it is most Absurd so it luculently overturneth the very Import and Intent of the place as if the Corinthians turning Christians had not wrought any real Change in them but had only been a Belief of some barren Notions which had wrought no Alteration in their Affections Will or Manner of Life For my own part I neither see any thing nor could ever yet hear or read any thing that with any colour of Reason did evince Justified in this place to be understood any other ways than in its own proper and genuine Interpretation of being made Just. And for the more clear understanding hereof let it be Considered The Derivation of the word Justify Considered c. that this word Justify is derived either from the Substantive Justice or the Adjective Just both which words Import the Substantive that true and Real Virtue in the Soul as it is in it self to wit it signifies really and not suppositively that Excellent Quality expressed and understood among men by the word JVSTICE and the Adjective Just as applied signifies a man or woman who is Just that is in whom this Quality of Justice is stated For it would not only be great Impropriety but also manifest falsity to call a man Just meerly by supposition especially if he were really Vnjust Now this word Justify formed or from Justice or Just doth beyond all question signify a Making Just it being nothing else but a Composition of the Verb facio and the Adjective Justus which is nothing else than thus Justifico i. e. justum facio to make just and Justified of justus and fio as justus fio I become just and justificatus i. e. justus factus I am made just Thus also is it with Verbs of this kind as sanctifico from sanctus holy and facio honorifico from honor and facio sacrifico from sacer and facio all which are still understood of the Subject really and truly endued with that virtue and quality from which the Verb is derived Therefore as none are said to be sanctified Justified none are while they actually remain Vnjust that are really unholy while they are such so neither can any be truly said to be Justified while they actually remain Vnjust Only this Verb Justify hath in a Metaphorical and Figurative sense been otherways taken to wit in a Law-sense as when a man really guilty of a Crime is freed from the punishment of his sin he is said to be Justified that is put in the place as if he were Just For this use of the word hath proceeded from that true supposition That none ought to be acquitted but the Innocent Hence also that manner of speaking I will Justify such a man or I will justify this or that is used from the supposition that the person and thing is really Justifiable And where there is an Error and Abuse in the matter so far there is also in the Expression This is so manifest and apparent that Paraeus Paraeus de Just. cont Bell. l. 2. c. 7. p. 469. a Chief Protestant and a Calvinist also in his Opinion acknowledges this We never at any time said saith he nor thought that the Righteousness of Christ was Imputed to us that by him we should be named formally Just and be so as we have divers times already shewed for that would no less soundly fight with right Reason than if a guilty man absolved in Judgment should say that he himself were formally Just by the Clemency of the Judge granting him his life Now is it not strange that men should be so facile in a matter of so great Concernment as to build the stress of their Acceptance with God upon a meer borrowed and Metaphorical Signification to the excluding or at lest esteeming that not necessary without which the Scripture saith expresly No man shall ever see God Holiness required therefore good Works are For if Holiness be requisite and necessary of which this is said then must good Works also unless our Adversaries can shew us a holy man without good works But moreover Justified in this figurative sense is used for Approved and indeed for the most part if not always in Scripture when the word Justify is used it is taken in the worst part that is that as the Vse of the word that way is an Vsurpation so it is spoken of such as Vsurp the thing to themselves while it properly doth not belong unto them as will appear to those that will be at the pains to Examine these places Exod 23.7 Job 9.20 27.5 Prov. 17.15 Isa. 5.23 Jer. 3.11 Ezech. 16.51 52. Luk. 10.29 16.15 which are all spoken of men justifying the Wicked or of Wicked men justifying themselves that is Approving themselves in their Wickedness If it be at any time in this Signification taken in good part it is very seldom Comparatively and that so obvious and plain by the Context as leaves no scruple But the Question is not so much of the Vse of the word where it is passingly or occasionally used as where the very Doctrine of Justification is handled Where indeed to mistake it viz. in its proper place so as to content our selves with an Imaginary Justification while God requires a Real is of most dangerous Consequence For the Disquisition of which let it be considered that in all these places to the Romans Corinthians Galatians and elsewhere where the Apostle handles this Theam the word may be taken in its own proper signification without any Absurdity As where it is often asserted in the above-mentioned Epistles to the Romans and Galatians That a man cannot be justified by the Law of Moses nor by the Works of the Law there is no Absurdity nor Danger in understanding it according to its own proper signification Justified its proper signification to wit That a man cannot be Made just by the Law of Moses seeing this so well agrees with that saying of the same Apostle That the Law makes nothing perfect And also where it is said We are Justified by Faith it may very well be understood of being Made just seeing it is also said that Faith purifies the heart and no doubt the pure in heart are just and The just live by faith Again where it is said We are justified by Grace We are justified by Christ We are Justified by the Spirit it is no ways absurd to understand it of being Made Just seeing by his Spirit and Grace he doth make men Just But to understand it universally the other way meerly for Acceptance and Imputation would infer great Absurdities as may be proved at large But because I judged it would be acknowledged I forbear at present for brevity's sake But further in the most weighty places where this word Justify is used in Scripture with an Immediate Relation to the Doctrine of Justification our Adversaries must needs acknowledge it to be understood of making just Justification signifies a making Just. and not barely in the
in Doctrine or Practice to be refused and disowned 218. its Operations c. 601 607. Spiritual Iniquities 428 429. Spiritual Discerning 519 Stephen spake by the Spirit 282 Study the Priests Study and Premeditation to Preach by the hourglass 431 454 848 850. Suffering how Paul filled up that which was behind of the Afflictions of Christ how any is made partaker of the Sufferings of Christ and conformeth to his Death 394 Superstition 440 441. whence Superstition sprung 450 475 492 Supper see Communion Bread it was of old administred even to little Children and Infants 512. Arguments concerning the Supper answered c. 615 618 160 865 T. Tables 508. Talent One Talent is not at all insufficient of it self the Parable of the Talents 344 345 349. those that improved their Talents well are called Good and Faithful Servants 382. he that improved well his two Talents was nothing less accepted than he that improved his five 388. Talk see Plays Taulerus was instructed by the poor Laick 417 he tasted of the Love of God 444. Testimony see Spirit The Four Students Testimonies against their Fellow Students 674. Thee and Thou see Number Theseus his Boat 431. Thomas a Kempis 444. Tithes were assigned to the Levites but not to the Ministers of this Day 432 433 Titles It is not at all lawful for the Christians to use those Titles of Honour Majesty c. 533 535 540 564 565. Tongue The knowledge of Tongues is laudable 421 422. Tradition how unsufficient it is to decide 277. it is not a sufficient ground for Faith 513 Transâ—ations see Bible Interpreters Truth There is a Difference what one saith of the Truth and that which the Truth it self interpreting it self saith 271. Truth is not hard to be arrived at but is most nigh ibid. Turks among them there may be Members of the Church 404 405. V. Vespers 443 Vnderstanding None understandeth why they turn not to the Light that gives an Vnderstanding 8. see Intellect Voices Outward Voices see Faith Miracles W. Waiting in Silence 13 War That it is not lawful for Christians to Resist Evil nor wage War 533. the National Preachers and Professors the chief Promoters of War 709 who account it lawful to Revenge every Injury are no favourers of Vniversal Love nor true Followers of Patient Jesus 704 705. the Devil the primary Cause of all the Confusion and Wars in Christendom so called 707. unless this be foreseen and this evil Guest turned out no effectual Remedy can be applied ibid. Worldly and Carnal Wisdom the Cause of Wars 711. Washing of Feet 426 427. Water some Water so clean and pure that passing through an Unclean Pipe cannot be defiled by it 25. Westminster Confession of Faith saith expresly ch 3. that God ordained such as are not Elected for Dishonour and Wrath to the Praise of his Glorious Justice 775. the same Confession saith That nothing future or what was to come even as foreseen by God was the Cause of God's Decree ibid. the Westminster Confession of Faith hath long lain under the Censure of an Examen not yet Answered 726. the Confession weakly confirmed and the Scriptures perverted to make them serve for a Proof 726 727. the Scriptures are made to serve this Confession of Faith and not it to Answer the Scriptures 727 William Barclay 524. Woman a Woman can preach 427 432. Luther affirmed that a Woman might be a Preacher 410. Arguments against Womens Preaching answered 621 622 Word The Eternal Word is the Son it was in the beginning with God and was God It is Jesus Christ by whom God created all things 274 334 747. what Augustin read in the Writings of the Platonists concerning this Word 377. that more sure Word of Prophecy is not the Scriptures 17. the Life and virtue of Words is a distinct thing from the Words 644. The Word of God is ascribed to Christ 747. Works are either of the Law or of the Gospel 382. see Justification Good Works the Instrumental Cause of Justification 817. the Merit and Worth of good Works is from Christ 20. in what sense Good Works are reckoned meritorious 79. Worship What the true and acceptable Worship of God is and how it is offered and what the Superstitious and Abominable is 440. the true Worship was soon corrupted and lost 440 441. concerning the Worship done in the time of the Apostasy 443 467. Of what Worship is here handled and of the difference of the Woship of the Old and new Covenant 441 242 455 457. the true Worship is neither limited to Times Places or Persons and it is Explained how this is to be understood 440 442 450 451 466 467 483 484. Concerning the Lord's Day and the Days upon which Worship is performed 442 443. of the Publick and Silent Worship and its Excellency 444 452. of Preaching 452 465. of Prayer 465 472. what sort of Worship the Quakers are for and what sort their Adversaries 474. the Definition of Civil and Religious Worship defended by a wrong Translation 59 60. concerning Worship 745 746 169 634 603. X. Xaverius his Testimony concerning the Inward Innate Light in the Soul 701 702. Z. Zeal having a right Bottom and Foundation proceeding purely from the Love of God is a great virtue and greatly to be commended and pressed after 680. false Zeal and the several kinds thereof 681 682. ERRATA pag. li. Errors Corrected 3 45 say to say so 38 21 we keep ye keep 89 34 gave gave some Apostles 92 15 and 42 dele 92 33 and 65 dele 150 5 unto unto me 347 21 else dele 508 28 Act. 6.26 Act. 6.2 6. 6â—8 44 Arminian Armenian 704 49 such dele 766 37 should I I should 833 47 Af After In the Margent pag. li. Errors Corrected 122 2 Gal. 41.9 Gal. 4.19 137 36 2 Tim. 17 2 Tim. 2. 367 16 English dele In the Table at the end of the Letter B. after the Words Super-substantial Bread put 499. FINIS
that that Word according to which they were to speak was not the inward Word which is said to be in the Heart It is observable that to prove this thou bringest John 7.49 where the Pharisees say Have any of the Rulers or Pharisees believed in him but this People that know not the Law are accursed This place sutes the matter very well but makes much against thee For the Pharisees here were crying up the outward Law and the Knowledge of it averring that the ignorance of it caused the mean People to believe in Christ. So do ye now ye pretend to cry up the Law and say The ignorance of it occasions so many to leave you And as they then were setting the Law above Christ and covering themselves with a Zeal for it persecuting him and reviling his Followers as Ignorants So ye now whilst ye are boasting of your great Knowledge in the Law and in the Scripture and your high esteem of them ye are despising crucifying the same Christ in his Spiritual Appearance and upbraiding his Followers now as they did then as Ignorants and Contemners of the Law And as to Luke 10.26 How readest thou This was spoke to one that was a Lawyer or Interpreter of the Law and relied upon it so Christ spoke this to check him and beside the dispensation of the Law which this Lawyer was under was different from that of the Gospel in this matter as may appear Hebr. 8.10 Again as for Christ and his Apostles using the Scriptures for convincing of their Opposers so do we and yet this proves not that either he or we judge them to be the Rule whereby to try all Things and Spirits yea even the Spirit of God himself Page 15. Thou seemest to lay much stress upon this That it were impossible for us to prove to a Jew or a Turk that Jesus the Son of Mary is in very deed the Christ without the Scripture But I Answer thee to that easily by what way wilt thou perswade a Turk to believe the Scriptures or their Testimony but by the inward Testimony of the Spirit Calvin Calvin lib. 1. cap. 7. Sect. 4. of his Inst. after he has said all that can be said of outward ways at last concludes The only certain way to know it indeed is by the Testimony of the Spirit And as to the course that Paul took with the obstinate Jews it was very commendable because they said they believed the Scriptures and seemed to esteem them much though they opposed the Truth witnessed to in the Scriptures So that it is evident that some great pretenders to the Scriptures can make a Cloak of them to deny Christ himself as ye do at this day And though Paul took that course with the Jews yet we see he took no such course with the Athenians to whom he cited no Scripture nor endeavoured to perswade them by it but told them they were the Off-spring of God and wished them to feel after him who was not afar off from every one of them Thirdly sayst thou The Saints had recourse to the Scriptures in the examination of Doctrines So have we too as before has been declared but that will not prove the Scripture is the Rule Page 16. Fourthly thou sayst We are commanded to search the Scriptures John 5.39 Answ. The words may be translated You search the Scriptures as Pasor translateth them but we do acknowledge the Scriptures are to be searched but are not to be rested in which was the Jews fault who would not come to Christ to get life thinking to have eternal life in the Scriptures which Christ checks them for And that the Scriptures are profitable for Doctrine Scriptures profitable to whom Correction Instruction we own and are commended for their Dignity and Authority but they are thus profitable only to such as come to the Spirit to guide and direct them how to make use of them else they may prove an occasion of stumbling as they did to the Pharisees Hence it is said That the Man of God may be perfect mark the Man of God not every Man now no Man can be truly called the Man of God but he that is led by the Spirit of God Next thou wouldst undertake to prove That it is not the Mind of God that the Spirit within men should be the Rule In which thou fallest very short as appears by saying That Christ made use of the Scripture to prove himself c. and not the light within And did these Jews receive him who had the Scriptures Did they not reject him And why because they hearkned not unto the inward Voice and Testimony of the Father concerning him and this was the Testimony which he said was greater than that of John though John was the greatest of the Prophets and those who believe had the witness in themselves 1 John 5.10 but to the unbelieving Jews he said Ye have neither heard his voice nor seen his shape Secondly Thou sayst There is an express command to try the Spirits 1 John 4.1 Answ. But is there any word there of trying them by the Scripture Trying Spirits is by the Spirit of God Cannot the Spirits be tried by the Spirit of God or is there any better way to try them How tried Peter the spirit of Ananias and Saphirah And is not the Trial and discerning of Spirits the priviledge of the Saints now And how is it a peculiar priviledge to Saints unless it be done by the Spirit of God For the Scriptures any can make use of the Apostle John writing to the Saints concerning Seducers points them to the Anointing which remained in them and did teach them all things and by this they did know all things and consequently Spirits 1 John 2.20 26. Thirdly thou sayst Vndoubtedly there are strong delusions c. Answ. There are so indeed But was there any more strongly deluded then the Pharisees Yet how much did they lay claim to the Scriptures How came they then to be deluded who was so skill'd in the Scriptures according to the letter of them and the poor People who were not so skill'd so rightly to hit the matter And as to thy Question What way shall the delusion be tried if you neglect the Word of God and look only within Answ. As for the Word of God nor yet the Scriptures-Testimony we neglect not but what way thinkest thou shall the Delusion be tried if you neglect the Spirit within and look only upon the letter and words without you If the Delusion be strong in the heart will it not twine and wrest the Scriptures without to cause the Scriptures to seem for it And suppose a man be deluded with a Spirit of Delusion what can help him but God whose Spirit searcheth all the deepest things of Satan and can and doth discover them to those who love to be undeceived and are faithful to God in what they certainly know And though the same deluding Spirit who deceived
and worship him but to plead so obstinately as ye do that the Fourth Commandment bindeth to a particular observation of that day and yet to be found so slack in the observation of it as you generally are in such an Inconstancy as the Quakers cannot own And so whereas thou would'st confine the Lord his giving rest and comfort to the Souls of his People and the falling of the Manna to the First Days calling them Spiritual Market-days as if there were no other we cannot own it knowing that the Lord giveth rest and comfort every day and causeth the Manna plentifully to fall every day to those that walk in his fear and wait upon him and he has no such circumscribed Market-day as thou dreamest of The Priest's Market-day But that ye I mean the Priests make a Market-day of that day so that ye may call it Your Day as thou say'st Page 44. our day we know wherein you sell and vend your Babylonish Commodities and will be forcing and compelling all to come and buy of them or if not to send you Money whether they receive ought or not or else ye will endeavour by the help of the Magistrate to have them punished So that it is made manifest that it is only the Inventions of Men that we disown and not any of the Ordinances of Jesus Christ. Page 46. Thou grantest the word Original Sin is not found in Scripture and yet thou pleadâ—st for it because say'st thou the thing intended by it is contained and expressed in Scripture Answ. We deny that the thing by you intended is exprest in Scripture to wit That all Infants are sinners before God only for Adam 's sin and that there are Reprobate Infants who are sent to Hell only for Adam 's first sin This we deny nor do the Scriptures cited by thee prove it Psal. 51. Behold I was conceived in sin But first if this place should prove the Infant guilty of any sin Infants not guilty of Adam's sin it should be of the sin of its own immediate Parents In iniquity did my Mother bring me forth Now you say the Infant is not guilty of the sin of its own immediate Parents but only of Adam's and Eve's first sin of which this Scripture speaks nothing 2. It doth not say I was conceived and brought forth a Sinner as you would have it why make you Infants guilty of Adam's sin and not the sins of their immediate Parents Now it is granted that there is a seed of sin derived unto Adam's Posterity The Seed of Sin but we say none become guilty of sin before God until they close with this evil seed and in them who close with it it becomes an Origine or Fountain of evil Thoughts Desires Words and Actions which are their sins who close with it But that the guilt of Adam's first sin lyes at the door of Infants who never actually sinned we deny For a Second Proof thou citest Rom. 5.12 alledging It should be rendred that in Adam all sinned But it is no such matter For the words however they be truly Translated can never be so rendred In Adam all sinned The strictest Translation of the words is thus upon which all have sinned or in which all have sinned They hold forth how that Adam by his Sin gave an entrance to Sin in the World and Death by Sin and so upon this accasion all others have sinned to wit actually in their own Person so that all who ever sinned actually it was upon the occasion of Adam's Sin For the Apostle is here speaking not of Infants who are not capable of any Law but of such as have a Law and act against it Yea from the Apostle's words in the other following Verse it is plain that Sin is not imputed to Infants For saith he Sin is not imputed where there is no Law Now there is no Law given to Infants as such for they are not capable of it What the Law saith it saith to them No Law no Transgression who have in more or less some exercise of understanding which Infants new born have not Or if the words be translated in which all have sinned that word WHICH hath a nearer Relative than ADAM to wit Death for the seed of sin is justly called Death because where it is joined unto and obeyed it killeth and so in this seed all have sinned who ever did actually sin And as for the 18 th Verse of Rom. 5. which is commonly used to prove Infants guilty and under Condemnation it is not rightly translated for the word Judgment or Condemnation or Guilt is not at all in the Greek but those who have drunk-in this imagination have added this word to the Scripture so bending and bowing the Scripture to their false Opinion And whereas thou say'st We were all in the Loins of Adam and therefore wouldest infer That Infants are sinners in him or guilty of his sin I say It follows not more than to say We are guilty of all the sins of our Fore-fathers because we have been in their Loins Again thou labourest to prove that Infants are sinners because they are subject to pains and diseases and death But this proveth them not to be Sinners as it proveth not that the Earth is a Sinner or that the Herbs and Trees of the Field are sinners for even these things have suffered by Adam's fall a great decay And as for the outward Death of those that are saved from Eternal Death it is rather a Sleep The outward and eternal Death than a Death as Christ said concerning Lazarus he sleepeth And concerning the Maid she is not dead but sleepeth And therefore that Scripture Rom. 6.23 cannot be applied to them who dye not or perish not eternally for though the Saints lay down the outward man is not as the punishment or reward of their Sins which are forgiven and from which they are delivered And so the sting of Death being taken away in those who are saved it is not that Death which is the Wages of Sin And seeing the Apostle said unto the Saints that all things were theirs even Death it cannot be that their Death should be reckoned the Wages of their Sin How many of the blessed Martyrs have looked upon their Suffering a most violent Death for Truth and Righteousness as a Gift of God How then could it be said to be the Wages of their Sins which implys as if their Sins were not all freely forgiven Page 48. From this Doctrine thou say'st it will follow First That all Infants that dye in their Infancy are saved and though Charity may be pleaded for this Opinion thou say'st yet what Scripture can be alledged for it Infants dying how saved Answ. If I should bring that Scripture Suffer little Children to come unto me for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven It will much more naturally flow from the words than that they ought to be sprinkled which is the meaning
be great Peace True Peace with God but we have not come by it after such a way as thou dost falsly and rashly judge as by neglecting the Worship of God and stopping the mouth of Conscience but by being turned to that living Word and Law of God in our hearts by loving it and cleaving to it yea by receiving the reproofs and chastisements of God through it and submitting to the Judgment of it when it hath been as a hammer and as a sword and as a fire in us breaking in pieces and destroying all that false unsound Peace we had created to our selves in the day of our alienation from the light of God in us And unto Peace we are come through great tribulation of Soul even such as thou art a stranger unto being ignorant both of the one and the other and so hast therein shewed thy folly in judging what thou knowest not And as for woful security we know not where it more abounds than among hypocritical Professors The Whore's Peace who with the Whore in the Proverbs offer up their Sacrifices of Morning and Evening Prayers and thereby create a Peace to themselves though they let their hearts go a whoring after their Lusts all the day Did not the Pharisees pray much outwardly and were much in other outward practices of Devotion and so created a false peace and esteem unto themselves And can you deny but that there are many such among you who make up a false peace to themselves by leaning upon their outward performances Now what if I should charge this upon your Principle would'st thou think it fair dealing Thirdly Page 52. Thou say'st Doth not that Opinion tend to Atheism which rendreth mortification of sin even in this life useless c. Answ. Here thou dealest dis-ingenuously Is Mortification of sin useless where the end of it is attained And is not perfection the end of mortification Again thou say'st The Opinion of a sinless perfection wounds the very vitals of Religion Answ. Who could have expected that one that pretends to Religion would have been so brazen-faced as to put such an Expression in print What is the end of true Religion The end of true Religion to lead out of sin but to lead out of sin Do the vitals of Religion consist in sinning or in not sinning If it consist in sinning then they that sin most are most religious But if it consist in not sinning and keeping the Commandments of God without sin then to plead for such a thing as attainable hurteth not the vitals of Religion What! cannot the Saints live better without sin than with it Yea surely they can live well without that which is a burden and as Death unto their life they whose life is in sin cannot live but in sin but the Saints life is not in sin but in righteousness And thy consequences are vain and foolish As 1. That men need not pray for pardon of sin 2. That they need not the Blood of Christ to cleanse them from sin 3. That they need not Repentance For we grant that All have sinned and so need those things by which they may attain unto perfection and who witness perfection are come to witness the true use of these things and as the Blood of Christ cleanseth from all the sin so it preserveth clean and such have received the forgiveness of their sins being turned from them unto righteousness which is the fulfilling of Repentance And whereas thou say'st Bring me to the particular person that is sinless and I shall apply to him that of the Apostle 1 John 1.8 Thou shewest openly thy confusion for by thy applying to him that of the Apostle wouldst thou infer a sinless man to be a sinning man That is a contradiction but though we should bring a man to thee that is made free from sin by the power of God thou couldst no more judge of him than a blind man can judge of Colours And as to 1 John 1.8 it is a plain case If we say we have no sin and have fellowship with him and yet walk in darkness as verse 6. then we deceive our selves So it is Conditional otherwise it would contradict what follows Verse 9. and Chap. 2.4 and Chap. 3.6 9. As to that of the Sabbath it is answered above Page 53. Your Religion say'st thou will be welcome to the worst and wickedest of men for you will please them exceedingly in crying down of Ordinances the observation of the Sabbath and private and family Prayer c. Answ. We cry down no Ordinance of God but your hypocritical ways and we know no worse men than those Hypocrites whom we are so far from pleasing Crying down Hypocrisie pleases not the Hypocrite in crying down their hypocritical Prayers and Performances that they frâ—t and gnash at us with their Teeth and if they could get their will would tear us in pieces for witnessing against those things And they are very blind who see not that the denying of those things in shadow and bare formality and establishing them in the power and substance can no ways be acceptable to the Wicked but most unpleasing to Hypocrites who can perform the one but not the other But now let us examine whether your Principles or ours be most acceptable to the wicked and hypocrites 1. Wicked men and Hypocrites love well to hear Hypocrites and wicked mens Principles of the Priests that they can never be free from their sins in this life and that they must always sin 2. They love well to hear to be justified by Christ without them and his Righteousness without but not by him and his Righteousness within them 3. They love well to hear that the words without them are the only Rule which they can wrest according to their own corrupt Inclinations but they love not to hear that the Word and Light of God within is to be their Rule which they cannot wrest nor bend 4. They love well to hear that they may use the fashions and customs of this World bow and cringe and give and receive the Honour of this World 5. They love to hear they may use Sports and Games and Plays 6. To wear Laces and Ribbons and Gold Rings and other superfluity 7. They love well to hear that men must not expect to hear God immediately being such as those who said Let not God speak unto us 8. They love well to hear that Water-baptism and giving of Bread and Wine are the Ordinances of God and the true Baptism and Supper for then they think they are Christians if they partake of these outward things and they are mad against us who call them shadows And as for their Observation of that called the Sabbath we find none more plead for it than profane light men and women for they can easily dispense to hear a man talk for an hour or two and then have all the rest of the day to spend in idleness vain communication
