of dirty words enough to defile the Air c. but it is no new or strange thing that Light should be put for Darkness and Good called Evil and Blessed are ye said Christ to his Disciples when men shall speak all manner of Evil against you falsly for my sake if they have called Christ a Blasphemer c. what may his Servants expect So used the Papists and Popish Clergy to abuse the primitive Protestants the sincere sort and part of which who from true inward Conviction of Truth and zeal to Truth did witness against the corrupt Doctrines and Practices of the Church of Rome we cordially own and have unity with their Testimony against the same And though ye four seek to gain applause and praise from the ignorant Multitude as if ye were mainly concerned to defend the Principles of the Protestant Religion against the Quakers yet I question not but to make it appear that the People called Quakers are better and truer Protestants than your selves and whatever was of Truth and true Doctrine and true Christian Practice or is among all the sorts of Protestants we do own it according to our knowledge and ability and deny nothing of what was ever or is true among them only what is no true part of true Protestant Doctrine but dross or dreg and refuse that did or doth cleave to any or all that go under that Name of Protestants or Protestant Churches we do justly renounce and disown and this is not to turn Apostates but to go forward and follow the Lord in his further leadings and discoveries for Luther after whom and those that did own him the Protestants were so call'd did plainly acknowledge That the Light of the Gospel that did shine in his time was a certain sign of the glorious appearance of our Lord and Saviour Christ and like the Morning Red that appeareth be ore the everlasting Day and rising of the Son of Righteousness see cap. 12. pag. 198. of his Mensalia and therefore Luther did account the Light that shined in him and his Brethren but as the twi-light before the Sun arise and it is certain that men cannot see well in the twi-light to discern many things and ye your selves will and do acknowledge that both Luther and Calvin had their mistakes and yet ye will not allow your selves to be Apostates that ye agree not with them in these Mistakes and Luther did prophesie of a horrible Darkness that was to follow after his time cap. 7. p. 130. of that Book and is not this fullfilled in great part over the generality of Protestants as well Lutherans as others that go under the Name of Protestants not to mention the People caâ—led Quakers whom ye will not reckon to be so considerable as to have caused such a dark Cloud or shadow to overspread it is manifest to the impartial that these called Protestants or first Reformers as in too many things they fell short and retained too many Reliques of Popish Doctrines and Practices so in other things they did run into Extreams as is too common for men to do out from the middle path and since Protestants generally own the holy Scriptures as the only supream outward Rule and Standard and publick Test and Touchstone whereby to try all Doctrines and Practices of Christian Religion the which also we do it is evident that whatsoever Doctrine or Practice is agreeab e to the holy Scripture is both Christian Protestant and there are no Principles of Doctrine received by us in opposition to Popery but what we have great Numbers not only aâ— good but better Protestants than your selves receiving the same Doctrine as may in tâ—me be made appear and not only confirm'd with Scripture-Authority but with aâ—tient Writers acknowledged by you to have been truly Pious The narrow-spirited party in New-England and in some other parts of the world who too unchristianly judge all others who differ from them in some matters of Doctrine to be Hereticks Impostors c. are so far from being the whole Body of Protestants that they are but a very small and inconsiderable part thereof especially ye call'd Independents And tho' ye upbraid the People calâ—'d Quakers with Novelty saying The Novelty of the Sect proves their Falsity because a Quaker said anno 1659. it is now about 7 years since the Lord raised us up yet this doth nothing militate against the Quakers more than against you called Independents and Presbyterians for your being raised up or appearing in the World under such a Name and Model of Doctrine Discipline Ministry and as peculiarly distinguished from other Societies and by your peculiar circumstances is but Novel and oâ— late years for ye cannot trace your bâ—ginning as such higher than the Brownists so called of Amsterdam in Qu. Elizabeth's dayes from which ye have not a little degenerated both in Doctrine and Life and your present Model is yet later and but erected since New-England was planted with English People scarce seventy years ago and in respect of Novelty there is no great odds betwixt seven Years and seventy Years yeâ— or seven hundred Years for that Religion Doctrine wâ—ich cannot be proved to be as old as the â—rophets and Apostles yea in some sort from the beginning is not true but false It is a true saying of some antient Writers Antiquissima quid verissima i. e. The truest Principles of Doctrine are the most Antient and as the Protestants used to answer the Papists when they queried Where their Religion was before Luther saying Where Popery was not to wit in the holy Scriptures sufficiently declared we can say the same If we prove our Doctrine to be warranted from the Scripture as we have done and are able still to do througâ— Gods help we prove our Religion to be antient enough And tho' one called a Quaker said or writ anno 1659 that they were raised up seven Years agone this doth not infer the Newness of their Religion but at most that at that time they were but newly come to the true knowledge and faith of it even as when an Infidel is converted but this year to the faith of Christ it doth not follow that the faith of Christ is not elder than his Conversion It s true the Name Quakers were not given till about the Year afore-mentioned nor had they such Discoveries and Knowledge of Truth before as then yet that doth not hinder but the Truth then revâ—aled unto them was from the beginning Men see not the light of the Sun unâ—il they be born into the World yet the same â—ight was in the World some Thousands of Years before they were born Not one of these twelve Principles in debate â—etwixt you and us but I can bring Testimonies of Protestant Writers of great note and account holding with us as may in due time appear After ye have railed against me after a most unchristian and licentious manner ye say Ye will give no further Reply unto
Declaration solemnly denying That ever he so spoke or thought printed in the Appendix of G. W. to W. P's Book call'd Reason against Railing being an Answer to Tho. Hick's Forgeries against the Quakers see p. 11. of the said Appendix And whereas Henry Stout was referred unto as a witness against N. Lucas he And thus ye give away your cause fairly for that work of the Spirit is a real inward Evidence Word and Testimony or Witness of a Truth not contained in the Scripture neither expresly nor consequentially viz. That A. B. or J. C. hath the inâ—allible Marks of a justified man for whereas ye use to resolve your assurance into a practical Syllogism thus Every one that hath such infallible Marks of a jâ—stified man is justified But A. B. hath such infallible Marks Therefore A. B. is a jâ—stified Man The which Practical Syllogism having two Propositions the first is warranted by Scripture but the second is no where warrantâ—d by any place of Scripture viz. that A B. or J. A. or J. M. or S. W. or C. M. hath these infalliâ—le Marks This is the only work of the Spirit which ye confess is neither Scripture nor Scripture Consequence and yet discovereth a great Truth and very sweeâ— and precious to such who have it and though the Scripture be instrumental to warrant the first Proposition yet we find no Scripture to warrant the second viz. that A. B. or any of you have such infallible Marks or if ye have any such Scripture warrant produce it otherwise acknowledge your rash undertaking The second Instance that refers to an inward Call to the Ministry ye reject and say It runs upon the same foolâ—sh Notion with the former Ye say it indeed and that is all but say nothing to prove it to be so yea by your saying it ye show what sort of Ministers ye are to wit That ye are no Ministers of the Spirit of God which is inwaâ—d in all his true Ministers and as he is inward and inwardly in-dwelling so his Call and Motion is inwardly revealed And though ye make a great noise as if ye were mighty Defenders of the Christian and Protestant Doctrine against the Quakers in these and other things ye the Qâ—akers so called are the best Christians an Protestants in these very Doctrine â—or have not many Protestant Ministers who never had any outward Call from Pope or Clergy or People alledged the inward Call of God in their hearts to the work of the Ministry as well as the inward assistance â—f the Spirit of God in the exercise of it which yet hâ—th no Scripture to prove that such a particular man hath it Calvin in his Institutions saith expresly That God did raise up in his Day if not Prophets and Apostles yet Evangelists to reform the Church And Luther declaring his inward Call to the Ministry saith He was as it were tugg'd by his Hair to the Office of the Ministry see cap. 1. pag. 11. Mensal And surely this was an inward call had great inward sensible evidence And cap. 11. p. 19. of Gods Word he saith Sectaries and Seducers know to preach much of Christ but seeing they feel him not in their hearts they leave the right ground of the Ministry Again p. 3. c. 1. he citeth divers Scriptures to prove That God and the holy Spirit speaketh now in true Ministers of Christ as he did in the Prophets and Apostles as where Christ said It is not ye that speak but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you and where Peter said Holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the holy Ghost Both which place with others Luther applyeth to true Ministers in his day and yet when we commonly bring these places the common answer of Presbyterians and Independents is That these places of Scripture were fulfilled to the Prophets and Apostles but not to any men in our days And tho' ye upbraid the Quakers Doctrine with Novelty yet in the former instance concerning a mans being assured infallibly of his Election and eternal Salvation as the Testimony of the Scripture is for us so of Antiquity for Augustine saith expresly lib. 11. de Civit. dej c. 12. What man knoweth that he shall finally peâ—severe in the Action and Progress of Righteousness unless he be certain by some Revelation from him who doth not teach all of this thing by his just and secret judgment but deceiveth no man Where it is plain that according to Aâ—gustine who lived above 1200 years ago That all who begin in true Piety do not persevere and That no man can know that he shall persevere without divine inward Revelation In both which he contradicteth you and confirmeth the Doctrine of the People called Quakers And yet though Augustine be a Saint in your esteem the Quakers for holding the same thing must be Apostates and no charity allowed them to be Christians And as noted and well accounted Protestants say the same with us as Grotius and the Remonstrants generally who are all better Protestants in Doctrine than your selves whether ye wiâ—l acknowledge it or not I had not medled to cite any other Authors but Scriptures but that ye would needs be so impertinent as to state the Debate betwixt you and us as if the Quakers Doctrine were a meer Novelty and only neâ—ly started up to undermine the Protestant Doctrine Whereas we have more and better Protestants with us than ye have Ye had done better not to have brought the Controversie â—o this issue as if the Quakers were not P otestants when we can easily prove our Doctrine in all these twelve Particulars to be warranted by Protestants of better and more famous account than your selves In my Third Instance ye pervert my words after your wonted manner saying p. 14. That I hold men are to tarry for an inward call to pray or perform any Religious Duty But I did not say so but that every true Christian should know his inward Call to pray or give thanks from Psal 27.8 which ye wholly pass by unanswered Now to Know the inward call is one thing and to Tarry for it is another some inward calls are to be waited for as when a duty is not alwayes required of a man but only at certain times as vocal Prayer c. But all such Duties as are continually required of us to be done at all times as To believe in God To love God To fear him yea and continually to pray unto him with inward breathings and desires have a continual inward call and command that needeth to be known although it is given and no man should suppose it will be wanting to him to do every thing that is his continual Duty Pag. 16. Ye say Ye deny not but the Spirit of God doth still put an impulse on the Spirits of his People frequently but ye query Is it self-evident or must not the warrantableness of it be tryed by Scripture rules I Answ It is
self-evident and yet may be tryed by the warrantableness of Scriptuâ—e Rules but the warrantableness of a practice doth not prove in the least the impulse or mâ—tion to be divine for a wrong or evil Spirit may move a man to do a thing that is not unlawful or unwarrantable in it self as to take a Journey from England to America and yet if he obey such a motion or impulse he should not do well and might suffer great hurt thereby And if a divine impulse have no self-evidence or some inward self-evidencing Light to discover it to be divine it is good for nothing for it leaveth a man still in the dark and at uncertainty surely Gods inward leadings are sure certain as thousands to Gods praise can witness against all your ignorant but presumptious Assertions without â—â—l Proof And ye say I tell you that Phillip Peter and others were extraordinaryly called to such and such Services where ye pervert my words for I do not say of these particular Services mentioned by me there that they wâ—re extraordinarily called unâ—o them for to go to a place or Persons to preach the Gospel is no extraoâ—dinary but ordinary inward Call of Gods Servants in all Ages though Peter and the other Apostles had in other cases extraordinary Calls and Revelations That place in James 4.15 If the Lord will ye uâ—derstand it only of divine Providence permitting any man to do what he wiâ—leth if not forbidden in Scripture But as this is meerly begged by you without all proof but your bare affirmation so it is altogether absurd for how many do rash and hurtful things both to themselves and their Families which yet are not forbidden by Scripture as for a man to leave one place and remove to another beyond Seas is not forbidden in Scripture and yet if he undertake such a thing meerly because divine Providence doth not outwardly stop him by some cross event without the inward sence and approbation of divine will inwardly permitting or allowing him he may have cause to repent it all his dayeâ— for mâ—ny by so doing have fallen into gâ—eat Inconvenâ—encies Ye are miserable comforters that wiâ—l not allow to People that priviledge that they may wait to know Gods divine good Will and Approbation in their hearts in their removals from one place to another and in other weighty concerns of this Life And as concerning Marriages ye do allow People to ask Gods mind and couâ—sel with whom to joyn in Marriage and if they are not to expect a return of their Prayers otherwise than a bare outward permission of divine Providence What is this but to mock God and deceive poor People But to Gods praise many can say they have both sought and received Gods counsel with whom to joyn in Marriage and because thereof have found their Marriage made both blessed and comfortable unto them in the midst of all Tryals Pag. 17. Ye call my saying That God answers the returns of the Prayers of his People c. A Quakerism i. e. Non-sence I pity your Ignorance and want of Experience May not the frequent and reiterated Prayers of his People for the same thing be called the Returns of their Prayers as when a Child returneth again and again to seek a thing of his Father and that God answereth these reiterated and returning Prayers as in Pauls Case who Prayed for one thing thrice thousands can witness though to you this is Nonsenâ—e because ye have neither sence nor salt in your selves to descern it It is a great encouragement to pray unto God that we find him to answer us by his living voice and speech in us and when God speaketh to us Scripture words or promises by his living voice and speech in us it is a new Revelation and divine Inspiration to us although not of any new doctrine for there may be thousands of new and distinct Revelations of the same Doctrine as there may be a thousand sights and eyes beholding the same thing and a thousand Voices speaking the same thing and all these Voices are new and distinct and yet the thing spokon is one and the same and Ancient and not New Pag. 18. That the word of the Lord grew and multiplied ought to be understood as well extensively in respect of multitude of living Testimonies as Intensively in respect of Efficacy for there was both at that time and though there was no new Doctrines yet there were new and that manifold and frequent living Testimonies to the same Doctrine and therefore the Word it self was properly encreased and multiplied Ye blame me for saying Christ and his Apostles expounded the scriptures by Inspiration and yet taught no new Doctrine but it seemeth ye have forgot that Paul said the same Acts 26.22 for all that Christ and the Apostles taught and enjoyned was either declared or fore-told by the Prophets loâ—g before therefore the Doctrine was the same for substance and the Gospel was preached to Abraham and to the Prophets but after Christs Resurrection the Dispensation of it was more clear and full Pag. 19. ye blame me for Charging that upon you in the 12th Article which ye never believed much less proâ—essed viz. that the Scriptures ought to be believed only for their own outward evidence and Testimony and not for the inward Evidence and Testimony of the holy spirit in mens hearts But in this ye are equally impertinent as in most other things as I have showed in my Answer to Cotton Mather to which I refer more at large Ye say The scripture is the only Rule oâ— Faith and hath a Self-evidence but the inward Testimony and Witness of the Spirit hath no Self-evidence but as some have called it Medium incognitum assentiendi i. e. and unknown middle or mean of assenting and that ye deny all Inspiration and Revelation properly so called all this proveth you guilty in the sight of all impartial men for to talk of an evidence or witness among men that hath not a certainty or Self-evidencing Authority in it by it self is absurd and illegal he who is a witness or evidence among men must not borrow his evidence from another and to say the Spirit of God in his inward teaching and illumination hath no proper and self evidence as it derogates from the Glory of it so it is as absurd as to say the Suns light at noon day hath no evidence of its own but men must light a Candle to let people see the suns light at noon This is rare Logick of yours Ye insinuate I seâ—k out more sences of the word Logos than it can bear without Tautologi s but if these be Tautologies the English Translation of the bible hath made them and not I and yet a true difference can be assigned by School-boyes betwixt Communication as passâ—ng betwixt two or more and words of talk and speech that may be of one when none doth answer Pag. 20. ye will have the word of God compared to
