and a poor puffed deluded creatures errors and miscarriages from the obedience of him who is God-man who is the brightness of his Fathers glory and the express image of his person Let us first see what they profess of justification by § 2 Smith â— Cat. p. 74. Christs righteousness Quest Do not you depend on the things you do for life and salvation Answ Nay We do not so c. Quest What is the righteousness that justifieth in the Pennington mysteries of the Kingdom p. 17. sight of God Answ The righteousness of Christ alone c. One would think the Quakers in this point very sound by this part of their profession but their Bell sounds not long before its jarring with truth discovers it to be foully crackt It follows in the Answer to the first Question For we have lifâ— before we have motion to act or do any thing that is pleasing to God and in that life we have salvation and so life and salvation is freely given us of God The latter part of the Answer is brought to prove the truth of the former and you will say they are huge good at proving who reason at this rate They are not the things we do because we have life from God and that freely before we can move or do any thing This being one of the great delusions of this poor people wherein they shew so much ignorance as without much grace from God they are utterly uncapable of instruction I shall hoping in that grace for a blessing of conviction upon them demonstrate by the most familiar and easie things the falsity of their such Conclusions By the same Reason all your bodily motions and actions are the motions and actions of God and you do nothing at all the while Was there not life before motion And did not God give you this life Can any man move hand or foot or tongue in any natural action but by that life they first receive from God but will you say therefore these are Gods actions and not mens For you to say Your good actions and motions are Christs righteousness because you have life from him to perform them is no less absurd Let us see if Pennington who had somewhat of a § 3 Scholar will do any thing better in the explanation and proof of his Answer to the second Question This righteousness conveyed to the creature in and through the seed and brought forth in the creature by the seed and the creature united to Christ in the seed here is justification of life A strange justifying righteousness by Christ alone brought forth in the creature by the seed I would ask any of this opinion Whether their tongues and lips did not move in the words they call righteous words And the hands in some of those they call righteous actions Sure they will not deny they do and how then can they say it is the righteousness of Christ alone in which the bodies of Thomas John c. are imployed But yet the fine mysteries in this Doctrine which I must confess may puzzle many an honest Countreyman to find out the sense of amoâ—nts to no more than this great absurdity What a contradiction there is in the creatures being united to Christ in the seed the Quakers themselves if any liberty be left them so to do will find out Christ is the seed and the seed is Christ both but one and the same thing and yet the creature is united to Christ in the seed that is to Christ in Christ But the blind swallow many a Fly For by the Law of faith is self-fanctification self-mortification § 4. Naylor Love to the lost p. 6. 4. â— and self-justification excluded right so far the worst will be in the tail Though they who receive the Spirit were called to all this by faith in his bloud yet it is the work of God wrought by Christ in the beleiver Two things are here observable for errour and ignorance First They who received the Spirit were called to all this self-work he talks of and that by faith in Christs blood too and yet by the Law of faith it is all excluded So here faith does and undoes calls for self-justification c. and when it draws nigh shuts the door against them begets children and that by Christ too and so soon as they are born utterly disclaims them If he had said they were called to sanctification mortification and not put that blot of self in their Escutcheons to render them base-born and then have asserted they were not the righteousness by which we are justified he had spoken like a man and a Christian but they are two things in the Quakers account adverse and together by the ears and therefore Nailor will have to do with neither But that a man should be called by faith to self-justification is a strange riddle and after all the condemnation of these things it is for all that the woâ—k of God wrought by Christ in the believer But to finish Naylor's testimony of justifying righteousness observe what he faith somewhat more plainly Whereby such become his workmanship in Christ Naylor Love to the lost p. 37. Jesus wrought into his obedience and his obedience into them in their measure till they become of one heart one mind one soul one spirit one flesh one bone and bloud and one obedience and one life that it is no more we that live but Christ that lives in us Here is some shew but a great deal of abuse of the holy Scriptures and the Spirit of God by whom they were given forth Whereas those who are God's workmanship in Christ Eph. 2 10 Jesus created to good works are thereby designed and disposed by God to walk holily Naylor will have the Saints wrought into the obedience of Christ and his obedience into them and blended together so perfectly that the most discerning Quaker of them all can make no distinction between the one and the other yea untill body and soul flesh and spirit bloud and bones and the obedience of both Christ and his Saints and their very life too be no more distinguished but what is the one is the other the Quaker is Christ for which Naylor's tongue was bored with a hot iron and Christ is I am afraid to write it From such stuff as this the poor souls who hug these Angels of darkness talk at that confused and blasphemous rate as they do and adopt whatever is the Product of an idle proud deluded raw undâ—rstanding into the very acts and expressions of Christ himself He saith moreover which may a little explain this § 6 p. 36. last Instance Which obedience stands not in any thing seen from man or by man done thereby to imitate or do the like for that is two obediences That as the same Father calls for the same obedience in spirit so in the same spirit doth the believer offer up himself c. I leave you to brood on
chief aim Therefore if any man be in Christ he is a new creature old things are past away behold all things are become new As if he should say This proves those that are in Christ to be new creatures that their aims and ends are holy and spiritual which is too high for an unregenerate man whose faith and love to them and concerning them is much too weak to steer the course of their lives as those that are bound for Christ and Heaven And as their ends so the means is altered for as before they shaped their whole course to please the flesh 't is now conformed to pleasing the Lord and providing for their souls welfare And whereas it is said though we have known § 12. Christ after the flesh c. It may refer to the Apostles in whose person the Apostle speaks though he himself were not concerned with them who did sometimes dream of being great in the world and sharing with Christ in an earthly kingdome but now being better informed and attained to a higher and more noble degree of spiritual understandings and affections they were crucified to those childish and carnal designs and their considerations of Christ in his glorified body and his exaltation in Heaven at the Fathers righthand did raise their souls to a longing after a further and compleat view of his glory and sharing with him in his heavenly Kingdome This is sutable to the eighth Verse of this Chapter which hath some Contexture with Verse 16. We are confident I say and willing rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord. Then Christ was not in them as in his Heaven and Glory To conclude I beseech you who are engaged with the Quakers from the good opinion you have of their § 13 Tenets or from the other respects which may quickly produce their entertainment do not think it a light thing to disown him who must be your Redeemer or you must for ever perish or that the difference between the true Christ and any thing else that is so called is so small that you may wink and choose no danger of miscarrying which ever be your foundation If ye believe not that I am he ye shall die in your sins was the saying of Truth it self and he was not the light within but the man Christ Jesus who was then in Judea and no where else who is now in Heaven not on earth How is it that the Apostles whose knowledg of and zeal for Christ is not to be equalled by any of ours did preach Christ so abundantly by the name of JESVS which was the proper name of his humane nature and as the CHRIST which is a name proper to God and man in one person he that is the all sufficient Saviour and not by the name of the light within which is not to be found once in the Scripture and where the words are found which Christ himself spake which is but once it may be a terrible and a seasonable monitor to you But if the light that is in thee be darkness how great is that darkness I beg of you once more to weigh what I have written in this Chapter and beg for you that the Lord would give you understanding in all these things CHAP. XVI The Quakers are gross Idolaters and Quakerism gross Idolatry THere have been great Contests in the world SECT I about the imputation of this Character of Idolaters and what is Idolatry Some have contended That not only a false worship though of the true God is Idolatry and by consequence that those who live in the practice of such a worship are Idolaters but also that any Appendices to that worship of God which in the substance of it is true worship are also Idolatry being of mans invention and added by his own proper Authority as a part of divine worship and that so doing is a crime against the second Commandment in the Decalogue or ten words or Commandments written in tables of stone The proof of my Charge against the Quakers will not depend upon such nice and disputable premises but if there be any such thing as Idolatry in the whole world I shall prove them guilty in the highest degree And because this Charge looks very big and would be no small sin against both the principles and persons of those concerned if untrue and also that such a crime of theirs is not so visible to the world as may be within the cognizance and notice of all who converse with them I shall dispose my Argument plainly and formally All those that own and profess that to be God which is § 2 not God are gross Idolaters But the Quakers own and profess that to be God which is not God Therefore the Quakers are gross Idolaters My second proof is in this Argument All those who worship that as God professedly and according to their professed principles which is not God are gross Idolaters But the Quakers do so Therefore they are gross Idolaters My first Argument I shall first prosecute and with that perspicuity as will be apparent to all that are not more blind than Bats For the first Proposition viz. That all those that own and profess that to be God which is not God are gross Idolaters I know none but will grant the truth of it who in matters of a religious nature can discern their right hands from their left The Minor or second proposition of my Syllogism I am concerned to confirm Here will be the issue depending and if this be throughly proved no man convinced thereof but will sit down by the conclusion That the Quakers are gross Idolaters I shall manage my proof of this by these two § 3 Syllogisms They who own and profess the light within every man to be God own and profess that to be God which is not God But the Quakers do own and profess the light within every man to be God Therefore The Quakers own and profess that to be God which is not God Again They that own and profess the souls or spirits of all or some men which are constitutive parts of all or some men to be God do own and profess that to be God which is not God But the Quakers do own and profess so Therefore They own and profess that to be God which is not God The first Syllogism I shall manage in the first place the Major and Minor of which I shall fully prove And although some have attempted the conviction of the Quakers by shewing the natural faculties of light in man to be far short of what they ascribe to it I shall not go their way to work for so long as the Quakers hold their light within to be Christ or God 't is vain to restrain it to less than infinite And I having to do with those whose opinion of the light within depends on such a conceit I shall prove the light within every man not to be Christ or God
God I proceed to the proof of the Minor or § 10 second Proposition Viz. That the Quakers do own and profess the light within every man to be God This I must prove from their own Writings which will easily be done it being the grand foundation of the whole Fabrick of Quakerism so that I may say its first stone is laid in gross Idolatry It would be needless morning Watch p. 5. 6. 7. is filled with this Subâ—ect to bring Instances of their asserting the light in every man to be that Word which John speaks of John 1. 1. Which was in the beginning which was with God which was God It is the first thing they teach and that not suddenly and amphibiously as they do many other points but in so many words But I shall furnish you with proofs enough over § 11 Fox the younger p. 53. and above that I will make you know that I the light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world that all through me should believe am the true eternal God which created all things that by me the light all things are upheld and that there is not another besides me can save Although in this passage he doth not call it the light in every man yet it being a personating the light within in a large and continued discourse he doth often express it the light within as in pag. 50. You scorn me the light in you Pag. 54. Which will not own me the light in them All power in Smith prim Heaven and Earth is in it the light in the conscience They that cannot read out of these passages and § 12 that without spelling that the Quakers own and profess the light in every man to be God are not like to be much the wiser for whatever they read That it is in every one hear one speak his mind Lip of Truth c. p. 45. who would be believed Light is the same in him that hates it and in him that loves it I have done with the first grand Argument and proved abundantly that the light within every man is not God That the Quakers own the light within every man to be God and profess it And these will prove that they are Idolaters or none will ever be so proved I shall now shew you another God of the Quakers SECT II owning or at least their Idol in another dress in manageing the second proof of the Quakers owning that to be God which is not God My Argument is this They that own and profess the souls or spirits of all or some men which are constitutive parts of all or some men to be God do own and profess that to be God which is not God But the Quakers do so Therefore They own and profess that to be God which is not God Two things will prove the whole of this Syllogism First To prove that the souls or spirits of any men are not God Why I put in all or some in the proposition you will see the reason when I prove Secondly That the Quakers hold the spirits or souls of all or some men to be God If the souls or spirits of any men were God then God Arg. 1 may be polluted with sia But God cannot be polluted with sin Therefore The souls or spirits of any men are not God The second Proposition will be granted not only § 2 Rom 3. 5. Job 40. 2. by Christians but Heathens Is there unrighteousness with God who taketh vengeance God forbid He that reproveth God let him answer it The first Proposition I prove from Adam's pollution with sin who of all men except Jesus Christ was the most unlikely to have his soul polluted who was created upright and had the greatest advantages of maintaining his innocency yet his soul was polluted as may appear Gen. 3. Rom. 5. At large Let us cleanse our selves 2 Cor. 7. 1. from all filthiness both of flesh and spirit Now the God of peace sanctifie you wholly and preserve you blameless in spirit and soul and body c. This is enough to prove that the spirits of men yea of the Saints and best of men may be and have been polluted with sin If the souls or spirits of men were God then God Arg. 2 may be in prison But God cannot be in prison Therefore They are not God The first Proposition I prove from 1 Pet. 3. 19. By § 3 which he went and preached to the spirits in prison And these were the sinful and disobedient spirits who provoked God in the dayes of Noah The second Proposition all men will grant except the Quakers who often speak of the seed in captivity by which seed they mean no other but Christ or God within every man or the light within every man Arg. 3 § 4 If the spirits or sâ—uls of men were God then God might be condemned But God cannot so be Therefore The spirits or souls of men are not God That the spiriâ—s or souls of men may be so I tremble to write the word appears by that Text 1 Pet. 3. 19. The disobedient spirits in the dayes of Noah are now in prison which is a part of their torment The whole current of the Gospel saith it or implies it I shall now prove out of the Quakers chief and allowed Writers whom they account infallible and SECT III honour with their chief respects that they hold the spirits or souls of men or both to be God Every man hath that which is one in union and like the Spirit of E. B. True Faith c. Christ even as good as the Spirit of Christ according to its measure This he speaks of the Spirit in man which every man hath and sure if it be as good as the Spirit of Christ it must be God for the Spirit of Christ and of God are one and the same But to talk of its measure their usual phrase is a blaspheming God to speak his divine Being any thing less than infinite Now my soul and spirit is centered in its own Being with God and this form of person must return from E. H. Testimony c. whence it was taken The words of Ed. Burroughs the morning before he died Here he makes his soul and spirit one Being with God or God to be the souls own Being And what follows implies that as the body and soul are the form of man while in this world so at dissolution as the body resolves into dust its first Being so the soul to God its first Being A miserable Exposition of the Scripture which saith The body shall return to the dust and the spirit shall return to him that gave it He lived and died a true Quakers but a false Christian if he changed not his mind his last day Priest It is an expression of a dark deluded mind to say that God is not distinguished from the Saints § 2 Fox great mystery c p. 16. Thus he brings
