of doing and darkly vailed over with Types and Ceremonies They heard of doing more then believing and the administration gendred as the Apostle saith Gal. 4. 24. unto bondage every carnal heart conceiving there was nothing ministred of righteousness or strength at all from another and being called and counted nothing but Law hence it is that the spirit of bondage is said more commonly to sute that Old administration The Church in this time was considered as an Heir in its minority As an Heir it was free but as an Infant or in its minority it was but as a servant under Tutors and Governors Gal. 4. 1. As an Heir true believers had then the Spirit of Adoption and Liberty As a Childe it had the spirit of fear and servitude And as it was but a dark and servile administration comparatively to what it is So 2. There was but a scanty proportion of graces and gifts as to the generality even of true believers they had little illumination and a small measure of sanctification I speak of the greater number of the Saints to what is and will be given since Christs Ascension from the greatest to the least 3. The dispensation of Grace and its covenant was but to a few families for a time and afterwards but to one nation springing out of those families under the new admistration the Covenant is made with all sorts of families and with some of every nation In stead of one there have been and are many Churches Acts 9. 31. and 15. 14. Every where God hath had and will have a people taken out from among the Gentiles or nations a select company for his Name 4. The seals and witnesses of the Testament are altered from Old to New and although the writings of the old copy remain i. e. the Books of the Old Testament because the substance of the covenant is there to be read and understood by the shadows yet there are new writings added i. e. the Books of the New Testament for clearer understanding and more assurance of faith when both are compared together The reason of the whole change of the old administration The reason of the change of old into new administration to the new in the particulars named was faultiness or imperfection It is the wisdom of God to proceed from ways less perfect to that which is more perfect Heb. 8. 7. If that first Covenant or Testament that is the first administration of the covenant of Grace had been fault less Heb 8 7. opened then should no place have been sought for the second How was it faulty 1. In that it made nothing perfect Cap. 7. 19. All in that old way especially the Sacrifices being typical and shadowy they of themselves could not take away sins therefore Christ whose body was fitted for a sacrifice he comes and puts by the shadows and types Heb. 10. 9. He takes away the first administration that he may establish the second the perfection of his own sacrifice and all that attends it in the new administration His blood stancheth all other blood stays the further shedding of the blood of Bulls and Goats and he coming by Blood and not by Water onely hath left to his Church a commemoration and obsignation of both in his new Institutions of Baptism and his Supper 2. In that people could not as it was dispensed after the maner of a covenant of Works though not so in it self possibly see how to stand or continue in it They stumbled at the Ceremonies and stuck in the Letter of the Law and could not see unto the end of that which is now abolished 2 Cor. 3. 13. But whence was the fault God was not to be blamed nor the substance of his Covenant but he lays the blame upon them who were willing to stand under such an administration and would not look to the kernel marrow and substance of it which was Christ But as it was the Jews infidelity which turned as to them that which was a covenant of Grace into a covenant of Works sticking in the rinde and bark of the Ceremony and which excluded and shut them out from the Grace of the covenant so do many thousands under the new administration the greater is their sin insist upon terms of doing and obeying the Light within them and God lets them go on and work their heart out if they will for life let them get it win it and wear it although he tells them it is impossible for if the Jews in all the Ceremonies of old should have lookt to Christ in them and beyond them the Gentiles should upon the first hearing of Christ believe on him and begin and end all their duties with the use of all New Testament Institutions in him or they will lose all their labor as did the Jews Arguments to disprove the Levitical Law as no covenant of works 3. I shall adde a few Arguments to disprove the Levitical Law from having been a covenant of Works 1. It was a covenant outwardly made with the people and that the people outwardly made with God by sacrifice Psalm 50. 6. But the covenant of Works was never made by sacrifice it admits of no expiation or atonement The sacrifices under the Law were shadows of that blood which is the blood of the everlasting covenant Heb. 13. 20. The blood of Christ the blood of the New Testament or the new administration of the covenant of Grace not to be altered but to abide for ever in its all-sufficient vertue and efficacy 2. That which carried all along with it remission of sins was no covenant of Works but of Grace but the Levitical Law had remission of sins going along with it for as the Apostle reasoneth Heb. 9. 22. with 18. without shedding of blood there is no remission whereupon the first Testament or * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 disposition of Christs will was not dedicated without blood but that there might be assurance of remission to believers even then that blood was shed which not being able to take away sin of it self did type out Christs blood which could and should effect it A covenant dedicated by blood first typical and then true is the same for substance 3. In the Levitical Law was a Mediator a Priest daily to offer and a high Priest once a year to offer the incense of mediation in the Holy of Holies in the covenant of Works there is no Intercessor or Mediator but we have in the covenant of Grace Christ our Priest and high Priest answering that in the new which was typed out in the old dispensation Heb. 9. 15. For this cause he is the Mediator of the New Testament c. and Ver. 12. by his own blood he entred in once into the holy place c. 4. In the Levitical Law was the Mercy-seat there is no Mercy-seat set up in a covenant of Works There was a common favor in it that God should vouchsafe to enter into
the Scripture Against their magnifying of every mans light and the Law within them Mr. Saltmarsh hath this savory passage The natural Law Rom. 2. 14 15. Flowings of Christs blood page 6. is but weak in respect of any transforming power it hath as the Law of the Spirit hath in it self We see in a clear frosty night though the moon shines very bright and the stars too yet not so but it is cold and hard as if there were no light at all c. If R. F. stumbled at that passage * Ib. page 146 Though the Law be a beam of Christ in substance and matter yet we are not to live by the light of one beam now when the Sun of righteousness is risen himself He might have recovered himself by that which followeth * Ib page 150 There is a doctrine of holiness in the Gospel as of grace and love Gospel commands fits man who is made up of flesh and spirit and so hath need of a Law without and in the Letter as well as in the heart and spirit The Law is spiritual but we are carnal Rom. 7. nor can such a state of flesh and spirit be ordered by a Law onely within c. He might have learned how the justified person is perfect while his sanctification is imperfect A person justified or in covenant is as pure in the Ib. page 129. sight of God as the righteousness of Christ can make him though not so in his own eyes that there may be work for faith because God sees his onely in Christ not in themselves He might have been instructed That Christ is not ours by an act of our own but Gods Ib. page 188. God imputing and accounting Against the dream of perfect sanctification in their sense he might have observed such a passage as this The body of sin is in a Ib. page 67. Believer more or less till he lay down this body and take up a glorious one And again Can you have any assurance that the change that is in any childe of God in this life or their sanctification is such in any particular act or work as there is no spot of sin in it is it not mixt of flesh and spirit If he grew sick of opinion by one passage he might have been cured and relieved by some other But whatever were that good mans Naevi blemishes or specks my Antagonist and his fellows are transported with another kinde of spirit even with that of Marcion and Montanus and his Enthusiastical Associates and the Manichees who troubled the Church as a very learned Brother * Dr. John Owen vindic Evang Pref. to the Readers page 4. hath already hinted with their madness and folly and with that spirit which acted the fanatick and furious Libertines who called themselves spiritual in Calvin's time ninety years ago who placed our redemption in this That Christ was but as a Type Image or Exemplar in whom all those things were figured which were required to our salvation Moreover as they imagine saith Calvin Caeterum ut imaginantur nemo nostrûm non est Christus quodque in ipso factum est in omnibus effectum dicunt Calvini Opuscula Instructio adversus Libertinos pag. 214. there is not one of us but is Christ and what was done in him they say is performed in all Hence one Quintinus * Quomodo inquit an Christus male habere potest pag. 215. was very angry as often as he was asked How he did How said he can it be otherwise then well Christ * Christus ipsis idolum est 10. a Deum blasphemari alunt siquis limentetur aut sensum aliquem doloris prae se serat ibid. pag 217. They as that most learned and godly man saith make an idol of Christ Further as he noteth a They say that God is blasphemed if any bewails his condition or makes a shew of any sense of grief So as a by their opinion to a Sic corum sententia veterem Adamum mortificare nibil aliud est quam nihil discernere ibid. pag. 218. mortifie the old man is nothing else but to be sensible of nothing b Siquis peccata sua considerans sibi displiceat ac moerore afficiatur peccatum adhuc in ipso regnare aiunt sensu carnis suae captivum teneri ib. pag. 219. For if any be displeased with himself and grieved upon the consideration of his sins they say sin reigneth in him and that he is held captive by the feeling of his own-corruption Such a spirit follows these men as acted H. N. in Flanders who wrote seven and twenty small Treatises and Epistles to brood the Sect and broach the doctrine of the Familists admired by some at this day that understand not the mystery of iniquity See Answ to a famous Libel of ◠◠by John Rogers printed An. 1579. therein or love not the truth in Scripture but are given up to strong delusions that they might believe a lie The lie of perfect holiness and justification thereby The lie of the light in every man to be Christ And that Adam was nothing but the old man or corrupt qualities and Christ nothing else but the new man or new qualities Hence our men make nothing of the Historical letter of Christs Death Resurrection c. but turn all into an Allegory and according to H. N. * Joyful message of the kingdom by H. N. p. 170. they are ready to call those things meer lies which the Scripture-learned through the knowledge which they get out of the Scripture bring in institute preach and teach From what spirit that H. N. wrote may clearly be discerned by that one piece of his translated out of base Almayn into English An 1652 wherein after all his exotick and uncouth divinity c See from page 153. to 163. he plainly cries up the Catholique Church of Rome the Holy Father the Pope his Cardinals his Bishops his Parish-priests his Deacons his Sextons and Monks and condemneth them that have deserted Rome as having unorderly rejected and blasphemed the Services and Ceremonies of the Catholick Church rented the Concord and nurturable Sustentation of the same and turned away therefrom The scope of the book is but to lead captive to Babylon all blinded Professors who hold not the Truth if ever they received it in the love of it Yet again such a spirit haunts these men called Quakers as professed Jacob Behme in Germany about thirty years by-past He slights * Two Theosophical Epistles p 24. the righteousness imputed from without so do they * Concerning the Election of Grace by J. Behme p. 81 and 142. He magnifieth the little spark within whereby the Father he saith draws them all to Christ and teacheth all within them thereby so say they In Adam a Ib. page 118 quoth he stood the kingdom of grace and R. Farnworth will not have Adam stand in innocency under
the children of Israel verse 22. Moses therefore wrote this song the same day and taught it them When Jeremy could not go into the house of the Lord he sends Baruch his Scribe to read what was written from his mouth even the words of the Lord in the ears of the people c. Jer. 36. 4 6. * See also Jeremiah 28. 1. Paul had his Tertius to write the Epistle to the Romans cap. 16. 22. and he ordereth the Epistle to the Colossians to be read amongst them and that they cause it to be read also in the Church of the Laodiceans Col. 4. 16. and read it was as the word of the Lord unto them yea God hath so honored his written Bible that he hath ordered as well the Copies as the Autographum or the Pen-mans own hand-writing to be his Scripture also Those Proverbs of Solomon which the men of Hezekiah copied out Prov. 25. 1. are as authentique as any of the rest so was the Copy which the King wrote out according to Gods command Deut. 17. 18. 2. Printing was a rare Invention and the gift of God Printing invented betwixt the 1440 1450 year of our Lord. See Mr. Fox vol. 1. p. 927. above two hundred years ago The benefit is sufficiently noted by Mr. Fox Hereby Tongues are known Knowledge groweth Judgement increaseth Books are dispersed the Scripture is seen the Doctors be read Stories are opened Times compared Truth discerned Falshood detected and with the finger pointed And by the printing of the Bible the doctrine of the Gospel hath sounded The benefit of Printing and of printed Bibles to all nations and that with great expedition So many Printing-presses of the Bible so many Clock-houses against the high Towers of Antichrist none but Papists have envied Gods people and Christs Preachers a Printed Bible Who were they that obstructed what they could the printing of it in English in King Henry the 8. days but the Popish Prelates and their creatures The Popish Vicar of Croyden Caiaphas-like prophesied Either we must root out Printing or Printing will root out us Every good Christian have been glad of a piece of a Printed Bible when it came first out in our Mother-language 3. The later this Mercy hath been vouchsafed to have Printed Bibles the greater Gods favor to his people and the greater their Ingratitude who slight the Mercy the greater their pride who would rather have their own Scriblings in print then the Scriptures of God who prefix to their writings as these Quakers so called in many of their Pamphlets This is the word of the Lord but are against such a Title to a Printed Bible or such a Preface before a Sermon from a Bible-Text as this Hear the word of the Lord. 4. If the printed Bible be according to the Original Copy or a true Extract or faithful Translation of Scripture it is as warrantable to preach out of it as out of a written one for Printing is one kinde of writing what is first written by a pen is after written by a stamp The Press is but an handmaid to Orthography or right-writing and a Midwife to help forth the conceptions of the Minde formed at first by the pen. But saith R. F. * Page 6. if Printing had not been invented what would you hâ—ve preached by that knows not the word of Life which was before Writing or Printing was Rep. 1. The written Copies were before those printed and by the former onely Gods servants preached till the latter came forth and according to those Copies and Volumes of Gods book would I have preached 2. Those Copies would have taught me as now they do that which R. F. hath not learnt by the printed although he might learn it namely to distinguish between the Essential word of Life Christ the Son of God and the The word of God essential scriptural Scriptural word 3. As the Essential word was before the Scriptural so he was before Visions and Revelations were given to men yea before there was a holy man to receive them or a world for holy men or others to inhabit Lastly As no true prophet or preacher ever rejected a written or a printed Bible truely so and so called no more hath he denied it the Title of the word of the Lord. Never did the Lord send such an ignorant prophet like J. P. at Coggeshall to turn to the nineteenth chapter of the Revelation and tell the people because ver 13. Christs name is called The word of God therefore the Bible and Scriptures he pluckt out of his pocket and held in his hand was not the word of God But though false prophets pervert the Printed Bible and use that Sword of God to cut its own throat Gods faithful Messengers and Interpreters know how to handle it dexterously and faithfully What is the chaff to the wheat saith the Lord Jer. 23. 28. What are mans words our own or other mens words to the Lords What is a false Interpretation or Application of Scripture to the true Section 3. IN answer to the third Section R. F. owneth John Lawsons words which I had noted viz. Wâ— have nothing to try men by but the Letter the Bible or written word which is natural and carnal with his own words Your Tryer is a Chapter or Verse of the Scriptures declaration and now upbraideth us for having no better way to try mens Doctrine and Spirits by then the Letter Rep. By the Letter or writing of the Spirit of God which The Scriptures the tryer of Doctrine is the Law and the Testimony we do know what is the Doctrine of the Spirit The Spirit gives his sense and minde by letters and words of Scripture all along take one place with another And when men speak according to that word of Scripture Law and Testimony Isaiah 8. 20. which cannot Isaiah 8. 20â— cleared be but when they take the word in and with its true sense then they bring not mans Doctrine but Gods but if they speak not according to that word it is not because there is not light sufficient in the Scripture-word but because there is no light in them that handle it and speak of it their hearts are dark their judgements blinde and ignorant and they bring not the Spirits Doctrine but their own As for instance R. F. if you will believe him without tryal saith for himself and his fellows We speak according to it viz. the Law and the Testimony and therefore there is light in us But fearing he should not be believed upon his own testimony he brings a verse of Scripture for it 2 Cor. 2 Cor. 4. 6 vindicated 4. 6. where 1. He allows that in himself which he condemns in us viz. to make a Chapter or Verse of the Scripture the tryer 2. He sets that Scripture in opposition to Isaiah 8. 20. and while he pretendeth to speak according to Law and Testimony he perverts the testimony given by
the sphere of its activity to effect From the Scripture Rom. 7. 7. which I briefly pointed at as contradicted by J. N. and others of this opinion I had not known lust except the law had said Thou shalt not covet I hinted an Argument which I shall now give forth in form That which will not so much as discover the fall will not though own'd and obeyed lead out of the fall But the light given to every man will not so much as discover the fall Therefore it will not though own'd and obeyed lead out of the fall The first proposition I thus confirm There is no delivery without a discovery The other thus Pauls light did not discover the fall nor other mens light which they have from their coming into the world did never will never so much as discover the fall In the fall will be found Adams sin all mens sinning in him their being born in the guilt of that sin in the want of Gods image and in the roots of all actual sin What a stranger was Paul in his Pharisaism to all these Discoveries who knew not the least lusting of the heart to be sin till he was enlightned by the Spirit into the commandment of the written Law which saith Thou shalt not lust the same ignorance is in every man notwithstanding their in-bred light concerning in-bred lust and original corruption till by the light of the same commandment the Spirit of conviction brings it home to his heart With what an impudent evasion doth R. F. entertain his Reader by telling him that J. Nayler witnesseth with Christ who is the true light and such as obey the light and follow Christ they are led thereby out of the fall Rep. 1. James Nayler saith not such as obey Christ but such as obey it he speaks of the Light-given and its power 2. R. F. confounds the Light-given and the Light-giver as often elswhere together and yet attributes the leading out of the fall to it the Light-given rather then to Christ the Light-giver 3. Should he express himself more plainly and say Christ thereby that is by the Light given to every man as it is obeyed and himself is followed doth lead out of the fall yet would he speak short of the truth and contrary to Scripture For 1. The Scripture speaks not of such a way whereby Christ led any man out of the Fall before the Scriptures were given but onely of the way of offering Typical Sacrifices and by the promise of Christ-mediator 2. The same way he hath chalked out in and by the Scriptures since they were given all along the Old Testament and when Christs sacrifice typed out and promised was once exhibited by his own blood He that was the way yesterday is the same to day and for ever while the world standeth to lead men out of the fall and to raise them up to communion with the Father 3. Although R. F. addes they were saved by him and that is not contrary to Scripture it will not save his judgement from error nor his writing from contradiction if he saith or thinketh that Christ ever saved any man by the meer light which as God he giveth to every man No man ever was or will be saved by his best obedience yielded to the light which every man comes with into the world Every man and onely such as through grace have obeyed and shall follow Christ according as he is revealed in the Scripture is and shall be saved What a loud calumny is that which R. F. hath cast upon me at the foot of his tenth Page Thou contradicts and so sins against Scripture and against Christ that calls him a natural light Rep. I have no such words had no such meaning nor can it be pickt out of what I have any where spoken Although Christ as he is God as every where I express or intend it giveth to every man that which is but natural light yet is not he therefore a natural light For 1. He and his works are not the same He who is the divine spiritual supernatural Being giveth to every creature its proper nature and being and is incomprehensibly above them He is indeed his own nature and his own most simple essence and being present with all beings in created nature and yet not confounded or mixed with created natural beings or lights irrational or rational 2. Albeit as the God of created-nature he giveth that nature life and light of Reason to all men yet as Mediator he giveth a distinct spiritual excelling light to lead men out of the fall partly from the whole written Law How Christ leads men out of the fall and the discovery of its spiritualness reaching the motions of the heart to shew men the fall which prepares for a delivery partly from the Gospel which shews himself the onely effectual way whereby men may come out of their lapsed condition as they are taught and drawn of the Father to believe in him who hath satisfied and merited for a certain number of sinners their deliverance and who applies that merited deliverance by remission of sins and by regeneration and by both a translation out of the power of darkness which all men with their best natural light are under into his own kingdom of saving light and life But to proceed In this Section I had hinted another Argument against the power of natural light given to every man to lead him out of the fall by way of question R. F. takes it up and me up after this maner To manifest thy blindeness and ignorance of the Scriptures thou says Where is there any promise in Scripture of spiritual and saving Light to lead man out of the fall and out of his natural estate Rep. Here like Satan the father of lyes I will not say he is his son he leaveth out part of the question My words Pag. 10. are these Let a man use his common natural light and moral gifts to the utmost where is any promise in Scripture of spiritual saving light and grace annexed to lead him out of the fall or out of his natural state The word annexed he leaves out in the reciting of my words which refers to the good use of natural light and moral gifts and in a shifting way he answereth If there were no promise of spiritual saving light to lead out of the fall man might continue in it and under the curse Rep. 1. Take this passage by it self 't is very good and one of the best that hath dropt from R. F. his pen. But 2. It is produced as an answer to my question and will The light of a promise leads out of the fall prove rather a knife to cut the throat of these mens opinion and an Argument for what we assert That It is the light of a promise by R. F. his concession which shall lead men out of the fall But in the light which every man hath say I and thousands more there
