in this present world I told them that in our Native Countrey and in all civilized Countreys the civility Courteous Speech Courteous Salutation and respective Behaviour was generally practised opposite to the cariage of Barbarous Unciviliz'd People This I said was according to the command of the holy Spirit in Paul Eph 4. and in Peter 1. Pet 3. Be pitifull be Courteous c. Such a Spirit was Christ Jesus of even to his greatest Opposites and to the greatest Sinners insomuch that for his Courtesie Gentleness Sociableness with open Sinners the dogged proud and sullen Pharises counted him a Drunkard and Glutton a friend and Companion of Publicans and sinners We English were our selves at first wild and savage Britains Gods mercy had civilized us and we were now come into a wild and savage Countrey without Manners without Courtesie so that generally except you begin with a What Chear or some other Salutation you had as good meet an Horse or a Cow c. And hath not the Quaker â—pirit been such a Spirit amongst us have we not known persons formerly loving courteous c. and as soon as this Spirit hath come upon them have not our eyes seen them pass by their Familiars their Kindred 202 their Elders and Superiours and though kindly spoken to not give a Word or a Look toward them as if they were not worthy of a word or a look from such High Saints c. How like indeed have they been to the Popish Saints in a Procession they See not Hear not Speak not c. or like these very Barbarians and therefore I said 2. G. Fox in his book affirms that the Conversation of these very Barbarians in many things were better then his Opposites c. I mused in my self being much acquainted with the Natives what G. Fox should mean he not having been in N. England when he wrote that passage but since I have heard that the Quakers have commended the spirit of the Indians for they have seen them come into English Houses and sit down by the fire not speaking a word to any body But this cariage of the Indians proceeds from a bruitish spirit for generally they have boldly come in without Knocking or asking of leave and sit down without any respect in word or gesture to the Governour or chief of the Family whosoever just the Quakers general fashion and Spirit Further I told them that in some respect the spirit and cariage of the Quakers was worse then that of the Indians for if they were sd by the English in the high-way or coming into an House they are very ready to receive your Salutation kindly and return you another But commonly we know that it is not so with the Quakers bruitish spirit 2. The Indians morning and evening and upon all meetings they give a respective and proper Salutation to their own Superiours and sometimes in gesture as well as speech 3. Although the Indians are bruits in their Nakedness both men and women yet they never appear no not in private houses stark naked as the Quaker men and women doe yea they so abhor such a bruitishness except it be in their mad Drunkenness for then they will be stark naked that as to their Female kind they will carefully from their birth keep on some modest covering before them W. E. rose up and said they did abhor Uncleaness as well as our selves or any their women were sober holy and Modest and would not endure some of them to have a Toe to be seen naked but he said if the Lord God did stir up any of his Daughters to be a Sign of the nakedness of others he believed it to be a great Cross to a Modest womans Spirit but the Lord must be obeyed Iohn Stubs immediately seconded him and quoted again the Command to Isaiah Chap. 20. to go naked he added whereas I said at Newport that it was in the time of Signs Types Figures c. He would now prove that all Signs were not abolished by the coming of Christ for Agabus Act. 20. took Pauls 203 girdle and bound himself I replyed that was indeed one of my Replyes at Newport and I was yet far from binding the sweet Influences of the holy One by Dreams Visions immediate Impulses Revelations Signs c. but withall I said that before the coming of the Lord Iesus and at his coming was the time and season of such Appearances from God now he hath fully declared his mind to us by the Personal and most wonderfull coming of his Son out of his Bosome who had commanded his Pen-men to write his Birth his Life his Life his Doctrine his Miracles his Death Resurrection Asscension and promise of Return to us he had also preserved these holy Writings Records most wonderfully that Ioh 20 We might believe in him follow him and live with him But 2. I said what did this concern the monstrous stripping their women naked of which we never heard a tittle either at coming of the Lord Jesus or in those proper seasons of such Administrations before his Appearance Iohn Stubs said he had been a Quaker 19 years and yet had never seen a woman Naked and some of the Quakers said to me aloud when didst thou see any of our women Naked and another of them said We did not think that thou wouldest have been such a wicked man These two though of the Quakers spirit yet of long time had been Loving and respecttive to me but now they were enraged so that I said unto my Antagonists seeing some Heat is risen about these matters I will if you please go on to the second Branch of this 14th Position I told them the 2d Branch was That the Spirit of the Quakers tendeth to bring in an Arbetrary Government I said we all knew how it had cost the blood of thousands ten Thousands this matter of Goverment Lawes that the Most High only Wise choosing one People and Nation of Israel to be his own he wrote them Laws some with his own inconceivable finger written and some by Moses his inspired Pen-man it pleased him not to leave their Wisest and Holyest Kings Governours without written known Lawes with Rewards and Penaltyes annexed But I argued if that were true that all the Quakers were guided in all they said and did by the immediate Spirit of God as I proved Fox maintained then if they obtain higher or lower Governours of their Spirits Surely it shines cleer that there is no need of Laws for them to rule act by for they had no need of Scripture and seing the Immediate Inspirations of God would not suffer them to erre in Judgment for as they said of the holy Scripture they had no need of it for they had the holy Scripture within them their Teacher within them and all that they spake was Scripture and the voice of God c. So
he brings in the Author of Hosannah to the Son of David saying The sure Word of Prophesie the Apostle speaks of is the Prophesie of Scriptures He Answers Doth the Scripture shine in a dark place until the Day dawne Are they them them that must be taken heed unto as to a Light Can any see the Scripture and know the Scripture but with the Light within Can not a Cain a Baalam a Core bring Scripture that is gone from the Spirit of Prophesie within and then put the Letter for it 98 I Reply 1. I know that Fox makes their Idol within called Light to be the more sure word of Prophesie and his usual proof is The Testimony of Iesus is the Spirit of Prophesie But first why must all the Prophets or Messengers of God who from the beginning of the world were Gods mouth and Pens Concerning the Birth Life Death Burial Resurrection Ascention and coming to Judgement of the Lord Jesus be here cast out from the Word of Prophesie Is it nothing Luk. 1 that God spake surely Gods speaking is his word God spake by the mouth of his holy Prophets which have been since the World began And Heb. 1. God spake sundry times and in divers manners in Time past unto the Fathers but how did God thus speake or utter his word but by the Prophets And Rom. 16. But now is made manifest and by the Scriptures of the Prophets according to the Commandment c. Therefore how oft is it written concerning the Lord Jesus These things were done that the Scriptures might be Fulfilled in which regard as to our satisfaction and belief the written word of Prophesie of the Prophets are a more sure Word and Evidence to us concerning the Lord Jesus then the Miraculous Appearance from Heaven of Moses and Elias and the voice from Heaven of which Peter here speaketh though in it self a true Testimony yet not so sure so firm and pregnant as the Word that God spake by the mouth of his holy Prophets from the beginning of the World c. Hence the Answer of Abraham and indeed of Christ Jesus If they hear not Moses and the Prophets neither will they believe though one should rise from the Dead 2. How sure is the Quakers Light their Word of Prophesie A sober mind can not but admire that Face and Forehead of Brass and Adamant with which God the Righteous Judge of the whole hath plauged Satan and his Followers so that they blush not to prefer such a simple Image a meer Babie and Childs Puppet of their Immediate Word of Prophesie before the Word the mind and will of God by the mouth of all the Prophets For is it not known in the holy Scripture in all Histories in all Ages in all Nations what Cursed Opinions horrible Uncleannesses Bloody Murthers and Slaughters have been Conceived and brought forth from the Spirit within and Revelati 99 on s from Divilish Lights and Spirits and the horrible End that generally the Authors and Promoters of such Spirits and Inspirations have come to 3. This Scripture Revel 19. The Testimony of Iesus is the Spirit of Prophesie what is it but Goliahs Sword to fetch off the head of this proud Philistin for doth not the Angels forbid Iohn worshipping of him upon this ground viz. that the Angel was his Fellow Broker Fellow Servant Fellow Worshipper Fellow Witness Is not this the Argument whereby he prohibits him viz. that one Testimony of Jesus was the work of Gods Spirit in the Angels in their way as well as in Iohns and Peters in theirs c. and shall we say that the Angels too are Quakers and Christ hath enlightened them also as well as every man that comes c And Revel 22. Doth not Christ threaten the Adders to and Diminishers from the word of this Book of this Prophesie what Affinity hath a written Book a written Prophesie with Immediate whisperings and Inspirations 2. Why should G. Fox here mention Cain Balaam Core what Scriptures could they bring what Scriptures were written in their times I think it no breach of Charity to guess that the Quakers and G. Fox are so used to Cursing and Censuring their Opposites at the first dash for Cains Baalams Cores that they could not well tell how to miss them Such persons no question and the Foxians and the lying Spirit the Old Fox and Serpent bring Scripture But doth the Divel cordially prize and love the word of Prophesie the Testimony and Witnesses of Jesus However he plainly here Confesseth that the holy Scripture is so powerful that the very Counterfeit the picture and Name of it will do him good Service with such whom he desires to cheat and Ruine And yet secondly this shews the Quakers horrible wickedness that although they love the holy Scripture for the general of them as well as doth their lying Father yet turn they the Truth of God into a lye and with the ugly Spider sucks that which he turns into poyson even from the same Flowers of Paradice the holy Scriptures from whence the hony Bees the true Believers suck the pure hony of Eternal Truth and Comfort 3. Again what madness is it for this blind Dreamer to ask his Opposite whether the Scripture shines in a dark place until the 100 dawne whether they must be taken heed unto as to a Light For how often is the holy Scripture even the very Law before the Gospel or glad News was preached adorn'd and beautified with the Illustrious Title of Light and all the subtle Foxes in the world must know that if they attend unto whisperings and peepings Isai. 8. and leave the written Law the Word and other Prophesies of Scripture or written Prophesies Words and Oracles of God! For all their Childish Vapourings and pratings of their Light the Eternal Father of Lights proclaims them to be Children of howling darkness and that there is no Light within them I speak it with horrour and Amazement and also with sorrowful Confidence that he that shall find a spark of true Light either of the knowledge or grace of the true Lord Jesus in this their Fantastick Light he shall find the Living among the Dead he shall prove the Prophets that spake and the Lord God of the Prophets whose word was spoke to be Lyars for saying there is no Light within them But Fox again demands Can any know the Scripture but with the Light within And I ask him what Light have the Papists and Iews and the Divel himself when they and he bring Scripture to Christ himself I know very well what he means in his Iesuitical Diabolical Reservations by the Light within and by knowing the Scripture his meaning is known and Common viz. except he be one of those dark Souls called Quakers But did not the Devil bring a pertinent Scripture and promise to Christ Jesus as ever Papist or Quaker could have alleadged though pointed and directed
to Paul as Peter to Cornelius and Paul to the Iailor it pleased God to use his holy means and instruments of Men to men Gods sweet and familiar way to men the immediate Teachings of God by Dreams by Vision by Voices by Motion the Holy Scripture mentions many before and since the coming of the Lord Jesus the Question is not whether it may not please the most Holy and infinite Prerogative of the most High so to teach where and when and whom he please But whether it be Christian obedience or Diabolical laziness to fling off all means as Fox all along teacheth to sit still and listen to immediate Teachings that is say I to the Devils whisperings I believe the Papists and Quakers would give much to be rid of the Scriptures I know also that notwithstanding their pretence of Spirit yet both of them are forced to use means Praying Preaching Congregating and in stead of the holy means by Gods Spirit have appointed many Inventions and Superstitions from a Satanical Spirit G. Fox saith there is no Fallacy in the Revelation of God Ans. True but will he say these seven things 1. That all the pretended Revelations are the Revelations of God 2. That Revelations may not pretend Angelical Light and yet be Diabolical Darkness 3. That we may receive any Revelations and Teachings as Children and Mad Folks do without chewing and rational weighing consideration 4. That God hath not appointed his old Scripture and Writing 192 new since Christs coming as a Standard Rule or Touch stone to try all our own and others Inspirations by 5. That Mahomets Inspirations are not one of the most prevailing Snares Traps and Engines whereby he hath catcht whole Nations and Kingdomes and the greatest part of this poor world at this day 6. That when God reveals his word or will in writing which G. Fox grants to be the words of God and they are slighted it is not common and most righteous with God to deliver up proud lazy Souls to strong Delusions to believe Lyes as at this day it is most wonderfull 7. Whether there be any way in this world to escape the snares of Sathans Whisperings but by humble attending to the search and Meditation of the heavenly Records by humble cryes to the Father of Spirits for his holy Spirit and help in all the Meanes by himself appointed in Love and Pitty to the Souls of men A 4th Instance of G Fox his lame stuff is in Pag. 4. Where he brings in the same Author Sam Eaton saying The Gospel is the Letter c. He Answers And the Apostle saith it is the power of God c. and the Letter kills and many may have the Form but deny the Power and so stand against the Gospel which is the Power of God I reply we all know that the word Gsopel from the old Saxon is as strange to us English as the word Evangelium or Euangelion the Latine and Greek are but we all agree that it may be turned according to its meaning Glad Newes This wise cunning man tels us the Glad Newes is not the Glad Newes ' Why so Because it is the Power of God who sees not here the simple subtelty of this Deceiver The Gospel or Glad Newes preached is the power of God unto Salvation to every one that believeth c. Rom. 1. Therefore this Glad Newes told written printed preached is not the Glad Newes would he now perswade himself and us that Moses and the Prophets that wrote of this Glad Newes and those four heavenly Pen-men or Pens which by the finger of God his immediate Spirit wrote the History of the Life and Death of the Lord Jesus c. wrote nothing of the Gospel or glad news for the glad news is the power of God 2. I know the trick of these old Cheaters and Juglers to hide 193 themselves and their cheating in the Bushes and Thickets of words of diverse Significations or figurative Speeches which all honest Reason teacheth carefully to distinguish I know it is Fox his trick and all their tricks in his and their Writing to make God and Christ and Spirit Gospel Covenant Iustification as before I proved to be all that one cheating Fancy called Light in them and in every one that cometh into the World These bewitched souls will not owne a figurative speech when it makes not for their Idols 3. Is it not that the Lord calls the preaching of the Glad Newes the Power of God because of the wonderfull effect of it to him that believeth this Glad Newes which few or none believe as being a foolish thing to believe as the Iews and thousands others say to believe in a beggars brat laid in a Manager and a Gallowes-Bird c. 4. Paul calls this Glad news his Gospel or Glad news Rom. 2. Will the Foxians therefore say that either Paul lyed or else it is not Gods Gospel nor Christs but Pauls although it is most true that as Paul had charge of it as a Shepheard of another mans Flock or a Mariner of an other mans Ship it may be common Phrase of Speech though not literal but figurative be called Pauls or any other Messengers of Christ Glad news or Gospel 5. There is a wild beast called a Fox a subtle and pernicious creature there was a famous heavenly Man a famous writer of the Book of Martyrs Iohn Fox and there is this poor deluded deluding Soul G. Fox to whome I am now replying ought not these to be distinguished Is there not such a mischievous subtle Beast called the Fox because G. Fox bears and that most justly and by a finger of Gods providence bears it the wild Beasts name or was not such a learned heavenly wonderfully deligent zealous man as I. Fox because G. Fox bears that name also 6. But further If the Glad news may not be called the Glad news when t is Scripture that is written or preached then not Glad news when spoken 7. The Law denounceth Sentence of Death against a Traitor c. this Sentence is written in a Sence may be called a Killing Letter the King pardons this Traitor and this Sentence of Pardon is written this gracious word of a King is not less his Word because it is Written then it was when first spoken by him and this word or pleasure of the King written may be called Gospel or Glad news the Glad news or Gospel of his Temporal Salvation will any sober man say as G. Fox impiously and frantickly that the writing of the Pardon and the Broad-Seal is a Dead letter a Killing letter c. because Paper Parchment c. If G. Fox from hunting after Souls by Sea and Land arrive at 194 any Port in England and send a Letter Post to his Wife Friends containing his many Deliverances many Experiences his safe Arrivail and his Purpose
