saith was the Lamb of God whom John bid the Jews behold and the force of the light and life within which with them is the blood i. e. the life of the Lamb. P. Put Christ to pain Resisting the motions of the light within The painted Whore Not only the Papals with their irreligious Pomp but all the good words thoughts and actions of any sort of men who derive them not from the immediate teachings and motions of the light within yea all forms of Worship according with the precepts and examples of the Scripture and they are with them the most painted who come nearest to the Scripture as a Rule The People of God They and none but they who profess the light within every man to be Christ the only Saviour and Teacher and give up themselves to its conduct as such Perfect Perfection Not that which is sincere or a Perfection of Parts or sanctification throughout in part but a being without sin in the least remains or stains of it Persecution Not only a penalty or hurt inflicted on their Bodies or Estates but also a speaking or writing against their Principles in the most purely rational and Scriptural Authority The sâ—ed in Prison and Captivity and Bondage Pictures and Images The light within not obeyed as Christ and God  Not only those Images and Pictures that to the bodily-Eye represent Christ or God or the Saints and are adored with religious worship but all Worship Opinions Actions Words that are in imitation of the Examples and in obedience to the Precepts contained in the Scripture Mâ—n-pleasers They who comply with men though in things not only lawful but also to edifification Pollutions of the world Not only things in themselves sinful as drunkenness swearing lying c. but also what ever customs they dislike and decline As Cuffs Ribands putting off the Hat signes of respect c. which they say are from the Devil all recreations as bowling ringing though used seasonably and moderately The Power of God The Light within the Christ within Praying in Spirit Secretly or inwardly not with the voice by the immediate impulses of the light and power within without the exercise of so much as the conceptions of man Prayer Christ the light within is sometimes by them so called The presence of the Lord. The powerful influences and impressions of the light within either to terrour or peace and joy The pride of Man A not submitting to their light and especially receiving tokens of respect and wearing Ribands Cuffs and Lace The Priests A word of scorn put on all indifferently who are separated to the work of the Gospel-Ministry by men or that receive maintenance for their work The Worlds Professors All that are not Quakers Formal hypocritical Professors All that walk in the Ordinances of Christ commanded or prescribed in the Scripture or in the order of the Gospel Spirit of Prophecy Immediate impulses and inspirations False Prophets All that act not by immediate revelation Prophecying falsly How true soever in it self if not from their spirit Publicans and Sinners All that are not Quakers Walking in the pare Walking after the dictates of the light within Purifying the heart by the Bloud of Christ Acting and being disposed according to inward motions by the light and life of the Christ within them Q. Quenching the Spirit Resisting the motions of the Light within Quickned in the Life Stirred up by the power within R. Raised to life Conversion to Quakerisme Ravening brain Studying and following after divine knowledge or the knowledge of divine things Inwardly ravening from the Spirit A recourse to the Scripture or any thing else except their spirit for light and understanding in the things of God Carnal reasonings Reasonings of the Flesh All use of the understanding and judgment of man for searching and finding out truths about divine and spiritual things Received from the Lord. By immediate Revelation Reconciliation Giving up themselves to the light within The Word of Reconciliation Christ the light within The Lords Redeemed Those who are conformed to the light within Redemption A being reduced into the state of Adam in innocency not what was wrought by Christ in the Flesh 1600 years since The Redeemer Not that Jesus Christ who is ascended above and beyond the Stars but the light and power within every man as such Refreshings in Spirit Something they are pleased with they know not why and come by they know not how As the Quakers who were refreshed at the Dutch-womans declaring while they understood not a word she spake The New Man CHRIST The rest of the people of God A quiet and peace within though from a blind deluded conscience The Resurrection of Life Obedience to the light in this world Resurrection of the Body Resurrection of the light within to a dominion in the man for with them the body is Christ and Christ is the light within Also the Body which was a servant to sin being acted by the light and power within Revelations Not Scripture-Revelations but what come by immediate inspiration to them Righteous ones Such as are without sin Righteousness of Christ That which is wrought by the power and conduct of their Christ the light within The Root of Jesse The Light within The Royal seed Christ and every Quaker They who run and not sent All that teach the Gospel from the Scripture and not by immediate inspiration Reprobation Sin S. The Sabbath Every day the present Rest and Heaven of the Quakers The Sacrifice of Christ The light within obeying or they obeying in the light within Having Salt in themselves Having Christ in themselves The Salt of the Earth Christ the light within Salvation Conversion to the obedience of the light within Sanctification All one with Justification all one with Christ obedience to the light Building on the Sand. Making the Scripture a rule of faith and life The Saviour The light within every man According to the Scriptures By immediate inspiration as the Prophets and Apostles received the minde of God The Seed The light within or the Christ essentially within the Eternal Word that which was in the beginning with God The Seed of Abraham according to the Flesh The Eternal Word Christ as God  All that is not from the immediate motions within Self-righteousness Shadows All Forms and external worship  The Scriptures which Pen saith are as the shadow of the true rule viz. living touches Idol-Shepherds The Ministers who have a mediate call or teach out of the Scripture Shut out of the Scriptures Cannot understand them have nothing to do with them Signes and Miracles in Spirit No body can tell what All flesh must be silent Nothing must be said but what comes by immediate revelation from the Spirit for all else is the voice of man and of the flesh In the simplicity Without the use of humane understanding or if you will out of your wits To live in Sin Sinners Such as have any remains of
to save me from my sin Answ All Power in Heaven and Earth is in it To shut up this particular hear one of their prime Ministers who speaks plainly his minde and not in Parables I will make you know that I the light which lighteth every man that cometh into the VVorld that all through me should believe am the true eternal God which created all things that by me the light all things are uphâ—ld and that there is not another besides me can save And I will purge out all your iniquities and forgive all your trespasses and I will change your Natures and I will make you new Creatures if you will hearken to me and obey me the light in you VVhat I have here written is the words which the Father who is one with Christ the Son gave me to write in which words the true Christ is renewed and a Testimony given of him and no other But enough and too much of this Blasphemy I need not take pains to ravel into it for it s so plain that none but those who shut their eyes and are wilfully blind but may see it in an unexpressible deformity SECT III. I now proceed to the fourth proof of their equalling their sayings writings and light within and preferring them before the Scriptures I place them in this Order that you may behold them at one view in their not only disproportion but opposition The CHARACTERS of the Scriptures given by the Quakers CHARACTERS of their own Teachers Writings and Sayings given by them Feeding Death with Death The Letter which killeth Declaration from the Ministers of the VVord p. 7. The Voice of the Son of God was uttered forth by him by which the dead was raised F. H. Life of E B. p. 20. Paper Ink and VVriting Declar from the Ministers of the VVord p. 2. A Shield of the Truth Title of James Parnels Book A dead letter The old letter Seeking the living among the dead Parnel Shield to the truth Naylor love to the lost His words ministred grace to the Hearers Fox jun. life of E B  Forcible and very pleasant as apples of gold in pictures of silver This in the freshness and quick sense of life Penington quest c. 41. Leave men in the dark and confusion Frequent Passage A clear Discovery Title of Smiths Prim.  O how certain a sound did his Trumpet give Life of E. B p. 2. Part of it the words of the Devil and wicked men Wisdom of words Nayl Love to the lost c. 21. VVritten from the Spirit of the Lord. title page Parnel shield of truth  The Voice of the Son of God Life of E. B. 20. My upright desire to the Lord for you is that he would strip you if all your knowledge of the Scriptures according to the flesh Pennington quest p 12. And now Childe hear Instruction and be wise Treasure it up in thy heart that thou mayest lay up for thy self a good foundation Smith Prim. p 56. Shews you in a Glass your own faâ—es which the Scriptures cannot do Scorned Quakers Account p. 20. A spiritual Glass opened Title of Smiths Cat. and part of the Title of his Morn-watch Precept and Traditions of men Morning-Watch p. 18. Truths Principles Title of Crooks Book That light is in the â—criptures prove that or tell me what one Scripture hath light in it Lip of truth c. p 7. Light risen out of darkness Title of Farnworths Book Natural Lawson Carnal Letter Shield of the truth 10. God is at liberty to speak by them the Scriptures if he please and where they are given by Inspiration he dâ—th so and so he is at liberty to speak by any other created thing as to Balaam by his Ass James Naylor light of Christ c. p 19. Earthly Root Morn Watch. 22  Worship and obedience as to its direction The Harlots Child Morn watch p. 23  Hagar and Ismael Mother and Child after the Letter Penington Mysteries of the Kingdom Preface He proclaimed liberty to the Captives in the Power and Authority of God F. H. of E. B. p. 15. Letter without Swine feeding on the husk The shadow Parnel shield of Truth p 10. Let this be sent to be read in the fear of the Lord in the Holy Assemblies of the Church of the first-born where she is scattered to the ends of the Earth W. D. Doting on the Scriptures Parnel Christ exalted p 4.  Betrayed into the words Smith prim p. 30.  Dangerous to feed on them Sm Cat. 36.  SECT IV. I having sufficiently proved that they equal their writings and sayings with and prefer them before the Scriptures it is not fit I should let them pass without contradiction I shall therefore review their Grounds for so doing and discover them to be but swelling words of vanity And I shall begin with their Infallibility I am confident that G. Fox the Ring-leader of the Sect understands not what he saith nor whereof he affirms It is one thing not to fail another to be infallible for that is to be without all possibility of failing or erring Again it is one thing to be infallible with a restriction to something another to be universally infallible and without limitation If G. Fox understands so much he is a non-such for confidence and being void of reason that affirmeth as he doth let us examine but that one passage before-cited How can ye be Ministers of the Spirit and not of the Letter if ye be not infallible Here he puts Ministry of the Spirit and of the letter in opposition which Christ and his Apostles joyned hand in hand as loving companions and meet helps each to other And there was delivered unto him the Book of the Prophet Isaiah and when he had opened the Book he found the place where it was written the Spirit of the Lord is upon me c. verse 21. And he began to say unto them this day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears and all bare him witness and wondred at the gracious words c. was not Christ then a Minister of the Spirit it is by him said this day this Scripture is fulfilled in your ears viz. the Spirit of the Lord is upon me And was he not also a Minister of the Letter why he opened the Book and found where it was written and no doubt read it out of the Book to his Auditors or else it would have been very impertinent to tell them This Scripture is fulfilled for they must have divined or not known what Scripture he intended And I suppose none will doubt whether that which is written in a Book be written in Letters Well then either George Fox is fallible yea and hath grossely failed or Jesus Christ was not a Minister of the Spirit and which of these you who call your selves infallible Ministers of the Spirit will admit of I know not but I am sure every true Christian will abhor a