and frequenting the Ale-house and decking themselves with vain Apparel 10. They love well to hear that they may be Members of the Church though they have no infallible of Evidence Holiness 11. They love to hear of your Doctrine of Election and Reprobation 12. And of your Doctrine Once in grace and ever in grace whereby they feed themselves in presumption and carelesness Many other particulars could be mentioned but these may serve enough to shew Quakers Principles not acceptable to Hypocrites that your Principles are pleasing to the wicked and hypocrites and ours displeasing Next to come to experience where are the Drunkards the Swearers the Whore-mongers the envious licentious Persons the Scorners the Mockers whether are they yours or ours If our Principles be so acceptable unto them why do they not inroll themselves among us why do they oppose us at our Meetings at Aberdeen and else-where and curse and rant and use all manner of filthy Communication and are ready to stone us in the streets And none more found so doing than that young Fry and Spawn of the Priesthood who are bread at your Nurseries of Learning Now whose Church-Members are those yours or ours Is not the Proverb verified of you Fowls of one Feather fly together Thou closest with addressing thy self to God with a notorious lye saying Follow with thy blessing that which WE have been about meaning the Quaker and thy self but it was none of the Quakers work the Dialogue not being any real Conference Is not this to deride and take the Name of God in vain Some Things of Weighty Concernment proposed in Meekness and Love by way of QUERIES to the Serious Consideration of the Inhabitants of Aberdeen which also may be of Vse to such as are of the same Mind with them elsewhere in this Nation Added by way of APPENDIX to Truth Clear'd of Calumnies Question 1. WHether it be a thing any-wise warrantable in Common Equity or true Christianity for any Person or Persons to take â—iberty both in Pulpit and Print to speak against a People as Dangerous and Heretical and yet wholly to debar that People from Vindicating themselves in either of these ways so far as they can Or whether it can be supposed that any Persons except they wholly give up themselves Implicitly to believe the Accusers can make a true Judgment in that Case upon the Accused especially considering the Maxim of Law Quicunque inauditâ alterâ parte c. i. e. He that without hearing both Parties pronounceth Judgment though he decide the Right upon the matter hath not done the part of a Just Judge To which add the Consideration of these Passages of Scripture 1 Thess. 5.21 Prov. 18.13 Isai. 40.2 Quest. 2. Whether then it was not contrary to the Laws both Divine and Humane for the Priests in Aberdeen to importune the Magistrates to make search for that Book lately published in Vindication of the People called Quakers Or whether such a Practice hath any Warrant except what flows originally from the Spanish Inquisition as being directly contrary to Equity and to the Scriptures above-mentioned Quest. 3. Whether also it was not both Anti-scriptural and Popish in G. M. to prohibit his Hearers from reading of that Book by comparing it with Poison Whether that was not to keep People in Darkness and Dependance upon him or with how little Reason could he desire such a thing considering he asserted it to contain an ample Confession of all those Errors he had charged them with And if so whether it be likely that it could prove dangerous the Errors being so gross and monstrous which by him and his Brethren are charged upon that People that their confessing them would rather scare People than engage any to like them Quest. 4. And whether G. M. his bidding People abstain from that Book as Poison without trial of what is in it be not like unto the Papists way who bid their Neighbours abstain from the Protestants Books as Poison And whether may not even Poison be tried though not by eating it in a way that is not hazzardous to the Tryer especially seeing that which some may call Poison may be afterward found by sound Trial to be good and wholesom Food yea Medicine to expel such poisonable Doctrines as your Priests infuse into People Quest. 5. And seeing G. M. bids his Hearers abstain from the Quakers words as Poison doth he not endanger such to be poisoned whom he sends or allows to come to our Meetings to hear what is spoke And what knoweth G. M. but his Spies may be touched so that it may be said as it was then Is Saul also among the Prophets Quest. 6. And seeing G. M. counts our Words as Poison why doth he bring them forth so much among his Hearers if he thinks he gives strong Antidotes against them I have heard some of his own Hearers say That that which he calls the Poison wrought more effectually to perswade even out of his Mouth than all his Antidotes could do to disswade Quest. 7. Whether the latter part of that Allegance of G. M. viz. That all they had charged on the Quakers was confessed to in that Book be not a manifest untruth in respect the greatest Charges alledged by him against the Quakers are therein utterly denied As for instance the matter of Pelagianism in page 25. the matter of Popery in page 34. and of Arminianism page 65 c. Quest. 8. Whether the said G. M. hath not manifested very much deceit in saying also publickly That the said Book asserts it not only to be a thing easie but pleasant for wicked people to keep holy the Sabbath-day and to perform the spiritual duties commanded to be performed thereon unless he understands them to be simply the disposing to hear a man talk an hour or to and to have all the rest of the day to spend in Idleness vain Communication and frequenting the Ale-house c. which are the words mentioned page 72. Quest. 9. Whether it be any way unsutable to the Law of Charity or to the meek Spirit of Christ to use plain and downright dealing calling a Lye a Lye Or whether any be to be blamed for so doing considering the practice of all the Prophets and of Christ's and of his Apostles how sharply they dealt with false Teachers as may appear by the Scriptures Isai. 56.11 Lev. 23. to verse 33. Ezek. 34. Hos. 4. from 6. to 10. Ibid. 5.1 Mich. 3.5 Matth. 3.7 John 8. Quest. 10. Whether then they be not prejudiced who Accuse the Quakers for using the same terms seeing they are willing to make the Application manifest by comparing the fruits of the present pretended Preachers with those that were of old As for instance whether it be a breach either of Moral Civility or Christian Meekness to say John Menzies lied in asserting Robert Barclay to have been educated in a Jesuites-Colledge seeing it is utterly false Quest. 11. And whether David Lyall
as ascribe them to the Scriptures put the Scriptures in Christ's stead though W. M. be pleased to term it unworthy dealing Sect. 2. page 35. he says it is not difficult to prove that the Law and Testimony mentioned Deut. 8.20 was not an inward Law The reason alledged is Because the Prophet opposes what is written as no Light if it agree not to the Law and Testimony But what then The Law and Testimony inward doth this prove the Testimony here not to be inward He adds That let People pretend what they will to a Law within if it agree not with the scripture-Scripture-Word there is no Light in them and that the outward Law gets the name of the Testimony But granting him all this it doth not in the least follow that the Law and Testimony there mentioned was not inward It is more observably strange here than in any other place with what shameless confidence he asserts his own bare Assertions instead of Arguments After the like manner without answering a word of what I infer page 27. of mine against him and his Brethren from Joh. 7.49 he concludes That Scripture fits us better than them because of our known rash censuring Upon which Supposition of his own he condemns us as like to Pharisees without more ado still by way of Reply to me he says It is not probable that Christ checked the Lawyer in saying How readest thou Luke 10.26 not offering to add any further probation And as for what he subjoineth page 7. That Christ used the Scripture about Divorcement and in the matter of the Sabbath it doth no ways prove them to be the only Rule for as is said we are willing to try Doctrines by them Page 37. He saith It is false to affirm that the Divine Authority of the Scriptures cannot be prov'd other ways than by the Spirit 's inward Testimony adding There are other Arguments whereby it can solidly and convincingly be proved and for this he instanceth one which he says is excellently approved by R. Baxter What then because W. M. thinks that Argument of R. Baxter will prove the Scriptures Authority without the Spirit must we therefore be of the same mind I doubt very much if R. Baxter think so much himself Now W. M. his deceit is very remarkable Joh. Calvin's Testimony concerning the Scriptures in quoting some words of John Calvin where he says If he were to deal with Arguments he could produce many to prove the Laws came from God for that I never imagined these Arguments could convincingly prove the Scriptures Authority without the Spirit which is the thing in debate it appears in the very following words Lib. Inst. 1. c. 7. Sect. 4. But if we will well look to our Consciences that they be not troubled with doubts and stick not at every scruple it is requisite the Perswasion whereof we have spoken be taken higher than human Judgment or Conjecture viz t. he secret Testimony of the Holy Spirit And a little after in direct Opposition to wit his words he adds This Word shall not obtain Faith in the hearts of Men if it be not Sealed by the Inward Testimony of the Spirit It is necessary then saith he that the Saints Spirit which spake by the mouth of the Prophets enter in our Hearts and touch them livingly to perswade us that the Prophets have faithfully delivered that which was Commanded them from on high and a little after This then is a Perswasion which requires no Reasons And again This is a Perswasion which cannot be Begotten but by a heavenly Revelation And in the beginning of the next Chapter he adds If we have not This certainly higher and more firm than all humane Judgment in vain is the Authority of the Scriptures proved by Arguments This doth abundantly shew how contrary W. M. is to Calvin in this matter and not to him alone but to the whole Reformed Churches of France who in their Confession of Faith agreed upon by the first National Synod they ever had at Paris Anno 1559. say thus The Synod at Paris concerning the Canonical Books in Scripture Art 4. We know these Books to be Canonique not so much by the common consent of the Church as by the Inward Testimony and Perswasion of the Holy Spirit And whereas he adviseth me to read Calvin his 6 th Chap. but that it would prove too long a Digression I could easily shew that we are no such Contemners of the Scripture as those he there speaks to And what if he contradict the Truth which we and himself elsewhere acknowledge I make use of his Testimony against W. M. and his Brethren even as he did the Testimony of Augustine Gregory and others of the Fathers against those of Rome whom nevertheless he spared not to reject some times Read Inst. lib. 1. cap. 11. Sect. 5. lib. cap. Sect. 4. and in many other places Thus also is added that which he adds about Pasor whose Translation he says We follow in one thing but not in another for we are not bound to follow him further than he follows the Truth Nor doth W. M. here produce any Argument to prove that these words Joh. 5.39 should be Ye search the Scriptures c. 2 pl. praes Ind. See Pasor Search the Scriptures and not Ye search the Scriptures but his own bare Assertion adding That Christ did not check them when he said In them ye think to have Eternal Life Whereas the very following words clearly Import a Reproof Ye will not come to me that ye might have Life He says not Seek for Life in the Scriptures ye do well to think to find it there but thus Ye think to have Eternal life in the Scriptures but will not come to me that ye might have life He ends this Section asking Seeing I grant the Scriptures are profitable for Doctrine Correction Reproof c. Why I deny them to be a perfect Rule But I never denied them and I told him also they were thus profitable not to every man but to the man of God The Scriptures profitable to the man of God i. e. he that 's led by the Spirit of God Now to this he replys nothing only tells me The man of God is most commonly understood of the Ministers of Christ Jesus which though I should grant him what he either can or would Infer from it against my Argument he hath left unmentioned Sect. 3. Page 40. He alledgeth The Voice and Testimony of the Father which Christ speaks of to the Jews not to have been inward desiring the Reader to look to the place and thereupon he cites Joh. 5.36 where Christ speaks of his Miracles as a greater Witness than that of John But his deceit is here abundantly manifest for the place mentioned by me was 1 Joh. 5.10 For this is the witness of God which he testified of his Son he that believeth in the Son of God hath the witness in himself Now this
Act of Sin and never actually sin in their own Persons do for this sin of Adam Eternally perish Now whether this Doctrine be sutable either to the Justice or Mercy of God I leave the Christian Reader to judge I shall examine the Reasons he brings for it His chief Argument for this in his Dialogue page 47. was That because Children die citing Rom. 23. The wages of sin is death Now I shew him pag. 41. of mine how that made nothing because natural Death of the Saints is not the Wages of Sin for their Sins are forgiven them c. this he hath not so much as mentioned far less answered And whereas he might as well argue that the Earth The Saints natural Death is not the Wages of Sin Trees and Herbs were Sinners because they received great decay by Adam's Sin He slightly passes it over alledging It will not therefore follow that all Mankind who suffer Death are not Sinners Now this is no answer but a meer shift and the thing I intended against his Assertion doth very naturally follow from my Argument thus If as W. M. says Infants be guilty of Adam's Sin because they are subject to Diseases and Death then the Beasts who are subject to the like and the Earth Herbs and Trees who have received their decay are Sinners before God But this is absurd therefore the other Let him answer this the next time more effectually The first proof he brings here is 1 Joh. 3.6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh adding This intimates man by his natural Birth to be Corrupt and Fleshly But for this his gloss he bringeth no proof Though That which is born of the flesh be flesh he sheweth us not how it followeth thence that Infants are guilty of Adam's Sin After the like manner he concludes this his Doctrine from Job 14.4 Psal. 5.5 Whether Infants are guilty of Adam's Sin But as the words in these places do not plainly express any such thing so he brings no Reasons to make his Consequences deduceable from them After the like proofless manner he alledgeth Rom. 5.14 By one mans disobedience many were made sinners Now though the matter in question be Whether these many were made Sinners before they actually sinned in their own Persons He doth not so much as offer to prove it In the like manner though David said his Mother conceived him in sin he sheweth us not how it followeth from thence that David was guilty of Sin before he actually sinned And here I observe how he asserts That men are guilty of the Sin of their immoderate Parents contrary to the plain Testimony of the Scripture Ezek. 18.20 The Son shall not bear the Iniquity of the Father To prove Infants thus guilty he further addeth Rom. 5.12 alledging these words For that all have sinned includes Infants But I shew him this includes not Infants because the Apostle clears it in the next verse saying Sin is not imputed where there is no Law and that there being no Law to Infants they cannot be guilty of sin To this he Replies There was a Law to Adam and that he represented mankind and stood as a publick Person Therefore Children had a Law in him But for this signification of his own he produceth no proof and it cannot be received as being direct contrary to the Scripture above-mentioned The Son shall not bear the Father 's Iniquity He alledgeth That those the Apostle speaks of who sinned not after the similitude of Adam 's Transgression are Infants But after his usual manner bringeth not the least proof for it The 1 Cor. 15.22 cited by him is so far from making anything for his purpose that it maketh directly against him which any that have the least grain of true understanding may perceive The words are As in Adam all died even so in Christ all are made alive for here All are said to die in Adam None die in Adam until they actually join with his Vnrighteousness even as All are said to be made alive in Christ now as none are made alive in Christ until they actually receive and join with his Righteousness so none die in Adam until they actually receive and join with his unrighteousness c. He maketh a deal a do page 110 111. about the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wherein though it were easie to refute him were it not needless to fill up Paper with Grammatical Criticisms For giving but not granting the words might be Translated In Adam all have sinned it will not from thence follow that Infants are guilty before they actually sin seeing All are said to die or have sinned in Adam even as All are said to be made alive in Christ and yet none are said to be so until they actually receive his Righteousness as is above demonstrated Page 113. He alledgeth Though it be said that the Kingdom of God is of little Children yet some Infants are not saved because they are not of the Kingdom of Grace But for this he bringeth no proof at all And I here take notice That he acknowledges that God Sanctifies and Regenerates some Infants W.M. contradicting himself and thereby he notably contradicts his second Section concerning the Light and page 29. of his Dialogue where he condemns it as a dangerous Error in us to say Any can be saved without the outward Knowledge of Christ of which Infants are not capable To prove That some Infants perish even Eternally he alledgeth The burning of Sodom and Gomorrah citing Jude 7. But his wresting this Scripture is very manifest For the reason Jude gives of their suffering Vengeance was because they gave themselves up to Fornication and went after strange flesh Now of this Infants were not capable of whom therefore Jude speaks not one word He terms Impudent or else Ignorant for bringing Matth. 1.22 against them alledging It is an unjust charge to say they plead for a Salvation in their sins And yet he has the Impudence immediately to aver it himself saying They are but in part delivered or saved in this Life do they not then dream of Salvation while in part they remain in their Sins Compare Matth. 1.21 with 1 Joh. 1.7 Christ is said to cleanse us from All Iniquity not a part of it It is bad Inference drawn from my Assertion that Children are not guilty of sin to say that therefore they need not a Saviour I told him in my last Christ was truly a Saviour unto them in that he kept them from sinning as one How Christ is a Saviour to Children that 's kept from falling in a Ditch is as truly saved as he that 's taken out of one It is altogether Inconsequential to infer from this That Christ died to save the holy Angels from sin because they are not suffered to fall into it For Christ is said only to have died for Adam's Posterity of which number Infants are but not Angels It is likewise
understandings to Assent unto but positively My Words which I have put into thy mouth c. From whence I Argue thus Vpon whomsoever the Spirit remaineth always and putteth words into his mouth him doth the Spirit Teach Immediately Objectively and Continually But The Spirit is always upon the Seed of the Righteous and putteth words into their mouths neither departeth from them Therefore The Spirit teacheth the Righteous Immediately Objectively and Continually Proof 2 Secondly The Nature of the New Covenant is yet more amply expressed Jer. 31.33 which is again repeated and re-asserted by the Apostle Hebr. 8.10 in these words For this is the Covenant that I will make with the house of Israel in those days saith the Lord I will put my Laws into their minds and write them in their hearts and I will be to them a God and they shall be to me a People And they shall not teach every man his Neighbour and every man his Brother saying Know the Lord for they shall all know me from the least to the greatest The Object here is God's Law placed in the Heart and written in the Mind from whence they become God's People and are brought truly to know him The Difference between the Outward and Inward Law In this then is the Law distinguished from the Gospel The Law before was Outward written in Tables of Stone but now it is Inward written in the Heart Of old the People depended upon their Priests for the Knowledge of God but now they have all a Certain and Sensible Knowledge of him concerning which Augustine speaketh well in his Book de Literâ Spiritu from whom Aquinas first of all seems to have taken occasion to move this Question Whether the New Law be a Written Law or an Implanted Law Lex scripta vel Lex indita Which he thus resolves Affirming That the New Law or the Gospel is not properly a Law written as the old was but Lex indita an implanted Law and that the Old Law was written without but the New Law is written within on the Table of the Heart How much then are they deceived who instead of making the Gospel preferrable to the Law have made the Condition of such as are under the Gospel far worse For no doubt it is a far better and more desirable thing to Converse with God Immediately than only Mediately as being a higher and more glorious Dispensation and yet these men acknowledge The Gospel Dispensation more Glorious than that under the Law that many under the Law had Immediate Converse with God whereas they now cry It is Ceased Again Vnder the Law there was the Holy of Holies into which the High-Priest did enter and received the Word of the Lord Immediately from betwixt the Cherubims so that the People could then Certainly know the mind of the Lord But now according to these mens Judgment we are in a far worse Condition having nothing but the Outward Letter of the Scripture to guess and divine from concerning one Verse of which scarce Two can be found to Agree But Jesus Christ hath promised us better things though many are so Unwise as not to believe him even to Guide us by his own Vnerring Spirit and hath rent and removed the Vail whereby not only one and that once a year may enter but All of us at all times have Access unto him as often as we draw near unto him with pure hearts He reveals his Will to us by his Spirit and writes his Laws in our Hearts These things being then thus premised I Argue Where the Law of God is put into the mind and written in the heart there the Object of Faith and Revelation of the Knowledge of God is Inward Immediate and Objective But The Law of God is put into the mind and written in the heart of Every true Christian under the New Covenant Therefore The Object of Faith and Revelation of the Knowledge of God to Every true Christian is Inward Immediate and Objective The Assumption is the express words of Scripture The Proposition then must needs be True except That which is put into the mind and written in the heart were either not Inward not Immediate or not Objective which is most Absurd § XII The Third Argument is from these words of John 1 John 2. Arg. III vers 27. But the Anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you and ye need not that any man teach you The Anointing recommended as but the same Anointing teacheth you of all things and is Truth and no Lie and even as it hath taught you ye shall abide in him First This could not be any special 1. Common peculiar or extraordinary Priviledge but that which is Common to all the Saints it being a general Epistle directed to all them of that Age. Secondly The Apostle proposeth this Anointing in them 2. Certain as a more certain Touch-stone for them to discern and try Seducers by even than his own Writings for having in the former verse said that he had Written some things to them concerning such as Seduced them he begins the next Verse But the Anointing c. and ye need not that any man Teach you c. Which infers that having said to them what can be said he Refers them for all to the Inward Anointing which teacheth all things as the most firm constant and certain Bulwark against all Seducers And Lastly That it is a Lasting and Continuing thing 3. Lasting The Anointing which abideth if it had not been to Abide in them it could not have Taught them all things neither Guideth them against all hazzard From which I Argue thus He that hath an Anointing abiding in him which teacheth him all things so that he needs no man to Teach him hath an Inward and Immediate Teacher and hath some things inwardly and immediately Revealed unto him But The Saints have such an Anointing Therefore c. I could prove this Doctrine from many more places of Scripture which for brevities sake I omit And now come to the Second Part of the Proposition where the Objections usually formed against it are Answered Object § XIII The most Usual is That these Revelations are Vncertain Answ. But this bespeaketh much Ignorance in the Opposers for we distinguish betwixt the Thesis and the Hypothesis that is betwixt the Proposition and Supposition For it is one thing to Affirm That the true and undoubted Revelation of God's Spirit is Certain and Infallible and another thing to Affirm That this or that particular Person or People is led infallibly by this Revelation in what they speak or write because they Affirm themselves to be so Led by the Inward and Immediate Revelation of the Spirit The first is only by us Asserted the latter may be called in Question The Question is not Who are or are not so Led but Whether all ought not or may not be so Led The Certainty of the Spirit 's
hereunto we stand there for this Word always proceedeth and doth Eternally proceed from God in and by which the Vnsearchable Wisdom of God and Vnsearchable Counsel and Will Conceived in the Heart of God is Revealed unto us That then the Scripture is not the Principal Ground of Faith and Knowledge as it appears by what is above spoken so it is provided in the latter part of the Proposition which being Reduced to an Argument runs thus That the Certainty and Authority whereof depends upon another and which is received as Truth because of its proceeding from another is not to be accounted the Principal Ground and Origin of all Truth and Knowledge But The Scriptures Authority and Certainty depends upon the Spirit by which they were dictated and the Reason why they were received as Truth is because they proceeded from the Spirit Therefore They are not the Principal Ground of Truth To Confirm this Argument I added the School-Maxime Propter quod unumquodque est tale illud ipsum est magis tale Which Maxime though I Confess it doth not hold Vniversally in all things yet in this it both doth and will very well hold as by Applying it as we have above Intimated will appear Neither are they the Primary Rule of Faith and Manners The same Argument will hold as to the other Branch of the Proposition That it is not the Primary Adequate Rule of Faith and Manners thus That which is not the Rule of my Faith in believing the Scriptures themselves is not the Primary Adequate Rule of Faith and Manners But The Scripture is not nor can it be the Rule of that Faith by which I believe them c. Therefore c. But as to this part we shall produce divers Arguments hereafter As to what is Affirmed That the Spirit and not the Scriptures is the Rule it is largely handled in the former Proposition the Sum whereof I shall Subsume in one Argument thus That the Spirit is the Rule If by the Spirit we can only come to the True Knowledge of God If by the Spirit we be to be led into all Truth and so be Taught of all things Then the Spirit and not the Scriptures is the Foundation and Ground of all Truth and Knowledge and the Primary Rule of Faith and Manners But the First is True Therefore also the Last Next The very Nature of the Gospel it self declareth that the Scriptures cannot be the Only and Chief Rule of Christians else there should be no Difference betwixt the Law and the Gospel As from the Nature of the New Covenant by divers Scriptures described in the former Proposition is proved Wherein the Law and Gospel differ But besides these which are before-mentioned herein doth the Law and the Gospel differ In that the Law being outwardly written brings under Condemnation but hath not Life in it to save whereas the Gospel as it declares and makes manifest the Evil so it being an Inward Powerful thing also gives Power to Obey and delivers from the Evil Hence it is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is Glad Tidings The Law or Letter which is without us kills but the Gospel which is the Inward Spiritual Law gives Life for it consists not so much in Words as in Vertue Wherefore such as come to know it and be acquainted with it come to feel greater Power over their Iniquities than all Outward Laws or Rules can give them Hence the Apostle concludes Rom. 6.14 Sin shall not have dominion over you for ye are not under the Law but under Grace This Grace then that is inward and not an outward Law is to be the Rule of Christians Hereunto the Apostle Commends the Elders of the Church saying Acts 20.32 And now Brethren I commend you to God and to the Word of his Grace which is able to build you up and to give you an Inheritance among all those that are sanctified He doth not commend them here to Outward Laws or Writings but to the Word of Grace which is Inward even the Spiritual Law which makes free as he elsewhere Affirms Rom. 8.2 The Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the Law of Sin and Death This Spiritual Law is that which the Apostle declares he preached and directed People unto which was not Outward as Rom. 10.8 is manifest where distinguishing it from the Law he saith The Word is nigh thee in thy heart and in thy mouth and this is the Word of Faith which we preach From what is above said I argue thus The Principal Rule of Christians under the Gospel is not an Outward Letter nor Law outwardly written and delivered but an Inward Spiritual Law ingraven in the heart the Law of the Spirit of Life the Word that is nigh in the heart and in the mouth But The Letter of the Scripture is Outward of it self a dead thing a meer Declaration of good things but not the Things themselves Therefore it nor is nor can be the Chief or Principal Rule of Christians § III. Thirdly That which is given to Christians for a Rule and Guide The Scripture not the Rule must needs be so full as it may clearly and distinctly Guide and Order them in all things and occurrences that may fall out But in that there are many hundred of things with a regard to their Circumstances particular Christians may be concerned in for which there can be no particular Rule had in the Scriptures Therefore the Scriptures cannot be a Rule to them I shall give an Instance in two or three Particulars for to prove this Proposition It is not to be doubted but some men are particularly called to some particular services their being not found in which though the Act be no general positive Duty yet in so far as it may be Required of them is a great Sin to Omit forasmuch as God is zealous of his Glory and every Act of Disobedience to his Will Manifested is enough not only to hinder one greatly from that Comfort and Inward Grace which otherwise they might have but also bringeth Condemnation As for Instance Some are Called to the Ministry of the Word Paul saith There was a Necessity upon him to preach the Gospel Wo unto me if I preach not If it be Necessary that there be now Ministers of the Church as well as then then there is the same Necessity upon some more than upon others to occupy this place which Necessity as it may be Incumbent upon particular persons the Scripture neither doth nor can declare If it be said Object That the Qualifications of a Minister are found in the Scripture and by applying these Qualifications to my self I may know whether I be fit for such a place or no. I Answer The Qualifications of a Bishop or Minister Answ. as they are mentioned both in the Epistle to Timothy and Titus are such as may be found in a private Christian yea which ought in
