Rule of faith holy life and divine worship He professes to prove the inward Spirit or Light the Qua. plead for not to be the Rule and that the Scripture or Letter is so two wayes first Authoritative or by the Scripture it self 2. Rationative or by a Rational way of Argumentation But though I own the Authority and veracity of the Scripture so far that if I.O. could produce any place of the Bible as he pretends to do many wherein the Scriptures do ascribe to themselves the Honor Authority and Title of the onely perfect Rule either in terminis or by any such due deduction as is not more duely deniable then so much as probale to a prudent man indeed I should truly submit to one such testimony being perswaded that the Scriptures are writings of truth where not altered and not adulterated by mens mistakings and mistranscribings yet the Scriptures being wrested besides all sense and reason by J.O. and the Theologians he adhears to to that end I deny his proofs to be either Athoratative or Rational The testimonies he urges the Authority of to prove the Text to be in the Authority of the only Rule he casts into four Classes the first sort of which consist of such places as expresse as he sayes and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vel per immediatam cousequentiam perfectionem hanc Scripturis ascribunt do expresly verbatim or else by immediate consequence ascribe such a perfection as of the only Rule to the Scriptures The second such as expresly reject all Additions to the Text and Word of God whatever The third such as contain the examples of Christ and the Apostles trying and commanding to try all things by the Scriptures The fourth such as commend the holy Scriptures to all Religious uses Of the first sort he impannels eleven in all not being able it seems to pick out a whole Jury to serve his turn howbeit I acknowledge these if they would as freely as he forcibly would have them pass their verdict for him to be enough being all of them good and true witnesses in another case then he calls them for they stand all together in Ex. 3. s. 26. viz. Joh. 2. ult 2 Tim. 3 13 14 15 16. Psal. 19.18 Luke 1.3 4. Luke 16.29 Act. 1.1 Rom. 10 17. Eph. 2.19 20. 2 Pet. 1.19 2 Cor. 3.24 Gal. 6 16. Of the second seven viz. Deut. 4.2.12.32 Rev. 22 18. Gal. 1.8 Mat. 15.6 1 Cor. 4.6 Isa. S. 20. Of the third four viz. Luke 16.28 29 30 Act 17.11.21 Act. 18.24.28 Act. 26.22 with intimation of very many more commonly cited as he saith to that purpose Of the fourth seven viz. Joh. 1.7 Deut 28.58 Luke 24 27. Joh. 5.39 Rom. 15.4 Phil. 3.1 1 Joh. 1.4 It may do well to take some notice of them at least and hear their evidence I shall draw them up into the form of an Argument and then we shall see what expressnes in them or immediate consequence there is from them to the Scriptures being the only Rule Arg. John sayes Jesus did more signs then are written in his Book or History of him but what he wrote was that men might beleeve that Jesus is the Son of God and beleeving might have life through his Name David that the Law of God is perfect converting the soul the Testimony of the Lord is sure making wise the simple the Statutes of the Lord pure enlightning the eyes Luke that it seemed good to him also seeing some others had taken in hand such a worke having had perfect understanding from the first of the things Iesus did and taught to write an orderly Declaration thereof to Theopilus whether a particular person so called or any lover of God who can tell for so is the name by interpretation that he might know the certainty of the things wherein he by which it seems rather to have been some eminent man had been before in part informed and Christ said Men must hear Moses and the Prophets or else will not be perswaded to repent if one rise to them from the dead Peter that the Saints have a more sure word of Prophesie to which they do well that they take heed as to a light that shineth in a dark place till the day dawn and the day star arise in their hearts Paul to the Romans That faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God To the Corinthians that the minds of the Jews were blinded for until this day the vail remaineth on their hearts untaken away in the reading of the Old Testament which vail is taken away in Christ. To the Galathians that as many as walk according to this Rule peace shall be on them and Gods Israel To Timothy that evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse deceiving and being deceived willing him to continue in the things he had learned and been assured of knowing of whom he had learnt them and that from a childe he had known the holy Scriptures which were able to make him wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Iesut that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for Doctrine Reproof Correction Iastruction in Righteousness that the man of God might be perfect throughly furnished to all good works To the Ephesians that they were no more strangers and forrainerâ— but fellow-citizens with the Saints and of the houshold of God and built upon the foundation of the Prophets and Apostles Jesus Christ being the chief corner stone God forbids to adde to his Word he commandeth and threatens to adde Plagues to them that so do Paul sayes Let him be accuâ—sed who ever brings another Gospel then that he had preached to the Galathians though the Apostles themselves or an Angel from heaven Christ asked the Pharisees Why they made Gods Commands void by their Traditions Paul sayes He in a figure transferred to himself and to Apollo the things that he had wrote to Corinth that none of them might think of either of them above that which he wrote of them as meerly Ministers by whom they beleeved and not be as they were very apt to be puâ—t up for one of them against the other and glorying in man God bids seek not to Wizzards that peep and mutier but to himself his Law and Testimony The Berean searched the Scriptures daily whether the things were so or no the Apostles preached Apollos was mighty in the Scriptures and as mightily confounded the Jews proving thereby that Jesus was Christ.
