to blow where it listed Ioh. 3. without looking at any light within without walking in any way or using any other means of knowing God of having or holding fellowship or communion with him which was wont to be only in the light 1 Ioh. 1. but that of the Scriptures on pain of rejection and heavy damnation from God own Spirit in the Scripture In a word That Law and Testimony which alone is to be consulted with in all doubtful cases to which God calls from our seeking and attending Pythonibus aut Aryolis qui pipiunt qui mussitant to Wizards and familiar spirits that peep and that mutter yea that very word there spoken of Isa. 8. which whoever speaks not according to these is no light to him I say the two Texts abovesaid are not only frequently cited and recited in evidence of these various and sundry particulars but also judged by J.O. to be such sure grounds Hercules pillars firm props and principles as are not only satisfactory to mens consciences but sufficient to stand that way he draws them against all mens objections so that relying thereon men have a sure bottome and foundation for their receiving all the other Scriptures so assuredly as the Word of God and consequently all that that it abovesaid that who even from thence even from these Text own them not in that manner as such are left inexcusable in their dammâble ãâã p. 56. That therefore the utter in âonsequence of J.Os. deductions from them which are meer non sequiâââs may the more plainly appear I shall letting fall J.Os. other trifling Arguments and sidling Replies to what the Qua. urge on behalf of the light of inartificial Arguments as himself calls them draw them into the form of artificial ones and express the manner of his illegal inferences from them which is in such wiâe as here under follows We are by that Text in Isa. 8.19 20. sent to the Law and to the Testimony to try what evây Churches or persons speak about the things of God his will worship or our obedience to him who if they speak not according to that Word there is no light in them Therefore 't is evident that the Scriptures are the Word of God and consequently all that that is abovesaid The second viz. Christ Luke 16.31 bids men attend not looking for Miracles to Moses and the Prophets the written Word as the best and most effectual means to bring to repentance and which all faith and repentance is immediately grounded upon Therefore the Scriptures are evidently the Word of God c. Rep. In which two Arguments thou reasonest in Print well nigh as ridiculously as he works in Paint who doth Humano capiti cervicem jungere equinam For the head of the corner is strait sound and sure the body of the building upon it corrupt and crooked weak and rotten That we are sent to the Law and Testimony to that Word there talkt of and intended and to Moses and the Prophets and that that Law Testimony and Word that Moses and the Prophets spake of in those two Texts is that Word that is the true touchstone of all truth a greater ground for faith and repentance to be founded on then that of Miracles and a more sure stable firm fixt stedfast or standing Word then the voice which came from heaven all this I do not in the least deny but that the bare outward Writing which thou falsely callest the Written word and the external ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã as at first written much more the present transcribed Copies of that Letter much more yet every Letter Tittle and Iota of it which thou keepest such a tatling for to be no less then the Word of the living God is that Law Testimony Moses and the Prophets or written Word as thou callest it intended in those two Texts or that by these termes in those two places is meant the said outward Scriptures and lastly most of all that it follows by any good consequence from those two places by such sound deduction as will stand against all objections gives such assurance thereof that he is a damnable unbeleever that beâeeves not from thence that the said Letter and Letters are infallibly known to bee the Word of God and the rest above said which are the things by thee inferred from them all this I both do and dare deny For the Law that in Isaiah is spoken of is not the literal Copy nor outward legible Letter that thou pleadest for and divinest it is but another Law which I see by thee thou art not yet very much ver'st in nor used to read even that in the heart not the ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã or Letter of a Law of carnal Commandements not the formal Letter or literal form of a writing without but an inwardly written spiritual Law or Light within which is the power of the endless life that Law in mens mindes which is warred against by that Law of sin and death that dwells in their members The Law in the Spirit lusting against that and lusted against by that flesh or evil spirit that is also in men lusting unto envy and all evill the Law of the Spirit of life which is by Christ Iesus that is powerful to that which the Letter or Copy thereof which is figuratively called the Law is weak to cannot do viz. to deliver such as take heed thereunto from that Law of sin aforesaid that leads men captive unto death The Commandement that is a Lamp and not a dark Lanthorn p. 6.23 the Law that is the Light it self that leads to the life it self for so that of the Spirit doth and not the dead Letter that is used instrumentally as a knife to kill but in any wise cannot quicken And that Testimony or Witness is that Testimony of Iesus which they have hear that keep the Commandements of God even the Light in the conscience as aforesaid This Testimony of Iesus who is the true and faithful Witness of God of whom also God himself testifieth and beareth witness is Jesus his own Witness or testimony for God born by his own voice and writing by his own Spirit and light immediately in the heart who there testifyeth what he hath seen and heard of the Father though few such a thou art receive not his Testimony whose light voice spirit speakings and counsel from heaven in their own hearts who so turns away from and hears not in all things is none of his sheep but shall be condemned and cut off from among his people and not the testimony or witness of men in outward Writings or Letters testifying though as moved by him what they have seen and heard from him not that Scripture thou so wâitest for and callest the witness of God for that of God is far greater the Testimony of Iesus is a Letter indeed a Writing and an Epistle Prophesie yet not the outward Writings Letter and Copies of the Epistles and Prophesies of
and write as if with thee they were as one for besides thy stiling the ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the Writing or Scripture which is well-nigh the total Subject Treated on in that Section by these names viz. the Prophecy of Scripture the word of Prophesie the written VVord the Word of God and thy loud lying in saying that ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã or ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã is above fifty times in the New Testament put absolutely for the Word of God not proving it to be so put so much as once not being able sure I am to prove it to be half so often if thou couldest as I shall shew elsewhere prove it so to be put an hundred fifty times all that would prove nothing to thy chief purpose which utter untruth must be more talk't with in another place thou twice there makest one of them as explanatory onely of thy mind and of what thou meanest by the other in these Terms viz. the writing or written word the ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã it self or which or is there more conjunctive then disjunctive the Doctrine as written also thou makest the one but explicatory of the other in many other places viz. Ep. Ded. P. 20. Tr. 1. ch 4. S. 2. S. 19. and Ex. 1. S. 24. where thou writest of them not Sâorsim as of two but conjunctim as of one and the self same thing thus Scripturam sacram seu verbum Dei scriptum the Scripture or written Word of God sacred Letters the written Word Nâ so incogiaant art thou as not onely both to divide into two and confound again into one these two distinct Subjects viz. the Scripture and the Word of God the writing and Doctrine of Christ therein declared within so small a compass as the space of two small Sections standing both together but thou both dividest and confoundest them within the little corner of one single sentence witnesse the last clause of the twelfth Section of the first chapter of thy Treatise above cited where thou expressest thy self thus viz. not onely the Doctrine in it but the ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã it self or the Doctrine as written is from God 1 as his Word for so thou meanest still by that term from God in the first part of which the Doctrine written in the Scripture and the Scripture it self are made two in the latter the Scripture the Doctrine written as written in it are made one which is the same Doctrine still as well when considered as written as when considered as not Written and is neither more nor lesse of God whether written or not written and under both these notions a distinct thing from the writing evermore If the Serpent can hansomly and fairly twine himself out here from the just censure of a self confounder let him scape scot-free this once and in this one thing for me but if he cannot do it without dawbing and dribling and shuffling and shifting and cutting and lying against the Light within then let him hang there for me in his Fetters of darknesse till he learn to speak without confusion for I know not how in a way of honesty to help him out or take him down CHAP. II. HAving shewed what truly and properly the Scripture is and what we the Quakers intend and I.O. also if we may take him as meaning what he mostly sayes by that Term Scripture when we deny it to be what thou contend'st it to be and pleadest against us for as its Proper Name viz. the Word of God c. I come next to those base abuses put upon us and false matters charged against us partly by T.D. in his first Pamphlet but principally by thee I.O. as concerning our carriage toward the Scriptures Principally in thy Latine Legend wherein thou lyest more at liberty then in thy two English pieces of emptinesse and the more securely by how much thou seemest to thy self at least to lye more hidden or more obscurely out of the reach of their rebuke whom thou reproachest in that Latine Language then in the other insomuch that by thy own speeches we may conclude that thy whole work as relating to the Quakers which is fronted but fronti nulla fides with Pro Scripturis Adversus Fanaticos for the Scriptures against the Fanaticks with which new nick-name the Quakers by many more besides thy self who Arbitrio Diabolico wast one of the first Imposers of it on that truly enlightned people begin now to be abusively branded seems to be designed more to the sporting thy own and thy School-fellowes leâd spightful Spirits by playing upon the Quakers in secret in your dark Divinity cels among your selves then either to convince them to their faces of such errors as thou erroneously accusest them of or by thy crude Theological Disputations Determinations tumultuarie sane fatis conscriptas as thou callest them ad lectorem to confute the Quakers plainly and openly before Plain-hearted people witnesse thy own saying to the like effect which I shall first enter at as it lies in thy little Latine Lecture Ad Lectorem J.O. The Fanaticks or with thee the Quak who are in these dayes most notable in their errors and foolishnesse we here Principally assault But no man could be deemed to dote so much as my self if I aimed at the convincing of them by what I here write sith they no more understand the speech we here use then we at any time can perceive that indigested sound of words void of all sound sense whereby they when they speak seem to noise it out to not onely one another but all others also Ex. 2. Sect. 23. They the Quakers are well nigh all unlearned and skild no further then their mother Tongue Rep The more shame for thee I.O. if the Quakers be all so unlearned and utterly unintelligent in the Latine Tongue as thou sayest that thou talkest therein against them as thou dost and chargest them with much more error in Doctrine and evil in life then will ever be made good against them by thy self or any of thine Abetrours or stand approved for Truth while the world stands among spiritually understanding and honest minded men when they come to be divested as hereby they are to be our of that disguise thou dressest them our in to thy Iunior Ieerers at Christs own Image which is seen upon them Was it not enough for thee to have belved them in English as no lesse then twice ore thou hast done in thy Epistle Dedicatory of thy Dean-like doings to thy Reverend Friends the Prebends and Students in Divinity in that Society so called of Ch. Church Col. in Oxford where thou wast lately Dean but quo jure divino I yet know not but thou must likewise needs lay at them and lye in ambush and talk and take on against them in a Tongue wherein if thy surmise of their Vniversal ignorance of thy Latine Lyes had been as sound as it seemed to be they
of the Scriptures but say only in words of truth and sobernesse that they are not to be so exceedingly Adored and Idolized by men as theyââre by you who make them little lesse then All in all things to the Church the Papists speak much in disparagement of the Scriptures in which we say they do but blasphemously babble against them viz. That they are inferrior to the Humane Traditions of their Church or at least to the unerring breast of their Ghostly holy Father without whom opening and authorizing them they are of no more use nor authority then Aesops Fables and such like Reply 3. Whereas thou art ashamed to Relate the horrid foolish Titles of the Quakers Books in proof of their blasphemies against the Scriptures I believe that 's true indeed though all the rest are palpable Lyes for if thou shouldest Relate the Titles of the Quakers Books in proof of the Truth of this thy Charge of them which is utterly false then thy Lye which is plain enough already would be seen more plainly then it is for in all the Titles of the Quakers Books that ever I read who have read Ten times more of them I believe then thou hast done as I have seen Christ only exalted on the Throne and the Scripture owned in its place so I never saw and am perswaded also thou never hast seen any thing Written by the Quakers that borders on the foresaid Iewes and Papists blasphemings of the Holy Scriptures and therefore as I cannot much marvel at it that thou art ashamed to do it so I do not much blame thee that it doth so much shame thee as thou sayest to Relate the most foolish of them If it were true there was malice enough in thee I.O. to provoke thee to have instanced some Particulars in proof of this parcel of Scandal to the fuller shame of the Quakers whom to scandalize what thou canst is thy chief design and to have named those blasphemers and their Books but pudet referre sayest thou I am ashamed to Relate c. Thou art loath to be too punctual in thy Proof lest it proving too short of thy Charge the stain thou wouldest have stuck upon the Truths Friends should be stricken back upon thy self and the Lye come to lye at thy own door for if sounded out too loudly and distinctly it might Eccho and rebound home again to thee the Author and so redound to thy dishonour so thou fold'st thy self like the Serpent whose seed thou art in indefinite complexes or at least lapest thy self up in Universals and darest not lay thy self out at length nor grow too far into Particulars for dolus later in universalibus quae nunquam bene sentiuntur nisi ex particularibus suis as Deceit lyes most securely and keeps best hid in Universals which are not clearly perceived but by the Particulars in which they exist so by being beheld in the said Particulars both they and the Lyes that lye often in them undiscerned come more unavoidably to be discryed Reply 4. Whereas thou saiest thou thinkest meet to set down our Opinion as Collected out of our own Books and Speeches and accordingly dost declare what we hold as concerning the Scriptures thou most plainly Confutest thy self as to the Lyes thou tellest of us for thy self acknowledgest of us that we own that the Scriptures do contain a true Declaration of the Will and Mind of God proceeding from the spirit of Christ inspiring the Writers that thus far we are right and that we stand to this Confession without any renouncing it only that we would have wholly rejected the Scriptures without doubt but that things have not fell out according as we could wish do deny them to be the ordinary inalterable perfect and standing Rule of Gods Worship and our Obedience without the Revelations of the spirit and such like And this sayest thou is the summe of these mens Iudgements c. Which if it be where 's the wicked Blasphemy all this while wherewith thou Chargest us For there 's none as shall appear in the worst of this which yet thou settest down as gathered out of the Quakers Books and Speeches which thou sayest bear blasphemous Titles against the Scriptures but pudet referre I blush to set them down must answer all These things I O. do convict thee of telling many notorious Lyes against the Quakers even too many for a man to tell that calls himself a Minister of Christ and D. D. though not all by very many which thou tellest in thy Book some of which lyes yet left they should not be loud enough ' to come under every ordinary Readers Observation if told but once are either expresly or implicitly two or three times over related J. O. The Jewes Papists and Quakers differ among themselves it so falls out that they who in all other matters are most different in Opinion conspire altogether in this blasphemy viz. against the Scriptures The Papists and Enthusiastical Fanaticks do perpetually War against each other they mutually devote each other to destruction They are not acted by the same Reasons but those for their Traditions these for their Enthusiasms and Revelations Contending tooth and nail and so like Sampsons Foxes with their Tayles turned to each other bringing fire-brands on the Churches Bread-Corn they all attempt together very friendly to thrust down the holy Scripture from its Place The Papists do earnestly endeavour to detrude the Scripture out of its proper Place in the Church our Fanaticks tread in the same foot-steps with them into which wickednesse those among the Papists that are called the Spiritually have led them the way And elsewhere thou Reckon'st us up among the rest as Enemies of Gods Word and haters of the Scriptures Reply 1. Howbeit I. O. thou who in thy Epistle pretendest it to be thy aim and intention in thy Discourse to discover the Reproach that is cast by many upon the Scripture to its disparagement and to vindicate it therefrom dost as in most things else wherein thou bend'st at us discharge thy Bow at a venture so as at Random to rank us as joynt Abettors with them in grosse in that one grosse and common Cause of Caluminating Vilifying Decrying Denying the Scriptures among Atheists Pagans New Testament Contemning Iewes Papists and the whole Rabble of Rude Reproachers thereof whether in Whole or Part as if we were if not the Ring leaders yet at least the Rere-ward of the Ragged-Regiment of Anti-scripturists of what ever sort yet in this thou hast most grosly abused us and thy self also by thy false Accusing and Belying of us to the world in that Particular and must most assuredly come into Condemnation in âhe Judgement for Condemning the Generation of the Just for however thou mis-reportest of us to the causing of many to mistake us yet of a truth we are no such manner of People as thou wouldest make men believe we are but such as shall manifest our selves
your opposite Expositions and that in such very places which to any save such light haters as standing in their own light cannot see Wood for Trees are as plain as the Nose on a mans face If to claw it and call it Lydium lapidem a true undeceivable fixt sure and inalterable standing Touchstone and disown those as dishonourers of it who in words compare it to a Nose of Wax a Lesbyan Rule and yet in your own Works so to make it by bending and bowing it every one to his own blind Invention so as to cause it to stand Nine wayes at once and to propound not only how possibly but also how facile it is to wrest it into as many various Lections by the advantage of the Hebrew Character as can be in the most flexible Writing in the World or any Critick can invent as thou I.O. teachest in thy Epistle If to play Legerdemaine with it so as in a presence of valuing It to say great matters of it and then to depresse it so as to unsay them again and then to run the Rounds and say them again as thou I.O. often dost If to boyse it up into that honourable Title of the Living Word of God and again to hurle it down into that more temperate Term which yet ye will not endure others to Term it by of a Dead Letter and yet to go round again Horrendo percussis scotomate after that to say its Living and no where said to be Dead If to deal so worthily with it as to affirm it to be perfect as to its own end and fall out with such as deny it so to be as no Quakers do that I know of and then from the same Hand-writing that before affirmed it to deal so unworthily with it as to deny it so to be as if I.O. doth not my Eyes are out but if he do he will surely say his own were not well open when he did so If to say its profitable to its end and that its end is to make men perfect and yet to say no man is made perfect in this World in which only the Scripture is confessed to be of use nor till the world to come where it s granted to be of no use cannot profit at all If thus to tosse it to and again like a Tennis Ball in a confused self-contradictory kind of talk sometimes telling the Truth about it sometimes belying it sometimes giving both it and the Lyar himself the Lye who so belyed it sometimes yea often lying against and alwayes living beside the holy Truth and Doctrine itself declared by it If to exceed in setting forth its self evidencing Excellency in avouching its Divine Authority and Power to Command men in the Name of God as his Word and yet never to come under the Power of its Commands so as yield Obedience thereunto If to call it your Rule and yet never submit to be ruled by it If both to overvalue and to undervalue to lift up and cast down to honour and dishonour it be truly indeed to value exalt and honour the Scriptures If all the particulars above enumerated and many more of the same sort that might be instanced in by Induction be in heart word and deed so to do then I shall yield the Scripture to be as much so valued honoured and exalted in this ever-Reforming never-Reforming Nation of England as among Papists or any other Nation whatsoever and by our self separating sensual literal Antiscriptural Anti-spiritual high Notional Professors as well as by the best National Protestants that are therein and by I.O. himself and his Reverend Fellow Students if they study and value it at the same rates with himself as much as any I know Finally If this be very highly to value it to be alwayes charging challenging and calling out for the Allowance of large and liberal Maintenance Augmentation of Means by all means possible out of all mens possibilities for the Ministers not of the Spirit but of the Letter only as those of mens making are who steal words enough from thence cut of which together with what of their own they patch them up with into one or two hours piece of work in a week to pick out a Living by And if that be to value it or esteem it or prize it or rate it high or set much by it or make much of it to sell every Sermon so stole and made but on some one verse of it and yet some make so much of one verse as to make many Sermons on it stretching it out for ease-sake to hold out the running of many Glasses for 20 shillings a Sermon and more Money and to have and to hold some Hundreds at least one Hundred of pounds for at most one hundred of Sermons I say if this be to make much of the Scripture there is more made of it in one year by our Divines and Doctors of Divinity amongst whom I.O. was once none of the last nor least as to valuing and making much of it then ever was by all the Quakers in the World since that Nick-Name began who yet if to make much of it be to live in the Light as the Letter itself exhorts to do do make more of it that way in a year then all those Priests and Prophets that preach it for Hire and Divine out of it for Money or ever have done since the World began or ever will do while it hath a being So that howbeit thou I.O. in thy hostile mind representest the Quakers as hostes ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã enemies and haters of the Scriptures there 's no such matter for if they be haters of it that hate to be reproved by it and cannot endure the sound Doctrine delivered in it which is according to Godlinesse the Letter hath no such haters of it as the very Ministers of the Letter are who are ever enmity against the Life Light and Spirit it calls to walk in And if they may be said to love it who are livers according to it the very Letter itself hath no such true lovers of it as the Quakers who are in thy blind zeal hated by thee as haters of it for living that Life it calls for As to thy Tale of our striving to thrust the Scripture from its own place in the Church of God it s as true a Tale as its fellow false ones for though we set Christ and his inward Light living Word and Life-giving Spirit only on the Throne in the Church yet we own and establish the Scripture which is but the meer Letter in its proper place wherein it is to stand since it had its being as so from the other as subservient and subordinate to the other which are its betters and its elders and not as such a Dominus fac Iotum as thou makest it as if those that gave being to it must now come under it so as to stand barely at the Bar before it to be tryed
the Scripture is so far from hindering any from coming to but only that the blind Porers in it with their natural Eyes cannot see Wood for Trees that it sides with us in helping to call People to the Light in the Heart which thing is as well the end of its being written as it was the end of Paul and Iohn's and all the Prophets Ministry by word of mouth Act 26.17 18. 1 Ioh. 1.1 5 6 7. And is the end of all our Ministring now as we are moved of the Lord by Voice or Writing the Letter bids look to the Light as that which leads on to the Life but both Letter and Light are a cloud to the Egyptians that pursued them which to Israel that obeyed it was a help And as it serves with us to call to the Light so before it passe away it must be used against them to send them packing first that have Abused it as thou hast done and to accuse as a Witnesse against them such as have owned it as their Rule and Foundation yet lived and built so much as ye have done beside it And as Christ said to the old Scripture searchingScribes Joh. 5. that would never come to him the Life whom they Testified of so say I to you of the same Seed Do not think that Christ by his Light within you only whereby ye are made as all men are who have not the Law in a Letter a Law before God to your selves will accuse you to the Father ye have another that accuses you for your Vanities and Deceits even Moses and the Apostles and Prophets Writings in whom ye trust to get Life for if you had believed them you would not have belyed but beleeved in and obeyed the Light and Word in the Heart which they call you to for the Scriptures testifie of that but fith you believe not their Testimony to the Light how can we look that by our Words ye should come to believe in the Light it self So that ye stand Condemned and must be Judged by the Law or Light within as well as such as are without the Law in a Letter without and fining under and against the Law in the Letter by the very Letter of the Law throw boasting and yet breaking of which ye dishonour God much more then the Heathen do Rom. 2. Ye must be condemned also So that the Scripture is of much use yet and we are free it should stand and not be blotted out that by the Testimony of it which is one and the same with ours to the Light ye might be if yet it may be brought to look to the Law of Christ which and not the Letter is the Light and Life but if you will not come to Christ and his Light in you that ye may have the Life it s all of a price to you whether the Scripture stand or be blotted out for your Names are not while ye are Enemies to the Light written there for Life but as yet blotted out even by the Scripture while it abides unblotted out from under Heaven I.O. Ex. 2. S. 26. Thou sayest The Quakers little regard the understanding of the Scripture and this is one of their Eminent Deceits so long as they have the Words they are well enough without the sense as nothing appertaining to them Reply Saving I. O's fine figment in this matter which may be more manifested in its proper place howbeit we are well satisfied without so many several silly Senses and mis-meanings of it as are ministred cut by the unlearned Ministers that know not the Mind of the Lord nor ever shall while they lean to their own meer Natural empty Understandings and lye-poring in the Letter as they do without the Spirit which only Receives and Reveals the deep things of God and opposing the Light that only opens it yet we are not against the true sense and meaning of the Spirit which expounds the Mysteries and shews the Secrets thereof to those few Babes that fear the Lord which are hidden from the worldly wise and prudent but whether the Renowned Rabbies Preach for prize or hold their peace we neverthelesse still have true meanings and mind of Christ. I.O. Ex. 2. S. 21 22. That they affirm it is not lawful for any to Interpret the Scriptures or give the sense thereof And S. 22. That altogether with the Interpretation it self they reject damne curse all Mediums of Opening Scriptures the weighing the Words and Phrases and daily Prayer and comparing of divers places together that the Opening of hard Places the clearing and proving of the Truth the Conviction and Confutation of Heresies Errours false Doctors and Doctrines the Edifying any by Instructions and Exhortations and all the other ends of lawful Interpretation of the Scriptures are odious and abomination to them they not only prosecute with Enmity all Expositions of the Scripture by word of mouth in private Families Meetings Churches Schools of Believers to the Opening of the Sense of the Word and the giving of Knowledge by the Scripture it self but also as little esteem and most Childishly defame both Commentaries and all other Books wherein part of the Scripture is Interpreted or any Truth cleared or confirmed out of it or the Faithful perswaded by Exhortations to Holinesse and Gospel Obedience or men are Instructed in any other manner whatsoever in the Knowledge of God Reply Whether all these stories of I.O. which I have here put together do more savour of the French Galimafrey or wild-Irish bonni-clabber I 'le not determine but I am sure they are an unsavoury Mess of Omnigatherums made up of many sorts of lying Reproaches that have no Consistency with the Truth which would far better have become a Doctor of Divinity to have told of the Devil himself had he been accusing of him who is the false Accuser of the true Brethren rather then such a legend of Lyes as lye here legenda legible to all that know them of the Quakers I cannot say of this indeed as of T.D. his doings in his way of sharp shooting out his false Tales against us that it will sound much to our shame in a Countrey Church because it s well nigh all laid out not to say lyed out in the Latine Tongue though only Englished here but it will ring such a Peal in the University Colledges among the Iunior sort of Haters of whom God loves and among all save the lack-Latine-Country-Clergy men against the Quakers as will make them prick up their Ears and listen that they may learn how to lye against them also more then ever they did to the Quakers themselves that of them they might learn the Truth but the best on 't is though here 's a Nest of them together if that would do any good to I.O. or hurt to the Quakers yet by Lyes and Deceits none ever did or ever must prevail against the Truth Yet to all this thou addest That we turn the Church of God into a
of the Septuagint from that high Conceit some have of them and eminent Account some have them in pag. 339. If the Ability of the men be granted yet what security have we of their Principles and Honesty Oh much every way thinks I.O. for though when he is pleased to speak diminitively of men the Care and Fidelity and Pains of whom in Translating we have as good ground to believe was as great to the full as any of that of those he Commends in Transcribing he disparages it into Oscitancy Inadvertency Negligence Ignorance the Wisest not seeing all and such like pag 319. yet when he speaks of the Care Pains and Fidelity of men in Transcribing which is a Work as lyable to mistakes as the other that he may keep up the honour however of his infallible Transcripts to this day then he utters himself more Hyperbolically and as for Ezra and his conjectured Companions he makes their labour to Reform the Church and all the Corruptions crept into the Word as he speaks though if the Letter were the Word it were not lyable to Corruption little lesse then Monstrous and their care in restoring the Scripture to its purity mark extraordinary pag. 171 308. Yea of the Points which yet he is to prove Coaevous with the Consonants and as old as any Scripture I doubt not quoth he but of that we shall yet manifest that they were compleated it should seem then that every Tittle is not now aâ at first giving out of the Letter if the Vowels were incompleate till Esdros dayes by the men of the great Synagogue Ezra and his Companions guided by the infallible direction of the Spirit of God I might as I. O. does often beg or take it crave leave to Answer this Conjecture with another pag. 146. and fling back I. O's as well as T. D's Fortè ita with so much at least as Fortè non but ipse dixit J.O. sayes he doubts not their infallibility so I who had rather be silent then disparage Ezra will add no more to I. Os Rex sum then nil ultrae quaeio Plebeius And now I am upon a Consideration of the Canon of the Scripture let me here make an end with thee I.O. as concerning this Cogitation of thine about the Consignation of the Canon of both the Old and that thou callest the New Testament of which New thou sayest pag. 27. That what thou hadst spoken of the Scripture of the Old Testament viz. as to its immediate emanation from God and its being canonized together with it into a standard the same must be also affirmed of the New with this addition of advantage and preheminence above the Old That it began to be spoken by the L O R D himself And as for thy Canon of the outward Scriptures of both sorts one of which thou callest the Old the other the New Testament after the Bounding Compleating and Consignation of which in their Respective Junctures and Seasons and the delivery of it so Canonized to the Church or Churches Respectively as their Eternal Infallible Touchstone Rule Foundation Testimony Standard no more must be owned on such a high Account as it s Authorized into as of divine Original nor be added by either God or man while the world stands I would sain find from thee if yet thou art able thy self to fathom to the bottom of thy own Faith or rather Fancy in this point where thou findest and whence thou foundest all thy confused Communications and crude Conceptions about this Canonization of such and such outward parcels of holy mens Writings into a Rule or Standard and disfranchizing such and such of others as holy as those from a standing within the Bounds of this Magna Charta that certain Synods and supposed Sanydrims of thou knowest not whom have given and do as thou deemest give and grant thereunto together with them Where learnest thou all these Lessons but from the Lectures and lying Legends and voluminous Lexicons of the illiterate Literatists of the world that are alwayes laying on and loading one another with their endlesse boundlesse and bottomlesse Scribles about the outward Original Text and Transcriptions and Translations of the Scripture in their tedious Tomes Talmuds and Talmudical Traditions till they are lost from the very Letter much more the Life it calls to so that they have no leasure to live or learn others to live thereafter in the inextricable laborynth of their own Labours about it Who leads thee into the vain Imaginations of these things but thy own and other mens well nigh innumerable and invincible inventions What Tangles thee and others in such trifling Talkings and Treatings one to another of things that none of ye all can have any infallible Evidence or yield to any infallible Assurance of but a croud of Conceits and Catholick Traditions with which the world and ye in it are so overcharged that ye cannot contain them now without infinite frothy and fruitlesse contendings about them and obtruding your own Observances imposing your own Supposings and thrusting each upon other your own bare thred-bare Thoughts of things that ne flocci facit it amounts not to the value of a lock of Wooll as to Salvation whether they be known or not till being throng'd and thrust into the thorny Thicket of your own Thoughts you there tear one another to pieces about the Scripture insomuch that I truly may and plainly shall be so bold as flatly to Contradict what thou sayest falsly of thy Canon and Standard since the closing and compleating of it that t is a means to end all strife it is rather throw the folly of its Ministers the means of all strife and Confusion in the Christian World Thou sayest indeed of the Writings of the Old Testament that the Canon thereof had its Consignation Bounding and Delivery to the Church as its Rule so that from thenceforth nothing Written either from Moses upward or to Christs time downward must be admitted to be owned as Canonical or inspired Scripture And thou sayest pag. 27.28 That God who himself began the Writings of the Word with his own finger after he had spoken it appointing and approving the Writing of the rest that followed i.e. from Genesis to the Revelation as they are ordinarily numerated in our Bibles except the Books called Apocrypha for I reckon all those are reckoned by thee as the Books thou speakest of Epist. Ded. pag. 3. Never indited by the Holy Spirit as remote from being ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã doth lastly command the close of the immediate Revelation of his Will to be written in a Book Rev. 1.11 and so gives out the whole of his Mind and Counsel unto us in Writing as a merciful and stedfast relief against all Confusion darknesse and uncertainty but what a Relief it is against Confusion I shall shew more hereafter And as to thy Scriptures Canonization or the Consignation compleating Bounding of the Canon of it a few words here
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
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 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã 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 âo 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 urâerest 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 Gâds Word from the joynt Testimony of thy fellow Testifiers to it for they say the Testimony of the Spirit within us also not ãâã ââstimony without uâ and onely in the Scripture divinely evidences the Scripture to be what
O. what Text of Scripture God ever made such a Promise in concerning the Text or the Scripture that he would in his Care and Providence preserve every Titt'e of that outward Writing for his Church and his Words sake which was written at the motion of his Spirit so that it never should be so mis-transcribed in any Tittle of it but that in the Greek and Hebrew Copies not English mark that nor any Translated but only Transcribed Copies he would keep it from being so adulterated vitiated altered depraved and interpolated as not to be every jot the same verbatim as at first I say I. O. where is that Promise so made to this purpose which his Providence is so engaged to answer Is it in Isa. 59.22 the place thou quorest together with a whole nest of others to the same end p. 155. viz. Matth 5.18 1 Pet 1.25 1 Cor. 11. Matth. 28.20 not one of which make one jot of mention of the Letter Text or any Tittle thereof at all That in Isaiah there cited is hinted at and harp upon to the same Tune in 7 or 8 pages in thy 2d Treatise viz. 155 167 168 169 273 317 319. In all which more or less in whole or part thou talkest much of the Transcribers lying under a loving and careful aspect from the Promise and Providence of God in beir transcribing alluding all along to Iâ 59.12 as if God had there engaged himself by Promise as it were to guide their hands that they should not erre in a Tittle for his Word and Churches sake but is there the least Tittle of such a Promise there made and look it âore again and see if there be such a thing touche upon in the least either expressly or implicity ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã as thou speakst or by consequence either immediate or far fetcht the words are these to the Church under the new Covenant or Gospel My words which I have put into thy mouth shall not depart out of the Mouth of thy seed nor out of the mouth of thy seeds seed from henceforth for ever Here I confesse is a promise to keep his words in the mouths of his Servants under the Gospel in the latter dayes especially so that they shall by word of mouth and writing bear Testimony against the world to his Truth and Name even the whole seed of the Righteous successively for ever without fail as now they begin to do even âabes and Sucklings out of whose mouths and stammering lips the Lord is speaking to reprove the world and the proud Doctors Pharisaical self-seeking Teachers and to convince all ungodly ones of their ungodly deeds and hard Speeches they speak against him in his Saints in whom he comes to Judgement but what 's this to the preservation of I. O's Greek and Hebrew Texts to a Tittle without alteration This is not spoken of the continuance of any outward Scripture but of that word of Faith in the heart and mouth which the Apostles Rom. 10. preacht to turn men to telling them 't was nigh and they need not look without for it was ever man so bemoped as to draw such a Conclusion as thou dost from that Scripture viz. that every Tittle of the Text of Scripture given out of old should be secured without one jot of losse to the worlds end and if that were the promise there made it was never made good since as is shewed above the Scriptures of sundry whole prophecies and Epistles written by inspiration are lost since then nay rather and indeed that Text produces a Truth which thou deniest that in the last dayes his word and Spirit shall be de novo so poured out shed abroad and planted in the heares of his handmaids and servants Sons and Daughters that they shall Prophesie and reach as of old by word of Mouth his word as put into them by God himself Yet I. O. I know not how often betakes himself to that Text to make good his talk of the eternal Entirenesse to a Tittle of his outward Text in the Greek and Hebrew Transcripts thereof without which the word is as true entire and secure as it is when the Text is entire when the Text is torn to pieces and every Tittle of it mouldred away Beside if that were a promise of preserving the Text it must evince the Text is to endure for ever world without end as the word it self doth for its never to depart for ever from the seed that it 's there promised to but I. O. confesses the Scripture is not to abide for ever in its use which is onely faith he Ex. 3. S. 39. presenti statui c. suited to our present state and say I as it shall cease as to it's use so once to its esse or very being Obj. And if I. O. urge as he does in effect that it 's true the Word and Doctrine and Truth is the thing promised to be continued for ever primarily but consequentially the Letter and it's Tittles for as much as without it be preserved in that and that be preserved entire to a Tittle the word it self cannot be preserved from corruption Rep. He had as good have told me as soon I should have believed him in it that because Moses by Gods appointment made an Ark to lay the Book Tables and Letter in the two Tables and Letter written on it could not last any longer then the Ark or be kept from being lost any where be not kept so entire that not one bit or scrap of it be broken or lost there is no hopes that ever the light should shine out or be kept alive or be beheld yea if one inch of horn or a nail or the least Pin about the Ark had happened to be shattered or got any knock or any odd corner of it be broken off with being carried jumbled or tossed to and sro between Israel and the Philistines there had been no means of preserving the Letter from being lost or as if one should say the glasse window is set up that the Sun may shine through it therefore suppose that to be crackt or to have any flawes in it or to suffer the losse of but one little piece of a pane there 's no likelihood of enjoying the clear bright Beams of the Sun more distinctly or at any certainty nor can I be satisfied unquestionably that the Sun it self remains inviolate unlesse ye can assure me that there is every barley-corns bredth of the glasse-window without any losse as it was at first setting up though yet we see now the Sun both is the same and is better seen when beheld without a glasse then thorough it and is most clear when the glasse window is taken down and it beheld more immediately in the light that shines from it self he were fit to be Canonized for a fool that would count him a very wife man at least as to that affair that should so affirm so let who will esteem of I.
