of what ever stands in his Way and refuses to receive his Mark in his Forehead or in his Right Hand This has occasioned so much Trumpery in Religion Ceremonies Shew and meer Formality have swallowed up the greatest part of It Now were Men brought to God's Heavenly Gift in themselves it would reclaim and leaven the Mind chain the Affections and bring Religion into Holy and Selâ—-denying Living and erect an Holy Regiment in the Heart and Soul by which the Heavenly â—mage would be renewed and Man become as one born again without which Translation there can be no entring into God's Heavenly Kingdom This the first Protestants made to be their Reason of their Revolt from Rome For though 't is true that they charged the Papists with making God's Tradition the holy Scriptures void by their numerous dark Traditions yet That which begot that holy Loathing of Rom's Superstitions Idolatries and Will-Worship was God's Grace in their Hearts their best Argument against Rom's Assault was this The Scripture which I believe from the Testimony of the Spirit of God in me which I can only understand from the Illumination thereof owns no such thing and therefore I reject it Such as converse with Luther and his Followers Zuinglius and his Followers will find this to have been the Foundation of their whole Work And our own Martyrology is full to our Purpose particularly Tindal Times and Philpot. I omit to mention a whole Cloud of Witnesses because I intend not to dwell here only this I would be at and I intreat you all to weigh it If any thing can give to understand aright and enable to practise those things of God which it is necessary for Man both to know and do then God's Light Grace or Word in the Heart What else can give us to relish the Divine Authority of the Scriptures themselves or to believe the Things therein treated of to be undeniable Truths Indeed the Want of This has been a great Occasion of Atheism for Man making practising and enacting That for Religion of which People has had no Assurance in themselves But if they should speak their Hearts 't is more probable They do not believe it but instead thereof deride it and so under a Shew of Religion live as Men without God in the World To prevent which and to bring Men to the true Understanding of what God expects from them in order to that great Account they are to give unto Him at the Revelation of his Righteous Judgments when he will judge the Secrets of all Men by Jesus Christ we do exhort all to Christ's Pure Unerring Light in the Conscience which is sufficient to daily Understanding Duty that what they believe and profess in Matters of so high Importance They maybe convinced in their very Conscience by the good Understanding the Inspiration of the Almighty gives of the Truth and Necessity thereof and not suffer themselves to be carried away with the Torrent of Fathers Councils Synods Doctors Scholars National Constitutions c. big and most times untrue and too often empty Words without that inward Conviction and Testimony of God's Good Spirit in Your Own Consciences the old Protestant and only primitive Ground of Truâ— Faith and Obedience I know and shall alwayes acknowledge that in the time of Ignorance the Almighty winked and that in every Age he has expressed his Regard to those under the various Forms of Religion ever in the World who have been Sincere-hearted and of Sober and Conscientious Conversation But I must also tell you that by how much the more needless and unwarrantable Customs Will-Worship and Human Religion built upon the dark and uncertain Conjectures of Men are receeded from and the Minds of People engaged in a diligent attendance upon that Divine Principle which only can clear up their Understandings and give them an experimental Knowledge of the True God and that Way of Worship and Service which may be most acceptable with him by so much more certain will they be of the Truth of their Religion in as much as they have over and above all external Record the Assurance of Unquestionable Convictions in their own Consciences Thus God that made Heaven and Earth knows we came to receive that Knowledge of him Which we now expose our selves to all Hardships to mantain We profest God but like our Neighbours in Works we denyed him We worshipt him after Men's Conceivings insomuch that I may say we worshipt the Unknown God in a False Way No doubt but we were stockt with the Common Talk of Religion but the Cross of Christ we were Strangers to His Blood we extolled whilst by Wicked Works we trod it under Foot And believ'd our selves Saved by it Who were Uncleansed from Sin The whole End of His Coming we esteemed the top of all Love but never knew enough of It truly kindled in our Hearts whereby to work such Faith and Resignation as could give us Victory over the World Thus were we Jews-like Children of God whilst we crucifyed the Son of God and of the Seed of Abraham whilst the Serpents Seed reign'd Heirs of the Kingdom yet not born again Free yet the Bondslaves