the Reproaches Detractions Contempt and Scorn cast upon my self by the Author are of less value or weight as to me seeing the Rancour Envy and Foulness of the Spirit from whence they proceed And I always thought my self more obliged in Truth 's Vindication than my own Personal Reputation having long been arm'd with so much of Christian Faith Patience and Good-will to my Enemies as Patiently to endure Persecutions by Reproach and cruel Mocking as well as I have endured by Imprisonments and other Hardships And now I do not believe the Author of the Snake says true That he is very well pleas'd with the said Answer I am persuaded the contrary That he is very much vex'd by having his Falshoods in many things so much detected as they are in the Answer or Antidote His following Reason for his being so very well pleas'd with the said Answer is as notoriously false as the rest of his Lies viz. Because it confirms all the Matters of Fact to every purpose and intent for which they were produced To evince the Falshood whereof I refer the Ingenuous Reader to the said Antidote for his Impartial Perusal I doubt not but this Man's Purpose and Intent in producing the Matters of Fact alledged against us was chiefly that they should be given Credit to and that the People called Quakers their Ministers especially might lie under all his gross and foul Imputations and Defamations of being Diabolically Inspired and Possess'd Deluded Bewitched Blasphemers Rebels Traytors c. How monstrous and improbable then is it that I by opposing these Matters of Fact charg'd should write to confirm them against our selves And his following Words are most notoriously false viz. That he i. e. G. W. had not detected One False Quotation of all that I have brought out of their Books With what Conscience could this Person so confidently thus Assert That G. W. has not detected One False Quotation c. Either he has read my said Answer or he has not If he has read it he must be a shameful Man herein if he has not he must be guilty of great Folly and Injustice And farther to Detect his notorious and foul Falshood in this I 'll produce a few Instances of his many more false Quotations detected in my Answer Antidote p. 15.16 That one of the Orders given forth by their Yearly Meeting 1693. Commands that None shall carry Guns in their Ships This is prov'd a false Quotation in my Answer quoted 2. Antidote p. 17. That in the Answer to F. Bugg 's Impeachment they i. e. the Quakers would persuade us That All they have said against the Payment of Tythes was Only meant by them to the Popish Clergy but by no means against the Right of the Church of England to their Tythes This is plainly detected as a False Quotation as in my Answer 't is declared This is Partially and Wrongfully Stated Our Answer to F. Bugg plainly shews our Conscientious Dissatisfaction with Tythes in general and the forcing thereof now in this Gospel-Day by any Clergy whatsoever as not consistent with the Practice of Christ's Ministers or Testimony of divers Martyrs c. See Antidote p. 17 18 19 20 21 22 23. 3. Antidote p. 25 26. That G. Fox Professed and Avowed that he was equal with God that he Profess'd himself to be the Eternal Judge of the World Which is also a False Charge and Quotation against G. F. who being charg'd by his Persecutors with Professing himself to be equal with God Positively denies the Charge as not so spoken as that G. F. was equal with God but that the Father and the Son are one and that Christ and the Holy Spirit are equal with God Saul's Errand p. 5 6. Vid. Just Enquiry p. 12. 4. Antidote p. 35 36. Abusing the Scriptures by the contemptible Names of beastly Ware c. Which is false both in Charge and Quotation and over and over detected in Answer to his Author F. Bugg 5. Antidote p. 43. That G. Whitehead in his Serious Apology p. 49. prefers not only their Writings but their ex tempore Preachments and even All whatsoever they speak upon any account to the Holy Scriptures themselves This also is notoriously false both in Charge and Quotation as is manifest in my Answer Antidote p. 43. viz. He very perversly wrongs G. Whitehead in all these Expressions for there 's not a Word of Preferring our Writings to the Holy Scriptures much less of all whatsoever we speak thereto but a preferring the Holy Spirit and its Immediate Teaching In Man to the Letter of the Scripture and Preaching in the true Sense of the Spirit with Divine Power and Authority according as Christ did to the bare reading the Letter as the Pharisees did I may further add without offence or under-valuing the Holy Scripture or Godly Doctrine therein contain'd that I verily believe St. Paul and other Apostles Preaching in the Demonstration of the Holy Spirit and Power of Christ was of far greater Efficacy Power and Authority for the Converting People to Christ than the Priests reading their Writings or making a Trade of them as they do in these Days 6. Antidote p. 59 60. That they i. e. the Quakers give to themselves and to one another the most peculiar Titles of Christ as that of the Branch and the Star and the Son of God which he says are Attributed to G. Fox and which he takes to himself Quoting New Rome Arraign'd p. 33 34. And the Quakers Vnmask'd and New Rome unmask'd Referring the Reader to those Books of Fran. Bugg's which he has Quoted upon the Margent as he saith Here this Credulous Adversary has accepted and promoted Bugg's False Quotation and Charge against us though over and over detected as his Notorious Refuted Lies which this Adversary is as 't is told him in the Antidote so shamefully credulous of and that we positively deny giving those peculiar Titles of Christ to our selves or to one another as he falsly Prates and Bugg has been over and over Charg'd therewith and cannot Prove them i. e. that we give those said Titles either to G. F. or to one another and that G. Fox is not so much as mentioned in that Epistle of E. Burroughs out of which those Titles the Branch the Star and the Sun of Righteousness are taken which are peculiar and intended to Christ and no other Serious Reader these few Instances of our Adversaries false Quotation besides many more which are clearly Detected in my said Antidote in Answer to him I hope are sufficient to evince his Falshood in Asserting That Geo. Whitehead has not detected One false Quotation that he has brought out of our Books When the contrary is evident that he has both made and accepted many false even grosly false Quotations pretended out of our Books c. And if to detect such was the only proper Answer that could have been given as he says then he had that proper Answer at least in
any Creature but it 's manifest in his sight and he is in the Saints and they eat his Flesh and sit with him in heavenly places This Reader is so plain Scripture that it would raise an inquiry how envy it self cloaked with pretences to Christianity should carp at it The Snake's next Quotation p. 14. is from Great Mystery p. 88. Christ is the Elect. The Reader may easily suppose G. Fox said more but the Snake thinking from these to draw some unsound sense left the rest behind him In which he being abundantly mistaken I shall not trouble the Reader with a larger Quotation but only observe that the Evangelical Prophet Isaiah 42.1 saith of Christ Behold my Servant whom I uphold mine Elect in whom my Soul delighteth And the Holy Apostle speaking of Christ saith 1 Pet. 2.6 Wherefore it is contained in the Scripture behold I lay in Zion a Chief Corner Stone Elect and Precious The Snake's next Quotation in p. 14. is from Great Mystery p. 310. That they who are of the Faith are the Flesh of Christ the Flesh of him who suffered Here he has false quoted G. Fox's words which are these No Man knows that is savingly the seed Christ that was offered the Sacrifice of the whole World but as he knows it within through the Faith and who are of the Faith they are of Abraham They are of the Flesh of Christ the Flesh of him that suffered The Apostle says as much and says true Eph. 5.30 I have now done with all the Snake's Quotations in his second Section in which Reader I doubt not but thou wilt observe the great injustice of the Snake in several kinds as first in false quoting G. Fox's words which is a practice so base that it is impossible it can consist with a fair pretence of being herein concerned in Love to the Souls of those he would pretend to preserve or reduce No it is a practice directly opposite to all pretences of Humane Justice and it cannot be less but rather more to pretend to do it for God's sake Next his Injustice is not less in perverting the sense and meaning of the places which he truly quotes by cavilling at and giving expositions quite contrary to the plain sense of the Writer For it is very plain that the whole scope of all the Passages hitherto quoted are such as have relation to the Spiritual Vnion and Oneness of Christ with his People Which both Christ himself and his Holy Apostles have very frequently held forth to us by Similies which fall under the notice of sense that thereby mankind might more readily come to apprehend them Thus Christ said I am the Vine I am the Door and except ye eat my Flesh and drink my Blood c. And the Apostle we are of his Flesh and of his Bone with abundance more such like expressions which if in a litteral sense were to be expounded Such exposition would be plain perversion and against it our Saviour hath given a Caution The words that I speak they are Spirit and they are life John 6.63 Snake p. 15. I will tell you before I go Mr. Penn's excuse for G. Fox in all these particulars He lays it upon George 's extream Ignorance For Proof of this the Snake quotes W. Penn's invalidity of J. Faldo's Vindication p. 353. where W. Penn's words are only these He G. F. observes no nicety of expression in his Writings and it is therefore disingenuously done of any to make this ill use of his plain and vulgar phrases See Reader how apt this Man is to tell lies for W. Penn lays it not on nor does not say it was his extream Innorance But W. Penn lays the fault upon J. Faldo's extream disingenuity as I now do upon the Snake's Snake p. 15. An indifferent Man would rather have said Ne Sutor ultra crepidam That this Fox should rather have kept to his original Trade Here Reader see this Man's contempt by a Profane Jest upon the meanness of G. Fox's Calling What would he have said to Amos the Herdsman Peter James and John Fishermen and the rest of those Holy Men whose mechanick Occupations were no hinderance to the High Offices in the Church to which God called them It is not unlikely that from men Spirited as this Snake their Entertainment was Ne Sutor c. But this need not trouble us since we find that G. Fox where he speaks of the Soul as in the places before severally quoted doth speak so distinctly of it as that he neither declares it to be God or Christ nor doth he confound the Being of Man with the Infinite Being of his Creator as is falsly charged by this Adversary G. Fox hath frequently said to this purpose and it is very true that the Spirit of Man is illuminated with a divine Light from God through the mediation of Jesus Christ But he hath never said that the Spirit of Man was God No he could not so say but by wilful perversion this Adversary as some former ones perverts as well as mis-quotes him and will not have him to mean as his words plainly speak For when he speaks of the Soul of Man both with respect to its original Life as breathed from God and degenerated through disobedience and also with respect to his spiritual Restoration by the Power and Spirit of his Creator and hath thereupon shewn how that the Soul through disobedience to the Power that Created it became estranged and at enmity to it and that this enmity and wall of Separation could not be broken down and the Soul brought into the Love and Favour of God but by Christ who in Holy Writ is declared the Bishop and Shepherd Our Adversaries have then often perverted his words and would have them to mean which they cannot That the Infinite Essence and Being with other the like terms of the Life of God or Christ were the Soul of Man But these perversions are our Adversaries and as of G. Fox So of all owned by us it never was believed by us that the Soul of Man was the same Person and Substance with God as is most falsly charged by this Snake I come now to the Snake's third Section Of the Quakers aspiring c. which he says p. 17. is in effect proved already but yet he bestows nine pages upon it of which great part is taken up in Quotations which I shall consider in their order The first in p. 17. is from Great Mystery p. 282. For Christ says he makes no distinction in his words but saith Be ye perfect as your Heavenly Father is And as he is so are we and that which is perfect as he is perfect is in equality the same In this Quotation that the Snake might bring the parts of it together as near as well he could he hath made a break for another Text which G. Fox used viz. And be ye merciful as he is And after all his carping it is the Doctrine preached
as it is not contrary to the Scriptures So it does not cut them off from being useful as before declared viz. for Doctrine Reproof Correction c. For tho' the Holy Spirit is as infallible now as ever and it is the same Holy Spirit manifested in the Hearts of Men at this day by which the Holy Men did write the Scriptures yet the manifestations thereof to them being in greater degree we justly give them the priority this with respect to the Writings of any faithful Servant of Christ at this day But with respect to the Holy Spirit that being as I have just now said as infallible now as ever it must of necessity also follow that whosoever through obedience follows the guidings of it must have as sure because the same rule as the Prophets and Apostles had And this is no more contradictory than the Parable of the Talents Matt. 25. In which our Saviour shews the different proportions of Trust of the same Treasure And the one Talent had it been imployed in the same way which the five were it would as certainly have gained Profit Thus they who through obedience improve their Talent and are in the Apostles Phrase 2 Cor. 6.1 Workers together with Christ they shall witness a growth in his Grace and who do so grow have the same sure rule of the Holy Spirit to read and understand the Scriptures by even the same sure rule which the Prophets and Apostles had when they writ them Hence it is that he that hath and obeys the least measure of this sure Rule the Holy Spirit in himself will easily and readily acknowledge and consent to the further Degrees of the revealed Will of the Holy Spirit recorded in the Scriptures of Truth Ibid. p. 85 86. But because the Scriptures are often brought in crontradiction to the Quaker-Light therefore they have made it their business to depreciate and undervalue them nay sometimes to run them down as hurtful and pernicious That Light of Jesus Christ which we profess cannot be in contradiction to the Holy Scripture and therefore when so brought it hath been by such who as our Saviour saith Matt. 22.29 Do err not knowing the Scriptures nor the Power of God Nor did we ever depreciate undervalue or run them down The Charge is false as will more manifestly appear by the instances he brings Ibid. p. 86. To make them false in many things that we may believe them or trust to them in nothing To make their Authority Doubtful by disputing their Pen-Men and raising all the evil Suggestions that can be against them The Quakers Refuge Printed 1673. p. 17. States this as truly owned by the Quakers The Book Quakers Refuge does not State this as owned by us that the Scriptures are false in any thing Nor does it raise evil Suggestions nor dispute the Pen-Men of them That there have been very many Questions raised concerning them and the Pen-Men of some Books or Epistles the many Treatises on them Subjects are sufficient Evidence But it not being profitable here to remember them I pass them by in Silence Now several of these Questions the Author of The Quakers Refuge numbers up and concludes p. 17. It is not the Subject of my Argument at this time But that which he therein declares to be the Subject of his Argument is The Authority of the Holy Spirit in Judging or Discerning the Mind of God in the Holy Scriptures This he saith Is as truly stated as owned by us and he declares it to be the concern therein under most Serious Consideration This Reader is the true import of the Author's words which the Snake hath as Injuriously perverted as before I have detected him p. 144 145. perverting W. P's words and the Advantage he will get is much the same because I must hereupon shew thee Reader that what seems to be the occasion of the Snake's Cavil and Perversion is because we assert the Authority of the Holy Spirit in Judging or Discerning the Mind of God in the Holy Scriptures Which Truth as it obtains upon the minds of Men will rather incline them to wait for the sensible experience thereof in themselves than to depend implicitly upon the guest Opinions of any who deny the possibility of such certain guide at this day Ibid. p. 87. Whitehead says that there were some Priests in the North in and before the Year 1653. when those Books which Bugg quoted were Printed who were thus Ignorant And that this was the reason for those expressions in the Quaker Books First this had been no reason for these Barbarous Expressions if it had been so But Secondly I will joyn Issue with G. W. upon it that there never were such Priests in the North or any where else that were so Ignorant No George This is an Arrant Lye without all doubt did any Man ever think or say that the very material Paper and Ink and Letters wou'd endure for ever That there were in the North c. Priests Scandalously Ignorant herein I will presently shew and if they were reproved herein in such manner as they might account contemptuous The Expressions are not therefore Barbarous because so called by the Snake as I may also shew from Authority of Holy Writ and the Practice of them esteem'd by the Snake the Fathers as that expressions which seem contemptuous are not therefore so being in their end directed to rectify the evil Practices of Men related by John Daille To the First viz. the Authority of the Holy Scriptures we know that the Sacrifices Oblations and Offerings mentioned in the Levetical Law had a Divine Sanction and the promise annexed Lev. 18.5 Ye shall therefore keep my Statutes and Judgments which if a Man do he shall live in them I am the Lord. These tho' they had the Promise of this Life yet the Jews thro' their Disobedience made these their Sacrifices not delightful to the Lord their Oblations were Vain and their Incense an Abomination and New Moons and appointed Feasts his Soul hated Isa. 1.11 13 14. And by their continuance in Disobedience while in performance of the Letter of the Ceremonial Law the same Prophet 66.3 tells them from the Lord He that killeth an Ox is as if he slew a Man he that Sacrificeth a Lamb as if he cut off a Dogs neck and he that burneth Incense as if he blessed an Idol These in the Judgment of our Adversary must be very Barbarous Expressions of these Ordinances and which there was no reason for tho' the People were departed from that true use to which they were at first appointed Tho' this be an abundant Testimony that through Mens misuse of things appointed by God to a determinate purpose he hath been pleased to shew and declare his dis-esteem of them Yet I shall not to confirm this Testimony for it needs it not but for the Readers Satisfaction also shew the Practice of the Fathers herein as testified by John Daille in his Right use
