garment Christ but that which appeared and dwelt in the body They do not deny That there was such a man as Jesus the Son of Mary and that God was in him or rather Christ was in him but this is no more than they profess of themselves That Christ as God and the eternal Word is in them yet that body of the man Jesus which he calls here the bodily garment he tells us they can never call it Christ Another passage out of the same Author will explain this For that which he took upon him was our garment even the flesh and bloud of our nature very right But what follows is wofully false Which is of an earthly perishing nature but he is of an heavenly nature and his flesh and bloud and bones are of his nature The summe is this The flesh and bloud and bones or body of Christ which they own is of a heavenly and eternal nature but the body which Christ took on him of our nature is earthly and perishing and therefore they can never call that or own that to be Christ This is as plain a denying the man Christ Jesus whose body of flesh was of our nature and of the seed of Abraham and the Son of Mary as can be They own him as one that once had a Being but is now perished that is his body of flesh and bloud What can we expect of those men who can disown what the Scripture speaks so plainly and frequently and that not now and then by the by but as its main scope Do not all the Prophets that prophesie of Christ speak of him as to come Doth not he himself and others contemporary that lived with him in the flesh speak of him as then come Do not the Scriptures after his death and resurrection speak of him as having finished the merit of our redemption and salvation and departed from the earth ascended into Heaven and there at his Fathers right hand ruling the affairs of Heaven and earth and making intercession for his people And all this of the body of Christ which he took of mans nature and this called Christ and Jesus and the Saviour Let not these blasphemers of the Lord of life and glory delude people with a fancy as if we believe and preach the flesh and bloud of Christ to be Christ separated from his soul his soul of the nature of mans soul but undefiled or that we take his humane or mans nature to be Christ separate from his eternal and divine nature for they cannot be separated the one is not now without the other nor was the divine nature of Christ compleat Christ untill united to and dwelling in its fulness in the humane or mans nature of Christ Yet as what the mind conceives in a man the man conceives and what the least member of the body doth or suffereth the man doth and suffereth so by a communication of properties and union of natures in Christ the divine and eternal Being of Christ is called Christ sometimes but much more often the humane nature or the man Christ Jesus And the reason is clear because although Christ offered up himself by the eternal Spirit as both dignifying him to a worthiness for such a sacrifice and enabling him to undergo it as a Lamb for patience innocency and meekness and to overcome death yet the mans nature of Christ his soul and his body was the only proper sufferer and sacrifice for God cannot suffer nor be put to death and by the obedience and sufferings thereof was our reconciliation and redemption wrought Only as I said before its union hypostatical with the divine nature did put it into such a capacity and entitle God or the divine nature which in its fulness dwelt in him bodily to all that he did and suffered Having thus explained my self that the weakest that are but willing may understand the truth in this point I shall quote some Scriptures wherein the man Jesus who was born of the Virgin is called the Christ and Saviour and that this man Jesus is now in being and in that body of flesh which he took of the Virgin and wherein he eat and drank and slept and performed those actions proper to a body of flesh and bloud and bones and that this man Jesus is still and ever shall be the Christ of God And it was revealed unto him by the holy Ghost that he should not see death before he had seen the Lords Christ And he came by the spirit into the Temple and when the parents brought in the Child Jesus to do for him after the custome of the Law then took he him up in his arms and blessed God and said Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace for mine eyes have seen thy salvation a light to lighten the Gentiles This was the Lords Christ whose parents were Mary by nature Joseph in law and by reputation as being Mary's Husband though after Christs birth whom Simeon then saw and not before whom he took up in his arms not only into his heart by faith and love and this Christ is Gods salvation and a light to lighten the Gentiles Therefore being a Prophet and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his loins according to the flesh he would raise up Christ to sit upon his Throne he seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ that his Christs soul was not left in hell neither his Christs flesh did see corruption This Jesus hath God raised up whereof we all are witnesses Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God hath made the same Jesus whom ye have crucified both Lord and Christ The God of our Fathers raised up Jesus whom ye slew and hanged on a tree him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour for to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins Which also said Ye men of Galilee why stand ye gazing up into Heaven This same Jesus which is taken up from you into Heaven shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into Heaven Opening and alleadging that Christ must needs have suffered and risen again from the dead and that this Jesus whom I preach unto you is Christ Be it known unto you all and to the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth whom ye crucified whom God raised from the dead even by him doth this man stand before you whole This is the stone which was set at nought of you builders which is become the head of the corner Neither is there salvation in any other for there is none other name under Heaven given among men whereby we must be saved And though they found no cause of death in him yet desired they Pilate that he should be slain and when he had fulfilled all that was written of him
to blossom and bring forth fruit for the Spirit of the Lord came upon me c. So that whatever was the Root the first branch of this degenerate Vine sprung forth in 48 And if the words immediately foregoing those I here quote signifie any thing it must be a new Administration for which the Lord was agalnst them the publick Pastors and brought night upon them that their vision ceased Then those Pastors had sometime the Vision and Presence of God with them who never preached the light within to be the only Rule the only Redeemer nor pretended to minister from immediate Inspirations but from the Scriptures by which they were directed and which were the Treasury out of which they brought forth whatever they handed as from the Lord to the people but about the year 48 or 50. that way of ministration was cried down and those principles called Quakerism by you inserted in their room and stead But let us hear another Witness and he none of the meanest Yea my heart did truly unite with and enjoy the Lord in what was then about the beginning of the late troubles given forth and I can never be drawn to deny the truth and worth of that dispensation though I know it was swallowed up by a greater desolation so in following after and since by the breaking forth of a more lively dispensation And a little after p. 2. and remained fixing their mind on that former dispensation which the Lord had departed from It is hereby as plain and clear as the Sun shining at noon-day that Quakerism is a late dispensation taking its date since the beginning of the late troubles but to put all out of doubt in page 3. he saith Is not this Quakerism the lowest of all dispensations Is not this common to all mankind doth not this fall short in it self as I may say and as it hath formerly bin dispensed by young Countrey-Lads of no deep understanding or ready expression but very fit to be despised every where by the Wisdom of Man of the dispensation of the Law of Moses to the Jewes much more of the dispensation by Christ and his Apostles who would have looked for the Lord here And yet this hath the Lord chosen to gather his people by and to appear to the World in and hath gathered the life vertue and substance of all former dispensations into it c. So that this new dispensation hath swallowed up all others yea that of Christ and his Apostles and if so it is not the dispensation of Christ and his Apostles but another accounted by the Quakers more excellent and compleat and therefore is not Christianity any more then Christianity is Judaism by their own account To shut up the proof of this as owned by themselves according to the most plain Construction of their own words or consequence not to be disowned by a rational man I will give you James Naylor's doctrine Love to the lost p. 16. But yours Commands in the Letter and so of another Administration for the literal Ministration is done away in the spiritual Well then if Christianity began in a manner so vastly differing from and a time so long before Quakerism which is not that but another Administration Quakerism is no Christianity but the former hath been proved to be true therefore the latter CHAP. III. The Quakers deny the Scriptures SECT I. THAT the Quakers pretend to own the Scriptures I do not deny but I shall prove it to be one of the most naked and self-contradicted pretences that ever peep'd out into the World with such a noise and confidence if meer pretences were of sufficient Authority to command our faith that portion of Scripture might be well spared 1 Thes 5. 21. Prove all things c. if they should deny the Scriptures in so many words they canot but know it would nip their designes in the bud and in stead of promoting their principles render themselves odious but Satan is not so silly an Impostor as to spoil his Market by appearing so unseasonably and at first dash in so deformed a shape he is not ignorant of that Text. Surely in vain is the Net is spread in the sight of any Bird. I shall therefore wave pretences on both sides and bring my charge to a fair trial wherein their own Testimonies shall be their principal Judges I desire them not to accuse me of wounding their reputation seeing the stabs are given with their own daggers and the Murther is no better nor worse then felo de se as the Law phrases it but in plain English Self-Murther this I shall prove by sufficient Argument The Quakers deny the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be the Word of God This Charge none of them that ever I read heard or heard of will deny and if you please to cast your eye on the instances you may take it on their own words Blasphemy for any to say the Letter is the Word of God It is the Devil that contends for the Scriptures to be the Word of God This errour is by some repuâ—ed meerly verbal and that in other words they allow the Scripture as much as this comes to I would it were true of this and all the rest of their errours which they trumpet out in the Scripture titles and dialect upon that condition I would be really content to Yeâ— and Nay it and Thee and Thou it and moreover forbid Ribands Lace and Cuffs though the most modest that were ever worn to pollute my Garments and offend their unnecessary self-denial from that time forward But they have another opinion of it or they would not call it blasphemy to be otherwise minded and we shall finde it ere I have done to be their forelorn Hope by which they attempt to make a breach of the Authority and esteem the Scripture hath justly obtained in the hearts of all serious Christians and thereby with more ease and security to enter the whole Army and gross of their delusions and therefore I shall encounter it first and in good earnest It will be necessary before I proceed to let you know what we intend by the phrase that the Scriptures are the VVord of God that you may know know what we hold and contend for though they know not what they contend against except the vain fictions of their own begetting Know therefore that we do not assert them to be the Son of God the Christ and Saviour nor the Spirit of God neither do we say that they are so self-sufficient and all-powerful as to sanctifie and enlighten savingly without the coagency efficiency or assistance of the good Spirit of the Lord to open our understandings and write them in our hearts These things are too high for them On the other hand we dare not call them a dead letter who have felt them sharper then any two-edged sword and tasted them sweeter then the honey
