in you that was also in Christ Jesus who being in the Form of God thought it not Robbery to be equal with God And He that sanctifieth and they that are sanctified are all of One for which cause he is not ashamed to call them Brethren Again They that are joyned to the Lord are One Spirit and He that doth Righteousness is Righteous even as He is Righteous To deny this is to deny the most Heavenly Benefit we have by Christ namely Unity and Fellowship we have with the Father and with the Son That it was an Unity not an Equality especially in the Sense he takes the Word the faithful Narrative of that Proceeding printed in the Year 1654. will further testify How great then must this Man's Miscarriage be who to render a good Man an Impostor turns Forger himself but God will reward him The next Pair he pitches upon to prove his Assertion is Maenander and James Nailer The one for affirming Himself to be sent from the invisible Regions to be the Saviour of Man-kind And James Nailer for asserting himself to be Christ and accepting Hosannah's and Divine Worship in the Streets of Bristol Answ What Maenander was I know not and it is hard believing a Character of any Man when it is given by his Enemy But sure I am that James Nailer never asserted himself to be the Christ of God Neither did he ever deny Him that appeard at Jerusalem to be the Lord 's Christ as his Writings plentifully declare especially one Paper written by him to the then Parliament when a Prisoner in Bride-wel Christ Jesus the Emmanuel of whose Sufferings the Scriptures declare Him ALONE I confess before Men for whose sake I have deny'd what ever was dear to me in this World that I might win him be found in him and not in my self whom alone I seek to serve in Body Soul Spirit night day according to the Measure of Grace working in me even to that Eternal Spirit be Glory and to the Lamb forever But to asscribe this Power Virtue to JAMES NAILER or for that to be exalted or worshipped TO ME IS GREAT IDOLATRY So having an Opportunity given with Readiness I am willing in the Fear of God the Father in Honour to Christ Jesus and to take off all Offences from every Simple Heart without Guile or Deceit His third Comparison lyes betwixt Photinus who is said to have denyed the Trinity and G. Fox as guilty of the same Error in his Account Answ I can find no such place in the Book so called Either our Adversary sets up for a New Controvertist or he dishonestly shunned giving us the Page But I am willing to believe that he took it as he found it in some other Adversary for any thing reported or printed against a Quaker is ground enough for an envious Priest to accuse him But what if G. Fox denyed the Unscriptural Expressions viz. The Trinity of distinct and separate Persons must it necessarily follow that he denyed the Three that bear Record in Heaven the Father Word and Spirit We justly renounce those Barbarous School-Terms as not suited to God's Heavenly Manifestations but the dark Conceits of some Popish Doctors His fourth Comparison is made between Soâ—inus and James Nailer in that the one denyed the Satisfaction of Jesus Christ and look'd upon his Passion only as an Example The other in that he affirmed The End for which Christ did suffer was to be a living Example to all Generations Love to the lost page 56. Answ He has not truly delivered the Opinion of Socinus whose Books shew however mistaken about Christ's Divinity that he ever esteemed his Death and Passion to have more in it then a bare Example Nor has he faithfully dealt with J. Nailer in this Quotation For first I find not the Words as cited and next the Word ONLY is by himself omitted which alone renders the Passage heterodox Suppose then that J. Nailer writ that Christ was in his Suffering a living Example to all Generations Is there no Difference between Christ's being in his Death and Passion Only our Example which he charges upon Socinus and Christ's being our living Example in Suffering which he attributes to J. Nailer How can there be a Comparison where there is so great a Disparity The First is denyed by all that own Christ The Last is owned by all that do not deny Peter who thus writ to the scattered Brethren For even hereunto were ye called because Christ also suffered for us leaving us an Example that ye should follow his Steps 1 Pet. 2.21 His fifth Comparison he makes between the Valentinians the Quakers The Former he sayes arrogated to themselves a Knowledge beyond Christ and his Apostles The Latter impudently throw away the written Word of God delude the credulous Vulgar with new fangled Revelations which he thinks he has prov'd by two Inances 1. That Th. Hollbrow a Quaker to One that urged Scripture answered What dost thou tell me of Scripture which is no more to me then an Old Almanack 2. That Fox and Hubberthorn