in the minister saying Answ But God and Christ is in the Saints and dwells in them and he the Priest is a reprobate and out of the Apostles Doctrine If it were only out of ignorance in not understanding the word distinguished or of the manner of Gods Being in his Saints it should not be his Charge in this place But you shall if you read further see he intends no less than the wicked import of his words But to call him reprobate and out of the Apostles Doctrine is over measure a great deal he might have spared him that in charity John Bunion saith He God is distinct from the Saints and Bunian is deceived who saith he is distinct p. 16. from the Saints and so you are a company of pityful Teachers By these expressions he renders not only the Souls and Spirits of the Saints the same being with God but their whole man without distinction Again thou makes a great pudder that any one should witness he is equal with God Answ A Catechism of § 3 the Assembly of the Priests and put forth to the nation in which they have laid down that the holy Ghost and the Son is equal in power and glory with the Father Fox great mystery yet if any come but to witness the Son revealed in him or come to witness the Holy Ghost in them as they gave out the Scriptures or witness the mind of Christ and witness that equal with the Father they cry out horrid blasphemy Observe he doth not in the least deny the priests charge as he calls him but calls it a pudder he makes as if the most horrid blasphemies opposed or charged on the blasphemers were but making a pudder And to heal his sore he would wound the assembly of Divines by laying the like monster at their door but herein he shews his ignorance with his malice and slander For the rest of his phrases I shall only say this that they make no difference between the Spirit of the Quakers yea of all men and the Son of God or the Holy Ghost And is not that of God which comes out from God § 4 is not that of his being the soul which he hath in his Fox great Mystery hand and so divine There is a great difference to be of God with respect to relation or creation and to be of God as of his being or the same being with him the one is common to the whole Creation for of him are all things the other is peculiar to the blessed Creator Magnus Bine saith the Soul is not infinite in it self but Fox great mystery p. 29 is a Creature and Richard Baxter saith it is a spiritual substance Answ Now consider what a Condition these called Ministers are in they say that which is a Spiritual substance is not infinite in it self but a creature that which came out from the Creator and is in the hand of the Creator which brings it up and to the Creator again that is infinite in it self which the hand goes against him that does evil in which hand the Soul is which is immortal and infinite which hand is infinite which brings it up to God is infinite If any man can match the ignorance confidence blasphemy and nonsence of this passage out of the mouths or pens of any but the Quakers he may be reckoned a great discoverer But this is received by those poor deluded souls as infallibly true and divine mystery being the dictates of George Fox whom none of them dare or will contradict such is the stupendious captivity of these poor people Is not the Soul without beginning come from God It is not horrid Blasphemy to say the Soul is a part of God for it § 5 Fox great mystery came out of him and that which came out of him is of him Thus I have proved not by remote consequences but their open and plain assertions and that pleaded for after their wild manner hat they hold the Soul of Man to be God apart of the Divine being infinite in it self without beginning-part of the creator here is enough of blasphemy and idolatry for one author to fill the mouths of many I shall cite yet more of them that none may think it is but one Quaker though I may stand for a thousand who is so prodigiously wicked § 6. Fisher velata quaedam revelata p. 17. And whereas you Querie whether the said Spirit the Spirit of man is mortal or immortal I answer it is immortal and neither mortal nor corruptible but the immortal and incorruptible seed of God even something of the living word which is said to be made flesh What the word is that was made flesh John saith was God 1. John 1. That which the Lord from Heaven begetteth of his own Penningtons Quest 27. Declaration against poverty query 27. image and likeness of his own substance of his own seed of his own Spirit and pure life Speaking of the Saints the members of Christ Whether do you wait and believe to have the same mind which was also in Christ Jesus who thought it no robbery to be equal with God And Christ thought it no robbery to be equal with God yet he was no Pharisee though of the pharisees judged a blasphemer and as he is so are we saith the Saints And they who dwell in the truth witness Parnel Shield c p. 37. one with another For the light of God owns its own for God cannot deny himself They own the Spirit of God Christ the seed and the § 7 spirit of man to be but one and the same thing but some times will deny any to have a Spirit at all but the regenerate that they may not say the unregenerate have the Spirit of God or God the Spirit in them See Fishers rare distinction to serve this turn Fisher velata quaedam revelata p 13 As to the Spirit of man which concurres to the constituting of man in his primitive perfection it is the breath of life which God breathed into his Soul after he had formed him as to his body of the dust of the earth whereby he came to be a living Soul a Soul that did partake something of Gods ovvn life this Spirit of man is that living principle of the divine nature vvhich man did before his degeneration and shall gâ—vin after his regeneration partake of This Charge being of so black and horrid a nature I did not judge it unmeet to prove the truth of it by abounding instances and now Reader judge and put on the largest Charity that a man or Christian ought in any case to exercise and give thy verdict if I have not made appear That the Quakers are gross Idolaters so far as owning and professing that to be God which is not God will contribute to a demonstration I shall manage my second grand argument but briefly SECT IV for the work I have done will render it not very
not gone after Baalim See thy way in the Valley know what thou hast done thou art a swift Dromedary traversing her ways A wild Ass used to the Wilderness that snuffeth up the wind at her pleasure in her occasion who can turn her away All they that seek her will not weary themselves in her moneth they shall find her CHAP. XVII The Quakers deny the Resurrection of the Dead I Doubt not but all who are not infatuated with the SECT I Quakers Spirit to a perverting the genuine sense of almost all the expressions of Principles of Faith will understand by the Resurrection of the Dead the raising again to life and from the dust and corruption the bodies of men and women however disposed of after their natural death or dissolution The Quakers will deny their guilt of this Charge and come off with an Allegorical evasion They will tell youâ— that they believe and own the Resurrection of the Dead yea of the dead body whereas in truth their opinion and meaning is quite another thing than the ordinary acceptation of that Doctrine as will appear by the instances following And hath no will nor wisdom nor reason left in him Smith Cat. p. 31. §. 2. but all baptized down into the sufferings of Christ and there the power kills him and gives him life again and so man lays down his own life and takes up life in Christ in which life he comes to be raised in the Resurrection of Christ I must confess this account is like his who though he may have too much Will is utterly void of Reason But he that shall own no other Resurrection of the Body than what Smith expresses comes under that severe rebuke of the Apostle Who concerning the Faith have erred saying that the Resurrection is past already and have destroyed the faith of some The foresaid Author saith farther Quest But must man pass through death and rise p. 29. again while he is in the Body Answ Yes for except he be regenerated and born again he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God And therefore he must die to the first Adams flesh and be quickned and raised again in the second Adams Spirit And so in the Resurrection and life enter the Kingdom as a little Child You see here plainly that their Resurrection of the Body is but their Regeneration and this is fulfilled while they are in the body But above all that I have read of the Quakers § 3 Velata quaedam revelata Fisher is the best skilled in the allegorizing of the Resurrection But if you will not be admonished nor perswaded by Moses and the Prophets within you neither will you be perswaded by such of us who were once dead in Sin with you but are now risen to life by the Power of God which is his light and in the same sent to speak unto you from the dead I know not how they can deny his words to be his gloss on 16 Luke 31. If they will not hear Moses and the Prophets neither wilâ— they be perswaded if one should rise from the dead If Christ had intended Conversion or Regeneration there by rising from the Dead it were no rare thing to have such Preachers sent to them for all the Saints of God are such as are Regenerated and such Preachers they had many at that time we may conclude that the Resurrection spoken of by Christ was of some one in the state of the Dead to have his body raised to life and with that advantage of experience to preach to them Whereby the heart is free from corruption and § 4 Naylor Love to the Lost p. 3. made able to escape the pollutions of the World and to run in the pure ways with delight which is the glâ—rious liberty of the Sons of God the Resurrection from the Dead I have said enough of what abundantly implies their denial of this great and fundamental truth I do not at all expect nor can I with any reason that they should in their writings in so many words deny the Resurrection of the Dead because so open and plain dealing in this great point would render them intolerable and shut the door against Proselites but yet in verbal and private converse they stick not to deny the Resurrection of the same bodies which ordinarily when dead are put into a hole in the ground and covered with earth I have examined many of their Books that pretend to give a full account of their Tenets and Belief but in all of them their Resurrection is no other than I have already expressed Take an Account of one or two in their Systems of their Doctrine of the Resurrection of the Dead We say that Christ is the Resurrection and the Life to § 5 Isaac Pennington Some principles of the Elect called Quakers p. 34. raise up that which Adam lost and to destroy him who deceived him viz Adam so Christ is the Resurrection unto Life of Body Soul and Spirit and so renews man c. What is this Resurrection but what they call Regeneration and the Resurrection of the Body is but in the same sense as the Soul and Spirit is raised which is not from a natural death or dissolution of their essential form but from their depravation and defection to a sensual and sinful disposition and their aversation from God Concerning the Resurrection of the Dead In the Chapter intituled ' as above he hath these Naylor love to the lost p. 78. words But to such busie minds who are saying how are the dead raised and with what bodies do they come I say to such the Apostles words are very suitable Thou fool that which thou sowest is not quickned except it die but the mystery is sealed with the Sons of God nor can any ever know with what bodies they shall arise but who comes to the Flesh of Christ and discerns his Body the sight whereof in the life slays the Serpent and opens the Mystery Till then cursed is he that reveals that which God hath sealed and hidden from the Serpents Wisdom c. Naylor before and after quotes many Scripture-phrases which abundantly prove the Resurrection of the Body after dissolution or natural death but when all is done there is a Mystery a sealed Mystery in his meaning and a curse laid on those who reveal their Tenet No wonder then that they speak not out to any other but themselves whom he dare trust with the greatest abominations in their delusions but notwithstanding his inhibition divers of them have to me acknowledged that they believe not that the body which when dead is ordinarily put into a hole in the ground and covered with earth and turns to dust shall ever be made alive again And that which may put you out of doubt that this is their Tenet I can prove by many Witnesses that George Whitehead one of their chief Misleaders after much importunity to speak his mind plainly in this
in jeopardy every hour 1 Cor. 15. 29. 30. Thirdly it utterly subverts and makes Shipwrack § 3 of the faith of the Gospel that looking at a prize and reward on the other side the Grave But if there be no resurrection of the dead then Christ is not risen and if Christ be not risen then is our preaching vain and your faith also in vain 1 Cor 15 13 14. For if the dead rise not then is not Christ raised and if Christ be not raised your faith is vain ye are yet in your sins 1 Cor. 15 16 17. So that there is a Chain of the most woful consequences that this wicked error draws after it Fourthly Then the Gospel is a meer fallacy and § 4 delusion which promises a reward to men whose persons are constituted of a body as well as a soul Many more might be inferred of so grand an import as would render this Doctrine the most pernicious that was ever hatched among pretended Christians CHAP. XIX The Quakers profess not the Doctrine of a future reward in another World I Have been a diligent Enquirer to find some expressions SECT 1 in their Writings or Verbal Converse that might satisfie me they owned a future happiness or misery after this life but all to no purpose in this point they make no noise at all I have searched those Writings of theirs especially which have pretended an account of their Principles in all or most points of Religion but though this of a future state of reward or punishment be the vitals and end of all Religion yet they do not so much as touch upon it From whence I must conclude it is blotted out of their Creed 'T is said of the Gospel which is the Christian Dispensation that it brings life and immortality to light what was in the Scriptures of the old Testament more seldom and obscurely expressed is the very scope of the Gospel or New Testament the peculiar of Christianity But then certainly Quakerism is no Christianity that is so silent in this matter I know they talk of immortality and eternal life but what is immortality with them Fox saith man is immortal before death in his Great Mystery and their Salvation is no more but what they have within them and is accomplished in this world Farnsworth saith speaking of the righteousness of Christ neither was I saved by it So that his Salvation was not future but present or past And Pennington in some Principles of the Elect c. saith and so they who forget God and do wickedly they are to be turned into Hell But what Hell is this no more than what they say is in this life For they who forget God and do wickedly they go from the life and power of God into the separation from him and out of his acceptance For in the life is the acceptance What is here more than is suffered in this life which we call paena damni or the punishment of loss A Book intituled The Spirit of the Quakers c. § 1 charges the Quakers for having their hearts much set on a Heaven within them but not on the things above to which Pen replies and vindicates after his fashion the Kingdom of God within but saith not a word to assert their belief of and affections to the Heaven above from whence it is plain that they believe no such thing to have a being I wonder not therefore that this is so frâ—quently their saying That if we are not perfect here we shall never be perfect It is easily deduceable from their more openly professed § 2 principles that they deny and disown a blessedness or misery in another world For if they deny the body to have life any more after it is dead and turned to dust and that the Soul and Spirit are of the being of God and that as the body returns to its former