written for the ends above specified in the Scriptures mentioned yet will it not follow that it was intended for the Rule to the Church much less the only perfect Rule or Standard of Faith and Life because God did not give order for â—s so to be but assured her before the Scripture was at all as much as God thought sufficient to create and preserve faith in the Gospel she had before she had it written in an outward Letter viz. the inward Light Word and Spirit that was in the beginning from which the Letter came And p. 43. to make a Rule much more then the only sâ—anding Rule exclusively of all other of all internal Light Word Spirit Revelation as JO. and T.D. both hold the Scripture to be is necessary Gods appointment of a Writing to that end to which he did and even in the Scripture it appears appoint the Spirit and inward Light and Word as I shew'd above but never at all appointed the Scripture it self And p. 17 18. of T. D's 2 d. Pam. the difference lyes in God's Arbitrary dispensation who from of old disposed the Light Word and Spirit alone to be the Rule without and before the Letter as being far more excellent and fully sufficient without it as to the nature and being of a Rule but never ordered intended designed appointed or established the Writing alone as the Rule as my two Vniversity Antagonists dispute without and câ—â—lusively of the other And as for the third and fourth Classis of J. O's Scriptures which seeing they are so near a kin to these of the first therefore I shall consider them here before those of the second they are of the same kind so that the same general Answer might satisfie sapienti cui verbum sat but seeing such stress is put on them by J.O. to the stablishing of a wrong Standard which iâ— of so great concernment to be stated right or else all the Building faulters I am free to insist a little more particularly on them then else I need to do They contain as thou sayest J.O. commendations of the Scriptures as to all uses of Religion both by the practises and precepts of Christ and the Apostles searching and expounding proving and trying all things by them themselves and also commending and commanding the searching of them and the trying of all things by them in and among all others Rep. That all the places enumerated by thee do contain any such matter at all I utterly deny for some of those thou citest as well as sundry of those afore spoken to neither expresly nor intentionally relate to the Writing or Scripture but onely to the Word of God and the Things and Truth and Commands of God written of onely in the Letter which things in what Text soever thou find'st them talkt of thou present'y run'st blundering on in thy wonted blindness which discerns no difference between the Writing and things written interpreting them without more ado of the Scripture as namely Deut. 28.58 whereby the words written in that Book is not meant the Writings but the Commandmenâ— therein rehearsed the Ceremonials and Morals of which they were to observe before that Booke of Deuteronomy was penn'd which is a story of Moses his repetition by word of mouth a little before his death of such things as he had from the Lord enjoined them to observe and some of them God also from his own mouth well-nigh forty years at least before that was penned Also that in Acts. 26.22 where Paul sayes he witnessâ—d no other things or truths as to the substance and matter of them though the manner was different the one testifying de Christo exhibendo the other exhibito one saying they should come t'other they were come then what the Prophets and Moses said should come Which things Paul could now witness were come if he had not seen their witness that they should And what mention is there of the Scripture at all in that Scripture Also John 1.7 where it s said of John Baptist he was not that Light but came to bear witness of that light which John Baptist wrote no Scripture at all that I know of which Light he testified to was not the Letter or Scripture but the same the Qua. bear witness to even that measure of its light within wherewith he inlightneth every man that comes into the world so that there is no Scripture mentioned or so much as meant in that Scripture Wherever thou seest in thy Concordance the word Scripture written of in the Scripture thou art ready to think straightway it Concuâ—r'â— and hath no â—mâ—l Concordance with thy cause and where thou findest the Words Rule Foundation Law and Prophets of God Light Word Commands Statutes Testimony Prophesie and such like thou as rashly and rawly imaginest the Scripture or meer outward Writing meant and mentioned by them in what ever is predicated of them and that it makes something for thy bâ—inde business of the Scriptures being the only standing Rule and Foundation But alas hoc aliquid verè nihil est this something is plainly nothing at all to that purpose for as it makes not a mice toward the proof thereof as appears above because the Scriptures were written for good ends and are prefiâ—â—blâ— to such and such good uses unless God had Canonized them as a Rule so neither doth it that Christ expounded the Scriptures and that some did search them and were mightily read in them as some are at this day who are supposed to deny them to the confounding the Scribes that searched them daily and therein lookt for life as their only Rule but never came to him that they might have life who was the Life and Light they came from but never heard him whom they testified of that his voice was now to be heard in whom God who under the Law before his coming spake in his servants the Prophets speaks under the Gospel as by his only Son 'T is true Abraham who lived long after Moses and those Prophets whose Writings ye have were born in that Parable which illustrates a precious truth that as to the mystery of it lyes yet hid from thee is brought in by Christ as saying of the Rich mans brethren by way of prevention of their coming into torment They have Moses and the Prophets let them hear them if not they 'l not be perswaded by a miraculous message of one to them from the dead but what iâ— this to prove what thou here alledgest it for and more largely inferrest from it p. 63 64 65 66 67. where thou preachest on that Text a Sermon as long as little to thy purpose improving it and that of 2 Pet. 1.19 to the utmost to prove Moses and the Prophets Writings to be the best and most effectual means of bringing men to repentance on which that and all faith is immediately to be grounded and to prove the Scriptures to be that alone which we are sent to to be more effectual
and sure then either the greatest miracle that ever was or immediate voice that ever God himself spake by from heaven and to be the sole Rule and determiner of all Doctrines whether they be Truths or but cunningly devised fables which two Texts together with Isa. 8.20 how little they evince any such matter and what is meant in them by Moses and the Prophets and by that sure World of Prophesie which thou and thy fellows foolishly affirm to be the Scriptures I shall God willing take occasion to examine anon Three of thy main inartificial Arguments as thou truly callest them p. 50 51 52 56. or Testimonies to thy untruth being by the head and shoulders without either sense or reason wrested from them Again it is true the Bereans did search the Scriptures whether the things were so as the Apostles spake who spake nothing but summarily substantially the same which Moses and the Prophets did say should come but what though they did so of their own accord and their searching was succesful and useful also to the fortifying of the faith they had in the World of Truth which they received readily not as the word of man but of God not as fables but as truth it coming to them as to the Thessalonians not in word only but in power and the holy Spirit and in much assurance 1 Thes. 1.5 must it needs follow therefore that the Scriptures were their only Rule of determining the Doctrines whether they were truths or fables the Word of God or the word of man and that their faith and owning that truth was à priori first originally and immediately founded as thou preachest all faith and repentance must be page 58.64 on the Scriptures so that if they had not first searched the Scriptures and there found a congruity of the things with the old Writing they neither would nor could have beleeved or received the truth thus thou and most of thy faternity foolishly fancy but look again and ye will finde it far otherwise for howbeit they searched the Scriptures and did commendably and nobly therein and were commended as more noble in that then they of Thessalonica who yet are commended as noble excellent and exemplary as the other in receiving the Word in much affliction with joy as Gods and not mans word though it seems not so serious in searching the Scriptures as these 1 Thess. 