to so weighty a place of Scripture with divers others adjoyned But blind men cannot judge of Colours Pag. 29. My Comparison taken from the outward teaching of humane Sciences that presuppose some inward Principles of natural Knowledge in the Learners whereby to show the consistency and harmony of outward teaching of divine things and the inward teaching by the Spirit as presupposed in part and in the other part accompanying the outward Teaching ye understand it not and therefore ye call it Impertinent but impertinently talk against it for I do not intend by the same to hold forth any New Revelation of any new Doctrine as I have oft toâ—d you but a new Revelation of antient Doctrine and the comparison is proper and pertinent in this respect that as outward teaching of natural things require an inward Principle and light of Knowledge that is natural so the outward teaching of spiritual and divine things require an inward Principle of divine and spiritual Knowledge whereby to enable the Soul to perceive them otherwise a man could be no more capable to know divine and spiritual things than a Beast would be capable to know humane things for as the spirit of a man teacheth man things of men so the Spirit of God in men teacheth them who hearken thereto the things of God Pag. 31. Ye blame me for putting a scurrelous Title upon that ye call the reverend Assembly calling them Faith-makers who never pretended to any new Revelations of any article of Faith more than is contained in Scripture But as they pretend not to that so nor to any new Revelation or Inspiration of that Doctrine which is contained in Scripture and that is their great fault to deny all such Revelation even of that Doctrine there contained for without divine inward Revelation and Inspiration the true Faith of the Doctrines contained in Scripture canot be discovered no more than we can see to read what is printed in a Book without light and therefore their Faith is but a made Faith and also that in the ignorance and blindness of their minds they have made things Articles of Faith which are false and contrary to Scripture and therefore I am not to be blamed for so calling them Pag. 33. By your granting That there is a spiritual â—eeling and tasting and intuitive Knowledge of God and divine things ye give away your cause to the Quakers and contradict your grand Principle That there is no divine Immediate Revelation for intuitive knowledge is immediate and immediate knowledge must have an immediate Light and Revelation as when I see a picture of a man in a Table or read a discourse of him in a Book that knowledge of him is only abstractive and discursive as also when I see England only in a Map and that is but remote and mediate knowledge but when I see a man face to face in the clear light of the day and see the Land of England it self that Knowledge is Immediate and Intuitive But tell me in good earnest do ye indeed grant that there is an Intuitive Knowledge of God that is not discursive and abstractive that is certainly to see God and to hear him without a necessity of the interposition of words or other means I am sure this is Immediate Revelation and I am as sure that ye commonly deny it and tell People They shall noâ— hear God nor see him in this mortal Life for the vision of God is râ—served to the future life as ye use to say But ye say and unsay the same thing a vice ye charge upon me but are guilty therein yourselves And grantiâ—g it be so that we have no Intuitive Knowledge of any divine Truth whereof we had not a discursive Knowledge before this saith nothing against our Principle no more than that a man first hath a discursive knowledge of England before he see it We grant the discursive kâ—owledge is serviceable and commonly introductory to the intuitive and yet both may consist together though the intuitive excelleth the discursive as far as the sight of the Land of England excelleth the sight of the bare Map of it Discursive Knowledge cannot be without words or pictures of things and signs of them but Intuitive Knowledge can be without all words sign now if ye grant that men have a knowledge of God and Christ and divine Things without all words i. e. without the Scripture ye fairly give away your cause for if without Scripture then surely by Immediate Revelation for the Scriptures are the means ye say altogether necessary to obtain all the knowledge of God that any have or can have in this mortal Life But for the better Information of the Reader I say the Scriptures are the usual necessary means in God's ordinary way of working whereby men obtain the Doctrâ—nal and Discâ—â—sive Knowledge of the Christian Faith and Religion And seeing the doctrinal and discursive Knowledge is of great service to prepare the Souls of men for thâ— intuitive and sensible Knowledge oâ— God that cometh after that is an immediate enjoyment of him a taste and sight of him that he is good and gracious and also seeing this intuitive and sensible knowledge of God is gradual and is to encrease in the most advanced and that the doctrinal knowledge hath still a preparatory service to the same it followeth that the holy Scriptures have a preparatory service and use to Gods Saints while in the mortal Body yet in so far as the end of this preparatory service is answered by the Souls obtaining some degree of that intuitive and sensible knowledge of God by the sight and taste of him as inwardly revealed in and through Christ that immediate â—ervice and need of the Scripture ceaseth in respect of that degree of intuition sight taste and sensible knowledge of God that the Soul hath for that present time even as when a Husbandman useth many means instruments of Husbandry to procure Bread and other good Provisions for himself the use of these means and instruments are alwayes necessary at times and that frequently but there are times that he enjoyeth the fruits of his labours that he eateth and drinketh and is refreshed and when he sitteth down to eat and drink 〈◊〉 his Table he needeth not in those intervals of time to use his instruments of Husbandry as the Plow the Cart the Hoe c. nor so much as at that time to think of them And thus it is as touching the use and service of the Scriptures and other outward helps and means the use and service and profit of them is great to all the Saints and Children of God in this mortal life to the end of it even as the use of the Instruments of Husbandry is to the Husband-man but yet there are times of feeding in the House of God where the Souls of the faithful either together or apart eat of the heavenly Bread and drink of the heavenly Wine in the House and Kingdom
exprâ—sly affirmed pag. 112. Now let us hear your Answer ye say They had believed in a Christ to come though at present they knew not that â—e was come in the flâ—sh till it was further revâ—aled to them Aâ—sw At this rate ye make all the Jews throughout the whole World true Believers in Christ because they all profess to believe iâ— a Christ to come even as ye say Nathaniel and Cornelius believed in a Christ to come But as it was the true Faith to believe in Christ to come before he was come so it was not the true Faith but a great mistake or error at least though pardonable to believe in Christ to come in flesh when the true Christ was already come for their Faith could not be the true Faith which had not the true Object for to believe in a Christ yet to come in the flesh is a false Faith such as the faith is of those hardened Jews who generally believe not in Christ who is already come in the flesh but in a Christ or Messiah whom they imagine yet to come in the flesh And before that Peter preached to Cornelius Christ was crucified and raised again And seeing ye grant Cornelius had not faith in Christ crucified until Peter preached unto him and yet was in a good state ye quite give away your cause Beside that ye meerly alledge it without proof That Cornelius had any sort of Faith of a Christ to come in the flesh at that time for it only appeareth that he was a devout and religious Gentile but no Proselite to the Jewish Religion A Third Instance I gave you of Christs Apostles who had not the true knowledge and faith of Christs Death and Resurrection for some time for it is expresly said in Scripture when Christ told them he was to be put to Death and to rise again the third day They understood it not and yet who will say they were altogether in a state of Damnation Ye are so pinched here that your Cause is desperate and that makes you so angry and fretful Ye say Faith in God without Christ viz. come in the Flesh and crucified c. is not saving citing John 14.6 Acts 4.12 I have answered you it is not in that degree so as to perfect the work of Salvation but yet it hath a preparatory work and may begin it otherwise ye must say the Apostles that were ignorant that Christ should dye were not in any state of Salvation Pag. 95. Ye imagine that ye have got a wonderful advantage saying What then shall we say to his New Doctrine that they may receive it after death Ye further say We shall have a new Quakers Purgatory erected ere long But if ye were not very partial ye might see I did principally argue so with you ad hominem because of your Principle according to your own Doctrine in your Conf ssion of Faith that saith The Souls of the Righteous after Death Note after Death being then made perfect in Holiness are received into the highest Heavens These are the expresâ— words of your Catechism as I told you cap. 32 sect 1. and that ye say It is a bold Vntruth for they say no such thing there I Aâ—swer Let the Reader but be at the pains to read that place cited cap. 32. s 1. and he shall find it expresly so and therefore the bold Untruth is your own and not mine and if they contradict it in their shorter Catechism by saying at the instant oâ— death what is that to me they must answer for their own contradictions and not I for them And for my saying after Death it was by way of Hypothesis If I should say And whereas I brought you a Scripture out of Job cap. 33.22 23 24. to show the wonderful dealings workings of God with men on their death bed or at death without the outward Ministry of men to show unto them their Uprightness and the Ransom or Attonement see from v. 14. to v. 30. Even by his own speaking to them in a Dream in a Vision of the Night when deep sleep falleth upon men in slumberings upon the Bed then he openeth the Ears of men and as it is on the Margin he revealeth or uncovereth Heb. and sealeth their Instruction What say ye to this weighty place of Scripture that deserveth so great consideration as holding forth the wonderful love of God towards men in general for the word Man indefinitely is to be understood universally or generally see v. 29. Lo all these things worketh God often times with man and his care over them that where outward helps and means of mens Ministry fail he supplyeth by his own speaking to them yea when deep sleep falleth upon men whether that sleep be understood natural or figurative is not very material to determine and all to keep back their Souls from the Pit and that they may be enlightned with the Light of the living Certainly this place of Scripture hath much in it yea very much more than ye or most are aware of to prove that Gods love and care is exceeding great towards Mankind and his patience and long-suffering is greatly extended towards them to keep back their Souls from the Pit which altogether doth overturn that most cruel and Cannibal-like Doctrine of yours that saith God damneth many Infants to Hâ—ll and universally all who have not have had Christ preached unto them by the Ministry oâ— men except in some singular cases of Abraham and some others that were Prophets But to this weighty place of Scripture ye say nothing at all but are as mute as a Fish it is a cunning way in you to pass by with a dry foot as ye phrase it that which most pincheth you lest by medling with it ye should not only wet your feet but be in danger to drown your sinking and desperate Cause All sober Protestants as well as others will condemn you for your great uncharity to Damn not only so many Millions of honest Gentiles but of poor Infants that ye say never sinned actually in thought word or deed but meerly for the sin of another that was forgiven to him and thousands more yea not only the Episcopal but many in the Church of Rome are not so uncharitable Your great Uncharitableness maketh you cruel and haâ—d-hearted and this begetteth in you a spirit of Persecution But is it not a great sin in you to be so uncharitable when ye have no ground but your own mistakes of some place of Scripture hard to be understood Oh! Repent of this your great sin not only of Unâ—haritableness towards so great a part of Mankind but of your evil and sinful thoughts of God Almighty rendring him so cruel and so short in his Mercy who hath declared himself to be good unto all and his tender Mercies to be over all his Works and that he is slow to Wrath long-suffering and with much long-suffering he endureth the Vessels of Wrath perfected for
proof and that ye say Antient and Modern Interpreters agree therein yâ— show your rashness for ye name no antient Writer that saith so And Theodoretus a very antient Writer expoundeth that place Psal 89.15 in his Commentary on the Psalms of the Jâ—bilation or joyful Sound in the Gentiles in Gospel-dayes who should believe in Christ and it is evident that the Psalm is a Prophecy of Christ and of the great blessings that should come to all Nations both Jews and Gentiles by him as both Theodoretus and other antient and modern Writers understand it as is clear from vers 25 26 27 28 29 c. that is not applicable to David but to Christ whereof David was a Type And that ye say The Quakers give notice of their Meetings we grant but yet we use neither Bell nor Drum to give such notice and find no need nor occasion for any such superstitious Custom Pag. 135. Ye query May ye not succeed the Apostles in their Ministry though not in their Apostleship I Answer Nay seeing ye deny that which qualifieth all true Ministers of Christ which is the Spirit and Power of Christ inwardly revealed and that ye require nothing of real inward Godliness necessary to constitute a Minister of Christ ye have no President for your Ministry that ye plead for without true piety from the true Apostles but from Judas the Apostate that betrayed the Lord Jesus Christ and in so doing fell from his Ministry yea ye are not ashamed to mention him and the Pharisees for your Presidents and Patrons to which I have formerly replyed And though the Apostles ordained Elders and Over-seers over gathered Churches yet it was by the direction of the holy Ghost and this ye deny that your Ordination was such Nor was it proper and peculiar only to the Apostles to travel through the Nations to preach the Gospel but was common to other Pastors and Teachers as to the Apostles as is clear from the Acts of the Apostles and from Christs Commission And every true Minister of Christ is to know his place and calling by the Spirit of the Lord how long he is to stay among a People whether all his Life time or for some season But if ye were indeed called of God to sit down all your dayes in one plâ—ce how cometh it to be so usual among you to remove from one place to another and most commonly to some new place where ye can have a greater Benefice or some better outward Accomodation Pag. 136. Ye say I reflect a Scandal upon you in respect of the endeavours for the Conversion of the Indians for this ye refer to the printed Accounts But ye should have mentioned in particular what these printed acounts say that they might be examined whether true or false for we know many printed Accounts are false and it is most manifest that great Sums of Money have been sent out of Old England to encourage that work of preaching to the Indians and it is as manifest that much of that Money hath been ill bestowed and improved as the Country of New-England knoweth well enough and these called Christian Indians your pretended Converts are known generally to be worse than the poor Heathens CAP. X. PAg. 136. Ye say so little in defence of that ye call your Two Sacraments confessing withal That the Scripture saith nothing of the word Sacrament that I shall not spend Paper nor Time to answer all your Impertinencies considering that I have said enough that may suffice to answer you in my former Reply to Pardon Tillinghast for if Water-Baptism be no Gospel Precept then surely sprinkling Infants is none only I shall consider some of the grossest of them Pag. 137. As for sprinkling ye say ye plead not for it but for pouring Water not on the fore-head only but on the face This seemeth a learned distinction that may pass current among ignorant People what difference betwixt sprinkling and pouring seeing all the Water ye pour is neither gallon nor pint but so much as ye can hold in the hollow of your hand which cannot well wet the whole face and therefore is more sprinkling but still ye are to seek for a proof that either sprinkling or pouring Water on a childs facâ— was ever commanded by Christ or practised by any of the Apostles or Ministers of Christ recordâ—d in Scripture Ye say Origine and Cyprian tell us that the Apostles gave order for the baptizing of Infants withal citing Augustin but this is no Scripture-proof and Authority of antient Writers without Scripture ought to be of no weight among true Protestants The Church of Rome doth so argue for her unscriptural Traditions and is more ingenuous than ye that she doth confess There is no Aâ—tâ—ority for Infant Baptism but only the Tradition of the Church and if ye have no better Authority than Tradition your cause is desperate and your Refuge to the Tradition of antient Writers proveth you more Popish than Protestant And as for Origine Cyprian and Augustine they lived long after the first Century and ye can give no evidence in Church History that Infant Baptism was practised until Cyprians time past two hundred years from Christs Resurrection and whereas while the practice of Water-Baptism continued in the Church it was required that before Baptism the Persons that were to be baptized should confess to the Truth and also that they did confess their sins and declare their Repentance and Faith which Infants could not do and therefore were incapable of Water-Baptism to supply which defect in after Ages the invention of God-fathers that should confess and vow for them was set up that hath no shadow of ground in Scripture Pag. 139. Ye say I frauduleâ—tly omit that clause citing Luke 18.15 16. For of such iâ— the Kingdom of God Answ I do not fraudulently omit it but saw no necessity to repeat it as having not the least seeming strength in it for Water-Baptism to Infants for granting that those Infants or such belonged to the Kingdom of God it doth not therefore follow that they were baptized with Water ye must show either Precept or Practice but ye do neither and that ye say It is above the capacity of Children to receive the Lords Supper so call'd ye give no instance wherein that is more above their capacity than to receive Infant Baptism by sprinkling or pouring seeing both ye say are signs of spiritual Mysteries and in Augustines time that call'd the Supper was given to Children or Infants if they be uncapable of understanding the thing signified by the one so are they of understanding the thing signified by the other Ye falsly alledge That Contra-distinguished signifieth two Contraryes the one to the other but I did not unâ—eâ—stand any câ—ntrariety betwixt John's Baptism and Christ'â— but only a diversity nor doth the word contra-distinguished import any other contrariety but as the Type hath to the Anti-type i. e. counter-type Pag. 140 141. Ye contend that Mat.