of Richard Scoryer's And we do also certify that some Part or Portion of the Old or New Testament is daily Read in the said School beginning at Genesis and so Reading on in the said Scriptures untill both the Old and New Testament are Read throughout Wansworth 22 d August 1698. Law Ball Edm. Phillips Tho. Darking Steph. Webb Nich. Lesow Sam. Webb Thus Reader thou here hast this Story to a Demonstration proved a Lye as is also done in divers others foregoing and may be hereafter done in other Instances And if this our Adversary had not a natural propensity to tell Lyes he could not thus err from Truth For hiding and sculking as he generally does in the City he might with small pains have gone by Water to Wansworth 5 Miles or with less cost have sent a Penny-Post Letter to many Persons of that Town who could have better inform'd him herein if he had not been both Hypocritical and Unjust in that he pretends care to our Souls while he wilfully tells Lyes with purpose to destroy us This his practice leads me to observe of him that he is fitter to all the purposes of Destruction and Hate than to that one great purpose to which he falsly pretends viz. to promote the Vnity of the Church 〈◊〉 indeed pretends Great Charity Real Kindness and Good Wishes for the Generallity of us yet tells Lyes of us which in their end and design are to raise Persecution by influencing the Government against us if they would but take the Alarm from him But as it hath pleased God who hath the Hearts of all Men in his hand to incline the Government to give us some security against the evil practices of ill designing Men by affording us a Toleration in the matters of the Worship of our God so we are truly thankful to God and the Government herein and are at no time backward to give an account of the Faith which is in us and our agreeable practice however misrepresented by this Incendiary in Religion Ibid. p. 148. I will end this Section with shewing that the Quakers have in their Blasphemies against the Divinity of Jesus and Humanity of Christ only lick'd up and improv'd the Ancient most Anti-christian Heresies And I may fitly end this Section with shewing that whatsoever the Marcionites Manichees Eutychians and Saturnians might hold as to the Divinity and Incarnation of Christ yet we have always said and believed according to Scripture that Jesus so fore-named by the Angel and born of the Virgin in Bethlehem of Judea was truly and properly Man and in all respects Sin only excepted like unto us and that in this Man Jesus the Godhead dwelt Bodily and that through the Power of the Godhead in him he did open and consecrate a New and Living Way for Men to Salvation and Eternal Life through the Veil that is to say his Flesh And this Truth the Apostle does not deny when he allegorizes Eph. 5.30 The Spiritual Union and Fellowship of Christ with his Followers under the terms of being Members of his Body Flesh and Bones and in a like acceptation are very many other such expressions in Scripture to be understood yet is it not thence to be concluded unless falsly as this Snake does that they are Heretically agreeing with the Cerdonites the Eutychians and Manicheans Ibid. p. 149. But lastly because I must not stay here to deduce and compare all their Heresies those Ancient Heretickâ— the â—bonites and Naâ—areens from whom our Modern Socinians and from them the Quakers do derive their Doctrine did mightily undervalue the Scriptures Some of them pretended to mend the Scriptures and did boldly Adulterate them and set up other Scriptures against those received by the Church And this the Quakers have done beyond any that went before them The Snake does p. 336. Demand Reparation in the Name of the Church of England insinuating his real or assumed Power and if I should now do the like for or in the name of the People called Quakers I may be as much to seek for Reparation from him for this his abuse as I am to seek for proof in this Charge However I do at least demand a proof where ever the Quakers pretended to mend the Scriptures or did boldly Adulterate them or did set up other Scriptures against those received 'T is no Proof of this Charge to say p. 150. We have cannonized our own Writings If that were true it 's no proof but it is false We may have said and said truly that Writings given forth from the movings of the Spirit of God in any are given forth from the same Spirit which gave forth the Scriptures But we have always readily offered and submitted our Words and Writings to the Testimony of the Holy Scripture because tho' the Spirit of God in his People at this day is the same Holy Spirit which was in the Holy Apostles yet they had greater Manifestations of it So that tho' it is both now and then the same in kind the Degree of Manifestation differs But to return I do as above demand proof where ever we have pretended to mend the Scriptures or have boldly Adulterated them or set up others against them As Euseb. Hist. l. 5. c. 28. Theod. Haerit Fab. l. 2. c. 5. do mention instances of some that did and as he says we have beyond any that ever went before us yet gives not one instance The Snake's Ipse Dixit is no Proof and if he cannot give better it will at least be a fresh Proof both of his Impudence and Lyes SECT X. Concerning the Satisfaction of Christ in Opposition to the false Charges of the Snake herein IN the Section immediately foregoing the Divinity and Incarnation of Christ is largly treated of and I have therein shewn that we own and believe both as declared fully and truly in the Holy Scriptures and also that our Books rescued from the perversions of this our Adversary do speak according to that acknowledged Rule It remains that in this I now shew that we have always owned in like Scriptural sense that Jesus Christ in Life Doctrine and Death did fulfil his Father's Will and did offer up himself a most Satisfactory Sacrifice for the Sins of Mankind in opposition to the false Insinuations of the Snake herein who says p. 151. Herein the Quakers are direct Socinians for they positively deny the Satisfaction Under which cloudy Charge he insinuates as if we did deny what the Scriptures do declare herein Which is false and he might with equal Sincerity have said the Church of England do deny The Satisfaction For to come nearer The Satisfaction which is positively denied by us is as positively denied by the Church of England which is that rigid and strict Notion of Satisfaction which some had Doctrinally but unscripturally laid down in the terms following viz. That Man having transgressed the Righteous Law of God and so exposed to the Penalty of Eternal Wrath it 's
says we are in pag 3. he says We speak Sense and English have in a great measure reform'd from the Errors of the Primitive Quakers Thus as his Mood Humor and Occasion Changes we are with him either Subtile or Simple speak Sense or Non-sense Blasphemous to the hight or in some measure reform'd But after all the Ipse Dixit of an Enemy is neither good Argument nor Conclusion as will hereafter appear in the examination of the several Heads of Doctrine P. 3. Many of them have really gone off from that hight of Blasphemy and Madness which was professed among them at their first setting up in the Year 1650. and so continued till after the Restauration Anno. 1660. What the Snake doth acknowledge is at present Sober and Christian in us is really no other than what he calls at our first setting up the hight of Blasphemy and Madness for the colourable Pretences of these are only the spurious Brood of his own ill-forming Fancy and as bad joyning Fingers which have been imploy'd in Mangling the Books of our Friends in his phraise not unlike Rats and Moths Ibid. p. 3. Therefore they endeavour all they can to make it appear that their Doctrine was Vniform from the beginning and that there has been no alteration And that endeavour has not been in vain it having been often made so to appear Ibid. p. 4. I would perswade them openly and above-bord to Renounce George Fox and their first Reformers and all their Blasphemous and Heretical Doctrine Before this be done two things are necessary First to examine whether what our Adversary calls Blasphemy and Heresie be so or not and then to know what he would perswade us to for the first hard names are no Proof For in the Way which some called Heresie the Apostle did Worship God and our Saviour himself The Green Tree was call'd a Blasphemer And for the Last it 's not Good or Safe to be at all much less easily perswaded to forsake Truth for Lying Vanities Ibid. p. 5. And I must say it they give the same Proof for their extraordinary Inspirations as the Quakers do that is none at all but their own confident averring of it And I must say that our first Reformers from Popery having urged for their Separation the Authority of the holy Spirit and being asked for Proof of that Authority could give no other but what in the Language of our Adversary is none at all but their own confident averring of it The Apostle Paul when questioned by the Corinthians for a Proof of Christ speaking in him did not evade the question nor direct to an impertinent Solution of it when he advised them Search your selves try your selves know you not your own selves how that Jesus Christ is in you except you be Reprobates 2 Cor. 13.5 This Proof the Quakers also give and that with reason for the publick Spirit of God privately working in the Hearts of Men is only able to give those in whom it does so Work evidences of its proper effects The Apostle is positive to the same purpose 1 Cor. 2.11 The things of God knoweth no Man but by the Spirit of God And all Inspiration of the holy Spirit will I doubt not be owned to be some things of God and of these no Man can make a right Judgment but by the Spirit of God Which who want it is no wonder that by such this be call'd as by the Snake no Proof but a confident averring of it Though I doubt not but the Sober Reader will have another sense of this Matter Ibid. p. 5. Now I would beseech Mr. Penn who has more Wit than all the rest of his Party to let us know what ground he had for leaving the Church of England more than Muggleton What Muggleton's ground was is not now our Business to examine and what W. Penn's was he hath often declared many Years ago which yet if I should here repeat the Snake might possibly mistake in Judging of it as it is possible he may also in the judgment he pretends to have of Wit Nay supposing it true that W. P. hath more Wit than all the rest of the Quakers yet this Snake not having had distinct Knowledge of every Quaker and of every Degree of their Wit was not capable of more herein than to give some Testimony of his Confidence not Judgment Ibid. p. 5. Why should we trust the Light within him or G. Fox rather than the Light within Lodowick Muggleton W. P. and G. F. did never direct or desire Men to trust the Light within them but have constantly directed Men to trust in the Light of Jesus Christ which is given to each Man for himself and is a sufficient Guide to the true Knowledge and Worship of God notwithstanding all that Men may speak against it Ibid. p. 5. Has Lodowick wrought no Miracles to prove his Mission No more hath G. Fox or W. Penn. To which I may add No more hath the Church of England nor the Snake in the Grass unless we account that for one Miracle in the Snake when he at Billingsgate run away from the Messenger Of which more in its place Are they G. F. W. P. very sure that they are in the right So is Muggleton If the Snake be not very sure that he is in the right he hath but an intention to deceive when he calls others into Communion with him Are they Schismaticks So is he And so is the Snake and by the Snake's Doctrine so is the Church of England as I have shewn p. 15 16 17. foregoing Are they above Ordinances If they be I know not but that we the Quakers are not I know For we own and use Preaching and Praying which the Snake owns to be Ordinances Is he against distinct Persons in the Godhead So are they Distinction in the Godhead we own according to Scripture but think the word Person too Gross to express it Is he against all Creeds So are they It it false we own the Matter contain'd in the Creed called the Apostles Does Muggleton deny all Church Authority So do they So does the Snake that does not please him But that we do not the Snake hath disprov'd himself as see Pagâ— 61. Yet does he require the most absolute Submission to what himself Teaches So does thâ— Snake But we do not so but like the Apostles commend our Testimony to the Conscience c. 2 Cor. 4.2 Does he Damn all the World and all since the Apostles So do they So does the Snake counting all others as the Spawn of the Viper Does he make a dead Letter of the Holy Scripture and resolve all into his own private Spirit So do they 'T is false we reject all private Spirits acknowledge the Scriptures to have been writ by Divine Inspiration and to contain a Declaraion of the Will of God and do refer to the publick Spirit of God for the understanding of them Ibid. p. 6. These are Twin
send them forth in the Work of the Ministry their Degrees of Immediate Revelation are much higher than that Degree of Immediate Revelation which I have above spoken of And in these higher Degrees of Revelation God may give One to Prophesy or foretell things to come and send Another with a Message as shall seem good in his Sight and all this by the Immediate Revelation of the same Holy Spirit which reproves the World of Sin tho' in a Higher Degree and by the Higher Degrees of this Immediate Revelation it may please God by his Servants for God hath not in his revealed Will declared that he would not to work Miracles But as his Ministers at this Day have no New Gospel to Preach so it is not necessary that the Work of the Ministry should be commonly attended with such external Credentials if so I may call Miracles Ibid. p. 28. And to this G. F. pretended even to Outward Visions and Revelations as in his Blasphemous Journal particularly upon a High Mountain in Yorkshire where he tells of his receiving Commission to Preach That G. F. had Visions and Revelations some of which might be Outward and did receive a Commission from God to Preach he hath given more â—nd better Proofs than the Snake hath that G. F's Journal is Blasphemous For of this I find no Proof but the Snak's own confident averring of it But among the Proofs of G. F's having received Commission to Preach none of the smallest are the many who instrumentally by him were turned from Darkness to Light and from the Power of Satan to the Power of God To which Power of God as they did attend and grow up in they were the Living Seals of his Ministry And for the Visions and Revelations which G. F. hath declared he had there are none of them that are repugnant to the Holy Scriptures but are consistent with and agreeable to the special Manifestations of God to his Children mentioned therein which nothing that is Blasphemous can be Nay further God hath promised Joel 2.28 That in the pouring forth of his Spirit He would give Prophecy Dreams and Visions and that it is fulfilled in the Gospel Dispensation the Holy Apostle Peter hath testified Acts 2.16 Ibid. p. 21. Fox does plainly distinguish betwixt the Ordinary Experiences of the Inward Operations of the Spirit of God upon our Hearts and the being sent Immediately from God with such a Message as the Prophets and Apostles had And this plain Distinction of G. F's is warranted from Scripture it being wholly in the degrees of Operation but the Holy Spirit which does so diversly Operate is the same The Faith of the Woman cured of a Bloody Issue Mat. 9.20 was begotten in her by a degree of the Operation of the Holy Spirit and by a much greater Degree of the Operation of the same Holy Ghost Philip was bid Acts 8.29 Go near and joyn thy self to this Chariot And abundance of Instances of these kinds might be produced in Holy Writ which do as plainly distinguish as any of us can betwixt the Ordinary and Extraordinary Inward Operations of the Holy Spirit upon our Hearts yet both truly and properly Immediate Ibid. p. 29. These are his Words And shew plainly what he meant by Immediate Revelation and how it distinguish'd him from the Professors Yes Snake it is very plain what