of Vanity Oh! at this time of day it was that God â—ound us out and broke in upon our Souls with his Righteous Judgments for Sin and laid Judgment to the Line Righteousness to the Plummet within us the Book of Conscience was Opened and great Fear surprised us and Deep Sorrow fell upon us which brought that sudden and Strange Change that made us both the Derision of Prophane and Wonderment of Sober Men. The Author of the Account of Familism for want of more Skill and Seriousness calls it the Hypochondria as if it only had been a Flux of Melancholy overpowring the Strength of Reason and carrying the Understanding captive at the Impetuosity of its Fancies But having been thus made sensible of the Terrors of the Lord for Sin and being brought into a True Understanding of that Religion and Worship which most please God some of us were constrained and in Conscience bound to go forth into the World and publish these Tidings of Judgment for Sin and Conversion through Righteousness wrought by the mighty Power of God in the Conscience that all might be awakened to try their Works Faiths Worships and whole Religions whether they were of God or Men or they had been doing their own Wills or the Will of God that so they might be brought to experience God to be a God nigh at hand reconciled in Christ blotting out Sin and renewing a Right Spirit within by which their Religion might not longer stand in the Traditions of Men nor only Education of Parents but upon the Convictions and Operations of God's Grace in the Conscience And thus is all that Christ did without brought nigh and home to the very Soul The Seed of the Woman is known to Bruise the Head of the Serpent Christ the
Impure and Antichristian But what have we Seduced People to Drunkenness Whoredom Perjury Wantonness Idleness or any such Unseemly or Irreligious Practice Let him tell me who of us are less Serious less Moral or worse Livers then we were before But the Truth of the Matter is this Our Way of Devouring Peoples Souls as he calls it is that which hinders the Hireling Pâ—iests from Devouring the Peoples Pockets and endangering their Souls too who teach for Hire and divine for Money and make Religion but a Stalk to Preferment who have the Shell without the Substance the Form without the Power From such in obedience to God's Spirit we have turned away and because we have dared no longer to put into their Mouthes their Covetous Spirit has swelled notwithstanding their Pretences and their Sheep-Skin burst and an arrant Woolf has come forth no true Sheep but a Sheep-Fleecer and a Sheep-Sucker of their Blood whose Innocency and Patience have plainly proved them such But the Wolf and the Fox's Skin have been always good enough for us any thing to disguise and make the Dogs fasten and worry to Death Our Conscience they call Enthusiasm and our solemn Confession Collusion and Equivocation our Perseverance is reputed Obstinacy our Plainness Singularity our Industry Worldly-mindedness and our Retired-Living Penuriousness our Rebukes of Evil they will have to be Censoriousness and our Disregard of Company Pride and Sullenness Whatever God by his Light has made Conscience to us there are a sort of Men that have so little Conscience as to construe it all backwards rendring us instead of Honest Conscientious Men A Pack of Fraudulent Cheating Fellows But we cannot help it if Men will Rage they must Their Shame and our Patience will the more appear He sayes Our Second Stratagem is to bring the People out of Love with their Pastors who have the Care of them Answ I know not a Quaker in the World that would not administer both Food and Rayment to the worst Persecutor as a necessitous Creature But I hope they would suffer unto Death before they would contribute either to him as a Priest No God's Witness in our Consciences never said Amen to their Ministry They have the Scriptures true But the Word of Reconciliation that brings to God and of which they declare they want I know that some of them can talk well so can some Mountebanks And Comedians Do they witness the Truth of what they speak Their Heads know but do their Hearts feel the Operation of That Truth they will sometimes in Words declare Have they travelled the Way and traced the many anxious Steps of that new Birth which is the only Door into the Heavenly Kingdom But alas Oxford and Cambridge make them and their Parents and Patrons prefer them a good round Maintenance is mostly their Aim on all hands Tell them of the Necessity of an Inward Work that it is the Spirit of God that only makes a Man a Minister of God and that the Anointing which true Christian-Men receive is Sufficient to their Instruction and presently the Cry is Donatism Pelagianism Familism Brownism Jesuitism Quakerism or any other Name that begets Jealousie Undervalue and Hatred In short we do believe that the setled Ministers of the World are so far from being Beneficial to People that on the contrary they excercise their minds with a sort of unexperienced