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A54228 A testimony to the truth of God, as held by the people, called, Quakers being a short vindication of them, from the abuses and misrepresentations often put upon them by envious apostates, and mercenary adversaries. Penn, William, 1644-1718. 1699 (1699) Wing P1380; ESTC R220497 18,332 56

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Deniers of Christ's Satisfaction at large Whereas we Sincerely Believe our Lord Jesus Christ was that most acceptable Sacrifice to God for the Sin of Mankind that whatsoever sin is forgiven is not forgiven only because of Repentance but for his sake that dyed and offered him self through the Eternal Spirit an Offering once for all The Doctrine of Satisfaction and Justification truly understood are placed in so strict an Union that the one is a necessary Consequence of the other and what we say of them is what agrees with the suffrage of Scripture and for the most part in the terms of it always believing that in Points where there arises any difficulty be it from the Obscurity of Expression Mistranslation or the Dust raised by the Heats of Partial Writers or Nice Criticks it is ever best to keep close to the Text and maintain Charity in the rest We shall therefore first speak Negatively what we do not own which perhaps hath given occasion to those who have been more hasty than wise to judge us defective in our Belief of the Efficacy of the Death and Sufferings of Christ to Justification As First We cannot believe that Christ is the Cause but the Effect of God's Love according to the Testimony of the Beloved Disciple John Chap. 3. God hath so loved the World that he hath given his only Begotten Son into the World that whosoever believeth on him should not perish but have Everlasting Life Secondly We cannot say God could not have taken another way to have saved Sinners than by the Death and Sufferings of his Son to satisfie his Justice or that Christ's Death and Sufferings were a strict and rigid Satisfaction for that Eternal Death and Misery due to Man for Sin and Transgression For such a Notion were to make God's Mercy little concerned in Man's Salvation and indeed we are at too great a distance from his Infinite Wisdom and Power to judge of the Liberty or Necessity of his Actings Thirdly We cannot say Jesus Christ was the greatest Sinner in the World because he bore our Sins on the Cross or because he was made Sin for us who never knew any Sin an Expression of great Levity and Unsoundness yet often said by great Preachers and Professors of Religion Fourthly We cannot Believe that Christ's Death and Sufferings so satisfies God or justifies Men as that they are thereby accepted of God They are indeed thereby put into a State capable of being accepted of God and through the Obedience of Faith and Sanctification of the Spirit are in a State of Acceptance For we can never think a Man justified before God while Self-condemned or that any Man can be in Christ who is not a New Creature or that God looks upon Men otherwise than they are We think it a State of Presumption and not of Salvation to call Jesus Lord and not by the Work of the Holy Ghost Master and he not Master of our Affections Saviour and not saved by him from Sin Redeemer and yet not redeemed by him from Passion Pride Covetousness Wantonness Vanity Honours vain Friendships and Glory of this World Which whoever do will deceive themselves for God will not be mocked such as Men sow such must they reap And tho' Christ did Die for us yet we must by the Assistance of his Grace work out our Salvation with Fear and Trembling As he died for Sin so we must die to Sin or we cannot be said to be saved by the Death and Sufferings of Christ or throughly Justified and Accepted with God But now possitively what we own as to Justification comes next We do believe that Jesus Christ was our Holy Sacrifice and Attonement and Propitiation that he bore our Iniquities and that by his Stripes we were healed of the Wounds Adam gave us in his Fall and that God is just in forgiving true Penitents upon the Credit of that Holy Offering Christ made of himself to God for us and that what he did and suffer'd satisfied and pleased God it being for the take of fallen Man that had displeased Him And that by the Offering up of himself once for all through the Eternal Spirit he hath for ever perfected those in all times that are sanctified who walk not after the Flesh but after the Spirit Rom. 8. 1. Mark that In short Justification consists of two parts or hath a two-fold Consideration viz. Justification from the Guilt of Sin and Justification from the Power and Pollution of Sin and in this sense Justification gives Man a full and clear Acceptance before God For want of this latter part it is that so many Souls Religiously inclin'd are often under Doubts Scruples and Dispondencies notwithstanding all that their Teachers tell them of the Extent and Efficacy of the first part of Justification And it is too general an Unhappiness among the Professors of Christianity that they are apt to cloke their own Active and Passive Disobedience with the Active and Passive Obedience of Christ The first part of Justification we do reverently and humbly Acknowledge is only for the sake of the Death and Sufferings of Christ nothing we can do though by the Operation of the Holy Spirit being able to cancel Old Debts or wipe out Old Scores It is the Power and Efficacy of that Propitiatory Offering upon Faith and Repentance that Justifies us from the Sins that are past and it is the Power of Christ's Spirit in our Hearts that purifies and makes us acceptable before God For till the Heart of Man is turned from Sin God will never accept of it He Reproves Rebukes and Condems those that entertain Sin there and therefore such cannot be said to be in a Justified State Condemnation and Justification being Contraries So that they that hold themselves in a Justified State by the Active and Passive Obedience of Christ while they are not Actively and Passively Obedient to the Spirit of Christ Jesus are under a strong and dangerous Delusion and for crying out against this Sin-pleasing Imagination not to say Doctrine we are Staged and Reproached as Deniers and Despisers of the Death and Sufferings of our Lord Jesus Christ But be it known to such they add to Christ's Sufferings and crucifie to themselves afresh the Son of God and trample the Blood of the Covenant under their Feet that walk unholily under a Profession of Justification for God will not acquit the Guilty nor justifie the Disobedient and Unfaithful Such deceive themselves and at the Great and Final Judgment their Sentence will not be Come ye Blessed because it cannot be said to them Well done Good and Faithful for they cannot be so esteemed that live and die in a Reproveable and Condemnable State but Go ye Cursed c. Wherefore Oh Reader Rest not thy self wholly satisfied with what Christ has done for thee in his Blessed Person without thee but press to know his Power and Kingdom within thee that the strong Man that has too long kept thy House