the enlightning in the Text to be a bettering of the faculties of the mind to discern its spiritual concerns I grant that the Lord Jesus Christ did by his redeeming work merit and doth now by his Spirit effect that great good in his people and they have thereby better understandings and a more pure and faithfull conscience than others But that Christ by being essentially considered in the conscience of every man should be its enlightning is a most base dishonour to his divine Majesty for what is it less than to render God under no better notion than the qualification of the faculty of a pityfull creature Therefore however it be expounded it makes nothing for the Quakers light within or rather the enlightning within to be the Being of Christ Every man If this phrase be taken strictly in its full latitude intending every individual without exception Christ enlightning must be understood so doing as Creator not as Redeemer which Exposition hath a better countenance from the Context than any thing that can make on the Quakers side For the Evangelist treats in the introductory Verses of Christ as the universal Creator and by consequence the eyes of the body and mind by which both are enlightned are creatures of his framing This is the opinion of many Superiours to me in judgement by far and I shall not contradict it but modestly and with submission offer my opinion But if that be right which all the Quakers in the world are not able to prove it cannot be so understood the Quakers may quit this Text as doing them no service Some have affirmed that John wrote his Gospel upon the occasion of the Heresie of Ebion and Cerinthus in denying the eternal and divine nature of Christ But suppose it be to be understood of Christs enlightning as Redeemer and so the enlightning to be with respect to the Gospel-discoveries it need not it cannot lightly be understood of all universally Why more than that Text Whom we preach warning every man and teaching every man c. Sure the Apostle being but a man himself could not warn and teach every man without limitation it must therefore mean all that he preached to or rather the professors of Jesus Christ to whom he preached he thus taught and warned Commending our selves to every mans conscience c. There were many that never heard Paul nor heard of him therefore it must be understood that he had been so faithfull that he deserved commendation from all and had it from those whose consciences were pure to whom he ministred Well then why may it not be understood thus Every man that is enlightned with a spiritual Gospel-light is enlightned by Christ I will shew you a Text of the like form which must be so construed The Lord upholdeth all that fall and raiseth up all those that be bowed down Sure it means that all that are upheld are upheld by God and all that are bowed down and raised up are raised up by God Yet I rather incline to take the every man to be Jew and Gentile without those limitations of the Covenant dispensed before Christ came The Prophets the Temple the Sacrifices and all those typical representations of Christ were restrained to the Church of Israel till the coming of Christ To them were committed the Oracles of God The Disciples must not go to preach the Gospel in the wayes or places of the Gentiles Peter is of opinion he must not converse with those who were Gentiles as a Preacher of the Gospel The Jews are offended with him for going on so good an errand till they heard his commission from God and the blessed effects of his Ministry But they are quickly informed of the partition-wall being broken down and imployed according to their commission to teach all Nations And the vail of the Temple at Christs death was rent from the top to the bottom And as I take it it gives a good countenance to this Exposition I have but one Hill more to get over and that is Whether the Participle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 refer to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so whether it may be read The light coming into the world enlightneth every man or every man coming into the world the light Christ enlightneth As I said before if it should refer to man every man in the very instant of or before his birth Christ enlightneth it must be meant of created faculties in the natural body as eyes reason c. and so Christ as Creator enlightens all for experience and sense without any one Instance to controul it will tell us that none can believe without hearing nor hear without a Preacher for all the talk of some of the preaching Stars and others of the preaching Gospel-light in the conscience Shew us the man that can express any thing of Christ or the Covenant of promises that never had any other means But there is a Reason in the Text gives such a countenance to referring it to the light as will never be found for the contrary That was the true light not this or this is which plainly imports not the light Christ as he is now in Heaven nor as present with John and his contemporary Saints when he wrote the Gospel for then it would have been this or at least that is the true light c. but it clearly points at Christs appearance in the flesh in his state of humiliation wherein he transacted mans salvation and conversed and shined among men as he shall never do over again that state of Christ which was when John wrote his Gospel past And this construction is the very scope of the words viz. That Jesus Christ who was shadowed out formerly by types and figures and whose Ordinances for conveying knowledge and grace to the sons of men and which were the ordinary acceptable wayes of Gods worship were afore-time restrained to the Temple and Jewish Church was manifest in the flesh and therein fulfilling his work as Redeemer hath abolished those strait dispensations and broken down the partition-wall between Jew and Gentile making no difference but shining by his Ordinances and favour on either indifferently so rising as a Sun of righteousness to give light to the whole world without any restraint by his Ordinance or appointment Whereby those Prophecies are fulfilled And he said It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the Tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved of Israel I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles that thou maist be my salvation to the ends of the earth So it seems he was not so at the time of this Prophecie although he were then the divine and eternal Being and he who should in time come and redeem and save by his actual merit I the Lord have called thee in righteousness and will hold thine hand and I will keep
the single word Jew is expressed all the Jewes from first to last in every generation and under the word Gentile all the world of mankind besides Take one Text more to conclude with Isa 8. 20. To the Law and to the Testimony if they speak not according to this VVord it is because there is no light in them not so much as the dawning of the day Both Law and Testimony are here rendred by VVord in the singular number in this one Text there is enough not only to silence this petty cavil but to pluck up both root and branch all the principles of Quakerism if they who profess them had any regard to the Authority and verity of the eternal and Almighty God and a few grains of understanding at liberty to consult it SECT III. 2. Object Many Passages in the Seriptures contain the sayings of wicked meâ— Yea some have been so irreverent and irrational as to say some part of it is the words of the devil this expression hath been frequent with them and uttered in contempt of the Scripture I answer although the Scripture make frequent mention of such Passages it is to a good and holy end and hereby Satans malice is discovered whereby in a good measure we are not ignorant of his devices and hereby we understand his snares in which our first Parents were taken and others both good and bad in after-Ages and Satan is also rendred the most wicked and hateful of all that God created But to speak close to the Objection Those speeches of wicked persons such as Jobs wife the Pharisees Jewes and Rabshakeh and the speeches of the Devil are not the Word of God or any part of holy Writ as they were uttered by them but far from it We are to consider the Scripture as partly Historical and all those passages being reported historically there is not the least stain upon the Scriptures thereby What if I make a true report of the Powder-Plot the Massacres in France Ireland c. And that to good ends and purposes â— yea if I report the blasphemous speeches by them uttered against God his Saints and the holy Scriptures am I therefore blameable as if I my self had been their Author I know what hath been said is convincing Now by the Inspiration and Guidance of the Holy Spirit these things were written and there is not only a truth but also a divine truth of History in them Object 3. That this title the Word of God is peculiar to the Son of God the Lord Jesus Christ whom they call the light within the Scriptures within and here it is indeed that the shooe pinches and they would fain put off the honour and put out the light of the Scriptures because they stand in the light of their fancy Pardon me the expression for it is a truth I shall prove by the Lords assistance ere I have done But what have they to say that the Scriptures should not be the Word of God notwithstanding the Son of God is so called I will give you the best that ever I met with The first is the Authority of their Leaders who say It is so and it must be so James Parnel Christ exalted p. 4. He Christ is the VVord the Scripture is not VVhy should it be doubted after such an evidence it is unreasonable and superfluous to expect that infallible persons for so the Quakers believe all their Ministry to be should give a reason for what they affirm especially considering they are constrained to be infallible for want of reason And now seeing be can carry it so easily he goes on like an empty Cloud carried with the winde He Christ is the light the Scripture is not he is the Râ—lâ—r Guide Teacher and Judge and the Scripture is not VVhat may not a man prove in one infallible breath did he not prudently to make haste before that gale was spent VVell but who can stand before a whirl-wind one blast hath torn from the Scripture no less then six of those glorious Garments wherewith God hath cloathed it Let us hear G. F. if he do not amend the matter by a thing like an Argument He did not say John 1. 1. the Declaration was the VVord but said in his Declaration the VVord was God and he who saith the Latter is the VVord is a Deceiver and erres for the Scripture saith That in the beginning was the VVord Difference of Ministers p. 1. If you could have found where John said in his Declaration as you call it that the Scriptures are not the VVord of God a thousand to one but some or other of the Lords people would have found it out long before Quakerism was in being and have ceased to take that name in vain For the second Argument he said the VVord was God what then VVhy then the Scriptures cannot be the VVord unless they be God also I am sure I have hit on your Conclusion and the best you can make of it but let me tell you that the Scripture may be the VVord and Christ the VVord also and yet though Christ be the VVord of God the Scriptures the VVord may be quite another thing Let me give you just such another place of Scripture 1 Cor. 10. 4. They drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them and that Rock was Christ VVill you conclude from hence that there is no other Rock but every Rock in the VVorld must needs be Christ or that it is sinful yea Blasphemy to call any thing a Rock but Christ but it may be you will say 't is a spiritual Rock in that place And I say it was spiritual only as it was mystical or typical of Christ but in other respects it was a Rock as others are hard and stony So I say of the Word that was God it was the Word that was in the beginning that created all things shew me any such Word and I will call it God too yea I will say it is blasphemy to deny it to be so but the Scriptures which we call the Word of God were not in the beginning nor did they create any thing much less all things Pray let me ask you that are so stiffe in this point do you not take the light in John 1. 9. to be Christ and God say nay if you dare Yea and will you not say that John saith so in his Declaration I know you will and I will say so too what then Is there nothing called light or that is truly so but Christ or God the Sun Moon Day are called Light also Gen 1. 5 16. yea the disciples are called by Christ himself The Light of the World Mat. 5. 14. And must they be God too or Christ be too blame for calling them the light of the VVorld a phrase so very near that in Joh. 1. 9. Christ is called the VVay the Truth and the Life but if you should make every such expression