great power his understanding is infinite To say That which is infinite is not beyond measure is a contradiction in its self The second Proposition I prove by their own concession and grant There is scarcely any one thing more frequent in their Writings than to talk of the measure of God the measure of Christ the measure of the light in men But turn your ear inward to that measure of light in you I could fill a volume with Instances of this nature how they measure out the light within and Christ and God and the Spirit but none of them will deny this It is a horrible abomination for men through their gross and dark conceits thus to dishonour God to share him into more and less degrees and measures who is entire infinite indivisible who is not with respect to his Being less in one place than in another This measuring would agree well to his manifestations and discoveries of himself to his creatures and by his works it would agree well to those graces wrought by his Spirit in the hearts of his people which in some is more some less and capable of growing in all but God cannot be more or less than he is and ever was That which may be darkness in a sinfull and evil sense and that in the abstract cannot be God But the light within some men may be darkness in a sinfull and evil sense in the abstract Therefore The light within every man is not God I suppose and hope they are not yet arrived to that height of wickedness as to charge God with ignorance or sin in the least degree or that he is capable of so degenerating therefore I will take the first Proposition for granted For the second I shall prove from Scripture Eph. 5â—8 For ye were sometimes darkness but now are ye light in the Lord. What can be more exclusive of all spiritual light or light in spiritual things than to be darkness in the very abstract But if you who adore the light within shall say this is meant of man but the light within is God and Christ and that is not man of whom the Apostle speaks I answer That sometimes you plead hard that the lighteth in Joh. 1. 9. should be rendred enlightneth and W. P. tugs hard for it in his Pamphlet called The Spirit of Truth c. but it will be granted with less ado Well then if the light within every man be the enlightning of every man at least virtually so that if he be willing to be guided by its conduct it will lead him as you dream then it must be within him as a qualification of his conscience though it be not produced into exercise And you tell men they have that within them that will be a sufficient guide if they will but listen to it therefore this Text reaches the light within you which saith there was a time when they were darkness It would be a strange affirmation to say the world or Creation were darkness while the body of the Sun were in it shining although not one man should move by its light And it is worth the noting that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Text rendred darkness signifies such a darkness as is the total absence of light A second Scripture that proves this is Mat. 6.23 But if the light that is in thee be darkness how great is that darkness It is the same word in the Greek as in the fore-cited Scripture And lest you should cavil and say Christ doth but suppose it he doth not affirm that the light in any one is darkness the fore-going Verse tells you That if thine eye â—e evil that is not single and sincere in its aims thy whole body shall be full of darkness And sure you will not say but there are many in the world whose eyes are evil who account all such that are not Quakers And it may be considered that where the whole body is full of darkness there cannot possibly be in it any light And that this which men conceit to be light and are conducted and led by it as if it were such is sinfull ignorance and darkness I shall not think it calls for proof Well then 't is as clear as day that the best light some men have within them is but perfect night therefore it cannot be God Thus I have proved by three Arguments That the light within every man is not God I will but name a few more and leave them to the judgement of the Reader without further proof That which may be kept under and in captivity by the lusts of men is not God But the light in some men not only may be but is kept under and in captivity by the lusts of men and that by the Quakers own confession Therefore The light in every man is not God That which may be crucified and put to pain in a proper sense is not God But the light within every man which the Quakers call God may by their own confession be put to pain and crucified and that in a proper sense or they talk but madly of being saved by its being crucified within them Therefore It is not God I proceed to the proof of the Minor or second Proposition Viz. That the Quakers do own and profess the light within every man to be God This I must prove from their own Writings which will easily be done it being the grand foundation of the whole Fabrick of Quakerism so that I may say its first stone is laid in gross Idolatry It would be needless to bring Instances of their asserting the light in every man to be that Word which John speaks of Joh. 1. 1. Which was in the beginning which was with God which was God It is the first thing they teach and that not suddenly and amphibiously as they do many other points but in so many words But I shall furnish you with proofs enough over and above that I will make you know that I the light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world that all through me should believe am the true eternal God which created all things that by me the light all things are upheld and that there is not another besides me can save Although in this passage he doth not call it the light in every man yet it being a personating the light within in a large and continued discourse he doth often express it the light within as in pag. 50. You scorn me the light in you Pag. 54. Which will not own me the light in them All power in Heaven and Earth is in it the light in the conscience They that cannot read out of these passages and that without spelling that the Quakers own and profess the light in every man to be God are not like to be much the wiser for whatever they read That it is in every one hear one speak his mind who would be believed Light is the same in
understood what he wrote of the Creation Hear a third that by the mouth of more than two witnesses what I have said may be confirmed John Story Short Discovery c. pag. 2. And though the holy Scripture without and the Saints practises are as lights in the world yet far be it from all true Christian men so to idolize them the Scripture and Saints practises as to set them in esteem above the light which is sufficient to guide or to esteem them equal with the light and Spirit of Christ within from which the Scriptures were given forth and are but branches of that holy root and as it were fruits of that heavenly Tree viz. the appearances of God in the hearts of his people You may see then whence their Opinion of Divine Inspiration to be the inlet of their Notions arises and that the Scriptures are but branches growing from the same root viz. the light within That I may arm those who are willing to be defended against such a strong delâ—sion where-ever it hath once seized the belief by Scripture-light I shall take she pains to lay down some certain Characters of all the Apostles divinely inspired all their Doctrines that flowed from the Spirit of God by way of inspiration immediate contained in the Scripture and having the ame divine Authority SECT III. Characters of the Persons who were Christs Apostles and preached or wrote the Gospel by Inspiration of God which we call the Scripture or Word of God They had an immediate Mission and Call from without them by Jesus Christ to preach and declare the Gospel That Call and Commission which the Apostles had Mat. 28. 16. to the end of the Chapter was from without it was Christ who conversed with them and was the Object of their bodily eyes It was that Christ whom the women held by the feet ver 9. and his Call as his person was without them the sound of which was received by their bodily ears in those words ver 18 19. And Jesus came and spake unto them saying All power is given to me in heaven and in earth Go ye therefore c. And it is a strong Argument to prove this immediate outward Call to be essential to the Apostolical Office and Power that when by Judas's fall the number was imperfect he that was chosen in his room was chosen and called by an outward Call the Spirit of God determining by a Lot Matthias to be the twelfth Apostle as Christ did the rest by his voice without them Acts 1. 24 25 verses they had a large measure of the Spirit within and Matthias in particular but that was not sufficient Yea the Apostle Paul who was born out of due time had this immediate outward Call when Christ appeared to him in that glorious and terrible form Acts 26. 13. At mid day O King I saw in the way not in the heart or I in the way saw a light from heaven above the brightness of the Sun the light in the Quakers I am sure would be seen by any who are not bodily blind if it were such shining round about me then it could not be a light only within and them that journeyed with me if it had not been without him they could not have seen it Verse 14. I heard a Voice speaking unto me not within me I am Jesus Chap. 10. Ver. 22. Jesus of Nazareth and I am sure the light within is not of Nazareth These things are enough to prove the Apostles had all of them an outward Call or a Call from Christ without them to their Ministry and Apostleship and that the Quakers apostleship and inspired ministry is far from Apostolical They were all such as had seen and conversed with the Lord Jesus in an outward visible form to the bodily senses And that I take to be the literal sense and import of that Scripture 1 John 1. 1. That which was from the beginning which we have heard which we have seen with our eyes which we have looked upon and our hands have handled of the Word of Life All these expressions cannot with any shew of reason be construed of a mental or spiritual converse with Christ as an object of faith but must be understood of the exercise of the bodily senses and faculties upon the visible humane nature of the Lord Jesus And if it be objected that it is said this Object was from the beginning which his humane Nature and body could not be I answer There is a communication of both Natures in the person of Christ by which the properties and concerns of the one are attributed to the other as I might give abundant proof of But I will instance in one which may be sufficient Acts 20. 28. To feed the Church of God which he hath purchased with his own bloud God is not a being made up of flesh and bloud but a pure impassible Spirit yet Christ being God as well as man the bloud of his Man-hood is called the bloud of God It is observable that the Apostle John brings these proofs of his Apostleship in the front of his Epistle as being necessary for obtaining Credence to what follows To put all out of doubt consider what is expressed 1 Cor. 9 ch 1 ver Am I not an Apostle am I not free have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord Some did probably object against Pauls Apostleship because he had not seen Christ in the flesh as all the rest of the Apostles had done but he answers this Objection Have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord It could not be meant of seeing him by the spiritual eye of Faith for so all the Saints have seen the Lord that is common to the weakest babe in the Faith And where did he see him but in the way to Damascus Compare the fore-cited Text with 1 Cor. 15. 8 ver And last of all he was seen of me also as of one born out of due time He was not born a Saint or Believer out of due time for conversion will be in season to the end of the world But he was born an Apostle out of due time the Lord Jesus visibly appearing to him to that end in an extraordinay season Thus we see that to Apostleship the sight of the person of Christ as an outward visible object to the bodily sense is necessary A third distinguishing Character is they were all enabled to work Miracles such Miracles as were neither in secret for the place nor doubtful for the matter I should but waste time and paper to give instances of this the Histories of the Evangelists and Acts of the Apostles will furnish you with enough The Quakers having been conscious of the necessity of this have some of them pretended to Miracles to credit their Apostolical pretended inspirations but none can they prove Some have attempted such like performances but have failed in the undertaking so that if we will not believe them for their bold