in a Book called Truth 's Defence say The Scriptures are no standing Rule and it is dangerous for ignorant People to read them Answ To the first I say there is great Difference between one that was no Quaker and one that was or is a Quaker We have examined the matter and by all we can find both that Saying is not true as charged and it is of an ancienter date then the coming of any of our Friends into those Parts therefore not the Saying of a true Quaker To the second I return thus much 'T is true there is such a Book and it was written by G. Fox and R. Hubberthorn but he has not given us so much as one Page to direct us to the Passage So that either People must read till they find it or else take his Perversion for our Assertion Unworthy Man does he think us such Wretches that we deserve not common Justice Methinks Justice should not be denyed where so little Mercy is shewn But to answer the Instance Our Judgment about the Scriptures being the Rule we have already delivered And in what sense it is Dangerous to read them their own Book will declare 'T is dangerous say G. Fox R. Hubberthorn to read the Scripture in order to make War against the Saints to give carnal Expositions upon them Meanings contrary to them and to make a Trade of them but Blessed is he that doth read and doth understand them If this prove that Sleight to Scripture our Adversary would suggest them to be guilty of then let us be condemned But God's Witness in every unseared Conscience will acquit them and judge him for corrupt Citation and hard Speeches who dares to cry thereupon Are these not as Impudent Hereticks as the Valentinians whom he represents to have arrogated to themselves a Knowledge above Christ
Commission from the Lord to pull down the Steeple-House And another in Sermon-time to pull down the Hour-Glass I must tell him That we know no such thing and if he were a fair Adversary he would have told us who this Gentle-man was and who the Quakers that we might have informed our selves of the Truth of the Matter though we have great Cause to conclude it a down-right Forgery For the other it is altogether as likely to come of the same Stock but if such a thing ever were I dare say the Priest was in a worse Taking then the Quaker however it was no Theft because they all saw it was done for that End And every Body knows the Priest can tell how to call for another Glass for the Truth is some of that Profession can hardly preach without them for they elevate them above his Quaker's Hypochondria That the Wife of one Williamson should call Ja. Milner the Eternal Son of God at Apleby is an arrant Falshood for we have particularly enquired and can find no such thing That a Woman at Weighton in York-shire of that Goatish Herd as he is pleased to call them went Naked to another Woman's Husband's Bed and bid him open his Bed to her for the Father had sent her is a Slander hatcht in Darkness We deny it in the Name of the Lord God And I charge this disingenuous Man if he has any Regard to his Reputation or those he belongs to to prove if he can the Truth of this Story And that he should at last call this A Taste of the Quakers deluded Dreams melancholick Phancies Impostures Injections everlasting Errors and Deceits is the top of what Impudence and Forgery Man can well be guilty of against his Neighbour But why our Goatish Herd above all others Unjust and Uncivil Man Look at Home for Shame How often are Quakers brought to Ecclesiastical Courts for Uncleanness We know they are too often summoned thither for Tythes It would be almost endless to tell the Stories of both Priests and People's Wickedness that follow them one would think that no Church of England Man that knew any thing of the present Age or that thought we did could believe that forging one unclean Lye against the Quakers should invalid their Religion who believes his own to be true notwithstanding those numerous Incests Adulteries Fornications Concupiscences Murders Lyes Perjuries Dissimulations Thefts Injuries and such like that have been and daily are committed by his Dear Fellow-Communicants The Sons and Daughters of the Church of England Let him therefore draw in his Horns and leave off pushing at us with his Forgeries and Defamations and Repent of this Ungodly Way of dealing with us that he may find Mercy to his Soul CHAP. IX Of Perfection I Perceive the Man would fain say something of every Controverted Head held by the Quakers â—hough as little to Purpose as may be There is but one thing commendable in his whole Chapter and that is its Brevity He stumbles at the very Entrance and never recovers himself to the End The Quakers talk much of Perfection from Sin in this Life and that they have already attained to it Quote he scorns his Word is Credit enough at least he would have it so but to