1.5 6 7 8. and were not a little confirmed in their faith begotten before yet they first received the Word with all readiness of minde as hundreds do at ths day as preacht to them by word of mouth from the Apostles the witness of God being reached and answering to the truth of it in their hearts in which they were noble as Thessalonica was yet more noble by how much they were unwearied and uncessans in seeking to be more and more gradually and groundedly growing in fuller assurance of the truth as many are at this day who first beleeving and receiving the Word with joy and readiness do not sleight as ye suppose but à posteriori being in the faith Timothy more seriously and singly then your selves see into the Scriptures that being already brought into the things the Scriptures write of through patience and comfort thereof have hope according to that other Scripture of thy coating Rom. 15.4 as yourselves cannot have any more then the Scribes who stand studying and sraping with your own Animal understandings before ye are ceme to walk in the Light and Spirit they witness too and came from But what 's all this more then just nothing at all to prove the Scripture to be the only standing Rule of Faith and Life which is asserted of it to the evincing it to be the Word Nay if your eyes were in your head ye might see of your selves O ye Studentall more than truly Prudential searchers of the Scriptures that the Word the Apostles preached and the Scripture which we confess truly testifies thereof are two distinct things and in no wise one and same individual as ye would make them if ye look no farther then the present Text in hand for in that he sayes they received THE WORD with all readiness of minde and searched the SCRIPTVRE whether the things were so it imports to any but the blind searchers of the Scripture that the word they received was one thing and the Scripture they searched about the truth of it was another Again it is true and not to be denied but Apollo an eloquent Iew was from his being well versed therein before he came to own the Light mighty in the Scripture and learned in the Letter so as mightily to confound the Gospel gain saying Iews thereby when once he came to obey it himself though yet there was a tradesman and his wife further grounded in the Gospel and learned in the light than himself who was beyond them in the Letter of whom he was not ashamed as our Vniversities Literatists are at this day to learn of women that know more of Gospel mysteries than they do to stoop to be instructed in the way of God more perfectly but how little this proves the Scripture to be the only standing Rule for which end I.O. cites it he that is blinde cannot see but others cannot chuse when as he that was so well skilled in the Scripture had that been the only Rule that he could have instructed Aquila and Priscilla about the Letter with which suo sejugulaus gladio he slew the Letter-learned Iews as it were with their own sword was not so clear in his understanding of the Truth Way Gospel Spirit Word and Light of God which is indeed the only standing inalterable Rule for ever as it ever was but that he had need to be Regulated and Rectified therein by such as in meer Scripture all knowledge were as inferiour as they were superior to him in spiritual understanding Moreover what makes it to the proof of the Scripture to be the only standing Rule exclusively of the Light and Spirit that Paul sayes to write the same things to the Philippians by which its questionable whether he 〈…〉 something to them before which is lost and not bound up in your Bibles nor canoniz'd into your Canon was safe for them As much as if he had said nothing at all for nothing at all is that to I. O's purpose nor yet that of Iohn saying These things I write unto you that your joy may be full which J O. cites to the same end And true it is Christ expounded the Scriptures to his Disciples as he did also his own Parables that he uttered by word of mouth amongst them and the mixt multitude togeâ—her and opened their understandings also as he does theirs that walk in his light that they might understand them but where is the immediate cogent consequence from hence to the conscience of any that the Letter or Scripture is the onely most perfect standing Rule of all Faith Truth holy life
Doctrine Divine Worship c. as I.O. states it to be and T.D. also exclusively of the internal Light Word Spirit c. And what though we should grant you that Christ sayes to the Scribes Search the Scriptures Well he might for they testifie of him as the life whom they never came to for it who if they had known either the Scriptures aright they so search't in and scribled about or the Power of God they could not have erred from the knowledge of him in his Light as they did Matth. 22.29 We say the same to you Schollars that think you study and know the Scriptures more then any men as Christ to them and as I.O. to all by way of command whereas some can't read it in his Title-page to flourish his Frontispiece and vent his vindication pro Scripturis more then ought else 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Search the Scriptures for they testifie of Christ the Light the Word that Spirit Way Life Truth we talk of they send ye to the same Light and inward Word in the heart as the Rule to walk by as the Qua. do and as Christ said of them Ioh. 5.46 47. having told them they needed no other to accuse them then Moses in whom they trusted Had ye believed Moses ye would have believed me for he wrote of me but if ye believe not his Writings how should ye believe my word So say I of you Ye need no other witness against you though ye have another even the Light within which ye despise then the Letter in which ye trust for did you believe the Letter ye would believe in the Light for it writes of the Light the Qua. call ye to and write of but if ye believe not the Writing ye so write for how shall ye believe in the light Howbeit when all 's done as the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being both the Indicative and Imperative Mood will as well bear it so the Context doth much more clear it that the Verb is rather indicative of their doting doings then imperasive of their duty and is rather to be rendred ye search then search ye the Scripture and contains rather matter of condemnation of them for that profitable deal of Do they made in their busie minds about the outward Scriptures while in the mean time they heeded not Gods own voice nor regarded the inward words abiding in them then either commendation of their great fruitless pains that way or commendation of the Scripture to them to search or commandment of them who were too mad already for the Scripture as their grand Idol receiving it as thou faist p. 236. with the honour and veneration due to God and his living word alone to search therein Yea verily both that verse and those about it do all consist of matter of sad complaint against them for their ever-reverencing the Scripture and negecting to receive or rather refusing and rejecting the Word of Life it self to any single eye ye have saith Christ to them of the Father neither hear his voice at any time nor seen his shepe Joh. 47. and 38. Ye have not his word abiding in you vers 39. Ye search the Scriptures ye look there often for in them ye think but mistake your selves to have eternal life and true enough they are they which testifie of me as the way to life and yet ye will not come to me that ye might have the life On this wise doth Christ rather expostulate with them for their ignorance and negligence of the Word then either command or commend any searchings of the Scriptures And as to the second Classis of Texts cited by the J.O. in proof of the Scriptures being the only standing Rule in which Texts all additions whatsoever to the written Word of God are expresly rejected I answer what though God doth reprove condemn threaten to plague and curse such as adde to his Word bring any other Gospel then what Paul preached make void his Commands by their Traditions enjoyn men to seek not to such as peep and mutter but to the Lord himself Paul would not have the Corinthians think of him and Apollo above what he writes of himself and him as men only by whom as means they beleeved which is the summe of the seven Scriptures by thee produced to that purpose what proof at all is there in all this such a way it is true enough there must be no adding to the Word Gospel Commandement Testimony of God or alterings or varyings or detractings therefrom in a tittle but is any of this intended of the outward Writing Letter or Scripture which are not that Word Gospel Commandement but only declare this and other things concerning it Is the Scripture that only set firm fixt standing Rule that may neither be augmented nor diminished on pain of Plagues and cursing as ye say it is then tell me 1. How much Scripture or Writing hath been added to the five Books of Moses since Deut. 4.2.12.32 was written wherein it is said Ye shall not adde to the word I command you neither shall you diminish from it and since that of Prov. 30.6 was written where it is said Adde thou not unto his Word lest he reprove thee and thou be found a liar And since Isa. 8.20 where it is said To the Law and Testimony And since that Gal. 1.8 where it is said Let him be accursed that brings other then we have preacht though we or an Angel from heaven 2. Whether were the Prophets and Apostles that have added so many books since those prohibitions justly reproveable and accursed as Lyars 3. If ye say nay they were not lyars nor to be reproved nor accursed then tell me as to the measure and bounds and close of your Canon which ye suppose to be the Revelation why he that by the same Spirit moving shall in writing reveal the same truths now is accursed reproved plagued for adding to the Word and Gospel upon the account of Johns saying Rev. 22.18 If any man shall adde unto these things God shall adde unto him the plagues that are written in this booke any more then Iohn himself who added his Scripture and Revelation after Pauls Epistle to the Galathians or Paul who added his Scriptures after Isaiahs or Isaiah and the other Prophets who added theirs after Solomon or Solomon that added his Writings after â—â—sâ—s hiâ— inhibition in Deuteronomy 2. Beleeve it that the Scripture is not that thing nor standing Rule to which no more must be added and from which no new Scripture may be diminished on pain of cursing and plagues but the Word Doctrine Gospel Commandement Law Truth told in it to which cursed be he that addes another or any new Word Gospel Doctrines c. or detracts a Tittle from that And so John sayes If any adde to these things and take away from the words of this Book God shall adde plagues and take away his part out of the book of life and from