that it was the saying of Christ which Peter remembred you have Marks word for it or rather Gods Mark 14. 72. And Peter called to mind the VVord that Jesus said to him Jer. 23. 30. I am against the Prophets that steal my VVord every one from his Neighbour Can Christ be stoln or would God be so much offended with them for obtaining Christ as to put the black brand of theft upon it while he charges it as the highest crime to reject Christ I Sam 9. 27. Stand thou still a while that I may shew thee the VVord of God This Word was that God had chosen him King and the Prophecy of what should befal him in his return if you will needs have the VVord of God in this place to be understood of Christ you must read it with the Exposition thus Stand thou still a while and I will shew thee the Christ There are two words in the Greek which are Translated and signifie the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the first is sometimes used for Christ the personal Word but the other never Heb. 6. 5. And have tasted of the good Word of God And also Eph. 6. 17. And the Sword of the Spirit which is the VVord of God A little skill in the Original would free you from this and many more mistakes What I have done here will be to such as are willing to understand good measure pressed down shaken together and running over As for those who are of a perverse mind until the Lord give them a better frame I shall not wonder if they wink out the Sun at noon-day I shall next and briefly say somewhat of the written Word which we are greatly concerned to be satisfied in to be the Word of God for that we have no other standing Word as our Testimony of Gods revealed Will but what is written or printed which is all to a like purpose the one being by an impression of the Pen the other of Stamps This the Quakers deny with the addition of many absurdities arising from so calling and owning it Where saith one of them and a Chief Readest thou in the Scriptures of a written VVord it will be no hard matter to find an Answer to this question I have written to him the great things of my Law but they were accounted as a strange thing a sharp rebuke to the Objectors Exod. 31. 18. The Ten Commands or words according to the Hebr. as I have already shewed were written by the Finger of God himself and afterward by Moses the Law of Moses is called his Writings John 5. 47. If ye believe not his Writings and if the matter and sense be the Word of God before surely when it is written which any word that ever I heard may be it is a word written or a written word which you will SECT V. Some there are who have written against the Quakers who judge that although the Quakers will not admit of this Appellation of the Scriptures yet in other terms they allow them such titles as amount to as much and that the difference is rather verbal then real but let me tell such that besides the imprudence and danger of removing the ancient Land-Marks and not holding fast the forme of sound words there is a wide difference and great shortness in the best titles they will afford them yea take them altogether from this Appellation and therefore I shall examine them and discover their defects herein First they will allow them to be of God So they affirm their own Writings and Sayings to be also of God And let not this seem small in your eyes yet shall you all one day know that the Lord hath spoken it not only in some sense but in a higher then the Scriptures at least with respect to them and the times wherein we live But this phrase to be of God is of so large an import that the silliest VVorm and the basest clod of Clay we tread on may claim a share in the Priviledge yea nothing in the whole Creation but will bear this expression sin only excepted in its obliquiry for of him are all things Rom. 11. 36. Secondly thé Scriptures of truth This is ground enough for us to deal with them by the Authority of the Scriptures but there are many other Writings that are true and if you take the Scriptures to be understood by way of Eminency the Scriptures of truth so as no other Writings extant are so absolutely and divinely true they will utterly disclaim such a sense Thirdly They are the Experiences of the Saints and what they witnessed This is with them a very common phrase though this be true of some part of the Scriptures especially the Book of Psalmes it is too narrow a title by far for the whole Body of the Scriptures and for that part of the Scriptures which expresses the Experiences of the Saints it hath somewhat more as its end then a meer witnessing or expressing how it was with them But I do not wonder that they so much delight in this phrase when I consider that they themselves restrain almost all the Concerns of Religion to their Experiences yea things Historically related that were done without them long ago and are never again to be acted on the stage of this world and things Prophetically related in the Scriptures which shall not have a being until the end of the world They experience the Birth Righteousness Sufferings Death Burial Resurrection Afcension and Exaltation of Christ They experience the downfall of Babylon the Day of Judgement Heaven Hell and all within them and not with respect to some effects impressions and similitudes of these things but really and almost if not altogether exclusively of any other meaning all of which you will finde proved in the following Discourse but this is far short and wide of owning the Scriptures to be the Word of God There are no Saints but have their Experiences both good and bad but he that should write them and affirm them to be the Word of God as they are the Experiences of the Saints will fall with a witness under that severe censure of that true and legitimate Word of God Rev 22 18 19. and Deut. 4. 2. Fifthly they call them a Declaration of the Mind of God This all things considered is the highest expression of their esteem of the Holy Scriptures and Word of God for so I will call them whether they will or no but so were some part of the Writings of the Heathen-Idolaters who knew not the true God Yea many things which they spake of as the Duty of Man and against many immoral Vices The Apostle says no less when he quotes such Passages out of such Heathen-Authors Evil communication corrupt good manners 1 Cor. 15. 33. This is found in the Comedy of Menander called Thadia Act. 17. 28. For we are also his off-spring is a
Charge of Fanaticism among us You may finde the Doctor as good as his word in the following Pages St. Francis is said by Bonaventâ—re a canonizâ—d Saint to be an illiterate man had no Teacher but Christ and learned all by Inspiration for a long time wherein he got his credit among the Papists once casting away his very breeches and being stark naked before them all he said thus to his father Hitherto I called thee Father on Earth but hence forward I can securely say Our Father which is in Heaven I know not but the Quakers learned their going naked and denying to call any father which was their practice at first but the light grows wiser and wiser from St. Francis rather then the Prophet Isa Let us cite a little of the doctrine and phrases some of which are pretended from Inspiration by the Popish Votaries and first of Mother Juliana That the soul is so deep-grounded in God and so endlessely treasured that we may not come to the knowing thereof till we have first knowing of God which is the Maker to whom it is oned Our kindly substance is beeloâ—ed in Jesu with the blessed soul of Christ resting in the Godhead for into the time that it the soul is in the full â—ights we may not be all holy The only proper disposition towards the receiving supernatural Irradiations from Gods Holy Spirit is an Abstraction of life a sequestration from all businesse that concerns others and an attendance on God alone in the depth of the Spirit And a little after the lights here prayed for and desired are such as do expel all images of Creatures and do calm all manner of passions to the end that the soul being in a vacuity may be more capable of receiving and entertaining God in the pure fund of the spirit but they seek rather to purifie themselves and inflame their hearts to the love of God by internal quiet and pure actuations in spirit so disposing themselves to receive the influxes and inspirations of God whose Guidance chiefly they desire to follow-in all things Rejecting and striving to forget all images and representations of him God or any thing else yea transcending all Operations of the imagination and all subtilty and curiosity of reasoning And lastly seeking an union with God only by the most pure and intime affections of the Spirit what possibility of illusion or errour can there be to such a soul In which passive unions God after a wonderful and unconceivable manner affords them interior illuminations and touches yet far more efficacious and divine then active Exercises in all which the soul is a meer Patient and only suffers God to work his divine pleasure in her The which unions though they last but even as it were a moment yet do more illuminate and pacifie the soul then many years spent in active exercises of spiritual Prayer and Mortification could do Yea so far is the soul from reâ—ecting on her own Existence that it seems to her God and she are not distinct but only one thing That God only by his holy Inspirations is the Gride and Director of an internal and contemplative life Râ—ynaldus tells of Norius the father of the Oratorians out of Baciâ—s the Writer of his life that he was so offended with the smell of filthy souls that he would desire the persons to empty the Jakes of their souls Such a divine Nose had this Saint among them a degree of Enthusiasm above the Quakers who can but discern not smell souls Some of you called Quakers pretend a great advantage from 1 John 2. 27. But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you and ye need not that a y man teach you but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things and is truth and is no lie and even as it hath taught you ye shall abide in him The Anointing here cannot be understood of Christ neither do we find the Anointing any where to be understood of Father Son or Spirit essentially considered and indeed the phrase is not fit to be applied to God who is the Anointer or Christ who is the Anointed The teaching of the Anointing being understood of the Graces and the habitual and special Enlightnings of the Spirit these devote and addict the soul under the power of them to adhere to the true Christ For the all things it is to be considered as restrained to the matter agitated in the Chapter which is their adhering to the true Christ and this is plain in he 26. ver These things have I written to you conâ—erning them that seduce you The summe then is this they knowing certainly the true Christ from any Antichrist that which they were mainly to look after was a heart cleaving to and improving him which the Graces of God in their souls actuated by the Spirit of God was sufficient in this matter to make their knowledge of Christ sanctifying and saving As for the words in him which render it Majâ— in the Gr. it may be rendred in any Gender These Considerations duely weighed if there were no more are sufficient to any who have respect to the pure truths of the Gospel to render the principles here detected and opposed not only suspicious but hateful It is no little absurdity in the Quakers to make an out-cry against Popery Babylon false worship formes that are not only unscriptural but also idolatrous while in the mean time they plant and â—…ug the root in their own bosomes from which all those evils and more and worse naturally spring It were no hard matter to prove a symbolizing and agreement in a multitude of particulars between the Papists and Quakers in those things wherein they are contrary to the Protestant Profession of Christianity and the Scripture-Rule but more especially in the spiritual part of their errors which in the sight of God are of all other the most sinful and to men a snare most dangerous The Apostle speaks of more Antichrists then one though of one as the Chief of whose Characters Quakerism hath the blackest I shall mention only two the first expressed in 1. ep of John chap 2. ver 22. Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ he is Antichrist that denieth the Father and the Son That you who are called Quakers deny Jesus to be the Christ I prove at large in a Chapter by its self that you deny the Father and the Son is no less true of you who will admit no distinction between the Father and the Son so that the Father is with you as much the Son of the Father as the Son is the Son of the Father and the Son is as much the Father with you of the Son as the Father is the Father of the Son that by destroying these distinctions you destroy the relation of Father and Son in the Godhead which the Scripture speaks of so plainly and it is hereby apparent that