find Moon and Sun inwardly and spiritually understood in Scripture so I find seven Days and a Seventh Day inwardly and spiritually understood see Isa 30.26 but this to you is still a Mystery And whereas it is the outward and natural Sun that constitutes common and natural Days therefore did Origine Augustine and many others conclude That the seven Days mentioned Gen. 1.2 and Exod. 20. could not be common and natural Days for there was no Sun until the fourth Day nor Firmament until the second nor dry Land and Sea till the third P. 147. That God altered the Sabbath from the Seventh Day to the First ye meerly alledge without any proof as your common manner is I suppose ye are not so ignorant as not to know that Calvin the Father so called or Founder of the Presbyterian Church and the French Protestants generally and also the Dutch tho' they keep the First Day for worship after the manner of primitive Christians as we also do yet do not judge it to be the Sabbath or commanded by divine Institution we set apart that day worthily and commendably with other Protestants neither for any betterness in it simply as a Day nor as being commanded for a Sabbath but in honour of our Saviours Resurrection after the Example of the primitive Christians in the Apostles days mentioned in Scripture and that we see a great conveniency and service in it to keep a Day weekly unto the Lord and as said the Apostle He who keepeth a Day keepeth it unto the Lord and that Day rather than another because of Christs Resurrection on the first day of the week and the worthy Example of primitive Christians recorded in Scripture And thus I have gone through all the Heads contained in your Book relating to the Doctrinal part and have showed our agreement in every one of them with the holy Scriptures and also with famous Protestants and Antient Writers call'd Christian Fathers except in that one matter of Infant Baptism wherein if we differ from many of these called Antients in one thing ye differ in another for they generally judged it absolutely necessary to Salvation which ye as well as I judge an Error in them and these called Baptists commonly who may be judged as good Protestants as ye deny your Infant-Baptism as a humane Invention and yet ye have no other And if this doth not unchristian them so nor can it us and ye deny their baptizing into Water such who have been baptized when Infants why then may ye not allow the same Charity to us that ye viz. the more fober part both of Presbyterians and Baptists so called tho' the more Rigid sort call one another Hereticks allow one to another and that we allow to the sober and tender and honest hearted of you both yea and to such in all Professions where the Head and Foundation is held which is Christ we have that Charity that there is a sincere sort among all Professions who belong to God and Christ and tho' they have wrong Notions and Conceptions of some things belonging to Christian Doctrine and have not a form of sound words in delivering some matters of Faith which is a great hurt unto them yet they have some true inward sence of Christian Truth and Doctrine and their faith and sence may be partly sound where their words where by they express it may be very unsound for many have a right sence and feeling of things whereof they have not a right Elocution Utterance and form of Speech as in Naturals so in Spirituals as when Men taste Money and their taste of it is the same yet they differ in the Names they give it or in some subtile and curious Questions about the Nature of it or the nature and manner of tasting it that is not so very material So men may have some real sence and experience of the workings of the holy Spirit inward divine Revelations and Inspirations that work and beget in them some measure of true Faith Hope Love and other Christian Virtues and yet by the Prejudice of Education and wrong outward teaching or ill wording of things may give wrong Names to things yet God forbid we should unchristian them simply for a Mistake or defect in not giving proper words names to things and yet many things of Controversie among single hearted men lie but in words and such should have a regard to that which is good tender and sensible one in another where it is felt But where a persecuting and malitious Spirit and great hardness of Heart prevaileth in any these are not to be regarded as Christians whatever they profess So I would have you all to know all the sober and tender hearted People of New-England and else-where whether called Presbyterian Independent Baptist or Episcopal yea and others holding the Head and being sincere in the main That we can and do own that your sincerity altho' we cannot but differ from you in matters both of Doctrine and Practice wherein we find you to err from the path of Truth and so far as we have together attained and are agreed in all good things of Christian Doctrine or Practice let us walk by the same Rule and live in Charity one with another Pag. 148. In your Reflections on that I called A Call and Warning to the People of Boston c. first ye falsly charge me That I arrogate as much to my self as any of the Prophets of Old had of an immediate Mission from God But let that Paper be considered and it shall not be found that I arrogate or assume any thing equal to the Prophets of Old only I did and I do still affirm That I had the Word of the Lord to declare to the People of Boston c. and it was as a burden unto me until I had delivered it he who hath not Gods Word as it liveth and is the Word of Life in his heart is no true Minister of Christ but every Minister of Christ is not either Apostle or Prophet in that high and eminent sence that is frequent in Scripture Ye charge me with 1st Lying 2dly Slandering 3dly Railing 4thly False Doctrine 5thly Non-sence but all this ye alledge without proof as your manner is Sharp Speeches are not Railing always but commendable in some cases for both Christ and the Prophets and Apostles used them to men of your Generation your Speeches are more sharp against me my Friends than ours are against you and which are most deserving we freely leave it to the Lord and his Witness in mens Consciences Ye would six Non-sence on my words that I said Your Self-actings of all sorts in that ye call your Duties and Performances ye are to repent of c. Where it is clear by that ye call your Duties I did understand and so might ye your Preaching Praying Singing without the Spirit of God and them pag. 149. ye call Dirt and Dung and yet ye
Order as Christ hath instituted and though I have had divers Debates some in writ and some by word of Mouth with divers Opposers yet that saith nothing that ever I was duely admonished according to Christs Order nor rejected out of any Church Society for these I had to deal with were only private Persons and therefore ye are impertinent to mention for your excuse either John Alexander in Scotland whose Book I have many years ago answer'd in print and my Answer to it is now in New-England or these Baptists who are judg'd by many of you to be Hereticks at Barbycan in London or any at Hampton Publick Disputes are one thing and an orderly Church Admonition or Censure is another But whereas ye mention Salem your insinuation faileth you I writ a fair Letter to the Priests at Salem to have some discourse with them before the People but they refused and I had no further medling with them And tho' ye grant that Christ and the Apostles disputed with men of ill Principles yet ye must not dispute with me because I am worse than any of those and grown beyond Admonition But this is your bare alledgance and none will believe you but who are blinded with the same Prejudice as ye are But ye give me no Answer why though ye will not receive Quakers into your Houses yet some of your sort will receive their Goods taken from them by force because they could not for Conscience sake give you Maintenance That your preaching in your publick Houses are instituted means of our Conviction ye take for granted without proof nor can we believe you so long as ye are declared Enemies to the Inspiration of the Spirit of Truth that doth only qualifie Peachers to convince men of their Errors But ye forget how ye contradict your selves in two weighty particulars 1st That we are past Admonition and Incorrigible and yet your Preaching in your publick Houses are means of our Conviction but not your Conference with us in private Houses If we are past Admonition and Incorrigible how can your Preaching be a means of our Conviction any more than private Conference in your private Houses If it be a Duty to preach to us is it not also a Duty when ye are desired to discourse with us in private at least before Witnesses 2dly Ye are guilty of another great Contradiction That because I am a Heretick and worse ye must not dispute with me but reject me and now at last ye dispute with me in Print that is a more open way of dispute than by word of Mouth or can ye find any ground in Scripture to warrant you to dispute with me in Print and yet to forbid you to dispute with me by word of Mouth My comparing you to Turkish Pyrates that hang out false Colours ye say holds not Parrallel but that I can freely leave to the judicious and impartial Readers But it seemeth all your former Reasons were but made or feigned not real why ye refused a publick Dispute with me therefore ye proceed to give other new Reasons that ye think will appear more sollid First therefore ye begin again to say It was not in your power to grant it it to me to have a publick Disputation with you without laying your selves obnoxious to the then Government who had expresly forbidden the People to take liberty of any publick Meeting together on any occasion on the week dayes besides the usual 〈…〉 to this I ansvv◠〈…〉 â—cture to have allowed the time of your Lecture to a publick Dispute 2dly If ye had given this Reason for your denyal at first without all doubt a liberty could have been most readily procured unto you from the then Government 3dly Many of the People took a far greater liberty afterwards not only to meet openly without leave of your then Governour but to do a great deal more c. But if it was unlawful to dispute with an Incorrigible Heretick why do ye now insinuate that had it not been for laying your selves obnoxious to the then Government ye would have given me a publick Disputation with you Surely ye do greatly forget your selves to write such Contradictions Secondly Ye say Ye knew none of your Hearers had any scruple about your Doctrine But what then ye should be ready to give a Reason of your Hope to every one that asketh you and to convince Gain-sayers if they be out of the way and ye in it Thirdly Ye say Ye knew there would be no holding of me to any Law or Rule of Disputation partly because a Quaker and partly by Reports of me and that I would bring all to my Revelations c. But who seeth not the weakness and shallowness of these Fig-leaf Reasons These called Quakers are known to be men of Reason and many of them know as well as ye how to hold to the true Laws of fair Dispute and false Reports of me I value not it never was nor is my way to bring any matter of Dispute leaving the Scripture to inward Revelation but if I cannot prove the Doctrine whereof I charged you to be false from Scripture I should be silent and Ye and the Readers may see I have not left the Scriptures and run to inward Revelations tho' I own that without inward divine Revelation no man can have a right understanding of Scripture for proof against you but hold to Scripture end Scripture-proof in a way of fair Reasoning 4thly Your last Reason is as false as any of the rest That I had declared my self at once in opposition to almost all the fundamental Articles of Religion which have been maintained almost Seventeen hundred Years by the Church of Christ The falsehood of this will sufficiently appear from both my first and this latter Book to all sober and judicious Readers And whereas ye say Who but Mad-men would expose these to be publickly debated Why then have ye exposed them that ye call Fundamentals but are no Fundamentals of Christian Doctrine but Fundamental Errors that false Churches have been built upon now to be publickly debated Why do ye thus declare your selves by your own confession to be such Mad-men to debate them so openly in the face of the Nations both in America Europe yea much more openly than they could have been by 2 or 3 hours discourse before two or three hundred People And that ye your selves gave the rise to this so publick way of disputing in Print is evident from the words of your Letter saying If he would have a publick Audience let him Print I desire the Reader to take notice That what Testimonies of antient or latter Writers of good esteem among Protestants I have cited in this Treatise is not for want of sufficient proofs of Scripture Testimony on every head of difference betwixt our Opposers and us for I have brought sufficient Testimonies of holy Scripture to confirm every one of these heads as the judicious and impartial Reader
The Pretended ANTIDOE PROVED POYSON Or The true Principles of the Christian Protestant Religion Defended And the Four Counterfit Defenders thereof Detected and Discovered the Names of which are James Allen Joshuae Moodey Samuell Willard and Cotten Mather who call themselves Ministers of the Gospel in Boston in their pretended Answer to my Book called The Presbyterian Independent Visible Churches in New-England and elsewhere brought to the Test c. And G. K. cleared not to be guilty of any Calumnies against these called Teachers of New-England c. By George Keith With an Appendix by John Delavall by way of Animadversion on some Passages in a Discourse of Cotton Mathers before the general Court of Massachusets the 28th of the Third Moneth 1690. Philadelphia Printed by Will. Bradford 1690. Introduction To James Allen Joshua Moodey Samuell Willard and Cotten Mather Men and Neighbours I Have seen your pretended Answer to my Book which ye call The Principles of the Protestant Religion maintained c. which I have also read and well considered and I find that upon the matter ye have left the substance or principal matter of it wholly unanswered and that your said pretended Aâ—â—wer contains little else but Railing after an extraordinary and unusual manner of Speech scarcely to be paralell'd and many very gross Mistakes and Perversions of my words and some absolutely false Quotations and Recitations alledging Words and Sayings and Doctrines to be mine and delivered by me in my Book which are neither directly nor indirectly to be found there and which are neither my express words nor so much as the most remote true and just Consequence of them But it is altogether unfair and absurd to alledge any thing upon a man which are not either his express words or the plain and manifest sence of them obvious to every intelligent and impartial Reader For to alledge a consequential sense of a mans words which they will no wayes bear is most uncivil and inhumane and argueth at most a weak and desperate Cause when ye are put to use such mean and unlawful Arts to make your part seem fair And surely ye who pretend to find so great fault at the supposed Calumnies of G. K. should have at least upon some prudential consideration as men shown your selves not to be so deeply guilty of that Vice of Calumniating which ye only with great confidence alledge but can never prove against him I find ye are not a little vexed at my Book but since it containeth little else but Non-sence Tautologies Nauseous Repetitions Cavils and Sophisms as ye alledge why are ye so angry fretted why should Non-sence Tautologies Cavils and Sophisms vex you so very much what aileth you that ye come with such a company ye seem in great part to resemble Micah pursuing some of the Children of Dan to recover your lost gods and to answer with him after some manner Ye have taken away our gods which we made and our Priests and ye are gone away and what have we more And what is this that thou sayst unto us what aileth us But I assure you I intend to make no such usage of your gods as the Danites did of the gods of Micah nor have I robbed any of your gods or idols from you but as becoming a true Christian I have fairly and honestly laboured to convince you of your many evil and hurtful Errors which ye set up in your hearts as Idols and false Godds for ye may know that the Scripture telleth of fome that did set up Idols in their hearts yea whatever any men set up in their hearts in the room and place of the true God and his Precious holy and living Truth and the divine dictates and Testimonies thereof are but false gods and idols of mens making It is a most false and injurious Accusation ye insinuate against me as if I did seek to perswade any to part with an infinite and eternal God and having a created Soul blasphemously place in his Throne or to pâ—rt with the precious Bible viz. the holy Scriptures as a dead Letter and to have silent postures of their own in the room thereof or that I seek to perswade these called your Congregations to part with an inestimable Redeemer for a dim Light within them which may prove Darkness it self or to have the whole Gospel Baptism of Christ his Supper taken away from them and the glorious Doctrines of Election Justification Perseverance depraved with Opinions that make man to be all and Grace to have small or no share in the matters of Salvation All which are most false and injurious Accusations with many more of that sort which ye very unchristianly cast upon me as I hope will clearly appear in the sequel and doth sufficiently appear in my former Book My desire and earnest travail of soul is That ye and all others who remain ignorant of God may come to the true knowledge of him and of his Son Christ Jesus whom to know is Life eternal I assert no created Soul or thing to be plac'd in the room of God in his Throne but plead against you that as God and Christ dwell in Heaven so they dwell in the hearts of all the faithful and that not divided or seperaâ—ed from â—heir Operations and Influences but together with them and one with them tho' ye would divide and seperate them asunder and that the same God and Christ as they are one so their operation and influence of Light and Grace are one and that by some gracious operation influence they are pleased to visit the Souls of all men more or less and as God and Christ are every where present in all the Creatures so in a more special way and manner of manifestation beside that universal Omnipresence they are in all men and cannot be excluded from any of the Creatures and therefore it is a most injurious Calumny as if either I or any of my Friends did set up any thing in the room or throne of God for whatover illumination operation or influential Effect of God and Christ we assert to be in men we do not say that it is God or Christ for we do not confound the Cause the Effect nor the Worker and his work but we say God and Christ the Word by which all things were made are most inwardly present in all Creatures and if ye deny this ye and not we deny the true God and God and Christ are Light as the holy Scripture declareth and are no dim Light which is in you Blasphemy to assert but both your Eyes and the Eyes of many are dim yea and blind that ye cannot in this your blind state see the glory of God And for the holy Scriptures ye your selves say The MIND and true SENSE of the Scripture is the Scripture or Word and that was never called by us a dead Letter nor is the Scripture dead to any but to such who are dead and