and admonish others according to Col. 3.16 which Text also thou understandest Ex. 2. s 13. and T.D. too p. 31. of his 1. Pamph. of the Scripture or Letter without and that the Word that Christ speaks to every man in his own heart and conscience whose voice and word and Gods word also his sheep hear and such as are of God when others do not cannot because they will not Joh. 8.43.47.10.26 27. is that which leaves without cloak or excuse in their sins Joh. 15 22. and that the Word that God by Christ the Light and Christ by his Spirit and Light in the conscience speaks is that which who so beleeves in and hears abides not in darkness or errour but comes to know the truth that sets him free from the law of sin and death and brings to life and who hears not or hears and beleeves not or receives not but rejects shall be judged by at the last day according to Joh. 12.46 47 48 49 50. this I do not deny for this is it and not the Letter here as it is sometimes used as the Lights instrument which was never in the heart how much less the letter chiefly only authoritatively exclusively of any other Revelation by the Spâ—riâ— and Light within aâ— thou spitteâ— it out to wâ—ich Letter yet pag. 87.83 86 87. thou â—o 〈◊〉 all those powerful properties which dive into the hearts coâ—scienceâ— and secret 〈◊〉 of the 〈◊〉 of men whether they ever saw read heard or heard of the Letter yea or nay Judges sentences them in themselves convinces tesâ—ifies conquers kills men converts builds up makes wise holy obedient ministers consolation in every condition to whom it is due and as thou sayest intending it of the Scripture which is peculiar only to the Light within the heart the Scripture speaks of guides teaches directs determines judges in and upon men in the Name Majesty and Authority of God also I deny not but the Word of Christ spoken by Christ himself in the conscience is that which is effectual to purge the conscience and cleanse the heart that it may bring forth fruit to God and the way accordin to Ioh. 15.3 where he sayes Now ye are clean through the Word that I have spoken unto you and according to that of Paul Eph. 5.26 who saith Christ cleanseth and sanctifieth by the washing of water through the Word and that of David Psal. 119 9. who saith that the means by which a young man may cleanse his way is by taking heed thereto according to Gods word which Word of God also he sayes vers 11. he had hid in his heart that he might not sin against God which inward Word of God that is so abundantly spoken of as I elsewhere shewed in that 119. Psal. that there is not past two of three among those 176. verses of it in which it is not mentioned as to iâ—s efficacy excellency usefulness profitableness and power under one name or other of either Testimonies Statutes Judgements Precepts Law Commandements c. all sounding out one and the same is stiled for it was not an outward Writing with mens hands he there means vers 72. The Law of Gods mouth and 88. the Testimony of Gods mouth intimating that which came more immediately from God to him in his heart then the Writings of Moses could do even out of his own mouth in him whom he and Habakuk 3.1 and all the Prâ—phâ—ts excepâ— the Word-stealers heard what he would say in them Ps. 85.9 Jer. 23.16 receiving from his mouth stood in his counsel the Light within That that Scripture Joh. 8. is true of Chriâ—ts words in what it speaks of them and the rest that are suitable to it I deny not but that either it or any of them by God or Christs words or saâ—ingâ— intend the Scriptures without at all much more altogether exclusively as thou talkest of the Word Spirit and Light within and the Revelation of minde and will of God thereby immediately in the heart this I utterly deny affirming that the internal Reveation of his minde to men by his own â—oice from his own mouth in their consciences is that which is mainly yea only and altogether intended in them yea and in some not to say all of them exclusively rather of the Scriptures as which indeed are not the Word or Words that are declared to effect those precious things but are only outward Writings of spiritually inspired men who witnessed its efficacy in themselves that declare those precious things which the inward Word effecteth And the like I respectively affirm and deny as concerning that other Text Jer 25.29 of thy own alledging where God saith of his Word it s a fire and a hammer that breaketh the Rocks in peeces denying it utterly to be meant of the Writings of the true Prophets out of which the false ones stole the words they preacht and then ran and said Thus saith â—he Lord declaring in his name when he never spake to them nor sent them when like the Scribes for all their telling things as the Word of the Lord as they read this or that in the Scriptures they had never as any time heard his voyce nor flood in his counsel nor received nor marked his words as coming out of his own mouth and affirming it to be meant of the Word of God ministred immediately by his own voice in the conscience which is said to be accompanied with the like mighty effects in the hearts of wicked sturdy proud haughty minded men that are likened to Mountains and Rocks against which the Lord comes in a way of terrible storms and thunderings which prepare his way 1 King 19 11 12 and to lofty Cedars of Lebanon and strong Oaks of Bashan Isa. 2.12 to the end in Psal. 29.3 4 5 6. c. where it is said The voice of the Lord is upon the great waters or peoples Rev. 1â— 15 The God of glory thundereth the voice of the Lord is powerful full of Majesty breaketh the Cedars divides the flames shakes the wilderness makes the â—lindes calve discovers the Forrests and that its of this and not the Letter which men steal nad call the Word is evident by the verses about it where the Lord declares himself to be against the Prophets that steal and tell and sell what they read in the true Prophets writings which they wrest according to their own dreaming thoughts into sinister senses and to tell lies and dreams and divinations of their own brain for truth which stoln ware though they vent the same word which they read in others writings not receiving and uttering as from Gods own mouth God calls but the vision of their own mouth and the Chaff which is nothing to the Wheat and not the other vers 21. Moreover as to the other of thy Texts I am yet in hand with viz. Jam. 1.2 1 Tim. 4.16 Heb. 4.12 Psal. 119.105 Isa. 55.10 11. All which thou urgest in proof of one and the
fruit only to himself so is our National Gospel Israel an empty Vine fruitful to themselves in temporals and in suâ— gerere in such spiritual also as their Religion lyes in viz. in empty forms of fastings prayings praâ—sings preachings singings of Davids Psalms with Doegs Spirit Text applauding Treatises talkings for Tithes multiplyings of Ministers of the Old Testament not of the Spirit but of the Letter that may labour soundly to the blowing out if they couâ—d tell how of the Qua. extolled light magnifyings of the maintenance for such Ministers as maintain themselvs out of Augmentations by the Impropriations of Kings Bishops Deans Chapters Lands Tenths first fruits and such Levitically legal â—molumenis far better than they are able to maintain either the true internal eternal Gospel which they are utterly ignâ—rant of or their own external Gospel either against the Qu. who maintain the true But utterly as fruitles to God as full of leaves and broad Shews wherein they flourish yea as barren as the figtree that God came three years together seeking fruit from and finding none for which the Word had long since gone forth effectually from the Lord but that intercession is yet made for it by the dresser of the Vineyard who digs and dungs it in hopes of somewhat but hath yet from it as small thanks for his great pains as the unskilful dressers not to say devourers of it have great thanks for their small pains Cut it down why cumbreth is the ground So what thou so pompously utterest I O. on behalf of the efficacy of the Letter in this particular as the