your quarrel is not so much with the word Trinity as with the thing thereby expressed The next black mark of Antichrist which is upon you is that in 2 Thess 2. 4 who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God or that is worshipped so that he as God sitteth in the Temple of God shewing himself that he is God Do not you advance your light within above the Man Christ Jesus whom we worship as God and who is so called in the Scriptures even that man whose being is above the visible Heavens Do not you call your light within you God eternal Omnipotent c Yea you say it is the light in the Conscience which is the Temple of God and there it doth as if it were God rule govern judge execute in contempt of the written and true Laws of the divine being I beseech you consider these things and lay them to your hearts CHAP. V. The Quakers deny the Scriptures to be a Rule of Faith and Life or a Judge and Determiner of Religious Controversies SECT I. THat this is to deny the Scripture is obvious and plain to all who have not the beam in their eyes I have before proved them to deny its proper and most frequent appellation but if that be not sufficient to prove they deny the Scripture methinks denying their main use and employment should render them guilty of the full measure of that iniquity To little purpose will it be to call them the Scripture the Holy Scripture c. if after all a conformity to their guidance and conduct will render our belief and practice never the less prophane I shall not further perswade my Reader that to deny the Scripture to be a rule of Faith and Life c. is to deny the Scripture for if this suffice not I know nothing will carry the Question unless the Scripture should be brought in begging some boon at the Quakers hands and they proved so hard hearted as not to to grant it If this were necessary I should not fail in the proof notwithstanding For the proof of the Charge I shall first call sorth James Parnel an early and forward Quaker and much esteemed for his works sake And he also that saith the Letter is the rule and guide of the people of God is without feeding upon the husk and is ignorant of the true Light which was before the Letter was By this mans Verdict the Scripture is cast and condemned for husks a false light or but a shadow and its Observers charged with ignorance of Christ the true light for so doing But it were well if they could come off so Behold in the next Accusation a Charge of no less than the highest robbery and sacriledge And if thou lookest upon the Scripture to be for a rule and for trying thou givest that unto them which belongs unto Christ for he is the rule and leads his people and he alone searches the hearts and trys the reins and not the Scripture But if you will see a mouth full of blasphemy against the authority of the Scripture read with horrour and amazement the following words God is at liberty to speak to his people by them the Scripture if he please and where they are given by inspiration he doth so but the sting is behind in the tail of this non-such sentence and so he is at liberty to speak by any other created thing as to Balaam by his Ass Then such a thing as Balaams Ass may call up our expectations of Gods teachings guidance and rebukes as well as the Scriptures for God is at liberty to teach us by an Ass and he hath put no more authority into the Scripture unless he shall please to hand them to us by renewed and immediate inspiration But I shall not rake into this Dunghill further which of its self gives forth so offensive a savour I intended to have given you upon this head the assertions of some of the Romish Writers who trample on the neck of the Scripture with the same foot only the difference betwixt them and the Quakers lies in the aim and design the Jesuits spurn at them to advance the dictates of the Pope and the Romish pretended Church above the Scriptures but the Quakers to advance the conceit within above them all Yet I care not if I give you one instance at large Omnis Judex praesertim supremus generalis ita debet dicere sententiam ut altera pars litigantium evidenter sciat se vicisse altera pars evidenter sciat se causam amisisse quantum est ex parte hujus judicis At hoc neque Scriptura Sacra neque Spiritus Sanctus loquens per Scripturam potest facere Ergo neque Sacra Scriptura nec Spiritus Sanctus loquens per Scripturam est talis judex Et minorem illustrabat his totidem verbis Stamus ego Collegae Domini adversarii in conspectu hujus judicis Bibliorum en contendimus an sit judex Controversiarum Jam ille judex debet pronunciare sententiam ut nobis constet evidenter Sumus hîc in conspectu Sacrae Scripturae Spiritus Sancti pronunciet sententiam sic dicat tu Jacobe Gretsere male sentis cecidisti causa tua Tu Jacobe Hailbrunnere vicisti Tunc ego statim transibo ad vestrum scamnum Et paulo post Adsit jam Spiritus Sanctus jam judicet jam me condemnet In English thus Every Judge especially who is supream and general ought so to give sentence that the one part of the contenders may plainly know they have overcome and the other that they have lost their cause so far as it is in the Judge But this neither the holy Scriptures nor the holy Spirit by the Scripture can do Therefore neither the holy Scripture nor the holy Spirit speaking by the Scripture is such a Judge The minor he illustrates in these very words I and my Collegues and the Lords Adversaries stand before this Judge the Scriptures behold we dispute whether it be a Judge of Controversies Now this Judge ought to give sentence so as it may be evidently manifest to us We are here before the holy Scripture and the Holy Spirit let him pronounce sentence and say thus thou Jacob Gretferus believest not aright thy cause is overthrown thou Jacob Hailbrunnerus hast overcome then I will quickly go over to you And a little after Now let the Holy Ghost come now let him judge me now let him condemn me If he had not had the metaphorical word to have played with the world had not been troubled with so impertinent an Argument and language so ludicrous abusive and daring to the Holy Spirit By this you may see that if the Quakers and Jesuits agreement in the same false Witness against the Scripture will carry it our cause is gone and the Scripture must not determine religious matters But 't is a sign 't is a bad step that so
born the light within whose right it is to reign and his glory he will not give to another nor his praise to Graven Images If erecting and worshipping God by Graven Images be Idolatry then the Quakers do charge us with Idolatry for walking according to Scripture instructions and examples He who will take the pains to read this inspired Author thou by an evil spirit pag. 18 19 20 21 22 23. will find it his scope to prove all Idolaters that ground their worship and order on the Scripture examples and in page 17. he likens all professions among Christians this day to Nebuchadnezzar's Image and though some are more shining and glorious in appearance as the head of Gold was beyond his legs of Iron yet he calls all parts of the Image and the Scriptures the Feet of Clay they had their standing on And in pag. 16. hath these words Then searches the Scripture for words to prove their Image a lawful Son and this is the bottom and foundation of all Religions this day I am e'en tired with searching these sulphureous Veins of the Pit and Mine of Quakerism the root of all which is the deified light within If you have not enough of this smoak to satisfie you it is the bottomless Pit it rises out of I will give you two ebullitions more and then leave you satisfied or to get better senses So amongst the words you find how the Saints in some things walked and what they practised and then you strive to make that thing to your selves and to observe it and do it as near as you can and here you are found transgressors of the just Law of God who saith thou shalt not make to thy self any graven Image nor the likeness of any thing And it follows now what difference is there in the ground betwixt you and the Pope though in the appearance there seem to be such a great space SECT II. The Quakers having thus stript the holy Scriptures of their divine beauty and authority both name and thing plucked out their very heart and strength let us resume the particular Arguments produced to prove that they deny the Scriptures and look on them at one view so shall we better discern their united testimonies and strength They who Deny the Scripture to be the word of God Equal their own writings and sayings with the Scriptures and prefer them before the Scriptures They who Deny the Scripture to be the word of God Deny the Scriptures to be a rule of faith and life or a Judge and determiner in religious controversies They who Deny the Scripture to be the word of God Take men off from reading the Scriptures and looking into them for instruction and comfort They who Deny the Scripture to be the word of God Deny the Scriptures to be any means by which we may come to know God Christ or our selves They who Deny the Scripture to be the word of God Affirm the Scriptures to be no means whereby to resist temptation and that they are dangerous to be read They who Deny the Scripture to be the word of God Deny the Scriptures to be read to any profit any farther than they are beforehand experienced by them that read them They who Deny the Scripture to be the word of God Put or render the Scriptures and the Spirit of God in opposition to each other They who Deny the Scripture to be the word of God Affirm the doctrines commands promises holy examples expressed in the Scripture as such to be not at all binding to us They who Deny the Scripture to be the word of God Hold it is a sin the sin of Idolatry to believe and live according to the instructions and holy examples expressed in and by the Scriptures except we have them by immediate revelation as the Apostles They who do all these things mentioned in the foregoing particulars deny the Scriptures But the Quakers do all these things mentioned in the foregoing particulars therefore the Quakers deny the Scriptures If any one or all these arguments together will prove what they are brought to confirm it is proved if it be not I shall for ever dispair to prove any thing For as much as the holy Scriptures being our compass on earth and our evidence for Heaven are mostly struck at by the Prince of Darkness and grand enemies of Souls especially the two great Antichrists the Roman Bishop and Church and the new Upstarts who hold the Light within every man to be the Saviour Light Righteousness all who do not only as other erroneous or heretical persons a little eclipse or pervert the light of the Scriptures but attempt to pull it down out of the Firmament or render it a dark and useless body but as it receives Light from their Idol the one party to set up the Pope at Rome as absolute in matters of Religion The other to set up the Pope within as absolute and more than he in the little world of every individual man I shall within these following parallel lines give you a view though but in part how both these adversaries do openly spit their venom and discharge their shot against the holy Scriptures And considering how they in most things jump together in the contempt of and detracting from the Scriptures you may conclude that although the Jesuite was not the first contriver of the Quakers grand notion of the Light within to be Christ which I am verily perswaded of to be true yet that he was a promoter of the building erected on that foundation we may easily guess by his mark on so many parcels of it yet I must say that the Romanists were much more sound in their opinions of the Scriptures until about Luther's time wherein the Protestants were too hard for them at those weapons I give you the mind of the Spirit of God expressed in the middle colume the Quakers Tenets on the left and the Jesuites and Papists on the right hand I do not give the Quakers books names and pages because it would not be contained in any order and in the body of the Book they are exactly proved I give you the Jesuites names and quotations of most or all because they are not mentioned in the body of the Book The Quakers Opinions and sayings of the Scriptures and those that adhere to them The Spirit of God speaking by the Scriptures The Jesuites and Papists Tenets and sayings of the Scriptures and those that adhere to them The Scriptures are not the rule of Faith and life Thou shalt not turn aside to the right hand or to the left viz. Gods Statutes and Judgments Deut. 5. 31 32. The Scripture is not the rule of Faith Greg. de Valentia Jesuita libro quarto analyseos   Carranza in prima controver The Scriptures are not the judg and determiner of Controversies in religious matters He mightily convinced the Jews and that publickly shewing by the Scriptures that
