Words but his Adversary's what a Falacious Course do these our Adversaries take to prove us Criminal F. H's Words are He that hath the Spirit of God is in that which is Equal The Matter is Answered in the First Part and so is that Quoted out of Saul's Errand p. 8. 38. The Righteousness which God effects in us is not Finite but Infinite G. W. Voice of Wisdom p. 36. This was Inferr'd from the Priests owning That the Righteousness whereof Christ is the Subject and that whereof he is the Efficient are of one Species or Kind And from Galat. 4.19 Christ being formed in us And 2 Pet. 1.4 The Saints being made Partakers of the Divine Nature And Heb. 2.11 Eccles 3.14 I concluded Then God's Righteousness in us is not Finite but Infinite Voice of Wisd p. 36 37. Now I suppose they place the Mistake or Error supposed between the Words Effects and Infinite as if nothing could be said to be Infinite that had a beginning or that is effected which is to suppose whatsoever is Infinite has no Beginning as well as no End but Infinite is not always taken in that Sense for 't is sometimes apply'd to things that had a Beginning as in Nah. 2.9 chap. 3.9 But my meaning simply of the Word Infinite was That God's Righteousness which he effects in us is Everlasting and without End Psal 119 142. And Christ is said to be of God made unto us Wisdom and Righteousness and Sanctification and Redemption 1 Cor. 1.30 I hope none will deny him to be Infinite or his Work of Righteousness and the Effect thereof to be Quietness and Assurance for ever Isa 32.17 VII Of Christ's Coming to Judge the Quick and the Dead P. 9. 39. But Three Comings of Christ not only that in the Flesh at Jerusalem and that in the Spirit but also another coming in the Flesh yet to be expected we do not yet read of Against G. W's Light and Life page 41. But is this to deny or oppose Christ's coming to Judge the Quick and the Dead 'T was never so intended And Questioning some Men's Carnal Expectations of a Fleshly coming of Christ to be seen with their Carnal Eyes was this to deny his coming in the Glory of his Father with his Angels to Reward every Man according to his works Mat. 16.27 Luke 9.26 No sure for that 's confessed and undeniable Likewise to question some Men's Notion of a Fleshly coming of Christ Personally to Reign a Thousand Years on Earth is this to oppose his Kingdom or that Prophecy of his Reign a Thousand Years mentioned Rev. 20.2 4 5 6 7 No sure Let our Adversaries produce plain Scripture-Proof in Terminis for Christ's Coming and Reign in that manner and the Question is Resolv'd To their other Citation out of Nature of Christianity p. 29 30. Thou may'st look until thy Eyes drop out before thou wilt see such an appearance of him meaning with his carnal Eyes This is true in Fact for those very Eyes decay and perish and Christ's last coming in Power and great Glory in his glorious Body accompanied with All his mighty Angels at the Resurrection must be seen with stronger clearer and more celestial Eyes than perishing Eyes of Flesh And though we have believed Christ's Second Appearance or Coming without Sin unto Salvation mentioned Heb. 9.28 that is to save Men from their Sins to be a Spiritual Appearance and Work yet this is not to deny Christ to be the Judge both of the Quick and the Dead or his coming to judge the Quick and the Dead in the great and last Day 40. And as for that 1 Thes 4.15 concerning the Coming of the Lord from Heaven which these Men would blindly put a-far off Q. against Brief Discovery p. 9. in Answer to John Horn c. Anno 1659. Here they leave out As to a coming of Christ with Flesh and Bones meaning without any Blood in it for such a Body they then held and The Apostle saith We which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep These are left out also in their Citation In the Ancient Bible of Q. Elizabeth the words are We which live and are remaining in the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which sleep From my inferring the Saints knowledge of Christ's Spiritual Coming who is Lord from Heaven I would have none suppose that we at all doubt of the Coming of the Son of Man the Lord Jesus and shewing himself from Heaven at the great Day and all his Holy Angels with him as testified in Holy Scripture by himself and Servants On Phil. 20.21 after the words Their Conversations was in Heaven They add To wit a Heaven within them Thus the Quotation is wronged in this and divers other words 41. There is none have a Glory and a Heaven but within them Gr. Myst p. 214. Here they leave out what follows viz. Which was before Man had a Being The words should be Transposed viz. There 's none have a Glory and a Heaven within them but which was before Man had a Being For what true and heavenly Glory or Joy any have within them 't was before Man had a Being this appears to be the intent of the Author the word But being misplaced and yet what the Saints have and injoy in this Life is much short in degree of that more full Attainment and exceeding Weight of Glory in that which is to come VIII Concerning Government P. 10. 