All-sufficient All-accomplishing power of God in its self and to us ward to salvation and such like is nothing so nor doth any one of all Scriptures cited by thee in proof thereof evince any such thing they all excepting that in 2 Tim. 3. which as it may relate to an inward Scripture thou yet searchest not if intended of the outward yet not without the Light and Spirit within which said Light and Spirit thou still excludest and damnest down as detestable and no way needful to be so much as concurrent with the Scripture toward salvation as is shewed above intend no other Word or Light then that which is uttered and shines within in the eâ—rt Iam. 1.21 expresly speaks of the wording rafted there which is able to save the soul which 〈…〉 â—innate word for it s there put planted and sowed as his seed by the Lord himself some refuse and reject to walk by whose condemnation it is some receive it hear it mix it with faith in it beleeve in it to the salvation of the soul. In Joh. 17.20 Christ speaks of the same and not of any outward Scripture for by that word their word is intended the Word which they preached or held forth or testified to by their words in their preachings and writings as that which men were to come to hear and beleeve in and do till tâ—eir beleeving in which though they shâ—uld or do beleeve Historically the outward declaration as the Papists do the litteral declaration at this day with their heart and confess it with their mouths that the Lord Iesus was raised frâ—m the dead yet they perish and beleeve not on the Name of God savingly or to salvation Which Word is not the Letter nor their preachings but that which the Letter and their oral preachings testified to that it was nigh men in their hearts and mouths that they might hear and do it even the word of faith which they preached Compare Ioh 17.20 with Rom 10.8 9. Which word that they preached was not their Preachings or Writings or Scriptures but that which in their preachings and writings they called them to hear which was not a word without but the word nigh in the heâ—rt between which Words and Writings of the Preachers and Writers of the Scriptures and the Truth Faith Doctrine Light Gospel Holy matter which they preached and wrote of if our Divines couâ—d keep constant in distinguishing at all times as they do sometime they would come out of their conlusions wherein they are found jumbling things on heaps without heed into the clear understanding and comprehendings of the truth in their heads at least whether it may have place in their hearts and lives or no that is saving their being ashamed to own it from Babes and chusing rather to be ignorant then submit to be taught by them so often told them by the Qua. T D. sayes It s evident the Word spoken of Rom. 10.8 in the heart is the holy matters contained in the Scriptures the things contained there pag. 30 31. of his 1. Pamph. Rep. Who doubts of that But are not the holy matters one thing and the outward Letters that write of those matters another the things written of which the Scripture sayes are in the heart one thing and the Scriptures that write of those things another why then do you jumble these together as one in your blindly busie brains which are so bewitcht that ye either cannot or will not own that from the Qua. without crying out of them as deniers of the Scriptures to be the Word of God which your very selves are forced to confess to the Truth of For T.D. dances between within and without in the fore-named pages as if he could not well tell where to be nor what to say the Word of faith they preached is himself denies not from Col. 3.16 which I urged but that it was within the Colossians but yet because we say its within a light within he will needs say and so he had need or else he could not out word us it s the Letter without also the Word spoken of in the heart is meant quoth he of the holy matters contained 1. Declared of in the Scriptures which are say we the living Word Light Gospel c. and yet in the same page the Word spoken of is without or it is the Letter of the Scriptures quoth he also though at the beginning of the dispute upon that subject when I told him wee denied the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the outward writing or Letter written on paper with inke to be the Word of God himself p 26.1 Pamp. he denied the same with me saying You cannot beleeve us so simple surely as to affirm the Scriptures in that sense to be the Word of God but we mean the matter contained in the Writing c. And p. 30. When I said the Scripture is not the Word of God for that is within but the Scripture is without â—rging Rom. 10. The word is nigh thee in thy heart You read not all quoth he t is in thy mouth too so that it is without as well as within Rep. Oh gross what an absurdity is here as if that which is in the mouth of a man were not within but without him if T.D. should tell mee of a man that is no Monster that his
the law is light Isa. 9.2 The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light they that dwell in the land and shadow of death upon them hath the light shined Hos. 6.5 I have slain them with the words of my mouth thy judgements are the light that goeth forth Matth. 4.16 The people that sat in darkness saw great light to them which sat in the Region and shadow of death light is sprung up Matth. 5.14 Ye are the light of the world Job 3.20 21. For every one that doth evil hateth the light neither cometh to the light lest his deeds be reproved but he that doth truth cometh to the light that his deeds may be made manifest that they are wrought in God 2. Pet. 2.19 a light shining in a dark place Reply Sure enough the man Catalogized all these together out of his Concordance the Series wherin he hath set them learns us no less for else he would at least have joyned Isa. 9. and Matth. 4 together one of which is but a citation of the other and it may evidently seem from his more Concordantial than Cordial consultations both here and elsewhere that howbeit he set not all of them down hoc opus esset yet well-nigh by all places in his Concordance where he findes these Terms Word and Light he incontinently concludes the Scripture and Letter to be meant and so on that account as cloudily cotes as many of them as he judges as to number may make a Iury and so Hob-Nob as they say without mattering much what they are so they Concord all in one in the bare naming of the words Word or Light and mostly citing the Chapter and verse but seldome the Truths that are told there as if he thought that most men would blindly and implicitly subscribe to his sentence from such a packet of Texts trussed together and never be at so much pains as to search them all he Impannels them presently about his business hoping they will all agree to give Verdict for him when as how sweet an harmony soever they have among themselves that way where their Verdict passes yet they Concord all in one to contradict him saving I.Os. strong confidence in them such a joynt concurrence to the contrary have every one of these twelve Texts of his own taking for though he subscribe them all to that his sophistical Assertion p. 74.75 viz. The Scripture the Word of God is light in proof that the Letter is the light against such as deny it for none deny the Word of God to be the light that I know of but I O. himself who jeers of the verbum insernum lumen internum as figmentum horrendum Ex. 1. s. 5. Resomnino ficta commentum erasse excogitatum Ex 2. s. 25. merae senebrae caecitas c. Ex. 4 s. 17. so that where ever the Reader findes him prosecuting the proof of it under that terme of the Word saying the Word is the Light Rule Foundation and such like he must be taken as intending the Scripture Letter Text witness both Title pages Proscripturis A vindication of the Scriptures against the Fanaticks to be the Word of God and of the purity and integrity of the Hebrew and Greek Texts though I say they are all subscribed in vindication of the Letter to be the Light yet there is not on them all that subscribes to I.Os. sentence or judgement on them but they all give their verdict another way even for that which is Light and the light indeed as we deny it not viz. the Word Law Commandement Iudgements of God and Christs mouth but not at all for the external Text or Letter of the Scripture which issue forth ad extra from the said Word Law Commandement Iudgements that are ad intra a great deep and known savingly to those only that wait on God in the light within But to come to some examination of his Texts and of what testimony they give for him beginning however with the first and ranking the rest as I shall see occasion The Scripture is light quoth he those that reject it are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lights Rebels men râ—sisting the Authority that they cannot but bee convinced of Reply That such as reject the Scripture are to be rejected and detâ—sted I freely grant if by rejecting thou meanest such a rejection as is in detestation of them in which wise thou rejectest the spirit and light within and all the Revelation made thereby when of those means of coming to the knowledge of God and to salvation thou sayest Ex. 3 f. 28 29. Inania sunt ista principia cognitionis Dei inutilia periculosa à Faniticir simulata ideoque rejicienda ae decestanda those are vain utterly unprofitable perillous wayes toward the knowlege of God and salvation Fanatick figments and therefore to be rejected and abhorred and in which wise thou falsely accusest the Qua. among others as rejecters of the Scriptures when thou mis-callest them Ex. 3. s. 26. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 haters of the Scriptures as if they bore some spleen or such spite to the Letter as ye do to the Light and Spirit or more than to other writings which yet we for holy truth and doctrines sake declared in them love and prize above any books and honour one Chapter of them as more worth than twenty of your printed Preachments upon them I say he that so rejects the Letter or Scripture as is above said let him be rejected and even Anathema Maranatha for me for otherwise there is a kinde of rejecting which the light is not liable to of the meer Letter or Scripture that is not at all to be found fault with much less to be rejected and detested as that of those who make waste paper of old printed sheets or leaves of the Bibles and use them as they do other Scriptures or Writings as they please about refusely occasions But the Qua. are not to be Ranked among such Ranke rejecters of it as the first 2. That such as spitefully reject the Scriptures are though they are not so called in that of Iob Rebellious against the Light also may well bee owned howbeit upon this account only as the Letter truly Transcribed that came from the Light and the Light it came from are though two things yet so agreeing together in one as to the same testimony they both bear to the same truth that he cannot really and truly whatever hee may seem to do receive own and obey the one who is found fighting denying rejecting and rebelling against the other whereupon as obedient and reverential respectful even to superstition as I.O. would be judged to bee to the Letter which he and others receive as the Jews do with the honour and veneration due to God yet saving all these shews they are still Rebels against the very Letter whilst so rebellious against the Light as to reject it with that detestation that is due to nothing but sin
business avouching that glorious Title of the Word of God and the Light to be the Nomen proprium Scripturae the proper name of the Scripture and that I wrong him not herein see his own stating the Question between himself and the Qua. Ex. 2. s. 1 2 3. de Scripturae nomine proprio nimirum Titulo illo glorioso Verbo Dei and p. 73. the Scripture is a light yet neiâ—her is nor can be called so unless it hath the nature and property of light p. 77. the Scripture a moral and spiritual not a natural Light p. 73 74. Light spiritual hath the preheminence as to a participation of the nature and properties of Light firstly and properly Light from whence the other i. e natural respecting bodily sight is by allusion so denominated in these places either expresly or eventually I.O. calls the Light and Word of God the proper names of Scripture or Letter and so consequently enâ—tails all the other glorious Titles to it as its Right due and proper names which they rob it of and deny it to be what it naturally and properly and really is who own it not properly both to be and be called the Word of God but it neither is actually testified so to be any whereby God nor by its self as I.O. p. 87. most lyingly falsely affirms it in so much that he who owns it not as so doth what in him lyes to make God a lyar And also p. 140. where he sayes If the Scripture be what it reveals it self to be it is then unquestionably the Word of the living God as p. 85. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the living Word of God Truth it self for that it professeth of it self quoth he frâ—m the beginning to the ending neither can it possibly be so stiled properly or unless it be by a figure as it no where is neither by it self that I know ofâ— by which the Image is called by the name of the Person which it properly is but a dead Picture and lifeless representation of the Lanthorn by the name of the Light that displayes it self more brightly when beheld without it which Lanthorn yet neither is the Light nor properly said so to be I am not ignorant of that Common Metonymy Continentis pro re contenta or figure whereby the thing contained is sometimes but never properly where it is exprest by the name of that which câ—ntains it and as well in that Scripture we talk of as in other Writings Matth. 26.43 and 1 Cor. 11.26 If this Cup may not pass away except I drink it As oft as ye dâ—ink of this Cup meaning properly not the Cups but the wine therâ—in viz. the one the bitter red wine of the wrath of the Almighty God the mixture whereof is powred out into the Cup of his indignation and of the fierceness of his Fathers fury which Christ drank deep of in the dayes of his flesh and humiliation to the drawing of supplications from him with strong crying and tears the other the wine of his blood shed for the remission of sins which such as walk in the light come at last to be cleansed by from no less then all sin neither of which Cups or sorts of wine thou hast yet drunk of or truly knowest what they are by all the skill thou yet hast in the Scriptures thou so scriblest for but shalt assuredly have thy part in the first before thou savingly know the second yea whether ever thou attain to witness the saving efficacy of the second yea or nay But what 's all this to the helping of I.O. in his crazy cause whose fighting is not all for figures or meer figurativâ— denominations but for the formal and true proper names of the Scripture which is the name of the Scripture and not the Word of God say we but is saith he that of the Word of God had he fought for no more then figures against the Qua. that stand for the Truth and said so too though in so fighting he had been foolish yet we could have born with him in that frivolous peece of â—olly and have lent him such a latitude as both by the Letter and Light may bee allowed to speak Metonimically and Metaphorically of Methaphorical matters and left him to his liberty without a check and let him alone in his figures to figure out things by other names then their own and to call them that which yet properly they are not to stile the Heusâ— they sit in by the name of the Parliament which it is not to stile the Picture by the name of the Person it is the image of the Voice by the name of the Word it is but the image of and the Scripture by that of the Word it is but the remote expression of and of the voice it is the more immediate image or expression of for vox est imago verbi Scriptura vocis immediata verbi quaedam mediata imago seu expressio and to signifie the Wine and the Light respectively by the names of this Cup this Glass this Lanthorn and the Word and Law by the name of a Scripture specially if by Scripture he mean that inward Writing of it by the Spirit of the living God in the fleshly tables of the heart where the Law of God is written though that writing and the Word written are not all one neither and we could bate him the impropriety of that figurative expression also though it be far further fetcht then the other whereby he should decypher that outward Letter by the name of the Law which it is but a bart Copy of and the written Word by the name of the Writing which yet in truth doth no more then declare of the Word Retro though I know not where in all the Scripture the Srripture is so much as by A figure denominated by that name the Word of God if the Word be any where so called by the name of Scripture as I.O. sayes at least fortyfold falsely that above fifty times in the New Testament the word Graphs or Scripture is put absolutely for the Word of God but if it were a hundred and fifty times so called it would not prove the high point in that height he takes on him to prove it in viz. that the Scripture is properly the Word of God and the Word of God its proper name any more then the Wine is called by the name of this Cup this Glass or the Light by the name of the Lanthorn Retro the Lanthorn by name of this Light which is all figurative not proper But this is not I.Os. case who runs up to the very highest peg and sings of the Scriptures a note above the Ela and quarrels with the Qua. as deniers of the Scripture unless they swerve aside with him in his silly suppâ—sitions and as well unsâ—holler-like as unsaint-like sensless sayings that the outwarâ— Scripture the Writing the Letter and every Letter and Tittle and Iota though but transcribed