G. F. meant by Immediate Revelation when he asked Four or Five Priests Journal p. 83. Whether any one of them could say he ever had the Word of the Lord to go and speak to such or such a People viz. that this is a Higher Degree of the Inward Operation of the Holy Spirit than that by which it Reproves the World of Sin This Higher Degree of Immediate Revelation none of those Priests could say they had had and therefore might well be deem'd such of whom the Prophet says They run and the Lord never sent them And to G. F's Question foregoing the Priest made no proper answer when he said He could speak his experiences Because every operation of the Holy Spirit does give some experience to the Heart in which it works And if a Man thereby reproved of Sin be obedient to that reproof he shall witness a forsaking that for which he was so reproved And this is a good Degree of Experience But this Experience barely is no call to the Ministry To which those whom Christ doth Choose Prepare Fit Furnish and Qualifie as it is by a higher Degree of the Inward and Immediate Operations of His Holy Spirit so it does distinguish them from those who can only speak of Experiences as is above declared Ibid. p. 29. And he Vouches this by a company of Vile and Sensless Miracles to which he pretends in his Journal How shews the Snake that the Miracles mentioned in G. F's Journal are Vile and Sensless They are not therefore so because an Enemy says it And yet he has given no other reason And now having gain'd what he meant by Revelation and Immediate Revelation I will shew you that he attributes it not only to his own Worthiness but to the Quakers in General They are says he in his Great Mystery p. 242. in the same Power Understanding Knowledge and Immediate Revelation from Heaven that the Apostles were in There is no dificulty to gain either what G. F. did mean or any of us do mean by Revelation it being in short this 1 Cor. 2.11 The things of God knoweth no Man but by the Spirit of God And whosoever doth know and understand the Gospel of Christ which is Rom. 1.16 The Power of God unto Salvation must receive that knowledge and that understanding by Immediate Revelation from the same Spirit from which the Apostles had theirs The Apostles have declar'd that themselves did receive their Knowledge of the things of God by it and that without this Spirit no Man can know them Yet we do not from hence say nor hath G. F. said that the Gospel of Christ is not to be understood but by the same Degree of Power Understanding Knowledge and Immediate Revelation which the Apostles were in or that himself or any other Quaker as the Snake does falsly suggest are in that same Degree in which the Apostles were The Apostle Peter was in the same Power Understanding Knowledge and Immediate Revelation when he gave Testimony to the Divinity of our Saviour Mat. 16.16 Thou art Christ the Son of the Living God in which he was when he said Acts 2.22 23. Ye Men of Israel hear these Words Jesus of Nazareth a Man approved of God among you by Miracles Wonders and Signs which God did by him in the midst of you as ye your selves also know him being delivered by the Fore-knowledge and Counsel of God ye have taken and by wicked hands have crucified and slain c. But I suppose the Snake will hardly affirm he was in the same Degree of Power c. And after all it is false in
the Snake to say that G. F. said this of his own Worthiness as he floutingly stiles him or of the Quakers in General for G. F. does neither mention himself in Particular nor the Quakers in General But after the words before quoted by the Snake adds That understand the Gospel Instead of which words he hath falsly added as above Ibid. p. 29. Quoted from Great Mystery p. 241. Are not ye in the Presumption and Usurpt Authority to Preach or to Teach that have not the Immediate Revelation as the Apostles had Yes Doubtless they do run when they are not sent of God to Preach the Gospel Who before they Teach others the Things of God are not themselves taught them by the holy Spirit Ibid. p. 29. quoted from Great Mystery p. 213. Thou canst not know the Scriptures but by the same Degree of the Spirit that the Prophets and Apostles had The Snake hath here altered the Form of G. F's Words which as they stand are Thou canst not know Scripture c. And it is plain that by the Error of the Press all is left out for it ought to be Thou canst not know all Scripture c. And to shew plainly that G. F. did so write and intend I will produce p. 212. where speaking to the same Adversary upon the same subject he thus saith every Man that hath a Measure of the Spirit of God in the least Measure or Degree it is infallible and so far they may Teach infallibly and know Scriptures but they cannot know all Scriptures but as they attain to the full Measure of the Spirit of the Prophets and Apostles Ibid. p. 30. Quoted from Great Mystery p. 97· They the Quakers says the Snake but says G. Fox who are come to the Lamb They witness Immediate Revelation They are come to that the Apostles was in the Spirit of Christ the Spirit of God They witness Immediate Revelation And 't is very true for who are come to Christ do witness his Spirit and the Apostles were in his Spirit Ibid. p. 30. Quoted from Great Mystery p. 153. But the rest of the World have never heard the voice of God nor the voice of Christ and have not the same Infallible Spirit a◠the Apostles had and no Immediate Revelation nor Inspiration as they had In this one Quotation here is a twofold falshood First Forgery next false Quoting For the Forgery it is this These first words But the rest of the World are not G. Fox's next he has left out a whole Sentence in the middle of the Quotation which is relative to and explanatory of the rest That the falshood and injustice of this Adversary may appear clearly to the impartial Reader I here subjoin the place as it is in the page quoted The Spirit of God in the Apostles being witnessed it opens the Scriptures is the Key lets to see what hath been since the days of the Apostles and rul'd and reign'd and had the Dominion The Wolf in Sheeps Clothing which have deceived the Nations such as have led the World and brought them all upon heaps and have never heard the Voice of God and have published it to the Nation in Print nor the voice of Christ and have not the same Infallible Spirit as the Apostles had and no immediate Revelation nor Inspiration as they had Thus far G. Fox whose words are sound For first it is certain that the Spirit of God does not only open the Scriptures But will also discover the Devourer and Wolf This discovering Knowledge our Saviour hath testified is in his Followers in that A Stranger they will not follow And it is as certain that Men guided by this Devouring Spirit have often brought heaps of Confusion And lastly I take it for granted That such who publish to the Nation that they have never heard the Voice of God nor Christ have not the Holy Spirit nor its immediate teachings and it is no wonder they have it not for God hath said that his Spirit should not always strive with Man and he who resisteth the Day of small things and through the Crowds of Temptations and Vanities will not hearken nor hear the fault is his own Ibid. p. 30. Quoted from Great Mystery p. 321. Revelation is now witnessed in our days as it was in the Apostles but not amongst you who have inwardly ravened from the Spirit of God which have Apostatized from the Apostles And so you be in the Diabolical Devilish that expects not that now which was in the Days of the Apostles This Quotation which the Snake hath jumbled together only with the small distinction of a break Is as it lies in the Book Great Mystery two Answers to things severally asserted by a Priest Josias Dorker at Bransprith Castle Durham The first part of the Quotation to the Break is part of G. Fox's Answer to this following Assertion of the Priest's Immediate Revelation or Inspiration is not to be expected in these days To this false Assertion the words of G. Fox quoted above by the Snake are a proper Answer because as G. Fox in the same Answer shews tho' left out by the Snake according to our Saviour's words None knows the Son but the Father neither knoweth any man the Father save the Son and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him which Doctrine whosoever shall deny are most certainly ravened from the Spirit of God and Apostatized from the Apostles But Secondly This Priest Dorker did affirm it to be needless and also Diabolical that is to say Develish to expect any such thing now To this the Latter part of the Snake's Quotation is also part of G. Fox's Answer which Answer is true As for Diabolical and Devilish they are the Priest's own words and were fittly by retorsion given to the Priest And it is a great indication that Men are in that Spirit themselves which is Devilish when they call Good Evil and Evil Good and tell the World that that is needless or not to be expected now which is the Covenant of the New Testament And here Reader is another Mark of that foul Hypocrisie and Envy which is in this our Adversary who pretends to quote the Offices and Services of the Church of England for proof that Inspiration is believed and prayed for and which he would have taken as an Argument that himself does so believe and pray Yet here he is angry with G. Fox for telling the Priests that they were ravened from the Spirit of God even then when they told the People Inspiration was not now to be expected How will the Snake winde this into any agreement Himself says Inspiration is to be expected and prayed for The Priests whom G. Fox answered said It is not to be expected nor prayed for Nay they said more that it is Diabolical to expect it now See Reader the Confusion of these Our Adversaries of former and later times Who no doubt pretended to be true both now and then tho' quite
Spirit because none of them had this Spirit of Discerning To the first That all are excluded c. Every Member of the Church of Christ must necessarily have a measure of the Spirit of Christ else they are none of his Rom. 8.9 And this Spirit of Christ the Holy Ghost as in its fulness it is Infallible so every even the least measure or manifestation of it is Infallible To the second This Infallible Holy Spirit being of the THREE in the Godhead searcheth the Heart and trieth the Reins Jer. 17.10 But tho' this Holy Spirit can discover unto one the Heart and Thoughts of another as of Ananias to Peter Act. 5. Yet as that is not usual so neither is it necessary nor is it that which we pretend to nor hath G. Fox in the fore-quoted places pretended to it But that which G. Fox means and which we pretend to is That such who minister in and by that Holy Spirit which hath an Infallible Discerning of the Hearts and States of all the Persons ministred to This Holy Spirit doth direct the ministry accordingly that it may be suitable to the states of the Auditory Which they who pretend not to be led guided and assisted by that Infallible Holy Spirit in their Ministry cannot pretend to And as to his Objections that the Quakers did not discern G. Keith F. Bugg and other wicked Apostates There was a time when those Men I in Charity think were truly Quakers as they pretended and to have discerned them Apostates before they were such had not been true discerning There was a time when Demas walked with Paul was owned by Paul to be a Fellow-Labourer with him in the Gospel Col. 4.14 Phil. 2.4 There was a time when through the Love of the World he forsook the Apostles 2 Tim. 4.10 so I may say of these and others there was a time when they walked with us and now is the time when through the Love of the World and other things they are departed and fallen from that Unity and Fellowship they once had with us Ibid. p. 37. quoted from Great Mystery p. 105. We says he the Pope and you the Protestants whom he calls Professors are apostatized from the Infallible Spirit that the Apostles was in in which we are come For who witness these conditions that they were in that gave forth the Scriptures they witness Infallibility an Infallible Spirit which is now possessed and witnessed among those called Quakers Glory to the Highest for ever I shall first detect the Snake's base practice of mangling this as other places by setting down G. F's words as they lie in that Book and then shew plainly their Scriptural meaning The first viz. the Quotation And we say the Pope is not Infallible neither though he be your Father the Ancient Yet we say he and you are Apostatized from the Infallible Spirit that the Apostles was in in which we are come with which ye are seen and judged so not to have the Spirit of Christ Jesus not to have the Spirit of the Prophets and Apostles not to be led by the Spirit of Truth into all Truth not to be in the Spirit not to speak as ye are moved of the Holy Ghost But to be such as ravened from the Spirit of God inwardly and have gotten the Sheeps Cloathing ye and the Pope and so have devoured Nations for this many hundred years so have all been like ravening Wolves For who witness these conditions that they were in that gave forth the Scriptures they witness Infallibility an Infallible Spirit which is now possessed and witnessed among those called Quakers Glory to the Highest for ever This the Snake says Ibid. p. 37. Is Dreadfully Astonishing but gives no reason why it is so but that his practice is astonishing there are several reasons to prove it First In so basely picking and mangling Books that they may thereby be suborned to speak what the Writer never intended Next In his wilful perverting the plain and known sense which they carry and which their Writers had And upon Sober Inquiry what in this can be astonishing That the Pope is not Infallible I suppose the Snake will allow And that the Spirit of Truth doth see and judge such who apostatize from it the Scriptures teach And if the Snake doth account it astonishing that the Quakers should possess and witness according to Holy Writ the manifestation of the Holy and Infallible Spirit of Christ he shews his Ignorance therein tho' all who are truly sensible of these manifestations can in deep Humility of Soul give Glory to the Highest Yet to him must be applied that of Hab. 1.5 For it is a Work that God hath wrought in this day whether he will believe it or not Hitherto Reader pray Observe that tho' the Snake as quoted p. 88. foregoing hath said we placed Infallibility in every single Quaker confine it not to Faith but extend it to all Persons and Things in the World by their inward Light Yet the Charge is notoriously false and that the colourable pretence which he had for this his false assertion was owing to his own false quoting curtailing and mangling of our Books of which I have shewn eminent instances since that assertion of his in p. 88. And that our Books in the instances produced speak according to Scripture I shall leave with the Impartial Reader to Judge only adding that the Forms of Speech Try all things Teach all things Know all things and Judge all things which are frequently found in the New Testament cannot without great perversion be applied otherwise than to that Trying Teaching Knowing and Judging which are the proper effects of the Operations of the Holy Spirit in the Hearts of all that are obedient to it And that in order first to their own Salvation and then to the Service of God in his Church In this sense G. F. E. B. and others have used these Forms of Speech in this sense the Woman of Samaria testifies of the Messias our Saviour John 4.25 He will teach us all things In this sense our Saviour promised John 14.26 That the Holy Ghost should teach us all things In this sense John the Beloved Disciple testifies of the Believers 1 John 2.20 Ye know all things And in this sense the Apostle testifies of the Spiritual Man 1 Cor. 2.10 He judgeth all things And in this sense the Beloved Disciple 1 John 4.1 adviseth to try the Spirits whether they be of God Now these forms of Speech in these and many more places all things are truly as E. B. p. 137. foregoing hath said All things that pertain to Salvation Redemption and Eternal Life needful for Man to know all this was discovered revealed and made known to us by the Light which was in us which Christ had Lighted us withal Ibid. p. 37. But I was much more surprized to find the otherwise Ingenious Mr. Penn laugh at his Adversary for not being Infallible It is no surprise to find