42. The Quakers hold none Lawful but in their own Hands for that they have only a Right to Rule over the whole Earth and that it is Lawful for them to Fight and subdue the World under them and that they expect it These we utterly deny and testifie against as gross Calumnies cast upon us contrary to our Peaceable Christian Principle and Practice both as to Rule and Fighting We seek no Worldly Kingdom or Dominion to our selves but the Promotion of Christ's Peaceable Kingdom in Men wherein we desire ever to approve our Selves his Innocent Subjects whose Weapons are not Carnal but Spiritual being Crucified with him to the Ground and Cause or War and Fighting And therefore in his Power testifie against this Malicious Persecuting Spirit which hath thus fouly misrepresented us as a People against all Civil Government and as holding it lawful for us to Fight and Subdue the World under us and that we expect it too O for Shame for Shame you Malicious Persecutors Cease Cease such your horrid Falshoods and Malicious Attempts to incense the Government thereby These Adversaries quote a piece of a Declaration of the Quakers as they call it beginning thus viz. We have chosen the Son of God to be our King and he hath chosen us to be his People c. p. 10. Out of which Declaration they have here left out several material Passages to clear our Innocency from Fighting as charged upon us as His Kingdom i. e.
any such Gift nor depend upon any such Immediate Miraculous Revelation from Heaven To which G. E. Answers Then all may see now in this what ye have receiv'd that hath been from Man which is not from Heaven Immediate nor the Gifts of the Spirit nor receiv'd the Gospel by the same Means the Apostles did who are not the Eye-witnesses as the Apostles were Neither have ye attained to the same Knowledge and Understanding as the Apostles did nor receiv'd it from Heaven Now let all People question Whether it is the same Gospel which is not receiv'd from Heaven nor immediately nor by Revelation for the Gospel is Immediate which is the Power of God Rom. 1. They i. e. Quakers are in the same Power Vnderstanding Knowledge and Immediate Revelation from Heaven that the Apostles were in Obs The last Part is Partially quoted to abuse us i. e. Quakers is added and the Sense perverted by leaving out the last Words of the Sentence as after the Words they are in the same Power Understanding Knowledge and Immediate Revelation from Heaven that the Apostles were in That Vnderstand the Gospel left out As also And they that be in another cannot understand the Gospel Now for these Men to charge us with Blasphemy for Confessing to Immediate Revelation and Inspiration from God by the Gift of the Spirit and thence receiving the Gospel and a Spiritual Understanding and Knowledge thereof by Revelation from Heaven Herein have they opposed the True Knowledge of God and Jesus Christ and consequently charged his own and his Apostles Doctrine and Testimony as Blasphemous For neither knoweth any Man the Father but the Son and he to whom the Son will reveal Him Mat. 11.27 And the things of God knows no Man but by the Spirit of God as they are reveal'd unto us by the Spirit 1 Cor. 2.9 They who oppose this Evangelical Doctrine shew themselves both Ignorant of God of Christ and of the things of God and of his Teachings which he has promised his Children They shall all be taught of God John 6.45 Isa 54.13 Jer. 31.33 Where on Isa 54.13 It is noted in the Margent in the old Bible of Queen Elizabeth By the hearing of his Word and inward moving of his Spirit And on Jer. 31.33 it is also noted viz. Under the Kingdom of Christ there shall be none blinded with Ignorance but I will give them Faith and Knowledge of God for Remission of their Sins and daily increase the same so that it shall not seem to come so much by the Preaching of my Ministers as by the Instruction of my Holy Spirit 17th Charge p. 8 9. G. F. further tells us p. 213. That the Priest says Thou dost not speak in that degree of the Holy Ghost as the Prophets and Apostles did that spoke forth Scriptures To which he Answer Then thou must take heed of Exalting thy self above thy Measures for thou canst not know Scripture but by the same degree of the Spirit the Prophets and Apostles had Obs 1. The Caution against Self-Exaltation was Seasonable 2. The Scripture i. e. the whole