reach of his natural entire and uncorrupted light and innate to his perfect frame and holy disposition had the obligation of a positive duty from God in the matter of the tree in the midst of the Garden And to me the main ground of it was that the absolute soveraignty of the Creator might be acknowledged and man might learn to render obedience to God not only because the matter of it is just in its self and would be so if God had never explicitely commanded it but also because it is the will of God yea where his will obliges singly without the respect of natural and unchangeable equity And God hath so expressed his jealousie over this right of his that when sins against not only natural light but superadded precepts to confirm and strengthen its doubtfulness and decayes have been passed by without any special expressions of his provocation sins committed against his positive Laws have been avenged with a high hand Adam's and Eve's transgression was against an institution and positive Law the commission of which so stirred up the displeasure of God that he banished them out of Paradise and imposed that curse under which the world groans to this day And it is not below our notice that although they were capable of sinning against God in many other respects yet God affixes the direfull penalty to this positive Law In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die The case of Nadab and Abihu when God bare witness against them from heaven by consuming them with fire was as a pillar of salt to season others with an awfull reverence of God in his purely instituted worship Vzzah was smitten and died on the spot when he miscarried so little as in sinning against a positive Law by putting forth his hand to save the Ark the intention of it being good and commendable And as under the Old so under the New Testament-dispensation God hath not left his positive Laws without the fence of his special displeasure witnessed against the contemners and abusers of them For this cause many are weak and sickly among you and many sleep that is are dead turned into the grave This was inflicted on them for their disorder at the Lords Supper although especially among the Corinthians we read of many great sins against moral precepts yet the Spirit of God assigns not them but this breach as the cause And if we consider the great inclination of man to pride himself in his own innate reason and wisdom and great unwillingness to subscribe to any thing that is not in its own nature within the reach of it we may suppose that something with respect to that which is so apt to break the bonds of meer authority even that of God himself the Lord hath put such a guard on positive Laws and will not no not now under the dispensation of the gracious Gospel leave men without a test of their resignation to his divine wisdom and absolute though never unjust soveraignty and authority And I having observed these Ordinances of the Gospel which are the only meerly positive Laws of the New Testament to be sleighted because in their own nature they seem of no tendency to edification have given my Reader this not superfluous Introduction SECT VI. I shall begin with Baptism it being the first in order of the two both in its institution and practice The Quakers deny Water-Baptism to be now an Ordinance of Christ The Baptism we own which is the Baptism of Christ with the holy Ghost and with fire but we deny all other Here is Water-Baptism plainly denied But this will not serve the turn it must be stigmatized also with all those who ever so conscientiously and regularly practise it And now I see the other Water-Baptism to be formal imitation and the invention of man and so a meer delusion and all are Heathens and no Christians who cannot witness this Baptism the Baptism of the Quakers spirit of delusion who can witness this denies all other Your brain-imaginations we deny Methinks they who have read the Scripture should not call Water-Baptism the invention of men that is too palpable an untruth though to call it formal imitation be an untruth also it is more tollerable than the other but to brand it with the Charge of a meer delusion is of such reflection on its Author as nothing but a heart steel-hard and a head dungeon-dark and both void of the fear and awe of God could thus suggest And to make up the measure full all must be reproached as Heathens and no Christians whose eyes are not as blind and fore-heads as impudent as theirs and yet as rank Quakers as this will call me not only injurious but a blasphemer also for saying and proving they are no Christians But lyes and confidence with them are prerogativ'd things while truth must beg and have nothing but by their good leave and grace and then it may starve or flee where the Quakers rule the roast They Baptism Bread and Wine rose from the Popes invention and the whole practice of those things as they use them had their institution from the Pope c. Without doubt the light within is wonderfully learned in History and as some of the Quakers write doth declare to them the Creation the Fall and what not without the Scripture This regardfull Prophet can tell you that Baptism rose from the Pope yea and the Wine in the Sacrament too which the Pope indeed took away from the Laity but never instituted it And this Author as I have before cited him tells the world we call the Latin the original his mind is all on Rome and there I 'le leave him Yet that I may not imitate the Quakers who will not consider the weightiest Reasons and clearest against their Tenets I shall weigh theirs truly and justly before I determine this point They who would have one Baptism inward another outward would have two Baptisms when the Scripture saith the Baptism is but one I must tell him by the way that he tells an untruth wilfully and what that is he could tell another He uses or rather abuses the words of the Apostle just before repeated One Lord one Faith one Baptism and there he adds his but which the Text hath not And here the Scripture saith the Baptism is but one let him find such a Scripture and I will be bound to turn Quaker but there being no such I am sure he hath not the Spirit of God and is by it infallibly guided who thus forges Scripture But to the Objection take notice That Water-Baptism is the sign the Baptism of the Spirit the main thing but not all signified now to have the thing signifying and the thing signified called by the same name doth not make them to be two of that name no more than there were two new Covenants because the matter contained in the Covenant is called the Covenant
they took him down from the tree and laid him in a sepulchre but God raised him from the dead Be it known unto you therefore men and brethren that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins For there is one God and one Mediator between God and man the man Christ Jesus I am he that liveth and was dead and behold I am alive for evermore amen and have the keys of hell and death I might fill many Pages with Scriptures of the like import these are so plain for what I produce them and the Quakers deny that they need no Exposition or Comment or as the Quakers phrase it have any meanings put to them If men be so blind as not to see the errour of disowning Jesus of Nazareth the Son of Mary who was hanged on a tree put into the Sepulchre of Joseph of Arimathea to be yet alive and the Christ of God by all these Scriptures it is a blindness wherewith never any before the Quakers who professed the Scripture to be a true testimony were smitten Surely God hath given them up for their pride giddiness or idle ignorance and that in justice and the Devil the destroyer hath blinded their minds with a witness that this light of the glorious Gospel should not shine unto them Can yea dare any of you guilty of the errour here charged say That all this is true of and to be applied to the light within every man which these Scriptures assert of Gods Christ Read them over and compare them with that which is your only Christ and Saviour If this man Christ Jesus in whom dwells the fulness of the Godhead and who was thus described by the Spirit of God be the Saviour your light within is not If your light within be the Saviour and Christ and Redeemer he was not Of whom all these Scriptures and a thousand more speak so plainly The Lord be mercifull to your souls the Lord rebuke you who are so bold in denying the Lord that bought you and â—rampling under foot the bloud of the Covenant O consider that fancies and dreams though having ever so strong an impression while you are possessed with them will when you awake out of your graves of earth and dust yea when your souls depart from your bodies leave you to the naked truth which God in his Word the Scripture hath revealed to us not to be abused after your manner but that we might believe and live after their direction which who despises Wo unto their souls for they have rewarded evil to themselves I have not yet given you all the evidence I have out of the Quakers chief Writers that they disown the man Jesus the Son of Mary to be Gods Christ Some of them take together Can outward bloud cleanse the conscience Yes by faith therein We witness the same Christ that ever was now manifested in the flesh The man Christ Jesus was not ever for he was made and born in time of the Virgin Mary was Abraham's and David's seed after the flesh and though he now have a Being in Heaven and is manifested on earth by his Word and by that faith which is in the hearts of his people yet he is not now manifest in the flesh according to that Scripture which saith God was manifest in the flesh not is And Christs nature is not humane which is earthly for that is the first Adams And immediately before Where doth the Scripture speak of humane Now we do not deny that Christ according to the flesh was of Abraham but not the word humane How pityfully doth he wind and turn to get out of the noose and holds the world in hand as if he did not deny the thing that Christ is constituted of the humane nature only he will not allow the word humane Yet he that hath a small measure of discerning may see that peep out which he would fain hide He denies Christs nature to be earthly which the first Adams was Sure if Christ was the seed of the woman by Adam his nature as man was such as Adams But for his questioning the word humane as not in the Scripture he pretending to be able to examine the justice of our Translators in turning the Greek into English in his great Libel called Mystery of the great Whore should methinks have found as much as humane in the Greek though not in the English 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being five times used in the Epistles which in the Latine is more hominum humanus after the manner of men humane And Christs humane nature is no more but his mans nature of his nature according to man and so he is now in the humane nature in the Heavens Seeing then that we have a great high Priest that is passed into the Heavens Jesus the Son of God let us hold fast our profession Mark the last clause For we have not an high Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities but was in all points tempted like as we are yet without sin Infirmities here must not be understood of sin the Text bars that but such a weak nature as is constituted of flesh and bloud liable to pains grief hunger and weariness And he was found in fashion as a man and that I think is more hominis Now this man is not was but is our high Priest in the Heavens and not as Fox hath it was of the seed of Abraham but is so A few Instances more yet And they that are false Ministers preach Christ without Your carnal Christ is utterly denied by the light Your imagined God beyond the Stars But none can witness this whose eye is outward looking at a Redeemer afar off So much of the proof of their denying that man to be Christ SECT II. I must not say That the Quakers do not own a man Christ for that they frequently in their Writings and sayings express such a thing but I desire that none will be offended that I will not take Chips for Guineys or half Crowns because some silly Cheats would put them upon me under those valuable names much more ought I and every one else take heed of receiving that for Christ which God the Father hath not sealed because men of what countenance soever will perswade us it is no other whilst by the very Candle-light of meer reason it will appear to be a meer fancy If I should say no more but that it is an absurdity as big as an impossibility for a man constituted not only of a soul for that may be crowded into a little room but a body of flesh bloud and bones to be within a man surely no woman with child ready to be delivered would by her swelling and bigness proclaim it to the eyes of all beholders more effectually than such who should be so inmated And although they talk of all this being by faith they must give