upon his Justice and he must not let his Justice fall though the creatures righteousness be lost and the sinner fallen so low cannot give life to this poor sinner upon the terms of his father Adams covenant in innocency And if Gods infinite grace his peculiar electing-love findes out another way of life and the onely way of salvation for the way of works by a meer creature as to preservation of Gods image and communion-life is lost and as to salvation i. e. recovery of a lost life that is not to be found by the invention of men or Angels this way that God himself findes out or makes discovery of is in so just and righteous a way that he lays the foundation of the covenant of grace in the satisfaction of a righteous Surety the Son of God the Lord Jesus Christ who was not bound to pay the forfeiture or principal for himself nor was he bound to become man or assume our nature but upon supposition of Gods decree he voluntarily undertakes the office and work of redeeming and saving the Elect fallen with others thereupon he stands obliged to assume their nature in which onely he could obey and suffer and he doth assume it for the persons the children of the Election Heb. 2. 14. for their sake and on their behalf according to that Scripture And having taken their nature upon him he is made under Section 1 is the law deeply now in debt for their sakes all which he pays actively and passively and by the meritorious satisfaction given now to Justice accepted by grace at the hands of such a Surety he obtaineth eternal redemption for Gods chosen But I ask of R. F. Why must Christ the Surety pay the Elects debt of obedience to the Moral Law in all perfection of nature and life if they did not owe it How came they to be so indebted if their father Adam was not under the debt broke and run away among the trees of the garden and left them under the obligation wherein he was before he turned bankrupt 5. That whereof every man hath some reliques written in his heart that Adam in innocency had as a perfect bond and obligation written perfectly in his heart But every son of Adam hath some reliques of the Moral Law and ten Commandments with the ingredient rigor of attendant condition and effects of a covenant of works written in his heart viz. That he ought to have a God and a worship and that suteable to the Deity with solemn time for worship and the characters of the second Table are yet more legible in every mans heart with impressions that produce the effect which the Apostle speaks of Rom. 2. 14 15. the work of natural conscience that tells him of an obligation to his Creator and excuseth or accuseth in matter of fact as he acteth according or contrary to the light of the Law written in part upon his stony heart and afterwards perfectly upon Tables of stone these forfeited reliques are given back of Gods common goodness and bounty to mankinde and as the remains and ruines of a stately fabrick they demonstrate what was once standing in beauty The best light in men without the new birth carries them to the repairing of this fabrick by works although that way Gal 1. last to life is shut up and kept as by the flaming sword impassable after every mans best endeavors But when the children of Adam are laboring after life in the way of their working as the condition and cause of life it is strange they should not know what stock their father had in his hands nor upon what terms he and they stood in with God I wish it be not the scope of R. F. and J. N. with others as is the Papists design to extol Adams state in innocency above a covenant of works not to magnifie the grace of God but as holy and blessed * Expos upon Ecclesiastes pag. 163. Mr. Cotton saith to derogate from the grace of Christ Object 1 James * Discovery of the man of sin pag. 23. Naylers Objection is of no force against what I have argued for The covenant of works saith Do this and live but he had the life already while he stood in it and so it was not to be obtained by working He had it while he had it upon condition of working it should have been continued to him upon that condition Life once lost in that covenant for want of working or for bad work cannot be obtained again by the parties themselves that lost it yet if men will be doing for life God permits them to go on and let them see at last how they have lost all their labor as well as their life Object 2 But the Law was added because of transgression which if it had been before the transgression could not have been The quite contrary is more clear if the Law had not been before the transgression viz. of Adam Adam had not been under transgression for what is sin but the transgression of the Law 1 John 3. 4. And it was added not to the Gal. 3. 19. cleared transgression but because of transgressions sins were now multiplied in the world and men would neither charge the first sin nor the last nor any upon themselves as they should to become sensible of the need of the promise and of him to whom the promise of salvation was primarily made therefore the Law was as a glass held before them to shew them their spots and it came with an arrest to self-justifiers as to this day it will come to be clapt upon the backs the consciences of transgressors Object 3 But why stood not Moses by the Moral law J. N. tells us That Law which was given to Adam was Thou shalt not eat of the Tree of knowledge I suppose he means for an absolute prohibition of eating Adam had not but a liberty of eating of every tree that excepted which no where in Scripture is called the covenant of works That was but a positive branch of the Moral Commandment for tryal of his love to God and of his obedience in one kinde but to stand obliged to all kinde of obedience answerable to the written Law with the tag as the Martyr called it at the end of the point death and the curse attending the first transgression is no less then a covenant of works and as hath been shewed and proved as such a covenant was onely then made and entred with all mankinde Object 4 Is R. F. his reason * Page 12. any better Adam had not the Law in which the ten Commandments were given for it was written the Law with the ten Commandments several hundred years after Adam and not given to him in paradise therefore he was not under that Law and Covenant of Works Answ 1. The Law with the ten Commandments is more then the Law of the ten Commandments Although no Law but the ten Commandments was written
there is hyperbolical That seems simply and absolutely to be denyed which is to be understood but in part and comparatively in respect of the greater and more constant elaborate employment of preaching as is the Lords maner of speech Jer. 7. 22 23. But such as Paul Baptized as few as they were he did not Baptize short of besides or without a command And in short every one in his particular vocation the Apostle in his place the Pastor in his the Church in their relation the Husband in his place the wife in hers c. are to obey the commands given to those relations But Object 3 3. You go to duty as you call it by imitation from the Letter without Answ 1. Imitation properly respecteth examples and obedience precepts and it is but duty and obedience to hearken to Scripture-commands for imitation of holy and godly examples Jer. 6. 16. Philip. 3. 15 16 17. and chap. 4. 9. 2. While professors old and new decline the old and good paths let them beware of dangerous precipices of Apish Popish Monkish imitations and of un-warrantable pretences to the Prophets extraordinary Raptures and Postures such as those Isa 20. 2. Ezek. 4. 9 10. c. Object 4 4. You go to duty in your own wills and time your sacrifice is not accepted Answ 1. They that look rightly to a Scripture-command will eye the maner end and other circumstances and watch unto seasons of prayer reading hearing c. required in Gospel-times 2. Every duty or performance to which a Saint is duly tyed by a command respecting his relation and calling and consequently his person is accepted by God for the matter of it because he requireth it but his person is accepted as he is a Believer within the covenant of Grace and hath Christs righteousness reckoned to him for his justification and he is also accepted in the sincere Gospel performance of a duty not for the works sake but for Christs fake Object 5 5. You go without the moving of the Spirit in your own strength and you know not what a command from God in the Spirit is Answ This might be laid in a carnal mans dish and at an unbelievers door but being an objection against Saints to beat them off from performing duties by reason of a Scripture-command is as false as it is bold and daring For 1. Every true Saint hath the Spirit dwelling in him 2. There is no warrantable evidence that the motion is from Gods Spirit if it be not according to a Scripture command and if it be according to it it is as uncharitable as untrue to say the holy soul goes without the moving of the Spirit A command from God in the Spirit is no other What a command from God in the Spirit is for the matter of it then what already he hath commanded in the word of Scripture and that which he forms and stamps upon the fleshy tables of the heart by the Spirit of the living God so effectually that the mind understands it and the will obeyeth it in newness of spirit 3. The Spirit of God is free to move when he pleaseth in and upon the heart but the Saint is obliged to duty when through the flesh he is very dull and indisposed to it Matth. 26. 41. 4. He goes in his own strength to duty who follows Who act in their own strength the light of a natural conscience onely or undertakes it in the strength of his natural parts or moral abilities or common gifts of the Spirit but it is one of the greatest scandals which I have known cast upon the Scriptures and upon the Saints together to say they go in their own strength to duty who act by virtue of a Scripture-command for although Who in the strength of Christ they have not such movings and stirrings of the Spirit at one time as at another yet in sense of greatest deadness they act their faith for acceptation of their persons and believing the work is duty indeed trust not to the stock of grace within them but act faith again upon Christ for fresh influence and new supply in the present performance ordinance or exercise And another is like unto this that they know not what a command from God in the Spirit is when as Saints experience about a command 1 Past every Saint more or less hath had a twofold experience about the commandements of God and from him one in a legal way of ministration when the commandement comes as Paul speaketh of himself Rom. 7. ver 9. 10. that Rom. 7. 9. 10. opened is in the light of its spirituality striking at heart-corruptions which in their native rebellion rise up sin revived the more against the commandement and by the way it was the written-commandment as that opposed the Pharisaical pride of his heart and I died here is yet no Gospel mortification but legal consternation Paul is slain in his false perswasions and presumptuous hopes of getting life by his own blameless obedience to the Law Thus the Spirit of God sets home the law in its vigor of spirituality and rigor of exacting absolute freedom from the least swerving thought and takes off a soul from expecting life in his own righteousness or by the best frame of heart that he may reach unto and keeps him for longer or shorter time as he please under fears of the second death and of the first because of the second The other in a Gospel dispensation 2 Present is experience by the Saints when they are through Gospel-enlightning faith and renovation made to understand what the covenant of Grace is and what a Gospel-command The covenant of Grace calls for satisfaction at Christs hands and hath it The Gospel command from God in the Spirit is not some sudden impulse or rare impression upon the soul which few Saints meet with but it is every Scripture-precept which the Spirit of faith holiness and liberty works the heart to a sweet compliance withall according to the measures of grace received amidst the present and constant conflict with in-dwelling sin This was Pauls experience after conversion as he lays it forth Rom. 7. from ver 14. to the end and in the following Chapter The command wherewith he had no compliance before as to the spirituality of it now he consenteth to and delighteth in and complains against that contrary frame of corrupt nature which remained though it reigned not and rebelled in him but as sin served it self and its own ends grace and the new creature made him serviceable to the law of God the Scripture-command with which he and his new nature was reconciled and he that cannot finde something of this experience will not finde himself a Saint he that elasheth with Scripture-commands so far discovers himself to be unregenerate Let E. B. and R. F. a little more examine themselves by what spirit they are acted while they decline the Scripture-Gospel-Rule 5. Head of Scripture-contradiction
Rep. This illustration of a light-some ancient writer * Epiphanius seems to dazle R. F. till he staggers again and swaggers twice or thrice against me for mentioning it Once he chewed upon it before * Page 13. out of its place and tels me thou hast no proof for thy saying but thy policy and that is contrary to Scripture Psal 37. 37 38. Mark the perfect man c. for the end of that man is peace But the wicked shall be cut off and the transgressors shall be destroyed together at their end as he reads them but according to the right reading viz. But the transgressors shall be destroyed together the end of the wicked shall be out off nothing will be found in these two verses contrary to or differing from what I held out by that simile for we have marked the end or death of many perfect or sincere Saints mentioned before and it was found to be peace their warsare then being at a ful period when they dyed as while they lived they had perfect peace with God by their perfect justification in Christ so at their death they had a full harvest and reward of peace such shall be the end of every upright soul Isaiah 57. 2. He shall enter into peace they shall rest in their beds each one while he lived walking in his uprightness This perfection of integrity and sincerity they have who have respect to all Gods commandements though no absolute conformity Sin continues in Saints Saints continue not in sin to them nor do they continue in sin though sin continueth in them till death As for the wicked it is not so with them in life they continue in the state love and practice and under the power of sin and when they dye their end and reward is to dye the second death with the first both the wages of sin Twice afterward * Page 16. doth R. F. let fly against me for the above mentioned simile Thou subtile Serpent and Scotch Politician how hast thou wrested the Scripture and By this thou hast manifested thy Scottish policy and Antichristian deceitful spirit and to be one that would uphold the kingdom of the Devil in people and so art an enemy to Christ and his work Rep. To all which I say no more but the Lord rebuke this reviling Spirit in R. F. my work is not to attend his ink-horn terms but what he pretendeth to from Scripture against the continuance of sin in the Saints during their abode in these vile bodies * Page 16. The Apostle saith that the word of the Lord is quick and powerful so is not the letter of the Scripture to divide asunder soul and spirit joynts and marrow and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart Heb. 4. 12. Here Soul and Spirit is divided by the living word and the ground of sin shaken at the roots and rooted out of such before their souls and bodies part asunder Rep. If I should deal with him at the weapon which he useth against me it were enough to ask But doth the Apostle indeed say expresly the living word is quick and powerful or findest thou these words the ground of sin shaken and rooted out of such before their souls and bodies part asunder in that Scripture and tell him he belieth the Apostle c. but I have not so learned Christ Better language there is a surer way of arguing then barely to word it the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but spiritual and mighty through God to cast down strong holds Mis-interpretation and mis-application of Scripture is a strong hold for error and delusion I shall first discover the true and genuine sense of that Scripture agreeable to the scope and then R. F. his mis-application and false inference from thence 1. The right and genuine interpretation is to be drawn Heb. 4. 12. cleared in its genuine sense from the context as high as Chap. 1. on-wards By the word of God Heb. 4. 12. is meant his word spoken and his word written and spoken according to what is written Chap. 1. ver 1 2. God in these last days hath spoken to us by his Son while he was upon earth What word was spoken Chap. 2. 2 3. That which concerned great salvation which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him And Chap. 3. 7. the word written is quoted out of Psalm 95. wherefore as the holy Ghost saith To day if ye will hear his voice Withal Chap. 4. 2. it is clear that the word preached according to what Christ preached and to what the holy Ghost hath written of Christ is the same with that he mentioneth ver 12. For saith the Apostle unto us was the Gospel preached as well as unto them in the wilderness and in Davids time but the word preached did not profit them c. This is no other then the declarative word of God which declaration made by Christ and by his Spirit in the Scripture and by preachers from and according to the Scripture is First quick or lively no dead letter though the Pen-men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or many preachers thereof be dead long since and though many that heard the Gospel heretofore be now dead yet it hath as much life in it self as ever Secondly 't is powerful of constant efficacy and operation even to the ransacking of consciences searching of hearts and to the critical discovery of thoughts and intents of the heart it is proved to be so ver 13. because God By the context whose word it is is omniscient hath all things before him with the face upward and therefore by the Scriptures and by his Ministers as by his Son by whom in these last days he spake first he can and doth discover and lay open the hearts of all men c. Of all men I say where the Gospel comes i. e. of those that believe not as of those that believe for that is the scope of the 12. ver as by its immediate connexion and scope with ver 11. appeareth Let us labor therefore to enter into that rest lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief For the word of God is lively in its effects c. It is and will be a swift witness against unbelievers and quick to their condemnation a favor of death unto death in them that perish as it is and will be a swift witness for believers and quick to their consolation a favor of life unto life in them that are saved To understand by the word of God here Christs person is not sutable to the context from the beginning of the Epistle Heb 4 12 and 13. compared and vindicated from 1. indirect glosses nor to the scope and this sense being brought to set aside the Scripture and the preaching upon it and from it is therefore to be suspected and waved Others
exhortation to what should be viz. imitation of Gods holy nature and will as long as we converse upon earth in all maner of conversation Let holiness not onely be mixed with all you do in all your relations and actions but let it reign and bear sway in your whole life and be growing up to perfect holiness in Gods fear having promises 2 Cor. 7. 1. to encourage quicken and convey as well as precepts to oblige and binde us unto holiness But thou denyest the holy call also as well as the holy conversation that pleads for sin to act and press down and make you all your life time to sigh it out and under it groan Rep. 1. I plead against no commands nor means of holiness through grace I have obeyed Gods call to universal holiness in a Gospel-covenant 2 It is one thing to plead for the truth viz. that by Gods wise and righteous ordering of our condition here sin is left dwelling acting and stirring in us and another thing to plead for sin which must be granted from his own words we do not if all our life time we sigh it out and groan under it Oh that we could do it more sincerely and sensibly with the Apostle Rom. 7. 24. Section 30. TO what I noted of one answering to the holy Ghosts question Who can say his heart is clean I can and see all your hearts unclean because there wanted the marginal reference to the particular page R. F. * Page 16 17. shifts off answering or taking off so foul a contradiction with railing at my supposed policy and serpentine subtilty and particular lies not one piece whereof I am conscious in this matter What if the words I can c. are not so set down there to wit page 1. This was the reference to the second charge against that book entituled A short answer to seven Priests which the author thereof arrogantly cals The word of the Lord not to the first charge which had onely a reference to that Book not to the Page as may at first view appear to any heedful Reader * See contradictions of the Quakers page 13. That arrogant contradiction to the holy Ghosts question which implies a strong negative will be found in another Page by any that meet with the Short answer c. before mentioned which I had to peruse in Scotland but cannot here obtain it for the Readers direction and satisfaction The rejoycing testimony of my conscience sufficeth me for the present that not in fleshly wisdom but in godly simplicity I drew up this with other collections and I hope it will cause the unprejudiced Reader to exercise his candor and charity toward me if he doth but observe R. F. his reservedness they are not so set down there not denying but they may be found in an after page and his ungrounded inference as false as groundless therefore thy policy hath manifested subtlety c. for as neither I intended nor used deceit so it had been poor policy to mis-guide him whom I purposed to set right in his way But saith R. F. all thy pleading is against purity Rep. How appears it I discovered indeed a double contradiction and a triple arrogancy in him that proclaimed No heart perfectly pure from sin Prov. 20 9. Matth. 5. 8. compared cleared and vindicated his cleanness from all sin and challenged the knowledge of other mens hearts c. as I specified it in my Book but this is a thread-bare cavil doth R. F. produce any new Scripture for absolute purity and perfection yes Christ hath said Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God Matth. 5. 8. then there was and are pure in heart as Christ said Rep. If this man would have added and as Christ meant we might soon agree Albeit Christ was greater then Solomon yet he never spake a word nor that word in particular to cross what Solomon said from the holy Ghost who is equal and of the same essential minde and will with Christ What saith the holy Ghost by Solomon consult the place Prov. 20. 9. Who can say I have made my heart clean I am pure from my sin the sense of this place is there is none could ever say it none in any age before or in Solomons time before or in Christs time or since none can now say it truly It 's a question that will silence all the world all the Churches a question that will hold un-answered till every Saints dying day and in this last age till the resurrection day Shall we believe R. F. and take it upon his word with his own meaning that 's thus There was and are pure in heart as Christ said and as Solomon meant it this were not to reconcile seeming differences of Scripture among our selves but to set Christ and Solomon at variance between themselves What then will any help R. F. with an evasion Solomon doth not say God gives not pure hearts but Who can say I have made my heart clean this will not serve his turn for it followeth and I am pure from my sin i. e. Who can say that either he hath cleansed his own heart or that he is pure from his sin which way soever he comes by it and if it be true and perfect purity he must come honestly and purely to it or even in that respect he is impure and far from truth of purity I would to God the generation of Quakers would better attend this question Art thou pure and perfect how camest thou by it Is it not a dream a delusion may not a foul and filthy heart be transformed into a fancy of pure perfection and perfect purity as well as a black devil be transformed into an Angel of light Solomon how ever must be understood as denying absolute purity in any man and Christ when he asserteth Blessedness to the pure in heart intendeth not to nourish any in a conceit of their present perfect attainments but to encourage them who were sincere and have truth of holiness set into their hearts and the purpose of their hearts with the Gospel endeavors of their lives set upon purity for from the context Ver. 1. they were his disciples he spake unto whom Ver. 3. compared with Luke 6. 20. he pronounced poor in Spirit Blessed are ye poor not yet enriched with all perfections but sensible of their spiritual wants and Ver. 4. they are mourners under sin and after more of God and Christ Ver. 6. they are hungring and thirsting after righteousness not yet filled but blessed in their present state of hunger and thirst and in their hopes by that promise of being filled These are the pure in heart whom Christ pronounceth blessedness upon who are poor mourning souls hungring and thirsting after more purity in the mean time not Pharisaical and hypocritical in their profession of holiness as were others And had these been pure in heart in R. F. his sense they had then
the Scripture Rep. 1. How would I have him that believeth born of the Letter my words were these If the Scripture be in the heart of every one sure he that believeth is born of that seed even of the Scripture-promise set into the heart by the holy Ghost hence he that is born of the Spirit is born of the word written and preached which the Spirit useth as the instrumental means of our regeneration as upon that place in Peter 1 Ep. Chap. 1. ver 23 and 25. hath been cleared heretofore Part 1. Sect. 5. 2. The Scripture-promise declaring Christ is the more apt means by which the Spirit begets a soul to Christ or formeth him in the soul 3. That the Letter declareth Christ doth not contradict the Scripture but it contradicteth the Scripture to say the declaration of Christ is not a means of begetting a soul to Christ 4. To say Let all see whether we do not set the Scripture in the heart of every one and yet to deny the Scripture to be a means of the new birth or that the believer is born of God without the Scripture is to say and un-say But R. F. * page 26. would retort this upon my self and why I have not the same minde with them and know not their meaning and so raise lyes as he chargeth upon me by my imaginations Rep. 1. If I have the minde of Christ as it is in Scripture I shall not be ambitious of nor much regard their meaning but as I know it to be cross to the minde of Christ I have according to the grace given unto me witnessed against it and yet studied to put the most candid and favorable construction upon their words 2. If their sense of setting Scripture in the heart of every one be nothing else but telling people they have a light of Conscience within them and stirring up that light which every man hath that cometh into the world First they delude poor people who never heard that Light called Scripture before yet this is more then probably their best Scripture for their Tenents and Doctrines as might be gathered from the answer that J. P. a yong stripling who came into this Town last summer gave to a weak re-baptized woman shattered by his discourse whose question was But may I not read the Scriptures The answer was Read thy heart woman as she told me that was all she could get of him There is a book of Conscience to be read indeed but is not the book of the Scriptures and Gods Statutes to be read according to which beyond the book of every mans Conscience all that have that written rule shall be judged Secondly If every mans light be the onely Scripture in the minde that these men are in why doth R. F. * In his Book entituled A true testimony c. pag. 53. appeal to that which is the alone proper perfect Scripture in our judgement and which he calls for to stand as judge betwixt them and 42. Ministers Will he stand to the judgement of the Prophets and Apostles as it is the minde of Christ the word of God Will he not appeal when all is done to a higher Court of immediate Teachings in the heart If the Scripture be judge it must be so from its own light that is superior not onely to every mans light but also to the degree of light that is in every Saint and that is superior to our meanings and theirs for the Scripture must judge by its own words and meaning together and from its own rule we must not separate the Letter of the Law and the true interpretation of the Letter The Law-makers we say are best able to give the right sense of the Law The great Law-giver gives out his sense of one part of Scripture by another Can any Law judge of Heresie but the Law of God saith R. F. in the Book and Page last referred unto in the margent If he intends there any Law of God but the written word and text of the Bible Gods great Law-book he contradicts in heart what he pretends to in words If he understands by the Law of God the holy Scriptures of God called the Bible then he pretends to that acknowledgement of them as a standing rule and a more standing rule then visions and revelations and if he intends what he pretends to then he must recant what he wrote in the 3. and 4. Page of his imaginary Scripture-vindication or else lie setter'd in his Self-contradictions 2. Head of their Self-contradiction Concerning hearing of the Word Section 10. I Had granted they say and say truly because the Scripture saith so Joh. 8. 47. They that are of God hear his word and they that hear his word hear his voice and yet they deny the hearing of Ministers that speak this word and consequently they do either un-say what truth they spake before or deny themselves to be of God in that they both refuse themselves to hear and call off others from hearing R. F. * Page 26. because I granted the first part of their contradiction to be a Scripture truth runs away with the conceit of an advantage when 't is nothing so Thou says They say and say truly then they lye not neither do they say and un-say and so thou art taken with the lye again and clears them thy self Rep. How weak and giddy this mans apprehension is may appear many ways by the review of this passage 1. I attributed truth to their words no further then they agree with the word of God in Scripture and so far I will acknowledge truth because I love it and the Scripture of truth but this man when I grant an inch will take an ell 2. It followeth not if men say true in one thing that they speak the truth in every thing The devil can speak a truth the more cunningly to put off his lyes That may be a truth materially which will not be found in mens practical experience so acknowledged 3. It is beyond all controversie that in this as many other instances they say and unsay first owning the Scriptures and ministery and hearing of the word and then dis-owning all teachers and teaching but what is within first saying * A discovery of some fruits c. pag. 9. the peoples Teacher cannot be removed into a corner and by and by telling them you will finde your teacher as you lye in your beds Even as customary swearers reproved for their sin will swear they did not swear so men habituated in Self-contradiction will vehemently protest against it but it helps them never a whit 4. It is no new thing to have the reproach of lying cast upon me or others by one who cannot judge or understand what is truth or when 't is spoken truly 5. I am so far from clearing them that I renew my charge against them if they be all like R. F. in this maner and form following The more candidly the
