or the honey-comb nor yet Ink and Paper-Divinity or meerly the words and works of men These are too low an opinion of them But positively First we intend the sense and matter by them expressed containing those Histories Prophesies Promises Threatnings Doctrines Exhortations c. which God at sundry times and in divers manners revealed to and spake by his Son and servants inspired by God or by inspiration of God Secondly the sense and matter aforesaid being written or printed we call the Word of God so far as the print or writing agrees in its kind with the Original Copies which were written by or by the Direction of God himself his son or servants inspired by him so we call it the Word of God but with this distinction the written Word SECT II. Now that the Scriptures are the VVord of God in the senses aforesaid I shall vindicate from the violent contradictions of the Quakers They have these three Objections against this truth 1. That it is improper so to call them viz. The VVord of God 2. That many things or sayings contained in them were spoken by wicked men or the devil 3 That this Title is peculiar to Jesus Christ the Son of God First they deny them to be the Word of God in the singular number I must therefore in dealing with this great Criticism reconcile the plural number to the singular I answer it sounds methinks very harshly that not one word in the Scripture should be the VVord of God because there are in them more words then one Surely if the first 2 3 4 and so on be the VVord of God then every word in it is the VVord of God and never the less but rather the more for being united for that there are few single words which standing alone will signifie any thing whereas divers put together have a sense and signification And the whole body of the Scripture considered together doth signifie the mind of God more compleatly then if it were dismembred and considered apart But I know they aim at more then a meer Grammar-nicety at which kind of failings they use not much to quarrel but are rather affected with them as if the Spirit of God delighted in real nonsense though I think the causes to be three especially First that their first Authors could speak or write no better and they take it to be apefection to write false English and nonsense after such infallible persons Secondly because they have so few of those they call their Ministry able to write true sense and English that those who can if they list will not lest they should disgrace their brethren and rather then that it should be admitted it shall become the fashion and obtain in time to be better English then sense A third reason may be their taking all matter and form to be infallibly from the Spirit and therefore dare not amend the sense of the Spirit But to what is the Question I return after this so long yet not altogether inexcusable digression one of their zealous Ministers as they call them thus exclaims And what an improper speech were this to call twenty thousand Sentences one word and it is called a Declaration and what a Declaration would that be which consisted but of one word but where do we say the Scriptures is but one word there is a great deal of difference between but one word and the Word and if the Scriptures be a Declaration in the singular number it must take many Declarations into one for it contains what was declared from Moses time to the Apostles and why not the word in the singular as well as a Declaration in the singular seeing the Scripture contains many Declarations but he gives one kick backward more at what he pleads for Pray have the patience to reade this man passing the sentence against himself A Rod for the fools back Prov. 26. 3. And what a foolish man is this to assert his own imaginations and then imagines the Scriptures will prove it what an improper speech is this c I know not the person he brands with folly but I am sure the cause as laid down by Howgil himself deserves it not and I must give him a little correction more for his absurdity in this one sentence he saith and it is called a Declaration here is the singular number for the plural which he is pleading against yea in the same instance it what it the Scriptures it the Relative the Scriptures the antecedent If I should stop at and examine all such passages in point of sense or true Grammar I must not finish my intended task this seven years but 't is pity not to lash a little when such idiots will be playing the Criticks He saith VVhat an improper speech c I am confident he understands not what improper means if he intend by improper that it is figurative he need not wonder and say what a figurative speech is this Alas the Scriptures and all Writings abound with figurative speeches of which number this is but if he mean by improper incongruous or unmeet he offends greatly for then the Scriptures are very guilty herein as will appear by and by and I know not what else he should mean by proper unless not peculiar or a tall speech as we call a tall man or woman a proper and by improper a short speech Let a Prophet of their own and he none of the small Prophets neither decide this Controversie Nay who never yet came so far as Balaam who had the Word of the Lord from his own Mouth But to cast this Objection out of doors we are to take it in a collective sense which is very frequent in the Scripture For instance the Scriptures themselves are sometimes expressed by a plural sometimes by a singular word Ye do erre not knowing the Scriptures Mat. 22. 23. Here it is plural It is contained in the Scripture 1 Pet. 2. 6. Here it is singular A sentence is called a word VVhere the word of a King is there is Power Eccles 8. 3. They were astonished at his doctrine for his word was with Power Either of these instances contain more then one single word The ten Commandments graven on the Table of Stone are in the Hebr ten words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which you have so rendred in the margin of some of your Bibles Deut. 10. 40. Now divide these Commandments into ten single ones and then each will have but one word come to its share to express it by and some one viz. the fourth hath at least 60 single words in the Hebr. but many more in the English Rom. 2. 9 10. To the Jew not Jewes and also to the Gentile not Gentiles can you suppose that one and but one single Jew or Gentile is hereby intended reade the sixth verse and you shall have it explained VVho will render to every man according to his deeds so that under
to be meant of Christ and God I am sure we should have Lords many and Gods many in a far lower sense then the Magistrates and great men of the world and Christ would be little beholden to us I beseech you therefore who are not stark blind and steel-hard either to abandon such principles or at least do not pretend to Scripture for them and abuse it after this manner for the Scriptures are no friend to your crooked unholy principles and that your Leaders know well enough SECT II. That I may blow the dust out of your eyes I shall take a little pains to shew you your mistake and also how to amend it in more and weightier points in themselves then this under-present consideration You do not honestly distinguish betwixt proper and figurative words and phrases in reading the Scriptures but have gotten an Art to construe them backward quite cross to their true intent and meaning you will take proper speeches for figurative and figurative for proper not careing for the true sense but as they will serve your turn and thereby you can prove quodlibet ex quolibet what you will and any how and so you seem in the eyes of silly and credulous souls to make your rope of sand to hang finely together and you are no more happy here for Christ the VVord is the VVord but in a less proper sense whereas the Scriptures are the VVord of God in a much more proper sense which I shall plainly demonstrate Only take one direction in the mean-while That where any phrase or word may be taken in a proper sense it ought so to be taken unless there be a necessity to do otherwise from the consideration of the Context As in the point in hand 't is said The VVord was God in the beginning here it cannot be understood of the VVord in a proper and ordinary acceptation because such words or word cannot be God neither were in the beginning Besides what is afterwards spoken of the VVord there is plainly and only to be understood of Christ the Son of God but if you consider the VVord expressed Mark 4. 19 And the cares of this World and the deceitfulness of riches and the lusts of other things entring in choak the VVord and it becometh unfruitful Here you must take it for the doctrinal VVord or VVord of Instruction which is a proper sense of the Word and if you should take it for Christ the VVord which is figurative you must read it Choak Christ which how untrue and uncomely a phrase it is I leave your selves to judge Now I shall shew you what is a word in a proper sâ—nse and that the Scriptures are such and what in a figurative sense and that Christ or the Son of God as the Word in ordinary acceptation is such A word in a proper sense is either an articulate syllabical sound which the eare is receptive of and by which somewhat may understood as its signification in a commonly received acceptation Or else a writing impression or graving which is such a disposing of letters in their Order as doth express and signifie to the eye what the other doth to the ear Now Christ is not cannot be the Word in neither of these senses for he is not a sound thus disposed nor yet an engraved printed or written thing but the Scriptures are such or consist of such words How the Scriptures are the word in the singular number I have already shewed and must refer you thither A figurative word or word in a figurative construction is somewhat so expressed but is so only by Analogy as having some proportion with and similitude or likeness to a word but will by no means bear the definition of a word taking in all that is essential to its being a word For instance God is called a Husbandman John 10. 1. but he is not so in a proper fense for he neither goes to plow nor sowe nor cart and managing grounds and cattel as a Husbandman doth nay he is not a man of any occupation whatsoever but there is some analogy and similitude betwixt the Almighty and a Husbandman in his dealings with his people for he takes care of them he waters them purges prunes plows digs fences feeds them in a spiritual sense Christ is called the Lion of the tribe of Judah the Vine the door yet he is none of these but with respect to his relation and usefulness to his people there is some similitude betwixt Christ and these Figures and Emblems of him he is strong and courageous fears none overcomes all he encounters with he conveys sap life and fruitfulness to his living branches he is the mean by which we may be reconciled to and enjoy God but enough of this And Christ who is God is the Word but by Analogy not properly in ordinary acceptation 1. He is a great part of the substance and scope of the Scriptures the Word of God they testifie of him and direct to him in their doctrine types c. To him give all the Prophets witness Acts 10 12. 2. He doth also manifest and signifie to us all the glorious attributes of God in a splendid manner but more especially his love mercy and pity and that not only as a Prophet and Teacher by the Word of his mouth but also in all his concerns as Mediatour 3. As he is the Executioner of the good promised and evils threatned in the Scriptures So Rev. 19. 13. he was employed in bloody work executing the vengeance of God against his Adversaries threatned in the Word and he possesses his faithful ones of the happiness prepared for and promised to them Thus I hope I have cleared my way hitherto One thing only remains to prove their errour which I have reserved as the last blow and that is to shew that the Scriptures do callthe Threatnings Promises c. therein contained the Word of God and the written Word and if I prove that in any place of Scripture the phrase cannot be taken in the sense the Quakers would have it that is for Christ or God and also that it can be taken in no other sense then for the matter contained in the Scripture I have done enough whether they will be convinced or no and they must dedeny the Scriptures to be true or own their doctrine to be false Verse 20. He that regarded not the VVord of the Lord left his servants and cattel in the field verse 19. He that feared the Word of the Lord made his eattel and servants to flee into houses What colour is here to expound the Word of the Lord in these Texts of God or Christ what more plain then that they feared the threatning or regarded not the threatning or gracious Advice given from God for avoiding the blow Luke 22. 61. And Peter remembred the VVord of the Lord what word How he said unto him before the Cock crow c. and
that it was the saying of Christ which Peter remembred you have Marks word for it or rather Gods Mark 14. 72. And Peter called to mind the VVord that Jesus said to him Jer. 23. 30. I am against the Prophets that steal my VVord every one from his Neighbour Can Christ be stoln or would God be so much offended with them for obtaining Christ as to put the black brand of theft upon it while he charges it as the highest crime to reject Christ I Sam 9. 27. Stand thou still a while that I may shew thee the VVord of God This Word was that God had chosen him King and the Prophecy of what should befal him in his return if you will needs have the VVord of God in this place to be understood of Christ you must read it with the Exposition thus Stand thou still a while and I will shew thee the Christ There are two words in the Greek which are Translated and signifie the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the first is sometimes used for Christ the personal Word but the other never Heb. 6. 5. And have tasted of the good Word of God And also Eph. 6. 17. And the Sword of the Spirit which is the VVord of God A little skill in the Original would free you from this and many more mistakes What I have done here will be to such as are willing to understand good measure pressed down shaken together and running over As for those who are of a perverse mind until the Lord give them a better frame I shall not wonder if they wink out the Sun at noon-day I shall next and briefly say somewhat of the written Word which we are greatly concerned to be satisfied in to be the Word of God for that we have no other standing Word as our Testimony of Gods revealed Will but what is written or printed which is all to a like purpose the one being by an impression of the Pen the other of Stamps This the Quakers deny with the addition of many absurdities arising from so calling and owning it Where saith one of them and a Chief Readest thou in the Scriptures of a written VVord it will be no hard matter to find an Answer to this question I have written to him the great things of my Law but they were accounted as a strange thing a sharp rebuke to the Objectors Exod. 31. 18. The Ten Commands or words according to the Hebr. as I have already shewed were written by the Finger of God himself and afterward by Moses the Law of Moses is called his Writings John 5. 47. If ye believe not his Writings and if the matter and sense be the Word of God before surely when it is written which any word that ever I heard may be it is a word written or a written word which you will SECT V. Some there are who have written against the Quakers who judge that although the Quakers will not admit of this Appellation of the Scriptures yet in other terms they allow them such titles as amount to as much and that the difference is rather verbal then real but let me tell such that besides the imprudence and danger of removing the ancient Land-Marks and not holding fast the forme of sound words there is a wide difference and great shortness in the best titles they will afford them yea take them altogether from this Appellation and therefore I shall examine them and discover their defects herein First they will allow them to be of God So they affirm their own Writings and Sayings to be also of God And let not this seem small in your eyes yet shall you all one day know that the Lord hath spoken it not only in some sense but in a higher then the Scriptures at least with respect to them and the times wherein we live But this phrase to be of God is of so large an import that the silliest VVorm and the basest clod of Clay we tread on may claim a share in the Priviledge yea nothing in the whole Creation but will bear this expression sin only excepted in its obliquiry for of him are all things Rom. 11. 36. Secondly thé Scriptures of truth This is ground enough for us to deal with them by the Authority of the Scriptures but there are many other Writings that are true and if you take the Scriptures to be understood by way of Eminency the Scriptures of truth so as no other Writings extant are so absolutely and divinely true they will utterly disclaim such a sense Thirdly They are the Experiences of the Saints and what they witnessed This is with them a very common phrase though this be true of some part of the Scriptures especially the Book of Psalmes it is too narrow a title by far for the whole Body of the Scriptures and for that part of the Scriptures which expresses the Experiences of the Saints it hath somewhat more as its end then a meer witnessing or expressing how it was with them But I do not wonder that they so much delight in this phrase when I consider that they themselves restrain almost all the Concerns of Religion to their Experiences yea things Historically related that were done without them long ago and are never again to be acted on the stage of this world and things Prophetically related in the Scriptures which shall not have a being until the end of the world They experience the Birth Righteousness Sufferings Death Burial Resurrection Afcension and Exaltation of Christ They experience the downfall of Babylon the Day of Judgement Heaven Hell and all within them and not with respect to some effects impressions and similitudes of these things but really and almost if not altogether exclusively of any other meaning all of which you will finde proved in the following Discourse but this is far short and wide of owning the Scriptures to be the Word of God There are no Saints but have their Experiences both good and bad but he that should write them and affirm them to be the Word of God as they are the Experiences of the Saints will fall with a witness under that severe censure of that true and legitimate Word of God Rev 22 18 19. and Deut. 4. 2. Fifthly they call them a Declaration of the Mind of God This all things considered is the highest expression of their esteem of the Holy Scriptures and Word of God for so I will call them whether they will or no but so were some part of the Writings of the Heathen-Idolaters who knew not the true God Yea many things which they spake of as the Duty of Man and against many immoral Vices The Apostle says no less when he quotes such Passages out of such Heathen-Authors Evil communication corrupt good manners 1 Cor. 15. 33. This is found in the Comedy of Menander called Thadia Act. 17. 28. For we are also his off-spring is a