unauthoriz'd Preaching from the secret Strivings Discoveries and Leadings of that Spiritual Minister of the Everlasting Covenant which is able to bring Man into that way of Holiness without which no Soul shall ever see the Lord And this is the true reason why we are turned unto God's Minister Christ Jesus who says Learn of me of whom God said this is my beloved Son hear him reject the Ministry of Man Our Third Artifice by which he sayes we gain our Proselytes is decrying all Human Learning Use of Reason That we are the most sottish Ignorant Sect that ever appeared in the World Yet for our own turn we will be nibling at it as G.W. in mentioning a Moth-eaten Manuscript mentioned by Beza in his Annotations Answ We have already said enough to defend Christianity from the absolute Necessity of Human Learning either to understand or vindicate it and so false is his Assertion that since Prophecy has ceased in the Church secular Learning hath been of greatest Use and Benefit to Religion that there is nothing more true then the contrary as it is commonly understood promoted and practised in the World I would fain know how many Rabbies Greek and Latin Philosophers yielded themselves Proselytes to the Christian Religion though they had his Presence Ministry Miracles Death and Resurrection amongst them who was and is the Author and Master of it If such Learning be so great a Friend to Truth How comes it that the greatest things have fallen to the Share of Poor and Illiterate Men And that such have been most apt to receive and boldest to suffer for it Why not Rabbies rather then Fisher-Men which was before the Pouring out of the Spirit of Prophecy And for what Reason should so many learned Academies since the pretended * Ceasing of it be overrun with such Foul Idolatries Gross Superstitions and flagitious Living as 1200 years past will witness Nay on the Occasion of any Reformation with whom is there more to do and who harder to be brought to yield then Universities have been Scripture and Story give it clear against him Not that I would be thought to oppose a Sort of Learning neither It has been Man's Erring from his Divine Guide that has made way for those numerous Theses Distinctions Books and Controversies the World for Ages hath been infested with Such are the Obscure Unintelligible and Unprofitable Metaphysicks of the Heathen too greedily received and mischeiveously increased by Fathers Councils School Men and our modern Universities to the corrupting of Christian Doctrine and disputing away the Benefit of Christian Life An unbounded Curiosity and Phancy have been the Womb that hath brought forth so much troublesom and unprofitable matter which began with a Degeneration of Philosophers True Philosophy in the beginning of it being no more then the Way of Holy Living by the Mortification of Passions But Learning as Religion failing by Corruption of Men is now degenerated into quite another thing Socrates taught proper Speech and good Life and such a Course of Learning turned to daily Practice and Profit severely forbidding all Curiosities and Niceties as what turned not to Good Life which he reputed the best Science And Plato would have the Poets banished out of his Common-Wealth as corrupting it with Fables thus was Learning as Religion once pure and Simple In short all right Learning is to be divided into these two True Knowledge and proper Language This Knowledge relates first to God and that 's only to be received from the Spirit of God and 2 ly the things of this
the Vine untill that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's Kingdom And I query if that was not made good on the Day of Pentecost when scoffingly yet truly like Caiaphas in another case several Spectators said of the Disciples They were full of New Wine which was the beginning of the Restauration of that Kingdom of God to Israel that the Disciples a little before so weakly queried after In short The Father's Kingdom is within Luk. 17.20 What was that Fruit then that was to be drunk anew in that Kingdom Certainly it came from himself the true Vine and must be of a Spiritual and Inward Nature like to the Kingdom To conclude If Bread and Wine be but a Sign And if things signified ought to resemble their Signs And if Spiritual Bread and Wine mostly answer those Visible Signs And if they are to be had in the Kingdom of God And if the Kingdom of God be within And that who eat not that Bread and drink not that Wine have no Life in them Then because the Apostles had Life Eternal in them and we a measure of the same in us Christ the Heavenly Bread and Flesh and Wine Blood was then and is now come and consequently the Shadows of those good things as to any Institution were and are at an End And as there is but One Spirit and One Lord One Faith One Baptism One God and Father One Heavenly Kingdom One Holy Body So but One Bread and but One Cup and but One Communion and Fellowship and that is with the Father and the Son by the Holy Ghost But here