may be bound and his Goods spoiled his Works destroyed and Sin ended according to 1 John 3. 7. For which end says that Beloved Disciple Christ was manifested that all things may become New New Heavens and New Earth in which Righteousness dwells Thus thou wilt come to glorifie God in thy Body and in thy Spirit which are his and live to him and not to thy self Thy Love Joy Worship and Obedience thy Life Conversation and Practice thy Study Mediation and Devotion will be Spiritual For the Father and the Son will make their abode with thee and Christ will manifest himself to thee for the Secrets of the Lord are with them that fear him And an Holy Unction or Anointing have all those which leads them into all Truth and they need not the Teachings of Men They are better Taught being Instructed by the Divine Oracle no bare Hear-say or Traditional Christians but fresh and living Witnesses Those that have seen with their own Eyes and heard with their own Ears and have handled with their own Hands the Word of Life in the divers Operations of it to their Souls Salvation In this they Meet in this they Preach and in this they Pray and Praise Behold the New Covenant fulfilled the Church and Worship of Christ the Great Anointed of God and the Great Anointing of God in his Holy High Priesthood and Offices in his Church XVI Concerning the Resurrection BEcause from the Authority of Holy Scripture as well as right Reason we deny the Resurrection of the same gross and corruptible Body and are neither over Inquisitive nor Critical about what Bodies we shall have at the Resurrection leaving it to the Lord to give us such Bodies as he pleases and with that we are well pleased and satisfied and wish all others were so too From hence we are made not only Deniers of the Resurrection of any Body at all however Spiritual or Glorified but Eternal Rewards too Whereas if it were true as it is notoriously false we were indeed of all Men most Miserable But blessed be God it is so far from being true that we most stedfastly believe that as our Lord Jesus Christ was raised from the Dead by the Power of the Father and was the first Fruits of the Resurrection so every Man in his own Order shall arise they that have done well to the Resurrection of Eternal Life but they that have done Evil to Everlasting Condemnation And because we are a People whose Education hath not afforded us an Accuracy of Language some Passages may perhaps have been mis-express'd or improperly worded as for Instance One of us hath denied in his Book the Soul to be Finite by which he plainly meant Mortal or Final to die or have an end which Finis signifies from whence Finite comes our uncharitable Opposers have concluded we hold the Soul to be Infinite and consequently God Whereas the Words before and after as well as the Nature of the things shews plainly he only meant that it is Eternal and so not Finite that is not Terminable or that which shall come to an end And also because we have not declared our selves about Matters of Faith in the many and Critical Words that Man's Wisdom teacheth but in the Words which the Holy Ghost teacheth we have been esteemed either Ignorant or Equivocal and Unsound Whereas it is really Matter of Conscience to us to deliver our Belief in such Words as the Holy Spirit in Scripture teacheth and if we add more for Illustration it is from an Experience of the Work of the same Spirit in our selves which seems to us the truest way of Expounding Scripture in what concerns Saving Knowledge XVII Concerning Separation c. BEcause we are separated from the publick Communion and Worship it is too generally concluded that we deny the Doctrines received by the Church and consequently introduce a new Religion Whereas we differ least where we are thought to differ most For setting aside some School Terms we hold the Substance of those Doctrines believed by the Church of England as to God Christ Spirit Scripture Repentance Sanctification Remission of Sin Holy Living and the Resurrection of the Just and Unjust to Eternal Rewards and Punishments But that wherein we differ most is about Worship and Conversation and the Inward Qualification of the Soul by the Work of God's Spirit thereon in Pursuance of these good and generally Received Doctrines For 't is the Spirit of God only Convinces and Converts the Soul and makes those that were Dead in Trespasses and Sins and in the Lusts Pleasures and Fashions of this World alive to God that is Sensible of his Mind and Will and of their Duty to do them and brings to know God and his Attributes by the Power of them upon their own Souls and leads to Worship God rightly which is in his Spirit and in Truth with Hearts Sanctified by the Truth which is a living and acceptable Worship and stands in Power not Formality nor in the Traditions and Prescriptions of Men in Synods and Convocations but in the Holy Spirit First in shewing us our real Wants and then in helping our Infirmities with Sighs and Groans and sometimes Words to pray for a suitable supply for which we in our Meetings wait upon God to quicken and prepare us that we may worship him Acceptably and Profitably for they go together Now because we are satisfied that all Worship to God and Exhortations to Men as Praying Praising and Preaching and every other Religious Duty ought to be Spiritually Performed and finding so little of it among Professors of Christianity the Spirit of God having not that Rule and Guidance of them in their Lives and Worship as It ought to have and seeing them too generally satisfied with a Ministry and Worship of Man's making being not qualified nor led by God's Spirit thereunto we cannot find that Comfort and Edification our Souls crave and want under so cold a Ministry and Worship And for this cause and no presumptious Contempt or selfish Separation or worldly Interests are we and stand we at this day a separate People from the Publick Communion and in this we can comfortably Appeal and Recommend our selves to God the great and last Judge of the Acts and Deeds of the Sons of Men. Lastly BEcause at the time of our Friends first appearing in this Age there were a Sect of People newly sprang up and truly called Ranters that were the Reverss to the Quakers for they feared and quaked at nothing but made a mock at Fearing of God and at Sin and at Hell who pretended that Love made Fear needless and that nothing was Sin but to them that thought it so and that none should be Damned at last whose extravagant Practices exactly corresponded with their Evil Principles From hence some ignorantly and too many maliciously involved us and ours with them and many of their Exorbitances were thereby placed to our account tho' without the least Reason