harder to understand their Expositions than the Things which they go about to Expound what may We say then cosidering those great Heaps of Commentaries since in Ages yet far more Corrupted § VI. In this respect above-mentioned then we have shewn what Service and Vse the Holy Scriptures as managed in and by the Spirit are of to the Church of God wherefore we do account them a Secondary Rule Moreover because they are commonly acknowledged by all The Scriptures a Secondary Rule to have been written by the Dictates of the Holy spirit and that the Errors which may be supposed by the Injury of times to have slipt-in are not such but that there is a sufficient clear Testimony left to all the Essentials of the Christian Faith we do look upon them as the only fit outward Judge of Controversies among Christians and that whatever Doctrine is Contrary unto their Testimony may therefore justly be rejected as False And for our parts we are very willing that all our Doctrines and Practices be Tried by them which we never refused nor ever shall in all Controversies with our Adversaries as the Judge and Test. We shall also be very willing to admit it as a Positive Certain Maxime That whatsoever any do pretending to the Spirit which is Contrary to the Scriptures be accounted and reckoned a Delusion of the Devil For as we never lay claim to the Spirit 's Leadings that we may Cover our selves in any thing that is Evil so we know that as every Evil Contradicts the Scriptures so it doth also the Spirit in the first place from which the Scriptures came and whose Motions can never Contradict one another though they may appear sometimes to be Contradictory to the blind Eye of the natural Man as Paul and James seem to Contradict one another Thus far we have shewn both what we believe and what we believe not concerning the Holy Scriptures hoping we have given them their due place But since they that will needs have them to be the only certain and principal Rule want not some shew of Arguments even from the Scripture it self though it no where call it self so by which they labour to prove their Doctrine I shall briefly lay them down by way of Objections and Answer them before I make an End of this matter Object 1 § VII Their first Objection is usually drawn from Isaiah 8.20 To the Law and to the Testimony if they speak not according to this Word it is because there is no Light in them Now this Law Testimony and Word they plead to be the Scriptures To which I Answer That that is to beg the thing in Question and Answ. 1 remains yet Vnproved Nor do I know for what Reason we may not safely Affirm this Law and Word to be Inward But suppose it was Outward it proves not the Case at all for them neither makes it against us For it may be Confessed without any prejudice to our Cause that the Outward Law was more particularly to the Jews a Rule and more principally than to us seeing their Law was Outward and Literal but ours under the New Covenant as hath been already said is expresly Affirmed to be Inward and Spiritual To Try all things by what So that this Scripture is so far from making against us that it makes for us For if the Jews were directed to Try all things by their Law which was without them written in Tables of Stone then if we will have this Advice of the Prophet to reach us we must make it hold Parallel to that Dispensation of the Gospel which we are under So that we are to Try all things in the first place by that Word of Faith which is preached unto us which the Apostle saith is In the heart and by that Law which God hath given us which the Apostle saith also expresly is Written and placed in the Mind Lastly If we look to this place according to the Greek Interpretation of the Septuagint our Adversaries shall have nothing from thence to Carp yea it will favour us much for there it is said That the Law is given us for a help which very well agrees with what is above Asserted Their second Objection is from Joh. 5.39 Search the Scriptures c. Object 2 Here say they we are commanded by Christ himself to search the Scriptures Answ. 1 I Answer First That the Scriptures ought to be Searched we do not at all deny but are very willing to be Tried by them as hath been above declared But the Question is Whether they be the only and principal Rule which this is so far from proving that it proveth the Contrary for Christ Checks them here for too high an Esteem of the Scriptures and neglecting of him that was to be preferr'd before them and to whom they bore Witness as the following words declare For in them ye think ye have Eternal life Search the Scriptures c. and they are they which testify of me and ye will not come unto me that ye may have Life This shews that while they thought they had Eternal Life in the Scriptures they neglected to come unto Christ to have Life of which the Scriptures bore Witness This Answers well to our purpose since our Adversaries now do also Exalt the Scriptures and think to have Life in them which is no more than to look upon them as the only Principal Rule and Way to Life and yet refuse to come unto the Spirit of which they Testify even the inward Spiritual Law which could give them Life So that the Cause of this People's Ignorance and Vnbelief was not their Want of Respect to the Scriptures which though they knew and had a high Esteem of yet Christ testifies in the former verses that they had neither seen the Father nor heard his Voice at any time neither had his Word abiding in them which had they then had then they had believed in the Son Moreover that place may be taken in the Indicative Mood Ye search the Scriptures which Interpretation the Greek word will bear and so Answ. 2 Pasor translateth it which by the Reproof following seemeth also to be the more genuine Interpretation as Cyrillus long ago hath observed § VIII Their Third Objection is from these words Acts 17.11 These were more noble than those in Thessalonica in that they received the Word with all readiness of Mind and searched the Scriptures daily whether those things were so Here say they The Beroeans are commended for Searching the Scriptures Object 3 and making them the Rule I Answer That the Scriptures either are the Principal or Only Rule Answ. 1 will not at all from this follow neither will their searching the Scriptures or being Commended for it infer any such thing for we Recommend and Approve the use of them in that respect as much as any yet will it not follow that we Affirm them to be the Principal and Only Rule Secondly It is to
not neither can be understood of Man's Answ. 1 own Nature which is Corrupt and Fall'n but of that Spiritual Nature which proceedeth from the Seed of God in man as it receiveth a new Visitation of God's Love and is quickened by it By what Nature the Gentiles did do the things of the Law which clearly appears by the following words where he saith These not having a Law i. e. outwardly are a Law unto themselves which shews the Work of the Law written in their hearts These Acts of theirs then are an Effect of the Law written in their hearts but the Scripture declareth that the Writing of the Law in the heart is a part yea and a great part too of the New Covenant-Dispensation and so no Consequence nor part of man's Nature Secondly If this Nature here spoken of could be understood of man's own Nature which he hath as he is a Man then would the Apostle Answ. 2 unavoidably Contradict himself since he elsewhere positively declares That the Natural Man discerneth not the things of God nor can Now I hope the Law of God is among the Things of God especially The Natural Man discerneth not c. as it 's written in the heart The Apostle in Chap. 7. of the same Epistle saith vers 12. That the Law is holy just and good and vers 14. That the Law is Spiritual but he is Carnal Now in what respect is he Carnal be as he stands in the Fall Vnregenerate Now what Inconsistency would here be to say that he is Carnal and yet not so of his own Nature seeing it is from his Nature that he is so denominated We see the Apostle Contra-distinguisheth the Law as Spiritual from Man's Nature as Carnal and Sinful Wherefore as Christ saith There can no Grapes be expected from Thistles nor Figs of Thorns Matth. 7 16. so neither can the fulfilling of the Law which is spiritual holy and just be expected from that Nature which is Corrupt Fall'n and Vnregenerate Whence we Conclude with good Reason that the Nature here spoken of by which the Gentiles are said to have done the Things contained in the Law is not the Common Nature of men but that Spiritual Nature The Gentiles Spiritual Nature in doing the Law that ariseth from the Works of the Righteous and Spiritual Law that 's written in the heart I confess they of the other Extream when they are pressed with this Testimony by the Socinians and Pelagians as well as by us when we use this Scripture to shew them how some of the Heathens by the Light of Christ in their heart come to be saved are very far to seek giving this Answer That there were some Relicks of the Heavenly Image left in Adam by which the Heathens could do some good things Which as it is in it self without proof so it Contradicts their own Assertions elsewhere and gives away their Cause For if these Relicks were of force to enable them to fulfil the righteous Law of God it takes away the necessity of Christ's Coming or at least leaves them a Way to be saved without him unless they will say which is worst of all That thô they really fulfilled the righteous Law of God yet God damned them because of the want of that particular Knowledge while he himself withheld all Means of their Coming to him from them But of this hereafter § III. I might also here use another Argument from these words of the Apostle 1 Cor. 2. where he so positively Excludes the Natural Man from an Vnderstanding in the things of God but because I have spoken of that Scripture in the beginning of the Second Proposition I will here avoid to Repeat what is there mentioned Referring thereunto Yet because the * Socinians exalting the Light of the Natural Man Socinians and others who exalt the Light of the Natural Man or a Natural Light in man do Object against this Scripture I shall Remove it e're I make an end Object They say The Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ought to be translated Animal and not Natural else say they it would have been 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 From which they seek to infer That it is only the Animal man and not the Rational that is excluded here from the discerning the things of God Which shift without disputing about the Word is easily Refuted neither is it any wise consistent with the Scope of the place For Answ. 1 First The Animal Life is no other than that which man hath Common with other living Creatures for as he is a meer man he differs no otherwise from beasts than by the Rational Property Now the Apostle deduceth his Argument in the foregoing Verses from this Simile The Animal Man is the same with Natural That as the things of a man cannot be known but by the spirit of a man so the things of God no man knoweth but by the Spirit of God But I hope these men will Confess unto me that the Things of a man are not known by the Animal Spirit only i. e. by that which he hath Common with the Beasts but by the Rational so that it must be the Rational that is here understood Again the Subsumption shews clearly that the Apostle had no such Intent as these mens gloss would make him to have viz. So the things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God according to their Judgment he should have said The things of God knoweth no man by his Animal spirit but by his Rational spirit for to say The Spirit of God here spoken of is no other than the Rational Spirit of man would border upon Blasphemy since they are so often contra-distinguished Again going on he saith not that they are rationally but spiritually discerned Answ. 2 Secondly The Apostle throughout this Chapter shews how the Wisdom of man is unfit to Judge of the things of God and Ignorant of them Now I ask these men whether a man be called a Wise man from his Animal Property or from his Rational If from his Rational then it is not only the Animal The Rational Man in the Natural State excluded from discerning the things of God but even the Rational as he is yet in the Natural State which the Apostle Excludes here and whom he Contra-distinguisheth from the Spiritual vers 15. But the spiritual man judgeth all things this cannot be said of any man meerly because Rational or as he is a Man seeing the men of greatest Reason if we may so Esteem men whom the Scripture calls Wise as were the Greeks of old not only may be but often are Enemies to the Kingdom of God while both the Preaching of Christ is said to be Foolishness with the Wise men of this World and the Wisdom of this World is said to be Foolishness with God Now whether it be any ways probable that either these Wise men that are said to account the Gospel Foolishness are only so
called with respect to their Animal property and not their Rational or that that Wisdom that is Foolishness with God is not meant of the Rational but only the Animal Property any Rational Man laying aside Interest may easily Judge § IV. I come now to the other part to wit That this Evil and Corrupt Seed is not imputed to Infants until they actually join with it Infants no Sin imputed to them For this there is a Reason given in the End of the Proposition it self drawn from Eph. 2. for these are by nature Children of Wrath who walk according to the Prince of the power of the Air the Spirit that now worketh in the Children of Disobedience Here the Apostle gives Their evil walking and not any thing that is not reduced to Act as a Reason of their being Children of Wrath. And this is sutable to the whole strain of the Gospel where no man is ever threatned or judged for what Iniquity he hath not Actually wrought Such indeed as continue in Iniquity and so do homologate the sins of their Fathers God will visit the Iniquity of the Fathers upon the Children Is it not strange then that men should entertain an Opinion so Absurd in it self and so cruel and contrary to the Nature as well of God's Mercy as Justice concerning the which the Scripture is altogether silent But it is manifest that man hath Invented this Opinion out of Self-love The Absolute Decree of Election springs from Self-love and from that bitter Root from which all Errors spring for the most part of Protestants that hold this having as they fancy the Absolute Decree of Election to secure them and their Children so as they cannot miss of Salvation they make no great difficulty to send all others both old and young to Hell For whereas Self-love which always is apt to believe that which it desires possesseth them with a Hope that their part is secure they are not solicitous how they leave their Neighbours which are the far greater part of mankind in these Inextricable Difficulties The Papists again use this Opinion as an Art to Augment the Esteem of their Church and Reverence of its Sacraments seeing they pretend it is Washed away by Baptism only in this they appear to be a little more Merciful in that they send not these Vnbaptized Infants to Hell but to a certain Limbus concerning which the Scriptures are as silent as of the other This then is not only not Authorized in the Scriptures but Contrary to the express Tenor of it The Apostle saith plainly Rom. 4.15 Where no Law is there is no Transgression And again 5.13 But sin is not imputed where there is no Law To Infants there is no Law so no Transgression Than which Testimonies there is nothing more positive since to Infants there is no Law seeing as such they are utterly Vncapable of it the Law cannot reach but such as have in some measure less or more the Exercise of their Vnderstanding which Infants have not So that from thence I thus argue Sin is Imputed to none where there is no Law But To Infants there is no Law Therefore Sin is not Imputed to them The Proposition is the Apostle's own words the Assumption is thus proved Those who are under a Physical Impossibility of either hearing knowing or understanding any Law where the Impossibility is not brought upon them by any Act of their own but is according to the very Order of Nature appointed by God to such there is no Law But Infants are under this Physical Impossibility Therefore c. Secondly What can be more positive than that of Ezech. 18.20 The Soul that sinneth it shall die the Son shall not bear the Father's Iniquity For the Prophet here first sheweth what is the Cause of man's Eternal Death which he saith is in his Sinning and then as if he purposed Expresly to shut out such an Opinion he assures us The Son shall not bear the Father's Iniquity From which I thus argue Infants bear not Adam's Transgression If the Son bear not the Iniquity of his Father or of his Immediate Parents far less shall he bear the Iniquity of Adam But the Son shall not bear the Iniquity of his Father Therefore c. § V. Having thus far shewn how Absurd this Opinion is I shall briefly Examine the Reasons its Authors bring for it Object 1 First They say Adam was a publick person and therefore all men sinned in him as being in his Loins And for this they Alledge that of Rom. 5.12 Wherefore as by one man Sin entred into the world and death by sin and so death passed upon all men for that all have sinned c. These last words say they may be translated in whom all have sinned Answ. To this I answer That Adam is a publick person is not denied and that through him there is a Seed of Sin propagated to all men which in its own Nature is sinful and Inclines men to Iniquity yet will it not follow from thence that Infants who Join not with this Seed are guilty As for these words in the Romans the Reason of the Guilt there alledged is For that all have sinned Now no man is said to Sin unless he actually Sin in his own person for the Greek words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may very well relate to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is the nearest Antecedent so that they hold forth how that Adam by his Sin gave an Entrance to sin in the World And so death entred by sin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. upon which viz. Occasion or in which viz. Death all others have sinned that is actually in their own persons to wit all that were Capable of sinning of which number that Infants could not be the Apostle clearly shews by the following Verse Sin is not imputed where there is no Law and since as is above proved there is no Law to Infants they cannot be here Included Object 2 Their Second Objection is from Psal 51.5 Behold I was shapen in Iniquity and in sin did my Mother conceive me Hence they say it appears that Infants from their Conception are guilty How they infer this Consequence for my part I see not The Iniquity and Sin here appears to be far more Ascribable to the Parents Answ. than to the Child It is said indeed In sin did my Mother Conceive me not My Mother did Conceive me a sinner Conceived in Sin Answer'd Besides that so Interpreted Contradicts expresly the Scripture before-mentioned in making Children guilty of the Sins of their Immediate Parents for of Adam there is not here any mention Contrary to the plain words The Son shall not bear the Father's Iniquity Object 3 Thirdly They Object That the Wages of Sin is death and that seeing Children are subject to diseases and death therefore they must be guilty of sin Answ. I answer That these things are a Consequence of the Fall and of
Fear God and work Righteousness â—hen what can be said to do so seeing the Apostle calls the Lawâ— spiritual holy just and good But this appears manifestly by another Medium taken out of the same Chapter vers 13. So that nothing can be more Clear The words are The doers of the Law shall be justified From which I thus Argue without Adding any word of my own Arg. The doers of the Law shall be justified But The Gentiles do the things contained in the Law The Gentiles Justified in doing the Law All that know but a Conclusion do easily see what follows from these Express Words of the Apostle And indeed He through that whole Chapter labours as if he were Contending now with our Adversaries to Confirm this Doctrine vers 9 10 11. Tribulation and Anguish upon every Soul of man that doth evil to the Jew first and also to the Gentile For there is no respect of persons with God Where the Apostle clearly homologates the Sentence of Peter before-mentioned and shews that Jew and Gentile or as he himself explains in the following verses both they that have an outward Law and they that have none when they do good shall be Justified And to put us out of doubt in the very following verses he tells That the doers of the Law are Justified and that the Gentiles did the Law So that except we think he spake not what he intended we may safely Conclude that such Gentiles were Justified and did partake of that honour glory and peace which comes upon Every one that doth good even the Gentiles that are without the Law when they work good seeing with God there is no Respect of persons So as we see that it is not the having of the Outward Knowledge that doth save without the Inward so neither doth the Want of it to such to whom God hath made it Impossible who have the Inward bring Condemnation And many that have wanted the Outward have had a Knowledge of this Inwardly by virtue of that Inward Grace and Light given to every man working in them by which they forsook Iniquity and became Just and Holy as is above proved who though they knew not the History of Adam's Fall yet were sensible in themselves of the Loss that came by it Many wanting the History were sensible of the Loss by Adam and Salvation come by Christ in themselves feeling their Inclinations to sin and the Body of Sin in them and though they knew not the Coming of Christ yet were sensible of that Inward Power and Salvation which came by him even before as well as since his Appearance in the flesh For I question whether these men can prove that all the Patriarchs and Fathers before Moses had a distinct Knowledge either of the one or the other or that they knew the History of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and of Adam's Eating the forbidden Fruit far less that Christ should be Born of a Virgin should be Crucified and treated in the manner he was For it is justly to be believed that what Moses wrote of Adam and of the first times was not by Tradition but by Revelation yea we see that not only after the Writing of Moses but even of David and all the Prophets who prophesied so much of Christ how little the Jews How little the Jews knew Christ mistaking the Prophets that were expecting and wishing for the Messiah could thereby Discern him when he came that they Crucified him as a Blasphemer not as the Messiah by mistaking the Prophecies concerning him for Peter saith expresly Acts 3.17 to the Jews that both They and their Rulers did it through Ignorance And Paul saith 1 Cor. 2.8 That had they known it they would not have Crucified the Lord of Glory Yea Mary her self to whom the Angel had spoken and who had laid up all the Miraculous things accompanying his Birth in her heart she did not understand How when he disputed with the Doctors in the Temple that he was about his Father's business And the Apostles that had believed him Conversed daily with him and saw his Miracles could not understand neither believe those things which related to his Death Sufferings and Resurrection but were in a certain respect stumbled at them § XXVII So we see how that it is the Inward Work and not the Outward History and Scripture that gives the True Knowledge The Heathens were sensible of the Loss received by Adam and by this Inward Light many of the Heathen-Philosophers were sensible of the Loss received by Adam though they knew not the outward History Hence Plato asserted That Man's Soul was fall'n into a dark Cave where it only conversed with shadows Pythagoras saith Man wandereth in this world as a stranger banished from the Presence of God Heathen-Philosophers Divine Knowledge Plato Pythag. Plotiâ— And Plotinus compareth man's Soul fall'n from God to a Cinder or dead Coal out of which the fire is extinguished Some of them said That the Wings of the Soul were clipped or fall'n of so that they could not flie unto God All which and many more such Expressions that might be gathered out of their Writings shew they were not without a sense of this Loss Also they had a Knowledge and Discovery of Jesus Christ Inwardly as a Remedy in them to deliver them from that Evil Seed and the Evil Inclinations of their own hearts though not under that particular Denomination Some called him a Holy Spirit as Seneca Epist. 41. who said There is a Holy Spirit in us that treateth us as we treat him Cicero calls it an Innate Light Lactan. In Sect. Cicero calleth it an Innate Light in his Book de Republicâ cited by Lactantius 6. Instit. where he calls this Right Reason given unto all Constant and Eternal calling unto duty by Commanding and deterring from deceit by Forbidding Adding that it cannot be abrogated neither can any be freed from it neither by Senate nor People that it is One Eternal and the same always to all Nations so that there is not one at Rome and another at Athens who so obey it not must flee from himself and in this is greatly tormented although he should escape all other punishment Plotinus also calls him Light saying That as the Sun cannot be known but by its own Light so God cannot be known but with his own Light and as the Eye cannot see the Sun but by receiving its Image so man cannot know God but by receiving his Image and that it behoved man to come to purity of heart before he could know God Calling him also Wisdom a name frequently given him in Scripture see Prov. 1.20 to the end and Prov. 8.9 34. where Wisdom is said to Cry Intreat and Invite all to come unto her and learn of her And what is this Wisdom but Christ Hence such as came among the Heathen to forsake Evil Philosophers Whence Called and cleave to Righteousness were
called Philosophers that is Lovers of Wisdom They knew this Wisdom was nigh unto them and that the best knowledge of God and Divine Mysteries was by the Inspiration of the Wisdom of God Phocylides Phocylides affirmed That the Word of the Wisdom of God was the best His words in the Greek are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And much more of this kind might be Instanced by which it appears they knew Christ and by his Work working in them were brought from Vnrighteousness to Righteousness and to love that Power by which they felt themselves Redeemed So that as saith the Apostle They shew the work of the Law written in their hearts and did the things contained in the Law and therefore as all doers of the Law are were no doubt Justified and Saved thus by the Power of Christ in them And as this was the Judgment of the Apostle so was it of the primitive Christians Hence Just. Martyr stuck not to call Socrates a Christian saying That all such as lived according to the Divine Word in them Socrates a Christian c. which was in all men were Christians such as Socrates and Heraclitus and others among the Greeks c. That such as live with the Word are Christians without fear or anxiety Clem. Alexand. Clemens Alexandrinus saith Apol. 2. Strom. lib. 1. That this Wisdom or Philosophy was necessary to the Gentiles and was their School-master to lead them unto Christ by which of old the Greeks were Justified Augustin de Civ Dei Nor do I think saith Augustine in his Book of the City of God lib. 18. c. 47. that the Jews dare affirm that none belonged unto God but the Israelites Ludovic Vives Upon which place Ludovicus Vives saith That thus the Gentiles not having a Law were a Law unto themselves and the Light of so living is the Gift of God and proceeds from the Son of whom it is written that he Inlighteneth every man that cometh into the World The Platonists saw the Word in the beginning which was Light Augustine also Testifies in his Confessions l. 7. c. 9. That he had read in the Writings of the Platonists though not in the very same words yet that which by many and multiplied Reasons did perswade that in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God this was in the beginning with God by which all things were made and without which nothing was made that was made In him was Life and the Life was the Light of men and the Light shined in the darkness and the darkness did not Comprehend it And albeit the Soul gives Testimony concerning the Light yet it is not the Light but the Word of God for GOD is the true LIGHT which inlightneth every man that cometh into the World and so Repeats to vers 14. of John 1. adding These things have I there read Yea there is a Book translated out of the Arabick which gives an account of one Hai Eben Yokdan Hai Eben Yokdan who without Converse of man living in an Island alone attained to such a profound Knowledge of God as to have Immediate Converse with him and to affirm That the best and most certain Knowledge of God is not that which is attained by Premisses premised and Conclusions deduced but that which is enjoyed by Conjunction of the mind of man with the Supream Intellect The Supream Intellect enjoyed in the Mind of Man after the mind is purified from its Corruptions and is separated from all bodily Images and is gathered into a profound Stilness § XXVIII Seeing then it is by this Inward Gift Grace and Light that both those that have the Gospel preached unto them come to have Jesus brought forth in them and to have the saving and sanctified Vse of all outward Helps and Advantages and also by this same Light that all may come to be saved and that God calls invites and strives with all in a Day and saveth many to whom he hath not seen meet to Convey this outward Knowledge Therefore we having the Experience of the Inward and Powerful Work of this Light in our hearts even Jesus Revealed in us cannot cease to Proclaim the Day of the Lord that it is Arisen in it The Day of the Lord proclaimed crying-out with the Woman of Samaria Come and see One that hath told me all that ever I have done Is not this the Christ That others may come and feel the same in themselves and may know that that little small thing that Reproves them in their hearts however they have despised it and neglected it is nothing less than the Gospel preached in them Christ the Wisdom and Power of God being in and by that Seed seeking to save their Souls Of this Light therefore Augustine speaks in his Confessions lib. 11. c. 9. In this beginning O God! thou madest the Heaven and the Earth in thy Word in thy Son in thy Vertue in thy Wisdom wonderfully saying and wonderfully doing who shall Comprehend it who shall Declare it Augustine Trembled at the In-shinings of the Light unto him and why What is that which shineth-in unto me and smites my heart without hurt at which I both Tremble and am Inflamed I Tremble in so far as I am unlike unto it and I am Inflamed in so far as I am like unto it It is Wisdom which shineth-in unto me and dispelleth my Cloud which had again Cover'd me after I was departed from that darkness and rampier of my punishments And again he saith lib. 10. cap. 27. It is too late that I have loved thee O thou Beautifulness so Ancient and so New late have I loved thee and behold thou wast within and I was without and there was seeking thee thou didst call thou didst cry thou didst break my deafness thou glancedst thou didst shine thou chasedst away my darkness Of this also our Country-man George Buchanan speaketh thus in his Book De Jure Regni apud Scotos Truly Buchanan testifying to the Light I understand no other thing at present than that Light which is divinely Infused into our Souls For when God formed man he not only gave him Eyes to his Body by which he might shun those things that are hurtful to him and follow those things that are profitable but also hath set before his mind as it were a certain Light by which he may discern things that are Vile from things that are Honest Some call this Power Nature others the Law of Nature I truly judge it to be Divine and am perswaded that Nature and Wisdom never say different things Moreover God hath given us a Compend of the Law which in few words comprehends the whole to wit That we should Love Him from our hearts and our Neighbours as our selves And of this Law all the Books of the Holy Scriptures which pertain to the forming of manners contain no other but an Explication This is that Vniversal Evangelical
