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A43233
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Controversy ended, or, The sentence given by George Fox himself against himself and party in the persons of his adversaries ratified and aggravated by W. Penn (their ablest advocate) even in his huffing book of the vindication of G.F. &c. : being a defence of that little book intituled, The spirit of the Quakers tryed ...
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Hedworth, Henry.
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1673
(1673)
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Wing H1351; ESTC R19542
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43,134
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72
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was done to the Prophets and Apostles Therefore G. F. in the very beginning of his Mystery as I hinted before showing the ground of difference between the Priests and Professors and all Sects in these Nations and the Quakers saith That the controversie on their part is just and equal against them all and that they have sufficient cause to cry against them and to deny their Ministry their Church their Worship and their whole Religion as being not in the Power and by the Spirit of the living God Compare this with what I have cited before and then it plainly appears that all right Quakers in G. Fox's sense have renounced or denyed their Faith Worship and whole Christian Religion which they had before they were Quakers as being grounded as ours is upon Reason Scriptures the Preaching of Jesus and his Apostles and Prophets and Tradition with an assistance of the Holy Spirit elevating the mind but not upon immediate objective Revelation such as the Apostles and Prophets had and such as the Quakers now pretend to have For we and those that differ from them profess those things before mentioned to be the ground of our Faith they profess the last of Immediate Revelation to be the ground of their Faith and Religion and deny ours to be Divine Faith or true Religion Nay they cry out against it as foolishness and darkness literal and lifeless So then W. P. doth but make a fair flourish when he faith p. 39. The Scriptures we own and the Divine Truth therein contained we reverence and esteem as the Mind and Will of God to men For they cannot according to their Principles esteem any saying of Scripture be it that God raised up the Lord Jesus from the dead or any other word of any Apostle or of Christ himself I say they cannot esteem it as the Mind and Will of God except they have an immediate Revelation dictating the same unto them Which if they have then the Scripture is superfluous to them and they do no more esteem it the Mind and Will of God because it is written in the Bible than if it had been written in any other Book among Fables and Lies These things considered I argue thus If among the Professors of Religion in these Nations there be those that sincerely confess the Lord Jesus and heartily believe that God raised him from the dead upon the grounds forementioned and not upon the ground of immediate objective Revelation of God's Holy Spirit then G. Fox and the Quakers deny and cry out against true Christian Faith and Religion and consequently cannot have them Again If men in general cannot savingly believe without hearing a sent Preacher then men cannot believe by immediate inward Revelation and then they that assert they can and do and deny the Antecedent cannot have saving Faith The Antecedent is true from Rom. 10.13 14 15. The Consequent from the opposition between mediate and immediate 1 Cor. 1.18 They to whom the preaching of the Cross is foolishness and not the Power of God cannot have Gospel-Faith But to G. F. and some Quakers the preaching of the Cross without immediate Revelation is foolishness and not the Power of God Therefore G. F. c. cannot have Gospel-Faith Let us proceed now to the other Instances of Scripture abus'd and show the tendency of it to false Doctrine Inst 29. Next he would vindicate G. F. in correcting the Translators for rendring 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I protest by 1 Cor. 15.31 saying there is nothing in the Greek for I protest and yet Mr. P. cannot but grant that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is commonly at least a particle of Swearing and if but so it follows that there is something in the Greek that answers I protest by for supposing that not to be the sense of the place which the current of Interpretors say is yet there is that word there which will bear such a Translation there is something in the Greek for I protest which G. F. denies and therein imposes upon his Reader which is enough for my purpose Here W. P. p. 91 that he may be true to his presumptuous way of arguing though he venture the abusing God and Men tells us That an Oath having been made from the distrust of honesty in him that was to take it where the cause Lyes Equivocations c. is removed the effect Swearing should cease As if Christ or rather God himself had distrusted his own honesty when he sware unto Christ Thou art a Priest for ever after the Order of Melchisedec or the Patriarch Abraham the Father of the Faithful had distrusted God's honesty and therefore God sware to him to free him from his dissidence and not because as the Scripture speaks God was willing more abundantly to shew unto the Heirs of Promise the immutability of his Counsel Heb. 6.17 30. Next we come to that Text in Matth. 