a dumb Devil in their dumb meetings and stand still and listen and lie upon their beds of laziness for Revelations and Notions c. 8. As for G. Fox his scornful sling against old Authors what is it but pride and Ingratitude pride to undervalâ—e much more to scorn my Progenitors and Ancestors Ingratitude to God for so many helps c. and to them who have laboured and broke the Ice and left their Labours behind them for the benefit of after Commers yea what Injustice when I disregard and slight their writings and reproach them calling them Old Authors compared with their new Fancies as W. Edmundson did me frequently at Newport Old Man Old Man c. The 33 Instance is in Pag 206 where he brings in Iohn Burton sading It is a Scripture of the Devils making to apprehend Christ within He Answers If there be any other Christ but he who was Crucified within he is the false Christ and the Scriptures hold forth this and the Devil never made it but he and his Messengers are against it And he that hath not this Christ that was risen and 66 Crucified within is a Reprobate though Devils and Reprobaes may talk of him without I Reply This is the great dispute between the Christians and the Pagans the Christians and the Iews the Christians and the Mahumetans and the Christians among themselves so called viz. Who is the great Prophet 2. To what purpose should I alleadge the whole history of the Birth Life Death c. of the Lord Jesus since the Quakers acknowledge all true c. 3. Why should I alleadge the Sermons and Preachings and Writings of the Apostles or Messengers of Christ Iesus after his Ascention all harmonizing with the four Evangelists writing his Life and Death c. 4. Certain it is that he that shall turn over all the former Relations and Histories and all the writings and Sermons of the Apostles since and predicate a Christ that was risen within Crucified within in Opposition to that Iesus of Nazareth without he must have the Forehead of a Reprobate and Devil as G. Fox phrazeth it 5. G. Fox knows the Protestants predicate in Life and Death the believing in Christ Jesus so born so living and dying And the applying of the price of his Death and merits unto God for Propitition And the Applying of the Promise and new Covenant and Bargain in that Blood for a new Heart a new Spirit c. 6. What shall then become of G. Fox his believing in a Christ that was Risen and Crucified within in Opposition to this Lord Jesus so Promised so Prophesied of so prefigured so brought forth so living and dying so preached so believed on and what a Forehead of Hell must he have that calls all those Reprobates and Devils that talk of Christ without The 34th Instance is in pag. 214. where G Fox brings in the Elders and Messengers of several Churches of Ilston Abergevenny c. saying We are Conceived in Sin and brought forth in Iniquity c. He Answers David doth not say you who were Conceived in Sin but I and W. saith Iohn was sanctified from the Wombe and the Scriptures speaks of such as were sanctified from the Wombe and Children that were clean And so you do not speak as Elders and 67 Messengers of true Churches or Men dividing the Word aright but you are one against another though you are all against them you call Quakers that be in the Truth I Reply 1. In the passage G. Fox discovers to any Intelligent and Savoury Spirit not only a weak and deluded Soul but a Popish and Arminian poyson about the Estate of all mankinde in their first Birth a strong presumption that he never felt what the woful Estate of all mankinde by Nature is and what to Cry out in his own particular with David I was Conceived in Sin and brought forth in Iniquity which Cry is one of the first Soul Cries of every Child of God 2. About 120 years since the Father of Spirits stird up the Spirit of his Famous Servant Calvin to batter down the Babel of a Franciscan Frantick who maintained that God from the first Created both Devils and wicked men in the same Condition of wickedness wherein we now find them Contrary to the holy Scriptures Testimony as that Excellent Soul proved declaring their pure Creation their Fall and their respective future Estate and condition to Eternity 3. In the Reign of our late Royal Sovereign K. Iames it pleased God to let loose this Devil of Pelagius who rowzed up the wits of Arminius and his Followers in the low Countries during their twelve years Truce with Spain so that the Civil Discord about this point and other Pelagian and Semi-pelagian Doctrines had almost ruined Holland c. but that the Lord mightily assisted them First By the personal presence and Forces of the Prince of Orange and Secondly By the Famous Assembly and Disputes of the Synod at Dort 4. To follow the Fox into his Burrough what if David say not you but I why should the Papists and Arminians or Foxians have a more holy Birth then David Wherein could holy David Father Iesse and his mother be charged Is not the English of the word Devil Accuser Reproacher Slanderer Is not Nature that Law and Order which the most Infinite Creator hath set in the propagation of all his Creatures though the choicest of them Man be degenerated into the soure Vine at first a sweet Vine Nature or Gods Order goes on though mankinde be Corrupted from the Womb and the Imagination of the Thoughts of mans Heart be only evil and that continually Gen. 6. and millions of 68 Experiences all the world over Confirm it what the Trade of all mankinde is from the Birth The Spots of the Leopard and the Blackness of the Neger comes not by Accident c. 6. The perversness and Crookedness of the motions of Nature may continue though Nature and the Course of it run on as we see in Rivers turn'd out of their Chanels in Clocks and Watches and Dâ—al and Lutes and Harps when out of Tune they give their Natural and Artificial though distempered Sounds and operations 7. Beside the holy Testimony of Moses Gen. 6 and David Psal. 51. and the Lord Jesus declaring what the heart of man is Mark 7. How doth Paul Rom. 5. and 7. declare the Entrance of Sin by the first Man until by the second Man Sin and Death and Hell be Conquered and at last Sin in Gods Children fully dissolved and abolished 8. I end this passage with Appellation to all that knâ—w what Children are all the world over the sweetest and the fairest born of the holiest and sweetest Parents how froward how proud how Revengeful against their Fathers Mothers and most tender Nurses 1. These rotten and crooked Dispositions in every Childe bring forth wilde Asses fruits in Youth
George Fox Digg'd out of his Burrovves Or an Offer of DISPUTATION On fourteen Proposalls made this last Summer 1672 so call'd unto G. Fox then present on Rode-Island in New-England by R. W. As also how G. Fox slily departing the Disputation went on being managed three dayes at Newport on Rode-Island and one day at Providence between Iohn Stubs Iohn Burnet and William Edmondson on the one part and R. W. on the other In which many Quotations out of G. Fox Ed. Burrowes Book in Folio are alleadged WITH AN APENDIX Of some scores of G. F. his simple lame Answers to his Opposites in that Book quoted and replyed to By R. W. of Providence in N. E. BOSTON Printed by Iohn Foster 1676. TO The KINGS MAIESTY Charles the IId c. Whom the King of Heaven long and eternally Preserve Royal Sir THE Most High hath adorned you with an High Birth with a gallant Temper and Endowments of Nature with Princely Education and rare Experiences c. The Crown of all the Sanctifier of all must be L'esprit de Djeu or else all that is under the Sun in fumum abeunt Touching this most holy Spirit and other heavenly Points in difference between the Protestants and the Quakers I present your royal eye with a Lantskip of a Battle fought this last Summer in your Majestyes New-England between some of the eminentest of the Quakers and my self three dayes at Newport on Rode-Island and one at Providence on the Main in the same Colony I am humbly bold to present it to your Royal Hand 1. That your own precious Soul infinitely more precious then thousands of Brittains or Worlds may see the Grounds and Roots of these Protestant Disquisitions 2. That your Majesty may see what your New-English Subjects are doing under the gracious Wing of your wonderfull Favour to us c 3. Because your Majestyes Name is often mentioned and concerned in these Concertations 4. Because it was affirmed by some of my Opposites in publick that there were scarce any of their Books came forth but the King had one I thought it some obligation on me to present the Protestant Truth thus publickly and solemnly asserted more justly then my Popish and Arminian Opposites to offend your Royal eyes with Smoak out of the Deep Pit Gracious Sir I know your precious Spirits and Minutes are exhausted in managing your Warrs abroad and in preserving your Dominions in Peace at home I cannot therefore hope for one glance of your eye upon any more then this poor Epistle Charles the Great was one of the greatest Princes of that name in the world And Charles the fifth both Emperours had his wonderfull Trick at Helm also but both and all turn into the Cabbin Pit of Rottenness Charles the 5th in his 58th year Charles the Great in his 72d year But were every drop of water between your Old-England and New a million of years yet Mors ultima linea and t is but Momentum unde pendet Eternitas By Gods most wise and righteous Permission the Pope and Quakers pretend their Enthusiasmes and Infallibilityes I know and have detected much of both of their Impostures and I beseech him who is the eternal Pater Luminum to preserve your Royal Spirit from both their Cheatings that is from the Oracles of Hell in their mouths And I humbly importune your Majestyes continued Grace and Patience to this poor New-England which though a miserable cold howling Wilderness yet L'eternel hath made it his Glory your Majestyes Glory and a Glory to the English and Protestant Name and if the most High please Old and New-England may flourish when the Pope and Mahomet Rome and Constantinople are in their Ashes Providence in N-England March 10th 1672 3. ut Vulgò Your Majestyes most loyal and affectionate Orator at the Throne of Grace Roger Williams To the People called Quakers Friends Country-men 1. THe occasion of these Discourses you may see in the first Page the 14 Proposals in the second Page and the occasion of the Title in the 34. 2. The truth is as Edmund Burroughs and others of you say of your selves from my Childhood now above three-score years the Father of Lights and Mercies toucht my Soul with a love to himself to his only begotten the true Lord Iesus to his Holy Scriptures c. his infinite Wisdome hath given me to see the City Court and Country the Schools and Universities of my Native Country to converse with some Turks Iews Papists and all sorts of Protestants and by Books to know the Affairs and Religions of all Countries c. 3. My Conclusion is that be of good chear thy sins are forgiven thee Mat. 9. is one of the joyfullest sounds that ever came to poor sinful Ears how to obtain this sound from the mouth of that Mediatour that spoke it is the great dispute beween the Protestants and the bloody Whore of Rome this is also the great point between the true Protestants and your selves as also in order to this about what man is to the utmost now by nature what the true Lord Jesus Christ is and all other controversies discussed in this Book not unworthy this your serious weighing as Mary did in the hearts and spirits c. 4. Bear with me while I say that as the Iesuites pretend to deifie the Pope but it is known the end is to deifie themselves under the cloak of the Popes Name so Satan pretends to exalt and deifie you under the name of God and Christ and Spirit c. but his end is as Peter tells us to exalt himself and fill his hellish Paunch with Souls 5. I endeavoured but could not procure a Short-hand writer so that I am forced to recollect Transactions from my Memory and I believe as in the holy presence of God that I have not failed to present the true substance of passages without advantage to my self or disadvantage to my Opposites 6. I have used some sharp Scripture Language but not as commonly you do passionately and unjustly I sometimes call you Foxians as Nicolaitans from Nicholas because G. Fox hath appeared the greatest Writer and the greatest Preacher amongst you and the most deified that I can hear of sure it is that here he subtly run for it he ordered that my Letters to our Deputy Governour Captain Cranstone in which my Proposals to G. F. were should not be delivered to the Deputy until G. F. was some hours under sayle that he might say he never saw my Paper though it is as clear as noon-day that he knew all matters by Copies Letters and Relations perfectly many dayes before his departure 7. My disadvantage in our Contests especially at Newport were great and many for though I. Stubs and I. Burnet were more civil and ingenious yet W. Edmondson was nothing but a bundle of Ignorance and Boisterousness he would speak first end all though all three were constantly on me at once no man might speak at all in
favour of my Positions any might freely speak against them they sat in the midst of the Governour Magistrates of their Opinion and the whole Assembly of their way W. Edmundson though I. Stubs twice said in publick that I had not inter-interrupted them yet W. Edmundson would frequently and insolently interrupt me so that I was not only forced to bear patiently through Gods only help but to suppress my thoughts which here I have added in some places 8. I know that a great weight of your Opinions and Actings lye upon your believing your selves guided by the immediate Spirit of God but I believe that I have proved that it is no more the holy Spirit of God that speaks and acts in you then it was the true Samuel that spake such heavenly words in the appearance of Sam. Mantle amongst a cloud of other witnesses you shall never perswade Souls not bewitched that the holy spirit of God would perswade your Women and Maidens to appear in publick streets assemblies stark naked c. of which I have spoke more particularly in our disputations 9. It is hard to perswade a Fox or a Wolf that he is so c. or that he doth Rob or Steal or Murther it is hard to perswade a man while he dreams that he is in a Dream yea though he be a filthy Dreamer as Gods Spirit speaks In our Dreams we believe lyes and impossibilities to be true as that we are many thousand miles of that we talk with dead men c. that we are at Marriages or Burials and are Kings and Queens c. 10. All that I can hope for without Gods wonderfull mercy is to give my Testimony in my generation for as Solomon speaks of the Whore few or none of you return Yet I know Gods foundation is sure he knows who are his amongst you as amongst other perswasions I have proved and will prove if God please that spiritual Pride that is Pride about spiritual matters is the Root and Branch of your whole Religion and that the King Eternal who did cast out proud Angels out of his Palace will hardly open his Gates to proud and scornful Dust and Ashes Providence March 10. 1672 3 so called I am one of your best Friends R. W. To those many Learned and Pious Men whom G. Fox hath so sillily and scornfully answered in his Book in Folio Especially to those whose Names I have been bold to mention in the Narrativt and Apendix Mr Richard Baxter Mr Iohn Owen c. Sirs THrough your sides the Devil by the Clawes of this wily Fox hath tore at the heart of the Son of God it is no wonder then if he tear at the Heart of his Love-Letters and Institutions and the true Professors of his name who are innumerable in Abrahams Bosome and the rest travelling uprightly thither For Brevity sake I was forced to omit many excellent Passages selected by Fox out of your Writings to select short Sentences of yours unto which he gives short Answers As to matters in Difference between yourselves and me I willingly omitted them as knowing that many able and honest Sea-men in their Observations of this Sun one picture of Christ Iesus differ sometimes in their Reckonings though uprightly aiming at and bound for one Port and Harbour Eternally praised be the Father of Lights and mercyes that we are one in that most glorious ever fixed Cynosura about whom his true Prophets Messengers ever have and doe and shall move and he holdeth them in his right hand I humbly beg of you 1. That you will more and more earnestly candidly and christianly study the things that differ without reflecting upon Credit Maintenance Liberty and Life it self remembring who it was that said it He that loves his life shall lose it 2. More and more to study the Prophesies and the Signs of the Times You know when it was that sive Bishops twenty-two Ministers almost three hunared other precious Believers in the true Lord Iesus were sacrificed in the Flames for his ever blessed sake against that monstrous Man of Sin and bloudy Whore of Rome These Foxians fancy is but a feather to to those high Pico's and Tenariffs the Pope and Mahomet whom some of you may live to see flung into the Lake that burns with Fire and Brimstone Were it not that the infinite Compassions of Heaven had made our gracious Sovereign the Breath of our Nostrills the fiery Fornace had certainly burnt seven times hotter against Hananiah Mishael and Azariah Surely as for Conscience sake we ought to obey so sor Conscience sake we ought to be Instant and Constant at the throne of Grace for his Royal Preservation and Salvation Prov. March 10 1672 3. I am unworthy to be yours R. W. A Narration of A CONFERENCE OR DISPUTE This last August 1672 so called in the Colony of Rode-Iland and Providence Plantations in N. ENGLAND between Roger Williams of Providence who Challenged Fox by writing which followes and all his Friends then met on Rode-Iland and G. Fox withdrawing Iohn Stubs Iohn Burniat and William Edmundon three of their ablest Apostles on the other that is on the pretended Quakers Party HAving long heard of the great name of G. Fox a man cried up by the People called Quakers and having read his book in Folio some years since against as I think above six score Books and Papers written by pious and able pens against them and now this Summer hearing of his coming into these Parts of N England and the poor cheated Souls the Quakers with joy expecting his coming as the coming of an Angel of light from Heaven I read over his Book afresh as in the holy presence and eye of God with a single Eye and Heart and more clearly finding his Answers so weak and silly so Anti-Christian and Blasphemous and yet so Imperious and Scornfull so Cursing and Censorious 2 Damning and Reprobating all that bow not down to their new Upstart Image my Spirit rose up within me and I believe the holy Spirit of God in answer to my poor Petitions and Meditations resolved and quickened my Spirit to the present Undertake and Service And therefore for his most holy Names sake and the name of his most holy only begotten the true Lord Iesus the God-Man and Mediator c And for the honour of the most holy Spirit of God so horribly torn in pieces by this foul Spirit of the Quakers For the vindicating of many of the precious Truths of the old Christian purity and for the sake of so many precious Souls lying slain and bleeding before me I made this Offer following to G. Fox and any or all his Followers or Associates then together at New-port on Rode-Iland T is true G. Fox was at Providence some few dayes before and spake publickly and it was free for me publickly to have heard him and opposed him But going the last year to one of their general Assemblyes at New-Port