Competition between Jesus Christ and G. Fox and what the Lord and Master did in this case so did his servants the Apostles as I might instance abundantly I will direct you only to Peters Sermons Acts 2. I need not instance in any more He that hath read the Scriptures may easily furnish himself And who can doubt but they who made use of the Letter of the Scriptures for evidence of what in their Ministry they preached or writ were Ministers of the Letter as well as of the Spirit And moreover if we consider the letter of the Scripture to be the letter of the Spirit written by its direction and to express in its kind the minde of the Spirit This Querie of George Fox may be turned upon himself thus and how can ye be Ministers of the Spirit if ye be not Ministers of the Letter also The latter part of his Sentence is a higher Demonstration of the fallibility of his Chair And how can they but delude people who are not infallible True indeed if they did perswade people that they could not in any thing be mistaken or be ignorant but seeing only the Quakers pretended Ministry and the Pope of Rome do assume this to themselves they only are in a necessity of deluding the people for our parts who live in all manner of pride as the Quakers by their spirit of Infallibility do charge us we are not yet come up to their Perfection for we freely acknowledge that we may erre in doctrine and do erre in practice which we bewail before God and men and also that the people may not be deluded by us we desire them and charge them not to pin their faith on our sleeves but repair to the Law and to the Testimony and search the Scriptures try whether the things we affirm be so or no And if we speak contrary to the Minde of God there expressed to reject our doctrine and also that they follow our Example no further then we follow Christ even that Man Christ Jesus who was for a time on Earth but is now in Heaven But what do you think of the Holy Apostles were they universally infallible could not they erre if you say so Paul will convict you of errour in his charging Peter none of the least of the Apostles with erring and in something deluding the people Gal. 2. 12 13 14. Peter dissembled the truth in practising the Mosaical distinction of Jewes and Gentiles and separating from the believing Gentiles as unclean And the other Jewes yea and Barnabas also was carried away with his dissimulation But then you will say how can we be sure that what they wrote and taught was truth I answer that although they might in some thingâ— be carried away by temptation as Peter was in thaâ— case yet their doctrine which they professed to bâ— from the Lord and by the Inspiration of God could not admit of erring or fallibility and that not because they had an habitual infallibility in all things buâ— because of the love of God to his people the regard of his honour and the firmness of his Promises which he made to them those especially John 14. 26. But the Comforter which is the Holy Ghost whom the Father will send in my Name he shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you John 16. 13. Howbeit when he the Spirit of Truth is come he will guide you into all truth for he shall not speak of himself but whatsoever he shall hear that shall he speak and he will shew you things to come Now these Promises being made to the Apostles for furnishing them with ability for their work as Apostles they may be concluded to be infallibly guided by the Spirit but in other things though by their eminent habitual grace they were not likely â—o fall as others who were not cloathed with such a measure and degree as they yet it was more then possible that they should fail but according to G. Fox's infallibility and without limitation the Apostles themselves could not but delude the people But to conclude this particular of Infallibility take beside what hath been said one considerable proof of their non-attainment of Infallibility and that is the most grossely absurd Exposition they give of the Scriptures See what follows with the eyes of Christian-men We are accused that we judge people It is written the Saints shall judge the world an infallible proof as if it were a Command or Prophecy of the Saints i. e. the Quakers calling men all â—o nought how serious soever who are not professedly conducted and saved by the light within but he goes on more and more infallibly And for Judgement am I come into the World saith Christ As if Christs coming into the World sixteen hundred years ago were to the end that they might pass their rash Censures freely But he grows still And where Christ ruleth in his Saints he judgeth the World as Paul witnessed It is no more I but Christ in me Where Paul witnessed this such a Spirit of discerning as they tell us of must finde out for the Scripture hath nothing like it only in two places Rom. 7. 17. It is no more I that do it but sin that dwelleth in me But I am sure Sin and Christ are two things Gal. 2. 20. Yet not I but Christ liveth in me But that was not to censure others but to comfort Paul under the hard censures and usages of others But the passage of coming into the World for Judgement brings into my minde one remarkable Expositor It is a right and sound doctrine to preach him as he is the light of the World and lighteth every man that cometh into the world But what world is this This is the great Prophet who is come into the World which is set in the heart Eccles 3. 11. which is in the midst out of which Moses saith the Lord world raise up a Prophet Lev. 8. 15. which Prophet being come he saith I am come a Light into the World John 1. 12. and 12. 35 36 46 The World being set in the heart there is the light of him who saith I am the light So that with him the World is the heart Christs coming into the World is his comeing into the heart and as he came into the world the heart so he is also raised up out of the world the heart but how like such a Prophet is to Moses I should too much suspect your understandings if I should trouble you with my sense he that is declined as far as dotage may perceive it without a Guide as also the gross darkness of this Expositor in the rest Let us see what sound Exposition the great Lanthorn of the Quakers gives for I must not call him their Great Light for that is in the Lanthorn 1 Cor. 14 34 35. Let your women keep silence in the Churches for it is not
well fits the Popes Foot to mount his usurped and infallible Chair by and which both Papists and Quakers tug for as for life I remember when I was a small Lad I heard our Protestant Divines usually affirm that every man was born with a Pope in his belly which to my then childish genius seemed a very pretty phrase but such an one as I thought as was not only improbable but also impossible but the Generation I am contending against tug for the truth of it though under other terms tooth and nail And I have ceased wondring that so many so easily turn Quakers when I consider how natural it is to shake off the Doctrine and Discipline even of God himself that we alone may rule if not over the great world of all others at least over the little world our selves without controul SECT II. For convicting the Quakers of gross errour and establishing others in the truth I shall prove from the Divine Authority of the Scripture these four things First That whatsoever is by the Lord affirmed in the Holy Scripture it is our duty to believe Secondly That whatsoever is thereby or therein commanded of the Lord not being repealed by the coming of Christ it is our duty to obey Thirdly That the Holy Scriptures do in their kind determine or discover to us whether we believe and walk or practise aright or not For the first of these I shall prove from our Saviours own words O fools and slow of heart to believe all that the Prophets have spoken c. If it had not been their duty to believe according to the sayings of the Lord by the Prophets which were not immediate to the Disciples it had been neither their fault nor their folly not to believe or to have been so slow and unready to believe even those Prophecies which foretold the death and ill handling of the Messias which was so much above their understandings and so thwart to their affections Yea the innocent and compassionate Jesus would have been not a little faulty for so severely rebuking them for what was no crime at all But lest you should say these Prophecies were within them as some of you have said know first that they were ignorant of them for as yet they knew not the Scriptures And 't is said Luke 4. 27. Beginning at Moses and all the Prophets he expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself Thus much may suffice to prove it our duty to believe what the Scriptures speak and that all and universally Secondly What is therein commanded we ought to obey c. Ye shall observe to do therefore as the Lord your God hath commanded you you shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left If it be objected this was obliging to them not to us who are not under Moses's Administration I answer first that the commands here chiefly intended were such as oblige all men in all Ages for the matter of them which is alway just and righteous Secondly the ground of their authority being the Lord commanding reaches to whatever he commands in his written Word in all Ages of the World Thirdly the Israelites had them not immediately by inspiration but by the hand of Moses either from his mouth to that Generation or by Writing and Tradition to the Generations following Who gave Jacob for a spoil and Israel to the Robbers did not the Lord he against whom we have sinned for they would not walk in his ways neither were they obedient to his Law Thirdly The holy Scriptures determine according to their kind or as much as a Writing can do whether we believe and practise aright or not I hope you are not yet resolved with the Jesuits and William Pen that because they do not express the sense contained in them viva voce or direct it to thy conscience without any other help and say thou A. art in the right thou B. art amiss therefore thou wilt not take them to be meet to determine good and evil right and wrong We may as certainly determine by words written as by words spoken and they are altogether as worthy of credit Those who come under the executive determination of Laws do find that Process in writing doth not lose its force for the decrees and sentence being put into that form All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine for reproof for correction for instruction in righteousnes that the man of God may be perfect throughly furnished unto all good works the words for correction here are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for conviction And herein all things which are written in the Law and the Prophets do I exercise my self to have a conscience void of offence towards God and towards men What can be more plain the judgment whether he did righteously with respect to God and men was passed in his conscience by the Scripture and that not by immediate inspiration only though he were an Apostle but by the written Law attained by study and serious meditation Herein I exercise my self he laboured by study and meditation therein as the Greek imports he was not an idle Quaker that must have knowledge dropt in his mouth for dig he cannot and to ask of others he scorns it But for all that I had rather be laborious rich and humble with Paul than slothful poor proud and meerly in conceit rich with them To the Law and to the Testimony if they speak not according to this word it is because there is no light in them G. Fox the grand Quaker will needs have Christ to be the Law and the Testimony if so I am as sure as can be that they that are saved by Christ are saved by the Law and then farewel the Gospel and the righteousness of Faith which the Apostle makes so much ado to bring people to embrace and disclaim justifying righteousness by the Law SECT III. The teachings motions and determinations of the Spirit of God by the Scripture are more sutable to the nature and present state and condition of man and more certain to his knowledge than any immediate teachings which any enjoy in our days More sutable to the present condition of man I prove it first from its being that dispensation of God which he hath put an eminent Character of mercy upon He sheweth his Word unto Jacob and his judgments unto Israel he hath not dealt so with any Nation and as for his Judgments they have not known them Praise ye the Lord. If it were not more sutable to man in his fallen state and tending to his good it would hardly by the Spirit of God been expressed as a mercy so singular so excelling his dealings with any other people and such flourishing matter for the praises of the Lord. Never did any of the Saints of old call it a carnal letter husks and by such like scornful names
the Gospel they are but the Letter The Gospel is as much as to say a good message or glad tidings 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Strange that they should not be glad tidings because they are the Letterâ— as if a good message or glad tidings were never written in this world And the Scripture brings no tidings of Christ because they are tidings in the most ample form viz. in writing or printing which will abide much longer than a breath or sound and may be better considered Take another to couple with him as very a Wiseaker as he And the knowledge of the Languages of Hebrew Greek and Latine which they call the Orignal is nothing worth as pertaining to the knowledge of God This Author did certainly lose the light or the light lose him when he wrote this I never heard the Latine called the Original of the Scripture Translations before Sure he believed that the Scriptures peept first out of Rome in that their Original Copy should be in the Roman Language as others of them that the Lords Supper and Baptism were from Rome and the Pope But however we have been hitherto of this mind the Quakers infallible monitor the Light within by which I am perswaded he wrote this will have it otherwise and I dare assure this learned person if he be alive and can but prove the Latine to be the Original the Pope of Rome will willingly give him a Cardinals Hat for his pains But this is not his original errour though an errour concerning the Original He saith the Original is nothing worth pertaining to the knowledge of God â—f so our Translations which we had from thence are less worth than nothing for they must give the upper hand to the Original I have sufficiently proved their denial of the Scriptures being any means by which we may come to the knowledge of God or Christ one Witness of the third viz. of our selves and I shall call in no more of them for the proof of this Charge Christ by his light within shews you in a glass your own faces which the Scriptures cannot do Here I find them in love yea so in love with a little Rhetorick that rather than go on plain ground they will kick their own shins and trip up their own heels Truly friends you have here gone on Glass or Ice which you will You teach or declare in almost all your Writings which concern teachings in a religious sense that you are