and sensible impression from the Prince himself to whose secrets he is privy And this the Scriptures teach us to believe is a right Christian state and priviledge For said the Apostle we haue the mind of Christ And the secrets of God are with them that fear him And guide me by thy counsel and bring me to thy glory What Friends but when they read this Princely flourish but will conclude not only that he hath done it neatly but hit the nail o' th' head full and spoken their minds on as right as if he had been inspir'd by them all and no doubt he shall be their White Boy for all his defects who strokes them so finely and advances them to such a singular dignity of privacy and inwardness with God that not onely his revealed will in print is known by them in a more honourable and immediate way but also his secrecs which never stooped so low as to be wrapt in letters Here we have as in a glass W. P's opinion of the immediate teachings of the Spirit to be not only above his teachings by the scripture as to have a thing whispered in the ear from the princes own mouth doth excell any narrative by a declaration but also so much above them that he who injoyes this favour which must still be no other but a Quaker heeds not so much the same in print How much just not at all For if this viva vox more liveing touch and sensible impression do not put authority into them they are but meer Ciphers And if this living touch c. as he be lieves be without or contrary to the Scripture 't is all as good and authentick It is upon my Spirit is of much more divine obligation than it is written But Mr. Pen That The Scriptures teach us to believe this is a right Christians state and priviledge is a beetle-headed and hard hearted saying The Scripture knows nothing of it nor could I ever yet have a proof that any of you all ever heard the voice of God as viva voce is to be understood and I am very well satisfied the Quakers may be mistaken if they should presume they did ever since some of them took Paul Hobsons mumbling through a trunck and a hole in the wall to be the voice of the Lord. But that this should be the state of a right Christian wo worth the dayes past for so many ages wherein among all professed Christians but now and then One were in this state and that but a little while ere Their folly appeared to all men Onely now and then the Papists had a job to do for which a viva vox was a fit pretence But you have little Charity in unchristianing all he world whose very state is not according to these Characters A man in the dark especially if his fancy be strong is full of visions which have no other being than his imagination affords them this appears to be your state and the part you are acting I shall in short consider your warrants which you annex to your rare harangue For said the Apostles we have the mind of Christ Sure he had a good part of it by tradition from the other Apostles who were Christs witnesses of what he said and did and we have it in the Scripture And the Secrets of God are with them that fear him But where did the Apostle say this 't is no matter if it was not the Apostle Paul it was the Apostle David and that as good Nay it is all one if it had been the apostle G. Fox or the apostle W. Pen whose words and writings are of propherical and apostolical authority and may be numbred among the Scriptures as well as Pauls or Davids or any other Witness your audacious lines put in a different letter to be so understood You say but the Scriptures are herein fulfilled the holy way the vulturous eye did never see and that same ravenous Spirit after knowledge our adversary must come to know judged c. It is further to be considered that the words you quote out of the Scripture you pervert and the sense also For secret you put secrets For Lord you put God For the latter you 'l say it is one and the same sense for the Lord is God and God is the Lord but here you are too bold for all that God hath more Names in Scripture than one and if the varying had nothing of significancy whâ— wisdom of God would not have so expressed himself But to put secrets for secret marrs the sense But you 'l say not the truth Yes verily the truth in this place for this text doth not say so and to say it saith and the Apostle saith what they say not is an untruth and if I greatly mistake not the words that that follow and he will shew them his Covenant are interpretative of the word secret For indeed though the matter and surface of the Covenant be obvious to every common intelligence yet the necessity worth a considerable part of the sense but especially the faith interest and well grounded comfort of it are the secrets which this one great secret the Covenant contains and this Scripture speaks of imparting to those who fear the Lord yet it excludes not external means And guide me by thy counsel What is this to oppose or exclude Gods guidence by his written or printed word Have I not written to thee excellent things in counsels and knowledge Sure these were then afit guide as Gods means But verily there appears such a Spirit of slumber idleness and worse in your labours as if you gloried in a careless or designed perverting the Scriptures both for sense words and form and to vindicate the sense of G. Fox by the authority of your like crimes or greater The text saith thou shalt guide me c. Which expresses his faith in Gods promises but you turn it in to a prayer guide me c. I had almost forgotten a main consideration in your flourish about immediate teachings viz. he meets it in print because in print you here insinuate the formal cause of our respects to the written word or printed to be its being in print and that there lyes the difference between you and us Not so good Mr. Pen the beam in our eye is not so big neither are we inclined to that piece of superstition for then no sooner you could get your conceits in print but immediately we must hugg them and get the second impression in our hearts without more a do for they are in print But if you would know the Truth and speak it of us the next time you have occasion it is this We value not the sense for the prints sake but the print for the sense sake and the blessings that attends that way of conveying the holy and revealed Will of God And so much to correct your vapour which may do you good if you
wisdom of the flesh and therefore it is by inspiration immediate Let such know that they must shew somewhat more then palpable errour gross ignorance and unparallel'd confidence ere they gain credit with any but those simple ones in a silly sense who believe every word A third Difference is that Apostolical illuminations and immediately inspired are not habitual they are not the more constant frame of the soul but have their fluxes not as Springs or running Rivers or Tydes which have their ebbings and flowings yet the chanel alway plentifully supplied but as bourns and flouds that sometimes rise high yet the grounds they cover for a while are sometimes and ordinarily a long time dry and no appearance remaining of those inundations The Apostles and Prophets had not such a Well and Spring of this sort as alway run or out of which they might ordinarily give advice and teachings of this kinde Whereas the Spirits most ordinary illuminations common to all Saints do in their several degrees and measures in-dwell in their souls and are as qualities adhering to their subjects their mindes and faculties being so united to them as Sugar being melted in the Wine its sweetness is constant and abiding thereby And hence it was that the Apostles though they could alway teach from the habits of light and knowledge they were blessed with yet in some cases at some times could not speak as inspired by the Holy Ghost witness Paul who in the body of his Epistle to the Corinthianâ— makes this distinction 1 Cor. 7. 6 12. to the end of the Chapter But I speak this by permission ver 6. but to the rest speak I not the Lord ver 12. Now concerning Virgins I have no â—ommandment of the Lord yet I give my judgment as one that hath obtained mercy of the Lord to be faithful 25. But she is happier if she so abide in my judgment and I think also that I have the Spirit of God The same Apostle gives instruction concerning the Choice of Bishops that they be such as are apt to teach 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the word signifies both the habit or faculty and also a promptitude and readiness to imploy it And to Timothy to be instant in season and out of season that is not only at necessary times in a constant course but occasionally and he could not so preach the Word as became it and an Evangelist but from habitual illumination Mat. 13. 52. Then said he unto them Therefore every Scribe which is instructed to the Kingdom of Heaven is like unto a man that is an Housholder which bringeth forth of his Treasure things new and old A fourth Difference the inspiration of the Spirit doth not grow and increase gradually and according to time and industry Samuel had as elegant and powerful an inspiration or revelation when a Childe as when he was old And the Apostles on the sudden at the effusion of the Spirit in that way of ministration had as eminent inspirations as ever afterward But the illuminations where with God doth usually by the efficlency of his Spirit bless his people doth ordinarily grow at least is capable of it Some to whom John writes were grown to be Fathers For when for the time ye ought to be Teachers Heb. 5. That is ye might have grown to such a degree of illumination if you had stood in the way wherein the Spirit of God doth usually bless there with as to have been able to teach others Yea the Lord Jesus Christ himself as man did increase gradually in these habitual illuminations Lake 2. 45 46 47. Jesus grew in wisdome and in stature And that it was meant of divine light or light in divine things Read the 46 47 Verses where he is said to be disputing with the Doctors and that his answers were astonishing to the Hearers Fifthly Apostolial inspirations were intended by the Spirit foâ—a divine and authoritative Obligation to the Faiâ—â— Order Life and Consciences of others and are therefore rightly placed among the Scriptures or wâ—…tten Word If any man think hinself to be a Prophet or Spiritual let him acknowledge that the things that I write are the Commandments of the Lord. But the teachings of the Spirit to the Saints as Saints are no such obligation any farther than they agree with and have their authority from the minde of God revealed in the Scripture Sixthly Apostolical teachings and inspirations were of authority to constitute a now order and polity of the Church to which the former though of divine authority in their season were to give place Yea those Doctrines and Promises so revealed to them by God and by them declared as such are binding to our faith and practice although we cannot discern any of the like import in the Scripture before written But the teachings and illuminations by the Spirit of the Saints as such do not add to or change any thing of the Doctrine or Order established by Christ and his Apostles neither are they contrary to the written Word nor in point of Doctrine beside the sense of it or beyond it To conclude The teachings of the Spirit and its Motions in the Saints which are most purely divine and immediate in ourdays are the bringing to remembrance explaning to the understanding imprinting on the affections the matter contained in the Scripture and directing them to understand providences to act in their occurent occasions suitable to his will revealed in the Scripâ—…re and moving their wills to a compliance with his out are all to be triâ—d by the Scripture and not the Scripture by them Some I believe will reply How did the Prophets and Apostles when they received immediate revelations and were inspired of God know it was no delusion and if they knew it being men as we are why may not we I dare not attempt to pry into the most secret ways of God and undertake to give you a history and description to the full of the Spirits workings on the Souls of his Prophets in conveying his will to them and satisfying their judgments and Consciences that they were the inspirations of God Yet I shall say so much of them as may satisfie any willing Reader to be informed that they had more to evince it than any have now and we have enough to convince us that they were inspired First Whoever they were that were givers forth of the Law or the Covenants in their first promulgation had the Testimonies of God for them by Gods outward Call to that as their special Office and his promise of guidance in the discharge thereof signs and wonders wrought either by God immediately or by their hands as the Apostles Jesus Christ Moses Secondly All the Prophets have a Testimony of their being inspired of God by Miracles which they wrought or by the quoting Scripture out of the Books written by them or bearing their names in the New Testament by Christ or his Apostles Thirdly For the Historical part
by the Quakers at the cheap rate of accepting though poyson taken into the Body and delusions into the Soul are ever dear and costly But to the unwillingly mistaken among the people called Quakers and such whose inclinations are towards their Principles and Practices known by the name of Quakerism I do solemnly profess That I have the witness of God and my own Conscience that I heartily desire the welfare and Salvation of all sorts of men whatever notions they fall under and however disobliging in their carriages towards me in particular And although I hope I shall not justifie the Opinions called Quakerism till I dye yet I am perswaded there are many called Quakers whom the Lord will turn from their way which is not Christs and sanctifie them by his Spirit and justifie them through his Grace by Jesus Christ even that Christ who as God is every where and as Man is ascended above the visible Heavens and Skies If sincere protestations of my righteousness and sincerity in this matter and the verity of what I have written would prevail with you my Spirit is clear and I doubt not but my Pen might be as serviceable to it as some of those whose interest is too great in you Yea I know not that suffering I might embrace without sinning against God but for Christ sake and yours I should not long to be baptized with I beg of you in the bowels of a Christian that you would not slight the Truth and Scripture-evidence here presented to your view The Quakers have no Miracles to bind you to their perswasion and sure the Truths contained in the Scripture and right reason may match all other visible demonstrations You venture hard to Father all your Opinions on the immediate inspirations and your affections and practices on the motions of that Spirit who is God which if it prove to be otherwise which will be as certainly as God is Truth your early repentance may be accepted but your late repentance will make little for your comfort I would not then be in your condition for more Worlds than there are Stars in the Firmament I beseech you do not think that God hath given you the reason of men to be serviceable to you only in the affairs of this world and not to be exercised at all in discerning truth from error good from evil of a Spiritual and Religious nature The new creature is the creature renewed that is Body Soul and Spirit so enlightned as to know God in Christ so sanctified as to be devoted to him in whatever service he shall command and to make a Heaven of nothing on this side the full Vision and enjoyment of his favour and glorious presence in the other world or the world to come and what will necessarily result from thence If you think me too smart in some passages in the Book be pleased to consider if against Persons it is against those your misleaders who are to be blamed at a sharper rate than good Eli chid his Sons and was therefore rebuked by God to the breaking his heart his neck and the loss of a great priviledge besides if against sayings or opinions I have fully proved them gross falshoods foolish and pernicious lusts and errors and I know not how to call gall and poyson by sweet and lovely names I must alter my stile according to the matter and occasion or they would agree like Harp and Harrow and I assure you it is neither my conscience duty nor design to commend their Opinions to the world Do not say I intend hereby your persecution for it is far from my principle and natural temper also and I know nothing that men who are your Adversaries can do more to promote your Tenets and Party though suffering without further evidences of truth as the cause is a poor foundation of Religion Your Souls Servant JOHN FALDO November 23. 1672. THE CONTENTS PART I. Chap. I. QVakerism affirmed to be no Christianity The tearms Quakerism Christianity Quaker Christian explained What Christianity is strictly considered and distinguished from Heathenism Judaism or any other character of Religion Chap. II. The beginning of Quakerism compared with the beginning of Christianity with respect to the manner and with respect to the time of its beginning from both Quakerism proved to be no Christianity or not the Christian administration Chap. III. Proving the Quakers denying the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be the word of God that the intent is more than a meer verbal matter that this is the gate and inlet of their other errors the grounds of their denying it to be the word of God all of which are examined and refuted the definition of a word and the Scriptures proved to be the word of God of that species contended about more properly than Christ the Son of God is the word of God the Scripture proved to be the word of God by its own undeniable evidence where it cannot be understood of any other than the written word denying the Scripture to be the word of God proved a denying of the Scripture the titles the Quakers give to the Scriptures examined and proved though taken altogether to come short of a fit and distinct character of the Scriptures the ends and necessity of the Quakers denying the Scripture this title for the support of their other fancies The sense we take the Scripture to be the word of God in the written word proved to be the word of God Chap. IV. The Quakers equal their own writings and sayings with the word of God and prefer them before the word of God So to do proved a denying the Scripture that they do so proved by their pretending them infallible that they speak and write by immediate inspiration that the Spirit of God dwells in them essentially and in all his divine properties and Christ speaks out of them as through a Trunk Proved by the characters they give of their own writings and sayings beyond and excelling the characters afforded by them to the holy Scriptures Infallibility explained the Quakers infallibility confuted by divers mediums their immediate inspiration considered and confuted the woful and absurd consequences of this error the Papists foundations of their orders and grossest absurdities and the foundation of the Quakers Religion proved to be the same thing and instances given on both sides viz. contempt of the Scripture as insufficient infallibility and immediate revelations and divine inspirations the Quakers proved to have the blackest marks of Antichrist upon them Chap. V. The Quakers deny the Scriptures to be a rule of faith and life or a Judge and determiner in religious controversies This charge proved to be a denying the Scriptures That charge it self proved Herein they agree with the Jesuites That whatever is by the Lord affirmed in the Scripture ought to be believed That what is there in commanded and not repealed ought to be obeyed That the holy Scriptures do in their kind determine