we know it to be beyond our practice and liking For whoever is disowned by us for practices contrary to the Terms of their Union and Fellowship is not thereby broke and undone in his outward estate which the Excommunication above hath sometimes threatned Because our disowning of Backsliders and Immoralists does only extend to testifie against such Persons and Practices and it is the Duty of a Christian Community so to do And I herein charge the Snake with a Lie till he can prove Fifty in one Hundred who have been broke and undone in their Trade by such our Testimonies Ibid. p. 83. The surest method for a Young Man to step into an Abounding Trade and a Rich Wife is to set up first for a Preacher of which many Examples daily occur Tho' the Snake in his own Language p. 16. does boldly and impudently aver this yet no such Examples do daily occur because we own not any for true Preachers who do so set up themselves But who are thereunto inwardly moved of the Holy Ghost And this Call the Snake would have us think he owns it being a previous Question to Ordination as himself says p. 316. Ibid. p. 83. G. F. had more Mony at his Disposal than any Bishop in England he having the Command of the Quaker-Treasury It is a notorious Lie G. F. never had the Command of the Treasury of the Quakers Ibid. p. 83. There is a Topick behind which if the former convince them not may at least shame them out of their vain pretences to Infallibility and is the Pitiful and Childish Blunders which are daily seen among them This remaining Topick will on examination like the rest be turned Topsie Turvy for why should a real mistake be more prevalent to make a Man relinquish the guidings of the Spirit of Truth which is able and ready infallibly to guide him in all that concerns his Salvation Redemption and Eternal Life Then the Snake's false Suggestion of Heretical Opinions which he says we hold Which if it were true were a better Argument against Infallibility than the most Childish blunder that can be He quotes W. P. in his Christian Quaker p. 104. repeated by Tho. Elwood in his Truth Defended p. 167. Saying that Christ was born at Nazareth it was a Mistake And what will it thence follow that the Holy Spirit is not able infallibly to inform W. P. and T. E. all that pertains to their Salvation Redemption and Eternal Life If the Snake so think it is easie to know that he blunders and that very dangerously The same is to be understood of the mistake of G. F. if there be one which I have not seen He does also instance one William Walker who he says p. 84. did mistake John 14.2 In my Father's House are many Mansions for in my Father's House are many Manchets Ibid. 84. Another Preaching on Paul 's being bred at the Feet of Gamaliel and being asked by one in the Meeting what that Gamaliel was answered a Town in Judea These two hearsay Stories I disbelieve till proved and in his next desire it be not forgot if it can be done Ibid. p. 84. But above all his Battle-Door a large Book in Folio in defence of the phrase Thee and Thou out of several Languages Greek Hebrew c. of which G. F. understood not one Letter yet subscribes G. F. not only to the Book but to the several pages of this Poliglot That Book the Battle-door is a Collection of Scripture-Examples in the words of the several People recorded therein as the Medianites Hittites Sodomites c. and also a Collection of Examples in the ancient and Modern Languages testifying or proving their concurrence in the essential difference in expressing one and many This Compound work is subscribed by G. F. J. Stubbs and B. Furly For Scripture Examples it needed no greater Learning than English to collect them and that G. F. had For the other Languages the other Subscribers were qualified But the Snake is angry that G. F. is subscribed to the pages of this Polyglot But if he had not been blinded by Envy he might have observed That these words in the Handle of the Battle-Door The Light which Christ hath enlightned you withal believe in that the anointing within you may know to teach you which words are subscribed G. F. in the first page and are of the same signification in the other Languages throughout all the Battle-Door pages So that the words in the first page being G. F's his Fellow-Labourers in that Work to do him justice did in their translating his words into other Languages still put his Name to them Ibid. p. 85. But some Friends know the Jew who had 60 l. in New Crowns as himself told it out of the Quaker-Treasury for helping G. Fox 's Infallibility as to the Hebrew A Liar had need have the help of a Great Memory The Book was printed in 1660. And if a Jew helped he had earned his Mony before that and it is not likely if a Jew wrought for Bread that he could trust and I am sure there could be no new Crowns before 1660. But what is better there was no occasion for a Jew to do that which John Stubbs and B. Furly could and did do themselves that is throughly understand the Hebrew Language And if the Snake cannot prove to the contrary he has done like a Turk in telling this Lying Story of a Jew Ibid. p. 85. He is angry that G. F. should say in the Preface to this Battle-Door That all Languages are to me no more than Dust But has basely omitted to give G. F's reason why they are so which is being redeemed out of Languages into the Power wherein Men shall agree Thus having Tract and Discover'd this Snake through his many Lies base Insinuations and gross Perversions in this tedious Section I now proceed to his Seventh Section SECT VI. Concerning the Authority of the Holy Scriptures WE have always testified according to 2 Tim. 3.16 All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for Doctrine for Reproof for Correction for Instruction in Righteousness And the reason of this is because according to 2 Pet. 1.21 The Prophecy came not in old time by the will of Man but Holy Men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost And therefore it is that we have constantly directed Men to the Holy Spirit for the true understanding of them by the movings whereof they were at first written For as they do contain a true declaration of the things of God so they are not to be truly understood but by the Spirit of God How much the contrary of this can be prov'd by this Snake I shall now examine Snake p. 85. The Quakers notion of the Light within as before explained must necessarily out off our dependance upon the Holy Scriptures as a Rule either of Faith or Manners The Light within Christ in us as before I have explained
our Hearts he knoweth that our earnest Endeavour since a People hath been to direct to the Holy Spirit to which as the World comes to be obedient it will certainly raise in them a just value and esteem for the Scriptures and a love and desire to be conversant in the reading of them by which through Faith they may receive comfort as we can abundantly testifie we have found And therefore the Insinuation is false and envious that we have ever sought either openly or secretly to discard them or to set up the Inspirations of any instead of them Ibid. p. 91. They have taken upon them not only to abrogate the most express Ordinances of the Gospel But to set up and institute new ones as Womens Preachings directly contrary to 1 Cor. 16.35 and the Prelacy of the Womens Meetings an Invention never heard of in the World till G. F. Cobled it out 'T is false that we have abrogated any Ordinances of Divine Institution And it is also false that we have set up and instituted new ones For under the Law and in the Apostles days there were Women Prophetesses and Fellow-helpers in the Gospel As for the Prelacy of Womens Meetings we know of no such thing but for the good ends of looking after the Poor and seeing after such things as are Comely Decent and of Good Report do they meet as the Holy Women in ancient times did And as it is no discouragement to us so it will not be of weight with the Sober Reader that this practice is profanely said by the Snake to be Cobled out by G. Fox Ibid. p. 92. The Scripture remains of no Authority with them because if what the Scripture command be a-new required by their Spirit they are bound to obey it because required by their Spirit But if the Scripture command the thing they are by their Principles not bound to obey it unless it is required by their Spirit a-new None may at this day upon the Authority of Scripture walk naked as Isaiah 20.2 3. nor go to the King's Chappel as Amos 7.13 nor do any of these special and particular things which many of the Prophets by the Special Command of God did do unless they are thereunto commanded and required by the same Holy Spirit which did require them This is what Edward Burroughs had formerly said and which W. Penn repeats and maintains though very falsly quoted by the Snake who injuriously quotes W. P. in his Reason against Railing p. 150. in the following manner That what was a Commandment to any Servants of God in Old Time That such are not Commandments to us unless required by the same Spirit a-new But W. P's words as they lye in the Book and Page quoted are thus From our asserting that what was a Commandment to any Servant of God in Old Times is not so to us because so to them that is such as Going to Pharaoh as Going Naked Going to the King's Chappel as Moses Isaiah and Amos did as also those Elementary Types Shadows and Figures appointed for a season and to pass off That such are not Commandments to us unless required by the same Spirit a-new It is not a little his endeavour unrighteously to infer that those Moral Perpetual and Eternal Holy Precepts here W. P. mentions the Laws of the First Table are not binding upon us c. Here Reader behold the subornation of the Snake who by a most unjust practice bites out so much of a Quotation as is not for his purpose and brings the remainder to speak against the sense of the Writer Ibid. p. 94. Thus it being Objected to G. F. that one of his Quakers had pretended to an Immediate Call from Heaven to commit Theft Robbery and Sacriledge in taking out of the Church an Hour-glass c. It is false it was not objected that any Quaker did commit Theft or Robbery or Sacriledge Nor does it appear by the Priest's words that the Hour-Glass was taken away That which appears from the Priest's words is That some Quaker had signified to the Priest that the Glass which he made the limit of his Carnal Preaching ought to be removed and that the Holy Spirit was only that by which they that spake from the Lord ought to begin and end their Preachings and G. F's answer is to the same purpose So that herein the Snake is egregiously abusive by perverting both the words of the Priest and G. F. and also in his false and scandalous insinuations concerning what he calls the Communion Plate Ibid. p. 95. Have they not by the same Light rebelled from Episcopacy Not unless it be prov'd by the Holy Scriptures that Episcopacy at this day be in the same Spirit and Government which the Apostles were in Ibid. p. 95. It is true indeed the Church cannot subsist without Government But it is as true that the Quakers pretence to the private Light in particular Persons as a principle over-ruling Scripture and all outward Ordinances is Inconsistent to the Government either in Church or State It is false that we have ever pretended that the Particular Manifestation of the Light of Christ in any of us did over-rule the Scriptures or Ordinances There cannot be Contradiction in the Spirit of God By the movings whereof it was that the Scriptures were given forth 2 Pet. 1.21 Nor do the Movings of the same Spirit privately working in particular Persons at this day over-rule or contradict what it did give forth as above And as the Light and Spirit of Christ is thus agreeable to it self So it is well consistent with the Government of the State in that it leads all that obey it to be loving and peaceable not Seditious or Tumultuous It leads to give Caesar the things that are Caesar's and unto God the things that are God's This it hath taught us to be our Duty and our Practice hath been agreeable of which the whole Kingdom are our witnesses And it is not less consistent with the Government in the Church when the Government in the Church hath its beginning and foundation from it as described p. 135 136. foregoing But it cannot be consistent with Government in the Church when the Church is not govern'd by the Spirit of him whom she says is her Spiritual Head Ibid. Or any Security from all the Dismal and Enthusiastical Murthers Rapines and Outrage of the Zealots among the Jews who went upon the same principle The Holy Spirit of God which by the coming of Jesus Christ is given to Men is the Principle that we profess and is the most effectual Security that can be against wickedness and violence of all sorts because where that is obeyed it will finish Transgression and make an end of Sin Now did the Zealots among the Jews go upon the same Principle No no more than the late Horrid Assassines in Communion with the Snake and with him in Separation from the Church could be said to do Murthers Rapines and Outrage are the
make the Quakers Blood to be the Blood of Christ by which we are saved To which false and scandalous Charge the Man himself Thomas Speed who writ that Book being yet Living he answers for Himself and Us as follows For the satisfaction of all Persons whom it may concern I do make this my following Solemn Declaration viz. 1. I never knew nor ever heard of any Person or People of what Perswasion in Religion soever that were of so sordid nonsensical and sottish an Opinion that the Blood of any tho' the most righteous of Mortals was the Blood of Christ the Son of God by which Men are saved 2. I do and ever did with utter detestation abhor any such blasphemous Principle as to assert that the Blood of the Quakers or any other sort of Men is the Blood of Christ by which we are saved Which in the Power of Truth I do openly and boldly assert to confront the Snake in the Grass who herein appears to to be the Child of the Father of Lies who was a Murtherer from the Beginning Bristol the 10th Month 1698. Thomas Speed The next and last Quotation which the Snake makes Ibid. p. 120. in this Section is from p. 22. of the Book last mentioned of T. Speed's which is a Reproof and Testimony against false and flattering Titles given to men Upon which the Snake bids See what Tender Consciences are here who at the same time wipe their Mouths and excuse all the bloody Blasphemies before-mentioned And I Reader may here in fit place desire thee to see and consider not how Tender but how hardned and feared is the Conscience of this our Adversary who hath against knowledge and against the true and plain meaning of our words and upon bare hearsay frequently in this as also his other Sections accused us falsly of matters which we never did spake or intended which will also be further manifested in the ensuing Sections to which I now proceed SECT VIII Concerning Our Belief in the Holy Three that bear Record in Heaven IT hath been an Objection often made sometimes foolishly sometimes enviously but always falsly That we deny The Holy Three mentioned 1 John 5.7 which bear Record in Heaven Because we cannot but think the word Person too gross to express them We own their Distinction in all the Instances of it recorded in Holy Writ and have a thousand times declared our sincere Belief in Almighty God the Creator of all things and in Jesus Christ his Eternal Son by whom all things were made and in the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son Yet this because it is not given in the Terms of Athanasius or the Nicene Council has been unreasonably refused as insufficient This refusal were the less strange and unreasonable were it not in Persons who pretend the Scriptures to be their only Rule of Faith c. But as it is the refusal of such Persons it is certainly a violent contradiction in them to damn as Heretical an Article of Faith deliver'd in the very words of that Rule But be their Fault in this matter what it will we are not therefore to be moved from believing That the Holy Spirit by which it was dictated as is acknowledged did and does know all the weaknesses of men and the Designs of Satan and has accordingly fenced the Article from his Subtilty and explained it to our Capacities And I take it to be a great aggravation of the former contradiction in this Adversary and our other Opposers herein that they would upon less Evidence of Truth and a Determination not Infallible which they will not affirm either that of Athanasius or the Nicene Council to be infallibly press their Exemplifications made to the Article That such Practices are wrong all Parties in their turns as their several Interests and Necessities have pressed them have declared and many excellent Arguments by divers Men have been urged against it I shall content my self only with some part of what Jeremy Taylor late Bishop of Down and Connor in Ireland hath said on this Subject in that excellent Treatise of his Intituled Liberty of Prophecying p. 47. For it is says he most considerable that altho' in reason every clause in the Creed should be clear and so inopportune and unapt to variety of Interpretation that there might be no place left for several Senses or Variety of Expositions Yet when they thought fit to insert some Mysteries into the Creed that called the Apostles which in Scripture were expressed in so Mysterious Words that the last and most explicit sense would still be latent yet they who if ever any did understood all the Senses and Secrets of it thought it not fit to use any Words but the Words of Scripture particularly in the Articles of Christ descending into Hell and sitting at the right Hand of God to shew us that those Creeds are best which keep the very words of Scripture and that Faith is best which hath greatest Simplicity and that it is better in all cases humbly to Submit than curiously to inquire and prey into the Mystery hid under the Cloud and to Hazzard our Faith by improving our Knowledge If the Nicene Fathers had done so too possibly the Church would not have repented it And indeed the experience the Church had afterwards shew'd that the Bishops and Priests were not satisfied in all circumstances nor the Schism of Arius appeased nor the Persons agreed nor the Cannons accepted nor the Article understood nor any thing right But when they were over-born with Authority which Authority when the Scales turned did the same Service and Promotion to the contrary Thus he and as I doubt not but the Truth and Reason of his words will weigh with the Impartial Reader so his Character of Bishop ought to be of some weight with the Snake Snake p. 121. The Quakers and Socinians acknowledge a Three but deny a Trinity which is to confess the same thing in English and to deny it in Latin For Trinitas is only Latin for Three But the meaning is they would not have the Three in Heaven to be Three Persons Though they cannot make sense of what Three they are if not Three Persons What the Socinians acknowledge is not my business to inquire But for our selves We acknowledge the Three mentioned in Holy Writ which bear Record in Heaven and we need not the Pedantry of the Snake to Translate the word into Latin And the sence we make of the Three so bearing Record is the same which is declared by the Holy Ghost and when the Snake shall shew that the Holy Ghost hath declared them Three Persons We will not fail so to express them Ibid. p. 121 122. And the Quakers who own the Divinity of Christ are under greater difficulties than the Socinians who deny the Divinity of Christ. For if Christ be God and that there is but one Person in the Godhead it must necessarily follow that God the Father