Spirit of God Visions inward Light or Word are to be expected or admitted as any Rule to walk by the only guide and directory of all mens beleeving and living so that who have not that have none at all of any sufficiency to lead them to life though they should follow what light they have from God vouchsafed them to the utmost So that there is no principle to speak in his own words T. 1. c. 1. s. 16. or means of discovery of the saving Doctrine or sacred Truth no other rule or measure of judging or determining any thing about or concerning it but only that writing from whence it is taken the Revelation of it being expressed only in that writing upâ—n suppossâ—ion of any corruption in which the saving Doctrine Truth or Word of God as at first given out from God which say I whatever becomes of the Scripture is ever entire and for ever incorruptible and unquestionably uncorrupt 1 Pet. 1. cannot be evinced unquestionably to continue entire and incorrupt hee must then bee fed as himself and his fellow unlearned learned ones do feed their poor blinde pâ—râ—-blinde unlearned people viz. with a bit and a knock and bee kept close to so much as reason and Scripture can well spare him be caned into a just compass with his own Canon and Rapt into the right measure he runs out of with the Rule and measure of his making and bounded within the due bounds of equity which beyond all measure he breaks beyond for the bare Bibles and Letters sake by that Letter and Book it self which is called though by I.O. the Word of God Tr. 1. ch 1. s. 12. yet by it seâ—f never so honourably at all but only by such like Titles as a Declaration Letter Scripture Book or Bible And if he shall go on undervaluing that antient covering of Christ the Light of the world and the Armour of his light which is unchangeable and which the True Church which hath the Moon and all such moveable and changeable things as the best outward Writings are under her feet stands ever cloathed with Rom. 13.12 14. Eph. 4.23 24. Col. 3.8.12 Rev. 12.1 casting it away as some old menstruous cloath cast clout or rotten rag as he doth while in his imparralleld both ignorance and impudence he flerts at it as if 't were a meer Puppet patcht up of shreds as a fictitious imaginary Christ fain'd in the fancies of Fanatick fools and mad men Nescio quod lumen quos Enthusiasmos quem Deum c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vere nihil Ex 3. s. 11. Ex. 4. s. 15.21 Ex. 1. s. 5 6. and rejecting that covering of the Spirit of God which Wo be to him that is not covered with or is covered with any other Isa. 30.1 to cut out the outward Scripture and grave out the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into a Gâ—rment into an Idol covering to himself stealing Words from thence and therewith cloathing himself which will once wax old as a garment that is moth eaten and at last being old yea oldness it self though younger the Spirit and not the antient newness of the Spirit wherein the true worship and service stands is to vanish as an Idel that must go to the Moles Bats as the brazen Serpent be taken down and among other Idols of mens earthly Elements wordly Rudiments and carnal Ordinances that were good in their own times and places yet but imposed till the time of Reformation be sent away with Get ye hence Isa. 2.20.30 22. Rom. 7.6 Heb. 8.13.9 10. It s high time to strip I.O. naked and discover his shame which is seen by such as live in the light through his covering which is a prate of words about the Scripture and other things which yet he knows not and to summon him to sit in silence before the Lord undressing himself out of his stollen Ornaments which till he doth he shall not know what a work of spoyling the Lord hath to do unto him till it come irresistably upon him And if hee shall flye out so far in his whifling words as to call the Letter which to the Light bears the same and no better proportion then that of the Lanthorn to the Candlelight the Light as the name that is proper to it and flye up higher yet till according to his flashy fancy thereof he affirms it in Print as hee doth before the world that not only the Word of God written of in the Writing which none denies so to be but the Writing it self also which he means well-nigh in every place by that terme the Word or else hee strikes beside the Iron and lies hammering on the Anvil beating the Air and meaning another matter then that hee meant when he began and makes men beleeve that he means all along which is no more to his purpose then if he meant nothing by it at all is an illuminating shining spiritual light and higher yet preferred above the light of the Sun T. 1. c. 4. s. 8 9. the most glorious light in the world and higher yet the Sun one dayes light of which is unspeakably more then that of seven others as to the manifestation of the glory of God T. 1 c. 2. s. 15. a Sun that more eminently then any inferiour fire discovers and evidences it self by such properties as it hath viz. Light and Heat and Power T. 1 c. 3. s. 10. and c. 4. s. 16.20 and much more of such like high strains I.O. strikes up in till he stretcheth the bare Letter so far upon the â—enters as to strain it into 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and make it even every thing that the true Word and Light within is when as howbeit it hath its excellency above other Writings as an instrument yet as to these peculiarities and precious prerogatives of the living Word is vere nihil then I must summon I.O. as warm as hee seems to himself to sit and as much as he seems to see by the painted flame of his fained fire and the sparks of his own kindling that if he know no other way to salvation then the Scripture and own not the light as the way which the Scripture speaks of this he shall have at the Lords hand Hee shall lye down in sorrow Finally to persue yet a little further and prosecute our present matter under the Metaphor of the Parliament and the House If a man should arise and stand up and contend that the House the Parliament meets in is the Parliament properly and none shall perswade him to beleeve otherwise but he will try it out with them that allow him to call the House by a figure or metonymy of the thing containing for the thing contained so as to say this House is the Parliament and will say the Parliament is the proper name of the House and it may properly challenge that to it self and they rob it of its true and due name and are enemies to both the Parliament and
on him to make an ill business good yet the utmost thou makest of it if well examined is as little as 't is nought toward the bettering of it and very much of it at least but very little better then what is urged above about the Lanthorn And when thou hast turned every stone and hast wrought a long time till thou hast tyred thy self with talking to have the Letter and every jot and Tittle of it to be the Word of God till thou canst scarcely go one jot further or adde one Tittle more to the countenancing of thy cause thou even givest out and lyest down and as T.D. had the wit to do at first and C.F. was forced to do at last in a manner givest it in and layest it down so very fairly to thy opposers that all thy after strugling for it again is to no purpose to prove thee any further a friend for all thy ample appearances pro Scripturis then the Qu. are with whom thou art fain to fall in one and say as they say in thy Ex. 1. s. 28. s. 40. and as thy fellow fighters with us about it do all confess that the Scripture no otherwiseâ—is nor is to be called the Word of God then Respectu subjectae materiae or divinae veritatis in earevelatae seu contentae non respectu literae scriptae non formaliter quatenns scripta in respect of the matter or Divine truth therein declared and contained only not in respect of the Writing or written Letter not formally as 't is Scripture and that in innumerit paene locis ubi verbum Dei dicitur c. in those well-nigh innumerable places of it where the Word of God is said to be preacht publisht multiplied and received the holy truth or matter of the Scriptures is intended but not the Scripture it self formally considered and when the Word is said to be nigh us in our hearts and in our mouths Rom. 10.8 and the Word of Christ to dwell in us t is confest by thee that that Word of faith is not litera Scripta is not the Writing but the Truth written which is another thing then the Scriptures neither do the Qua. say as thou there belyest them in thy lame laying down of their Argument which is of force to stop thy mouth however as thou rendrest it weakly much more if urged in its full strength that the VVord within is not Verbum Scriptum for it is the same word that is written but it is not the writing not the Scriptura not the litera scripta between which and the Verbum Scriptum thou art or wilt seem so silly as to make no distinction So then if the Scripture formaliter formally considered is not as secundum te it is not the VVord of God then however thou scruest it into that name and thing by secundum quid yet simpliciter really truly it s not so at all nor so properly to be called for forma dat esse rei and is that per quod res est id quod est and if it have not the form of the VVord of God then the Scripture hath not the being or true nature of the Word of God much less is the Word of God as thou improperly sayest it is its proper name CHAP. V. NOw as to I.Os. third Argument whereby to evince the Scripture to be the only most perfect Rule Standard absolutely sole sufficient way of Revelation of Gods will c. and so consequently the Word of God it s on this wise Ex. 3. s. 30. viz. J.O. The Spirit of God most heavily damns and rejects all additaments to the Word of the Scriptures i.e. the Scriptures with him of what sort soever and specially all those wayes and means of knowing God and communion with him boasted of by the Fanaticks chiefly conference with Angels Col. 2.18 Heb. 1.2 4. 