universally your way to say and dictate things Magisterially without proof and since it is so ye might have taken a more easy way and as effectual to have only said to every passage and argument in my Book as it is reported how one refuted Bellarmine saying only to every passage and period in his Book Thou lyest Bellarmine Ye say ye have turned your Minds to the Light oâ— Christ within you as well as ye can and it tells you that my assertions are bold presumtious and heretiâ—al But â—ake heed of such ignorant Blasphemy and cease your Mockage The Light of Christ within you that I directed you and all unto is that Light of divine Inspiration and Revelation which is common in some measure unto you and all men but this ye do not believe therefore ye have not turned your Minds unto it nor hearkened to the voice of it And whereas I said It is the same Spirit that giveth to all Readers a right understanding of Scripture ye ask Why then have not all the same understanding oâ— it but contradictory the answer is easie because all do not duly believe in it as my following words make clear Then ye accuse my following words as guilty of contradiction because I said If ye believe in Christ the Light c. and joyn your minds to his inward divine Illumination he will anoint the Eyes of your Understanding and then your Eyes shall be opened which ye put this silly and impertinent gloss upon Iâ— ye will see of your selves then â—e will give you ability to see and then ye scoffingly add This may be no Contradiction in a Quaker's Logick But his is not my Logick but your Perversion for as blind as ye are ye are not altogether blind as Christ said to the Pharisees John 9.41 I ye were blind ye should have no sin c. and if ye were faithful to what ye already see and know your Eyes should be further opened And this iâ— good sence and no Contradiction and what ye see or know of Truth in the least thing ye see it not of your selves but it is given you to see by that Light which ye blaspheme calling it Ignis Fatuus and a stinking vapour from Hell In pag. 6. ye alledge a most abominable Falshood upon me as that I said in my Epistle That the quickening in a man as it abides it is impossible it should perish This is an absolute piece of Forgery as much as ever Tho. Hicks coyned against W. Penn I use no such words and nothing but Malice can put such a gloss upon my words which are these p. 5. of my Epistle And every Soul that is thus quickned and made alive unto him as it doth hold fast this beginning viz. of the good Work of God in it c. and as it here abideth it is impossible that it can perish Where my words say the SOUL cannot perish that abideth faithful c. And this is good sence and well warranted by Scripture 2 Pet. 1.10 For if ye do these things ye shall never fall which according to your absurd Logick is as if he had said If ye never fall ye shall never fall or if Grace continue it cannot be lost this Non-fence and Absurdity ye charge upon me is yours and not mine Pag. 7. Because I said the holy Scriptures are a sufficient outward Rulâ— and Standard whereby to try all Doctrines of men ye most grosly as is your general manner pervert my words as if I did intimate as if God taught us one thing by his Word and another by his Spirit The contrary whereof I have sufficiently asserted in my Book for what the Scripture saith outwardly thâ— Spirit saith the same inwardly and the Testimony of these two to wit that of the Scripture without and that of Gods Spirit wiâ—hin cannot differ or disagree Next ye blame me for not making Practices as well as Doctrines lyable to this Test I Answ And so I do for all commanded Practices of a holy Life are contained under that head of Doctrines for things to be done as well as things to be believed are belonging to the Christian Doctrine as the ten Commandments and all other Moral and Evangelical Precepts and Dutites witnessed of in the holy Scriptures And why ye should blame me for calling the Scriptures an Outward Rule showeth your inclination more to Cavil than to Dispute as men of solid Reason Are not the Scriptures an outward thing and if an outward thing then an outward Rule seeing they are a Rule as is confessed â—y us both and Protestants commonly call the Scriptures the external or outward Word witness the Augustine Confession published by Protestants Article 5. And is not the External Word the External Rule and doth not the external or outward Word intimate that there is an inward Word that is the inward Rule and these two agree in one and can never differ as an inward Domâ—nstration of any natural Science doth agâ—ee with the outward set down in wâ—it or print on Paper And tho' I call the Scripture an outward Rule yet I denie not but it hath a real service in the hand and management of the Spirit to regulate our inward Apprehensions and Conceptions of all Christian Doctrine as well as our outward words and Actions and so it may be called an Organâ—â—al and Instrumental Rule in respect of the Spirit of God inwardly witnessing which is the principal Nor do I in the least retract what I have said as ye weakly alledge when â—â—ay There are many things wherein God doth reveal of his Counsel to his Children which are not in Scripture either expresly or consequentially wherein I give a five fold instance at least that though ye cannot disprove ye boldly but Ignorantly contradict contrary to the blessed and solid Experience of Thousands for these things instanced as for a man to know his inward state beâ—ore God c. and for a Minister to know his inward Call and a Christian to know both his call to pray in vocal Prayer or in Publick and returns oâ— his Prayer from God in secret they are no matters of Christian Doctrine belonging to the common Faith oâ— common Duty of all Christians but only are relative to a Christians private Condition and Consolation for no Doctrine or Precept in all the Scripture requireth me to believe or to know whether many or one by name besides my self be in a justified state c. but it belongs to me in particular therfore it is no part of the common Doctrine or Faith or Practice of the Christian Religion to believe for another or others but every one to believe for himself And that ye alledge p. 9. that Lucas should say Any Quaker if he â—as a mind to it may make as good a Book himself as the Book of the holy Scriptures is out a falâ—e alledgance from a Foâ—ger of Lyes against the Truth and is sufficiently refuted by N. Lucas's â—â—iâ—ted
Bread Rain and Dew only for the efficacy oâ— it and not for the extent and plenty of it but for this we have your bare authority contrary boâ—h to Scripture and Experience of thousands who witness the Word of God plentifully to dwell in them like to the drops of Rain and Dew for plenty of the divine droppings and showerings of it as well as for efficacy Ye grant The Scriptures are both by Metaphor and Metonyme called the Words and Word of God and in so doing ye give away your cause unto the Quakers for we say the same although the great out-cry hath been against us that we do not allow the Scriptures to be properly without all figure of metaphor or metonyme the words and word of God And since ye thus agree with us I see not how ye can call us Apostates for gain-saying you in this particular Pag. 21. Ye say I confound the Metonymie officientis with a Metonyme signi but I say ye prevaricate for I neither mention the one nor the other but the examples brought by me signifie both these kinds of Metonyme without confusion for Moses books are called Moses by the Metonyme Efficientis and Isaiah his book is called his vision by the Metonyme Signi CAP. II. I Shall briefly take notice of your Perversions and Omissions in this Chapter and so proceed to the end for it is but wasting time and paper both which are to be better bestowed than to follow you at large Ye disown the word Inspiration as given in our dayes Pag. 22. wherein as ye are singular so ye are inferior to the Church of England who for all your pretence to spirituality of Worship and Praying by the spirit yet are short of them for they in divers places of the Common Prayer pray for Inspiration and the Scots Confession of Faith in John Knox's dayes says expresly That Faith is the Inspiration of the holy Ghost And therefore your Ignorance and Prejudice doth here plainly appear and instead of defending the Protestant Religion ye but betray it and â—onounce it for sober Protestants both Episâ—opal and Presbyterian do own Inspiration which ye plainly deny Pag. 23. The Scriptures that both â—he Assembly and ye cite That divine Inâ—pirations and Revelations are ceased to wit of Antient Doctrine for we plead for no New Doctrines are wholly from your purpose as 2 Tim. 3.6 17. Heb. 1.1 2. Prov. 2.19 or any others for notwithstanding all these Scriptures divine Inspirations and new internal divine Revelations continued in the Church after all this in and with the Apostles But ye grosly preâ—â—ricate by your unfair way of answering That there was no New Revelation of any New Doctrine or New Doctrinal Truth And thus ye think to elude my Arguments before the Eyes of ignorant Readers But this mean Art of yours will not do for ye fight against your own Shadow and not against our Doctrine for we assent no New Revelation of any New Doctrine but of the Antient Doctrine abundantly delivered to the Prophets and Apostles but as their Faith could not save us so nor could their inward Inspiration and Revelation Pag. 27. Ye blame me for pleading for extraordinary Revelations such as the Apostles had which is a gross Perversion and plain Contradictory to my words for I told you that the distinction of Ordinary and Extraordinary Revelation may in a true fence well be admitted and the Prophets and Apostles had both ordinary and extraordinary we plead for the ordinary Revelations they had common to them with other Saints but not for the extraordinary they had whereas your Confession denyeth all sort of Revelation Again ye blame me for confounding Inspiration Revelation and Illumination but I say they are one and the same thing and it is great Non-sence to seperate or divide them and all the differences betwixt them that ye alledge are meerly begged and affirmed but not in the not least proved Ye should remember ye are not now in the pulpits where people take things on trust for your bare Authority but that your Book is gone abroad ye should bring better Proofs than bare Assertions 1st Ye say Illâ—mination is common to all Believers Inspiration is peculiar to some But this last is denyed not only by us but by the Church of England and the Scots Confession of Faith in John Knox's days and by the general sence of antient Writers especially Augustine who frequently mentioneth Inspiration in his Works 2dly Ye say Illumination ordinarily accompanies the diligent use of the means Inspirations ye say usually come upon men without using any means for them But this second distinction is also meerly begged Illuminations and Inspirations come â—t times with the outward means and at times without them and yet not without all means very frequently even outward for both the Prophets and Apostles used means to prepare them to receive divine Inspirations and Revelations and in the use of means received them frequently for Acts 10. while Peter went up upon the house top to pray about the sixth hour he had a divine Revelation and when Peter preached to Cornelius and others the holy Ghost fell upon them and as they ministred to the Lord and fasted to wit certain Prophets and Teachers Acts 13.2 the holy Ghost said Seperate me Paul and Barnabas c. It is great ignorance and want of Experience in divine Mysteries to think that divine Inspirations and Revelations are without all means or tend to make either outward or inward means void and useless for commonly and generally all ordinary divine Revelations come in the use of some means or another as hearing reading prayer meditation watching and silent inward waiting all which are means and most especially and alwayes in the exercise of true Obedience unto God Your 3d Distinction is to as little purpose viz. That Illumination becomes habitual but Inspiration is transient for if by Habitual ye understand permanent and abiding Illuminations and Inspirations may be and are permanent of some sorts and of other sorts transient or passing Your 4th Distinction is also vain and idle as that illumination encreaseth gradâ—ally but not so Inspiration for they may and do increase or decrease according to the various kinds of them and he who is faithful to God may expect his Inspirations daily to be increased continued with him Lastly Ye say Illumination is alwayes understood whenas Inspirations sometimes are not understood but no more is Illumination alwayes undâ—rstood yea how many have a divine Illumination and yet understand it not and ye your selves deny that Illumination hath a Self-evidence so thâ—n it would be objective Revelation and fit to be the Rule of Faith and Life which ye deny saying the Scripture is the ONLY Rule Pag. 28. The Saint Experience of inwaâ—d enjoyments of God and Châ—ist beyond all words warranted from 1 Cor. 2.9 10. Ye call a Rapsody in commendation oâ— our silent Meetings but this is a poor evasion and answet
of God and these times are frequent and at such times the need of Scripture words and of all words that consist of Letters do cease as when a man eateth Bread and drinketh Wine and hath his taste well he needeth no words to tell him of the taste of it he tasteth it without all words that the mouth can utter and even so the Children of God at times yea frequently taste of the goodness and sweetness of Christ by an inward sensible taste without all Scripture words and without all present remembring of them yet if at such times the Spirit of God bringeth them to their remembrance they have a service at least tâ—â—ncrease the doctrinal and discursive knowledge of God in them and further to open the Mysteries of the Christian Doctrine which is a great gift blessing of God in its place Pag. 34. Ye alledge I introduce an Hypothesis that is a Castle in the Air that they say there is no sensible or intuitive knowledge of God in this Life But I say many or most of you expresly deny it I mean most of these call'd Presbyterians and Independents as I have had to do with them before now who have told me There is no sensible knowledge of God at â—â—ll no sight nor feeling nor taste of him and they give a reason for it viz. That only bodily things could be seen felt tasted but God being a Spirit could neither be felt nor tasted tho' the Scriâ—ture use these words of seeing tasting a aâ—d feâ—ling they say they are as improper and metaphorical as when it is said in Scripture God hath Eyes Hands and Feet c. Again though ye seem to affirm it yet it is in contradiction to your selves for it is an absolute Contradiction to say A man hath a sight of God and taste and feeling of him and yet hath no immediate discovery and knowledge of him as much as to say I see and taste Wine and yet I have no immediate discovery or knowledge of it All sensible knowledge is immediate in regard of their Objects P. 34. Ye blame me that I say ye preach altogether an absent Christ but ye wrong and pervert my words as your manner is my wordâ— are p. 36. They preach altogether an absenâ— Christ as some of them say Christ is not really and properly in his People or if present a Christ altogether dumb and silent c. So ye see my words are not positive but dis-junctive or alternative But if I did say so it is according to your own Doctrine though ye seem to contradict again for do ye not generally accuse the Quakers for setting up a false Christ because they preach him present and in his Saints yea and in all men in some respect and as Pardon Tillinghast and Benj. Keech calâ— Christ in the heart a false Christ so John Owen whom ye esteem your reverend Brother in his Latine Treatise against us answered by Sam. Fisher saith If Christ be in every Quaker there are as many Christ as Quakers So you may see I do not wrong you and your Assembly ye so much honour say It is blasphemy to say the Saints are partakers of the Godhead And this is to exclude Christ with a witness And if some of you say God and Christ are in the Saints yet ye deny all immediate discovery sight and revelation of them objective or by way of object which is as gâ—eat Non-sence as to say A Man converseth with his Wife in one House eateth drinketh lodgeth with her and hath fellowship with her and yet she hath no immediate sight nor knowledge of him which she must needs have if she be not blind sensless and stupid and it is a most palpable Contradiction in you to say Men have aâ— intuitive and sensible knowledge of God that is distinct in specie from discursive knowlâ—dge and yet God and his Spirit in all his inward operations giveth no self-evidence thereof but is medium incognitum assentiendi i. e an unknown mean or Principle of assenting as the School-men phrase it particularly Robert Baron Professor of Divinity at Aberdeen in his Book called Apodixis Catholica de formali objecto fidei against Jesuit Turnbul more particularly cited in my Book of Immediâ—te Revelation Pag. 37. The different degrees of Revelation well warranted by Scripture ye blasphemously and ignorantly call Rabbinical Fopperies That there is not only a gradual but specifical difference of divine Revelations I never denyed CAP. III. I Intend throughout principally to notice your gross Perversions and other gross Abuses and Mistakes which will in effect sufficiently answer all ye have said and leave my Book and the evidence of Truth held forth in it remaining in its full force and strength against you and the rather that the principal Controversies viz. That oâ— the Scriptures and That of inward divine Revelation and Inspiration iâ— the more fully already here handled for indeed these two are the Basis and Pillars of the following Controversies Pag. 36. Ye pervert my words as if I did affirm That the Scriptures only were a Rule to try Doctrines betwixt men and men But I neither mean nor say any such thing I believe they are a Rule in the hand and management of the Spirit to regulate our inward apprehensions and thoughts concerning all Christian Doctrines and yet the Spirits inward Witness is the greater Rule Pag. 39. Ye say To call the Spirit the Rule â— Non-sence I say to call the Spirit not abstractly but conjunctly with his inward witnessing and speaking is good sence to all but such as you who have not sence to understand it Ignatius as I have said above a more worthy man and precious Martyr of Jesus Ep. 14. to Ephes called the holy Spirit one Rule CAP. IV. PAg. 41. Ye own That natural and acquired Gifts of Letter Learning without a divine Inspiration are sufficient to qualifie a Gospel Minister and that Grace and true Piety is only accidental which ye confess may look black at first view It is so far well that since this is your Doctrine that we have it under your hand and it deserveth to be engraven in Capital Letters on the Doors of your Meetiâ—g Houses that the People may generally know it for very many to whom I have told it could not believe it to be your Doctrine but however now it is a good proof th t yâ— print it as yours Another saying of yours equally famous and which deserveth the same equal inscription in Capital Letters is that ye say It is no absurdity tâ—at a man may be a true Minister and not a true Câ—ristian But how then can he beget any unto God If he who is no true Christian can beget a true Christian by his Ministry it will as easily follow That he who is no man may beget a man for as in spiritual generation a man is but the Instrument so in the natural when a man begets a man child God