let him go on This says he is the Pharise's Litany God I thank thee I am not as other Men are The Antinomian Liberty the Doctrine of Dell Saltmarsh Town all Antinomians and Familists And that Malice and Railing perpetually make up the greatest part of the Quakers Speaking to the People But what of Argument can be found in such meer Assertion and Reflection I leave with sober Men to judge He neither understands Antinomians Familists nor Quakers And truly I am ready to think him some raw unfledged ungraduate who by this Essay aims at that Proof of his Abilities as may induct him to some Fat Benefice or else One that thought we deserved no larger Testimony of his Ability Honesty and Discretion in his Endeavours against us In short A perfect Principle we plead for and press the Necessity and Benefit of Man's Conformity to it That though it be a little Leaven it is able to leaven the whole Lump That this Grace brings Salvation from Sin by the Power it gives them that obey it to mortifie Sin else what a Riddle would those Scriptures make that speak of Sanctification throughout in Body Soul and Spirit That He that 's born of God sins not Old things are done away behold all things are become new I write unto you Young Men because ye have overcome the Wicked One. Be ye Perfect as your Heavenly Father is Perfect Unto a Perfect Man Let us cleanse our selves from all Filthiness of Flesh and Spirit perfecting Holiness in the Fear of the Lord. The God of all Grace make you perfect c. Wherein not only a Perfection from Sin but the going forward to a perfect Man in Christ is exhorted to and prayed for therefore not inobtainable To conclude We do not teach People the Perfection of our Persons but the Principle of God and our Experience of its Converting and Translating Power Christ is stronger then the Devil And for this was and is he manifested To end Sin and destroy the Works of the Devil a Doctrine the Church of England teaches in her Baptism Nor do we say That every Man is perfect from Sin as soon as he is convinced of Sin No there is a great War a long Wilderness to travel through many Enemies to subdue and Difficulties to surmount and those Enemies are mostly those of a Man 's own House We therefore exhort all to wait for God's Arising that his Enemies may be scattered that witnessing a Victorious State over Hell and Death by the Power of Christ Jesus such may obtain the New Name which is written in the Lamb's Book of Life and promised to all that Over-come Which is far from that Ungodly Rantism he would fasten upon us and our Principles And I doubt not but Time Patience and our Blameless Conversation shall dispel those Mists Malice and Ignorance may have raised to darken and blemish the â—eputation of our Practice Persons and Principles in the World CHAP. X. His Ninth and Tenth Chapter of the Wayes and Arts that the Quakers use in gaining Proselytes with the Advantage their Way has over other Heresies honestly considered and briefly confuted THe first Artifice he sayes we use is To come in Sheep's Clothing Now what is this Sheep's Clothing sayes he but only the Innocence and Purity of the Christian Doctrine when as their main Purpose is to devour credulous Souls Answ If we have the Sheep's Clothing and if the Sheep's Clothing be the Purity and Innocence of Christian Doctrine then is our Doctrine Innocent Pure and Christian And since he avers the Doctrine of the Church of England to be so remote and opposite this Character must necessarily imply that her Doctrine is Hurtful
and his Apostles which how true soever it may be of them I am sure is False enough of us for those hideous Consequences he makes are not deducible from any unperverted Saying to be cited out of Truth 's Defence And least any should think we deny with the Papists the Perusal of the Scriptures to Ignorant People from what our Adversary sayes know that they spoke of such Ignorant and Unlearned Persons as in reading wrested them to their own Destruction now unless it be not Dangerous to read to Destruction they are not chargeable witâ— Bâ—ame in that Matter But who are the Knowing and Learned The Jewish Doctors and Greek Philosophers No but Fishermen and poor Mechanicks discipled in Christ's School for the Excellency of whose Knowledge Paul reputed his Gamaliel-Acquisitions but Dross and Dung So that their Knowing and Learned are many times the Ignorant Unlearned we speak of whose Wisdom God will confound and whose Understanding he will bring to nought His last Comparison of us in this Chapter is with Marcus an old Heretick The Agreement he makes betwixt us lyes in our mutual Pretences to Inspiration and Prophecy For as he reports him to have abused many silly Women under colour of conferring on them the Gift of Prophesying and that he had a familiar Spirit by which 〈◊〉 