Hence the Word of God is the Word preached as Paul 2 Thess. 1. Not as the word of man but as it is indeed the Word of God Act. 19 which preaching of the Word growing of the word were not competent and proper expressions to be affirmed of the perfon of the Lord Iesus especially I told them I would use the words of the Lord Iesus when he fought with the Devil that famous Combate Math. 4. No other Weapon did he use against him but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is written and again It is written It is written here Christ Iesus quotes Dut 8. Man shall not live by bread only but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God where Moses and Christ Iesus affirm 34 that God hath many words contrary to what some Quakers hath affirmed to me saying that God hath no more words but one and Christ Iesus here affirmeth That every appearance and providence of God is a word proceeding out of the mouth of God as well as this holy Scripture he alleadged Though yet it is true that Christ Iesus is the Word or declared Mind of God incomparably above all his spoken or written or providentiall Words and Expressions He came out of the Bosome of the Eternal Father and brought the brightest Revelations of his eternal God-head Councels and therefore is most justly and eminently stiled the Word of God I urged that the Word or Words of God were Figurative Speeches for properly God had no Mouth nor Tongue nor Lips nor Heart nor Brains c. but as our Kings Majesty his Declaration touching Religion his royal Charters his Letters from Breda are often insisted on and urged by the Quakers as the word of a King though his writings contain many hundred words so it is with the King of Heaven his Scriptures and writings c. I had oft occasion to mention G. Fox and Ed. Burrowes their Book in Folio called The great Mystery c. upon which W Edmundson reproved me for speaking of G. Fox and E. Burrowes in scorn and derision so his words were I guest he took me as if I had scornfully intended G Fox in his Burrowes but I had openly purged my self protesting before the Lord that I had no such thought yet this Passage was the occasion of the Title of the Book For the finger of Gods most wise and holy Providence is often wonderfully seen in small unexpected inconsiderable Turns and Occasions In such poor shells oftimes may be found the Kernels of rich and usefull Observations Sure thought I Gods holy Finger is in it that G. Fox and Ed. Burrowes Men so qualified and named should so notorioufly conspire against the true Lord Iesus Christ in their dark and subtle hellish Contrivings and Imaginations It was also Gods overruling hand that VV. Edmundson should so upbraid me and first put the Conceit and thought of such a Consideration into me which I apprehended as Digitus Dei the finger of God directing and pointing me to so proper and pertinent an use and Application Thus the only Wise and Righteous King catcheth the craftiest Foxes in their own Burrowes and turns their proud Surmises Censures upon their own Pates This occasioneth me with Amaze 35 ment and Astonishment to cry out O God how deep are thy Being thy Attributes thy Providences thy Self and all thy wayes beyond our thoughts and finding out To proceed I had observed and prepared many Quotations out of G. Fox his Book but they desired not to hear them read as in the following dayes of Conference they were read by my continual importunate Urgings I say at first I could not get oportunity to insist upon some Particulars a Tast whereof I think now fit to present the Reader with In Page 155. of G. Foxes aforesaid Book he brings in one I Stallam their Opposite saying To say the Light in every man gave forth Scripture and will open Scripture to us is palpable Darkness and contradicts the Scripture G. Fox answers All be in utter Darkness and know not the Scripture untill they come to the Light that every man was in that gave forth Scripture for the Light lets them see to what it was spoken and Christ the end of them The english of that Answer is That every man that is all Mankind Men and Women if they will can give forth Scriptures or write holy Scriptures I know they call this Light God and Christ and Spirit the Covenant of God the Life Truth and Grace of God I asked them in publick Since this Light comes into this World in and with all Mankind whether it comes into them at the Conception or at the Birth or when else Whether it was in all Mankind before the coming and death of Christ Iesus or whether to those that are in the world since his coming or both Whether it be in the Understanding Will Memory Affections in any of them severally or lodgd in all of them jointly For it was a prodigious Fable to imagine such a Sun to shine in every Room of an house and yet none of the Inhabitants nor any that come into the house discern and see it Christ Iesus saith as the mouth is the heart is and before a true turning unto God we are in darkness we are darkness we hate the light of God and endure not to see it but wish there were no God no Father of Lights to discover and plague us for our dark Courses yet our Hearts are so cunning and cheating that they will tell us that we have Light and Christ and God within us and that we can speak and write holy Scripture not remembring that as Christ Iesus said of the Temple our hearts are Dens of Thieves and like painted Tombs full of dead mens bones and rottenness 36 untill a second Birth by the VVord and Spirit of Christ Iesus Again in the same Page G. Fox brings his Opposite saying And to say every mans Light is the true word of Prophecy is an old Fable no man shall be able to spell out a syllable of the Gospel by all that is written in a mans Heart This subtle Fox answers The Light that enlightens every man is Christ and the sure Word of Prophecy to him he shall find it In this Passage who can but see their horrible and simple profaning and wresting of plain Scripture Is it not clear as day to him that is not willingly blind that this word of prophecy in Peter is the Word which the Prophets spake and writ of Christ Iesus unto whome the spirit of God in Peter sends us as being a more sure and convincing word to us then that voice which Peter and Iohn affirmed that they heard from heaven in the Mount of Transfiguration But thus profanely and simply do others of them affirm this Light to be that Prophet which Moses wrote of Deut. 18. whereas the holy Spirit in Stephen Acts 7. applyes expresly that
Prophesie to the person of the Lord Iesus that God-man in one person whome Moses and Stephen preached the great Messiah or Christ the anointed Prophet Priest and King unto all that receive or believe in him Now diverse observing and publickly expressing how unsuitable it was that three of the ablest Speakers amongst them should Consult openly and whisper and utter themselves one immediately after each other and somtimes all together as one man against me W. Edmondson answered and excused it saying that it was mine own Paper which he often produced which exprest my Offer to make good my Positions against all Comers But I replyed once and again That as God is a God of Order and doth all things in Number Weight and Measure in most admirable Order and Method so I had thought that according as I writ and spake to them they would have had so much Ingenuity to conceive that nor I nor any man was so simple as to offer to Dispute with to oppose and to answer twenty or thirty or one hundred at once But thus like subtle and impudent Foxes and Iesuites they pleaded and practised from the beginning of the Conference unto the end of the 4th day resolving to make use of and like dying men by drowning to catch at any ridiculous Advantage though unchristian and uncivill But the truth is this and many other Discouragements and Disadvantages and Difficultyes the Lord Iesus graciously and faithfully 37 For his name sake enabled me to cut through otherwise I saw the Debate would not have held on so many Hours as it did Dayes I knew they had as much mind to this work no nor any guilty Soul in the world as Bears to be tyed to a stake to be baited and I must humbly declare and predicate it to the praise of the Father of mercyes and for the incouragement of others to be Patient for Christ Iesus sake that an hand from heaven caried me through to the end of each day and to the end of the whole business Sometimes I offered to proceed to an other Point but all this first day was spent upon the first Point of true and false Quakers For though many upon a sudden spake as Mr. Coddington Mr. Easton then Governour who spake sharply VVilliam Dyer VVilliam Harris and others against me yet I minded closely what my Antagonists vented who were placed on high in their Desk against me Iohn Stubs and Iohn Burnet were more sober and manly but VV. Edmundson who was the junior of three would speak all like Solomons foolish woman loud and clamorous simple and knowing nothing being in truth nothing but a flash of wit a Face of Brass and a Tongue set on fire from the Hell of Lyes and Fury One Instance here fell out for when I urged that it was not what man had within him already and brought into the world with him that made a true Quaker but the Spirit of God accompanying and blessing the Reading and Hearing of the writings of God preached and opened I said the Heart of man was shut up lockt and barr'd up in willing Ignorance and darkness until the finger of God in the use of those and other blessed meanes pick open in a more gentle way or break open by great afflictions and and terrours the Soul and Spirit of man I said that Paul preached the word by the River side but the Lord opened the heart of Lydia and while I was saying that It was not Paul nor Pauls Preaching nor the word that he preached at this word VV. Edmondson clamour'd out He speakes Blasphemy But it pleased God to move the heart of our Deputy-Governour Capt. Cranston justly and seasonably to witness against this Interruption saying Let him have liberty to make out his mind So I proceeded and said it may be VV. Edmnndson is offended as thinking I spoke against the word Christ but Christ Iesus knowes that I had no such thought but of the words which Paul spake And I added that it was not Lydia nor all her Light within her nor Paul nor 38 his Preaching nor the word nor words that he uttered but the Finger of Gods Spirit according to Election that set the word or words of Paul home opening her heart and not every heart shewing what free grace is against the Popish and Arminian and Foxians exalting of Cursed Nature and then it was that she being by the Lord turned she turned to attend apply to her soul the words which were spoken by Paul as a poor Rams-horn made use of in the hand of God Toward the end of the day VV. Edmondson fell into a long Invective how I had falsly slandered the People of God not only in this place but the whole Body of the People of the Lord called Quakers in all parts For said he we are a great people many thousands in England many thousands in London besides in Virginia and Barbadoes and other places and N-England And he and they said hast thou any more to say to make out thy Lyes against them I Answered as at other times that the Papists the common Protestants the Iews and the Mahumitans and Pagans c. fited the world with their Numbers and yet we jointly opposed them in Religious matters notwithstanding their innumerable numbers And as for more proof that they were not True Quakers and so truly Feariug and Trembling before God I told them I would produce an Argument that they were so far from being Christians that they were a to be exploded and abhorred of all Mankind as being fallen beneath the common temper and nature of the Humanity of men and women yea of the Savage and Barbarous in the world viz. their stripping stark naked their Men and Women and Maidens and passing along in publick places and Streets unto the Assemblyes of Men and Youths and so were beheld and gazed upon by them and this under a pretence of being stirred up by God as a Service or Worship unto God as an act of Christian Religion proceeding from the immediate moving of the most holy Spirit of God most glorious in purity and purity and holiness it self At first W. Edmundson seemed to make strange of the matter as if it could not be proved that any of their women should so appear in the Assemblyes of People I told them the matter of fact was so notorious that it would be loss of time and Impudence to question it being so fouly and openly practised both in Old and New England 39 Also I added further that G. Bishop of Bristow one of themselves in the second part of the Persecutions of New-England relates in print the names of two women in N-England that did so practice and he complains of N-England Persecution because those women suffered Whipping for those actions by the Courts and Officers of N-England Iohn Burnet said that the People called Quakers were a People known to abhor all Impurity and Uncleanness and the
no other Presence or Absence of a Christ but invisible and Spiritual and subtilly affirms that Christ Iesus hath no bodily Presence at all in the sence which all Christians of what sort or Sect soever but these Iuglers and themselves also in word and horrible hypocrisie do acknowledg and profess In Page 10 He brings in the same Author saying Christ was not in his Disciples when he said I am the Light of the world G Fox answers And so corrected by Christ I in you and you in me Pag. 12. He brings in the same Author saying The Body of Christ is out of the sight of all his Saints G. Fox Answers they sat with Christ in Heavenly places the Saints are Flesh of his Flesh and Bone of his Bone were the Church which he is head of his Body In which I Answer and all his Book over though he own a Christ without and that died at Ierusalem in word yet he allows in effect no other Body to Christ Iesus but what is Mistical and Spiritual so that with notorious Iugling and Iesuitical Impudence they would make their simple Followers believe that they own such a Christ as shed his Blood at Ierusalem and yet leave him in his Body no more Blood to shed then is in a Spirit which hath no Bones Flesh nor Blood to shed at all Pag. 17. He brings in Enoch Howet Affirming That it is Blasphemy to say that Christ is in Man as God Man G. Fox Answers still like the Cuckow in one silly Note How are they of his Flesh and of his Bones And doth not the Scripture say Christ in you and God will dwell in you and walk in you and are not his Saints of his Flesh and of his Bones and there is one sentence added are they not partakers of the Divine Nature I Reply this Participation of the Divine Nature is saith Peter in the Saints by those precious Promises that is by receiving Christ Jesus by believing in him according to that Ephes. 3. 10. That Christ may dwell in your hearts by Believing not that the Divine Being or Essence and Nature or Godhead is communicable to a finite Creature from hence these proud Simpletons fancie and some have been such bold Bayards as to say they are Christ and God as much as he that died at Ierusalem Christed with Christ and Godded with God 51 It is remarkable that Nicholas the Deacon was the Father as I believed of the old Nicholaitans and Henery Nichols in King Iames his time the Father of the new Nicholaitans in London and other places crying up their perfection their Spirituality and Godhead all leading from the purity of Gods Worship and Authority of the Holy Scripture and at last to carnal Filthiness as the Daughters of these the Ranters declare evidently This Humane Nature humane Soul and Body of Christ Jesus is so cross opposite and contrary to their new whimsical Christ Jesus the Light within them that G. Fox in all this Book cannot endure to hear of the word Humane as being a new Name and never heard of in the Scriptures As to the word Humane such an odious Word and Bugbear to G. Fox in all this Book I said in publick many Words truely and properly English were well and commendably used that were not in the Scripture in English it is true the word Humane comes from the word in Latin Humanus signifying partaining or belonging to Man so a Humane Soul or Body is no more but such a Soul or Body as all Mankinde have Hence I told them that the word Anthropinos peirasmos 1. Cor. 10. I presumed Iohn Stubs knew might have been turned Humane but is truely turned no Temptation or Trial but such as is common to Men. This Fox knows that if Christ Jesus be granted to have had such a Soul and Body as is Humane or Common to Men down falls their Dagon before the Chest or Ark of God viz. their Horrible Monstrous Idol of a Christ called Light within them We went on thus in alleadging Quotations though not in a close Examination of them which they endured not though ever and anon I made some sallies out upon them and had some Skirmishings and sometimes sharp Disputes before I would retreat from the Quotation In Pag. 282. He brings in Daniel Gaudry saying We shall not see Christ as he is until he comes to Iudgement and then and not before we shall see him G. Fox Answers You where you are see him not nor know him as he is we do believe you but the Saints the true Church whom he is the Head of in whom he is in the midst and in whom he is c. I was not desirous to trouble the Audience with more Quotations but they still urged haste thou any more hast thou any more c. upon their provocation I Quoted many more to 52 make up an overwhelming Cloud of Witnesses against these Protestant Iesuites and Iudasites Betrayers of the Son of God the true Lord Jesus Christ. In Foxes Answer to his Opposite Daniel Caudry it is clear that he affirms the contrary to his Opposite to wit that Christ Jesus is as much now seen visibly as ever he shall be seen in which I believe he speaks the heart of all the Antichristian Wolves and Foxes who quake and tremble at the thought of Christs return again to judgment and therefore these deluded and deluding Souls in their dark Prisons of willing Blindness and the hellish Chaines of the pride and hardness and security of their hearts they dream they sit in Robes of Glory themselves now keep open the high Court of eternal Iudgment and pass Sentence upon this Christ without as a poor Outside Christ and all that worship him 2. I observe in Fox his answer that he can not keep out of his Burrow of confounding a visible eye and a Spiritual a visible and invisible seing you see him not saith he where you are that is you that look upon such a real person indeed such an one born living and dying as the History sets forth you cannot see him as he is but we that look at Christ Iesus and the history of him as Mystical immediate invisible though we use to please you children and fools with the words of Christ dying at Ierusalem we see him he is in the midest of us and he is the invisible Head of the Church in God while you talk of Visibles and seing him as Visible c. In Page 276. he brings in Richard Meyo saying that he did believe in a Christ that dyed at Ierusalem and that he doth not believe in a Christ within and preach Christ within is a Reprobate Colloss 2. 2. Cor. 13. And he is not in a true Belief of Christ without that doth not believe in a Christ within but is in the Devils Belief and believes as the Devils do In this his answer an