Gods blessing nor express their thankfulness at set-meals for their Table-mercies is as notorious as the other whereas we have Christs example for it And Jesus took the loaves and when he had given thanks he distributed c. And when he had taken the five loaves and the two fishes he looked up to heaven and blessed c. So Paul He took bread and gave thanks to God in the presence of them all and when he had broken it he began to eat c. All that ever I could learn of the Quakers acknowledgement of benefits received or receivable by us from what the Man Christ Jesus did and suffered in the world amounts but to this He left us a perfect example and yet they think scorn to follow that as below such spiritual persons He looked up to heaven which implyes he did it for example sake at least though all the fulness of the Godhead dwelt in him bodily express the divine Being especially and in his more glorious manifestations to be above or beyond the visible boundaries of this little world And as it is against Christs example so against somewhat more than a Gospel-precept For every creature of God is good and nothing to be refused if it be received with thanksgiving for it is sanctified by the Word of God and prayer So that to omit this duty which therefore Paul would not when in a storm and the company in a consternation with fear of death renders the creature no good to us as being unsanctified by God But rather than this shall pass for a proof of what we assert and for a rebuke to the Quakers spirit of disobedience James Naylor will engage his infallibility to bring them off clear But where the pure is not viz. the light all things are defiled when they are not sanctified by the Word and prayer and therefore are to be received in fear and therein remembring his death till he come who is the Word and prayer And now â—oul take thine ease eat and drink for if thou hast the Quakers light within thee thou needest not frame thy self to the serious imployment of prayer and thanksgiving at meals for the light within the Quakers only Christ is not only the Word that command prayer but prayer also in the abstract and they that have that cannot at any time be without prayer though they are altogether silent They also deny publick Ministerial Prayer for although they have some who utter petitions they do it as I am informed alwayes in the first person singular I pray thee not We pray thee So that although they may pray for others they pray not with them as their mouth which is contrary to Christs Directory and the communion of Saints in the Ordinances of the Gospel And if uncontroulled fame fail not they give this reason for it That they both pray and declare for the sakes of others not their own who are obedient to the light for they need neither SECT III. But there are three things that fully prove their denying of Gospel-Prayer First Their contempt of true Gospel-Prayer So the same wisdom may deny the prescribed way as being formal and may invent something instead of it in a higher mystery of iniquity and though they may not speak in such formal words composed yet in the same wisdom their words are formal they can set their own time to begin and end and when they will they can utter words and when they will they can be silent and this is the unclean part which offers to God which he doth not accept c. What the wisdom here is intended by the Author you shall see by and by but the main formality inveighed against is keeping of set-times but they may forgive us this errour it being so well known that they have set-times and exceed their ordinary hours no more than we And the wisdom of the flesh is that we do it in our own wills if they mean not in obedience to the will of God 't is more than they know if it be according to the will of God and our wills comply with that it is so much the better for God likes no service against nor without the will To choose the things that please God pleases God very well It is well known that many of them when they come into our Congregations and are present when the Minister is at prayer they will sit all the while in the midst with their Hats on their heads in contempt which I my self have experienced more than once Secondly Owning no prayer that is not by immediate inspiration and motion of the Spirit and without the use of our conception and direction of the understanding But as every creature is moved by the Spirit of the living God who is that Spirit who will be served with his own alone not with any thing in man which is come in since the fall so the imaginations thinkings and conceivings are shut out So all must come to the Spirit of God by the Spirit to be ordered and cease from their own words and from their own time and learn to be silent till the Spirit give them utterance That we ought to pray in the Spirit and with the Spirit is far from us to deny but he that prays according to the mind of the Spirit of God revealed in the Scripture which is the Spirits Directory and who by the commands exhortations and promises therein contained is moved to pray he prays in the Spirit and with the Spirit although he have no immediate motions from the divine Being He that obeys Gods commands in his written Word doth his duty and is through Christ accepted of him But lest you should mistake the Quakers meaning of the phrase traditions of men take notice That they hold the written Word and what is therein contained as its sence to be but the traditions of men except it come to us by immediate inspiration as to the Prophets and Apostles and not at second hand which I have already proved and therefore need not do it over again And by what I have here produced you may learn That they deny any thing of man to be exercised in prayer If he intended hereby only the depravation that is come in since the fall it were very right but certainly faith in the Redeemer and the promises which in him are yea and amen as the encouragement to prayer is come in since the fall though no part of the fall and all the Ordinances of Christ as such are come in since the fall and faith and Gospel-obedience are all in man most eminently But that the imaginations thinkings and conceiving must be shut out also is a most absurd notion What! must we pray and neither conceive nor think what we are to do what we ought to do nor how to express our selves no nor while we are praying Must all be done as if man in his faculties of
these dayes wherein God hath blessed us with so large a portion of his written Word or Word without us sufficient teachings by immediate Divine Revelations to lead them infallibly in the way that is most acceptable with the Lord without the use of their created faculties or any outward means SECT V. The next Scripture you abuse is Psal 139. 7. Whither shall I go from thy Spirit or whither shall I flee from thy presence from whence you scribble thus If Gods unerring Spirit be so nigh and the sense of it so certain it must be either to reprove for evil done or to inform uphold lead and preserve in reference to all good now in which of the two senses it shall be taken the presence of Gods eternal Spirit and his being the Saints Instructor Judge Rule and Guide are evidently deduceable from the words Rudis indigestaque moles worse than ever Bear brought forth her Cubs which with her licking may be brought into some shape but your products are so defective both in truth right reasoning Syntax and Sense that it is no dis-reputation to your Adversary to be confounded by them It is an effectual but an impudent course to silence all the world from opposing you by writing such confident confused non-sense Were it not for the sake of many who conceit your infallibility which you are here so blindly pleading for I would as soon abandon my time to dispute with a distracted man in his raving Fits as with W. Pen till he come better to himself than I can find in this Pamphlet If Gods infinite Being Omnipresence Omniscience wonderfull works of Creation all-disposing Providence which is the scope of the Psalm and his Omnipresence especially the sense of the Text do prove that which you produce it for and infer from it you have found out away of seeing that may tempt us to dig out our eyes punish them for meer cheats and for ever hereafter commend the blind archer for the best marks-man We may presume that you intend this Text to prove that all Gods people are upheld ruled guided c. In reference to all good by the Spirit of God which you say is evidently deduceable from the words But who would have thought that such desireable considerations and the certain sense of them should put so holy a man as David on such expressions of going and fleeing from the Spirit and presence of the Lord No doubt the presence of God is every where in the skies the seas the wilderness what then doth he therefore perform all these acts where ever he is present in his infinite being even where there are no intelligent creatures Doth he judge inform instruct stones and trees and mountains I and must do so too or else he doth not answer the end of his presence being so nigh truly Mr. Pen we have had more reverend thoughts of the eternal and omnipresent God than to assign any thing as the end of his being but himself But it may be you lay your stress on the certain sense of it and thus joyned to his omnipresence will do your work Is the sense of it so certain to every good man was it so to David when he so long time was tainted with a heap of impieties Was it so with Jonah when he fled as he thought from the presence of the Lord or was it so with you when you wrote some things in this book of yours which I shall acquaint you with before I have done If it should be granted you that all Gods people have the certain sense of it without doubting or alteration it would be nihil ad rhombum far from proving Gods Spirit to be the peculiar teacher of his people and so to teach them as to render them infallible which is the mark you aim at SECT VI. The next Scripture you produce is Teach me to do thy will for thou art my God thy Spirit is good lead me into the land of uprightness Psal 43. 10. To bend this Text to your bow you talk thus The Question will be whether it was Davids intent and the scope of his desire that God should teach and lead him by his good Spirit or some other thing but methinks it is resolvable in the affirmative in two respects What a strange Question is this Who doubtes but David commended the Spirit of God as a good teacher what then must all other teachers which the Spirit of God makes use of as the means by which he teaches be cast off Suppose I should say such a Man is a good School-master I would fain be taught by him doth that imply I would not learn out of a Grammar or other books which he uses to that end or doth it not rather conclude that I like not onely his abilities but his method and means by which he teaches the Psalmist saith blessed is the man whom thou Chastenest O Lord and teachest out of thy Law You would little less then hoot at him that should from hence conclude the Psalmist to reject the Spirit as a teacher and to admit of no other Teacher but the Law It is after this lofty manner of disputing you undertake our overthrow When you have so learnedly framed your Question which by the disjunctive Or you make torâ— consist of two members Which would he have foâ— his Teacher The Spirit or some other thing you answer it like your self Methinks it is resolvable in the affirmative But I pray which of the parts of your Question do you affirm Which do you deny Why truely it is the safest course you take to affirm it of both for then the truth is owned and in this point the quarrel ended But then what need your fighting against what you affirm unless you are resolved to be quarrelsome Alas poor Man it was by a meer mistake you said truth you intended to resolve in the affirmative that he desired to be taught by the good Spirit of God but in the negative of any other thing Canis festinans coecos parit catulos The two respects which thus blinded you are enough to keep any mans eyes open that is but willing to see First How that the Word was hid in his heart That internal Law Word and Spirit ef God which plentifully shews kow much he was an Enthusiast and Quaker in the sence this man esteems us most heterodox Law Word and Spirit are all one with you But where do you find the Word hid in the hearts of the Saints called the internal Word 'T is true that it is within in the memory faith love and hide there with the hiding of security but it was as much without before it was within as the childs lesson which it gets by heart out of a book which when done you might as well call it the childs internal lesson Your second respect is the very words viz. of the text imply the thing we urge them for and can import no
them or that are gathered from the written Word or pretended to be so Baptism Not any thing by Water but the Spirit i. e. the Quakers Spirit to an obedience and devotedness to the light within and inspirations and immediate teachings Blasphemy To speak against the light within every man to be Christ and God and what they hold it to be Blind Not to acknowledge the light within to be Christ not to know by immediate inspiration The Blood of Christ The life of Christ i. e. the power of the light in them The spiritual Blood which they say came down from Heaven and was part of a spiritual Body which Christ brought with him from thence which dwelt for a while in the man Jesus who died at Jerusalem Salvation puririfying reconciling by the Blood of Christ Not by the Blood of Christ shed on the Cross but by the Blood of the spiritual Body of flesh blood and bones which they say Christ descended in which is in every Quaker as really as in the man that was the Son of Mary and so salvation is by no other blood but what is in themselves The Body of Christ Not that which was crucified without the Gates of Jerusalem in Judea but the spiritual Body aforesaid which they say took up its Habitation and Tabernacled in the Body of Jesus the Son of Mary and so the Body of Christ is as much in them as it was in him Bondage Not only our selves in bondage to sin but the light within the seed of God or Christ being in bondage under the disobedience of men Born again Regeneration Perfect Obedience to the light within as Christ and God Comprehending Brain A large understanding oâ— a desire of Knowledge by the use of the rational Faculty C. Gall. The motions of the Light Christ in the Conscience Christ Not the man Christ Jesus the Son of Mary which the Godhead assumed and united to its self in one person but the light within every man a Christ that had nothing of Adams Nature whose Body now in being was not Created or had a beginning in time which was never visible to the bodily eye   Not in any respect distinct from God the Father and God the Holy Ghost Christ in the Saints Not Christ without them an Object of the faith and love within them but his very Being his Divinity his Soul and his Body consisting of spiritual Flesh Blood and Bones not his Image and likeness but the self-same in his Being and Essence Christs coming In the Spirit or his spiritual coming into his People i. e. no other but the prevailing motions of the light within or by inspiration The Command in Spirit By immediate inspiration and motion Comprehension Fleshly Comprehensions That Opinion or Belief which is grounded on a rational demonstration though from the Written Word of God Carnal All things of a religious concern which we are not enlightned about and moved to by immediate inspiration yea whatever hath a form or is visible to the bodily Eye Fleshly Conceivings Those Opinions or expressions whose beginning and birth are in the humane faculties very great weakness if not â—in and unbelief contrary to the assured and undoubted dictates of the infallible light and Spirit within them Condemnation The reproofs and sentencings of the light in the Conscience Conversion A full obedience to the light in the Conscience a total freedom from the prevailing of any sin such a state as the Disciples of Christ had not attained when Christ was crucified nor Paul when he wrote the Epistle to the Romans Crucifying of Christ Not that crucifying on the Cross of wood but a crucifying within us by disobedience to the light in our Consciences  A strange merit and purchase of Salvation and way of pacifying the wrath of God for sin D. Damnation Being condemnd within by the light in the Conscience the terror affliction arising from thence but nothing of a pain of sense after the body is dead and turned to dust Darkness Not acknowledging the light in every man to be Christ and being guided by its immediate teachings as the only and all-sufficient rule Death of Christ The light within not obeyed The dead Body The Body living in sin Disciples of Christ No other but those who submit to the light within and follow only its dictates E. Election Christ the sâ—ed not the persons of men and women Vulturous-Eye The understanding faculty piercing into and earnestly seeking after Divine Knowledge F. Faith A believing in the light within Righteousness of Faith Those acts of Obedience performed by themselves in their own bodies conformable to the dictates of the light within and in the Faith of its being Christ and the Rule Teaching or doing falsly When not from the immediate motions and teachings of the light within though what is taught be in its self true and what is done be in its self good False Prophets All that are called by men however qualified otherwise all that teach from or out of the Scriptures and not from immediate inspiration as the Prophets and Apostles by whom the Scriptures were penned False Witnesses All who speak not from inspiration and inward meerly divine motions and experience not what they affirm in themselves Flesh Whatever is not from the light within originally and immediately Wisdom of the Flesh All Wisdom attained by industry Denying Christ come in the Flesh Denying Christ come in the Flesh of Joseph John Sarah or any other who are Quakers Christ come in the Flesh Come in their Flesh The Flesh of Christ The spiritual Flesh that descended from Heaven not the Flesh that lay buried in the Sepulchre after death The Fold of Christ Christ himself Following Christ Obedience to the Light within The Friends Friends All professed Quakers The will of the Flesh All that is chosen by man though he be thereto disposed by the will of God revealed in the Scripture G. Preaching for Gain Receiving any thing as the reward of preaching the Gospel State of Glory The State of Peace and Joy resulting from the witness of the light within in this life GOD. Father Son and Holy Ghost without distinction the light within every man the spirit of the Quakers every one of them the soul the seed and much more that he is not Foundation of God The light within and the inspirations and motions of it The Gospel Christ the light within not the written word or the sense of it as a narrative of the good will of God to men in Christ H. Handled the Word of Life Not as the Apostles who handled the Body of Christ but feeling by a spiritual sensation the motions of the light within or the Christ within them Hearing the Gospel or Word Listening to and obeying the light within Heaven Not the place where the man Christ is above or beyond the visible skies but the happiness they have within them  I could never yet hear or read them mention any other