high unjust Adorations of it and as for the holy Truth that 's declared in it I have bought and paid so dear for that that no lesse then All that I had in the world of what sort soever lust pleasure honour riches or righteousnesse of mine is gone for the sake of it and to have all that ever I lost for it I would not sell it again yet All the Tittles and Letters Accents Iota's and Points which I. O. counts his such a rich possession p. 252. that are in All the Hebrew Bibles and Greek Testaments I have and I have more than one of each sort any one shall have of me for five pound and lesse money and the Books themselves to boot and that is lesse then the whole world and yet I shall hope to enjoy not a Tittle the lesse of the word of Truth that is therein told if I sincerely attend to the light the Letter calls to though I should never neither buy nor so much as look into any outward Copy of the Original Text more while I live And whereas I. O. sayes p. 163. somewhat sutably to what he sayes here that the Church of God doth now and hath for many ages enjoyed the Copies of the Original Languages as her chiefest Treasure I say that is one of the chiefest untruths that have been told yet among those many that he hath Treated out of that whole Treasury of Tales and vaÌin thoughts that are in his heart out of the abundance of which evil Treasury his mouth speaketh and pen bringeth forth evil things for though the Churches of mans constituting of which I. O. is yet a member and the Ministers of mens making at the Vniversities do now rejoyce in Transcripts Copies of the Hebrew and Greek Texts and Iota's and Points and Tittles and such like Toyes and Trappings and fruitlesse furniture as their chiefest Treasure rich possession and inheritance which they glory and blesse themselves in for the whole world will not he deprived of knowing that they must be deprived of all their worldly excellencies if they come once to part with them and do cry out ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã that all Truth tumbles to the ground if any jot and Tittle of their Original Texts and Hebrew punctation fail and they see no way to be delivered from utter uncertainty in and about all sacred Truth Ep. p. 25. in such wise as the Antichristian Churches did in darker times behind us and do still in the dark places of their several habitations count old mouldy Latine masse books and new moulded Engâish Liturgies Letanies and Scottish Directories meliori âute of a little better mould yet then the other two a thousand fold before the best of which yet I prefer the Scripture Directory whether in its Original Transcripts or but Translations their chief spiritual treasure crying out that all true faith worship Church Word of God Religion and all is like to be utterly lost if these be taken away till the Remove of which Religion was never rightly found Yet the Church of God which is now the some that it was in substance before any Scripture at all was in rerum natura both ever did and doth still count Christ the Light and Life of whom the Letter onely Testifies her chiefest Ioy and Treasure Luk. 1.57 Joh. 8 56 and not the outward Text that doth but talk of him much lesse the meer Accidental Adventitious parts thereof quae possunt vel adesse vel abesse sine Scripturae interitu which as the whole Scripture it self may be either present or absent from without the corruption of the substantial Truth or word But whose Treasure the Scripture is or is not it 's little yea nothing to I. O's purpose to prove a non-mis transcription of the Scripture we see I. O. and many millions more make much of and more ado about every Tittle and lota of the Text then they need do at this day and yet with a non obstante to all that the variety of Lections are a thousand times twice told in Transcripts and Translations and if we will believe I. O. p. 16. frequent insinuations of an infinite number more are yet to be collected Arg. the Eighth as to the old Testament in particular is the care of Ezra and his companions in restoring the Scripture to its purity when it had met with the greatest tryal that ever it underwent in this world considering the paucity of Copies then extant Rep. Ezra and his companions care was as great no doubt as mans could well be in that case but ultra posse non est esse they could do no more then they could do as to the restoring the purity of the Scripture when corrupted and that 's Questionable whether they restored it so perfectly as not to leave out some Tittles or Iota's yea and whole Books too because they could not find them witnesse all those forenamed whole Prophecies that are wanting but what if their endeavours had succeeded so as to set all to rights as perfectly and exactly to a Tittle as 't was at first giving our might it not as likely and much more be corrupted vitiated altered in points Tittles and Iota's between Ezraes dayes and now through the many Tumbles Catastrophes Revolutions and greater changes of times and things then that of the Babylonish Captivity that have happened then in the dayes of its so long steady standing while it was reserved within the bounds and confines of the Iewish Church onely and yet here thou intimatest it to have been then exceedingly charged depraved and defective or else how could Ezra and his fellows be said to restore it to its purity thou art very hard put to it for a proof of the present integrity and purity of the Hebrew Text to a Tittle that goest two thousand years backward asserting that it was restored to its purity then and thence concluding that it stands as entire to a Tittle now as then it did thou mightst as well have gone a little higher and argued thus from before Ezra viz. the Hebrew Text was at first written by the Holy Penmen Moses David Isaiah and the other Prophets truly and according to the mind of the Spirit therefore it stands so entihe ãâã this day but thou seeing for all the Iewes great care to keep it thou makest such an Argument of it was much corrupted before Ezra therefore beginnest thy account of its integrity to a Tittle no higher then him in whose dayes thou deemest it was de novo most perfectly rectified ad amussim reckoning rashly as thou mostly dost and in no wise considering that thou hast no more but much lesse security against its alteration from Ezra downward to this day not knowing what heedlesse hands of carelesse Scribes it hath since come under then there was from Ezra âââards from the time of its most pure giying out in which juncture yet it so fell out that as that which they found of it
not to be believed when she talks the Truth p. 225. So I may say of thee though I believe thee when thou speakest truth yet thou utterest so many untruths that thou scarcely deservest to be believed when thou tellest the Truth but yet if thou be of any credit with thy self and thou wilt but take thy own word then we are well enough and have wherewith to answer thy challenge having thy self in the self same Book we have here to do with speaking more then one word at least and that 's enough ad bominem to this purpose viz. that there was in the world a Copy of the Bible different from what we now enjoy in one word at least and that 's in more then Tittles which thou who art Callidus more then Callidus in thy Re frigida contendest for sith the Keri and Ketib those 840. words which are confest by thee to vary in their Consonants from what they should be written with if what is in the margin were in the line are confest by thee not to have been so from the beginning which if not then there was once a Copy different from what we now enjoy but of this thou wilt hear more from us by and by Secondly p. 300. thou sayest the difference in the sense taken in the whole context is upon the matter very little or none at all at least each word both that in the margin that in the line yield a sense agreeable to the Analogy of faith Rep. Here thou mendest thy bad cause as well as one can well do that makes it two-fold worse then 't was before for if there be welnigh a thousand words not onely different in Consonants which is greater then that of Tittles but also such as makes the least difference in the sense of the Spirit which how many so e're the Text may bear is acknowledged by all but your selves that make many to be but one alone ever to one word or place then thou thy self overturnest that certainty and Identity of not onely the Text it self thou so loudly contendest for but also in some measure of the Truth it self contained therein which we say is eternally entire let the Text run which way it will but thou here art forced to confesse that in the Keri and Ketib there 's not onely a variation in words but also thereby in the very sense it self And though thou wouldst fain mend it when thou hast done by mincing the matter making as if the Context considered the difference in the sense is upon the matter very little and agreeable either way to the Analogy of faith as ye often speak whereby if not blinded ye might see how for all ye call the Scripture your Rule of Faith yet ye more serne the Scripture into the sense of a suitablenesse to your modern devised model of faith still then suit and model your faith according to the true sense of the Spirit and mind of Christ in the Scripture yet that 's a meer false seeth and ââgment of thy own for in some places there arises from the Keri and Ketib a very vast variety not to say clear contrariety in the sense such as if the Context be consulted with is consistent with the faith but one way onely and not the other and sith thou puttest it to the tryall by the variety of those two words ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã which are the same in sound yet most distinct in their significations and so of all the varieties that are of this kind seeming to thee of the greatest importance of which it is observable that ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã whose signification is not is fourteen or fifteen times put in the Text or line instead of ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã whose signification is to him or it which is set in the margin I am willing to be tryed by that very variety that is of thy own naming the better to satisfie thee And whereas thou sayest that though these seem contrary one to the other yet wherever this falls out a sense agreeable to the Analogy of faith ariseth fairly from either word instancing in some places picke out by thee for thy own purpose I say if it do hold it s not worth a pin or point to the proof of what thou sayest if in any one of those fourteen or fifteen places it appear to the contrary and that it does let me be so bold fith thou instancest in two that are fittest for thee to instance but one that makes against thee and then I shall trouble my self no more with thy Keri and Ketib which would make one if not sick yet at least sorry for thee to see how sorrily thou shifts by it Isa. 9.3 thou hast multiplyed the Nation not encreased the joy say the Ketib or word in the Text but the Keri or word in the Margin is ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã to it which marginal Reading though Translators following the mistake of the mis-transcribers keep to the Ketib is undoubtedly the true and onely sense of the Spirit for the reading in the line as it is in both Transcripts and Translation is considered with the Context a piece of meer non-sensicall contradiction thou hast encreased the Nation not encreased the Ioy they joy before thee according to the joy in harvest as men rejoyce when they divide the spoil what a jarre does the word not encreased the Ioy make in the sense of that verse yea it makes it meet confusion and contradiction to say the joy is not enlarged and yet it is enlarged like to that of men that rejoyce in harvest and at the dividing of the spoil but read it by the Keri ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã to it thus viz thou hast multiplyed the Nation thou hast encreased joy to it or its joy they joy before thee according to the joy in harvest as men rejoyce when they divide the spoil and then there 's no discord in the sound but it s all sweetly sutable and harmonious and agreeable to the Analogy of the true faith also Arg. thy Eleventh is The security we have that no mistakes were voluntarily or negligently brought into the Text before the coming of our Saviour who was to declare all things in that he not once reproves the Iewes ân that Account when yet for their false glosses on the word be spares them not And this Argument is urged o're again p. 316 interrogatively thus viz. can it be once imagined that there should be at that time such notorious varieties in the Copies of the Scripture through the negligence of that Church and yet afterword neither our Saviour nor his Apostles take the least notice of it yea doth not our Saviour himself affirm of the word that was then among them Scripture with thee that not ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã should passe away or perish Rep. 1. Leave calling Christ thy Saviour as thou often dost till thou witnesse thy self saved by his grace from
wherewith thou standest out Pushing and Warring on in vindication of thy Assertion which looses ground more and more at the tayl of which thou again usherest in thy Conclusion viz. The Iewes silly superstitious sayings and doings which thou minglest with thy own shall we thinks as if thou didst not only justifie and side with them in their Absurdities but also build much as to the Evincing of thy Position thereupon there lacks little to be Replyed as to the Routing of them every one that hath any little solidity in him being easily capable to see and feel the foppicalnesse thereof yet at least I shall do thee so much Right who perhaps placest more in them then many a wise man would do as to nominate them The Iewes sayest thou pag. 169 170 171 173. have a Common saying That to alter one Letter of the Law is no lesse sin then to set the whole World on fire The truth is they are prodigious things that are Related of the Exact Diligence and Reverential Care of the Antient Jewes in this Work Ben Asher spent many years in the Careful Exact Writing out of the Bible Let any consider the things which they affirm to Prophane a Book or Copy One is if but one Letter be wanting and Another if but one Letter be Redundant and shall we think that is Writing it they took no more Care then a man would do in Writing out Aristotle or Plato Considering that the Word to be Transcribed was every Tittle and Iota of it The Word of the great God c. that if any failings were made innumerable Eyes of men owning their Eternal Concernment to lye in that Word were open upon it to discover it c. It is no hard work to prove their Care and Diligence to have out-gone that of Common Scribes of Heathen Authors Even among the Heathen we will scarce think that the Roman Pontifices going solemnly to Transcribe Sybills Verses would do it either negligently or Treacherously or alter one Tittle from what they found written And shall we entertain such Thoughts of them that knew they had to do with the living God in and about that which is dearer to him then all the World besides Let men then Clamour as they please and cry out of all as ignorant and stupid which will not grant the Corruptions of the Old Testament they plead let them propose their Conjectures of Mistakes crept into the Original Copies with their Remedies as Capellus We shall acknowledge nothing of this nature but what they can prove by undeniable and irrefragable instances which as to any thing done by them appears upon the matter to be nothing at all It can then with no colour of Probability be Asserted which yet I find some Learned men too free in granting namely that there hath the same Face attended the Scripture in its Transcription as hath done other Books Let me say without offence this Imagination seems to the to border on Atheism Surely the Promise of God for the Preservation of his Word with his Love and Care of his Church of whose Faith and Obedience the Word is the only Rule require other Thoughts at our hands We adde that the whole Scripture entire as given out from God without any losse is preserved in the Copies of the Originals yet remaining What varieties there are among the Copies themselves shall be afterwards declared in them all we say is every Letter and Tittle of the Word Reply Because the Children of the Letter of the Old Testament nor of the Gospel the Spirit and the New are so sortish and senslesse as to surmise that the bare Copies of the Letters and Points and Tittles and loâaes are dearer to God then all the World besides so that its a greater sin to mis-transcribe one Letter by either Alteration Ablation or Addition which change by Deficiency or Redundancy may befal the most Critical Curious Careful Scribe that ever was does prophan a Copy so that it s not the Holy Scripture for Prophane and Holy are ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and is as great a sin and a matter of as much moment as the fiâing the whole World and upon such uncircumcised Conceits are men Excrementiâously exact and diligent to very doâage and careful of Pins Points Vowels Accents Tittles Iotaes Apices and Letters of the Text ad Extra not Tantamount to the least of the Truths therein contained no not to so âuch as Tyth while the Law for it stood of Mint Anâis and Commin to utter Carelesnesse of the grand Truths and reverentially respectful to their Book as they were of old to their Brazen Serpent of as divine Original and to as divine an end as the Letter is to very idolatry and spending their time in tedious transcribings of every Apex to the very total loss of many years from the more weighty matters of Judgement Mercy Righteousnesse Faith and Truth which the Text doth but testifie of and prodigious to very Superstition I say because that blinded Generation of men viz. the Iewes whom sometimes thou seemest to tax for their undue Veneration of the Letter and over-weenings of it pag. 236. and to set them at nought as men feeding themselves all their dayes with vain Fables addicted to figments profoundly Ignorant Idolatrous full of foolish Contradictious Triflings bewitched with their Dunghilly Traditions doing how seriously of nothing how Childishly in serious things fools sots froth smoke nothing whose sayings and doings are no more to be heeded then that of wick'd blind mad-men c. pag. 236 239 242 243 246 247. do so adore the letter and dote on the Tittles of it must thou needs be foolish and doting and sottish and superstitious and Idolatrous and so Childishly serious in taking up thy Time and Thoughts so totally and piningly after Toyes and Trifles and Iots and Tittles together with them Vin tu Curtis Judaeis oppedere c. Wilt thou sometimes flert at the Iewes Fancies and Fopperies and odde Conceits and over-curious Carriages of themselves in Boyes Toyes and at that which is the fruit of their fidling minds as not fit to be any other then forgotten and yet forget thy self so other whiles as to entertain their vain Thoughts so as to own them as thine own and own them as thy grounds and foundations to frame thy Arguments upon so as both âo think the same with them and from thence to impose upon the thoughts and faith of others for if thou judg them ridiculous why dost thou alledge them in so serious a Case as thou dost and if thou justifie them art thou not one with them and because thou think'st as they so superstitiously think and from thence thrusts out thy confident Conclusions in that thy wonted Interrogative way of shall we think this and that shall we entertain such Thoughts can it be imagined c. or if positively then thus it is not unprobable it can with no colour of probability be Asserted this or that
1. c. 2. s. 3. opened the manner of the Words coming forth from God to prove the Scriptures of the old and new Testament to be the VVord of God much of which makes against himself at large in a long Train of perplexive prittle prattle throughout his whole second third and fourth Chapters from the self-evidencing property and efficacy of the Scriptures which aforehand still he calls the VVord of God but to shut it all up together in short to this purpose viz. That which evidenceth it self to be the Word of God that is and is known assuredly to be the Word of God But the Word of God doth evidence it self unto us to be the Word of God therefore the Word of God is and is known assuredly to be the Word of God The minor in this Syllogisme none denieth it being true in those termes it here stands inâ yet it is false and sophistical as falling from him who by that term the Word of God in the sore part of the Proposition means the Scriptures the utter falshood of which minor and so consequently of the conclusion which is now true but aliud a negato would have too plainly appeared if he had not sophistically placed that subject i.e. the Word of God as it stand formost in both in the room of the right subject i.e. the Scriptures or if he had not changed his minor term but exprest himself thus viz. But the Scriptures do evidence themselves to be the Word of God therefore the Scriptures are and are known assuredly to be the Word of God And to prove that minor J.O. useth another medium viz. Gods magnifying his Word above all his Name by which à minore ad majus i.e. from the self-evidencing power of smaller matters as he counts them i.e. the Works of God and the Light in the conscience the Law written in the heart and the notions inlaid there with his own finger which he calls the voice of God in nature for these are low â darke obscure principles and means of revealing God and his will with J.O. in comparison of the writings and letters that are inlayed in parchment and paper with the finger of meer man which low principles yet are able to plead their own divine original and evince them to be of God he argues at large that the Word of God Scripture again he should have said doth much more evidence it self to be his Word and to put his lax and loose words into a narrower room and into a more Argumentative or Syllogistical posture thus viz. If those inferiour Names of God whereby he makes himself known even his works without and his Light his Law written in the heart and conscience to which there need be no other Witness that when they testifie God's Righteousness or Holynesse and call for moral obedience which is eternally and indispensably due to him they speak from God do evidence themselves to be what they are and to be of him then much more his Word the Scripture he should have said which God magnifies over all his Name must evidence it self to be his Word But those inferionr Names do evidence themselves and therefore much more doth the Word of God the Scriptures again he should have said evidence it self to be the Word of God Rep. What a strange story is here as if a man should tell a tale of two things a Cock and a Bull metamorphos'd into one whereof the one having been as confidently as untruly avowed to be assuredly known to be the other viz. The Cock to be a Bull is being denied as Ridiculously as Reasonlesly profer'd to be proved in this illegal and illogical way of Argumentation viz. That which evidenceth it self to be a Bull both is and is assuredly known to be a Bull but the Bull alias the Cock for so he means should say evidenceth himself to be a Bull Therefore the Bull or the Cock both is and is assuredly known to be a Bull. In this shameful manner and sorry sort doth I.O. having once audaciously avouch 't it go about to prove the Scriptures to be and to be assuredly known to be the VVord of God by Anticipation sophistically substituting that subject the Word of God in his disputation for it in the room of the legal subject i.e. the Scriptures taking it perforce from such as give it not for granted that it is so while to them-ward it s yet no more but the thing in Question and utterly unproved so to be which question I.O. not onely begs but also begs so unworthily and basely that I never saw the like to it but once before in all my life and the like to it can't likely be seen again unless a man should beg it on his knees little less then plainly confessing that unless it be aforehand granted him that the Scripture is the Word of God he cannot possibly prove it so to be What wise man that is as willing to do the Truth Right as thee I.O. no wrong can make any better construction of thy own words as they are to be read in the â sect of the 4. chap. of thy first Treatise where professing that in the remainder of thy Discourse thorowout that Treatise which is all in proof of the Scriptures being assuredly the word of God thou shalt endeavour to clear and vindicate the self evidencing efficacy of the Scripture and the grounds thereof by such common Mediums as shall as well reach the Reasons of such men as acknowledge not the Scripture to be the Word of God as of such as do thou desirest in effect onely to have thus much first granted thee that thou mayest have leave the Scripture being that out of which thy proofs for and grounds of this self-evidencing efficacy of the Scripture to be the Word of God are to be taken to consider the Scripture as 't is the written word of God or else all thy proofs will be weak and able to prove just nothing This onely quoth I.O. to recite his own words I shall desire to promise that whereas some grounds of this efficacy seem to be placed in the things themselves contained in the Scripture I shall not consider them abstractedly as such but under their formality of being the Scripture or written Word of God without which consideration and resolution the things mentioned would be left naked and utterly divested of their Authority and Efficacy pleaded for and be of no other nature and importance then the same things found in other Books Which is as much as to say Being by the Scripture to prove the Scripture or writing both to be and to evidence it self to be the Word written or the written Word of God let such as deny it deny that their denial of it and but first own it with me that the Scripture or writing formaliter is the written Word of God and let us but under that name nature notion and formality consider it and then let
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 Rabbiâs 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 âternal 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
and iota of it must bear not only the true for so it may every point and iota line and letter being Scripture as well as a whole page but the very false fictitious name and nature of the whole for thus J.O. makes the whole Scripture no more as well as no less than the Word of God and no less then so even then the Word of God for had he said each tittle is Scripture I should have excused him doth he aver every tittle and iota of the Scripture to be pag. 168 169. pag. 27. Every Apex of the written word i.e. writing with him is equally divine and as immediately from God as the voice wherewith and whereby he spake to or in the Prophets and is therefore accompanied with the same Authority which Authority with him is that of commanding the name of God as his word pag 34 34 36. in its self and unto us who if he can tell me how much sense or prove to me that there is any sound sense true Doctrine comprized commanded or taught in one tittle or iota much more that every transcribed tittle and iota of it is as he there affirms the Word of the great God though I yet say as he sayes of what he cannot beleeve credat Apella yet he however Erit mihi magus Apollo Yet for every not to say Tittittle but Tittle and little ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã in it is he so loud that he labours and looks to be heard and heeded as far off as beyond Sea by Capellus and other Divines against whom he tiresomely talks about trivial matters not contented with the Truths of Doctrine contained without every Apex tittle and ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã of what ever was in the Text be assured and secured unto him any of which yet if happily they are lost as all the individual immediate first Manuscripts are wholly by his own confession I know no body will spare so much time or trouble themselves to take so much pains as to look them up for him Yea oh the infinity of I. O's fightings with his fellow Protestant as well as Popish Divines for the foresaid flim flams and forms of outward Scripture in that second Treatise of his or manifold Tale of a Tub without any bottome save the sandy ground and fickle foundation of forgeries fables humane fallible perswasions uncertain conjectures and on his own side his own thoughts conjecture and apprehensions as his own self therein abundantly confessnes into which but for service-sake to the truth and that I may shew the Seers how dim-sighted they are and the World what a Wood and Wildernesse of meer imaginations her Leaders are wandering and erring up and down in it even loaths me to look into it and but that I know the end of it be no worse then this as the Proverb is That when Thieves fall out among themselves true men are the likelier to come by their goods again it would more troubâe and terrifie me then it does to behold as every one may that reads there and does not to use J. O.'s own phrase in it p. 275. dream pleasantly while he is awake how the Divines are divided about the ground they stand on like children crying out and tearing themselves to pieces about their shreds and shels and pins and Points and counters for want of insight into better materials and into the inside thereof are twatling away their time to learn in about the gawdy outside of their Horn-Books and Primers and brawling about the back side of their Bibles treating out their thoughts in tittle-tattles to each other about Titles of Books and Tâââ'ââ and Iota's Hebrew Points Punctations Accents Vowels Dipthongs âabbincal unical and other sorts of Letters Pronounciations Acute Apert double and simple sounds as Ai Ay Pay Day How Now Rout Stout Eat Meat Pull Cut Boy Toy All Tale Thy My Thine Thin Go To Vse Vs Law Draw Title Tittle and such like tittle-tattles and simple sounds as So No J. O.'s and T. D's simple sounds throughout their Books various Lections to Kiries and to Ketibs Lexicons Original Copies Transcriptions Translations Oral Traditions Tomes Talmuds Babylonish Targums Paraphrases Greek Syriack Arabick Aethiopick Complutensian Franciscus Pratensis and Bombergius his Bibles Genealogies Chronologies Commentaries Alcorans Gemaraes Mishnaes Massereas Hammasoreths Euchiridions Apologies Appendices Prolegomenaes Biblia Poly Glottaes Councils Fathers Doctors and modern Authors Rabbies School-men Casuits Grammarians Turkish Iewish and Heatbenish Writers Massorites Cabalists and other Rabbins and a huge heap more of such Massie-men and their voluminous Handy-works wherewith our men call'd Ministers are ever mudling and hampering themselves and each others minds and out of which more then out of the Scriptures themselves they so scribble scrabble and scramble about and much more then out of the Light and Spirit the Letter sprang from the vast Body and big bundle of their Atheo-theology is composed about which yet nor yet about the Standard of their own owning and their fore-fathers authorizing they can never accord but are ever snarling and concurring as dogs together by the ears among themselves and though their thoughts are so various that theres Quot homines tot sententiae as many minds as men yet every one is crouding his own erude and self-created conjectural cogitations as very Oracle on all the rest and crying up his own incongruous Conclusions as cogent and clear as the clearest demonstrations in the world And howbeit it befalls me in submission to God's will who hath laid it on me against my own to take so much notice of that notable non-such piece of uncertain Discourse of I. O.'s about the various Lections and pedling Punctations of the Hebrew Text in all which his clack is carried to and fro by perplexing contradicting conjectures in the high road of Forgeries and Fables then which in nothing quoth I.O. p. 264. hath the world been more cheated And round about in the sphere of rational humane fallible perswasions and the sandy-heap of uncertainties and incertainty it self p. 181.218.222.227 as to make some Animadversions on some Contradictions and odd Expressions and Absurdities apparently thick and threefold in it Yet I take so much heed to my self as not much to interest my self or any thing of mine into that inconclusible Controversie and endlesse Entercourse which I see I.O. and others are there engaged in in the looseness of which a man may as I. O. does sooner loose himself then find the Truth And seeing as thou saist in another case p. 343. it is to no purpose to go over all such observations as might be made of things that are false foolish frivolous and absurd that are therein if any man hath as thou saist and as it seems to me hast a mind to be led out of the way he may do well to attend unto them I shall no further then to lead men out from attending to the Toyishness of them Nor shall I bring my self down
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 râad 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 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Shâw 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
his liberty to make his choice ex dieabus malis of those two evils seems to chuse the latter saying pag. 7. that as far as their personal concernments as Saints and beleevers lay in the Scriptures and in order to their saving knowledge of the truth they studied the Writings and Prophesies of one another I conclude then against I.O. that by that clause the Foundation of the Prophets and Apostles is not intended their Writings as if they laid their own Scriptures for the Foundation of the Church and her faith hope obedience but that which the Apostles themselves were built upon together with the whole Church or houshold of God which could not be nor was their own Writings but Christ the Light The Letter indeed is the foundation laid by I.O. and men of his mould of old for his Wheel in a Wheel as he speaks or his false Church whose works like his own run round on and are found to have in them Wheel within Wheel but as for the true Church of the living God which is the Wheel that will turn the worlds Wheels upside down it never did doth nor ever will acknowledge any fallible letter or meer transcribed Text or any other thing to be the true great and blessed foundation of Truth Faith Hope or Obedience then Christ Iesus the same yesterday and to day and for ever who was before it now is and ever will be when the letter shall be no more at all 2. Argument whatsoever the Scripture it self layes down and testifies to be the only true Foundation of the Apostles and Prophets and of the whole Church of God and of her Faith Hope and Obedience and of all Truth that is the only true foundation of all these things But the Scripture it self layes down and testifies Christ alone the Light the living Word and not it self to be the only true Foundation of the things aforesaid therefore Christ alone the Light Spirit and inward living Word that is nigh in the heart and not the Scripture it self is the only true Foundation of them The first and affirmative part of the minor is not denied by thee as the major cannot be and if thou deny the second part of the minor which is negative and denies the Scripture to testifie of it self in any place that its the Foundation then assign where the Scripture calls it self the Foundation or else own that it doth not and so that it is not the Foundation at all much less the truest or the only one as thou often intimatest either expresly or in terms equivalent it is Ep. p. 25 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã not any means of standing out of utter uncertainty about all sacred truth if the Heb punctation be invention also p. 64 65. not a truer Foundation for for faith to repose it self upon 3. Argument if the Scripture be the foundation for the Church and all her Faith and Repentance to be founded and grounded upon then either there was no Foundation for it before the Scripture or else they who lived before the Scripture had one Foundation for their faith and we another and so consequently there hath been two Foundations for the one faith or the one Church or body of Christ but there was a Foundation before the Scripture and there are not two Foundations of faith one to that part of the body of Christ and of Gods building that was before the Scripture and another for that part that is built since the Scripture therefore the Scripture is not the Foundation Argument 4. The Foundation of the faith must be something that is infallible firm fixt certain stable sure and inalterable as the light Spirit and Word within onely is and Gods Foundation 2 Tim. 2 19. the Foundation of God sure to a Tittle for Error minimus in principio for major in medio maximus in fine the least fault or errour and deviation in the principle or Foundation of any building grows greater toward the middle and is greatest at the top as it is seen in a very Tower if the bottome or basis stands never so little awry as is discernable it is discerned more in the middle and much more still as it ascends higher But the Scripture letter Hebrew and Greek Texts how ever I.O. pleads their integrity in every Apex point tittle and iota yet are as I have shewed above more at large in answer to his long Tattle about the Tittles and points and indentity of Lections of the letter by his own confession mistaken and mistranscribed in small things yea and in some matters of more moment and importance in the best transcribed Copies of the Original Text therefore the Text or letter of the Scripture cannot be a fit Foundation for the Churches faith but the spirit and Word within is onely so Psal. 75.3 The earth and all the inhabitants thereof are dissolved faith Christ the Word of God I bear up the Pillars of it and that is the reason why the earth is so shaken as it is and reels to and fro that it is removed as a cottage and all helpers and healers avail nothing because they reject the corner stone Christ the Word for if the Foundations be destroyed what can the righteous do Psal. 11.3 Isa. 24. 18 19. Each of which Arguments hold good against the letters being the Rule the light the witness of God the Gospel the power of God to salvation the only means or way of coming to the saving knowledge of God Word of God and what ever other high Titles I. O. intitles it by as appears in their order That the Light or Word within and not the Scriptures are the Rule or Canon Another thing thou assertest of the Scripture is that it is the only Rule of the faith and obedience of Gods Church p. 173. that it is ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã that more sure word of Prophesie to be attended to 2 Pet. 1.18 19 20. not in its self for so it was as sure as sure could be but in its giving out its evidence to us then that great miracle of miracles greater than which the Apostles of Christ never did behold or hear viz. That voice which came from the most excellent glory This is my beloved Son which we have greater security from and by according to Peter then they had in and by that miraculous voice That Moses and the Prophets which who so will not hear will not be perswaded to repent though one arise to them from the dead Luke 16.31 That Word Law and Testimony mentioned Isa. 8.20 according to which who speaks not are said to be in the dark so that there is no light in them by which what every one sayes be it what or whom it will Church or person if it be in and about the things of God concerning his will or worship or our obedience to him is to be tried That which we are sent to that which is and is asserted to be the