sometimes uttered First The Apostles sense 2 Cor. 4. 6. is by allusion to 2 Cor. 4. 6. vindicated Gods work in the old creation to witness his power in the new In the old he commanded light to shine out of darkness He said Let there be light and there was light creating it of nothing There was a pre-existent subject before light was created viz. darkness of the air but no pre-existent matter which light was made of much less was light there before within the darkness for though God commanded the light to shine out of darkness it doth not follow that light was there before So God working by his Almighty power in the new creation he hath saith the Apostle shined in our hearts to give the light which was not there before of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ The faculty of the natural understanding was there as the pre-existing subject but there was no fore-existing matter out of which this light is produced The Apostles sense again in Gal. 1. 16. is not to Gal 1. 16. vindicated favor these mens opinion as if Christ had been in Paul vailed over before conversion and then revealed in him as being there but Paul did not know it till his conversion But God revealed his Son in Paul when he did immediately effectually and experimentally shine into his heart and gave him the knowledge of the glorious mysteries of the Gospel in the clear knowledge of Christ given for him given to him and now dwelling in him and he doth reveal his Son in others ordinarily when after he hath knockt at their hearts he opens the door by his Spirit gives faith to consent that Christ shall come in and dwell there Ephes 3. 17. Before faith Christ is kept out of the heart but when a soul believes and his faith worketh by love and love by obedience as Christ came in and took possession from first believing so in his good time he doth manifest himself unto the soul John 14. 21. The Apostles sense Col. 1. 27. Col. 1. 27. vindicated is not as if the light of Christ for salvation had been in the Gentiles hearts in a mystery before their effectual calling The mystery of salvation by Christ was wrapt up in the Scriptures of the old Testament and in Types and Figures among the Jews not in the least hinted to the Gentiles mindes before the Gospel came But when the Apostles When and how Christ is in the soul came to preach Christ crucified to their ears through grace they believed the report for themselves at Coloss as elsewhere and knew the grace of God in truth had Christ his image stampt upon their hearts and the Spirit of Christ dwelling in them This was not light breaking forth from their hearts as having been there before their union with Christ and Christs taking up their hearts as his Temple but the light of the glorious Gospel breaking into their hearts which 1. Is called the riches of the glory and the Pronoun which before is Christ in you refers not to mystery for that is of the Neuter and the Pronoun * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Masculine Gender but to riches * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the same Gender with which in the Greek The glorious treasure and substance of the mystery which rich glorious treasure is Christ in you the light in every man is a poor base beggerly scrap to this Gospel-pearl and treasure 2. This riches summ'd up in Christ and Christ the substance of the Mystery is confined to the Saints ver 26. and is onely in them ever after their closing with Christ reigning and prevailing to the purity peace and joy of their souls and evidential hope of their future glory Secondly The assertion of Christs being within men before conversion contradicts themselves as I discovered in my former piece who say In the Ages past Christ was not revealed every man had not that light The Son of God is not revealed as Christ but as he is Mediator in the Ages past Christ was not so revealed they had not say they that light viz. as he is Mediator therefore Christ as Mediator was not within men by the light given to every man And here I leave them R. F. among them as I found them and discovered them in this Section in their own darkness of Confusion and Self-contradiction till the Lord shall convince them thereof and bring them out of it Section 12. ANother Contradiction of themselves concerning the Light in every man I noted in this Section viz. That they magnifie it and vilifie it in the same respect as it is the light of the first nature and of every man in his first state since the fall R. F. * Page 26. takes up two of the passages to answer but takes not off their Self-contradiction The first They magnifie every mans light to be a Law written in the heart to judge and condemn all sin and therefore they say the day of judgement is come and anon they vilifie the light of natural men who are a part of mankinde as filthy waters and every man in his first state is a beast To this all that R. F. hath to say is Where judgement is brought forth into victory sin is condemned in the flesh and there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus c. and such have boldness in the day of judgement for as some mens deeds goes before-hand to judgement others they come after and therefore a day of judgement is to come Rep. If these men would disparage every mans light in respect of the Saints light they would be something ingenuous and if they did not put every mans light in the place of Christ the Spirit and his writing in the heart and then call them waters of Babylon nor sometimes say upon Adams fall pure reason was destroyed c. and anon call every mans light pure light they would not be so Scripture and self-contradictious as they are nor would they confound what they ought to distinguish as R. F. confounds the judgement of a natural conscience and the Spirits Gospel-conviction of sin Righteousness and Judgement together Justification he confounds with Sanctification and a day of Judgement present with the day of Judgement which is to come Scripture-expressions he useth here as elsewhere but not with the Scripture-scope and meaning The passage I quoted out of Ben. Nicholson his Returns to a Letter Page 13. speaks of the Law written in the heart of The Spirits conviction of judgement beyond the judgement of a natural conscience every man which they say doth judge and condemn all sin R. F. tells us of a Judgement brought forth into victory and when that is done sin is condemned in the flesh but say I according to Scripture the Law written in the heart of every man neither condemns all sin nor discovers either the root of
up into the chiefest places in the assemblies and act as in a stage-play and have a glass to act their hour and make a trade of Christs words the Prophets words and the Apostles words and act in the chiefest places of the Assembly taking a Verse and raising Motives Tryals Uses Reasons and Points from it and then say the people He hath handled his Text well and made good matter of it Is not this a Sarcasm a bittter scoff 3. To collect a truth any such way for our own ends which was not mentioned before nor objected till now if we did so we could not justifie but such a collection of truth by Points Reasons Vses c. we can justifie from Scripture and Scripture-precedents onely let the Reader Teaching by doctrine Reason use motive tryals justified by plain Scripture first take notice how slightly again he speaks of the Scripture with Francis Howgil where first I noted it Part 1. Section 2. calling it Other mens words and thus I argue First That which the whole Scripture was given for and serveth for that improvement the man of God is to make of it 2 Tim. 3. 17. 1. Demon strations But the whole Scripture was given for Doctrine in Points and Reasons and serveth for Vse of reproof correction instruction in righteousness in which is comprehended Motives Tryals c. Therefore the man and minister of God is to make this improvement of the Scripture Secondly That which the Scripture tells us Christ the Apostles and Prophets have practised in their ministerial teachings that we may act and justifie when we have done But the Scripture shews us how Christ the Apostles and Prophets have taken Texts and raised Motives Tryals Points Reasons and Vses out of and according to the Scripture And therefore we may do so and justifie the practice against gain-saying R. F. and ten thousand such as he is The major or first of the premised propositions I may strengthen from Mat. 7. 29. Christ taught as one having authority From 1 Cor. 11. 1. Paul followed Christ From Titus 1. 9. Holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught 't is spoken of the Bishop or preaching Elder that he may be able by sound Doctrine both to exhort and to convince gain-sayers Chap. 2. 15. These things speak and exhort saith Paul to Titus an Evangelist and rebuke with all authority So as if Christ taught with Scripture-authority in a way of Reason Vse c. and the Apostles after him both practised and enjoyned this way to them that succeeded them in after ages we are to do the like The minor or second premised proposition might be abundantly cleared and for conviction of gain-sayers I shall give a few instances Christ himself took a Text from Isaiah 2. Instances 61. 1. and 2. verses as we have it recorded Luke 4. 18. and applying it to the people at Nazareth he gave them so much searching Doctrine and Use from it that as many of our hearers some wondered others were filled with wrath none scoffed at his handling the Text so well or that he had made so good matter of it but they bare him witness c. Let R. F. or his Reader for him peruse Mark 12. 26. and see if he dare condemn our Lord for raising the Doctrine of the Resurrection from the words to Moses I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob let him read the Reason to demonstrate these words as a proof of the Resurrection ver 27. He is not the God of the dead but the God of the living let him minde the Use of confutation Ye therefore do greatly erre Or let him read Christs Sermon upon the mount Mat. 5. c. and see if he gives not Reasons for the Beatitudes or blessed state of the poor in spirit the mourners the meek c. and the Vses of all ver 12. Rejoyce and be exceeding glad with the Motives For great is your reward in heaven for so persecuted they the Prophets c. Let him read Chap. 7. ver 1. The Point Judge not the Reasons 1. That ye be not judged 2. With what judgement ye judge ye shall be judged The Tryal ver 3 4 5. which amounts to thus much That he passeth not right judgement abroad who begins not first at home but lets the beam continue in his brothers eye Let him read the book of Ecclesiastes and observe how Solomon first takes it up as his Text Chap. 1. 2. Vanity of vanities all is vanity agreeable to that in Job 15. 31. and thence collects his main Point Happiness is not to be obtained by any thing under the Sun which he proveth all along the Book and then winds up with the general Vse of all Chap. 12. 13 14. Fear God and keep his commandments with the Motive For God shall bring every work into judgement c. even R. F. his censuring and disparaging of this kinde of teaching whether it be good or whether it be evil Let him read Acts 8. 35. and he shall finde Philip beginning at the Scripture out of Isa 53. 7 8. which the Eunuch was a reading and preached unto him Jesus not without Reason and Vses nor Motive that the Eunuch might believe Christ exhibited in the flesh and Tryal whether he did believe or no as appears by the sequel of the story Let him read Acts 10. 34. and there he may finde the Apostle Peter taking a Verse or part of it out of Deut. 10. 17. God is no respecter of persons there is his Point already raised to his hand the instance and proof at hand also Cornelius and his company of the Gentiles himself at least with his house already believers and fearing God The Reason of Gods irrespective dispensation ver 36. The Gospel of grace and grace of the Gospel is free to all Jew or Gentile by Jesus Christ The Vse ver 43. Whosoever believeth on him shall receive remission of sins Or let him read Pauls Epistles a little better and he shall meet with plenty of Motives Tryals Points Reasons and Vses as paterns for our Sermons In every Epistle we have the Doctrinal part and the Applicatory part instance we but in that to the Romans Chap. 1. ver 2. Paul writeth as he preached no other Gospel of God but what he had promised afore by his Prophets in the holy Scriptures The great Point of the Gospel which the Apostle holds forth eminently in that Epistle is the Doctrine of Justification 1. Negatively not by the works of the Law written in the heart or in the Book for all are sinners against it Gentiles Chap. 1. and Jews as Gentiles Chap. 2. and part of the third and thence he concludeth Chap. 3. 20. That by the works of the Law shall no flesh be justified But 2. Affirmatively By faith in Jesus Christ and his righteousness the price of a sinners redemption Chap. 4 and 5. The great Vse of
to settle the hearts and hopes of them that flee thither for refuge with strong consolation In a word the Covenant of Grace excludes works as any condition of life for it is the declaration of Gods way of saving by Grace according to the Election of Grace which if it be of Grace as it is then Rom. 11. 6. is it not at all of works These meditations are heart-establishing you will say in wavering times and all Doctrines agreeable to the fulness of Christ and his Covenant are so David found it so so may you It was a soft pillow to David God 2 Sam. 23 5. hath made with me an everlasting Covenant ordered in all things and sure on his Death-bed whereon to rest his head so it will be to all that take hold on it and mix it with faith For secondly it is not the Doctrine of the Gospel abstractly considered but as believed that will establish you Faith establisheth Col. 1. 23. by its object acts reflections and fruits Continue in the faith grounded and setled and be not moved away from the hope of the Gospel which ye have heard Consider brethren what you believe and in whom ye have believed Christ and his righteousness without you is a sure foundation for your Faith to Isaiah 28. 18. build upon He that believeth on him shall not be ashamed unsetled beaten off Faith gives you an evidence of things not seen and makes things absent present Every act of Faith tends to your establishment having some certainty in its bosom and bowels and so much as strives against doubting and that shall not miscarry in the issue and event But reflections of Faith help on yet more to stedfastness When you know you do 1 Pet. 3. 21. believe then you have the answer of a good conscience wherewith comes peace and liberty Peace with God is discerned and peace with Conscience is setled hereby in much serenity with liberty of access to the Throne of Grace and of making your Appeals to God by vertue of Christs blood sprinkled on the Conscience and by reason of the Acquittance which Christ received for the Believer at his resurrection His discharge is ours and hence the other benefits which Faith brings along with it of Vnion with Christ Communion with God Justification Redemption Adoption and Sanctification But if with the Doctrine and Faith of the Gospel there comes thirdly the Grace of sense or the sense of Gods grace and love in all that is taught and believed how is the heart established by the holy Rom. 5. 5. Spirit that is given us This Spirit is both the seal of what is past the witness of what is present and the earnest of what is to come making all that is in reversion as sure to us as that which is already in our possession Adde unto this fourthly Experimental exercise of grace in all Gospel-institutions and what establishment shall your hearts want now or hereafter Communion with God in Gospel-Ordinances gives rest and satisfaction when we finde the effect of Water-baptism and of Infant-baptism in Christs blood and the Spirits regeneration when we discern the effect of Bread and Wine-Lords-supper in Christs presence at his Table and the quicknings of his Spirit in our singing Davids Psalms and Scripture-spiritual songs use of publique as private Prayer ministery of the Word c. Your souls brethren cannot but finde it eminently helpful to be established with this Gospel-grace First you have hereby an Antidote against all poison of diverse and strange Doctrines Your hearts are as ships well-ballasted against all contrary winds The Doctrine of Free-grace rightly understood believed and adhered to doth at once dispel and scatter all Popish and Arminian fogs The fulness of Christ believed lays open the emptiness of Quakerism The Covenant and Promises grasped by Faith are as the little stone which they say the Bee takes up to flie with in a high wind so as the biggest blasts shall not dash you to the ground Let who will say that Christ doth not justifie by a righteousness without us the Scripture saith We are made the righteousness of God in him 2 Cor. 5. 21. and the Grace of Faith carries out the Soul for righteousness and life in another viz. Christ of this the Spirit with the Conscience and Experience of Believers beareth witness Let the poor Quakers say that the Scriptures are not the word of God the heart that believeth and experienceth the power of the Scripture changing and transforming will finde him a liar and blasphemer Let them say that will they have no sin dwelling in them and their warfare is at an end a gracious heart will slight and despise these Contradictions to all the Experiences of the Saints held forth in Scripture Let them say there is no Baptism of water or let them call the Lords Supper as used by the Churches a humane Invention because they have found no comfort in it or by it the heart established in the faith of the Institution will give them the lie and although he findes not these seals always alike efficacious yet he knows and believeth them always to be the Lords Ordinances and to have a promise of efficacy annexed to them which God will make good at his day and hour and not at our season Secondly The fears which false doctrine terrifieth the Conscience withal are removed and made to vanish Fears of non-acceptance by reason of daily failings in duties fears of falling away totally and finally are expelled by the pure doctrine of faith and of justification by grace alone and by nothing inherent in us as a habit or adherent to us as an act c. Thirdly There is this advantage all pretended Revelations are cast off dreams are not hearkned unto leading from the Scriptures The faith of a Promise makes things as sure to your souls as if God had spoken immediately from the Clouds The sense of Gods Love is as sweet as a rapture into the third Heavens Moses and the Prophets are as sure to a gracious heart as if one arose from the dead for he could not bring up greater Truths or stronger Arguments of perswasion then are found in the Scriptures he could not speak more pathetically with higher strains and stronger lines with more majesty of stile and elegancy of phrase or sweeter floods of eloquence or with more plainness and godly simplicity then the Spirit expresseth himself in the Scripture holding forth all along an evidence and demonstration of himself with holy harmony and efficacy Fourthly When your hearts are established with Gospelgracious Doctrine Faith Sense and Experience thereof you are fortified against all powerful temptations Sometime the soul is tempted to forsake Ordinances but faith of that promise that the house of Jacob shall not seek God in vain keeps Isaiah 45. 19. the heart close to means of Gods appointment Sometime the Christian is tempted to go to a second Baptism or to
the Exposition of Rom 7. from ver 14. to the end of the Chapter understanding it of a man unregenerate in conflict with a natural conscience and not simply of one regenerate in combat with corruption of nature in every faculty of the soul How far the spirit of Antichrist works in these men God will yet farther discover and what Jesuitical Plots and Designs there are carried on by some of them unwittingly by others as wickedly as wittingly the day shall declare it And if any will take the pains to compare their Pamphlets with the Charge which Dr. Willet drew up about forty years Supplement to Synopsis Papismi by-past against the Papists he shall finde that Quakerism is built upon the Tetrastylon or four-fold Pillar of Papistry viz. 1. Sarcasms slanders railings and forgeries 2. Flat blasphemies and contradictions to Scripture 3. Loose arguments weak solutions c. 4. Repugnant opinions and contradictions among themselves in all leaving the consciences of people upon the Rack or full of doubts and uncertainties For the undermining of which Pillars the learned and unlearned the simple and judicious are alarum'd First to a more assiduous and studious reading of the Scriptures Get you Bibles 't is your Souls physick said Chrysostom of old to the people his hearers There is no greater torment to the devils then to see men busied about the Scriptures said * Orig. another before him But because it is as much pleasure to the devils to see men abuse and wrest the Scriptures ye are called Beloved Secondly to the owning of them in their just Authority above all Testimonies of ancient Writers and modern Authors who were but men subject to infirmities in the head as heart Above the Churches Testimony which gives no authority to the Scriptures but onely declare what is intrinsecally stamped upon them Above the testimony of your own hearts and consciences which must receive a true judgement from the right understanding and application of the Scripture bove all visions and revelations which if false draw from the voice of Scripture if true they send you thither as to your Rule and a more standing Rule and above all the Pamphlets of the Quakers now swelled to above two volumes Thirdly to a dependence upon the Spirit speaking in the Scriptures to seal up their Authority to you and to give the efficacy of what you read and hear Gods Spirit breathes in good mens books much more in his own and is there as to seal up the truth of his Word so to stamp the goodness of every truth upon our hearts As for this Reply what you finde therein agreeable to the Spirit of God his language of plain and naked Scripture-truth receive in the love of it and give God the glory I onely intreat as * Tantum oro ut cum petitis etiam Tertulliani peccatoris memineritis Tert. lib. de Bap. one before me of his Readers that in your prayers which should usher in all our other work or recreation and that of reading books you would remember him also who though he hath obtained mercy to be faithful yet hath cause enough to subscribe himself The sinful JOHN STALHAM The Heads of their Contradictions 1. To the Scriptures 1 Concerning THe Scriptures 2 Concerning The Trinity 3 Concerning The Light within 4 Concerning The Law 5 Concerning Sin 6 Concerning Justification 7 Concerning Regeneration 8 Concerning Sanctification and its Perfection 9 Concerning Christian warfare 10 Concerning Repentance 11 Concerning The means of Grace 12 Concerning Baptism 13 Concerning Lords Supper 14 Concerning Prayer 15 Concerning Singing 16 Concerning Elders and Ordination 17 Concerning Ministers maintenance 18 Concerning Immediate Calling 19 Concerning Immediate Teaching 20 Concerning Questions 21 Concerning Civil Honor. 22 Concerning Swearing 2. To themselves 1 Concerning THe Scriptures 2 Concerning Hearing the Word 3 Concerning The Light within 4 Concerning Sin 5 Concerning Christ 6 Concerning Justification 7 Concerning Immediate Teaching 8 Concerning Perfection 9 Concerning Quaking and Trembling 10 Concerning Growth in Grace 11 Concerning Forms of Religion 12 Concerning Fruits of the Spirit 13 Concerning Ordinances 14 Concerning Speech and Silence 15 Concerning Elders 16 Concerning Conscience and Laws THE Reviler rebuked OR A Reply to R. FARNWORTH HIS INTRODUCTION BEfore I can fall upon the Subject of the Controversies between me and my Antagonist I must touch at his Introduction wherein he mentioneth his receiving of my Book renews his charge against me gives a seeming proof of his charge and concludes with a Thundering Anathema 1. What he received A Printed Paper as he calls it slightingly that came out of Scotland into York and Yorkshire in England published by one John Stalham Preacher of the Gospel at Edinburgh That little piece of three sheets and a half J. S. owneth as published by him and that he called himself Preacher of the Gospel at Edinburgh for the present as was inserted it was because for some time he had been and then continued preaching of the fulness of the blessing of the Gospel of Christ to his Auditors from Rom. 15. 29. with other Scriptures And for as much as that great truth of the Gospel was openly opposed by one of the Sect called Quakers touching the justification of a believing sinner he was called to enquire after the opinions of the said Sect and to draw up his collections from divers of their Pamphlets which he referred unto several Heads of their Scripture and Self-contradictions wherein he is Secondly Charged by R. F. to have manifested himself and his subtile serpentine Spirit by his lies and slanders for all his glosses and covers to be a minister of deceit and so of Antichrist of all this or any part of it J. S. is no ways conscious nor of his falsly accusing the people of the Lord suppose any people of the Lord be fallen into the errors and opinions of the Quakers as he is charitably jealous some are surprized therewith nor of shewing forth a bitter spirit of envy against them and the truth The Lord knows he loveth all the people of the Lord for the Truths sake that dwelleth in them and pitieth those who are over-run with these errors as with a running Itch or sore as he himself would be loved and pitied who is not absolutely free of error although the particular fruit is not in these matters of difference visible to him yet the root of all error as of all sin is in him and seen by him not throughly in all degrees mortified As for any of his painted and deckt Notions Implications and Contra-distinctions his gilded coloured borrowed and form'd up imagined Expressions he thinketh R. F. had a minde to please himself and some of his Readers with seeming shadows of Rhetorick which J. S. never affected but clothed all he wrote with a familiar home-spun stile as he shall this Reply Thirdly The seeming proof of the Charge is That with the Light John 8. 12. John 1. 9. R. F. thinketh J. S.