as in the case of Water-Baptism it will be objected why were they then afterwards used Answ The Practices of good Men though in things temporary are many times to greedily received and too long doted upon by those who desire to be reputed their Followers Any thing once becoming customary is hard to be left Several Jewish Ceremonies the Holy-Ghost thought fit to be dispensed with for a Season that were never to be perpetuated But what has our Adversary and the several sorts of Protestants in the World to do with Baptism and the Supper and deny that Qualification and Commission the Apostles had They will never stand our Enquiry about their Call which they know we have great Cause to scruple indeed to deny For all must or should know that it was either Immediate or Mediate and Successive If Immediate then they must necessarily confess to a Commission upon Inspiration then Quakers If Mediate and Successive then either beside the Church of Rome or through the Church of Rome Not beside the Church of Rome because she cannot prove any regular Ordination or uninterrupted Succession either as to Faith or Discipline If through the Church of Rome then they own the Ordination of a Church they renounce and grant Her the Keyes whom they have writ against for these six score Years under the Name of Whore of Babylon and Mother of Harlots and all Abominations of the Earth Can that which you account a corrupt Fountain bring forth clean Streams Will Men seek Ordination at the hands of that Church they resolve to employ it against Has she forfeited her Religion and not her Power When did ever God make over his Authority by such an Entail If Mens Errors and Vices do not un-minister them It will follow that they may be Ill Christians but very good Ministers For Shame never renounce the Roman Church as False if her Ordination must be True For what has Power to make a Minister must be allowed to have Power both to instruct and conclude him in what he is to minister Wherefore never let any own her to have Heaven's Keyes of Church-Authority and then deny her as Heretical For where-ever any Church or People are truly such that Church or People have thereby forfeited all Right thereunto And as the contrary Opinion has long enricht the Popes Coffers so the Unwary Concessions of some certain Protestants thereto have too evidently given away a great share of that good old Cause I have dwelt longer upon these Particulars then my Adversary's Weakness could deserve at my Hands but their Information hath induced me to it who are assaulted by the envious Endeavours of our several Adversaries that daily seek how to mis-represent us and our most Evangelical Principles CHAP. IV. His third Chapter examined which consists of the Holiness of Times Places Things and Persons under the Gospel §. 1. Of the Sabbath-Day His Accusation is that these Familists and Quakers put no Difference between one Day and another the Sabbath no more then another Day That many times they follow their usual Trades on a Sunday Answ What the Familists did is nothing to us if they did so But sure I am he has abused the Quakers For 't is well known that in what Country soever they live they follow the Practice of the Apostles in Assembling together on the first Day of the Week They do it constantly and reverently Who most prophane that Day the Quakers or the Sons and Daughters of the Church of England Their Feasts Drunkenness Wantonness Gaming and other Recreations as they call them are so many Demonstrations to help every common Understanding to a Resolution in the Point And to say That we many times follow our usual Trades on that Day is a plain Untruth the whole World knows better though we do not Judaize For Worship was not made for Time but Time for Worship Nor is there any Day Holy of it self though Holy things may be performed upon a Day But he tells us yes For the fourth Commandment being as Moral as the rest and that requiring a Sabbath-Day the Sabbath-Day is perpetual also Answ But this hurts us not since the Jewish Sabbath is not observed by the Church of England But if a Sabbath-Day be Moral because mentioned in the fourth Commandment Then because the Jews seventh-day-Sabbath is there particularly mentioned Their Sabbath must be only Moral and consequently Unalterable But he sayes No For that the Apostles and succeeding Church of God may very reasonably dispose of us in matters of this Nature And it is obligatory from the Ten Commandments every one of which is moral and binds all Christians still and therefore the Church of England though these rebellious Quakers disown their Mother doth make it part of her Liturgy Answ If it be as Moral as all the rest as it must be if it be Moral because of its being there they could no more dispense with it then with any of the other Commandments To call that Day Moral and make it Alterable is Ridiculous 'T is true the Apostles met upon the First Day and not on the Seventh but as that released us from any pretended Morality of the Seventh so neither did it confer any Morality upon the First yea so far were they from it that not one speaks any such thing but Paul much the