the Wolves covered only with the sheepskins they have other Words Letters Spirits 2 Thes. 2. whatever they prate of Scripture and speak brave swelling empty words as Iude speaketh T is true as G. Fox all along in his Book vapours that the Spirit was before Scripture and gave forth Scripture but I proved before that their Spirit their Light their Christ were but hellish Darkness the spirit of Sathan and a false lying Christ c. 2. The Dispensations of God were many and divers as before the Law and after but in this last and third dispensation he hath spoken that is his word mind and will whatever the Quakers as well childishly as Blasphemously prate to the contrary by his Son And as the Son himself the Lord Jesus in his own person when he personally maintained that famous combat with the Devil used no other weapon but Prayer and Fasting and the Holy Scripture so he left written this holy patern and example that we through Patience and Comfort of the Scriptures might have hope Rom. 14. Luther being demanded how he gain'd such knowledge and abilities in such blind Popish darkness he freely confessed that the holy Scripture was his first help the second Meditation the third earnest Prayer to God to vouchsafe his Spirit to bless the two former unto him The Lord Jesus therefore not only ordained his Messenger or Preachers of his glad Tydings to Iews and Gentiles but his Pen-men also Ioh. 20. for those two great ends as to us to wit 1. These things are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ to wit that that individual person and man called Jesus was the Christ the Messiah so long promised and expected contrary to the Blasphemous Fancies of the Quakers And 2. That Believing in him that individual person called Jesus and not in a Fancy within we might have Life and Blessedness It is no wonder therefore that the Devil the great Thief as he compasseth Sea and Land with the Pharisees Iesuites and Quakers to make Proselytes so wherever he comes he labours to blow out the Candle of the Holy Scripture It is the Spirit Breath or wind of the Devil in the lips of Atheists Iews Papists Quakers Ranters c. that puffs and blows 93 against this Holy Light more precious infinitely then the Sun in the Heaven it hath been most wonderfully to amazement preserved like the Sun in the Firmanent and shines most gloriously again and again after the blackest and longest storm and night of Apostacies and Persecution The Turkish Hystory tells us of a Woman appearing in the Heavens with a Book open in her hand some of their Mahumetan Priests dared to say for which one greatly suffered that the Woman was the Christian Church and the Book was their Bible or Scriptures which threatned ruine to their Mahomet and Alcoran Iohn was not commanded and in him the Protestant Witnesses to stand still and listen to a Light to a motion or voice within but to eat up the little Book open once again in the hands of Christ Jesus Rev. 10. and after this eaten up to prophesie to Peoples and Nations to Tongues and Kings Whether this Book be the Book of the Revelation or the Book of the whole Bible or Scripture it is apparent that during the 42 Months of the the Papal Reign and Darkness Christ Iesus hath given Authority and power to his Witnesses to search after the Holy Records in the Original Hebrew and Greek Copies and to bring them forth by Translating and Preaching the Doctrine of them c. for which they have suffered Death and Burning as Tindal and many other excellent men of God The Walls of Rome yea the Gates of Hell have shaken and felt the might of this Heavenly Artillery It lies therefore the Devil and all his Messengers in hand to break to pieces or to nail up their heavenly Ordinance It hath been observed that there never were any more than others famous for Christanity but they first were famous for an admirable Love kindled by God in their Hearts to the Holy Scriptures It is true the Iews to whom the Oracles of God were committed to wit in the Old Testament how studious have they been in it even to every Word and Letter they accounted it a crime for any Book to ly upon it but this alwayes to lye uppermost My self have seen the Old Testament of the Iews most curious writing whose price in way of trade was threescore pound which my Brother a Turkey-Merchant had and shewed me But I speak of an inward love a Soul-love c. It is wonderful what Luther relates of that blessed Duke of Saxony whom 94 God stir'd up to favour and cherish Luther c viz. that he caused his six Pages each of them to read to him daily everyone his hour in the Holy Scripture This was the affection in all the first Witnesses the Waldensians the Bohemians the English French Dutch Scotch c. who together with the Scriptures had mighty Affection to the study of the Hebrew and Greek in which golden Cups and Bowles the King of Kings was pleased to convey the Wine like Ahashuerosh of his Eternal Majesty and Goodness to us It is wonderful to consider how much the study of the Scriptures and of the Hebrew and Greek Tongues confounded and put to flight the Papists and forced them to study the Scriptures and the Tongues also both which the barbarous dark Spirit of the Quakers hate as darkness hates the Light It is no wonder this Spirit of Lying cries out so fiercely against the Schools of Learning in Old and New England it knows that the right and regular propagation of natural of civil and especially of Divine Knowledge scatters the thick Fogs of the Quakers affected hellish ignorance The blessed Martyrs and Witnesses of Jesus in all ages have been ravished with holy delights like David in the holy Scripture in Q Maries dayes that famous Ridley called Bishop of London he had got most of the holy Epistles in Greek by heart even before he left Pembrook Hall in Cambridge and as the fire of persecution grew hotter so did those blessed Witnesses like Jesus with Moses and Elias and Paul at Troas spend hours and nights in Prayer and holy Conference upon the Scriptures and those things which the Lord Jesus should and hath now accomplished according to the Scriptures It is true in print Iames Parnel spake like a Papist an Atheist and a Quaker of the holy Martyrs or Witnesses of Jesus Christ and of the book of Martyrs it self It is no wonder that the most Righteous and jealous Lord left him not to dye the common death of all Mankinde but to Murther himself by a proud presumptuous attempt of declaring himself to be Christ by fasting 40 dayes and 40 nights I believe this to be a Truth from the Testimonies I have seen of Parnels
Faith and put in a painted or Glass Eye in the Room of it True Faith is a Receiving of Christ Jesus as my only King Priest and Prophet It is a believing on or receiving of Christ distinct from God Iohn 14. You believe in God This true Lord Jesus Christ the Quakers turn into a meer Fiction Dream or Imaginary Christ in the mind of a man or Woman a Popish Transubstantiated Christ all Spirit and no Body and so not consisting of Flesh and Spirit He hath no Flesh of his own as you make him and yet Flesh of his own because your Flesh is his Flesh and yet your Flesh you say also must dye and rot and never rise again and so you have blown up and Jugled away the Flesh of Christ Jesus both his and your own also altogether This is a Trick of the Father of Lyes and Iuglings beyond that Monstrous Fancy of the Papissts Transubstantiation for although they turn the Bread into the Flesh of Christ yet they turn not the Bread of Christ nor the Flesh of Christ into their own Flesh The Quakers can give no Account what is become of the Flesh or Body of that man Christ Jesus these Foxes have devoured the Lambs of God Miraculous and Monstrous is 119 the Papists blasphemous and Bloody Fancy of Transubstantiation but not more miraculous and monstrous c. then that of the Quakers which granteth Christ Jesus to have been born lived and dyed as We c and yet now Transubstantiated into a Spirit and the Quakers Flesh. So that in the Upshot the Christ in whom they believe is vanished by an Hellish Chimistry into themselves and it is most certain the Lord open in great mercy some of their Eyes to see it they do believe on themselves and that lying Spirit within them I remember that hereabouts Iohn Burnet said that it was not true that they preached not true Repentance and herein he fell into a Speech or Sermon to the People professing that the Quakers maintained Repentance toward God and Faith in Christ and Godliness and Righteousness c. and he continued I Judge above half an hour though not so long nor so furious as William Edmundson the day before I listned carefully and watcht his Ending being desirous to say something least another of them should fall into a Sermon also and put me by and I speedily said to this Effect Friend you have here delivered many holy Truths of God at this there was deep silence as if I had turn'd a Proselite at least it pleased them to be applauded I went on and said concerning Repentance and turning from all sin of the Blood of Christ and of being saved by his Blood of living soberly Righteously and godly in this present World c. but withal I said they did not reach me nor any thing that I had spoken as proof against them for I and all their Adversaries the Protestants preached Repentance and Faith c. but theirs was an Anti-Christian Repentance and Faith c. because either not true Repentance and Faith as Protestants argue against the Papists and Quakers or else in general Terms not distinguishing between true Repentance and false and shewing the difference between the true Faith and the false So that I said you might have preacht this Sermon even in Rome before the Popes face in his own Chappel yea the Pope and the Cardinals and Friars and Iesuits deliver the same Doctrines in general Terms daily But as Thieves Iuglers and Counterfiets when they come to Examination their Impudent sayings and Swearings prove but the paints of Whores and Har 120 lots So do the Devilish Doctrines and Devilish Conceit and Fancies of Papists Quakers and all Fantastick Formal Carnal Protestants who Cry Lord Lord c. but are Answered by Christ Jesus with I know ye not Depart from me ye that work Iniquity I cannot Affirm that I spake all these Individual words nor have omitted ought that I or they spake yet I remember no more though being Confined by their great desire and my self to a puarter of an hour for each point I was forced as all may judge to omit many Amplifications and Illustrations which now I crave the Readers patience while I present him with some of them I intended to have Charged them with the falseness of their Hope and Love and Peace and Joy which they often Crake though they pretend quaking and Trembling their Heaven consisteth and all the Eternal Life to come they look for they are now in present full Possession of What Scripture is more common in the mouths and pens of the Quakers then that of Paul to the Colossians Chap. 1. which is Christ in you the Hope of Glory whereby they Insinuate two of their grand Deceits and Lyes First that their is no other Christ but what is in every man in the World Secondly That there is no other Glory to be hoped for in or by or with the Lord Jesus but what the Saints that is the Quakers enjoy and are already possessedof within them in this Life To which I say how many painted Anchors and painted Hopes are there How many Hope 's as in Iob like the Spiders web swept away to Eternity If there be e're a painted Anchor or e're a Spiders web in the world this of the Quakers Hope is one as in time I may furthet demonstrate For do they not overthrow the very Nature of Hope which they prate of and give the Spirit of God Rom. 9. the Lye which tells us that Hope is not of things in possession or which we see doth not Paul there tell us almost in plain Terms that it is simplicity and Non-Sense to talk concerning Hope after such a Rate Doth not 1 Pet. 1. tell us of a Living Hope opposite to painted and dead Hopes and this Living Hope called in other places the Hope of Righteousness the Hope of the Redemption of our Bodies the Hope as of Heirs for an Inheritance of the Glory that 121 shall be revealed in us which is a state of the manifestation of the Sons of God though saith Iohn We are now the Sons of God 1 John 3. we know not what that is all that is now enjoyed is but as the first Fruits to the Harvest as the Spirit speaks 2. Again what Ignorance and simplicity is it to call Christ or God the Glory or the goodness or good things which we hope for Literally and properly upon the Promise and the Power and goodness of God no Christ Jesus Can the Eternal God in any Literal Sense be called the Hope of Israel Jer. 14. but in the same Figurative Sense whereby Moses cals him Our Life and the Length of our Dayes and we in Common Speech call such a man or his Promise or any Creatures dear to us Our Hope our Love our Ioy c. that is the Ground or the Object of our Hope c
Their great Blunderer Humphry Norton he deals as plainly and roundly as G. Fox his aemulous Corrival falsly and fraudulently when that holy Scripture If in this Life only we have Hope c. was here objected to Humphry Norton he clapt his hand on his Breast saying He had it there already that is opposing it to and denying the Hope in the Life to come especially as to their Bodies which are not raised up they say Spiritual Bodies being though of late more subtly and hipocritically all one with those deceived Souls that said the Resurrection was past already It is true they will pretend to owne the Scriptures Christs humane Nature the Resurrection and Judgement and Faith and Hope ahd Repentance c. as true and sound as any Protestant but still it is no otherwise but as G. Fox and Ed. Burroughs say in this Book that is as I have and shall open in a most Iugling and deceitful Sense and meaning It is reported that some of them at their Death have used those words Lord Iesus receive my Spirit some have Charitably thought that they intend thereby their going presently into the presence of Christ Jesus but as the Truth and bottom however they blind the world and the weakest of their Followers until they be fit to wean and fall to strong meat others of them Covertly say write and others of them more plainly say viz. That they believe no more Rising of their Bodies then the rising of a Dog and as to their Spirits they believe Souls are 122 patts of God and go unto God and into God and therefore their saying Lord Iesus receive my Spirit is no more then Lord Jesus receive thy self according to some of their plain Expressions To whom should I pray my self to whom should I give Thanks my self wherein their woful black and filthy Spirit Contradicteth it self amongst themselves though they agree in the Devils Bait which Catcht himself and with which he Catcht our first Patents and all his Posterity viz. Ye shall be as Gods live as God know as God be Gods and Christs for Evermore I shall now crave the Readers patience to hear some few Quotations out of G. Fox which my quarter of an hour would not then permit declaring thâ—ir Apostacie and Heresie in the matters of Repentance Faith c. In Pag. 127. he brings in Iohn Bunyan saying It is a Counterfietlng of the New Birth for men to follow the Light wherewith men coming into the World are enlightned G. Fox Answereth which none comes to the New Birth but who comes to the Light wherewith every man c. which believing in is a Child of the Light believing and receiving comes to receive power to be the Sons of God I Reply none are truly Converted born again c. but in a true Sense they come to Christ Jesus For the Scripture saith he gives Repentance to Israel He is the Author and Finisher of our Faith But that Jesus Christ as God so the Quakers owne him and as man for so they also owne him should be in every man and Woman and Child in the World I have proved and shall prove it to be a blockish and Devilish Fancy 2. If this Light this Christ the Mediator between God and man be only a Spirit and not man why do the Scriptnre why do the Quakere madly say there was such a man though they cannot tell now what is become of him except he be as they say within c. 3. If this Light this Christ this Mediator be in every man what should be the Reason that so many Thousands and Ten Thousand of Millions see him not Only a few persons Cursing and Reviling all the rest and that say all but the Quakers are deceived Can the Sun be in a Chamber and persons not blind but 123 seeing and awake and using his Light and yet not see it Certainly it is but a painted Sun that doth not shine equally on all it is but a painted Fire that doth not burn and the Quakers are but Pictures of Christians and pictures of men to argue aftet such a Rate that Christ not only as God and Creatour should be in every man but also as the Mediator as the Spirit and yet not operate according to the Nature of the Sun and Fire It is true the Lord Jesus came into the dark world and their darkness comprehended him not to be He that was to come the true Messiah but when Christ Jesus as Mediator the true or only Light shall dwell in the Understanding and Will and Memory and Affections of a man or Woman and those persons be savingly inlightened by him as you write and yet not Converted and saved by him it can be the Language of none but those that peep and mutter Isai. 8. but have no true Light but a false and painted Light within them Lastly saith Fox this turning to the Light within is the New Birth But the Holy Record saith that till the preaching of the Word or Gospel or glad News come to the mind of a man ordinarily by the Ear and hearing and preaching Rom. 10. there is no Faith nor Covenant nor Christ nor God in the Soul Ephes. 2. and we are not only in darkness but darkness it self Ephes. 5. and only by the holy Word and Spirit preached the blessing Isai. 59. God shineth in our hearts and not by any such Immediate Fantastick Faith or Spirit as the Anti Christian Quakers dream of yea against the Light of a twofold Experience in their own Souls 1. That many of them being enlightened and formerly Convicted by the reading or preaching of the Doctrine Word or Will of God revealed in the holy Scripture 2. That of their new Light as they falsly and foolishly prate pretended to be brought unto their Ears and knowledge by the means of these new Apostles Preachers and Ministers so pretended of Christ Jesus When God hides that is by Spiritual Iudgements the Light of Scripture of the Spirit of Reason and of Experience c. who can find it out No man no nor Devil can subsist one minute without the power of Christs Eternal Power and God-head 124 but when Christ Jesus comes into the Soul as Mediator of the new Covenant and be thus idle and not operative in all mankinde in the World and not to Convert and work belief in them which must be either because he cannot or because he will not as the Leaper said is as black and blasphemous a Fancy as any Atheistical or AntiChristian Soul can harbour He brings in George Willington saying He is Iustified by Faith alone without good works He Answers What without Faith that works by Love I Reply In this passage and in many others this subtle man clearly discovers what he makes true Justifying Faith to be viz. not one hair breadth more then the Faith that may be to God in the first Covenant the Covenant of
So saith G. Fox and all our Fantasticks out of weakness and madness not weighing what a person the holy Records describe Christ Jesus to be but as foolish Children and Anticks in the Lord Mayors shews they cry out Christ and the Spirit only for a shew and colour I know it that the true Lord Jesus his holy Father and Holy Spirit is as odious both to Iesuits and most Papists Quakers as the Devil yea infinitely more then the Devil himself as with Gods help I have and shall make it as clear as the Noon dayes Sun O you considering Protestants see you not how the Devil would rob you of that Sword with which Christ Jesus overcame him The Holy Scripture under the colour and cloak of the Spirit in the mouths of the Quakers how if the Holy writings must yet live why he hath Fisher and Stubs and Pennington and Bishop and others that skill Tongues and yet own the blockish Spirit of the Quakers how if you blame the Popish Devil for a Blockhead he can puff up his Bladders the Iesuites to a late wonderful swelling of Tongues and Histories and all kinds of Knowledge as in Bellarmine and his Associate and Followers and of late in those great Writers Petavius and Morinus The eternal Word and Son and Sun of God the true Lord Jesus will more and more discover who are his true friends his true Loves that love Alexander more than the King that are true Christians true Iesuites and that truly love and pity poor Souls he will discover who are the great Farmers who having a minde to the Farm themselves consult and say come this is the Heir that is Christ Jesus in his true Messengers let us kill him kill him with Tongue and Pen and Sword c. the Inheritance of Heavenly and Earthly Glory shall then be ours c. and to this end only they talk of Souls c. We now descended to the fifth and sorrowful point of suffering which they read viz. That the sufferings of the Quakers are no true evidence of the Truth of their Religion At the reading of this they told me that although their Sufferings were great in all places whither the Lord had sent them yet they made not their Suffering an Evidence of the truth of their Religion therefore I might have been better advised then to 175 put this in among the rest of my Lyes and Slanders as not considerable and now not worth the mentioning c. I Answered that I understood what they said and I undestood mine own affirmation also and desired their patience also while I offered my Proofs to two Particulars 1. That in their Books and Writings c. they do make their Sufferings a great Evidence to themselves and others of the truth of their Way and Spirit 2. This their Suffering is not valid as to the proof of their Religion Way and Spirit to be of God So then they bid me prove it if I could I told them that I could find no Iewes no Papists no Protestants that did so magnifie and so exactly insist upon their Sufferings as the Quakers did T is â—rue that Paul did more particularize his Sufferings then other Saints in Scripture but it was also true that they were so exceeding great that Paul seemed a None-Such but beside that it was upon some great Insultings of the False Apostles against not only himself but against the Truth of Christ Jesus neither of which is the Quakers case Beside the Quakers Sufferings generally were not to be compar'd with Pauls and yet they set down such exact accounts of every hour in prison every Stripe in Whipping every pound lost and this published to the world in print as if it were a Sign hung out with this Inscription Loe people these are the Evidences of Gods holy Truths and Gods holy Spirit of our Persecutors wickedness and our Christian Faith and Patience who for his Truths sake can endure all this I said it was not rational to think that men professing such high Wisdome and Conscience should declare such Lysts and Catalogues of Sufferings as G. Bishop doth to the world of the Quakers Sufferings in N. England in his first and second History only in a childish Vapour Ostentation and Vain-Glory much less in hopes of Reparation or any worldly advantage either in England old or new Scotland or Virginia c. and therfore Reason perswades that these Sufferings are held forth as the holy Spirit speaks of the Sufferings of the Thessalonians 2. Thess. 