is seen and known to be one that hates it and why 1. He bears record of himself against Christ and his Apostles Let that be found in any passage of his former or present piece and R. F. shall be no false Apostle J. S. will hide his head in a hole or openly recant the folly and wickedness 2. He calls the true light saith R. F. the Light of nature and the common Light of reason Where 's the proof of this allegation J. S. doth peremptorily deny that he ever so exprest himself since he had the Light of reason in him The true Light as 't is printed both in R. F. his Book * Page 2. and in the Bible John 1. 9. with a great L and there spoken of is Christ J. S. never called Christ the Light of nature or the common Light of reason or reason as Page 34. R. F. clamoreth and clattereth Haply he may say again and again That Christ as the very God and the true Light giveth the Light of nature to all men and common light of reason more or less to every man for he is able to distinguish betwixt the Donor and his Gift betwixt the un-created Light-living God and created Light-given before the fall to Adam or given back since the fall to him and his posterity If R. F. or any man will confound Christ-giving or enlightning with the Light-given or lighted up as a Candle in every man he may as well confound God and the Creature and make them as some blasphemously imagine to be one and the same Essence Therefore as in this so in all other instances Fourthly J. S. is confident after R. F. his impudence in his Preface and Proceedings he shall neither be found Lyar nor false Accuser but as he is sure that Saint Pauls Anathema was out long since Gal. 1. 8 9. and is still in force against those that preach another Gospel-way of Justification as do these Quaking-Papists or Popish-Quakers so the Anathema Maran-atha that R. F. denounceth imperatively and imperiously Let him be an Anathema Maranatha against J. S. shall be as the curse causless that shall not come but that God will do him more good as already he hath done something for him by Shimei's railing Tyrants Sectaries Seducers and Hereticks as Luther said do nothing else but drive us unto the Bible to make us read more diligently therein and with more fervency to sharpen our Prayers and I may adde by their buffetings to be more taken off from self-estimation and to be viler in our own eyes then we can be in the eyes of our Adversaries who know not our hearts THE Reviler rebuked PART 1. 1. Head of Scripture-contradiction Touching the Scriptures themselves Section 1. THe holy Scriptures by one thunder-stricken in spirit and blasted in profession with the Quakers Books and company in Scotland were denied to my face to be the word of Truth which I noted as the first and great Contradiction R. Farnworth in answer returns me thus much of truth in form of words That the Scriptures are words that proceeded from the Spirit of Truth we do not deny but own and so they are the words of truth Plainly he doth not say they are the words of truth nor plainly joyn Scripture the word of truth to all issue with him that denied them to be the word of truth but if they be own'd for words of truth as proceeding from the Spirit of truth then for the advantage of Truth I argue 1. They are the word of God and so should be owned by them Surely the Spirit of truth is the Spirit of God proceeding from the Father and the Son and these three John 15. 26. being one their word is one That which is the word of the Spirit of truth is the word of the Father of truth and of the Son of truth The Scripture by R. F. his confession is the word of the Spirit of truth therefore he must grant it to be the word of the Father and of the Son of truth and consequently the word of the true God 2. If they be words of truth as proceeding from the Spirit of truth then they are the Rule Standard and Touchstone of truth the true Spirit being known by his words and directing us to know his minde by his words what we should believe as truth and practise as truth or according to it but we shall anon hear R. F. denying the Scriptures to be the rule of a Christian as of other men that are unchristian 3. If they be the words of the Spirit of truth then they are so to all men or but to some men 1. If so to all men that have the Scriptures by them then why doth not R. F. challenge him that denied them to be so to unbelievers as I noted in my Book Why doth he challenge me for falshood with a therefore too * Page 2. therefore thy saying is false What saying of mine is false and wherefore I truly related what I had from him I mentioned above in discourse once and again That the Scriptures were not the word of truth And doth it follow because R. F. acknowledgeth them to be the words of truth that therefore I heard not the contradiction or mis-related what was spoken 2. If they be the words of truth but to some men not at all to wicked men and unbelievers no not condemningly as were his expressions then it seems the unbelief and wickedness of men doth make the Faith or Truth of God of none effect but S. Paul Rom. 3. 3. is of another minde Rom 3. 3. cleared yea the Spirit there by the Interrogation first and second What if some did not believe shall their unbelief make the faith of God of none effect forcibly denieth the frustration or making void of Gods word of truth by the Jews former or following continued unbelief God hath laid his faith and truth to pawn as it were in the holy Scriptures and as he is a God of truth his word is a word of truth taking hold of men by the threatning as Zech. 1. 6. who misbelieve or reject the promise And Is he the God of the Jews onely and not also of the Gentiles to justifie and condemn all that are believing or unbelieving according to the Scriptures Such therefore who will say No more is the truth of God or word of God to me then what I believe were they never so dear friends must be as roundly taken up and faithfully rebuked as sometimes Luther took up a man of no mean account Bullenger you erre you know neither your self nor what you hold According to your falsities if the Word findes not the Spirit but an ungodly Person then it is not Gods word whereby you define and hold the word not according to God who speaketh it but according as people do entertain and receive it Whereas as he again a true Christian must hold for certain and must say That word
which is delivered and preached to the Wicked to the Dissemblers and to the Ungodly is even as well Gods word as that which is preached to the good and godly upright Christians And I may adde even so are the Scriptures that word which condemneth unbelievers already But as he again The Sectaries understand not the strength of Gods word read or preached and we may wonder with him that they write and teach so much of the Scriptures or of Gods word seeing they so little regard the same For whatsoever R. F. saith of his and their owning of the Scriptures hearken to what follows in his backing of Scripture-contradiction That the Scriptures are the Word God and eternal The Scriptures are the word of God and truly so called Life as thou wouldest have them thou canst not prove nor all the Magicians to help thee Here is good stuff kitchin-stuff or smoak out of the bottomless pit 1. Take the Word for the Son of God where did I ever attempt to prove the Scriptures to be the Son of God God and eternal Life The Lord rebuke this false spirit 2. Because I with others call the Scriptures as they are and as they speak themselves to be the word of God are we therefore Magicians The Lord again rebuke this reviling spirit R. F. and others may talk of owning and owning the Scriptures as often as they fancy it but they honor them not I am sure who deny them that title of honor The Word of God Shall R. F. his Pamphlets be called his Books his Writings and his Words and shall not that which God hath written be called Gods written Word He answers nothing to that place in Hosea 8. 12. nor could that stripling J. P. * At Coggshall sometime give any reason against the Argument drawn from it viz. That which God hath written is the word of God But God hath written the Scriptures Therefore the Scriptures are the word of God R. F. Objecteth such as witness to the word and Gods power witness against thee to strengthen the new-coyned distinction is it which was given me in Scotland The Scripture is not the word of truth but the witness of Gods power Why I grant it to be both the word and the witness The Scriptures are Gods words and Gods testimonies some make The Scripture is Gods Word and Witness also them two witnesses Revel 11. But I reasoned thus by way of Quere How can the Scripture be Gods witness if not true how is it true if not the word of truth R. F. undertakes to answer That the Spirit of truth in the Prophets and in the Apostles did carry them forth to witness what of Christ is declared in the Scriptures by words that proceeded from the Spirit of truth Had he gone no further he had pretily well quitted himself but he addeth by way of objection The Spirit is not in the Letter neither is the Spirit given by the Letter but by God and Christ and yet he grants presently in the same Page 2. The Letter proceeded from the Spirit By the Letter I meant when I said pag. 22 of my book the Spirit is in the Letter c. the whole Scripture and so I suppose doth he Now the whole Scripture is given The Letter in a large sense and Scripture all one by inspiration of God the Father Son and Spirit who is 1. Where he breathes forth truth holiness c. all along 2. Where he speaketh The Scriptures are the Oracles of God Rom. 3. 2. Will R. F. by denying the Spirit to be in the Scriptures stop the mouth and breath of God What How the Spirit is in the Scripture-letter profane boldness is this Can he hold the winde in his fist and restrain the Spirit from giving forth himself by the Letter or Scripture when the Spirit will make good his promise to bless the reading of it I think he is not so full of presumption yet he presumes to say The Spirit is not given by the Letter What thinks he of Scripture-promises did he never finde the Spirit warming his heart by the reading of them He speaks as if he knew nothing of the Spirits consolations enlightnings teachings or convictions by the Scriptures And he writes as if he would have none read the Letter of Scriptures in faith of a blessing by them but to think when they are reading of them they are cracking a hollow shell that hath no kernell in it or drinking a draught of dilute wine that hath no spirits in it or reading of his and his fellows Pamphlets wherein the Spirit of God is not present by any gracious operation but the spirit of Satan for the most part unto efficacy of delusion His simple Reader may think the words that follow tend much to the honor of the Spirit of God The Letter proceeded from the Spirit but the Spirit did not proceed from the Letter but such expressions as disparage the Scriptures will never bring honor to the Spirit which is in them and worketh by them what disparagement is there in these words to the Scriptures will the simple-hearted say 1. The phrase Letter is extenuating as if all the The Letter taken strictly is but legal administration 2 Cor. 3. 6. explained Scripture were Law or had a Legal administration as the Apostle useth it 2 Cor. 3. 6. in a strict sence The Letter killeth i. e the bare legal command without a promise of power or pardon as a bare letter void of strength life and spirit it leaveth all men under a killing sentence and curse Now thus to represent all parts of the Scripture is to affright men from the reading hearing or regarding of it 2. The Letter or Scripture is set by R. F. in other passages in such opposition to the Spirit as if the Spirit disowned it after he hath caused it to be written no way accompanieth it with his power The Spirit proceeds not from How the Spirit proceeds not from the Scripture and how he doth proceed from by with it the Scripture-Letter in respect of his Essence or Being he is God of himself nor in respect of his personal subsistence which is of the Father or from the Father and from the Son of which R. F. is ignorant or inadvertent denying him page 8. to be a Person but in respect of his operation 1. Improperly it may be said the Spirit proceedeth from the Scripture as a man goes from his outward shop to work in his inner room so the Spirit proceedeth from that which he hath put within the Book or Bible into the heart to work a sweet ingraven work there 2. Properly and plainly he proceeds by the Scripture and with the Scripture to effect and beget that in the soul which is like himself Spiritual and like the Scripture holy and good That is but a bravado therefore which he addes in the close of his second Page Therein thou hast erred not
in the Old Testament and in the New the same yesterday to day and for ever He that followeth the Apostle as he followed Christ and followeth the Prophets as they spake and wrote by the Spirit of Christ doth the same thing 7. Reason Seeing we are not under the Law but under Grace the Spirit of Christ is our rule and guide Rep. This is added to no good purpose but still to contradict the Scripture and to blot it out from being a rule For Râ—m 6. 14. cleared 1. Albeit true believers are not under the Law in respect of its ceremony curse rigorous exaction and domination yet they are under the direction and rule that it holds forth and that as they are regenerate Rom. 7. 25. With the minde that is the regenerate part I my self saith Paul serve therefore am under the law of God So again 1 Cor. 9. 21. Vnder the Law to Christ as the rule of holiness and righteousness is dispensed in the hand of Christ and for obedience with a Gospel-frame of spirit unto Christ 2. When the Apostle saith We are under Grace he singleth not out a Sect of men called Quakers unknown in his days but he intendeth all true Christians and their condition under a covenant of Grace not Legally but Evangelically administred having the Spirit of liberty to lead them from under the dominion of sin to the obedience of Christ according to a written word or rule What if the vail be upon the hearts of unbelieving Jews 2 Cor. 3. 15. because they own not the Son of God and Son of the Virgin to be the Messias is the vail therefore upon my heart as R. F. reasoneth Yes because thou setst up Law in stead of Gospel Rep. I wish he well understood what it is to set up Law What 't is to set up Law instead of Gospel in stead of Gospel It is not onely to set up Jewish ceremonies and Typical shadows after Christs abolition of them as the Jews endeavored but to set up all or any act or work required in the Law or word of God whether done in natures strength or by moral abilities or by the Spirits strength to be a mans justifying righteousness before God this is far from what I urge and press when I plead for Moses writings c. to be a standing rule to direct to Christ and to direct in a way of sanctifying righteousness when a soul is come to Christ But we witness the glory that exceeds c. but thou art ignorant of that Rep. I confess I know that glory of Gospel-ministration which the Apostle speaks of 2 Cor. 3. but in part but this I know that when our Lord appoints men constantly to hear Moses and the Prophets as writing of him and as giving out the same rules for Faith and Holiness which himself gave he that shall take men off from attending their writings according to their true scope seduceth and draws off from Christ And as ignorant as I am I can see to the end of that which is abolished which is Christ the end of the Law for righteousness to every one that believeth and I can see that he that believeth not in the same Christ which Moses pointed at believeth not at all or but in a false Christ yea with half an eye through the same grace I can see that he who takes not Moses writings as he wrote of Christ and makes them the rule of his faith and maners and also refuseth the writings of the Prophets to be the like rule he doth more then implicitely refuse the writings of Christ and of the Apostles from being a rule also R. F. * Pag. 4. therefore holding to the first contradiction That the Scriptures are not a standing rule may well pass on to a second That they are not a more standing rule The Scriptures a more standing Rule then visions c. then visions and revelations as I had collected from Luke 16. 31. If they hear not Moses and the Prophets neither will they be perswaded though one rose from the dead The reason hereof is strong rising from the dead which is of the same nature with visions and revelations Matth. 27. 53. may be counterfeited as we finde 1 Sam. 28. Moses and the Prophets were extant in the volume of Gods book and their authority is owned among the Jews to this day and it is so authentique that when either particular Jews have been or the Nation shall be converted to the Lord they presently adhere to it as to their Rule so the Apostle prophesied 2 Cor. 3. 16. when it any poor Jew or rather 2 Cor 3. 16. with 14. opened collectively when the people and children of Israel the ten Tribes with the two Shall turn to the Lord the vail shall be taken away which is now upon their heart in the reading of the Old Testament that is of the books thereof The books and writings of the Old Testament stand and shall still abide at their conversion though the old administration of the Covenant of grace is abolished and they shall be their Rule together with the books of the New Testament which they will then understand own and imbrace as more certain to them then if one rose from the dead not in a faigned but real way Hence it is that Christ after himself was risen as others with him and appeared called his disciples to the Scriptures and opened them unto them Luke 24. 29. yea he urgeth his own death and resurrection that it ought to have been so And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets he expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself This made their hearts burn within them ver 32. when as the rest were cold at heart through fear at their first sight of Jesus supposing they had seen a spirit ver 37. Let visions and revelations be never so certain yet the Scriptures quoad nos as to us are a more standing Rule Why they are not so in R. F. his judgement and others we shall know by his reasons 1. Christ saith in Matth. 11. 27. No man knoweth the Son but the Father neither knoweth any man the Father save the Son and he to whomsoever the Son not the Scripture but the Son will reveal him here revelation is the surer rule of knowing God Rep. If I should deal as rudely with R. F. as he with me Matth. 11. 27. vindicated I should not onely say the assertion is thine not the Lords but therefore thou art a liar and accuser of the Lord but I will not exchange words I will prove him to be what he would fasten upon me He that sets the Son of God and the Scriptures at distance belies Christ accuseth the Lord R. F. doth thus by his Parenthesis not the Scripture but the Son his conscience will draw up the conclusion one day Again he that grants one part of truth and denieth another part wrongs the truth
Paul of himself and of true Gospel-ministers and believers viz. That God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness had shined in their hearts for it is not Pauls scope to disparage Scripture light The light that shined in Pauls heart and the light that shineth in the Scripture is the same light and God who shineth in the heart by Gospel-light of which the Apostle speaks ver 4. shineth in the Scriptures by the same light 3. It follows not because there was light in Paul and such as he inclâ—des with himself that there is light and the same light in R. F. and such as he includes with himself nor doth it appear to me and others that God shineth in his or their hearts who give a new and dark interpretation of that Scripture as of other Texts For R. F. * Page 6. Isaiah 8. 20. vindicated with J. Nayler expound it of the Law of the New covenant written in the heart by God c. Now though the Scriptures do witness that the Law of the new Covenant is written in the heart Jer. 31. 31. Heb. 8. 10 11. yet that is not the meaning of the phrases Law and Testimony Isaiah 8. 20. but the meaning is The Law and Testimony written in the Scriptures is the touchstone of what men speak as a Doctrine taught from God but if they speak not according to this word written in the volume of Gods book it is an evidence that their hearts are not taught of God or that the Scripture written without is not written within their hearts for what is written by God in the heart is consonant and agreeable to what he hath written in his Book and it never taught any man to call the Bible or written word as John Lawson calls it natural and carnal this I said was to blaspheme the Scripture Here R. F. * Ibid. takes me up as one not regarding what I say and as ignorant of what the Scripture saith concerning the same which speaketh of a carnal commandment Rep. Must the written word or Gods holy Scripture be natural and carnal because it speaks of a carnal Commandment He might as well imagine and affirm because it speaks of Types Figures and Shadows therefore it is all but typical and a shadow When the Apostle * Heb 7. 16. opened makes mention of the law of a carnal Commandment according to which the Priests in the Law-Levitical were made but not so Christ our high Priest he is treating of the Ceremonies now abolished The Scriptures not carnal but spiritual which were laws of things weak and frail as all flesh is considered in themselves not lasting and abiding he gives not the title of carnal and natural to the Scriptures as J. L. and R. F. do nor is he speaking of the Scripture as Scripture which is all spiritual and heavenly in its pedegree proper scope energie and vertue but he calls the Ceremony mentioned in Scripture carnal i. e. as to the materials appointed in the Legal Ceremonies they were outward bodily weak dead things of themselves this makes the Scripture no more carnal then because it speaks of the Earth therefore the Scripture is earthy or of Esau the profane therefore the Scripture is profane Section 4. TO my fourth Section R. F. * Page 7. In what sense the Scriptures are the word of God saith no more but this which is too much unless it were better Thou cannot with all that thou hast scraped together prove that it the Scripture is the Word which is eternal life and so the Word that was in the beginning with God John 1. 1. Rep. 1. I had indeed collected several Scriptures Isaiah 8. 20. Isaiah 6. with Acts 28. 25 26. John 10. 34 35. Psalm 82. 6. Ephes 6. 17. but it is an unhandsom and reproachful expression put upon my collecting and comparing Scripture with Scripture for him to call it scraping together 2. My collation was not to prove the Scriptures to be the Word i. e. the eternal life and that essential word spoken of John 1. 1. But insomuch as Jam. Nayler put us to Iohn 1. 1. cleared prove the Letter is called the Word in plain words and that then there are two words I shewed that this phrase the word of God is taken two ways in Scriptures sometimes for Christ himself the Essential word of the Father sometimes for the Scriptural word it self which being evidenced by my aforesaid collections what trifling and absurdity is it in R. F. to call for the proving of that which was not to be proved as not being affirmed by me or any other that I know that the Scriptures are the Word spoken of John 1. 1. but the Scripture or inspired written created Word doth there as elswhere speak of the Essential uncreated Word as a mans tongue pen or secretary doth speak of himself Ephes 6. 17. opened That last Scripture I quoted Ephes 6. 17. one would think were enough to convince gainsayers where the sword of the Spirit a piece of spiritual armor is said to be the Word of God What meaneth the Apostle by the sword of the Spirit but the spiritual sword the Scriptures put into the hands and mouths of Christians no carnal but a spiritual weapon mighty through the Spirit to run into the heart of Errors and to cut asunder Temptations and to repel the Tempter Christ himself made this use of it against the Scribes and Pharisees Mat. 5. Against the Sadduces Mat. 22. 31 32. And against the Devil Mat. 4. 4 7 10 ver Once the Devil hath Scripture in his mouth but Christ hath it thrice in his mouth It is written It is written It is written and is too hard for Satan at this as all other weapons Here the very power of the written Letter puts to flight the adversary And if J. N. or R. F. will read over and over the 119 Psalm they will finde matter enough to cure their contradictions Spirits who are more nice then wise in abstaining from Scripture-expressions or attributing to them their due title There they will finde that holy David professing his zealous affection to God and to his Scriptures useth this phrase of thy word above thirty times plainly enough and yet elegantly also Let their consciences answer Is not thy word as much as God 's word And that he speaks of Gods written word the Scriptures as of what is according thereunto is clear in that he calls the same word of God the statutes of God O teach me thy statutes c. near twenty times now Gods statutes are his standing Laws or Rules put into writing as all the Statutes of England are upon record written down in Books Section 5. I Had charged it as another contradiction of theirs to the The writing of the Spirit the ground of the Saints acting Scripture it self in that they say The Saints ground of acting is not the outward Letter but the Spirit which