Scripture cannot be truly known but by a high degree of the Spirit if not the same degree the Prophets and Apostles had who gave it forth But if any true Knowledge of Scripture be receiv'd it must be by a Degree of the same Spirit as I suppose the Words before cited should be so Transpos'd and so intended 18th Charge p. 9. News coming out of the North c. Printed 1655. p. 14. Your Original is Carnal Hebrew Greek and Latine and your Word is Carnal the Letter Obs The Letter it self is not made up of Spiritual Matter or Lasting Materials but of such as will decay and turn to Dust but the Matter contain'd that is the Holy Doctrine will continue and is permanent And this is no Vilifying or Contemning of Holy Scripture i. e. the Holy Doctrine thereof Though this News out of the North is quoted against us yet it is very Partially and unfairly done For in the same Book the Holy Scripture is clearly own'd As Spoken by the Lord and his Holy Prophets Christ and his Apostles p. 5.8 But the Promises and Words of the Prophets Christ and his Apostles misapplied by the first Birth and Serpent p. 11 12 13 16. The Law of God and the Prophet of the Lord who spake freely from his Mouth expresly so owned page 23 28. Though they that put the Letter for the Light Preaching their own Words and Imaginations thereupon are disowned page 12. Consequently the Holy Scriptures are own'd but the Perverters and Perversions disown'd 19th Charge p. 9. Tho. Lawson in his Brief Discovery of a Threefold Estate of Anti-Christ printed 1653. written from the Spirit of the Lord p. 9. calls the Ministers Babylon 's Merchants Selling Beastly Wares for a large Price the Letter which is Dust and Death Obs Their Injustice and False Quotation in this Passage also and and how they vary it from their Agent Bugg's who often over has herein accused us with calling the Scriptures Beastly Ware in divers of his Books and also in his late great Sheet stil'd Some Reasons Humbly Offered to the Honourable House of Commons p. 1. col 1 4. He has this Gross Lie twice over after divers times detected for it So that these Three Priests and F. Bugg do not agree in what they witness like the False Witnesses against Christ For in the said Brief Discovery quoted the words are these Babylon's Merchants Selling Beastly Wares for a large Price all the Week-time heaping up a Rabble of Notions into the Brain c. So that Beastly Wares relate to their Rabble of Notions of their own heaping up and not to the Holy Scripture nor to the Letter thereof but to their bruitish Imaginations and Divinations of their own Brain neither was this spoken of the Ministers without Exception as in the Quotation much less of Christ's Ministers or Ministery but of the False Ministers as the Title of that part is p. 7. 20th Charge p. 9. Saul's Errand to Damascus printed 1654. p. 7. Q. against G. F. All that study to raise a living thing out of a Dead to raise the Spirit out of the Letter are Conjurers and draw Points and Reasons and so do speak a Divination of their own Brain c. Obs Here they are partial in Quotation again leaving out the preceeding Passages which distinguishing between the Letter and the Light the Letter and the Spirit judging them Blind that put the Letter for the Light and say The Letter and the Spirit are inseparable When the Spirit says The Letter is Death and Killeth according to 2 Cor. 3.6 7. now who will Study to raise a living thing out of a Dead or to raise the Spirit out of the Letter Is such studying warrantable Who dare justifie it And will not the Lord make Diviners Mad Isa 44.25 and does not such studying to raise a Living thing out of a Dead
broken mangled and perverted Quotations for our Principles and perhaps an Unapt Expression or two pickt up out of Good Matter And the main Things or Principles wherein we have all along even from the first chiefly differed from many of the Clergy are these viz. 1st Our sincere belief of the True Vrim and Thummim the Light and Perfection And 2dly Our Christian Testimony against Tythes forced maintenance and Persecution together with Popish Ceremonies and Superstitions not yet purged out as inconsistent with Christ's free Ministry concerning which we are manifestly the very same in Principle and Persuasion we were from the Beginning To the 2d part quoted against me I have already answered there may be various manners of wording and expressing the same matter and yet our Intentions 〈◊〉 â—he same As where I explain my Friends Meaning and Intentions 〈◊〉 be agreeable to mine and more fully distinguish and clear it according to the Harmony of his other Concurrent Passages in the same and other Books as sometimes in these precedent Observations As to Bugg's Postcript 't