Heaven to be injoyed by them as distinct persons but what they have within them in this world Hell The present torment and loss within Preaching for Hire Hirelings To have provision for the outward man as a maintenance or reward for preaching though no bargain be made yea though such who receive it would preach if they had never a penny reward in this world from those they preach to Holiness Obedience to the light within and that without any failing The womans Husband at home Christ the light in the conscience I. Idolatry Often for worshipping the man Christ Jesus who is at the right hand of God above or beyond the stars and visible Heavens taking the examples of the Saints and Churches in the Scripture recorded and doing likewise JESVS The light within the Word in the beginning not the Son of Mary who was made or created The Imaginations All conclusions how demonstrable soever which accord not with their Tenets or are not by immediate inspiration Inchantments Bewitchings A being perswaded and established by reason and Scripture but especially if humane arts or sciences have any hand in it Infidels All that obey not or do not place their salvation in the light within Workers of Iniquity All that live not without sinning against God The Judgment day of Judgment Sin being judged in the conscience by the light within in this life Justification Christ the light within obeyed K. Kingdom of God The rule and government of the light within and the peace and joy arising from thence Carnal knowledge All knowledge but what comes by the immediate inspiration of the light within L. The Law Christ the light within the law written in the heart Leadings in Spirit The motions of the light within immediate inspirations and teachings The Life Christ the light within The life of Christ The prevalency of the light within Eternal Life Being taken into God Saved by the Life of Christ A being saved by the prevalency of the light in the conscience The Letter The dead Letter The Letter that killeth The Scriptures or written Word A Lye Lying What is spoken though true in it self if not from immediate teaching or the light within The Light within Christ God Father Son Spirit the seed of Abraham and David according to the flesh Jesus the only Saviour The Law the Testimony The Gospel the Prophets The Advocate Righteousness Sanctification Justification The only Rule Guide Teacher Judge the Way the only way to the Father The Truth the Life The Power of God the Eternal God God Almighty that which pardons and conquers sin the Judgment the Lamb of God that is slain from the beginning the Word in the beginning the Creator of all things the end of all Books Laws and abundance more than can be crowded into many Pages The Lust All desires that accord not to the light within and proceed not from thence M. The Man Christ The Spiritual Body of Flesh Blood and Bones which they say descended from Heaven and dwelt in the Body of the Son of Mary and doth also now in every Quaker Cease from man do not bear man What the Faculties of Man have any hand in either by inventing working or expressing all that comes not purely from the light within Measure of God of Christ of the Spirit That degree of the power and inspirations of the light within  Something more or less of the very being and Essence of God the Father Son Spirit Meditate Not pondering or exercising the judgment and understanding on holy and divine Objects but a stilness and emptiness of all thoughts attending for the immediate impulses suggestions inspirations and motions of the light within In the Meekness In the light within Christ which is meekness in the abstract and between whom and their spirits there is no distinction Ministers of the everlasting Gospel Both men and women Ministers among the Quakers who declare from immediate inspiration not from the Letter of the Scripture Ministers of Antichrist Babylon Idol-Shepherds All such who have a mediate call from man or preach from the Letter of the Scripture Ministration of the Spirit The immediate teachings and motions of the Spirit exclusive of all forms in worship the will though sanctified in chusing and all premeditation and acting by the prescription of the written word Miracles Sometimes Miracles in Spirit invisible to bodily senses or humane understanding The Star of the Morning the Morning of the first day Christ the light within Moved by the Holy Ghost An inward immediate impulse of the light and power within From the Mouth of God Immediate teachings from the light within excluding all other Mysteries of the Kingdom Mysteries of God Such things as the faculties of man have no power to understand or express no not from or by the Scripture such things as are only sensated in the experience An allegorizing the Scripture N. Natural man Every man that is not a Quaker The natural man Every thing in man which is distinct from God or the light within The New man Christ the light within considered essentially They did by Nature the things contained in the Law By the new Nature which is Christ the light contained in the Law within the heart which is also Christ the light O. Obedience of Christ What is done by men by the power life and strength of of the light within them Obedience in Spirit Wrought by immediate impulses of the Spirit The Kingdom of God cometh not with observation The light within and its prevalencie which they call and that only the Kingdom of God is not obtained any way by the study or consideration of the Scripture or any thing without us Observers of times Such as keep any certain days as separated to holy use as the Lords-day or such as propose an hour or two to be spent in the Worship and Ordinances of God or any time with limitation Christ the Offering The light within Offering up of Christ The light within disobeyed or contesting with the lusts yea or the right reason of men Officers of the Church Invisible Officers and Overseers who do all their work in Spirit Gods Off-spring A part and measure of the very being of God continuing to be in a degree as good and divine as God himself  The Souls and Spirits at least of the Quakers which they say came out of God The Old man All that is disobedient or not conformable to their light within One-ness with God Christ Spirit Not relative nor by love or faith or mystical Membership but such an one-ness as leaves no room for distinction between God Christ the Spirit and such whom they say are one with Christ Openings of Life Springings of of Life Sudden workings to action or impressions on the mind and affections proceeding from within of their own accord and motion Overcome by the Blood of the Lamb and the Word of his Testimony All amounts but to an obedience to the light within which Smith
contempt of a Christ without which John preached and that faith and hope of the Saints which according to the Scripture are the substance of things not seen and the evidence of things hoped for reproached as a slumbring fancy and a nocturnal dream But if you would infallibly be convinced of the gross darkness wherewith this sort of men are benighted or their palpable knavery and impudence in abusing the Holy Scripture weigh the following instance out of the preceding Author Then God sent him John to bear witness to the light which in him was made manifest that all in the light might believe and he called unto others to behold him and said he was the Lamb of God and was to take away the sins of the world and least you should mistake him and guess that a man that could but write his name should not have so little wit or modesty as to expound that text of Scripture after this sort he quotes chapter and verse John 1. 9. and the next word is mark in a parenthesis lest his folly should not appear to all men who should have the hap to read him and moreover at the close of the period after he had made a further blind comment on the text he glories in his shame with a Weigh this truth all ye Priests and Professors and pouder it in your hearts no words big enough to express its madness SECT II. Christianity made its way not only by the truth and purity of its doctrine but also by such and so many signes and wonders wrought before multitudes as were convincing to its most malicious and prejudiced adversaries and that not only by Christ himself but also by his disciples and servants both before and after his death And all bare him witness and wondred at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth Luke 22. 4. but men may speak many good words and yet both say and do at other times bad enough but Christ appeals to the faces of his worst Adversaries If I have spoken evil bear witness of the evil John 18. 23 But if forcible right words would not make way Christ exhorts them to believe for the very works sake and these were not ordinary works or wonders and miracles neither If I had not done among them the works which none other man did they had not had sin And as himself so his servants introduced Christianity with the same holy pomp and state of the Mighty and miraculous works of the Power of God bearing witness to the truth of their doctrine Long time therefore abode they speaking boldly in the Lord which gave Testimony unto the word of his grace and granted signes and wonders to be done by their hands Acts 1. 3. But Quakerism made its way by and began in blasphemies against the Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth whom the Apostles preached by gratifying the pride idleness and giddiness of both Professors and prophane as will appear abundantly in the following discourse and by decrying the Scripture of the Old and New Testament as a dead Letter and altogether useless if not mischievous Your imagined God beyond the Stars a day of calamity will come upon them who have worshipped and do worship an unknown God at a distance and pretend the worship of the true God And if we will not believe the Quakers for their words sake which swell big enough with vanity folly non-sense and errour we are like to continue in the truth still for all them There have been some of them who have been sensible of this defect and have attempted to supply it to the cracking of their credit some to the loss of their lives George Fox hath found a plaister for this sore which I shall produce that you may give your judgement whether it smell more of the Fox or of the Goose Which many prayed by the Spirit and spake by the Spirit did not shew miracles at the Tempters Command though among Believers there be miracles â—n the Spirit which be signes and wonders to the world as Isaiah saith When I reade this I had much ado to keep my self from laughing but the weightiness of my thoughts on this imposture soon helped me to reduce it to a compassionate smile Indeed I think him crafty like the Fox not to venture his carcass in attempting any miracles but in spirit and yet more a Goose to call them signes and wonders to the world which the world never saw nor could have wondred at if George Fox and such as he had not blabbed of them But I must not let pass his fathering his absurdity on the Prophet Isaiah the words he intends must be in Isa 8. 18. Behold I and the Children whom the Lord hath given me are for signes and for wonders in Israel I find not the word Signes any where in that Prophecy he hath a strange spirit of discerning that can find in that Scripture any thing of Miracles wrought in the spirit for indeed they themselves were the wonders that is they were wondred at so may the Quakers well be but in a far worse sense or for a worse cause I may the lesse wonder at George's blodness with Isaiah seeing a great Rabbie of the Quakers hath said that he is as good a Prophet as Isaiah Who would conceive that so blockish a person as this should be the Fore-man and Chief in account among such a number of such singularly discerning spirits as the Quakers but as among wise men the wisest are most highly esteemed so among others the veriest SECT III. Christianity entred into the world with ravishing Songs and Hallelujahs of the Angels and heavenly Host the Songs and Thanksgivings of Mary Elizabeth Zechariah Simeon and others with the healing of all sorts of diseases casting out devils out of the possessed preaching the glad tidings of the Gospel of Peace and what might express the Sun of righteousness to be risen on the World with healing in his wings I need not finde you out the places of Scripture which speak these things But Quakerism entred the world as if Hell were broke loose and possessions by Satan were to make way and fit souls for the Quakers spirit Instead of that serious compunction that seized gross and black sinners upon their conviction and the consolation that was let into their souls by the joyful sound of remission and salvation through a crucified Jesus O the Hell-dark expressions of the Quakers Preachers the frightful and amazing words both for matter and manner wherewith they first attempted poor silly men and women whom they frighted almost out of their wits with their dismal noise whose eccho remained in their ears when their words were forgotten What bitter Curses and Execrations did they poure forth against all that made any opposition though most mildly and rationally against their unheard of innovation what disturbing of Congregations and reviling the most serious and faithful Pastors while those whose faults they have