so exprest by John onely thus The word was God it 's granted he was and is so what then Must I needs be ignorant of the Scriptures because I confound not Father and Son together as R. F. doth in that expession of his and what follows As God is the light and the word so also is Christ John 8. 12. Rev. 19. 13. and the Father and the Son are one Rep. How are they one not in person but in nature and essence The Father is not the Son the Father is not the Word nor ever so called Let R. F. learn to distinguish their persons as clearly as he would be far from dividing their essence But what if God be light and Christ be the true light and very God with the Father in essence and Christ be also the word of God and so called in that as the word is the image of the minde so Christ in his person is the express image of the Fathers person Heb. 1. 3. Must the light in every man which G. F. or R. F. speak from be the word of God and so called in that sense as Christ is the word of God and so called not to mention how such a conceit borders upon blasphemy this kinde of reasoning is as good and true as that of R. F. Because I preach publiquely therefore I am a Priest or because I preacht at Edenburgh in Scotland for a while therefore I am a Scotch Priest as he every where calls me at his pleasure and from his blinde mistakes But to undeceive the simple let me close this Section Superadded Conclusions with a few brief Corollaries 1. The beams of Christs God-head shine upon every man though not one man in the world knows him to be God till he findes him in the Scripture 2. The beams of his Mediatorship shine upon such as have the Scripture though few there be that finde that narrow gate and straight way to life and salvation 3. The light given to every man is not Christ in person or as Mediator let people learn to distinguish between him and his gifts and between the gifts which he bestoweth as God and those which he confers as Mediator 4. The light given to every man is the law written in the hearts of all and may in some sense be called the word Rom. 2. 15. of God not Christ-Mediator nor Christ-God because it is a piece of the declaration of Gods will made perfectly known to Adam before the fall 5. The Scriptures are a perfect declaration of the will of God both in the Legal and in the Gospel-part and are both truly and more eminently then the Law first written in the heart called as they are the word of God God giving out his minde to the full by what is written in the sacred Text. 6. The Lord Christ the Eternal Son and Essential Word of the Father is more in the Scriptures then in every man or any man As he is God all men live and move and have their being in him As he is Mediator he is in his Church mystical yet is he more in the Scriptures then in his Saints 7. They have not Christ Mediator in them nor abide in his Doctrine who abide not in the Doctrine of the Scriptures 8. They that speak from the Scriptures rightly understood speak more from Christ then such who speak from the light within them and have no fellowship with the Scriptures and with them that abide by Scripture-light and Doctrine Let R. F. and the men of his fellowship ponder what I say and the Lord give all his understanding in all things Section 11. I Had discovered pag. 8. of my book in this Section how they send people to read the Scriptures in the Creatures as if the Creatures taught us more then the Scriptures contrary to Psalm 19. and to Solomon in his Ecclesiastes and to Paul 1 Cor. 1. 21. R. F. * Page 9. in answer tells me That book * George Fox his Parables The Scripture a more excellent teacher then the Creatures shall witness for the truth against thee and thy generation Rep. If I were of the generation of Ranters he might have cause to write as he doth for as I hinted in my Epistle before my former piece Some of them viz. Quakers may haply be raised up against such viz. Ranters who have to their utmost extinguisht all common light of nature and would level all with sin and hell And G. F. in his Parables bends himself against men of this hell-begotten brood But as I own the light of Nature which Ranters endeavor to put out and the Light of Scripture which the men called Quakers with Ranters would eclipse so I acknowledge there is much in the Creatures to be learnt by way of allusion but to prefer that knowledge above the Scripture as is the scope of G. F. I am averse and abhorrent in the case And R. F. hath nothing more to say for G. F. onely for his own security he shifts from the Creatures viz. the Heavens and the Earth and things contained therein as parts of the first Creation of which G. F. gave his dictates to those that are in Christ new Creatures who are Epistles written in one anothers hearts seen and read in one another that are such Creatures 2 Cor. 3. Rep. Who sees not the mans evasion here is blinded with prejudice or gross ignorance for 1. The Apostle 2 Cor. 3. 1 2. speaks not of what is 2 Cor. 3 2. vindicated written in the hearts of all men who have stony hearts but in the hearts of Saints whose hearts are fleshy or soft v. 3. 2. He sets not forth those Epistles as Rules equal with Scripture much less to be preferred above the Scripture Pauls plain meaning is no more but this that the efficacious and cleared grace of the Gospel stampt and printed upon the Corinthians hearts and made visible and legible in their conversations was a sufficient Testimonial for his Apostleship and faithfulness and far better then Epistles of commendation to and fro which one Church by Ink and Paper might send to another concerning him or others what 's this to the question in hand concerning the doctrine of the Gospel and its knowledge to be had by the Sun Moon and Stars fire water air and earth c. which G. F. had instanced in 3. What if new creatures be seen and read in one another that are such Creatures Sun Moon and Stars c. are not such creatures nor are these the Epistles which the Apostle speaks of R. F. next to his evasion falls upon clamor and would fasten the imputation of ignorance of those Epistles and of lying upon me Rep. If it be enough for him to say it here and every where without proof I cannot be innocent but 1. In the case of Epistles recommendatory such as Paul had at Corinth whether I know what they are or no let those whom the Lord hath effectually
Cor. 2. 9. opened for as mans eye or minde as he is a rational creature and but so never reach'd the things of God which he hath prepared in a way of salvation for his own so the Gospel-light about matters of Salvation of which the Apostle speaks never entred never shined into mans heart take him with all the light given him as a man before the fall or since at his coming into the world Gospel and Salvation-matters never entred into Adams heart before the fall and since there is not any of his posterity that by the light he bringeth with him into the world can tell what he should do what way or course he should take to be saved no more then his first parents when they hid themselves amongst the trees of the garden And that light which cannot discover Salvation cannot open the Scriptures to us Nothing gives that which it hath not Nothing can act beyond the sphere of its activity As for what G. F. addeth And 't is a more sure word of prophecy speaking of every mans light we will believe him as much as if he told an old wives fable if either he would have it to be more sure then the Scriptures or then Gospel-Sermons preached out of and according to the Scriptures Heretofore it became a proverb As true as the Gospel there being infallible certainty in the Scripture-Gospel but now there is a Light discovered in every man that will antiquate that Gospel and put the proverb out of date There is something in the heart of every man say No Gospel in light of nature they and that a word of prophecy or a declaration of Gods minde for salvation too or else 't is nothing more sure then all the Gospel throughout the Scripture and yet say I no part of the Gospel at all For no man shall be able to spell out one Gospel-syllable or letter in it or by it viz. in all that is written in every mans heart or by all that is written there from their coming into the world And yet it must be with G. F. the Grace that appeared unto all men Titus 2 11. vindicated Such an expression indeed hath the Apostle Tit. 2. 11. concerning the free favor of God in Christ which is the fountain and original cause of Salvation now shining to all Nations by the Gospel and saving effectually some of all sorts of men in the world But as Paul never called every mans light the Grace of God i. e. in Jesus Christ although that Light be a free gift so never was it every mans light or gift nor will be to understand what is the Scripture-grace of God and of our Lord Jesus Christ But the Doctrine of it is turned into wantonness when it is laid waste and common with the universal light of every individual reasonable creature which 1. is but a part a spark of that which Adam had before the fall 2. Gives not a crevise of light about Christ crucified 3 Is but a Legal-light and effect of the Law written in the old-stony heart of every man Section 13. R F. passeth over this Section also and saith nothing to it where I gave a farther instance of their advancing this common universal light by calling it A perfect Light or how could they be judged by it And the first principle which will change the minde Whereas 1. The Prophet David Psalm 19. 7. advanceth Creature and Scripture-light compared the Law or Doctrine of God in the Scriptures as Paul doth 2 Tim. 3. 16 17. to be the perfect Rule of faith and maners The light found in and by the book of the creatures and mens natural consciences is dim weak and imperfect in comparison of Scripture-light 2. The light in every mans conscience where the Scripture comes not draws up a Bill of condemnation discovers no Charter of Salvation 3. It is imperfect to what Adam had before the fall the Scriptures have more and higher light then Adam in his innocency received 4. The Law of God take it as a Covenant of works or under such a notion requires as much as Adam had That is not legally perfect which in all degrees and circumstances answereth not a perfect legal Rule 5. The least true Light sinned against is sufficient to judge the sinner if God entreth into judgement with him The other clause shall be examined in the fifteenth and sixteenth Sections Section 14. R F. answereth to what concerned himself in this Section but not in its due place I shall endeavor to reduce him From his Book Entituled how truly let the Lord and Father of Lights be judge Light risen out of darkness I had noted what he saith The light is pure standing out of all corruption meaning this light of every man which where it is and it is in every man it reneweth the judgement and where the judgement is renewed there is no corruption in that judgement as was told me by one of them in Scotland But this beam of God-head-light in every man is no part of the new creature or of such a renewed minde as the Apostle calls for Rom. 12. 2. Ephes 4. 23. And although that which is a renewed principle in some is pure so far as it is renewed yet the faculty where it is the minde hath darkness corruption and pollution in it as well as light and purity as is clear from 1 Cor. 13. 12. Now we see through a glass darkly but then face to face But R. F. * page 10. line 12. tells me I have slandered him for saying The Light is pure standing out of corruption but my slander hath no weight nor doth him no harm Rep. 1. I slandered him but with the truth if it were so and did him more right then he doth himself for I cited his words to the full standing out of All corruption 2. Although a slander when the truth is spoken may be charged upon him that speaks it if he relates the truth of another with an intent of reproaching the party yet I was clear of such an intent and shall still endeavor his and his companions reproof and conviction without their reproach If the word of the Lord be a reproach unto them let them look to it 1 John 1. 5. cleared and vindicated 3. His evasion to avoid the dint of the reproof will not serve his turn God is Light 1 John 1. 5. and he is pure and discovers corruptions and hath no union with them and what communion hath light with darkness For whoso consults his book * Light rison out of darkness page 24. line 13 15. will finde he speaks of the Light created in mens mindes and given back since the fall That light is your condemnation and that will shew you your corruptions And now in answer to my charge he tells us God is Light and he is pure c. Rep. 1. Will he confound God and his essential Light with light given into
righteousness of another the righteousness of him that is God Jesus Christ and not onely that I may live in God but unto God This the Gospel teacheth Paul and us by faith to go out of our selves for life in another in Christ by his imputed righteousnes which when we finde we finde also a heart renewed and quickned in and unto holiness and the desires after sin in a degree mortified and crucified which by way of evidence is enough to quench the fiery dart of Satan cast against me by R. F. and so art an * Page 13. unbeliever and not redeemed So because I pleaded for the right way of justification not in his Popish way For through grace I can say with the Apostle ver 20. I am crucified with Christ i. e. As I was represented in Christ Gal. 2. 20. 21. opened my surety when he was upon the Cross and God was in him reconciling me unto himself not imputing trespasses unto me seeing they were then condemned in Christs flesh and put out of office from ever accusing and condemning me at Gods Bar so I am thus crucified with Christ that I will never look to any other way for the payment of my debts then what my surety hath laid down to Law and Justice and not onely thus that I am conformed to the Patern of Christ crucified by the power of his Cross to make me die to sin and self while Christ liveth in me yet is not that life of Christ so sensible or so perfect in me as if nothing was there but the life of Christ for there is a body of sin and of death dwelling in me also and therefore the life which I now live in the flesh or the weak frail body I live as to my Justification-life by the faith of the Son of God on whom I believe and live also for degrees of Sanctification which his life hath begun in me who loved me and gave himself for me And as the Apostle further Ver. 21. being of this Faith and Judgement I do not frustrate the grace of God as they who would have Justification by their outward or inward conformity to the Law which is all one as to frustrate or make void the death of Christ If R. F. saith I plead for sin because elsewhere Section 29. I said the roots of sin would not be pluckt up perfectly till soul and body part I shall take off his calumny in the due place Section 23. HEre I noted what I had from them in discourse That in Justification all guilt is not only taken away but all All filth not removed where all guilt is pardoned filth of sin Then could there no filth remain upon the Saints performances as there doth by their confession in Scripture Isaiah 64. 6. We are all as an unclean thing and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags The defilements of sin in its presence remain when the defilement of sin in respect of guilt is taken away R. F. saith nothing to this Section unless it be answer sufficient to revile and say Sin thou art pleading for while I produced the Saints and justified persons confession of sin and hinted a difference between Justification and Sanctification which these men as Sin confessed is not pleaded for if they would profess themselves members of the man of sin do confound mistaking one thing for another If Saints confess their sin cleaving to their holiest reformations they plead against sin not for it To say we have sin in us is to plead against the Lye of dreamers who think themselves perfectly free from the remnants of filth But to awaken them let R. F. and others of his perswasion before they drink deeper into Babylons cup of fornications perpend and conscionably weigh these differences between a Believers Justification and Sanctification 1. The matter of our Justification is Christs obedience Section 23. Distinguishing notes between Justification and Sanctification inherent in himself and absolutely perfect admitting of no degrees the matter of our Sanctification is wrought within us imperfect as to degrees and admits of wanes and increases The very faith whereby we receive pardon is but as a grain of mustard-seed at first it admits of degrees but the object apprehended Christ and his righteousness is always the same and as much of Christs obedience even all is given to every Believer to the weak as to the strong and hence it is they are once and together perfected in Justification before they have all or half the measures of Sanctification which the Lord will give them in his time Let Francis Howgil put off no such counterfeit ware to Christs disciples and Church-members for it will not be received viz. * The inheritance of Jacob pag. 24. 25. That is not true faith which is imperfect And again The righteousness wrought in the Saints is as it was the righteousness of Faith 2. The form maner and way of our Justification is by Gods free act of imputation reckoning and account of Christs obedience to us the form of our Sanctification is by infusion of holiness by the Spirit of holiness from Christs fulness into our empty hearts 3. Justification causeth a relative change or it makes a change of relation Sanctification worketh in us a change of qualities by the creation of the new divine nature and mortifying of our old corrupt nature 4. The parts of our Justification are Gods not imputing of sin through his imputing of Christs sufferings and his accepting of our persons as righteous by his imputing of Christs active obedience the parts of our Sanctification are vivification or the creating quickning and begetting new divine qualities resembling Gods nature and mortification of the old sinful dispositions and seeds of sin 5. The contrary to Justification is guilt and condemnation wholly taken away Francis Howgil * The inheritance of Jacob pag. 8. either heard some unsound Teachers or mis-relates them as giving it out for Doctrine That sin was taken away by Christ but the guilt should still remain while he lived c. Or whom doth he expostulate with in these words Page 28. What Christ is this you preach What Gospel is this you preach which saves you not from guilt and condemnation For surely Christs blood and obedience reckoned to the believer doth this to purpose and effectually at present and for ever The contrary to Sanctification is in-bred pollution and filth of sin which by Christs power is destroyed as to the regency and hereafter to be removed at our death as to the residence Hence Justification is Gods gracious and just sentence pronouncing us righteous and entitling to life as Condemnation is his charging of guilt and vindictive punishment accordingly Sanctification is Gods special grace shed abroad in the heart called the first-fruits of the Spirit 6. In our Justification Christs obedience stands onely upon account and all our most sanctified works and righteousnesses stand by as cyphers and are to
better then two in the Bush a little of their own within them far beyond all Christs righteousness without them although we call for the witness within them that will not suffice they must have the ground-work of their justification within them as well as the evidence nay some work within shall be ground and evidence too or they fly off and will not believe till they see and feel but groping in the dark lose themselves in the wilderness of self-fulness and sufficiency 7. Head of their Scripture-contradiction Concerning Regeneration Section 27. I Had noted what they say He that believeth is born of God without Scripture and yet witnessed in Scripture contrary to James 1. 18. and 1 Pet. 1. 23 25. which Regeneration by the Scripture promise not onely bear witness of a new birth but saith also it is wrought by the word of truth the word of God the word that is preached which was never without or besides much less directly against but always according to the Scripture both as the Apostles preached it and others after them and their written doctrine R. F. * Page 15. returns me in a retorting way as is his wonted maner this for an answer If thou was not blind thou would see that thou contradicts the Scripture and not they that attributes the work of regeneration and the new birth to the Letter which thou calls the word and so therein denyes God who begets by his own will by that word which liveth and abideth for ever which was in the beginning with God and was God Rep. 1. Gods essential will and the free act of his love and good pleasure is the primary impulsive cause of his regenerating a soul 2. Christ by his death purchaseth the grace of regeneration and by the power of his resurrection applyes it 1 Pet. 1. 3. 3. The Spirit of the Father and the Son comes with the Scripture-promise and quickneth the soul to believing and by believing of the word of truth which at the beginning R. F. acknowledged the Scriptures to be and at that instant the believing soul is as Isaac conceived and formed a childe of promise a believer and a new-creature together by the word of grace which the Spirit useth as the external means of regeneration yea he carrieth the word and voice of the Son of God John 5. 25. from the ear to the heart and makes them hear and live That part of the Scripture which is pure Gospel is the ministration of the Spirit as of righteousness and life 2 Cor. 3. 8. 4. They that speak of a regeneration such as the Scripture helps them not to know and obtain speak wildely of it as J. Nayler in his new piece * Love to the lost page 34. treating of the new-birth he tells his lost creatures There is the old man and a new man but he doth not say there are two contrary qualities in the same regenerate soul lusting one against the other as the Apostle describes their state Gal. 5. 17. He saith * Page 35. Nicodemns knew not the new birth though he loved Christ He did not know the maner and mystery of it before his coming to Christ but if he loved Christ before it was a fruit of the new-born-seed of grace or spiritual principle for even J. N. confesseth as is the man so are his works and as is the Tree so is the fruit And I may adde as is J. N. so is his Book and his his love to the lost for if the man may be known by his writing he may haply know as little of the new-birth as Nicodemus did though he would be a great Teacher in our Israel Some may say he speaks * Love to the lost p. 35. of a Promise as well as a power that puts off the old man with his deeds lusts and affections but if you mark it it is to them who remain in the seed of God and it in them he doth not say the new-creature hath a promise that it shall remain although the Scripture saith it shall Joh 15. 16. 1 Joh. 2. 27. Well if he holds but to what he saith That all who remain in this seed and it in them hath the Promise I would have R. F. ask him whether it be the Promise that begets the new man which helps to put off the old if it be we shall finde the new man quickned as the old man crucified and slain by a word of promise in several places of Scripture scattered The word of promise serveth to regenerate and begin the work as well as to preserve nourish and maintain the regenerate man in his state He that shuts out Scripture from being Christs organ or the Spirits instrument and means of Regeneration it had been better for him he had never known the Scripture or written a word about it 8. Head of Scripture-contradiction Concerning Sanctification and its Perfection Section 28. I Had noted from a little conference with them in Scotland That sin dwelleth not in act where Christ reigneth Sin dwelleth and acteth in the Saints Rom. 7. 17. opened This R. F. defendeth as true though never so contrary as I hinted in my book to three as many more places of Scripture Rom. 7. 17. It is not I that do it but sin that dwelleth in me sin is doing as well as dwelling it will not be idle and in whom in Pauls heart where Christ reigned Gal. 5. 17. The flesh lusteth against the Spirit and Gal. 5. 7. cleared the Spirit against the flesh and these are contrary one to the other in whom in the Galatians the sons of God in whom considered in their better part Christ and Grace reigned yet they could not do what they would they could not be so gracious as their regenerate part would have them nor yet so sinful as their unregenerate part would have them Here is sin active enough and yet its force is broken that it cannot reign where Christ reigneth but there it dwells and remains very troublesome to a good heart Rom. 7. 23 25. Rom. 7. 23 25 explained I see another Law in my members warring against the Law of my minde and bringing me into captivity to the Law of sin that is in my members here is action and passion too here is fighting and scuffling a continual conflict Sin in the Saints is no sleepy habit it will be plotting using stratagems striking and serving it self and its own turn as ver 25. With my flesh I serve the Law of sin sin is very active in the Saints when so officious to its self and its own ends What weapons think you will R. F. finde for defence of the Tenet none spiritual I dare say but carnal and weak as followeth * Page 15. Where Christ reigneth the body is dead to the acts of unrighteousness because of sin being destroyed and the Spirit is life because of righteousness living and ruling Rep. I suppose he refers in this