dust from whence it came and never revives again so the Soul and Spirit returns into God its first being all which I have already proved what then remains to be the subject of happiness or misery E'ne nothing at all except God and he is not man E. Burroughs the day he died expressed himself thus that he was now putting off this manner of person and returning to his own Being or words of the same import which I have quoted on the Chapter of their Idolatry When I have asked some of them what should become of their souls after death Their answer hath been they shall be taken into God Let them profess that they believe a happiness to be enjoyed by men and women after their bodies are rotted to dust distinct from the Being of God or that which they had not a thousand years before they were born i. â— to be in God from whom as of his Being they say the soul came and it will be news to me and all that are acquainted with them In the mean time I have given you Reasons enough to conclude they believe no future blessedness or misery in anoâ—her world I shall now resume the Question and gather up all the proofs of what I have affirmed into an entire body If Quakerism be another Dispensation than that of Christ setled and preached by the Apostles If it deny the Scripture If it deny all the Ordinances of the Gospel If it deny any influence of Christs transactions in Judea above 1600 years since into our Justification and Salvation If it deny Jesus the Son of Mary the Christ of God If it own false Gods and be Idolatry If it professedly owns the worshipping of false Gods If it deny the Resurrection of the Dead If it affect not a future blessedness or misery in another world to men and women according to their deeds in this Then Quakerism is no Christianity But all these things are true and have been proved of Quakerism Therefore Quakerism is no Christianity PART III. BEING AN EXAMINATION Of the First Part of VV. PEN'S Pamphlet CALLED The Spirit of Truth Vindicated c. WITH A Rebuke of his Exorbitances WHiles I was writing this Book I met with SECT 1 a Pamphlet of William Pen's intituled The Spirit of Truth Vindicated against that of Errour and Envy c. Which is pretended to be an Answer to a malicious Libel intituled The Spirit of the Quakers tryed c. I having the piece by me I once perused it In the general I resâ—nted it as one of the best and most ingeniously 〈…〉 aged and beyond all material and just excepti 〈…〉 at least by the Quakers that ever I read against 〈◊〉 sort of people But reading Pen's Answer 〈◊〉 finding his Epistle giving such a Character of his 〈…〉 versaries Book and himself for malice lameness 〈…〉 ing and what not that might render it and him 〈…〉 ed and contemptible I began to mistrust my conclusion supposing a person of P's education and pretences would not say so much evil of it without great cause and therefore I compared them
in them doth offer up himself a Living Sacrifice to God for them by which the wrath of God is appeased towards them Justifying-Righteousness They hold That the Righteousness of Christ and their Righteousness is but one and the same thing That what Righteousness they perform is the Righteousness of Christ because performed by the Teachings and Power afforded to them by him That they are justified by a Righteousness within themselves and not by a Righteousness performed without them or before they had a being That no man is justified who doth not perform every demand of the Law i. e. Of the Light or Law within Concerning Sin They deny Original Sin They deny that motions from within to sin are sin if not complied with They hold That men may attain to be without any sin in this life And that some of them are perfectly freed from its stains and prevalency They hold That there can be no sin but what is commited against Conviction Concerning the Light within They hold That the Light within them is God Christ the Spirit the Law the Gospel the Life the Power the only and sufficient Rule of faith and Life Vid. The Key That all men have this Light within themselves That this Light is not a natural or created Light or Humane faculty That it is of the same nature in those who obey or disobey it That while men resist this Light the Light or Christ is in bondage and kept under That men heeding and obeying this Light Christ is risen in them which is the Resurrection and the life Concerning Ordinances They hold That there is no such thing as Ordinances now under the Gospel That Baptism and the Lords-Supper were once Ordinances butâ— now since the Spiritual Administration are abolished Concerning a Ministry and Preaching They hold That all that pretend to be Ministers of the Gospel and have a Call from Men are not the Ministers of Christ That their Ministry teach only from the immediate Revelation and Inspiration of the Spirit That their Ministers are infallible in their ministring That our Ministers who receive Maintenance for their work are Hirelings Thieves and Robbers That those who preach from the Scriptures taking their Sermons from thence steal the Prophets words and are not sent of God That men are to preach nothing but what they have a motion to from the Spirit at that time That those who preach Christ without are false Ministers and those are true Ministers who preach Christ within and put people upon believing on him as he is manifested in themselves That the end of all their Teaching is to bring men to the Everlasting Word of God in themselves i. e. To follow the Light within That whatever their Ministers teach it is not they that teach but the Spirit through them Concerning Prayer They neither confess their sin in publique Prayer nor beg pardon for themselves They pray not Ministerially in their publick Assemblies as the mouths of others but alway in the singular number scil I pray c. They pray not in the name or for the sake of Christ the Mediator They use no Family-prayer or at set-meals They deny That we are to use our wills or understandings in prayer Concerning the Church of Christ and its Officers They hold themselves only to be the Church of Christ They hold some of them That there ought to be no such thing as Elders and Overseers in the Church but that the Spirit alone is Apostle Prophet Elder Overseer c. This was the first and general Opinion But since they have so far changed their minds the most of them as to hold Dignities Offices Government necessary and also That it is not the Officers but the Spirit in the Officers that doth all the parts belonging to their Offices They hold only one Vniversal Church not particular Churches and that Church to be in God the Jerusalem which is from above In their Meetings sometimes they have nothing but a profound Silence which formerly was when they had no motion but now for most part when none of their Ministry either of the men or women in that Office are there They have a strange Officer among them George Fox whose Titles are full of Blasphemies scil A King the Witness of God the Father of many Nations c. See the Letter to him from Coale This man is a Sphere above any of the rest Concerning Judgment Heaven and Hell and the Resurrection All these things they hold to be within in the time of this life The Day of Judgment is with them the judging of the Flesh or all disobedience to the Light by the Light within and this is the same with Hell And for Heaven they hold 't is within too but no such place as that where we believe the man Christ to be above the visible Heavens The Resurrection of this body wherein the soul now lives they peremptorily deny affirming The belief that ever it shall be quickned and made alive again to be ridiculous and irrational They profess Eternal Rewards but it amounts only to this conceit That the body shall not live again after its death and so there is no reward to that And the soul they say is Eternal came out from God is a part of his Being shall return into him again So that the soul shall be changed from a part of God dwelling in flesh to a part of God resolved into his own and original Being which was the state of their souls a thousand years afore they were born as they conceit Thus God alone shall be Eternally rewarded by being delivered out of these Prisons of the Quakers bodies FINIS ERRATA PAge 8. line 26. for distraction read detraction p. 7. l. 29. for Denomination r. Domination p. 11. l. 16. for Babes r. Babel
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 P. 6. Professors and ponder it in your hearts No words big enough to express its madness Christianity made its way not only by the truth SECT II and purity of its Doctrine but also by such and so many signs 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 * Sword of the Lord drawn p. 5 Fox the younger Gen. epist P. 4 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 nonsense 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 FOX Which many prayed by the Spirit and spake by § 3 the Spirit did not shew miracles at the Tempters Command The great Mystery of the great Whore p. 3. though among Believers there be miracles in Spirit which be signes and wonders to the world as Isaiah saith When I read 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 carcase in attempting any miracle 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 else in that Prophecy He hath a strange spirit of discerning that can find in that Scripture any thing of Miracles wrought in 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 boldness with Isaiah seeing a great Rabby 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 Christianity entred into the world with ravishing SECT III Songs and Hatlelujahs 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 find you out the places of Scripture which speak these things But Quakerism entred the world as if Hell were § 2 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 throuâ—h a crucified Jesus O the Hell-dark expressions of the Quakers Preachers the frightful and amazeing words both for matter and manner where with 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 pour 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 made use of to bespatter the guiltless might remain quiet enough as not so dangerous and adverse to Satans interest and Kingdome How generally were their Meetings either silent or taken up with the sudden and violent irruptions of dismal howling and horrible roarings Persons suddenly taken as with the falling-sickness shaking and foaming at the Mouth and some lying flat on the ground as stark dead Some such things as these I have seen and heard and what there are undeniable Testimonies of are so numerous and notorious that though they have now almost if not altogether left the latter sort of them they dare not deny that it was so And if they dare to challenge this with untruth I may requite them with a good Part of a Volume of them to keep alive their remembrance I now proceed to my second consideration of the beginning of Quakerism with respect to time What I have already said in the opening the SECT IV term Christianity will save me much of the labour of proving in this
celebrated Orders at this day in the Roman Church are the Bellar. de Pont. Rom. l. 3. c. 18. Benedictines Carthusians Dominicans Franciscans and Jesuits It is a very fair way towards the proof of it that Bellarmin confesseth concerning the four first and that of Romoaldus that they were at first instituted by S. Benedict S. Romoaldus S. Bruno S. Dominick S. Francis by the Inspiration of the Holy Ghost and for Ignatius Loyola if he do not appear as great a Fanatick i. e. Enthusiast as ever hath been in the World we shall be contented to be upbraided with the Charge of Fanaticism among us You may find the Doctor as good as his word in the p. 234. Bonaven vita Franc. c. 2. following Pages St. Francis is said by Bonaventure a canoniz'd Saint to be an illiterate man had no Teacher but Christ and learned all by Inspiration for a long time wherein he got his credit among the Papists once casting away his very breeches and being stark naked before them all he said thus to his Father Hitherto I called thee Father on Earth but henceforward I can securely say Our Father which is in Heaven I know not but the Quakers learned their going naked and denying to call any Father which was their practice at first but the light grows wiser and wiser from St. Francis rather then the Prophet Isaiah Let us cite a little of the doctrine and phrases some § 3 of which are pretended from Inspiration by the Popish Votaries and first of Mother Juliana That the soul is so deep-grounded in God and so endlesly p. 224. treasured that we may not come to the knowing thereof till we have first knowing of God which is the Maker to whom it is oned Our kindly substance is beclosed in Jesu with the blessed soul of Christ resting in the Godhead for into the time that it the soul p. 285. Pref. to Sanct. Sophia is in the full mights we may not be all holy The only proper disposition towards the receiving supernatural Irradiaâ—ions from Gods Holy Spirit is an Abstraction of life a sequestration from all business that concerns others and an attendance on God alone in the depth of the Spirit And a little after the lights here prayed for and desired are such as do expel all images of Creatures and do calm all manner of passions to the end that the soul being in a vacuity may be more capable of receiving and entertaining God in the pure fund of the spirit But they seek rather to purifie themselves and inflame their hearts to the love of God by internal quiet and pure actuations in spirit so disposing themselves to receive the influxes and inspirations of God whose Guidance chiefly they desire to follow in all things Rejecting and striving to forget all images and representations of him God or any thing else yea transcending all Operations of the imagination and all subtilty and curiosity of reasoning And lastly seeking an union with Sanct. Sophia c. 3. God only by the most pure and intime affections of the Spirit what possibility of illusion or errour can there be 289. The Approbations 519. to such a soul In which passive unions God after a wonderful and unconceivable manner affords them interiour illuminations and touches yet far more efficacious and divine then active Exercises in all which the soul is a meer Patient and only suffers God to work his divine pleasure in her The which unions though they last but even as it were a moment yet do more illuminate and pacifie the soul then many years spent in active exercises of spiritual Prayer and Mortification could Treat 3. sect 11. c. 1. 292. 215. do Yea so far is the soul from reflecting on her own Existence that it seems to her God and she are not distinct but only one thing That God only by his holy Inspirations is the Guide and Director of an internal and contemplative life Reynaldus tells of Nerius the Father of the Oratorians out of Bacius the Writer of his Life that he was so offended with the smâ—ll of filthy souls that he would desire the persons to empty the Jakes of their souls Such a divine Nose had this Saint among them a degree of Enthusiasm above the Quakers who can but discern not smell souls Some of you called Quakers pretend a great advantage § 4 from 1 John 2. 27. But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you and ye need not that any man teach you but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things and is truth and is no lie and even as it hath taught you ye shall abide in him The Anointing here cannot be understood of Christ neither do we find the Anointing any where to be understood of Father Son or Spirit essentially considered and indeed the phrase is not fit to be applied to God who is the Anointer or Christ who is the Anointed The teaching of the Anointing being understood of the Graces and the habitual and special Enlightnings of the Spirit these devote and addict the soul under the power of them to adhere to the true Christ For the all things it is to be considered as restrained to the matter agitated in the Chapter which is their adhering to the true Christ and this is plain in the 26. ver These things have I written to you concerning them that seduce you The summe then is this they knowing certainly the true Christ from any Antichrist that which they were mainly to look after was a heart cleaving to and improving him which the Graces of God in their souls actuated by the Spirit of God was sufficient in this matter to make their knowledge of Christ sanctifying and saving As for the words in him which render it Masc in the Gr. it may be rendred in any Gender These Considerations duly weighed if there § 5 were no more are sufficient to any who have respect to the pure truths of the Gospel to render the principles here detected and opposed not only suspicious but hateful It is no little absurdity in the Quakers to make an out-cry against Popery Babylon false worship formes that are not onely unscriptural but also idolatrous while in the mean time they plant and hug the root in their own bosomes from which all those evils and more and worse naturally spring It were no hard matter to prove a symbolizing and agreement in a multitude of particulars between the Papists and Quakers in those things wherein they are contrary to the Protestant Profession of Christianity and the Scripture Rule but more especially in the spiritual part of their errors which in the sight of God are of all other the most sinful and to men a snaâ—e most dangerous The Apostle speaks of more Antichrists then one § 6 though of one as the Chief of whose Characters Quakerism hath the blackest I shall mention only two the first expressed in 1. Ep. of John chap 2.