Declaration of God Jovis omnia plena Virg. And some such things they have not only dictated for the matter but have also pressed them as the minde of God according to those notions they had of him And much more may the large and precious Sermons and VVritings of the Servants and Ministers of Christ whose Discourses are grounded on the Holy Scriptures yet he that should call them the VVord of God in a strict sense deserves correction A man may declare his mind yea or some things of the minde of God by gestures nods becks srowns smiles yet they are not to be equalled by the expression of his minde by his VVord they being much more imperfect and unintelligible then words the holy conversations of the sound and godly do eminently and effectually declare the minde of God yet had we them in its stead we should be great losers Not only the VVritings and Sayings of intelligent creatures but also the inanimate part of the Creation is a Declaration of God and of his minde also in many things Psal 19 1 2. And those Psalmes wherein they are called upon and are said to praise the Lord Rom. 1. 19 20. Acts 14. 17. the Heathen were blamed for not learning the Lesson taught by them after their kind no better yet who will say that the Declaration made by them is of equal value with the VVord of God either for matter stile manner or perspicuity Fourthly they are a Declaration of the Word of God By the VVord of God they mean Jesus Christ This is a true Character of a considerable part of the Scriptures but not of all and they often restrain them to this as if it were all the use were to be made of them So much of them the Scriptures as was given forth by the Holy Men of God through the Inspiration of the Almighty they testifie of Christ and that is only their service in their place Smith Cat. p. 14. You may observe what a skeleton they make of the Scriptures so much of them as if all of them were not of the same divine Abstract They say the Letter is it the VVord which doth but declare of it They do but testifie of me They testifie of him and it is with a but lest you should take them to have any more hand in conveying Christ and his benefits to the souls then a meer witness of who is or what is the Christ SECT VII To clench the Nail I have been driving hitherto I must demonstrate that to deny the Scriptures to be the VVord of God is to deny the Scriptures which I shall do three ways in few words First to deny the Scriptures to be the VVord of God is to deny them that title by which they are commonly known and distinguished from and lifted up above all other VVritings whatsoever I will ask any man who understands sense and hath but one grain of reason if to deny the Supream Magistrate of Great Britain to be the King of England were notto deny the King though he that doth so should allow him to be entituled a Man a Gentleman yea a Nobleman or Duke which are titles common to him with others or below him sure I am we Christians are else under an old musty mistake and guilty of great slander for affirming the Turks to deny Christ because they will not own him to be greater then their Prophet Mahomet or to be the Saviour of mens souls while they own him to be not only a man but also a great Prophet and next to Mahomet himself I suppose a Quaker whose Child should own him to be a Man and a good man too and one that provides well for him and yet say He is not his father and stand to it in earnest would say that son denies him and is a naughty wicked Child Acts 13. 13. 'T is laid of the Jewes they denied him in the Presence of Pilate v. 14 they denied the Holy One and the just Did they denie him to be a man or some common thing No they denied him to be Christ the Saviour and loaded him with reproaches in stead of his glorious and peculiar titles and this the Holy Ghost calls denying him To deny the Scriptures to be the Word of God is to deny that Appellation on which their Authority is grounded and which puts an awe upon the Consciences of men Though all truths as such so far as they are apprehended carry with them the countenance of Authority yet how much more when a Command Promise Doctrine c. comes with this written on its forehead the VVord of God the VVord of the Lord t is said VVhere the VVord of a King is there is Power and who shall say unto him VVhat doest thou 't is natural to men to despise the best and most excellent things under common and contemptible titles It is all one in a plain and true construction as to deny that the matter and sense expressed by them was over spoken by God Experience hath sufficiently taught this that no sooner this principle is taken in but the Scriptures become with such as weak as a burnt thread and whatever you may pretend to we know and shall prove that after this title is put off they become like Sampson when God was departed from him The Papists who are the more subtil will tell us that in their Image-worship they terminate their worship in God alone but alas the common people are for downright language and they poor souls being exhorted to worship the Images do it devoutly and think not on God all the while it is no otherwise in the present case people will understand after the common sense and aceeptation of words I have sometimes been amazed and not without good Company and consideration that men of such dexterity in matters that concern not Religion should be so prodigiously blind and besotted as to deny this truth hitherto vindicated But since I have been better acquainted with their principles I find it to be the most necessary to maintain and support their Great delusion viz. The light within For that they do hereby rob the Scriptures of abundance of places wherein that phrase The VVord and The VVord of the Lord is found and deck their idol with them and indeed so many are the excellent Characters given to the Scriptures under that notion that if they wear them and shine in their lustre the Quakers Glow-worm must sparkle no where but in the dark and may still keep its Court and Confines in the Heathen-world CHAP. I. The Quakers equal their own VVritings and Sayings with the Scriptures and prefer them before the Scriptures I Need not spend time with those who are yet in their wits to prove that they who fall under the Charge expressed above deny the Scriptures To take all rubs out of the way I shall furnish you with a few Demonstrations First this is tounhallow them aud make them common
things or worse with the conceits of any who shall be so presumptuous as to pretend to Inspirations and Revelations and of this sort there are a crowd among the Men and Women also of the Quakers If they declare if they write yea whatever religious Action they move in they pretend all to be from the immediate Guidance and Impulse of the Spirit of God and that in as ample a manner as ever the Apostles and Prophets could pretend unto so that this principle being as universally entertained as the name of Christ it might be said without an Hyperbole that the whole World could not contain the Pamphlets that would be written and called The VVord or VVords of the Lord and of what value the Holy Scriptures would be in such a crowd of its pretended betters it is not hard to conclude Hear what James Naylor saith The things following which I have declared of are not the things of man nor by man did I receive them but by the Revelation of Jesus Christ The VVord of the Lord to his beloved City c. This is the title He concludes Through your Brother and Companion in the Tribulation and Kingdom of Patience in the Lord Jesus imitating the words of John in Rev. 1. 9. This I say in the Presence of the living God and by the Spirit of the living God Parnel Shield of the Truth p. 41. Give a most undeniable Exposition of a Scripture against their way the Answer is thy carnal minde discerns not the things of God Thou puttest thy meanings to the Scriptures the Scriptures must be judged of by the light or the Spirit from whence they came but thou art in neither If we bring a plain text in so many words against their Tenets and Practices the Answer then is Thou art in the Letter And therefore Pennington prays seriously My upright desire to the Lord for you is That he would strip you of your knowledge of the Scriptures according to the flesh By Flesh their sense is the use of our understandings though sanctified as will appear in the KEY at the end of this Book to which I must referre you for construing all such ambiguous and hard words Sixthly Doting on the Scriptures with your dark minds SECT II. That the Quakers do thus equal their Writings and Sayings c. with the Scripture shall appear by four undeniable things First they pretend to Infallibility This they assert to be necessary in all their Ministers who ordinarily declare or write and that without it it were impossible to be fitted for that work Hear what the chiefest of their Apostles saith How can ye be Ministers of the Spirit and not of the Letter if ye be not infallible and how can they but delude people who are not infallible and George Whitehead in a Letter to me writes thus Quest Whether Infallibility be attainable by any in these days which we affirm is to true believers which if thou deniest we question thy Call to the Ministry They pretend to speak and write by the immediate Inspiration of God and this is another part whereby they aspire to equality The Apostle Paul gives this Character of the Scripture 2 Tim. 3 16. All Scripture is given by Inspiration of God c. And the Apostle Peter 2 Pet. 1â—21 For the Prophecy came not in old time by the VVill of Man but holy Men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost Let us now compare Notes and see how far in these respects the Quakers will give the Scriptures the upper hand of their sayings or Writings And how should he do otherwise seeing he hath denied the infallible spirit from which all the Ministers ministred and all the Prophets prophecied and spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost He was here pleading for their Mens and Womens prophesying and concludes that to deny the Infaliible spirit to be and speak in the Quakers was to deny the infallible spirit by which all the Prophets prophecicd c. Therefore may I say much more it is not in the Power of that little Book either to throw down self-will in any in whom it is not yet subdâ—ed or to exalt the truth in general because its only Queries gathered by the Author from the Letter â—f the Scriptures without and no Message of heavenly Prophecie Doctrine or Exhortation received by the Author from the Lord through the divine Inspiration of his light and spirit within therefore I say it is a very vain and idolatrous Exhortation The Writings of the Quakers are full to this purpose but my business in these instances being to prove matter of Fact only this may suffice Thirdly they pretend the Spirit of God to be in them in an essential consideration and in all his divine Prophecies and that it is Gods indwelling in them thus considered from which their sayings and writings proceed In this they arrogate to themselves and their expressions more then any of the Prophets and Apostles durst once imagine all they believe and declare they say is from the light within yea it is the light within that reveals it and not they and therefore they will not call them their sayings ordinarily but such as pass through them as if God spake through them as one may speak through a Trunk which is only a passage for the voice but no proper Organ of speech Through your Brother and Companion e. W. D. Conclusion The Voice of the Son of God was uttered forth through him by which the dead was raised And indeed this light within they pretend to be both Father Son and Spirit for they make no distinction but this being matter of fact I shall prove it out of their writings but you must not suppose that I shall find any such words as essential or properties in their Authors for such words are too proper for them and expressive of the truth to such who understand them but I shall finde the things as very God cloathed with those Attributes which are peculiar to him and whoever reads what immediately follows and considers the Evidences to be but the Quakers own Confessions and shall not be touched with horror and indignation against their principles let that man or woman know that a Conscience seared with a hot iron is too soft for their insensibleness Every man hath that which is one in union and like the Spirit of Christ even as good as the Spirit of Christ according to its measure Child I am sensible that there is something in my Conscience that lets me see my secret Thoughts and the Intents of my heart c. Father That is the true light of Christ within that lets thee see the thoughts and the intents of the heart and God hath freely given it unto thee and requires thy obedience to it Ch. But if I should turn unto it and obey it when it reproves me for sin is there Power in it
to save me from my sin Answ All Power in Heaven and Earth is in it To shut up this particular hear one of their prime Ministers who speaks plainly his minde and not in Parables I will make you know that I the light which lighteth every man that cometh into the VVorld that all through me should believe am the true eternal God which created all things that by me the light all things are uphâ—ld and that there is not another besides me can save And I will purge out all your iniquities and forgive all your trespasses and I will change your Natures and I will make you new Creatures if you will hearken to me and obey me the light in you VVhat I have here written is the words which the Father who is one with Christ the Son gave me to write in which words the true Christ is renewed and a Testimony given of him and no other But enough and too much of this Blasphemy I need not take pains to ravel into it for it s so plain that none but those who shut their eyes and are wilfully blind but may see it in an unexpressible deformity SECT III. I now proceed to the fourth proof of their equalling their sayings writings and light within and preferring them before the Scriptures I place them in this Order that you may behold them at one view in their not only disproportion but opposition The CHARACTERS of the Scriptures given by the Quakers CHARACTERS of their own Teachers Writings and Sayings given by them Feeding Death with Death The Letter which killeth Declaration from the Ministers of the VVord p. 7. The Voice of the Son of God was uttered forth by him by which the dead was raised F. H. Life of E B. p. 20. Paper Ink and VVriting Declar from the Ministers of the VVord p. 2. A Shield of the Truth Title of James Parnels Book A dead letter The old letter Seeking the living among the dead Parnel Shield to the truth Naylor love to the lost His words ministred grace to the Hearers Fox jun. life of E B  Forcible and very pleasant as apples of gold in pictures of silver This in the freshness and quick sense of life Penington quest c. 41. Leave men in the dark and confusion Frequent Passage A clear Discovery Title of Smiths Prim.  O how certain a sound did his Trumpet give Life of E. B p. 2. Part of it the words of the Devil and wicked men Wisdom of words Nayl Love to the lost c. 21. VVritten from the Spirit of the Lord. title page Parnel shield of truth  The Voice of the Son of God Life of E. B. 20. My upright desire to the Lord for you is that he would strip you if all your knowledge of the Scriptures according to the flesh Pennington quest p 12. And now Childe hear Instruction and be wise Treasure it up in thy heart that thou mayest lay up for thy self a good foundation Smith Prim. p 56. Shews you in a Glass your own faâ—es which the Scriptures cannot do Scorned Quakers Account p. 20. A spiritual Glass opened Title of Smiths Cat. and part of the Title of his Morn-watch Precept and Traditions of men Morning-Watch p. 18. Truths Principles Title of Crooks Book That light is in the â—criptures prove that or tell me what one Scripture hath light in it Lip of truth c. p 7. Light risen out of darkness Title of Farnworths Book Natural Lawson Carnal Letter Shield of the truth 10. God is at liberty to speak by them the Scriptures if he please and where they are given by Inspiration he dâ—th so and so he is at liberty to speak by any other created thing as to Balaam by his Ass James Naylor light of Christ c. p 19. Earthly Root Morn Watch. 22  Worship and obedience as to its direction The Harlots Child Morn watch p. 23  Hagar and Ismael Mother and Child after the Letter Penington Mysteries of the Kingdom Preface He proclaimed liberty to the Captives in the Power and Authority of God F. H. of E. B. p. 15. Letter without Swine feeding on the husk The shadow Parnel shield of Truth p 10. Let this be sent to be read in the fear of the Lord in the Holy Assemblies of the Church of the first-born where she is scattered to the ends of the Earth W. D. Doting on the Scriptures Parnel Christ exalted p 4.  Betrayed into the words Smith prim p. 30.  Dangerous to feed on them Sm Cat. 36.  SECT IV. I having sufficiently proved that they equal their writings and sayings with and prefer them before the Scriptures it is not fit I should let them pass without contradiction I shall therefore review their Grounds for so doing and discover them to be but swelling words of vanity And I shall begin with their Infallibility I am confident that G. Fox the Ring-leader of the Sect understands not what he saith nor whereof he affirms It is one thing not to fail another to be infallible for that is to be without all possibility of failing or erring Again it is one thing to be infallible with a restriction to something another to be universally infallible and without limitation If G. Fox understands so much he is a non-such for confidence and being void of reason that affirmeth as he doth let us examine but that one passage before-cited How can ye be Ministers of the Spirit and not of the Letter if ye be not infallible Here he puts Ministry of the Spirit and of the letter in opposition which Christ and his Apostles joyned hand in hand as loving companions and meet helps each to other And there was delivered unto him the Book of the Prophet Isaiah and when he had opened the Book he found the place where it was written the Spirit of the Lord is upon me c. verse 21. And he began to say unto them this day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears and all bare him witness and wondred at the gracious words c. was not Christ then a Minister of the Spirit it is by him said this day this Scripture is fulfilled in your ears viz. the Spirit of the Lord is upon me And was he not also a Minister of the Letter why he opened the Book and found where it was written and no doubt read it out of the Book to his Auditors or else it would have been very impertinent to tell them This Scripture is fulfilled for they must have divined or not known what Scripture he intended And I suppose none will doubt whether that which is written in a Book be written in Letters Well then either George Fox is fallible yea and hath grossely failed or Jesus Christ was not a Minister of the Spirit and which of these you who call your selves infallible Ministers of the Spirit will admit of I know not but I am sure every true Christian will abhor a