such and such Prayers so that the person that so doth is presently Cleared from the guilt of his sin and justified and accepted in the sight of God As for Example He that in the great Jubilee will go to Rome and present himself before the Gate of Peter and Paul and there receive the Pope's Blessing or he that will go a Pilgrimage to James's Sepulchre in Spain or to Mary of Loretta is upon the Performance of those things promised forgiveness of Sins Now if we ask them the Reason how such things as are not morally good in themselves come to have Virtue they have no other Answer but because of the Church and Pope's Authority who being the great Treasurer of the Magazine of Christ's Merits lets them out upon such and such Conditions Thus also the Invention of Saying Mass is made a Chief Instrument of Justification Papists Mass what it is for in it they pretend to Offer Christ daily to the Father a Propitiatory Sacrifice for the sins of the living and the dead so that a man for Money can procure Christ thus to be Offered for him when he pleases by which Offering he is said to obtain Remission of Sins and to stand Justified in the sight of God From all which and much more of this Nature which might be mentioned it doth appear that the Papists place their Justification not so much in any Work of Holiness really brought forth in them and real forsaking of Iniquity as in the meer Performance of some Ceremonies and a blind Belief which their Teachers have begotten in them that the Church and the Pope having the Absolute Dispensation of the Merits of Christ have power to make these Merits Effectual for the Remission of sins and Justification of such as will perform those Ceremonies This is the true and real Method of Justification taken by the generality of the Church of Rome and highly Commended by their publick Preachers especially the Monks in their Sermons to the People of which I my self have been an Ear and an Eye-witness However some of their Modern Writers have laboured to qualify it in their Controversies Luther and the Protestants opposing the Pope's Doctrine of Works fell into th' other Extream of No good Works necessary to Justification This Doctrine Luther and the Protestants then had good Reason to deny and oppose though many of them ran into another Extream so as to deny good Works to be necessary to Justification and to preach up not only Remission of sins but Justification by Faith alone without all Works however good So that men do not obtain their Justification according as they are inwardly sanctified and renewed but are justified meerly by believing that Christ died for them and so some may perfectly be Justified though they be lying in gross Wickedness as appears by the Example of David whom they say was fully and perfectly Justified while he was lying in the gross sins of Murder and Adultery As then the Protestants have sufficient ground to quarrel and confute the Papists concerning those many Abuses in the matter of Justification shewing how the Doctrine of Christ is thereby vitiated and overturned and the Word of God made void by many and useless Traditions the Law of God neglected while foolish and needless Ceremonies are prized and followed through a false Opinion of being Justified by the Performance of them and the Merits and Sufferings of Christ which is the Only Sacrifice appointed by God for Remission of sins derogated from by the setting up of a Daily Sacrifice never appointed by God Papists Device to get Money and chiefly devised out of Covetousness to get money by so the Protestants on the other hand by not rightly establishing and holding forth the Doctrine of Justification according as it is delivered in the Holy Scriptures have opened a door for the Papists to accuse them as if they were Neglecters of good Works Enemies to Mortification and Holiness such as esteem themselves Justified while lying in great sins by which kind of Accusations for which too great ground hath been given out of the Writings of some Rigid Protestants the Reformation hath been greatly defamed and hindered and the Souls of many Insnared Whereas who will narrowly look into the matter may observe these Debates to be more in specie than in genere seeing both do upon the matter land in one and like two men in a Circle who though they go sundry ways yet meet at the last in the same Centre For the Papists they say They obtain Remission of Sins and are justified by the Merits of Christ as the same are Applied unto them in the use of the Sacraments of the Church Papists Belief of Justification meets in the same Centre with the and are dispensed in the Performance of such and such Ceremonies Pilgrimages Prayers and Performances though there be not an inward Renewing of the mind nor knowing of Christ inwardly formed yet they are remitted and made Righteous ex opere operato because of the Power and Authority accompanying the Sacraments and the Dispensators of them The Protestants say That they obtain Remission of Sins Protestants Belief So saith the Westminster-Conf of Faith Chap. 11. Sect. 1. and stand Justified in the sight of God by Virtue of the Merits and Sufferings of Christ not by Infusing Righteousness into them but by pardoning their sins and by accounting and accepting their persons as righteous they resting on him and his righteousness by Faith which Faith the Act of believing is not imputed unto them for Righteousness So the Justification of neither here is placed in any Inward Renewing of the Mind or by virtue of any Siritual Birth or Formation of Christ in them but only by a bare Application of the Death and Sufferings of Christ outwardly performed for them whereof the one lays hold on a Faith resting upon them and hoping to be Justified by them alone the other by the saying of some outward Prayers and Ceremonies which they judge makes the Death of Christ Effectual unto them I Except here being unwilling to wrong any what things have been said as to the necessity of inward Holiness either by some Modern Papists or some Modern Protestants who in so far as they have laboured after a Midst betwixt these two Extreams have come near to the Truth as by some Citations out of them hereafter to be mentioned will Appear Though this Doctrine hath not since the Apostasy so far as ever I could observe been so distinctly and evidently held forth according to the Scriptures-Testimony as it hath pleased God to Reveal it and preach it forth in this day by the Witnesses of his Truth whom he hath raised to that end Which Doctrine though it be briefly held forth and Comprehended in the Thesis it self English state of Controversie yet I shall a little more fully Explain the State of the Controversy as it stands betwixt us and those that now Oppose
Legal Acceptation As first in that of 1 Cor. 6.11 But ye are washed but ye are sanctified but ye are justified as I before have proved which also many Protestants are forced to acknowledge Neither diffide we saith Thysius because of the most great and strict Connexion Thysius Disp. de Just. Thes. 3. that Justification doth sometimes seem also to Comprehend Sanctification as a Consequence as in Rom. 8.30 Tit. 3.7 1 Cor. 6.11 And such sometimes were ye Zanchius in cap. 2. ad Eph. ver 4. loc de Just. but ye are washed c. Zanchius having spoken concerning this sense of Justification adds saying There is another signification of the word viz. for a man from Unjust to be made Just even as sanctified signifies from unholy to be made holy In which signification the Apostle said in the place above-cited And such were some of you c. that is of unclean ye are made holy and of unjust ye are made just by the Holy Spirit for Christ's sake in whom ye have believed Of this signification is that Rev. 22.11 Let him that is just be just still that is really from just become more just even as from unjust he became just And according to this signification the Fathers and especially Augustine have Interpreted this word H. Bullinger Thus far he H. Bullinger on the same place 1 Cor. 6. speaketh thus By divers words saith he the Apostle signifies the same thing when he saith ye are washed ye are sanctified ye are justified Proof II Secondly In that Excellent Saying of the Apostle so much observed Rom. 8.30 Whom he called them he also justified and whom he justified them he also glorified This is commonly called the Golden Chain as being acknowledged to Comprehend the Method and Order of Salvation And therefore if Justified were not understood here in its proper signification of being made just Sanctification would be excluded out of this Chain Righteousness the only Medium by which from our Calling we pass to Glorification And truly it is very worthy of observation that the Apostle in this succinct and compendious Account makes the word Justified to comprehend all betwixt Calling and Glorifying thereby clearly insinuating that the being really Righteous is that only Medium by which from our Calling we pass to Glorification All for the most part do acknowledge the word to be so taken in this place and not only so but most of those who oppose are forced to acknowledge that as this is the most proper so the most common Signification of it thus divers famous Protestants do acknowledge We are not saith D. Chamierus such Impertinent Esteemers of words as to be ignorant nor yet such importunate Sophists as to deny that the words of Justification and Sanctification do infer one another yea we know that the Saints are chiefly for this Reason so called D. Chamier Tom. 3. de Sanct. l. 10. c. 1. because that in Christ they have received Remission of Sins and we read in the Revelation Let him that is just be just still which cannot be understood except of the fruit of Inherent Righteousness Nor do we deny but perhaps in other places they may be promiscuously taken especially by the Father I take saith Beza the name of Justification largely Beza in cap. 3. ad Tit. vers 7. so as it comprehends whatsoever we acquire from Christ as well by Imputation as by the Efficacy of the Spirit in sanctifying us So likewise is the word of Justification taken Rom. 8.30 Melanchthon saith Melancht in Apol. Confes. Aug. that to be justified by Faith signifies in Scripture not only to be pronounced Just but also of Unrighteous to be made Righteous Also some Chief Protestants though not so clearly yet in part hinted at our Doctrine whereby we ascribe unto the Death of Christ Remission of Sins and the work of Justification unto the Grace of the Spirit acquired by his Death Boraeus in Gen. c. 15. ad verb Credidit Abraham Deo pag. 161. Martinus Boraeus explaining that place of the Apostle Rom. 4.25 Who was given for our sins and rose again for our Justification saith There are two things beheld in Christ which are necessary to our Justification the one is his Death the other is his Arising from the dead By his Death the sins of this World behoved to be Expiated By his Rising from the dead it pleased the same goodness of God to give the Holy Spirit whereby both the Gospel is believed and the Righteousness lost by the fault of the first Adam is restored And afterwards he saith The Apostle expresseth both parts in these words Who was given for our sins c. In his Death is beheld the Satisfaction for sin in his Resurrection the Gift of the Holy Spirit by which our Justification is perfected And again the same man saith elsewhere Idem lib. 3. Reg. cap. 9. v. 4. pag. 681. Both these kinds of Righteousness are therefore contained in Justification neither can the one be separate from the other So that in the Definition of Justification the Merit of the Blood of Christ is included both with the Remission of sins and with the gift of the Holy Spirit of Justification and Regeneration Martinus Bucerus saith Seeing by one sin of Adam the world was lost Bucerus in Rom. 4. ad ver 16. the Grace of Christ hath not only abolished that one sin and death which came by it but hath together taken away those infinite sins and also led into full Justification as many as are of Christ so that God now not only Remits unto them Adam 's sin and their own but also gives them therewith the Spirit of a solid and perfect Righteousness Righteousness a Conformity to the Image of the First-begotten which renders us Conform unto the Image of the First-Begotten And upon these words by Jesus Christ he saith We always judge that the whole benefit of Christ tends to this that we might be strong through the Gift of Righteousness being rightly and orderly adorned with all virtue that is restored to the Image of God And lastly William Forbes our Country-man W. Forbes in Considerat Modest. de Just. lib. 2. Sect 8. Bishop of Edinburgh saith Whensoever the Scripture makes mention of the Justification before God as speaketh Paul and from him besides others Augustin it appears that the word Justify necessarily signifies not only to pronounce Just in a Law sense but also really and inherently to make Just because that God doth otherways justify a wicked man than Earthly Judges For he when he Justifies a wicked or unjust man How God justifies the Wicked doth indeed pronounce him as these also do but by pronouncing him Just because his Judgment is according to Truth he also makes him really of Unjust to become Just. And again the same man upon the same occasion answering the more rigid Protestants who say That God first justifies and
believe it I shall only from this derive this one Argument If no man can be Justified without Faith and no Faith be living Arg. nor yet available to Justification without Works Then Works are necessary to Justification But the First is true Therefore also the Last For this Truth is so apparent and evident in the Scriptures that for the proof of it we might transcribe most of the Precepts of the Gospel I shall Instance a few which of themselves do so clearly Assert the thing in Question that they need no Commentary nor further Demonstration And then I shall answer the Objections made against this which indeed are the Arguments used for the Contrary Opinion Hebr. 12.14 Not the Sayers but the Doers are blessed Without holiness no man shall see God Matth. 7.21 Not every one that saith unto me Lord Lord shall enter into the Kingdom of heaven but he that doth the Will of my Father which is in heaven Joh. 13.17 If ye know these things happy are ye if ye do them 1 Cor. 7.19 Circumcision is nothing and Vncircumcision is nothing but the keeping of the Commandments of God Rev. 22.14 Blessed are they that do his Commandments that they may have right to the Tree of Life and through the Gates may enter into the City And many more that might be Instanced From all which I thus Argue If those only can Enter into the Kingdom Arg. that do the Will of the Father If those be accounted only the Wise builders and happy that do the sayings of Christ If no Observations avail but only the keeping of the Commandments and if they be blessed that do the Commandments and thereby have right to the Tree of Life and Entrance through the Gate into the City Then Works are absolutely necessary to Salvation and Justification But the First is true And therefore also the Last The Consequence of the Antecedent is so clear and evident that I think no man of sound Reason will call for a proof of it § X. * Object 1. But they Object that Works are not necessary to Justification First Because of that saying of Christ Luke 17.10 When ye shall have done all these things that are Commanded you say We are unprofitable servants c. Answer As to God we are indeed Vnprofitable for he needeth nothing neither can we Add any thing unto him Unprofitable Servants but as to our selves we are not Vnprofitable else it might be said that it is not profitable for a man to keep God's Commandments Answ. which is most Absurd and would Contradict Christ's Doctrine throughout God needeth nothing Doth not Christ Matth. 5. through all those Beatitudes pronounce men blessed for their purity for their meekness for their peaceableness c And is not then that for which Christ pronounceth men blessed profitable unto them Moreover Matth. 25.21 23. doth not Christ pronounce the men good and faithful servants Those that had improved their Talents were called Good and Faithful Servants that Improved their Talents Was not their doing of that then profitable unto them And vers 30. it is said of him that hid his Talent and did not Improve it Cast ye the Vnprofitable servant into utter darkness If then their not improving of the Talent made the man Vnprofitable and he was therefore cast into utter darkness it will follow by the Rule of Contraries so far at least that the Improving made the other profitable seeing if our Adversaries will allow us to believe Christ's words this is made a Reason and so at least a Cause Instrumental of their Acceptance Well done good and faithful Servant thou hast been faithful over a few things I will make thee Ruler over many things Enter thou into the Joy of thy Lord. Object 2 Secondly They object those sayings of the Apostle where he excludes the deeds of the Law from Justification as first Rom. 3.20 Because by the deeds of the Law there shall be no flesh justified in his sight and v. 28. Therefore we conclude that a man is Justified by Faith without the deeds of the Law Answ. We have shewn already what place we give to Works even to Answ. 1 the best of Works in Justification and how we ascribe its Immediate and Formal Cause to the Worker brought forth in us The Works of the Gospel or Grace distinguish't from the Works of the Law but not to the Works But in answer to this Objection I say There is a great difference betwixt the works of the Law and those of Grace or of the Gospel The first are excluded the second not but are necessary The first are those which are performed in man's own will and by his strength in a conformity to the outward Law and Letter and therefore are man's own Imperfect Works or works of the Law which makes nothing perfect And to this belong all the Ceremonies Purifications Washings and Traditions of the Jews The second are the works of the Spirit of Grace in the heart wrought in Conformity to the Inward and Spiritual Law which Works are not wrought in man's Will nor by his power and ability but in and by the Power and Spirit of Christ in us and therefore are pure and perfect in their kind as shall hereafter be proved and may be called Christ's Works for that he is the Immediate Author and Worker of them Such Works we affirm absolutely Necessary to Justification so that a man cannot be Justified without them and all Faith without them is dead and useless as the Apostle James saith Now that such a Distinction is to be admitted and that the Works excluded by the Apostle in the matter of Justification are of the first kind will appear if we consider the Occasion of the Apostle mentioning this as well here as throughout in his Epistle to the Galatians where he speaks of this matter and to this purpose at large which was this That whereas many of the Gentiles that were not of the Race nor Seed of Abraham as concerning the flesh were come to be Converted to the Christian Faith and believe in him some of those that were of the Jewish Proselytes thought to subject the faithful and believing Gentiles to the Legal Ceremonies and Observations as necessary to their Justification The Occasion of the Apostles speaking of the Works of the Law which are Excluded This gave the Apostle Paul occasion at length in his Epistle to the Romans Galatians and elsewhere to shew the Vse and Tendency of the Law and of its Works and to Contradistinguish them from the Faith of Christ and Righteousness thereof shewing how the former was Ceased and become Ineffectual the other Remaining and yet Necessary And that the Works excluded by the Apostle are of this kind of Works of the Law appears by the whole strain of his Epistle to the Galatians Chap. 1 2 3 4. For after in Chap. 4. he upbraideth them for their returning unto the Observation of days
and always have denied that Popish Notion of Meritum ex Condigno Nevertheless we cannot deny but that God out of his Infinite goodness wherewith he hath loved mankind after he Communicates to him his holy Grace and Spirit doth according to his own Will Recompence and Reward the good Works of his Children and therefore this Merit of Congruity or Reward God Rewards the good Words of his Children in so far as the Scripture is plain and positive for it we may not deny neither wholly Reject the Word in so far as the Scripture makes use of it For the same Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies Merit is also in those places where the Translators express it Worth or Worthy as Matth. 3.8 1 Thess. 2.12 2 Thess. 1.5 8. concerning which R. Baxter saith in the above cited Book p. 8. But in a larger sense as Promise is an Obligation and the thing Promised is said to be Debt so the Performers of the Conditions are called Worthy and that which they Perform Merit although properly all be of Grace and not of Debt Also those who are called the Fathers of the Church frequently used this word of Merit whose sayings concerning this matter I think not needful to insert because it is not doubted but evident that many Protestants are not averse from this word in the sense that we use it The Apology for the Augustan Confession Art 20. hath these words We agree that Works are truly Meritorious not of Remission of Sins or Justification but they are Meritorious of â—ther rewards Corporal and Spiritual which are indeed as well in this life as after this life And further Seeing Works Prop. 8 are a certain fulfilling of the Law they are rightly said to be Meritorious it is rightly said that a Reward is due to them In the Acts of the Conference of Oldenburgh the Electoral Divines p. 110. 265. say Conference of Oldenburgh In this sense our Churches also are not Averse from the word Merit used by the Fathers neither therefore do they defend the Popish Doctrine of Merit G. Vossius G. Vossius of the word Merit in his Theological These concerning the Merits of Good Works saith We have not adventured to condemn the word Merit wholly as being that which both many of the Ancients use and also the Reformed Churches have used in their Confessions Now that God judgeth and accepteth men according to their Works is beyond doubt to those that seriously will read and consider these Scriptures Matth. 17.26 Rom. 2.6 7 10. 2 Cor. 5.10 James 1.25 Hebr. 10.35 1 Pet. 1.17 Rev. 22.12 § XIII And to conclude this Theam let none be so bold as to mock God supposing themselves Justified and Accepted in the sight of God by virtue of Christ's Death and Sufferings while they remain unsanctified and unjustified in their own hearts and polluted in their sins left their Hope prove that of the Hypocrite which perisheth Neither let any foolishly Imagine Job 8.13 that they can by their own Works or by the performance of any Ceremonies or Traditions or by the giving of Gold or Money or by afflicting their Bodies in Will-worship and voluntary Humility or foolishly striving to Conform their Way to the ouward Letter of the Law flatter themselves that they Merit before God or draw a Debt upon him The Hope of the Hypocrite shall perish but Grace is to the Humble or that any man or men have power to make such kind of things Effectual to their Justification lest they be found foolish Boasters and Strangers to Christ and his Righteousness indeed But blessed for ever are they that having truly had a sense of their own Vnworthiness and Sinfulness and having seen all their own Endeavours and Performances fruitless and vain and beheld their own Emptiness and the vanity of their vain Hopes Faith and Confidence while they remained inwardly pricked pursued and condemned by God's Holy Witness in their hearts and so having applied themselves thereto and suffered his Grace to work in them are become chang'd and renew'd in the spirit of their minds past from death to Life and know Jesus arisen in them working both the Will and the Deed and so having put on the Lord Jesus Christ in Effect are Cloathed with him partake of his Righteousness and Nature such can draw near to the Lord with Boldness and know their Acceptance in and by him in whom and in as many as are found in him the Father is well-pleased PROPOSITION VIII Concerning Perfection In whom this Pure and Holy Birth is fully brought forth the body of Death and Sin comes to be Crucified and Removed and their Hearts united and subjected to the Truth so as not to obey any Suggestions or Temptations of the Evil one to be free from Actual Sinning and Transgressing of the Law of God and in that respect perfect yet doth this Perfection still admit of a Growth and there remaineth always in some part a Possibility of Sinning where the mind doth not most diligently and watchfully Attend unto the Lord. § I. SInce we have placed Justification in the Revelation of Jesus Christ formed and brought forth in the heart there working his Works of Righteousness and bringing forth the fruits of the Spirit The question is How far he may prevail in us while we are in this life or we over our Soul's Enemies in and by his strength Those that plead for Justification wholly without them meerly by Imputative Righteousness denying the Necessity of being cloathed with real and inward Righteousness do consequently affirm These are the words of the Westminster larger Catechism That it is Impossible for a man even the best of men to be Free of Sin in this life which they say no man ever was but on the contrary that none can neither of himself nor by any Grace received in this life O wicked Saying against the power of God's Grace keep the Commandments of God perfectly but that every man doth break the Commandments in thought word and deed Whence they also affirm as was a little before observed That the very best Actions of the Saints their prayers their worships are impure and polluted Whether it is possible to keep the Commandments of God We on the contrary though we freely acknowledge this of the Natural Fall'n Man in his first state whatever his profession or pretence may be so long as he is Vnconverted and Vnregenerate yet we do believe that those in whom Christ comes to be formed and the New Part I Man brought forth and born of the Incorruptible Seed as that Birth and man in Vnion therewith naturally doth the Will of God so it is possible so far to keep to it Controversy stated as not to be found daily Transgressors of the Law of God And for the more clear Stating of the Controversy let it be considered § II. First That we place not this possibility in Man 's own Will
to Rejoice therefore even that we are sensible of this Power that hath often-times laid hold upon our Adversaries and made them yield unto us and join with us and confess to the Truth before they had any distinct or discursive Knowledge of our Doctrines So that sometimes many at one Meeting have been thus Convinced and this Power would sometimes also reach to and wonderfully Work even in little Children to the Admiration and Astonishment of many § IX Many are the blessed Experiences which I could relate of this Silence and manner of Worship Yet silence is no Law but words may follow yet do I not so much commend and speak of Silence as if he had a Law in it to shut out praying or preaching or tied ourselves thereunto not at all for as our Worship consisteth not in the words so neither in silence as silence but in an holy dependence of the mind upon God from which dependance Silence necessarily follows in the first place until words can be brought forth which are from God's Spirit And God is not wanting to move in his Children to bring forth Words of Exhortation or Prayer when it is needful so that of the many Gatherings and Meetings of such as are Convinced of the Truth there is scarce any in whom God raiseth not up some or other to Minister to his Brethren that there are few Meetings that are altogether silent For when many are Met together in this one Life and Name it doth most naturally and frequently excite them to pray to and praise God and stir up one another by mutual Exhortation and Instructions yet we judge it needful there be in the first place some times of Silence during which every one may be gathered inward to the Word and Gift of Grace from which he that Ministreth may receive Strength to bring forth what he Ministreth and that they that hear may have a sense to discern betwixt the precious and the vile and not to hurry into the Exercise of these things so soon as the Bell rings as other Christians do Yea and we doubt not but assuredly know that the Meeting may be good and refreshful though from the sitting down to the rising up thereof there hath not been a word as outwardly spoken and yet Life may have been known to abound in each Particular and an inward growing up therein No absolute Necessity for words thô from the life at times and thereby yea so as words might have been spoken acceptably and from the life yet there being no absolute Necessity laid upon any so to do all might have chosen rather quietly and silently to possess and enjoy the Lord in themselves Which is very sweet and comfortable to the Soul that hath thus learned to be gathered out of all its own thoughts and workings to feel the Lord to bring forth the Will and the Deed which many can declare by a blessed Experience Though indeed it cannot but be hard for the Natural man to receive or believe this doctrine and therefore it must be rather by a sensible Experience and by coming to make proof of it than by Arguments that such can be Convinced of this thing seeing it is not enough to believe it if they come not also to enjoy and possess it Yet in Condescension to and for the sake of such as may be the more willing to Apply themselves to the practice and experience hereof that they found their understandings Convinced of it and that it is founded upon Scripture and Reason I find a freedom of mind to add some few Considerations of this kind for the Confirmation hereof besides what is before mentioned of our Experience § X. That to wait upon God and to watch before him To Wait and Watch Commanded in the Scriptures is a Duty incumbent upon all I suppose none will deny and that this also is a Part of Worship will not be called in question since there is scarce any other so frequently commanded in the Holy Scriptures as may appear from Psal. 27.14 37. v. 7. 34. Prov. 20.22 Isai. 30.18 Hosea 12.6 Zach. 3.8 Matth. 24.42 25.13 26.41 Mark 13.33 35. 37. Luke 21.36 Acts 1.4 20.31 1 Cor. 16.13 Col. 4.2 1 Thess. 5.6 2 Tim. 4.5 1 Pet. 4.7 Also this Duty is often recommended with very great and precious Promises as Psal. 25.3 37.9 69.6 Isai. 40.31.42 23. Lam. 3.25 26. They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength c. Now how is this Waiting upon God or Watching before him but by his Silence of which we have spoken Which as it is in it self a great and principal Duty so it necessarily in Order both of Nature and Time preceedeth all other But that it may be the better and more perfectly understood as it is not only an outward Silence of the Body but an inward Silence of the Mind from all its own Imaginations and self-Cogitations let it be considered according to Truth and to the Principles and Doctrines heretofore affirmed and proved that Man is to be considered in a twofold respect to wit in his Natural unregenerate and fal'n State and in his Spiritual and Renewed Condition from whence ariseth that distinction of the Natural and Spiritual man so much used by the Apostle and heretofore spoken of Also these two Births of the mind proceed from the two Seeds in man respectively to wit the Good Seed and the Evil And from the Evil Seed doth not only proceed all manner of Gross and abominable Wickedness and Profanity but also Hypocrisy and these Wickednesses which the Scripture calls spiritual Whence wickednesses rise that are spirituals because it is the Serpent working in and by the natural man in things that are spiritual which having a shew appearance of good are so much the more hurtful dangerous as it is Satan transformed transforming himself into an Angel of Light And therefore doth the Scripture so pressingly and frequently as we have heretofore had occasion to observe shut out and exclude the Natural man from meddling with the things of God denying his Endeavours therein though acted and performed by the most eminent of his parts as of Wisdom and Vtterance Also this spiritual Wickedness is of two sorts though both one in kind as proceeding from one Root yet different in their Degrees and in the Subjects also sometimes The one is From whence all Heresies did spring when as the Natural man is meddling in and working in the things of Religion doth from his own Conceptions and Divinations affirm or propose Wrong and Erroneous Notions and Opinions of God and things spiritual and invent superstitions ceremonies observations and rites in Worship from whence have sprung all the Heresies and Superstitions that are among Christians The other is when as the Natural Man from a meer Conviction of his understanding doth in the forwardness of his own Will and by his own natural strength without the influence and leading of