Scribes that keep scribling and preaching and disputing all their dayes as if they did delight to know Gods wayes enquiring after the Ordinances of Iustice in order as they pretend to the knowledge of what is to be done and yet in what they know naturally as brute beasts by a habit of reading Chapter and Verse as as a Horse that is versed in a way to the Pasture he is used to run in in those very things they corrupt themselves saying to God when he tells them any troublesome truth Depart from us we desire not the knowledge of thy wayes ââtaining the truth in unrighteousness that is told them within by the Light of God himself in their own hearts not receiving the love of it that they may be saved having pleasure in unrighteousness and no pleasure in the Truth such shall have at last that they have taken away from them and in the just Iudgement of God be blasted and blinded and given over to strong delusion to believe lyes that they may be damned Nevertheless not as a Principle onely but as a Rule of obedience to such as truly love her the Light within the Spirit of God the Word nigh in the heart and Wisdom not onely with but without the Letter ever was is and will be profitable to direct Eccl. 10 10. And no less then this that the Spirit is the standing Rule of Faith and Life to the Church as well as the Principle thereof doth that Gal. 6.8.16 evince where the Apostle having spoken so much before in ch 5. and the â verse of this 6. of the lustings of the spirit against the flesh or evil spirit in us that lusteth to envy of walking according to the Spirit living according to the Spirit being led by the Spirit of sowing to the Spirit the crop of which is the fruit of the Spirit the everlasting life the new Creature while the Crop reaped from the fulfilling the lustings of the flesh is more and more Works of the flesh and corruption to death and condemnation at least adds by way of encouragement that the walkers by the Spirit might not not be weary of well doing thus much viz. that so many as walk according to this Rule which Rule is not the Scripture as the Divines and Doctors citing that place as J. O. does twice over at least viz. Ex. 3. S. 26. Ex. 4 S. 22. to that purpose do ignorantly divine but the Spirit the walking in and after which is so often hinted at above and the Light within which and not the Letter without makes manifest both the Works of the flesh and darknesse and the Fruits of the Spirit and the light For the Letter indeed doth declare that the works of the Flesh and the fruits of the Spirit are manifest but it declares also that that which doth manifest them both is the Light by which also they were manifested before the Letter was Which Letter likewise doth de jure declare what is to be done and not done but onely the Light de facto what is done and what is not done of the Mind and Will of God thereby inwardly nigh more immediately revealed and declared as 't is ad extra onely and more mediately and afar off by the Letter For all things that are reproved or approved are as so made manifest by the Light the Letter came from And whatsoever doth primarily and principally make manifest good and evil right and wrong crooked and straight truth and falshood simplicity and deceit it self and darkness it self and all false spirits sound Doctrine and seducing is that Light and Spirit which comes from God and shines more or lesse in all mens hearts This as it is the Principle as J.O. foolishly affirms the Letter only is p. 18. or means of discovery so it and not the Writing only as he there blindly writes is also the Rule or measure of judging and determining about the saving Doctrine of the Gospel this is as the Light of the outward world is in it the discovery of it self and of all things else in their proper appearances This is certum Rectum Regula quae est mensura sui obliqui Hitherto are we sent this and not the Letter as I.O. childishly asserts p. 57. is asserted to be the Rule and Standard the Touchstone of all speaking whatsoever that must speak alone for it selfe and try the speaking of all but it selfe yea it s own also By all which it is evident how the Light and Spirit is designed by God to be the unchangeable standing-Rule of Faith and Life and the Churches Directory in all Divine Doctrines to be believed and practised and not the Letter of the Scripture at least not the Letter onely which is the matter very stifly affirmed and stickled for by J.O. and T.D. the latter of which stands up to vindicate it in these terms see T. D ' second Pamphlet p. 16. that the Scriptures are the Word of God and the Rule of Faith and Life and that there is no other standing-Rule but the Scriptures The former in these If every man's private Light so he floutingly calls that particular measure of that publike Light of Christ which is one and the same in all be the Rule of yeilding obedience unto God then so many men so many Rules but the Divine Canon is but onely one and that the holy Scripture is that only Rule is abundantly shewn quoth J.O. before In proof of which saying the Rule is but one J.O. quotes that Gal. 6.16 which speakes not of the Scripture at all And Eph. 3.16 which speaks expresly of the Spirit of God as the next verse does of Christ the Word which we confess is the Rule but neither the one nor the other of the Scripture Isa. S. 20. which speaks of the Law and Testimony which are the Light and Spirit as I shall shew anon For this place is three times at least alluded to by J.O. to the like little purpose and not the Letter of the Scripture Obj. And if any say But is not the Sripture profitable to direct yea for Doctrine for reproof for correction for instruction in righteousnesse able to make wise to salvacion to make a man of God perfect thorowly furnished or as the word is perfected into all good works according to 2 Tim. 3.15 16 17. and so to be the onely Rule Canon Standard Touch-stone in all cases Rep. This place is insisted upon or quoted three or four times by I. O. To whom I say howbeit there are ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã holy Scriptures as I have said elsewhere that are not written with Ink and Pen nor ingraven in stones but with the Finger and Spirit of the living God upon the fleshly Tables of mens hearts which make such as Timothy was who knew that spirit in himself spoke of Iob 32.8 and that inward Writing and inspiration of the Almighty that onely giveth the understanding which are most profitable for Doctrine Correction
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 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã 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 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã 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 ââsâs 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
Chrisiumexihibendum those since Chrisium exhibitum the first Christ to be offered the later Christ already offered I say if these later be the New Testament then either one or both of these two absurdities must be owned viz. that there hath been where there should have been none a superadding of very much to the New Testament or rather secondly that the whole New Testament was it self made since it was ratified and confirmed by the Testators death Vtrum horum mavis accipe own thou I.O. which thou wilt or both of these if thou wilt but I le never own that to be a mans Testament only much les Christs but only fained so to be that is added to or rather wholly made after his death whose Testament it is I.Os. other Mediums are all too frivolous to insist upon The third is ab expresso Testimonio the express Testimony of Psal. 16.7 8. Reply Where I have shewed before that by the Law Testimony Commandement of the Lord is intended the Light wee talk of not the Letter The fourth A materia Scripturarum the matter which saith he is all the Councel of God and nothing but what the Prophets and Moses spake alluding to Act. 20.27 and citing Act. 26.22 Reply In neither of which places Paul doth either mention or mean any outward Scriptures or Writings of his own much less other mens but the things he ministred to the Church of Ephesus and her Elders by word of mouth delivering to every of them according to their Stations and Relations how they ought to walk and to please God and with-holding nothing that was profitable either to Elders or flock Act. 20.20 and to all men small and great the summe and substance of things fore-spoken of old viz. Repentance toward God and faith toward Iesus vers 21. and how there was now as to the mystery of truth Nil dictum quod non dictum prius nothing said which was not shewed before in the type and shadow 5. A fine from their end which quoth he is 1. Faith Joh. 20.21 These are written that ye may beleeve and Rom. 10.17 Faith comes by hearing Reply Which first Text if intending faith in the history of things that the Letter may beget men may have and have from Rome to this place and yet perish which latter Text intends a saving faith but that comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God which Word saith Paul above in the same Chapter is not the Letter without but a Light within nigh in the heart and mouth of men that they may hear and do it even the Word of faith which they preached 2. Wisdome to salvation perfect instruction to all good works 2 Pet. 1.19 2 Tim. 3.15 16. Reply Which Scriptures I have spoken to before and shewed how little they make to I.Os. purpose the first speaking not of the Scripture at all The second how throw saith in the light first the letter may be profitable toward but not per saltum to salvation and perfection 3 Attainment of eternal life 5. Joh. 39.30.31 Reply Which life comes as is there said above through Christ and beleeving in his light which is his name whom and which the Scriptures testifie of as appears by the two Texts he cites talked on enough by me already in way of answer to I.Os. Fancies and not by the Letter or Scriptures themselves though searched after and lookt for there by the Scribes that neither heard nor saw the Father nor came to the Son for life nor could abide that his word should abide in them So that howbeit he concludes the Scripture perfect in all respects I say in respect to its own appointed end it is as abiding incorrupted by mens wresting as at first given out by holy men yet not in all the respects in which I.O. and T.D. assert it to be perfect who makes it as now altered and adulterâted the only most perfect Standing Rule of faith and life and way and means of knowing his will our duty and of coming to eternal life and that exclusively of all inward light and Spirit and other Revelation of which but where is the ' proof on'â his saies there is no need of them but they are fictitious uncertain dangerous abominable and the like Whereas I trust to make it appear there is no knowing God but by other Revelation of him then the outward one that is made in the Scripture even by the Revelation of himself within men As for thy Enthusiasm and colloquia Angelica vel ficta vel facta thou mayest keep that to thy self I pretend not to the defence of discourse with Angels fained or true yet to thy shame I shall say thus much in vindication of truth against thee viz. that thou shewest thy self but a silly man to conâemn Colloquia cum Angelis vel sicta vel facta and by whole sale to throw away without making any difference all conference with Angels whether made indeed or but fained for what were all Daniels Maries Pauls Iâhns Christs conferences with Angels truly made fit for nothing but thy flours and for thee to make thy self sport with Col. 2.18 which thou cotest below will not save thee from the just censure of ignerant impudence sith that condemns a worshipping of Angels only as also the Angel himself condemns that whom Iohn would have worshipt Rev. 19.10 22.9 and forbids it but conference with Angels not counterfeit and ficta but facta which thou makes no bones of to render detestable in thy dirty driblings as well as fained are of those good things thou speakest ill of because thou knowest them not Having Grubd up by the Roots the first of J. Os. Grand Artificial Arguments grounded inartificially upon Testimonies of Scriptures which he calls inartificial ones and disproved all his petty and subordinate proofs of the minor Proposition thereof on which the whole stress of his evidence stood I proceed to examination of the rest Arg. 2. His second is A perfecta operatione seu effeâtu Scripturarum from the perfect operation and effect of the Scripture In English thus If the Scripture doth accomplish in its way of efficacy which is moral All things that can possibly be effected by any Revelation of Gods will whatsoever in order to our due and sincere worshipping of God and coming at last to life eternal Then vain are all those foresaid principles of the knowledge of God viz. The Spirit and Light within which the Fanaticks falsly boast of But the former is true Therefore c. The minor of this Argument which I deny hath a whole Troop of Testimonies or Texts of Scripture pressed to attend the proof thereof which I.O. takes to be such a Trusty Life-guard and most of them are so to the Qua. cause concerning the Light Word and Spirit within that there is no doing any thing in denial thereof that can reach to the rendring of it untrue but unless it be some one or two of them that mention the
the House and Traytors that will not so own it to be and shall say Die mihi c. tell me what it is to be called if not so not heeding that himself calls it the House where the Parliament sits and that that is the most proper name of it I should judge that man utterly unfit to be chosen a Parliament-man or if he should be chosen as unmeet to meet there among the rest as in regard of his Clergy-ship I.O. himself once chosen to that honour as I hear was thought unmeet to meet among them Or to prosecute the matter rather under that Metaphor of the Lanthorn and the Light that shines in it with which the Letter and the Light the Writing and the Word doth so exactly correspond and hold proportion if there should appear such a man as would not be contented by the fore-mentioned Metonymy only to call the Lanthorn the Light it self which makes out it self thereby and other things also to the view of others but stand up to contend tooth and nayl that the Lanthorn is the very Light in very deed and ought so to be denominated as that which really is so yea and every inch of it from the Top to the very bottome or else it is spoyled of its own glorious due and proper name and denied to be what it is and abused and depressed quite below it self debased and disgraced at their peril of mens utter râine for their damnable unbeleef though they beleeve own and acknowledge it to be a very special good serviceable profitable clear useful and perfect Lanthorn above all other Lanthorns as to all ends and purposes for which it was at first made and framed unless they see it with such eyes as his own and beleeve it with himself to be veraciter the real light and only rule and guide of the way that mafests both it self and all things else that are needful to be seen to all such as are neâr to and within the sight of it and as concerning the Light it self which reveals both it self and the Lanthorn and the dark room also round about wherein it shines and shews it self and other things as well yea more brightly when it s beheld immediately and is abstracted from the Lanthorn which it reveals and in which to say the truth it self is more properly vailed then revealed for the Light or new Testament is vail'd in the Old the Old Letter revealed in the new will not beleeve there is any such thing nor without impatience hear the Testimony of those that testifie of it unto him and tell him that he is mistaken 't is not the Lanthorn that enlightens the room as he supposes for that is though transparent yet a dark body of it self that can no more by and of it self without somewhat else i.e. the light to manifest evidence either it self or other things then a stool or chair or any such opacous body like it self but it is another thing within it that shews it self in some measure through it and as the whole room and all things therein are by it most evidently seen when it stands and shines in the room and is severed from it and that its that Light only and not the Lanthorn that can properly challenge to it self that name of Light and that the Lanthorn under no consideration whatsoever whether formally considered in its own proper nature as an instrument made into that form of of a Lanthorn of such materials as Wood Horn Tin Glass or the like nor yet quatenus containing the Light in it either iâ or can properly be said to be the Light at all but the man will rather vilifie and utterly nullifie the Light for the Lanthorns sake so that men become his enemies for telling him the truth about it and his hand is up and at work against every man whose hand is against his crude conceptions stigmatizing them in Print as poor erroneous foolish Fanatical Knaves Ex. 25.22 deluded Dreamers c. and belying the Light as a meer âained imagined peece of business a figment of Fanaticks fanaticisme Enthuss âisme dotage Ex. 2. s. 32. Nelcio quid vere nihil And moreover if the said man will not only positively assert but also not blush to profess in effect that if the Lanthorn be not to be called the Light he knows not what to call it and thereupon call out to such as deny it to tell and teach him what the Lanthorn is to be called if it be not properly to be called the Light saying you must either call it the Light aut doceat nos aliquis quid dicendum id sit and lastly shall not blush to put himself upon the proof thereof against all that shall gainsay the Lanthorn to be the Light and that in no better then such a piteous either flatly false or foul and fallacious manner as here under followeth viz. 1. The Lanthorn doth sufficiently evidence it self to be the Light therefore most assuredly unquestionably incontroleably infallibly the Lanthorn is the light by which men must see or not at all in which Enthememe the Antecedent is as most assuredly unquestionably uncontroleably infallibly false as I.Os. saying that the Letter doth so evidence it self to be the Light and consequently the Conclusion yet this is I.Os. way p. 68 69. For thou triest it out in these Termes which are the truest though the more thou keepest to them the more false thy Propositions as to the matter asserted in them both are and do appear viz. the Letter the Scriptures the VVriting with every Tittle and Iota that is therein arguing as aforesaid thus The Scriptures do abudantly infallibly incontroleably manifest themselves to be the VVord of God Therefore we know the Scriptures assuredly to bee the Word of God Tr. 1. c. 2. s. 5. c. 4 s. 1 21. Which Argument is fair and not fallacious yet its frame not more fair then its Antecedent flatly false understood as it must be by thee if there be at all such thing as uniformity in thy two Enlish Treatises and not so much noniformity as that we may not safely judge of thy meaning in that word Scriptures in one place by thy own expression and explanation of it in another of the writing or the written Letter and the transcribed Tittles and Iotaes of it the falsity of which Antecedent as uttered in such open termes being not unlikely seen by thy self to be too obvious to be seen by others thou fetchest it about in a way of fallacy acting arguing minus caste but magis cause from this foundation 2. Or else thus viz. The Light in the Lanthorn Tr. 1. c. 4. s. 14. doth evidence it self infallibây to him that is not blinde to be the Light Therefore the Lanthorn is and is assuredly known to be the Light in which the Antecedent is most true but the consequence denied as no less false and fouly fallacious then the other is true and as non-sensical a non
that beleeves not both beleeves neither But what of that what follows hence this quoth I O. for that is the very end hee infers this Text for and the very conclusion he infers from it viz. that Moses writings of Christ are more sure and of greater certainty as to the Churches use then Christs own words from his own mouth or then Christs Revelations of Gods minds to men as revealed to him from the mouth of God from the very bosome of the Father Siccine Itane is it so I O. indeed what the ouââard remotely transcribed Copies of the writings of the Old servant that put a vail over his face too and spake so darkly in types and figures and shews and shadows that 't was hard to behold stedfastly to what end he spake more plain and stedfast and sure and certain then the immediate Voice Words Revelations of the Son himself whom Moses called to hear as coming and speaking more distinctly out of the very bosome of the Father O the dotage of our Vniversity Doctors the dimness of our Divines who profess to dive daily and deeply into the Scriptures that make the dark Writings and dead Letter and servant more clear and worthy and useful to the Church then the express Voice and Words of the Son which are Spirit and life it self I shall set but one Scripture to face this fancy of I.O. and so leave and let it stand to the shame of it self and its Father Heb. 3. vers 1. to the 8. See and read it Thus of the first The words of the second are these Be not soon shaken in minde nor troubled neither by spirit nor by word nor by letter as from us as that the day of the Lord is at hand Rep. The business I.O. cites this in proof of is for this and that next before are of those that are subscribed to that purpose that the certainty of the Scripture is preferred before the certainty of true Revelations and Miracles but which way so much can be drawn unless it be as I.O. draws iniquity with cords of vanity and sin as it were with Cart Ropes from that Text is more then I can tell Paul Silas and Timothy had told them it seems of the coming of the day of God both by Spirit Word and Letter they whose great hope lay in the comming of that day like such as look and long for what they love and are apt to thinke and hope it to be as they would have it did hope it to be nearer hand then it was and fearing left finding it further off then they thought they might bee troubled and shaken in minde and failing in their faith of it he gives them to understand the worst of it that the best might the better help it self that they should not mistake them in their Doctrine about that day as if they had said it was immediately to shine out upon them and so waver in their mindes flag in their faith and be troubled with doubts as if it would never come to them because not so soon as they wisht it might for there was a long night to interpose it self first he wills them withall to remember v. 5. that he told them no less in the Spirit by Word of his mouth as now he doth over again by Letter or Writing when was present with them howbeit as that 's never long that comes at last so that day would come at last to their salvation and destruction of the man of sin who caused the night with the brightness of it Here 's the short and the long of the business of that verse and those about it from which I who can see the Sun can see no such Doctrine follow as I.O. dreamingly draws from it nor one dram of Reason nor the least grain of Assent to his Asasâinated Assertion that the Scripture is of more certitude as to the Churches use then any true Revelations Other Arguments I.O. urges why the Light and Spirit cannot bee the Rule c. Therefore the Scripture must be it J.O. That to which we are never no where sent of God that we might learn the knowledge of himself and his will and take direction in our duty that cannot be the Rule Canon Principle or directory of our Faith Learning Knowledge and obedience But we are never no wheresent of God to any inward Light or internal Private spirit c. Therefore c. Les the Fanaticks produce but one place of Scripture wherein we or any are sent to their Rules or directions of faith and obedience and we will not say but they have cause to triumph in earnest but if they speak of their own they are Lyars they bear witness to themselves and their witness is not true Reply As for thy word Private Spirit we deny all leading by any Private Light and Spirit It is the Common Light and Publick Spirit of God which is one and the same in all though not in the same measure and not any thing of our own that we testifie to and profess to follow as our guide It is the gift of Gods grace in us that appears to all bringing salvation which teaches all that are led by it and learn at it to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts and live godly righteously and soberly here that we intend nor do we so much as pretend to any other inwardlight but that of God in the conscience which though thou foolishly stile it Natural yet thy self be ârest such an ample testimony to sometimes that we need use no other then thy own words to prove it to be infallibly of God and from him an infallible guide and that we are sent of God to this inward Light Word or Spirit in answer to thy challenge to produce one Scripture I say what need wee produce one Thy own pen if thou l't beleeve it points out almost iânumerable places yea all in which the Word of God is said to be preacht publisht multiplied received where the Word nigh in the heart is meant and the outward Scripture that is the declaration of it considered formaliter or as written not at all intended yet for fear thou shouldest not beleeve thy own pen when such Truths drop from it as make against thee and indeed it hath let fall so many untruths pro and cons and fellaries from it that it little deserves to be beleeved by thy self but rather suspected when it writes the truth I am free here to produce some out of many more that might bee produced wherein men are sent in the Scripture if that be of God by whom thou sâyest they nunquam nusquam never no where are so sent to the rules and directions we call to which are not any mans own private spirit or fained light or Enthusiasms or dreams as thou dreamest and to the abusing of us to the world out of thy own narrow private light-loathing spirit divinest they are but the Word Light and Spirit of God which is
within viz. Jam. 1.21 Receive with meekness the ingrafted Word able to save souls ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã insitum vârbum That the Word is a light thou dost not deny and that its within sure thou wilt not who sayest Ex. 1 s. 40 thus That Word within is the Word of faith the Apostles preached and that we are here called to it thou canst not So Gal. 5.16 17. Walk in the Spirit c. of which Spirit he saith it lusteth against the flesh which lusting must be where the flesh that private earthly evil spirit that man in the fall is possest with lusteth against it to envy and all evil but that is within and the Scripture saith so not only in Iam. 4.5 but in some other place whence he a leadgeth it whose words are Think yee that the Scripture faith in vain the Spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy So 1 Joh. 2.24 27. Let that abide in you c. If that ye have heard from the beginning remain in you c. and what 's that but the anointing the Spirit of God within which though â O. may call a whimsy and delusion a lye and such like yet is Truth and is nâ Lye yea t is nothing but that which is in the lye which calls it a lye and that which is already deceived and hath nought but deceit it self to bee deceived of that cryes out Deceit and Delusion of the Truth To which I might adde all such places as call to the Light and mention the Light as that which though evil ones hate yet such as dâ truth come to and Christ both warned men himself to walk by and beleeve in and sent Paul and Iohn and therest of hiâ Ministers to turn men to and Iohn the Baptist pointed at and witness'd to which Light was not the Letter in which they wrote of this Light as thou silliâest supposest for they were not Aâinisters of that 2 Cor. 3. But the Light of Christ and Christ the Light of the world who enlightened every man before the Letter was and that is within in the minde and conscience where the darkness is for the darkness is within and not without and therefore the Light must bee much more within which shines within the darkness though not comprehended by it for that Light which shines in the dark place till the day dawn and the day-star arise there which is the heart must be also in the heart and that Light which shineth within the darkness which is within men must needs be much more within them as the candle that shines within a dark Lanthern that is seated within a Room must need be within the Room as much if not more inwardly then the Lanthârn is Another Argument against the Light and Spirits being the Rule and so consequently that the Scripture onely is it is the uncertainty of all sorts of Enthusiasms J O. That which is every way uncertain yea most uncertain deceitful whether we consider thâ principle of the Revelation or the things revealed that we ought not to attend to as a Rule or guide in the way of life and the worship of God but that 's the nature of all Enthusiasmes Therefore c. Reply Is thy Text then such a certain Rule with thee which thy self confessest to bee so uncertain that Criticks may alter it as they please and about which thou confessest ye are in such a heap of uncertainties 2. Wee talk not of Enthusiasms as the Rule but of the Light within and Spirit of God in the conscience and Word in the heart manifesting good and evill lusting against the flesh which the Letter calls a Light to the feet a lamp to the paths and this as is above shewed from 2 Pet. 1.13 is a sure word of Prophesââ yea this is most certain unchangeable eternally the same incorruptible living and abiding ever what ever become of the dead Letter that is so liable to be altered corrupted nullified that there need no other Argument in the world be used to prove it not to be the Word of God unless God have an uncertain and corruptible Word which iâ blasphemous and contrary to the Scripture to imagine then the utter uncertainty and corruptibility of it insomuch that we may safely Syllogize thy own Argument against the inward lights being a Rule from its uncertainty back again upon thee against the Letters being a Rule ab eâus omne genus incertitudine from its uncertainty and corruptibility thus viz Quod omni modo est incertum incertissimum corruptibile c. That which is every way uncertain most uncertain liable to be altered falsified corrupted to be mis-transcribed mis-translated mis-interpreted wrested this way and that to moulder away to perish be torn to peeces burned and many wayes brought to nothing is not the Word of God nor the only Rule c. But the Letter or Scripture is so as abovesaid witness the written Role of Ieremiahs Prophesie which Zedekiah cut with a pen-knife and consumed in the fire and thy own confessed mouldring away of the very first manuscripts therefore c. Another Argumen of I.O. against the Light and Spirits being the onely Rule is this J.O. It s of no small moment that leaning to these principles following thâse guides rejecting the Rule of the Word written the Fanaticks are daily driven to pernicious manners abominable Idolatries Murders Whoredomes Blasphemies and in all Nations to unhappy ends Rep. Whether there be more abominable Idolatries Murders Whoredoms Blasphemies and pernicious manners among Qua. or other men called Christians and Christian Ministers that suck at the breasts of the Vniversities or nursing Mothers is sufficiently shew'd above as for unhappy ends t is tâue by bloody persecution many Fanaticks as thou callest the Qua. have come to untimely deaths the more shame for New England where two of them have been hanged for coming into their coasts and Old England also where for all the pretences to Reformation many have perished in prisons and by blows and bruises for their testimony to the truth the more shame for Oxford it self too where one of the first that came thither dyed of the bruises and abuses there received from the Scholars but if by unhappy ends thou mean such as befall men as his Judgements from the hand of God immediately in some eminent notable way seizing on them and cutting them off these are untimely ends that many not for following but forsaking and fighting against the Light the Qua. testifie to have brought on themselves in these latter years in these Nations besides many sharp sufferings in their lives time in which thy self I.O. hast had a just share for flinging at the Qua. as Fanaticks who art now flouted at as a Fanatick thy self Beware therefore and be warned in thy life-time leââ thy latter end be as some of theirs How scores at least of persons have been taken away for their hands being heavy on the Qua. by the hand of God
other your absurdities put together for I ârow whence or from what Church Principle Ground Foundation comes that Faith according to the Analogy of which ye are to conform in your interpretations of the Scripture it must be either the Infallible Chair and bottomless pit of mens dunghilly Traditions which is the Foundation of the Church of Rome and her Faith which Foundation Church and Faith that 's built on it ye would seem in words at least to deny or else the Infallible Light and Spirit of God in the heart which the Letter came from and the Qua. according to the Letter and together with it call men to and are themselves as to their Faith founded on whom together with their Faith which stands not in mens words writings nor thoughts but in that Light which is the Power of God and that Foundation of it also with no less but a little more detestation ye deny or else the Scripture it self which as much as ye live by yea by Popish Tradition in many things as the Papists do yet in words ye own Now the two first being denyed this last is the Rule of your Faith according to the Tenor and Analogy of which the Churches Faith which ye must interpret Scripture by is to be framed and conformed See then your most abominable confusions and rounds ye run in 1. You have the Scripture before which the true Faith was delivered to the Saints a 1000 years which Scripture is the Foundation of your Church Faith whereby ye might see were ye not blind that your Church and Faith has not the same Foundation as the true had Next you have a Faith which must be squared by the best interpretations ye can make of that Scripture alias a common stock of Divinity that stinks as the blood of a dead man that hath no life in it Then again this Scripture by the Analogy of which as the Church interprets it your Churches Faith is to be framed must be bent to and interpreted by the Analogy of that Faith which was thereby framed So Riddle me Riddle me what 's this Round of our reasonless Rabbies 1. The Scripture is the Rule of our Faith say they according to our Churches interpretations of which her common Faith must as to the Articles of it be framed and conformed 2. The common Faith is the Rule according to the Analogy of which the Scripture must be interpreted and all our Expositions of it framed and conformed Oh the bruitish brainy notions of our of our Brittish Nation A false Faith about personal Election and Reprobation about All 's signifying some men only and every man only a few being framed in Iohn Calvins fancy upon his miserable mistakes and misinterpretations of the Scripture Scilicet ever since All Scripture must be interpreted according to the Analogy of that false Faith ââa ferunt circum-feruntur T. D. J. O. R. B. J. T. Ignoramus Smâctimnuus and others The Blood of Christ cleanseth us in presenti from all sin that 's the guilt say they not filth of it though the very phraâe imports otherwise cleanse your selves from all uncleanness of flesh and spirit that 's not as the Letter imports All indeed but All gross iniquities we must have our infirmities while we live here and and if he meant them he commanded impossibilities which the Apostle did not He that sinneth is of the Devil he that 's of God sins not that 's not as the word Amartanei nemine cântradicente imports but it must be expounded by the other phrase Amartian Poiein operam dare peccato c. which Amartian Poiein but that they stretch it out upon the Tenters is no more then Amartanein for he that sins does sin and he that commits sin does no more and does so much as that while he does sin he is as Christ said Iohn 8. a servant of it and not of Christ in that they do no iniquity that is not as the Letter impârts but they do none as the wicked do it that is with all their might but more moderately Perfection that 's only such an uprightness and sincerity as respects all Gods Commandments whether they be kept or broken saved from sin is from the dominion not being of it while we have a being here it hath not potestatem dominandi nor damnandi but operandi bellandi captivandi only led Paul captive while he liv'd to the Law of it so that with his flesh he served it but it domineers not damns not because the mind approves it not while the flesh commits it if it chance to be murder and adultery as that of David whose heart was upright say they though the Scripture excepts him from uprightness in that case and therefore iustified quoth T. D. alias held guiltless O Criss-Cross while under the guilt of it being weak and temptation strong and an hundred more such fetches do our formally holy Fathers find wherewith to feed up themâelves and their failing Flocks from fainting under their âââlest faults minifiâd into the name of Saints infirmities Thus they swim up and down in their non-sensical senses and notions so that nothing must be taken as the words import but when a meaning serves their licenticus turns and then they urge the words import it so one while it must be as the phrase imports other whiles it cannot be so but otherwise then the Letner imports it for then the Scripture so it seems indeed to the Owls and Batts whose eyes dazle at the Light it came from so that they see more by night then by day would contradict it self and be at variance and disagree within it self and cannot approve it self to their own understandings without the mediation of their own meanings and interpretations and therefore they must reconcile it to it self though they are at never so much odds among themselves and each man within himself about this matter of setting it to rights even one saying this is the meaning the other that a third in my opinion it is so a fourth I think it must be either so or so but which he determines no more then T. D till they have reconciled it into nothing but an irreconcileable enmity with it self and an occasion of irreconcilable enmity about it between themselves And this I know not only as one of those that now see in the Lords light their dotage herein and the wrong and crooked wayes wherein they are at work to set that to rights and strait which is so already in itself if they could let it alone without wresting it into constructions as crooked as they are in their conversations but as one that was once as busie as the best of them in the same blind fruitless frothy work of beating the brains about the meaning of this and that which the Spirit only reveals to the poor in Spirit and not to the proud haughty Scorner that dealeth in proud wâath against the righteous having been my self when I was where they yet