taught immediately by the light within Was ever any thing in this world shewn in a Glass immediately that Glass may more congruously be called a Mirrour the ancient name of a Looking-Glass than any I ever saw or heard of however let whatever be the Glass or means by which or in which we may see our faces the Scriptures by your leave must not be it But whether you will or no the Scriptures are a Glass or as a Glass wherein if you or I will please to look with an honest mind God will by it in a good measure shew us what we are and they have one property above all the Looking Glasses in the world viz. that we can see your faces in and by them though you should not look into them nor suffer the Book wherein they are contained to be in the same house where you are SECT II. For the help of the unready in the Scriptures I shall quote a few of its testimonies to confute this Doctrine although the consciences of the greater number of themselves if they will but turn over their records placed in their memories will give verdict against them And for all those who have been at the pains to learn what the Scriptures are capable of teaching and have not engaged themselves right or wrong to the service of the light within I doubt not but they will subscribe themselves experimenters of the truth here by you opposed That all the people of the earth might know the hand of the Lord that it is mighty that ye might fear the Lord your God for ever As the heathen Nations so the Generations and Posterity of Israel who had not seen those works with their own eyes were helped to the knowledge of them and of the Lord who wrought them by the means of the Scripture History And it shall be when he sitteth on the throne of his Kingdom that he shall write him a Copy of this Law in a Book out of that which is before the Priests the Levites and it shall be with him and he shall read therein all the days of his life that he may learn to fear the Lord his God Here the Scriptures are not only a means to know God but also to fear God which cannot be without knowledge of him and is more than a meer notion of God And for the knowledge of Christ it is not possible that the Scriptures should be a prophetical historical and doctrinal account of the natures person and offices c. of Jesus Christ and yet no means for the knowledge of him And according to your own common phrase a testimony declaration and witness of Christ and that they are some means though not the only means that Text is enough to prove 2 Tim. 3. 15. And that from a Child thou hast known the holy Scriptures which are able to make the wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus And who will doubt but that which is a means to save is a means to know God and Christ I have met with such a silly cavil as this in some of your Writings viz. that they are no such means to them who have not faith i. e. that obey not the light and believe not in the light True if you understood Christ aright but yet they are a means of some kind or it is not true that they are able to make wise to salvation whatever else be in conjunction with them we never yet said that they alone can do it if we should say so we should be like unto you who deny they can contribute any thing towards it Concerning the knowledge it gives of our selves whether we are believers or unbelievers take two or three testimonies These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God that ye may know that ye have eternal life and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God Surely if they are a means to know if we have eternal life they thereby shew us our faces that we have the faces of Children not Swine or Swine and not Children and those characters and marks by which one Saint may know it self may be a means by which another Saint may know it self and so on the contrary Paul knew himself by the Law to be such a sinner as he knew not before But I shall give you one Scripture which answers the case in the Metaphor a Glass used by our Adversary For if any
set them up and is present with and in them we will quickly in that point turn Quakers But alas the proof that he hath done so is but this they limit his leadings in Spirit that is the Quakers fancies but if he intended the Spirits leadings in a true sence it is very strange that the Gospel and Law of works should be both sick of one disease that which was ordained to life I found to be unto death The Ordinances of the Gospel were ordained to enlarge and raise the spirits of the Saints but quite contrary they are found to limit and imprison the spirit sure it must be Satans Spirit and not Christs to whom the Ordinances are such chains That I may shew you the Quakers Babel let us hear Isaac Pennington's Light speak contrary to the light of G. Fox When Israel was bent to seek after the Lord and applied their hearts to wait upon him in fasting and earnest supplications wherein my heart hath often had the testimony that they were accepted of him and had many times the seal of his presence and power among them yea my heart did truly unite with and enjoy the Lord in what was then given forth and I can never deny the truth and worth of that dispensation though I know it was swallowed up by the breaking forth of a more lively dispensation This he saith he found about the beginning of the late troubles How doth this agree to G. Fox's nailing all those forms to Christs Cross at his death and then blotting out these Ordinances But yet I. P. will needs have them swallowed up now though he gave them leave to live 1600 years more mercifully however than G. who would have them stifled in the womb or crucified so soon as born But Pennington is so cruel by that time he arrives to p. 38 that he saith Such of the people of God as do not follow the Lord perfectly out of the things City of abomination visible worship but be found in any part thereof when the Lord cometh to judge her the Lord will not spare her nor the spirits of his dearest people who are found there c. Both by the Scripture and their own confession Christ did not long since dwell in those Ordinances which we call Gospel-Ordinances and the Quakers Babylons forms and abominations Untill they shew us better grounds for Christs remove than the secret witness of the Spirit within them which we can prove to be a Spirit of delusion by Scripture reason and sense it self let none who follow not Christ blind-fold have the worse opinion of Ordinances for all the Quakers talk I now come to particulars and begin with the Gospel-Ministry SECT III. They deny and subvert the Ministry of the Gospel railing on the Ministers as the vilest persons and veriest cheats in the world making ill use of those Scripture words Smite the shepherd and the sheep shall be scattered Next to the Scripture they lay not their batteries against any thing so much as against the Ministers of the Gospel and have so little honesty as to rake up all that is to be found on any one or any that pretend to be Ministers of Christ and cast it in the faces of all without distinction as equally guilty And for their more particular attempts those who are the most faithfull and serious are the objects of their greatest fury I shall not blot paper with their railing First They deny all Ministry that hath a mediate call to that office and imployment and their call to the Ministry we deny which is mediate But who can witness an immediate call from God and speak it the Gospel as they are moved by the holy Ghost and such travail from place to place and have no certain dwelling place this Ministry we own and witness Thou art corrected by the Scripture and the Apostle corrects thee who saith I have not received it of man nor by man and bid others look at Jesus the author of their faith Their Writings are abounding with matter of this nature We acknowledge that all the true Ministers of Christ ought to have an immediate call such as consists in grace and gifts and disposition to that worthy office and imployment and such as have not this immediate call we account unworthy of the thing and name but the Quakers pretended-immediate call is far from the Apostles as I have proved at large on the point of inspirations neither are the Ministers of Christ now Apostles as they were But if we call for the Quakers proof of their immediate call hear what Farnworth saith As for pretences we do not pretend that we are immediately call'd but we witness that we are And what is their witness their own fancy and their own say-so and we witness that such witnesses will carry the cause no where but in the fools Court who the wise man saith believeth every word And G. Fox's proof is as much to the purpose not of man the call of the Apostle while we pretend not to be Apostles And bid others look at Jesus the author of their faith as if that Text intended a faith that they were called to be Apostles which speaks of the faith of all believers who received it by the mediate Ministry of the Gospel For being moved by the holy Ghost which is by them made an essential mark of a true Minister we allow but yet affirm That those who are moved by the commands of the Spirit in the Scripture are moved by the holy Ghost especially when the Authority of God therein prevails with them As for having no certain dwelling place and leaving houses lands and possessions let them repair to William Pen and others of their Ministers for an Answer to it who have large possessions and brave habitations such as few Ministers whom they disclaim especially the poor non-Conformists enjoy and will not so easily as Pen's phrase is be fobb'd out of them as they fobb others out of the truths of the Gospel But indeed will you deny that the Elders that were ordained in every City by the appointment of Paul and by the hand of Titus had any mediate call or those spoken of Acts 14. 23. And when they had ordained them Elders in every Church and had prayed with fasting they commended them to the Lord on whom they believed If you will not believe these had a mediate call I despair of your believing any thing but what you list SECT IV. Another ground of their denying our Ministry is that they teach from the Scripture And the Word is immediate and all the Ministers of Christ preach the immediate Word and wait for it and the outward written words with ink and paper are mediate so then The written Word being preached from makes a man no Minister And of this sort are they that have their preaching to study and to seek at other mens mouthes or from the
letter but have it not from the mouth of the Lord. If the Scripture be not the mouth of the Lord there is no such thing as Gods mouth And here is the difference of the Ministers of the world and the Ministers of Christ the one of the letter the other of the Spirit For they are meer deceivers and witches bewitch people from the truth holding forth the shadow for the substance and what is the chaff to the wheat Here is not a bare denial of those to be Christs Ministers who preach the Word of God out of the Scriptures but charging them with witchcraft and what are the instruments of their witchcraft but the holy Scriptures most horrid doctrine and yet these wretches will tell you they honour the Scriptures and a Scripture Ministry But this is not all the tide rises yet higher And so he the Devil takes Scripture to maintain his kingdom and this he delivers by the mouth of his Ministers which he sends abroad to deceive the Nations leading people in blindness c. These words are plain and no parable therefore I leave you to behold without a glass the villany of these misleaders I have already proved that not only we ought but Christ and his Apostles did teach out of the Scriptures therefore by the Quakers account they were also as bad as they charge us to be witches and deceivers c. O but there is another inditement against us we are not infallible How can ye be Ministers of the Spirit and not of the Letter if ye be not infallible There is none but God alone absolutely infallible And for certainty of what we teach we dare weigh with the Quakers at any time But sure I am that I never met with one of their Teachers yet in Writing or otherwise but I found him more than fallible even foolish contradicting the Spirit of God speaking by the Scripture contrary to the clearest reason and themselves also But more than all this We are Hirelings preach for Hire and take Hire for preaching And a main question for a scrutiny into the truth of our Ministry is Whether is your Gospel free and without Charge yea or nay This is the nail they find will drive People love a Cheap Gospel they that will sell them such a one shall buy their souls into the bargain and vassalize their understandings to their most corrupt dictates To preach for Hire we call a Vile iniquity to receive Hire for preaching we dare not condemn because Christ hath said The labourer is worthy of his hire And the Apostle said He took wages of other Churches to serve them the Corinthians It is ordained that they that preach the Gospel should live of the Gospel and so hath the Lord ordained So that a Ministers maintenance for preaching the Gospel is Gods ordinance The Apostle exhorts Timothy To give himself to the work of the Ministry as it is the duty of every one ordinarily imployed therein And is God and Christ a hard Master to oblige his Ministers to give up themselves to that work and let them and theirs starve for it But moreover you may know if you please that there are thousands this day in England who preach the Gospel in poverty and distresses and cleave to their work when stripped of their wages which number there needs not one Quaker to