and to some less so they may use it accordingly The several Conditions Education differs accordingly under which men are diversly stated together with their Edcuations answering thereunto do sufficiently shew this The Servant is not the same way educated as the Master nor the Tenant as the Landlord nor the Rich as the Poor nor the Prince as the Peasant Now though it be not lawful for any however great Abundance they may have or whatever their Education may be to use that which is meerly superfluous yet seeing their Education has accustomed them thereunto and their Capacity enables them so to do without being profuse or extravagant they may use things better in their kind than such whose Education hath neither accustomed them to such things nor their Capacity will reach to compass them The lawful or unlawful Use of the Creation For it is beyond question that what ever thing the Creation affords is for the use of man and the moderate use of them is lawful yet per accidens they may be unlawful to some and not to others As for instance who by reason of his Estate and Education hath been used to eat Flesh and drink Wine to be cloathed with the finest Wool if his Estate bear it and he use it neither in superfluity nor immoderately he may do it and perhaps if he should apply himself to feed or be cloathed as are the Peasants it might prejudice the health of his Body and nothing advance his Soul But if a man whose Estate and Education had accustomed to both courser Food and Raiment should stretch himself beyond what he had or were used to to the manifest prejudice of his Family and Children no doubt it would be unlawful to him even so to Eat or be Cloathed as another in whom it is lawful for that that other may as much mortified and have denied himself as much in coming down to that which this aspires to as he in willing to be like him aspires beyond what he either is able or hath accustomed to do The safe place then is for such as have fulness to watch over themselves that they use it moderately and rescind all superfluities being willing so far as they can to help the need of those to whom Providence hath allotted a smaller Allowance The Rich to help the Needy Let the Brother of high degree rejoyce in that he is abased and such as God calls in a low degree to be content with their Condition not envying those Brethren who have greater abundance knowing they have received abundance as to the inward Man which is chiefly to be regarded And therefore beware of such a Temptation as to use their Calling as an Engine to be richer knowing they have this Advantage beyond the Rich and Noble that are called that the Truth doth not any ways abase them nay not in the Esteem of the World as it doth the other but that they are rather exalted thereby in that as to the Inward and Spiritual Fellowship of the Saints they become the Brethren and Companions of the Greatest and Richest and in this respect let him of low degree rejoice that he is exalted These things premised I would seriously propose unto all such as mind in reality to be Christians indeed and that in Nature and not in Name only Whether it were not desirable and would not greatly contribute to the Commendation of Christianity and to the increase of the Life and Vertue of Christ If all superfluous Titles of Honour Profuseness and Prodigality in Meat and Apparel Excess of Gaming Sporting and Playing were laid aside and forborn And whether such as lay them aside in so doing walk not more like the Disciples of Christ and his Apostles and are therein nearer their Example than such as use them Whether the laying them aside would hinder any from being good Christians Or if Christians might not be better without them than with them Certainly the Sober and Serious among all Sorts will say Yea. Then surely such as lay them aside as reckoning them unsuitable for Christians are not to be blamed but rather commended for so doing Because that both in Principle and Practice they effectually advance that which others acknowledge were desirable but can never make effectual so long as they allow the Use of them as lawful And God hath made it manifest in this Age that by discovering the Evil of such things and leading his Witnesses out of them and to testifie against them he hath produced effectually in many that Mortification and Abstraction from the Love and Cares of this World who daily are conversing in the World but inwardly redeemed out of it both in Wedlock and in their lawful Imploiments which was judged could only be obtained by such as were shut up in Cloisters and Monasteries Thus much in general § III. As to the first we affirm positively That it is not lawful for Christians either to give or receive these Titles of Honour as Your Holiness Your Majesty your Excellency your Eminency c. First Because these Titles are no part of that Obedience Titles which is due to Magistrates or Superiors neither doth the giving them add to nor diminish from that Subjection we ow to them which consists in obeying their just and lawful Commands not in Titles and Designations Secondly We find not that in the Scripture any such Titles are used either under the Law or the Gospel under the Law and Gospel but that in the speaking to Kings Princes or Nobles they use only a simple Compellation as 0 King and that without any further Designation save perhaps the Name of the Person as O King Agrippa c. Thirdly Lying Titles It lays a Necessity upon Christians most frequently to Lie because the Persons obtaining these Titles either by Election or Hereditarily may frequently be found to have nothing really in them deserving them or answering to them as some to whom it is said Your Excellency having nothing of Excellency in them And who is called Your Grace appears to be an Enemy to Grace And he who is called Your Honour is known to be Base and Ignoble I wonder what Law of Man or what Patent ought to oblige me to make a Lye in calling Good Evil and Evil Good Patents do not oblige to a Lye I wonder what Law of Man can secure me in so doing from the just Judgment of God that will make me count for every idle Word and to Lie is something more Surely Christians should be ashamed that such Laws manifestly crossing the Law of God should be among them If it be said We ought in Charity to suppose Object that they have these Vertues because the King has bestowed those Titles upon them or that they are descended of such as deserved them I answer Charity destroys not Knowledge I am not obliged by Charity either to believe or speak a Lie Now it is apparent Answ. and cannot be denied by
Wife saving for the cause of Fornication causeth her to commit Adultery If I say they say this they not only labour in vain but also fight against themselves because they can produce no Exception of this general Command of not Swearing expressed by God to any under the New Covenant after Christ gave this prohibition so clear as that which is made in the prohibition it self Moreover if Christ would have excepted Oaths made before Magistrates Also Oaths before a Magistrate certainly he had then expressed adding Except in judgment before the Magistrate or the like as he did in that of divorcement by these words saving for the cause of Fornication Which being so it is not lawful for us to except or distinguish or which is all one make void this general prohibition of Christ it would be far less agreeable to Christian Holiness to bring upon our heads the crimes of so many Oaths which by reason of this corruption and exception are so frequent among Christians Neither is it to be omitted that without doubt the most learned Doctors of each Sect know that these fore-mentioned words were understood by the antient Fathers of the first three hundred years after Christ The concurrence of the Antient Fathers therein to be a prohibition of All sorts of Oaths It is not then without reason that we wonder that the Popish Doctors and Priests bind themselves by an Oath to interpret the Holy Scriptures according to the universal Exposition of the holy Fathers who notwithstanding understood those controverted Texts quite contrary to what these modern Doctors do And from thence also doth clearly appear the vanity and foolish certainty so to speak of Popish Traditions for if by the Writings of the Fathers so called the Faith of the Church of these Ages may be demonstrated it is clear they have departed from the Faith of the Church of the first three Ages in the point of Swearing Moreover because not only Papists but also Lutherans and Calvinists and some others do restrict the words of Christ and James I think it needful to make manifest the vain Foundation upon which their presumption in this matter is built Object § XI First They object That Christ only forbids these Oaths that are made by Creatures and things Created and they prove it thence because he numbers some of these things Secondly All rash and vain Oaths in familiar discourses because he saith Let your Communication be Yea Yea and Nay Nay Answ. 1 To which I answer First That the Law did forbid all Oaths made by the Creatures as also all vain and rash Oaths in our common discourses commanding that men should only swear by the Name of God and that neither falsly nor rashly for that is to take his Name in vain Answ. 2 Secondly It is most evident that Christ forbids somewhat that was permitted under the Law to wit To swear by the Name of God To swear by God himself forbidden by Christ. because it was not lawful for any man to Swear but by God himself And because he saith Neither by Heaven because it is the Throne of God therefore he excludes all other Oaths even those which are made by God for he saith chap. 23. ver 22. He that shall Swear by Heaven Sweareth by the Throne of God and by him that sitteth thereon Which is also to be understood of the rest Lastly that he might put the matter beyond all controversy Answ. 3 he adds Neither by any other Oath Therefore seeing to Swear before the Magistrate by God is an Oath it is here without doubt forbidden Secondly they object Object That by these words Oaths by God 's Name cannot be forbidden because the heavenly Father hath commanded them for the Father and the Son are One which could not be if the Son did forbid that which the Father commanded I answer They are indeed One Answ. and cannot contradict one another nevertheless the Father gave many things to the Jews for a time because of their Infirmity under the Old Covenant which had only a shadow of good things to come not the very Substance of things until Christ should come Oaths under the Old Covenant who was the Substance and by whose coming all these things evanished to wit Sabbaths Circumcision the Paschal Lamb men used then Sacrifices who lived in controversy with God and one with another which all are abrogated in the coming of the Son who is the Substance Eternal Word and essential Oath and Amen in whom the promises of God are Yea and Amen Who came that men might be redeemed out of strife and might make an end of Controversy Thirdly they object But all Oaths are not Ceremonies Object nor any part of the Ceremonial Law I answer Except it be shewn to be an eternal Answ. immutable and moral precept it withstands not neither are they of so old an Origin as Tithes and the Offering of the first fruits of the ground Tithes c. unlawful now which by Abel and Cain were offered long before the ceremonial Law or the use of Oaths which whatever may be alledged against it were no doubt Ceremonies and therefore no doubt unlawful now to be practised Fourthly they object That to Swear by the Name of God Object is a moral Precept of continual duration because it is marked with his essential and moral Worship Deut. 6.13 and 10 20. Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God and serve him alone Thou shalt cleave to him and swear by his Name I answer This proves not Answ. that it is a moral and eternal Precept for Moses adds that to all the Precepts and Ceremonies in several places As Deut. 10.12 13. saying And now Israel what doth the Lord thy God require of thee but to fear the Lord thy God to walk in all his ways and to love him and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy Heart and with all thy Soul To keep the commandments of the Lord and his Statutes which I command thee this day And chap 14. ver 23. the Fear of the Lord is mentioned together with the Tithes And so also Lev. 19.2 3 6. the Sabbaths and regard to Parents are mentioned with swearing Fifthly they object That solemn Oaths which God commanded Object cannot be here forbidden by Christ for he saith that they come from evil But these did not come from evil for God never commanded any thing that was evil or came from evil I answer There are things which are good because commanded and evil because forbidden Other things are commanded because good and forbidden because evil As Circumcision and Oaths Answ. which were good when and because they were commanded and in no other respect Oaths are evils because forbidden and again when and because prohibited under the Gospel they are evil And in all these Jewish Constitutions however Ceremonial there was something of good to wit in their season as prefiguring some good
As by Circumcision the Purifications and other things the Holiness of God was typified and that the Isralites ought to be Holy as their God was Holy In the like manner Oaths under the Shadows and Ceremonies signified the Verity of God his faithfulness and certainty and therefore that we ought in all things to speak and witness the Truth Truth was before all Oaths But the Witness of Truth was before all Oaths and remains when all Oaths are abolished and this is the morality of all Oaths and so long as men abide therein there is no necessity of nor place for Oaths as Polybius witnessed who said The use of Oaths in Judgment was Rare among the Antients but by the growing of perfidiousness so grew also the use of Oaths To which agreeth Grotius saying An Oath is only to be used as a Medicine in case of necessity A solemn Oath is not used Oaths supply presupposed Defects of Mens inconstancy but to supply defect The lightness of men and their inconstancy begot diffidence for which swearing was sought out as a remedy Basil the Great saith That Swearing is the effect of sin And Ambrose That Oaths are only a condescendency for defect Chrysostom saith That an Oath entred when evil grew when men exercised their frauds when all foundations were overturned That Oaths took their beginning from the want of Truth These and the like are witnessed by many others with the fore-mentioned Authors But what need of Testimonies where the Evidence of things speaks it self For who will force another to Swear of whom he is certainly perswaded that he abhors to Lie in his words And again as Chrysostom and others say For what end wilt thou force him to swear whom thou believest not that he will speak the Truth § XII That then which was not from the beginning which was of no use in the beginning which had not its beginning first from the Will of God but from the work of the Devil occasioned from evil to wit from Vnfaithfulness Lying Deceit and which was at first only evindent by man as a mutual Remedy of this evil in which they called upon the names of their Idols yea that which as Hierom Chrysostom and others testifie was given to the Israelites by God as unto Children that they might abstain from the Idolatrous Oaths of the Heathens Jer. 12.16 Whatsoever is so is far from being a moral and eternal Precept And lastly Whatsoever by its profanation and abuse is polluted with sin such as are abundantly the Oaths of these times by so often swearing and forswearing far differs from any necessary and perpetual Duty of a Christian But Oaths are so Therefore c. Sixthly They object That God swore Therefore to swear is good I answer with †Athan. in pass cruc Domin Athanasius Seeing it is certain it is proper in swearing to swear by another thence it appears that God Object to speak properly did never swear but only improperly Answ. Whence speaking to men he is said to swear because these things which he speaks because of the certainty and immutability of his Will are to be esteemed for Oaths Compare Psal. 110.4 where it is said The Lord did swear and it did not repent him c. And I swore saith he by my self And this is not an Oath For he did not swear by another which is the property of an Oath but by himself Therefore God swears not according to the manner of men God swears not by another but by himself neither can we be induced from thence to swear but let us so do and say and shew our selves such by speaking and acting that we need not with our Hearers an Oath and let our words of themselves have the testimony of Truth For so we shall plainly imitate God Seventhly They object ◠Christ did swear Object and we ought to imitate him I answer that Christ did not swear and albeit he had sworn Answ. being yet under the Law this would no ways oblige us under the Gospel as neither Circumcision or the celebration of the Paschal Lamb. Concerning which Hierom saith Hier. lib. Ep. part 3. tract 1. Ep. 2. All things agree not to us who are Servants that agreed to our Lord c. The Lord swore as Lord whom no man did forbid to swear but unto us that are Servants it is not lawful to swear because we are forbidden by the Law of our Lord. Yet lest we should not suffer scandal by his Example he hath not sworn since he commanded us not to swear Eighthly they object That Paul swore and that often Object Rom. 1.9 Phil. 1.8 saying For God is my Witness 2 Cor. 11.10 As the Truth of Christ in me 2 Cor. 1.23 I call God for a Record upon my Soul I speak the Truth in Christ I lie not Rom. 9.1 Behold before God I lie not Gal. 1.20 And so requires Oaths of others I Obtest you saith he before God and our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Thess. 5.27 I charge you by the Lord that this Epistle be read to all the Brethren But Paul would not have done so if all manner of Oaths had been forbidden by Christ whose Apostle he was To all which I answer First Answ. That the using of such forms of speaking are neither Oaths nor so esteemed by our Adversaries For when upon occasion in matters of great moment we have said We speak the Truth in the fear of God and before him who is our Witness and the searcher of our hearts The Ceremonies of an Oath adding such kind of serious Attestations which we never refused in matters of Consequence nevertheless an Oath hath moreover been required of us with the ceremony of putting our Hand upon the Book the kissing of it the lifting up of the Hand or Fingers together with this common form of Imprecation So help me God or So truly let the Lord God Almighty help me Secondly This contradicts the opinion of our Adversaries because that Paul was neither before a Magistrate that was requiring an Oath of him nor did he himself administer the office of a Magistrate as offering an Oath to any other Thirdly The question is not what Paul or Peter did but what their and our Master taught to be done and if Paul did swear which we believe not he had sinned against the Command of Christ even according to their opinion because he swore not before a Magistrate but in an Epistle to his Brethren Object Ninthly they object Isa. 65.16 where speaking of the Evangelical times he saith That he who blesseth himself in the Earth shall bless himself in the God of Truth and he that sweareth in the Earth shall swear by the God of Truth because the former troubles are forgotten and because they are hid from mine eyes For behold I create new Heavens and a new Earth Therefore in these times we ought to swear by the Name of the Lord. Answ. I
answer It is ordinary for the Prophets to express the greatest duties of Evangelical times in Mosaical terms as appears among others from Jer. 31.38 39 40. Ezek. 36.25 and 40. and Isa. 45.23 I have sworn by my self that unto me every Knee shall bow every Tongue shall swear Where the Righteousness of the New Jerusalem the purity of the Gospel with its Spiritual worship and the profession of the Name of Christ are expressed under forms of speaking used to Old Jerusalem under the washings of the Law under the names of Ceremonies the Temple Services Swearing is expressed by Confessing under the Gospel Sacrifices Oaths c. Yea that which the Prophet speaks here of Swearing the Apostle Paul interprets it expresly of Confession saying Rom. 14.11 For it is written As I live saith the Lord every Knee shall bow to me and every Tongue shall Confess to God Which being rightly considered none can be ignorant but these words which the Prophet writes under the Law when the Ceremonial Oaths were in use to wit Every Tongue shall swear were by the Apostle being under the Gospel when those Oaths became abolished expressed by Every Tongue shall Confess Object Tenthly they object But the Apostle Paul approves Oaths used among men when he writes Heb. 6.16 For men verily swear by the Greater and an Oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife But there are as many contests fallacies and diffidences at this time as there were ever Therefore the necessity of Oaths doth yet remain Answ. I answer The Apostle tells indeed in this place what men at that time did who lived in Controversies and Incredulity not what they ought to have done nor what the Saints did who were redeemed from Strife and Incredulity and had come to Christ Strife ceasing Oaths cease the Truth and Amen of God Moreover he only alludes to a certain Custom usual among men that he might express the firmity of the Divine Promise that he might excite in the Saints so much the more Confidence in God promising to them not that he might instigate them to Swear against the Law of God or confirm them in that no not at all for neither doth 1 Cor. 9.24 teach Christians the vain Races whereby men often times even to the destruction of their Bodies are wearied to obtain a corruptible prize So neither doth Christ who is the Prince of Peace teach his Disciples to fight albeit he takes notice Luke 14.31 what it behoveth such Kings to do who are accustomed to fight as prudent Warriors therein Secondly as to what pertains to Contests Perfidies and Diffidences among men which our Adversaries affirm to have grown to such an hight that Swearing is at present as necessary as ever Deceit among the False not the True Christians That we deny not at all for we see and daily experience teacheth us that all manner of deceit and malice doth increase among worldly men and False Christians but not among True Christians But because Men cannot trust one another and therefore require Oaths one of another it will not therefore follow that True Christians ought to do so whom Christ has brought to true Faithfulness and Honesty as well towards God as one towards another and therefore has delivered them from Contests Perfidies and consequently from Oaths Eleventhly They object We grant Object That among true Christians there is not need of Oaths but by what Means shall we infallibly know them It will follow then That Oaths are at present Needful and that it is Lawful for Christians to Swear to wit that such may be satisfied who will not acknowledge this and the other Man to be a Christian. I answer It is no ways lawful for a Christian to Swear whom Christ hath called to his essential Truth Answ. which was before all Oaths forbidding him to swear and on the contrary commanding him to speak the Truth in all things to the Honour of Christ who called him that it may appear Truth was before Oaths That the Words of his Disciples may be as truly believed as the Oaths of all other worldly Men. Neither is it lawful for them to be Vnfaithful in this that they may please others for that they may avoid their Hurt For thus the Primitive Christians for some Ages remained faithful who being required to swear did unanimously answer I am a Christian I swear not What shall I say of the Heathens some of whom arrived to that Degree For Diodorus Siculus relates lib. 16. That the giving of the Right Hand was among the Persians a sign of speaking the Truth And the Scythians as Qu. Curtius relates said in their Conferences with Alexander the Great Think not that the Scythians confirm their Friendship by Swearing they swear by keeping their Promises Stobaeus in his third Sermon tells That Solomon said A good Man ought to be in that Estimation that he need not an Oath because it is to be reputed a lessening of his Honour if he be forced to Swear Pythagoras in his Oration among other things hath this Maxim Heathen-Testimonies against Oaths as that which concerns the Administration of the Common-wealth Let no Man call God to witness by an Oath no not in Judgment but let every Man so accustom himself to speak that he may become worthy to be trusted even without an Oath Basil the Great commends Clinias an Heathen That he had rather pay three Talents which are about three thousand Pound than swear Socrates as Stobaeus relates Serm. 14. had this Sentence The Duty of Good Men requires that they shew to the World that their Manners and Actions are more firm than Oaths The same was the Judgment of Isocrates Plato also stood against Oaths in his Judgments de Leg. 12. Quintilianus takes notice That it was of old a kind of Infamy if any was desired to swear but to require an Oath of a Noble-Man was like an examining him by the Hang-man Marcus Aurelius Antonius the Emperour of Rome saith in his Description of a Good Man Such is his Integrity that he needs not Oaths So also some Jews did witness as Grotius relates out of Maimonides It is best for a Man to abstain from all Oaths The Esseans as Philo Judaeus relates did esteem their Words more firm than Oaths and Oaths were esteemed among them as needless Things And Philo himself speaking of the Third Commandment explains his Mind thus viz. It were better altogether not to Swear but to be accustomed always to Speak the Truth that naked Words might have the Strength of an Oath And elswhere he saith It is more agreeable to Natural Reason altogether to abstain from Swearing perswading that whatsoever a good Man saith may be equivalent with an Oath Oaths abrogated by Christ. Who then needs further to doubt but that since Christ would have his Disciples attain the highest Pitch of Perfection he abrogated Oaths as a Rudiment of Infirmity and in place
thereof established the Use of Truth Who can now any more think that the Holy Martyrs and antient Fathers of the first three hundred Years and many others since that Time have so opposed themselves to Oaths that they might only rebuke vain and rash Oaths by the Creatures or Heathen-Idols which were also prohibited under the Mosaical-Law and not also Swearing by the True God in Truth and Righteousness which was there commanded As Polycarpus Justin Martyr The Testimonies of the Fathers against Oaths and Swearing Apolog. 2. and many Martyrs as Eusebius relates Tertullian in his Apolog. cap. 32. ad Scap. cap. 1. of Idolatry c. 11. Clemens Alexandrinus Strom. lib. 7. Origen in Matth. tract 25. Cyprianus lib. 3. Athanas. in pass cruc Domini Christi Hilarius in Matth. 5.34 Basilius Magn. in Psal. 14. Greg. Nyssenus in Cant. Orat. 13. Greg. Nazianzenus in dialog contra juramenta Epiphanius adversus haeres lib. 1. Ambros. de Virg. lib. 3. Idem in Matth. 5. Chrysostom in Genes homil 15. Idem homil in Act. Apost cap. 3. Hieronymus Epistol lib. part 3. Ep. 2. Idem in Zach. lib. 2. cap. 8. Idem in Matth. lib. 1. cap. 5. Augustinus de serm Dom. serm 28. Cyrillus in Jerem. 4. Theodoretus in Deut. 6. Isidorus Pelusiota Ep. lib. 1. Epist. 155. Chromatius in Matth. 5. Johannes Damascenus l. 3. c. 16. Cassiodorus in Psal. 94. Isidorus Hispalensis cap. 31. Antiochus in Pandect script hom 62. Beda in Jac. 5. Haimo in Apoc. Ambrosius Ansbertus in Apoc. Theophylactus in Matth. 5. Pascasius Ratbertus in Matth. 5. Otho Brunsfelsius in Matth. 5. Druthmarus in Matth. 5. Euthymius Eugubinus Bibliotheca vet patr in Matth. 5. OEcumenius in Jac. c. 5. v. 12. Anselmus in Matth. 5. Waldenses Vâ—clevus Erasmus in Matth. 5. in Jac. 5. Who can read these Places and doubt longer of their Sense in this Matter And who believing that they were against all Oaths can bring so great an indignity to the Name of Christ as to seek to subject again his Foâ—lowers to so great an Indignity Is it not rather Time that all Good Men labour to remove this Abuse and Infamy from Christians Lastly they object This will bring in Fraud and Confusion for Impostors will counterfeit Probity and under the Benefit of this Dispensation will be without Fear of Punishment I answer There are two things only Answ. which oblige a Man to speak the Truth First Either the Fear of God in his Heart and Love of Truth for where this is there is no need of Oaths to speak the Truth Or Secondly the Fear of Punishment from the Judge Therefore let there be the same The punishment of Lyars or rather greater Punishment appointed to those who pretend so great Truth in Words and so great simplicity in Heart that they cannot Lie and so great Reverence towards the Law of Christ that for Conscienceâ—sake they deny to Swear in any wise if they fail and so there shall be the same good Order yea greater Security against Deceivers as if Oaths were continued and also by that more severe Punishment to which these false Dissemblers shall be liable Hence Wicked Men shall be more terrified and Good Men delivered from all Oppression both in their Liberty and Goods For which Cause for their tender Consciences God hath often a Regard to Magistrates and their State as a thing most acceptable to him But if any can further doubt of this Thing to wit The Vnited Netherlands instanced If without Confusion it can be practised in the Commonwealth let him consider the State of the Vnited Netherlands and he shall see the Good Effect of it For there because of the great Number of Merchants more than in any other place there is most frequent Occasion for this thing and though the Number of those that are of this Mind be considerable to whom the States these hundred Years have Condescended and yet daily Condescend yet nevertheless there has nothing of Prejudice followed thereupon to the Commonwealth Government or good Order but rather great Advantage to Trade and so to the Commonwealth § XIII Sixthly The last thing to be considered is Revenge and War an Evil as opposite and contrary to the Spirit and Doctrine of Christ as Light to Darkness For as is manifest Revenge and War contrary to Christ. by what is said through Contempt of Christ's Law the whole World is filled with various Oaths Cursings Blasphemous Profanations and Horrid Perjuries so likewise through Contempt of the same Law the World is filled with Violence Oppression Murders Ravishing of Women and Virgins Spoilings Depredations Burnings Vastations and all manner of Lasciviousness and Cruelty So that it is strange that Men made after the Image of God should have so much degenerated that they rather bear the Image and Nature of Roaring Lions Tearing Tigres Devouring Wolves and Raging Boars than of Rational Creatures endued with Reason And is it not yet much more admirable that this Horrid Monster should find Place and be fomented among those Men that profess themselves Disciples of our peaceable Lord and Master Jesus Christ who by Excellency is called the Prince of Peace and hath expresly prohibited his Children all Violence and on the contrary commanded them that according to his Example they should follow Patience Charity Forbearance and other Vertues worthy of a Christian. Hear then what this great Prophet saith whom every Soul is commanded to hear under the Pain of being Cut off Matth. 5. from verse 38. to the End of the Chapter For thus he saith Ye have heard Revenge Forbidden by Christ. that it hath been said an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth But I say unto you That ye resist not evil but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek turn to him the other also And if any man will sue thee at the law and take away thy coat let him have thy cloak also And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile go with him twain Give to him that asketh thee and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away Ye have heard that it hath been said Thou shalt love thy Neighbour and hate thine enemy But I say unto you Love your enemies bless them that curse you do good to them that hate you and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven For he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust For if ye love them which love you what reward have ye Do not even the Publicans the same And if ye salute your brethren only what do you more than others Do not even the Publicans so Be ye therefore perfect even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect The Law of Christ more perfect than of that Moses These Words with a Respect to Revenge as the