Passage cited But he thinks G.F. has made much for his Purpose who in his Great Mystery p. 207 210. saith Christ is not distinct from the Saints and he that eats the Flesh of Christ hath it within him And what of all this Is Christ divided from his Saints Was he not in them of Old the Hope of Glory He that 's with you shall be in you And at that day ye shall know that I am in my Father and you in me and I in you For the other Part I wonder he cited it Certain it is That unless Men eat the Flesh of Christ they have no Life in them Now how a Man can be said to eat any thing and not have it within him is a Distinction past my Understanding But Geo. Fox saith p. 206. If there be any Christ but He that was crucified within he is a False Christ and He that hath him not within is a Reprobate Answ Our Return to this will be very short 1st By Christ crucified within he does not deny that he was once crucified without as the same Page proveth as our Adversary would insinuate 2ly There can be no False Doctrine in it unless the owning of Christ being crucified within through Wicked Works necessarily should imply our Denying that he was ever crucify'd without from the Danger of which Consequence the Scriptures of Truth sufficiently secure us Heb. 6.6 Seeing they crucify'd to themselves the Son of God afresh Also Rev. 11.18 3ly And that such are Reprobates in whom He lives not remember that unanswerable Passage 2 Cor. 13.5 Examin your selves whether you be in the Faith prove your own selves know you not your own selves how that Jesus Christ is IN YOU except you be Reprobates But sayes our Adversary Ric. Stubbs a Quakeâ— told Eliz. Wetherly That the Jesus who was born of the Virgin and dyed at Jerusalem was a False Christ and an Antichrist But this needs no long Answer for it is an absolute Untruth raised by the Devil within and his Envious Emissaries without to bring us the poor despised People of God into Infamy with all who have any Reverence for the Name of Christ And God will plead our Innocency in this Mans Conscience by that Holy Light which he blasphemously saith leads down to Hell and the Devil carrying Man like an Ignis Fatuus into Bogs and Ditches causing him at last to fall into the Pit of everlasting Destruction For this I would have all the World to know that God Who is the Searcher of the Heart and Tryer of the Reins who alone sheweth unto Man his Thoughts is the great Spiritual Light John 1.1 â— And 't is as such â—hat he setteth Man's Sins in order before him as saith the Apostle Whatsoever makes manifest is Light Ephes 5.13 And saith the same Apostle Whatsoever may be known of God is manifest within men for God hath shewed it unto them Rom. 1.19 Such as bring their Deeds unto this Light may know whether they are wrought in God or no. And for this End hath the Eternal Word enlightened every Man that cometh into the World that he may come to the Light and walk and grow up in it For as all have given unto them out of his Fulness Grace for Grace so from his Fulness of Light hath he given all Men Light for Light not a meer natural Capacity or creaturely Understanding but that Divine Light or Grâ—ce which is able to teach sanctifie and govern the Soul to God's Glory and its own Everlasting Happiness In the Word by whom all things were made was Life and that Life was the Light of Men And as it was then so is it now the Condemnation of the World that Men love Darkness rather then Light because their Deeds are Evil. Some with the Pharisee prefer their Formal Literal and Ceremonial Religion and Others their Pleasures Pastimes Worldly Honour and Profit before this Inward Pure Light and Law of the Spirit of Life the Leaveâ— of the Kingdom and Truth in the inward Parts which frees from Sin and brings into the Heavenly Liberty of the Sons of God And we do testifie in the Name of God that it is only by this Measure of that Divine Fulness which above One Thousand Six Hundred Years ago was manifested in the Flesh that any Man or Woman can ever come to a right Sight Sense Relish and Enjoyment of the Blessed End and Effects of his Gracious Appearance Heavenly Gospel Mighty Miracles Holy Life Death and Sufferings his Powerful Resurrection Glorious Ascension and Constant Mediation and Intercession And that all Knowledge Faith and Worship not grounded upon this internal Sight Sense and Operation of this Divine Measure of Grace Light and Truth in the Inward Parts are but Historical and Pharisaical making up but the Jew outward and Christian outward who are not Children of the Free-Woman nor Heirs according to the Promise And if for this blessed Testimony we must be thus abused defamed and set at nought by the Black-robed-Rabbies of this World as they did against the Prophets and Christ God will be our abundant Recompence who is the Author of that Good Reformation begun and will I