is according to his other Scribles Falshood and Jeers frequently repeated and mostly answered in the foregoing Observations and other Answers of mine He is so full of Tautologies Repetitions of the same Falshoods Boastings Scoffing and Flouting beginning and ending with Falshoods as observing us timerous about their Petition and that we make the World believe we fear Persecution Because we have endeavoured to prevent his and some Priests endeavours tending thereto against us to Authority this has disquieted him and them And therefore to be revenged he repeats his old detected Lies and Calumnies against us as that we call the Scriptures Serpent's Meat Beastly Ware c. with many more abominable Lies since often told of the same yet persists therein like a Hardned Wretch so that it is not worth the while to spend much more time in tracing the Crooked Steps of such a Mercenary Agent who gives no solid nor pertinent Reply to any serious Answer but clamours scoffs boasts vilifies and throws as much Dirt as he can upon us spending his precious time to seek our Ruin by Reproaches and Calumnies to enrage the Priests and incense Authority if he could against us But the Lord will Rebuke him and Reward him according to his Deeds I wish he may yet seek and find a place of Repentance if yet to be found before he be cut off and however that others may take warning by his Lamentable Relapse and Treacherous Apostasie A Brief Examination OF A Defaming Pamphlet Without Author's name to it Reproachfully stiled Some few of the Quakers many Horrid Blasphemies Heresies and their Bloody Treasonable Principles destructive to Government Delivered to the Members of both Houses of the LORDS and COMMONS in the Month of March 1698 9. PART II. THIS Title looks with Persecution Fury Deadly Envy and Blood in the Face of it it is like the work of certain Judasses and their Priests who are fallen into such a faint and feeble Condition as to be beholden to Apostates to help and assist them in their private Cabals to Plot and Contrive Mischief against the Innocent and to bring forth such furious Clamour Calumnies and Perversions thereby labouring to incense the Parliament and Government against the Peaceable People called Quakers Now let 's Examine some of their Principal Objections or Allegations quoted for Proof of their Furious Persecuting Title I. Concerning the Holy Trinity 1. Their first Objection The Scriptures do not tell the People of a Trinity nor Three Persons c. Against Geo. Fox Great Mystery p. 246. Here in the same Paragraph Period and Answer these Words are left out viz. And the Father Son and Holy Spirit are always one Observe hence what may be term'd the Scripture Trinity or Divine Three in the Deity the Father Son and Holy Spirit is plainly confess'd As also in Gr. Myst p. 99. As for the Unity we own and Christ being the brightness of the Father's Glory and express Image of his Substance we own As also in some Principles of the Elect People of God Printed 1671. p. 43. Of the Word Trinitas there is no mention made in Scripture yet the Scripture speaks of Father Son and Holy Ghost and all these are One. Now pray observe if any be offended at this and if our Adversaries will produce us plain Scripture-Proof for the Terms Trinity of Three Persons then 't is meet we should Retract those Words before i. e. That the Scriptures do not tell People thereof 'T is worthy our Observation what Dr. Burnet now Bishop of Sarum in the Life of John Earl of Rochester p. 104. speaking of the Trinity saith Which for want of Terms fit to express them by we call Persons and are called in Scripture the Father Son and Holy Ghost Whereby it seems then they do not think the Word Persons either a fit or Scriptural Term to express the Father Son and Holy Ghost by and therefore these Men should not be too severe in Imposing it or Uncharitable in their Censuring others about it to occasion Disturbance in Peoples Minds and such Disputes as probably they cannot well quiet or bring to a clear Solution By any of our Questioning or not using the Term Persons in this case we do not deny the Doctrine or thing intended i. e. the Father the Word and Holy Spirit which Three are one And we would not have any so Injurious or Disingenuous as to conclude we deny the same 2 Q. Against Will Penn's Sandy Foundation p. 12 13 14 15. they pick up some Pieces of his Arguments but Answer them not levelled against this Doctrine held by some which they leave out viz. The Trinity of Distinct and Separate Persons in the Unity of Essence This our Adversaries leave out and which by this time a Day we hope none will maintain such a Separation in the Deity between the Father Son and Holy Ghost being one God blessed