sensation and feeling of the holy and blessed mind of God for we look on nothing of greater moment than to have a heart and conscience delivered from searedness and being past feeling But our feeling and sense of the truths of God is by the faith of them revealed to us in and by his word into which we desire absolutely to resolve our belief and which is the objective rule to the understanding by the senses CHAP. VI. The Quakers take men off from reading the Scripture and looking into them for instruction and comfort SECT I. IT is no matter of wonder at all that they who are so far entred in the denial and contempt of the Scripture should advance this step further it being but the natural off-spring of what I have already proved to be their Tenets And whatever else is the round of their writings and declarings all centres in putting people upon looking to the light within as the only Counsellour and Comforter And this is the meaning of our Doctrine to bring people to the everlasting Word of God in themselves Smith Catech. p. 95. Whereby they steal away their esteem and use of the Scriptures insensibly and they are shut up and lost in another Book viz. The light within before they are aware whereas if they should in so many words forbid them to read the Scriptures it would make their hearts recoil Alas that men are such Children who suspect not a design to rob them of their Gold when a Counter a trifle iâ— commended to them and imposed upon them that they may not think of or mind that which is a Treasure and by this means the Scriptures are forgotten 'till the love and esteem of them be lost by doting on the new and gay fancy of a divine and perfect light within But to the proof further But turn your ears inward to the measure of light in you which is without guile So to that of God in thee I direct thee Their Pamphlets are stuffed so full with expressions of this nature that I should but shew you their great road in citing their words neither will any of them deny what they are brought to prove But if they intended the judgment and conscience enlightned and that this ought to be minded in its place we should not condemn for such directions but when it is made a God of and by consequence an Idol and those beams of divine light shining in the Scripture excluded as if they had the body of the Sun within themselves it is the highest instance of folly and proof of taking men off from reading the Scriptures for instruction and comfort Yet take their minds in express words And by the same light do we discern and testifie against him to be in darkness and blindness and is a deceiver who putteth the letter for the light and so draw peoples minds from the light within them to the light without them seeking the living among the dead You may here discern the confidence they have in their light within that they dare oppose it to the Scripture yea and take its false witness which it bears against the Scripture and with what a black coal he marks those who put the letter i. e. the Scriptures for the light and this he construes to be a drawing peoples minds from the light within them to the light without them so that by his own way of reasoning I have authority to say that putting the light within them for the Scripture the light without them they draw peoples minds from the Scripture But the close of this sentence is no less than a murtherer of the holy Scripture seeking the living among the dead yea a strangling the Scripture with one of its own silver Cords Why seek ye the living among the dead as if the Scripture were a very Grave and Charnel house from which the living Jesus is for ever departed or which is more congruous to their sense they are no more able to minister instruction and comfort than a dead Carâ—ase rotting in the Grave Hear one more of their Trumpets sounding to the same purpose And although the holy Scripture without and the Saints practices are as lights in the world yet far be it from all true Christian men so to idolize them as to set them in esteem above the light which is sufficient to guide or to esteem them equal with the light and Spirit of Christ within The Scriptures are as lights but they will not right them so far as to call the Scripture a light and the commendations of that Idol the light within are such as if they were true he were a stark fool who would direct his eyes to the Scripture having such an excelling light in his own bosom But lest after all these allurings they should not be understood and people should be so silly as to attempt to light their Candle at the Scripture Taper they will tell you in plain English the vanity of such an undertaking For he Christ the light within alone searches the hearts and not the Scripture Smith prim p. 12. So that to draw people from attending to the Scripture they do not only commend the light within being silent concerning the Scripture in the mean while but tell you in plain words the Scriptures are in this matter of no service at all as Parnel before cited he is the light and guide c. the Scriptures are not SECT II. A second Argument they assert the light within to be sufficient yea allsufficient This where it takes hold of the credulity will draw as hard from attending to the Scripture as the stoutest Team in England Alas it must then if this be true be but a piece of wantonness and the itching disease to read the Scriptures to which we must take a few steps though they lye open in the next room while we have enough in our own bosoms yea which we can be no farther from than from our selves to the use of which we may pass as quick as thought 't is but look inward not outward nor upward turn the ear inward and the turn is served But that this Argument may be heard John Story and some other such Chapmen vouch for its truth The light which is sufficient to guide Before cited And if thou waitest in the measure of the light of Christ within thou wilt be able to try all things Smith's prim p. 10. Quest But if I should turn to it and obey it when it reproves me for sin is there power in it to save me from sin c. Answ Yes Child all power in Heaven and Earth is in it Smith's prim p. 14. Reader canst thou withstand the astonishment wherewith a tender conscience of the true God is wont to be surprised by such an open mouth of blasphemy if thou canst I must conclude thou art acquainted with this sort of people and so custom hath made it no surprise or thou art
commands c. yet in the intervals and mean whiles between inspirations and motions from the Spirit within we have no obligation to any duty nor can we commit any sin For where there is no Law there is no transgression take away the Scripture Precepts and to you there is none but as inspirations drop in and then I assure you for all your pretences you may live lawlesly enough inspirations being now so rare and when they were more plentiful but one Balaam among the wicked was so visited as we read of 3. Then the Scriptures signifie just nothing but a Romance to read to exercise the fancy or at most but as a prophane or common History from which we learn nothing but what others did and said and how it was with them If you read the Scripture commands they are nothing to you if you have a command in Spirit as you call it it is enough though it never were in the Scriptures yea though it be contrary to the Scripture reason and all modesty CHAP. VIII They deny the Scriptures to be any means by which we may come to know God Christ and our selves SECT I. THis is a bold and strange assertion from those who call the Scriptures the Scriptures of truth and would be thought not to deny but own them with some respect But seeing it is within them I love they should speak out If the Scriptures are thus impotent I know no use they are of in things of a religious concern all Religions aiming at and depending upon the knowledge of God and ourselves and the Christian Religion as such on the knowledge of Christ They may notwithstanding this affirmation call them Scriptures i. e. Writings still but sure they do but mock them in calling them holy Scriptures or they are greatly ignorant what the word holy imports If the Scriptures then were burned it would not be a half-penny loss and the world would be rid of a burden or a snare or both I proceed to the proof of this Charge and as I have done hitherto draw my Arrows out of their own Quiver Quest Is there not another way by which we may come to know God Answ Nay child there is not another way for Christ is the way The Scriptures which are Christs own words which say Christ is the way John 14. 6. is far from countenancing what this Author shelters under its wing Christ saith I am the way no man can come to the Father but by me But he doth not say nor is it in the least implyed in the words as their sense or consequence that there is no coming to the knowledge of God but by Christ for some knowledge of God may be attained not only without Christ as the means but without the Scripture also As the Apostle Paul affirms who we have reason to believe before all the Quakers in the world Rom. 1. 20. For the invisible things of him from thhe creation of the World are cleerly seen being understood by the things that are made even his Eternal Power and Godhead Either they never read this Scripture or the beam is in their eyes who shall say there is no other way to know God but Christ if he had said no other way to know God savingly without Christ he had saved his credit here and hit the mark but what will not men say that have a mind the Scripture should be silent The reason he grounds this upon is of like strength to most which they produce under that name or form For Christ is the way now this Scripture doth not speak of the knowledge of God but of coming to God which is somewhat more than a bare knowledge of God which must have a being in us before we can come or move towards him But suppose he had said there is no other way to come to God but Christ only he had spoken falsly For Though there is no other way to come to God without Christ yet there are many other ways to come to God by in conjunction with and subordination to Christ So our reading the Scripture knowledge of our alienation from God our sin guilt and danger sanctification c. these are all ways and means by which we come to God Add to these faith love yet who will say that any of these are Christ except James Naylor who saith Christ is the Word and Prayer but though we make these to be some ways and means of coming to God we make not any of them the way as the most excellent and only way nor do we make them our Saviours and Mediators and Intercessors with God for us nor that they by shedding their blood satisfied Gods Justice and appeased his anger and made reconciliation between God and man and yet without these any one of them at least such as are within their reach no person can be saved or be re-united to God I will give you a demonstration as easie as sense it self Suppose that over a great and deep River there were but one Bridge and he that would go to the other side must go by this Bridge and it should be said and truly no man can get to the other side of the River but by this Bridge would this conclude that you must not enquire where this Bridge is how you may pass over by it that you must not take those passages and steps that lead to the Bridge that you must not have and use your legs and your eyes and all because you cannot get over but by thy Bridge At no wiser a rate do the Quakers plead for Christ being the only way excluding all other as subservient But enough of this passage only observe that the Author quoted will not have the Scriptures nor any thing else Christ excepted to be any means of knowing God Let us hear him explain himself a little more Quest Doth God manifest himself within man Answ Yes and man cannot know him by any other way but by the manifestation of himself in his light within him Here he saith much more than in his former sentence there he saith there is no other way to know God but by Christ here but by his light Christ and that within him too lâ—st we should mistake and suppose that the light of Christ also is to be found in the Scripture Hear him speak plainer and yet more to the purpose Then he John declared him as he knew him not from any tradition or writing before him though then there was much written which did truly testifie of him This he brings in to prove that Christ is to be known and made known to others not by the Scripture but his own light or he himself the light within and that though the Scriptures were then in being he made no use of them to declare Christ by to the knowledge of those he preached to They are such people as tell the world that Matthew Mark Luke and John are
able to defend our selves against the most ignorant nonsense that the meanest of your votaries can attempt us with But the God above and the Scripture without hath taught us better things I am not unwilling though I hope few need it to quote a few Scriptures that people may have them in a readiness against these untruths of the Quakers Put on the Armour of light c. the Scripture makes it day in the World but especially in and with the Saints for it makes manifest abundantly There is your defensive Arms. The Word of God is quick and powerful sharper than any two edged Sword c. There is an offensive Weapon Above all taking the shield of faith wherewith ye shall be able to quench c. 17. and the Sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God A Sword of the Spirits making and is effectual when of the Spirits managing Observe faith in the 16. ver is preferred above the Word of God in the 17. verse therefore it is not Christ the Word but the Scripture the Word for Faith is not above Christ Jesus Christ who had less need of the Scriptures than any of us all resisted Satans temptations by the Scriptures it is written it is written and what was written being opposed to Satans temptations silenced and confounded him But it seems since then he hath gotten more confidence Consider that the Quakers will allow the man Christ to leave us a perfect example CHAP. X. The Quakers deny the Scriptures to be read to any profit any further than they are before hand experienced by those that read And they put the Spirit of God and the Scripture in opposition SECT I. THey may as well say that hearing the word preached is to no profit neither any farther than it is experienced before hand for there is the same reason of the one as of the other But this is a strange Doctrine that at one blow cuts off both hearing and reading the matter contained in the Scriptures by men unregenerate For what I pray you have they experienced who are according to your notions stark blind and utterly without sense of the things of God Quest But if there be not another way to God c. Answ Why Child all that are faithful to God in what he makes known unto them they are not judged This is pretty charitable but hear farther the reason he gives why they that read the Scriptures profit not in the knowledge of God c. is but they read in that book notionally before they have passed the judgment experimentally Again p. 30. For people wanting the life and power of Christ in themselves they are betrayed into the words c. And such were the Scribes who were ever scraping in the Scriptures to find God and his life yet never knew him at any time nor saw his shape because they heard not his voice nor heeded not his word within themselves John 5. 37. What a vile insinuation is here of the Scriptures and the study of them as if the Scriptures were but a dunghil and every unregenerate person at least which all are with them who adore not the Light within as Christ did but the part of a Brute which scraping implies in searching the Scriptures to know the things of God For his blasphemous insinuation that God hath a shape and that they who heed his voice within themselves see it I am too sensible of the invisible Majesty of God to work my thoughts on such a horrid subject yet he dares quote John 5. 37. to countenance it which so far as it reaches it doth deny any such thing to be seen To reprove this evil Spirit of worse than errour read and understand these Scriptures wherein there is not any great difficulty Search the Scriptures for in them ye think ye have eternal life and they are they which testifie of me and ye will not come to me that ye might have life I have known more than a good many of the men of this controversie expound this Scripture as if Christ rebuked them for searching the Scripture and having such a fallacy in their opinion as to think eternal life were to be had by searching of them and instead of and which gives the absurdity of their searching the Scriptures to find the true Christ by their testimony and its testimony being so plain and clear that Jesus of Nazareth he that then talked with them was he they have read it but you will not c. as if the one was exceeding opposite to the other viz. searching the Scripture whereas the true sense is it condemns you as irrational men that you should think to have eternal life in the Scriptures and will not believe their testimony I must remember to tell you that I do not take the Scriptures to be able to give eternal life to all that have them in their houses or heads or that do barely search them and not set their hearts according to its direction to find eternal life It were ten to one if I had not said so much some or other of them would have had a fling at me as making a Christ of the Scripture By what hath been produced you may be sure there is the best profit by Gods blessing on an honest reading of the Scriptures Young Timothy was bred up from a Child in the Holy Scripture and it was the commendation of his Mother and Grand-Mother for so educating him but can you think he experienced all he read before he read it some of them are prophetical of things to come Can any of you alll experience things that never yet had an existence or being And should the Gentiles and Jews have been reproved for hearing Paul and Peter and Christ himself preach the Gospel and the Mediatour of it because they did not experience it in themselves But why should I use many words about such a cause the willing to understand may see its grossness and for those that will be ignorant means signifie little to their cure CHAP. XI The Quakers put or render the Scriptures and the Spirit of God in opposition to each other SECT I. I Could produce a thousand instances of this crime against the life and being of the Scriptures committed by the Quakers as their principle and duty This wickedness is their open high-way and beaten road If the Scripture had not been the word of the Spirit of God the revelation of his mind and will whose holiness and authority had its being from God its author the frame of it agreeing to the nature and will of God we would not think it worthy the name of Scripture in that peculiar sense which it hath obtained among Christians But if once we knew it opposite and an adversary to the Spirit so far at least that it must come to a parting and they that cleave to the teachings of the Spirit must forsake being taught comforted