make up yet take heed you commend them not for it Another objection is we study for our Sermons What is study but meditation and searching to understand the truth and to get it into our heads and hearts if this be a sin obedience to God is so And the Apostle bids Timothy who had excellent gifts and was brought up from a child in the holy Scripture study to shew thy self approved unto God a workman that needeth not to be ashamed rightly dividing the Word of truth Then it seems it is no idle task to preach like a workman and divide the Word of truth aright and that we may be approved to God and free from shame among men we must study But that which turns us all off hand-smooth is SECT V. That till we are taught by the light within immediately we cannot speak one word of truth but all lyes though the matter we deliver be the highest truth And all be in the Satanical delusions that be not in the immediate teachings from the Spirit But the greatest professors upon the earth are there of the Devil that speaketh the words of truth but not as they are in it as so saith Christ to the Jewes they were of their Father the Devil they speak of themselves they speak of themselves as the Devil doth but abide not in the truth but a lyar from the beginning The Devil speaks a lye from himself that is a truth for no body need teach the Devil to lye but how will it follow that whatever any man speaks of himself is a lye then it seems for a man to be first in telling any thing true or false 't is a lye whereas we use most to suspect the truth of that which comes by a second or third hand or more but the conclusion is what we have not by immediate inspiration and teach it we speak it of our selves and therefore are devilish lyars The learned Fisher will help the Fox at a dead lift and piece his tale And to such wise sayers and knowers as these God saith though ye say God lives yet as I live ye swear falsly and why falsly was not that a truth that God lives but not a truth truly testified unto by them any more than what is testified in foro hominum in mens Courts by such as being not eye-witnesses thereof have it only by hear-say from others because they witnessed to it but in stollen words Here is then the proof that we speak more than we know and therefore lye This is indeed pretty near a lye but that they who live in the light of the Creation and read and believe and know the Scripture to be the Word or the words of God and affirming no nicer a truth than that God liveth should lye because they know it not by immediate inspiration is very strange He that lives may know from thence that God lives who holdeth every soul in life that lives But the meaning of the Text may be and I will trust the sober Readers judgement to decide it betwixt us that they did not believe the Lord lived and swearing what they thought untrue or doubted of they therein sware falsly But I desire those who give credit to such teachers as infallible and inspired immediately from God to try by the instance I am now upon whether we are not likely to speak more rightly concerning God from the Scripture than their teachers without book In the quotation of this Text Fisher hath falsified beside his Exposition in three plain cases for they say he writes
Heb. 8. 10. And Circumcision the sign of the Covenant is called the Covenant also Gen. 17. 13. He that is born in thy house and he that is bought with thy money must need be circumcised and my Covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting Covenant Moreover Baptism with water is Baptism in a proper sense Baptism of or with the Spirit but analogically so called as having in it something a likeness to or proportion with it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies washing with water dipping into water properly that of the Spirit washing the soul but improperly for freeing it from sinfull pollutions I hope none of you believe a soul can be rinsed or dipped Beside in Water-Baptism which is proper the body being dipt or washed or any part of it the flesh is put into the water but the soul is not dipt or put into the Spirit Therefore this Objection is a meer fancy and they that will contemn the Deeds and Seal because they are Paper and Ink and Wax and cast them away may lose Land and all for their contempt and then they will pay for and repent of their folly Another ground for denying it is it was not laid on the Apostle of necessity but as they found it of service or dis-service This is to be understood only of Paul who in his call which was out of duâ— time and in an extraordinary manner had not this of Baptizing mentioned as the rest had therefore he said Christ sent me not to baptize but to preach the Gospel Yet he did baptize therefore it was an Ordinance and that he baptized so few in that Countrey it was rather providential than designed by Paul for he being so famous an instrument of converting the Gentiles they began to cry him up as if he had not been Christs Minister but rather his Competitor and therefore he thanks God he baptized no more lest they should have said he baptized in his own name But though he did not baptize there might be enough beside for that work and we read not of one that omitted it when they understood of the Ordinance and had any to administer it to them Object It was to confer the holy Ghost That was but one consequence but not what Baptism signified beside the giving the holy Ghost was of a miraculous nature for the confirmation of the Disciples in the newness of the Christian Religion and conviction of others and the friends of Cornelius had the holy Ghost before Baptism Object None were called to baptize but those that were sent to preach to all Nations Answ Ananias baptized Paul yet was not so sent The ends of Baptism which was a sign of what interest they had in Christ and of Regeneration and the righteousness of faith remain and therefore that remains to be dispensed by the ordinary aâ—…mediate Officers of the Church who are stewards of the mysteries of God of which this is one It being also a cognizance of Christianity there is the same reason for it and it is in vain to talk of Ordinances abolished without some proof when and why they are so Nailor saith Paul preached the Baptism of the Spirit in its stead Let that be proved and something is said But John Higgins saith That Water-Baptism was but the administration of John is known and confessed I say no more to him but I perceive he is but little acquainted with Confessions I must bring in the sentence of the great Patriarch George Fox to decide all for after his words 't is not fit any of his inferiours should speak again Where was Matthew or Mark or Luke or John baptized and many more which the Apostle Paul thanked God he had not baptized Baptizing is making Disciples to the Lord Jesus and baptizing them into his name thatis his power but he Paul told of the Spirits Baptism and brought the Saints off from the things that are seen and Water is seen and its Baptism Strange arguments as if the command and abundant instances of its practice had no force unless we have an account where every believer was baptized and because Paul did not baptize all therefore they were not baptized at all But for Baptism being a making Disciples if it be understood of Water-Baptism it will be no small friend to Infant-Baptism if of the Baptism of the Spirit I suppose George Fox will eat his words again and acknowledge that the Apostles had not power to bestow the Spirit of God on persons and make them new creatures that was the mistake of Simon Magus and now of George Fox But the last argument is such an one as never offered it self to such a service till the Quakers light which they say is almighty had the management of it and so may make an effectual instrument of any thing Paul brought the Saints off from the things that are seen and Water is seen and its Baptism He that shall look into the Text to which his words refer will admire his sharp-piercing genius or his non-such ignorance that could find such a meaning of that Text or tell the world it was there But if all that is seen must be cast away and rejected I counsel the Quakers not to be such eager pursuers of the world and that I dare ground upon the Text but above all to reject their proud dreaming intollerable notions the ignorance and delusion of which is so gross that it is not only seen but may be felt also But for all this the Quakers will affirm they own Baptism and believe that George Fox is sent of God because he speaks of the Scripture right as they are SECT VII The Quakers disown the Ordinance of the Lords Supper to be now a Gospel-Ordinance or any Ordinance of God at all As of Baptism so of the Lords Supper they will say they own it at least many of them but they call quite another thing by that name which is the way they have to delude people in all other matters of the Christian Religion If what the Apostle Paul saith he received of the Lord 1 Cor. 11. 23. do express the true Lords Supper the Quakers deny it Feeding upon the husk and shadow which is carnal For the Bread which the world all that are not Quakers breaks is natural and carnal so also the Cup which they drink and here is no communion but natural outward and carnal They Bread and Wine in the Lords Supper are the Popes invention The Priest gives it to the people and tells them it is the Bloud of Christ which is shed for them when it is Wine and not Bloud I will not trouble thee with so an unnecessary a thing as a reply to these silly cavils and plain contradictions to the Scripture The main Objection the Quakers have against this Ordinance beside that against all forms and all things that are seen is That Christ
is come and his Disciples were to do it in remembrance of him till he was come but Christ is come in the Spirit to them and therefore this precept doth not bind them But who would think the Spirit or Christ in the Spirit was not come either in shedding it abroad miraculously as in the 2 Acts or as a sanctifier in the hearts of his people when the Disciples and whole Church at Jerusalem were so frequent in this Ordinance and when the Apostle Paul tells the Corinthians The Bread which we break c. But that none must be engaged by this Ordinance but those to whom Christ was not come by a Spirit of sanctification is exceeding cross for whereas the Ordinance is for the Saints this renders it to be peculiar to those in a state of sin and unconverted to Christ and they are not ashamed to own it to be so Which was the thing Christ in tender love to his Disciples at his departure warned them on knowing that their nature would draw to the earth-ward not yet being changed nor having Christ born in them to keep them and for all this warning and leaving this as a sign c. If Christ born in the soul be not till the light within be obeyed as Christ the Son of the living God we doubt not the truth of Nailor's speech and that the Apostles and Disciples of Christ were all strangers to such a conversion Before I part with this Subject it will not be unmeet to inform you what they mean by the Lords Supper which they own But if you eat in remembrance of him and so come to die to that which slew him then do you shew the Lords death till he come and when he comes he shall not find you eating and drinking with the drunken c. So that mortification to sin taken in the best sense is with him the Lords Supper but in his own sense it is a dying to all that doth not obey the Christ of the Quakers The light within At another turn it is somewhat else and quite contrary Which all know who come to his Supper where the Father and the Son are come in and sup with the creature which all the imitators and observers of times are ignorant of whose contention is about outsides In the words cited before It was a Fast a Popish cruciating Fast But this last cited a Feast a spiritual Feast and the Feast is constituted of the coming of the Father and the Son supping with the creature whereas before his mind was that when Christ comes the Supper is ended but now it is no other but Christ himself present But the strangest Supper of the Lord is expressed by the same Author in these words And this was to be done at all seasons when they eat and drink in their eating and drinking they were to do it to the Lord and therein to have communion with his Body and Bloud yea when they were to eat with Gentiles they were to partake of the Table of the Lord as is plain 1 Cor. 10. Thus hath the Lord given up these people to confusion Sometimes the Lords Supper is quite gone and done away Then it remains but 't is a fasting from and dying to sin and what they call excess Then it is spiritual and within and Christs coming makes the Supper And last of all 't is every meal you eat and every draught you drink you ought therein to remember the Lords death till he come at breakfast dinner supper and afternoons luncheons also And yet this wretch Nailor to whom some of the Quakers sang Hosanna and worshipped him and called him the Son of God The Christ and none of the Quakers now but own him as a great Prophet and highly honoured and beloved of God and yet he dared to say concerning this false confused stuff What I have received of the Lord that I shall declare unto you And again And this is known from the Lord in the eternal to be the true end of the Supper of the Lord c. If denying the Ordinances of Christ after the manner proved of the Quakers in this Chapter be Christianity or consistent with a Christian the holy Scriptures have given us a very un-intelligible account of Christianity or a Christian and that mouth which said I deny that God did ever or will ever reveal himself by any of those things thou callest the meanes of grace was not full of blasphemy or in any fault against Scripture Prayer Hearing which were intended by it CHAP. XV. The Quakers deny the transactions of Jesus Christ when he was manifest in the flesh in Judea above sixteen hundred yeares since or as he is now at the right hand of God to have any influence into our Justification before God and our Salvation SECT I. IN this point they come not short of themselves who in every path of error out-strip all others who are found in the same crooked way I shall proceed to the proof All that are called Presbyterians and Independants with their feeding upon the report of a thing done many hundred years ago This he saith by way of reproach against all that act faith on and receive comfort from the blessed effects of Christs righteousness and sufferings by him wrought and suffered when he was in the world What righteousness Christ performed without me was not my justification neither was I saved by it I believe it of himself if he died in the same mind Can outward Bloud cleanse the conscience can outward Water wash the soul clean A plain denial of the efficacy of the Bloud of Christ shed on the Cross to cleanse the soul from the guilt of sin by its satisfaction to the justice of God Seeing the Apostle speaks of purifying the heavenly things themselves Heb. 9. 