the enlightning in the Text to be a bettering of the faculties of the mind to discern its spiritual concerns I grant that the Lord Jesus Christ did by his redeeming work merit and doth now by his Spirit effect that great good in his people and they have thereby better understandings and a more pure and faithfull conscience than others But that Christ by being essentially considered in the conscience of every man should be its enlightning is a most base dishonour to his divine Majesty for what is it less than to render God under no better notion than the qualification of the faculty of a pityfull creature Therefore however it be expounded it makes nothing for the Quakers light within or rather the enlightning within to be the Being of Christ Every man If this phrase be taken strictly in its full latitude intending every individual without exception Christ enlightning must be understood so doing as Creator not as Redeemer which Exposition hath a better countenance from the Context than any thing that can make on the Quakers side For the Evangelist treats in the introductory Verses of Christ as the universal Creator and by consequence the eyes of the body and mind by which both are enlightned are creatures of his framing This is the opinion of many Superiours to me in judgement by far and I shall not contradict it but modestly and with submission offer my opinion But if that be right which all the Quakers in the world are not able to prove it cannot be so understood the Quakers may quit this Text as doing them no service Some have affirmed that John wrote his Gospel upon the occasion of the Heresie of Ebion and Cerinthus in denying the eternal and divine nature of Christ But suppose it be to be understood of Christs enlightning as Redeemer and so the enlightning to be with respect to the Gospel-discoveries it need not it cannot lightly be understood of all universally Why more than that Text Whom we preach warning every man and teaching every man c. Sure the Apostle being but a man himself could not warn and teach every man without limitation it must therefore mean all that he preached to or rather the professors of Jesus Christ to whom he preached he thus taught and warned Commending our selves to every mans conscience c. There were many that never heard Paul nor heard of him therefore it must be understood that he had been so faithfull that he deserved commendation from all and had it from those whose consciences were pure to whom he ministred Well then why may it not be understood thus Every man that is enlightned with a spiritual Gospel-light is enlightned by Christ I will shew you a Text of the like form which must be so construed The Lord upholdeth all that fall and raiseth up all those that be bowed down Sure it means that all that are upheld are upheld by God and all that are bowed down and raised up are raised up by God Yet I rather incline to take the every man to be Jew and Gentile without those limitations of the Covenant dispensed before Christ came The Prophets the Temple the Sacrifices and all those typical representations of Christ were restrained to the Church of Israel till the coming of Christ To them were committed the Oracles of God The Disciples must not go to preach the Gospel in the wayes or places of the Gentiles Peter is of opinion he must not converse with those who were Gentiles as a Preacher of the Gospel The Jews are offended with him for going on so good an errand till they heard his commission from God and the blessed effects of his Ministry But they are quickly informed of the partition-wall being broken down and imployed according to their commission to teach all Nations And the vail of the Temple at Christs death was rent from the top to the bottom And as I take it it gives a good countenance to this Exposition I have but one Hill more to get over and that is Whether the Participle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 refer to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so whether it may be read The light coming into the world enlightneth every man or every man coming into the world the light Christ enlightneth As I said before if it should refer to man every man in the very instant of or before his birth Christ enlightneth it must be meant of created faculties in the natural body as eyes reason c. and so Christ as Creator enlightens all for experience and sense without any one Instance to controul it will tell us that none can believe without hearing nor hear without a Preacher for all the talk of some of the preaching Stars and others of the preaching Gospel-light in the conscience Shew us the man that can express any thing of Christ or the Covenant of promises that never had any other means But there is a Reason in the Text gives such a countenance to referring it to the light as will never be found for the contrary That was the true light not this or this is which plainly imports not the light Christ as he is now in Heaven nor as present with John and his contemporary Saints when he wrote the Gospel for then it would have been this or at least that is the true light c. but it clearly points at Christs appearance in the flesh in his state of humiliation wherein he transacted mans salvation and conversed and shined among men as he shall never do over again that state of Christ which was when John wrote his Gospel past And this construction is the very scope of the words viz. That Jesus Christ who was shadowed out formerly by types and figures and whose Ordinances for conveying knowledge and grace to the sons of men and which were the ordinary acceptable wayes of Gods worship were afore-time restrained to the Temple and Jewish Church was manifest in the flesh and therein fulfilling his work as Redeemer hath abolished those strait dispensations and broken down the partition-wall between Jew and Gentile making no difference but shining by his Ordinances and favour on either indifferently so rising as a Sun of righteousness to give light to the whole world without any restraint by his Ordinance or appointment Whereby those Prophecies are fulfilled And he said It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the Tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved of Israel I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles that thou maist be my salvation to the ends of the earth So it seems he was not so at the time of this Prophecie although he were then the divine and eternal Being and he who should in time come and redeem and save by his actual merit I the Lord have called thee in righteousness and will hold thine hand and I will keep
be so eminently such as the meanest that hath the true form And that the Word Christ is only so analogically I have shewed and the definition of a Word in the second Chapter I desire Mr. Pen to consider better next time and not think every body else not a hairs breadth beyond his size SECT VI. A third Scripture I am willing to explain to fence the weak against the Quakers seductions is 2 Pet. 1. 19. We have also a more sure word of prophecy whereunto ye do well to take heed as unto a light that shineth in a dark place untill the day dawn and the day-star arise in your hearts This more sure word of prophecy refers to the voice from Heaven which Peter James and John heard expressed in Verse 17. and is by Peter affirmed to be rather to be credited than that or any other immediate revelation By the more sure word of prophecy is meant those prophecies written in the Old Testament which are called Verse 20. prophecy of Scripture and are called the light that shineth in a dark place as prophecies shine but with a dim light yet are welcome and give some light comparatively with providences which are the fulfilling of those prophecies The dawning of the day and the day-star arising in their hearts cannot be meant of Christ known and received by faith to salvation and sanctification too in some measure for so he was risen in their hearts when the Apostle wrote this or else he would not have said them to have obtained like precious faith with him and others the Apostles and Saints which he doth in Verse 1. as the direction of his Epistle I therefore conclude that the sense is this He exhorts them to be intent on the prophecies whether verbal or figurative which had respect to not only the coming of the Messiah which they believed already but also the abolishing of the Mosaical rites and constituting in their room the spiritual and Gospel-administration till thereby they were convinced of that truth which is called the dawning of the day and the day-star with respect to its light and beauty and reality above the Mosaical ceremonies and rites which were but dim night-stars in comparison or till they were convinced that the day of the Gospel-realities was come and so the night-shadows of the Law to be done away The grounds I have for this Exposition are these added to the former Peter the Pen-man of this Epistle is said to be the Apostle to the Circumcision as the Gospel of Circumcision was to Peter And therefore we may gather that those to whom he wrote were Jews whom the Scripture speaks to be zealously addicted to the Law of Moses And this is farther confirmed by his direction of them to the heeding of the Scripture-Prophecies which few but the Jews were acquainted with or did own as worth the heeding except the converted Gentiles of whom there was no danger that they should Judaize unless moved thereunto by such of the Jews as needed this conviction This to me is sufficient I leave the grounds for others to consider One Text more I shall weigh and then I judge I have done enough to satisfie those that are willing how the Quakers abuse those Texts which are not so easily understood as some others to their own and others destruction To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles which is Christ in you the hope of glory From hence they conclude They have very Christ his Being and Essence within them It will not be easily refuted That the hope of glory is to be understood to be in them which being a hope in Christ the crucified Jesus was such a mystery as the Gentliles called foolishness But we preach Christ crucified to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness For Christ to be in them rightly understood would be no such hard matter for the Gentiles to believe who understood Metonymical phrases very well as to believe such a glory to be attained by faith in and obedience to the Laws of a man who died as a Malefactor and that this death of his should reconcile God to man with the addition of such a purchase But because it is a truth That Christ is in Believers I shall therefore fay that which with the blessing of the Lord to a willing mind to be instructed will prove convincing First The man Christ that was nail'd to the Cross the Quakers do not believe to be in them nor that he hath a being or life nor can he be in them in his person as a man if they had a sounder faith For the God-head of Christ that is with respect to his Being and Essence every where and every where alike Do not I fill heaven and earth saith the Lord So that with respect to the infinite Being of God who comprehends all things he is in every thing at all times and nothing can be void of his presence So that if this be it you mean the Saints have no more priviledge than any other creature whatsoever But it remains that Christ is in his people by his graces wrought by his Spirit which is his image and likeness by his love which hath a uniting nature to its object as we say such are one who love dearly Every man is where he loves more than where he lives And so also where he is beloved for that will make him frequently thought on and a man to be sensible of his good or hurt as if he himself enjoyed the one or suffered the other And he is said to live in the hearts of his people by faith as faith believes how lovely and desirable he is and so loves him and works all those other graces in the soul which are his image and do as effectually possess the soul for Christ and to his use and interest as a faithfull friend can do According to that Text That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith that ye being rooted and grounded in love c. You know what the Scripture saith of faith that it worketh by love So that in very deed Christ both as God and Man doth live in all his Saints but not in his person but by the manifestations of his love and glory his works and image in and on the soul And this is enough to satisfie those that are sober and are contented with and rejoyce in those priviledges which God affords to his children which are enough to render them blessed rather than those which pride and ignorance will choose like our first Parents to be as Gods and pay dear for the delusion SECT VII Having stripped them of these Texts wherewith they fortifie their light within to be the Christ and Saviour and proved That the man Jesus of Nazareth in whom dwelt and now dwelleth the fulness of the God-head bodily is the Christ of God and not the man