and Answers which are in p. 8 9. of W. Smith's Primmer and which are as follows Child But do they Ministers not all preach Christ in words Father Yes the false Ministers can speak of the Name of Christ as the true do but they want his Power Child But how may I then know which is true and which is false by their words seeing words may be the same Father Why they that are false preach Christ without and bid People believe in him as he is in Heaven above but they that are true Ministers they Preach Christ within and direct People to wait to feel him in themselves and so to believe in him as he makes himself manifest in them and this is true Doctrine that brings People to mind that principle of God in their own Consciences which comes down from Heaven and goes thither again and such as are in the earthly wisdom they do not know Heaven above Child This is a great Difference in their Doctrine for one 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 Thus W. S. And this is so far from preventing the least tincture of Christianity that it is a sound initiating Lesson for Children it being no other than a plain and short Paraphrase of divers Texts of Scripture and particularly of 2 Cor. 5.16 17. Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the Flesh Yea tho' we have known Christ after the Flesh yet henceforth know we him so no more Therefore if any man be in Christ he is a new Creature old things are passed away behold all things are become new Col. 1.27 That 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 In which places according to the whole tenour of the Gospel-dispensation the Apostle labours to bring People to give up to the workings of the Spirit of Christ in them Yet does not hereby slight or undervalue much less deny Christ in his appearance in the Flesh nor the Office of his Mediatorship in Heaven by whom it is that the Gifts of the Holy Spirit are given to Men. And agreeable to this was the Labour and End of W. S. in that Primmer of his But further if we make but a small amendment of the word only to the second Answer what will become of the Snake's Cavil and then read it thus They that are false preach Christ without and bid People believe in him only as he is in Heaven above c. It will be past his Cavil and he ought not for such an Elipsis to have forfeited all his Pretended Charity nor falsly to have declared it an admirable Cue to prevent the least tincture of Christianity I expect that this amendment may be opposed by him and that he may urge that our Writings are by no means to be added to But if it be so urged I would then answer The Church hath given abundant encouragement to supply Eliptick Defects by her Example and Practice in the Holy Scriptures in which there are a thousand I believe Instances of a word or words added with purpose I would in Charity think of more fully expressing the Mind of the Holy Ghost And what is so familiarly done with Holy Writ surely we may do with our Friends Books Ibid. p. 145. The Snake makes a curtail'd quotation from p. 17. of E. B's Preface to G. F's Great Mystery thus We differ in Doctrines and Principles and the one thou must justifie and the other thou must condemn as being the one clean contrary to the other in our Principles E. B. in this place was speaking of those Doctrines and Principles of the Priests which were opposed in that Book some of which I have mentioned p. 155. but not indefinitely of all the Principles they did or might hold and that there was reason to oppose them I question not but the impartial Reader will agree not simply for that they are clean contrary to us but for that they are so to true Christian Doctrine And of these and such as these E. B. speaks thus p. 17. ut supra And besides their Petitioning which the Priests and others did the Magistrates against us and Preaching and Praying against us and all the evil and wickedness in Work Word and desire brought forth against us from time to time Yet here sober Reader thou hast a Catalogue and whole number of Books printed and written against us and abundance of their Doctrines uttered against us and in opposition to us gathered up in this Volume in a sum with our Answers to them And if thy Mind and Heart be single thou mayst hereby understand in measure the difference in Doctrine between them and us and compare each of them with the Scriptures and see whether their Doctrines and Principles laid down as the subject of their Books or our Doctrines and Principles laid down in answer to theirs be according to and and agree with the Scriptures And if thou be impartial in this business and single in this Search and Judgment I doubt not but thou wilt in a great measure satisfie thy self and be resolved concerning their Priests and Professors in England and us who are called Quakers And when thou hast thus done own and deny whether them or us for thou mayst fully perceive we differ in Doctrines c. Now Sober Reader what just exception can there be to the tryal of Doctrines and Principles where the Holy Scripture is assigned for the Touchstone and such persuasion as the Lord shall give is to be Leader But this is a Tryal the Snake dreads because it wholly destroys Implicit Faith and blind Obedience Ibid. p. 146. And therefore this difference of Doctrine betwixt the Quakers and us which they say is as wide as from East to West must be more than concerning the Light within c. Yes so it is it is concerning the Separation and Incommunication of the Deity mentioned p. 189 foregoing It is concerning the Holy Scriptures alone being the Object of Faith It is concerning the Letter of the Scripture being the Sword of the Spirit It is concerning the Letter of the Scripture being God It is concerning the Scriptures being the Power of God and the Iudge by which all Men shall be judged And in fine it is concerning many other things mentioned in that Book Great Mystery several of which I have refer'd to in their several pages as I have met with them Ibid. p. 146. The Quakers do positively determine their Light within to be not a Secondary Agent or sent from any other but that it is it self the Principal The Quakers do indeed determine according to the Testimonies of our Saviour and his Holy Apostles Mat. 10.20 John 14.17 20. and 15.4 Rom. 8.9 10 11. 1 Cor. 3.16 and 6.19 Gal. 4.15 Col. 1.27 1 John 4.4 That the
altogether impossible for God to remit or forgive without a plenary Satisfaction and that there was no other way by which God could obtain Satisfaction or save Men than by inflicting the Penalty of Infinite Wrath and Vengance on Jesus Christ the second Person in the Trinity who for Sins past present and to come hath wholly born and paid it to the offended Infinite Justice of his Father This Reader is the Satisfaction or strict and rigid Notion of it which we do deny and which W. P. as quoted by the Snake p. 154. does totally exclude as anon I shall have occasion more largely to shew But that we do from hence deny the Satisfaction which Christ did make and which the Father did accept as mentioned and declared in Holy Writ is very false For we do believe that as our Saviour does declare John 10.18 No Man taketh it from me speaking of his Life but I lay it down of my self I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it again This Commandment received I of my Father I say we do believe that as Christ had this Commandment and Power from the Father so by his pure divine free and voluntary Resignation Not as I will but as thou wilt Mat. 26.42 he did thereby endear the Father's Love unto him as himself declares v. 17. Therefore doth my Father love me because I lay down my Life And this his free and unconstrained voluntary Offering of himself as a Ransom for all did include his Agony on the Mount and his Agony on the Cross in fine It includes all his Sufferings both inward and outward whereby he became a compleat perfect and satisfactory Sacrifice and as such was accepted of the Father This briefly but truly and according to Scripture is a short account of the Satisfaction which we do positively own as the former is an account of the Satisfaction which we do positively deny But tho' we have in terms often more largely but to the purpose above declared our Sentiments herein Yet the Snake that he may in some respects imitate the grand Serpent and false Accuser does with his usual assurance speaking of this Doctrine say p. 151. Mr. Penn Blasphemes it as both Irreligious and Irrational But with his false Glossing neither shews what the Doctrine of Satisfaction is nor wherein W. P. doth Blaspheme it Now Reader for thy fuller Information herein I shall acquaint thee and that the rather because W. P. is the only particular Person of our Friends who the Snake in this Section does Hiss at briefly with the State of that Controversie which will give at least some Light to thy Judging of it About the Year 1670 or sooner as we have been seldom without opposition as now there was a Combination of Adversaries who writ many things against us and we then as now were not backward to inform the Honest Inquirer and reprove the Envious Slanderer by making publick our Scriptural Belief and Sentiments in those things wherein we were misrepresented and abused as the several Books of ours Printed about that time will plentifully shew Among other things wherein we were then falsly accused the Doctrine of Satisfaction was one And the line by which we were to be measured was not the Scripture but their own wrong Opinions of it which I have already mentioned p. 231. foregoing This among other things gave occasion to them Books of W. P's Reason against Railing Sandy Foundation shaken and the Serious Apology c. Innocency with its open Face Of which Books the Snake does make so much use as here and there to pick a Line or two and what is more unjust He heaps up 12 or more lines p. 152. without naming Book or Page and that must represent W. P's force tho' not his as there laid down and against this the Snake levels his Artillery and Determines of the whole Books and all the Quakers p. 154. They exceed the Impudence of the very Socinians in their bold Effrontry against this most Fundamental Doctrine of the Christian Religion And notwithstanding a trifling excuse which the Snake here makes for his not proving his Charge I see not how he can avoid being thought exceeding Impudent so liberally to accuse and then fob the Reader off with saying Ibid. My business at the present being not to enter into the large Field of the Socinian Controversie but to shew the much misled generality of the Quakers Are they much misled because of his false Charge No himself is therein much misled But for proof against us we may expect what he saith Ibid. He hath wrote at large upon this Subject which may hereafter see the Light So that till his Darkness come to Light the Reader may if he please take our Adversary's word that we are much misled and exceed the Impudence c. I doubt not but to find a much more Impartial Judgment from my Sober Reader to whom I now apply my self and do acquaint him That W. P. in his Sandy Foundation c. does in great part imploy himself against that rigid and unscriptural Doctrine of Satisfaction which I have set down p. 231. foregoing Against which W. P. does in p. 14 c. cite at large the Scriptures hereafter refer'd to and shews the contrariety of this Doctrine to these Scriptures and some absurdities which unavoidably follow thereupon The Scriptures refer'd to are these Exo. 34.6 7. 2 Chron. 30.7 Neh. 6.17 Isa. 55.7 Jer. 31.31 to 34. Micah 7.18 Mat. 6.12 John 3.16 Acts 10.34 Rom. 8.31 32. 2 Cor. 11.5 18 19. Eph. 1.7 1 Pet. 5.10 1 John 4.9 These dispatch'd He further shews from reason under three Heads that this rigid Doctrine is not true from distinct Arguments raised that Jesus Christ did not give such rigid Satisfaction either as God or as Man nor as God and Man These for brevity sake I omit and come to some of those Irreligious and Irrational Consequences which W. P. does shew do arise from this their rigid Notion of Satisfaction the 5th 6th 7th of which are these which follow and by which the Snake says W. P. Blasphemes the Doctrine 5. It the Doctrine in p. 231. ut supra represents the Son more kind and compassionate than the Father Whereas if both be the same God then either the Father is as Loving as the Son or the Son as angry as the Father 6. It robs God of the Gift of his Son for our Redemption which the Scriptures attribute to the unmerited Love he had for the World in affirming the Son purchased that Redemption from the Father by the Gift of himself to God as our compleat Satisfaction 7. Since Christ could not pay what was not his own it follows that in the payment of his own the case remains still equally grievous since the debt is not hereby absolv'd or forgiven but transfer'd only and by consequence we are no better provided for Salvation than before owing that now to the Son which was
Satan Disrob'd See likewise Mr. Crisp c. To which he might have added See Bugg see Keith and so see see see till he had refer'd to all our Adversaries both Apostates and others To which I doubt not the Reader will Judge I should give sufficient answer in saying See G. Whitehead W. Penn E. Penington c. who have writ in answer to them SECT XI Concerning the Resurrection of the Body THIS Adversary the Snake after the example of some former Enemies does charge us falsly with the denial hereof And it is in some sort unaccountable to me how they should make it a Charge upon us to deny that which is indeed so firmly believed by us and by which we are stayed and supported under the Evils we meet and the reproaches which we suffer For were our hope in this life only we might with the Apostle say 1 Cor. 15.19 We are of all men most miserable But we have Faith and Hope in Christ in whom we have believed that after having passed through this Vale of Tears wherein we are encompassed with Perils of many sorts from Apostates and other Adversaries and are accounted Deceivers yet True We shall after this Life receive if we persevere in Faith and Obedience a resurrection to a Glorious Immortality through Christ our Saviour Thus and often more largely have we testified our belief of this Great Doctrine of the Christian Faith but because we deny as not being Scriptural that the same Natural Fleshly Body shall rise Our Adversaries do thence unrighteously infer and conclude that we deny the resurrection of the Body in any sense And thus does the Snake who in this Section does chiefly as in the last Section wholly quarrel and pervert these Books of W. P's Reason against Railing c. and the Invality of John Faldo 's Vindication c. and so gross is he in his perversion and abuse of them that he begins the very first line of this Section with saying Snake p. 155. This viz. the Resurrection the Quakers do positively deny Now that this Charge is positively false as made by the Snake from the two Books before mentioned will best appear by transcribing from the Books themselves not in Bits as this Snake has done both the occasion by which this Doctrine came to be spoken to and also pretty largely the manner in which W. P. does in them speak to it And I doubt not Reader but his Christian Belief and Scriptural Expression therein will be so much to thy satisfaction that thou wilt find reason therefrom to conclude in opposition to the Snake that we do positively own the Resurrection of the Body First To the occasion on which it came to be spoken to it was this Tho. Hicks an Adversary had published a piece under the Title of Dialogues wherein upon many of the Doctrines of the Christian Faith he propounds Questions And then brings in under the names of Quakers generally such Answers as might answer his purpose either to Refute or Cavil at In the 57th p. of his Dialogues he propounds a Question whether the same Carnal Body that Dies shall rise again In Answer to this Question he brings in G. W. saying Is it not written Thou Fool that which thou sowest is not the Body which shall be but God gives a Body as pleaseth him Thus says T. Hicks Whitehead reply'd and G. Fox the Younger speaks to the same purpose Fools that say this Body of Natural Flesh and Bones shall rise I say the Body which is sown is not the Body which shall be I query says T. H. whether both these Persons do not tacitly deny the resurrection This Reader was the occasion on which W. P. in his Reason against Railing c. speaks of this Doctrine I now come to the manner in which he speaks of it in that Book But will first only observe to my Reader that as in the Proverb A Lye does not lose by Carrying So the Snake has improv'd upon T. Hicks's disingenuity He was contented with querying whether we did not tacitly deny the Resurrection But the Snake scorning to mumble doubtingly says we positively deny it which as above and will also hereafter appear is a positive falshood But first I desire it may be observ'd from the foregoing that the Question was whether the same Carnal Body that Dyes shall rise c. In answer to which with the Appendices of the Question as laid down in the Dialogues W.P. imploys eight pages of the Book Reason against Railing c. and of all of them the Snake hath taken about so many lines by which according to his own words p. 350. It was intended purely to have it say that there was an Answer to such a Book or rather to this part of that Book But to shew that the Snake hath neither answered W. P. herein nor that the Quakers do therein deny the Resurrection take the following Quotation from that Book p. 132 133. Now that T. H. hath shewn himself at once dishonest and erroneous too let it be observed 1. That from our denial of the Resurrection of the same Natural Fleshly Body he absolutely infers and concludes our denial of the Resurrection of the Body in any sense Which is great injustice to any Adversary 2. Let it be well observed that he makes the Scripture it self to deny the Resurrection and so Heterodox by accounting G. W. and G. F. their Answers in Scripture Language to be a denial of the Resurrection For if T. H. does not intend by his arguing that the same Body that died without any mutation shall rise again what makes him to quarrel at the Apostle Paul's saying Thou Fool that which thou sowest is not the Body which shall be and repute us Hereticks for believing him Certainly his gross belief of the Resurrection is inconsistent with Scripture Reason and the Belief of all Men right in their Wits in the point Who can have the Confidence to call the Scripture his Rule and yet contradict it so Egregiously as when the Apostle tells us It is not the same Body that is sown that shall be to assert that it is the same Body and that who says the Contrary denies the Resurrection of the Dead and Eternal Recompence In short We do acknowledge a Resurrection in order to Eternal Recompence and that every Seed shall have its own Body and rest contented with what Body it shall please God to give us But as we are not such Fools as curiously to enquire what So must we ever deny the Gross conceits of T. H. and his Adherents concerning the Resurrction p. 134. But he T. H. thinks he is not without reason For says he if the It in the Text be not the same Body how can that be called a Resurrection for that supposeth the same Dialog p. 58. I Answer if a thing can yet be the same and notwithstanding changed for shame let us never make so much stir against the Doctrine of