conceiving knowing were not Gods nor to be concerned in his worship Certainly if nothing of man soul or body be active therein man doth not worship God nor pray at all and so God worships himself which is the true result of the Quakers Tenets But let us consider a Text or two out of the Word of God I would order my cause before him and fill my mouth with arguments The word order in the Heb. signifies a marshalling his words Prayer is not only a petition but a humble pleading wrestling with God and sure there was somewhat of Job in ordering his cause and he used his spiritual skill in it 'T is render'd by Arias Montanus disponerem I would dispose my cause Give ear to my words O Lord. What is it then I will pray with the spirit and I will pray with the understanding also c. Here is Paul's will in prayer I will and here is Paul's understanding also exercised in prayer vers 15. But my understanding is unfruitfull which he blames as a companion of prayer that being supposed Thus I have proved the Quakers denying Gospel-prayer in this respect above-mentioned and reproved their anti-Gospel notions by the Scriptures Lastly They own no prayer but what is by the light and in the light within And the prayers of such only are accepted and not the prayers of those who think to be heard for their much babling who have many words but not in the life So that their prayers only are acceptable who pray in the life that is with the Quakers by the motions of their light within and although we are far from thinking to be heard for the sake of much better things than much babling yet all the words of prayer that are not qualified by their principle the light within is in their account but babling For it's truth in the inward parts he seeks for wherein none of you can worship who know not the living Word in your hearts to keep them up to God in your worship and that worship which is not in the will of God is the worshipping of Devils If you ask any of them What is the truth in the inward parts They will not answer it is sincerity meanings suitable to our expressions and appearances but it is Christ the light within who is the truth And for knowing the living Word it is of the same sense it is all but the light within every man the Quakers Christ And for the will of God that is nothing but the immediate life and motions of the light within I have said enough out of their Writings to prove these things neither will they deny them but Naylor telleth you and it is not for any Quaker to resist the Spirit by which he spake that worship not thus qualified is the worshiping of Devils It may be some of the Quakers though they know in their consciences that I speak but the very truth of their Tenets and Notions will say I put my meanings to their words but if they will but bate me speaking from their light within which they hold necessary to qualifie a man to speak truly I dare undertake to expound according to their meaning their ill meant phrases as well as the most of them and their mystery is none to me at all And although they talk of praying in the name of Christ yet as Naylor phrases it That is done in the name of Christ which is done in his light and power But when all is done this Christ and name and light and power is but the light within and its teachings and motions It is to me reported on all hands That they never pray in the name of Christ as their Mediator much less then do they pray to God in or in the name of Jesus of Nazareth the Son of Mary or of that one Mediator between God and men the man Christ Jesus even that Jesus who was crucified at Jerusalem between two thieves above 1600 years since I have put this to many of them and they denied not this Charge neither can I see how they can pray to the Father in the name of Christ seeing God the Father and Christ with them admit of no distinction and for the man Christ that was born of Mary they have nothing to do with him The Apostle saith A Mediator is not of one but God is one And whoever they are that deny and disown prayer in the name of Christ are far from owning the Gospel-Ordinance of prayer SECT IV. Reading the Scriptures and Meditation which are Gospel-Ordinances they also deny I need not tell you of the contempt they put upon the Scripture as a dead letter the carnal letter and on those who attend to it as dry Letter-mongers Take only one instance of William Pens But all must be as unlearned from their first birth education and traditional read knowledge as he is unmanned that is again become a little child before the secrets of Gods work come to be made known And Fisher calls studying the Scripture scraping in the Scripture I wonder wherefore God ordered and commanded them to be written if they are not to be read and studied The Spirit of Christ within is the end of the Tables Law Works and Books and the Law is now in the heart Whatever thou be whether a teacher of others or a professor of what thou comprehends to be truth from the letter of the Scripture under what form name or title soever thou be thou art a dead man and a dead woman and the wrath of God abides on thee though thou see it not Rom. 7. 9. Miserable man that talks at this rate and will father it on the Scripture too and such a one as is directly against him But we have had enough of this smoak SECT V. I shall say somewhat of their abundant scorn of the Lords Supper and Baptism wherein they express a superfluity of naughtiness not only in their Tenets but down-right railing The Ordinances I have hitherto considered in particular are called moral from their natural obligation although that substantial and essential part and qualification of them their respect to a Mediator will require a denomination more evangelical and without which we cannot call them Gospel or Christian-Ordinances Those two Gospel-Ordinances I come now to consider are purely and perfectly positive and depend meerly upon divinely-revealed institution without which they had never come within our notice nor had they been any way obliging to us Yet such is the sanction that the Lord hath put upon institutions of this nature that not only since his revealed Law hath abounded to his Church but also when the revelations of his mind immediately to his servants was very rare he did not omit injunctions of this kind The sacrifices we read of as early as Cain and Abel Yea Adam in his state of innocency who then needed not any indication of moral duties beyond what was within the
thee and give thee for a Covenant to the people for a light to the Gentiles This speaks still of Christ to come as such a light Let us consider that passage in the Song of Simeon For mine eyes have seen thy salvation which thou hast prepared before the face of all people a light to lighten the Gentiles c. So that the appearance of Christ in the flesh in that body which Simeon took up in his arms was his being prepared to be a light to lighten the Gentiles Now this light was present And in the Text agitated John 1. 9. This light was past that is that appearance and work of Christ which made way for the salvation of God to be divulged and its ordinary means to be enjoyed by all indifferently This was the true light God was manifest in the flesh preached unto the Gentiles SECT V. The second Text they usurp is in Romans 10. 8. But what saith it The Word is nigh thee even in thy mouth and in thy heart that is the Word of faith which we preach This Text joyned with John 1. 1. In the begining was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God they build their Tenet upon that Christ the Word is within every man as upon the Text before agitated they affirm that he is within them as a saving light Let us first consider whether the Word in this Text be of the same sense and import with that in John 1. which speaks of Christ the personal Word That it is not so but the Doctrinal Word is plain from these Considerations First The Apostle doth in these words allude to the words of Moses Deut. 30. 14. But the Word is very nigh unto thee in thy mouth and in thy heart that thou maist do it This Word in Deuteronomy is said in Verse 10. to be the commandments and statutes which were written in the Book of the Law which Book they had among them and by that means had the contents of it in their heart either in the love of it or by rote as we use to say a writing is gotten by heart when it is treasured in the memory and it was in their mouth by profession or discourse Secondly The Apostle gives the same Answer to a supposed Objection How shall we know what is our duty How we should please God and be blessed therein saith Moses 'T is no such difficult thing for you to know this for what you have gotten into your heart out of this Book of the Law and what you have in your mouth by discourse and profession that is it you should observe and do So the Apostle if you suppose while we preach salvation by Christ whom you must receive that we preach impossibilities for that the person of Christ if in Heaven or in the grave he is out of your reach this will cure your mistake to consider that as the Word of the Law which Moses taught and wrote was in the heart and mouth to do it so the Word of faith or to be believed is in your heart and mouth to believe and confess it And this will as effectually save you as if Christ in his person were in your arms yea and more too And that this is his sense is plain in Verse 9. That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead thou shalt be saved The third Consideration is That the word that is said to be in the heart is said also to be in the mouth and we all know what manner of word uses to be in the mouth that it is a word saying or speaking while it is there such as that spoken of in Samuel tidings in his mouth or that in Esther As the word went out of the Kings mouth therefore it cannot be meant of Christ but that speech those sayings which are or may be spoken as in the Gospel when preaching or when written Fourthly Both that in Deuteronomy and this word in the Romans are said to be in the heart and mouth of those who were the Church of God as Israel was to whom Moses spake and the Romans to whom Paul wrote and so were taught by the one the truths of the Law by the other of the Gospel It sorrily follows from hence that it is in the hearts of all men Lastly The Apostle agitating this Argument farther Verse 14. How shall they call on him of whom they have not heard He doth not tell them Christ Jesus the Word will preach himself and he is in the heart where if you will but stand still and wait and listen you shall hear him teach you all things as is the Quakers Doctrine No but he tells them in Verse 17. So then faith cometh by hearing so say the Quakers too but of whom Verse 15. Of them that are sent them whose feet are beautifull for the sake of the glad tidings of the Gospel of peace which they bring And these are more than that one personal or as the Quakers phrase it eternal Word Christ for they are expressed by they them which are Plurals but Christ is but one Yet from this Text do they most confidently avouch Christ the Word who was in the beginning and who is God to be in the heart and not only in the hearts of the Saints and Believers but in theirs also who are the most wicked and ignorant among the sons of men And I have by a grand Quaker been given the lye in the Pulpit for expounding the Word in Jâ—r 23. 20. of the Word of the Lord Doctrinally considered and this Text in the Romans produced with no more but confidence and of that enough to prove me so There is a passage of William Pen's either in his Book called Sandy foundation c. or else The Spirit of Truth c. which is this at least the matter of it That Christ is most eminently the Word all will agree or none will deny I have not time to look it But I shall say thus much to antidote that fancy That that is most eminently the Word of that species about which we contend which is most properly so though other considerations may render it more eminent in another kind and not that which is sometimes but improperly so called Christ is called a Lion a Door 'T is true Christ as God is more eminent than all things beside in Heaven and Earth and we use to say and do not yet repent it that all uncompounded good things are eminently in God So as there is strength and courage in a Lion with respect to strength and courage Christ may be said to be eminently most eminently strong and couragious but to be the most eminently a Lion would be a strange and untrue expression of Christ For Formadat esse and he that is without the form that gives the being cannot
among men and then he would have shewed himself a workman indeed to have so stitched them together into one as would admit of no distinction I do not admire that his acumen cannot distinguish Essence and Subsistance three Persons in one Divine Being and God-Head who cannot distinguish these Attributes of God nor these acts with respect to men mentioned in the Question He is unlike to wade through a deep River who is so often over head and ears in a shallow Dish But these escapes are but the Dust of the ballance to what follows The word proper in a Question as modifying these Offices or acts of the Spirit is greatly improper Proper is sometimes in opposition to figurative sometimes in opposition to common sometimes in opposition to meet or fit in which sence he would be understood it doth not fit his purpose nor principles to tell us but this is an unworthy part of a Disputant and becoming none but those who are resolved not to be understood If he would assert the Quakers Tenet he must say it is the peculiar and immediate guide rule and judge and this is that he pleads for now and then after his fashion in his following arguments And all the Quakers I have read or discoursed plead for in plain terms but if it had been so expressed in the Question his nose would have been held too hard to the Grind-stone in attempting strictly to prove it and most would have smelt the Rankness of Quakerism But Mr. Pen do you deal fairly and honestly with your Adversaries to imply in your Question that we deny the Spirit of God to be a proper that is one that is fit and hath right to be a rule of Faith guide of Life judge of Truth You know that we own it to be such and that it dothboth in the Conscience and by the Scripture Creation and Providence perform such acts and is to such purposes and that of right Onely we deny that the Spirit alwayes performs these acts without the use of the Scripture or any external means or ordinances or that it doth so at any time contrary to its mind expressed in the Scripture this you should oppose or you do but trifle and abuse us and your unwary Readers The latter part of your question which expresses the administration of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ especially to countenance your tenet is playing at Blind-Mans buff You should have told us who or what you mean by Lord and Saviour If it be understood of the Quakers Lord and Saviour the light within every man that is none of our Lord and Saviour If it be understood of the Man Christ Jesus who was of the Seed of David according to the Flesh who was the Son of Mary crucified to death on the cross of wood by shedding his blood and is now in his humane or mans nature united to the God-head in one person ascended above the visible heavens he is none of your Saviour and can be no more within you personally considered than the body of one individual man can be intirely in all the men and women and children in the world and at the same time it must be a transubstantiation much more ridiculous than the Papists that must support such a fancy It is also no less strange that you should talk of the Gospel administration of our Lord and Saviour who hold nothing of a Saviour but what is eternal à parte ante nor any other Gospel but the light within and its immediate dictates which you generally affirm was within every man from the beginning of the world I shall not spend time and paper to shew the many other absurdities in your question I have left a harvest for gleaners For the proof of your affirmation such a blind one as it is you produce abundance of Scriptures which are as much to your purpose as if you had quoted onely the 36 Chap. of Genesis wherein is contained Esau's posterity and how many Dukes there were of his race Yet I shall produce your arguments for the Readers satisfaction that he may believe his own eyes and I shall be more honest than to frame a meer whimsie out of my own head to abuse you and say after this lofty manner of disputing you undertake our overthrow which is your guilt and baseness in the fourth page of your Book SECT III. Your first proof you pretend from Gen. 6. 1. And the Lord said my Spirit shall not alwaies strive with man for that he also is flesh yet his dayes shall be an hundred and twenty years I will for once transcribe your Argument verbatim that it may be notorious how loftily you dispute If God's unerring Spirit has been wont to strive with men either to convince them of or convert them from the evil of their thoughts words or deeds or else to provoke them yet more fully to do the will of God so as to press on from one degree of glory to another then men have had an unerring Spirit to be their teacher and judge and rule and guid of that truth concerning that faith and in that most holy way which leads to eternal life But the Scripture proves the first Proposition that Gods Spirit hath frequently strove with men and for the ends before mentioned and consequently they have not been without an holy unerring Spirit to teach judge regulate and guid them If I should only say your whole Argument is a meer confused thicket of impertinencies and non sequitur's I believe your conclusion would be most absolute that it wae for want of eyes and that I dare not touch a bough of it for fear of pricking my fingers A man had need of good arithmetick also to number the terms You tell us the Scripture proves your first Proposition you are a non Such for diving if you can fetch up from this Scripture what is expressed in your first Proposition especially the latter member of it It is more than probable that the Spirit did strive with them to make them better than they were yet none of those ends are expressed in the Text but that it should be that they might more fully do the Will of God and press on from one degree of Glory to another is a guess wonderfully well becoming your infallibility Why did you not say or to turn them into Suns Moons and Stars which were all out as much in the Text as the other and I dare say some of your Friends would have taken themselves bound to believe it who find no fault with greater absurdities dropt from their admired inspired Dictators but Quos Deus vult perdere hos dementat There were eight persons saved in the Ark but one Noah said to be righteous before God and all the rest overwhelmed by the Deluge for their extreme impieties yet these were pressed on from one degree of Glory to another The consequence of your first Proposition is all manner of Fruits