which hath a respect to the things done within their knowledge as men the Writers of that or those parts of the Scripture were either under the Testimonies of Miracles or were by some express Testimony of God rendred holy men and being so qualified they would not write more than they knew and could not easily be mistaken in matter of fact and being Scripture is said by Paul to be of Divine inspiration Fourthly All those Books of the Old Testament out of which somewhat is not quoted in the New as Scripture were received as Scripture by the Jews and then Church of God and that in the time of many Prophets to whom Divine Testimony hath been given and it cannot with any shew of Reason be supposed that those Writings should be faâ—â—â—y fathered on God or taken for authentique Scripture and the Prophets not discover and reprove it whereas far less haâ—nous evils than that would have been were often the subject-matter of their sharp reprehensions Let any Quaker of other give me or themselves the like satisfaction of their being immediately inspired and they shall have my leave to hold such an Opinion of it But for those inspirations which they say many had before the Scriptures were written the mention of their time will give full satisfaction it will be a poor Argument to prove men are now inspired as they considering they had not the revealed written Word at all and we have it so full that all things necessary for any to know are therein included and thereby expressed The second thing I must reply to is what the Quakers frequently Object viz. That we make the Scripture the judge of the Spirit whereas the Spirit gave forth the Scriptures I answer this is for want of judgment in the Objectors Far be it from us to bring the to-be-adored Spirit of God to any mans bar for judgment to be passed on it or any thing that is his immediate Work or Word all we profess in this matter to make the Scripture a judge or determiner of is whether this or that be the mind of the Spirit or no but if once it appear to be the Voice and Mind of the Spirit we profess it our duty to reverence and submit to it And we being certain that the Holy Scriptures were given forth from God and that God is not opposite to himself we conclude that what is contrary to the Scripture cannot be the Word of the Spirit because then the Spirit should bear witness against it self and the word of the Spirit would be contrary to the word of the Spirit And moreover if any shall pretend to abolish by the Authority or inspiration of the Spirit those Ordinances and Institutions which were setled by Christ or Christ in his Apostles it would be unreasonable to credit them without the same Testimonials such Miracles as they wrought by which they were erected But the Quakers are far enough from shewing such a zeal for their pretended Ministry and Order And further we are obliged not to receive another Gospel and that by the Holy Spirit though an Angel from Heaven should preach it and we are warned not to believe any other as Truth Divine against it though many Wonders should be wrought for confirmation The third thing I must reply to is that our knowledge of the mind of God by the Scripture is uncertain I answer If you mean a knowledge of all Gods mind you are not to expect it it you mean all that is there contained it is not necessary and you may go to Heaven and do your duty without such a vast knowledge and if you endeavour it in your places and as God hath given you the means it will not be your sin much less your condemnation that you do not know it all Sure there are many Babes in Christ's Family yet they are Children and all are first Babes and that would be a Monster never yet seen in the Church of Christ a new-born Babe knowing the mind of God contained in the Scripture as fully as the most serious Christians of the longest standing Jesus Christ himself grew in wisdom and in stature and I intreat you be content to leave a little of the mind of God to be found out in the Scripture by the generations to come If you mean our knowledge of the mind of the Spirit is uncertain so far as it is necessary for our living in an acceptable manner to God soberly righteously and godly in this present world and to attain Heaven at last it is a great mistake for if pride lust and idleness stand not in our way there is no person that hath a few grains of Reason but may understand so much of the mind of God by the Scripture as is necessary for him to know to his eternal salvation But if you talk of the Scriptures being a dead Letter and not moving and teaching with a voice or impulse without our reading praying and applying it in the Lords strength you talk at a strange random as if God had given us our eyes and brains only to look after the world and the things thereof but in the knowledge of God we must be meerly passive A KEY TO THE Quakers Usurped and to most UNINTELLIGIBLE PHRASES THere is not any thing in the Quakers Method of deluding which doth more tend to the insnaring of unwary Souls than their asserting their false Antichristian and Anti-Scriptural Tenets under Scripture-Words and Phrases and in those very Terms wherein are expressed the Truths of God while in the mean time they mean nothing less than their true import and what People who are not well acquainted with their Tenets suppose them to mean By this Artifice they beget a good Opinion of themselves and Errours with too many and by degrees so vitiate their Principles that in a short time they are prepared to embrance the grossest errors bare-faced I shall therefore as a work of no small use to such who are attempted by them or who have a Call or opportunity to deal with them for their convincing or confuting or the securing others who are in danger by them give you a true and candid account of their sense and meaning of a multitude of Scripture and Religious Phrases which they utter and apply to their falshoods and also of their new-coin'd Words and Phrases which are more peculiar to their Sect and Notions I dispose them Alphabetically for their more easie finding on any occasion A. Above NOt in locality but excelcie so Christ and Heaven they say are above i. e. excellent and may therefore be nothing but what is within them The Anointing The Light within Christ the Spirit essentially Assembling Meeting in Spirit Assurance What they feel in themselves not what they believe from the Scripture the inward witness viz. experience teachings of the light within B. Babylon All the Ordinances Worship Faith Obedience that have any thing of a form or visible in
them or that are gathered from the written Word or pretended to be so Baptism Not any thing by Water but the Spirit i. e. the Quakers Spirit to an obedience and devotedness to the light within and inspirations and immediate teachings Blasphemy To speak against the light within every man to be Christ and God and what they hold it to be Blind Not to acknowledge the light within to be Christ not to know by immediate inspiration The Blood of Christ The life of Christ i. e. the power of the light in them The spiritual Blood which they say came down from Heaven and was part of a spiritual Body which Christ brought with him from thence which dwelt for a while in the man Jesus who died at Jerusalem Salvation puririfying reconciling by the Blood of Christ Not by the Blood of Christ shed on the Cross but by the Blood of the spiritual Body of flesh blood and bones which they say Christ descended in which is in every Quaker as really as in the man that was the Son of Mary and so salvation is by no other blood but what is in themselves The Body of Christ Not that which was crucified without the Gates of Jerusalem in Judea but the spiritual Body aforesaid which they say took up its Habitation and Tabernacled in the Body of Jesus the Son of Mary and so the Body of Christ is as much in them as it was in him Bondage Not only our selves in bondage to sin but the light within the seed of God or Christ being in bondage under the disobedience of men Born again Regeneration Perfect Obedience to the light within as Christ and God Comprehending Brain A large understanding oâ— a desire of Knowledge by the use of the rational Faculty C. Gall. The motions of the Light Christ in the Conscience Christ Not the man Christ Jesus the Son of Mary which the Godhead assumed and united to its self in one person but the light within every man a Christ that had nothing of Adams Nature whose Body now in being was not Created or had a beginning in time which was never visible to the bodily eye   Not in any respect distinct from God the Father and God the Holy Ghost Christ in the Saints Not Christ without them an Object of the faith and love within them but his very Being his Divinity his Soul and his Body consisting of spiritual Flesh Blood and Bones not his Image and likeness but the self-same in his Being and Essence Christs coming In the Spirit or his spiritual coming into his People i. e. no other but the prevailing motions of the light within or by inspiration The Command in Spirit By immediate inspiration and motion Comprehension Fleshly Comprehensions That Opinion or Belief which is grounded on a rational demonstration though from the Written Word of God Carnal All things of a religious concern which we are not enlightned about and moved to by immediate inspiration yea whatever hath a form or is visible to the bodily Eye Fleshly Conceivings Those Opinions or expressions whose beginning and birth are in the humane faculties very great weakness if not â—in and unbelief contrary to the assured and undoubted dictates of the infallible light and Spirit within them Condemnation The reproofs and sentencings of the light in the Conscience Conversion A full obedience to the light in the Conscience a total freedom from the prevailing of any sin such a state as the Disciples of Christ had not attained when Christ was crucified nor Paul when he wrote the Epistle to the Romans Crucifying of Christ Not that crucifying on the Cross of wood but a crucifying within us by disobedience to the light in our Consciences  A strange merit and purchase of Salvation and way of pacifying the wrath of God for sin D. Damnation Being condemnd within by the light in the Conscience the terror affliction arising from thence but nothing of a pain of sense after the body is dead and turned to dust Darkness Not acknowledging the light in every man to be Christ and being guided by its immediate teachings as the only and all-sufficient rule Death of Christ The light within not obeyed The dead Body The Body living in sin Disciples of Christ No other but those who submit to the light within and follow only its dictates E. Election Christ the sâ—ed not the persons of men and women Vulturous-Eye The understanding faculty piercing into and earnestly seeking after Divine Knowledge F. Faith A believing in the light within Righteousness of Faith Those acts of Obedience performed by themselves in their own bodies conformable to the dictates of the light within and in the Faith of its being Christ and the Rule Teaching or doing falsly When not from the immediate motions and teachings of the light within though what is taught be in its self true and what is done be in its self good False Prophets All that are called by men however qualified otherwise all that teach from or out of the Scriptures and not from immediate inspiration as the Prophets and Apostles by whom the Scriptures were penned False Witnesses All who speak not from inspiration and inward meerly divine motions and experience not what they affirm in themselves Flesh Whatever is not from the light within originally and immediately Wisdom of the Flesh All Wisdom attained by industry Denying Christ come in the Flesh Denying Christ come in the Flesh of Joseph John Sarah or any other who are Quakers Christ come in the Flesh Come in their Flesh The Flesh of Christ The spiritual Flesh that descended from Heaven not the Flesh that lay buried in the Sepulchre after death The Fold of Christ Christ himself Following Christ Obedience to the Light within The Friends Friends All professed Quakers The will of the Flesh All that is chosen by man though he be thereto disposed by the will of God revealed in the Scripture G. Preaching for Gain Receiving any thing as the reward of preaching the Gospel State of Glory The State of Peace and Joy resulting from the witness of the light within in this life GOD. Father Son and Holy Ghost without distinction the light within every man the spirit of the Quakers every one of them the soul the seed and much more that he is not Foundation of God The light within and the inspirations and motions of it The Gospel Christ the light within not the written word or the sense of it as a narrative of the good will of God to men in Christ H. Handled the Word of Life Not as the Apostles who handled the Body of Christ but feeling by a spiritual sensation the motions of the light within or the Christ within them Hearing the Gospel or Word Listening to and obeying the light within Heaven Not the place where the man Christ is above or beyond the visible skies but the happiness they have within them  I could never yet hear or read them mention any other