former in the Case of Swearing do forbid some things which were formerly lawful to the Jews considering their Condition and Dispensation and Command unto such as will be the Disciples of Christ a more perfect eminent and full Signification of Charity as also Patience and Suffering than was required of them in that Time State and Dispensation by the Law of Moses This is not only the Judgment of most if not all the Antient Fathers so called the first three hundred Years after Christ but also of many others and in general of all those who have rightly understood and propagated the Law of Christ concerning Swearing Testimonies of the Fathers against Fighting as appears from Justin Mart. in Dialog cum Tryph. ejusdemque Apolog. 2. Item ad Zenam Tertull. de Corona Militis It. Apolog. cap. 21. 37. It. lib. de Idolol c. 17 18 19. It. ad Scapulam cap. 1. It. adversus Jud. cap. 7 9. It. adv Gnost 13. It. adv Marc. c. 4. It. lib. de patient c. 6.10 Orig. cont Celsum lib. 3 5 8. It. in Josuam hom 12. cap. 9. It. in Mat. cap. 26. Tract 36. Cypr. Epist. 56. It. ad Cornel. Lactan. de just lib. 5. c. 18. lib. 6. c. 20. Ambr. in Luc. 22. Chrysost. in Matth. 5. hom 18. It. in Matth. 26. hom 85. It. lib. 2. de sacerdotio It. 1 Cor. 13. Chromat in Matth. 5. Hieron ad Ocean It. lib. Epist. p. 3. Tom. 1. Ep. 2. Athan. de Inc. Verb. Dei Cyrill Alex. lib. 11. in Johan cap. 25 26. Yea Augustin although he vary much in this matter notwithstanding in these places he did condemn Fighting Epist. 158 159 160. It. ad Judices Epist. 263. It. ad Darium lib. 21. It. ad Faustum cap. 76. lib. 22. de Civit. ad Marc. cap. 6. as Sylburgius relates Euthym. in Matth. 26. and among others of this last Age Erasmus in Luc. cap. 3 22. Ludov. Vives in Introd ad Sap. J. Ferus lib. 4. Comment in Math. 7. Luc. 22. From hence it appears that there is so great a Connexion betwixt these two Precepts of Christ that as they were uttered and commanded by him at one and the same Time so the same way they were received by Men of all Ages not only in the First Promulgation by the little number of the Disciples but also after the Christians encreased in the first three hundred Years Even so also in the Apostasy the one was not left and rejected without the other and now again in the Restitution and renewed Preaching of the Eternal Gospel they are acknowledged as Eternal and Vnchangeable Laws properly belonging to the Evangelical State and Perfection thereof from which if any withdraw he falls short of the Perfection of a Christian Man And truly the Words are so clear in themselves The Laws of Christ in the New Testament are irreconcileable to Persecution Wars and Fighting that in my Judgment they need no Illustration to explain their Sense For it is more easie to reconcile the greatest Contradictions as these Laws of our Lord Jesus Christ with the wicked Practice of Wars for they are plainly inconsistent Whoever can reconcile this Resist not Evil with Resist Violence by Force again Give also thy other Cheek with strike again also Love thine Enemies with spoil them make a Prey of them pursue them with Fire and Sword or pray for those that persecute you and those that calumniate you which persecute them by Fines Imprisonments and Death it self and not only such as do not persecute you but who heartily seek and desire your Eternal and Temporal Welfare Whoever I say can find a means to reconcile these things may be supposed also to have found a way to reconcile God with the Devil Christ with Anti-christ Light with Darkness and Good with Evil. But if this be impossible as indeed it is impossible so will also the other be impossible and Men do but deceive both themselves and others while they boldly adventure to establish such Absurd and Impossible things § XIV Nevertheless because some perhaps through Inadvertency and by the Force of Custom and Tradition do transgress this Command of Christ I shall briefly shew how much War doth contradict this Precept and how much they are inconsistent with one another and consequently That War is no ways lawful to such as will be the Disciples of Christ. For First Christ commands That we should Love our Enemies But War on the contrary teacheth us to Hate and destroy them Matth. 5.43 Secondly The Apostle saith That we war not after the flesh and that we fight not with flesh and blood Eph. 6.12 But outward War is according to the Flesh and against Flesh and Blood for the shedding of the one and destroying of the other Thirdly The Apostle saith That the Weapons of our Warfare are not Carnal but Spiritual 2 Cor. 10.4 But the Weapons of outward Warfare are Carnal such as Cannon Muskets Spears Swords c. of which there is no mention in the Armour described by Paul Fourthly because James testifies That wars and strifes come from the lusts which war in the members of carnal men But Christians that is Ja. 4.1 Galat. 5.24 those that are truly Saints have crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts Therefore they cannot indulge them by waging War Fifthly because the Prophets Isaiah and Micah have expresly prophesied That in the Mountain of the house of the Lord Christ shall judge the Nations and then they shall beat their swords into plow-shares c. And the Antient Fathers of the first three hundred Years after Christ did affirm Is. 2.4 Primitive Christians most averse from War these Prophecies to be fulfilled in the Christians of their Times who were most averse from War concerning which Justin Martyr Tertullian and others may be seen Which need not seem strange to any Mich. 4.3 since Philo Judaeus abundantly testifies of the Esseans That there was none found among them that would make Instruments of War But how much more did Jesus come That he might keep his followers from fighting and might bring them to Patience and Charity Sixthly Because the Prophet foretold That there should none hurt nor kill in all the Holy Mountain of the Lord Is. 65.25 But outward War is appointed for Killing and Destroying Joh. 18.36 Seventhly Because Christ said That his Kingdom is not of this World and therefore that his Servants shall not Fight Therefore those that fight are not his Disciples nor Servants Eighthly Because he reproved Peter for the Use of the Sword saying Mat. 26.52 Put up again thy sword into his place for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword Concerning which Tertullian speaks well lib. de Idol How shall he fight in Peace without a Sword which the Lord did take away For although Soldiers came to John and received a Form of Observation if also the Centurion
painted Bread or a Discourse of Bread cannot satisfie the Natural Tast and Appetite A Discourse of Bread satisfies not the Hungry no more can the Scripture-Words satisfie the Tast and Appetite of the Soul They cite 2 Tim. 3.15 16 17. to prove That the Scriptures of Old and New Testmament are the Principal Compleat and Infallible Rule of Faith and Manners But this place doth not say that they are so The Scripture we grant but deny their Consequence Which is meerly begged without a Proof They Confess pag. 90. That the Scriptures are not sufficient every way so as to exclude the Inward Efficiency of the Spirit and the Concurrence of other Causes Very well Enough to overthrow their whole Argument Inward Revelation both Effective and Objective For among other Causes Divine Inspiration is a Main For indeed the inward Efficiency of the Spirit is that Objective Revelation which we plead for only they deny it to be Objective whereas we say it is both Effective and Objective As if a Man should grant that the Light and Heat of the Fire doth both enlighten us and warm us but deny that either that Light or Heat of the Fire is Objective to our discerning or perceptible by themselves which were ridiculous And as Ridiculous is their Conceit of an Influence of the Spirit that is meerly Effective and not Objective That the Books of the Old and New Testament are called the Scripture by way of Eminency we deny not although the Name is given at Times to other Writings nor doth this refute G. K. his Translation of that Scripture 2 Tim. 3.16 which is confirmed by the Syriack which hath it thus In Scriptura enim quae per Spiritum scripta est utilitas est ad doctrinam c. i. e. For in the Scripture which is written by the Spirit there is profit All Scripture given by Inspiration c. Controverted But their Reason from the Conjunction and is both Foolish and Blasphemous For if the Words be rendered thus All Scripture given by Inspiration is and profitable is no more Non-sense than divers other Places in the Scripture where the Conjunction and seemeth to be Redundant As in that Place Joh. 8.25 where the Greek hath it thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. The beginning or from the beginning the same which and * Or also I speak unto you Now if the Conjunction and render not this Place Non-sense no more doth it render that in Timothy But the Students Ignorance renders them rather Blasphemers and their Arguments Blasphemous against the Words of Christ. Moreover the Conjunction 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may signifie a strong Affirmation as to say even truly indeed as both our English Translation hath it Joh. 8.25 and Schrevelius in his Greek Lexicon doth render it And thus the Words have good Sense All Scripture or Writing given by Inspiration is even or indeed profitable And whereas they say None but a Quaker or Jesuit would so interpret the Place They declare their Malice and Ignorance For William Tindall that famous Protestant Martyr in his Translation of the Bible for which the Papists burnt him did Translate it as G. K. doth whom we think the Students dare not Accuse as a Jesuit That he was a Quaker in so far as he held divers of our Principles Condemned by the Students we shall not deny As for us we bless the Lord Unprofitable Nicities of the Letter-Mongers reprehended our Faith stands not on such a small Nicity as the want of an is or the redundancy of an and let them look to that whose Faith knoweth no other Foundation but the Letter It doth nothing hurt our Faith nor lessen the due Esteem of the Scripture to us if peradventure an is hath been lost or an and hath crept into the Text since the Original Copies were lost This we know and can prove That the Scripture cannot profit any Man to Salvation without the Illumination or Inspiration of the Spirit which is both Effective and Objective and which our Adversaries grant at least to be Effective And if they make one Exception why may not we make another Or if they say the Spirit is necessary one Way why may not we say It is necessary another Way But then the Scriptures say they would not be profitable at all in any Manner or Kind We deny the Consequence For it is profitable yea The Scripture is profitable and necessary in genere objecti materialis i. e as the material Object in Relation to all Historical Truths and divers other Dogmatical and Doctrinal Points which perhaps we would not have known without the Scripture although we had had the Spirit in as large a Measure as Men now have it Again The Scripture is profitable in genere Objecti remoti secundarii i. e. by way of a Remote and Secondary Object and Rule even as in relation to Testimonies of Life and Experience which may be known without the Scripture yet the Scripture is a Secondary Confirmation and Help even in that Case as a Card or Map of a Land is unto a Traveller that travels through the Land it self and seeth the High Ways who will not throw away his Card The Map compared with the Land in Possession because he sees the Land it self but will both delight and profit himself to Compare them both together Other great and weighty Uses we could give but these suffice to serve as Instances against their Weak and Sorry Argumentation Their last Argument is from Joh. 12.48 The Word that I have spoken the same shall judge him in the last day But how prove they That this is the Letter of the Scripture much of which was not then writ And although this Word were not Christ himself yet it may be an Inward Testimony spoken by Christ in Men's Hearts Here they meerly beg and prove not But 2. Suppose it were the Scripture or Written Law as that cited by them Rom. 2.12 it will only follow That the Scripture is a Secondary Law or Rule which we willingly grant and that by it Men who have the Scriptures shall be judged but not by them only For if the Gentiles who have not the written Law shall be judged by the Law in the Conscience so shall these also who have both Inward and Outward be judged by both and consequently their Damnation shall be greater SECTION V. Of Worship being an Answer unto their Third Section concerning Inspirations to Duty IN their stating the Controversy in this particular they grosly prevaricate in divers things As where they say N. 2. The Question is not only about Duty on the Matter videlicet The Act of Prayers Prayer without the Spirit not acceptable c. as separated from the right manner viz. Sincerity and Truth whereas indeed the Question betwixt them and us is about Prayer as separated from the Right Manner viz. Sincerity and Truth For they say God requires Men to
to Health by the Lord and we dare our Adversaries if they will deny this altogether and this is in a true sense Miraculous Yea Instances of this kind have been even among the People called Quakers and if it were altogether Ceased according to the Students Argument Prayer at least so as to pray to God to heal any Sick Person should Cease also It is better therefore to say That Anointing with Oil is ceased as being but a Figure Abstaining from Blood and things strangled the Ceremonial Law ceased Their Repeal of the Command to abstain from Blood and things strangled is not sufficiently proved from 1 Cor. 10.25 For let any read the whole Chapter and he shall find nothing said in it of Blood or things strangled That was not the Subject he was upon but things offered to Idols which we read not that they used to strangle The Sense is plain Whatsoever is sold in the Shambles whether offered to Idols or not that eat asking no Question if it be offered to an Idol or not Beside it is not usual to sell Flesh of Beasts strangled in the Shambles for they kill them otherwise than by strangling which is hurtfull to the Meat and if selling of strangled Flesh had been usual it would have been no Transgressing the Apostle's Rule if they had any Doubt to have asked If it was strangled For many will not eat Flesh that is strangled because it is not so good Nourishment although they have no Scruple of Conscience Yea the Primitive Christians even in Tertullian's time as he sheweth in his Apology Abstained from Blood and things strangled Wherein there was a great Providence of God to clear them of that horrid Falshood as if they did drink the Blood of Children By which it is clear they did not understand Paul's Words 1 Cor. 10.25 to be any Repeal It is therefore more safe to say that it being a part of the Ceremonial Law it is Repealed with the other Figures The Words of John He must increase but I must decrease The Decrease of John's and Increase of Christ's Baptism Joh. 3.30 they will not have to be understood of John's Baptism wherein they are not only contrary to many of their own Church as could be shewn but also to the Scripture it self For it is most clear That John spake this with a particular Relation to his Baptism When they came to him and told him That Christ Baptized c. On this he said That Christ was to Increase meaning Christ's Baptism not with Water but with the Holy Ghost for Christ baptized none with Water himself and he that is his Baptism must Decrease not his true Honour and Vertue And the Disciples he gathered was unto Christ. But that John's Baptism was much practised proveth it no more a standing Command than other things of the Law In the last Place they alledge That Peter commanded Cornelius and others with him to be baptized Peter's Commanding Cornelius and them to be Baptized answered out of a necessity arising from a Divine Precept But their Proofs are weak For 1. We ought to do all things in the Name of the Lord when we eat or drink or journey but yet all things are not Commanded but some left to our Freedom 2. Peter in his Sermon told Cornelius nothing of Water-Baptism and when after he spoke of it he did not tell him That he ought to do it out of a necessity arising from a Divine Precept let them prove it if they can 3. Whereas they alledge That Peter was accused by the Disciples for administring Water-Baptism to Cornelius from Acts 11. It is a manifest Vntruth for there is no such thing either in their Accusation or his Answer as may be seen if any will read the Chapter They accused him for going in to them and eating with them and this was all the Accusation And though they had the Students Consequence doth not follow for if the Law of Charity obliged him to Baptize them his Refusal would have been a withstanding of God SECTION VII Of the MINISTRY Being an Answer to their Fifth Section Concerning the MINISTRY IN the first part of their Section they plead That a Man who is an Hypocrite and graceless may be a true and lawful Pastor yet they grant That none ought to be admitted into the Ministry but such as ex judicio charitatis id est out of the Judgment of Charity is to be esteemed truly pious By which Acknowledgment they destroy with their own Hands any seeming Strength that lies in their own Arguments as will appear by a particular Examination of them Their First Reason is taken from Many Jewish Priests and High-Priests and many Scribes and Pharisees in Christ's time who were Ministers of God's Word and yet who will say they were endued with sanctifying Grace To which we answer That they were Ministers of God's Word Ministers of the Gospel and of the Law and Shadows differ or of the Gospel is denied for they were but Ministers of the Law and legal Performances Types Figures and Shadows and as that Legal Dispensation was but Imperfect in Respect of the Gospel so the Priesthood and Ministry of it therefore both were to pass away So that to argue from the Law to the Gospel is not Equal more than to Argue that because the Ministers of the Law were Ministers of the Figures and Types that therefore the Ministers of the Gospel should be the same yea we may draw an Argument from the outward and Legal Qualifications of the Priests that none but truly Holy should or ought to be Ministers under the Gospel For as under the Law none were to be Priests but those who came of Levi a Figure of Christ Levi a Figure of Christ. so under the Gospel none are to be Ministers but who by a Spiritural Birth and Nativity are of Christ. And as under the Law none that were Lame and blind Corporally were to be Legal Ministers The Lame and Blind no Legal Ministers so under the Gospel none that are Lame and Blind Spiritually are to be Gospel-Ministers But all that want true Holiness are Lame and Blind Spiritually Therefore c. Again many of these Jewish Priests Scribes and Pharisees were openly and manifestly Impious especially in the time of Christ his being in the Flesh and could not be esteemed truly Pious in the Judgment of Charity and so if the Argument hold it proves that Men may be admitted and owned to be Ministers of the Gospel that are not Pious in the Judgment of Charity The Students plead for a Graceless Ministry The like may be said of Judas whom they take in their Second Argument to patronize a Graceless Ministry For if Judas was a Devil from the beginning certainly Christ did know him to be so and therefore could not in the Judgment of Charity esteem him to be truly Pious how could he then Admit him But as for Judas they alledge
doubt that Five of the Ten Letters subscribed with her Husband's Name were not his she could not know the Certainty but by her Husband 's own Testimony and since he himself has said That to Discern these Characters a Subjective Concurrence of the Spirit is necessary Which since he saith some have not they can then not be sure of this Article of Faith His Example of the Five Fingers is yet more silly than the former And albeit he confidently Affirms he has above shewn this we shall by Examining it shew the Contrary As p. 74. and 75. answering to that of mine The Prohibition of not Adding to Prophecy considered where I shew that in Prov. 30.5.6 there is the same Prohibition of Not adding that is Rev. 22. ver 18. and therefore it would follow That all written after Solomon 's time was against the mind of God To this he gives a rare Answer What is spoken of that Book I suppose he means the Revelations and elsewhere of the Commands of God is consequently to be understood of all But this is to Repeat that against which the Argument is formed instead of Answering it Either that of Revelations must not be understood as he doth it or that of Proverbs makes the same Exclusion since the words are the same and the Authority also But the Prophecies of the Prophets saith he were but Explications of the Law of God But such Explications go to make up the Canon and will he admit that yet No. But the Lord did not saith he bind up his own hand but has he bound up his hands now that he cannot move any of his Servants by his Spirit to write I suppose he will not say he hath He Confesseth there were Prophets after John's days who truly foretold Events but were not to write Scripture But is not a part of that which he accounts the Canon a fore-telling of Events And yet that excludes it not from the Canon Here because he is pinched he takes his usual Retreat by falling a Railing and Comparing us with Papists who he saith use this Argument And what then I could tell him an hundred Arguments used by him which the Papists also use against us will he say it follows they are Invalid But at last he thinks he has found a Mysterious Riddle that will do the business and therefore he leaves it with a Defiance J. B's query of a Compleat Canon and Revelations ended Let him un-riddle this Mystery if he can to wit When shall our Canon be Compleated When will there be no more need of Revelations But might not this same Question have been proposed to the Christians that lived before John wrote his Book of the Revelation And as I suppose They would have Answered to many of whom perhaps it was not Revealed that John should write such a Book afterwards so shall I directly Answer his Question When it shall please God in whose Power it is to Reveal himself when how and so long as he pleases and who as he saith has not bound up his own Hand ¶ 4. I come now to consider what he saith of the Perfection of the Scriptures And because he is very Clamorous in accusing me as derogating there-from it will be manifest whether he has any reason so to do P. 55. n. 6. he quarrels I forget the Narration of the first Creation and that the Examples are Instructive But who will deny or when did I that the Remarkable Providences of God towards his Children are Instructive Do not I expresly shew how they are Instructive p. 46. * See above p. 304 305. which himself also noticeth And was the first Creation no part of God's Providence towards Man who was to Rule over it Is it not then there Included But I make no mention of the Promises and Threatnings But are not they any part of the Doctrines of Christ nor included in any part of these precious Declarations which I say the Scripture Contains Next he Carps at my saying The Chief Doctrines of Christianity asking Where we may find the whole Doctrines of the Christian Faith I answer freely In the Scriptures And let him prove if he can this to be any Contradiction seeing my saying The Chief Doctrines of Christianity is Indefinite excluding none And therefore most base and abominable is that Lye he makes of me in the last part of this Paragraph where he saith I say the Scripture only beareth Testimony to some of them to wit of the Chief Heads of Christianity which I dare him to prove ever to have been said or written by me And of the like nature are his lying Conjectures and his malitious Insinuations from my Words in the two following Paragraphs which I utterly Renounce and Return upon him as his own false and fictitious Apprehensions The Authority of the Scriptures is from the Spirit For do not I declare the Authority of the Scripture when I Testify They are from the Spirit and that such Commands require Obedience as has been above shew'n But what he urgeth of this further p. 57. and 59. from the saying of some Quakers affirming That is not a Command to them which is given to another Albeit I might justly reject it as Impertinent till he prove it for the Reasons upon this occasion above declared yet because he mentions Benjamin Furly in Roterdam having some knowledge of that matter I answer Whether will he say All the Commands in Scripture to every Person there mentioned are binding upon every Individual now If he dare not say they are as I know he dare not how must I then distinguish betwixt what binds me and binds me not Must it not be by the Spirit suppose it were only subjectively as he will Confess Inlightning the Vnderstanding To make this Distinction then it seems it is the Operation of the Spirit that makes them know their Duty and sure they cannot Obey before they Know. But if he say That though they should want that Operation of the Spirit and did not know nor acknowledge them to be their Duty yet they are binding upon them Neither B. F. nor any Quaker will deny but even the Commands of God's Spirit and the Precepts of the Scripture which now concern all are binding upon all so that they shall be justly Condemned for not Obeying albeit that by the perversness of their Hearts and Wills they either Refuse to Obey or will not Acknowledge them So that his urging of that p. 60. and 61. n. 13. and his pleading for it is Vnnecessary and needs no Answer yet who would say they could Obey to any Advantage of their Souls without this Operation of the Spirit since Whatsoever is not of Faith is Sin But as to these words said to be written by B. F. he is here Challenged to prove They are his without adding or diminishing and it 's well known the adding or diminishing of two or three words in a few Lines will quite alter the
Answered His first is from the Parable Luke 16.31 where it is said They have Moses and the Prophets whom if they hear not neither will they be perswaded if one be raised from the Dead But this proves only that one raised from the Dead is not able to Convince those that will not hear Moses and the Prophets not that the Scripture is a more Primary and Principal Rule than what the Spirit Immediately reveals in the Soul For that Consequence will not nor doth follow nor is in the least proved by him neither can be unless he first prove that albeit the Testimony of one from the Dead be less powerful to perswade than the Scriptures yet it is more than the Immediate Testimony of the Spirit in the Heart which I deny and rests for him to prove before he Conclude any thing from this Place Next this Parable was used by Christ to the Jews to shew them their Hypocrisy who albeit they deceitfully pretended so much to Reverence and follow Moses and the Prophets as many now adays do the Scriptures yet they did not really hear them else they would have acknowledged him of whom Moses and the Prophets did so clearly write Since he also did as Great and Convincing Miracles before them as if they had the Testimony of one raised from the Dead And this leads me to take notice of what he saith p. 68. n. 24. in answer to my Argument drawn from the difference betwixt the Law that is written without and the Gospel that is written within where he accuseth me of Contradiction because of my Argument drawn from the Revelations that were under the Law and the Sameness of the Object But I have answered this Cavil in the former Section Yet since the Strength of this resolves in his supposing I Affirm There is no written Rule under the Gospel which he after Concludes the whole falleth to the Ground For I never denied the Scripture to be a secondary Rule and that is some Rule for to Say I Affirm There is no written Rule because the Written is not the Primary is a wild Conclusion And therefore all the rest of his Talk to prove That Christ Inspired the Apostles to write things to be a Rule to Christians is meerly superfluous since that that is a Rule though not the Primary was never denied by me And it may be here observed that all his Arguments to prove the Scripture to be a Rule unless they prove them to be the primary and principal One Conclude nothing and are against me to no purpose II. Their making Wise to Salvation and Perfection Answered ¶ 7. His Second Argument is deduced from 2 Tim. 3.16 where he cites the Apostle saying of the Scriptures They are able to make wise unto Salvation and to make the Man of God perfect Where is first to be observed his perverting of the Apostle's Words by an Addition of his own and therefore no wonder that he so frequently pervert mine For the Apostle saith not They are able to make the Man of God perfect but all Scripture given by Inspiration is that the Man of God may be perfect that is Contributeth in its Kind and Order towards the Perfection of the Saints But it follows not thence that they are the Primary Rule no more than though J. B. will affirm that his Book is written That the Man of God may be perfect that is to help him to Perfection that thence it is to be Esteemed the Primary and Chief Rule Thus is answered that of John 20.31 But these are written that ye may believe c. cited by him p. 74. for his Book is also written for that End yet the Consequence will not follow That they are able to make wise unto Salvation is not denied in so far as they declare of the Grace that brings Salvation and direct to the Light which leads to it But how he thence Inferreth They are the Primary Rule he must inform us the next time since he has forgotten to do it now And this may serve to Answer those Places where he according to his Custom Repeats it over and over again as p. 74 77 and 82. where he hath again the fore-mentioned Perversion and ennumerates the particular Vses applied to the Scripture he concludeth its Perfection as wanting nothing Now I deny not Perfection of the Scriptures urged by J. B. to make them the Primary Rule or Canno that every Book as well as Chapter and Verse of Scripture is Perfect as to its End that is so far to express the Mind of God as he was pleased at that time and also with a Respect to its Author as being written by the Dictates of the Spirit but that Place will not Conclude its Perfection either as the Primary Only or Adequate that is Entire Rule Else all the other Scriptures which were written after that Epistle of Paul as he will not deny but there were some so written must be denied being any part of the Rule and so to be any way necessary for that End The like Absurdities follow upon his using 2 Cor. 3.14 where the Apostle speaks of a Testament since he dare not deny a great part of that Testament was written afterwards And thus is also answered what he urges from Psal. 19.7 pag. 74 and 79. The Law of the Lord is perfect c. and from other Scriptures of like Import For if he understand Perfection in the first Sense it is not denied if in the Second which indeed is the Question it concludeth nothing without rendring all the Scripture written afterwards no part of the Rule or Canon to use his own Term. As for that of Peter which he insists upon in the End of his Paragraph p. 70. I deny it to be understood of the Scripture and gave my Reasons before and yet the Man takes that for Granted and thence Argues from it which is a most silly manner albeit very Familiar to him to beg the Question ¶ 8. Next he comes to Consider my Answer to their Objections but how he Removes them may be judged by the first he Observes p. 71. where instead of proving That these Words of Isa 8.20 usually brought by them To the Law and to the Testiny c. are meant of the Scripture which I desired ere any thing could be Inferred for it He Answers As if any that ever read the Bible could be Ignorant what is all along meaned by these Words Is not this a goodly Proof Reader I am one that have read the Bible and know by the Law is sometimes meant the Outward sometimes the Inward and Thousands more are yet to be Convinced J. B's goodly Proof for what is meant by Law and Testimony that that Place speaks only of the Outward And will need some better Argument than this of his ere we Change our Judgment But to proceed He thinks my saying That the Law was in a more special manner given to the Jews and more