for ever They also take no notice of what he Writes for this Scripture Trinity Sandy Found p. 32. viz. Mistake me not we never have disown'd the Father Word and Spirit which are one And in p. 36. As concerning Christ I declare on behalf of that Despised People Vulgarly called Quakers the Grace of which we testifie hath never taught us to acknowledge another God than he that 's Father of all things who fills Heaven and Earth Neither to confess another Lord Jesus Christ than he that appear'd so many Hundred Years ago made of a Virgin like unto us in all things Sin excepted or any other Doctrine than was by Him declar'd and practis'd and also being God's Innocent Heritage in Principles Life and Death to bear an Unanimous Testimony for the only true God true Christ and Heavenly Doctrine which in their Vindication is openly attested Thus far W. P. in his own and our Friends Vindication 3. Here is the Three Persons thou dreams of which thou wouldst divide out of
old Incendiaries to Mischief and the best to be spared of Mankind c. Against W. P. Quakerism a new Nick-name p. 165. This is not the Quakers Treatment of Dissenters in general or without exception as hereby falsly represented But W. P's occasional Treatment of Such a Proud Railing Busie-body and such a sort of Priests who think their Coat will bear out their worst Expressions for Religion and practise an haughty Reviâ—ing for Christ as one of the greatest Demonstrations of their Zeal as in his antecedent words After these words of W. P. Against whom the boiling Vengeance of an Irritated God is ready to be poured out These Men leave out viz. To the Destruction of such if they repent not and turn from their Abominable Deceits Certainly neither the fore-going Citations under their 18th Head nor that which they subjoyn against the bitter Stock of Hirelings and their Sin-pleasing Principles c. could ever be intended for the Quakers Treatment of Dissenters Indefinitely or without Exception for we always distinguish between the Moderate and Immoderate the Charitable and Vncharitable the Ingenuous and Disingenuous even among Dissenters of several sorts and others also When Men are charging Blasphemy and Sedition upon a People out of Books and Quotations as these Men do they should be more fair and just therein than these Men have been They are very Injurious and Offensive both in Charge and Citation we only Defensive and not under a necessity of reciting and reprinting their whole Citations in every part Let their Books and ours be compared to evince them more fully and clear our Innocency from these Adversaries gross Calumnies Perversions Misapplications Misrepresentations and fruitless Attempts Ingenuous Reader please to take W. P's own following Answer to several Charges against him LIBEL p. 4. quotes W. P's Sandy Foundation p. 20. thus viz. That Finite and Impotent Creature speaking of Christ Which is so gross a Strain of Envy and Abuse that no Ingenuous Person can read it without an Abhorrence of the Author's Temper and Work and shews how little Credit ought to be given him in the rest of his Work For it is plain W. P. made the Absurdity lie here That the Doctrine he oppos'd makes it Impossible for God to forgive without a rigid Satisfaction and yet Man who is a Finite and Impotent Creature is not only capable of it but commanded to do it See Sandy Foundation p. 18. Sect. 7. Again Libel p. Ibid. Christ's Co-essentiality and Co-eternity with his Father of his being made Man Dying for Sins Rising and Ascending into Heaven c. they make W. P. to call Confused Babble and by Rote-Canting By-paths of vain Tradition and Invention Romancing dark Results of Factions and Corrupted Counsels c. Whereas 't is plain from his Book at large as well as from the Words themselves which they have cited he writ not in Contempt of the Matter but in Reproof of the Man For he taxes him with Babbling by Rote-Canting and Romancing over the weighty Mysteries of Eternal Life which words they left out because being in they would have disappointed them of an Opportunity of Abusing W. P. So that in short he reproved the Rambling and Insensible Manner of the Priest's Writing and not the Matter treated of which W. P. expresly calls the Weighty Mysteries of Eternal Life Which yet plainer appears from p. 28. upon occasion of some Queries made by W. P. to shew the Indistinction and confused Way of the Priest's Writing viz. Thou must not Reader from my Querying thus conclude we do deny as he hath falsly charged us those glorious Three which bear Record in Heaven the Father Word and Spirit neither the Infinity Eternity and Divinity of Jesus Christ for that we know he is the Mighty God nor what the Father sent his Son to do