breathing or Inspiration of the Spirit as the Latine antient Christian writers did Translate these words John 3. Spiritus spirat ubi vult i. e. the spirit breatheth or Inspireth where it willeth for the greek doth wâ—ll bear it puenma is most frequently translated spirit in the nâ—w Testament and pueo signifieth to breathe or inspire hence theopneustos signifieth divinely inspired Pag. 56. Ye alledge that singing without Notes and Tones measured by art would be singing without singing that could be no melody that is without Tones measured by art and to say otherwise ye affirm is so foolish that it is not worth a Reply but the folly is your own the scripture speaketh of Melody in the heart and that is without all tones of art beside what art is there in the songs of Hannah Mary and Elizabeth ye are extreamly ignorant if ye know not that singing with Rhymes and like sounding Cadencies of words and Musical Notes of art as ut re mi fa sol la came not into custom among Christians a long time after the Apostles and these Notes of art Guido Aretinus found them out by which ye learn to sing that is not of along standing These and many other things are but late inventions introduced into Church-worship as Polidor Vergilus doth show no Rhâ—mes were sung that I can understand by the French Protestants in french till Beza composed them and Translated the Psalms into french meeter so they were sung at Geneva hence they were called Geneva Jigs the Hebrew Psalms of David have no like sounding Cadencies or Rhymes That Christ Condesended to sing with the Discples suppose after the costomary way used by the Jews at their feasts is no proof to continue that Custom more than to continue the Jewish Feast of the Passover and other Types ye greatly forget your selves in your way of reasonning from the time of the Law to the Gospel time Pag. 58. Ye would clear your running into a Circle that Ministers call the Church and the Church calls the Ministers but all in vain Ye pretend no answer for the Presbyterians who commonly derive their call by the Pope of Rome as J. Cotton did expresly say at Hampton in the hearing of some hundreds and not only I but your reverend brother as ye call him John Owâ—n hath sufficiently discovered the Nullity of that Call and that therefore Presbyterians while they lay the stress of their call on that rotten Foundation have neither Ministry nor Gospel nor Sacraments And for your call who are called Independents seeing your Church is not older than the Brownists of Amsterdam I mean your visible Church or show when it began what Ministers gathered your Church at first if ye say your Church was invisible beâ—ore let it be so but how could an invisible Church call a visible Ministry or how could a visible Church aâ—ise without any previous Ministry Ye do but triffle to make these things intelligible who seeth not but ye are reduced to this miserable pinâ—h out of pâ—ejudice against the inward Call of Gods Spirit by divine Inspiration which both Lutâ—er and other primitive Protestants did affiâ—m they had Pag. 59 60 61. Ye tug hard for a Maintenance to Ministers not voluntary but of debt and by bargain and that may be forced by the Magistrate if refused And is this also one of the Principles of the Protestant Religion Read Will. Thorp's Assertions and Arguments against Priests Wages and Maintenance save only what is voluntary in Fox's Book of Martyrs fol. 536 537. and ye will find that to force wages for preaching was a Popish Prinâ—iple and not a Protestant Also read what your Fathers the Brownists of Amsterdam say in their Apology against the Vniversity of Oxford in their Address to Q. Elizabeth 7 Position That the duo Maintenance of the Ministers should be of the free and voluntary Contribution of the Church And they expresly declare against the Maintenance that is exacted and which the People are constrain'd to yeild unto them Behold how far ye are degenerated from your fore-Fathers Your Argument from the Tythes under the Law serveth not your turn unless ye will bring in the Levitical Services also but even under the Law the Tythes though commanded the Magistrates were not to compel men to pay them as is most clear out of the old Testament and grant that the e is a justice or equity in it that faithful Ministers wants be supplied and so that the Poor's wants be supplied therefore the Hebrew word that signifieth Alms signifieth Rightâ—ousnâ—ss it will not therefore follow that the Magistrate may compel them there is a Justice the Transgression of which the Law punisheth and there is a Justice the Transgression of which the Gospel punisheth but as for Ministers to bargain with People What will you give me and I will preach unto you it is so sordidly Mercinary that yâ— may be ashamed to defâ—nd it but that is not enough People must be forced to pay you Wages that own you not to be Ministers of Christ as has been largely practised in New-England That ever the Apostles bargained with People or forced Wages of any or received any other than simply to supply thâ—i personal Necessities has no shadow of Proof in Scripture The Greek word translated Wages 2 Cor. 11.8 viz. opsonionâ— signifieth Meat or something to eat most properly translated by Pasor edulium and this answereth to Christ's words The labourer is worthy of his Meat This was no yearly stinted Sallary it was wholly Apocriphal and hath no foundation in the New-Testament and therefore is no Protestant Doctrine That Christ sent forth the Disciples to preach freely ye say was a special Precept but ye have nothing but your bare Authority for it the Scripture saith no such thing ye may as well say to preach the Gospel was a special Precept Ye profess to have a respect to the Waldenses who are generally well esteemed by Protestants as their Predecessors and faithful Witnesses to the Truth in their day and it was said of them and objected unto them That their Teachers were Weavers and Coblers whereto they replyed We are not ashamed of our Priests because they labour with their hands c. because both the Doctrine and Example of the Apostles lead us to such apprehensions Usher de Succes Eccles cap. 8. § 8. CAP. V. Pag. 64. Ye call my Declaration of our Faith touching the Father the Son and the holy Ghost and Christ his being both God man with other great and weighty Truths a new Quakers Creed insinuating that I am not so ignorant as to believe that that was their faith in those times but this ye meerly affirm without all shadow of proof Ye excuse the Assembly for not mentioning Light among Gods attributes as not being proper but metaphorical A poor Evasion And why not as proper for the Assembly to say God is Light as for John the Apostle think ye the
or beeing unless ye will say That a Creature is any part or measure oâ— Gods Beeing or Substance And whereas ye say Graces are substantial things and are not meer Accidents but Adjuncts And thus ye seek to hide you from the ignorant in the Thicket of some Loicgal and School Terms and Phrases but when ye say Graces are substantial things ye do not tell whether ye call them so properly or metaphorically as when ye call God Light ye say it is not properly but metaphorically And for your distinction of Adjuncts and Accidents I suppose I learned that thing ye call Logick that ye seem to glory in as well as ye and do remember what is any wise useful in it as well as ye and I never understood that either Logicians or Philosophers so called did hold that the Soul of man had any Adjuncts that was neither the real Essence and Substance of the Soul nor yet Accidents and therefore if the Grace of God in the Soul be no Accident but the Adjunct of the Soul it must be the Soul it self and this is Pelaganism and Socinianism with a Witness for Pelagius and Socinus denyed the need of any inward Grace that was not thâ— Sâ—ul it self for the Attributes of every being and so of the Soul are such Adjuncts as are either essential to that being or accidental and for this I can and do appeal to all who have any ordinary taste of that called Logick or Metaphysick but I shall not insist on this School-nicity And for your Proof that Grace is a Creature or created Principle from Ephes 4.29 If you mean the virtues brought forth in the saints called the fruits of the Spirit as Faith Hope Love Temprance Righteousness c. we own them in the Scripture sence to be the new man which after God is created in Righteousness and true Holiness but that they are such a Created Principle as are neither the Soul it self nor Christ nor Accidents but a substance of another nature from all these is a novelty that I have not formerly heard of As for our Doctrine concerning Grace it is plain according to Scripture the Seed or Original Principle of Grace in the Soul is a measure of the Spirit and Life of Christ and is not Properly a Creature as commonly taken but a Pure divine Emanation and stream from Christ the Fountain and is of the same nature with the Fountain and is substantial and every Soul that is by a true and living Faith joyned to this Seed and Principle of Gods Grace is partaker of it Substantially and none else and is there by made fruitful to bring forth heavenly and divine Fruits as Love Joy Peace Meâ—kness Temperance Humility c. which are Divine Effects and may be said to be the New Creation or the Image of Christ formed and brought forth in us and where these effects are yea where that Seed is neither God nor Christ can be separated from the same Pag. 69. 70. Ye say Nor doth the Doctrine of Dr. Owen or Mr. Rutherford in the words of theirs which he cites at all run into the Quakers Blasphemy Ans Ye do then hold it Blasphemy for the Quakers to say that God and Christ dwell in the Saints and true Believers and therefore to avoid this Blasphemy ye will not own that God and Christ dwell in them and then surely ye preach an absent God and Christ for if Christ dwell not in Believers he is absent from them And yet ye contradict your selves herein as your manner is ye say The Person of the Holy Ghost dwells in us by his Operations And thus ye would falsly gloss upon the words of J. O. and S. R. for J. O. hâ—ld a peculiar Perswasion far differing from his Brethren the Presbyterians for which Cauldrey severely taxed him that whereas they held it that the holy Ghost dwelt not by himselâ— or personally as they phrase it in Believers but by his Operations Graces and Gifts J. O. in his Book of Perseverence useth many reasons and words to prove That the holy Ghost himself together with his Operations and Graces he as well as they dwelt in Believers and not the Graces without him and upon this he buildeth the Doctrine of Perseverance And S. R. said He will not have the Graces of Christ without Christ. But ye plead that the Graces of Christ are in the Saints but not Christ himself and therefore if our Doctrine be blasphemous ye must allow J. O. and S. R. equally guilty but the guilt of Blasphemy is yours who would exclude Christ from the Saints and divide the Graces of Christ from Christ which is impossible and is contrary to all sound Reason as well as Scripture to divide and seperate the Operator from his Operations Pag. 70. Ye do acknowledge That ye agree with the Ranters in that Principle viz. That God doth all and hath unchangeably ordered all things good and bad are we therefore Ranters say ye Answ Let impartial men judge seeing this is the fundamental Error of the Ranters and the Root and Base of all their other Ranting Principles and Practices Pag. 72. Ye most falsly charge me as if I were restoring Manicheâ—sm into the World as if there were two Principles or first Causes the one of Good the other of Evil for ye are very ignorant if ye know not that the Manichism Principle was That there was an Evil first Cause or Principle essentially evil uncreated eternal independent and equal to the good But we hold no such Doctrine there is one only first cause of all things originally that is essentially good and goodness and all things were originally good and all the Evil that came afterwards into the World was not any real Creation or Production of any substance for Evil in the abstract i. e. Sin is no substance but either a privation as the sin of Omission or some depraved mode or modification or alteration in the Crâ—ature that the Creature it self is the Author of and therefore Christ said The Devil was a Lyar and Murderer from the beginning and when he speaketh a Lye he speaketh of himself Pag. 73. Ye require me to tell you How God did fore-know all evil Actions that should be done in Time unless he had pre-determined them Answ The way and manner of Gods fore-knowledge surpasseth all creaturely Understanding and therefore it is too great boldness and presumption in you to imagin ye can tell it and it is yet worse to think yâ— can tell it by a way that contradicts the Scripture and the invvard sense of God in mens hearts as Because God pre-determines all evil Actions Thefts Murders Adulteries therefore he fore-knoweth them This is to make God equally the Author of Evil as of Good It is sufficiâ—nt to us to believe and know that the decâ—ee of God is Permissive but not Pre-determinative of evil Actions and as he knoweth evil Actions that are at preseâ—t brought foâ—th as they now are so
Destruction as the Greek word doth well bear it so that none are finally lost and destroyed but such who are perfected in Wickedness after the long-suffering of God hath endured thâ—m and waited on them with much long-suffering which certainly proveth that no Infants dying Infants are Vessels of Destruction However as to the general state of Infants and other adult Persons deaf or dumb and deprived of these common outward helps given to others the particular way method and manner of God towards them is a great secret it sufficeth that God disposeth of them in Mercy and doth not destroy any without sin not only actually committed but finally and impenitently persisted in and rejecting the Remedy offered And why should it appear such a new Doctrine to you or inferring a Purgatory betwixt Heaven and Earth to say that the Mystery of Christ crucified and other great Mysteries that have been very obscurely and imperfectly known to many here in this world shall be made known perfectly after Death in the World to come Is not this the general Belief of Christians and ground of their Consolation that many things which they know here but obscurely weakly and imperfectly they shall know most clearly perfectly after death in the World to come And as I did argue in my first Book that whereas perfect SALVATION iâ— a Salvation from all sin and ignorance and error and is a perfect renewing into the Image of God and the true knowledge of Christ even the Man Christ is necessary to the end we may be made conform to him in his holy Life and Virtues Death Sufferings Burial and Resurrection as the New Testament plainly declareth and that all who go to Christ after Death what hath been wanting of their full and perfect knowledge of him here shall be given them there after Death when they come to be with Christ in Heaven And if it shall be given to Christians who have more knowledge of Christ here than may be supposed many of the believing Jews had in the time of the Law or proselited Gentiles or others why not also may not the like be said of honest Gentiles that what was lacking of their knowledge of Christ here shall be given them perfectly in the World to come after Death they having received some beginning of the knowledge of Christ here though but obscurely and weakly as ye grant that many of the Jews had but a weak and obscure and imperfect knowledge of him the Vail ye confess was not then takâ—n off before Christ suffered in the flesh and if an obscure and weak knowledge could serve the Jews of Christ that was to come as held forth under the Vail of the Rites and Ceremonies of Moses Law which their Faith could take hold of even of Christ hid under that Vail It may be said it could also serve the Gentiles for the Gentiles had a Law given them out of Noah's Family that taught them to sacrifice to the true God and certainly Noah taught his Posterity that these Sacrifices of Beasts were figures of Christ that great Sacrifice that was to come and many Gentiles did sacrifice to the true God as no doubt Job and his friends did and what was Job and his friends but Gentiles And it seemeth to have been a divine Iâ—stinct put into men generally before Christ that great Sacrifice came to sacrifice unto God as Aristotle said It was proper to men to sacrifice for the same that taught â—hem to pray to the true God taught them to sacrifice and that sacrifice was the Vail to the Gentiles pointiâ—g at Christ as it was to the Jews that their faith might reach unto him and though too many of the Gentiles sacrificed unto Devils and not unto God yet that doth not prove they had not some sence or knowledge that they did sin in so doing for the Jews too oft did also sacrifice unto Devils In short if an obscuâ—e and weak or imperfect knowledge and faith of Christ as he was to come and suffer in the flesh did suffice to Salvation as ye say it doth and did to Cornelius and Nathaniel it may suffice to all honest Gentiles who might have that obscure and weak and imperfect faith of Christ as he was to come in the flesh or as now come in the flesh and what if I should tell you that not only the Gentiles Sacrifices that they offered up unto the true God did preach Christ unto them and his Death c. but that the whole outward Creation had the like use in some sort to the Gentiles to be Vails and Types to preach Christ unto them though not so fully and distinctly as these delivered by God to the People of Israel Did not God make the Rain-bow a sign of his everlasting Covenant betwixt him and all flesh upon the Earth i. e. all Mankind for so is all Mankind oft called in Scripture viz. all Flesh for when John saw Christ in Heaven he saw him with a Rain-bow upon his head and round about the Throne and therefore the Rain-bow that appeareth in the Cloud in Rain is an universal Type and Figure that God hath given to all Mankind of his Everlasting Covenant in Christ Jesus that he will not destroy them but save them who believe in his Son Christ and tho' the Rain-bow hath another signification as to give notice that God would not destroy the World any more with Water as he did the Old World yet that hinders not but that it was given as a sign also to point into Christ as the Passover was both a sign of the destroying Angel his passing over them in Aegypt and yet was also a figure and type of Christ as Paul hath plainly declared And no doubt God that hath given the Rain-bow as an universal sign of his Love and Favour in Christ both God and Man signified by the light of the Sun united with the Water in the Cloud that give most excellent and resplendent Colours signifying the Mercy and Justice of God together with his divine Wisdom Power c. all most sweetly harmoniously concurring together with manifold divine Graces in the work of mans Salvation through Christ and the string or cord of the bow appearing next to the earth as when a man holdeth his Bow in his hand in sign of Peace as not intending to shoot with his Arrow hath also given other Types and Figures in the outward Creation to be as Vaâ—ls and Shadows to shadow forth the Lord Jesus Christ and mens Salvation by him as Winter Spring Summer and Harvest and the sowing of the grain of Corn in the Earth and its rising again within a little time and bringing forth much fruit which our Saviour brought as the figure and example of his Death Burial and Resurrection and which the Wisdom of God hath recorded in Scripture not only as an example or emblem of Christs Resurrection but of the general Resurrection of the dead indeed the whole Creation