principally than to us to be a Railing and Roving and a Contradicting what I said in the former These But this Cavil often repeated before I did Answer above The like he Judgeth my Arguing there-from That as they were to Try all things by the outward Law so we are to Try all in the First Place by the Word within But here his base Disingenuity appears For he has leftâ—out these Words In the first Place that he might introduce the better the difficulty he fancieth to himself to have brought me to afterwards for by this Argument saith he I prove more than I ought to wit that the Scriptures shall not be so much as a less principal Rule Who will be so foolish as to Conclude that the saying Things ought in the first Place to be tried by the Word within The Scriptures a secondary and subordinate Rule excludes things in the second Place to be Tried by the Scriptures and is not that still to own it as a Secondary and subordinate Rule And so he may see my Feet here are easily Rid and that he held them not so fast as he fancied And as for the other part of his Alternative the Consequence is of the like Nature That what was a Principal Rule then is now only subordinate For albeit I said it was more Principal to them than now to us yet I said not it was the most Principal to them or then more Principal than what came immediately from the Spirit which he Confesseth to have been frequent under the Law yea more frequent than now according to his Principle and my saying so could only Infer that Consequence He Rejects what I urge from the Version of the Septuagint as spurious but for that we must take his Word else want a Proof And then because he cannot come off better according to his Custom he Concludes with a gross Perversion and Falshood saying It is my Opinion that the Law idâ—est the outward Law was given the Jews for a Rule even above the Spirit 's Revelations Which if it be mine as I utterly Renounce it I desire to know where I have Asserted it he might have been at the Pains to mark it but he knew it's like it was not Convenient Scriptures to be searched makes them not the Primary Rule Next he comes to prove that these Words Search the Scriptures c. Joh. 5.39 do Evince The Scriptures to be the Primary and Adequate Rule because if Christ's Doctrines should be Tried by them much more private Enthusiasms But who denies that Yet he doth not thence prove that the Scriptures are the Primary Rule by which all things must be Tried in the first Place which is the thing in Question Secondly I would ask him Whether the Words Christ spake to the Jews which are Recorded in Scripture were less a Rule to them or less binding and obliging upon them than the Sayings of Moses and the Prophets If he say They were less then he overturns all his own tedious Reasonings by which he labours to prove the Obligation of what Christ and the Apostles delivered p. 84. at the end as well as what Moses and the Prophets without the need of a New Obligation And likewise he must shew us how these Sayings come to be as binding upon us now as Moses and the Prophets or how they acquired greater Authority after Christ spake them than they had then Or why they wanted then that Authority If he say They were binding and obliging to the Jews because spoken by Christ then his Proof falleth to the Ground He is Angry that I say The Words may be interpreted Ye search the Scriptures as well as Search the Scriptures albeit the Greek Word signify the one as well as the other and for Answer very Magisterially tells 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ye Search and search ye It is quite Contrary to the very Words of Command Search the Scriptures But the Question is Whether that be the Words and that was what he should have proved But he makes no Bounds of begging the Question telling Tolet and Maldonat say It is so taken by all the Fathers except Cyrill And what then Did I undertake to subscribe to all these Authors Writings He must give me a Reason Why ere I do it And let him deny it if he dare that the Greek Word signifies Ye search the Scriptures as well as Search the Scriptures and if it do before I conclude the one more than the other I must have some better Argument than his bare Affirmation But to finish this he will conclude all by the Words of the Apostle James c. 1. v. 25. where he saith The Apostle calleth the Scriptures the perfect Law of Liberty The Perfect Law of Liberty the Royal Law in the Heart But that doth not prove them to be the Primary Rule Suppose it were granted the Apostle meant the Scriptures which remains yet by him to be proved and is not done by what he citeth Chap. 2.8 by his desiring them to Fulfil the Royal Law according to Scripture Thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thy self which proves it not at all Yea to understand it of the Scriptures were to make the Apostle's Words scarce good Sense as if he had said Fulfil the Scriptures according to the Scriptures whereas it sutes the Place much better that the Apostle meaned They should fulfil the Royal Law in their Hearts which was one with the Scriptures that also command the same thing That the Apostle means the outward Law and not that Written in the Heart Chap. 4. 12. he hath Affirmed but not Proved Next Beroeans commended for searching the Scriptures he comes to the Beroeans being commended for Searching the Scriptures Acts 17.11 But this is the same way answered as the former For if the Beroeans were obliged to believe and receive Paul's Testimony because he preached the Truth to them by Authority from God then their Vsing or his Commending them for using the Scripture will not prove the Scripture to be the Primary Rule yea more a Rule than the Doctrine they Tried by it In the the rest of what he saith in this n. 28. he but fights with his Shadow for I never said They excluded the Law of Nature in affirming the Scripture to be the Rule or did I ever deny but that the Scripture Reveals things which Nature could never have Discovered But the Question is Whether that Truth that Man is the Off-spring of God from which the Apostle argues with the Athenians was discovered to any by meer Nature or by a Divine Principle And this is that he should have proved and therefore yet remains for him to do But to be like himself he concludes this also withh a gross Lie saying I affirm the Scripture to be no more our Rule than the Heathen-Poets which no ways follows from my Words neither hath or can he ever prove it ¶ 9. He thinks The Scriptures not determining of many
Lives is no New-Coin'd Doctrine as those may see that will read Athanasius de Definitionibus and his Third Dialogue de Trinitate and Fourth Oration against the Arians and Cyrillus Alexandrinus in his Treatise upon John lib. 2. and 3. and lib. 8.47 and in his Thesaurus lib. 4. and Others that might be mentioned As for his arguing p. 96 that because I affirm The Seed of God is a Substance therefore according to me the Seed of Sin must be a Substance also which Consequence I deny and therefore what he builds against me upon this Supposition falls to the ground What he saith here and there scattered in these Pages of the Light will in its proper place come more fully to be Considered ¶ 2. Pag. 98. n. 17. after he has saluted me with the Titles of Effronted and Impudent he will have me one with Socinians and Pelagians because I deny Outward Death to be a Consequence of the Fall but where he proves I do so I see not It 's true I say The death threatned Gen. 2.17 was not outward death Adam did not die an outward Death the day he did Eat for Adam did not so die the Day he did eat and I do still believe so neither offereth he me any thing to give me ground to alter my mind but to Conclude thence I deny Outward Death to be a Consequence of the Fall was too hastily Inferred But what if I were Vndetermined in this matter and that it remained a Mystery to me for I believe not the being positive therein Essential to my Salvation which if I were truly what he saith seems not to me sufficient to Proselite me to his Opinion For albeit I willingly Confess with him that Sickness and all the other Miseries attending this Life yea and Death it self considering the Anguishes wherewith it is now generally accompanied are the Consequence of the Fall and of Sin yet I see not how it would thence follow that Adam should not have died seeing Death to him if he had not fall'n would have been freed of all these Miseries and rather a Pleasure than a Pain which has been known to have befall'n many Saints As for his n. 19. he Confesseth the matter of it is left to the next Chapter where I may meet him ¶ 3. Pag. 100. n. 20. He goes on at an high rate of Perverting For after he has said Who would suspect but I mean honestly He applieth to me the saying of Solomon He that hateth dissembleth with his Lips we must not believe him for there are seven Abominations in his heart But why am I with him guilty of this great Charge Because albeit I affirm That Man is wholly degenerate yet I say Whatever good Man doth in his Nature that doth not proceed from him but from the Divine Seed in him Answ. These words are none of mine but a Forgery of his own so incident it is for the Man to lie and pervert And therefore all his vapouring and absurd Inferences drawn from this throughout this Paragraph fall to the ground My words are That the nature by which the Apostle saith the Gentiles did the things Contained in the Law How the Gentiles did the things of the Law cannot be understood of the proper Corrupt Nature of Man but of a Spiritual Nature which proceedeth from the Seed of God as he receiveth a New Visitation of the Divine Love Where it is very plain I consider Man as visited a-new and that in the Strength of that Grace thereby received not of his degenerate Nature he doth that which is good Nor do I any where say as he falsly insinuates That this Spiritual Nature is in all Men though I do say That all Men are visited by God in order to beget this spiritual Nature in them as will after come in its place to be spoken of Now all his battering of this my Assertion in the three following pages depends upon this Supposition That the good Acts done by the Gentiles are not done by vertue of any such Visitation but only by a Light of Corrupt Nature which remained in them after the Fall So that it is but a meer begging of the Question until that be first debated But he thinks he has brought me under a great Dilemma p. 103. urging That since I say All their Imaginations are Evil I must say Every Heathen has this Spiritual Nature in him yea and the Devils must be Partakers of it because they believe there is a God which is a good Thought Answ. The difference between Head-Knowledge and the partaking of the Divine Nature He is too hasty in his Reasonings for that the knowledge a Man may receive from the Divine Seed makes him instantly to partake of the Divine Nature is not proved by him and he knows I believe all Men to be Visited by this Divine Seed which may give them an Head knowledge which they may retain as some Men do the Truth in Vnrighteousness and yet not receive it in the Love of it So though they have it from a Divine Seed yet it will not follow they must necessarily so receive it as to become Partakers of the Divine Nature And as for the Devils he will Confess that once they had this Knowledge from a Spiritual Nature and though they have fall'n yet they may retain the Memory of it for that their Fall and Man's is every way alike he will not Affirm He saith p. 102. That to believe good done by Heathens that is by such as have not the benefit of the outward Knowledge of Christ is done in vertue of a Divine Seed overturns the Gospel but he leaves the Confirmation of it to the Sequel where I shall attend him N. 25. he tells me very fairly The Apostle doth not Contradict himself as if I had ever imagined he did but the question is Whether the Meaning he gives the Apostle's words implies not a Contradiction which indeed he can no ways Reconcile but upon the Supposition above denied And the Reader may judge whether he or I do most fully acknowledge Man's fall and most truly Exalt the Grace of God he that affirmeth That Man notwithstanding the Fall yet retaineth some Reliques of the Image of God yea so that the Law of God which is Holy Just Good and Spiritual is written in his Heart pag. 105. and all this Considered as fall'n Man without receiving any Grace and Benefit from Christ or I J. B's false Assertions that Man retained some Relicks of the Image of God in the Fall who affirm That Man by the Fall was wholly degenerated retaining nothing of the Image of God in whom albeit there remained a Seed of Righteousness yet no other ways than as a Naked Seed in Barren Ground in vertue of which he can do nothing until visited by a New Visitation which he receives by vertue of Christ as Mediator And yet while he ascribeth all this to Vnregenerate Men he saith in a few Lines
Singular Number as if thence he would Infer that One Sin is only Transmitted But how he proves his Consequence thence he has not shewen For albeit by that first Offence he gave Entrance for Sin that being his First yet it will not follow he then ceased to be a publick Person and if not nothing can be proved from granting him to be such as is above observed As by the Offence of one c. Objected Next the Words are The Offence of one and not One Offence as he would Insinuate which though in the Singular Number may include many yea all his Offences For whatever way he seek to urge this from this Place as to Adam the parallel will allow it to be Interpreted of Christ where the Apostle speaking of his Righteousness useth also the Singular Number and thence according to him we might say that it is only the first Act of Christ's Righteousness that is Imputed unto us and none of the rest so that we have nothing to do with his Death Sufferings and Resurrection What thinks he now of his own Divinity Let him loose his Knot the next time to give him one of his own modestest Proverbs The Absurdity he seeks to draw from denying this Consequence of his being a publick Person That if Adam had stood Infants should have no Advantage by him since they have no hurt by his Fall Toucheth not me at all who no where say That Infants have no Hurt by Adam's Fall Adam by his Fall became obnoxious to Temptations Adam by his Fall lost his Glory his Strength his Dominion by which he could have easily withstood the Devil and came under great Weakness whereby the Enemy's Tentations had a ready Access to him and he became very obnoxious to fall under them And so all his Posterity are come under the same Weakness and Obnoxiousness to the Enemy's Tentations who influenceth them by Entring into them and powerfully Inclining them to Sin and this malignant Influence is that Seed of Sin in all Men whereunto they become obnoxious by reason of the Fall which though in it self really Sin yet is it not Man's but the Devil 's until Man give Way to it But I deny not but the least yielding is Man's Sin among which I reckon Concupiscence to be one and so differ from Papists For albeit the Tentation simply considered or as presented by the Devil be not Man's Sin yet if he have the least Love or Desire to it albeit he join not Actually that shews his Mind is already defiled and corrupted and that he is become a Partaker of it Thus are answered his Reasonings and Questionings How this Seed of Sin can be and yet not the Persons Sin p. 121 122 c. as the Reader by Comparing may observe Only it is remarkable p. 121. where he seems to put a great Stress upon the Judgment of Augustin and citing him he brings him in saying these Words among others concerning Infants Shall they sin that are under no Command Now since they Infants are under no Law who are under no Command are under no Law for every Law imports a Command how will he reconcile this saying or his Holy Father which he brings as a matter of Authority with his accounting it both foolish and strange in me p. 119. to prove Children are under no Law J. B. taken in his own Snare So that either the Authority of Augustin he brings is not to be regarded or his Reasonings to prove Children under a Law that is a Command must be naught let him chuse which he will and clear himself of Impertinency His Argument in this page That as the Seed of Grace denominates a Man gracious even while not exercising works of Grace so the Seed of Sin must denominate a Man sinful is but a begging of the Question as in its place will appear when I come to treat of the Seed of Grace ¶ 7. When he cometh p. 123. n. 18. to Reply to my Answer to their Objection Rom. 5.12 among his preliminary Observations the first is very proper where he saith It is observable the Apostle makes Comparison betwixt Adam and Christ. I answer As Christ's Righteousness so Adam's Vnrighteousness is not Imputed to Men before actual Joining with either It is indeed so for as the Righteousness of Christ is not imputed to Men for Justification until they actually Join with it or apprehend it by Faith as himself will acknowledge for I suppose by his accounting the Antinomians Hereticks he will not with them affirm that Men are Justified before they believe so neither is the Vnrighteousness and Disobedience of Adam Imputed to Men for Condemnation until they actually Join with it but this Comparison spoils all his Doctrine Then after he has beg'd the Question a while by meer Allegations affirming his Doctrine to be so clear from the Apostle's words that it cannot be Contradicted without doing violence to the Text he forms an Argument thus That Sin which is so described to us by the Apostle that he saith it brought Death upon all Men that Men sinned by it and were made Sinners even they who could not as yet actually Sin that thereby all became guilty of Death and of Condemnation that Sin by Imputation is the Sin of the whole Nature included in Adam and rendreth the whole Nature obnoxious to Death and to Condemnation But The first Sin of Adam is described to us by the Apostle c. Ergo That Sin is the Sin of Nature c. This Argument may perhaps satisfy such as are already Proselites of his Theam but will not Convince one that either believes other ways or doubts since the Major is a meer begging of the Question And if any thing be a foisting-in of words to the Text this must be it since he foists-in the thing in Debate and words not in the Text such as Even they J. B. foist 's in words of his own to deceive his Reader who could not as yet actually Sin and joineth them with the words of the Text without distinction and not as an Interpretation that his unwary Reader may Conclude them to be of the Text. And yet the Man has the Impudence in the same page to Accuse me of Intolerable Boldness as foisting words into the Text while I expresly shew it is but an Interpretation by saying That is c. so much is he blinded with Self-Interest but I am Content there be neither Addition nor so much as Consequence made use of Let him shew me the plain Scripture that saith Infants are guilty of Adam 's Sin If he say It must be necessarily Inferred from these words in whom all have sinned I say it as necessarily follows that it is only to be understood of all that could sin which Infants could not as not being under any Law as I have above proved and Augustin whom he so much reverenceth doth affirm if his Citation from him be true And
being a Theam much debated and Common to us with others I might pass it by with a Reference to those Authors who largely Treat of them yet I will take notice of what he saith in direct Answer to what by me is Affirmed And first as for his Accusation of me as not being positive and punctual enough in setting down my Judgment of the Decrees of Election and Reprobation It is of no weight All do at Times Confess That it is not Safe nor Proper too curiously to Inquire into the Decrees of God though this Man dive into them and be as positive in telling the several Causes of them as if he were upon the Secret Counsel of the Almighty I judge I have said that which is needful and sufficient God calleth every Man to Repentance and Salvation who has not fore-ordained any to be Damned to wit that God calleth Every Man Every where to Repent and be Saved through Faith in Jesus Christ who tasted Death for every Every Man and is given for a Light to inlighten the Gentiles and to be God's Salvation to the Ends of the Earth And therefore that Every Man ought to Apply himself to Repent and Believe and Obey without believing That God has fore-ordained him to be Damned and therefore has with-held from him Grace and Power to do what he finds himself Commanded and Obliged to do Which if it were true as he supposeth it to be of most Men there can be no Reason Why they ought not to believe the Truth If he say they either ought or need not because they know it not Let him remember what Pains he has been at in the former Chapter to prove That Ignorance of a Truth doth not take away the Obligation of believing it So he must either overturn all or be Content this Absurdity stick to his Doctrine As for his saying That the Opposers of it do Arraign God and give a Sign of their Pride and Arrogancy because they cannot Comprehend it with their Corrupt and Blinded Vnderstandings it is but a silly begging of the Question And supposing it to be true thus every Impostor might Intrude upon Sober Christians Wild Absurd and Non-sensical Notions contrary to God's Justice and Mercy and because they would not Accept of them tell them They Arraign God are proud and arrogant and not receiving the Truth because not Comprehended by their Corrupt Vnderstandings Would not this thinks he be wisely Reasoned But pag. 135. n. 3. he thinks I run so furiously against this Doctrine that I run my self blind And why so because I say They Affirm That God did predestinate to Everlasting Damnation the most part of Men without any respect had to their Sin only to demonstrate the Glory of his Justice And upon this he Rants as a ridiculous and false Representation of their Meaning But this Storm is quickly blown away for all his great Noise For their Westminster Confession of Faith saith Ch. 3. expresly Westminster Confession falsly says That some are Ordained by God for Wrath. That GOD ordained such as are not Elected for Dishonour and Wrath to the Praise of his Glorious Justice And the same Confession saith in the same Chapter That nothing future or what was to come even as fore-seen by God was the Cause of God's Decree and this himself also affirms p. 137 138 139. What then is become of all his Boast But if he place it here and say Sin became the Cause so soon as To demonstrate the Glory of his Justice became the End and therefore they say It was for their Sin he so Decreed This may serve for a Rattle to please Fools and Children but not such as are spiritually Wise and look more narrowly unto things since they so manifestly Contradict themselves telling Sin nor any future thing is not the Cause of God's Decree and yet in a few Lines That God Ordained or Decreed Men to Wrath for their Sin to manifest the Glory of his Justice Which is as much as to say God Decreed Men to be Damned without respect to Sin and yet he decreed them to be damned for their Sin How makes he this hang together by Scripture-Proofs Besides all will Confess that the Cause of all God's Decrees is his own Glory which is exerted in his Divine Attributes whereof Justice is one so that this must be a Cause before Sin can have any Place to be a Cause since they deny it has any He tells me p. 136. n. 5. That the Orthodox have written copiously on this Subject and very far above my Reach There was the less need then for him to write so many pages upon it which must be little but a Transcribing out of their Writings unless he think he has written more accurately and copiously than any of them which I judge he will hardly affirm I might easily If I would trouble the Reader with a tedious Discourse also Transcribe an Answer out of those who write Copiously against these his supposed Orthodox but truly Heterodox men but I rather chuse to pass it by not affecting to be Admired for the Bulk of my Writings to come to what he saith directly in Answer to me which is the Business properly in hand ¶ 2. After he has premised what he thinks meet he comes p. 143. n. 12. to take notice of what I say and first wherein I misrepresent them in which he saith he has found no less than twelve Vntruths But how Vntrue this Assertion is shall shortly appear The first is that I say God for perfecting of this that is for bringing his Decree to pass did appoint that these miserable Souls should necessarily sin this he saith is a Mistake But if the Testimonies of Calvin Zanchius Piscator and others cited by me whose Testimonies must have more Weight than his to prove the Calvinists Principle in this do not prove this to be no Mistake Calvinists Principle That God Predestinates Men to Sin and to the Causes of it then I may Conclude that 2 and 3 makes not 5. Calvin saith That God not only predestinated Men to Sin but to the Causes of it which is Sin The Reader may look the other Passage of it in my Apology Several of his other Vntruths p. 144. he builds upon supposing that I Insinuate That they believe the Gospel is once preached to every person That every Reprobate had the Knowledge of Christ and that God had given to every one that heareth the Gospel sufficient Grace to embrace it But truly I was never so Mad as to Insinuate they believed these things for not believing of which I Condemn them Neither will his Pedantism upon the Word subtrahendo make it out since to Withdraw or With hold may be said of things that Man never had without any great Impropriety And yet according to him all Men had a Will and Power to obey God's Law in Adam so his Ordaining Adam should fall was even in that Sense a Withdrawing of what
Necessity to Salvation But why are they and they only Excepted In which resolves my Question which doth so vex him that instead of answering he tells me I am a deluded Quaker of which this is one Is not one in China or India as excusable for not knowing that which they never heard as a deaf Man that cannot hear since God that has permitted the one to be naturally Deaf has also permitted the other to be necessarily Absent To this I cannot find his Answer save only this That these Deaf Persons and Infants are Members of the Visible Church but not the other Of which this must be the Consequence That none can be saved but such as are Members of the Visible Church for his saying That none are Members of the Invisible Church but such as are of the Visible clearly imports it But has not he or at least the most-Eminent of his Way said That the Church was many Ages Invisible and in the Wilderness and yet denied that all were damned during that Time Or will he say The Church of Rome was the Visible Church of Christ all that Time of which they were Members What then becomes of the Testimonies of those who termed her Anti-Christ the Mother of Abominations the Synagogue of Satan which albeit True ye◠begins to be Eaten up again by the Clergy yea even the Presbyterians who begin by degrees to Creep back again to acknowledge their Old Father the Pope to establish their Succession and Ordination especially when pinched by by the Quakers as is at more length shewn in G. Keith's Book called Quakerism no Popery Outward Hearing makes no Church-Member But further It seems the outward Hearing is not necessary to make a Man a Member of the Visible Church and then what becomes of all his tedious Reasonings from Rom. 10. How shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard which he urged before so vehemently but now has overturned He thinks the Instance of Cornelius not to the purpose because he might have had the Knowledge of the Messias from the Jews But his bare Supposition is no Answer Besides that he was no Jews Proselyte is manifest else Peter should not have been quarrelled for Conversing with him and unless he had been such or had received the Gospel according to him he must be esteemed to have been within the Covenant And yet before any of these he is said to have been Heard of God and Accepted Pag. 289. He confesseth Job lived before Moses and was taught of God without Scripture And then is it not thence manifest that some have been saved to whom the Gospel was not preached by the Ministry of Men This also overturneth his Arguments from Rom. 10. Because he knows not how to answer my Argument drawn from Rom. 2. therefore to amuse his Reader he raises a Storm of Railing calling me no less with an Exclamation than a Miserable Miscreant who make the Apostle contradict himself My Argument lies in the Apostle's positive Words who saith The Gentiles did the things contained in the Law The Apostle does not contradict himself in saying The Doers of the Law are Justified and again in the same Chapter ver 13. The doers of the Law are Justified Whence in the very Words of the Apostle without any Commentary I argue That if the doers of the Law be Justified then the Gentiles who did the things contained in the Law are Justified Do I therefore make the Apostle Contradict himself Yea saith he because the same Apostle saith That by the Deeds of the Law no Flesh shall be justified but will he say that these two Sentences of this Apostle The doers of the Law shall be justified and By the deeds of the Law no Flesh shall be justified are Contradictory I say they are not If both these Sayings be true his Challenge is in vain if he will speak-out that which he must else manifest his Abuse of me and say they Contradict one another then let the Reader judge who is the Miscreant and observe how he falls himself into the Pit he had prepared for another But to shew how this distinct outward Knowledge was not absolutely needful to Salvation I instanced how that divers of the Patriarchs yea Mary and the Apostles themselves had not so Clear a Knowledge of it but appeared ignorant upon several Occasions To this p. 289. he would make the Reader believe that I Conclude The Patriarchs had no saving Knowledge of the Messias because the wicked Jews Crucified him Which is false I shew indeed according to Scripture That the Jews that Crucified him wanted this distinct Knowledge notwithstanding they had the Scripture His further answer to this Confutes himself saying The Apostles did understand so much at was then Revealed and if this was sufficient for them as he must say if he speak sense the like may be said of the Heathens For if the Apostles were not Condemnable for not believing nor understanding more than what was Revealed to them neither could the Gentiles But to make his unwary Reader believe as if all this said by me brought no Relief to my desperate Cause as he terms it he concludes this 11 Paragraph p. 290. with one of his sententious Sayings Quakers can dream waking I see He goes on in answer to my Proofs brought from the Ancient Philosophers to Confirm this to which he resumes little but Railing Wherein I will not trouble the Reader to follow him since without them the thing in Hand is sufficiently proved by Scripture Yet if he will affirm the Citations to be either False or Fictitious they may be proved by production of the Books themselves He thinks The Impertinency of my citing Augustin 's Words is discovered by the bare Reading and little less he saith to those of Buchanan Which I refer to the Reader 's Judgment as he will find them in my Apology towards the latter End of the Explanation of the fifth and sixth Propositions and I will leave him concluding this Chapter with Railing and Empty Threats which I neither Fear nor Value as being without Ground and the Fruits of no better Spirit than that of Rabshakeh SECT VII Wherein his Thirteenth Chapter of Justification is Considered ¶ 1. I Come now to his Thirteenth Chapter Of Justification where after he has begun by telling This Doctrine hath been principally questioned by Hereticks which I deny not and given us according to his Custom some large Citations out of their Confession of Faith and Catechism with the supposed Sense of other Quakers from some of his formerly mentioned partial Authors at last he comes pag. 296. N. 4. to Examine what I say in this Matter Where according to his Custom he begins with a Calumny upon his own false Supposition J. B. proceeds upon his own false Suppositions and Perversions As if the Justification I plead for were not the true Justification of the Saints because proceeding from the Light which saith