understood what he wrote of the Creation Hear a third that by the mouth of more than two witnesses what I have said may be confirmed John Story Short Discovery c. pag. 2. And though the holy Scripture without and the Saints practises are as lights in the world yet far be it from all true Christian men so to idolize them the Scripture and Saints practises as to set them in esteem above the light which is sufficient to guide or to esteem them equal with the light and Spirit of Christ within from which the Scriptures were given forth and are but branches of that holy root and as it were fruits of that heavenly Tree viz. the appearances of God in the hearts of his people You may see then whence their Opinion of Divine Inspiration to be the inlet of their Notions arises and that the Scriptures are but branches growing from the same root viz. the light within That I may arm those who are willing to be defended against such a strong delâ—sion where-ever it hath once seized the belief by Scripture-light I shall take she pains to lay down some certain Characters of all the Apostles divinely inspired all their Doctrines that flowed from the Spirit of God by way of inspiration immediate contained in the Scripture and having the ame divine Authority SECT III. Characters of the Persons who were Christs Apostles and preached or wrote the Gospel by Inspiration of God which we call the Scripture or Word of God They had an immediate Mission and Call from without them by Jesus Christ to preach and declare the Gospel That Call and Commission which the Apostles had Mat. 28. 16. to the end of the Chapter was from without it was Christ who conversed with them and was the Object of their bodily eyes It was that Christ whom the women held by the feet ver 9. and his Call as his person was without them the sound of which was received by their bodily ears in those words ver 18 19. And Jesus came and spake unto them saying All power is given to me in heaven and in earth Go ye therefore c. And it is a strong Argument to prove this immediate outward Call to be essential to the Apostolical Office and Power that when by Judas's fall the number was imperfect he that was chosen in his room was chosen and called by an outward Call the Spirit of God determining by a Lot Matthias to be the twelfth Apostle as Christ did the rest by his voice without them Acts 1. 24 25 verses they had a large measure of the Spirit within and Matthias in particular but that was not sufficient Yea the Apostle Paul who was born out of due time had this immediate outward Call when Christ appeared to him in that glorious and terrible form Acts 26. 13. At mid day O King I saw in the way not in the heart or I in the way saw a light from heaven above the brightness of the Sun the light in the Quakers I am sure would be seen by any who are not bodily blind if it were such shining round about me then it could not be a light only within and them that journeyed with me if it had not been without him they could not have seen it Verse 14. I heard a Voice speaking unto me not within me I am Jesus Chap. 10. Ver. 22. Jesus of Nazareth and I am sure the light within is not of Nazareth These things are enough to prove the Apostles had all of them an outward Call or a Call from Christ without them to their Ministry and Apostleship and that the Quakers apostleship and inspired ministry is far from Apostolical They were all such as had seen and conversed with the Lord Jesus in an outward visible form to the bodily senses And that I take to be the literal sense and import of that Scripture 1 John 1. 1. That which was from the beginning which we have heard which we have seen with our eyes which we have looked upon and our hands have handled of the Word of Life All these expressions cannot with any shew of reason be construed of a mental or spiritual converse with Christ as an object of faith but must be understood of the exercise of the bodily senses and faculties upon the visible humane nature of the Lord Jesus And if it be objected that it is said this Object was from the beginning which his humane Nature and body could not be I answer There is a communication of both Natures in the person of Christ by which the properties and concerns of the one are attributed to the other as I might give abundant proof of But I will instance in one which may be sufficient Acts 20. 28. To feed the Church of God which he hath purchased with his own bloud God is not a being made up of flesh and bloud but a pure impassible Spirit yet Christ being God as well as man the bloud of his Man-hood is called the bloud of God It is observable that the Apostle John brings these proofs of his Apostleship in the front of his Epistle as being necessary for obtaining Credence to what follows To put all out of doubt consider what is expressed 1 Cor. 9 ch 1 ver Am I not an Apostle am I not free have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord Some did probably object against Pauls Apostleship because he had not seen Christ in the flesh as all the rest of the Apostles had done but he answers this Objection Have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord It could not be meant of seeing him by the spiritual eye of Faith for so all the Saints have seen the Lord that is common to the weakest babe in the Faith And where did he see him but in the way to Damascus Compare the fore-cited Text with 1 Cor. 15. 8 ver And last of all he was seen of me also as of one born out of due time He was not born a Saint or Believer out of due time for conversion will be in season to the end of the world But he was born an Apostle out of due time the Lord Jesus visibly appearing to him to that end in an extraordinay season Thus we see that to Apostleship the sight of the person of Christ as an outward visible object to the bodily sense is necessary A third distinguishing Character is they were all enabled to work Miracles such Miracles as were neither in secret for the place nor doubtful for the matter I should but waste time and paper to give instances of this the Histories of the Evangelists and Acts of the Apostles will furnish you with enough The Quakers having been conscious of the necessity of this have some of them pretended to Miracles to credit their Apostolical pretended inspirations but none can they prove Some have attempted such like performances but have failed in the undertaking so that if we will not believe them for their bold
the later Position is from his Scripture Rom. 1. 19 20. because that which may be known of God is manifest in them for God hath shewed it unto them for the invisible things of him c. The words in them in the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are either in or among them the later sense is to me the most probable because that while the far greater part of the Gentile-world were so brutish that they little regarded or understood any thing of God but were so besotted with sensuality that they understood and minded nothing but what might gratifie a blind and impetuous appetite some among them whose intellects were better imployed came by the knowledge of excellent things concerning God which they not only taught but left in writing as a witness to Posterity But to put all out of doubt the 20 verse speaks what I affirm plainly For the invisible things of him from the Creation of the world are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made even his eternal power and Godhead c. Here you have an account what may be known of God by the Heathen who had neither revelation immediate to themselves nor handed to them from others by the Word heard or read viz. the eternal power and Godhead and that which they were condemned for ver 26. was not for not knowing or practising what had relation to the Mediator or not believing the word of promise which never was within the reach of their ears but for their miscarriages against God the Creator whom they might and ought to have known and acknowledged God is in his essential Being the invisible God but he was manifest among them How From the Creation of the World by the things that are made Take another Text for the confirmation of my Exposition of this Act. 14. 17. Nevertheless he left not himself without witness in that he did good and gave us rain from Heaven and fruitful seasons c. They were not without witness concerning the Divine Being and Attributes of Mercy and Goodness yet if the rain and fruitful Seasons were without them the witness was without them before it was within them But for the Quakers pretences of their conceits of Divine things to be by immediate inspiration of the Spirit to them when we hear of Pagans and Heathen who never had the least notice of or from the Scripture talk of Jesus Christ a crucified Redeemer and the Promises and Covenant of God we may a little listen to them but for a people who live where the Scriptures are so much known to talk Scripture-phrases and Gospel-phrases and then tell us they had it all by Divine revelation immediate to themselves is as ungrateful and foolish as for those who were born and bred in England and have learned their Mother-tongue from their childhood after 30 or 40 years to affirm they learned every word of it by immediate inspiration or could have known it as perfectly if man had never taught them while in the mean time those forem Languages they never heard spoken they can neither speak nor understand one sentence of if it would save the world Again Those Gospel-illuminations for the matter which are by immediate inspiration are beyond the utmost reach of our natural faculties of the mind though sanctified to attain by their improvement and therefore it is said to be 2 Tim. 3. 16. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Divinely inspired It is not produced in the exercise of the rational faculties the Soul is purely passive or receptive therein and is to those illuminations as the wax is to the Seal according to 2 Pet. 1. 21. For the Prophesie came not in old time by the will of man but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 acted carried Some of them viz. the Prophetical part were so far from being attained by the use of natural faculties though sanctified that their very wills which are the first movers even in intelligent agents did not ordinarily so much as direct their understandings to the finding out the Truths which were revealed to them but when their thoughts in their present posture had no tendencie to any such particular things no more than a man in a deep sleep they were then moved by the Holy Ghost that whereas ordinarily they are fixed and bent to such or such ends by the humane will here the Divine will takes its place and doth all And for those Historical parts of the Scripture as of the Creation Fall of man written by Moses c. and the Doctrinal parts written by the Apostles c. although the things in general might be the scope and aim of their intentions yet the gale by which they were driven steadily and infallibly was not the utmost of their natural and sanctified and highest improved faculties but the supernatural guidance of the Divine Spirit whose product was like it self without the least stain or spot of humane frailty and weakness Whereas that illumination of the Spirit which in the kind of it is common to all Saints flows in by the Lords blessing on the improvement of their understandings and judgments whether on Creation Providence or matter divinely revealed without them originally viz. that contained in the Scripture which although their faith be resolved into and determined by yet the highest pitch of their spiritual understanding is raised by a right and sanctified ratiocination from those principles comparing spiritual things with spiritual And experience teacheth that though an idle loytâ—râ—r mâ—y grow giddy with empty swimming notions which are rather the disease of a spiritual pride and intoxication yet God doth mostly if not only bless those with high and solid illumnations who humbly wait on him and beg the concourse and assistance of the Father oâ— Lights and Spirit of Truth That God doth bless in such ways to the such illuminations of the Spirit is clear from this Scripture Heb. 5. 12 14. For when for the time ye ought to be Teachers ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the Oracles of God and are become such as have need of milk c. It was their sin which was rebuked as the cause of their ignorance and what that should be but their slothful unfaithfulness in the use of advantages I know not But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age this must not be understood of number of dayes but measure of knowledge even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil They were thus illuminated by the Spirit in the way of the use and exercise of their sanctified natural faculties and the Ordinances of God for that end If any Quaker shall say True we are illuminated not by study and poring as they call it on the Scripture or any thing else but have our knowledge without such carnal toil and the
other sense Also what did that clause do there viz. thy Spirit is good Can the Spirit be good for nothing if the external word be good for something as a teacher I mistrust not the eyes of any but the Quakers but that they will see at first glance what a feeble Champion you are without my pointing Parvas habet spes Troja si tales habet I shall trace you foot by foot no further you shoot at so many marks at once that 't is hard to find which you level at only in the conclusion you presume you have hit the Pin of the white Vnisonat cuâ—ulis rudibus geminantibus odis Your Arguments are generally sick of one disease you argue from the presence of the Spirit of God in and with his people by his motions influences manifestations gifts graces means to his essential being as the sense of those texts which is fallacious and as I prove by this argument answer it when you can The Spirit of God essentially considered or as very God is every where at all times without the least change or alteration for ever But the Spirit of God in and with his people according to the import of those texts of Scripture which you produce is not every where at all times without any the least change or alteration for ever Therefore the Spirit of God in and with his people according to the import of those texts of Scripture which you produce is not the Spirit of God essentially considered or very God The First Proposition is proved from Mal. 3. 6 For I am the Lord I change not The Second Proposition I prove from Joel 2. 28 29. which you cite Pag. 21. And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out my Spirit on all Flesh and your Sons and your Daughters shall prophesie c. This was in time what and where it was not before Ezek. 36. 27. Pag. 20. And I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my Statutes c. it was future what it was not before and is spoken of the gathering of the Jews from all Countreys Then the Spirit of God shall be put within them but this is not alway the same without alteration 1 Cor. 6. 19. cited by you Pag. 30. What know you not that your Body is the Temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you The Holy-Ghost did not dwell in them according to the import of that Text before their conversion The Lord was in the Temple at Jerusalem and dwelt therein I have built a House of habitation for thee and a place for thy dwelling Who is able to build him an House seeing the Heaven and Heaven of Heavens cannot contain him How did God dwell there more then elsewhere but by placing his name owning a relation to it as his house sanctifying it to his own use manifesting himself in it to those who waited on his Ordinances there solemnized But now the place is void of all the footsteps of that presence I deny not I doubt not but the presence of God by his Spirit in and with his people is much more glorious than that Type posessed yea such a Mystery of union and Glory as will be matter of intellectual exercise and delight for ever yet it is most certainly no more his essential Presence than is every where The difference is his being related to actuating of effecting in and manifesting himself to and union with the Souls of his people so as none in the world but they are blessed withal And here in the Saints are so happy they may well be content and not put the name of the Godhead in a strict and proper sense on these his blessings Such conceits are the natural sourse and have been of opinions and practices dishonourable to God and unworthy of his Grace Another fallacy in your arguings is from the Spirits teachings indefinitely to the Spirits teaching universally at least all that concerns the duty of the People of God in religious things The People of God have the Spirit therefore they could not be destitute of an unerring Spirit in what concerned them either towards God or men SECT VII But your main fallacies are these two from an infallible Spirit teaching to the infallability of the Subjects in which the Spirit dwels as a Teacher And from the Spirits teaching to its immediate and peculiar teaching For the first of these I shall produce some of your wild reasonings 1 Thes 15. 19. Quench not the Spirit Those to whom he gave the caution had the Spirit if those could not quench the Spirit who had it not Consequently the Primitive Churches were not without an unerring Spirit But I believe and can prove that they who had not the Spirit themselves might quench it in others by despising prophesyings in the exercise of its gifts 20. ver and those who have the motions of the Spirit as you sâ—… the old world had before the flood may be faiâ— from having the Spirit in the Scripture sense i. e. dwelling in them to sanctification But supposing they had the Spirit dwelling and teaching in them 't is a miserable erroneouâ— and weak Conclusion that they were infallible That this is that you would conclude from such improper premises is apparently your drift all a long A taste of this you give up p. 32. in these words If God sends forth his Spirit into the hearts of his children then are they not without an infallible Spirit but the express letter of the Scripture affirms iâ— and consequently our Adversaries reflection upon us for making it part of our belief is unsound and condemnable Your adversaries have not so little knowledge of the Spirit of God as to say the Spirit of God is fallible nor yet so ignorant of your spirits and of the Scripture as to say you are infallible If the latter be it you say is unsound it is upon no other grounds than your arguing from the infallibility of Gods Spirit to the infallibility of your spirits or of theirs who are Gods people But we are not ignorant that your principles make no distinction much less a difference between the spirits of Gods people and the Spirit of God which is indeed the secret bias which moves you so obliquely of which I shall give a more ample account in its place But you are yet so unwilling to speak plainly your mind that you appear in many shapes to insinuate this untruth but are industrious to be uncertain and amphibious Quo teneam vultus mutantum Protea nodâ— You say Page 31. And how this man can be esteemed a good Christian who would render Christ Jesus the Head of a fallible body by divesting Christians of an infallible Spirit I leave to persons of better judgement more honesty and greater moderation to judge By this we may more than guess your mind but verily if the asserting Christ to be the Head of a fallible