2. as a manifest Token of the righteous judgment of God rendering Tribulation to their Persecutors and Rest to themselves suffering for the Kingdome of God As I remember Iohn Stubs said they did not boast of their 176 Sufferings but bare them patiently for the Truths sake which they preached and professed I said I did not charge them to say in express terms We have lost so much outward Gain Favour Friendship Worldly Advantage for the Name of Christ within us can you say the like for the Christ without you We have endured Imprisonments Whippings c. have you done the like only this I say that as all Religios Iewes Papists Protestants c. are confirmed in their Perswations by their Sufferings and do predicate them to others as Arguments and Signs of the truth of their Doctrines and of Gods presence and Assistance with them so do the Quakers and that with more Particular and exact Accounts then most of all the rest have done I told them I had observed much to this purpose in G. Fox E. Burrowes in the Book by me They bid me alleadge what I could out of them I took up the Book and they theirs I directed them to the 12th Page of Ed. Burrowes his large Epistle to G. Fox his Book in Folio where I read this passage viz. And this we did with no small opposition and Danger yea oftentimes we were in danger of our Lives through beating abusing punishing haling casting over walls striking with staves Cudgels and knocking down to the ground Beside Reproaching Scorning Revilings Hooting at Scornings and Slanderings and all abuse that could be thought or acted by evil hands and tongues and oft carried before Magistrates with grievous Threats and sometimes put in the Stocks and whipped and often imprisoned and many hard dealings against us the worst that tongues or hands could execute sparing life Of this all the North Countreys can witness And all these things are sustained and suffered from People and Rulers because of our Faithfulness to the Lord and for declaring against the false Deceivers For nothing save only the hand of the Lord and his power could have preserved us and carried us through all this neither for any Reward outward whatsoever or advantage to our selves would we have exposed our selves to suffrings violence and dangers which befel us daily But the Lord was our exceeding great reward
and for maintaining and allowing it for ought I know to this day Then he turns Generallist and writes against all Magist-ates Laws Courts Charters Prisons Rates c. pretending himself and his Saints to be the Higher Powers as now the Quakers do and in publick writings he stir'd up the People most seditiously and desperately threatning to begin with the Massachusets and to cry out no Lords no Masters as is yet to be seen in his Writing this cost my self and the Colony much trouble Then as the Wind favoured his ends no man more cries up Magistrates then not finding that pretence nor the People called Baptists in whom he confided serving his ends He flies to Connecticut Colony then and still in great Contest with us in hopes to attain his gaping about Land from them if they prevail over us to this end he in publick Speech and Writing applauds Connecticut Charter and damns ours and his Royal Majesties favour also for granting us favour as to our Consciences which he largely endeavours by writing to prove the K. Majesty by Laws could not do My self being in place by Speech Writing opposed him Mr. B. Arnold then Governour and Mr. Io. Clark Deputy Governour Capt. Cranstone and all the Magistrates he was Committed for speaking writing against his Majesties Honour Prerogative Authority He 207 lay some time in Prison until the General Assembly where the Quaker by his wicked ungodly and disloyal plots prevailing he by their means gets loose and leaves open a door for any man to challenge the Kings Majesty for being too Godly or Christian in being too favourable to the Souls of his Subjects against his Laws c. I had thought to have declared thus much publickly and how seasonably the Kings Declaration came over against him also how that one General Assembly and another and another had been troubled with him c. and fined him c. but now my Lord Edmundson grew hot and told me that I had charged the People of the Lord with many great and grievous Charges which he said I could not prove yea he said he would speak it before the Lord I had not proved one of them and therefore he warned me being an old Man that I should not carry such a Burden on my back to my Grave and among other angry insultings he said he heard I had been a Magistrate and said I was a fit man to be a Magistrate that would so wrongfully charge the Innocent Io. Stubs spake to the same effect and how I had hindred them from going about the work of the Lord he said also that it was only the Light which they had spoke for and that some had interrupted them but he confest that Roger Williams himself had not done it I saw God in their Confession And for the last point and Branch of the 14 Position viz. Their Persecuting Spirit having spoken to it before and finding them unwilling to mention it I urged it not having at Newport shewed from Page 170 of G. Fox his Book That the Magistrate that is the Magistrate in their Light ought to Subject the Nation to his Light else he is not a faithful Magistrate In page 90. 96. G. Fox sets up his Saints as formerly W. Harris his Antagonists to be the higher Powers as knowing who Worship God aright and who not and only able to judge of Powers Magistrates Kingdomes and Churches Herein W. H. and the Quakers are one c. It is true that W. Edm. declared that the People of God were not to meddle with Carnal Weapons as also that before time many of the People of God called Quakers had been Souldiers Captains and Colonels yet now coming to the Light they had laid down their Carnal Weapons but if Fox say true in his Book either they Mope or Equivocate for Fox speaks of the Magistrates for Christ in the aforesaid Page 170. he discerns who be Idolaters who not which true Churches which not and are to praise the VVell Doers and terrifie the Evill Doers with the Carnal and Material Sword or else they talk nothing 208 But 2. If this Confession Profession of theirs were not yet if Chrst Jesus say true viz. The Tongue tells to all the World what the Heart is was there ever People professing the Name of Christ Jesus except the Papists so Reproaching the Protestants and amongst the Protestants was there any ever so Reproaching Reviling the Professing and Conscientious People as Quakers do was there ever any known professing the fear of God in so high a measure so sharp and cutting in their Tongues even to eminently knowing and Conscientious persons Thou Lyar thou Serpent thou Cain thou Judas thou Hipocrite thou Devil c. Shall we rationally question whether their hands like Simeons and Levyes will not be as fierce and cruel if the most holy and only Wise permits Whips Halters Swords Fagots to fall into their Hands and what did Sam. Fisher Ed. Burrowes write less to the Souldiers at Dunkirk that if they received the light they should on to Rome 3. Have we not known the deceitfulness of mens hearts fly out into greater matters then Persecution Hazael earnestly asked whether the Prophet thought him a Dog that he should doe such matters c. Pendleton vow'd his Collops should fry ere he would to Mass in Q Maryes dayes and yet to Mass he went and persecuted others also that would not bow to the Image as he had done Just here Capt Green of Warwick desired leave to speak to two things 1. To immediate Revelations such as Abraham and Moses and Ehud had 2. As to the Soul being a part of God I was weary and withdrew but afterward Capt. Green told me that none of them were willing to speak punctualy to either of these two but rather desired to wave them as a bstruse and high matters and Mysteryes Then Pardon Tillinghast a leading man among the People called Baptists at Providence he prest against them the continuation of Christs Ordinances untill he came The Quakers said Christ was come again to his Disciples He replyed that after Christs Ascention he spake of another Coming his second Coming Heb 9. W. E. fel to Prayer as with me he ftl to Preaching Pardon Tillinghast as himself told me declared to them that he was free to discourse with them but he was not free to joyn with them in Worship so he departed and after W E. his Prayer the whole Assembly And thus it pleased the God and Father of Lights and Mercyes to bring us to the end of this 4th dayes Contest and the end of the whole matter in much Peace and Quietness and the Consideration of matters left to every mans Soul and Conscience and so doe I this Narrative which God knows is the Sum and Substance of all our Transactions Unto his Eternal Majesty therefore I humbly
Prophecies of Scriptures or the written foretellings and utterings concerning Jesus Christ. Thus the God of Heaven most holy and only wise stoops to our weakness and calls his mind his word his works his word his Providences of mercy or Judgement his Word the Lord Jesus his only begotten his word his writings his Word and this in a way of Condescention to our Capacity seeing that all the World over Kings and Rulers Fathers Masters of Families of Ships c. give the word that is the manifestation of their mind and will and this as the Spring in Clocks and watches turn about all other wheels and motions Hence it is that if ancient Records and Deeds with Hands and Seals be produced at the Bar of Trial all mouths are stopt at such Evidences Thus the Word of God in the mouths of the Prophets written for after Generations is Comparatively beyond the Report of Peter 25 and Iohn themselves is in all Religions The Iews have their Talmud the Turks their Alcheron the Pope his Decretans and the Protestants the Written Word or Scriptures When therefore a Pardon is written and Sealed with the Board Seal of a King or State what a fancy is it for a condemned Wretch to hearken first to a Pardon revealed within to a voice within to a King within to a Writing within a Seal within and so slighting the true pardon in the Kings way to be conveyed from without to the Mind and Spirit within to lose his Pardon and Deliverance as thousands of such poor cheated Souls must do A 14 Instance G Fox brings in Pag. 49. his Opposite Ralph Hall saying It is against the Light of Nature for Women to Preach c. G. Fox Answers Contrary to the Apostles Doctrine and the mind of God and the Prophets who said God would pour out of his Spirit upon all Flesh and his Sons and Daughters should Prophesie So that he is a limiter of the Holy one a quencher of the Spirit and in the Darkness and this is above the Light of Nature I Reply First What is the Light of Nature but the Light in which every man comes into the World with as the Foxians speak a Light differing from that Light which Beasts wilde and tame and Birds and Fishes have And a Second Light differing from what is Supernatural as that Light revealed from Heaven in the Holy Scriptures and infused into the Souls of Men by the Holy Spirit or Power of God 2. What is the Light of Nature in Man but that Order which the most Glorious Former of all things hath set like Wheeles in Clocks or Watches a going in all his Creatures Some have observed that in the Insensible Creatures to which the most High hath only giving Beings that there may be observed a Male and Female amongst them This is more observable in Vegetables or growing Creatures as in Plants Trees Herbs Flowers c. More yet in Sensitives as Birds Beasts Fishes Most of all in Rationals Men and Women whom the most High hath so wonderfully distinguished It is true that in Religious and Christian Matters there is no 26 respect of persons with God as of Man before the Woman otherwise than to order Natural and Civil The Woman is Predestinated is Called is Justified is Glorified and wears that Golden Chain as well as the Wisest and Strongest of Mankinde And it is true the Wisdome of God perfers some Women before thousands of Men in their being born of Nobles in excellent parts as is observable in the Lady Iane and Queen Elizabeth c. in some special favour as Christ Jesus first appearing to Mary Magdalen and other Women and sending them to carry the first Tydings or Gospel of his Resurrection to his Apostles yea in effusions or powrings forth of an extraordinary measure of his Spirit before Christs coming as on Miriam Deborah Anna Huldah c. and at his coming according to Ioels Prophesie on his Daughters as well as his Sons so that as my opposites alledged to me in publick Philip the Evangelist had four Daughters thus extraordinarily endâ—wed yet this favour of God toward Women destroys not the order which the God of Order or Nature hath set in those Bounds and Limits and Distinctions between the Male and Female the Man and Woman though the Holy Scripture were silent yet Reason and Experience tell us that the Woman is the weaker Vessel that she is more fitted to keep and order the House and Children c. that the Lord hath given a covering of longer Hair to Women as a sign or teacher of covering Modesty and Bashfulness Silence and Retiredness and therefore not so fitted for Manly Actions and Employments Therefore because of Ioels Prophesie or because we must not limit or quench the Spirit as G. Fox saith there is no ground in Gods ordinary course of Nature to permit Women to pretend to be Apostles or Messengers to the Nation or Preachers and Teachers in the Publick Assemblies 1. Because we finde no such Commission given by Christ Jesus or any such Practice amongst the first Believers 2. The Lord hath set as Seamen speak a preventer to such an unnatural boldness by express Prohibitions with the Reasons and Grounds to the Corinthians and to Timothy and to answer those Scriptures with a flam viz. that Eve the Transgressor and Women that be Tatlers are forbidden and the Woman Iezebel 27 c. is all one to tell us that Paul was not a Man nor Timothy a Man nor the Teachers Men nor Corinth a City but all signifie Metaphorical and Mystical Business 3. Why may not Women much more be Lord Majors and Bailiffs and Sherriffs and Iustices and Constables Captains Colonels Generals and Commanders by Sea and Land 4. That Reason the Spirit gives to the Corinthians for the vailing of Women in publick Assemblies makes much more for their vailing and silence in matters of Prophesying Preaching and Praying viz. Because of the Angels I know not any fair and sober Exposition of this Scripture except as the blind Quakers who swallow down a fly Camel too but that of the Heavenly Angels and Spirits attending on and guarding the Assemblies of true Christians and rejoycing in the comliness order and beauty of their publick Administrations Some few years since there came to my House two Maries it is said they came from London they bid me Repent and Hearken to the Light within me I prayd them â—o sit down that we might quietly reason together they would not then standing I askt them the ground of their such Travel and Employment they alledged Ioels Prophesie I answered that was fulfilled that was not every dayes work besides their business was not Prophetical but Apostolical c. they regarded not my Answers nor Admonitions but powred the Curses and Judgements of God against me and hurried away to Barbadoes they went and being War
time the Ship bound for England they were set upon by the Dutch and though these Women animated the Seamen to fight and Prophesied that not an hair of their head should perish yet they two were both slain as afterward came certain Tydings of the whole matter I own that it may please the Father of Spirits in cases extraordinary he may please to alter his common course of Naâ—uâ—e as in Abrahams case with Isaak but we must not tempt God but if God hath powred forth the gifts of Knowledge and Utterance upon some Women more then other they have three large fields to walk in mentioned by the Holy Scripture viz. of their instructing their Children c. 2. As occasion justly calls them from home of instructing other women especially the younger 3. Of confessing boldly the Name and Truth of Christ Jesus 28 when he suffers Tyrants to bring Persecution on them c. A 15th Instance is in pag. 56. where George Fox brings in Thomas Higinson saying The sight of the Godhead without Faith in Christ is the Foundation of all false worships He Answers Can any see the Godhead have a siht of the Godhead and â—ot see Christ and have Faith in Christ And who hath Faith in Christ do they not see the Fulness of the Godhead dwels in him Christ And was not their mind turneh from that of God in them which declared the Invisible things of him from the Creation of his Eternal Power and Godhead which the Apostle found fault withal Let all Examine and Judge and read the Scripture Rom. 1. and try I Reply In former years I have Conversed with all the Indians of this New-England by Land and Seas and I have read the 1. of the Romans often and now once again at G Fox his motion and I find that First there is generally in all mankind in the World a Conviction of an Invisible Omnipotent and Eternal Power and Godhead 2. That this Conviction doth arise from the Creation though some of the wisest of the World as Aristotle c. though Confessing a Godhead yet hold the world an Eternal Deity it self and never to have been created 3. I find not that ever any man or men by all their natural Light or wit or Christ within could find out how the World or himself Man or Woman were created Though Iames Nailour told us in print that if never a Letter of Scriptâ—re had been written yet their Spirit could tell them all things 4. I find all men confess that the will or Word or mind of God is pure and as they could come to know it is to be adored kept and observed and that it was ever and is wickedness to Sin against it 5. All mankind having the Law or without it are perswaded that some actions are naught and against Gods will as to steal to Murther c. 6. None for all the Light and Spirit in every one could ever find out how Sin how Sorrow and Death came into the World Nor how such Inclinations and Dispositions to Sin came into themselves c. 7. I find in all mankind a Conviction that God is just and 29 powerful and doth bring plagues and punishments upon persons and Nations for those gross Sins of Adultery Murther c. 8. I could never leaâ—n for all that Christ in every man Fox sings of that ever any man living or all the Counsels of men could ever know or learn four things but as revealed by God by extraordinary wayes of Dreams Visions c. or the ordinary of his holy Records and the Doctrine of them opened preached c. 1. How to pacifie Gods Justice 2. How to resist the Devils Tyranny 3. How to worship God 4. How to get true Blessedness here and in the World to come 9. Hence according to Foxes Opposite all mankind have invented so many false Gods false worships c. all the world over yet out of no more Love to God then the Lamb bears to a Lyon but out of Fear as the old saying is primos in Orbe Deos c. Fear made the first Gods Hence the Philistins sends the God of Israel a present and offering with Ark or Chest Hence the Samaritans with the Sechemites for fear of Lyons or hope of gain will be of any worship or Religion as most this day in the world will be yea all and every Soul except to whom in and from the holy Scriptures the holy Spirit reveals that Incomprehensible Mystery of a Mediatour A 16th Instance of Foxes lame writings is pag. 56. where he brings in the same Author saying The Iustification and Redemption by obeying the Light within is the Mystery of Iniquity He Answers He that believeth is justified from all things and comes not into Condemnation and he hath the wietnss in himself and that lets him see the Redeemer the Saviour the Light which walking in it he is cleansed from all Sin and so no Mystery of Iniquity For the Mystery of Iniquity is out of the Light None sees Iustification and Redemption but with the Light within which comes from Christ who hath enlightened him I Reply This is subtle but being examined it will be a mystery of hellish Iniquity and lighter then vanity it self For 1. He usually and here as before I have opened confounds Justification and Light and Christ and Faith and obedience after his Babylonish wont all in a Juglers box within together So that the English of Faith is Christ Obedience is Christ Justification is Christ Light is Christ c. It is true sometimes it pleased Gods Spirit to speak figuratively and to 30 call Christ sometimes our Justification and sometimes a Curse for us Sometimes Sanctification and sometimes Sin for us But it is a mystery or subtle trick of Hell to call Faith Obedience and Obedience to the Light Justification and Redemption and yet mean Christ. So that Fox his words may be in plain English thus rendred None sees Christ and Christ but with the Christ within which comes from Christ who hath Christed him The true Sense as Mony Answers all things but it is a Mystery of Iniquity to darken any much more heavenly matters with Confounding and not distinguâ—shing aright when matters are in Examination 2. It is another Gospel or glad News yet not another but is a dream and dead picture of an Image or Idol to put in our Obedience and working though I know they Father this Bastard upon the most holy God himself saying it is his Obedience his Righteousness his working in the Room of the Death and blood shedding the Sufferings and merits of the Lord Jesus 3. It is a Mystery of Iniquity subtly and yet churlishly and selfishly with Laban to change wages and the Covenant or Bargain so often to pretend with the Papists great abhorring of the Iewish worship and Iewish Covenant the Bargain of Do this and live the Bargain of saving our selves