Quaker-Spirit No it can't because it is not only Cloudy but it is Dark and False to say that words are Furious Venemous or Nonsensical and not give any Proof that they are so It is no help to the Snake to say as he does There needs no Argument to Discern betwixt Perfume and Stench Because that if the Nose can Discern as his Philosophy expresses it without Argument yet the Mind is not established but by Arguments drawn from true Judgment and Reason and none such nay none at all does the Snake offer The Snake for Conclusion to this Section has brought in two texts from the Psalms which he does improperly apply to the Quakers as he has before falsly charged them with Venom Fury Spite Envy and Nonsense And till he can prove that the words spoken by our Friends which whether these quoted were so or not remains to be proved being only taken from Adversaries were in their Original from Fury Spite and Envy and in their delivery Nonsense The Texts of Scripture are but abused by him as a Text in the same Book Psal. 91.11 was by the Devil when he repeated it to our Saviour Luke 4.10 and it will be answer sufficient if after the Example of our Lord we answer in the words of Scripture Psal. 101.7 There shall no deceitful Person dwell within my House he that telleth Lyes shall not remain in my sight SECT XVI Of Fighting and Loyalty I Have hitherto shewn the falsity of the Snake's Charges and his perversions of our Words Doctrines and Principles and how Unduly and Unrighteously he would endeavour to inferr from them Meanings and Consequences which neither are nor ever were ours but which we Abominate as destructive of and contrary to those Doctrines and Principles of the Christian Religion which the Spirit of Truth teacheth and leads into and which we do sincerely Believe And what is thus already in the foregoing Sections made appear will be further manifested in this and the following Sections for that in these as in those he hath not shewn what we are but what he would have us appear to be under the disguise which himself has put upon us In the pulling off which disguise there is at least this accidental Help and Advantage that the disguise in which he has represented us is exceedingly unlike our true Features I call it an accidental Advantage because if his Malice could have been satisfied in accusing us with only an abundance of improbable things they might have found some unthinking People who might have been misled into a too easy belief of them But as that could not be satisfied but by charging us with a number of Absurd and Impossible things So all that shall consider the ground and nature of our Principles and the nature of his Charge will with little difficulty be satisfied of their Contrariety and Inconsistency And tho' from this Consideration the sober Reader might and would have ground sufficient to determine the Question in this particular Yet for the detecting his particular Charges Perversions and Abuses I shall as in the former follow him through them And for his more full and plain Confutation herein I will briefly hint our Principles as Influencing Men with respect to Fighting and Loyalty The first of which the Snake most falsly does Charge us to approve and use and that in the last we are short and defective And first as to Fighting We say the end of the coming of our Lord Jesus as is prophesied of him Dan. 9.24 was to Finish the Transgression and to make an end of Sin And in the Room thereof to establish Truth and Righteousness in the Earth And as many as do witness the Power of his Coming by the Operation of his Holy Spirit in them do know that the work thereof is to take away and cleanse from all the Fleshly Lusts that War against the Soul 1 Pet. 2.11 which the Apostle makes to be the ground of Outward Wars and Contentions James 4.1 and as the Holy Spirit in all those in whom it does effectually work does destroy and purge away the very root from whence unjust Wars do proceed so it prevents in them the occasion of all outward Wars And this our Saviour did Teach in that Sermon of his upon the Mount Matth. 5.21 22. Ye have heard that it was said to them of old time Thou shalt not kill c. But I say unto you whosoever is angry with his Brother c. vers 38 39. Ye have heard it said an Eye for an Eye and a Tooth for a Tooth But I say unto you that ye resist not Evil but whosoever shall Smite on thy right Cheek turn to him the other Vers. 43 44. Ye have heard it hath been said thou shalt love thine Neighbour and hate thine Enemy But I say unto you Love your Enemies c. And if Anger Resistance and Hate be taken away What then can remain to occasion Wars Surely nothing From a sight of this Gospel Dispensation it was that the Prophet in the Holy Vision did foretel the peaceable practice of those who should come under the peaceable Government of Jesus Christ They shall beat their Swords into Plow-shares and their Spears into Pruning-hooks Nation shall not lift up Sword against Nation neither shall they learn War any more Isa. 2.4 And they who thus are redeemed out of the Grounds and Occasions of Wars by the workings of the Holy Spirit in them Such if they continue obedient cannot any more take the Sword into their hands Hitherto with respect to those who are in and under the Administration of the Gospel of Peace concerning whom we have from the first since we were a People declared that God hath taken the Sword out of their hands But tho' God hath thus disarm'd his peculiar People of the outward Sword that he might bring them to have a full and entire Dependance upon him for their safety Yet he hath never disarm'd himself of the outward Sword and as he is as well Soveraign of the World as of the Church and ought to have the command of all Mankind so he may put the Sword into the hands of those who are not yet brought under the Administration which I have above spoken of and he can make them Instrumental in his hand to Chastize his and his Peoples Enemies Thus Cyrus who many years before he was born was by name foretold of by the Prophet Isa. 44.28.45.1 is there called in the Word of the Lord Cyrus is my Shepherd he is the Lord 's Anointed These Titles were given with respect to the Services which God had fore-appointed he should do viz. be instrumental in the delivery of Jacob his Servant his Elect. In like manner and to the like purposes the Prophet Jeremiah in the Word of the Lord does in three places call Nebuchadnezzar the Lord's Servant but neither of these were of the peculiar People of God but it pleased him to appoint the Sword into their
be known which is also a very great Truth that we have towards all Governours utterly denied all Fase Dealing and have dealt faithfully and plainly with every one without favour or partiality reproving and blaming every one for their Faults shewing every one their Dangers and warning every one by the Fall of others that went before them to beware of shun and turn from those Evils which brought ruine upon the former But they never joined with fell in with acted with sought or accepted Places of Profit or Trust from any of them which the Fawning Priests and some Professors did and therefore as with very great Truth and Boldness they might and did say all that the Snake has quoted above So with like Truth and Boldness they say more which the Snake has cut out least while he remember'd their Faithfulness his relucting Mind should object his own past Treachery The words as they stand in the place he quotes from are these Treason Treachery and False Dealing we do utterly deny False Dealing Surmising or Plotting against any Creature upon the Face of the Earth and speak the Truth in plainness and singleness of Heart If the Snake could for himself in truth say so much it would be a brave Testimony I come now to a Book of George Bishops Entituled The Warnings of the Lord to the Men of this Generation Printed 1660. Under the Title of which Book because of Directions to two Places at which it was then sold the Snake says they did industriously spread their Treasons But I would know of him why a Warning to Peace Love and Vnity and Caution against Persecution and such this Book is may not at least be disposed of at as many publick Places as his Defamatory Libels or as his Seditious ones was at private Places But now from the Manner of its Disposal we come to the Matter of the Book The Snake begins with p. 27. of this Book and quotes thus p. 228. Beware of falling under this Spirit or of thinking the Breach between you can be healed for I declare it to you from the Lord That it is irreconcileable it cannot it will not be healed Thus far the Snake quotes and by a dash strikes out about three following Lines which are these Yea the day will come and now is wherein it will be said we would have healed Babylon but she would not be healed let us depart every one to his own place And now upon a Consideration of these Lines what more can be the meaning than that that separation and distance which was between the Spirits and Interest of the Conquerors and Conquered was irreconcileable And the Breach of their Contention was such as could not be healed with the peaceable and quiet possession of those who were then uppermost viz. in the Year 1659. which some might then either foolishly hope or wish But now the Snake after his Dash at which he left out the Lines above-mention'd continues his Quotation thus Therefore in the Power and Dread of the Almighty stand and bear over it viz. that Spirit of Persecution which would vainly hope a Reconciliation Crush it to pieces for that Spirit of which G. Bishop is here speaking had persecuted and afflicted and in many ways made Men to suffer for their Tender Consciences Stamp it to Powder i. e that Spirit of Persecution But the Forgery of the Snake is remarkable here for that after the words last above-quoted he puts an c. and then goes on as if what followed in his Quotation did follow in the same order in the Book from which he quotes it but it is far otherwise for the Lines which he here makes to follow do in that Book precede the beginning of his Quotation eleven or twelve Lines and by the like packing and transposing of Lines which this Snake uses a Man may make the Decalogue or the Lords-Prayer speak to answer any purposes which the wicked Projector shall design Ibid. p. 229. Yet in their Declaration to Him the King after his Return p. 7. they Gravely tell Him We are a People that follow after those things that make for Peace and Vnity and which the Snake has left out it is our Desire that others Feet may walk in the same and here the Snake goes on do deny and bear our Testimony against all Strife and Wars and Contentions c. that is says the Snake when they were beaten and cou'd fight no longer First It is notoriously false that the Quakers did Fight or bear Arms in the Year 1659. or any other Year to the opposing of the Restauration Nor indeed was the Restauration brought to pass by Fighting but there was more immediately the Hand of God in it in that without outward Strength the Powers which then were crumbled and broke to pieces as they were often by our Friends foretold they should having in their several Days and Times of Trial been found to encrease that Yoak which was the Original Pretence of their First Opposition to the King And that it was always our Principle to follow after those things that make for Peace and Unity and have desired that others might walk in the same and did bear our Testimony against all Strife and War and Contention c. George Bishop does in this Book of his the Warnings of the Lord testifie where in p. 10. speaking to O. Cromwell and shewing him in what and how far he had regard to him He saith in behalf of Liberty of Conscience which Oliver had before declared to be a Natural Right yet was herein so far darkned as not to establish this Right which once was in his power to have done and therefore G. B. enumerates some of the Sufferings of our Friends to him herein and at the same time tells him what was the nature of that Dispensation which the Quakers were come to which he tells him in these words We who through the unspeakable love of the Father are come to Witness the end of the Wars the Son of God made manifest in the Flesh whose is the Kingdom and the Glory and the Dominion for ever even his Immortal Seed raised and raising up in us by which we are brought to testifie against the World and all the Deceivers therein and against the Fashions and Customs and Works and Deeds thereof that they are Evil as by his Light we have been shewn and by his Blood redeemed therefrom in our own particulars c. And in p. 14. G. B. enumerating some Instances of those whom the Spirit of Persecution had overthrown and the pretences on which they went as Haman to Ahasuerus the Informers against Daniel and the Three Children and the Pretences of the Elders Chief Priests and Scribes against our Saviour as also their pretences against the Apostles under which they would cloak their wickedness hath these words This is what that Spirit viz. of Persecution suggested throughout all Ages on Record in the Scriptures of Truth and with this
it How can they who read and believe that saying of Christ Mat. 16.18 The Gates of Hell shall not prevail against his Church believe that Church to be His whose Total Ruine wou'd follow if Tythes were taken way Now least the Snake should glide away and make his Escape through the words in his Parenthesis as they suppose which I suppose he left for a starting hole Pretending that it is only a Supposition of the Quakers that if the Clergy be depriv'd of their Subsistence Tythes they would sink of Course and so the Total Ruine of the Church wou'd follow It will be convenient to remember That one of the Clergy in a Book writ on purpose in Defence of Tythes Entituled The Right of Tythes Asserted c. p. 13. compares Tythes to the Oyl that nourishes the Lamp without which the Lamp would not burn nor give any Light at all and comparing the Priests to an Army says Because they dare not engage this Army they attempt to force them to disband for want of Pay And p. 15. From a saying of Tacitus concerning the State which he says May be applied to the Church in this Case viz. There can be no Quiet to the Nations without Soldiers no Soldiers without Pay nor no Pay without Tribute on which therefore the Common Safety doth depend He infers Even so no Peace in the Church without Ministers no Ministers without Maintenance nor no Maintenance without these Publick Contributions namely Tythes on which therefore the safety of Religion doth depend I hope the Reader will here consider that it is not as they the Quakers suppose but as they the Clergy suppose that the Total Ruin of the Church would follow as also I wou'd desire my Reader to consider what Religion what Church what Clergy that is that doth so depend on Tythes that if Tythes were taken away these must sink in Course Ibid. p. 245. And this R. Barclay does not conceal That Antichristian Apostatiz'd Generation says he the National Ministry have receiv'd a Deadly Blow by our Witness against their forc'd Maintenance and Tythes So that their Kingdom in the Hearts of Thousands begins to Totter and shall assuredly fall to the Ground Anarchy c. p. 41. Printed 1676. This is a Truth which it was not proper to Conceal for it is fit their Kingdom in the Hearts of People should fall because they have but usurped it they have no Right to have a Kingdom in the Hearts of People and the Reason why it Totters and why it and they will fall is because they are not built upon the Rock Christ Jesus but depend upon a forc'd Maintenance by Tythes of which if they be depriv'd the Clergy will it seems sink in Course Ibid. But what if the Light within some Quakers should allow them to pay Tythes and think they ought in Conscience to do it as being Legally Established c. Whether Tythes be Legally Established is neither my business nor purpose here to discuss but supposing them to be Legally Established is a Legal Establishment by Civil or Human Authority a Bond to bind Conscience in things relating to Religion and the Worship of God Time was when the Sacrament of the Altar Auricular Confession the Caelibate or single Life of Priests and the rest of the Six Articles were in this Nation Legally Established Did that Establishment bind the Conscience to the performance