1 Cor. 4.6 Luke 10 29. Revelations not only alienas containing different doctrines Gal. 1.8 but alias also 2 Pet. 1.19 other new Revelations of the same Doctrine then those individual Revelations of it that were made to them that wrote the Scripture Rev. 22.18 Heb. 1.2 1 Cor. 4.6 Col. 2.18 And Col. 2.18 And lastly that inward Spirit the Fanaticks talk of or internal light common to all 1 Joh. 4.1 Isa. 8.20.2 Pet. 2.18 Rep. Surely I.O. thou wast in some deep Divine dream when thou wrotest these thy Divinity Disputations or else thou wouldest never have divined out such a deal of darkness and falsehood at thou hast done or have lent such as thou wouldst have to own what thou writest for light and truth a little more of that thou eallest light even a little more of that Letter a of Scripture thou pleadest for to discry it by or something or whether thou deemest I will not say that men seeing a number of Scriptures quoted by the Dozen for so 't is here as 't is in sundry places above spoken to excepting that counting such as are twice over recited here is thirteen to the Dozen of which it might be said nos numeri sumus would make account of them by whole-sale to be all on thy side and take account of them not by weight but number without so much as looking otherwise on them then to see how many they are but not heed either what they say or whereof they affirm but some odde blinde business or other is i th' wind as the reason of it I know full well for there 's not any of all the Texts of thy own tumbling a top of one another that I meet with yet either in this Dozen or those before that hath the least tendency toward such a thing as thou intendest them to in thy meer Nomenclateral citation of them Thou intendest by all these to prove there is now no other way of knowing God of communion with him but the Scripture that there is now not only no other kinde of Revelation of the Gospel save such as was made of it to the Writers of the Scripture but also none of that same kinde of Revelation of it as was made to them to be expected or on pain of damnation and cursing pretended to by any person by any means whether Angels internal spirit that inward light the Qua. talk of or other medium whatsoever but only that very individual Revelation of it that is made in so much of the Letter as is now extant and bound in your Bibles is and must be the only Standard Rule and measure to which no Scripture must be added tho bounds of which no man for ever nor Angel is for ever to inlarge so as to write any more though of the self-same Doctrine or Gospel mark on so high a pretence as from the self-same true inward illumination vision in the same true light or immediate motion or inspiration of the same holy Spirit on pain or peril of utter rejection and execration Do the Texts set by thee in that Section even all of them together
Light Word quoth I. O. meaning the Scripture puts forth its Power as it will do when the Book of Conscience begins to open the Seat and Residence of its effects is safe-guarded against all Power and Authority but that of God it s diving into the hearts and consciences and secret recesses of the minds of men its judging and sentencing of them in themselves its convictions terrours conquest and killing of men its converting building up making wise holy obedient its administriag consolations in every condition to which consolation belongs and the like effects of its Power and sufficiency are usual'y spoken of and appropriated to the Letter by such as are ignorant of the Light who speak what they read and hear of more then feel as death and destruction that hear the same of that which is hid from them Iâ—b 28.22 but are effectually felt and experimentally known by the children of the Light who love and live in it These are the foundations of my Answer to I. Os. T. Ds. R. Bs. and I. Ts. grand Argument above mentioned against the sufficiency of the Light to guide men into the true knowledge and life of God drawn from the non efficiency of that its end in all men The Light say we the Law of God which is the Light in All is not only testified to as saving by the Letter and as powerful and sufficient in all those fore named respects in which I. O. sayes the Letter it self is which the Letter faith not of it self for all that I. O. faith in the thirteen last Sections of the fourth Cha. of his first Tr. in whose own words I have mostly spoken by way of Answer to himself is most true if applyed to the Word of God indeed which is nigh in the heart and of the Light of Law of God in the Conscience but every â—ot of it false as applyed by him to a wrong subject viz. the outward Scripture or bare Letter and as the Letter bears testimony to the Light so the Light bears testimony enough to it self of its own sufficiency in the conscience that testimony is the Witness of God himself which who so doth not accept and believe he doth what in him lies to make God a Lym to give us an infallible assurance that in receiving this testimony we are not imposed upon by cunningly devised fables the Light the Scriptures quoth I. O. or Law in the heart hath that glory of Light and Power of God accompanying of it as wholly distinguisheth it by infallible signs and evidences from all words and writings nor divine conveying its truth and Power into the Souls and Consciences of men with such an infallible certainty that it is believed though men act contrary to it for when that within tells men what they should not do viz. not lye steal murder cozen nor do evil to others that they would not have others do to them though they do these evils yet they cannot but believe through that Light in them if they had never seen the Letter that they should not do so and that the Judgements of God are due to such as do so and when by that they are told what they are they by it believe truly what they are and cannot while they behold themselves in that glass believe themselves to be otherwise or better then they are no more then a mans natural face that is beheld in a true outward glass can seem to him or be believed by him to be fairer then it is Thus having at large answered the main argument of these four men against the universality of a sufficient Light in All men to lead to life such as follow it drawn from All mens nor actually coming to life by it which one R. B. and I. T. aiming at number more then weight make three of their thirty viz. the second tenth and thirteenth I shall run thorough the residue more briefly they being not worth any long insistance on them Their third and fourth which are but one and the same also divided needlesly into two they ground upon such Texts as directly prove the contrary against them viz. Iohn 1.5.9.10.11 Eph. 5.8 Matth. 14. where its said The Light shines in darkness and the darkness comprehends it not the true Light was in the world and the world knew him not he came to his own and his own received him not ye were sometimes darkness c. To them that fate in darkness light is sprung up Whence they argue on this wise many of the Iews and Gentiles sate in darkness did nor reciive the Light nor comprehend it and were darkness when the true Light came to and shined in them therefore they had no Light in them much less every man Rep. Whence I argue in proof of the very contrary thus The true Light came to such as received at not to such as knew it not springs up as they heed it to such as sate in death and darkness and shineth in the darkness Joh. 1.9 though the darness comprehendeth it not but All men as well as some at some time or other are found not receiving the Light not knowing it sitting in darkness and are darkness â—â— therefore All men have in some measure the true Light shining in them Besides if this would prove that the true Light is not present with All men because most neither know nor receive it but abide dwell sit still in darkness and remain darkness it self then at least it will conclude against these men another way viz. in disproof of the outward Letters being the true Light as they contend it is since the Iews and most Christians so call'd both do and ever did dwell in darkness and continue darkness notwithstanding the Scriptures abode among them Their fifth is as a very Fiddlestick as any of the former and all that follow it are no better fetch'd from Luke 16.8 in such wise as more clearly concludes that R. B. and I. T. as wise Disputers of this world as they seem to be in suo genere in their be-nighted Generation are yet but fools as to the true Faith and children of this world and darkness then that All men have not some true Light in them and it runs thus If every man had a Light within him sufficient to guide him how to please God then every man should be a Child of Light but every man is not a Child of Light therefore every man hath not a Light c. to guide him to God c. The Major of which is such a palpable inconsequence as the least Child of Light and of the day cannot but both discern and be ashamed of for however in proof of it 't is asserted by them That to be a Child of Light is all one as to be a person that hath Light in him to guide him to please God yet if they would but consult with that Light of God which is yet in themselves if they have not by fighting against it