received by all Natural and Moral Understandings yea in natural Commands and Threatnings Beasts and Birds are admirably capacious and observant But when we speak of Supernatural Heavenly and Eternal matters of Spiritual things to be discerned Spiritually What a difference is there as between Heaven and Earth and Infinitely greater When the Lord Iesus asked his Disciples how many loavs they had their Natural Faculty or Reason could give an Answer When he asked them whom do Men say that I the Son of man am This was a Divine and Supernatural Question and for the outside and Truth of the Fact the Devils could Answer as well as the Disciples not only that same said he was Elias Iohn Baptist c. but that he was the Son of God All this exceeds not Natural first Birth Powers or Faculties But to give a believing and an affectionate Answer as Peter did this requires a Faculty and Power which Flesh and Blood could not reach too but the Spirit or secret working Power of God in the means wrought Peters heart and the Disciples hearts and to this day all Believers Hearts to receive and welcome all truly Divine and Heavenly Doctrines Whereas therefoâ—e G. Fox talks of something within which is preached to I may Answer as they do viz. that the natural man perceivs no spiritual matter but when he is born again then he acts and works and it is most certain that as an House receivs his Master as Candle kisseth Candle the Clasp the Hook the mortise the Tenant so do Natural or Spiritual Faculties receive Natural 34 or Spiritual Faculties receive Natural or Supernatural Motions and Impressions The Protestants say that before it pleaseth God by some word read preached c. to set up a Candle of wisdome in the Souls and to work a spiritual favour in the Soul all heavenly matters are nauseous and odious though as pleasant profitable and honourable to self Ends they are welcome all the word over yet as spiritual and heavenly abominable G. Fox saith there is a something a Seed though but as a Grain of mustard Seed a Seed of God of Christ of the Spirit to which Christ the Word is preached and which maketh Answer Hence horribly abusing Scripture phrazes they so often say God is all within and without Hence they maintain c. though men be dark and dead yet Christ within is Light and alive in them and them only Hence appears G. Fox his lying Cheats of a Sufficient Light withiâ— to lead to God and to Salvation a Teacher within all Sufficient for then no need yea it is a simple Superfluity c. to hold a Candle of outword words to awaken and enlighten such a glorious all-Sufficient Sun within 5. I ask where this something this something of God yea God and Christ and Spirit If he Answer in the understanding he grants it that is dark and perceives no heavenly matters c. If in the Heart and Affections he Confessieth all there is hard and dead only he saith the Light shineth in the darkness c. Implying that in the dark understanding there is some heavenly Light in the hearts hardness there is some softness and the Light shineth in darkness c. I Answer Christ Iesus tâ—e Sun of Righteousness arose with saving Rayes or wings of Salvation but the blind Iews could not own him for the Expected Messiah what is this G. Fox his something a Light of Christ inlightning every man that comes into the World though the man see it not 2. What is this to all the Generations of the World about four thousand years before Christ came and was in that visible person as Iohn saith of him that lightens every man that comes c. what is this to a mixture of Light and darkness in the same faculty the eye blind and yet seeing the man dead and yet alive It is true the Lambs wife confesseth that her Hearâ—t was awae 35 while she slept But what is this to the heart being dead and no Life at all and yet waking 6. The Conclusion is as before I hinted and they Confess when God in his own Means ordinarily works the will to hear to turn to believe to pray he then graciously works the work for us and being thus turned with Ephraim we mourn and lament and say what have we done when he turns our wilderness wholly a wilderness into a Garden then we bring forth his sweet Fruits Flowers and Spices when he turns the Wolf into a Lamb then we are meek and Innocent and patient but to talk of preaching to the Spirits in Prison yea of the Seed of God and the Spirit of God in prison when the Lord speaks of his warning and moving men by Noahs preaching in the old World as may be evidently evinced is like the prophane teaching of Parrots to prate of Grace and Heaven like that admirable Parrot in France who could say her Pater noster her Creed and Ten Commandments and yet knew as much of grace and the workings of God in the Soul as her Popish Teachers c. An 18th Instance of G. Fox his lame and cheating Answers is in pag. 64. where he brings in the same Author Ieremiah Ives saying It is a known Error to say that a man was in Hell and in Heaven He Answers who in this shews his Ignorance of Scripture for it gives Testimony of men that did witness that they had been in Hell in the Nethermost Hell and witnessed again they were in Heaven and sate in heavenly places in Christ Iesus and such were in Heaven as is spoken of in the Revelations I Reply G. Fox and millions more talk of Heaven and Hell as the Notable Parrot above said our Fore-Fathers some from the Scripture and some out of Reasons Light talkt of places of Ioy Eternal for the Righteous and of misery Eternal for the bad and wicked But the new Light from Christ Jesus and his pen-men is the clearest that ever shined in this world especially that famous Parable or Word proceeding out of the mouth of Christ Jesus Luke 16. that of Dives and Lazarus declaring in substance the state of the Life to Come and of the two great Parties of the poor afflicted Righteous and the wicked living in pleasures c. G. Fox is in his Burrough of the various signification of the words Heaven and Hell He knows that a state of Sorrow and 36 Bitterness is called Hell That a state of Death and the grave is set out by the word Hell in the same Hebrew phrase And to either of these he wickedly applies the thirst State of which the Lord Jesus 1. so clearly speaks viz. The State of the ungodly after this Life in the Life and World to come 2 Again he knows the visible State of the true Profession of Christ Jesus is called Heaven 3. Such as have Interest in Christ
so high so wise so learned so holy to entertain thoughts of being the Eternal and boundless Infinite power and Godhead The blessed Lord proclaime his Infinite Power his Infinite Wisdome his Infinite Greatness and Goodness and Patience to poor sinners as he did unto Iob out of the Whirlwind and then for all Iobs Perfection and their own which so simply as well as proudly they prate of they will with Iob see cause to abhor themselves in Dust and Ashes 6 Such is the inconceivable Infinity in God beyond the reach of all Creatures that he is not only Infinite but Infinity it self 51 Eternity it self Omnipotency it self Wisdome it self Goodness it self Justice it self in all their eminences and perfections 7. Therefore notwithstanding most gracious and most glorious Appearances to and influences from Infinity upon poor finite Worms below sure it is not so sober a Language as that of Birds and Beasts who keep their Native Tongues and Tones Only men honoured with so high Naturals above their Fellow potts the Irrationals and in many respects above other Rationals yea in pretence and some really dignified with Spirituals in the Minde Will and Affections by Priviledges by Promises Mankinde I say so honoured and degenerating we are not only like to but Infinitely as I may say worse then the wildest Beast that perish The 26. Instance is in Pag. 93. where G. Fox brings in Robert Simson c. saying The mystical Body may be sometimes subject to Distempers and Humors and Wants He Answers Are you Judges can you judge of the Mystical Body which the Saints are Baptized into is there Humors Wants and Distempers in the Body which the Saints are Baptized into is not the Wants Humors Distempers in your Body do you here in this divide the word aright distinguâ—sh things in the Ground and speak aright of things and yet you would not be judged and say Iudge not and is not Mystical Spiritual I Reply In our late Dispute at Providence Io. Stubs and W. Edm affirmed that God was a Spirit litterally and properly in which for all his boast of Learning it may be as he said above my self he shewed but little Philosophy or Divinity and William Ed. affiâ—med that properly and really that Scripture of Wolves coming in Sheeps cloathing was to be understood litterally without meaning and expositions but sober men and aware know how to unfold Parables and Similitudes and Metaphors and Allegories they know God is called a Son and a Rock and a Father and a Husband c. and so is Christ Jesus and they know how such Similies are to be expounded They know that Believers in Christ Jesus are called a Body an House a Flock a Friend a Center an Army and ye are no such properly and litterally but by similitude 2. The Papists tell us of an Universal or as the Greek a 52 Catholick Body of Christians Amongst them are two great Factions The one maintaing this Catholick Church to meet in the Representative of an Occumenical or General Council of the whole World The other in the Assembly or Conclave of the Pope and his Cardinals and in the Pope himself while he sits in Peters Infallible Chair The Protestants build also a Catholick or Universal Body of true Believers in Jesus scattered over the World c. the more Reformed affirme this Unâ—versal and Catholick Church to be visible in the Assemblies and Congregations of Christian Worshippers separate from the Church of Rome and her Abominations The Devil seeing the Protestant Witnesses contending about the matter and Form of the true Churches and Congregations He by Gods most holy and wise permission sends out his old and known Spirit of pure Invisibles pure Immediate pure Worshippers in Spirit and Truth c. This Spirit being Cozen German to or sworn Brother in hellish equivocation with the Iesuits when it serves their turn maintain a Church Invisible and Ministers and Officers Invisible and yet when it serves their turn practice as well as Papists or Protestants visible Churches and Congregations visible and audible Apostles preachers Ministers with audible preachings prayings singings Admissions Excommunications more or less professed and Explicite The Qukaers Churches they are as they childishly vapour Bodies without wants or distempers fair as the Sun clear as the Moon terrible as an Army c. 1. But this contrary to the nature of all our Natural Bodies which turning upon the two hinges of Sins and Sorrows are full of wants and distempers until the dashing of all in pieces by sudden or lingring Deaths 2. Contrary to all Figurative or Metaphorical Bodies domestick in Families Political in Cities Nations Armies Navies c. 3. Contrary to Experience of the Bodies or Churches of Worshippers in the Scripture Iewish or Christian who gave up the Ghost through distempers into the hands of Mahumet who brags he hath Conquered Moses at Ierusalem and Iesus at Constantinople c. 4. Contrary to the Experience of the World in their daily observing of the Quakers Bodies and Worships beside the Char 53 ges against them for their wild Doctrines and Disciplines what known Divisions and Passions about I Nailors and others Cases what Envyings Cursings Apostacies and moral Idolatry as that of Covetousness in this Colony known notoriously But since G. Fox speaks so Rationally to his Opposite Do you distinguish things in the Ground I shall remember them of the fairness of my fourteenth Position against them viz. that according to the Principles Roots and grounds of things I have fairly Collected that the Spirit of the Quakers tends to Incivility and Barbarisme and to sudden Assacinations murthers and Persecutions c. The Eternal Father of mercies I believe that I have and can further make it good stops millions of mischiefs in the world daily which the Natures grounds and Principles of men and the Quakers Spirit also now to overrun and overwhelm the World withal A 27 th Instance of G. Fox his lame Answer is in pag. 103. where he brings in Ionathan Clapham saying Men may be called of Men Masters and it is but a Cavil to deny it and they may deny to be called Fathers as well as Masters He Answers Thou hast in this denied that Doctrine of Christ and slights it who saith Be not ye of Men called Masters for you have all one Master which is Christ and you all are Brethren and thou hast show'd thy self out of the Brother-hood And there is a Birth to be born which can call no man Father upon Earth which thou art ignorant of I Reply 1. Amongst other foolish passions and Affections haunting all men and the Quakers especially these two are notorious viz. pride and a lazie Ignorance Those two are the Sire and Dam of most of these wild monsters 2. For doth not this proud man know how many of his excellent Opposites have laid open their Foxians scornful pride in robbing all
yea in present joy unutterable and glorious Sometimes the Lambs Wife is visibly asleep though her heart wakes sometimes she is Alarmed by his knocking and is sluggishly unwilling to open to him sometimes she rises and opens but he is gone and she seeks for him by day and night and cannot find him 9. There is also a false feeling of Christ Jesus as I spake before of a false Conception in a Woman How many are bold to cry Lord Lord open for we have prophesied in thy Name c and yet I will not say as G. Fox here saith of his Feeling that all that have not my feeling or working of Christ are Reprobates yet 57 this I say as Solomon A Whore is Loud and Clamorous not so the Chaste and Sober and Modest Women and the Devil spake as Holy and Heavenly words as Angels could have spoken yet it was but the Divil in Samuels Mantle The 29th Instance is in pag. 117. where he brings in Giles Fermin saying Paul Swore after Christ and the Angels Swore I wonder Paul should so forget himself and sin so fearfully in Swearing so the Quakers Light that denies Swearing is of Satan and not the Light of Christ. He Answers Christ the Light which Satan is out of which is the Oath of God ends all Oathes Sworn by Prophets or Angels whatsoever and who Swares be fallen into the Condemnation of the Devil And it is no where said that the Apostle Swore but such as thou art matters not what thou speak so that Spirit that Preacheth for Swearing is not the Spirit of Christ but is the Spirit of Anti-Christ c. I Reply first G. Fox dares not deny but that the Angel and Paul Swore after Christ only he keeps his old Song viz That Christ put an end to Swearing and that it is not said that Paul Swore But 1. He waves that Sweareng of the Angel or Christ himself Rev. 10. for there he knows the very term of Swearing is used 2. As to Paul if the attestation of the Name of God be the formality of an Oath then if ever any Man Swore in this World Paul did saying to the Corinthians I call God to Record on my Soul that to spare you I came not as yet to Corinth c. Secondly It is true that all Nations have used to Swear by or Appeal to the Gods they owned and worshipped It is true also that they have used to put Creatures into the room of God and Swear by them as the Iews did and som write out of a Superstitious Reverence in forbearing the Name of God and indeed the Reasons Christ Jesus gives Mat. 5. look that way Thirdly It is true also that for abuse of Swearing by and Prophaning the Holy Name of God a whole Land may mourn as Ieremiah speaketh Fourthly There seems to be a very fair colour put on a universal Prohibition of Swearing by Christ Jesus and by his Apostle Iames Swear not c. 58 This Conjuror hath taken with many precious Servants of God former and latter even with many of those called the Fathers and with those Famous Protesters against the whore of Rome the Waldenses and with Famous Usher who doth more then seem to vindicate their not Swearing when Convented and Examined by the Popish Inquiâ—itors 5. Notwithstanding this and more which may be granted and though I should humbly motion to all higher Powers for Christian tenderness as to the holy Majesty of Heaven his Name and to the Souls of any making Scruple yet I must proclaim against G. Fox his lame and simple Return to the Objection of his Opposite concerning Paul and the Angel For why may not Paul and all the Apostles and Christ and all the Angels of Heaven and all the Saints of God upon the Earth in the words of Paul call God to Record upon their Souls that this or this was the Cause and Truth c. Considering 1. That neither the most holy God nor the Lord Jesus who I think is the Swearing Angel Rev. 10. nor the heavenly Spirits the Angels nor Paul nor any of Christs Apostles or Messeâ—gers would have practiced a Ceremony or a Shadow like Circumcision or the Passover at the time of the Day c. 2. Swearing or appealing unto God immediately in Oaths or Vows or Lots or Fastings though higher and above the practice of ordinary Invocations Supplications Thanksgivings c. were never accounted Ceremonies or Types of Substances to come but Real and Substantial Services and Addresses unto the most holy and most high Creatour written in the hearts of all mankind before ever Ceremony or Moses was born and therefore as the fear of God is put for the whole worship of God so also is swearing in the holy Scripture and we may as well deny all worship and Service visible and all External Acts of Homage and Devotion of the Body unto God yea and all the fear of God is there in the mind Soul and Spirit or in any External Obeysance or Reverence as this Service and worship of calling upon God and appealing to his holy Majesty as Witness and Iudge in some Cases c 3. Whereupon it follows that this high point of Gods worship is as real as moral as holy and perpetual as Prayer it self as preaching yea as Baptisme and the Lords Supper and no more Ceremonial though I know the Foxians make Baptisme and the 59 Lords Supper but Ceremonies for a time and ere long if they continue to hearken to Samuel within them they will account Prayer and Preaching whether Apostolical or Pastoral but Types and Shadows also 4. It is a most simple and un-Christian and Atheistical whimsie that Christ was the end of Oaths the end of the Prophets the end of the Scripture the end of Reghteousness in their Sense though as Mediatour he was the End or Perfection of and fulfilling of the Law of God which never Soul beside the Lord Jesus ever kept in thought word and deed what ever the proud Pharisees and Papists and Foxians prate c. 5. It is a gross Fancy to imagine that the Lord Jesus in the 5 of Math. gave new Commands or Contradicted the holy pleasure of his Father concerning Revenge Adultery Oaths Prayers Fastings but opened his Fathers Law in the purity and Spirituality of it against the rotten Expositions Traditions and practices of the Pharisees 6. In particular let all the Reasons be expended and carefully weighed which the Lord Jesus so wonderfully exactly gives why they should not swear by Ierusalem nor the Temple nor their Head nor any Oath to wit of such a Nature and half a sober eye may see that the Lord Jesus intends only to reduce them to an holy Swearing only by God in Gods way c. and in their Common Converse to use yea and nay c. 7. I have read a sober and man like Answer of F. H. called