hope be the Finisher of it to his own Immortal Honour and our Unutterable Rejoycing World without End CHAP. VIII Of some of our Adversary's Lyes and Slanders HIs next Chapter containing a short Account of the Quakers Pretences to Immediate Revelations hath been already effectually considered only I shall take notice of two or three Particulars First That he would have the Sadness and Dejection of those that turn Quakers and the Zeal and Fluency of those that Preach among them to be the Effect of the Hypochondria Answ This shews what an easie Religion our Adversary lives in who yet knows not the Terrors of the Lord How unfit is he to Warn Men He that ever knew God's Word to be as a Sword an Hammer an Ax a Consuming Fire and Everlasting Burnings against Sin and Iniquity the Pangs of a New Birth and how hard it is to become a True Disciple through the dâ—ily Cross he would never have made such a frothy dark and envious Construction of our serious Convictions But God's Fire will one day burn up his peaceable Habitation and in that Day of Alarm he and the rest of his Jâ—vial Crew shall know the Meaning of these Words They that pierced him shall see him and all the Kindreds of the Earth shall wail because of him But whatever Disease we have his frequent and sensless Scoffs at us and our Holy Way shew that the Spleen is very prevalent in him For his Reflection on Edw. Burroughs it will do him no Harm his Soul is with God and his Memory shall out-live his Enemies Hate And for this Ranting Scribbler he is not worthy to carry his Books after him For his Gentle-man of New-Castle who affirmed Some Quakers came to Kendal Church and said They had a
Commission from the Lord to pull down the Steeple-House And another in Sermon-time to pull down the Hour-Glass I must tell him That we know no such thing and if he were a fair Adversary he would have told us who this Gentle-man was and who the Quakers that we might have informed our selves of the Truth of the Matter though we have great Cause to conclude it a down-right Forgery For the other it is altogether as likely to come of the same Stock but if such a thing ever were I dare say the Priest was in a worse Taking then the Quaker however it was no Theft because they all saw it was done for that End And every Body knows the Priest can tell how to call for another Glass for the Truth is some of that Profession can hardly preach without them for they elevate them above his Quaker's Hypochondria That the Wife of one Williamson should call Ja. Milner the Eternal Son of God at Apleby is an arrant Falshood for we have particularly enquired and can find no such thing That a Woman at Weighton in York-shire of that Goatish Herd as he is pleased to call them went Naked to another Woman's Husband's Bed and bid him open his Bed to her for the Father had sent her is a Slander hatcht in Darkness We deny it in the Name of the Lord God And I charge this disingenuous Man if he has any Regard to his Reputation or those he belongs to to prove if he can the Truth of this Story And that he should at last call this A Taste of the Quakers deluded Dreams melancholick Phancies Impostures Injections everlasting Errors and Deceits is the top of what Impudence and Forgery Man can well be guilty of against his Neighbour But why our Goatish Herd above all others Unjust and Uncivil Man Look at Home for Shame How often are Quakers brought to Ecclesiastical Courts for Uncleanness We know they are too often summoned thither for Tythes It would be almost endless to tell the Stories of both Priests and People's Wickedness that follow them one would think that no Church of England Man that knew any thing of the present Age or that thought we did could believe that forging one unclean Lye against the Quakers should invalid their Religion who believes his own to be true notwithstanding those numerous Incests Adulteries Fornications Concupiscences Murders Lyes Perjuries Dissimulations Thefts Injuries and such like that have been and daily are committed by his Dear Fellow-Communicants The Sons and Daughters of the Church of England Let him therefore draw in his Horns and leave off pushing at us with his Forgeries and Defamations and Repent of this Ungodly Way of dealing with us that he may find Mercy to his Soul CHAP. IX Of Perfection I Perceive the Man would fain say something of every Controverted Head held by the Quakers â—hough as little to Purpose as may be There is but one thing commendable in his whole Chapter and that is its Brevity He stumbles at the very Entrance and never recovers himself to the End The Quakers talk much of Perfection from Sin in this Life and that they have already attained to it Quote he scorns his Word is Credit enough at least he would have it so but to let him go on This says he is the Pharise's Litany God I thank thee I am not as other Men are The Antinomian Liberty the Doctrine of Dell Saltmarsh Town all Antinomians and Familists And that Malice and Railing perpetually make up the