Reason why I went so far in a talk comparatively to the Truth of Toyes and Trifles and was so taedious to my self and such as look't long since for an end of this labour and wasted so much paper in a work so worthless as it may seem to some as is fitter for J. O's Iuniors to be busyed in at their Schooles where Pueri tam Puerilia tractant then for men cal'd Ministers to medle too much with whose wisdom lies more if not in forgetting yet at least in forgoing frivolosities that are so Remote to the Souls Redemption then to fight so fiercely and foolishly for them as J. Owen does whom neither For nor Against but About them only I have much to do with so that bear with me in it if it must be deem'd my Folly the Ground of which piece of Folly is as followes In His Threefold Thing I found J. O. 1st in the Theses of his Latine Thoughts Glorying not a little in being on behalf of the Collegians among whom he was then a Chieftane intruâted as he talks with the Task of contending for the Text of Scripture not so much against the Foes as under that name against the Truest Friends of both the Text and Truth as the Word of God properly as to Name and Thing and not only consequently but most expresly also both there and in the 1st of his two English Treatises the only most perfect Rule of all Belief and Holy Life Stable Standard True Touch-stone for Triall of all Truth Doctrines Spirits Speeches yea it s own also and the Sole sure Foundation for all True Faith to stand on and be discerned by from Falsehood Fable and meer Fancy and not only so but also Tiring himself in his Taedious second Treatise to evince the Entireness and Integrity of the said Text to every Apex and Tittle as at first it was given out without Addition Ablation or Alteration in the least âota or Syllable p. 153. in the Trans-scripts of it in the Original Languages how ever confessed by him to be Corrupted and Egregiously Adulterated in all Translations and insisting so uncessantly eagerly and earnestly in proof of the said Integrity of the outward Text as for hast to outrun all his own Reason and to Reject also the Uncontrolable Reasons of All others to the contrary putting also so great a stresse upon that poor Punctilio of the Hebrew Punctation as from a self-conceived Imagination and dangerlesse Affrightment to stickle for its Antiquity againât those that on better grounds Iudg it to be Novelty and not Coaevous with the Consonants with such stricâness as to deem all Divine Saving Truth lyes at stake and is Eternally Liable and likely to be lost if it be not as he conceives in these particulars for as is seen at larg in the book ensuing he Trembles to think what will be the Isâue how desperate will be the conâequences of such a conclusion that the Text-mens Hebrew and Greek Transcripts are by mistake Mis-transcrbed in a Tittle and that the Points Vowells and Accènts were added to the Hebrew Text by the Tyberian Mastorites A Firebrand is brought into the Churches Bread Corn quoth he All 's utterly undon for ever as to any true Distinct Sound Certain Saving Knowledge of God or understanding of his Mind Will without either Remedy or hope of Recovery ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Ther 's No firm footing nor Foundation to stand on No abiding Bottom at all to build on No Right Rule for the Faith and Obedience of the Church to be Regulated by No Word of God remaining uncorrupted No more means to be seen of being delivered from utter uncertainty in and about all Sacred Truth Epiât p. 25. Nay though it be yeilded by his Antagonists that howbeit the Copies are Corrupted Altered and found Various in their Lections as to the meer Letter nevertheless the saving Doctrine as to the Substance of it Remains Sound and Entire in the Copies of the Original and the Translations that remain yet this is no Satisfaction to him he deems that the Saving Doctrine can't continue entire and uncorrupt and that their is no Relief against the Absolute Perishing of All Truth one of the World without any Rule or Measure of Iudging and Determining any more of it or Principle of Discovery or Medium of its Rectification or Recovery if every Tittle and Iota be not Preserved Entire or on supposition of any Corruption to have befallen the outward Writing p. 17. 18 19. Yea upon such Supposition that we have not every Letter Tittle Point Iota Syllable Accent c. as 't was in the Beginning of its Writing without Alteration by Ablation of any Apex or Addition of the Hebrew Punctation Gods Promise Isa. 59.21 Mat 5.18 Fails his Care of his Word and Church Fails he leaves it in uncertainties about the things that are the Foundation of all that Faith and Obedience he requires at our Hands so that we know not where to lay â Sure Foundation of Believing yea 't is impossible we should come to any certainty almost of any Individual Word or Expression whether it be of God or no p. 55. Yea p. 212. out of Jo. Isaac He that Reads the Scripture without Points and so must they Read it âoho did Read it before Points were say I as they did before Ezraes dayes if the Points were not from Moses is like a man that Rides a Horse without a Bridle and p. 214. 215. on this Hypothesis that the Points are added I know not saith J. O. how Bellarmines Inference can be avoided then which I know nothing in all his opposition to the Truth more Pernitiously spoken that partly by their Addition and partly by the Negligence and Ignorance of the Transcribers the Hebrew Scriptures which are not Uuniversally Corrupted by the Malitious Work of the Jewes are not yet so Wholly Pure and Entire but that Errours are Crept into them Yea they that are otherwise minded then those are who Maintain the Antiquity of the Vowels and Accents and with Radulph Cevallerius whose Opinion he sayes is his own that the Hebrew Language was written with them from the Beginning do not only make doubtfull the Authority of the Scriptures but even pluck it up by the Roots for without the Vowells and Notes of Distinction it hath nothing firm and certain p. 213. Yea so dangerous in the Consequenceâ of contending for Various Readings though not false nor pernitious that there 's nothing remaiÌning upon that account firm and unshaken p. 219. Without the owning of these Points to be of Divine Original we shall be left unto great uncertainty in all Translations and Expositions of the Scripture p. 292. Yea the distemper that there are corâuptions befallen the Text Varieties from the first Copies is dreadfull and such as may well prove mortall to the Sacred Truth of the Scripture These Cuen multis aliis c. are the Extremities J. O. Asserts his Position in insomuch
exception of any but the Qua. who come to that beginning which is also the end of all things and is now at hand they all more or less have Mens Persons in Admiration because of Advantage and are found sluttering and falling down at the feet of the great Lords of the earth little less then adoring the Earthly Tabernacles of those that can climb highest in Authority and painting and trimming them out as the rest of the Birds did the naked Iack-daw in the fable with every one a new fine feather till every one plucking away his own again as anon they do they leave their Lords who knew not their old friends nor themselves neither while their honour lasted which is plus in honorante ever then in honorato and stands more in his fickle will that gives then his that hath the honour as naked laughing stocks in the midst of their fellow-creatures and in more fulness of shame and confusion of face then could have befell them possibly had they never been so preheminently exalted Yea so odious are the cronchings of Christians to each other according as they are higher or lower in their Gentile Preferments and Gentile-like Lordliness that they contrary to Christ who said to his Disciples Mat. 20.25 26 27. it shall not be so among you exercise or'e one another and that not only in Italy France and Spain but even in these so ever and anon besworn not to say forsworn Nations that are ever reforming and yet deformed that it loads and loaths the life of God in his Saints while in the light it looks upon those Antick Adorations that pass between man and man Christian and Christian Brother and Brother in the same Church when one clambers but a little higher then another in places of earthly command not only in such words as may it please your Highness your Excellency my Lord c. but also such Gestures and Postures of standing ââre and putting off and bending to the very soles of one anothers feet in token of respect and that sometimes when in heart they could with each other hang'd and holding up one anothers Traines cum multis aliis quae nauc c. as if they would do honour to the shadow of one anothers shoo-strings and tie themselves eternally to attend upon the very Tayles one of another for the lease of such perishing pieces of outward honour as are entail'd as they dream on such and such places as persons can procure them for no less then from henceforth world without end Amen Besides oh the shamefully mis-attributed Titles that are now entaild as Badges of Honour by men one to another from Generation to Generation as may it please your Holiness which is that Flattering Title Blasphemously and Prophanely attributed to his Wickedness the Pope your Majesty your Highness your Grace your Eminency your Excellency your Honour your Worship c Honoured Sir Reverend Sir Worthy Sir Segnior Mounsieur Master c which are Respectively attributed to Emperors Kings Princes Dukes Generalls Marquesses Earls Vizcounts Barons Baronets Knights Esq. Iudges Serjeants Doctors at Law Councellers Governours and Commanders Civil and Millitary Cardinalls Mountseniors Arch-Bishops Bishops Abbots Arch Deacons Deanes and their Officialls Doctors Batchelors in Divinity and other Sciences Masters and Batchelors of Arts and such Academicall Admirers of mens persons for Advantage Rectors Parsons Vicars Curates and other such Spirituall Persons and Clericall Classicall and Conventionall Creatures and all these little less abominaably and prophanely then that of Holiness to the Pope forasmuch as the men call'd Christians who now give and take all these do to their own further Confusion make Confession to God himself through their Priests Lips and Ministers mouths in their daily Prayers that all Honour Glory Praise Power Blessing Dignity Dominion Worship Worth Reverence Thanksgiving and Obedience belongs to God alone and do to him only but that they mock him while they Pray seem to ascribe it all and if all belong to him only then none to Man whose breath is in his Nostrills who is to be ceased from and not at all to be accounted on at least while he beares as in the fall he does no other then the Dishonourable Image of Satan and till he come back by the Light into that Image and Glory of God which now by sin saving the few that are Regenerated from that Degeneracy Mankind universally comes short of which Image Power and Glory of God alone in man which Image is Christ Jesus the Righteousness and Wisdom of God the express Image of the Father we Respect Reverence and Honour where even it appears let the person in which be elsewise never so mean among mistaken men so daily honouring all men in the Lord as enjoyned by him 1 Pet. 2. and as he does that dwells in Gods Holy Hill in whose eyes as it s said Psal. 15. a Vile person is contemned not estimated or counted on the more for his outward greatness but he Honours them that fear the Lord whom men in the fall that regard wordly Goods and earthly Greatness more then Reall and Heavenly Goodness for the most part are found despising And further yet so gros is the greediness after this destruction of the Faith of God by the foreâaid Respect to mens Persons in this English Nation that for the sake thereof they are as few or no Nations besides them are become more ignorant in one thing then the poor unlearn'd Qua. as they call them are in their own mother Tongue for as little as the Qua. do ultra linguam vernaculam sapers and as little La ine as they understand as I. O. sayes in his Latine Labours against them yet they both ken and keep to the proper Idiom of the English Language in using that of Thee and Thou when they speak to what ever single Person without respect but our Mângrill Seed or Canaanitish Ashdodites speak half one way and half another often Thee-ing and Thou-ing their inferiors but so âare of offending great Mecenasses and men of place and Power âho in eodem cum illis harent lutâ they âpeak by the Plurall You as if they were talking to more while they are bespeaking no more then one an absurd abuse of their Native Nationall Tongue In Hebrew Greek and Latine there is not such a gross perverting of the pronoune of the 2d person Plurall as Slavish feare and flattery and fawning and pride and men pleasing and Ambition and affectation of the Honour from beneath respect to the persons of men and having them in admiration because of advantage such like dirt filth as is tit for nought but the Dunghil from whence it came hath brought into our English Nation where the filth aforesaid hath blinded and besotted the Foolish folk thereof so far that it hath in a manner forced them universally to forget and forsake that forme of speech that is most proper to the English tongue and utterly to loose their own
true that as Iannes and Iambres withstood Moses by imitating what he did by the finger of God and acting outwardly so as he as far as they could till they were forced to confesse they could now fainedly follow no further and in a seeming shew did the same by their Enchantments So 't is now the Saints pray so do the Sinners the Saints fast so do the Sinners the Saints preach of a Gospel a Kingdom to come so do the Serpents the Saints meet so do the Hypocrites the Saints Worship so do the Idolaters the Saints in the Power and Spirit of God professe to be Godly and Holy so do the zealous Sorceters in words who bewitch the people that they cannot believe and obey the Truth and their several seduced Societies which have ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the Form of Godlinesse denying the power thereof c. And as it is true that as the Quakers Tremble at Gods Word so that the power of Gods voice which shaketh the Cedars of Lebanon when heard as well as the lower shrubs ofââtimes greatly affecteth the outward man so the Devil may cause some of his deluded ones to seem only to do the like But what of all this Scillicet because there is something done in Deceit therefore nothing now done in Truth some Quaking is of the Devil therefore none of God himself This is the sum of I. O's sayings of all the Quakers in grosse if not learn henceforth I.O. to take forth the prelious from the vile as Gods Prophets do who are as his mouth Ier. and not to jumble these together in one as hitherto thou hast done till then I tell thee from the Quakers so called that faining and being driven by the Devil thou fatherest on us we are far from and deny it as one of the many Lyes the Devil drives thee to defame us with who are in the Truth which the Devil abode not in whose Works with himself and his Lyes and that Deceit which is of him and dwells in thee we deny and defie also for ever And now whereas thou talkest of only Liberty and Glory and Fellowship with the Father in these dayes of the New Testament and such Quaking Trembling Terrour Dread c. as greatly affects the outward man as a matter belonging to them of old only to the Iewish Paedagogy c. as if the Word must come to you now in a smoother manner then to Gods Servants and Prophets heretofore Herein thou talkest as if the time of all such Trouble Terrour Dread and Trembling at hearing of the Word of God as usually affected the outward man and was in the Prophets was all perfectly past and men should see no more of that in the world among the Servants of the Lord from that time and forward wherein Christ after the flesh was outwardly incarnated Crucified and Risen again from the dead and all the Appearances of the Lord to his Apostles Prophets Messengers Ministers and Servants whom he sends forth on his Errand into the world now a dayes are only in liberty glory dreaming pleasantly in thy dark mind of ease rest peace and familiarity with the dreadful God before thy time damning down the rough severe troublesome terrible trembling spirit doctrine and Ministry of the Quakers to thee ward and thy serpentine generation of Vipers that would fain flee the wrong way when ye are warned thereof from the newes of a wrath yet to come to your lifelesse Formes and fig-leaves and false biding-places sandy sickle foundations literal lurking-holes fained pretences bare Bible bulwarls selfish Fastings Prayers Praisings Preachings misty empty pithlesse and poor Professions as a Doctrine of Devils as a ministration wherein either fictitiously or rather really they are acted surpriz'd by the Devil with trembling in their holy services Ex. 1 S.I. as they said of Iohn that came Fasting and Reproving Iudging and Threatning laying an Axe to the root of their fair leafy tree and flourishing formal prosessings of the old Prophets Words and Writings and pretences to Abraham as his Children and Moses as his Disciples and the Scripture as the Scribes and Openers of it and telling of wrath to come upon them and unquenchable fire to burn them up as Chass this man hath a Devil away with him give us a Ministry that will speak comfortably to Ierusalem Seers that will see better things for Sion that shall answer the Messengers of the Nations that enquire of them the Lord hath founded Sion 't is Babylon that is to be confounded O ye Quakers ye Seers flee ye far away hence to Rome to Papists Iesuites Iewes Turks Heathens among whom many Quakers have been but few or none of our Chimney-corner Church-men that I know of but come not hence with your Plumb-line thundring words of Iudgement laid to the line and Righteousnesse to the Plummet and laying waste the High Places of Israel and the Sanctuaries of Israel with the Sword of the Lord this our Land of Israel ought not to bear these words 't is disturbance tumultuousnesse and Conspiracy against the Pious Magistracy and the Godly Ministry in the midst of it Prophesie no more such rough things at Bethel they are not right things here Prophesie to us Placentia Prophesie smooth things alias Deceits we are the Preists of Bethel the house of God Amos 7.7 c. we are the Ministry of the reformed Churches we are the Well heads and feed at the Fountains from whence Souls draw all their Refreshment we are the Doctors Deans Principals Provosts Presidents Wardens Masters of Magdalene christ-Christ-Church Iesus Trinity Emmanuel and such like Christian Colledges and Halls the Religious Nursing Fathers to the Nursing Mothers themselves that are alias ought to be the very Nurseries of Learning and true Religion If ye come to us with a Word from the Lord come not in your wonted trembling postures and obstreperous horrible vociferation wherewith ye dreadfully found it out throw our Streets Cities and Temples know the Lord as if we were without God in the World Prophesie no more ye Fanaticks to us in your pretended movings by the Spirit if ye do ye must bear and take the shame of the Stocks or the Cage or the Whipping-Post and a Passe to the place from whence ye came or the pulling off your Robe with the Garment or the stopping of your Mouth with stones and the Pumps and Mire and Dirt or such like Mic. 2.6 7 8. But vers 11. if a man walk in a Spirit of Falshood do Lye will Prophesie to us of wine strong drink Ease Pleasure Peace with God in our sins impossibility of being purged from them till we die and of Salvation and Iustification of us by the Example of David while under the guilt of Murder and Adultery and of Profits and Preferments and more Maintenance for a Godly Ministry that suppose Gain to be Godliness let him come he is a Gospel Minister he shall even be the Prophet among our
present Seers gain-getting Priests false Prophets and foolish People But alas poor man thou art far enough from the New Testament or Covenant yet which is a Gospel a Covenant of Light which thou art so far from that thou fightest against it thou thinkest thy Judgement is over past and the Old Testament a thing that thou hast learned long ago but thou art not come so near to the sharp Paedagogy of it yet as thou must do so far art thou from the glorious Liberties of the New Thy words are true enough the Word under the New comes in a way of more Liberty and Glory but it s no newes to hear High Priests speak Truths which themselves know not thou art at best but an Old Testament Talker of the New and one that 's come truly yet under the Tuition of neither As for the New the Word comes under it in Liberty and Glory but not to Old Testament Spirits Doctors Scribes and Pharisees they see not clearly so much as Moses face much lesse the Glory of God in the face of Iesus Condemnation is yet to come from Christ himself first to such as these as well as from Moses Iohn yea Christ himsâlf whose friendliness to Publicans and Sinners as a Physitian was found fault with by such Friday fasting Pharisees as this Age is filled with as much as Iohns Austerenesse was found in Iohns rough Spirit Camels hair Garment and astonishing Appearance to them that went about to Murder him in his inward Ministry and Testimony within themselves and then they said of him too as of Iohn Thou hast a Devil Ioh 8. Ah poor Nursing Fathers and Mothers Vniversally Erring Vniversity Seducers poor seducing Priests and seduced People notwithstanding the Glorious Liberty and Gloriousnesse of the Gospel Times that ye are glorying in in a Dream that ye live under ye must most assuredly find a Condemning Iudging Terrifying fiery flaming Law laying hold on your Consciences and finding you out and the Sword of the Lord entering into your Souls and the Wrath of the Lord rending your very heart-strings a sunder and dread terrour and trembling surprizing you Hypocritical sinners in Sion before ever ye shall come to know the true Liberty or Glory of the Gospel which is the Image and Glory of God brought forth among you yea judgement is already laid to the line and Rigeteousnesse to the Plummet and the Hail is falling that will sweep away your Refuges of Lyes and the storm that will overflow your hiding places and break and disinable your supposed Covenant and Agreement with Death and Hell as if your judgement were passed over by the Lord and none of that could come near you and your Bed will be found too short for you to rest on and your Covering too narrow to wrap your selves in from the Wrath of God the power of whose wrathful displeasure shall make your Mount Sier shake like Sinai before ever ye come near to the sight of that glorious Rest that the Saints ly down in on Mount Sion Now as to that other new found Phrase of Fanaticks These Fanaticks the Fanaticks of this time our Fanaticks Fanatical Quakers Fanatical Souls Fanatical Enthusiasts Fanatical Knaves Fanatical Anti-scripturists and under which ever and anon yea so oft that I may say Ferè numquam non thou soamest out as thy fellows do that froth filth and falshood which floats about in thy foolish vain Spirit against the Quakers in gross as against a furious distracted mad crack-brain'd kind of men that for so those Terms signifie as used by thee pretend to Visions Revelations Illuminations Inspirations the Spirit of Prophesie and such like but are Reapse stark besides themselves and bereft of their very wits and senses As new a nick-Name as 't is to this Age this is no other then what all the Prophets of God were entertained with in the several seasons wherein God sent them out by the many false Prophets that were Coaetaneous with them and therefore nibil novi no new business to such as are not blind He is but meanly skill'd in the Scriptures who hath not yet learn'd from thence That the Prophets by whom God spake and by whose Ministry be muâtiplied Visions and used Similitudes as Hos. 12.10 were ever counted Deceivers as the snare of a Fowler in all their wayes that the true Prophet was a fool and the spiritual man or man of the spirit Mad Hos. 9.7 8. and hatred alwayes in the House of his God And that Gods People by meer profession rose up against them as against an Enemy and as now the same Generation of Holy Hypocrites do both in Old England and in New pull'd off their Robes and their Garments from them to whip and scourge them sometimes as Seditious and Disturbers that passe by securely as men most averse from War and streitned the spirit of the Lord saying Prophesie not so such as Prophesied in his Name and Power and putting them to shame if they did when if a man would walk in the wind of his own Invention and Lye falsly and Prophesie to them of âelly Ohear of Wine and of strong Drink even he should be own'd a Prophet by that People Mic 2.8 9 10 11. And that Ioshua the true High Priest and his fellows even Christ and the Children that God had given him were as men wondred at were set as signes to be spoken against even to the house of Jacob from whom he hid his face and their peepers and mutterers out of their own familiar spirits to the unbelieving Despisers that wonder and perish for signes and for wonders from the Lord of Host that dwelleth in Mount Sion Isa. 8.17 18. Zach. 3.8 Luke 2.34 Act. 13.40 41. Yea I. O. hath read his own Book ore but by the halves if he do not learn this Lesson out of it himself pag. 58 59 61 62. that the ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã or divinely inspired men whose Doctrine was to have been received as from God who sent them and in whose Name they spake though but Herdsmen and of mean Occupation were yet generally rejected upon innumerable prejudices that attended the Truth they spake arising from the personal infirmities and supposed Interests of them that delivered it as Amos 7. Ier. 43.2 3. Ioh 9.29 Act. 24.5 and that what with these things and chiefly the Peoples being so eminently perplexed with false Prophets both as to their number and subtilty that they could not well discern aright between Gods Word and that which was only pretended so to be and so became guilty of unbelief and rebellion against God not submitting to what they spake in his Name it alwayes so sell out that scarce any Prophet that spake in the Name of God had any Approbation from the Church of dead stones in whose dayes he spake Matth. 5.12.21.33 to 38 Act. 7.52 Thus much I.O. may learn from these words which are mostly his own that it was alwayes so heretofore and
his wickednesse but such evil fruits as darknesse Ignorance blindnesse bloodinesse uncleanness drunkennesse and all sorts of ungodlinesse and profanenesse is gone forth into all her Lands So that a little of that honest learning how to live Godly righteously and honestly in this present World that is now found in abundance among poor plain Countrey Rusticks and Russet Rabbies as some University Doctors and Divines witnesse Doctor Featley have derisorily denominated the Mechanicks that meddle with expounding Scripture amounts to more then all that great learning little equity lesse honestly and least godlinesse that is found among the nursing Fathers and nursing Mothers of them all And this is Lamentable and a Lamentation with which I must here lament not onely over all Christendom in general but over these Protestant parts of it also where Popery is so abjured that men spend their money on their pretended Feeders for that which is not the bread of Life but light heartlesse branne that is measured out to them at a high rate too the Lord knows out of the barren brain of their bruitish Pastors who have not sought the Lord in his own light but at the most in that meer Letter that gives not the Life of which Letter they are the Ministers for means too and not of the Spirit Whereupon as the Lord sayes Ier. 10.21 22. They shall not prosper but all their flocks must be scattered in order to which the noyse of the bruit is already come and a great commotion out of the North to lay their Cities desolate as a den of Dragons That howbeit their deluders cry out against the Quakers who freely undelude men as poor deluded fanatical c. yet the poor people are most miserably couzened cheated and deluded by their blind Guides that see little themselves into the marrow and mystery of spiritual matters and not standing in the Counsel of God given out by his light in their own consciences never come to hear his Word coming to them within from his own mouth and not hearkening to what God himself saith in them as the true Prophets did Hab. 3.1 never come into the true vision of him or his Will but run and say he saith because they find it written he said so or so to others when they never heard him speaking it in themselves and so never profit the people at all as God said of old such should not They sit as the old Pharisaical Scribes did who heard not at any time the voyce of God nor saw his shape in the twi-light of their own imaginations searching the Scriptures and looking in them for the eternal Life which onely testifie of it but come not unto Christ in whom onely they Testifie it is for in him is the life say they and his Life is the light of men that they may have his life in themselves and from it onely Minister unto others and so such food for their souls and Rayment and Riches and Gold and eye-salve as they have which is none of that which Christ whose light within or inward Councel they reject against themselves Counsels all Laodicean like self-corceited Angels and Churches to buy of him such lifelesse stuff they give I should say sell in as good words and fair speeches as they can put it off withal to simple people for outward Food and Rayment and Gold and Silver and Riches as they have pertaining to the Belly and the Body So the Bodies of Shepherds are oft full and fat But the Souls of poor Sheep pine and starve for all that And that the Souls of poor people should ever come possibly to be made any Richer towards God then they are while they stand under the droppings onely of the lips of such Linguists as are no higher learned then their nursing Mothers teach them I cannot expect if nil dat quod in se non habet be true sith the chief spirituals that those spiritual men have themselves who learn to be Teachers of Religion to others no where but at the Vniversities are but carnal natural animal literal such as without the light and spirit and living Word of God within for that in the name of his fellow-Students there I.O. to whom its vouchsafed of God sayes he but say I of the Devil so to do fights against as fiercely as he can is obtained out of many Books and Writings the best of which is the Bible and the naked letter of it by the improvement of a meer animal understanding which the letter of the Bible it self also sayes perceives not the things of the spirit Nor can I expect as the case is with them that they themselves who there are taught to be Gospel Teachers should attain to any more then such a shallow speculation and thin external Theory of those things as they have or should ever enter into the depths of Gods Kingdom whilest in the depth of the Serpents subtilty they are beguiled so far from a single hearted search after the Truth in the simplicity thereof as it is from Jesus the light of the World by the beams thereof made manifest in their own hearts that taking it for granted aforehand that all that and no other then that is Truth which is held forth and told for Truth in the times of their Residence at those foresaid Fountains which are not steadily running one way neither but to and fro as the Tide turns and running several wayes at several seasons they stave off all that as Heresie at a distance which is handed to them any other ways no more doubting but that that must be error which at the Well-heads of Divinity is pleaded against then they do that that is Truth they there plead for so as Is qui nil dubirat nil capit inde boni these confident blind bold implicit-faith't Iuniors that visit the Academies for this end that they may become for a livelihood Preachers of the Faith to others never doubting that to be the true Faith and Truth which they find professed in their times set themselves on work to study how to defend it at a venture against all Hereticks before they have either found or felt it to be Truth within themselves and stand steadfastly Tempered still according to the present Temper of the Grand Seniors of their Respective Nurseries who Temper themselves ever according to the Temper of the Times and the Rulers that happen to be in them whence it comes to passe for the most part that as there 's like Prince like Priest so like Priest like People in these Northern Islands where after some certain time of standing and studying in the Vniversity these hasty Hirelings run abroad before the word of command be given them from the mouth of the Lord and settle themselves up and down till the Countrey swarmes with them like so many Locusts successively supplying the waste places of such as either die in Parishes or depart from one to another where there 's a bigger Boon ne
by it while it sits in supream Authourity on the Bench as the most perfect infallible Touch stone Lydius lapis and standing Rule for no lesse but much more thou wouldest have it even Light Rule of Trial Iudge Witnesse and all to which all Spirits even Gods own that gave it out as well as all false ones must stand or rather stoop and submit to be judged by and the foundation which the Church or World in the World or Wheel in a Wheel must stand or else fall and fail for ever for as there was a time wherein the Church which is but one from Abel till now can have but one and the same Rule bottom and foundation for ever and one Rock on which its built which is neither Peter nor Paul nor any of their Writings nor of any Prophets that wrote afore them but Christ the Light to the Nations and the Rock of Ages and Generations was without it and not placed upon it so there was a time of thousands of years together wherein it had no place nor use at all in the Church nor so much as any being in the World and as for such high place as thou in thy own will now alowest it as it s own as wise and quick-sighted as thou art to know and see non Entities and things that never were at all I know no such Place that God ever set it in nor time when he so super-eminently exalted it and though I acknowledge and am not ignorant as thou art that meer men and blind builders as seeing as thyself have Canonized it into the Head of the Corner laying him aside whom God hath made so yet I am to learn and so art thou for all thy hasty teaching it as Truth to others where ever the bare Letter or Scripture which is all one was created into such a Lord as thou lookest on it to be over his inward Light Spirit in the heart and authorized so infinitely as thou imaginest over all things by the Lord God of Heaven and Earth the only Author and Creator of all things J.O. Not only to detrade the Scripture from its place but also that by that one only device of denying to the Scripture that glorious Title of the Word of God the Quakers aim and endeavour to divest Christ himself of his Personality and divine Being Reply Was ever man left of God to shew his own Folly by more palpable apparent absurdities then thou here utterest who by that very thing whereby we seek to invest Christ with the proper and peculiar Right both in Name and Nature whereof your selves rob him belyest us so as to say we thereby seek to divest him of it Is not the Word of God not only the proper Name Ioh. 1. Rev. 19. but also the proper Nature and divine Being of Christ which he had before he was made flesh from the very beginning before the Scripture was that declares of him before World it self was which was made by him and all things in it so that without him nothing was made that was made And because that we will not take this glorious Title of his to whom only of Right it belongeth viz. the Word of God who hath no corruptible Word that I know but only one that 's incorruptible and liveth and abideth for ever and is both essentialiter and effective and enunciative too the Word of God and invest such a corruptible thing herewith as the mouldring Letter a Writing with mens hands which Worms may eat and mens Hands blot out deface and destroy and because we will not attribute that everlasting Name of his to that which in Nature is not everlasting as ye do but decaying dost thou say we divest him of his divine Being Dost thou not beget this bastardly businesse of divesting Christ himself of his divine Name and Nature Excellency and Existence in thy own brain by ascribing these to the Scriptures and giving the glory thereof to another under that high Prerogative Title of the Word of God due only and alone to him and not to any Letter that man as moved by him writes of him and then lay it at the door of the Quakers Art not thou the man that appropriatest that Name and Nature which is proper to Christ alone to the Scripture by disputing as to Name and Thing in esse reasi cognoscibili that it is the Word of God that glorious Title is its proper Name and is not this what in you lyes to dethrone Christ who only is so and place another ever him as the only most perfect Light Foundation Touchstone by which his Spirit must be tryed and yet accusest thou the Quakers of displacing him Doth not the Scripture say that Christ is the Light which the Church Ministerially is to hold out bear witness to Ioh. 1 in all her Preachings Administrations and Walkings and the Scripture is written out for the sake and Instruction and profit or use and service of the Church 2 Tim 3.15 16. 1 Cor. 10. yet settest not thou the Letter above the Church and Christ too saying Page 76. The Scripture is Light it is the duty of every Church to hold it up almost the whole of its duty and this Duty it performs Ministerially not Authoritatively A Church may bear up that Light it is not the Light it bears Witnesse to it but kindles not one divine beam to further its discovery All the Preaching that is in any Church its Administration of Ordinances all its walking in the Truth hold up this Light Thus magnifying the Letter above all and making it the main businesse of the Church to magnifie and hold it up much what as the Iewes do whose Work in their Synagogues is to lift up the Letter while they loath the Law and the Light it came from and is but the meer Letter or Writing of J. O. The whole Truth of the Words of God is as to Name and Thing opposed by the poor Fanatical Quakers Satan in these dayes assaults the sacred Truth of the Word of God in the poor deluded Fanatical Souls among us commonly called Quakers Reply It was none but Satan himself that is a Lyar the Father of it who told thee so and in thee tells it out for Truth to the whole World For 1. The whole Word of God which is but of one not of many kinds that I know of as thou wouldest make it as if God had one Living one Dead one Fallible another Infallible one Corruptible another Incorruptible one Eternal one Temporal Word one that 's only Letter another that 's Spirit and Life one Written and another Unwritten one within men and another that 's not the same in Nature without men that one and the same Individual Word of God I say which is the same whether within or without Written or Unwritten neither of which the bare Writing is as to both Name and Thing we own and honour as that which from