World knows not written in the Book of Life Here is the new Man known after God in Righteousness and true Holiness Now who is the New Man and this new Name the World may call him by the old so it is not a mystery of iniquity to say the World calls him so I Reply 1. As to Christian or Christen Names or Things bearing or pretending to bear the Name Authority or an Uniting of Christ Jesus as we know the word Christian signifies it is incumbent on every Christian Soul to search into the Root and Rise and Practise and Warrant of them with holy fear and trembling in the presence of God 2. But to the mystery of Iniquity here insinuated against them Is it not a proud trick of a Pharisee thus to scorn the poor Heathens and Publicans as not worthy to know the Foxians high Names or take up such sacred Names and Mysteries upon their Lips yea is it not a ridiculous Fancie thus to prate and like Pharisees to scold about washing of Hands and Pots and Cups therein placing invented Holiness c. For 1. VVhat are the Heathen this Heathenish Soul here strikes at doth he mean the wilde Savages who give Names to their Children and oft times full of Reason and Significance c. Or doth he account all Nations Savages and Barbarians that give Names to their Children and consequently themselves Savages and Barbarians also for they give Names unto their Children also 2. It is true that by the word Heathen the Goj in the Hebrew and Ethne in the Greek the Nations or Gentiles were signified as distinct from the Holy Nation or Church of God the Iews but so it is not common in our English Phraze to call all the Nations Heathen that are not of the Iewish Nation 3. Did not the Saints before the coming of Christ give Names to their Children did not Leah and Rachael by Iacobs leave give all those significant Names unto the twelve Patriarchs and 84 have not the Saints of God as well as all Nations still so practised 4. Doth Christian Regeneration or New Birth destroy Natural Births or Marriages or Procreations or Names and Educations Only as Diamonds in Gold-Rings and Aples of gold in pictures of silver Christianity beautifies and adorns all these Natural and Civil Actions with an heavenly Spirit Carriage in Earthly matters 5 Can there be any Instances given of any Servants of God before or since the coming of Christ Jesus disowning or slighting the Names which their Parents had given them yea though there were some seeming honour to false Gods in them Fortunatus Apollo Phebe c. 6. Why may we not though we are for his Heathens call the Foxians by the same Names by which they call themselves for in this great Book we find G. Fox and Edmund Burrough subscribed It is a Query why they so plainly subscribe and yet defend them that do not Have they a Priviledge Or do they thus quarrel with us poor Heathens about straws or things Indifferent and yet so weighty as the New Name and new man created in holiness c 7. But what is this new Creature and new Name they speak of How shall the world call them by it if they know it not Such are their Nonsensical Fancies of giving no Respect to any in word or gestures Such are their Fantastical Conceited Answers when being asked where they dwell they Answer they dwell in God and where they live they Answer They live in God c 8. Are not these Foxians a kin to the Popes in this Fancy also when raised to the Devils Pinacle to the Popedome they throw down their old Names to the world and though they be as subtle as Foxes yet now they will be called Leones Lions though they be as fierce and Cruel as Lyons they will now be called Clement and though they be as Impious as swine even as Os pores they must be called pius In the last place as the Pope cast away his net which he used as the Remembrance of the Fisherman Peter when he had catcht the Popedome so G. Fox having made his Fortune as it is prophanely called having attaind a great Marriage His new Carriage and Courtesie and Civility condemns Humphry Nortons 85 and his own former Rigidity as I am sure they will do most of them for worldly Advantages For as they abuse that Scripture The World is in their Heart I may truly use it and affirme the world and the pride and Advantage of it though they deny it as the Pope and Cardinals and Iesuits do is in their Heart and is the Body and Soul the Root and Branch of all their whole Religion The 42 Instance is in pag. 243. where G. Fox brings in Richard Sherlock saying We must not look for an Immediate Extraordinary and miraculous Teaching from the Lord. He Answers Yet he saith all men are taught of God what Confusion is here The grace of God which bringeth Salvation hath appeared unto all men and this he calls an outward Teaching by the Lord Jesus Christ. Is that which brings Salvation outward All in the Truth may judge this and try thy Spirit And the Teachings of the Lord is not mediate but Extraordinary above all yours which are men got up since the dayes of the Apostles I Reply 1. Although I have spoken before of their Immediate Inspirations yet seeing how greedily and boastingly this deluded Soul with scorn and Contempt of all his Opposites sucks in the poyson of Devilâ—sh Inspirations in stead of the pure wine and milk of Christian Truth and milks out this poyson into the mouths of his poor bewitched Followers I shall add a few words G. Fox here affirmeth that the Teachings of the Lord are not mediate but Immediate Extraordinary and miraculous Contrary to the whole stream of Scripture and Experience 1. Contrary to the Ordinary and daily and mighty preaching of the whole Creation Psal. 9. The Heavens c. 2. Contrary to the Teachings of God in every mans Nature and making being taught of God above Gods Teaching the Fowls of the Air and Beasts of the Field Doth not Nature teach you 1 Cor. 11. as to long hair 3. Contrary to Abrahams Teaching of his Children and the Command of God to all Parents 4. Contrary to Ordinary Teachings of the Priests and Levites Commanded by God in so much that Christ Jesus Commanded the Scribes and Pharisees sitting in Moses Chair to be heard and attended 5. Contrary to the Ordinary and Constant feeding by Sheep 89 herds and Teachers in the Christian Flocks and Assemblies 6. Contrary to the Teachings of the holy writings or Scripture written by Immediate breathing of God for our Instruction and Consolation c. Ob. Yea but saith this great wrester of holy writings They shall be all taught of God I Answer 1. Who or how shall they be all taught of God that
this holy Spirit is to be praid for Luke 11. and is therefore powerfully present with Gods true Messengers while they Translate Expound Preach as Paul did Acts 26. No other things but what Moses and the Prophets wrote of The 44th Instance is in Pag. 253. where he quotes Henry Haggar saying You call all men dead and Carnal in the Serpents Nature in what Form soever if they differ from you G. Fox Answers All that be not in the Light that inlightneth every man that cometh into the world which is the way to the Father differeth from us such be dead such be Carnal in the Seepents Nature For none comes to the Life but who comes to the Light in what Form so ever they be And such as differ from us differ from Christ For none come from under the Serpents head and Nature but who comes to the Light I Reply 1. As David said of some whose Teeth were as Swords and Solomn saith there is a Generation c. of such whose Teeth are as Swords and if ever there were a Generation of such in the world the Papists and these Foxians are the Generations here intended For it is in vain to tell them of Christ the Foundation and of building Wood Hay Stubble c. If you come not roundly to the Pope with the Papists Or to the Light within c. nothing remains but Fire and Brimstone Damnation c. 2. It is true in some of their writings and in Edmund Burroughs himself there seems to be some charitable hopes of some having something of Sincerity in them and of breathing after the Lord but I observe they fall in with G. Fox again viz. except that those persons owne their Idols called Light within them 3. The Protestants overcome the Papists not only by Scripture and Argument but in Charity also for they profess to have Hope of many among the Papists as they do also of many amongst the Quakers But the Papist and Quaker like Fire-ships burn and blow up all that bow not down to theis Image c. 90 4. How far are these from the Spirit of Christ Jesus toward the poor Woman the Syrophenician who by her worship was a dog and he told her so yet believing in him and content to gather up Crumbs as a Dog under his Table he grants her Suit and magnifies her personal Excellency Thus dealt he with the Centurion and Cornelius and with every poor Reed if truly bruised for Sin and every Lock of smoaking Flax reaking in truth of Love to God and the Lord Jesus He proclaims the Kingdome of Heaven to the poor in Spirit who see themselves dead and lost and damned and seeing no help no Grace not a penny nor a patch of any good in them but waiting as Beggars at the gate the beautiful and glorious gate of mercy He proclaims Blessedness and Promises to the bleating Lambs as the fruitful Sheep to the Infants and new born Babes that hunger and thirst for the milk of Righteousness that by the Patience and Comfort held forth in the writings or Records they may have hope although yet they cannot be Consident of any work of God in them and are not so bold to Confess Christ Jesus openly and kiss him in the Streets but steal to him by night as Nicodemus and Ioseph until they saw him bleeding on the Gallows He bare with his Disciples though foolish and slow of Heart hard-hearted ignorant of his Death and Resurrection and loath to hear of such metters The 45th Instance is in Pag. 259. where he quotes Iohn Brown saying And them that bring people to look at the Light within them are as Korah Dathan and Abriam G. Fox Answers All that go from the Light within them are as Korah Dathan and Abiram amongst the Lords Prophets Exalting themselves and Persecuting 1. I Reply and Examine unto whom this Famous History may most properly be Applicable for sure it was a Type and word of God 1. Then that which the Spirit of God chargeth upon Korah is a rising up a Revolt and Rebellion against the Lord his Appointments and Ministers or Officers Moses and Aaron c. I know G. Fox chargeth this upon all that pretend to any Ministry and Ministration and have not the Immediate Spirit of 91 God as the Apostles had but as he speaks simply are Ravened from it and are still Apostates c. But I Answer the Protestant Religion is a Religion protesting against the abominations of that bloody man of Sin the Pope both in his Doctrines and Worships and Conversations These Protesters have been since the Waldenses in France and Germany and low Countries and England Scotland Denmark Swedland Polonia Transylvania Norway Ireland c. Conflicting Contending with their Tongues their pens and their Blood against the Bloody Whore and Church of Rome according to many passages in the Revelations most wonderfully and miraculously fulfilled upon them From these all their holy Doctrines and Endeavours after Gods pure worship are the Quakers Revolted and set up a Flag of Defiance against all but pretended Immediately Inspired persons Invisible Worships and Ministers and a sullen proud and dogged Conversation for the general of them 2. As Absoloms and Shebahs Conspiracies were notable and Signal against King David the Prophetical and Kingly Type of the Lord Jesus so was Korahs and his Conspirators very Considerable and Eminent against Moses and Aaron Types of the Prophetical Priestly and Kingly Office of the blessed Lord Iesus Christ It is said Numb 16. that Korah the Levite and Dathan and Abiram the Sons of Reuben and two hundred and fifty Princes and Notable Men of Fame in the Assembly thus kindled the Coals of this proud Conspiracy which had broke forth into devouring Flames except that the Sheepherd of Israel who never slumbers nor sleeps had most graciously and wonderfully watcht for the timeous and early Extinguishing of it As to the pretending Quakers it is known that they are not Sons of Obscurity as Bull and Farminton Reeves and Mugleton but for Estate and parts for Education and Learning some of them for pretences of Piety Conscience patience Zeal and Mortification yea and also for their Numbers all which they predicate in their Books and in my dispute with them with loud Trumpets they are known to be Considerable and as like to spread as did the Arrians Papists or Mahometans 3. Korah and Dathan c. they were by Gods righteous Judgement so fixed and setled and hardned in their Perswasion 92 and Confidence that they Contemned all Moses meekness and Answered stoutly We will not come up when he Cited them before the Lord yea say they wilt thou pluck out the Eyes of these men and they daringly and desperately brought their Censers to offer Incense and Worship to God as may be applied to these proud and Confident and desperate Foxians 4. Their Charge was
Virgins love thee Oh how many prate of this spirit or Ointment and yet hate the true Lord Jesus hate his Love Letters the holy scriptures and would be glad to see them in a Bone fire hate his poor true Quakers that desire to fear before him and tremble at his Word and to mourn that having received such manifestations of the holy spirit of God they have profited others so little and glorified God in their Generations 8. I might Insist upon the End which G Fox insisteth on viz. to profit withal and ask why David Psal. 53. Complains that all the Children of men not one excepted are unprofitable good for nothing yea abominable that is to spiritual matters heavenly things the world to come All even the sweetest Natures the fairest the wittiest the wisest the learnedst the devoutest untill the spirit of God come and truly change the heart and whole Frame of Nature Till then we as profitable as Hogs as Moles in a Garden as Water or Fire breaking into a ship and as devouring Foxes amongst the true Lambs and Chickens of Christ Iesus The 53d Instance of G. Fox his lame Answer is in pag. 328 where he quotes Hugh Archbal saying Christ doth enlighten none but them that do receive him He Answers Contrary to John 3. which speaketh of them that hate the Light and are enlightened and will not come to it because the Light will reprove them so he that hates the Light is enlightned and will not receive Christ. I Reply though I have spoken much of the Light and of receiving Christ Jesus c yet since this proud Boaster drags his Opposites out of Scotland also I pray the Readers patience while I tell him of a manifold Light which the Holy spirit mentions under a Metaphor or Figure of Light 1. The Natural perceiving of Natural things as Christ Jesus saith The Light of the Body is the Eye 2. The Light of peace and joy whether Corporal or spiritual Temporal or Eternal The Iews in Hamans down-Fall and their own Deliverance had Light and Joy c. and Light is sown for the Righteous c. 105 3. The common offers of the Gospel as Light whence some have observed that the word so cried up in Iohn 1. is not inlightneth but lighteth but the word Photizei may signifie both and yet be no more then the Common offer preaching and sound of the glad News or Gospel The people that sate in Darkness saw great Light c As the Light of a candle coming in lightens or enlightens the Walls and Room but being taken away again leaves no Impression or change upon the Wall or as the Sun shining or guilding the Earth being clouded leaves no Impression of shining on the Earth behind it So is it with the Common offers of Trading or marriages in the world and so of the heavenly Offers of Merchandize and Heavenly Marriage c. 4. There is yet a higher Light which some are affected Tinctur'd and enlightened and yet not the true and saving Light that in Heb. 6. where some persons as the pretended Quakers and G. Fox especially have seen much of the Nature of God his holiness his Iustice c. and had a Tast of the Ioyes of the next world but proudly turned from the holy Scripture from the true Lord Jesus and the true holy enlightning humbling and saving Spirit of God 5. The true Lighting or Enlightning of which the holy Scripture speaketh is that of 2 Cor. 4 a place fouly and simply abused by G. Fox to prove the Light in every man where Paul shews how by the preaching of the glad News or Gospel God had shined in their hearts not in the hearts of all the men in the world nor in the hearts of all the Corinthians and had given them a sight of the glory of God in the Face or from the Reflexion or means of the face of the Mediator the man Christ Jesus Hence all those Heavenly Appellations or phrazes or Names Children of the Day Illuminated or Inlightned Ones You were Darkness but now you are not only Inlightened but Light in the Lord that is become not as Fox pretends Christs and Gods and no distinction but of a bright Spiritual Nature longing humbly and mournfully in the use of the holy Scripture and all other means more to come out of Darkness into the Light of holiness and likeness unto God Object G. Fox alleadgeth Iohn 3. They which hated the Light were inlightned I Answer No question but with the general Offer of mercy 106 as of the Candle or Sun to the Eyes of a blind man which is yet their Condemnation because if they had power yet their wills and Lusts and Resolutions refuse and abhor it and abhor their eyes should be opened to see it Whereas the Gospel or glad News is published or preached there is a twofold Effect of it as Acts 13. and Acts 17. and Acts 28. and through all Experience in all Ages and in all parts of the world some mock some demur some persecute others the Spirit or Power of God opens their hearts to fear to believe to submit and in Gods time to rejoyce for ever in a Saviour The 54th Instance is in Pag. 330. where G. Fox brings in Iames Dorram saying The Believer is not in sin as the Unbeliever is he sins not as the Unbeliever doth and in another place he saith the Law is the same to the Believer that it is to the Unbeliever G. Fox Answers Here any may read thy Confusion but I say unto thee He that believeth doth not commit Sin but the unbelief is Sin Rom. 11. 20. And Christ is the End of the Law to every one that believes for Righteousness sake Roms 10. 4. and yet thou puts both Believers and unbelievers under the power of the Law I Reply The Devils no question know Sin they see Sin but not in the true glass of the holy Scripture They see sin as Saul and Iudas c. in the fire of the Coal as dreadful in the punishment but not in the blackness of the Coale as against their new Life and Nature and the purity of the Eternal who hath begotten them unto holiness The Robber and Murtherer bewails his offence at the Gallows though yet his heart is not changed but could he he would murther the Judge and all that had a hand in his Condemnation and Execution The Drunkard hates his Sin as a Tyrant over him only as it brings Discredit to him so is it with the unclean person and every other sinner But it is not so with the Regenerate or new Born who can no more unless deceived and Circumvented touch Sin then the Devil the Father of it nor then Fire can delight in Water nor Light in Darkness 3. It is true that 7 of the Romans is contended for by the Papists and Arminians and in a great measure by the Quakers 107