unto Death that even in these visible Testimonies it might be learned that the Letter killeth but the Spirit giveth Life And immediately in the following Chapter he saith Therefore what was done in Israel by the appointment of the Law and the Sayings or Oracles of the Prophets the Testimonies of the whole Creation and the Miracles of the divine Goodness did perform in all Nations And that the Rain-bow was a sign of Salvation the same Author expresseth in the following words lib. 2. cap. 4. And the Security of Salvation â—aith he is consecrated in the Testimony of the Rain-bow consisting of divers Colours that is in the sign of the manifold Grace the which Mysteries and Sacraments did not instruct these very few men of one Family only but in them all their Posterity that what was given for the Instruction of the Parents might be profitable to the knowledge of their Sons Thus he And in the same Book cap. 9. he saith And it is manifest that by divers and innumerable manners God will have all men to be saved and to come unto the knowledge of the Truth but who come they are directed by the help of God who come not they resist by their own pertinacy And in the beginning of that Chapter he saith The Grace of God indeed doth principally appear in all Justifications counselling with Exhortations admonishing with Examples terrifying with Dangers inciting with Miracles inspiring Counsel Note the word Inspiring and enlightning the Heart it self and induing it with the Affections of Faith And a little after Which help viz. of divine Grace â—â— offered or applyed unto all by innumerable ways either hid or open and that it is rejected by many it is their own Wickedness but that it is received by many it is both of the divine Grace and of the Will of Man viz. co-operating And cap. 10. he saith We have laboured to prove so far as God hath helped us that not only in the last dayes but in all the fore-going Ages the Grace of God was present with all men with a like Providence and general Goodness but in a manifold manner of working and divers measure for either hiddâ—nly or openly he is as said the Apostle the Saviour of all men but especially of them that believe The which Sentence of most subtil shortness and great strength if it be considered with a quiet sight doth end this whole Controversie for by saying He is the Saviour of all Men he hath confirmed the general goodness of God over all men but by adding especially of them that believe he showeth that there is a part of Mankind which by the merit of Faith divinely inspired Note the words Faith divinely inspired ye who deny divine Inspiration to be remaining ' is carried on to the highest and eternal Salvation by special benefits And a little after he saith ' And although that general Vocation doth not cease yet that special Vocation iâ— now made common to all And immediately before he saith No place of the World is destitute of the Gospel of Christ Where it is worth the observing how he holdeth forth a twofold Vocation and Calling both of Grace and belonging to the Gospel and Salvation the one general the other special and peculiar to such who have the Gospel preached to them by the Ministry of Men and have the benefit of the holy Scriptures And Luther in the Book called his Mensalia cap. 6. p. 101. saith In all Creatures we see a Declaration and Signification of the holy Trinity the Substance signifieth the Almighty Power of God the Father the Form and Shape declareth the Wisdom of God the Son the Power and Strength is a sign of the holy Ghost in so much that God is present in all his Creatures Thus far Luther expresly And since ye say Your Knowledge Faith of Christ in this Life as well as your Holiness Obedience is not perfect do ye not think if ye come to Heaven as I wish ye may by unfeigned Repâ—ntance for your gain-saying the Truth that ye shall receive the more perfect knowledge of Christ at or after Death and then why not faithful Gentiles as well as ye Pag. 96. Ye ask Where do I find three Baptisms in Scripture c I Answ I find in Scripture the Baptism of Moses for the Fathers were baptized into Moses in the Cloud and in the Sea 2dly The Baptism of John 3dly the Baptism of Christ with Fire and the holy Ghost and some were under a divine Dispensation who knew God only as a general Father to Mankind but knew not that God had an only begotten Son and others knew that God was and Christ was the Son of God and believed knowing only the Doctrine of John and said They knew not that there was an holy Ghost viz. to inspire men and in this same Ignorance ye are at this day And without doubt every divine Dispensation hath itâ— inward peculiar Baptisâ— and Washing and that a mans Salvation may be begun under thâ— first but not perfected I still affirm and have proved and ye have not disproved it Pag. 99. Ye speak very ignoâ—antly and scoffingly against Christ the Light in all men saying Is it the Light in men that was born of a Virgin hanged on a Tree I Answer Here ye more act the part of Socinians like your Brethren in Opposition Pardon Tillinghast and B. Keech who use the same Language and whom I have answered than like Orthodox and Sound Christians doth not the Scripture say They killed the Prince of Life and he who was killed and hanged on a Tree was not a meer Body but a Man consisting of Spirit Soul and Body and was not a meer Man but both God and Man and He who was hanged on a Tree said He was the Light of the World and in him it pleased the Father all fullness should dwell of Light Life and Grace and a measure of his Light and Spirit that neither is nor can be seperated from the fullness is in all men in a day of Visitation and dwelleth in the Saints and is revealed in great Glory in them but in Unbelievers it is very greatly vailed and hid and is the Light shining in Darkness c. and the Man Christ who did hang on the Tree is that second Man who is the quickening Spirit and ye may as well say Did the quickening Spirit hang on the Tree surely he who suffered Death on the Tree was both God and Man and not a meer Man and yet he suffered not as God nor in his Godhead but in his Manhood Your Ignorance is greatly to be lamented who are thus ignorant of the first Principles of the Doctrine of Christ although ye profess your selves Ministers of the Gospel Take heed of willful Ignorance that unless men be in the Faith Christ is not in them in that peculiar sence of the word Inbeing as it signifieth union and in-dwelling and enjoyment is granted as we say in one
sence the seed is not in the ground though sown till it begin to take root but yet according to the more general sence he is in all men for his illumination and operation cannot be seperated from him Ye say I falsly render the place James 1.21 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Innate Word But ye only say it without proof it is composed of en in and phyo nascor therefore in tâ—ue English it is innate is so used by Plutarch a Greek Author who saith There is a Faith innate emphutos in every reasonable Creature living and dwelling in the Soul and never leaving the Soul destitute of Guidance and it is used in the same signification by Clemens Alexandrinus writing to the Gentiles where speaking of the inward Witness which was in Unbelievers he calleth it Emphuton Martyra testem innatum fide dignum The innate Witness worthy of Faith and I suppose ye judge not your selves better or so well skilled in the Greek language as Plutarch and Clemens Alexandrinus who were Greek Authors and Grecians by Birth Ye say If the Light be connate with men what needed G. K. make such a splutter about Immediate Revelations It may be said to be both innate and connate with men not as ye imagine Accidents or Qualities to be in a subject but seeing the eternal Word and Wisdom hath created all Souls of men after his Image therefore in a special way of presence that eternâ—l Word and Wisdom is in all Souls of men by a measure of it planted or if ye will grafted in all men for grafted and innate may be of the same signification and this eternal Word and Wisdom hath its operation and influence on the Understanding of the Souls of men generally to enlighten them gradually first with the more common and plain things of Religion and then as the former are learned with the more special and peculiar Mysteries of the Christian Religion yet not without the use of the holy Scriptures in Gods ordinary way so distinctly and perfectly as Christians know them who have the use of the Scriptures and all internal divine Illumination is properly Revelation P. 102. Ye find great fault that I conclude That the inward Dispensation that is among the Gentiles that have not Christ outwardly preached viz. by the Ministry of men and the holy Scriptures hath its glory and great service to those that are faithful in it and ye say This is to talk at liberty my self and to deny all others a liberty to judge But herein ye wrong me I allow all spiritual men a liberty to judge I question not but to all such who have a spiritual discerning and ability to judge what I have affirmed of the glory and great serviceableness of the inward divine Dispensation in the Gentiles will be approved and my Reasons and Proofs both from Scripture and other Authors found vallid And though ye seek to untye that ye call a knot that I judge is indissolvable p. 91. I judge so still that ye shall never be able to untye it as ye persist in your Doctrine But yet ye pervert my words in that ye call the Knot for I did thus argue That seeing Infants by your confession might be saved by Christ and regenerated by the Spirit of Christ that worketh when and where and how he pleaseth Therefore might the honest and faithful Gentiles be saved by the same regenerating Spirit of Christ who worketh when and where and how he pleaseth and by faith in Christ But that ye may with some seeming show appear to loose the Knot ye word my Argument quite another way I Infants may be saved by the working of the Spirit in them why may not the Gentiles be so by giving obedience to the Light in them And thus ye would make me appear to the ignorant as if I did plead that the Gentiles were or could be saved without faith in Christ and the regenerating Spirit of Christ only by obedience to the general dictates of the Light within but I say though none are saved but who are obedient to the Light in them yet no Obedience can save without faith in Christ and the Spirit of Christ regenerating them that is altogether necessary to every mans eternal Salvation Whereas I produced divers very convincing Arguments to prove That the Light in men that did accuse or reprove for sin could not be some natural faculty of mans Soul these Arguments some of them ye pass over very slightly answering by your bare Affirmations without proof and some ye give no answer unto at all nor take any notice of see my Book p. 119 120 121. which I again recommend to the Readers serious consideration I argued That since ye confess that man is wholly defiled and darkned so that he iâ— called Darkness in Scripture therefore the Light in natural men could not be any part or faculty of their Souls for that were to say Men are not fallen totally nor totally defiled but in part And I further argued That since your Confession saith All Sin is a Transgression against the Righteous Law of God and since the Heathen are sinners this righteous Law of God must be in them against which they transgress and this righteous Law cannot be any part oâ— faculty of the Soul which ye confess is wholly unrighteous and dâ—filed for a thing cannot be wholly unrighteous and defiled yet in part righteous holy and clean To this I find not that ye say any thing Ye say I mistake when I think ye reckon it any distinct Faculty but the Mistake is yours not mine I did not think that ye do reckon it any distinct Faculty but on the contrary I blame you for saying It is nothing else but the natural Conscience or some natural Faculty of mans Soul so that ye are wonderfully careless of what ye say see my Book pag. 119. and your Book pag. 98. And yet ye seem to make it now Not the natural Vnderstanding but something there imprinted Well let it be something there imprinted this evinceth that it is properly Gods Word for I hope ye will not deny but that which God writeth or printeth with his own Hand or Finger is Gods Word and doth as well or rather more deserve to be accounted the Word of God as that printed in the Bible seeing God is the immediate Printer of this without the Ministry of men but the Print of the Bible is the work of Men though the Truth there witnessed is immediately of God and therefore by your Confession there is an inward written or printed Word of God in Heathens and generally in all men and that immediately without the use or help of the Scriptures commonly called the outward Word Hence it clearly followeth that the Word without is not the whole Word of God nor the only Rule in contradiction to you who affirm it And seeing by your Confession the Word of God is in the Gentiles or Heathen who have not the
Scriptures why may not the same virtue and efficacy be given to it as to that which ye say is contained in the Scriptures It is improper to prefer that which is writ or printed on Paper by the labour and work of Men to that which by God immediately is printed on mens hearts and souls without the woâ—k of men And since ye grant That there is a Law written in mens hearts universally by God himself Why may not that Law be understood to be the same mentioned Psal 19.7 The Law of the Lord is perfect converting the Soul yea that it must and ought to be so understood is clear from that analogy that the Wisdom of God in David maketh betwixt the preaching of the Heavens and Firmament Day and Night and the course of the Sun and the Preaching or Testimony of this inward Law that as universal as the outwâ—rd is so universal is the inward for the outward is the Symbole Figure and Type of the inward as the Ceremonial Law of Moses was symbâ—lical of the inward Gospel-Law and if both had not been Universal the Analogy would have been improper and false for the true Analogy is betwixt two Universals and not one universal and another particular And Paul by the Spirit of God applyeth the universal Language of the Heavens and Firmament Day and Night and Sun to the preaching of the Gospel Rom. 10.18 by the same Analogy Ye contradictâ— the Scripture expresly when ye deny it thaâ— the Law in the Gentiles so far as they obeyed it made them excusable for as some had thoughts that accused them when they did evil so they had thoughts that excused them when they did well and this excusing of them proceeded originally from the Law it self within them see Rom. 2.15 which ye expresly contradict And for Gods inward speaking to men most frequently without the Ministry of men or books as outwardly I cited divers observable places of Scripture as Psal 94.10 Psal 50.1.16 to 22. Amos 4.13 Micah 6.8 Prov. 8.1 2 3 4. Job 28.28.24.13 and 21.14 and that noted place Luke 12.20 from all which I did conclude that it hath been the way of God and ever will be to speak to men in their hearts to call them and warn them and fore-warn them of evil and danger and to perswade and incline them to that which is good And all these places of Scripture prove thâ—t God doth at present and in every Age move and stir upon mens Consciences and sâ—eak in them by his Word and Voice as really as he did in the Prophets tho' not equally nor the same in all respects and this is immediate Revelation and Inspiration seeing God doth it without the Ministry of men most frequently even in the Heathen and in the Wicked when they are neither hearing men nor reading nor thinking on any place of Scripture and all this ye meerly slubber over with a bare Magisterial Affirmation saying That it is all but the actings of a natural Conscience under legal Convictions But tell me What works these Legal Convictions doth not the Scripture say it is God and he doth it by speaking to them in their hearts for God doth not use to speak to men by an outward audible Voice and therefore there is more in men than what ye call a Relique left in men of a natural Conscience there is that which newly and freshly and immediately calleth to men in their hearts and is a new gift and visitation of God I find not that ye say any thing but one that hath some shadow or appearance of weight and that is from Rom. 8.3 Gal. 3.21 viz. That the Law is weak through the flesh and cannot give Life And this is even that Law which was within both Jews and Gentiles universally and was not the meer outward Law But to this I Answer That by the Law in these places cited by you and in many other places that could be â—â—ted as Rom. 3.19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 c. Gal. 3.8 9 10 â—1 12 13. is indeed to be understood not the meer outward Law given to the People of Israel but the Law within in its first Administration or Dispensation that hath its proper work and service to condemn and not to justifie to wound bruise and kill and not to heal bind up and make alive and this first â—dministration of the Law is most necessary and proper and is the real effect and work of Christ in his inward appearance in mens hearts as a Law-giver and judge but not so properly nor clearly nor distinctly as a Saviour as he appeareth in his second Administration perfectly to save the Soul and deliver it from Sin and Wrath and perfectly to restore and renew it into the Conformity of his own Image by faith in him the whole Christ intire and undivided both as he came in the flesh suffered Death for our sins rose again c. ascended into Heaven and is now in Heaven our Intercessor and Advocate with the Father and as he cometh in Spirit And of this twofold Administration of Christ first as a Law-giver secondly as a perfect Saviour Moses and Joshua were Types Moses was a type of Christ in his first Ministration and Joshua was a type of him as a perfect Saviour in his second Ministration both which are inward for though the true Christian Faith respecteth Christ come in the flesh without us and now glorified in Heaven in the glorified nature of Man c. yet the Mystery of this and the worth of his Death and Intercession must be inwardly opened and revealed in us by the Spirit of Christ And as Moses led the People out of Egypt through the red Sea and thâ—ough the Wiâ—derness and brought them to Jordan and the borders of the good Land and no further and then dyed so Joshâ—a was raised up to bring them beyond Jordan into the good Land therefore Moses begun the woâ—k but Joshua finished it Which two are plain figures of the twofold inward Ministration of Christ the one that is more Legal than Evangelical and hath the Evangelical hid in it but not clearly revealed the other that is clearly and apparently Evangelical and because the second inward Ministration of Christ in mens hearts doth not appear at first in its fulness of vigor and strength but gradually therefore there is a mixture of the first second which is a middle Dispensation consisting of both and this is well known and experienced by spiritual Travellers although to you it is a Mystery and a Riddle that ye mock at rather than enquire into And concerning this diversity of inward Dispensations and Ministrations both having one Author to wit the Lord Jesus Christ not only the people called Quakers but many sober and juditious Protestants have given Teâ—â—â—mony and their Testimony is upon record in print some calling them Three and referring them the one to the Father the other to the Son together with the Father and