better by many degrees or as the * word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth we have an overplus of conquest It is enough for men after worldly encounters to go out conquerors at the end of their Battels but as we conquer while we fight so we are sure of the victory i. e. have sure grounds of expecting the last victory when we strike the first stroke which conquerors of the world are not assured of To sense we may seem to be overcome between times but to faith the victory is sure on our side This is a Paradox to R. F. but let him know we are not beaten out of the field by all his and other oppositions but keep our ground what 's that Gods love to us in Christ which is the cause of the beginning and end of the conquest It is that and not inherent grace or our love to Christ onely or chiefly which strengthneth us to combate and conquer also Our grace is weak and gives back many times but Christ our Captain never starteth and the love of God to us abideth and union with him who giveth the victory holdeth R. F. had best keep to that lest his inherent perfection fail him altogether It is granted by R. F. according to 1 John 4. 4. That greater 1 John 4. 4. vindâ—cated is he that is in the Saints then he that is in the world which is brought in by the Apostle as another ground of their present victory over the seducing antichristian part of the world the strength is not ours but the Lords whereby we go on conquering and to conquer and are enabled to keep up our warfare and assured we shall have the day of whole troops of perfect and imperfect Quakers because as the word of God abideth in them that have overcome in the Apostles sense 1 John at 14. so it doth not abide in them who say they have no sin abiding in them and will not be known to abide in the warfare such were either never in it or are run from their colors Let R. F. * Page 18. prate or print what he will carnally minded as thou art and speaking of his conquests which thou art ignorant of and knowest not that plead for sin and so for the devil therefore his servant thou art expect his reward for doing his work none of these fiery darts shall be able to separate me from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus nor from the service of my generation in this or any other way which the Lord calls me unto 10. Head of Contradiction to Scripture Concerning Repentance Section 36. IMet with a question in one of their Books which implyed a denyal of Repentance in the godly viz. what remorse can there be in him that doth not commit sin now taking remorse for godly sorrow as they phrase it this is as I shewed contrary to 2 Cor. 7. 10 11. where godly sorrow wrought in the Corinthians with the effects of it although they committed not sin in Johns sense i. e. they made no trade of it R. F. bids me take heed c. for we know that the goodness of God loadeth to repentance Rom. 2. 4. Rom. 2. 4. cleared Rep. The Apostle there speaketh of the unconverted but the question is about the Saints As for the unconverted Gods goodness in providential ways is a motive and inducement to repentance but no Physical means energetical and operative to give what it leads or directs unto We witness saith he obseurely the gift from the godness Rep. 1. That God gives aim for repentance by his providential goodness of which the Apostle speaks is plain but that he giveth the thing thereby is denyed Ver. 5. shewing what abuse is made of it by impenitent hearts and such who by providence have the Gospel preached unto them Repentance is not given to all where Christ is preached 2. That which I charged was their disclaiming a godly remorse or sorrow viz. in the godly Remorse properly Remorse what and strictly is the biting and sting of conscience by upbraiding guilt this believers are freed from Heb. 10. 1. and 22. And Francis Howgill in the account he gives of his dark condition * The inheritance of Jacob c. by F. Howgtll page 8. will hardly finde a sound Protestant Preacher who ever told him sin was taken away by Christ but the guilt should remain while he lived and brought him the Saints conditions who were in the warfare to confirm it for such a remorse is for them that are unpardoned and unsanctified and shall so continue while they live and the warfare of justified sanctified believers as such is onely with the sin that deserves guilt and hell not with guilt it self Because sin is pardoned and the reigning power removed the Saints are to rejoyce and give thanks but that sin remaineth and the roots of all their old pranks and wickednesses now brought to remembrance are not perfectly mortified this is matter of repentance and godly sorrow all their days R. F. tells me I have uttered another lye in saying they disclaim godly sorrow Rep. 1. Where was the first lye or one to which another was added Hitherto the honest godly conscientious Reader who is also judicious I trust will finde none 2. That my charge was true will further thus appear They that all along disclaim in-dwelling sin in the godly which is the chief matter of their grief disclaim Godly How Repentance is decryed sorrow R. F. and others disclaim in-dwelling sin in the godly what follows but the truth of my charge Again They that cry down the doctrine and practice of continual sighing and groaning under the roots and remnants of sin they disclaim godly sorrow But R. F. and his associates de-cry the doctrine and practice of sighing and groaning all our days under the burden of sins remainders as Section 20. was evidenced and elsewhere Therefore they do disclaim godly sorrow If R. F. his simple hearted Reader say but we must believe him he saith they do not so and so I ask then what meaneth he by godly sorrow which I never called remorse but seeing they used the term I called the sorrow of the godly a godly remorse or sorrow using the word at large for no other but grief in the affection not for gripes in the conscience and in whom doth he not disclaim it Haply the simple heart will say he meaneth sorrow for sin as sin past and present past defilements present stirrings and inclinations to sin Doth he so then he must deny his doctrine of present perfection true of some Saints you will say but then he disclaimeth godly sorrow in the rest that are already perfect and free from the matter of sorrow as I said above and so he will put them if not himself and some imperfect ones among the ninety nine that need no Repentance which yet is not so with them in reality but in supposition If you say
agrees with the saying of Christ Matth. 6. 6. Matth 6. 6. vindicated when thou prayest enter into thy Closet c. as if the publique ordinance may not stand with the private for the most retired and secret duties are to fit and make ready for the publique onely 't is our Lords scope there to confine a private prayer to a private place as it is the Apostles order from the Lord 1 Cor. 14. 14 15 16. when 1 Cor. 14. 14 15 cleared vindicated we pray publiquely in Church-conventions all which have a publiqueness in them to pray so as others may be edified thereby who are Saints and those who occupy the room of the unlearned may testifie their consents by saying Amen which they could not do if either the person praying spoke onely to his own hearing or in the heart not with an audible voyce to others or when they heard him they could not understand him because he exprest himself in an unknown tongue All that I drive at with the Apostles and our Saviours scope is that every ordinance and outward part of worship be owned in its place and that this of publique prayer may not be disowned ere the more because of these mens crying up their praying by the Spirit in opposition to the Churches publique prayers which the Primitive Church at Jerusalem Act. 2. 42. attended and continued in and which the present Saints and Churches in these nations hold up according to president and precept R. F. in another Pamphlet of his * Truth cleared of Scandals pag. 2. saith they are led by the Spirit and he maketh intercession for them according to the minde and will of God But their practise shews they are not in this led by the Spirit when they cross the minde and will of God by refusing to joyn with the Saints in a publique prayer we acknowledge that no wicked mans prayer is accepted publiquely or privately made by him It is their duty to pray but not their priviledge who are destitute of the Spirit and out of Christ But to profess prayer from the second birth while yet they know not how to pray as they ought but as the Spirit maketh intercession with sighs and groans which are J. Parnells words * Shield of truth p. 14 15 is to contradict their doctrine of perfection And to give a dash at all our publique prayer as the long prayer of the Pharisees is to strike at the Spirit and contradict the Scripture allowance of the publiqueness and length of prayer upon occasion while we give no allowance to Pharisaical ends and pretences but can approve our persons and hearts to God in Jesus Christ our persons in Christs righteousness reckoned to us by faith our hearts so far as renewed by the grace and power of his in-dwelling Spirit James Nayler hath expressions one would think of this tendency that complies with our doctrine in his common place of Worship * Love to the Lost p. 8 9. wherein he instanceth in no part of worship but prayer he acknowledgeth as we teach The worship of the true and living God stands out of mans will and before any man can rightly worship God he must wait to know the Spirit But now let the lost soul beware of his counsel where should they wait you must saith he know the light and in it wait till therein you finde the Spirits leading acting and ordering This counsel if followed keeps men off from the positive parts of worship revealed in the Scripture The light that every man hath as he comes into the world which is the light they nourish up people in in opposition to Scripture-light makes known nothing of publique ministery Church officers therein of water-Baptism Lords Supper publique order of prayer c. nor of Christ mediator nor of the The Spirit of Prayer to be found in the publâ—que ministery Spirit of promise nor of one promise of grace or gracious acceptation in Christ Had not the lost soul better counsel while he was under publique ministery to attend there for the coming of the Spirit the Spirit of faith and prayer where God useth to give it Acts 10. 44. and promiseth to pour it out Prov. 1. 22 23. with 20. 21. verses How true is that which J. Nayler hath in the same place according to our Scripture-doctrine when a man hath been doing evil neglecting good and then he runs to act a worship to get peace the prayer becomes abomination for he that regards impurity the Lord will not hear his prayers nor accept his worships that 's Cains sacrifice and Esaus prayers but either must your worship be performed in one that never sinned or it cannot be accepted with the pure God Yet here is his mis-guidance of lost souls 1. That he would lead them off from joyning with him that makes long prayers such a one he seems to speak of who hides his wickedness with pretence of godliness but he makes no difference of any that serve Christ and his people publiquely in the nation as if they were all such to be separated from 2. He directs to the commands in Spirit in opposition to the Scripture-Letter for thus he delivers himself * Page 11. All the Saints have their commands in Spirit but yours is in the letter and so of another ministration for the literal ministration is done away in the spiritual As if the Spirit did not give out his commands by the written letter or the Scripture and his power also by the reading and hearing of it and by praying according to the rules and patterns of prayer therein contained But something O ye lost souls you will finde when the great Shepherd seeks up his lost ones and brings back that which is gone astray Ezek. 34. 16 ever and anon that alienated your hearts from the Scripture by the spirit of Contradiction that is in these mens Teachings and Writings 15. Head of their Scripture-contradiction Concerning Singing Section 42. I Gave account of their express words We are against all your Davids Praises and Prophecies in meeter contrary to Ephes 5. 19. Col. 3. 16. and other Scriptures R. F. * Page 21. makes me this return Singing of Psalms and Hymns and spiritual Songs we are not against but own but your Poetry we deny Rep. He might as well say your translation of them into English meeter we deny But if Psalms Hymns and spiritual Songs be owned they are either Davids and other of the Saints penning and the Spirits inditing in the Scripture or of their own composing if they own none but of their own composing they reject Davids and what was left for Psalms cannot be sung without meeter or due measures of speech our use in Scripture contradicting both it by that rejection and themselves also by owning Psalms Hymns and Songs and dis-owning meeter or Poetry for never was there Song Hymn or Psalm sung forth as it ought to be but it had
some modulation musical measure or tune What is Poetry but a confined speech or words bound up into verses of so many feet Or what is meeter but a form of words ordered into set pauses and rests and sung in its due measures And what better Poetry then that in the Scripture which is translated and ordered as suteth best to our own mother Tongue for singing and teaching others to sing Davids words and praises with Davids spirit But saith R. F. We deny your teaching people to sing lyes in hypocrisie saying they are not puft in minde when they are puft in minde and they have no scornful eye when they have Rep. 1. We call none to sing that which is not true for the matter and we exhort them to sing in a sincere maner with an upright heart 2. A sincere heart may sing that or other Psalms as Davids frame of spirit more then his own yet with desires and breathings after a farther measure of humility weanedness of affection from the world faith joy in the holy Ghost c. 3. If the wicked take the name of God in vain sin lies at their door we warn them against hypocrisie For this man therefore to say We teach people to sing lyes in hypocrisie is to speak a falshood in plain English He may think his tongue and pen is his own and none shall control him yet I would have him remember Psalm 52. ver 2 4 5. 16 Head of their Scripture-contradiction Concerning Elders and Ordination Section 43. ORdaining of Elders was not by man said one this I noted as contrary to Acts 14. 23. where by the direction and assistance of the Apostles with the suffrages or consenting voices and gestures of the Brethren in the Churches Elders Teaching and Ruling were ordained or being chosen were set apart to their office by Prayer and fasting in every Church R. F. * Page 21. represents me as if I had not truly quoted James Nayler his Discovery of the man of sin Page 38. and calls the wise-hearted to read that book and it will witness and clear him and the truth declared in it Rep. Agreed let the wise-hearted read all that book if they please and gather up more of his Errors to witness against it then I have done But for that which concerneth Ordination I again affirm saith J. Nayler that the ordaining of Elders by the direction of the Spirit was not by man nor of man nor any created power c. The wise-hearted here appealed to will soon grant that which they never denied That the direction of the Spirit was his own not mans and the gift of the holy Ghost was his gift But if the holy Ghost makes use of the Apostles and of the Churches to chuse and set Elders apart as he did then the wise-hearted will conclude agaist J. Nayler this call is not immediate but mediate a call of God by man or by the ministery and service of man and is not disproved by what he hath said to the contrary What hath R. F. to say against it This I say The holy Ghost made Overseers and so Elders in the Church Acts Acts 20. 28. vindicated 20. 28. and the holy Ghost is not such men as you are Rep. 1. It were well for R. F. if he knew what or who the holy Ghost is Under that Head of the Trinity as before Section 7. he was no person in his judgement distinct from the Father and the Son and now he tells us he is not such men as we are Why what is he Is he a man or Angel speak out R. F. tell us what he is in thy judgement for in ours and according to the grounds of our faith laid down in Scripture he is neither such men as we or the Sect of men called Quakers nor is he such a person as man nor is he man or Angel but the very God And as he is God with the Father and the Son so he is a divine person distinct from the personal subsistences of the Father and the Son as hath been proved above 2. What the Father and the Son do he doth as to the making of Overseers or Bishops and Elders he gives the office he designs the officer he furnisheth the Elders with graces and gifts fitting for the function and he directeth the Church by his word and rule whom to chuse and set apart 1 Tim. 3. Yea he approveth of mens service in the setting apart of men to this as other offices he made use of the Prophets and Teachers at Antioch to separate him Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto he had appointed them as R. F. acknowledgeth but if he thinketh that which followeth and they were sent out by the holy Ghost cuts off Ordination by man it is a contradicting-thought to the very Scripture he quoteth Acts 13. ver 3. When they had Acts 13. 2 4. vindicated fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them they sent them away and yet are said to be sent forth by the Spirit because they were but instrumental to the Spirits sending but if he sends by them instrumentally he sends by them mediately If R. F. thinketh the Spirits sending in this maner doth not cut off Ordination by man then he contradicteth his fellow J. Nayler who saith Ordaining no not so much as of Elders was not by man 17. Head of their Scripture-contradiction Concerning Ministers maintenance Section 44. I Had noted what R. F. saith in another Pamphlet viz. The Apostle had a free spirit and was chargeable to no man building this assertion upon 2 Cor. 11. 9. and 2 Cor. 11 9. vindicated mounting it up against Ministers taking any maintenance He attends not the Apostles limitations I preached to you at Corinth the Gospel of God freely ver 7. With you I was chargeable to no man ver 9. nor how he used his liberty elsewhere to take wages ver 8. But he * Page 22. returns me some truth and some railing as his maner is Paul coveted no mans silver nor gold nor apparel but preached the Gospel freely and his hands ministred to his necessities That is truth and will stand as a witness against all proud covetous self-seeking hireling Priests in Scotland and elsewhere and at the Truth which witnesseth against your deceit thou art offended Rep. It no ways offendeth me that R. F. or any man can write out a Scripture-truth viz. That Paul was free of covetousness in outward manifest acts while he had the body of all sin within him take that truth with the other Rom. 7. but it offends me and much more the holy and true God when his words are alledged to bad ends and purposes and when more is collected from them then he intendeth as in this case of Ministers maintenance and in these instances of Preaching freely may stand with taking maintenance the Apostles words and practise For First Preaching the Gospel freely may stand with taking
or not it would something savor of an humble spirit But as some deem this exercise of the gift of Prophesie too high for a believing brother so he and those of his Spirit not in this guided by the Spirit of God think it too low for themselves and all other Teachers and therefore whosoever are not taught as immediately as the Apostles of the highest Form are no Teachers with them Hence he addes * Page 22. And thou that art not taught of him shews that thou speaks a vision of thy own heart and not from the mouth of the Lord. This is his judgement but erroneous enough and contradictious to the whole Scripture as not being the mouth of the Lord. And if I affirm as I did the true Prophets studied the Scripture True prophets studied the Scripture that is my imagination Rep. The true Prophets were either under the Old or New Testament before or since Christ 1. Before some of them studied the word who were at other times immediately inspired as I instanced in Dan. 9. 1. Dan 9. 1. vindicated If Daniel understood by books he read and considered what he read in those books what was prophesied of the captivity when it began when it should end and the writings of Jeremy were the Books as Daniel himself tells us by which he understood the number of the years c. Others were trained up in a ordinary way in the schools of the Prophets under Samuel at Ramah 1 Sam. 19 under Elijah at Bethel and Jericho although the Lord added impulses and inspirations more then ordinary and more immediately to some of these afterwards this is none of my imagination If R. F. goes on to charge it I shall still lay his Scripture-contradiction before him and at his dore it will lye till he repents of it for he chargeth not falshood upon me but upon the word of God whence I demonstrate what I affirm 2. Since Christ the true Prophets studied the word The Scriptures studied Gods Spirit going along therewith made them Prophets in ordinary of whom Paul speaks 1 Cor. 14. as it fitted A pollos and Timothy for Evangelists what hath R. F. to say against it no prophesie of the Seripture came in old time by the will of man then not studied but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the holy Ghost and the Scripture is of no private interpretation Rep. 1. By prophecy of Scripture 2 Pet. 1. 20 21. is 2 Pet. 1. 20. 21 vindicated meant the word and minde of God declared in writing God lest it not to mans will what and when and how he should write his Canon But he did immediately inspire and dictate to the Pen-men of Scripture matter maner and time It follows Scripture is to be studied because inspired of God not because the Secretaries of the holy Ghost wrote by his immediate inspiration therefore the Prophets and Teachers are not to teach others but as they are immediately inspired But it will follow from hence and make against R. F. as it did in the first Section and the sixth that if there is nothing of the will of man or private-selfish meaning and sense in the Scripture then is it a rule for Teachers as Scholars and they that will teach sound doctrine must teach from and according to the Scripture and therefore had need study and meditate on the Scripture that he may be a right man of God the title of a true Prophet throughly 2 Tim 3. 17. furnished to all the work of a Minister as of a Christian 2. This truth is not onely given forth by sound consequence but directly and expresly the will of God is laid down 1 Tim. 4. 15. Meditate upon these things Timothy an Evangelist must study that Epistle which Paul wrote to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 him and be wholly in them he must be taken up altogether therewith referre all his studies bend all his thoughts to the knowledge of the Scriptures And 2 Tim. 3. 17. with 16. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God c. that the man of God the minister of the Gospel may be perfect i. e. have a sacred library to converse with in all ages and be made a compleat Scholar able to teach reprove instruct and comfort out of Scripture store and furniture Hence we Bonus Textuarius bonus Theologus use to say A good Text-man a good Divine or an able man of God and he is likely to be a light and treacherous Prophet who slights the meditation of Scripture-Text and speaks onely quicquid in buccam venerit what comes next to his tongues end A fourth sort of ministers are Pastors and Pastors and Teachers mediately taught Teachers who having the grace of God and gift of prophecy are called out from among the Brethren to office and oversight of the flock as Bishops of the Lords institution These were not so immediately taught that I can finde in the Apostles times but rather by means and ways of the Lords appointment they were trained up and fitted for the office as by the exercise of their gift of Prophecy before-hand 1 Cor. 14. each Church being as a School of the Prophets and that of Corinth eminently so by their submission to tryal at election 1 Tim. 3. 10. And besides none but disciples of some years in nature and standing in grace and profession were called to the office of Pastor or teaching Elder now such disciples were first taught of others of catechized instructed in an outward way hence the * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Greek word for disciple comes of another that signifieth to learn by outward teaching Those that heard John Baptist were first called disciples whereof Andrew was one Simon Peters brother John 1. 40. They that heard and followed Christs Sermons were also called disciples and so we are all believers and members of the Churches till at Antioch they were also called Christians disciples as taught outwardly Chrians as anointed with the Spirit and partakers of Christs grace and gifts And such being chosen who were outwardly as inwardly trained up I conclude immediate teachings did not onely furnish men for a Teachers or Ministers function but mediate ways also which is both a warrant for them that desire the office of a Bishop first to study the Scriptures and an encouragement also for Churches to covet gifts and chiefly that they may prophesie and for University Scholars to give up themselves to present catechizings and exercises after Sermons as they have begun in the Colledges for the better storing of them with grounds of knowledge and discovery of such disciples as the Lord hath begun to teach inwardly by and with outward teaching that they may be issued forth for service in the ministery after grounds laid in their understandings and some experimental work of grace approved of if it might be in some of the Churches of Jesus Christ And oh that to this