better hath been seen by some Quakers and how the Name of Christian stinks more then it would do among the Gentiles for the sake of such as Preach and Hear and Read and Expound and boast of the Scripture and yet break them and name the Name of Christ without his Nature But what doings there are in other Nations and the Preaching places and Nurseries thereof to which these of our Nation are not inferiour in silth I shall say no more here but let them passe as matters which being Extra nos are parum or nihil or miaus ad nos of lesse moment to us then our own Concluding my Return to this particular Challenge of I.O. with his own words mutatis mutandis additis addendis a little amplified and the Subjects or Persons of whom they are Spoken Altered and Substituting our Modern Academies and their Masters Doctors Divines and other Students and the whole Rabble of Rabbies there in the room of that University at Tiberias which I O. talks against in the words of one Dr. Lightfoot together with his own and the Iewish Rabbies Gemarists and Massorites pertaining thereunto as they are to be read in the 240 241 242 245 246 247 pages of I. O's English part the Censure he passes upon them being no other then what exactly accrews to the Universities universally throughout Christendom from whence come the whole Crew of Clergy-men that count themselves and are counted to be the Clearers of Christs Truth to all other Christian Creatures And what I. O. sayes of the Massorites of that Accademy is a clear Character of these corrupted and earth corrupting Coveats I. O Chap. 4. S. 13. Whilst they keep the Scriptures we shall never want Weapons out of their own Armoury for their destruction like the Philistine they carry the Weapon that will serve to cut off their own Heads Let us then a little without prejudice or passion consider who or what these men are who are the supposed Authors of all Knowledge and Godlinesse 1. Men they are who have not the Word of God committed to them in a pecullar manner as their Forefathers Prophets and Apostles had of old and many have now being no part of his Church or People but are only outwardly Professors and Possessors of the Letter without just Right or Title to it utterly uninteressed in the Promise of the Communication of the Spirit while they so have it which is the Great Charter of the Churches preservation of Truth Isa. 59.21 2. Men so remote from a right understanding of the Word or the Mind and Will of God therein that they are desperately engaged to oppose his Truth in the Books which themselves enjoy in all matters of importance unto the Glory of God or the good of their own Souls from the beginning to the ending Scuffling for the Book itself but persecuting the Life in them where it is The foundation of whose Religion is Infidelity and one of their chief Fundamentals an Opposition to the Gospel in the Quakers whom they glory to fight against and think they serve God in opposing with what spite they can 3. Men under the special Curse of God and his Vengeance upon the account of the blood of his dear Son in his Saints 4. Men all their dayes feeding themselves with vain Fables and mischievous Devices against the Gospel labouring to set up a New Religion under the Name of the Old when the Old they hate as Ier. 6. in despight of God so striving to wrestle it out with his Curse to the utmost 5. Men of a profound Ignorance in all manner of Learning Knowledge but only what concerns their own dunghil Traditions as appears in their stories filled with innumerable sopperies 6. Men so addicted to such monstrous Figments as appears in their Talmuds as their Successors of after Ages will be ashamed of yea for the most part Idolaters Now I dare leave it to the Iudgement of any Godly prudent person not addicted to Parties and Names who is at all acquainted with the importance not of the Hebrew Vowels and Accents but the Light and Spirit the Quakers call to unto the right understanding of the Scripture with whatever influence their present Fixation hath into the literal sense they not knowing the Spiritual embrace whether we have not very clear Evidence and Testimony yea undeniable and unquestionable to cast the rise and spring of all the Irreligion in the Nations upon this sort of men so far are they from bettering things by their Interpretations S. 16. Recount I pray from the first Foundation of Universities throw CHRISTENDOM and what do you find but a sort of Men being made Mad with or above the Pharisees bewitching and bewitched with Traditions blind crafty raging pardon me not for I shall ask none if I say Magical if Simon Magus was so in thinking the holy Ghost of God is to be bought with Money Monstrous what Fools what Sots as to such a divine Work as the Gospel Read and Consider how to every good Work voyd of Iudgement the great Doctors among them do behave themselves how seriously they do of nothing how childish they are in serious things how much deceitfulnesse froth venome smoke nothing is in their Disputations Insomuch that I may say truly of these as I.O. sayes of all men Pag. 104. Those whose Lips should keep Knowledge that is University-men and Clergy-men as much as any are by Nature so vain foolish malicious such Lyars adders detracters have spirits and minds so unsuited to spiritual things so lyable to Alteration in themselves and to Contradiction one to another are so given to Impostures and are so apt to be imposed upon have been so shuffled and driven up and down the World in every Generation have for the most part so utterly lost the Remembrance of what themselves are whence they come or whether they are to go that I can give very little Credit to what I have nothing but their Authority to rely upon for without any Evidence from the nature of the thing its self CHAP. III. Having Cleared the Quakers from sundry of those Calumnies thou falsly castest upon-them as concerning their Carriage toward the Scriptures as if they were Enemies Haters and Reproachers of it and such-like who in Truth are its truest Friends in the former Chapter I come on to Consider some of thy Cloudy Conjectures and Conceits concerning the Bounds of the Canon as ye call it thereof the Hebrew Punctation and thy Asserted Integrity of both that and the Greek Texts of it without any variation to a very Title Concerning the Canon of which thou Writest as follows JOhn Owen Pag. 3. God spake of Old or formerly in the Prophets From the dayes of Moses and downwards unto the Bounding and Consignation of the Canon delivered to the Judaical Church in the dayes of Ezra and his Companions the men of the great Congregation Reply 1. Why sayest thou from Moses downward c. as if he
very Antient Writer since those that wrote Ioshua who ere they were for himself it was not that wrote it all at least as Moses not all Deuteronomie unlesse he wrote of his own Death and Burial before he died See Iosh. 24.29 do quote him Iosh. 3.10 Where 's that part of Ieremiah the Prophet wherein he spake that which Matthew cites Matth. 27.9 10. about the giving the 30 pieces of Silver the price that Christ was sold at for the Potters field for howbeit Zachary the Prophet Zach. 11.12 speaks of the same thing who was in his work an Exalier of God in his time which the Name Ieremiah seems to signifie and so may be called Ieremiah which is not likely to be Matthews meaning yet in all the Prophesies of Ieremie extant in your Bibles there 's no such thing spoken And for you to say either that Matthew was mistaken quoting throw forgetfulness one Prophet for another or that the Transcribers of the Copies of their Original out of Matthews Original Copy failed so fowlly in their Transcribings for all your Copies that ever I saw so read as to write Ieremie for Zachary will be for I.O. upon his Principles who stands to plead every Letter Tittle and Iota that was in the ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã to be now in the ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã as sorry a shift and miserable remedy as he makes for himself and finds who leaps out of the frying pan into the fire Where 's the Prophecy of Enoch spoken of Iude 14. out of whose Prophesie the Iewes can tell you more then ye wot of from that of Iude And as for Ezra or Esdras and his true Companions of whom thou sayest truly enough if not truer then thou art aware of that their care in restoring the Scripture to its Purity when it had met with the greatest Tryal that it ever underwent in this world considering the Paucity of the Copies then extant was great and that the Consignation and Bounding of the Canon delivered to the Judaical Church was in their dayes and that they did labour to reform all the Corruptions crept into the Word of God And that they compleated the Punctation the compleatnesse of which then was not Coaevous with the Text as at first Written in Hebrew as thou contendest to the Consuring of thy self here and that they were guided herein by the infallible direction of the Spirit of God Pag. 177. 211. 302. 303. Did not they in the Spirit and Power of God Write many more Books even 204. most of which are not in your Bibles Read 2 Esdras 14. throughout the Chapter Where are all these and sundry more Scriptures some as and some more Antient then Moses of which I will not now speak particularly And as to the New Where is that First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians mentioned in the first of those Two that we have 1 Cor. 5.9 And that First Epistle of his to the Ephesians for its evident he wrote One to them before That mentioned in that One which ye have Ephes. 33 And that Epistle of his to the Laodiceans mentioned Col. 4.16 Besides several to Seneca Neros Tutor and other of Pauls Writings who was doubtlesse far more Voluminous in his Writings then that poor pittance of Epistles to Churches and Ministers and the Letters to Philemona Tradesman about a Domestick businesse of Receiving his Servant Onesimus that had ben unserviceable to him amounts to of whole Spiritual Scriptures and Speeches that fell from him at his Martyrdom that were taken by such as were present at it some in these dayes have seen more then that which was Written of him by Luke in the Acts and Written by him in the Epistles ye count a part of your Canon And whether that which Iohn wrote to the Church mentioned by him in the 9th vers of his Letter to Gaius were no other then the first of those Three Recorded And whether that of Iude whereof Iude 3. he sayes in the Praeterimperfect Tense When I gave all diligence to write unto you of the Common Salvation it was needful for me to write unto you c. were not One he wrote before This which was now but under his hands is more then all you Sayers of what ye think only are able groundedly to gain-say And whether Clements Epistle whose name was in the Book of Life and that Church of Rome to Corinth wrote 30 years after Pauls may not Challenge to be ranck'd among the rest is worth your enquiry And what think ye of that sweet shorr pretious Reply of Christ Iesus himself in his Letter to Agbarus King of Edessa who wrote so loving'y and beleevingly to him about the Malady that lay upon him as it stood Recorded in the Roles of that City and may do still for ought ye know which is to be read and many other pretious passages about that businesse in the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius Pamphilius Is it not as Christian as Divinum Spiritum non hominem sapiens and worthy as particular as it is to stand in your Standard and claim a room in your Canon as that particular Letter of Paul to Philemon What is become I say of all these and more then may now be mentioned none of which is within the Confines of your Congregationally Constituted Synodically Composed Ecclesiastically Authorized Clerically Conceived Canon 1. Were they not divinely Inspired That were to Render doubtful your undoubted Divine Original of what you have Since some of them are quoted in these you have 2. Are they all utterly lost That were to loose himself much more in his Cause who is lost too much already for I.O. to say so sith more then ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã one jot or one Tittle is then passed away and perished from the Law if the Letter be it not one jot or one Tittle of which Letter quoth I.O. wofully mis-interpreting that of Matth. 5.18 for the lotaes and Tittles of the meer Text and Letter which Christ utters only of the Doctrine Truth and Holy Matter of the Law is to passe away till Heaven and Earth which are yet standing are past away 3. Or did not God Himselfe intend to Dignifie these with the same honour and Crown them with so high an Account as those though as well descended and as immediately derived from him as the rest or did he not design them to the same Spiritual Ends and Renowned Uses with their fellows 4. Or were these Books out of the way and not present at the time and place of the first setting up of your Standard by such Synods and Sanydrims as took on them to stablish Sign Seal and Authorize what Scriptures of the Prophets and Apostles should and what should not stand under that honourable Title of the stedfast Standard and so were Censured and Sentenced for ever for not appearing at that sacred Session and high Court of Iudicature which was to Iudge what Books should be from thence-forth
by Inspiration is preserved without Corruption i.e. variety from the first Original Manuscripts in the Copies we have Pag. 137. The whole Scriptâre entire as given out from God without any losse is preserved in the Copies of the Originals in âhâm all we say is every Letter and Tittle Pag. 10. Tâe Word i.e. Scripture with thee still for thou denyest the words coming any other-way to your selves or any now is come forth unto us from God without the least mixture or intervenience of any medium obnoxious to fallibility as is the Wisdom Truth Integrity Knowledge and Memory of the best of all men Pag. 13. We have not the ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã of Mo es and the Prophets the Apostles and Evangelists but the ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã we have or Coâiâs contain every Iota that was in them Hebraeâ Volumina nec in unica dictione corrupta intenies S. Pag. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Matth. 5. 18. To which Answers that Pag. 316 317. Doth not our Saviour affirm of the Word that was among the Jewes i.e. Scripture Secundum te still That not ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã of it should passe away or perish where let the Consonants themselves with their Apices be intended or alluded to in that expression c. And Epist pag. 27. None are able to shew out of any Copies yet extant in the World and that they can make appear ever to have been extant that ever there were any such various Lections in the Old Testament And pag. 319. Neither the Care oâ God over his Truth nor the Fidelity of the Judaical Church will permit us to entertain the least suspition that there was ever in the world any Copy of the Bible differing in tâe least from that we enjoy or that those we have are corrupted And pag. 317. Let the Authors of this Insinuation prove that there ever was in the World any Copy of the Bible Differing in any one word from those that we now enjoy let them produce one Testimony ne Author of C edâ Jâw or Christian that can or doth or ever did speak one word to this purpâse let them direct us to any Relick any Monument any kind of Remembrance of them and it shall b of weâght to us c. Many more exceeding and extraordinary high strict streins thou deliverest thyself in in other places about the non-corruption non alteration of the Text of Scripture in one Letter Tittle Iota or Syllable since the first giving it out so but that in the Copies extant to this day there 's an exact Unity and entire Identity with the first Originals a kind of Summary Collection and Câpitulation of which thou makest pag. 153. speaking to this purpose thus viz. I O. The Sum of what I am Pleading for as to the particular Head to be vindicated is That as the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament were immediately and entirely given out by God himself his Mind being in them represented unto us without the least interveniency of such mediums and wayes as were capable of giving Change or Alteration to the least Iota or Syllable So by his good and merciful Providential Dispensation in his love to his Word and Church his whole Word alias the Scripture with thee as at first given out by him is preserved unto us entire in the Original Languages where shining in its own beauty and lustre as also in all Translations as far as they faithfully represent the Originals it manifests and evidences unto the Consciences of men without other forreign help or Assistance its divine Original and Authority Reply This is the Capital Cardinal General Assertion or Position which branches it selâ into several Particulars or petty Propositions viz. The immediate coming forth of the Scripture from God to us its self evidencing power to evince it self by it self alone to be of God and his Word it s descending to us at this day entire to a Tittle without corruption by alteration in the least Letter Iota Vowel Point or Syllable its uncapablenesse of such Change and Alteration in its coming to us so are thy words here and pag. 10. to the least Iota or Syllable Unto which General Head and its branches the Ramuâculi lesser twigs or little Sentences scattered here and there throwout thy Book are Reducible and each to its own suitable Branch respectively That which I am here under Consideration of thy piâtiful Plea for is both its non-Alteration de facto as it s handed down by Transcribers from the fiâst Scribes of it to us in these dayes and its Unalterablenesse or Uncapablenesse of Alteration which if thou mean as thou sayest thou here Assertest to the least Iota or Syllable These are to thee as thou sayest such important Truths that thou shalt not be blamed in the least by thy own Spirit nor thou hopest by any others in contending for them judging them Fundamental parts of the Faith once but say I thou knowest not when delivered to the Saints Reply Though I who cannot hold thee because I cannot find thee guiltlesse in either thy hasty holding or thy heedlesse unhandy handling thy weak vindicatory piece of Probation of them at so high a rate do advise thee to praise a fair day at night assuring thee that if ever thou come to learn the Truth in the plainnesse and power of it as it is in Iesus the Light of whom the Letter testifies thou wilt find these no Fundamental parts of that One Faith which Paul and Iude speak of Eph. 4. Iude 3 which was One even of old from Abraham Enoch Noah and downwards from the beginning before the Letter was delivered to and earnestly to be contended for by the Saints and wilt find thy own Spirit also however it now seems not to blame thee in the least blaming thee nor a little for thy ignorance in due time and howbeit being bolstered up for a while above it by the Aery Academical Applauses Gratulatory Euge's J O's Hic est's and such like blessings of thy blind Brother literatists that are as the rich mans wealth to him Prov. 10.15 thy strong City thy Murus Abaeneus a high Brazen Wall to thee in thy own conceit thou feel'st no Check and seemest Nil Conscire tibi nullâ Pallescere Cultâ Yet let others and thy own heart also Clear Chear and Cheat thee as it will thou wilt once know that as to every work there is a time to do it in and a Judgment after it so thy whole lame Anti-Scriptural work about the Scriptures as well as thy other part of it against the Quakers though fenced in the Frontispice with the fair formal pretence of A Vindication of the Purity and Integrity of the Hebrew and Greek Texts and Pro Scripturis and such like must come to another account then that I am here taking of it before the world even to a Judgment from God within thy own now blinded Bosome and closed Conscience as the Book thereof comes to be
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 puâtest 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 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã 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 Aâk 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 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã 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 fâlly 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 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã 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 seâf 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 possibâe 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 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã 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 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the things he delivered as he
did to the Thessalonians 2. Thes 2. by word or Epistle and if I. O. will have it so that t was by a former Epistle then he serves me against T. D. and himself more than himself against me acknowledging the first Epistle of Paul to Corinth which he wrote before the first of the two we have and mentions 1. Cor. 5. to be Authentick and Canonical and so that a whole Canonical Epistle of that holy Apostle and that 's more than a Tittle or ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã is utterly lost The Fifth viz. Math. 28.20 Teaching them to observe whatever I command you and so I am with you alway even to the end of the world which way I. O. can from thence conclude a promise for every Tittle of inspired Scripture to be preserved for ever entire without losse or alteration I see not but I see one thing that if I. O. hobble but upon a Text of Scripture he thinks at a venture it must serve his Turn about the entirenesse and integrity of the Text and its Tittles though there be no mention of Scripture made at all in it for here 's none in this in which Christ bids them Teach the Nations to observe what he commanded them and that they did he promised then to be with them alway to the end of the world as he was and is ever with his people by his light word they being turned to it themselves but what 's all this to the Tittles of Hebrew and Greek Texts unlesse I. O. say they are the Christ that he meant when he laid I will be with you never did I see men in two Books so miserably wrest and mis-interpret Scripture on pretence of vindicating Scripture as T. D. and I. O. do Yea I. O. there is scarce any or but very few of all the Scriptures thou quotest in all thy Books but thou pervertest them more or lesse as T. D. does the most if not all he meddles with whether about the Scripture or the word or foundation or Rule or what ever else And as for these five last examined if thou hadst not sent me to them to that end I should as soon of my self have gone to seek a Dolphin in the woods as lookt into any one of them to find God promising in his love to his Church and Word and in order to the preserving of them both to be carefull to set his providence so on work as to lay the Transcribers of the Scriptures in the Hebrew and Greek Tongues but not the Translaâors of them into other tongues in which yet his care and Love to his Church though not to the Clergy that trade out of their Original Texts would as much appear and his Truth and most mens souls are as much concerned and more too then in Hebrew and Greek Texts if the Scripture were the onely way to life under his loving aspect so as to see they should not misse nor falsifie in a Tittle though he would leave Translators out of the lists of that loving aspect to erre and corrupt as much as they would for howbeit I ken not the mystery of I. O's mind in this nor any Reason why if God love his Church and Word he should not in his care to preserve both oversee with a loving Aspect that Translators should not mis-translate as well as Transcribers not mis-transcribe yet I. O. allowes the loving Aspect of God to Transcribers but whether God himself do so or no I dare not say denying that great favour as in which his Church is much concerned as in the other to Translators for p. 334. speaking of the Chaldee Paraphrase he sayes thus viz. Seeing it hath not lain under any peculiar care and mercifull providence of God whether innumerable other faults be not get into it and errours not to be discovered by any varieties of Copies as it is happened with the Sepmagint who can tell No promise nor providence nor mercy nor loving aspect to the poor peoples Scripture still which is that of Translation onely for they cannot read Hebrew and Greek their part may go whither it will God looks not after it but such darlings do our Doctors and Clergy men deem themselves to be with God that his love care oversight promise providence and all is towards every Tittle of their Transcripts that they may trade with their Text and mete out what they will to men for money from it should any Qua. make such mad conclusions their Books would be good enough to be burned and thou I. O wouldst Iudge them no better Egregiam vero laudem spolia ampla refertis Tuque liberque tuus magnum memorabile nomen Having foild the Front-Guard of that Ragged Rout the Rest that have far lesse Reason in them if lesse can be are soon Routed Arg. the Second is the Religious care of the Church not of the Romish Synagogue sayst thou to whom these Oracles of God were committed Rep. What Church then if not the Remish Synagogue hath had that Commission of the Scriptures to her and that Religious care thou here talkst on to keep every Tittle of the Text entire without losse or change I do not say that the now Romane Harlot hath now or ever had in her Apostatical slate such a Commission of the Scripture to her as she pretends to as if they were the onely Trustees to whose care and custody the Text was committed of God for as to their proud prate and peculiar claim to such a preheminent power to be keepers and preservers of the Scripture I deny it nay with thy self in the 2.3.4.5 pages of thy Epistle I disown and damn their deceitfull pretence to such a trust reposed in them and if they had enjoy'd any such they have as thou sayest truly manifested a treacherous mind and falsified their Trust egregiously and so cannot stand in Judgement if called to account upon their own principles having indeed so far as they have had to do with the Scriptures altered added detracted depraved vitiated interpolated and done what not to corrupt them during the long time of their Dominus fac-totum-ship in whole Christendom about Scripture and every thing else ad extra that had any pretence toward the Truth and while the Scripture of the Old but the New Testament more specially seeing the Iewes reject it lay lockt up from all the Laity within the lines of her conclavical clerical Conemunication for though de jure they ought not so to have impropriated it but were Arrogant usurpers in so doing yet that de facto they had the grand Custody of that ye call your Canon and changed it as they pleased I should judge thee more silly then I am willing to do if thou shouldst deny it there being no visibly constituted Christian Church as to outward Order in all Europe that was other then a member of that blind Babylonish Body for at least a thousand years together But if that Church had not as I say
they had not canst thou tell me what Church had the exact Tale of so many Books of the Scripture as ye talk on and call your Canon committed to her of God any more then they or if thou say the whole True Apostolical Church of Christ under the Gospel had that Scripture we count the Canon and no more committed to it where was there ever such a thing done by whom or when canst thou tell us any of this thou talkst on or give us any Testimony of Scripture for this or trusty Tradition or any ground whereupon to act divine faith in this with thee so fundamental a matter save âhe fiction of thy own fancy and thy own meer untrusty thoughts and blindly confident Conjectures thou thinkst that in 2. Tim. 2.2 will serve thy turn in this case but I have overturned that already and if ever there were such a divine Commission of so many writings as a Canon by Christ or his Apostles to the Gospel-Church though I abhor that paultry novelly pretended Primacy of Rome over other particulars yet while it remained in its Primitive Apostolical Purity it had as deep a share as any other in that Commission of the Canon to her and so thy two Questions Ep. p. 3. what Scripture was this they say was committed to them and when was this deed of Trust made unto them have full as much in them but that plane nibilest to answer thee withall as thou hast to answer me who of the Church to whose care and custody thou sayest the Scripture was committed since Christ and by him or his Apostles do here ask thee what Church is that for thou amazest thy own and seek'st as Priests do to stun other mens minds with the name of the Church the Church but what Church is that whose care is said by thee to be so great whilst Rome's was so little to keep every Tittle of the Text entire and to whose care and custody it was to that end committed and intrusted and in thy own words to Rome so I to thee propound what Scripture was this or where was this deed of Trust made unto them And since it was not the Church of Rome as I freely agree with thee it was not what Church was it or where liv'd it or by what name or Title beside that generall blind people-confounding name of Church dost thou call it was it some one universal Catholick visibly constituted true Christian Church that had such a constant clearly visible continuance and successive outward orderly being in a Body as that Romane Harlot hath ever seemed to have from Christ downward to this day was it your what should I call it mingle-mangled Episcopall-Presbyter-Independant Church that 's run out from the Womb of that Babylonish Bawd through the loines of your late Fathers the Prelates and Scottish Presbyters into that Ragged Patcht Posture wherein it now stands like a Participle that 's neither this nor that nor Noun Substantive that can stand by it self without the Magistrates help nor Verb that betokens either doing or suffering any great matters for the Truth but most like an Adjective that leans upon Parliaments and earthly Powers to uphold it partaking with all sides as occasion is and of all formes something yet is just nothing but some Participle or PapalPrelatical-Presbyterian ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã i.e. vere nihil but a mongrel Was it this Church that is one not individually but specifically the same with what yours is at this present derived downward and carefully receiving the Scripture downward entirely in all its Hebrew and Greek Letters Accents Points Tittles and Iota's without change or losse in the least is so shew us but some few footsteps of such a thing through the time of the Catholike Apostacy as a visible constituted Church which might have been known by the distinction of Elders Bishops Deacons c. in the dark dayes of Romes dominion except that of Rome it self that had the Canon constituted of no more nor lâsse but just so many Scriptures Letters Stories Tittles Iota's as thou trislingly tatlest by the Apostles and so committed to their care and as carefully handed down to you Linguists in every Letter of the Original Languages without alteration addition or diminution But I more than suppose thou shalt as soon find and follow to a hairs breadth the very way of a bird flying or an Arrow shot through the air as decypher such a matter and if the Papists should put the Question de novo to thee as they did long since to the Protestants where was your Church before Luther if thou couldst prove the Pedegree of thine so high as Luther though witnesses to the Truth more or lesse in all times suffering in sackcloth in the most dismall dayes I own yet thou wouldst be as much puzled to prove any other constituted Church that kept so entire as thou talkst thy constituted Canon in all Christendom beside that of the Romish Synagogue that corrupted it as that namelesse Author was who wrote an answer to it 1624 entituled Luthers Predecessors who though he quits himself well in proving downward from Iohn Wicklisse who was well nigh 200. years afore Luther but 1370. after Christ a company of particular successive sufferers for some truth that began to shine out again from under the Romish smother yet can instance no higher then Io. Wicklisse for at least a 1000. years upward any thing at all but an universal dominion of the Church of Rome confessing that if the Papists will tye him to prove any visible constituted Church beside theirs before Luther the Task is unequall because the records are wanting and also because the Church was not in the long time of Apostacy nor yet was to be alwaies in such a manner visible which is the very Truth for the true Church was to be and was according to the word of Prophesie Rev. 12. in a waste suffering afflicted desolate forlorn widernesse condition trodden under feet by the Gentiles coming into the out Court the outward name and profession of Christianity Rev. 11. And as when in her primitive glory she was cloathed with the Sun and a crown of twelve stars on her head i.e. the doctrine truth word of faith the 12 Apostles Preached and not simply those few of their naked writings and Letters and Texts and their Tittles and thou simply contendest on her head and the Moon i.e. all changeable things such as all Texts and Transcripts and Tittles and Iota's are under her feet so when she came into her forlorn solitary state in the time which was while the Whore or Clergy began to Ride the Beast and fit upon the Waters Tongues Nations Kings and Kindreds of the Earth and to cry Ecce duo gladii hic to claim both swords and to become supreamly as she made her sub-sub or Magistratical Power that bore her up subordinately to her not onely Custos utriusque Tabulae Vice-preserver of both Tables but pretendedly
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 âatlest 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 saâing 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 âibil 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 âominem I speak this for else I own it tolerable enough so to argue of both Transcribers and Translatoâs 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 âcitancy 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