his mouth as eminently as any thing yea all things in the world and more For God spake by them to us more than by all other things he saith to Jeremy Jerem. 15. 19. Thou shalt be as my mouth As thou spakest by the hand of Moses 1 Kings 8. 53 2 Sam. 23. 2. The Spirit of the Lord spake by me and his word was in my tongue Hear the rod. c. Is it not a frequent phrase in the Scripture As saith the Scripture They believed the Scripture And what is that but God speaking by the Scripture and believing what God spake by the Scripture But now is made â—om 16. 26. manifest and by the Scriptures of the Prophets according to the â—â—mmand of the everlasting God made known unto all Nations for the obedience of faith What more plain that the Scriptures are the mouth of the Lord or those means by which the Lord doth manifest his mind to men But the Quakers will not have it so and therefore it must not be so But they who â—nquire of or at the Scriptures for the mind of the Spirit run another way than that the Spirit walks and is to be found in and sin against the Spirit of God And that you may see how they set the Spirit and Scripture together by the ears Naylor saith further For those only are the Children of God who are Love to lost c. p. 25. led by the Spirit of God so far is true as truth it self but as the old Serpent he never heads a saying with the Scripture but he brings in a lye at the end and tail of it to whom they who are led by the Letter were ever enemies Here you have two great Commanders or Leaders § 5 brought into the field as the most hostile implacable Enemies whose followers from the time there where any were foes each to other And what can render the Spirit and the Sâ—ripture more opposite than that whosoever follows the Letter is a foe to him that follows or is led by the Spirit And the Leaders are the formal cause of it too and therefore it was ever so and is as inseparable as natural cause and effect It this be all true well W. Pen Sp of truth â— might W. P. say We livingly witness against all the dry cavelling Letter-mongers in the world Having frequently met with that Scripture SECT II 1 Cor 3 6. By them produced to prove the Scriptures to have a contrary tendency to the Spirit I shall here open it and shew their mistake The words are Who alsâ— hath made us able Ministers of 1 Cor. 3 6. openeâ— 1. the new Testament not of the Letter but of the Spirit for the Letter killeth but the Spirit giveth â—ife Whereas they would have us by the Letter to § 2 understand the whole written word as written that is the body of the Scriptures both of the Old and New Testament Law and Gospel without distinction and by the Spirit the inward immediate teachings of the Spirit of God they are in both mistaken For it is as certain as that the following words are truth that by the Letter here is meant the Law as given forth by God from Mount Sinai and by the Spirit the Covenant of Grace especially as expressed in the New Testament under the administration of the Reedemer But if the ministration of death written and engraven Ver. 7. Ver 9. one stones was glorious c. for if the ministration of condemnation be glory c. Thâ—se passages express and explain the same § 3 thing called the Letter in the 6. Verse and that it was the Law given forth by God before it was written not only as written the matter and manner of which was glorious but in terribleness insomuch that Moses said I exceedingly fear Heb. 12. 21. and quake and it was death for any to touch the Mountain yea the Israelites were ready to dye Exod. 20. 19. with fear at the appearences of God on that Mount Sinai at the giving forth of the Law And as the manner of giving it forth by God so § 4 the matter of it was mortal nothing but death was written in the forehead of it going alone The Law worketh wrath That is the Law of meer Rom. 4. 15. Rom. 7. 11. 12. Commandments And the Commandment which was ordained to life I found to be unto death for sâ—n taking occasion by the commandment deceived me and by it slew me Thus it is plain what is meant by the Letter the Law of meer Commandments as given forth on Mount Sinai That by the Spirit is to be understood the Covenant § 5 of promise in the hand of the Mediator is as certain and not of the Scripture or written Word in general for in the 6. Verse it is opposed to the Letter of the New Testament not of the Letter that is the Gospel not the Law and it is called the Spirit in three respects First As the New Testament or Covenant of promise especially in the hand of Christ promiseth and conveyeth soul quickning grace in a good measure to sanctifie and enable and dispose the soul to keep the Laws of God Secondly As by the New Testament or Covenant life and spirit comfort and refreshment is put into the hearts of poor drooping sinners under the sense of the severity of the Law and their liableness to the punish of it Thirdly And chiefly the intent and mind of § 6 the Spirit in the terrible dispensation of the Law of Works was by discovering mans woful estate to make the promises of the Gospel or the new Covenant sweet and welcome and to put souls on embracing the redemption through Christ So that the matter of the pure New Testament or Covenant in the hand of the Mediator was that which God especially aimed at to promote by the Letter or the meer Law of Commandments in which alone there was not the least appearance of mercy or mans welfare implied CHAP. XII The Quakers hold it is a sin and the sin of Idolatry to believe and live according to the instructions and holy examples expressed in and by the Scriptures except we have them by imme iate inspiration and at first hand as the Apostles received them I Am now come to the highest round of their SECT I Ladder and I know not what one step of sin beyond it except the unpardonable one they could charge those with who walk by the light of Scripture day Samuel whole rebuke to Saul for his sin in the matter of the Amalekites was expressed in the keenest and highest terms compared his sin but to Witchcraft Iniquity and Idolatry And if this charge against us were as true as it is that they so charge us it is high time to serve the Scriptures as Hezekiah served the brazen Serpent And brake in peioes the Brazen Serpent that Moses had made 2 Kings 18. 4. for unto thâ—se days the Children
for it But moreover you may know if you please that there are thousands this day in England who § 6 preach the Gospel in poverty and distresses and cleave to their work when stripped of their wages which number there needs not one Quaker to make up yet take heed you commend them not for it Another objection is we study for our Sermons § 7 What is study but meditation and searching to understand the truth and to get it into our heads and hearts if this be a sin obedience to God is so And the Apostle bids Timothy who had excellent 2 Tim. 2. 15 gifts and was brought up from a child in the holy Scripture study to shew thy self approved unto God a workman that needeth not to be ashamed rightly dividing the Word of truth Then it seems it is no idle task to preach like a workman and divide the Word of truth aright and that we may be approved to God and free from shame among men we must study But that which turns us all off hand-smooth is SECT V That till we are taught by the light within immediately we cannot speak one word of truth but all lyes though the matter we deliver be the highest truth And all be in the Satanical delusions Fox great mystery p. 5. p. 62. that be not in the immediate teachings from the Spirit But the greatest professors upon the earth are there of the Devil that speaketh the words of truth but not as they are in it as so saith Christ to the Jewes they were of their Father the Devil they speak of themselves they speak of themselves as the Devil doth but abide not in the truth but a lyar from the beginning The Devil speaks a lye from himself that is a truth for no body need teach the Devil to lye But how will it follow that whatever any man speaks of himself is a lye then it seems for a man to be first in telling any thing true or false 't is a lye whereas we use most to suspect the truth of that which comes by a second or third hand or more but the conclusion is what we have not by immediate inspiration and teach it we speak it of our selves and therefore are devillish lyars § 2 The learned Fisher will help the Fox at a dead Velata quaedam revelata p. 7. Jer. 5. 2. lift and piece his tale And to such wise sayers and knowers as these God saith though ye say God lives yet as I live ye swear falsly and why falsly was not that a truth that God lives but not a truth truly testified unto by them ◠any more than what is testified in foro hominum in mens Courts by such as being not eye witnesses thereof have it only by hear-say from others because they witnessed to it but in stoln words Here is then the proof that we speak more than we know and therefore lye This is indeed pretty near a lye but that they who live in the light of the Creation and read and believe and know the Scripture to be the Word or the Words of God and affirming no nicer a truth than that God liveth should lye because they know it not by immediate Inspiration is very strange He that lives may know from thence that God lives who holdeth every soul in life that lives But the meaning of the Text may be and I will trust the sober Readers judgment to decide it betwixt us that they did not believe the Lord lived and swearing what they thought untrue or doubted of they therein swear falsly or that they dared to swear to a falshood and yet abuse the Name and Ordinance of God to confirm it But I desire those who give credit to such Teachers as infallible and inspired immediately from God to try by the instance I am now upon whether we are not likely to speak more rightly concerning God from the Scripture than their Teachers without book In the Quotation of this Text Fisher hath falsified beside his Exposition in three plain cases for they say he writes ye say for the Lord lives God lives there is both taking away a word and changing another and makes God swear too where there is not a word or tittle of it in the Text and so adds to the Word of the Lord these words yet as I live This is ordinary from these inspired Teachers and to tell us God saith so lest we should take them to be his own words adds to the boldness of the perverting the Scripture I could write a Catalogue of a thousand such faults in the Quakers citing of Scripture some adding some leaving a word or two out through carelesness or wilfulness I have from what is here evident reason to say to you as the Apostle to the Galatians O foolish Quakers who hath bewitched you Certainly Gal 3 1. it must be a strong delusion that thus blinds you He feedeth on ashes a deceived heart hath turned him aside Isa 44. 20. that he cannot deliver his soul nor say is there not a lye in my right hand The next Ordinance I shall prove them to deny is a Gospel-Church And the Church so gathered into Naylor love to the lost p. 17. God is the Pillar and ground of truth where the Spirit alone is Teacher The Gospel-Church is a Church which hath other Teachers and not the Spirit alone but such a Church is not James Naylor's nor the Quakers The Church wherein the Apostles were sure had some Teachers beside the Spirit whereas the Apostles gave themselves to preaching of the Word And Elders were ordained in every particular Acts 14. 23 1 Cor. 4. 17. 1 Cor 12. 28. 1 Pet. 5. 2. Church As I teach in every Church God hath set some in the Church first Apostles secondly Prophets thirdly Teachers The Elders are exhorted to feed the Flock of Christ which is among you Priest that is the Minister he brings in saying § 2 We utterly deny all their ways and doctrines who exclude Fox great mystery p. 32. all teachings of man Answ Contrary to the Prophets who bid people cease from man whose breath was in their nostrils a Text hugely to the purpose But most will conclude that these Authors do not speak the minds of the Quakers for that they have more Teachers than all others Men-Ministers Women-Ministers and any one of them when there is a motion to it It is confessed that in point of fact it is so but it § 3 is a most palpable contradiction to their professed Principle I should be glad to hear they were more true to it that the Light within might be their only Teacher and they would let others alone till that turned them Quakers But Satan is cunning and can give a dispensation where it may serve so greatly to the promoting of his Kingdom Sometimes they have silent meetings as is known to most then they say they attend to the Teacher within which is
by any other way Smith Cat. p. 12. but by the manifestation of his light within him Now I shall prove that the light is the main § 3 if not the only thing to be preached according to the Quakers Tenets Mind the light of God which hath convinced you And this is the meaning of our Doctrine to bring people to the everlasting Word of God in themselves And that this light within is also preached to and the only Auditor of the Doctrines which the Quakers say are preached and taught by the light is proved by these instances To the light of God in all your consciences I speak which is one in all So I desire that Parnel ' s Shield of the Truth Epistle p. 42. Fox great mystery c. p. 15. you may mind the light of God to which I speak which is my witness Priest There is nothing in man to be spoken to but man Answ How then ministred the Apostle to the Spirit And Christ spake to the Spirits in prison And Timothy was to stir up the gift that was in him I must not ravel into these Texts now as brought in by Fox I shall say more of it in the following 1 Pet 3. 19 opened pages only take notice that these Spirits were the souls of those men and so a part of them with whom the Spirit of God did strive before the Floud but are now as the Devils under the irreversible sentence of damnation which is in part already executed on them Over and above George Fox is both out of the humility and the meekness as they phrase it and out of the knowledge of himself and out of his wits also in saying That there is a proof to thee that the Quakers are sent of God who speak to thee of the Fox great mystery p 64. §. 4. Scriptures right as they are I am lastly to shew you by good proof that the light within is the obedient subject also to its own absolute and infallible dictates and then I have discharged a very fair Province Now is the life the faith the obedience of the Son the thing which is of value Pennington quest â—26 in us So that their obedience is the obedience of the Son alias the light in them which is all one with the light in me obeys And upon this conceit it is that they say they are saved by the righteousness of Christ because they account all the righteousness done by them to be the pure and unmixt acts of the light within We are accused that we judge people Answ Where Parnel Shield of the truth p. 3. Christ rules in his Saints he judgeth as Paul said It is no more I but Christ in me I forbear here to remark his forging of Scripture or making Gods stream to turn the Devils Mill But right or wrong 〈◊〉 plain he would have you believe it is not their act but Christs act And if you enquire of any of them that have drunk in their principles and are not Novice Quakers whether any act of their obedience to the light be their obedience they will answer no no 't is the obedience of Christ the obedience is of the light The Quakers disown Gospel-Prayer I take Gospel Prayer to be the souls uttering its SECT II wants and desires to God by way of humble supplication with an audible voice when it is exercised solemnly in a Congregation or Family with or without an audible voice when a person is private but alway in the name and for the sake and merits of Jesus Christ And this the Quakers disown That they use not prayer audibly at least with § 2 their Families daily is known by all that have opportunities of so conversing with them wherein they sin against our Saviours Directory After this manner Mat. 6. 9. Luke 11. 2. pray ye c. When ye pray say Our Father c. And in both one Petition is Give us this day our daily bread wherein two things are implied First Prayer by more than one Our Father give us Secondly Family-Prayer for that the whole Family sharing in common in the plenty or scarcity of provision especially for the Belly which is the great spender they are concerned to put up their joynt supplications to God for daily bread and that daily which might have made a third Note viz. That although we may pray every prayer we offer up to the Lord for provision to our lives end yet we are to pray for it every day and especially for the provision of the present day But this the Quakers wholly disuse as a con 〈…〉 〈…〉 tible form That they crave not 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 John 6 9. Mark 6 41. Acts 27 35 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 broke it he began to eat c. All that ever I could learn of the Quakers acknowledgment § 4 of benefits received or receiveable 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 loâ—ked up to heaven which implies 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 1 Tim 4. â— 5. to be refused if it be received with thanksgiving for it is sanctified by the Word of God and Prayer So thaâ— to omit this duty which therefore Paul would not when in a storm and the company in a consternation wâ—â—h sâ—ar 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 ingage his Infallibility Naylor love to the lost p. 57. 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 soul 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