given to the Prophets and Ministers of the Lord as that of the great woman or Lady of Shunem to the Prophet Elisha 2 Kings 4. 37. of bowing to the elder in years or hours scarce a quarter of an hour it may be was Esau born before Jacob yet he gives him the respect and honor of his Primogeniture Gen. 33. 3. of bowing to the rich as Ruth to Boaz Ruth 2. 10. of the wife to the husband as Bathsheba to David 1 Kings 1. 16. and 31. of the son to the mother as Solomon to Bathsheba 1 Kings 2. 19. These and many more if R. F. knowes and allowes not he disdaineth Scripture proof and testimony if he allowes why is the civil obeysance of the upper or lower part of the body head loins or knee denied to any such relations Blessed is he that condemns not in practise that which he alloweth in judgement or that disalloweth not in judgement that which the Scripture countenanceth and commandeth Yet we have not all that R. F. can say for himself and his companions 6. Where doth the Scripture say put off your Hats and flatter with your tongues Rep. Here again he would not seem to oppose the respect due to men but as it is done in a way of flattery which carriage is of all to be abhorred but dutiful honor may be given without dissimulation and if these men be perfect why are they no better examples The Quere about the Hat I have spoken to in the former Section The fifth Commandement requireth all tokens of civill respect and honor the putting off the Hat is a token of such respect Be curteous saith the Apostle 1 Pet. 3 8. put not off humanity by denying this piece of common civility Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head and honor the face of the old man and fear thy God I am the Lord Levit. 19. 32. If greater signs of honor then uncovering the head be required we are not to boggle at the lesser But 7. Saith R. F. Where doth the Scripture say respect the rich and dis-respect the poor Are you not partial c. Rep. Where do you finde any doctrine of this tendency delivered The Word would have poor and rich respected as God made them both his creatures Prov. 22. 2. And as he maketh poor and maketh rich himself will be magnified 1 Sam. 2. and yet his order set among men regarded As for respecting persons for self-ends and carnal considerations Let R. F. and every one look to his own heart and learn to be poor in spirit Let the Brother of high degree in the James 1. 9 10 opened world rejoyce in that he is made low in spirit Let the Brother of low degree in the world rejoyce in that he is exalted in Christ Degrees there are of Saints as Saints and Saints as men are capable of different degrees of estate and place in the world every one of them must know the place and station wherein God hath set him and demean or carry himself accordingly If any man think otherwise and teach it and consent not to wholesom words the words of our Lord Jesus Christ and to the doctrine which is according to godliness he is proud or a fool as 't is in the margent 1 Tim. 6. 3 4. knowing nothing doting about questions and strifes of words c. Let R. F. and his fellows read on and tremble lest they be branded and stigmatized with such Characters for their multiplied perverse Disputings and Scripture-contradictions 22. Head of their Scripture-contradiction Concerning Swearing Section 50. THey take up Christs words as I noted Mat. 5. 34. Swear not at all as they do other Scriptures against his meaning to fight against all Oaths before a Magistrate in any case upon any occasion And now comes forth R. F. * Page 23. and fights with his shadow Thou says he forbids Oaths onely by Creatures Heaven Swearing by Creatures forbidden Earth a mans head c. The same meaning hath James Chap. 5. 12. Rep. My words were plain enough to him that hath a minde to understand First said I which word first he leaves out he forbids oaths by creatures and I added Mat. 5 34 35 36. vindicated onely because the Lord doth onely there i. e. ver 34 35 36. make exception of Creatures Heaven Gods throne Earth his footstool Jerusalem the city of the great King the Head because thou canst not make one hair white or black R. F. * Page 24. returns me this non-sense for answer Here thou art a lyar of Christ and his words bear testimony against thee for he doth not forbid swearing by Creatures onely but he forbids swearing by all things else whatsoever for he saith Swear not at all neither by heaven nor by earth c. And he that swears not by heaven must not swear by what is contained in it and he that swears not by earth must not swear by what is contained in it Rep. The reason he gives why swearing by creatures onely is not here forbidden is because the Lord forbids swearing by all things else which is a reasonless reason for heaven and earth and the creatures contained therein are all but creatures and my assertion stands good That Christs words in the above-mentioned verses 34 35 36. of Mat. 5. do not absolutely inhibit all oaths before a Magistrate while he forbids onely swearing by creatures heaven and earth and all creatures therein I am aware of what Familistical Gods essence is not mixed with the Creatures conceits these men have of God and his Essence as mixt with the creatures and hereupon they may think that if creatures are not to be sworn by at all at any time in any case neither may we swear by the name of God at all at any time in any case But 1. Although Gods essence is where the Creatures essence is yet he is a most simple un-compounded Being and though he is in heaven and in earth yet he is not contained bounded or limited therein 2. Our Lords scope is to wipe and wash off the dusty Glosses of the Scribes and Pharisees which they had cast upon the glass of the Law and particularly concerning oaths for ver 33. you will finde it had been an old tradition they might swear by any thing so as they did not forswear themselves And again by comparing Chap. 5. with 23. 16. c. we finde how they distinguisht about oaths some were nothing they said or not binding as to swear by the Temple by the Altar c. but to swear by the Gold of the Temple or by the Gift upon the Altar that was a binding oath and made the man that swore a debtor and if he kept not his oath he was guilty Now against these and such like Glosses Christ opposeth with a prohibition I say unto you who am to be heard and believed before Pharisees Swear not at all that is neither by the Temple nor by
written is Gospel which was before by these men excepted against as no Gospl 2. Their Self-contradiction in sticking to the Letter denyed to be Gospel I made to appear from their urging the above mentioned place in Matthew in the very Letter Be ye not called Masters By this R. F. would make the simple believe I have cleared them and contradicted my self Rep. But wherein or how no man can tell unless accusing them be clearing of them and discovering of their self contradiction proves me one of them Thou art offended that they witness against thy deceit Rep. I am neither conscious of deceit nor should I be offended at those that discover it were it discoverable from my words but their sticking to the Letter sometimes and at other times condemning the whole Scripture-letter I witness to be an interfering with themselves And when the very Letter is urged against the sense and intendment of the Spirit I witness it to be a deceit in them that so urge it Thou cuts off thy master-ship by thy own Rule Rep. Did I urge the Scripture as they do my servant must not call me Master we have no such servants as Abraham had who gave him this note of respect at every turn Gen. 24. 12. O Lord God of my Master Abraham c. shew kindness unto my Master Abraham ver 36. And Sarah my Masters wife bare a son to my Master when she was old and ver 54. Send me away unto my Master but the fifth Matth. 23 8. 10. cleared vindicated Commandement is not made void by Christs words nor by the true sense of them which is that we should be far from affectation of Titles from men or suffering any to cast their dependence and lay the stress of their conscience-determination upon us in matters of faith and salvation In this very Section I had discovered another of their self contradictions For J. Nayler querieth which of the Saints had the witness of their souls to seek in the Letter and with the same breath he quotes the Scripture-letter for the believers witness in himself This R. F. takes up as if they did not deny and cross the Scriptures Rep. But my work was to shew how J. Nayler both denies and grants the same thing to be in the letter without any distinction If he had said the believers witness is one way in the heart or in himself and another way in the Scriptures he had not cross-shind himself Nor doth R. F. * Page 25. help to cure the wound but makes it fester and rankle the more with his railing words Acknowledge thy lies error and confusion and upon them own thy condemnation Rep. 1. He salves not J. Nayler For the believer knows by the Scripture and by that in particular 1 Joh. 5. 1 John 5. 20. vindicated â—0 that he hath the witness in him self and no generation of Saints ever since that Scripture was written refused to seek and run unto it for confirmation of their souls faith seeing the Apostle addeth so plainly ver 13. These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God that ye may know that ye have eternal life and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God Here the Believer hath both the rise and furtherance of his faith and evidence from what is written and if the evidence or witness in the heart be not bottomed upon what is in the Scripture and proved agreeable thereunto it is a false evidence though it lurketh within as the faith which hath not Scripture for its warrant and compurgator is false also 2. He makes the wound rankle the more in that he would have me acknowledge truth to be error and lies and faithful discovery falshood and in that he requires when I have acknowledged c. thereupon to own my condemnation whereas upon confession of my fault where I finde it I am acquitted as in Gods court so in my conscience and though I will judge my self for the root of unseen failings as for what in other things I see yet he is near that â— Joh. 1. 9. justifieth me and I believe the Lord is faithful to forgive me my sins and to cleanse me from all unrighteousness Section 3. HEre I pointed at J. Naylers concession The word nigh in the heart and in the mouth doth not oppose it self but is one with the Scripture contradictious to what at other times they say the Scripture in the mouth or in the book is not the word of God R. F. takes no notice of this Section nor how that which drops from their Pens opposeth it self or the Scripture or from both sometimes what else is that which J. N. in his Few words c. Page 8. thou needest not try the inward substance by the outward declaration the living by the dead when as himself in page 7. had affirmed the outward declaration or Scripture to be one with the word within and this one with the Scripture If the Scripture be dead and yet one with the word in J. Naylers heart then is his heart and the word in it dead also If the word which is nigh in the heart and in the mouth be alive and the Letter of Scripture be dead then the word within and the word without are not one If the word in the heart be alive and the word in the Bible and mouth be dead then the word in the heart and in the mouth opposeth it self It will put any man to his shifts to extricate and winde off here from Self or Scripture-contradiction How much better or worse is that which followeth Page 9. The Saints witness the word from Gods own mouth in Spirit and revelation in Spirit but never any in the Letter Let Saints indeed perpend and weigh seriously is it so as J. Nayler suggesteth Gods mouth then is not in the Scripture he speaks not breathes not there at all by this mans doctrine but then let him tell the world how the Scripture came to be the outward declaration of the minde and will of God and salve himself from Self-contradiction who had said before the word in heart and mouth is one with the Scripture and now there was never any word from Gods own mouth in the Letter and as he subjoyneth That faith which is in Christ stands not in volumes he means of Gods book or letter of which he spake immediately before If it be so as he saith then the faith of his heart is not built upon Gods Testimony in the Scripture He hath a faith and a Christ too which is not to be found in the Scripture and then he opposeth himself who granted at first the word nigh in the heart was one with the Scripture I hope the wary and humble Saint will never pin his faith upon J. N. his sleeve nor suffer it to stand upon his Few words or his multiplyed pamphletical volumes who thus rejecteth the Law of Gods
brings all that is in the Letter to remembrance for to what end doth he bring it to remembrance not onely for explication of Scripture by Scripture but for consolation of our spirits by the good words of the Spirit of God When heaviness makes the heart to stoop a good word seasonably remembred as spoken makes it glad and he that slights the turning over of the sacred Pages of the Bible after he hath got his evidence within may be glad of crums one day after his high Feastings and well if seeking the Spirit where he lost him his comforts return at last upon him Many lose the Spirits comforts by slighting his Love-letters in the Scriptures where the Spirit is and whereby he giveth forth himself Such a passage I had in my former piece That the Spirit is in the Letter and given by it which R. F. hath excepted against once and again heretofore but now in its due place where it was spoken he lets it pass I promised in the first part of this Reply to clear it further for his conviction if it may be or for the Saints edification First The Spirit is in the Letter or the whole Scripture for so these men comprehensively use the term Letter How the Spirit is in the Scripture-Letter 1. As he owneth what he dictated to his Secretaries the Pen-men of Scripture He is in all their writings with the subscription of his own hand as it were they spake and wrote as they were moved and inspired by the Holy Ghost Rev. 1. 10. John is in the Spirit viz. he is rapt up by the Spirit and the Spirits impulse is more then ordinarily upon him when he is commanded to write and of all that John writeth the Spirit beareth Testimony that it is himself that speaks it Rev. 3. 22. He that hath an ear let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the Churches what wretched men are they who will not suffer the Spirit to be where he speaketh 2. If the Spirit was in the Pen-men he is more in the matter and contents of the Scripture penned down None will deny but he was in the Pen-men more then ordinarily when they wrote from his mouth or inspiration and therefore he is in what they wrote much more for the word written is of greater Authority and Spirit then the Writer or Secretary They were holy men of God who wrote but that which is written is the holy Truth of God They were imperfectly holy but Gods word as written from the Spirit is perfect in all degrees of holiness 3. The Spirit is where there is with perfect holiness perfect Truth and Majesty in the Matter and in the very Stile and where is sweet Harmony in all the parts put together In the Scripture-letter there is not one Iota or Tittle that shall fall to the ground to eclipse the Glory Truth and Majesty or spoil the Harmony of it Secondly the Spirit is given by it in this sense How given by it 1. As his minde is given out by it whether the words be proper or figurative the Spirit hath his proper intendment scope and sense in the whole Letter and in every part of what is written and as by his words he makes known his minde he is where his words are 2. As his work is given by it even what work he pleaseth See second part Section 10. of Conviction Instruction in Righteousness Consolation c. If the Scripture convinceth gainsayers and sinners evil livers if it instructeth the ignorant comforteth the feeble-minded it is as the Spirit gives out himself thereby He is there indeed as a free Agent ad placitum not tyed to work or manifest himself or put forth his power and grace but as the wind bloweth where it listeth so he worketh where when and upon whom he pleaseth 3. As the Promises of the Scripture are his Chariot to convey him whither he pleaseth to go into the hearts of the Elect that they may believe and after they have believed that they may be established Thus according to his promise he will fill a Believers sails of endeavor in reading meditating c. with gales of grace and advances towards glory To conclude that the Spirit is in the Letter and given by it daily experience doth demonstrate For such as forsake the Scriptures authority and own not the Spirits dwelling in the Letter as truly as in the heart they lose their faith of the Spirits presence with them in the reading and meditation of it and losing this faith they run to other Doctrines and Gospels The spirit of error is in all mens doctrines which have not the Spirit in them that breatheth in the Scriptures We may easily discern whether R. F. his spirit be not in his writings and whether much of the spirit of Error not conveyed and given out by his and other mens Pamphlets of the same stamp And shall the spirit of Satan the father of lyes be in Seducers books and not the Spirit of God and of the Father of truth be in and go along according to his free mercy with his own blessed Books of the Scripture Yes verily and James Naylers words import as much when he saith * Few words by J. N. p. 11. That the Spirit opens and brings all that is spoken in Scripture to remembrance which if R. F. denies he contradicts his fellow if he grants it a truth he must recant his frequent descants upon that which I asserted and judge himself as erring because he knew not the Scriptures and the Spirit and power of God dwelling in them and acting by them Section 9. WHat answereth R. F. to this Section where I evidenced another of their Self-contradictions concerning the Scripture which was this He that believeth is born of God without Scripture and yet Let all see if we do not set the Scripture in the heart of every one Why this is his answer * Page 25. 1. So saith the Scripture 1 John 5. And that the word of God is nigh in the heart is witnessed Rom. 10. 8. And he that believes and is born of God knows the seed of God within him 1 John 3. 9. Rep. Do any of these Scriptures bear witness against themselves or say That he that believeth is born of God without Scripture yet dare R. F. put it forth in the front of his answer So saith the Scripture The Scripture saith the full truth He that believeth is born of God but the Pamphlet I quoted * Answer to 7 Priests p. 13 said more then the Scripture that the believer was born of God without the Scripture and R. F. pretends to answer to what their Pamphlets hold forth but cannot in his answers salve his own nor his fellows contradictions Ans 2. He is not born of the Letter as thou wouldst have him yet he is begotten by the immortal word which endureth for ever which the Letter declares of and that doth not contradict
men called Quakers are dealt with the more abusive they are If any do make ingenuous confession as the 42 Ministers Pastors and Preachers of their failings the more readily they will hang them up in a legal way without any Gospel-mercy And if we grant they speak a truth sometimes they would make the world believe they speak all truth at all times when as hitherto so many lies as R. F. for his share hath charged upon me and hath proved none nor will be able God still keeping me and guiding my Tongue and Pen to make good a proof so many slanders will by the Lord be set upon his score and account The Lord himself rebuke him in time savingly and to purpose even to the manifestation of the purpose of his love to do him good for ever 3. Head of Self-contradiction Concerning the light within them Section 11. I Noted how from John 1. 4. and 9. they dreaming of a Christ and Saviour in all deny the sense to respect the natural light of every man and yet speak of their own living in a natural condition for several years And R. F. both blindly and boldly answereth If we do we have warrant for it for it is the light supernatural John 8. 12. John 8. 12. cleared Rep. What if Christ speaks of supernatural light given to believers and his followers John 8. 12. doth it follow that he speaks of such a light John 1. 4. 9. a blind and bold consequence it is neither modest nor true The Evangelist indeed speaks of him chap. 1. 4. 9. as the Author of light which is given to every man and He of himself chap. 8. 1â— as the fountain of light which is given to some men but although the giver of light be the same the light given and way of giving is different in its proper form and kinde First the light given to all men John 1. 4. and 9. is a dim Difference of every mans light and the believers light light and as the light of the Moon cold and insufficient to salvation unable to make discovery of the true Saviour the light given to some men is the light of life a quickning light as the light of the Sun a saving light Secondly for the way of giving Christ as God as hath been shewed in the first part of this Reply gives reason and common judgement about some things to all men but as Mediator he gives onely to some men that saving supernatural light or light of supernatural things in a saving way which effectually brings them into a gracious life and unto a glorious life R. F. goes on * Page 26. If one of them did say he lived in a natural condition before his conversion is that such a strange thing and then he instanceth in Paul Gal. 1. and others with him 2 Cor. 4. 6. who had given them the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus c. which is a mystery Col. 1. 27. But tels me I am minded to cavil on purpose against the work of God c. Rep. 1. All this doth not salve the contradiction viz. of every mans having a supernatural light from his coming into the world a light of life which is saving and yet yield his as others living in a natural state at that time when he hath such a light 2. It is not strange to me that unconverted men should live as they are natural and carnal but it was and is strange that men will grant a natural life and condition lived in for several years and yet imagine a saving supernatural light in every such man as if every man brought a Saviour with him into the world at his first birth That every man hath a Pope in his belly I have heard and believe that he hath roots and seeds of all Antichristian doctrine of all heresie and sin in him from and by his first birth of men as men sinning in Adam this is not strange But that every mans light should be accounted supernatural and saving light and nature accounted grace though it be not strange to Pelagians yet it is strange to me that professors of the Gospel for many years should now interfere and halt and limp as they do and be bewitched with this notion If the Apostle Paul and others as R. F. granteth were natural before they were spiritual what a contradiction is it to their doctrine of every mans light as they state it and account it in a degree spiritual while the best Saint upon earth is no more but spiritual in some degrees of light and holiness 3. This is neither my cavilling against Gods work nor envy at the breakings forth of light as he would make men believe but a naked representation of his and others fallacies R. F. thinks he had in the words before laid in a sure proof of my cavilling and envy for thus he wraps up his argument * Page 26. He commanded the light to shine out of darkness c. and if it had not been there in a mystery Col. 1. 27 how could it in them have been so after manifested in them but that thou art mindeful to cavil on purpose c. Rep. 1. Here is a piece of the mystery of Iniquity as subtle as Christ for salvation not in every man any the Antichrist of Rome hath in his budget viz. The light of Christ for salvation which the Apostle speaks of 2 Cor. 4. 6. and Gal. 1. 16. Gods son revealed in him and Col. 1. 27. Christ in you was there and in them twice repeated by R. F. for emphasis sake that is it was in the hearts of Paul and the Gentiles as of every natural man before their conversion for as my Antagonist reasoneth If it had not been there c. how could it in them have been so after manifested but if he will have patience to hear I will tell him A thing may be manifest at the very coming in to a place that was not there before A Sun-beam makes it self manifest at its first breaking into a dark room where it never shone before Christ for salvation was not in the heart of Paul till God revealed him to him and in him Christ by his Spirit of grace was not in the Gentiles before their conversion Ephes 2. 12. They were all at that time without Christ and without hope Christ therefore was not in them while they were in a natural state as he was when they were sanctified viz. the hope of their glory Were it as this man imagineth Mysterious Absurdities The grace of the Gospel is but a manifestation of natures light A natural state is but grace under an eclipse The light in every man is their little Savior and at their conversion it becomes their great Savior for now the Sun is come out of the eclipse But 2. To assert Christ-mediator to be in natural men is contrary to the Apostles sense and to these mens plain words
all sin nor half the branches of it and Judgement is far from coming forth into victory till Christ brings it forth not onely by Gospel-conviction which is far beyond and above the conviction of a meer natural conscience but by Gospel-sanctification and by his second writing of the Law not in old stony hearts but in new and softned hearts But if natural conscience be so potent to be victorious at last why do they call every man in his first state a beast his reason corrupt but to manifest their Self-confusions Again he speaks of sin being condemned in the flesh a Scripture-expression Rom. 8. 3. used by the Apostle to set Rom. 8. 3. cleared forth Christs condemning sin in his own flesh putting of it out of office and power to condemn believers by his suffering Christs condemning sin in his flesh far beyond the conscience condemnation of sin of the punishment of their sin in that flesh of his yea fulfilling the Law for them in the same flesh Hence no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus but this is another kinde of condemning sin then what comes meerly by and from a natural conscience for that 1. Doth but condemn sin in part not all sin not original sin not unbelief c. 2. By way of discovery not by way of satisfaction for sin and of justification from guilt as is Christs maner of condemning sin 3. Natural conscience is never victorious as to deliverance of a soul from the state of sin though it be never so far obeyed but Christs condemning sin in his own humanity assumed to that end is victorious both by merit with God and by application in the conscience of a believer to stop its own and Satans accusations and throughout the Saint to set up reigning holiness in him to prevail over corruption by degrees in the state of a new creature Lastly The Apostles words 1 Tim. 5. 24. of some mens sins going before-hand to Judgement others coming after 1 â—im 5. 24. vindicated are used to another purpose as appeareth from ver 20. concerning Gospel and Church-offences and offenders some mens sins are discovered before-hand these the Church may judge others are not disclosed these God will judge It is well that R. F. grants a Judgement to come I wish he could consider it better and judge no man so deeply as he doth me before the time reckoning me with the wicked who indeed will finde it to be a day of torment for he that judgeth now shall himself be judged at that day and he that will shew no mercy in judging others shall then have judgement without mercy to his little ease joy or rejoycing The second passage which R. F. * Page 27. undertakes to defend is that of John Cam Every man in his first birth and state may see himself to be natural but is not able to judge of the things of God This is contradictious in the first part of it to Ben. Nicholson who said Every man in his first state is a beast for then he can reflect upon himself and judge of his state before God no more then a beast And the second part of it is contradictious to the first for if every man in his first birth may see himself to be natural guilty liable to sin and the curse before God then he may judge something of the things of God but that is denied why then is the other affirmed but that the man fought with himself in the dark R. F. his defence is 1. By railing and falshood Let that Book Particulars concerning the Law by J. Cam be a witness to the truth against thy ignorance and sottishness that sees thy corruptions and pleads for them Rep. This I pass by with prayer that the Lord may rebuke and remit him 2. By a truth and a falshood together The light which doth discover the natural corruptions is not natural as thou says but it is spiritual Here is a truth in Scripture-sense not in his meaning that the light which discovers natural corruption is spiritual but a falshood mixt with it that I said it was natural This will no where be found in my former or this present piece for I every where deny the natural light of every man to be able to discover a mans corrupt state Reason cannot reach the breadth nor fathom the depth of this fallen condition But let R. F. compare his own words last spoken with John Cam's and consider if one doth not clash with the other His brother saith Every man in his first birth may see himself to be natural Himself saith The light which doth discover natural corruptions is not natural but spiritual Now I ask Is it by the light of the first birth as in the first birth that every man may see himself to be natural then that light is either natural or spiritual It is not natural saith R. F. It is in the first birth saith J. Cam either these men do agree or not if they do agree with themselves it is more then we can make out by their words onely I finde what their sense is of the word spiritual not after the Scripture sense The Scripture meaneth by spiritual that which is born of the Spirit by spiritual light the light of the new or second birth but these men understand by spiritual light that which comes with the first birth a light in the soul of every man We know saith James Nayler * Antichrist in man by J. Nayler p 7 8 there is a light in spirit that testifies of Christ before Christ be known in the Creature this light is that which the Gentiles had whereby saith he they became a law unto themselves and were Jews in spirit whose praise was of God and not of men This light led them to shew the works of that Law God had written in their hearts their conscience bearing witness and excusing them in the day when God shall judge the world by his Gospel This light and the fruits of it he concludes will stand at the day of judgement praised of God but not of men Which magnifying expressions of the Heathens light are disparaged by what * Ben. Nicholson Returns to a Letter p 16. another of them saith viz. upon Adams fall pure reason was destroyed and corrupt reason took place as it doth this day in every natural man And if this man speaks the truth as he doth the other speaks what is false 1. In that he boldly affirmeth the Gentiles light made them Jews in spirit the Apostle Rom. 2. 29. hath no Rom. 2. 29. rescued such meaning He describeth a Jew in spirit to be one who is circumcised in heart or who hath the circumcision of the heart whose praise is not of men but of God Heart-circumcision and the Gentiles light are two things vastly discrepant the Gentiles light never attained to the mystery of heart-circumcision Fond men that write and speak after this maner