greatest part of the Quakers Speaking to the People But what of Argument can be found in such meer Assertion and Reflection I leave with sober Men to judge He neither understands Antinomians Familists nor Quakers And truly I am ready to think him some raw unfledged ungraduate who by this Essay aims at that Proof of his Abilities as may induct him to some Fat Benefice or else One that thought we deserved no larger Testimony of his Ability Honesty and Discretion in his Endeavours against us In short A perfect Principle we plead for and press the Necessity and Benefit of Man's Conformity to it That though it be a little Leaven it is able to leaven the whole Lump That this Grace brings Salvation from Sin by the Power it gives them that obey it to mortifie Sin else what a Riddle would those Scriptures make that speak of Sanctification throughout in Body Soul and Spirit That He that 's born of God sins not Old things are done away behold all things are become new I write unto you Young Men because ye have overcome the Wicked One. Be ye Perfect as your Heavenly Father is Perfect Unto a Perfect Man Let us cleanse our selves from all Filthiness of Flesh and Spirit perfecting Holiness in the Fear of the Lord. The God of all Grace make you perfect c. Wherein not only a Perfection from Sin but the going forward to a perfect Man in Christ is exhorted to and prayed for therefore not inobtainable To conclude We do not teach People the Perfection of our Persons but the Principle of God and our Experience of its Converting and Translating Power Christ is stronger then the Devil And for this was and is he manifested To end Sin and destroy the Works of the Devil a Doctrine the Church of England teaches in her Baptism Nor do we say That every Man is perfect from Sin as soon as he is convinced of Sin No there is a great War a long Wilderness to travel through many Enemies to subdue and Difficulties to surmount and those Enemies are mostly those of a Man 's own House We therefore exhort all to wait for God's Arising that his Enemies may be scattered that witnessing a Victorious State over Hell and Death by the Power of Christ Jesus such may obtain the New Name which is written in the Lamb's Book of Life and promised to all that Over-come Which is far from that Ungodly Rantism he would fasten upon us and our Principles And I doubt not but Time Patience and our Blameless Conversation shall dispel those Mists Malice and Ignorance may have raised to darken and blemish the â—eputation of our Practice Persons and Principles in the World CHAP. X. His Ninth and Tenth Chapter of the Wayes and Arts that the Quakers use in gaining Proselytes with the Advantage their Way has over other Heresies honestly considered and briefly confuted THe first Artifice he sayes we use is To come in Sheep's Clothing Now what is this Sheep's Clothing sayes he but only the Innocence and Purity of the Christian Doctrine when as their main Purpose is to devour credulous Souls Answ If we have the Sheep's Clothing and if the Sheep's Clothing be the Purity and Innocence of Christian Doctrine then is our Doctrine Innocent Pure and Christian And since he avers the Doctrine of the Church of England to be so remote and opposite this Character must necessarily imply that her Doctrine is Hurtful
Life and therein the Spirit of Man has a large field to act in to the Enlargement of its own Understanding and Benefit of the whole Creation as subject to God's Grace as knowing the Nature and Order of things in the Creation Building Improvement of Land Medicine Chyrurgery Traffique Navigation History Government with many other honest useful and profitable Arts and Inventions for the help and good of Man-kind And if Man had kept in God's Counsel the many superfluous and unnecessary Arts and Inventions that are in the World had never been brought forth by him and time will work them out as it brought them in so that what is Plain Honest Serviceable and of good Report shall be preserved for the good 〈…〉 he Creation As for Language it must be granted that there is a Propriety and Decency in Language But as Men have followed the out-side of Religion and left the Substance behind so have they done with Learning They have neglected Matter the most beneficial part of Learning and devoted themselves to an Excess of fine Speaking of which Bp. Wilkins in his real Character complains not without a Cause when he sayes that this grand Imposture of Phrasing hath eaten â—ut all solid Learning Yet Language is very convenient for Men's converse with Books and Nations of a different Tongue However we utterly deny them to be absolutely necessary to the true Knowledge of the Mysteries of God's Kingdom So that the true English of the Quakers denying all Reason and Learning is this We refuse to commend or practise unnecessary Studies nice Controversies voluminous and intricate Disputations Obscurity of Language Affectedness of Style Excess of Elegancy beliveing that Learning as well as Religion stands