are the Laws useless if Men obey them This saith he takes away the Exercise of Repentance the Exercise of Prayer and maketh the Petitions of the Lord's Prayer useless forgive us our Sins On this he also insisteth pag. 345 346.349 That because all have sinned they have need to Repent and pray for Forgiveness and the Continuance of it I have shewen in my Apology But if this his Argument hold true to prove That Men must sin all their Life time and break the Commands every day in Thought Word and Deed then the greatest Sinners and most Wicked profligate Villains do less make useless Gospel-Commands than others because they afford more Matter to Exercise Repentance and Prayer for Forgiveness of Sins J. B. believes Perfection foments Pride ◠and taketh away the Vsefulness of Ordinances But he proceedeth That this tendeth to foment Pride and Security and taketh away diligent Watchfulness and holy Fear Humility and the Vsefulness of the Ordinances of Christ But where dom from Sin is where can Pride and Security have place or Diligence and Humility be wanting But with him to sin is the way not to be proud and secure but to be watchful and humble Let the Judicious Reader judge whether they that break the Commands daily in Thought Word and Deed and affirm they must do so all their Life-time be more diligent and humble and less proud and secure than such as keep and obey them for such Ordinances as must be made useful by daily breaking God's Commands in Thought Word and Deed I resolve never to Cry up but always Cry down by the Grace of God however J. B. may Rail at me for it Some Scriptures here added by him will come herereafter to be Examined ¶ 2. Pag. 332. N. 9. When he comes to take notice of my stating this Matter as not being such a Perfection as cannot admit of a daily Increase but only a being kept from Sin and receiving Strength to fulfil the Will of God for these are my words he would upon this both in this Place and elsewhere pag. 333 341. c. urge this Absurdity That since the least Sin is a Transgression of the Law it follows that no Regenerated Man can sin and that no Man that sinneth is Regenerated But we will not wonder at his Inference here considering his many other Perversions But to shew he has no ground to urge this Absurdity let it be Considered Regeneration begun carrying on and perfected that we are to consider Regeneration as begun and carrying on and as perfected and accomplished he which hath begun a good Work in you saith the Apostle Paul Phil. 1.6 And again Ye did run well Gal. 5.7 with many other Places which might be mentioned Whereby it is clear That Regeneration is not wrought in an Instant and if he think so he must prove it ere he conclude any thing from it and those were already Converted and Regeneration begun in them Now albeit such may Sin and that every Sin doth Hinder and Impe the Work of Regeneration yet it doth not Destroy it nor wholly Annihilate it Physick given to a Man Physick doth not Cure in an instant in whom there is an Inward and Inveterate Disease doth not Cure Instantly and albeit by some heedless Actions he may hinder the Cure from being perefected so soon yet every one of these Actions do not render it altogether Vnsuccessful Also as to the Comparison of a Child which he accepts of A Child has not the Strength of a Man So those that are born of God albeit he have all the Integral Parts of a Man yet he has not that Vigour and Strength of Body nor yet that Vnderstanding nor Exercise of Mind that a Man hath and thence can neither defend himself nor do either in Body or Mind that a Man can do Now what I speak of such as are born of God saying That I dare not affirm but there may be some that cannot sin I understand this of Absolute Compleat and Full Regeneration Not that I deny but such as are Entred and in part Regenerated may be also said to be born of God though not in that absolute Sense and therefore still under the possibility of sinning and Capacity thereunto And thus his great Absurdity upon which he Insists so much is removed Next he proceeds p. 334. to shew my Agreement with the Pelagians but the very Citation he brings to prove it out of Vossius History bewrays his Weakness and shews the Contrary where it is manifest that the thing Condemned in Pelagius was his affirming Men might keep the Commands by the Power of Nature which I never said but always denied The Fathers believed a Freedom from Sin And whereas he cites the Fathers Saying That none by the Strength of Grace did live all their Days without sin That the perfection ascribed to some in Scripture was not from Nature but from Grace c. This clearly shews they believed Men might be free from Sin by Grace sometime though none had been so far all their Life-time Which shews they were far from believing Man must break the Commands daily in Thought Word and Deed Which is his Affirmation What he adds of the Fathers Arguments against the Pelagians and of the Opinions of the Socinians and others in this Matter I judge it not my Work to meddle with it I heed not in this what these Sects say but believe the Truth without respect to them as it is clearly proposed in Scripture I could easily Recriminate by shewing things wherein he Agrees with Papists Socinians Arminians Antinomians Pelagians Anabaptists and others against us if I judged it pertinent to be filling up Paper with such Stuff to make a Noise as he doth hundreds of Times to nauseating but I love to abstain from such Superfluities and come to the purpose And will now Consider What he saith in Answer to my Arguments ¶ 3. He begins pag. 337. n. 18. and to my saying Their Doctrine is against the Wisdom of God who is of purer Eyes than he can behold Iniquity he asketh Is it against these Attributes of God that Sin should be in the World But my following words shew I spake of the Godly neither will it follow what he adds after That then they must be as free of Sin here as in Heaven and that at first for I urge it to be Contrary to God's Wisdom to make this Freedom Impossible unto them only Means for their being free being given them and not his permitting Sin And whereas he proceeds in Answer to my saying That if Man be always joined to Sin he should be always disjoined from God according to Isaiah 59.2 whereas on the contrary they to wit the Saints are said to be Partakers of the Divine Nature 2 Pet. 1.4 and one Spirit with him 1 Cor. 6.17 he answers All this would plead for a Sinlesness from the very first Instant of Regeneration In the absolute
Motion or Assistance will come afterwards to be proved and to suppose God cannot or will not move any but Ministers by his Spirit to Exhort were to limit him which is presumptuous in us to do But in this appeareth the difference Some do not Speak altho ' endued with the Spirit in Publick that we Confess many may and know Thousands among us whom we acknowledge to be good Men and sufficiently Endued with the Spirit towards the work of Regeneration in themselves and brotherly Love and Care to their Brethren who never find themselves moved to speak a Word in Publick and there are others whom God calleth to make Teaching and the Over-sight of the Church so their Constant Business that they are less engaged in worldly Affairs than the generality of those called Clergy-men even among J. B.'s Brethren and therefore are owned and honoured and so far as need requires maintained by the Church But to say that no Man ought without he be thus particularly Called at any time speak in a Publick Assembly since we say that they ought not but when moved by the Spirit is not only to accuse us Yet none to bind up God from moving with his Spirit when and in whom he please but imperiously bind up God from moving with his Spirit whom and when he pleaseth And this being Applied will Answer his Queries pag. 369. where n. 14. he affirms That to suppose Ministers may use an honest Trade is to account the Work of the Ministry a light business But this is to account it no more a light business than the Apostle did who recommended Working with their Hands for a livelihood to the Elders of the Church of Ephesus Act. 20.34 35. giving them his own Example in so doing But they indeed must have small Experience of a true Ministry who do not know a Man may be better qualified to discharge it by being inwardly exercised in the Spirit and Instructed thereby than by all the Labour and Study they can derive from their Books and perhaps it may be true Book-Study will not do Paul labour'd with his Hands which he after affirms that such who bring their Preaching always out of Books will find little time to follow another Trade but it seems such Preachers are uncapable to follow the Apostle's Exhortation above mentioned and therefore we will justly conclude them to be no true Gospel-Ministers ¶ 5. That he may be like himself he begins his 20 th Chapter of Women-Preachers with Railing saying The Quakers are against all the Appointments and Ordinances of Christ then he goeth on at a high rate Inveighing against the Liberty of Womens speaking from Paul's words 1 Cor. 14.34 as being against the Law as being contrary to Modesty and Shamefacedness urging pag. 398. the Apostle's Authority in Writing that Epistle which we deny not And then he urgeth against us 1 Tim. 2.11 alledging That its being said Adam was first formed and then Eva and Eva being first in the Transgression infers that Womens Preaching is against the Law of Nature and that this Silence is imposed upon Women as a just Judgment for Eva 's Transgression For this last Inference we have nothing but his Affirmation To the former I answered in my Apology shewing that these words of the Apostle cannot be taken absolutely and without limitation since the same Apostle giveth Rules How Women ought to Pray and Preach th' Apostle tells how Women should behave themselves in their Praying and Preaching in the Church But he reckons that this is for me to make the Apostle Contradict himself while this is his own Case who takes the Apostle's words without limitation else there is not the least Contradiction yea his desiring them to Ask their Husbands at home shews that it cannot be taken Vniversally seeing all Women have not Husbands And for his saying That what the Apostle saith Chap. 11. v. 5. But every Woman that Prayeth or Prophesieth with her Head uncovered c. is not to be meant of their carriage when they are Praying themselves but when they are present at others doing of it This is his bare Affirmation without Proof Contrary to the express words of the Text which saith Every Woman that Prayeth c. not when she heareth another Pray And by this way it might be as easily affirmed where the Apostle in the same place speaks of Men's Praying with their Heads covered that it is not when they Pray themselves but when they hear others And that there must be a Limitation he confesseth saying That the Lord made use of Prophetesses of Old and that he is free to make use of whom he will If so then if the Lord do so now who dare plead against it Yea the practice of J. B.'s Brethren doth Contradict this Scripture if they will not admit a Limitation For will he deny but heretofore at Presbyterian Meetings where sometimes 20 and 30. and more have been together Women have both Spoken and Prayed And have not Women Spoke and Prayed at your Meetings yea been Invited too yea been invited and urged to do so by Eminent Preachers there present And is not that properly a Church where Christians are met together to Worship God and Edify one another If he say this was only private I answer However Private it was it was still a Church for it is not the Greatness of the Number that makes the Church since the fewer Number may more properly sometimes be Esteemed the Church than the greater And if he take the Apostle's words absolutely without Limitation it will Exclude Women from speaking in any Assembly met for Religious Worship and Exercise unless he will be so Superstitious as to ascribe the Churchship to the old Popish Mass-house-Walls and if so What! is the Church Old Popish Mass-House-Walls it will trouble him to prove there were any such in Corinth used by Christians when the Apostle wrote to them so as to think that if Women speak not there they do not speak in the Church And yet how comes it that by the Acts of the General Assembly Whores are not only permitted but constrained to speak in the most publick Assemblies and that in a place allotted for them no less Eminent than the Pulpit Sure if such Women may there speak of their sins and tell how they have been Tempted of the Devil good Women moved by the Spirit of God may tell what God has done for them in preserving them from such Evils Neither will it serve to say that it is not Authoritative speaking for the Apostle's words are I permit not a Woman to speak not I permit her not to speak Authoritatively for the words added Nor to usurp Authority over the Man is a distinct Precept Women may usurp Authority over their Men who never offer to Preach in the Church as also some may speak there who may be very subject to their Husbands Besides they permit Women to Sing publickly which
one part Circumstances and not the other for as to the matter of the thing he will confess there is nothing in it but by reason of Christ's Command and practice so that Affects all parts alike and indeed he gives a very summar Answer to what I urge as to this as the Rader by comparing his N. 17. with N. 6. of my Apology upon this subject may observe It passeth my mean Capacity to see any solid Reason given by him pag. 497 n. l8 Why Act. 2.42 should be understood of other than their Common Eating unless this may be esteemed one That to say so is a meer groundless Fancy like many of the Quakers bold Notions To prove Act. 20.7 to be understood of Sacramental Eating he saith It required Paul 's Preaching but for this we must wait his proof That Paul preached not upon other occasions because not mentioned is but his meer Conjecture and his Inference from this being the Christian Sabbath is but a silly begging of the question ¶ 2. Pag. 498. n. 20. He stateth my words shewing How the Apostle 1 Cor. 11. saith When ye come together J. B. forgets to Answer this is not to eat the Lord's Supper and not that it was not to Eat aright and I expected his Answer to this to follow but in vain for I found not any perhaps he has forgotten it and therefore I desire he may remember it next Also here instead of giving a Reason to prove the Apostle gives here a Command and not simply a Relation of the matter of fact he returneth Railing I Intreat him next to lay-aside his Railing and give a Reason That the Corinthians were Babes in Christ and some of them even further advanced I acknowledge yet that will not prove that some things might be Indulged to them which is not needful to us now The Christians that had been Jews were also Babes in Christ and even more such as the Apostle James who desired Paul to purify himself in the Temple and yet we are not thence obliged to Imitate such practices Paul purifying himself in the Temple Christians are not thence obliged to Imitate such Practices Whether the Syriack Version mentioned by me make not to my purpose I leave to the Reader 's Judgment my Vsing it will not infer my Acknowledging that Version in all things to be Authentick more than his own Vsing it And albeit I think it might have been sufficient to have given the words upon the Credit of the Interpretation in the Poly-glotta yet to shew him how apt he is to fall into false Conjectures he may know I did it not and if he could hence as well as from several other Occasions heretofore observed learn not to lay so much Stress upon and so forwardly Vent his own Conjectures he would do himself a Courtesy Pag. 409. n. 21. He can easily turn-by the Apostle's express Command Act. 15.29 as being a part of the Ceremonial Law but I hope he will acknowledge that the Obligation upon the Christians especially such as had not been Jews to observe it was not its being a part of the Ceremonial Law but it s being now a Command of the Apostles or rather of the Spirit of God to whom it seemed good so to Command And he should shew next time how this is more Abrogated in the Epistles of Paul than the other and particularly how that Rom. 14.17 doth touch the one more than the other And this Command Act. 15 19. being after the pouring-down of the Spirit and Vniversal Preaching of the Gospel to the Gentiles hath as much of a Gospel-Institution as any thing Commanded before by Christ can have if not let him give us a Reason from Scripture till then his meer Assertions pag. 500. will not do the business To my shewing That this is not to distinguish the Gospel from the Law he thinks it enough to say This is a Socinian Argument formerly spoken to And he is very Careful not to weary the Reader with Repeitions I wish he had minded this all along J. B.'s Proof of their Authority to Administrate this Sacrament Invisible He also referreth the proof of their Authority to Administrate this Sacrament to his 17 th Chapter but they must be very Clear-sighted that can observe any such thing there And to conclude with some shew of Victory he in a most ostentive way saith That I have fought until I can stand no longer and finding my self weak and unable to fight any more I come to something like a Parly by saying Such as out of Conscience will perform this Ceremony as the first Christians did might be Indulged in it but he Concludeth These things I Affirm being proved none can be supposed to do it out of Conscience But some may not have such a Clear Sight of it and thence may stick in these things He dispatcheth what more I say as to this as being A bundle of groundless Whimsies without Truth Sense or Consistency But indeed I must say The weak Proofs J. B. brings to Vindicate the great Sacraments of their Religion I wonder to see the Man so Weak upon this Theam as well as the former of Baptism considering they are the great Sacraments of their Religion but it seems his Rage in these has Robbed him of his Reason I will Intreat the Reader seriously to peruse what I have written upon both these in my Apology that Comparing it with his he may easily perceive albeit this Reply had not been Written how Weak all is the Man brings for the Proof of these things SECT XV. Wherein his Twenty Eighth Chapter Of Liberty of Conscience is Considered ¶ 1. AS he ended his last Chapter with Railing so he begins this comparing the Quakers to Thieves and Robbers adding That their being conscious to themselves of the Evil of their Ways which after he has a little Amplified in as black a manner as he can he Concludes that they thought it best for their own safety to add this to the rest of their Errors that Magistrates have no lawful power over them In which besides his Railing are two gross Lies First That the Quakers are conscious of their own Evil Ways J. B.'s Malitious Assertion against our Acknowledging the Magistrates to have a Lawful Power over us and that moves them to Assert Liberty of Conscience which being a gross Falshood hath no bottom but his own malitious Conjecture where he presumptuously presumes to Judge of other Mens hearts The second is That the Quakers say The Magistrate hath no lawful Power over them A most gross Lie The Contrary whereof is expresly Asserted in the These in these words Provided always that no Man under the pretence of Conscience prejudice his Neighbour in his Life or Estate or do any thing destructive of The Lawfulness and Justice of Magistracy Asserted by us or inconsistent with Humane Society in which case the Law is for the Transgressor and Justice is to
of outward Help and where the Arm of Flesh had least hand in it as the Children of Israel's Deliverance out of Egypt as also Judges c. 5 from ver 16. to the end 2 Kings 6 17 c. and Chapters 7 13. and 19. 35. and in other places To prove That Christ in the 5th of Matth. commands no more than in the Law he referreth to the Writings of their Divines but he might have done this to all he has Written if he judge it sufficient and so have saved himself a great deal of labour since he saith elsewhere All I have written is Confuted long ago How can Men love their Enemies and yet kill and destroy them How Men can Love their Enemies and yet kill and destroy them is more than I can reach but if it were to such as rather suffer than do it do surely more love them and to do so is no Injury to our Selves nor Neighbours when done out of Conscience to God in answering our Duty to whom we must not Regard our own or Neighbours profit And if what I grant of the Lawfulness of Fighting to the present Magistrates and State of Christians be considered it will render all his Arguments superfluous since he confesseth A time will come in which the Prophecy of Isaiah 2 4. Mic. 4 3. will be fulfilled and thinks fit there should be a Praying for the fulfilling of it and what if some believe that as to some there is a beginning already of the fulfilling thereof We do nothing doubt but that of Rev. 16.5 7. which he mentions pag. 522. will in due time be fulfilled but we see no necessity of believing that that will be performed by outward Fighting or that the Saints shall need to draw Carnal Swords or shoot Cannons towards the performing of it When he saith Fighting is from the Corrupt Nature of Man that the Argument of Fighting is not taken from the Corrupt nature of Man pag. 519. he must have forgotten himself since had not Man fall'n and so his nature been corrupted he may infer if he can where there should have been an occasion for Fighting with Carnal Weapons And since he Confesseth That in nothing more than in War is seen the Fruits of Man's Rebellion against God He may thence see how little need Christians have to plead for it As for the Citation out of the Confession of Faith wherewith to fill-up he closeth his Chapter I know not to what purpose he did it since no Man doubts their Faith in this matter ¶ 2. He begins his 30 th Chapter of Oaths with saying We deny their lawfulness that we may destroy all Policy and Government But it must only be the Devil's Government for where the Government of Christ prevails and Men speak Truth there all must Confess there is no need of Oaths and also where the like punishment of Perjury is inflicted for speaking falsly Where Men speak Truth there is no need of Oaths the End of Oaths is obtained and that without breaking Christ's Command Thus according to his own Concession since the Verity may be had as well without an Oath none should be urged to take an Oath But let us see what after a Citation out of their Confession of Faith he saith to Answer Matth. 5 34. and James 5 12. which saith so expresly Swear not at all Swear not at all To this he saith That Christ is only Interpreting the Law and not Adding any thing to it and that it only relates to ordinary discourse but for proof of this he has nothing but an Heap of words asserting the thing To all which till he bring some Scripture-proof there needs no Answer But to oppose Christ's and James's words Swear not at all It is not said Except ye be called before a Judge let him prove this Exception by Scripture next time and therefore till he do so his Affirming over and over again That Christ forbad no more than was forbidden in the Law pag. 525. is to no purpose The Law forbad idle Swearing and Oaths in Communication but Christ's Resumption shews throughout that Chapter some more to be urged to any that understand plain words and will not shut their Eyes That its being said Deut. 6 13. Thou shalt swear by his Name is urged as an Explication or Comprehensive part of Moral Worship I deny and remains for him to prove or that it was more than a Command to the Jews to Swear by the true God that they might not Swear by Idols and till he prove this Arguments founded upon it need no further Answer As for what he addeth N. 8. to prove Swearing not to be of the Devil because commanded of God and afterwards Concluding That my urging against it as being of the Devil is pregnant of Blasphemy because it would infer some of the Ceremonial Laws of God to have their Rise not from the Will of God but from the work of the Devil he sheweth here more Malice than strength of Reason The Bill of Divorcement permitted in the Old Test. because the hardness of their hearts Was not the Command Deut. 24 v. 1. Let him write for her a Bill of Divorcement A part of the Ceremonial Law and yet Christ saith Matth. 19.7 that Moses did this because of the hardness of their Hearts and is not hardness of Heart which gave a Rise to this Command of the Work of the Devil Let him then make the Application and then Answer the Empty Bluster he has made of Blasphemy And doth not what Christ saith of this matter of Divorce Matth. 5 v. 31 32. shew Christ Commanded more there than was Commanded under the Law He confesseth pag. 529. That God cannot be said properly to Swear Albeit some things being ascribed to God makes them not Vnlawful to us yet any things being ascribed to God makes it not Lawful to us when Christ commands the Contrary Christ's and the Apostles Asseverations were not Oaths That Christ's saying Verily Verily is more than Yea and Nay I deny and it remains for him to prove it That the Apostles Asseverations are Oaths he affirms in like manner but proves it not His thinking We in being willing to do as much as the Apostle did do strain at a Gnat and Swallow a Camel is but an Evidence of his Railing Genius as it doth of his Malice in Catching what follows That the Question is not What Paul or Peter did but what their and our Lord For that is not said by me he hath but said it as believing they did Swear or that their Words were Oaths But the giving not granting it had been so to shew it would not prove this thing now lawful and that Peter and Paul both had their Failings so as all though not in that himself will not deny which is enough to shew their practice in all things is not to be our Rule His 531. page needeth no Answer being but his own Affirmations and Conjectures
the Church of Christ is not to usurp Authority over their Fellow-Members 229. decisive Judgment explained 243. true and false Decision 244. unsettled Men Judging 683 684. Charitable and uncharitable Judgment 686. God the Judge of conscience 516 517. he that is Spiritual Judgeth all things 795 see Church Justification the Doctrine thereof is and hath been greatly vitiated among the Papists and wherein they place it 364 365 380 382 Luther and the Protestants with good Reason opposed this Doctrine though many of them ran soon into another Extream and wherein they place it and that they agree in one 366 387 370. it comes from the Love of God 367 379 380. to Justify signifies to to make really Just not to repute Just which many Protestants are also forced to acknowledge 370 371 374 377. The Revelation of Christ formed in the Heart is the formal Cause of Justification not Works to speak properly which are only an Effect and so also many Protestants have said 364 380. we are Justified in Works and how 364 370 371 380 387. this is so far from being Popish Doctrine that Bellarmine and others opposed it 365 369 385 386. We are Justified by Christ Jesus both as he appeared at Jerusalem and also as he was made manifest and revealed in us 19 20. Justification by the indwelling of Christ is denied by the Papists 78. Primitive Protestants Belief concerning Justification 79. concerning Faith and Justification 129 166. a twofold Justification 25. it is the making a Man just by an Inward Righteousness 77. 811. the Doers of the Law Justified 806. Antinomians Imputative Justification refuted 812. J. B's gross Opinion of it 814. no Man is Justified before he be sanctified 816 The real Justification falleth under the inward sensation of the Soul 817. K. Keith G. K. vindicated from our Adversaries malitious Insinuations against him 621. Kingdom of God 459 511 517. Christ's Kingdom needs no outward protection 846. the Kingdom of God is within you 803. the Kingdom of God is in the Seed in the Hearts of all Men 354. Kirk the Greedy Kirk become a Proverb 437. Knowledge the Heighth of Man's Happiness is placed in the true Knowledge of God 467. Error in the Entrance of this Knowledge is dangerous 267 268. Superstition Idolatry and thence Atheism hath proceeded from the False and Feigned Opinions concerning God and the Knowledge of him 269. the uncertain Knowledge of God is divers ways attained but the True and Certain only by the inward and immediate Revelation of the Holy Spirit 269 271. it hath been brought out of use and by what Devices 272 273. there is no Knowledge of the Father but by the Son nor of the Son but by the Spirit 268 274 275. the Knowledge of Christ which is not by the Revelation of his Spirit in the Heart is no more the Knowledge of Christ than the pratling of a Parret which hath been taught a few Words may be said to be the Voice of a Man 276 277. The Objection that the Apostle prefers the Knowledge of Christ as outwardly Crucified to all other Knowledge answered 9. his Inward Knowledge preferred 67. the true and saving Knowledge of God 115 161. the Knowledge of the History saves none 355. many by the Light may be saved that have not the outward Knowledge of christ 356 of the true Ground of Knowledge 728 733. the Difference between Head-Knowledge and the partaking of the Divine Nature 763 764. Monopolizers of Knowledge 889. 428 see Clergy The Christian Religion consists not in the Historical Knowledge of Christ 895. see Indians c L. Labour they wanted nothing whom God sent they labour'd with their Hands 435. Laces and Ribbonds 873. Laicks 429 432 433. Laity 433 507. Lake of Bethesda 338 339. Lamb see Paschal Lamb. Language the plain Language used in the Scriptures 58. concerning our using Thee and Thou which is the Singular Number to one person 61. to use the Plural instead of the Singular Number to one Person is no Indifferent thing 3 4. see Number the Singular Number to one person used in the Latine 539. how the Word You came to be used to a single person ibid. the Word Thou a greater Honour to one than You 540. Scripture-Dialect the plain Language 541. Law the Law is distinguished from the Gospel 287 384. the Difference thereof 287 493. see Gospel under the Law the People were not in any Doubt who should be Priests and Ministers 408. see Minister of the Law Worship The Testimony Law and Word is inward in the Heart 15 71. the ending of the Law and beginning of the Gospel 187. wherein the Law and Gospel differ 298 393 484. the outward and inward Law 286. the Law of Christ more perfect than of Moses 558. the Divine Law was implanted in Man's Nature before all Laws made by Man 701. J. B's Proof for what is meant by Law and Testimony 756. his Asserting the Law of Nature against his former Reason 793. Law of Moses see Legal Rites Lawyers by Tricks and Intricacies foment Controversies 209 Laying on of Hands 511. see Hands Learned the Lord is angering the Wise and Learned 885 Learning what true Learning is 421 422. Humane Learning is not the Qualification of a Minister 140 305 703 730. see Literature Schools of Learning Leaven J. B's Objection against the Word Fermentum Leaven or Fermentation a Leavening answered 855. Legal Rites had a Command as well as John's Baptism 857. Leonisis a Sect they have a great Shew of Truth 532. in the Margent Letter The Letter killeth quickneth not 393. like Pharisees the outward Law so now Professors plead the Letter 15. How the Letter killeth 18 76. Levi a Figure of Christ 655 Leyden John of Leyden and Ignatius Loyola their Practices resembled by W. M. and his Brethren 58 Liars their Punishment 557 Libertines see Ranters Liberty the true Liberty in the Church 222. breach of Liberty begets Jars ibid. a false Liberty 224. a wrong Spirit of Liberty 246. what Liberty we claim in things Religious 516 520 524 Lies 276. lying Titles 535. Christians not to speak a Lie 875. J. B s refuge of Lies 877. Light The innate Light is explained by Cicero 361 362. Light of Nature the Errors of the Socinians and Pelagians who exalt this Light are rejected 310 311. Saving Light see Redemption is universal it is in all 330 331. It is a Spiritual and Heavenly Principle 333 334. it is a Substance not an Accident 334 335. it is Supernatural and sufficient 346 348. It is the Gospel preached in every Creature 349 350. It is the Word nigh in the Mouth and in the Heart 350 351. it is the Ingrafted Word able to save the Soul 353. Testimonies of Augustin and Buchanan concerning this Light 363. it is not any part of Nature or Reliques of the Light remaing in Adam after the fall 337. it is distinguished from the Conscience 337 338. It is not a common Gift as the Heat of the