or Syllable without the least mixture or interveniency of any medium obnoxious to fallibility as thou sayest it is p. 10. for in the very next words p. 10.11 thou utterest enough to the confutation of thy self in this while according to thy wonted manner of running round as one borrendo percussus Scotomate thou sayest the wisdom truth integrity knowledge and memory of the best of all men is obnoxious to fallibility and consequently say I capable to give change in the most careful Transcription that can be made by mans hands that is uninspired in much more then the least Iota or Syllable thus art thou contrary to thy self still 5. But I say for all thy reasonlesse rounds and self contradictory conceits more then Transcribers care and diligence is necessary thereunto i.e. to the producing of Copies infallibly conformable in every Tittle Iota and Point to those of the first Penmen and to the begetting of the divine faith which is more then meer humane fallible perswasion that thou oughst to have about the soundnesse universal incorruption certainty integrity invariablenesse and infallibility of that thou callest thy foundation even that immediate manutenentia Dei or undeceivable direction and divine inspiration of God which if it be wanting as thou confessest it was from the first to the last of thy Transcribers such is the weaknesse of men where never so much carefulnesse is in Transcribing of Books that there may be miscarriages and mistakes which if there be in the least Iota or Syllable it 's great enough to lay thy universal grand Assertion to the ground and all thy proof of it from the foresaid care and diligence will prove not worth a pin to thy purpose But alas what do I talk of weaknesse where either the leading of the Spirit of God is wanting or a willingnesse in men to be led by the holy Spirit as it is in all that assert as thou dost his infallible guidance to be gone out of the world in these dayes there 's not onely much weaknesse to such a weighty work as thou makest the Transcribing the Scripture to be but as thou sayest p. 104. so I in this case about the Scriptures so much vanity foolishnesse falsenesse unfaithfulnesse negligence ignorance and sloth love of money for which many write at others appointment being well paid for their plains more then of the matters they are writing as well in Scribes as Printers of the very Scripture it self carelesnesse adding detracting unsuitablenesse of their Spirits and minds to spiritual things losse of all remembrance of what they are and what they do c. that I can give very little credit to what I have nothing but the Authority Ability Integrity Wisdom Knowledge Truth Memory Care and Diligence of such to rely upon for without evidence of their being divinely and infallibly guided which guidance thou denyest to thy Scribes nor can any wise man groundedly believe any other but that the Books of Scripture passing through the hands of many such Transcribers have upon them the marks of their neglects ignorance and sloth and have had as hard of belief as thou seemest to be of this p. 206. the fate of other books Yea I. O. let me but ask thee this Is that faith thou hast that thy Greek and Hebrew Copies are to a Tittle so uncorrupted as thou contendest a divine faith or a fallible perswasion onely if the Latter it 's not worth a figge if thou have no bettr faith then so and art not more infallibly assured then so of the infallibility of that which thou callest thy most perfect Rule and infallible foundation If the former what is it must beget this divine faith in this thing that there 's not a Point nor Tittle varying in thy now Canon standard or adored Copy from the first Copy of the Text that ever was will thy vain confidence hopes conjectures good conceits of thou knowest not what Scribes that wrote thou knowest not when give thee such a faith or the Traditions and Authority and Testimony of honest men saying so and so downward for many generations or some infallible ground of certainty that they were guided to write every word by divine inspiration Not the first for thou utterly disclaimest that as no ground of divine faith about the Scriptures by saying thus p. 105. if numbers of men may be allowed to speak we may have a Traditional Testimony given to the blasphemous figments of the Alcoran But the constant Tradition of more then a thousand years carried on by innumerable multitudes of men great wise and sober from one generation to another doth but set open the gates of hell for the Mahometans and thus p. 114.115 though I should grant that the Apostles and penmen of the Scripture were persons of the greatest industry honesty integrity faithfulnesse holinesse that ever lived in the world as they were and that they wrote nothing but what themselves had assurance of as what men by their senses of seeing and hearing are able to attain yet such a knowledge and assurance is not a sufficient foundation for the faith of the Church of God if they received not every word by inspiration and that evidencing it self unto us otherwise then by the Authority of their integrity it can be no foundation for us to build our faith upon Not the latter for thou disclaimest that and darest not ascribe any such thing as infallible guidance or divine inspiration to thy Trustee Transcribers so where the divine faith about the firmnesse of thy foundation it self stands founded and bottom'd unlesse it be in the bottomlesse pit it self of thy own fancy he must have more Rope to fathom with then I have that will ever find Wilt thou not then I. O. say of the first Transcribers of the Scriptures that the were infallible and divinely inspired I do not say thou dost ill in refusing so to say nay rather thou dost very well and somewhat honestly and ingenuously in that for indeed we cannot tell nor say safely that they were so but art thou then freely willing in very deed to yeild it to us that they were fallible and that 't was not impossible for them to mistake This grant of thine we are as free to accept of as thou art to give it and make good use of it too not so much against as for thy self viz. to shew and instruct thee from thence that there 's rottennesse at the very root of all your Religion and a fearful flaw of fallibility that is in the very foundation of your faith and believing in which thou sayest ye are built on the writings of the Prophets and Apostles T. 1. c. 2 S. 4 that so ye may which is the worst that we wish you come to be better built on a firmer foundation and both you and your foundation and faith and all may stand fast and never as now ye must do fall any more from thenceforth for ever even the foundation of the
Imagination seems to me to border on Atheism Gods Promise c. require other thoughts at our hands and such like must therefore the Children and Ministers of the New Testament not of the Letter but of the Spirit run a Whoring with the dead Literatists back again from the Spirit to the Letter from the Son to the Servant from the Substantial Word to the Image and Copy of it from the Living to the dead from the eternal inalterable incorruptible Truth to the varying vanishing perishing Tittles of Greek and Hebrew External Texts Must they that are of the Light and of the Day Think and Dote and Dream with the light-defying Doctors of the Night and of the Darknesse And because I.O. those Point-prizing Rabbies and Tittle-trying Textmen and thou with them think so yet shall we think that every Tittle and Iota is the Word of the great God and that our eternal Concernment lyes in every outward Apex of thy Canonized Copy and that such an Accidental Attome is dearer to God then the whoâe World besides and that every Copy of the holy Scripture is prophane if redundant or deficient from what at first Writing it was in one Letter and that 't is more to mistake so as to alter a Letter in Transcribing a Copy of the Law then to burn the whole World Shall we think that the writers of Aristotle Plato would not for Money or for their Credits sake or something as most Scriveners do in what they undertake Transcribe as exactly as they could and shall we think that men uninspired as thou confessest the Scripture Transcribers were could possibly do any more then they could do Yet to entertain the best Thoughts of them that may be grant their Care and Diligence to be more then that of Common Scribes of Heathen Authors to save thee the pains of proving it and that à minori ad majus as the Romans would not Treacherously mis-transcribe Sybills Verses so much lesse would Iewes the Scriptures having therein to do with God yet shall we think all that Transcribed Scripture Translated it too knew not whom they had to do with as well as some Yet varieties thou here Confessest are in the Copies among themselves and that cannot be but that some of them must differ from the first Original and if at all in Tittles at least and if but so its enough to over-turn the universality of thy Assertion and so what was possible to some as mistakes were was possible to All and not impossible to any Transcribers Shall we think then because thou so thinkest that there are no Mistakes crept into the Original Copies upon they groundlesse Conjecture that if it be so that any be all Truth it self fails as to its certainty and that without remedy or relief though sufficiently propounded by Capellus and others to the satisfaction of any save wild I.O. that 's resolved to hold the Conclusion and is loath to abate of his once uttered rash Assertion but as it is forced from him by degrees professing that he will acknowledge nothing of this nature but what is proved by undeniable and irrefragable Instances which Instances also himself gives and though he would have others give heed to his own improbable Probabilities yet is Adeo infeliciter stupidus ut nulla ratione neque experentia erudiri possit quasi tamen ipse solus superer vana perswasione sideratus in contemptu omnium audaciter persistit cum Comico illo clamans dicat quod quisque volet ex hââ opinione non dimovebimur Etenim si seniorum suorum Cap. J.P. Testimonium seu Experientia ipsa ullius apud eum pondeâis effeâ aut momenti Scripturae lectiones Transcriptiones esse variâs negare verecundaretur Ex. 2. Sect. 28. i. e. so unhappily irrefragably stupid himself as not by any Reason or Experience to be instructed but as if he alone must impose possest it with a vain perswasion pertinaciously proceeds in contempt of all men Crying out with the Comedian Let every one say what he will we will never be removed from this Opinion for if the Testimony of his Seniors Capellus I.P. or Experience it self were of any weight or moment he would blush to deny that there are various Lections and Transcriptions of the Scripture Shall we think because I.O. so speakes aâ he thinks that it can with no colour of Probability be Asserted though learned men as is confest do confesse it that the same fate hath attended the Scripture in its Transcription as hath done other Books Shall we think because I.O. saith it so seems to him that so to imagine and so on deliberation to Assert borders on Atheism Shall we think and Conclude because I.O. Concludes so in his Thoughts that the whole Scripture entire as given out from God even every Letter and Tittle without any losse is preserved in the Copies of the Originals yet remaining Shall we think because I.O. without the least colour of Sense Reason Certainty or Probability thinks so that the Promise of God for the preservation of his Word and his Love and Care of his Church fails utterly if one Iot or one Tittle of the outward Text fails so as to be mistaken in the Transcribing Surely if so it fails as much through the failings that are in Translations not without his permission for his Word and Church as to her knowledge of it if the Letter were the only way to know it now are as much concern'd in the right Translation as Transcription yet I.O. denies that God vouchsafes his infallible guidance in either but surely the Promise of God for the Preservation of his Word with his care of his Church of whose Faith and Obedience not the Letter or Writing of it but the Word it self declared of therein is the Rule and was so before the Letter was the Preservation of which is neither more nor lesse by the Letters being or not being requires other Thoughts at our hands CHAP. VII NOw as for what follows that above named Crue or Brigade of Arguments that were crowded so close together for as to what I have spoken to last it was but a kind of carelesse Forlorn Hope that past afore them its mostly made up of a stragling Number of Grants Concessions Confessions Allowances Acknowledgments and yieldings up of the Case in hand or the Cause it self by I.O. so much before contended for howbeit so as that I.O. gives the World to know such is as he sayes truly pag. 191. of others and himself too the vanity curiosity pride and naughtinesse of the heart of man and his readinesse to please himself with his own thoughts of things having once published them as Evidences of his Learning and diligence and so exceedingly vain-glorious curious uncertain is the mind of man as I.O. also De quo fabula narratur sayes Epist. pag. 20. after a door to Reputation and Renown by Learning is opened in the World that having once spread himself in
differences that are in later Transcripts as various Lections p. 192. whatever varying word quoth he Syllable or Tittle could by any be obseâved wherein any Book though of yesterday varieth from the common received Copy though manifestly a mistake superfluous or deficient inconsistent with the sense of the place yea barbarous is presently imposed on us as various Lection so p. 194. How peevishly complains he that all differences that could be found in any Copies printed or written are equally given out as various Lections many differences that have been formerly rejected by learned men for open corruptions are here tendred us again quoth he adding it is not every variety or difference in a Copy that should presently be cryed up for a various Reading A man might with as good colour take all the printed Copies he could get of various Editions and gathering out the Errata Typographica print them for various Lections I answer why not do not all Errata whether Apographica or Typographica make various Lections from the first ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã in some degree at least whether they be fewer and lesser or more and grosser â whence come those few errours that thou thy self ownest for various Lections but from the failings and mistakes of the Scribes in Transcribing or the Compositors at the Presse from whence all the rest come which by no means thou wilt admit to be called by that name yet those that others call corruptions and various Lections on the self same account as thou callest those few which thy ownest as such thou turnest them off with To what end should mens minds be troubled with them being evident mistakes of the Scribes dost thou grant then that in many places of your Original Apographical Copies there be evident mistakes of the Scribes in so doing dost not thou grant all that is contended for against thee which is that in your Transcriptions of the Original Text thou so much talkest for the entirenesse and integrity of to every Letter Point Syllable Tittle and Iota the Scribes were evidently mistaken so as to mis-transcribe and the Printers through whose hands the Bible comes mostly or altogether now were evidently mistaken so as to mis-print many words Syllables Letters Tittles Points Iotaes to the manifest corrupting of the Scripture in the Greek and Hebrew Text thereof as well as of the Text in other Tongues whereby it is undeniably evident to any but obstinate I.O. that the same fate both hath ever and still doth and therefore may sith quod fieri potuit potest attend the Scripture in its Editions by Transcribing as hath done doth or may do any other Books and may well be asserted so to do without thy sottish senselesse unreasonable Atheistical supposition and censure of its bordering on Atheism so to imagine and for all thy foolish and false affirmation p. 173 that the promise of God for the preservation of the Scripture to a Tittle require other thoughts at our hands I say why should not one various Lection by a mistake in the Transcribers or Printers be counted and called a various Lection corruption mis-transcription alteration of the Text as well as another a lesser as well as a greater a later as well as one more ancient 2. I wonder whose Reason but Reasonlesse I. Os. it is against the corruptions in Copies of so great Antiquity as two or three hundred years should not be numbred among others that are much elder And sith many mistakes and corruptions are confest to have crept into Copies of later times by the Oscitancy Negligence Ignorance Wilfulnesse or something of the Scribes who knew as much of late as they did of old what they were about and with whom they had to do therein and were under as much promise aspect and care of God whose providence and love to his Church and Word is as great for the preservation of both in these last ages as ever if his un-erring guidance of Scribes and Printers that Transcribe and Print the Scripture be such a non such expression thereof as I.O. would make it I wonder what warrant and security I.O. who denyes inspiration and infallible direction to all Transcribers from the first to the last can give us of the honesty fidelity integrity ability and against the erroneousnesse carelesnesse unskilfulnesse and aptnesse to mis-transcribe of the more ancient more then I can of and against that of the later Transcribers whether Jewes or Christians since they who know not the Spirit are all as zealous now of the letter as ever and more Tender and Talkative and Tâtling for every Tittle of their Text then ever they were since the world stood witnesse I.O. himself yea when was there more care and curiosity and critical consideration about the exact writings printings and reprintings of the Bible then is now adayes yet no Editions ever come out so carefully corrected and copied out but that a man may fill a page with its Errataes in more then either Tittles or Iotaes and if now and two or three hundred years ago why not in dayes of old I know not nor any one else I believe but that I.O. sayes otherwise and is more ready to beleeve his own Sayâsoes and suppositions then the naked Truth and to be believed by such as dote on his Doctorship then to be disproved or proved a Lyar. But finally that I may at once remove this sleevelesse pretence of I. O. out of the way at his command and our own leasure let those obscure private novel Copies as he counts them and their corruptions be separated and removed out of his way since they trouble him so much we can abate him them and afford and spare him the setting apart of them and more too and yet carry the cause against him too out of his own mouth nor will his plea and pretence of the privacy obscurity and novelty of these if we allow it him prosper to the proving that there is no various Lections in his Original Texts since we have it professed publikely passed and consequently proved against himself under his own hand which ever and anon pulls down what it builds up and soon after builds again what it once destroyed thus viz. p. 190. I.O. That there are in some Copies of the New Testament and those some of them of some good Antiquity divers Readings in things or words of lesse importance is acknowledged the proof of it lyes within the reach of most in the Copies that we have and I shall not sollicite the reputation of those who have afforded us others out of their own private furniture Rep. These being I.Os. own words whereby he hath overturned his t'other Talk I need talk no more on it for I cannot set his Babel more perpendicularly with its Bottom upwards then it stands already as himself hath set it Yet for all this I. O. may think he hath qualified and salved this saying of his from the censure of a contradiction to the other
his Transcripts and Greek and Hebrew Copies and the absolute integrity thereof to a Tittle that the sole and final dissolution determination and discovery of all saving doctrine and distinct discerning and knowledge of all sacred Truth from cunningly devised fables does dââârd âholly and alone upon the outward Greek and Hebrew writing and Scripture of it and that so necessarily and eternally that upon any corruption supposed therein that Truth Doctrine can't unquestionably be supposed to cââââue entire and uncorrupt but must be consequently supposed to be without any other principle means rule or measure of judging recovering rectifying it and to be for ever âmedilâsly brought to nought p. 18. 68. Shall we think because I O. so thinks and sâlliây supposes so that to suppose corruptions to have befallen his undoubtedly yea confessedly corrupted Copies and the same fate to have befallen the Hebrew and Greek Bible in its Transcribing that hath befallen other Books in theirs is a Plea unreasonable in it self devoid of all reall ground of Truth injurious to the Love and Care of God over his Word and Church in a high degree and an imagination bordering on Atheism asserted on deliberation p 18. 173 Surely the improvidence oscitancy negligence ignorance unskilfulnesse and carelesnesse that may as groundedly be supposed to have been if there was never so much care and diligence in others of them in some of the Scribes that have copied out the Scriptures as well as in some Printers that have printed them and in some Transcribers of Heathen Authors and the non-evidence of any promise of God to take any of the Scripture Transcribers under such a loving Care and Aspect as I.O. ascribes to them and I O's own concession of them being not any of them ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã or ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã infallible but under possibilities of mistakings and I O's confessions and grants and acknowledgements that known failings have been amongst them and that various Lections are from thence risen 167 169. and that some of those are of importance consisting of superfluity and redundancy of unnecessary and deficiency of necessary words which is destructive to the sense and arising out of Copies apparently corrupted and notoriously corrupted by old Hereticks and many more matters then are fit to repeat o're again do require other thoughts at our hands Shall we think because I.O. so thinks very cogitantly but little cogently to us conjectures that if the Points be mans invention and the Text under alteration as undoubtedly it is and therefore all the Priests Religion who live on the naked Texts and their own Traditions and not the Truth it self is at a losse however that then all is likely immediately utterly and remedilesly to perish for ever viz. Church Word of God Doctrine Truth certainty of the Gospel Gods promise Providence and care of his eternal incorruptible good and acceptabâe mind will and pleasure Life Spirit Light Law yea that all this and much more is little lesse then eternally undone as to our knowledge of them so that God himself can find no other sufficient means having tryed already quoth I.O. the insufficiency of all other before to save all these thing from corrupting but that of a perishing uncertain flexible at mans will fallible changeable meer dead to the light novell corruptible mouâdâing and in its first Manuscripts already long since mou'dred moth eaten and corrupted Letter p. 12. surely the promise of God for the preservation of his word which was before the Letter and will be after it induring for ever so that ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã one jot or Tittle of it shall never fail what ever become of all the jots and Tittles of the Letter and his Providence Love and Care of his Church of whose faith and obedience that word of his in the heart and not the Letter both was now is and ever will be the onely Rule require other thoughts at our hands p. 173. Shall we think because I.O. faâsly so thinks that such a fallible flexible alterable and corruptible thing as the Letter is by I. O's own confession not in its Translations onely but in the very Original Transcripts which is the onely businesse he is so busie about and so bestirs himself to bustle for is that which can justly claim and supreamly challenge to it self those preheminent Titles excellent properties extraordinary effects peculiar prerogatives marvellous successes c. which I. O attributes thereuunto throwout his first English Treatise and Latine âhesâ also wherein under that glorious name of the Word of God by which yet as by that which he undertakes to prove to be it's proper name he as if not more ordinarily denominates it then by its own and oneây proper name of Scripture he magnifies the Text as to those Hebrew and Greek Copies of it he is pleased to crown as the Canon and set his stamp upon as the Standard while he stigmatizes not onely all Translations as mens own Altars and altered things that must not stand as the Standard by the Posts and high Altar of his said unalterable Copies but other Copies also as novel spurious and noâââiously corrupted above all that hath any being under God insomuch that he cannot likely utter more concerning it in way of exaltation unlesse he should extoll it so far as to stile it God himself So I have done at present with I. O's unprofitable prate about the preciousnesse profitablenesse and divine Original of his high prized possession of the Hebrew punctation and with his peremptory Postâân and absolutely absurd Assertion of the non-corruption of his Canonized Copies of the Original Text to a Tittle which howbeit I have scarce gone above half so far as I might in discovering the deep dotage and folly that is to be found in his mingled management and miserable mangânization of those matters yet I have gone farther by the hall then I should have done considering how far off all such husky chaffy accomplishments as those Pedantick parts of the Letter are from that wherein the Life of God chiefly lyes viz. the Spirit Light and Word that 's nigh in the heart and how little concernment the more substantial parts of the meer outward Text are of thereto in comparison of them much more such Accidentals as the meer figure of the Accents and Vowels But onely that I found I.O. manifesting his foppery so far as to render these Ticklish things of such eminent Tendency to the saving knowledge of all sacred Truth as to give them out to be the most reall Rule stable standard Gospel guides grand ground chief infallible foundation of all in which respect though otherwise it is little lesse then loathsome to me to leave the life I live in the enâoyment of my self with God to meddle so much in such muddy matters yet in service to the Truth and in love to the soules of the Schoolmen and Scribes that they may see the sandy fickle fâundation they build and
himself as it seemed good to him wrote a story of certain Truths not upon the account of such a meer passive immediate reception thereof from God by inspiration of every Tittle into him as he wrote as thou doest without any conception of the things in his minde or retaining them in his memory or by any means before hand comprehending them but rather as it were at second hand as they were heard and beleeved and undeâstood by him as true matters of fact from the mouthes or writings of such as were eye witnesses thereof and did first deliver them and so to the confutation of thy vain figment not without a concurrence of his rational faculties in the receiving of what he wrote 3. What thinkest thou of those Proverbs of Solomon whose Proverbs were 3000. in all not 300. of which are contained in your Canon and his Songs a hundred and not five of which are come to your cognizance King 4 3.2.5 or those which stand in your Standard from the very first inserting of them there stand but at second hand at best as they were copied out of whether the first manuscript or some remote and more uncertain Transcript who can tellâ by the men of Hezekiah some nine or ten Generations after him see Prov. 25.1 were these received by the Writers that affixed them to that ye call your Canon so immediately from God as thou dreamest without any but a passive concurrence as things not by any means comprehended by these men of Hezekiah before they wrote them 4. What thinkest thou of such parts and parcels of thy so called Canon as are each of them written in two several places or books of thy Bible one of which places and the Respective parcels whether Histories or Prophesies or Praises therein recited are at most but repetitions and meer transcriptions out of the other with some such Additions or Ablations or Alterations of more than Titles and ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã as is not unusually made among Transcribers of which sort for instance in a few I refer thee and all such as scrape so unskilfully as thou doest about the Scriptures being in every Title as it now stands in your Copies immediately written from God by inspiration and without meditation or any means of comprehending the things they wrote beforehand by the Writers thereof to consider and compare Psal. 14. with Psal. 53. and 2 Sam. 2.2 with Psal. 18. also 2 King 18.13 c. 19. c. 20. with Isa. 36. Isa. 37. Isa. 38. Isa 39. also 2 King 24 18. c. 25. throughout with Ier. 39. Ier. 52. by which places perused howbeit every word of this is asserted by J.O. to be written as immediately from Gods own mouth as any of it it is yet plain and evident that some of it was but copied and transcribed out of other some and such a useless Repetition of the same over and over again as neither need be nor would be if the Bible as consistent of neither more nor less than what is ordinarily bound up in it had beân intended by either God or the holy Pen-men of the sundry parcels thereof to be the inalterable constant Canon and only steady Standard for all succeeding ages of men universally to the worlds end 5. Moreover what thinkest thou of such Scripture Prophesies and Epistles as were first written and pend not by the holy men themselves that were moved to give them forth by inspiration but by such as wrote them not mmediately from God but from the mouthes of such only as indited them as the spirit moved of which there are not a few but how many exactly who knows since evident it is that those men after whom they are denominated did not at first write all their own Prophesies and Epistles with their own hands witness much at least of Ieremiahs Prophesie that was written not by himself but Baruch his ordinary Scribe as Jeremiah dictated to him See Ier. 36.4.6.17 18 32. Baruch 6.1 c. Witness also Pauls Epistle to the Romans which though indited by him yet Tertius was the Pen-man thereof Rom. 16.22 which verse Tertius himself it seems added as he wrote Besides many if not most of his Epistles were sent not from Paul alone sigillatim but from himself and such other of his fellow-labourers as were with him at such times and places when and from whence they were sent viz. some from him and Timothy 2 Cor. 1.1 Col. 1.1 Philip. 1.1 Philem. 1.1 Some from him and Silas and Timothy 1 Thess. 1.1 2 Thes. 1.1 one from him and Sosthenes 1 Cor. 1.1 of which which of the two or the three was the Scribe though we beleeve Paul to be under God the chief Authour who knows one from him and all the brethren that were with him at the writing thereof Gal. 1.1 2. which is the only one to any whole Churches that we have clear evidence of that he wrote with his own hands of which he sayes Gal. 6.11 Yee see how large a letter I have written to you with mine ownhand and verse 17. Henceforth let no man trouble me which very expression of his verse 11. intimates that it was not very usual with him to write his letters to the Churches with his own hand but only signed them when others had wrote them for him therefore he often intimateâ his love to them under his own hand and no more See 1 Cor. 16.21 Col. 4.18.1 and 3.17 The salutation of me Paul with mine own hand which is the token in every Epistle so I write now it being so were all the writings and things written received so immediately from God as thou imaginest by the first Pen-men with out retaining any thing in their memories of what they had learned or comprehending them by any means beforehand or without any but a meer passive concurrence of their rational faculties in the reception thereof what ignorance is this Besides whether with Pauls own hand or any others his Epistles were written some things therein were therein spoken to the Churches by himself as delivering his judgement by permission only and not by Commandement from God by him not the Lord To the rest quoth he speak I and not the Lord 1 Cor 7.6 12.40 which as it contradicts J. O's talk in the parcel above cited so also it overturns that talk and fabulous piece of praie as to some parts of it and shall here stand as an answer to it which he as ignorantly utters pag. 25 26 27. viz. They were carried out by the Holy Ghost to speake deliver write all that and nothing but that to a very tittle that was so brought unto them they only received the words from God himself Every aspect of the written word i.e. writing with J.O. is 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 in it self and unto us What hath been spoken thus of the Scripture
their feet are swift to shed blood that wasting and misery are in their wayes and the way to true peace they know not yet this one thing I must say too and of our Vniversity Scriblers pro Scripturis that as there are no men in the world more up to the ears in strife about the Scripture and their own Fancies on it as to matter and letter than the Scribes are so there is no one thing that the Scribes are striving scuffling and scolding at each other more about than about their Scriptures That light or word within and not the letter is the Foundation First I shall take account of what thou falsely assertest concerning the Scriptures being a Foundation Thou affirmest the Scriptures to be the Foundation of the Prophets and Apostles spoken of Eph. 2.20 pag 33. saying of them that men may quietly repose their souls upon them in beleeving and obedience and of your selves thus are we built ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã c. on the Foundation of the Apostles and Prophets and calling them Page 48. The Foundation of that world which he hath set up in this world as a Wheel within a Wheel his Church And page 154. The Foundation of faith hope and obedience And page 155. The Foundation of all that faith and obedience which he requires at our hands And page 316. The great and blessed Foundation of Truth All this I own to be very true of the Word of God of which the Scripture speaks but it is utterly false as uttered by thee of the Scriptures The falsehood of which appears plainly by this Argument 1. Argument That which is the great and blessed Foundation of all that truth faith hope and obedience that God requires at mens hands and of the Church and of the Apostles and Prophets must be something which was in being before any of these things were for the Foundation on which these are built must have a being before they can be built thereupon every Foundation being before the building can stand upon it But though the Word of God be so yet the Scripture is not before but long after that truth faith hope and obedience which God requires at mens hands and long after the Church and long after the Apostles and Prophets were yea after those Apostles and Prophets were Respectively who were the Respective pen-men thereof Therefore the Scripture the Writing the Letter the Greek and Hebrew Text is not the Foundation of any of these things The first Proposition is so true that it were no less then disparagement to I. O's wisdom to suppose him to be mentis inops to go about to prove it to him sith as he builds Castles in the air as easily thrown down as erected upon no better Foundation then his own fancy thoughts conjectures and imaginations yet he cannot be so senceless as to think that that Foundation be it what it will firm or brittle on which any thing is built must be before the building can stand thereon And as for the minor in every part thereof it 's as undeniably true to any save such as having once turn'd their backs upon the Truth are resolved to render themselves devoid of eithet Sense or Reason in their Reasonings against it then to own it For none else can deny but the Church and the Truth Faith Hope and Obedience of it and the Messengers Apostles Prophets Preachers of Righteousnesse such as were Enoch Noah Abraham Lot and others were in the Truth Faith Hope Obedience of the Gospel and also built upon Christ the Light the Word of God the Rock of Ages before Moses dayes who is unversally supposed at our Vniversities to have been the first Pen-man of the Scriptures The grand Master-place of Scripture that is us'd in proof hereof that the Scriptures are the Foundation is Ephes. 2.20 where it 's said by Paul to the Ephesians Ye are built on the Foundation of the Apostles and Prophets Iesus Christ himself being the chief Corner-Stone Hence it is strenuously stickled for and as confidently as cloudily concluded by our doting Doctors and dreaming Divines that the Church of God as to all her Faith Hope Obedience Knowledge of the Truth is built upon the Apostles and Prophets Writings as that which is there called the Foundaeion whereas were they but at leisure from that lesser and lower literature wherein they are lost from the Lord and the Light and Life of God and the Letter also which issued forth from thence to look into the Light and by it into the Letter it self they more blindly labour for then truly learn by they would soon see that the Foundation of the Apostles and Prophets there spoken of is not the Apostles and Prophets themselves much less uncertain transcribed Copies of those few Fragments of their Letters and some other honest mens true stories of what was done in their times good instructions memorandums and litteral recommendations of wholsome Laws and Statutes most of which as laid down in the Letter saving that they remain in the truth and substance whereof they were the types figures and shadows are above 1600-years since cancelled and abolished Promises Prophesies Psalms Proverbs Parables occasional Letters Epistles and other Writings which such as fell into a foolish following and falling down before outward Images and from the infallible Spirit it self that their Scriptures were written to keepe men to found and fardelled together and fram'd in their own fancies into a Foundation of the Faith and of all the whole Fabrick of Religion to be for ever framed and founded upon But Christ Iesus himself who is there also called the chief Corner-stone and 1 Pet. 2.4 that living Stone disallowed indeed of men but chosen of God and precious on whom the Saints even all together with the Apostles and Prophets and the whole Houshold of God as Fellow-Citizens and lively Stones are built up a spiritual House to offer spiritual sacrifices yea all into one holy Temple or Habitation of God through the spirit This is the true and sole Foundation of all the matters before mentioned Christ Iesus the Rock of Ages on whom whoever believes shall not be ashamed Christ the living Word of God that also quickneth whose words are spirit and life to the hearers of his voice whose words uttered in the heart do good to those that walk uprightly this is the Stone that you Babel-builders refuse which God hath made the very head stone in the Corner Psal. 118.22 Matt 21.42 This verbum lumen internum Christ the eternal internal Word in the heart and Light of the World given a Light to the Nations and as such Gods salvation to the ends of the earth and the precious sanctuary to such as believe in his light is that stone of stumbling and Rock of offence to such as thee I.O. that stumble at the Word in their wrestlings for the Letter being disobedient unto both whereunto also they are appointed and a Gin and a Snare to the
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 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã 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 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã 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