purposes of God as to his holy ordering of this present world and his Saints in it and against the Constant Experience of all those high Saints in Scripture and of all that ever went before us All which shews the Devilish pride of these high Pharisees 2. He adds saying the Saints are not fighting all their Life Time I Reply if there be no Enemies no danger of Fleshly Lusts warring against our Souls as Peter speaks 113 2. Why then doth the holy Spirit speak of the Combate of the Flesh and Spirit Gal. 5. and that Paul did not the things that he would and did the Evil he would not of his being taken Prisoner 3. Why then doth Gods Spirit furnish us with all that Heavenly Artillery Ephes. 6. 1. And Commands his Servants even Timothy to flie youthful Lusts if he were past wounding by them 4. And to stand upon the Guard and watch against Gluttonly and Drunkenness and worldly Cares which would lull the Souls of the Disciples asleep except they kept the better watch c. Luke 21. 5. And why then doth the Lord Jesus Command us to pray daily against Temptations yea and to pray daily for the pardon of sin if his Followers be for ever escaped out of the reach of Sinful thoughts words and actions and many thousand sinful Omissions 6. What was the Reason of the Cemmand of Christ Jesus to the Churches to watch to Overcome to repent threatning them with discharging and Excommunication which we see dolefully Effected upon the Asian Professors and which was followed with a rich blessing upon that Ordinance Executed upon the Incestuous Corinthian which brought forth those seven Heavenly Fruits both in him and that Church also 2 Cor. 7. G. Fox his third Answer is The Saints are come to the Kingdome of God witnessing Sin and Iniquity blotted out and the Everlasting Covenant of Peace and Life with God But 1. Take these words in his Sense viz. that all that are in their Fancied Kingdome are thus free from Sin and come to this Peace and Joy why then do themselves still Confess themselves to be subject to quaking and trembling as if they were at the black and burning Foot of Mount Sinai where indeed they are and not upon the bright and shining Hill of Zion 2. Is not this Contrary to the Covenant of God with David concerning Solomon and in the Anti Type with all Christians viz. that if they Sin he will Chastise them with the Rods of men but not take away his mercy as he took it from Saul c. 3. Is there not a false Peace a false Ioy as well as a false quaking a false Repentance a false mortification and Sanctificatio and in Conclusion a false Salvation and therefore the Lord Jesus tels us of the high pretenders Math. 7. yet by him Everlastingly rejected 114 The 59th Instance is in Pag. 365. where G. Fox brings in Robert Tuchin c. saying The most Faithful Messengers of Christ have acknowledged that they have come short of their duty G. Fox Answers They that are Faithful Messengers of Christ have the Answer well done thou good and Faithful Servant where did John or Paul or Peter acknowledge that they came short of their duty Hath not thou slandred the Servants of the Lord thinking them to be like yourselves and falsly accusing them that you may seem Iustified who are false Messengers and come in his Name when you have no Commission from him and you come short of every good work But thus it is not with Christs true Messengers for they fulfil his Will that sent them It is the Lord that worketh in them whose thâ—y are and whose duty they perform by his Spirit I Reply this deluded Soul as it is written must grow worse and worse except the Lord wonderfully awaken him to all Eternity Instead of seeing any failing against God and Christ the Spirit and Servants of God c. he claps his wings upon his Dunghil and vapours that in all these Transactions he hath not faild no not in a sinful word or Thought 1. But he must remember that such was the Infinite Incomprehensible Purity and Iustice and wisdome of God that the Heavens were not pure in his sight and he laid Folly to the Charge of his Angels and I am sure their Natures their Endowments their Employments G. Fox comes short of and yet they came short of their duty and are now fast in Chains of Darkness expecting Iudgement and Torment to come 2. I presume G. Fox will grant that our first Parents were Innocent and perfect as highly Gifted and as highly Employed as ever G. Fox is like to be and yet they came short and We all by them fallen short of the Glory and love of God into the Dunghill of Hellish Darkness 3. After the Promised Restoration by the Son of God what Excellent Gifts had Noah Abraham Lot Isaac Iacob Ioseph Moses Aaron Sampson Iepthe Gideon Eli Samuel Nathan Solomon Asa Iehoshaphat Hezekiah Iosiah and many other glorious Saints what wonderful Assistance and Extraordinary Appearances of God had they in their high Services for God and yet how greaâ—ly some of them wonderfully fouly did they come short of their 115 duty I remember I was once asked by one of these high Boasters whether I would deny the Scripture viz that said David did not sin but in the Case of Uriah unto which I know many full Answers may be given Here only I observe how ready these willingly Ignorant Souls are to Catch at any Word that may Fortifie their proud Fancy though against many other Scriptures and unquestionable Examples c. 4. Until the coming of Christ Jesus we know the Command of the most holy God to private persons to the Princes to the Priests to the whole Assembly to offer up Sacrifice and Expiation for all sorts of failings yea for Sins of Ignorance yea and for their coming short in their holy offerings Hence David cries out Psal. 143. Enter not into Iudgement or Reckoning with thy Servant c. and Psal. 19. Cleanse thou me from secret sins for who knows how oft he offendeth 5. I know G. Fox useth to say all these were Types and Christ is the body â— I Answer There are more Anti-Types then the person of Christ for the Quakers themselves they make themselves Kings and Priests and the Temple as well as Christ c. But come to the time of the Lord Jesus and look upon the Famous first Apostles who had freely left all to follow him who enjoyed his personal preaching and praying his wonderful Miracles his Heavenly Converse his holy and Powerful Spirit in their own preaching healing all Diseases raising the dead casting out Devils c. and yet how doth the Lord Jesus frequently and sharply chide them for their coming short of their duty for their Ignorance negligence unbelief forgetfulness Inhumanity Ambition
c. 6. Yea as to those three whom G. Fox boasts of Iohn Paul and Peter Doth not Iohn cry out 1 Iohn 2. If we Confess our â—ins he is Faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness Doth not Paul Confess and bewail his coming short when he cries out that the good he would do he did not but did the Evil he would not and with his flesh did serve the Law of sin though it was not Paul that sinned but sin that dwelled in him A Mistery which I more then fear the most High hath hidden from this poor Foxes Eye And as to Peter to say nothing of his stupendious failing of his 116 Master c. even after his awakening after the Lords rising and Peters seeing and talking with him his bold profession and preaching of him to the Conversion of hundreds and thousands yet how is he charged by Paul for coming short of his Duty for Gross Weakness and in a kind Hipocrisy and Dissimulation so that such a cloud of witnesses o'rewhelming these new Gods Papists and Quakers how Righteous is it with God to make their Faces ashamed with the filth of their own nakedness in the highth of the pride of their conceited Deities The 60 Instance of G. Fox his lame Answer is in pag. 372. where he brings in Thomas Hodges saying The Scripture speaks of God after the manner of men He Answers The Scripture speaks of God after the manner of the Spirit and to the Spirit whereby men may receive him and know him by the Spirit which natural men can not 1. I Reply This bewitched and bewitching Soul hath all along his Book been picking out sweet Flowers out of his Opposites Gardens from whence he hath suckt turned the sweet juice of Heavenly Truths into the poyson and Venome of his proud Conceits So here he denies this Heavenly Mystery of Gods revealing himself to us after the way and manner of men having Head and Hair and Eyes and mouth c. wherein his Incomprehensible Goodness is pleased to stoop to us even the highest and proudest Souls as Nurses do to Children or as Physitians to weak and Crazy and distempered persons 2. But what shall we say to all those holy Scriptures which not only liken God to a man a man of war a Sheepherd a Warfaring man an Husband man c. but also to a Shield and other Insensibles Natural or Artificial as a Sun a Tree a Rock an House a Fort a High Tower c. When God revealed himself to Abraham Gen. 15. I am thy Shield c. will this foul mouth say that this similitude of a Shield was not a Familiar Metaphor or Figure wherein God speaks to Abrahams weak Capacity Or will he say that God speaking so to Abraham spake not also in the way the Spirit Or that God is Literally a Shield 3. It was a late Speech of one of the best Philosophers and of the best Christians that Old England or New ever had Then shall we know to wit in the next life in the Heavenly State to 117 Come how to answer that great Question What is God But this poor wild Asses Colt G. Fox he can resolve the Question he can gather up the Ocean in the hollow of his hand he can weigh the Everlasting Mountains and Winds in Scales and Inclose not only the Sun c. but also the Incomprehensible Sun of Glory and Purity within his Iuglers Box c. 4. For what would this little Thief and Fox or the great Thief and Fox the Devil have but blow out the Candle and Torch and Sun of the holy Books and Records that so the Father of Lies and Murthers may be heard as he hath been heard in the Grecian Oracles in Mahomet and the Mahumetans in the Pope and the Papists so by his whisperings in the Foxians as if he were the most holy Spirit of the Eternal God himself Immortal Invisible and only Wise. 5. For is it not the Devils Trade to play the subtle Hunter as do also his Iourney-men who ly in wait to catch men and to trim his Pits and Gins and Snares with green leaves and Boughs and Twigs viz fair pretences of the Spirit the Spirit the Immediate Spirit the Infallible Spirit the Teachings of the Spirit the manner of the Spirit speaking to the Spirit and Christ within you Christ within you except you be Reprobates Christ within you the hope of Glory c. These are fair Leaves and sweet heavenly green Boughs on which the Old Serpent twineth and from whence he uttereth even Scripture it self and the sweet Names God and Christ and Spirit in a frantick purpose to stab for he knows he can not the holy Scriptures and God and Christ and Spirit also 6. More particularly what doth he mean that God speaks not to us after the manner of men but by the way of the Spirit after the manner of the Spirit He grants that the holy Scriptures were given forth from the Immediate Inspâ—ration of the Spirit He knows that we maintain from Isai. 59. the great Promise of the Word and Spirit together to the mouth of Christ Jesus and his Seed and his Seeds Seed And also that we affirme that no Reading no Hearing no Meditation no Afflictions c. can do a Soul any good until God by the Power or Finger of his own self or Spirit makes the means Powerful and Effectual All this serves not but that which Sathan drives at and which alone must serve his Ends is Immediate Immediate Inspiration with a damning or changing the means by the most Holy and only Wise God Appointed 118 7. It is one of the Proverbs of the Ancients Sus Minervam docet The Sow teacheth the Goddess of Wisdome It is most Infallibly true here this filthy Sow that seems to be washt from Common vices and yet wallows in the mud Dunghils of Mystical Filthiness He must teach wisdome it self how to speak and appoint him his way and by wresting and racing out what he can the Holy Records how to reveal himself unto the Sons of men 8. It is pertinent to Consider the ground of this his only owning the manner of the Spirit viz. This Immediate Spirit speaks to the Spirit within What is the English of this Ridle The Immediate Spirit within speaks to the Spirit within But their Spirit will tell us that God and Christ and Spirit and Light and New Covenant and Faith and Holiness c. are all in prison within in every man until the Immediate Spirit without means perswade a person to hearken within to him as to Christ Light and Spirit which will bring him to God and Christ round in a Conjuring Circle Christ brings to Christ the Spirit brings to the Spirit which though it be true after Conversion and in growth and Increase of the Grace and Knowledge of Christ by the use of
book if such had proved desirable These alterations will all be noted in this reprint and will be designated as Roger Williams ' Manuscript Annotations The seconâ— Position Concerning true false Christs Traitors Rebells against the King eternaâ— Murtherers of him The true Lord Iesus Christ His humane nature which G. Fox alâ— night long so barks against The Quakers Christ allegorical and meerly Fancy destroying the History Humphrey Norton deales plainly against the Person of Christ The Equivocation of the Foxians Eph 3. 10. The true Union that is â—etween Christ Iesus Believers The Quakers painted Christ. Christ winhin and Christ without Two Questions to Quakers G Fâ—x his Book in Folio produced Page 3. The Papists Quakers destroy the Person of Christ. The being of Christ in the Heavens The Quakers endure not trying but are willingly ignorant Willing Ignorance Nehem 8 they gave the Sence The Quakers nonsensical Spirit Iohn Bunyan Christs twofold Presence The Quakers Conjure with Christs Body The Quakers endure not Sences or Meanings just as the Papists and yet talk all of light The old question of Christs Presence Fox Bonnet no difference The Quakers pretend to ownâ— Christs Bloud yet in truth allow him no Bloud to shed Enoch Howet The divine and humane nature of the Lord Iesus Nicholas the Deacon and Nicholas Fathers of the old and new Nicholaitans 1 believe R. W. Ms. Ann. So Cristopher Houlder he boggles at the word Manhood The word Humane considered Used in the Scripture 1 Cor 10. Dan. Grudry Christ not seen as he is until the day of Iudgement The personal coming of the Lord Iesus A visible and in visible eye and object Christ â—ithin Christ without The Papists and Quakers Christ is no where Christoph Wade The Author whome G. Fox opposeth and in Pride and madness rageth against The Quakers Christ but a whimsical Christ Hosanna to the Son of David 1 Ye poor Apostates R. W. Ms. Ann. The Spirit of the Papists the Quakers but one The Quakers notoriously dissemble for they do own and not own the Christ that dyed at Ierusalem Humph. Norton more plain in words then other Quakers Christ yesterday and to day The Quakers endure not to be searched temer of false and thievish spirits 1 Interline be R. W. Ms. Ann. The Quakers Apolloes Oracles the same Iohn Burton If ever there Equivocating Iesuites in the world the Quakers are The Quakers wonderful jugling about the true Christ John Burton The Quakers Traitors Rebels against the true Lord Iesus I have known the poor Lobsters catch the Foxes The wonderful blindness and hardness of my Antagonists 1 the plain Evidences R. W. Ms. Ann. Frances Higginson The Quakers endure not the word Humane Acts 13. Opened of Christs Humanity Tho. Collier The second coming of the Lord Iesus The Everlasting Fathâ—r Christ Iâ—su how The Quakers wonderfully changed yet but in Dissimulation as to learning the Scriptures W. Edmund leaves the Dispute is hurried into Preaching W. Edmund his story concerning Benefices And his vain extolling of their Idol Light John Stubs his sermon The Quakers unruly and rash interruptions A short Answer to 2 Sermons The motions of Gods spirit not those of the Quakers Tâ—e Quakers not orderly nor patient The Offices of Christ Iesus The Kingly office of the Lord Iesus The visible Christian Church Ordinances Touching the several Churches extant Churches nearest to Christ Iesus This was and I hope is the principle of the N English Church The various appearances of Christ Iesus 1 their R. W. Ms. Ann. My offer in the end of the second dayes conference Lying pretenders to Gods service The Authors just Apologie agaiâ—st the unjust clamors of the Quakers A mutual agreement for a third dayes conference A quarter of an hour much canvased The Quakers spirit policy The Quakers would not dispute on the first day and why The third dayes conference at New-port A Letter sent in to all of us The Letter refused to be opened by the Quakers The Sum of the Letter My self reproved in the Letter in 3 particulars The dâ—fference of the Quakers Sharpness sometimes a duty The Letter it self True librety infringed Quenching of the Spirit The insulting Spirit of the Quakers The true cause of our long discourse at Newport The modesty of this letter The third Position against the Quakers spirit Discussed The word spirit The quality of Spirits All spirits must be tried Gods Spirit given by Gods means The Spirit of God working by means The Quakers at Newport appealed too publickly Samuel Eaton Henoch Hoâ—vet G. Fox ignorant of the true spirit of God Tho. Moor. The use of means Fox and the Quakers above all Kings and Princes Popes Emperors Saints and Angels The Mahumetans Quakers considered and found one The Quakers Gods upon Earth all other Beasts Reprobates Devils The leading of the Spirits debated The tryal of Revelations Reason sanctified and rightly improved The Spirit gotten of prayer The Quakers Spirit The omnisciency of the Quakers Their in humanityâ— and cruelty Knowing and doing all things The Light within 2 Cor. 4 God hath shined in our hearts The darkness within An Evidence that the Quakers spirit and a deceitful Heart are one The testimony of the Deputy Governour Câ—pt Cranston and others against W. E. slanderous rashness The great Cheater who cheats all Cheaters The great Magna Charta xi Iâ—a 59. The true Seed The railng spirit of the Quakers Their Cursing Mens and Womens Nakedness Their Womens Preaching Dumb Meetings The monstrous Singing of the Quakers The true Spirit willing to be examined by the Scripture and every mans Consceence The false and Iuglers endure not searching The Quakers cry is Light but they dare not come to it The two pretended Witnesses Reeve and Muggleton The Quakers would set the Spirit and Scripture at odds The 4th Position concerning the Scriptures A twofold owning of any scripture or Writing The Iews and Papists and Quakers all of them in effect deny the holy Scriptures The Quakers slighting the holy Scriptures in many horrible Particlars A dissembling Show of Quakers respecting the Scriptures An Irish Papist confessing the Truth The Scriptures miraculously preservd to be Gods standing outward Record witness The holy Scripture the only outward standing Rule Record like the Records in the Tower The Holp Scriptures are Gods Love-letters The admirable excellency of the Scripture Luthers Light Ioh 20. 2. considered A famous vision in Turkey The two Witnesses eat up the book of Script Tindal the first heavenly Translator burned 1 nail up this R. W. Ms. Ann. The Iews outward reverence to the Script The first Protestants affâ—ction to the Scripture The Scriptures put both Papists Quakers to flight Christs Martyrs or Witnesses love to Scriptures Iames Parnel his horrible sin Iudgment How the Quakers own Scripture 2. King 17. the Samaritans feared the Lord and yet feared him not