brought himself into Credit with his deluded Followers So he tells us that he has had it confidently affirmed That about the first rise of the Quakers in the North of England several Persons by Gloves and Ribbands and divers Charmes were really bewitched by them And doubtless many of their Quaking fits were real Possessions by the Devil Answ What Marcus was is nothing to us If he has done amiss he has answered for it by this time I confess I am not over-fond of the Characters left us of ancient Hereticks knowing what kind of Creatures the best Protestants are with Papists and what fearful Monsters several sober Separatists are reputed among some Protestants But this I know if what he hath said of several Ancients be no Truer then what he hath said of us he has grosly abused their Doctrines and their Memories For the Witchcraft of our Gloves Ribbands and Charmes 't is scarce worth my Notice his Folly in mentioning it being a sufficient Reproof and Confutation to himself A Story fit for none at this time of day to report or believe but a Man of his size I thought they had been worn out by this time But let the sober Reader judge which savours most of Satan's Design this Idle yet Scandalous Story or our Fearing and Trembling at the Word of the Lord and those Terrors that broke in upon our Souls because of Sin and Iniquity 'T is but the old Spirit of Mockery that acted the Jews and Heathens against the Christians and Papists against Protestants and too many Protestants of several Sorts against some more reformed Separatists For had the Reverent Fear of God possessed our Adversary's Heart in the writing of this Discourse there had been no room for such Irreligious Scoffs against an inoffensive People But the Devil because he would be God calls God the Devil Christ Beelzebub Light Darkness and the Power of God the Power of Satan and the Fear and Trembling brought by the one the Possessions and Witchcrafts of the other Certainly such Men live in a dry Land they see not when Good cometh But what will not an Enraged Tything Priest do to destroy us who he knows are Discoverers of such Deluders CHAP. III. His pretended Agreement between the Authors of Familism and the Quakers considered His Objections answered I Now come to consider the Reason of the Title of his Book and what Ground he had to name us the Revivers Propagators of Familism with the most weighty Objections he makes against us if in Truth I may repute the strongest of them such and that with what Brevity Truth and Faithfulness I can The great Authors of this Doctrine of Familism he sayes were David George and Henry Nicolas but more especially the latter as having more improved and disseminated the pernicious Errors introduced by the former He bestows many severe Expressions upon them more I think then becomes a Man of any Charity to give I am not their Advocate But so much Splene and so little Reason against Dead Men can be neither Christian nor Manly What he sayes they held and how far we are concerned in it it is our Business to enquire § 1. Of Christ's Ministration And first he tells us that H.N. should say that not only the Law of Moses but the Ministration of Christ and his Apostles were only Temporary things instituted to bring Men to the perfect Reign of the Spirit and then like Horn-Books and Primers to grown Understandings to be thrown away pag. 10 11. And that this is the full Sense of the Quakers sayes our Adversary Hear John Crook a Quaker We believe by the same Gift of Grace that there are several Ministratitions and several Operations according to 1 Cor. 12. And all by the same Spirit as before and after the Law by Moses and after by John the Baptist and Christ and his Apostles And by this Spirit were the Scriptures given forth and the Holy Men of God did speak prophesy preach and pray as they were moved and to answer the Service God had for them to do they were to wait as Christ commanded his Disciples to receive the Promise of the Father And therefore as it was the Practice of the People of God in old time to wait for the Moving of this Spirit that they might speak as it gave them Utterance in the Evidence and Demonstration thereof so do this People called Quakers now Upon which our Adversary dares to observe that we with the Familists deny the Ministration of Christ to be the Ministration of the Spirit and consequently a Blasphemous Derogation from the Honour of our Blessed Saviour who said to his Apostles Joh. 16.14 He shall receive of mine and shew it unto you Answ If our Adversary's Weakness has run him into this strange Parrallel he is to be pittyed but if his Envy he is severely to be rebuked Will any Man that has Sense or Honesty say it is all one to affirm that Christ's Ministration is an Horn-book that time casts off with Infancy and that it is a Waiting to receive the same Spirit Christ commanded his Apostles to wait for as the Promise of the Father and the peculiar Gift and Priviledge of his own Ministration Does not J. Crook expresly draw a Parallel between the Holy Men of God of old and the Quakers of our time that as they then so the Quakers now wait to be taught moved and ordered by the same Eternal Spirit through which all come to be baptized into One Body How was that then no Spiritual Ministration when we desire to be conformed unto the Spirit and Holy Example thereof not making this anew