23. it would seriously be enquired into and the Lord waited on to know what nature those sacrifices must be of which cleanse the heavenly things Whether they must not of necessity be heavenly If so then whether it was the flesh and bloud of the Vail or the flesh and bloud within the Vail Whether was it the flesh and bloud of the outward earthly nature or the flesh and bloud of the inward spiritual nature Whether was it the flesh and bloud which Christ took of the first Adam ' s nature or the flesh and bloud of the second Adam ' s nature By these Queries you may see how far he is from believing that the offering up of the man Christ Jesus the seed of the woman hath any influence into our remission and cleansing from the guilt of sin contemning the value of the flesh and bloud of the man Christ Jesus as beneath and short of such an efficacy and that of necessity there must be flesh and bloud mysteriously included in the outward and visible flesh and bloud of a more heavenly and spiritual nature contrary to the words of
thee and give thee for a Covenant to the people for a light to the Gentiles This speaks still of Christ to come as such a light Let us consider that passage in the Song of Simeon For mine eyes have seen thy salvation which thou hast prepared before the face of all people a light to lighten the Gentiles c. So that the appearance of Christ in the flesh in that body which Simeon took up in his arms was his being prepared to be a light to lighten the Gentiles Now this light was present And in the Text agitated John 1. 9. This light was past that is that appearance and work of Christ which made way for the salvation of God to be divulged and its ordinary means to be enjoyed by all indifferently This was the true light God was manifest in the flesh preached unto the Gentiles SECT V. The second Text they usurp is in Romans 10. 8. But what saith it The Word is nigh thee even in thy mouth and in thy heart that is the Word of faith which we preach This Text joyned with John 1. 1. In the begining was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God they build their Tenet upon that Christ the Word is within every man as upon the Text before agitated they affirm that he is within them as a saving light Let us first consider whether the Word in this Text be of the same sense and import with that in John 1. which speaks of Christ the personal Word That it is not so but the Doctrinal Word is plain from these Considerations First The Apostle doth in these words allude to the words of Moses Deut. 30. 14. But the Word is very nigh unto thee in thy mouth and in thy heart that thou maist do it This Word in Deuteronomy is said in Verse 10. to be the commandments and statutes which were written in the Book of the Law which Book they had among them and by that means had the contents of it in their heart either in the love of it or by rote as we use to say a writing is gotten by heart when it is treasured in the memory and it was in their mouth by profession or discourse Secondly The Apostle gives the same Answer to a supposed Objection How shall we know what is our duty How we should please God and be blessed therein saith Moses 'T is no such difficult thing for you to know this for what you have gotten into your heart out of this Book of the Law and what you have in your mouth by discourse and profession that is it you should observe and do So the Apostle if you suppose while we preach salvation by Christ whom you must receive that we preach impossibilities for that the person of Christ if in Heaven or in the grave he is out of your reach this will cure your mistake to consider that as the Word of the Law which Moses taught and wrote was in the heart and mouth to do it so the Word of faith or to be believed is in your heart and mouth to believe and confess it And this will as effectually save you as if Christ in his person were in your arms yea and more too And that this is his sense is plain in Verse 9. That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead thou shalt be saved The third Consideration is That the word that is said to be in the heart is said also to be in the mouth and we all know what manner of word uses to be in the mouth that it is a word saying or speaking while it is there such as that spoken of in Samuel tidings in his mouth or that in Esther As the word went out of the Kings mouth therefore it cannot be meant of Christ but that speech those sayings which are or may be spoken as in the Gospel when preaching or when written Fourthly Both that in Deuteronomy and this word in the Romans are said to be in the heart and mouth of those who were the Church of God as Israel was to whom Moses spake and the Romans to whom Paul wrote and so were taught by the one the truths of the Law by the other of the Gospel It sorrily follows from hence that it is in the hearts of all men Lastly The Apostle agitating this Argument farther Verse 14. How shall they call on him of whom they have not heard He doth not tell them Christ Jesus the Word will preach himself and he is in the heart where if you will but stand still and wait and listen you shall hear him teach you all things as is the Quakers Doctrine No but he tells them in Verse 17. So then faith cometh by hearing so say the Quakers too but of whom Verse 15. Of them that are sent them whose feet are beautifull for the sake of the glad tidings of the Gospel of peace which they bring And these are more than that one personal or as the Quakers phrase it eternal Word Christ for they are expressed by they them which are Plurals but Christ is but one Yet from this Text do they most confidently avouch Christ the Word who was in the beginning and who is God to be in the heart and not only in the hearts of the Saints and Believers but in theirs also who are the most wicked and ignorant among the sons of men And I have by a grand Quaker been given the lye in the Pulpit for expounding the Word in Jâ—r 23. 20. of the Word of the Lord Doctrinally considered and this Text in the Romans produced with no more but confidence and of that enough to prove me so There is a passage of William Pen's either in his Book called Sandy foundation c. or else The Spirit of Truth c. which is this at least the matter of it That Christ is most eminently the Word all will agree or none will deny I have not time to look it But I shall say thus much to antidote that fancy That that is most eminently the Word of that species about which we contend which is most properly so though other considerations may render it more eminent in another kind and not that which is sometimes but improperly so called Christ is called a Lion a Door 'T is true Christ as God is more eminent than all things beside in Heaven and Earth and we use to say and do not yet repent it that all uncompounded good things are eminently in God So as there is strength and courage in a Lion with respect to strength and courage Christ may be said to be eminently most eminently strong and couragious but to be the most eminently a Lion would be a strange and untrue expression of Christ For Formadat esse and he that is without the form that gives the being cannot
be so eminently such as the meanest that hath the true form And that the Word Christ is only so analogically I have shewed and the definition of a Word in the second Chapter I desire Mr. Pen to consider better next time and not think every body else not a hairs breadth beyond his size SECT VI. A third Scripture I am willing to explain to fence the weak against the Quakers seductions is 2 Pet. 1. 19. We have also a more sure word of prophecy whereunto ye do well to take heed as unto a light that shineth in a dark place untill the day dawn and the day-star arise in your hearts This more sure word of prophecy refers to the voice from Heaven which Peter James and John heard expressed in Verse 17. and is by Peter affirmed to be rather to be credited than that or any other immediate revelation By the more sure word of prophecy is meant those prophecies written in the Old Testament which are called Verse 20. prophecy of Scripture and are called the light that shineth in a dark place as prophecies shine but with a dim light yet are welcome and give some light comparatively with providences which are the fulfilling of those prophecies The dawning of the day and the day-star arising in their hearts cannot be meant of Christ known and received by faith to salvation and sanctification too in some measure for so he was risen in their hearts when the Apostle wrote this or else he would not have said them to have obtained like precious faith with him and others the Apostles and Saints which he doth in Verse 1. as the direction of his Epistle I therefore conclude that the sense is this He exhorts them to be intent on the prophecies whether verbal or figurative which had respect to not only the coming of the Messiah which they believed already but also the abolishing of the Mosaical rites and constituting in their room the spiritual and Gospel-administration till thereby they were convinced of that truth which is called the dawning of the day and the day-star with respect to its light and beauty and reality above the Mosaical ceremonies and rites which were but dim night-stars in comparison or till they were convinced that the day of the Gospel-realities was come and so the night-shadows of the Law to be done away The grounds I have for this Exposition are these added to the former Peter the Pen-man of this Epistle is said to be the Apostle to the Circumcision as the Gospel of Circumcision was to Peter And therefore we may gather that those to whom he wrote were Jews whom the Scripture speaks to be zealously addicted to the Law of Moses And this is farther confirmed by his direction of them to the heeding of the Scripture-Prophecies which few but the Jews were acquainted with or did own as worth the heeding except the converted Gentiles of whom there was no danger that they should Judaize unless moved thereunto by such of the Jews as needed this conviction This to me is sufficient I leave the grounds for others to consider One Text more I shall weigh and then I judge I have done enough to satisfie those that are willing how the Quakers abuse those Texts which are not so easily understood as some others to their own and others destruction To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles which is Christ in you the hope of glory From hence they conclude They have very Christ his Being and Essence within them It will not be easily refuted That the hope of glory is to be understood to be in them which being a hope in Christ the crucified Jesus was such a mystery as the Gentliles called foolishness But we preach Christ crucified to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness For Christ to be in them rightly understood would be no such hard matter for the Gentiles to believe who understood Metonymical phrases very well as to believe such a glory to be attained by faith in and obedience to the Laws of a man who died as a Malefactor and that this death of his should reconcile God to man with the addition of such a purchase But because it is a truth That Christ is in Believers I shall therefore fay that which with the blessing of the Lord to a willing mind to be instructed will prove convincing First The man Christ that was nail'd to the Cross the Quakers do not believe to be in them nor that he hath a being or life nor can he be in them in his person as a man if they had a sounder faith For the God-head of Christ that is with respect to his Being and Essence every where and every where alike Do not I fill heaven and earth saith the Lord So that with respect to the infinite Being of God who comprehends all things he is in every thing at all times and nothing can be void of his presence So that if this be it you mean the Saints have no more priviledge than any other creature whatsoever But it remains that Christ is in his people by his graces wrought by his Spirit which is his image and likeness by his love which hath a uniting nature to its object as we say such are one who love dearly Every man is where he loves more than where he lives And so also where he is beloved for that will make him frequently thought on and a man to be sensible of his good or hurt as if he himself enjoyed the one or suffered the other And he is said to live in the hearts of his people by faith as faith believes how lovely and desirable he is and so loves him and works all those other graces in the soul which are his image and do as effectually possess the soul for Christ and to his use and interest as a faithfull friend can do According to that Text That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith that ye being rooted and grounded in love c. You know what the Scripture saith of faith that it worketh by love So that in very deed Christ both as God and Man doth live in all his Saints but not in his person but by the manifestations of his love and glory his works and image in and on the soul And this is enough to satisfie those that are sober and are contented with and rejoyce in those priviledges which God affords to his children which are enough to render them blessed rather than those which pride and ignorance will choose like our first Parents to be as Gods and pay dear for the delusion SECT VII Having stripped them of these Texts wherewith they fortifie their light within to be the Christ and Saviour and proved That the man Jesus of Nazareth in whom dwelt and now dwelleth the fulness of the God-head bodily is the Christ of God and not the man