not deny that there was such a man as § 2 Jesus the Son of Mary and that God was in him or rather Christ was in him but this is no more than they profess of themselves that Christ as God and the Eternal Word is in them yet that body of the Man Jesus which he calls here the bodily garment he tells us they can never call it Christ Another passage out of the same Author will explain this For that which he took upon him was our garment even the p. 20. flesh and bloud of our nature very right But what follows is wofully false Which is of an earthly perishing nature but he is of an heavenly nature and his flesh and bloud and bones are of his nature The sum is this The Flesh and Bloud and Bones or Body of Christ which they own is of a heavenly and Eternal Nature but the body which Christ took on him of our nature is earthly and perishing and therefore they can never call that or own that to be Christ This is as plain a denying the Man Christ Jesus § 3 whose body of flesh was of our nature and of the seed of Abraham and the Son of Mary as can be They own him as one that once had a Being but is now perished that is his body of flesh and bloud What can we expect of those men who can disown what the Scripture speaks so plainly and frequently and that not now and then by the by but as its main scope Do not all the Prophets that prophesie of Christ speak of him as to come Doth not he himself and others contemporary that lived with him in the flesh speak of him as then come Do not the Scriptures after his Death and Resurrection speak of him as having finished the Merit of our Redemption and Salvation and departed from the earth ascended into Heaven and there at his Fathers right hand ruling the affairs of Heaven and Earth and making intercession for his people And all this of the Body of Christ which he took of mans Nature and this called Christ and Jesus and the Saviour Let not these Blasphemers of the Lord of Life and Glory delude people with a fancy as if we believe and preach the Flesh and Bloud of Christ to be Christ separated from his Soul his Soul of the nature of mans soul but undefiled or that we take his humane or mans nature to be Christ separate from his Eternal and Divine Nature for they cannot be separated the one is not now without the other nor was the Divine Nature of Christ compleat Christ until united to and dwelling in its fulness in the humane or mans nature of Christ Yet as what the mind conceives in a man the man § 5 conceives and what the least member of the body doth or suffereth the man doth and suffereth so by a communication of properties and union of natures in Christ the Divine and Eternal Being of Christ is called Christ sometimes but much more often the humane nature or the Man Christ Jesus And the reason is clear because although Christ offered up himself by the Eternal Spirit as both dignifying him to a worthiness for such a Sacrifice and enabling him to undergo it as a Lamb for patience innocency and meekness and to overcome death yet the mans nature of Christ his soul and his body was the only proper sufferer and sacrifice for God cannot suffer nor be put to death and by the obedience and sufferings thereof was our reconciliation and redemption wrought Only as I said before its union hypostatical with the Divine Nature did put it into such a capacity and entitle God or the Divine Nature which in its fulness dwelt in him bodily to all that he did and suffered Having thus explained my self that the weakest § 6 that are but willing may understand the truth in this point I shall quote some Scriptures wherein the Man Jesus who was born of the Virgin is called the Christ and Saviour and that this Man Jesus is now in being and in that body of flesh which he took of the Virgin and wherein he eat and drank and slept and performed those actions proper to a body of flesh and bloud and bones and that this man Jesus is still and ever shall be the Christ of God And it was revealed unto him by the holy Ghost that Luke 2. 26 27 28 29 32. he should not see death before he had seen the Lords Christ And he came by the spirit unto the Temple and when the parents brought in the Child Jesus to do for him after the custome of the Law then took he him up in his arms and blessed God and said Lord now lett est thou thy servant depart in peace for mine eyes have seen thy salvation a light to lighten the Gentiles This was the Lords Christ whose parents were Mary by nature Joseph in Law and by reputation as being Mary's Husband though after Christs birth whom Simeon then saw and not before whom he took up in his arms not only into his heart by faith and love and this Christ is Gods salvation and a light to lighten the Gentiles Therefore being a Prophet and knowing that God Act 2. 30. 31. had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his loins according to the flesh he would raise up Christ to sit upon his Throne he seeing this before speaks of the resurrection of Christ that his Christs soul was not left in hell neither his Christs flesh did see corruption This Jesus hath God raised up whereof we all are Verse 32 witnesses Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly Verse 36. that God hath made the same Jesus whom ye have crucified both Lord and Christ The God of our Fathers raised up Jesus whom ye Acts 5. 30. 31. slew and hanged on a tree him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour for to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins Which also said Ye men of Galilee why stand ye gazing Act. 1. 11. up into Heaven This same Jesus which is taken up from you into Heaven shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into Heaven Opening and alleadging that Christ must needs have Acts 17. 3. suffered and risen again from the dead and that this Jesus whom I preach unto you is Christ Be it known unto you all and to the people of Israel Acts 4. 10 11 12. that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth whom ye crucified whom God raised from the dead even by him doth this man stand before you whole This is the stone which was set at nought of you builders which is become the head of the corner Neither is there salvation in any other for there is none other name under Heaven given among men whereby we must be saved And though they found no cause of death in him yet
Acts 13. 28 29 30. desired they Pilate that he should be slain and when he had fulfilled all that was written of him they took him down from the tree and laid him in a sepulchre but God raised him from the dead Be it known unto you therefore men and brethren that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of Verse 38. sins For there is one God and one Mediator between God 1 Tim. 2. 5. and man the man Christ Jesus I am he that liveth and was dead and behold I am Rev. 1. 18. alive for evermore amen and have the keys of hell and death I might fill many Pages with Scriptures of the like import these are so plain for what I produce them and the Quakers deny that they need no Exposition or Comment or as the Quakers phrase it have any meanings put to them If men be so blind as not to see the errour of disowning § 7 Jesus of Nazareth the Son of Mary who was hanged on a Tree put into the Sepulchre of Joseph of Arimathea to be yet alive and the Christ of God by all these Scriptures it is a blindness wherewith never any before the Quakers who professed the Scriptures to be a true testimony were smitten Surely God hath given them up for their pride giddiness or idle ignorance and that in Justice and the Devil the Destroyer hath blinded their minds with a witness that this light of the glorious Gospel should not shine unto them Can yea dare any of you guilty of the errour here charged say That all this is true of and to be applied to the light within every man which these Scriptures assert of Gods Christ Read them over and compare them with that which is your only Christ and Saviour If this man Christ Jesus in whom dwells the fulness of the Godhead and who was thus described by the Spirit of God be the Saviour your light within is not If your light within be the Saviour and Christ and Redeemer he was not of whom all these Scriptures and a thousand more speak so plainly The Lord be merciful to your souls the Lord rebuke you who are so bold in denying the Lord that bought you and trampling under foot the bloud of the Covenant O consider that fancies and dreams though having ever so strong an impression while you are possessed with them will when you awake out of your graves of earth and dust yea when your souls depart from your bodies leave you to the naked truth which God in his Word the Scriptures hath revealed to us not to be abused after your manner but that we might believe and live after their direction which who despises Wo unto their souls for they have rewarded Isa 3. 9. evil to themselves I have not yet given you all the evidence I have § 8 out of the Quakers chief Writers that they disown the man Jesus the Son of Mary to be Gods Christ Some of them take together Can outward bloud Penningtons Questions P. as Fox cleanse the conscience We witness the same Christ that ever was now manifested in the flesh The man Christ Jesus was not ever for he was made and born in time of the Virgin Mary was Abraham's and David's seed after the flesh and though he now have a Being in Heaven and is manifested on earth by his Word and by that Faith which is in the hearts of his people yet he is not now manifest in the flesh according to that Scripture which saith God was manifest in the 1 Tim. 3. 16 flesh not is And Christs nature is not humane which is earthly Fox mystery c. p. 71. for that is the first Adams And immediately before Where doth the Scripture speak of humane Now we do not deny that Christ according to the flesh was of Abraham but not the word humane How pitifully doth he wind and turn to get out § 9 of the Noose and holds the world in hand as if he did not deny the thing that Christ is constituted of the humane nature only he will not allow the word humane Yet he that hath a small measure of discerning may see that peep out which he would fain hide He denies Christs nature to be earthly which the first Adams was Sure if Christ was the seed of the woman by Adam his nature as man was such as Adams But for his questioning the word humane as not in the Scripture he pretending to he able to examine the Justice of our Translators in turning the Greek into English in his great Libel called Mystery of the Great Whore should methinks have found as much as humane in the Greek though not in the English 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being five times used in the Epistles which in the Latine is more hominum humanus after the manner of men humane And Christs humane nature is no more but his mans nature of his nature according to man and so he is now in the humane nature in the Heavens Seeing then that we Heb 4 14 15. have a great High-Priest that is passed into the Heavens Jesus the Son of God let us hold fast our profession Mark the last clause For we have not an High-Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities but was in all points tempted like as we are yet without sin Infirmities here must not be understood of sin the Text bars that but such a weak nature as is constituted of flesh and bloud liable to pains grief hunger and weariness And he was found in fashion as a man and that I think is more hominis Now this man is not was but is our High-Priest in the Heavens and not as Fox hath it was of the seed of Abraham but is so A few Instances more yet And they that are false Ministers preach Christ Smith prim p. 9. without Your carnal Christ is utterly denied by the light Your imagined God beyâ—nd the Stars But none Sword of the Lord c. p. 24. Shield of the Truth p. 30. can witness this whose eye is outward looking at a Redeemer afar off So much of the proof of their denying that man to be Christ I must not say that the Quakers do not own a SECT II man Christ for that they frequently in their writings and sayings express such a thing but I desire that none will be offended that I will not take Chips for Guinâ—ys or half-Crowns because some silly Cheats would put them upon me under those valuable names much more ought I and every one else take heed of receiving that for Christ which God the Father hath not sealed because men of what countenance soever will perswade us it is no other whilst by the very Candle-light of meer reason it will appear to be a meer fancy If I should say no more but that it is an absurdity as big as an impossibility for a man constituted not only of a soul for