23. Neither be ye called Masters c. Here as his manner is he abuses my words as if he came out of Bedlam and then my Argument must be a Bedlam one Read both and compare for I may not now repeat If the Quakers restrain the Text where they have reason why may not others restrain it where they have as good reason and that without blaming the Text or strange irreverence to Holy Writ If my Neighbour be a Master of Servants why may I not treat him in compellation as such and not as if he had no Servant and were himself a Servant And by Mr. P's favour I count it no sin to call another Man's Wife Good Wife or another Man's She-Servant Maid Mr. P. doth but no sin to tell me I have told a plain lye when himself has made my words so by detracting from them And therefore the Reader has no reason to believe him when he saith Civil honour namely of calling Master is repugnant to common Truth and Christian Religion But I wonder W. P. should take so much pains to vindicate Stephen in calling the Counsel of the Jews Men Brethren and Fathers who yet were not his proper Fathers for he might with more ease have done it by saying He had a special impulse for it as the Quaker that came many score of miles as they said to perform his obeysance to Margaret Fell at her own House where at a solemn Meeting the Man rose up from his Seat and went and fell down upon his knees with his Hat in his hand directly before Margaret Fell and made his humble address to her by the compellation of my dear Mother and beseech'd her to pray for him In like manner on the third or fourth day after John Stubs at another Meeting requested the like favour of her with his Hat under his Arm standing and calling her My dear everlasting Mother The truth of these things can be prov'd by eye and ear-witnesses and I suppose there are some Quakers that will attest them This is that Margaret Fell who was formerly Judge Fell's
renders all Discourse vain and inessectual Or is it possible to convince those men by Reason that will deny the evidence of Sense Besides how can there be either end or fruit of writing where a man shall not only musunderstand things that are plain but impute to his Adversary Words and Sayings of his own coyning and proceed to the bitterest reproaches thereupon and in the mean time omit to take notice of Matters of moment Therefore I have entituled this Discourse CONTROVERSIE ENDED for I am bold to affirm that it must either be ended here or if not It may be continued infinitely upon the same grounds What remains then to be done but earnestly to beg of God through Jesus Christ that he would give them repentance to the acknowlegment to the Truth O Holy Jesus who wast dead but art alive and livest for evermore who wast crucified through weakness but livest through the Power of God to whom God even thy Father hath given al Power in Heaven and Earth who canst be touched with the feeling of our Infirmities for thou wast in all things tempted as we are Have pity upon these men who some of them have a zeal of God but not according to knowledge work in them Humility and enlighten the eyes of their minds that they may acknowledge thee to be their Lord and the Mediator between God and Men that they may no longer despise that Knowledge and Faith of thee which is by Preaching or Tradition through the Holy Scriptures but may contend earnestly for the Faith which was once delivered to the Saints Have morey upon me O Lord pardon mine Infirmities and judge whether I have not been as careful not to wrong them in this Work as I would have them or any man to be of not injuring me and grant that it may be fo benefit and advantage to many and that thou mayest be glorified thereby Amen POSTSCRIPT NOw it will appear whether there be any prudent and houest men among the Governing Quakers by their dealing with W. P. for this Book of his for I appeal to the Reader whether he thinks there be any such inconsiderable Society of Christians in England that would not either have requir'd a publick acknowledgment of his Offence or have disown'd that Member which should have wrote in their Desence a Book of 138 papges and but two of them that is p. 130 and 131. that have any pertinency of Auswer to their Antagonist's chief Argument and that also which is there alledg'd to be partly false and altogether inconsequent save against himself But to contain many pages that directly confirm and aggravate the Charge brought against them and moreover to be so stuff with palpable calumnious and self-praysing untruths and virulent Language that it makes their Cause and Dealing odious in the sight of sober men all which I have prov'd W. P. to have done in relation to the Quakers It will easily appear to the considering Reader that I have for brevity sake omitted to impprove many Advantages which my rash Adversary has given me contenting my self to in timate them and so proceed And he that has diligently and judiciously read my Epistle and his Answer may perceive that I have not so much as intimated divers