But I proceed to further proof He that will worship Christ in his fulness in the majesty of his glory dominion and power must learn to bow down at the lowest appearances of his Light and Spirit even at the feet of Jesus He calls it worship by Christ they all mean the light within and the lowest appearances must be bowed at which is the least measure of the light within Priest To say that Christ is within man is to worship angels and not to hold the head Christ this he makes the Priest to say but whether any did so or no it matters not to my purpose but his answer Answ Which none comes to witness Christ the head but who witness him in them that the angels must worship him that died and suffered at Jerusalem and they that worship him in them worship not the angels and they that are not worshiping him in them are worshiping Men Devils or Angels By the Christ that dyed and suffered at Jerusalem they intend nothing less than the Son of Mary I have already shewed they utterly deny him to be the Christ and they own Christ suffering at Jerusalem in no other sense than they say he died suffered or was crucified in every one of themselves and that you may be convinced of the truth of what I here affirm mark what followes They are false ministers who preach Christ without and bid people believe in him as he is in heaven above but they are the true ministers that preach Christ within C. This is a great difference in their doctrine for the one to pretend to preach Christ without and another preacheth him within Father Yes it doth make a great difference and hath no more fellowship together than the East hath with the West So that the Quakers Christ the light within is not only some part of the true Christ who may as Christ be without as well as within them but they are at such odds one with another that they can have no more fellowship than East and West and this is the Christ they worship and to worship any other as Fox saith is to worship Men Devils or Angels Thus I have made good my second argument and thereby proved them gross Idolaters And there is somewhat in their Idolatry that is not common Idolatry for it is apostatical Idolatry which is so earnestly and with such an emphasis exclaimed against by the Lord Hath aâ—â—tion Changed their Gods which are yet no Gods but my people have changed their glory for that which doth not profit Be astonished O ye Heavens at this be ye horribly afraid be ye verily desolate saith the Lord. And it is no less agravated in that while the Heathen who had not their means to know God yet were gross Idolaters and as Pen saith true enough worshiped as the Aegyptians an Ape a Crocodile yea herbs almost any thing these wretches for better they are not worship that natural conscience that Spirit of man which is not only a creature an ignorant creature but full of darkness error pride all manner of Sin and worst of all a blasphemer of the God of Heaven and his Son Jesus Christ the dear Redeemer But what now doth it boot them to say they worship and own the Creator and Christ and the Lord and only him and such like and what folly is it after such evidences for any to say sure they are not so bad their principles are of a more tolerable at least stamp they are civil zealous people for religion in their way how will nothing but drunkenness or robbery of men in their outward goods and such like vices render men wicked will not the highest affronts to Heaven must men be believed rather than God in his word which hath spoken of such persons to arise 1 John 2. Chap. and many other places See how God excused those in the second of Jer. in the 19 23 and 24. Verses Thine own wickedness shall correct thee and thy backslidings shall reprove thee know therefore and see that it is an evil thing and bitter that thou hast for saken the LORD thy GOD and that my fear is not in thee saith the Lord God of hostes How canst thou say I am not polluted I have not gone after Baalim see thy way in the valley know what thou hast done thou art a swift dromedarie traversing her wayes A wild Ass used to the wilderness that snuffeth up the wind at her pleasure in her occasion who can turn her away all they that seek her will not wear themselves in her moneth they shall find her CHAP. XVII The Quakers deny the resurrection of the dead SECT I. I Doubt not but all who are not infatuated with the Quakers spirit to a perverting the genuine sense of almost all the expressions of principles of faith will understand by the resurrection of the dead the raising again to life and from the dust and corruption the bodies of men and women however disposed of after their natural death or dissolution The Quakers will deny their guilt of this Charge and come off with an Allegorical evasion They will tell you that they believe and own the resurrection of the dead yea of the dead body whereas in truth their opinion and meaning is quite another thing than the Ordinary acceptation of that doctrine as will appear by the instances following And hath no will nor wisdom nor reason left in him but all baptized down into the sufferings of Christ and there the power kills him and gives him life again and so man layes down his own life and takes uâ— life in Christ in which life he comes to be raised in the resurrection of Christ I must confess this account is like his who though he may have too much will is utterly void of reason But he that shall own no other resurrection of the body than what Smith expresses comes under that severe rebuke of the apostle who concerning the faith have erred saying that the resurrection is past already and have destroyed the faith of some The foresaid Author saith farther Quest But must man pass through death and rise again while he is in the Body Answ Yes for except he be regenerated and born again he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God And therefore he must die to the first Adams flesh and be quickned and raised again in the second Adams Spirit And so in the resurrection and life enter the Kingdom as a little Child You see here plainly that their resurrection of the body is but their regeneration and this is fulfilled while they are in the body But above all that I have read of the Quakers Fisher is the best skilled in the allegorizing of the resurrection But if you will not be admonished nor perswaded by Moses and the Prophets within you neither will you be perswaded by such of us who were once dead in Sin with you but are now risen to life by
which you had a mind should be grafted on this Stock but as the Text will not impart its Sap to your Proposition so your Proposition is as dry to your Consequence but that 's no matter if they will not grow one upon another you 'l make them hang together right or wrong Ay and if the Spirit do but strive it must be how you will have it and for what ends you please or you 'l rack the letter for it but there 's no cruelty to a dead letter But Mr. Pen if your conscience have any eyes I intreat you make use of the light here afforded you to compare the Text and what you lay at its door and see how alike they look Your Question is of the Spirits teaching among men c. indefinitely and your proof speaks of the Spirits striving with wicked men Your aim is to prove it an immediate and peculiar Teacher c. of Gods people the Text speaks of neither If I affirm the Spirit strove with them by providential Chastisements ominous presages of Calamities at hand by his goodness which leads to Repentance by the Ark which Noah built moved by faith and fear and by which he condemned the unbelieving besotted World by his Preaching righteousness I can prove my being guided therein by the unerring Spirit of God at another rate than you can your contradiction But your wandrings from truth and reason can hardly have a higher instance and evidence than that you should be so infatuated as to conclude from a Text which saith my Spirit shall not always strive with man that it doth now teach c. and God hath not left his people in our present nor will in future ages without his Spirit to teach them immediately and solely which is in your Question or your prosecution of it and should have been expressed there if you had had so much ingenuity Instead of being angry that I have shewed your vanity and made your folly in this argument such a spectacle to the world you have reason to give me thanks that I examine it no further SECT III. However before we part I will try you at another weapon which you forge out of Neh. 3. 19 â—0 Yet thou in thy manifold mercies forsookest them not in the wilderness the pillar of the Cloud departed not from them by day to lead them in the way c. This part of your quotation is not onely no friend to your affirmation and principles but an invincible adversary No man in his wits will say the pillar of the cloud and fire were the Spirit of God and if God led his people by them they were not led onely and immediately by the Spirit of God It may be the latter part of your citation may do more for you Thou gavest also thy good Spirit to instruct them This good Spirit was mainly the Spirit of God which he put upon Moses and Joshua and some other their chief Persons by Gods appointment as is evident from these Texts And I will take off the Spirit which is upon thee and will put it upon them and they shall bear the burthen of the people with thee Num. 1â— 17. And the Lord said unto Moses take thou Joshua the Son of Nun a man in whom is the Spirit and lay thy hand upon him Num. 27. 18. Thou leadest thy people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron Psal 77. 20. Now God is said to give them his good Spirit to instruct them by bestowing it in such a way and measure on their instructers and guides though I deny not but every true Israelite had the Spirit also dwelling in him yet they were never the less but the more submiss to the conduct of their mediate or if you will men-teachers and guides for that SECT III. Your third chosen Scripture for your service is But there is a Spirit in man and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth him understanding I shall explain this text by another which carries the full sense of it and almost the same words For the Lord giveth wisedome out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding But doth this incourage men to cast off all external means and the use of their reason Nothing less It is given as an encouragement to the use of the means expressed in the four first verses which are made conditional of being blessed with that knowledge and wisedom which comes from the Lord. If thou searchest If thou triest It will now be more easie to take in the right sense of your cited Scripture There is a Spirit in man that is a rational soul say some yet knowledg and understanding doth not so depend upon its improvement as to shut out the breathing and blessing of God from the chief efficiency A young man as Elihu may attain a measure by that divine blessing beyond the aged and more experienced If you can prove that those holy men who carried on that debate of which the Book of Job is a history did neglect the external means which the Lord afforded them for informing their judgments about divine and spiritual concernments upon the grounds of the inward teachings of the Spirit of God Eris mihi magnus Apollo and unless you can do that your arguing from this Text is but meer trifling beating of the air and contending for what is granted on all hands but nothing at all to your purpose who are very busie at doing nothing And it is not beside the purpose to consider that those holy eminent Saints who contended with Job were rebuked by God for not speaking rightly of God as Job did and Job did not pass free without a chiding also for his miscarriages and presumptions Job 42. vers 7. and forward To conclude this Argument you talk at a miserable lame rate to say that because the inspiration of the Divine Spirit giveth understanding therefore it is not from the strength of mans reason memory or utmost creature-abilities that his knowledge of religious and heavenly things comes but from the revelation and discovery of the inspiration of the Almighty Let me tell you once for all that if reason memory and humane abilities have nothing at all to do in the search and understanding of Divine things a meer animal or such an ideot as Jack Adams may know as much of the Divine and Heavenly mysteries as W. Pen but if I should say such a one is as able a Teacher or Writer as you I doubt not but you would take your self to be not a little affronted And it is as lame arguing to conclude because some men had Divine inspirations and teachings of some Divine truths when there was not one Book of the written Word in being as I dare undertake to prove and they who had those inspirations made use also of their reason to know Divine things by all external means within their reach therefore all Gods people i. e. Quakers have in