live in the hearts of his people by faith as faith believes how lovely and desirable he is and so loves him and works all those other graces in the soul which are his Image and do as effectually possess the soul for Christ and to his use and interest as a faithful friend can do According to that Text That Christ may dwell in yâ—ur hearts by faith that ye being rooted and grounded in love c. You know what the Scripture saith of faith that it worketh by love Eph. 3 17 5. 6. So that in very â—â—ed Christ both as God and Man doth live in all his Saints but not in his person but by the manifestations of his love and glory his works and Image in and on the soul And this is enough to satisfie those that are sober and are contented with and rejoyce in those priviledges which God affords to his Children which are enough to render them blessed rather than those which pride and ignorance will chuse like our first Parents to be as Gods and pay dear for the delusion Having stripped them of these Texts wherewith SECT VII they fortifie their light within to be the Christ and Saviour and proved that the Man Jesus of Nazareth in whom dwelt and now dwelleth the fulness the God-head bodily is the Christ of God and not the man without the God-head nor the God-head without the Man-hood I shall resume my Argument That this Christ of God the Quakers disown and deny and set up in his room and stead another viz. the light within every man and therefore disown and deny the true Christ and set up another in his room which is not the true Christ the Christ of God The light within every man was not born of the § 2 Virgin Mary It was not the light within every man of which Mary and Joseph were said to be the Parents It was not the light within every man that was arraigned before and condemned by Pilate It was not the light within every man that was crucified being hanged on and nailed to the Cross of Wood without the gates of Jerusalem It was not the light within every man that was laid in the Sepulchre of stone belonging to Joseph or Arimatheâ— that rose out of that Sepulchre that eat and drank after his Resurrection with the Disciples that shewed to Thomas the prints of the nails that nailed his hands and feet to the Cross that ascended up into Heaven in the sight of the bodily eyes of the Disciples but the Christ of God was he and is he that did and suffered all these things Therefore it is a most stupendious contradiction to pretend to believe the Scriptures and that they own the Christ to whom the Scriptures bear witness and yet say The light in every man is the Christ and only Saviour And that the God-head of Christ should be within every man or any man breathing in the Quakers sense I have sufficiently refuted already yet I shall offer a few of many Arguments farther to convince That the Quakers Christ is not the true Christ and Saviour They call their light within the seed § 3 Naylor Lov to the lost p. 3. That he regards not the seed of God which is fallen under all this death and darkness so long as the creature will but hearken to him the Serpent and his lying promises he will lead him from one thing to another in things without c. 'T is a strange Christ who is in the power of every man to be brought under death and darkness as long as the world endures yet this is the Quakers Christ Whereas Gods Christ was dead but died but once and was offered up but once for all and that one offering hath that in it which perfects for ever them that are sanctified But how the seed spoken of Christ in the Scripture should be in every man and yet the Son of Mary not be there yea not be any where is a most ridiculous Riddle for God or the God-head of Christ was not the seed of the woman or Abraham or David the seed was the man Christ according to the flesh So to the light of Christ that which changeth not in Naylor Love c. Preface every one I appear to be judged for therein alone both these things and all others that proceed from that â—ot makes for gathering creatures together unto that one name and seed wherein all the nations of the earth are blessed The Scripture he pretends to is Gen. 22. 18. And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed But Christ as God was not the seed of Abraham Who that understands any thing can be thus deluded to take the light within every man to be the seed of Abraham the man Christ Jesus The Quakers light within cannot be the Saviour § 4 for their â—ight within is as they say God Father Son and Spirit without distinction and that they are but one whereas the Christ of God is the Mediator and therefore must be distinct from God the Father and sinful man who are the parties to be reconciled There is one Mediator between God and man the man 1 Tim. 2. 5. Gal 3. 20. Christ Jesus Compare this with Gal. 3. 20. Now a Mediator is not a Mediator of one but God is one Well then the light within which the Quakers say is God without any distinction and not the man Christ who was in the womb of Mary cannot be a Mediator for a Mediator is not of one but between two distinct persons Now this being a truth where is their Mediator God eternal is not a Mediator to himself nor man a Mediator to himself so shut out the Christ without you a middle person between God and sinful man and you are in a woful condition Christ as God separate from that man who was § 5 born of Mary is not nor ever was compleat Christ So that if it should be granted that the light within you were the true God God essential which is a blasphemy no tender and understanding soul dare come near the brink of yet I say your light within were not Christ God had no capacity to suffer to die to do the Offices necessary for a Saviour and Redeemer according to the conditions of the Covenant of grace and although many were saved before Christ was born and died for sinners yet they were saved by faith in the promised Redeemer who was to come And these all haveing obtained a good report through Heb. 11. 39 faith received not the promise And therefore untill his Incarnation he is spoken of as Gods Christ in election but not actually and compleatly Christ Behold my servant whom I uphold mine elect in whom Isa 42. 1. my soul delighteth I have put my Spirit upon him he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles Read Isa 49. where you may with open face behold this truth in that discursive converse and expostulation
incredible that they should worship a false God seeing they own and profess a false God All those who worship that as God professedly and according to their professed Principles which is not God are gross idolaters But the Quakers do so Therefore the Quakers are gross idolaters I shall not prove the first proposition which none will deny The second I prove by their own concession considered with the proof I have made of the light within every man and the Souls and Spirits of men not to be God but you may take the argument in this form All they who worship professedly and according to their § 2 professed principles the light within every man or the Souls and Spirits of any men as God worship a false God But so do the Quakers Therefore they worship a false God Who are not sprung from the noble gentle seed and to those honour is not due neither can we bow unto Shield of the Truth p. 25. them for if we should we should set the Devil in the room of God and give unto him that which is due to God So that to those who are Quakers and have the birth of the light within the noble and gentle seed as they call it to them with respects to that they may bow And withal he tells you it is such a bowing as is peculiar to God for where it is used to such who have not God in them in the Quakers sense it is a setting the Devil in the room of God If it be objected that they bow to none I answer § 3 that they pretend to own no worship but what is inward and yet they pretend to worship God and meet to that end so that if they worship this Light Within this Soul or Spirit in any men as they profess to worship God they give them or it Divine Worship There was a time when many gave honor and worship John Bolton Senior to James Naylor one now a grand Quaker not being then pleased with it James told him that if they did it to him as a Man he disowned it but if they did it to the Light Within him he accepted it If any doubt of the truth of this the Process against him in Richards Parliament will prove it And John Bolton the Elder the Quaker I speak of can tell you more of it and I doubt not but that for the reproach and worse things which would follow it we should soon find it a general practise with the Quakers to give visible worship to the Gods that dwell in the Temples of each others Carcases But I proceed to further proof He that will worship Christ in his fulness in the Majesty Penningtons questions c. p. 24. of his Glory Dominion and Power must learn to bow down at the lowest appearances of his Light and Spirit even at the feet of Jesus He calls it worship by Christ they all mean the Light Within and the lowest appearances must be bowed at which is the least measure of the Light Within Priest 'To say that Christ is within man is to ' worship Angels and not to hold the Head Christ This he makes the Priest to say but whether any did so or no it matters not to my purpose But his answer Answ Which none comes to witness Christ Fox great mystery p. 55. the Head but who witness him in them that the Angels must worship him that died and suffered at Jerusalem and they that worship him in them worship not the Angels and they that are not worshipping him in them are worshipping Men Devils or Angels By the Christ that died and suffered at Jerusalem they intend nothing less than the Son of Mary I have already shewed they utterly deny him to be the Christ and they own Christ suffering at Jerusalem in no other sense than they say he died suffered or was crucified in every one of themselves And that you may be convinced of the truth of what I here affirm mark what follows They are false Ministers who preach Christ Smith Prim. p. 9. Without and bid people believe in him as he is in heaven above but they are the true Ministers that preach Christ Within C. This is a great difference in their Doctrine for the one to pretend to preach Christ Without and another preacheth him Within Father Yes it doth make a great difference and hath no more fellowship together than the East hath with the West So that the Quakers Christ the Light Within is not only some part of the true Christ who may as Christ be Without as well as Within them but they are at such odds one with another that they can have no more fellowship than East and West and this is the Christ they worship and to worship any other as Fox saith is to Worship Men Devils or Angels Thus I have made good my second Argument and thereby proved them grâ—ss Idolaters And there is somewhat in their Idolatry that is S. 6. not common â—dolatry for it is Apâ—tatical Idolatry which is so earnestly and with such an Emphasis exclaimed against by the Lord Hath a Nation changed 2. Jer. 11. 12 their Gods which are yet no Gods but my people have changed their glory for that which doth not profit Be astonished O ye Heavens at this be ye horribly afraid be ye very desolate saith the Lord. And it is no less aggravated in that while the Heathen who had not their means to know God yet were gross Idolaters and as Pen saith true enough worshipped as the Aegyptians an Ape a Crocodile yea Herbs almost any thing these Wretches for better they are not worship that Natural Conscience that Spirit of Man which is not only a Creature an ignorant Creature but full of darkness errour pride all manner of sin and worst of all a Blasphemer of the God of Heaven and his Son Jesus Christ the dear Redeemer But what now doth it boot them to say they Worship § 7 and own the Creator and Christ and the Lord and only him and such like And what folly is it after such Evidences for any to say Sure they are not so had their principles are of a more tolerable at least stamp they are civil zealous people for Religion in their way How will nothing but drunkenness or robbery of men in their outward goods and such like vices render men wicked will not the highest affronts to Heaven must men be believed rather than God in his Word which hath spoken of such persons to arise 1 John 2 Chap. and many other places See how God excused those in the second of Jer. in the 19. 23 and 24. Verses Thine own wickedness shall correct thee and thy back-slidings shall reprove thee Know therefore and see that it is an evil thing and bitter that thou hast forsaken the LORD thy God and that my fear is not in thee saith the Lord God of Hosts How canst thou say I am not polluted I have
endeavour it in your places and as God hath given you the means it will not be your sin much less your condemnation that you do not know it all Sure there are many Babes in Christs Family yet they are Children and all are first Babes and that would be a Monster never yet seen in the Church of Christ a new-born Babe knowing the mind of God contained in the Scripture as fully as the most serious Christians of the longest standing Jesus Christ himself grew in wisdom and in stature and I intreat you be content to leave a little of the mind of God to be found out in the Scripture by the Generations to come If you mean our knowledg of the mind of the Spirit is uncertain so far as it is necessary for our living in an acceptable mâ—nner to God soberly righteously and godly in this present world and to attain Heaven at last it is a great mistake for if pride lust and idleness stand not in our way there is no person that hath a few grains of reason but may understand so much of the mind of God by the Scripture as is necessary for him to know to his Eternal Salvation But if you talk of the Scriptures being a dead Letter § 9 and not moving and teaching with a voice or impulse without our reading praying and applying it in the Lords strength you talk at a strange random as if God had given us our eyes and brams only to look after the world and the things thereof but in the knowledge of God we must be meerly passive A KEY TO THE QUAKERS Usurped and to most Unintelligible PHRASES THere is not any thing in the Quakers Method of delu ding which doth more tend to the insnaring of unwary Souls than their asserting their False Antichristian and Anti-Scriptural Tenets under Scripture-words and Phrases and in those very terms wherein are expressed the Truths of God while in the mean time they mean nothing less than their true import and what people who are not well acquainted with their Tenets suppose them to mean By this Artifice they beget a good Opinion of themselves and Errours with too many and by degrees so vitiate their Principles that in a short time they are prepared to imbrace the grossest Errours bare-faced I shall therefore as a work of no small use to such who are attempted by them or who have a Call or opportunity to deal with them for their convincing or confuting or the securing others who are in danger by them give you a true and candid account of their sense and meaning of a multitude of Scripture and Religious Phrases which they utter and apply to their falshoods and also of their new-coyn'd Words and Phrases which are more peculiar to their Sect and Notions I dispose them Alphabetically for their more easie finding on any occasion A. Above NOt in locality but excellency so Christ and Heaven they say are above i. e. excellent and may therefore be nothing but what is within them The Anointing The Light within Christ the Spirit essentially Assembling Meeting in Spirit Assurance What they feel in themselves not what they believe from the Scripture the inward witness viz. experience teachings of the light within B. Babylon All the Ordinances Worship Faith Obedience that have any thing of a form or visible in 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 him by immediate imspiration 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 purifying 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 or a desire of Knowledge by the use of the Rational Faculty C. Call 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 Likness 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 sin 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