the third and Last to the Holy Ghost togeâ—her with the Father and the Son and of these three inward divine Dispensations he called Doctor Gell an English Protestant whose Works are printed in English and well received by many Protestants though he was no Quaker hath particularly made mention and thâ—se three Dispensations being reduceable unto two aâ— suppose there may be several mixtures of Water and Wine three four or seven or more yet still they are but two viz. Water and Wine some other Protestants have mentioned and explained them as particularly Henry Vane in his book called The retired mans Meditations c. whom I the rather particularly mention because there are some in New-England perhaps members of your Church who both knew him and have a true respect to him as judging him a sincere Christian and neither Heretick nor Apostate for his Doctrine and yet when I or any of my fâ—iends hold forth the same Doctrine of distinct inward Dispensations and Ministrations nothing differning in substance such is your want of Charity that we are Hereticks and Blasphemers and fearful and incorrigible Apostates which showeth great Partiality in you and that we would evaporate the Gospel into Allegories and Dispensations as ye phrase it But ye are greatly mistaken although we own the due and moderate use of Allegories well warranted by Paul and the other Apostles and Prophets and by good Christian writers in all Ages yet we place not the Gospel in the meer Allâ—gory or Figure that is but the Shell the Substance is the inward kirnel hid under the Shell And for variety of Dispensations the Scripture is plain and express and mentioneth the Dispensation of the fulness of Time when Christ after his Death and Resurrection gave the holy Ghost to all true Believers as the more excellent far exceeding any former Dispensation when Christ was the Mystery hid in great part from Ages and Generations and not so revealed as when the fullness of Time came And ye your selves hold forth differing Dispensations of Grace if any Credit can be given to your words pag. 87. where ye say We thought there had been different Dispensations of Grace clearly intimated Rom. 11.7 Whereby ye plainly insinuate That even such who are not saved are under a Dispensation of Grace and yet this tho' affirmed by us is denyed by you who restrict the Grace of God only to such who are saved so ye say and unsay the same thing little heeding what ye say and though ye blame me for thiâ— ye are guilty of it and not I for I doubt not but that I can well defend all my Sayings to be well consistent one with another And notwithstanding that I readily grant unto you yea and plead for it as much as any that the first Administration of Christ and God in mens hearts is weak and is not sufficient of it self to justifie and save with eternal Saâ—vation and to give eternal Life without the second that is to follow which giveth faith in Christ as come in the flesh dead and raised again and more abundant Grace that doth accompany that Faith and Knowledge of Christ as such yet all this nothing serveth your turn in the least for we never asserted the sufficiency of the first Manifestation Ministration of Christ in mens hearts as alone without the second but as relative unto it and as regarding it as the end of the first And yet we still affirm that God and Christ is at work in all men in a day of Visitation in order to save them and God and Christ are sufficient to begin and carry on the work And though Paul call the Law weak yet it is to be considered that he calleth it not so absolutely or of it self but weak through the flesh because the flesh or nature of man is weak to fulfill it until Christ be revealed in the second Ministration of him to fulfill the Righteousness of the Law And if ye were not very partial ye might have understood by what I charged against you in Article 5. that I placed not such a Sufficiency in the first degree of Light and Grace and in the operation thereof as did suffice from first to last but there is a Sufficiency in it to begin some good work in men that hath a proper and real tendency to the perfecting the Salvation of mens Souls as when a Chyrurgion lanceth a Wound and searcheth it and washeth it that is a necessary work and what he doth he doth as a skillful able and sufficient work man and that work hath a proper and real tendency to perfect the cure yet that alone is not enough to cure the Wound but he must apply his Healing Plaister to it and make several new Applications of his Medicine And though we still preach God and Christ in mens hearts to be all-sufficient to save them yet we never said nor thought that what is revealed or dispenced of any inward Ability Influence or Operation of God and Christ is sufficient for all time to come either to Gentiles or Christians for the best Christians need a daily renewed Influence of Grace of Wisdom of Lâ—fe and Ability from God and Christ to descend uâ—on them and come into them and they are to wait for the daily and hourly incomes of it And therefore the weakness of the first inward Adminiâ—tration of Christ I deny not but assert and yet it is not weak in it self but through the flesh and it is weak to justifie and save perfectly but it is mighty and powerful to reprove to judge to wound to bruise and to kill and He even Christ and God in Christ who woundeth healeth and He who killeth maketh alive and He who bruiseth bindeth up and He who maketh the Soul sick and sensible that it needâ—th the Physitian proveth the Physitian to the Soul and such kind of Doctrine I have heard among the more sober kind of Presbyterians and some Presbyterian Preachers have said That Moses and Joshua were Types of Christ as we say and as Moses began a good Work though his Ministration was weak in comparison and carried the People a great way so as to bring them to Jordan and the border of the good Land so we say Christs inward Ministration that Moses outwardly by way of Allegory and Analogy did answer unto though weak comparatively beginneth a good work in men and carrieth them a great way as it were to the spiritual Jordan and to the border of the spiritual Canaan and Kingdom and then cometh the second inward Ministration that answereth to Joshua that bringeth them into the good Land and giveth them their Lots and Possessions therein But still our Controversie is great and just with you who say The Law within is so weak and all the Light that is within the Gentiles or unconverted men called Christians is so impotent and unable that it can do no good thing in them nor can begin the least good work
a good work that is not false and hypocritical ye grant and if ye did abide by what ye have said in this matter the Controversie might end as to that head Pag. 110. The cutting off the Natural Branches If we may believe your bare Authority for ye give no shadow of proof ye will have it relate only to a viâ—ibâ—e Church state but the contrary is manifest from this that as the cutting off is so shall the grafting in again be for that Rom. 11. containeth a plain Prophesie of the Conversion of the Jewes and People of Israel when all Israel shall be saved And surely that Conversion and Salvation is a real thing Ye are no less absurd to say The Oyl that the foolish Virgins had in their Lamps was only a Profession they had of Grace and yet ye say expresly Their Lamps was their Profession which is a gross Self-Contradiction for the Lamp and the Oyl could not be one and the same thing if the Lamp as ye say is the Profession the Oyl must be something else unless ye will say The Oyl is the Cask and the Cask is the Oyl Pag. 112. Ye strangely contradict your selves in answer to Ezek. 18.24 saying The Scriptures assure us that no true Believer shall totally and finally fall away from Grace How strangely do ye forget your selves who within a few Lines before did affirm That the Faith that may be fallen from is not a false Faith see pag. 111. line 8. Pag. 113. Ye argue That David's Fall when he committed Murder and Adultry was not totally from Grace because he prayed Psal 51.11 Take not thy holy Spirit from me But ye are strangely inconsiderate may ye not think that a Child can answer you when David prayed that Prayer God had begun to restore him again and that Psalm is called one of his penitential Psalms and was a Testimony that God by his good Spirit had begun a true work of Repentance in him after his fall and had given him together with Repentance his holy Spirit and he prayed that it might not be taken from him Do ye think ye deal with Idiots and persons void of common sense when ye argue at this shallow rate I told you before and I again tell you That if a Murderer and an Adulterer while such may be a real Saint the worst of Men may believe that they are real Saints Your Answer hath no Validity when ye say They never had the work of Conversion past upon them but this is barely said Why may not others who have had some real beginning like that of David in some measure fall into these Sins of Murder and Adultry And surely these who commit Murder and Adultry whatever they have been before may be numbred amongst the worst of men They may say a cording to your Doctrine They had the work of Conversion wrought upon them formerly and they are Saints still and ye cannot convince them to the contrary by your Doctrine I say still it would argue great Partiality which far be it from us to think it can have place in God that one and the same Sin is Mortal in one and not Mortal in the other the pure Life of Faith is killed by every gross Sin or Crime such as Murder and Adultry for if he who hateth his Brother hath not eternal Life abiding in him surely nor he who with his hands killeth his Brother That Gods Promises are meerly Hypothetical to his elect Saints and Children I neither said nor say yet the Promises are held forth Conditionally and some are Conditional and some absolute Pag. 115. Ye grosly abuse me by alledging That I introduce the Popish distinction oâ— Mortal and Venial Sins I use no such words and have not the Popish sence of these words but yet I believe there are lesser and greater Sins and great and hainous Sins and Crimes kill the Soul such as the Crimes of Murder Adultry but every smaller Offence doth not kill the Soul utterly but yet hurteth or woundeth and this both Experience Scripture confirmeth and ye are a sad sort of men if ye think that the gross Sins and Crimes of Muâ—der and Adultry do no more hurt the Souls of men than some Weaknesse and Infirmities that are really culpable yet of a smaller kind as a little wandering of Mind a little slackness or remisness for a little time c. Whereas I did affirm There is a state in Grace that men may grow up into wherein they never fall away but are crowned with Perseverance for which I cited divers places of Scripture as Psal 119.2 3 1 Joh. 3.9 1 John 2.19 and these I called such who were the Sons and Children of the Free-Woman and who are made conform to the Image of the second Adam Christ Jesus beyond the Image of the Earthly Adam who fell and who sit down in Christ that never fell and these abide with him and go not out To this ye say nothing that has any weight but meer triffling ye say It belongs to Faith where ever it is that who ever have it are born of God And here ye contradict again your own Doctrine who granted That there is a Faith that may be lost that is not false Ye say I mistake the Notion of the difference between Servants and Sons for ye say true Believers are both Sons and Servants But this I did not deny nor do yet the Scripture maketh a distinction thus Every Son is a Servant as Christ was both Gods Son and Servant as he is called in Scripture and Paul was a Son of God and a Servant of God but yet every Servant is not a Son of God born of the free-Woman The Servant said Christ abideth not in the House forever but the Son abideth forever The Son of Hagar must become the Son of Sarah that he may dwell in the House of the Lord forever But ye falsly alledge against me as if I said None are in the New Covenant until that after Death they come into glory And ye show your great Ignorance and want of Experience to deny that men may be in a middle state between both as partly of a Legal Spirit and partly of a Gospel Spirit for some time for the Disciples were too much of a Legal Spirit when Christ told them Ye know not what Spirit ye are of Too many called Christians who have a measure of Gospel-sincerity are too much of a Legal Spirit and are not wholly leavened into the Gospel Spirit Pag. 117. Ye say I seem to lay the stress upon the strength oâ— Inherent Grace whereas the Scripture assâ—res us it is of God and depends upon his Power I say the same it is of God and depends upon his Power and both God and his Power doth preserve the Faith Love and other Graces and Virtues of his People and keepeth them ever green that they wither not as the Cedars of Lebanon Ye faâ—sly alledge I confound the two
Saints outwardly eat together and then also inwardly eat of that inward and spiritual Food and have together an inward enjoyment of the Lord in their hearts that may be called the Supper of the Lord which both may be without and with the outward eating but I did not say nor do I now say that alwayes when the Saints eat outwardly at their ordinary Meals they eat together inwardly but that the times are very frequent of their outward and inward eating together at one time wherein they remember the Lords Death and praise him as for all his Mercies so for what he hath done and suffered for them and this Solemnity may be well used by any Number as well small as great and without any Gown-Man or ordained Priest either of Pope Prelate or Presbyter for all the Faithful are a Royal Priesthood unto God and there is no shadow of ground in Scripture that Saints may not eat and drink together remembring the Lords Death with Prayer and Blessing and Thanksgiving and enjoying an inward and spiritual Communion together though they be ever so small a Number and though having no Priest outwardly ordained as above said And seeing outward Ordination of Priests or Presbyters either by Pope Prelate or Presbyter none of whom have any inward and immediate call is a meer human Invention as John Owen whom ye esteem your reverend Brother hath sufficiently proved and that ye lay the main stress of this Ordinance its being observed or practised hereupon that some ordained Minister consecrate it or Independent Pastor which is of no better Authority than the former Ye can never prove that that ye call the Supper is any thing beyond what is frequently practised among us even as outwardly although as to the inward to Gods praise we know we have the advantage incomparably beyond all of you And instead of proving that your eating together hath any advantage above ours ye say Ye think your Supper is beyond ours as being an holy Ordinance of Gospel Worship and ours is only the common Duty of all men But as ours is not the common Duty of all men as ye falsly alledge so yours is not an holy Ordinance of Gospel Worship for it is essential to all Gospel Worship to be performed in the Spirit because God is a Spirit but ye plead That men called Ministers who have nothing of true Piety or the Spirit of Truth and Holiness may consecrate the Bread and make it a Sacrament of the Supper of the Lord. Pag. 145. Ye commit another gross Abuse falsly alledging on me that I said All outward eating and drinking is a natural and necessary sign of the inward see my Book p. 192. I say not All outward eating drinking but I say such a figure as is natural and necessary to be used by us all c. where ye may see I restrict it to Believers so that the outward eating and drinking of Believers is a natural and necessary sign or figure of the inward to Believers but not to Unbelievers as the whole outward World is a figure of the inward and spiritual as Paul doth expresly call it 1 Cor. 7.31 But whereas ye say There is not one Syllable expresly nor consequentially intimating any such thing there ye show your great Rashness or Ignorance for in the Greek to which I did refer the word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Latine Scema and Englished Scheme that most commonly signifieth figure and is expresly translated Figure in that very place by Pasor a zealous Protestant in his Lexicon thus Figura hujus Mundi preterit i. e. the Figure of this World passeth away Hence in all Mathematical Schools in teaching Geography or Astronomy we call the draught or figure proposed in the Lesson the Scema or Sceme and any ordinary School-boy or common Shepherd or Plow-man may inform you that this visible World is a Figure of the invisible and the outward a figure of the inward which is a common Saying in the mouthes of men generally and is further confirmed by Paul saying The invisible things of God are understood by the things that are made Rom. 1.20 and by the fore-cited Saying of Luther That in all Creatures we see a Declaration and Signification of the holy Trinity And whereas I said That in our outward eatings sometimes we do use both inward outward Prayer and Thanksgiving and sometimes only inward this in a way of Scoff ye call A new way of Consecration whereby ye declare your selves too great strangers to inward and mental Prayer performed only with the heart and mind for if ye did rightly understand inward and mental Prayer ye would acknowledge that the outward eating is sanctified by the Word of God and by inward Prayer as well as both inward and outward but the outward without the inward hath no virtue to sanctifie the Creatures of God and yet certainly ye give too much cause to judge that your outward Prayer wanteth the inward when ye allow both the Members Ministers of your Church to be Members and Ministers without all inward Holiness or working of the Spirit of God And how the Prayer of Unholy Men as ye allow your Ministers may be that consecrate the Bread and Wine to be the Sacrament of the Supper can consecrate sanctifie or make holy evâ—â—â—es Instruments these Elements is as strange a Paradox as how an unclean thing can bring out a clean or one contrary another Pag. 146. Ye alledge That the Seventh day was appointed viz. for a Sabbath before the Fall and so was no Type of Christ. But the former ye barely alledge for that the Seventh Day its being said to be blessed c. suppose a natural or common Day before any mention is made of the Fall of Adam no more proveth its Institution before the fall for a Sabbath than that it can be proved there were diversities of Languages before Babel because Languages or Tongues are mentioned Gen. 10.5.20.31 and yet in the following Chap. vers 1. it s said The whole Earth was of one Language for divers things are recorded in Scripture by Anticipation Pag. 147. Ye say Heb. 4.9 10. it is said Christ entred into his Rest and doth that mean that he entred into himself Answ It is not said that Christ or God entred into his Rest but That God ceased from his Works but allow it That Christ entred into his Rest is not That that he entred into that Glory he had with the Father before the World was and can God or Christ have another or better Rest than Himself or can any natural or common Day be a Rest unto God O blind Man Ye call an inward Day Non-sence but it is because ye have not sence to understand it Is not the Day of Gods Power and the Day of Salvation mentioned in Scripture an inward and spiritual Day Ye say again If I can find an inward Seventh Day in Scripture it will be a rare Invention I Answer As I