in need both of great purging and reducing and that those Subjects and Employments which are most serviceable and beneficial to Man-kind and agreeable to God's Grace digested into easy and familiar Methods and treated on in the plain and ordinary Way of Speaking best deserves Man's time and regard And for his Reflection upon G. Whitehead It no further deserves our notice then that he flung a greater upon Beza whose Learning he makes a little to bold with To say no more of his Moth-eaten Manuscript then this That the best Copies he has had for his Rule has been near a kin to such Moth-eaten Manuscripts And if such a Manuscript was the Holy Scripture as I believe it was he was too bold and Irreverent as well as Unwary and Foolish in calling it a Moth-eaten Scripture thereby implying it to be a Moth-eaten Rule not that I take it to be his Rule who has so fearfully erred strayed from the holy Precepts and Exhortations of it The 4 th thing by which he reports us to proselyte People is to deceive and associate first with Women therein imitating the Devil Answ First we deny it as being like the rest of his idle Stories and those that not only in the Primitive Times by the Heathen but in several Ages since and Degrees of Breaking-forth of Truth and Reformation from Apostate Generations have been by them fastened upon the sincere Professors thereof as Waldenses Lollards Hugonots Protestants themselves in their first day as well as more modern Dissenters We must take our share it is no new nor strange thing But supposing it to be true that our Endeavours are first directed towards the Women I see no Evil in our Beginning to Undeceive where the Devil began to Deceive If they are so easie to be perswaded why not to Good as well as to Evil But these idle Shifts and pittiful Reflections deserve rather to be disdained then considered Lastly For our pretending to higher Degrees of Holiness and Cracks and Boasts of Inspirations with Our Bewitching Language which is nothing but Canting and Scripture Phrase fitted to feminine Fancies by which he sayes we have the Advantage of all other Heresies I return thus much Answ It is our Faith that God who made Heaven and Earth will judge the Secrets of all Men by Jesus Christ so that it is not only my Duty but my Interest to speak the Truth of my Conscience in this Matter We dare pretend to no higher Degree then we have attained but we must make a Difference between what we were whilst under the Ministry of Man and what we are since our being turn'd to God's Powerful Word in the Heart Christ's Ministry We should be False to God Injurious to our Neighbour and Smother and Belye our own Convictions if we should not say That we have found our Judge near us our Guide Law-giver and Rule very â—igh unto us and those Infirmities Temptations and Corruptions God has by this Heavenly Grace given us Power against by which we have known that Mortification of Sin and Conformity to the Will of God which the utmost of our former Profession could never free us from And if this Plain and Christian Confession must be called by all those Hard Names our Adversary finds for our Honestest Intentions we must as we have done recommend our Cause to God and his Holy Witness in all Consciences and him to be judged by him to whom we desire to stand and fall in all we say do and take in hand to whom alone we owe the Honour of our Experiences and Preservations However the Irreverence of the Man deserves both our Notice and the Reproof of all that read him What! Is Scripture-Language become a Cant and a sober and seasonable Use of It Canting fitted to feminine Fancies But we think it not more his Folly Contradiction Blasphemy to speak with that Contempt of the Holy Scriptures and his pretended Rule then an Advantage he gives our Cause to tell the World that of all others the Quakers speak preach the Scripture-Dialect But it is the Mother Tongue of such frothy Minds so to prophane and for all their pretended Respect to the Holy Scriptures the Spirit and Life that belong unto them are made but Matter of Jeer and Mockage They would not be thought to undervalue Christ the Scripture nor his Religion but with the hight of Formality seem to Reverence and Applaud them all yet Persecute to the Death those that are his Holy Off-spring by the Spirit of Regeneration which shows their Esteem of Christ Scripture and Religion to be but a kind of blind-fold Respect and that indeed their very Spirits turn within them against that which is truly Christ-like Scriptural and Religious The Devil ever understood his Interest better then to persecute Truth under that Name yet for all his fair Pretences to Saintship he constantly became a fierce Devourer of those that have been the Children of the Truth And I may truly say to this Opposer That for all his Religion Learning Church-Communion and that stir he maketh against us as a Crew of Hereticks and Impostors he knows not what Spirit he is of who has writ a Book rather to Abuse then Inform