light within They put to their meanings Expounding or giving the sense of the Scripture however true in its self if not by immediate meer Divine Revelation 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 sensâ—ted 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 the light within them Obedience in Spirit Wrought by immediate impulses of the Spirit The Kingdome 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 Offeringâ— 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 oneness 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 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 saith was the Lamb of God whom John bid the Jews behold and the force of the light and life within which with them is the blood i. e. the life of the Lamb. P Put Christ to pain Resisting the motions of the light within The painted Whore Not only the Papals with their irreligious Pomp but all the good words thoughts and actions of any sort of men who derive them not from the immediate teachings and motions of the light within yea all forms of Worship according with the Precepts and Examples of the Scripture and they are with them the most painted who come nearest to the Scripture as a Rule The People of God They and none but they who profess the light within every man to be Christ the only Saviour and Teacher and give up themselves to its conduct as such Perfect Perfection Not that which is sincere or a perfection of parts or sanctification throughout in part but a being without sin in the least remains or stains of it Persecution Not only a penalty or hurt inflicted on their Bodies or Estates but also a speaking or writing against their Principles in the most purely rational and Scriptural Authority The seed in Prison and Captivity and Bondage The light within not obeyed as Christ and God Pictures and Images Not only those Images and Pictures that to the bodily eye represent Christ or God or the Saints and are adored with Religious Worship but all Worship Opinions Actions Words that are in imitation of the Examples and in obedience to the Precepts contained in the Scripture Men-pleasâ—rs They who comply with men though in things not only lawful but also to edification Pollutions of the world Not only things in themselves sinful as drunkenness swearing lying c. but also whatever Customs they dislike and decline as Cuffs Ribands putting off the Hat signs of respect c. which they say are from the Devil All recreations as Bowling Ringing though used seasonably and moderately The Power of God The Light within the Christ within Praying in Spirit Secretly or inwardly not with the voice by the immediate impulses of the light and power within without the exercise of so much as the conceptions of man Prayer Christ the light within is sometimes by them so called The presence of the Lord. The powerful influences and impressions of the light within either to terrour or peace and joy The pride of Man A not submitting to their light and especially receiving tokens of respect and wearing Ribands Cuffs and Lace The Priests A word of scorn put on all indifferently who are separated to the work of the Gospel-Ministry by men or that receive maintenance for their work The Worlds Professors All that are not Quakers Formal hypocritical Professors All that walk in the Ordinances of Christ commanded or prescribed in the Scripture or in the order of the Gospel Spirit of Prophecy Immediate impulses and inspirations False Prophets All that act not by immediate Revelation Prophecying falsly How true soever in it self if not from their spirit Publicans and Sinners All that are not Quakers Walking in the pure Walking after the dictates of the light within Purifying the heart by the Bloud of Christ Acting and being disposed according to inward motions by the light and life of the Christ within them Q Quenching the Spirit Resisting the motions of the Light within Quickned in the Life Stirred up by the power within R Raised to life Conversion to Quakerism Ravening brain Studying and following after Divine Knowledge or the knowledge
of divine things Inwardly ravening from the Spirit A recourse to the Scripture or any thing else except their spirit for sight and understanding in the things of God Carnal reasonings Reasonings of the Flesh All use of the understanding and judgment of man for searching and finding out truths about Divine and Spiritual things Received from the Lord. By immediate Revelation Reconciliation Giving up themselves to the light within The Word of Reconciliation Christ the light within The Lords Redeemed Those who are conformed to the light within Redemption A being reduced into the state of Adam in Innocency not what was wrought by Christ in the Flesh 1600 years since The Redeemer Not that Jesus Christ who is ascended above and beyond the Stars but the light and power within every man as such Refreshings in Spirit Something they are pleased with they know not why and come by they know not how As the Quakers who were refreshed at the Dutch-womans declaring while they understood not a word she spake The New man CHRIST The rest of the people of God A quiet and peace within though from a blind deluded conscience The Resurrection of Life Obedience to the light in this world Resurrection of the Body Resurrection of the light within to a dominion in the man for with them the Body is Christ and Christ is the light within Also the Body which was a servant to sin being acted by the light and power within Revelations Not Scripture-Revelations but what come by immediate inspiration to them Righteous ones Such as are without sin Righteâ—usness of Christ That which is wrought by the power and conduct of their Christ the light within The Root of Jesse The Light within The Royal Seed Christ and every Quaker They who run and not sent All that teach the Gospel from the Scripture and not by Immediate Inspiration Reprobation Sin S The Sabbath Every day the present Rest and Heaven of the Quakers The Sacrifice of Christ The light within obeying or they obeying in the light within Having Salt in themselves Having Christ in themselves The Salt of the Earth Christ the light within Salvation Conversion to the obedience of the light within Sanctification All one with Justification all one with Christ obedience to the light Building on the Sand. Making the Scripture a Rule of Faith and Life The Saviour The light within every man According to the Scriptures By immediate inspiration as the Prophets and Apostles received the mind of God The Seed The light within or the Christ essentially within the Eternal Word that which was in the beginning with God The Seed of Abraham according to the Flesh The Eternal Word Christ as God Self-righteousness All that is not from the immediate motions within Shadows All Forms and external worship The Scriptures which Pen saith are as the shadow of the true Rule viz. living touches Idol-Shepherds The Ministers who have a mediate Call or teach out of the Scripture Shut out of the Scriptures Cannot understand them have nothing to do with them Signs and Miracles in Spirit No body can tell what All flesh must be silent Nothing must be said but what comes by immediate revelation from the Spirit for all else is the voice of man and of the flesh In the Simplicity Without the use of humane understanding or if you will out of your wits To live in Sin Sinners Such as have any remains of sin in them or do at any time in any sort commit sin Slâ—ying the Witnesâ— Disobeying the light within but especially a resolved rejecting it as our only Rule Teacher and Saviour Sons of God Only the Quakers Soul A part or measure of God Speaking in the Spirit By immediate Inspiration Spirit of Antichrist That which leads to Forms though Christ's and Gospel-Forms All that opposes the light within to be Christ False Spirits They that ground their Doctrine on the Scripture or any mediate thing Spirit of Bondage Being under the power of any sin Spirit of God The light within every man God the Father Son Holy Ghost without distinction Spirit of the World Whatever is not conformable to the light within as Christ The Spiritual man Christ or Christ in every Quaker The Lord hath Spoken What comes to them by immediate inspiration The Lord hath not Spoken Whatever is not by immediate inspiration though it be written in the Scripture A true Christians State Being taught by God immediately not by the Letter The statutes of God The Law in the heart or within They steal my word every one from his Neighbour Teaching Doctrines as the Word of the Lord taken out of the Scripture Stoln words All that we have out of the Scriptures and not by immediate inspiration to our selves In the Stilness An unactive attending to the light within Standing in the Counsels of God Conformity to the Teachings of the light within and abiding therein Studying for Divine Knowledge and what comes thereby from the Scripture Carnal toil birth and wisdom of the flesh Scraping in the Scriptures The Woman in Subjection Weakness must subject it self to the man Christ The Supper of the Lord. Spiritual joy or joy in the Spirit from the presence and influence of the light within all eating and drinking to God and in remembrance of Christ Sword of the Spirit Christ the light within What is declared by immediate inspiration of the Spirit Synagogues of Satan The Assemblies of any sort of people for Divine Worship who are not Quakers T Christ Tabernacling in the outward Vessel Christs dwelling for a little time in the body born of the Virgin Mary The like of every Quaker Taking away the Tables All Forms and Books as useless in the things of God Taught of God Taught immediately from the light within Teachings of Men. All that is not immediately inspired though the sense and words of the Scripture Cease from man From the Teaching by Man Outward Court of the Temple given to the Gentiles All forms of Worship all visible Worship being the Worship of Heathens not of Christians Testifie to the light in the Conscience Appealing or speaking to Christ the light within Bearing Testimony to the light Declaring for and from the light within The Testimony and the Testaments Christ the Light and Law within Thanksgiving Give thanks in Spirit or inwardly Thieves and Robbers All that are Teachers by a mediate Call All Ministers but the Quakers All that walk by Scripture-light Traditions of men The Scripture or written Word Trading with the Scripture Having maintenance for a Ministry Ministring from the Scripture or written Word The Birth In Travel The time of wrestling betwixt convictions of the light within and perfection Trembling and Quaking The horrour and consternation that they are under from as they say the wrath of God while the flesh is judged and they are in the hell of condemnation which is all the bell they hold that I can find aâ—d this trembling and quaking they say is such as
saved and receives life and in this state we stand not in any Opinion but in a feeling of life and salvation for all Opinions are in notions and apprehensions in which none feels the Life and Salvation in Christ but what they apprehend in the natural part unto that they give up their own belief and so erres from the life in themselves and neither believes unto Salvation nor receives Eternal Life Smith Prim. p. 61. I shall not trouble you with an explanation of these uncouth phrases you may turn to the Key and resolve your selves Sure if this be the way to understand Truths we may cashier our understandings and judge the most Sensual to have most of the Spirit Mr. Pen is much of the same mind He calls those disputing from the Scriptures Dry § 6 cavilâ—ing Letter-mongers Penington is a little ingenious when he saith in his Questions concerning Vnity pag. 4. Wherein I confess my heart exceedingly despised them and cannot wonder that any wise man did or doth yet despise them Speaking of the way the Quakers have to get Proselites being without Rational demonstrations This is far from the Apostles Doctrine and Practise who demonstrated by Reason that Jesus was the Christ who reasoned with Faelix and exhorts to be ready to give a Reason of the hope that is in us to every one that shall ask us I expect some Replies to my Book agreeable to § 7 this irrational humour But I desire those who shall think fit to undertake an Answer that they would not play the Rats and gnaw here and there a scrap leaving the grand designs and demonstrations of it untouched I do assure them I am not arrived yet in my own Opinion to such a perfection but I am willing to learn from even my Adversary although I must likewise acknowledge I am not very big with expectation from the Quakers power of convincing But if they shall instead of answering fill some sheets with personal reproaches and reflections which do not render the things asserted more or less true I bless God I am too much above them to be moved and have cast up my accounts of those Costs before I began this Building If they shall deny what I charge them with in my Book they must discard their Authors I quote or prove I give not the sense of their words I shall be glad of the former and I fear not the latter I desire the Quakers from henceforth if they will § 8 maintain Moral Honesty even such as many Heathens were possessed of that they would no more call themselves Christians until they fall under another Conversion for it is gross Hypocrisie and Cheating if not of themselves yet of others And although some of them have scorned my prayers and told me they hated I should pray for them I shall love them with so much benevolence as to beg of God to convince them of the Truth by this or what means he pleaseth that they may not only be loved of the truly good with good will but also delight but above all that they may glorifie God on Earth in a better way and enjoy God in Heaven to a greater blessedness than their Principles express I have done But let every man prove his own work and then shall he have rejoycing in himself alone and not in another Gal. 6. 4. FINIS AN APPENDIX TO Quakerism no Christianity Wherein is published The Quakers Canons and Constitutions for Ecclesiastical Censures and Discipline with an Account of their Symbolizing with Rome therein and in other matters of Order and Polity Also a Catalogue of their Principal Errours and Blasphemies IT hath been the common Opinion of those who are unacquainted with the Quakers That they are a People altogether Confused as well in other things as their Principles But Satan the great Enemy to Mankind and Master of Errour is not so sottish as to decline all Polity and Order where he designs to advance his Kingdom And therefore wherever he subverts the Laws and Ordinances of Christ he sets up some of his own in their room and stead well knowing that Vnity in Evil is its Strength and any Kingdom divided against it self cannot stand And although the known Principles of the Quakers was and is That every man ought to be guided by the Light within himself as sufficient yet as the Reason of others so their own Experience have taught them That such a Guide without another to guide and restrain that tends to Distraction and Confusion And therefore they have erected their Canons and Constitutions What they are in part and how imposed may be seen in this following Account which was conveyed to me out of their Registry by sure hands and which I have given you entire to prevent all pretences of unfair citing That this Testimony is no feigned thing but really what it pretends to be W. Penn hath given sufficient evidence I cited a few lines out of it in my Vindication of Quakerism no Christianity in answer to Penn. He finding by that little shread that I had gotten the whole piece into my hands expresses his discontent in these words If such inoffensive nay Christian and necessary Resolves for the right Disciplining the Church of Christ in the ways of Peace and Righteousness cannot escape John Faldo's cruel hands instead of rendring us Papists I shall not wonder if from a Non-conforming Priest he turns a Spanish Inquisitor or any thing else that can be worse Penn's Rejoynder to Faldo p. 177. A Testimony from the Brethren who were met together at London in the third month 1666. to be communicated to the faithful Friends and Elders in the Countries by them to be read in their several Meetings and kept as a Testimony among them WE your Friends and Brethren whom God hath called to labour and watch for the Eternal good of your Souls At the time aforesaid being through the Lord's good hand who hath preserved us at liberty met together in his Naâ—e and Fear were by the Operation of the Spirit of Truth brought into a serious Consideration of this present state of the Church of God which in the day of her return out of the Wilderness hath not only many open but some Covert Enemies to Conflict against who are not afraid to speak evil of Dignities and despise Government without which we are sensible our Societies and Fellowship cannot be kept holy and inviolable Therefore as God hath put it into our hearts we do communicate these things following unto you who are turned from darkness to light and profess with us in the Glorious Gospel throughout Nations and Countries Wherein we have travelled as well for a Testimony against the unruly as to stablish and confirm them unto whom it is given to believe the Truth which is unto us very precious as we believe it is also unto you who in love have received â—t and understood the Principles and felt the Vertue and Operation of it In which our