Heaven to be injoyed by them as distinct persons but what they have within them in this world Hell The present torment and loss within Preaching for Hire Hirelings To have provision for the outward man as a maintenance or reward for preaching though no bargain be made yea though such who receive it would preach if they had never a penny reward in this world from those they preach to Holiness Obedience to the light within and that without any failing The womans Husband at home Christ the light in the conscience I. Idolatry Often for worshipping the man Christ Jesus who is at the right hand of God above or beyond the stars and visible Heavens taking the examples of the Saints and Churches in the Scripture recorded and doing likewise JESVS The light within the Word in the beginning not the Son of Mary who was made or created The Imaginations All conclusions how demonstrable soever which accord not with their Tenets or are not by immediate inspiration Inchantments Bewitchings A being perswaded and established by reason and Scripture but especially if humane arts or sciences have any hand in it Infidels All that obey not or do not place their salvation in the light within Workers of Iniquity All that live not without sinning against God The Judgment day of Judgment Sin being judged in the conscience by the light within in this life Justification Christ the light within obeyed K. Kingdom of God The rule and government of the light within and the peace and joy arising from thence Carnal knowledge All knowledge but what comes by the immediate inspiration of the light within L. The Law Christ the light within the law written in the heart Leadings in Spirit The motions of the light within immediate inspirations and teachings The Life Christ the light within The life of Christ The prevalency of the light within Eternal Life Being taken into God Saved by the Life of Christ A being saved by the prevalency of the light in the conscience The Letter The dead Letter The Letter that killeth The Scriptures or written Word A Lye Lying What is spoken though true in it self if not from immediate teaching or the light within The Light within Christ God Father Son Spirit the seed of Abraham and David according to the flesh Jesus the only Saviour The Law the Testimony The Gospel the Prophets The Advocate Righteousness Sanctification Justification The only Rule Guide Teacher Judge the Way the only way to the Father The Truth the Life The Power of God the Eternal God God Almighty that which pardons and conquers sin the Judgment the Lamb of God that is slain from the beginning the Word in the beginning the Creator of all things the end of all Books Laws and abundance more than can be crowded into many Pages The Lust All desires that accord not to the light within and proceed not from thence M. The Man Christ The Spiritual Body of Flesh Blood and Bones which they say descended from Heaven and dwelt in the Body of the Son of Mary and doth also now in every Quaker Cease from man do not bear man What the Faculties of Man have any hand in either by inventing working or expressing all that comes not purely from the light within Measure of God of Christ of the Spirit That degree of the power and inspirations of the light within  Something more or less of the very being and Essence of God the Father Son Spirit Meditate Not pondering or exercising the judgment and understanding on holy and divine Objects but a stilness and emptiness of all thoughts attending for the immediate impulses suggestions inspirations and motions of the light within In the Meekness In the light within Christ which is meekness in the abstract and between whom and their spirits there is no distinction Ministers of the everlasting Gospel Both men and women Ministers among the Quakers who declare from immediate inspiration not from the Letter of the Scripture Ministers of Antichrist Babylon Idol-Shepherds All such who have a mediate call from man or preach from the Letter of the Scripture Ministration of the Spirit The immediate teachings and motions of the Spirit exclusive of all forms in worship the will though sanctified in chusing and all premeditation and acting by the prescription of the written word Miracles Sometimes Miracles in Spirit invisible to bodily senses or humane understanding The Star of the Morning the Morning of the first day Christ the light within Moved by the Holy Ghost An inward immediate impulse of the light and power within From the Mouth of God Immediate teachings from the light within excluding all other Mysteries of the Kingdom Mysteries of God Such things as the faculties of man have no power to understand or express no not from or by the Scripture such things as are only sensated in the experience An allegorizing the Scripture N. Natural man Every man that is not a Quaker The natural man Every thing in man which is distinct from God or the light within The New man Christ the light within considered essentially They did by Nature the things contained in the Law By the new Nature which is Christ the light contained in the Law within the heart which is also Christ the light O. Obedience of Christ What is done by men by the power life and strength of of the light within them Obedience in Spirit Wrought by immediate impulses of the Spirit The Kingdom of God cometh not with observation The light within and its prevalencie which they call and that only the Kingdom of God is not obtained any way by the study or consideration of the Scripture or any thing without us Observers of times Such as keep any certain days as separated to holy use as the Lords-day or such as propose an hour or two to be spent in the Worship and Ordinances of God or any time with limitation Christ the Offering The light within Offering up of Christ The light within disobeyed or contesting with the lusts yea or the right reason of men Officers of the Church Invisible Officers and Overseers who do all their work in Spirit Gods Off-spring A part and measure of the very being of God continuing to be in a degree as good and divine as God himself  The Souls and Spirits at least of the Quakers which they say came out of God The Old man All that is disobedient or not conformable to their light within One-ness with God Christ Spirit Not relative nor by love or faith or mystical Membership but such an one-ness as leaves no room for distinction between God Christ the Spirit and such whom they say are one with Christ Openings of Life Springings of of Life Sudden workings to action or impressions on the mind and affections proceeding from within of their own accord and motion Overcome by the Blood of the Lamb and the Word of his Testimony All amounts but to an obedience to the light within which Smith
sin in them or do at any time in any sort commit sin Slaying the Witness Disobeying the light within but especially a resolved rejecting it as our only Rule Teacher and Saviour Sons of God Only the Quakers Soul A part or measure of God Speaking in the Spirit By immediate Inspiration Spirit of Anti Christ That which leads to Forms though Christ's and Gospel-Forms All that opposes the light within to be Christ False Spirits They that ground their Doctrine on the Scripture or any mediate thing Spirit of Bondage Being under the power of any sin Spirit of God The light within every man God the Father Son Holy Ghost without distinction Spirit of the World Whatever is not conformable to the light within as Christ The Spiritual man Christ or Christ in every Quaker The Lord hath Spoken What comes to them by immediate inspiration The Lord hath not Spoken Whatever is not by immediate inspiration though it be written in the Scripture A true Christians State Being taught by God immediately not by the Letter The Statutes of God The Law in the heart or within They Steal my Word every one from his neighbour Teaching Doctrines as the Word of the Lord taken out of the Scripture Stoln words All that we have out of the Scriptures and not by immediate inspiration to our selves In the stilness An unactive attending to the light within Standing in the Counsels of God Conformity to the Teachings of the light within and abiding therein Studying for divine Knowledge what comes thereby from the Scripture Carnal toil birth and wisdom of the flesh  Scraping in the Scriptures The woman in Subjection Weakness must subject it self to the man Christ The Supper of the Lord. Spiritual joy or joy in the Spirit from the presence and influence of the light within all eating and drinking to God and in remembrance of Christ Sword of the Spirit Christ the light within  What is declared by immediate inspiration of the Spirit Synagogues of Satan The Assemblies of any sort of people for Divine Worship who are not Quakers T. Christ Tabernacling in the outward vessel Christs dwelling for a little time in the body born of the Virgin Mary The like of every Quaker Taking away the Tables All Forms and Books as useless in the things of God Taught of God Taught immediately from the light within Teachings of Men. All that is not immediately inspired though the sense and words of the Scripture Cease from man From the Teaching by man Outward Court of the Temple given to the Gentiles All Forms of Worship all visible Worship being the Worship of Heathens not of Christians Testifie to the light in the Conscience Appealing or speaking to Christ the light within Bearing Testimony to the light Declaring for and from the light within The Testimony and the Testaments Christ the light and Law within Thanksgiving Give Thanks in Spirit or inwardly Thieves and Robbers All that are Teachers by a mediate Call  All Ministers but the Quakers  All that walk by Scripture-light Traditions of men The Scripture or written-Word Trading with the Scripture Having maintenance for a Ministry Ministring from the Scripture or written-Word The Birth In Travel The time of wrestling betwixt convictions of the light within and perfection Trembling and Quaking The horrour and consternation that they are under from as they say the wrath of God while the flesh is judged and they are in the hell of condemnation which is all the hell they hold that I can find and this trembling and quaking they say is such as Moses and other Prophets were seized with at the appearance of God The Truth No other but Christ the light within Speaking Truth Truly When it is spoken from immediate inspiration and motion of the Spirit but however true without these it is falsly spoken Witnessing to the Truth Declaring or suffering for the light within and its dictates V. The flesh of the Vail The Body wherein Christ dwelt and tabernacled which for a while he took of the Virgin Mary but at the death of that left it no body knows where The Vail is over them The belief of the man Christ Jesus which was of our nature to be the Christ and now existing in Heaven in that body of flesh of our nature which he took of the Virgin Mary The Vessel The Body wherein for a while Christ dwelt also our bodies Victory over the Devil Sin Flesh World Perfection in this life resulting from the travail of the light within In the Vnbelief Not acknowledging the light within to be the onely Teacher and Saviour whatever the faith and life otherwise may be The Vncircumcised and Vnclean All that are not Quakers Vngodly The same Vnlearned and without Vnderstanding To be without the light within its teachings and immediate revelations The Voice of the Lord. The secret immediate lively touches and teachings within W. Hirelings serving for Wages Ministers who receive maintenance little less then Robbery at least very Jewish and Antichristian Wait on the light Desisting from a search after Truth by any external means and passively attending to the motions and teachings within Watch to the light To be so listning and attentive to the inward teachings as not either to let slip any of its motions or reject them Blinde-Watchmen Those Ministers who see and warn by Scripture-light and not their light within Watch to the Morning To be diligent to observe and improve the first breakin gs forth of the power of the light within The Way CHRIST The way of Truth Those into which they are led by the pure light within The Whore of Babylon All forms of Worship visible Worship all that is believed or practiced from the written Word Will of God The commands from within from the light Will of Man Will of the Flesh All that we Chuse by the direction of the understanding or in which the humane faculties have any thing to do Will-worship What ever Worship is not from the motions of the light within Children of Wisdom The Quakers born to the light within We Witness We experience we speak it from the testimony and feeling of the light and motions within And Pen saith This is right witnessing to witness what they experience But they that testifie what they believe from the Scriptures and right rational demonstrations go by hear-say and reports but cannot witness it The Word The Word of God No other but Christ the Eternal God The Word of the Lord. The secrets of the Work of God The inward power and motions neither wrought nor perceived by or with the use of the humane understanding and will Righteousness of works Whatever man hath any hand in or doth Chuse The World All that are not Quakers Worship in Spirit Not the Worship where the heart and will goes along with the outward appearance but what is from the motions of the light within Wrath of God Day of Wrath. The inward judgings and terrours by