of those things Unhappy Martyrs then who gave their Bodies to be burnt rather than they wou'd comply with those things tho' so Established Legal Establishments are of equal force in one Country as in another Are not these Six Articles not only practised by the Popish Party but reputed to be legally established in Popish Countries and vigorously impos'd and press'd in some particularly in France Are the Poor Protestants there to be Condemned as acting against Conscience while they have suffered such Ravages and Inhumane Cruelties for not complying with those things which are there Legally Established Who but a Snake wou'd thus hiss at them in his envy against Us But says he if the Light within some Quakers should allow them to pay Tythes Wou'd the Quaker Rulers allow them Liberty of Conscience and give them leave to follow their Light within The words Quaker Rulers as scoffingly used by him I reject and know of no such that the Light within ought to be the Rule for every one to walk by I assert But it is not impossible for some who may pretend to walk by it to put Darkness for Light and take that to be the Allowance of the Light to them especially in a case where either advantage or danger outwardly is likely to follow which is contrary to the Light This is not to be wondred at especially by them who call the Scriptures their Rule of Faith and Manners since there is hardly any thing more common nor more evident than that some in all Communions of them do think and are persuaded that according to the Scriptures they ought to believe and practise such things and after such manner as others not only of other Communions owning the same Rule but those of the same Communion with themselves deny to be the meaning of that Rule and oppose or condemn them for If a Bishop or other Clergy-man of the Church of England or any Minister or Member of any other Religious Society should so far mistake himself as to think the Scriptures which he takes for his Rule does allow not to say require him to say Mass to pray to Saints departed or other distinguishing Doctrines of Popery or to practise any abrogated Jewish Rite as Circumcision or the like wou'd the Church of England or any of the other Communions allow such an one the Liberty of his Conscience therein and give him leave to follow that which he says is the sense of the Scripture and yet continue to be of the Clergy of the Church of England or a Minister or Member in those other Communions If not but that they wou'd as they ought disown or deny such a one to be of them let not them condemn themselves in condemning us who have done no more as we ought not to have done less This I judge sufficient answer to his Idle Cavil about T. Crisp and other Apostates from us whose pretence to an allowance from the Light within to act those things which are contrary to the General direction and Testimony of the Light within has been fully laid open in several printed Treatises The Snake to swell his Libel not strengthen his Argument here brings in two Quotations from G. Fox and R. Hubberthorn nor relating to Tythes to which I need say little being already before answered and therefore shall here only add to what is already said that if he intend hereby to deny the Hypothesis only That any of our Writings are given forth by the same Spirit by which the Holy Scriptures were given forth I am content to leave it to the Witness
false Prophets did also speak in his Name and say Thus saith the Lord when he sent them not Ibid. p. 281. This is the Prince of the Spirits of Delusion and this Prince they worship for God who mistake his Inspirations for God's Very well I say so too but that the Quakers are they who mistake his Inspirations for God's is Gratis Dictum 't is saying but not proving as more particularly will appear upon the several Instances which the Snake brings The first Instance in this Section is what he calls a Prophetical verse of George Whitehead's with which he says G.W. pursued George Keith after he was denied by us He gives it in these words Thus saith the Lord Because thou hast poured out great Contempt and Reproach upon my Servants and People I will assuredly pour out and bring great Contempt and Confusion upon thee Of this the Snake says p. 282. Copies were given out amongst the Friends that they might admire these Prophetical Gifts and if any thing unfortunate should in all George Keith 's Life-time befall him that it might certainly be esteemed as the Consequence of this Curse What Proof is this that what he calls G. W's Prophetical Verse did proceed from Rage Malice or Folly Or that G. Whitehead hath therein mistaken the Inspirations of the Prince of the Spirits of Delusion for God's See Reader how forward the Snake is to give hard words and how backward to prove them That G. Keith hath with great Contempt and Reproach treated the Quakers is very certain and not only so but hath Contemptuously and Reproachfully spoken many things of that way of Truth which they profess and which himself did also for many years profess with them which practices as it is an apparent mark of Confusion in him so it nâ—â—essarily draws after it Contempt upon the Actor from all Observing Men. So that the Prophetick Verse as the Snake calls it of G. W.'s carries with it many evidences of Truth which plainly shew he did not therein mistake the Inspirations of the Prince of the Spirits of Delusion for God's And which is further seen in that there is no proof given by the Snake that it did proceed from Rage Malice or Folly in G. W. as is falsly and maliciously suggested by the Adversary And as there can nothing more unhappy fall out to G. K. in all his Life-time than to continue and go on from one degree of Confusion to another so that Confusion is not the Consequence of what the Snake calls George Whitehead's Prophetick Verse But that Verse was the Consequence of Confusion began in G. K. Ibid. Mr. Penn did own before the Yearly Meeting That the Glorious Power of God which he felt did so transport him that he was carried beyond himself and knew not whether he was Sitting Standing or Kneeling when he pronounced that Sentence of Apostacy concerning G. K. This was like St. Paul's whether in the Body or out of the Body he could not tell Well! Suppose it is like it I would ask the Snake whether he dare affirm that at this day it is altogether impossible for the Spirit of God to influence any to that degree of Extasie or Rapture If he will deny that or which will answer the end of our Present Inquiry if he will allow that but deny this to be so it will then be necessary for the Snake to produce the marks by which he proves it to be what in p. 283. he hath so confidently said it is viz. the Violent Transports of Passion But if the Force of this Mad Spirit of Malice had not govern'd the Snake he might have seen that while he does acknowledge what he there says W. P. does speak of himself to be like the Apostle This was like says he St. Paul whether in the Body c. and calls W. Penn's words The force of this Mad Spirit of Enthusiasm He does then Intimate that the Apostles words proceeded from the like force And how far this may expose Religion and the whole Scriptures to Loose and Atheistical Wits may concern some to see who are more truly concern'd for the honour of both than he who while he is inquiring How great is the force of this mad Spirit of Enthusiasm Observes not how great is the force of the mad Spirit of Atheism in himself But further I do own with the Snake that this Extasie or Rapture of W. P's is like that of Paul Whether in Body or out of Body he knew not That is they are a-like in Kind but not Degree W. Penn's as the Snake says did relate to the Posture of the Body but the Apostle's was much higher even so as to forget the Body Ibid. p. 283. And he is thus far towards it that he must either make out his own Inspirations to be from God in as High a Degree as those which were given to the Prophets and Apostles or otherwise that he has no Authority to inscribe the name of God upon them as they did The Snake does here as before allow the Inspiration to be the same but falsly supposes W. Penn under a necessity to make it out to be in as High a Degree which he is not because the Operation of it on W. Penn the Snake says was not in so High a Degree as on the Apostle And while the Snake does falsly suppose that the Inspirations from God at this day must be made out to be in as High a Degree as those which were given to the Prophets and Apostles Or else his name is not to be inscrib'd on them Besides that the Snake does hereby overthrow what in Pref. p. 31. he calls The greatest Flights and Extasies of Devotion and which he there advises to let Rise as High as they can the Higher the better He does also overthrow all that Enthusiasm which he says the Church of England owns for these he hath acknowledged to be Revelations and in some sense immediate too Yet here he says they are not so to be inscrib'd unless they are in as High a Degree as those given to the Prophets and Apostles Which I think he will hardly presume to affirm But altho' this Adversary is thus Contradictory to himself by denying and affirming the same thing yet Truth remains unmoveable and the Inspirations of the Holy Spirit at this day in what Degree soever they are given are truly the same in kind with those given to the Holy Prophets and Apostles In that now as then God by the divers Gifts of his Spirit doth fit furnish and qualifie his Children and Servants to the several Duties and Services in his Church to which he calleth them Ibid. He must likewise justifie all the False Lying Prophesies before told or otherwise he must unherd W. P. is not obliged to defend False Lying Prophesies but deny them nor doth he Herd as the Snake scornfully speaks with any such Ibid. p. 284. Gives two Quotations one for G. F's Answer to The Westmerland
he sheweth that the Devil on a time Assaulted him not in visible Form but by dreadful Suggestions in his Conscience as it were thus calling him to remembrance These many Years thou hast said Mass thou hast shew'd up Bread and Wine to be Worshipped as God yet now thou knowest it was a Creature and not God thereof follow'd Idolatry and thou wert the Cause thereof All these things he saw to be true by the Testimony and Light of his own Conscience and therefore confess'd he had offended and yielded himself unto God The Devil's purpose was to lead him to Despair but God mercifully deliver'd him If he think it so heinous a Matter for a Godly Man to be vex'd by the Devil perhaps he will also find some fault with Christ who was carried by the Devil into the Mount or with St. Paul that had the Angel of Satan to buffet him Thus the Bishop who seems to have had another Sense of this Matter than this our Adversary I shall only add to this before I come to his particular Instances to my Reader That if any Person Professing Unity with us in whom was began the work of Reformation hath not abode Faithful but run into the Temptations of the Enemy and hath had freakish Actions and Gestures and loose and wild Imaginations and have Falsly and Blasphemously Ascrib'd them to be the Operations of the Spirit of God We are not accountable for them as the Apostle was not for those in his time who were given up to strong Delusion because they receiv'd not the Truth in the Love of it All that we find the Apostle did to them that we have done to such that is testifie against them and their ways For we do not own such Inspirations as have not for their Origen the Holy Spirit and are warranted by the Scriptures of Truth I come now to the Snake's Instances His first is thus p. 288. John Gilpin of Kendal in Westmerland has given us a strange and wonderful account of his own Possession by the Devil while he was a Quaker in a Book which he Entituled The Quakers shaken Printed 1653. In Answer to this there was Published in that same Year 1653 a Book Entituled The Standard of the Lord c. to which Book E. Burroughs writ the Epistle to the Reader In which speaking of this same John Gilpin p. 2. he saith By hearing of the Truth declared through the Witness in his own Conscience he was Convinced of the Everlasting Truth c. This was very well but it seems he continued not under that Convincement for he ran out into Airy Imaginations and Imitations as E. B. saith who speaking further of him says I was mov'd to go to see him and his Will was at liberty got above the Judgment though the Judgment was upon the head of the Beast in him and a true Power working but his Will not being kept in Subjection it led him into Impatiency and into Rebelling against the Lord who was made manifest to destroy the unruly Will and wandring Mind And then I did declare against him and shewed him the deceit where it lodged in him Thus E. B. who it hereby appears did shew the Man his state and did also deny him and his doings But the Matter issu'd thus This Gilpin continu'd to go on in that same Rebellion of which E. B. speaks so that he quite run from under the Judgment and Gilpin in this his worst Estate endeavoured with the help of the then Priest of Kendal in a Book Publish'd under Gilpin's Name to charge the Wicked and Blasphemous Actions and Sayings which he had been guilty of upon that Principle of the Light of Christ in Men which the Quakers Profest though Gilpin being Charg'd with it did deny it in these Words I have neither written nor spoken any thing against the Quakers So that by this it should seem the Book was writ by the Priest and Gilpin's Name put for a Cover And if it had not been so but that Gilpin did really write it there was a fair opportunity given them to have prov'd it because the Words above-mentioned spoke by Gilpin were Publish'd in the Answer before-mention'd Entituled The Standard of the Lord c. which came forth in the same Year which that Book Subscrib'd by Gilpin did Ibid. Attested by the then Mayor of Kendal the Minister of Kendal and several other Persons It was not strange that the Mayor of Kendal should be procur'd to Subscribe what the Priest had so eminent a Hand in though he owns it no further than a Fellow Subscriber But as this was an early Instance viz. 1653. wherein the Priest did lead the Civil Magistrate into such a Mistake which a prudent Inquiry wou'd have prevented so we have often since found they have endeavoured to Ride the Civil Power blindly into Mistakes and Prejudices against us and where such have been able to Hood-wink a Magistrate we have seldom found so little disadvantage from it as is the setting his Name to Partial and Untrue Relations of Fact In fine the Case is thus Gilpin as before related was once under a Convincement of Truth but he abode not under the Judgment of God manifested in him for Sin but started aside as a broken Bow He got into Wild Blasphemous and Airy Whimsies and Notions In all this he was presently denied and testified against For Edw. Burroughs did while this Gilpin was under these Extravagancies deny him and we were sufficiently discharg'd of him And what may further shew the Degeneracy of the Man was the Dissoluteness of his After-time for some Actions of which a Warrant was it seems Issuâ—d out for his Apprehension but he like this Snake ran away from it as is express'd in the Book aforesaid which was writ in Answer to him The Snake's next Story is of one James Milner mention'd p. 66. fore-going This Man and some others did as the former start aside from under the Judgment but the Event was not the same as is seen in G. F's Journal p. 103. where speaking of this Man and his Condition he saith James Milner and some of his Company had true Openings at the first but getting up into Pride and Exaltation of Spirit they run out from Truth I was sent for to them and was mov'd of the Lord to go and shew them their Goings forth And they came to see their Folly and Condemn'd it and came into the way of Truth again That he did see and condemn his Folly was very well and it was yet better for him that he return'd into the way of Truth Ibid. p. 289. But then as an Excuse for his false Prophesies and his Blasphemies in calling himself Christ c. he G. F. makes this Comical Apology In some things his mind runn'd out and that he Condemns and yet these wicked Men will go tell the Nation of it Great Mystery Page 298. It is not very Comical but very Provoking to find one who