Reproof Instruction in Righteousness and without any outward Scripture to perfect the man of God fit and furnish him as no outward Scriptures can possibly do without these for any much less for every good work which inward Scripture in which holy men read the Gospel before 't was ever written outwardly with Ink and Pen foreseeing that God would justifie the Gentiles through Faith in Christ the Light preached the Gospel four hundred years before your Scripture Canon or Rule ad extra was ever written Howbeit I say There is a Scripture ad intra that ye read little in testified to and talk't of by your external Text ye onely talk for 2 Cor. 3. Yet to J. O. I grant the outward Scripture and that in its integrity so far as free from corruption by mis-transcription and mis-translation to be holy just good useful and profitable for all the things specified in the Text of Paul to Timothy when read and understood in that Light Wisdom and Spirit that gave it out by those holy men which onely knows the Mystery of its own minde and meaning therein and reveals it ' also to Babes and simple honest hearts that come at ' fools to it looking to the Lord alone for wisdome out of whose mouth comes that knowledge and understanding whereby the Scripture is seen as to the spirituality and substance of it when the plain things of it are hid from the wise and prudent that furfeit with their own conceited science and lean to their own Animal understanding and in that give their several senses and sentences on it for the natural or as the word is 1 Cor. 2.14 15 16. the Animal man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God not the hidden wisdome of God which none of the Princes of this world know 1 Cor. 2.6 7 8. c. which in a mystry or meer Riddle to their degenerate reason is uttered in the very outward Scripture neither can the animal man by his wisdome from beneath for all his bitter envying and strife within himself against all that oppose him wherein he glories and lyes against the truth the fruit of which envy is confusion and every evil work which wisdome is but earthly sensual Animal devillisbly deceitful Jam. 3.14 15 16 17 18. know the things of God for they are spiritually discerned and by the spiritual man only that discerns and judges all and is falsely judged by all though truly discerned by none that are beneath him The outward Scripture I say is profitable to such as Timothy was to men of God to make them who are wise in the Spirit wiser and wiser through their faith in the light to their own and others salvation and to furnish such a Minister as Timothy was who knows when and being in the Spirit how and how far forth to use it for every good work in his Ministry And such as are full of might and power first by the Spirit of the Lord upon them as Micah was Mic. 3. and as Apollo was are mighty also in the Scripture and furnished mightily to confound the Scripture-searching Scribes and all gain-sayers of the Light as they were in their times So that we deny not the Scriptures ad extra to be many wayes useful profitable in their place and time where they are to be read as they are not in so much as the tenth part of the world and where they are read in the light by them who live in that Light that gave them forth which are not the hundreth part of those that usually read and search them but will all this prove them to be what I.O. and T.D. contend so stiffly to have them be viz. in that high Authority of the Rule nay the only most perfect standing Rule of all true belief and holy life before the very light and spirit of God they had their very original supreme being from thorow the hands of holy men as but subordinate instruments in their first purity as writings except that little that was pend by God himself which we now have not which Scriptures yet as to the being they now have are handed to us from no higher principle then the transcription of meer fallible and as I.O. sayes un-inspired men Ab sit imaginatio let the thoughts hereof be far from us that the Scripture is the only Rule for if we should grant it to be so far as truly transcribed in the Copies of the Original a Rule at all or a secondary Rule which name of Rule is more than it any where calls it self by yet the prime most perfect Rule it is not much less is it the only Rule to the Church or any men and though we are as forward as any on a due account to own the profitablenss of the very letter as it declares of the words of truth and uprightness and the Doctrine that is according unto godliness and to own its great usefulness as to the purposes premised and so affirm that the dead letter so far as not depraved from its primitive purity doth as truly answer and hold proportion with the light and living word as the shadow doth with the substance the life-less picture with the living person it represents and as the voice which is Imago verbi the Image of the Word with the Word it is the Image of or the Eccho which is the Image of the voice doth with the voice it answers to insomuch that as Quae conveniunt in aliquo tertio santidem what holds measure or weight and keeps correspondency or proportion with a third thing that agrees with the standard or sealed Canon agrees also with the standard it self so whose life squares truly and substantially with the letter convenes with the light and spirit it imediately issued out from and he that lives and speaks perfectly and adaequately according to the Scripture so far speaks and lives according to and not besides the light and spirit which the letter requires man to live beleeve and walk in and by as neither doth or can he erre from the letter if he had never heard read or seen it who answers the measure of the light and spirit that is lent him to live by yet for all this as T.D. gives this reason for his untrue imagination why this part of the inspired Scripture you have only is the only Rule and not any Sermons or private religious discourses which have the same common ends with the Scriptures no nor yet any other writings but those ye have if we could prove and produce as assuredly we shall anon any legitimate ones of Divine inspiration though otherwise as useful and profitable as those ye have and agreeing therewith viz. because God did not give order quoth he for the one as he did thinks he for the other and there is no other Scripture appointed of God to be a Rule of faith and manners but what is bound up in the Bible and where he appointed that we
is the Rod of power which God promiâed to send out of Sion even the Rod and sharp Sword of his mouâh and breath of his lips wherewith he will now smite the Nations and slay the wicked and reprove with equity on the behalf of the meek of the earth whom the proud oppress even the word of his mouth which he will put into the mouths of his sucklings and their seed and seeds seed out of which he ordains strength to the perfecting his own praise against the persecutor This and not the weak dead letter Bible or Scripture thou so labourest bablest and scriblest for is that Power and Authority of God Able as the outward Writing is not to make it self known so to be for the letter is as lifeless helpless powerless as any other Book Writing or dumb Idols that men adore and receive aâ ye with the Iews of whom thou speak'st p. 237. do the Bible at this day with the honour and veneration due to God that cannot stir from the place where it s set as neither can the Scripture from where it s laid no more than the Turkish Alcoran yeâ as Jeremiah in his Epistle saiâh of the weakness and vanity of all the Idols of the heathen whom they make powerful Gods of Thâse Gods quoth he cannot save themselves from rust and moths though they be covered with purple they wipe them because of the dust of the Temple when there is much upon them men put the Scepter in their hands as if they were the Iudge of the Country and Daggers and Axes but they cannot deliver themselves from Theeves nor of themselves put to death one that offends them as a useless vessel worth nothing when broken so it is with their Gods they are as the beams of their Temples upon their bodies and heads StrâBats Swallows Birds and Cats they are things in which is no breath yet they set and sell and buy them at a high price they are carried having no feet âo walk with if they fall to the ground they cannot rise up again of themselves the same together with what follows caeteris paribus Baruch 6. may be said of the adored Best Copies of the Great Bibles that lye in the great old mouldy Popish Parish Mass-houses now called the Protestant Churches where the Bells hang the Ministers of the Letter not the Spirit the elder sort of which are Priests by Ordinatioââ fit in their Temples and roar and cry the Word of God the Law the Light the way to life the Gospel the power of God to salvation as the Iews do when their Copy is carried about but these Gods of those Idol Shepherds that leave their poor flock at any time for another that hath a better fleece can do nothing at all cannot withstand any King or enemies are not able to escape either from Theeves or Robbers nor when fire falleth on the houses where they are to help or save themselves or flye away how then shall we think they the Books called Bibles the Scriptures are so powerful and effectual not only in themselves but also in respect of us as without any other helps or advantages to shew themselves to be the great Authority and Power of God vis virtus Dei to our salvation as I.O. dreams If he say he means not the Text but the Word it talks on let him say so then when he writes again and then we will take it for granted he gives the cause in question to the Qua. whom he quarrels with for denying the Bible Letter Scripture outward Writing to be the living effectual able powerful word of God that gives life and saves and such like and so we shall meddle no more with him as to that matter but so long as he will needs damn down the Qua. as denyers of Scriptures and the Word of God too because they deny the Letter or Text to be properly the truth or Word of God it doth but declare and talk on we must thereby understand him to intend the Letter which he talks for Moreover as to the Light of God and Word nigh in the heart which the Apostles preached to turn men to and taught them as the Scripture also doth in its Testimony there to to attend to as the Rule of faith and life this is that Word of the truth of the Gospel which is V is virtus Dei the Power of God by the vertue of which Power it brought forth fruit in the Collossians and in all the World where it so came when it came unto them in the Ministry thereof which was the means by which they heard of it first and then came themselves to hear it and to know the grace of God in truth even that grace that bringeth the salvation and appeareth to all men effectually instructing as well without as with the outward Letter of it all that leârn at it to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts and to live soberly righteously and godly in this present world which is the Light of God in the conscience called the goodness of God or grace given to lead them to repentance who despising the riches of it are not led by it to repent and so treasure up wrath to themselves c. Tit. 2 11 12. Rom. 2.4 5. This is it which brought forth fruit in the world without Sword Miracles humane wisdome oratory or any inducements or motives but what are meerly and solely taken from it self consisting in things which eye hath not seen ear heard nor the heart of the animal natural man or of any but the spiritual man that by the Spirit which only searcheth and revealeth them discerneth the deep things of God can discern or conceive This is that that hath exerted its power and efficacy to the conquest of the world so far as it hath been capâivated in the high proud thoughts of it to the true obedience of Christ causing men of all sorts times and places so to fall down before its Divine Authority as to renounce all that its dear undergââ all that it dreadful and destructive to nature in its dearest concernment As for the Letter the Scripture which thou speakest of in a sense abstract from all other helps and advantages as that which without need of any other Revelation by the spirit and light within for these thou call'st superfluous mediums doth plead for reception not onely in comparison with but also opposition to all other wayes of coming to the knowledge of God his mind and will founded thereon and calls for attendance and submission with supreme and uncontroulable Authority 57 58. as that which hath brought forth so much fruit and exerted so much power What power hath it put forth to conquer the world into such submission to the truth as it is in Iesus as Christ requires or as the Letter it self either calls for what fruits of righteousnesse hath it brought forth in the world cal'd Christian to the glory of God for all its being
the light of God the wisdome saving truth immediate witness clearest way of Revelation soul-cleansing Law sure foundation most perfect Rule immoveable stedfast Standard of Gods setting up but it self is nos all nor any of this nor doth it at all any where avouch it self to be any of it at all The Scripture points to that which is the Power of God by the being of which in and upon his people who only own and joyn to it they are made a willing people in the day thereof when such as turn from and against the light which is the power and labour in the weak naked Letter labour in vain and are left unwilling to leave their lusts and lives for Christ as his Maryrs or outward witnesses did in all Ages But the Letter it self is not Power of God that sustained them in the suffering and inabled them to forgo what was dear to them and to undergo what was dreadful and destructive to nature in its dearest concernments The Letter tells us that the Saints did so and tells us and all Saints that we should do for Christ but the Power by which this is done is another matter then a Letter ad extra even the inward light Word and Spirit that thou doest despite to even that in the conscience that made them indure as seeing him who is invisible and discovered the darkââss upon the discovery of which they rather chose death then to own it as Light and Truth not only in ages as high as Moses who by faith in the Light chose affliction rather then sin and feared not the wrath of Pharaoh but also from him downward as low as Maries dayes in which some died for denying the darknâss of the Popes Dâctrines of Transubstantiation c. which the Light in their consciences told them were too gross to be of God who yet by their confession could not dispute against it with Vniversity Sottish Sophisters Doctor Dunces out of Letter nor so much as read a letter therein and also as low as these dayes wherein by the Power of God many are born up to bear the Trials of the cruel Academical mockings scoffings scourgings inâlictings stonings bonds imprisonments abuses to death witness one of the first of the Lords two Hand-maids that were sent to warn the Vniversity of their universal abomiâations at Oxford in the time of I.Os. Vice chancellorship there who perhaps may not be so learned literally though mystically and spiritually more in the Letter as obtuse aÌcuti âomunâioneâ many of those dull-beaded nimble disputers out of it are in their bald fashion of Syllogistical form Neither did the Letter either of the Old Testament which is the Letter without of what things soever written or the outward Letter of the New ever conquer the world in which thou sayest it brought forth so much fruit further then into a meer empty fruitless form of Godliness without the power thereof insomuch that though as to the Primitive Christian Churches while they kept in the Light which the Apostles Ministry whether by word of mouth or Writing Letter Scripture was to turn them to walk by and beleeve in and in the Spirit in which they began till fooâishly being bewitched from obeying the truth it self they turned aside to the outward Text that tells it and so thought to be made perfect by the flesh and the fleshly bodily exercises they found in the Letter which once used were as low weak beggeâly elements for a time the power of God and godliness was much âelt among them and abode with and upon them to the prevailing against the Powers of the earth and the overcomming the world it self and Satan the Prince of it by the blood of the Lamb and the Word of his Testimony not loving their lives to the death and much fruit of the Spirit and of righteousness was brought forth to the glory and praise of God But when Synods and Councels doting Doctors infatuated Ghostly-Fathers and such as admired their persons as they the persons of the Apostles and primitive Disciples began to bundle together what they could get of the Wâitings of such as were coaetaneous with Christ and the Apostles and without any such order from either Christ or the Apostles to canonize what in their conceits might be useful to others as they had found them t is like to be to themselves into a Rule or Canon and stated them into a common Standard for all to have their sole recourse to in soul-cases and matters of Christian faith and holy life and so to adore the dead letters of those holy living men and to run a whoring after some remnants of Writings that dropt from them then in the whole world now called Christendome instead of an Apostolical Spouse of Christ as Christians were at first presented a chaste Virgin to himself by them there stands up an Apostatical Strumpet that had the Letter and good words written there but neither the life of God nor the Word of life therein testified to that according to the nature of Error which is ever multiplying degenerated more and more into the dark till at last being gone from the Word Spirit Light and Life within to the outward Letter that relates of it they ran into the Wildernes of their own numberless senses upon it so that they lost the Letter also and fell from it into Tradition and a thousand Old Wives Fables and though it is good and acknowledged so to be so far as it is that the Protestants have marched from Rome under the conduct of the Leâter yet for all they are come back from the blinde screel scrawls of the Popish Scribes for their smoaky imaginations to a pretensive profession of and prate prâ Scripturis for the Scriptures unless they march on according to the conduct of the Scriptures till they come into the Light and Spirit which they point to and by a dotage upon the Scriptures ye would run from they are not so much as come yet to the Scriptures nor to conform to that counsel of the Prophets and Apostles given in it but are yet erring from the Scriptures even in and by their very eager Scriblings for it as the only most perfect Rule and from the only Rule of faith and way to Life the Letter is as loud for but that they are dull of hearing as they in their naked Writings are loud for the naked Letter it self And so it comes to pass that as Israel was of old who was as laborious in the Letter busie about the Bible and strict for his Scripture-standard as our Israel for the self-same which yet they confess too is abolished as to the Litteral observation of it with the Appendix of a few of Stories and Letters and Revelations of those holy men next to Christs time who by the Spirit wrote much more then is there own'd as their Standard I say as the old Israel proved as to God an empty vine Hos. 10.1 bringing forth
and truly partaking of the Divine nature and begotten by the light and living Word of Truth from death and darkness into a real union with it self by receiving with meekness ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the innate ingrafted word âam 1.21 by which they become incorporated and as it were transubstantiated into one seed with it self having the Image and glory of God seen upon them and shining in and through them before the world men before whom let your light shine faith Christ Mat. 5.16 Is. 60.1 2 3 c. 2 Cor. 2. ult I say if such men may be stiled the Light of the world as Iohn Baptist was stiled by Christ a burning and shining light Joh. 35 36 then whom yet Christ had a greater witnesâ Wil I.O. therefore prefer the deaâ copies of the writings of those living men who wrote from the life light and Spirit of God moving before or at least into an equality with the holy men who under God were the Authors of those writings as they were at first which now are but the fallible âandyworks of by his own confession but meer fallible Transcribers or if he will will any wise men of God become so foolish with him I trow not in as much as the work-man is more glorious than the work that issues either originally from or but subordinately through his own hands the Writer more honourable than his meer writing as Heb. 3.3 4. Hee who hath builded the house hath more honour than the house for as every outward Writing or Letter yee now have the use of was written by some man as every such house is built by some man but he of whom are all things and he that originally built all things is God indeed Yet me thinks I sent not only I.O. but T.D. also who is so a kân to him that in most matters here hee prosecues the same point unless where he contradicts him and hobbles upon the same notions enthroning the Scriptures or outward Letter very high above the Church whose children it immediately was pend by the hands of and whose meer outward Engine the outward letter is insomuch that I.O. makes it not only dearer to God then the whole world besides p. 171. but also p. 76. the very Darling of God so that his Church whose servant the Letter is and for whose sake written is made by him but some subservant to hold out the honour of the Letter that it may bee the more conspicuous rather then to let her own light image grace glory which is that of God Isa. 10.1 2. shine out before man the duty t is quoth he almost the whole of the Church to hold up that some time and when wee say the Church is a Pillar and Ground of truth from 1 Tim. 3.15 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã which words Pillar and Ground should not bee taken for the supporter or foundation nor inholder of truth in sensu Architectonico which T.D. denies âe not dispute See p. 356. See p. 355. but grant him his sensum forensem or foreign sense of it in which I.O. also who sayes absurdly however that these words Pillar and Ground may in good coherence of speech refer to the words following viz. the mystery of godliness as well as to the Church will take it in and let them have it yet what follows that the Church is but the Ground and Pillar to set the Letter upon which I.O. calls the light and truth there and to hold forth only the outward literal publication as T.D. pleads p. 18 19. of his 2. Pamph. or the seat or place of residence for the Scripture as upon the Exchange in London are pillars and places upon which hang Tables and Proclamations in no wise surely for though the Pillars of the Exchange are for support as well as shew and so T.Ds. Simile doth not quadrare nor run on all four to bee sure yet to give them the sense of a pillar to hold up or hold out only yet that which the Church is the Pillar to hold up that is hold forth is the Truth whether by or without the Scripture of it between which Truth and the book they both sometimes do distinguish which truth or light is the Foundation or Pillar in sensu Architectonico on which the Church is built and not it on the Church as the letter is which under God the Church that gives no being to the truth or light nor kindles one beam thereof as I.O. sayes but only bears witness to it gives being to and so is in sensu Architonico the Pillar or Foundation of though in sensu forensi of the light and truth only for the Church is more honourable then the letter as the Builder or that which supports the house is more honourable then the house that receives being under God and preservation from it and its Prophets but its less honourable then the light and truth it lives by and hath its being from as a Church in respect of which light and truth t is confest it is not a pillar and ground in sensu Architectonico as it is of the letter but in sensu forensi only that is the seat place or pillar from whence it is held out and shines or as the Church is called Reâ 1.20 Zach. 4.2 a golden Candlestick that serves to hold out in life and doctrine voice and writing the eternal Word of grace light truth and word of life conveyed in measure to her from the two Olive trees or anointed ones or sons of Oyl the living Word and Spirit that empty themselves into the golden Candlesticks feeding them therewith and from thence shining as God witnesses to the world which two witnesses shining and prophesying to the Church or Candlesticks and through them to the world in power and much patience and sufferings stand before the God of the whole earth Zach. 3. Rev. 11. And if the Saints born of the incorruptible seed the Word of God which liveth and abideth ever may bee stiled the Seed of God Will I.O. thence conclude that a corruptible Letter copied out by corrupt mens hands as the Scripture is at this day may be so stiled also The Word of God took upon him the nature and seed of Abraham but never took upon him however he is written of in it the proper nature of a dead Letter that was written with ink and pen by mens hands There was no time wherein the Word and Light by which all was made was made or born into the true nature of such a Letter but there is a time of its being made flesh and dwelling as their food in the Saints Joh. 1.14 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã natus est ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the Word was born flesh and dwelt in us Ioh. 6.51 to 64. the bread I give is my flesh c. howbeit all flesh is not the same flesh there is a flesh of Christ that if eaten with a carnal mouth would as so have profited nothing vers 63.
the house then some light from the Sun must be within the said Room also so wee argue Retro from hence If the dark place where the day is to dawn as the lesser light therein is observed be the heart then the place wherein the lesser light shines which even therefore secundum vâs O ye bânighted ones cannot be the Letter must be the heart also but verum prius c. the first is true therefore the latter We have a more sure word of Prophesie to which ye do well to give heed as to a light that shineth in a dark place until the day dawn and the day-star arise in your hearts 2. The word of Prophesie or Prophetical word is a phrase that of it self seems to any but blinde Expositors to intend another thing than the outward Letter and to found forth no less then that more inward Word or immediate Testimony of Christ himself in the conscience elsewhere stiled the Words of Prophesie or Word of God and Witness or Testimony of Iesus or Spirit of Prophesie from which of which and to which the holy men that were internally illuminated thereby and made acquianted with Gods secrets bare Record or Testiminy without by Voice or Writings Rev. 1 2 3.19 10. the trâe and faithful words of the Lord himself inlightning such as wrote the Letter who having no need so to do the Lord and the Lamb being their light wrote not by though not against the Directory of I.Os. outward Candle Moon or Sun ad extra i.e. the external Text of others Writings Rev. 21.23 22.25.6 the Words of the Prophesie of this booke as Iohn calls it Rev. 22 8. i.e. the inward Spirit of Prophesie or Testimony of Iesus from which all Prophesie went forth whether by voice or writing which the Angels and Gods servants the Prophets had and kept Rev. 22 9 compared with Rev. 19.10 which book I.O. dreams 't is like was the outward Writing or Copy that Iohn gave forth the uncertain Copies of which to say nothing of the doubts of the old dimn sighted Doctors that were at oddes about the outward Book called the Revelation and some others even of those that are owned as Authentick whether they are not spurious yea or nay only are extant at this day little deeming that was an inward Book which I.O. tells us of too if he will own his own words p. 9. 25. which Iohn took in at first from which he gave out the the other and prophesied in the way of manual wiriting even the inner book of Gods secrets which are only with such as fear him revealed to Christ by the Father and by Christ to Iohn and opened by Christ to his servants at this day who eat it and prophesie out of it again before many Peoples Nations Tongues and Kings though sealed with 7 seals to the Scribes on the backside or outside of it on which backside or outward letter they are busily poring but they cannot read it neither learned nor unlearned because it is a Book sealed Rev. 5.3.10.2 9 10 11 12. Isa 29 9 ao 11 11. 3. That very Epethite which to the Word of Prophesie here spoken of is annexed doth even infallibly evidence it to be intended of that inner Word Spirit and light in the conscience which the Qua. call too and thou scoffest at and not at all of that fallible external Text which thou art so talkative for for it s called a sure permanent firm or stable Word which is more then can be saving all thy blinde bable about it asserted of the best and most original Copies of that Letter thou contendest for that are extant in the world in these dayes and not only so but ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã a more sure or stable word then that voice which Peter Iames and Iohn heard immediately from heaven out of the Fathers own mouth concerning his beloved Son Christ the light of the world given as a light to the Nations shining and shewing the will of God to them in every one 's own heart so Gods salvation to the ends of the earth saying unto them Hear ye him v. 17. comp with Mat. 27.5 which voice coming from the excellent glory which was infallibly sure to them no cunningly devised fable they heard when they were with Christ in the holy Mount Now the Word Spirit voice and light of Christ in the conscience is properly and truly ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã a more stable firm and permanent Word or standing Rule constant Canon and lasting light and so more sure to us ward then that voice to them not surer in respect of its evidence to the hearers of it or the security given by it that it was no fable nor fancy in which sense thou most foolshly fanciest p. 66. that the immediate voice above said absit absurdum was not so sure i.e. not so certainly evident to be Gods voice as the Letter is certainly evident to be Gods Word for in that sense the said voice was to them that heard it most infallibly sure or evident so as nothing can bee surer to be God and I.O. in saying as he dotingly doth p. 66. that comparatively we have greater security from and by that written Word meaning the Scriptures or Writing for that is the Word written with all along such is his illiterate language then they had in and by that miraculous voice as he calls it and that the Scripture is more sure in respect of its giving out of its evidence to us then that voice of God was doth thereby absit blasphemia render the very voice of God himself whereby he spake in and to the Prophets that wrote the Scriptures to us less sure and certain more doubtful and questionable whether it might not be a mistake or no then the outward Writing or Text they wrote as it is transferred to our hands at this day through the hands of such a mighty multitude of fallible Transcribers none at all of which no not the first were ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã infallible or divinely inspired so that they could not in any thing mistake by his own confession p. 167. where I.O. confesses and grants also that it s known that failings have been among them from whence various lections of which it cannot be ascertained to men now which is right which wrong are arisen which so variously transcribed Scripture it is shame enough for I.O. to assert as he doth p. 10. under that term of Word by which he terms it and p. 153 under its own name of Scripture that it is come forth to us from God without the least mixture âr intervenience of medium obnoxious to fallibility as is the wisdome truth integrity knowledge and memory of the best of all men or capable to give change or aâteration to the least Iota or syllable and more shame yet to say as hee doth p 27. that every Apex of it is equally Divine and as immediately from God as the voice wherewith or
and an inexpressible exaltation of it above them the light of one day of this Sun meaning the Scripture which hee expresses by the terme the Word of God being unspeakably more then that of seven others as to the manifesting the glory of God nor doth it impaire this self-evidencing efficacy of the Scripture that it is a moral spiritual not a natural Light This and much more utters I.O. concerning these Termes of the Word the Light as the proper names of the Right belonging to the Letter Neither is I.O. alone in this but some others I have met with that have stifly stood up to defend the Scripture or Letter to be the Light the Word of God yea verbum oris the word of his mouth and the Voice of God and Christ properly and properly to be so called Rep. Which sayings O the contrariety that is in them to common sense and reason they may as well say they hear that mans voice properly some of whose sayings they read in the letters of such as write what they heard him say they may as properly say they are to own the voice of the Scribes and Pharisees for their Rule as they are written down by the Apostles and Evangelists sith Christ saith They sit in Moses chair all that they say do and that they do now properly hear their voyces sith what they said was recorded as say that they now properly hear Christs Voice in reading some things he spake as they are written by them that heard him speak them and stablish and canonize them and other mens sentences as the only standing Rule on this account because God said Hear him and they now hear properly Moses voice and must own his Law that vanisht as to the shadow of it still to the Church a standing Rule because Christ said They have Moses and the Prophets let them hear them 2 O the contrarity of this to the Scriptures themselves for if they be properly the Voice of God and Christ then absit blaspemiae they make Christ charge the Scribes improperly and falsely that they never at any time heard Gods voice Joh. 5. for they heard the Scriptures read every Sabbath neither could he say truly what he doth exclusively of such as are not his sheep My sheep hear my voice if the Scriptures were his voice properly for the Dogs and Swine hear and hear the outward Scriptures read as well as his sheep but his sheep hear another secret still voice of his in all things that hee saith unto them in their own consciences which the loud Brawlers for the bare Bible drown within themselves with their non-sensical notes and noyses about their Diana's and siâver shrines and Temple worship and Church work which voice and words of his are heard in secret with more profit among the wise Luke 10.17 then the cry of the Truth selling Spirit stinting-Scripture stealers among fools which still voice of Christs yeâ whoever hears not and heeds not more then our heady high-minded Hypocrites of these dayes do may preach themselves out a while longer yet as the Ministers and Church of Christ but shall ere long be cut off from among his people in the mean time however this is the improper tone they tune it out in when we bid them fear God hearken to his voice own that as your only guide his Word his Voice his Spirit his Light as the only infallible sure standard the witness of God himself the Scripture witnesses of and sends men to which hee that heeds follows beleeves in obeyes needs not be so restless by wrangling as the wrestless for and wresters of the Scripture are about the Witness of man though witnessing from and for God as moved by him for the Witness of God himself and the Witness of Christ himself in the conscience is greater needs not be so loud for a Letter for the voyces and words of men and the Writings and Revelations of holy men for the inward immediate Voyce the Word the Spirit the Light Revelation of Christ himself in the heart is greater True say they we must hear Christs voice in all things he sayes abide in his Doctrine or Teaching receive his Witness and Testimony walk by his Word live by his Light alone bee guided and ordered in all things by his Spirit which alone reveals the minde of God and Christ without whose Revelation none knows the things of God and Christ but the Letter of the Scripture the outward Writings of such as heard him as we do not the Hebrew and Greek Text at least and Translationâ as they keep touch with them these are that Word that living life-giving powerful heart-searching soul-saving Word those Words of his that are Spirit and Life by which alone men must come to beleeve that Light to the feet that Lamp to the path that verbum oris that very word of his mouth that works and accomplishes all things to his glory our salvation that verbum oris that goeth forth of his own mouth that hee put according to his promise Isa. 59. ult as if that were the Scripture oh gross and shameful yet over and over and over and over again I.O. cites that Text to prove Gods promise to continue the Hebrew and Greek Texts entire without loss or change of iota or title of it to the worlds end into the mouth of the Churches Seed and the mouth of her Seeds seed for ever that must go out of the mouth of babes and sucklings as the only strength against the persecutor to still the enemy and avenger that sharp sword of his mouth with which he will smite the wicked Nations Rev. 19. That Rod of his mouth or breath of his lips with which he slayes the wicked Isa. 11. That Rod of his strength and power sent out of Sion by which he will rule fâreuer in the midst of his enemies Psal. 110. That word that he hath spoken which God hath magnified ovâr all that is called his name and so over the light it self it sprang from which is his name Joh. 1. and the sâfe strong Tower of the Righteous That vis virtus Dei power of God and word of the Crosâ That Doctrine or Teaching of Christ which continued in saves the Preacher and hearers ipsa doctrina quam a Deo docemur That witness of God which who so hath needs not the witness of men for the witness of God is greater That voice of God that 's more sure and certain as to its giving out its evidence to us then the very immediate voice which the Apostles heard God himself speak to them with from heaven 2 Pet. 1. And all this and much more exclusively and abstractively from that within yea and properly too so that the Word of God Foundation the Rule Light Lamp and so consequently all the rest of the Tiâles are the very proper names of the Scriptures no other then what are properly answerable to its nature For in this wife I.O. drives on the
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 neiâher 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 enâtails 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. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the living Word of God Truth it self for that it professeth of it self quoth he frâm 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 cântains 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 dâink of this Cup meaning properly not the Cups but the wine therâin 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 âolly 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 suppâsitions and as well unsâholler-like as unsaint-like sensless sayings that the outwarâ Scripture the Writing the Letter and every Letter and Tittle and Iota though but transcribed