things of much advantage to my Cause and Person Among those is that Passage in p. 136. where he essayes to answer some of my Reasons for keeping my Name from them and sayes very civilly That I horribly bilie them why wherein Not in this That there are some of their Writers that make it a great part of their Answers to Books the reproaching the Author Let this very Book of W. P. be an Instance How many Sheets must it have wanted if all of that kind had been substracted Not in this That they are very Rhetorical in that point I am perswaded W. P. could not Rhetoricate so well in the praise of any Person in the World G. Fox not excepted as he hath in reproach of me He has taken up one of Muggleton's peculiar Phrases wherewith to abuse me and my Friends calling us Serpentine Associates It 's like Muggleton had us'd it in W. P's hearing and W. P. according to his nature was taken with it and so bestowed it upon his next Adversary Neither in this do I belie them that if they had my Name then it must be considered what Party I am of and accordingly all that is odious or so reputed either in the Doctrine or Practice of the whole Party must be raked up against me Let his Book be witness whether he has not dealt so with me even upon a suspition of my name But saith he we never charg'd the infirmities of a single Person further then upon that guilty Person unless he were connived at or justifyed in his wickedness by any whole Party Now here lies the Wit If any part of the Charge be not found apparent all the rest how manifest soever must go for a horible lie But W. P. kind Man will not put me to much trouble in searching for an Instance It is but turning back to p. 7. and there I find a single Person described as it were in a Hue and Cry and his being wanting in the very Alphabet of common civility attributed plurally to him and me at least and I think to all the Party that W. P. assigns for us Has he not then rak'd up against me what is odious or so reputed both in the Doctrine and Practice of a Party and of a particular Person Which he can never prove me guilty of justifying in that case Another Instance shall be of an elder date see the Epistle to G. Whitehead's Divinity c. where G. F. tells the Presbyterians and Independents that when the people of God called Quakers were gathered together in divers places to Worship God then you said They were plotting together against Oliver whom some of you called the Light of your Eyes and Breath of your Nostrils to bring in King Charles If they can make it appear which I much doubt that one or another Presbyterian or Independent did suggest any such thing against them it can never be believed by any sober Man that that Person was connived at or justifyed therein by one or both Parties Presbyterians or Independents and yet here G. F. and J. S. impute it to them both indefinitely and that so as thereby to insinuace that the Quakers were generally at least esteemed Friends to the King and sufferes upon that account But the Presbyterians and Independents Friends to Oliver and Enetnies to the King and the Quakers O the Candour and Simplicity of G. Fox O the Modesty and Meekness of W. Pen Again Inreference to their calling men Tinker or Tayler W. P. replyes We never told the World mens Trades in a way of detraction or reproach our Souls abbor it When he has taken shame to himself in the ingenuous acknowledgment to the World of those untruths I have prov'd him guilty of then he may better be believed In the mean time who can believe that G. W. did not call Bunyan the Tinker by way of detraction when he adds immediately a rayling envious man and in a late Pamphlet calls rayling Language Tinkers-Rhetorick Besides Tinker is a term of reproach and he that is such may by Stature be punished as a Rogue FINIS The Book intituled The Spirit of the Quakers tryed c. is to be had at the Elephant and Castle heat the Royal Exchange in Cornhil London Why may not he prophane Scripture to abuse men Mystery Epist It had been to be desired that he had not failed in his English in this place The instances of these things out of G. F's Book are to be seen in my Epistle p. 5 6. The Mystery of the great Whore I suppose they will not deny that writing to all the Worlds in defence of Religion is Speaking or Preaching or equivalent * Here this great Linguist has forgot to write good English that is his Mother Tongue What an unworthy thing is it in W. P. to intimate p. 67. that I would have the Text rendered Haec est lux illa vere quae venientem in mundum illuminat omnem hominem Ambiguitatem sustulisset See p. 68 c. W.P. p. 13. W. P. p. 117. P. 127. Divinity of Christ Pref. P. 119. He chargeth me p. 61. with driving at the Divestigating Christ of all right to eternal Divinity This is learned non sense G. F's spirit could never elevate him to such a degree of Jargon Besides except he can produce some Author for it which I am perswaded he cannot I shall conclude him the first that ever us'd the word divestigate or divestigare in any sense whatsoever Though the word One is not in the Hebrew in some Texes where he so confidently puts an Emphasis Yet eight lines after himself confounds and abuses Scripture Heb. 2.16 with Rom. 4.5 Non-sense as was observed before pag. 68. pag. 92. Tradita