these dayes wherein God hath blessed us with so large a portion of his written Word or Word without us sufficient teachings by immediate Divine Revelations to lead them infallibly in the way that is most acceptable with the Lord without the use of their created faculties or any outward means SECT V. The next Scripture you abuse is Psal 139. 7. Whither shall I go from thy Spirit or whither shall I flee from thy presence from whence you scribble thus If Gods unerring Spirit be so nigh and the sense of it so certain it must be either to reprove for evil done or to inform uphold lead and preserve in reference to all good now in which of the two senses it shall be taken the presence of Gods eternal Spirit and his being the Saints Instructor Judge Rule and Guide are evidently deduceable from the words Rudis indigestaque moles worse than ever Bear brought forth her Cubs which with her licking may be brought into some shape but your products are so defective both in truth right reasoning Syntax and Sense that it is no dis-reputation to your Adversary to be confounded by them It is an effectual but an impudent course to silence all the world from opposing you by writing such confident confused non-sense Were it not for the sake of many who conceit your infallibility which you are here so blindly pleading for I would as soon abandon my time to dispute with a distracted man in his raving Fits as with W. Pen till he come better to himself than I can find in this Pamphlet If Gods infinite Being Omnipresence Omniscience wonderfull works of Creation all-disposing Providence which is the scope of the Psalm and his Omnipresence especially the sense of the Text do prove that which you produce it for and infer from it you have found out away of seeing that may tempt us to dig out our eyes punish them for meer cheats and for ever hereafter commend the blind archer for the best marks-man We may presume that you intend this Text to prove that all Gods people are upheld ruled guided c. In reference to all good by the Spirit of God which you say is evidently deduceable from the words But who would have thought that such desireable considerations and the certain sense of them should put so holy a man as David on such expressions of going and fleeing from the Spirit and presence of the Lord No doubt the presence of God is every where in the skies the seas the wilderness what then doth he therefore perform all these acts where ever he is present in his infinite being even where there are no intelligent creatures Doth he judge inform instruct stones and trees and mountains I and must do so too or else he doth not answer the end of his presence being so nigh truly Mr. Pen we have had more reverend thoughts of the eternal and omnipresent God than to assign any thing as the end of his being but himself But it may be you lay your stress on the certain sense of it and thus joyned to his omnipresence will do your work Is the sense of it so certain to every good man was it so to David when he so long time was tainted with a heap of impieties Was it so with Jonah when he fled as he thought from the presence of the Lord or was it so with you when you wrote some things in this book of yours which I shall acquaint you with before I have done If it should be granted you that all Gods people have the certain sense of it without doubting or alteration it would be nihil ad rhombum far from proving Gods Spirit to be the peculiar teacher of his people and so to teach them as to render them infallible which is the mark you aim at SECT VI. The next Scripture you produce is Teach me to do thy will for thou art my God thy Spirit is good lead me into the land of uprightness Psal 43. 10. To bend this Text to your bow you talk thus The Question will be whether it was Davids intent and the scope of his desire that God should teach and lead him by his good Spirit or some other thing but methinks it is resolvable in the affirmative in two respects What a strange Question is this Who doubtes but David commended the Spirit of God as a good teacher what then must all other teachers which the Spirit of God makes use of as the means by which he teaches be cast off Suppose I should say such a Man is a good School-master I would fain be taught by him doth that imply I would not learn out of a Grammar or other books which he uses to that end or doth it not rather conclude that I like not onely his abilities but his method and means by which he teaches the Psalmist saith blessed is the man whom thou Chastenest O Lord and teachest out of thy Law You would little less then hoot at him that should from hence conclude the Psalmist to reject the Spirit as a teacher and to admit of no other Teacher but the Law It is after this lofty manner of disputing you undertake our overthrow When you have so learnedly framed your Question which by the disjunctive Or you make torâ— consist of two members Which would he have foâ— his Teacher The Spirit or some other thing you answer it like your self Methinks it is resolvable in the affirmative But I pray which of the parts of your Question do you affirm Which do you deny Why truely it is the safest course you take to affirm it of both for then the truth is owned and in this point the quarrel ended But then what need your fighting against what you affirm unless you are resolved to be quarrelsome Alas poor Man it was by a meer mistake you said truth you intended to resolve in the affirmative that he desired to be taught by the good Spirit of God but in the negative of any other thing Canis festinans coecos parit catulos The two respects which thus blinded you are enough to keep any mans eyes open that is but willing to see First How that the Word was hid in his heart That internal Law Word and Spirit ef God which plentifully shews kow much he was an Enthusiast and Quaker in the sence this man esteems us most heterodox Law Word and Spirit are all one with you But where do you find the Word hid in the hearts of the Saints called the internal Word 'T is true that it is within in the memory faith love and hide there with the hiding of security but it was as much without before it was within as the childs lesson which it gets by heart out of a book which when done you might as well call it the childs internal lesson Your second respect is the very words viz. of the text imply the thing we urge them for and can import no
Secondly The dispensations of the revealed and written Word render God nigher to a people than to those who are without it For what Nation is there so great who hath God so nigh unto them c. Read the Context and you will find that the means of God being so nigh was chiefly his written Laws And it is notorious that the Gentile Nations who were without the Scripture had lost sight of the true God so far that they worshipped the most despicable things in his stead and as the Apostle saith were without God in the world for all their light within which the Quakers say all men ever had The dispensations of God in and to his Church rise higher and higher in excellency and glory And this is a third Argument His first after the fall were some few revelations to some few persons and by them handed to others which might be then much more easie than now for that men lived so long that the days of Methuselah and Noah took hold of the days of Adam and Abraham But men increasing in number and no less in impiety they quickly lost that little was committed to them And before the Law and Covenants and Scripture in part were written notwithstanding Creation Providence and some revelation the knowledge of God was very thin and scant in the world among good and holy men And if you will not believe me believe Holy Job By his spirit he hath garnished the Heavens his hand hath formed the crooked Serpent lo these are part of his ways but how little a portion is heard of him He is speaking before of his works of Creation yet they were but a part of the ways whereby God conveyed the knowledge of himself but take all together even that of revelation with it it was but a little of him that was known whereas when his word was written the Israel of God who enjoyed it 't is said of them In Judah is God known his name is great in Israel But the 2 Cor. 3. 11. speaks close and home to my argument For if that which is done away was glorious much more that which remains is glorious A fourth proof may be from the slipperiness of our memories Who among the sons and daughters of men is able to retain in the memory such a multitude of particulars as concern faith and life that if it should be granted that every man at some time or other should have the whole mind of God contained in the Scripture immediately and by revelation imparted to him the memory would prove a very leaky Vessel and bad Steward and let slip a great part both matter and form without a miracle to raise our faculty not only above the common course or which is ordinary but above the faculty of any man that breaths whereas the word imparted by the Scripture abides to which as to an everlasting Record we may have recourse and supply that defect More certain to the knowledge of man Since man was corrupted and so long as there remains either corruption or defect in him the inward motions and notions of the soul will be affected therewith the first risings and bubling up of thoughts and imaginations which present themselves to the understanding judgment and conscience will abundantly vary from and be opposite each to other and the sentiments or apprehensions of them be warring and contending like pleaders at the bar of judgment and conscience and those who know and are concerned in the affairs and their management on the secret stage of the Soul must acknowledge if they will speak their consciences that whatever be the question agitated in the mind there will not want the appearances of truth and goodness offering themselves on both the affirmative and negative part and in matters of religious concern all pretend to the sanction and allowance of God himself And as their pleas so their importunities shall be impetuously violent that many times the poor creature is on the rack and which way soever its judgment and resolution inclines the adverse thoughts will attend it with their Checks and clamours In the multitude of my thoughts within me 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 my anxious perplexed careful troubled thoughts beating against one another like the boughs of a tree agitated with a fierce wind This was not only David's case but the Saints which are now upon the earth And if it were David's so good a man and a man so frequently under the power of special divine inspirations much more may it be ours Well in such cases what course should we take if we expect and depend upon immediate teachings from the spirit how shall we know they are such and not the delusions of Satan or a vision of our own fancifull brains we can give testimonies enough to convince a Heathen or Atheist if he will not abandon the use of reason that the Scriptures are the word and mind of the spirit of God and therefore what that speaks is the voice of the Spirit but it will be long enough e're the Quakers and those that plead for a sole dependance on the spirits immediate teachings will be able to give such proofs of theirs Moreover the Quakers who pretend to these teachings and guidances resolve against the exercise of a humane though sanctified understanding and resolve all into motions impulses and the sensation of them thereby depriving men of the direction of enlightned faculties leaving the most violent motions and appetites to carry away the undoubted evidence and character of the Spirits leadings But how far this is from a spiritual understanding or a right discerning I leave those to judge who are acquainted in themselves or others with violent temptations from Satan and the unbridled lusts of men and this pure sensation of stirrings and motions becomes better by far the stark blind than those who have eyes in their heads We grope for the wall like the blind and we grope as if we had no eyes we stumble at noon day as in the night One of the severest curses for disobedience threatned against Israel was and thou shalt grope at noon day as the blind gropeth in darkness and thou shalt not prosper in thy ways And what is this principle of the Quakers but to turn us again into the darkness and Chaos of Gentilism instead of beholding as in a Glass with open face the glory of the Lord to be feeling after him by the corrupt and half senseless touches of a natural conscience acting on the narrow and uncertain indications of Creation and providence which though they may teach something concerning God and our original duty to him will be as far from acquainting us with Gospel truths or such as concern Christ and our redemption by him as a stone or tree is from discerning and expressing the secret and bosom counsels of God or man I would not yet have you think that we deny or disown a