reason light and understanding though lighted up as a candle within me by Christ the true God working with the Father in all acts of Creation and Providence hitherto is truly called as it is natural light and seeing every man John 5. 17. hath some of it the most of whom have no saving light it is truly called as it is common and universal light Will R. F. allow Ed. Burroughs to call some light natural and not me so to phrase it or will he allow J. Nayler to distinguish between common light and saving and may not I and others with me have the same liberty First let Ed. Burroughs be heard * Warning to under barrow pag. 37. I write not as from man whose light Section 20 is onely natural and carnal and doth onely make manifest carnal transgressions c. And again By the natural light through the earthly law is no natural man able to judge of that which is spoken or declared from that which is eternal And again I deny to have this cause put into the judgement of carnal Lawyers who judge by the natural light c. Let us hear J. Nayler speak his minde * Discovery of the man of sin pag. 29. In your reply meaning the Ministers at Newcastle you deceitfully put in that word saving light which is not spoken by me for though Christ be the light of the world that enlightens all yet none are saved by him but who believe c. There is a light then which is in natural men unbelievers and all the Heathen which is but natural and a light which is not saving and therefore but common by their own confession what unreasonableness is it in them to except against the term of distinction what contradiction to their own reason 2. The preeminence of Scripture-light is this that it is our standing rule for faith and maners so are not immediate Revelations or Teachings of which see 1. Part Sect. 1. Here is the Letter or Scripture-fulness that I assert There is sufficient light in it to guide men to salvation seeing it is the Spirits light and given by the Spirit for a rule yea the Spirit gives out himself thereby for our clear understanding and satisfaction in the things of God insomuch as that very witness which a believer hath in himself the Scripture bears testimony of The Spirit tells us in the Scripture what he worketh in our hearts and he stamps upon our hearts what he had before caused to be stampt into Scripture or upon the Bible R. F. objecteth Thou wouldst have the Spirit to be bought and sold if it were in the Letter Rep. How the Spirit is in the Letter that is in the Scripture I have opened in its due place 2. Part Sect. 8. but that it followeth it may therefore be bought and sold is a weak and poor exception R. F. his minde goes along with his Pamphlet and his spirit is in his book yet it is not his person but the ink and paper that is bought and sold so the ink and paper of the Scriptures as other creatures of God are bought and sold not so the Spirit though he be more in them then R. F. is in his book for this poor man cannot change my minde nor many thousands more if they read his Pamphlet with me into his erroneous judgement when as the Spirit in the Scripture changeth my minde and all that are made to own the light and authority of it into the same truth that is there delivered Again he taunteth Thou wouldst have a Letter-Savior if the Letter could give the Spirit and eternal life Rep. 1. I never said the Letter could or did give the Spirit but the Spirit is given by it or as I even now exprest it the Spirit gives out himself by it and he gives out Christ or the knowledge of Christ and eternal life by it also who shall hinder him if he will begin and further our salvation by it 2. It is R. F. his disdainful expression not mine a Letter-Savior Christ a Savior according to Scripture but this I say from the Lord He that slights the Savior which the Scripture witnesseth and maketh known is not like to finde any Spirit-Savior of him or a Savior in vigor life and Spirit to his soul and if he be not such a Savior he is not at all a Savior to him Did ever any of the Apostles or such as had indeed immediate teachings from the Spirit vilifie and reproach Christ or the Scripture with such inkhorn terms Yet again With a Letter-fulness thou wouldst have no witness of God without the Letter Rep. 1. That follows not for his providential works are witnesses of him Acts 14. 17. to the very Heathens and much more to Christians But 2. He shall be no Christian to me or in my account who brings any testimony as from God without the Scriptureattestation But saith R. F. If the Scripture be lost the fulness and the witness would be lost and his people be without supply and strength according to thy account Rep. 1. Should they be lost that one way whereby God gives out his fulness and by which he witnesseth and worketh for his peoples supply and strength would be lost yet God loseth none of his fulness in himself and Christ hath other witnesses of him John 5. His Father his Works John Baptist But 2. Seeing there are Scriptures as they cannot be broken John 10. 35. they cannot be lost God hath and will ever preserve them for his peoples supply and strength 3. What vain jangling is here from R. F. his pen tending to no edification at all of the Reader but to the alienation of peoples mindes from the Scriptures and from those that teach according to them to seduce and draw poor souls after their pretended immediate teachings while yet they will be quoting of Scripture as if it were written and pen'd to destroy it self For thus R. F. gathers up the Rere of his forces * Page 28. He to wit Christ is before all things and by him all things consist and he is the Head of the body the Chruch who is the beginning and first-born from the dead that in all things he might have the preeminence for in him the fulness dwells Rep. 1. Are not these words written by the Spirits secretary Col. 1. 17 18 19. And is not R. F. beholden to the Scripture for that literal knowledge 2. If ever he feels the power of these as other Scriptures The Scripture magnifies Christ above it self God will teach him to honor the Scripture so much the more as it magnifies Christ above it self and to speak more wisely of it then to conclude as he doth In him the fulness dwells then not in the Letter yet the Letter declares of it Rep. 1. If the Letter declares of Christs fulness then we shall need to know no more of Christ then what for substance is in the Scripture there
following the Light of Christ in the conscience To inform the ignorant we teach out of Scripture that the new-birth is not wrought by our following work but by Gods preventing Grace casting the promise into the heart and quickning that seed by the in-coming of the Spirit James 1. 18. with John 3. 5. Regeneration is not acquired by our acts but infused of God by his will and power John 1. 13. That Again c Ib. page 21. Shew if ever any natural man did get power over sin and abstain from things forbidden throughout the Scripture When before he had asked By what is the new-birth wrought if not by following c. If a natural man may get the new-birth by following the Light of Christ in his conscience then he may by such an act of obedience get some kinde of power over sin and far sooner abstain from many things forbidden then ever get the new-birth thereby There is a two-fold power over sin the one by the restraining power of God called Restraining Grace the other by the special influence of Christ and his Spirit uniting himself to the soul and taking up his habitation in a Believer as in his Temple The natural man hath the former more or less and yet remaineth a natural man and in his natural state because he wants the latter Was not Herod a natural man Mark 6. 20. and so remained even while he heard John gladly and did many things Did not Paul while in his natural state following the light in his conscience abstain from things forbidden Phil. 3. 6. was he not touching the righteousness of the Law blameless Were not those Peter speaks of escaped from 2 Pet. 2. 18 20 the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of Christ yea clean or really escaped as by a common or inferior 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 work of the Spirit and yet were in their natural state first and last What wilful ignorance is in that Querie d Ishmael and his mother cast out p. 1◠Where is such a Scripture that the most eminent believer sins in any things This is subscribed by three or four of them as if they had never read or having read not regarded James 3. 2. or will not understand Rom. 7. 21. that not onely in all the good they do or would do evil by a tyrannizing law of the old man is present with them but in many things they all offend or sin And what affected blindness in that demand e The skirts of the whore discovered by Dennis Hollister page 19. Where doth the Scripture call it self the Word of God and to whom was it the Rule of Life Who please may read over the 119 Psalm once more and view the 40 page and then consult Gal. 6. 14. and view the explanation page 44. of this Reply and the Scriptures will stand right in his thoughts by Gods blessing and he be affected to them 7. Much of Mystical Babylon and Confusion is in their writings and ways They confound common and saving gifts we not onely distinguish them but divide them Common are in many persons where saving are not saving are in all the Saints but on some of the Saints many common gifts are not conferred They confound Justification and Sanctification We distinguish them but divide them not so but they are present to the same subject or person the believer although they are not the same Grace They confound the Price of our Redemption and the application of it by power We distinguish them and divide them not so but where one goes before the other follows after according to the riches of Gods grace and the unchangeableness of his Covenant in Christ There is enough in the fore-going Reply and in the third and fifth of these Animadversions for a plain demonstration hereof It may be hoped upon no weak grounds this Sect is acting one of the last parts upon the tottering Stage of the Romish Antichrist Never I conceive did any as these so masked and disguised servire scenae suit the present occasion and times for Romes advantage but it began and will end in their confusion 8. Their Doctrines and Practices end in Apostacy of the deepest stain and Blasphemy against Christ of the highest strain The experience of James Nayler and his Comrades give sad and dreadful proof hereof When the humane Nature of Christ is not adored for its self but as it subsists in the person of the onely begotten Son of God they give and take by their doctrine of God and Christ manifested in their individual flesh the same divine Honor which is peculiar to the person of Christ alone God blessed for ever 9. There needs no farther proof of their Scripture and Self-contradictions Their Blasphemies evidence the former and their Grandees giving one another the lye demonstrates the latter We had a notorious evidence hereof the last Summer at Witham in Essex After that a blustring fellow said to be one Hubberthorn had driven divers to quaking falling down and roaring out that the flesh might be cast forth by the Spirit as he said there followed him William Deusbery in his circuit and course and tells the poor people they were fools and beasts if they minded any such quaking postures and much more to that purpose And the Narrative of their Letters and Examinations thereupon at Bristol put forth by Mr. Farmer sets a broad seal to this as the former Animadversion 10. Their Sufferings in defence of corrupt and false doctrines are no part of the sufferings of Christ in his mystical body That their doctrines are false which they attempt and labor to defend hath sufficiently been evinced and cleared The other follows by undeniable consequence It is not the punishment but the Cause that makes the Martyr as he Martyrem facit Causa non supplicium Aug. said of old who was a famous Assertor of the Truth in his time The Philistines died by the fall of the house as well as Samson sed diver so fine ac fato but with a differing scope and that through a wise-ordering Providence They suffered for their Riot Idolatry Cruelty and Impenitency he died in Faith and with zealous calling upon the name of the Lord for a publique Revenge upon his and the Church its enemies Who sees not a vast difference between James Naylers Pillory and Mr. Burtons between the Imprisonment of many disturbing Quakers in our times and of the peaceable Confessors and Sufferers in Queen Maries days Who so blinde as they that will not see Lord open the eyes and hearts of deluded Quakers and Papists Being thy people quite out of the Babylonish wilderness Forgive them that know not what they do write they know not what suffer out of devout ignorant intentions which will not justifie their unwarrantable actions or passions FINIS THE TABLE A. Acting IN a mans own strength or Christs 110 Adam In innocency under a Covenant of works pag. 100 B.
Baptism With water proved 176. 183 Of Infants vindicated 178 Sprinkling lawful 180 One Baptism consisting of two parts 178 182 Bible To be read and preached upon 20 See Scriptures C. Call To the Ministery how lawful 211 Inward to be tried by the outward fruits 214 The Churches call spiritual 215 Some may counterfeit an Immediate call 211 Some mediate calls good 213 214 Some bad ibid. Christ Exalted by the Scriptures and the Scriptures by Christ 43 44 Christ above his gifts 59 His Godhead asserted and cleared 54 How he leads out of the fall 86 How he was made sin or a sinner 132 As Mediator not in natural men 262 276 When and how in the soul 264 His condemning sin in the flesh beyond conscience-condemnation 266 A Savior according to Scripture 283 Commandment How the general includes particular persons 106 What is a command in the Spirit 109 Saints experiences about a command 110 What is a Gospel-command 111 Communion Of Saints on earth with Saints in heaven 146 Conviction By the Spirit beyond that of a natural conscience 266 Conscience If but natural and not renewed gives no saving testimony 269 Covenant Of works and of grace what 90 Of works in Adam 97 Differences of the Covenant of works and of grace 90 Covenant of grace one for the substance 91 Two for maner of administration 93 Old and new what 8 The reason of the change 94 E. Elders Their Ordination by man though not of man 207 F. Forms Of Religion 291 Of Speech 292 Fruits Of the Spirit 293 Of the flesh ibid. G. God How God is Light 68 His Essence not mixed with created Beings 236 Gospel Gospel-Light above natural reach 75 Grace Given by means 173 H. Hearing Of the word 173 Holy Ghost A person one of the Three in the Godhead See Spirit 49 c. 207 Honor Civil due to Superiors and to all men 231 ibid. Gestures of honor some bad and idolatrous 233 Some civil and but good maners ibid. The denial hereof what it argues 292 I. Imputation Gods imputation of righteousness his covering of our sin 130 A constant act of Gods free favor 131 The doctrine of it no pleading for sin 123 c. Justification The material cause not the new-birth 119 Not sanctification 132 Its difference from sanctification 126 God justifieth sinful persons believing 120 121 How justified by faith ibid. Defilements of sin remain in a pardoned soul 125 Peter in his falls not out of a state of justification 128 Perfect at first believing 135 L. Law How set up in stead of Gospel 12 Levitical Law way Typical Gospel 89 Law-Levitical no Covenant of works 95 Law-moral positions concerning it 97 How subservient to the Covenant of grace 98 How inservient to the Covenant of works ibid. Gods Law above the conscience 307 Letter What in a large or in a strict sense 4 5 The Spirits Letter is Gods written word 9 How denied 244 Light Of the Godhead in every man not redemption-light 52 Strange notions of the Light in every man 53 How light without Scripture is no light 64 The Light-giver not to be confounded with the light-given 59 84 Light in every man no Teacher of saving truths 60 Not Gospel-light 75 Not the light of Saints as such 61 261 Much less equal with Christs person 59 Not supernatural 61 Not above but beneath the Scripture-light 66 Not a part of the New-creature 77 Not the Corner-stone 80 Nor the first principle of Christian Religion 82 Leads not out of the fall 83 Obeyed gives no saving excuse or testimony in the conscience 269 Creature and Scripture-light compared 76 Not to be confounded 275 Mysterious absurdities 263 How the least degree of light is perfect 274 How counterfeit ibid. True conclusions about light 69 Lords Supper The visible outward part no carnal invention 185 Bread and wine the outward matter 186 The Institution spiritual 188 The benefit great 190 A strange trans-mutation by 192 James Nayler His reasons broken 193 Antidotes against the dissolution of the Lords Supper 200 M. Magistrates Their forbearance 308 Means of grace attended with a promise of blessing 174 N. Nakedness No Commission for going naked in these times 291 O. Oaths see Swearing Ordinances How owned or disowned 302 P. Perfection Of holiness but comparative 162 164 Not absolute in all degrees till death 143 144 How denied how not 141 158 161 This life a time onely of pressing after it 290 Person What it is 48 What a person in the Godhead is ibid. How distinguished 49 Prayer Publique not forbidden 201 Gods Spirit is there 204 Preaching By Doctrine Reason and Vse c. justified 72 293 How free and consistent with taking Wages 209 Printing When invented 21 The benefit of printed Bibles ibid. Promise Of grace and leading out of the fall none annexed to the good use of natural light 87 Yet the light of a promise helps to lead out of the fall 86 Prophets Some immediately inspired some mediately taught 217 They studied the Scriptures 218 Some distinguisht from men in office 217 Psalms Not sung without some kinde of meeter 205 Q. Quaking From visible manifestations of Gods majesty how and by whom imitable 287 See Trembling Questions Their fit place 223 Which are of the devil 224 R. Reconciliation Of the person perfect before the heart is perfectly sanctified and how 134 135 Regeneration By the Scripture-promise 132 257 Remorse What. 171 Repentance How decryed 171 Righteousness What our own 145 329 What the Quaking Papists mean by Christs righteousness 278 S. Sabbath A mercy as a duty 303 Saints Their light beneath Scripture-light for the degree 271 Their highest degree of light and grace not here attained 272 Experimentally imperfect 148 Scriptures The word of truth 1 To all 2 The word of God and truly so called 3 40 In what sence 25 The witness of God 4 The Letter of God and the Scripture of God all one Ib. A standing Rule 7 A more standing Rule then visions and revelations 13 15 37 38. Not mans word or other mens words 18 The Touch-stone of Doctrine 23 253 And Judge of controversies 258 Not carnal 24 The Spirits sword 26 Powerful 153 The ground of the Saints acting 26 31 And how 27 Interpretation by Scripture 37 A Voice a Light a Rule a Guide 43 44 Scripture-light above the light of nature 66 74 76 Its further preeminence 271 281 Scripture-light Salvation-light 73 Its fulness 284 It magnifies Christ above it self ibid A more excellent Teacher then the creatures 70 To be studied 218 220 Who deny them 244 Gods mouth is in the Letter 247 252 Sin Visible in and to the Saint 112 Groaned under all the life time by true Saints ibid in what respect 113 Sin and purity dwell in one soul not as one 118 Sin confessed is not pleaded for 125 It dwelleth and acteth in the Saints 138 It continueth in them they continue not in it 151 No heart perfectly pure form it 158 159 160
Singing See Psalms Spirit of God How in the Scripture-Letter 4 254 How proceeding from the Letter how not 5 How given by it 6 10 255 Leads to the Scripture-Rule and and by it 9 10 His Prerogative above the Scripture 31 Swearing By creatures forbidden 235 By God commanded ibid. Not in ordinary speech 237 Oaths lawful 238 Vnlawful 239 By a book unlawful ibid. Upon a book superstitious 240 T. Teaching All Believers not immediately taught 216 Who were or were not immediately taught in the Apostles days 217 220 They that pretend to immediate Teaching have had it by men and means 279 280 Transubstantiation A blinde dotage 189 Trembling True at and by the word or Scripture rightly understood 6 286 Trinity A Trinity of Persons in the Godhead proved 46 W. Warfare Saints not out of it till out of their bodies 167 Woman A woman not to speak in the Church 33 Word of God Essential or spiritual 22 25 Language of the Spirit and Word of the Scripture all one 292 Scriptures vindicated and explained  Psalm page Ps 119. 105 40 Proverbs Cap. Verse  20 9 158 22 20 21 32 Eccles 7 20 166 Isaiah 8 20 23 24 64 65 20 2 291 30 20 42 48 16 17 30 Jeremiah 5 31 42 20 9 41 23 29 Ibid. Daniel 9 1 219 Matthew 5 8 158  34 to 36 235  37 237  48 228 6 5 201  6 202 11 27 14 23 8 10 245 28 19 47  19 20 177 Luke 16 29 7 17 21 Ep. to Ch. 22 32 129 John 1 1 25 1 1 to 14 54 to 58 1 9 53 55 261 5 44 232 6 45 216 8 12 53 260 15 5 42 16 13 10 Acts 2 17 18 34  38 39 179  42 46 195 13 2 46 208  39 122 20 28 160 207  34 209  35 210 Romans 1 18 19 274 2 4 170  12 63  15 16 269  29 268 3 3 2  21 92 5 12 63  13 99 6 14 11 7 9 10 110  14 to the end 113  17 138  23 25 139  25 12 115 8 1 115  2 168 8 3 266  3 4 144  4 145  10 139 140  14 9  26 149  37 169 10 8 41  18 82 12 3 62 14 17 190 16 1 2 6 12 35 1 Cor. 1 15 16 108  21 72 2 6 162 164  9   10 17 6 11 156 9 14 209 11 1 11  26 191 198  29 197 12 7 30  12 13 178 14 14 15 202  26 29 217  31 34  34 35 33 16 19 35 2 Cor. 3 2 71  6 5  16 with 14 13 17 9 4 6 23   24 263 5 21 132 11 7 209  9 208 12 7 c. App. 2 13 11 164 Gal. 1 1 211  16 263 2 17 18 19 123  20 21 124 3 19 104  20 89  21 99  27 178 5 17 138 6 17 44 Ephes 1 17 15 2 17 18   20 81 3 17  4 4 5  5 1 9  26 179 6 2 106  17 25 Phil. 2 5 226 2 12 286 3 12 161  15 16 162 4 3 35  13 42 Col. 1 23 82  27 264  27 28 62 2 17 89 1 Tim. 2 11 33 5 18 35  24 267 Titus 2 11 75 Heb. 4 12 41   152  12 13 154  15 153 5 7 Ep. to R. 11 6 1 162  16 238 7 16 24 8 7 94 10 14 135 12 1 116  23 146 to 150 13 8 277 1 9 10 234 5 12 237 240 1 Pet. 1 13 16  15 156  22 160  23 with 25 28 4 7 App. 2 2 Pet. 1 16 19 15  19 36  20 21 37 219  21 248 1 John 1 5 68   77  8 78 2 27 41  29 142 3 3 117  5 156  6 78   79 165  10 142 4 4 169  17 164 5 7 45 46  10 245  12 73  18  Rev. 19 10 39 20 12 45 FINIS ERRATA sic emendanda in the Book PAge 4. Line 8. read the two witnesses p. 9. l. 35 r. is to make p. 21. l. 15 r. Blockhouses p. 33. l. 26. r. he may p. 39. l. 31. for immediately r. mediately p. 41. Marg. r. Jer 23. 29. p. 55. l. 21. r. re-assumeth p. 58. l. 2. r. arbitrement p. 60. l. 21. r. Rom. 1. 18. p. 91. l. 2. dele is the old p. 100. l. 24. dele to be p. 103. Marg. r. Gen. 3. last p. 106. l. 8. r. the word of p. 117. f. 28. for now r. know p. 120. l. 11. for form r. from p. 124. l. 34. for that r. but. p. 134. l. 4. the parenthesis to end at Book p. 137. l. ult dele his p. 138. Marg. r. Gal. 5. 17. p. 209. l. 26. r. Acts 20. 34. p. 215. l. 23. for to r. till p. 221. l. 2. for we are r. were p. 238. l. 13. dele to them p. 245. l. 11. r. we should p. 256. l. 1. r. be not p. 258. l. 32. for that r. the. In the Epistles Epist Ded. for debate r. debase Epist to the Reader for Bellarmine r. Bellarmine p. 9. l. 9. for professed r. possessed Julii 18. 1656. Imprimatur JOSEPH CARYL