also there is nothing but what is worth nothing comes forth as most effectual a means as I.O. faith the Scriptures of Moses and the Prophets are to bring men to Repentance by the hearing of Moses and the Prophets Writings read one Chapter yet of which dead Letter of those living men I grant is worth two of our dead Divines dead divinings for-as of old Act. 13.27 Act. 15.21 so now among Iews and Christians there are those that read these every first day but what 's the issue of all the reading of their outward Writings As all that comes up on the plowings and fowings of these Seeds-men when they preach is like that corn on the house top whereof the Mower filleth not his arms nor he that bindeth sheaves his bosome so all that comes out upon the Threshings and Treadings of these Oxen whose mouthes must not be muzled from feeding where they please if they do but read much more if they be at so much pains as to expound the Scriptures is but an itching ear to know more then do yea a bare husk an empty hull an ear without grain a whole Church full of chaff which every wind of Doctrine drives up down and whisles to and fro which when winnowed and fified in time of temptation falls all back to the ground to the earth from whence it came which he whose fan is in his hand when he hath gathered his Wheat into his Garner will throughly pârge his floor of blow upon by his Spirit and burn up with unquenchable fire Thus Moses is read and the Prophets read and their Writings heard which if I.O. doth not divine a lye are the best and most effectual means of bringing men to Repentance but where is the Repentance hoped for Are not the people ever in their sins Is not that a vain power and meer fained efficacy Quae nunquam reduditur in actum Is not that a most ineffectual most effectual means of Repentance which never effects the end i.e. the Repentance it is the means of Yet where is there one among all these painted Penitents that so truly and fully repents from his sins as not to ive in and beleeve he must live in some dead works to his dying day or repents so far as to reach so much as hope that he shall live without sin till he dyes in which yet to go round again t is beleeved by the hearer because taught by his Teacher that if he dye without Repentance he shall finde no place after death for repentance though he seek it carefully with tears and that there is no Purgatory in the world to come So here is plowing in hope and threshing in hope performing in hope and praying in hope preaching in hope and hearing in hope treading in hope and reading in hope not so much of godlines somtimes too as of earthly gain but what is the hope of the Hypocrite though he hath gained It is no better then the giving up of the Ghost when God taketh away his soul Job 27.18 And what is the reason of all this vain hope and âon-proficiency and impenitency under this best means as I.O. calls it i.e. Moses and the Prophets Writings Is it for want of having the Copies of their Writings among them No âhere's Transcriptions of the Original of the Hebrew and Greek Texts of sorts enough so many that they vary very much from each other and cannot stand together in some greater matters much less as I O. talks in every Tittle and Iota in unity among themselves Is it for want of rendring of these Writings of Moses and the Prophets out of the Hebrew Copies into their own Mother-tongue No the Transcripions are not so many and various but the Translations are as many more and more various not only in respect of that variety of the Languages into which but also that more vast variety that is found in the Translations of them into but one even our own English-tongue whereinto they stand translated so that he that is not in ' ove with such Translations as cross his carnal Interest and serve not his will and earthly turn may have his choice of any or many others that like him better Is it for want of a competent number or quantity of Bibles printed to serve the numberless number of people named Christians in this Nation No not so neither almost every one that can read and hath mony enough to buy one without which the Word of God nor any other of his gifts are to be purchased if the Simon Magusses may have their wills who buy the Patent for the selling thereof and yet sell but their own thoughts and words instead and under the name thereof will buy a Bible what ever it cost to carry with him to his Church and some will have two or three and most houses some and against the old Word is worn out at the Sellers Shops there 's enough of the Word of God to be bought for money if the meer Letter were it and a number of new Bibles for all comers Is it for want of hearing them read No! they are read too much and heard read too often unless they were more spiritually understood and more carefully and practically observed Is it for want of Interpreters and Interpretations Expositors and Expositions Divines and their Divinations what may be the minde of God in this and that place of it and what the drift and scope of the Penmen in such and such sayings and their sense in such and such a sentence and the meaning of such a Parable or Proverbial speech and the like Is it for want of men to give out their own judgements opinions and thoughts of things and manifest their meer mindes about the matters therein contained No there 's no need of this it can do no good for if it could O the Ocean of Opinionists Thinkers and Thrusters out of their own thoughts of things Doctors Divines Criticks Scepticks Schoolmen Casuists Commentators and such like Diviners Dreamers and deep Divers after the marrow of that Divinity in the Scriptures that lyes deeper yet then their shallow Head-pieces can ever reach too who never yet got within the bones nor entred farther then into the outside of the sealed Book and the Letter or meer literal sense of the Law and Testimony that is bound up from all but Christs Disciples yet they whiffle it to and fro and weary the world out with the winds of their opinions which as they are as many more as the different Translations are and more then the 32 winds or points upon the compass by 32 times twice told so they blow and strive against each other upon the face of the earth to the disquieting thereof as the Sea is disquieted with their boysterous buslings filling it with the froth of their own wisdome which is foolishness with God foaming out their own folltes and fained senses upon the Scriptures so fast and so flatly contrary one to
they shall be blessed that sow beside all waters and the soul of the diligent shall thrive and be fat but the soul of the vile person and niggard and of the sluggard shall desire but have nothing yea their Vintage shall faile and their gathering shall not come and their fruitful field shall be turned into a forrest they shall be stript and made bare and sit with sackcloth on their loins and lament for the tears for the pleasant fields and the fruitfull vine and their pallaces shall be forsaken their tents and towers shall be for dâns and that which now is the pasture of wild asses Iob 11.12 Isa. 29.18 24. shall be no more enjoyed by them for ever Isa. 32. Wherefore then âayest thou I. O. with Restriction of the Spirits guidance to those first generations thus viz. While the infallible spirit continued his extraordinary guidance and thus viz. guided therein by the infallible direction of the spirit of God and by way of exclusion of after-ages and more expresly of this age thus viz. They were born acted carried out by the Holy Ghost to speake deliver and write c. and suppose a man were ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã 1. inspired of God and should professe himself so and were so indeed as the Prophes of old Am. 7. Let me expostulate the case with thee a little about these expressions whereby thou seemest to shut all the past primitive times from any participation of the movings and actings of the Spirit as those that have neither part nor portion in that matter of his infallible guidance and direction First then not denying what Christ himself foretold Iohn â4 28 30. Iohn 16.16 viz. That he would go away for a while and his Disciples should not see him and the Prince of this world which hath nothing in him should come and interpose himself to the great interception of that primitive Communion the Saints then had with him and his Spirit so that he would not have very much talk with them thereafter let me ask thee this much Did he say he would leave them for ever and never have any talk or words with them more then what they should find of his written in the Scriptures of such as should write some few things and a little of that much which they knew of his minde Did he say he should not speake at all not so much as by his Spirt Nay rather did he not say that so soon as his fleshly pretence was withdrawn he would send the holy Spirit himselfe the comforter to supply the room of that personall and bodily appearance wherein he then stood among them which they were so in love with and so loath to part with that they were ready well-nigh to dote so upon it as to let sorrow fill their hearts to think they should be utterly without his tuition as sheep without a shepherd if that should vanish and be removed In the departure and absence of which notwithstanding he told them it would be never the worse but much the better and more expedient for them For if I goe away saith he the Comforter cannot come but if I go I will send him unto you which Comforter was himselfe in Spirit the presence of which in the heart gives nearer acquaintance and fellowship with Christ and the Father then his abode among them their sight of him in the flesh could possibly do for the sight of him in the flesh the world may have and had which is to little effect if the other be wanting but his presence in the Spirit is that which is of Power and Efficacy though yet in two different wayes viz. of bare conviction or condemnation to the one and refreshment and consolation to the other both to the World and to the Saints though there be no sight of him as in the flesh any more by either I will send the Holy spirit the comforter to you saith he and he shall convince or reprove the world also Doth Christ therefore say he will leave them comfortlesse i.e. Orphans Iohn 14.17 18. deprived utterly of his presence because he said he i.e. in flesh would go away Nay saith he I will come to you i.e. in Spirit the Spirit of truth which dwelleth in you and shall be in you and though the world seeth me no more when I am gone because though the Spirit of Truth be sent into them and is nigh to men even striving preaching reproving in them yet they recieve him not neither see him nor know him yet ye see me and because I live ye shall live also and doth he not say that this spirit of truth should lead and guide them into all truth and bring all things to their remembrance whatever he spakâ while he was seen in the flesh Which the letter doth not for there were many more things that Iesus spake and did that are not written there so many that if they should be written every one it might be supposed the world could not contain what should be written John 14.26 13 21 25. And howbeit he intimates a more sparing Communion in Spirit with his Dâsciples and Church which would be permitted to come to passe by the coming in of the Prince of this world wherein there should not be so much talk as there should be before and would be again after that gloomy day was once over wherein the manifestations of him though as infallible in that small measure wherein they should be made for gradus non variant naturam rei yet as to the measure would not be so great as at other times of which going away and withdrawing even in the spirit also he seemes to speak when he saith A little while and ye shall not see me in which Eclipse the chidren of the night must have a revelling night of rejoycing over the Word and Spirit and Saints sitting in sackcloth and an hour of laughter and merriment at the power of ãâã its prevailing Iohn 16. to 22. yet doth he say that Eclipse should be âoâaâl Was there not some few in every age in whom the Spirit bare a testimony and by whom to the blind world also of little truth And did he not say the Spirit should be in them and abide with them i.e. in the same manner of infallibility in manifestation of whatever he makes known though not in the same measure of manifestation of the truth even for ever Iohn 14.16 And did he not say that the Spirit of truth should testifie of him when he came and so consequently his testimony must be with his Disciples and Church for ever Iohn 15.26 Which testimony is not that of the letter which men wrote at his motion as thou falsely supposest for that is mans mediate testimony and not immediately the Spirits any more then the testimony that men bear by word of mouth as they are moved of which in the very next verse i. e. Iohn 15.27 Christ calls their testimony and not the
of their own hearts the Light within word quoth I. O. meaning still the Letter makes a sufficient Proposition of itself and is sufficient to save where ever it is and he to whom it shall come As it is to all in their hearts who refuses it as Darkness Errour Delusion Euthusiasone Fanaticisme c. ' because it is testified against as so and worse by I. O. and his Followers who calls it Nihil and in a mockage an Imagined Christ c. whether it be I. O. himself in whom Satan testifies all this against it or any other that refuse it upon I. Os. false testimony against it from Satan in him will give an account of his Atheisme and Infidelity He that hath the Witness of God which is the Light within for the Letter without is but mans witness for God as moved by his Spirit to declare outwardly what he inwardly knows of him need not stay for the witness of man which is the Letter without which Letter yet doth abundantly testifie to the Light as greater then itself Wheresoever the Light within word quoth I. O. meaning the Letter still is received indeed as it requireth itself to be received and is really assented ãâã ââ the Word of God sufficient to save it is so received upon the evidence of that Light and sufficiency which it is found and felt by such as walkin it to have and hath in itself to such manifestly declaring it self so to be It s all one by what means by what hand whether of a Child or Babe of stammering lips or of a Church of God for both those wayes it s witnest to without the intimation and knowledge of the Light within us comes to us from God and towards us by being the Word of God it hath its power of manifesting to us the way to life and of manifesting it self so to be from its own innate Light Now this Light in the Scripture i. e. which the Scripture which is not it declares to be in the heart for the sufficiency of which to lead to life without the Scripture as it did before that was we contend hath an impress far more then the Letter hath of Gods Excellency upon it distinguishing it by infallible Tekmeria from the product of any creature or of the meer principles of nature as I. O. dreams for though it was in men from the Creation yet it is not his natural faculty of understanding or the mind or the conscience as he and his fellows foolishly fancy Ex. 4. S. 18. but some thing that is of God and from him which is a witness to him in the conscience and in the mind it is that Spirit in man and Inspiration of the Almighty which giveth him understanding Iob 32.8 that he may know him 1 Iohn 5.20 though all that have it do not know him by it for from may to must there is no arguing by this God dives into the consciences of men into all the secret recesses of their hearts into a which such a gross thing as a meer outward Manuscript cannot get guides teaches directs determines and judges in them upon them in the Name Majesty and Authority of God if the men who are blinded by the god of this world will yet deny this light and not come to it that they may be saved by it because they perceive it not to be sufficient to save them it shall not prejudice them nor hinder their Salvation who do By this self-evidencing sufficiency I say doth the Light within Scripture quoth I. O. make such a Proposition of itself as the Light and Power word quoth I. O. meaning the Letter of God that who ever rejects it doth it at the peril of his eternal ruine and thereby a bottom and foundation is tendred for that faith which it requireth to repose it self upon For the proof then of the sufficiency of the Light within Divine Authority of the Scripture quoth I. O. to lead to life unto him or them who as yet on no account whatever do acknowledge it I shall only suppose that by the Providence of God he or they be brought to the Light Book quoth I. O. so as that he or they be ingaged to the consideration of it or do attend to the leadings of it upon a supposal hereof I leave them and the Light Word quoth I. O. together and if it evidence not its own sufficiency unto their consciences it is because they are blinded by the god of this world which will be no Plea for the refusal of it at the last day and they who receive it not on this ground All never receive it on any as they ought The Light within Scripture quoth I. O. is enrolled among things of that nature as do manifest their own conditionâ It is absolutely called the Power of God and that unto its proper end i.e. Salvation which way lyes the tendency of its efficacy in operation Rom. 1.16 the word concerning the Cross that is the Gospel or the Light for the Light is the cross to the carnal mind will and wisdome is the Power of God 1 Cor. 1.8 and faith which is built on that Light word quoth I. O. not the Letter without other helps or advantages is said to stand in the Power of God 1. Cor. 2.5 This and not the naked Letter is the Rod of his Power or Strength Psa. 110.2 giving all manner of assurance and full perswasion of its own Authority Efficacy and Sufficiency By vertue of this power it hath ever brought forth fruit among such as came to it in all the world in which it is and into which it is come without sword without for the most part miracles without humane wisdom or Oratory without any inducements or motives but what were meerly and solely taken from it self consisting in things that ây hath not seen nor ear heard nor could enter into the heart of man to conceive hath it doth it and will it much more now then ever exert this its power and efficacy to the conquest of the world causing men of all sorts in all times and places where its Ministry comes so to fall down before its Divine Authority as immediately to renounce all that was dear to them in this world and to undergo whatever as dreadful terrible and destructive to nature in all its dearest concernments it is now the work of many to insist on the particulars where in this power exerts it self yea it sel f doth more and more manifest its own sufficiency to condemn and save so that I need not inlarge upon them the workings thereof are spiritual such as have their seat dwelling and abode in the hearts and consciences of men whereby they are not liable to any exception as though they were pretended men cannot hard in themselves in the rejection of the testimony the Light gives by sending for Magicians to do the like or by any pretence that it is a common thing that is bâ fallen them on whom the
for the sin he hath once committed he hath and the sins by which Iohn and they had sinned of old were theirs or else they needed no Saviour nor purging as cursing men possibly might be sins of which Iames and them he writes to could not say we have no such for such and such were some of you saith Paul to the Saints 1 Cor. 6. But now ye are washed sanctified justified by the Spirit c. So that if we confesse he is faithfull and just to forgive and that 's not all though the Priest stops there but to cleanse us from all unrighteousnesse yea the blood of Iesus his Son doth in praesenti cleanse us from All sin If then there be any filth remaining theres not a cleansing from all but if as the Text sayes it was to some it be from all then there 's none at all remaining so as to be committed or acted to defilement though the Saints may be said to have it in and about them so as to be tempted to it while it is fully under them yet temptation to it is not transgression And the same may be said of 2 Cor. 7.1 let us cleanse though Paul himself was cleansed from all uncleannesse of flesh and Spirit then which I know no more pârfecting holinesse in the fear of God who say I commands not impossibilities to the visible Churches in which sundry were who were not clean as Christs Saints and true Disciples are through the word he speakes to them nor cleansing but some waxing worse and worse Ioh. 13.10 11 16 3. Phil. 3.18 19. much lesse doth Christ command no to his true Ministers as fast as false ones hasten to that fruitlesse work if there own doctrine were true in his Name to command what is impossible yet even to the little children in the Church does Iohn write that they sin not 1 Ioh. 2.1 as well as of the young men in commendation that they are strong and have overcome the wicked one and yet there are Fathers beyond all these Next to G. W. mentioning Phil. 3.15 as many as be perfect c. in proof of perfection here T. D. Replyes well-nigh a whole page full of worth nothing which is scarce worth noting on any other account then to shew how 't is worse then nothing to his own purpose 1. He tells us that 's spoken of grown Christians that were perfect in comparison of Babes Rep. That every Babe in Christ is perfect as to the divine nature which assents to no sin much lesse acts it I have shew'd above but if all that are born of God were not perfect yet that some are T. D. there confesses and if but one it proves the possibility of it which we plead against him and he pleads against 2 He tells us that perfect in Scripture is put for upright and these are made Synonimous and of the same import Rep. True Perfect and upright are one and both import no lesse then a man that sins not Eccles. 7.29 Adam in innocency was perfect it 's said God made man upright For while any are upright they are answerable to the Law or Light lent them to live by which sin is the transgression of and so no transgressours and while they transgresse that Law they are not perfect nor upright but crooked and so accounted Whether it be Iob himself whom T. D. so much instances in and insists on p. 10. 1. Pamp. and p. 6. 2. Pamp. or David himselfe or any other Therefore while David stood in integrity and uprightnesse as mostly he did it preserved him and God so accounted him and justified him as an upright man as he did Iob. 1.1 in the same case but where he turn'd aside into the deceit defilement God held him not upright but hypocriticall false filthy and sinfull much lesse did he therein hold him guiltlesse and justifie him as most ignorantly T. D. delivers it that he did p. 38. 1. Pamp. even when he was guilty of adultery and murder in which juncture nevertheless T.D. sayes he was not in a condemned state but in a justified estate The Scripture exempts him from justification so far that it vouchsafes him not that denomination of an upright man in that matter of Vriab but brands him with the name of a pittylesse blood guilty man a secret evill doer in the sight of the Lord a despiser of him and his comandement and a causer of Gods enemies to blaspheme his Name Psal. 51. 2 Sam. 12.6 9 10 12 14. Howbeit this one thing by the way is worth noting concerning T. D. not for any good that is in it or in T. D. as touching his demeanour in it that when he speaks of the Saints good and duty that they do he says that 's not perfect but an unclean thing dung and filthy rags yea that he calls sin and iniquity p. 7. 2. Pamp. They sin quoth he in doing good duties holy for the matter are iniquity for the manner âf performance but when the Saints as in Davids caâe commit Adultery and Murder he pronounces them blessed as having no guile nor guilt in their Spirit but sincere which is the same with upright or perfect see p. 11. 1. Pamp. David quoth he Psal. 32.2 Pronounces the man blessed which hath no guile in his Spirit or sincere which himselfe was at that time though under the guilt of a great sin v. 5. which is by interpreters supposed to be the same sins for which psal 51. was composed Rep. Here 's Doctrine of Divinity with a witnesse when the Saints do the best good they sin their holy things are all as an unclean thing their righteousness is dung filthy rags though T. D. holds also that Paul had no righteousness which was not Christs p. 22. 1. Pamp. nor any righteousnesse but what from Christ he received their performing duty at least is no lesse then iniquity but when they are under the guilt of such great sins as Adultery and Murder oh blessed men they at that time have no guile in their Spirits are in sincerity or to speakin the diminutive Phrase by which sometimes he lessens the foul faults and great sins of the Saints at the worst but under infirmity But be it this or be it that greater or lesse better or âââse infirmity or iniquity good or evill duty or dung righteousness or rags holy or unclean the upshot of all is this the men are blessed men what ere they do they are never in a condemned but ever in a justified estate and let their works be as they will perfect or not perfect good or duty which they call unclean dung iniquity or filthy rags their persons though thus sinning are ever Saints and believers which together with their works are accepted with God who yet say I never accepted any such works as are iniquity and sin nor any Persons while they are the workers of them And as to the remnant of T. D's talk in answer to â â which is
which is the Power of God the Scriptures tells of which who erres from and are ignorant of as the Schollars and Scribes are more then any do erre not knowing the Scripture they scribble on any more then it the Letter is too weak an Engine to set to rights what 's what 's out of order and a Standard which men that lean to it as to that intent find to be but a broken staff that not onely fails their expectation of support from it but also wounds them more and runs into their hands Witnesse the wosul work that the Worlds Ministers make in it for all their Scripture who for and about the Scripture and their sundry silly senses about it self and meanings made of the holy matter that 's plainly made out in it make more havock of whole Nations by stirring them up to war about the Scripture in their wild wisdom wicked wils then ever could have been in Christendom if the Scripture had never been among them at all What wasting devastations and calamity hath been in Germany not onely betwixt Protestants and Papists but also by Protestants i.e. Lutherans and Calvinists within themselves and wherefore but for their divided thoughts upon some few Texts of Scripture And what Errors Heresies straglings from the Truth which is but one and from the true Light the Scripture calls to Did ever any sorts of erring men among whom the Clergy that commonly cryed Whore first have been the chief run out into error in the Christian world who have not pretended at least to own and to be willing to be tryed also by the Scripture Yea the Papists for all their infallible Chair will and do ever when they plead it against Protestants professe pretensively to prove it by the Scripture having a sense for every place to serve their own turns as the Protestant Clergy to serve their turns have another And howbeit it hath been thought in the Protestant part of Europe that all would be unity it self among them and so 't is as to make one against the Pope since men fell from that infinity of imagination and invention which was and was capable to be eternally fed with the endless fuel which the unerring Breast and boundless treasure of tradition could easily finde for it and betook themselves more singly to the Scriptures marching from Rome under the conduct of the purity of the Originals as thou speakest p. 207 of the Scritures yet what multiplication of divisions for want of coming to the light which is but one in all and in which alone all true unity is had and held with God and one another 1 Ioh. 1.5 6 7 8. rather then any diminution thereof hath fell out in your Reformed Churches as ye call them ãâã all the Scriptures being so all in all among them so that like the Serpent Hydraus hundred Heads whereof when Hercules cut off one two grew up after it in the place as soon as one controversie among the Reform'd Clergy was hoped to be ended though I know none was ever truly ended yet by all the Synodical designs that ever were on foot in this Nation or any other so that we may truly say of every Synod of Divines that hath yet fate Quis Synodus Nodus Patrum Chorus Integer Aeger Conventus Ventus Sessio Stramen Amen Many new ones began that like new fresh Hares starting upon tired Hounds that have been hot in the old sent have run them all out of breath or if any evil of division in one thing hath been put to an end it hath been but a preparative to a greater breach among the Protestant Clergy and all their creatures and still Finis alterius Mali gradus est Futuri Yea I may say of thy Scriptures as thou pleads for them J.O. to end all strife withall as I may say of our English Oaths impos'd upon poor persons to the impeaching themselves when they come before our crooked Courts in Case of Tythes viz. that the Oaths given on pretence of ending all strife are in truth given by the Judges to begin all strife with For if an honest man will not swear how many Eggs and Pigs and Pears and Plumbs c. he hath had for so many years past they will not permit him to plead at all or strive in his own defence against his Persecutor In like manner it is with that which thou exhibit'st to men in order to the ending all Divisions and Disputes viz. the meer looking beside the Light within into the Letter of the Scriptures which is so far from finishing any strife that it feeds vain foolish loose mindes such as thine that hates the light none else with fuel and furnishes their fancies with matter for many more strifes then they would find cause for if they kept to the Light within alone for their learning or at least so as in that alone to look into the Letter where such as learn at the Light may read their own Yea dark minds diving into the Scripture divine lyes enough out of it to set whole Countreys on fire as the Divines have ever done And as to the purity of the Originals under the Conduct of which thou saist ye went from Rome wishing none may return thither under pretence of their corruption I say the purity of them which thou pleadest in that height thou dost is but pretended and that more or less corrupted they are to the contradicting thy self thy self art forced to confess p. 167. as is shewed above but be they as they are or how they will be pure or not pure to a tittle as thou assertest them they are so far from relieving you in your wearisom wrathful strifes that cum nemini obtrudi potest itur ad me may your Original Text say when the Divines can have leisure to cease a little from their strife about the holy matter and Doctrine of it then rather then sit still and be quiet or be idle from their common Calling which is contention they 'l role Sysiphus his stone and be at wars and tear one another about the very Letter and their Original Transcripts of it and try that out tooth and nail whether they be true or no in every Letter Tittle Point and Iota as they were written as the first Yea O curas hominum though for truth and wisdom and the Scriptures sake which I own and honour as holy just and good and of precious use to such as know and obey the truth I am become such a fool with them by answering them according to their folly as to make this one Skiâmish among them about the Scripture that I may bring some of them to the truth and light of God in them in which only the union is that they may cease henceforth from their stirs strifes which light til they turn to I testifie to them that their way is as slippery places in the dark in which they will be driven on till they fall therein that
in it is the Word of God as T. 2. c 2 s. 5.6 that tam in esse reali as cognoscibili Ex 1 s. 1. the Scripture both is and doth infallibly evidence it self unto the consciences of men that are not blinde to be assuredly the Word of God See his first Title page and T. 1. c. 4. s. 1. and that men that beleeve not as he implicitly beleeves in this being obliged so to beleeve upon the penalty of eternal damnation at the peril of their own eternal ruine and such like are left unexcusable in their damnable unbeleef T. 1. c s. 5. T. 1 c. 3. s 6. T. 1 c 4. s. 14. and who saith That his chief business with the Qua. is de noveine Scripturae proprio Ex. 1. s. 1 2 3. about the proper name of the Scripture and to stablish it under that glorious Title the Word of God as that proper name of it which the chief business committed by Satan to the Qua. that they rejoyce in is to spoyl it of yea how will all those figurative forms of speech list I.O. out of that Quâgmire wherein he sticks and into which he hath rashây run himself by his hasty quarrelling with the Qua. who is far from being satisfied if the Truth and Doctrine of the Scriptures be confessed to be sufficiently declared in the Scripture unless he be infallibly assured that every Tittle and Iota as it was at first written stands truly transcribed in his Copies of it and so far from being satisfied if by a figure it should be granted as it need not for it s no where called so that the Scripture is the Word of God that he professes Ex. 1.34 that if that Declaration that Writing which declares the minde and will of God be not the Word of God he knows not what is the Word of God if he may not call the Scriptures by that name the Word of God is so far Ignorant of any name else to call it by as to call out to the Qua. to tell him what to call it if he may not call it by that name Si hoc non sit verbum Dei quoth I. O ego nescio quid sit aut deceant nos Fanatici quid illud dicendum sit c if the declaration of the will of God i.e. the Scripture be not the Word of God I know not what it is or let the Fanaticks teach us what we may call it these and many more to the like Tune are the eminent Titles which I.O. not by a metonymy but in truth as their proper priviledge and real right attributes in words at length and not in figures to the outer Scriptures these are the lofty terms wherein in throughout all his Treatises he treats on their behalf not with all others only that are his Opposers in other matters but with the Qua. also who own the Scripture in its own proper name use and place and own the Truth written of to be the Word much more then he doth himself but about the Scriptures oppose him only as to these his childish thoughts Such are the high rigid unrighteous strickt streins he stands upon and stickles in and that so stifly that he is minded either to win all or lose all and if he be not owned as stiling of the Scripture truly and properly when he stiles it by the names of other things which truly and properly it is not he will no more own it under its own true and proper names of writing Letter Scripture but make himself altogether ignorant of these as if hee had quite forgotten and could in no wise call to minde that hee hath any other names at all whereby it can be called save those undue ones of his own imposing Now when a man begins to swell out with his wind of Doctrine into such a bubble as knows no bounds its time to blow him out and when he grows into such a giddy greedy hydropical humour as not to know what ground he stands on nor how to stand still and sit down satisfied when hee is well nor well to understand when he hath enough nor to slack his thirst with a just and lawful allowance its good Venienti occurre morbo Danda est elleboritali pars maxima Avaro As there is no reason that he should have all he desires so it s but reason that his brain be purged from such excrements as occasion such extraordinary extravagancies that if he will never be otherwise then so fantastically Fanatical yet hee may insanire cum ratione be moderated at least as to his height of madness be taken down a peg or two and brought from his high Garret into a lower Story about the Scriptures that if he will have no nay but they must needs be call'd the Word it may be no otherwise then the Cup is called the Wine which though by a Metonymy the Wine is sometime called the Cup yet is never or very seldome if at all For my part I am free rather then he shall take on ad ravimusque and cry himself hoarse and wrong himself as he doth with so much wrangling and restless wrestling for the Letter which he more loves to talk of then lives the life of and longs for so that is not likely he will be at quiet unless we still him by piping to the same tune with him at least a little to please him so far to his profit in order to the saving of his longing as to allow him a little i.e. so much leave as by the foresaid Figure to call the Glass window or the Lanthorn the Light which in truth and properly are not so but as that Taylor which having an inch of cloath granted him for his minds sake about so much as will serve for a pattern incroaches so as to steal an ell or enough to make a suit of and from Top to Toe cloaths himself therewith accordingly wouâd have no wrong to have his goodly garment torn off or else beaten well upon his back with his own yard so if I.O. who begs the whole question be not pleased with his poor pittance which yet is the largest allowance that Truth it self allows us to allow him but will be a chuser as Beggars must not be and his own Carver and carve out the Scriptures which is more then salva veritate we can give him or he can justly take on him to do into no less then a patern a lydium lapidem a touch stone of all Truth a standard for all Spirits even that of God by which it and all Spirits and Scriptures else are to be tried to be most truly tâied by a Rule an immoveable stable perfect the most perfect the only Rule of Gods worship and our obedience in matters of faith and manners as Ex. 3. s. 20 24 25. Ex. 1. s. 5 6. Ex. 3. s. 32. Ex. 4. s. 17. so that since the Churches compleating of its Canon no Revelations internal Spirit and consequently not that
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 upân suppossâion 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 pârâ-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 seâf 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. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã 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 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã into a Gârment 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 âenters as to strain it into ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã 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