continue to offer up this Dirt and Dung unto God but remember that God will cast the Dirt Dung of your Sacrifices on your faces and the Dung of your solemn Feasts according to Mal. 2.3 And surely seeing by your own confession your Prayers are Dirt and Dung they cannot be that pure Offering which God promised his People should offer up unto him Mal. 1.11 6thly Ye say Prophets do not use to call men to Repent of their holding the Truth as it is in Jesus and his Call is nothing else Ans I bid you not Repent for your holding the Truth in Jesus for that is false ye hold it not in Jesus but as ye hold many Errors in Doctrine so ye hold something of Truth in Unrighteousness according to Rom. 1.18 and I bid you Repent of your Hypocrisie Pride Vanity Blasphemy hard Speeches Cruelty c. 7thly Ye say Prophets had wont to show some proof of their Call but ye alledge I have shown none but ye have not told what proof they used to show or what proof John a great Prophet showed to the Pharisees for he wrought no Miracles their ordinary proof was Hear the Word of the Lord and Let the Lord be Witness and this is my proof who do not equal my self to any of those Prophets it sufficeth that I am one of the least of the Servants of Christ But it is hard to prove a thing to be White to a blind man or that I speak to a deaf man When ye can prove that ye have Ears to hear what God saith in his Servants or that your Earâ— are open to hear I can prove That God spoke by me unto you but ye shut your Ears against Gods Call as many did of Old and said The Lord hath not spoken when he did speak I say it with Sorrow if ye were not blind ye might see some of the Judgments of the Lord begun to be executed upon you which I was made with great sorrow to declare I did feel were to come upon the People both of Boston and New-England if they did not speedily Repent though Ye have not considered and laid it to heart yet some have and more I hope will for their Amendment but as for me I have not desired the Evil Day to come upon you but greatly desire if it be the good will of God that ye may find Mercy to Repent and so his Wrath that is began to kindle against you may be quenched And though I told you That whatever Doctrine cannot be proved from Scripture is to be rejected whatever pretence men may make to Immediate Revelation yet this doth not reach me for I bring no Doctrine but what I prove from Scripture but as for the Call that Gods Servants used to have they proved it not by Scripture but by the living Voice of God speaking in them to all who have an Ear open to hear but your Ear is shut as so was Pharoah's Ear against God's Call in Moses though accompanied in him with great Miracles and as some believed that saw no Miracles of old so many did not believe that did see them and so would it be now if Miracles were wrought In your Appendix which containeth a poor empty shadow of Answer to my Letter unto you I need not take notice of all your Impertinencies nor reply unto them as judging it loss of time and paper Ye say 1st Ye hope ye have now given a satisfactory Reason why ye called my Letter a Blasphemous and Heretical Paper But your hope will prove vain I freely leave it to all that are sober and able to judge in these matters 2dly Ye think ye have now found spiritual Weapons if the Word of God be the Sword of the Spirit Ephes 6.17 But the Word of God ye are ignorant of and also of the Scripture that testifie of it and ye have only wrested and abused some places of Scripture to defend your bad Cause as I have made sufficiently already appear 3dly Ye say your preaching is open and ye shut out none but those that will not come But this is a poor excuse do ye not deny to give us a fair hearing when if any come to answer to your false accusations and gain-say your false doctrine before they can speak one sentence they are carried away to the Goal 4thly Ye alledge when I came unto you your Liberties were taken away But this is a notorious Falsehood ye had all the Liberty that we or I had or could be desired None of your Meetings were disturbed by them in Authority nor no Prohibition to hinder you fairly to debate things of Religion only ye had not power to persecute as formerly and your Sun of Persecution was set 5thly Ye falsly alledge I boast of my great Conquest for I only publish your Cowardice And that ye say Ye suppose ye have made my Cake appear to be Dough it is but a supposition and hath nothing of truth in it 6thly Ye say Ought not the Shepherd to be aware when the Wolf comes to his Flock But suppose I were a Wolf as I thank God I am not when the Woâ—f cometh among your flock openly should the Shepherds abscond and not give the Wolf an open Assault Is this the way to defend your Flock unless ye did judge that by your open appearing in a publick Dispute ye would discover your weakness 7thly Ye say Ye knew I was a Quaker and therefore doubted my design But I told you plainly what my design was viz. To discover you to be Teachers of false Doctrine in many things 8thly Ye say I give no demonstration that I came in the Will of the Lord unto you But ye should say ye are blind and cannot see it as all false Teachers and Persecuters were who did not acknowledge that the true Servants of God who came unto them were sent of God 9thly Ye falsly and without all shadow of proof say It was of God doubtless to leave him in the hands of Satan to be thus acted I value not your false Judgment further than to pitty your great Blindness 10thly Ye say I have set you a President viz. To Lye and Rail but ye follow it not But let all sober and impartial Readers judge whether ye have not both Lyed and Railed most grosly and tho' I have used some sharp words towards you according to your desert as Gods Servants have done formerly against men of your Spirit yet my tender Conscience beareth me witness with the help of God that I have neither lyed nor railed upon you 11thly Ye say It hath been proved that I bring another Doctrine than that of Christ But ye say it and that is all And whereas I told you an Heretick tho' I am none should be twice admonished before he is rejected Ye answer Have I not been more than so But I say I never to this day received Admonition from any Church Presbyterian or other according to due Church
were once in a ready way to have broken up all the Good Order whether Civil or Sacred in the Infancy of this Plantation which occasioned the Authority whom they would have undermined then to turn a Sharp upon them by Laws not so severe as those in the Realm of England against their Fathers the Jesuites on the same Account yet those Troublesom Hereticks who had no Business here at all but the overthrowing of our whole Government would push themselves on the Swords point and tho' repeated Banishments with merciful Entreaties to be gone were first used unto them nevertheless two or three of them would rather Dye than leave the Plantation undisturbed Reply How or after what manner the Plantation in its infancy was in such danger our Author is silent in True it is that upwards of thirty Years past some of our Friends as faithful Servants in obedience to their Lord and Masters command the great God of heaven by the spirit of his Son in their hearts did visit N. England in true and tender Love to the Inhabitants thereof for whose Immortal Wellfare they earnestly travailed and were bowed down before the Lord being amongst them in much brokenness of Heart and contrition of Spirit they were grieved and weighted in their Souls with the Hypocrisie in New-England against which they witnessed sealing it with their Blood their hearts being filled with that Message the holy Apostle Paul in his day was imployed in Acts 26.17 18. To open their Eyes and to turn them from Darkness to Light and from the Power of Satan unto God directing them to the manifestation of the Spirit of God in them A Teacher not to be removed into a corner nor that would any ways deceive them or suffer them to be at ease in sin This High way of the Lord cast up in his Son Christ Jesus the Light of the World the Sound thereof offended the Ears of New-England's Teachers who not unlike Demetrius the Silver-smith Acts 19.24 proved notable Incendiaries against the Lords Servants left their craft should be in danger so far did they kindle the Rage and Fury of their bigotted Rulers that by cruel Usage and inhumane Laws they far exceeded any thing in the Realm of England against the Jesuites And whilst I am writing there livingly springs up in my heart to you the Inhabitants of Boston New-England a weighty Exhortation and that in tender Love That you would mind the Grace of God that bringeth Salvation and as the holy Scripture testifies hath appeared unto all men 2 Tit. 11. that in the same you may see your blind Guides for if the Blind lead the Blind both shall fall into the Ditch Beware that it be not your Condemnation that Light is come into the World and that you love Darkness rather than Light because your Deeds are Evil I have neither Envy nor Malice against the Priests or People of New-England but earnestly desire the Eternal Well-fare of both yet I cannot but lament the present state of New-England as well as its former whose Priests to the life are drawn out in the 3d of Micah v. 5. Thus saith the Lord concerning the Prophets that make my People Err that bite with their Teeth and cry Peace and he that putteth not into their Mouthes they even prepare War against him vers 11. The Heads thereof judge for Reward and the Priests thereof Teach for Hire and the Prophets thereof divine for Money yet will they lean upon the Lord and say Is not the Lord among us none Evil can come upon us O New-England New-England is not this your present state Are not your Priests crying Peace unto you as if no Evil could come upon you in the midst of these Cloudes of Dangers that are hanging over your heads some of them you have for more than a Twelve Moneth felt to wit A Bloody Cruel War with the Heathen the loss of so many Lives hath humbled me before the Lord and at this time the earnest Cry and Supplication of my Soul unto God is That you may by your speedy sincere Repentance unto him prevent his Judgments for the future That the Jesuits may be properly termed the Fathers of New-England Priests none can doubt if they differ not from their Brother John Cotton of Hampton who in a publick Dispute with G. K. owned To have received his Ministry by the Pope of Rome whose Emisaries they are Beside as they can never prove the Quakers guilty of any one Jesuitical Error yet we can prove these Priests of Boston guilty of many and more especially in their being Incendiaries against the Peace of the Government The further calumniating those who suffered Death to answer your Crucity is but a mean way to expiate the Crime of their innocent Blood which crys aloud for Vengeance and the Lord unto whom it belongs will repay it Thou Cotton Mather nor all thy Fraternity will never be able to prove these 4 Worthies troublesom Hereticks that patiently endured Martyrdom for the Testimony of Jesus by their crul Hands neither will thy poor Insinuation help That two or three of them would rather dye than leave the Plantation undisturbed They had no reason to hearken unto your Hypocritical entreaties to be gone it was their Birth-right as free-born Subjects of the Kingdom of England and so might claim it to inhabit N. England as well as any that there resided as not being forbid to them by either the Law of God or the Realm of England so that being innocent they feared not man that could only hurt the Body but feared him that could cast both Body and Soul into Hell Fire C. M. It is possible a Bedlam had been fitter for those Frantick People than what was inflicted on them and for my own part I must profess with regard unto such Hereticks Ad Judicium sanguinis Tardus sum nor have I the least inclinations to Hereticide as a fit way to suppress their Errors Reply Here our Author doth not a little impeach the Authority of N. England at that time who were accessary to the Death of those â— Worthies by him call'd Frantick People for if according to him a Bedlam had been fitter surely they greatly sinned in passing and executing Sentence of Death upon them the present Governour Simon Broadstead then a Magistrate is greatly concerned in this Charge which amounts to no less than the taking away four Lives by an unjust Judgment for how can that Sentence of Hanging be just against such for whom a Bedlam had been fitter Such as this Author renders our Friends to have been are by the Laws of England exempted from the punishment of Death as also it s reckoned amongst the Abuses of the common Law That such who kill People by false Judgment be not destroyed as other Murderers as may be seen in that noted Book called The Mirror of Justice C. 5. Sect. 108. in express words thus It is abuse that Justices and other Officers who kill People by false Judgment be not destroyed as other Murderers which K. Alfred cause to be done who caused forty four Judges in one Year to be hanged as Murderers for their false Judgments which in the said Book are particularly noted and in the 4th Case he instances how King Alfred hanged Cole because he judged Ive to death when he was a Mad-man Cotton Mather forgot his respect to the venerable Mordocai of his Country as he at other times terms him when he thus exposed him M. C.
points at Christ as both God and Man that most excellent middle that unites God and Men together for in all the Creation we see how the wonderful Wisdom of God and his wonderful Power hath united extreams by certain means or middles and these do plainly point unto us how as the highest and lowest Creatures are united by a certain medium or mediating nature partaking of both extreams so God the Creator and most high over all is united with men the noblest of his visible Creatures by him that is both God and Man made like to us in all things but without siâ— and therefore behoved to dye and rise again to lay a Foundation for our Faith and Hope that though we dye we shall also rise again Nor is this my single Perswasion but that of very judicious and wise Men long before me and Paulus Ricius a Jew by Birth but who became a Christian in his Treatise de Coelesti Agricultura lib. 1. from pag. 40 to 52. showeth how there are many excellent Symboles in the Creation that as Types and Examples hold forth that great Mystery of Christ God Man that were to be united in one and that this man could be but one only single man in the intire nature of Man of Soul and Body in all essential parts who should be both God and Man and for this he citeth a saying in Aristotle which is this lib. 10. Metaph. In quolibet genere rerum daturmum maximum et omnium ahorum summum i. e. in every kind of things there is one the greatest and highest of all others And who is this but the Man Christ Jesus who only among all men is both God and Man and the Head of all mâ—n And by exceâ—lent Symboles and Examples he showeth how this one man was to dye for all otheâ— men rise again And therefore however strange it may seem unto you not only many things in the Creation but the whole Creation it self is a Book full of Symboles Vails and Figures pointing at Christ even the Man Christ who was to suffer Death and rise again for the Salvation of men and yet I do most freely acknowledge that the Books of Moses and the Prophets did moâ—e fully and distinctly hold forth this great Mystery But seeing ye grant That the Vails and Types of the Ceremonial Law did suffice to the Jews and People of Israel so far as outward helps and means were requisit to shadow and hold â—orth Christ unto them the same may be said as concerning the Gentiles that in some sort sufficient as in respect of outward helps and means for that day and time until more knowledge should come into the World was the Book of the outward Creation together with that knowledge they had that they were to sacrifice unto God as is above said And as God gave to the Jews and People of Israel his good spirit to instruct them in the signification of the Mosaical and Ceremonial Law and the Types and Shadows thereof so no doubt he gave a measure of his good Spirit to instruct the Gentiles what these Types and Figures legible in the Book of the whole Creation did signifie for as the Book of Wisdom saith The incorruptible Spirit of God is in all that is confirmed by Scripture for God gave his Spirit unto and by his Spirit strove with the People of the old World and it is the Light of Christ the Word and of the Spirit that convinceth and reproveth of sin that lighteth every man that cometh into the World which however ye call it only natural and humane we have good cause to believe it is divine and supernatural yet lightning the dark nature of Man and as it is absurd for any to hold a Book to a mans face in the dark and bid him read therein when he hath no sufficient light to read with so it were absurd that God hath set so excellent a Book as the whole Creation before the Eyes of men universally I mean the Eyes of their understanding and not give them sufficient Light in some measure to enable them to understand what is writ therein and seeing that Book contains true and real Types and Symboles Figures and Shadows of Christ as he was to come in the flesh and suffer death and rise again it followeth God hath given all men so much inward Light as whereby they might read and understand what is written therein concerning the Man Christ altho the express Hebrew and Greek Names Messiah and Christ be not known to them in such an obscure way and manner as might serve to that time but the great Glory and Light of the Mystery of God manifest in flesh which is Jesus Christ come in the Flesh who is both God and Man and yet one Christ doth incomparably surpass not only what all Vails Types either of the Law or outward Creation can discover but all declaration of words and cannot be perfectly known but by a very high degree of divine Revelation and no doubt the full discovery of it is reserved to the Life to come where it shall be matter of eternal Admiration and Adoration to Saints and Angels And lest you should say This is some new Fancy of mine and some other late Writers or apostate Hereticks as ye use to say I shall recite a Testimony of a very antient Writer who is judged to be either Ambrose or Prosper above twelve hundred Years ago in that famous and noted Treatise De vocatione Gentium i. e. of the calling of the Gentiles much esteemed and cited by Protestants of great note and particularly by Vossius and Grotius learned and judicious Protestants In the said Treatise de vocatione Gentium lib. 2. cap. 1. ad fin he saith in express words citing Acts 14. And indeed he left not himself without a Witness giving Rains from Heaven and fruitfull Seasons filling Your hearts with Food and Gladness But what is this Testimony that was alwayes serviceable to the Lord and never was silent of his Goodness and Power but the very indeclarable Beauty of the whole World and the rich and orderly largition oâ— his indeclarable benefits by which cretain Tables oâ— his eternal Law were given to the hearts of men that the common and publick Doctrine of divine Institution might be read in the pages of the Elements and in the Volumns or Books of the Times therefore the Heavens and all heavenly things Sea and Land and all things in them by the â—armonious Consent of their kind and order did attest the Glory of God and by a perpetual preaching did speak the Majesty oâ— their Author But this is not all he further saith And yet the greatest number of men who were permitted to follow the ways of their own will did not understand and did not follow this Law and the Savour of Life which breathed or inspired unto Life Note is not this in some degree Evangelical was made unto them the savour of Death