what we assert and vindicate in each particular Snake p. 175. My Accuser presently shews his Prejudice and Enmity against me without cause As with a new Confession of Faith in such dubious and general Terms as may at first sight deceive the unwary Reader tho' I gave it in as plain and as much in scriptural Terms as I could and as the Matters concerned would admit of And I know my own Sincerity therein better than my Accuser who insincerely calls me Honest George whilst he is aspersing me and casting Dirt at me as Deceiving keeping off contradicting the Heart of the Heresie still preserving it safe and untouch'd and not only so but often with a slily insinuated Excuse and Defence of it So that my confessing Jesus to be the Christ and both his coming in the Flesh and in the Spirit according to holy Scripture-Testimony and also to the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament namely the Holy Doctrine and Divine Precept therein as given by Divine Inspiration on which much of my said Confession against F. Bugg depends this hath no beter Acceptance or Resentment with my Accuser than as no Contradiction to the Heart of Heresie but as still preserving it safe and untouched and which is worse a slily insinuated Excuse and Defence of it Oh sad Stuff Whither will not Pride and Envy precipate some Men What scripturally to confess Jesus Christ and the holy Scriptures as above is this no Contradiction to Heresie But to preserve excuse or defend it What 's Heresie then pray Is it to confess Jesus Christ come in the Flesh c. according to holy Scripture-Testimony of him Oh! For shame leave off such blind Envy and blasphemous Abuse And now to come to the Point How or wherein have I slily insinuated Excuse and Defence of it i. e. of the Heart of Heresie as before p. 175. Thus saith my Accuser in his first Article he confesses Jesus to be the Christ even the same Jesus Christ who was born of the Virgin Mary at Bethlehem c. I confess this is part of my Confession but cannot believe this is either not contradictory to the Heart of Heresie or that it is any Excuse or Defence of it Nor that our confessing God or Christ to be our Light can be any such Excuse or Defence Neither do we attribute the Name Christ to any much less to every one of our selves as we are often falsly accused as here whence he also most unjustly infers That then this will appear that this Confession of Whitehead 's is a meer Fallacy while it attributes no more to Jesus Christ than to G. W. Which is a very foul and absurd Falshood and notorious Lie in Fact and contradiction to my said Confession even so far as it is cited by himself as before which is 1. We sincerely own profess and confess Jesus to be the Christ even the same Jesus Christ who was born of the Virgin Mary at Bethlehem in Judea Mat. 2. suffered Death upon the Cross without the Gates of Jerusalem was quickened and raised again by the Power of God and ascended into Heaven and Glory according to the Scriptures Now have I herein attributed no more to Jesus Christ than to my self as he saith Where did I ever attribute this to my self Where is the meer Fallacy Not in my Confession to Jesus Christ but in this Horrid Abuse and Gross Perversion thereof Did I ever say that I am Jesus Christ Or that I was born of the Virgin Mary Or that I suffered Death upon the Cross at Jerusalem c. Oh! For Shame who cannot see such Malice and Madness as my Adversary has vented against me in this Matter Again I find no Fallacy in my Confession to Christ as without nor is there any unless I had denied the Virgin Mary of whom Christ was born to be without or Bethlehem and Judea and Jerusalem to be without us nor doth Christ being without prove him not to be our Light within for the same Christ said I am the Light of the World therefore he is our Light yea the Quakers Light as he calls it they being included in the World Does not the Sun shine in our Houses because the Body and Fulness of it is without them My Accuser Quibbles and Quarrels with Art 10. of my Confession viz. Our Ministers do not Teach that the Name of Jesus and Christ belong to every Member in the Body or Church as amply as to Christ the Head And here he leaves out all the following explanatory part of the Article as he calls it and Scornfully descants upon the Word amply being in a different Black Character lest quoth he Ibid. you should mistake and think that George was Christ as amply as Jesus And then goes on scoffing That was modest indeed but then George thou art Christ as well as Jesus though not so amply Which is both a false Implication and foreign to my Intention The word amply in that place was only used and intended in direct opposition to F. Bugg's falsly saying The Quakers Teach That the Name Jesus and Christ belong to every Member in the Body as amply as to Christ the Head New Rome Arraign'd p. 47. But even in the same 10 Art quoted against me I do not allow any Member to be called Christ but expresly disallow it though I confess how Christians have some Interest in his Name but not to be called Jesus but Christians The explanatory part of my Confession in the said 10th Article disingenuously left out by this Scoffer is in these Words viz. But that the Divine Anointing to which Name Christ hath relation virtually is in some measure or degree afforded to every Member of his Body but not so amply as to him the Head nor for any Member to be called Christ but a Christian because Christ received the Anointing the Holy Spirit not by measure but in fulness and because he is the Head of the Body the Church And this very Matter is more fully explained in my Charitable Essay in Answer to F. Bugg p. 4. as before It was far from my Thoughts or Intention to imply any such thing as That I am Christ as well as Jesus for I have often written my self A Servant of Christ and so I am I Humbly Bless his Name that is above every Name Therefore I am still very unjustly accused Ibid. with Rank Sophistry Doging and Deluding and casting a Mist before the Eyes of Poor Deluded People or Leading them into the Mystery of Iniquity or of any Equivocation or Jesuitical Confession of Faith I have a Conscience towards God in what I confess and in good Conscience testifie That thou my scornful lurking Adversary hast cast manifold false and gross Defamations upon me and many others of my Christian Persuasion And in the true Sense of Scripture I have both confessed Christ's coming in the Flesh and as he the Word was made or took Flesh John 1.14 And more than
the Socinians I do still confess That as the Reasonable Soul and Body is One Man so He that is God and Man is One Christ. And whether this will give Satisfaction to an Implacable Adversary or no I value not knowing my Conscience Clear in the Sight of Him who Judgeth Righteously which I am sure this my Unjust Judge and False Accuser is not who presently after he has stiled me Honest George unjustly Brands me with Infamy as Sophistry Delusion Depths of Satan Mystery of Iniquity Equivocation Jesuitical Confession c. Oh! Rank Malice Bitter Envy c. As for my Confession in the 7th Art alledged against me it stands good and true viz. We own no such saying as that the Holy Doctrine or Divine Precepts of Scripture is either Dust Death or the Serpent's Meat but truly profitable to us by the Assistance of God's Holy Spirit given to us c. And this was in direct Opposition to F. Bugg's saying These Quakers who pretend to own the Precepts and Doctrine of the Bible to be Holy and Blessed yet say 't is Dust and Death the Serpent's Meat c. Apol. Introd p. 18. to his New Rome We do not believe any of these Quakers ever so said of the Precepts and Doctrine nor do they own any such Saying I wholly disown it But then to beg the Question What was it you called Dust and Serpents Meat Was it nothing else but the Ink and Paper Did any Body ever say That these were not Dust Or Is that any part of the Controversie betwixt us Snake p. 177. Here he yields the Point he grants the Ink and Paper to be Dust. I said Will decay and turn to Dust but so will not the Word the Gospel nor the Holy Doctrine contain'd in Scripture And it has been confess'd by F. B. and others That Holiness is not ascrib'd to the Paper and Ink or Inky Characters that will decay but to the Holy Doctrine and Precepts which will not decay but be permanent and endure and therefore are called the Holy Scriptures with respect to the Holy Matters therein contained That the Books and Writings in Ink and Paper will wear out so will not the Word is evident Jehoiakim King of Judah could burn Jeremiah the Prophet's Roll or Book writ with â—nk by Baruch but not the Word of the Lord nor properly the Words thereof for the same Word caused all the former Words to be written again after the Roll was burnt Jer. 36. If then the Books the Paper and Ink be combustible or will decay and turn to Dust but not the Word nor the Doctrine where 's then the Controversie indeed when the same thing is granted on both sides He quotes Gr. Myst. p. 302. as saying Paper and Ink is not Infallible that will come to Dust unto which the Word Christ and the Spirit is preferred in the same place quoted And in the said Gr. Myst. p. 78. by Letter he there means Paper and Ink but the Scripture the thing it speaks of is Spiritual the Word is Spirit And further p. 127. the Scripture or Writing it self without the Spirit that gave it forth is a dead Letter in it self The Spirit is that that gave forth the Scriptures For my part as I am not in the least conscious to my self of the least Contempt of Holy Scripture nor yet of the Bible for I have always preferr'd it to all other Books extant in the World and more affected Reading therein than any other Book even from my Childhood and often bless Divine Providence for preserving to us the Scriptures So I know of none among us guilty of contemning them Neither is what 's said from any Contempt of Scripture no more than it is of the Earth and the Heavens to say They shall wax old and perish but the Word that made them endureth Psal. 102.25 26. Heb. 1.11 12. But say what we can in this Case to clear our selves of any Contempt to the Holy Scripture this our uncharitable Judge and Accuser will not believe us He 's bent to asperse he has swallow'd down so much of the sour Leven of the Malice of a few false Brethren Persecutors and Apostates from whom he derives much of his Authority and thus scurrilously and most falsly imposes upon me viz. And therefore George notwithstanding all thy meally Modesty it is it is indeed George it is the very Doctrine of the Scriptures which you blaspheme as Dust and Death and Serpents Meat on purpose to bring Men off from trying your pernicious Heresies by those Sacred Oracles Ibid. This is a pernicious Abuse and Calumny against my self and others of us to out-face us against our very Sense and Consciences and in good Conscience I Testifie against it it never entred into my Intention or Thoughts so to blaspheme the Doctrine of the Scriptures as to term or deem it Dust Death or Serpents Meat the Lord rebuke this lying envious Spirit Neither do I vilifie the written Doctrine and Precepts of God in comparison of our New Light as he falsly calls it p. 177. but reverently esteem them The Man makes no Conscience of Defaming us Neither do we quarrel with the Law and the Testimony nor yet with Writing or Scripture as 't is in Ink and Paper but distinguish between the Writing and the Things written which is no contempt to either We are thankful to Divine Providence for both the Scripture or Writing and the Holy Doctrine and Divine Precepts therein written for they testifie unto Christ our Light and our Light to the Truth of them And to what he saith If any do not teach the same i. e. according to the Law and the Testimony or written Word it is because there is no Light in them Isa. 8.20 And then puts this Emphasis upon it No Light George Mark that Your false Pretences to the Light within are here over-rul'd Ibid. I deny that our Pretences to the Light within is either false or are here over-rul'd if they speak not according to this Word it is because there is no Morning to them If he 'll see the Note from the Hebrew in some Bibles he may see no Morning in the Margin over against no Light Then let him Mark that But is there no Light in the Creation before Morning either inward or outward pray Did not the Light shine in Darkness before it shined out of Darkness And had not the Believers a more sure Word of Prophecy whereunto they did well to take heed as unto a Light shining in a dark place until the Day dawned and the Day-star arose in their Hearts 2 Pet. 1.19 And are not many reproved by the Light in them for telling Lies and speaking contrary to the Word c. And therefore there was some true Light in them before the Morning appeared to them And though my Accuser says Ibid. These and such-like Texts detect and explode the miserable Ignorance and Blasphemy of these Pretenders to Light For which we have
his own ipse dixit and much such Raillery but know no plain Texts of Scripture yet produced by him that so detects us but his own Falshood and great Ignorance about the Light is very apparent Again he falsly defames and reproaches me from p. 28. Of Innocency Triumphant with excusing and justifying Diabolical Suggestions in the Quaker-Refuge he saith against the Authority of the Sacred Scripture by saying That it questioned but some not all This Accuser has a most odious injurious course of defaming and perverting as well as curtalizing our Words wherein he has taken part with his famous Author F. Bugg to whom the Answer was given on which he grounds his black Charge against me Of Justifying Diabolical Suggestions c. In which Answer I expresly declare thus viz. His Accusation that the Quakers Insinuate in a Book called The Quakers Refuge That What the true Prophets spake was false and What the false Prophets spoke was true p. 47. New Rome Vnm. p. 23. We disown these Expressions and I think they are not duly inferred from the said Book questioning whether some Words were not spoken by wicked Men some by wise Men ill applied some by good Men ill expressed c. Now at my saying Yet this questioned but of some Words in Scripture not all he takes occasion to Rail fearfully against me as a Justifier of Diabolical Suggestions When my Answer was not with the least intent to oppose or lessen the Authority of the Sacred Scriptures but in direct opposition to F. Bugg's Calumny in these general odious and false Expressions viz. That the Quakers insinuate that What the true Prohets spake was false Which Expressions we utterly deny as both in themselves grosly false against the true Prophets and falsly charged on the Quakers to defame them And as to the Questions cited out of the Quak. Refuge at which Offence is taken 1. They are not mine 2. I do not believe they are the Author 's of that Quak. Refuge though Cited by him 3. It is apparent he does not espouse them as his own Judgment nor make them the Matter in that present Controversie nor resolve them in the Affirmative but seems to recite and wave them as Originally proceeding from some other Person as I understand The furthest that can be drawn from my said Answer to F. B. that may seem offensive which I should be sorry for if 't were really so is my seeming to grant the Question That in some Words some true Prophets were mistaken And if this be made an Offence I think 't is no real one for I designed none However I still confess I believe the Record of Scripture to be true Good Men and some true Prophets also have been and may be mistaken in some things and have had their Weaknesses and Failings truly recorded in Scripture and also their Deliverances for good Ends and Admonition to others Was not Samuel a good Man and a Prophet and yet mistaken when he took Eliab for the Lords Anointed 1 Sam. 16.6 7. And in the Argument upon Job in the ancient Bible is marked That Job maintaineth a good Cause but handleth it evil Again his Adversaries have an evil Matter but they defend it craftily Moreover he was assured that God had not rejected him yet through his great Torments and Afflictions he burst forth into many Inconveniences both of Words and Sentences See the Argument at large And was not the Prophet Elijah mistaken when he thought himself alone or none in Israel but himself that was zealous for the Lord God of Hosts But what saith the Answer of God unto him I have reserved unto my self seven thousand Men that have not bowed the knee to Baal 1 King 19.10 18. Rom. 11.3 4. And to say but little of the Old Prophet that persuaded the Young Prophet contrary to the Word of the Lord 1 King 13. I could instance Jonas David and several others that were good Men who had some Weaknesses and Mistakes in Words and Actions yet the Lord was good to them and helped them according to the Integrity of their Hearts towards him And these Things being truly recorded in Scripture for Instruction and Admonition we truly esteem the Scripture-Record thereof And even where the Words Lies Blasphemies and Actions of the Devil wicked Men and Persecutors and the Judgments which befel them are recorded in the Scriptures we own the Record or History thereof to be true and highly esteem it for Instruction and Warning to Men. And to distinguish between the Words of God in Scripture and the Words of the Devil is but what the Scripture it self doth which can be no Contempt to it for I have known some stumble by some of the Priests making no distinction but calling all that 's written in Scripture the Word of God as one that was the Mayor of Thetford near forty Years ago told me That a Priest wanting Induction into the vacant Benefice and preaching there for Approbation took his Text out of the Words wherewith the Devil tempted Christ Mat. 4. And bidding the People hearken to the Word of God as they should find it written in such a Chapter and Verse whereupon this Person that told me of it was so offended that he would not give his Voice to chuse the said Priest because he had told them that was the Word of God which was the Words of the Devil Now let none be so disingenuous as to take this as in Contempt of the Holy Scripture Doctrine or Precepts therein for where either the Words Blaspemies wicked Actions or Persecutions of the Devil or Men are therein mentioned the Record thereof is true and in Testimony against them and the intent of such Record holy just and good Farther my Accuser tells me Nor is my Salvâ— more ingenuous in the Eleventh Article And why so It is really say I contrary to our Faith and Principle to make Christ Jesus himself Only a Figure a Veil or Garment p. 178. Which was in direct opposition to his Author F. Bugg's falsly saying The Quakers would make Christ only a Figure a Veil a Garment implied by way of Question p. 58. New Rome Ar. Here he quarrels with the word Only as with the word Amply and accuseth me with Equivocating and that this is but a Negative Confession But really George quoth he this is not re-assuming your Christian Testimony in the Affirmative as thou didst promise c. still hiding your self in the Dark in Negatives But we would know affirmatively what it is you do profess and this thou didst promise and this thou hast not perform'd p. 179. Here he accuseth me with breach of Promise but very falsly as in the said 11th Article it is plain that my Confession of Christ Jesus himself is not only Negative but affirmative namely He being the Substance and End of all Figures Types and Shadows Is not this Affirmative pray And as remote from Truth is his accusing the Quakers Books of calling