on the behalf of Lost Man declaring to the whole World we know no other Name by which Attonement Salvation and plenteous Redemption comes But rather to let thee see how unsatisfactorily he has imposed Religion on the World and how exceeding open he lays his Principles to the Objection of every reasonable Inquirer For the Priest's Book was intituled A Guide to the true Religion after going forward and backward four times in his Religion and therefore deserved an Answer as W. P. did in his Book intituled The Guide Mistaken Page 19 and 20 The Libel quotes W. P. giving hard words to the Clergy which W. P. is far from disowning allowing him as in Reason his own Sense and Intention Are they not Idle Gormandizing Priests that Feed the People with that which is not Bread and yet live upon theirs That teach for Hire and make a Trade of the Ministry Have not they been the Bane of Soul and Body through Ages that have either been the Ground or Fomentors of the most bloody and infamous Revolutions of the World Go ask the Martyrologies of all Nations who are the Fire and Faggot Men against Tender Consciences and Reformation W. P. does not charge every Person of the Clergy some being of a more Moderate Temper and better Principles but he would have these of the Clergy that take his Words hardly or any of their Hearers inquire how many of the Clergy stood to their Principles in the Times of K. Henry VIII Edward VI. Q. Mary and Q. Eliz. they will find of the whole Ecclesiastical Body containing about 12 Thousand Persons not 5 Hundred of all Ranks and Degrees that shewed Conscience for their Religion but took their Turns at all And how few through the many Revolutions since our late Civil Wars began have been true to their Principles many yet living know to the Scandal of Religion as well as the Nation After this W. P. thinks himself very little accountable for what he has said to a most Temporizing and Hypocritical Parson J. C. of the Men of his Qualifications for he having excluded the Quakers Socinians c. from Salvation must not take it hard of any of us called Quakers if they think such Turn-Coats and Hypocrites have nothing to do there Libel p. 4. That the outward Person which suffered was properly the Son of God we utterly deny Against W. P. Serious Apology p. 146. The Answer is That if what W. P. hath said and plainly meant is not true then the Body that Suffer'd must be of the Divine Nature and consequently that which is of the Divine Nature is Mortal But that which is properly the Only-begotten of God must naturally be Immortal So that properly and strictly speaking that which could die cannot be the Only-begotten Entire Son of God and yet it was his Body that died and as such it may in a Sense be said He died and in no other respect does W. P. deny that which died to be the Son of God See his Book Serious Apology at large upon this Passage which sufficiently explains it self and exposes their great Disingenuity that Cite it Page 146. Priest Jenner chargeth us with Denying the Lord that bought us because as he falsly says we deny that Person the Son of God that died at Jerusalem to be our Redeemer Which most horrid Imputation says W. P. has been Answer'd more I believe than a thousand times that is That he that laid down his Life and suffer'd his Body to be Crucified by the Jews without the Gates of Jerusalem is Christ the Only Son of the Most High God But to Assert the Body which Suffered and Died was properly the Entire Son of God this brings Him more under the Charge of making him but a meer Man than us who acknowledge Him to be One with the Father and of a Nature Eternal and Immortal For he was Glorified with the Father before the World was And that it may yet farther appear that what we give for our meaning is such besides what is already cited turn over Leaf to Page 149. and observe what Confession the said W. P. then made as to the Matter Controverted We do Believe in One Holy God Almighty who is an Eternal Spirit the Creator of all things And in One Lord Jesus Christ his Only Son and Express Image of his Substance who took upon Him Flesh and was in the World and in Life Doctrine Miracles Death Resurrection Ascension and Mediation perfectly did and does continue to do the Will of God to whose Holy Life Power Mediation and Blood we only ascribe our Sanctification Justification Redemption and Perfect Salvation And we Believe in One Holy Spirit that proceeds and breaths from the Father and the Son as the Life and Virtue of both the Father and the Son a Measure of which is given to all to Profit with And he that has one has all for those Three are One who is the Alpha and Omega the First and the Last God over all Blessed for ever Amen FINIS