of the Church meeting together in their respective places do set and keep the affairs of it in good order beware of admitting or encouraging such as are weak and of little faith to take such trust upon them for by hearing things disputed that are doubtful such may be hurt themselves and may hunt the Truth not being grown into a good understanding to judge of things Therefore we exhort That you who have received a ture sense of things be diligent in the Lord's business and keep the Meetings as to him that all may be kept pure and clean according to that of God which is just and equal We also advise That not any be admitted to order Publick business of the Church but such as have felt in a measure of the Universal Spirit of Truth which seeks the destruction of none but the general good of all and especially of those that love it who are of the Houshold of Faith So dear Friends and Brethren believing that your souls will be refreshed in the sense of our spirits and integrity towards God at the reading of these things as ours were while we sate together at the opening of them and that you will be one with us on the behalf of the Lord and his precious Truth against those who would limit the Lord to speak without Instruments or by what Instruments they list and reject the counsel of the Wise-men and the testimony of the Prophets which God sanctified and sent among you in the day of his love when you were gathered and would not allow him liberty in and by his Servants to appoint time and place wherein to meet together to wait upon and worship him according as he requireth in Spirit and calling it Formal and the Meeting of man We say believing that you will have Fellowship with us herein as we have with you in the truth we commit you to God and the Word of life which hath been preached to you from the beginning which is neither limited to place nor time nor persons but hath power to limit us to each as pleaseth him that you with us and we with you may be built up in our most holy faith and be preserved to partake of the Inheritance which is heavenly amongst all them that are sanctified Richard â—arnsworth Alexander Parker George Whitehead Josiah Coale John Whitehead Thomas Loe Stephen Crispe Thomas Green John Moone Thomas Briggs James Parkes It will not be lost-labour to give my Reader an Account of the occasions of this Testimony and of those things contained in it which are of special remark The first and chief Principle which the Quakers cried up and endeavoured to obtrude on all they attempted to draw off from the common Principles of the Christian Religion and to prâ—selyte to themselves was That every man hath a light in him which is no less than Christ and the Spirit Christ the Word of God the Life the Power c. and that this Light is sufficient to lead into the knowledge of all Truth and to move men by its Power to the compleat and perfect Obedience And as upon this Principle they did and do discard the Scriptures from being a Rule of Faith and Life and from bearing the name of the Word of God So many of them believed it as rationally followed That all their Ministry and ordered Meetings to declare what they called their Testimony was not only superfluous but also a contradiction to their main Principle which is indeed rightly inferred Another Principle grounded on the former Foundation was To exclude all Forms of Worship Order or Discipline and every one to be left to his own proper liberty to meet or not to meet to speak or be silent as he or she should be guided by his or her private Light c. But the practices which suited to this Principle as it rendred its Professors discordant and contrary to each other and ridiculous to Observers So also it deprived their Heads and Leaders of that Denomination which was as ambitiously sought by them as by any Sect-Masters heretofore Upon these Considerations those who were chief in esteem and interest among them began to impose upon the rest what they pretended was by the Spirit dictated to them although it did not meet with the same inward relishes and sentiments of the rest Many of the Quakers who kept to their first Principle were hereat greatly offended and made opposition against those Obtrusions as Tyrannical and subverting their Foundation One of whom was the Author of that large Letter of Complaint published in a little Piece entituled THE SPIRIT OF THE HAT Muclow In which may be seen the main Grounds of difference between the Ruling and Non-Conforming Quakers and as well penn'd as was ever any thing by a Quaker But to reconcile these Impositions with the Principle of the Sufficiency and Divinity of the Light within every man the Imposers pretend That the Light of the Body i e. Such who bear the sway can taste and discern what is from the true Light in any and therefore what answers not to that Discerning-Spirit in the Body is to be exploded as not from the true Principle In this Testimony alias The Quakers Canons and Constitutions I shall remark these following particulars 1. That in the Title it is ordered to be read in all their Meetings and kept by them as a Testimony Which are Priviledges that the Scriptures obtain not with them 2. That the Subscribers and those others who joyned with them in their Convocations pretend to have met by the Operation of the Spirit and to have had in that Negotiation the presence of the Lord with them and that hereupon they ground the following Dictates and Impositions 3. That although they take it so grievously that they should be accounted no Christians by us yet they own no other to be the Church of Christ but themselves and have the Charity to reckon of all others as Without and as Heathen and Infidels among which sort they are to be numbered whom they Excommunicate 4. That notwithstanding their former decrying a stated and ordained Ministry Rule and Dignities in the Church as Tyrannical and Antichristian they have now a Ministry Rulers Dignities Offices and Dominions erected among themselves as necessary to the subsisting of their Fellowship And affirm That it is abominable Pride for any particular not to submit to the judgment given by them called The judgment of the Body 5. That although they have with their Authors the Romists and Jesuites reproached the holy Scriptures as a lame and insufficient Rule yea as no Rule Countenancing this their Distraction from the diversities of Opinions Parties and Factions which are found among those who own it for their Rule yet they themselves for all the All-sufficiency of their Light within have Doubts Discords and Factions among themselves and each pretending the Light for its Authority So that their pretended Remedy is an early breeder of those Diseases for which
Quakers Pope 4. Do the Popish Councils with or without the Pope pretend the Spirit to be present with them and its Authority for all their Determinations to be Infallible Wherein do the Quakers differ from the same Arrogancy when they affirm themselves to meet by the Operation of the Spirit of Truth That the presence of the Lord is with them in their Confulâ—s and then testifie and impose them in the name of the Lord 5. Do the Romists call the Pope or the Pope with his Conventicle of the Prelates the Church and impose their Sentiments and Determinations as the mind and Laws of the Church The Quakers are herein not a hairs-breadth differing from them For that which they call the Light and Sense of the Body and its Determinations is no other than the Dictates and Opinions of George Fox and some of the Leading Quakers which yet are imposed on the rest of the Quakers as the Light of the Body or of the Church of Christ 6. Do the Papists obtrude a submission of the private Sentiments and Opinions of any of their Members to the Determination of the Pope or Pope and Council So do the Quakers requiring That no mans particular Opinion do lift up it self against the Light of the Body but be determined thereby and acquiesce therein 7. Do the Papists reject the Scriptures from being their Rule while they advance Traditions in their rooms The Quakers have gone beyond them who give not that Authority to the Scriptures which the Papists allow them and to over-match the Popish Traditions bring in the Doctrine of Good ancient Friends as their Rule while the Scriptures are denied that Preferment 8. For Implicite Faith the Quakers are no way inferiour to the most strict Votaries of Rome The pretended Light and Inspiration of their Leaders they have a swallow for that a Monster as big as a Whale will pass without haesitation And that these pretended Inspirations are indeed from the Spirit of God they have no other proof but the Opinion of their Infallibility or the Miracles in Spirit which George Fox talks of which are as indemonstrable as the other 9. The continual Sacrifice of Christ in the Popish Mass hath a good Preparative in that Principle of the Quakers That Christ in them doth offer up himself a living Sacrifice to God for them by which the wrath of God is appeased towards them 'T is but removing the invisible Sacrifice from the dark and close corner within to the Altar in some visible sign 't is all one Which may in time appear as agreeing to the light as W. Penn's Ceremony of keeping the Hat off in Prayer doth fitly signifie the Veil removed from their hearts It would yet seem a lame Comparison between the Papists and Quakers if among the Quakers there be no Idols nor yet the Image of the Pope the greatest Idol of all the rest But the Jesuites and Factors of Rome have not been such unskilful Artists and unfaithful Servants to their Master as to do their work so imperfectly 10. If the Light within be not God as certainly it is not then do they professedly give Divine Worship to a Creature or to an Imagination of their own framing And if the Souls and Spirits of men are God or a part of God and of his Being by their Principles which are as truly their Principles as words can express then they are Idolaters with a witness 11. But the Romists give Divine Worship to Saints which is not as most believe the Quakers Idolatry If I do not prove them herein to overmatch them I am greatly mistaken and whether I am or not I will leave it to my Readers judgment The Quakers Worship as they profess is inward Worship which all confess to be the most excellent part of Worship And therefore if they affirm Worship to be given to those whom they put in the room of Saints it must be acknowledged that they worship them though their bodies bow not down to them They profess to worship those who are sprung from the noble gentle Seed and that with Divine Worship and to bow down to the lowest appearances of Christs Light and Spirit Yea George Fox tells us That not to worship Christ in them is to worship Men Devils or Angels This kind of Idolatry may explain the mystery of the Quakers looking so devoutly for a considerable season in each others faces when they meet continuing all the while in a deep silence And there are sufficient witnesses living of the bodily and visible Worship which James Naylor received from divers of them Herein they exceed the Papists Idolatry in the number of their Idols being all that have Christ in them or that are sprung from the noble gentle Seed viz. All thorow Quakers And in the quality of their Idol-Saints for in the room of S. Peter Paul the Virgin Mary are William George c. who are as like to those Saints as the blacker sort of white Devils And also in point of Time for the Papists worship their Saints after their death but the Quakers worship theirs while living See Quakerism no Christianity Chap. 16. for a fuller proof of this 12. To find a Pope or somewhat like him among the Quakers we need seek no further than George Fox who is among them a Pope and more than a Pope His Supremacy among the Quakers is sufficiently known among them and by some lamented But I shall descend to some particulaâ— instances in which George Fox equals or out-does the Pope in his Papal Arrogance and Blasphemy I could produce woful instances from the hand of credible Reports but I shall decline them and present you with a Letter to him from Josiah Coale one of the Quakers chief Ministers which contains a Map of a world of Blasphemies in a small room This Letter I had out of the Quakers Registry it being there preserved as a Testimony of the greatness of George Fox And as bad as it is I having printed it in my Vindication William Penn undertakes twice in print to vindicate every line of it DEar George Fox Who art the Father of many Nations whose Life reached thorow us thy Children even to the Isles afar off To the begetting of many again unto a lively Hope for which Generations to come shall call thee Blessed whose being and habitation is the power of the Highest in which thou rules and governs in Righteousness and thy Kingdom is established in peace and the encrease thereof is without end Doth the Pope pretend that from Peter's Chair Ministers were sent out to convert all those Nations who professed or do profess the Christian Religion Such an one is George Fox said to be for he is called The Father of many Nations and indeed of almost all who are Quakers who with them are the only Christians Doth the Pope pretend to be Christs Vicar and clothed with his power So is it pretended of George that his Habitation is in the power