Impure and Antichristian But what have we Seduced People to Drunkenness Whoredom Perjury Wantonness Idleness or any such Unseemly or Irreligious Practice Let him tell me who of us are less Serious less Moral or worse Livers then we were before But the Truth of the Matter is this Our Way of Devouring Peoples Souls as he calls it is that which hinders the Hireling Pâ—iests from Devouring the Peoples Pockets and endangering their Souls too who teach for Hire and divine for Money and make Religion but a Stalk to Preferment who have the Shell without the Substance the Form without the Power From such in obedience to God's Spirit we have turned away and because we have dared no longer to put into their Mouthes their Covetous Spirit has swelled notwithstanding their Pretences and their Sheep-Skin burst and an arrant Woolf has come forth no true Sheep but a Sheep-Fleecer and a Sheep-Sucker of their Blood whose Innocency and Patience have plainly proved them such But the Wolf and the Fox's Skin have been always good enough for us any thing to disguise and make the Dogs fasten and worry to Death Our Conscience they call Enthusiasm and our solemn Confession Collusion and Equivocation our Perseverance is reputed Obstinacy our Plainness Singularity our Industry Worldly-mindedness and our Retired-Living Penuriousness our Rebukes of Evil they will have to be Censoriousness and our Disregard of Company Pride and Sullenness Whatever God by his Light has made Conscience to us there are a sort of Men that have so little Conscience as to construe it all backwards rendring us instead of Honest Conscientious Men A Pack of Fraudulent Cheating Fellows But we cannot help it if Men will Rage they must Their Shame and our Patience will the more appear He sayes Our Second Stratagem is to bring the People out of Love with their Pastors who have the Care of them Answ I know not a Quaker in the World that would not administer both Food and Rayment to the worst Persecutor as a necessitous Creature But I hope they would suffer unto Death before they would contribute either to him as a Priest No God's Witness in our Consciences never said Amen to their Ministry They have the Scriptures true But the Word of Reconciliation that brings to God and of which they declare they want I know that some of them can talk well so can some Mountebanks And Comedians Do they witness the Truth of what they speak Their Heads know but do their Hearts feel the Operation of That Truth they will sometimes in Words declare Have they travelled the Way and traced the many anxious Steps of that new Birth which is the only Door into the Heavenly Kingdom But alas Oxford and Cambridge make them and their Parents and Patrons prefer them a good round Maintenance is mostly their Aim on all hands Tell them of the Necessity of an Inward Work that it is the Spirit of God that only makes a Man a Minister of God and that the Anointing which true Christian-Men receive is Sufficient to their Instruction and presently the Cry is Donatism Pelagianism Familism Brownism Jesuitism Quakerism or any other Name that begets Jealousie Undervalue and Hatred In short we do believe that the setled Ministers of the World are so far from being Beneficial to People that on the contrary they excercise their minds with a sort of unexperienced unauthoriz'd Preaching from the secret Strivings Discoveries and Leadings of that Spiritual Minister of the Everlasting Covenant which is able to bring Man into that way of Holiness without which no Soul shall ever see the Lord And this is the true reason why we are turned unto God's Minister Christ Jesus who says Learn of me of whom God said this is my beloved Son hear him reject the Ministry of Man Our Third Artifice by which he sayes we gain our Proselytes is decrying all Human Learning Use of Reason That we are the most sottish Ignorant Sect that ever appeared in the World Yet for our own turn we will be nibling at it as G.W. in mentioning a Moth-eaten Manuscript mentioned by Beza in his Annotations Answ We have already said enough to defend Christianity from the absolute Necessity of Human Learning either to understand or vindicate it and so false is his Assertion that since Prophecy has ceased in the Church secular Learning hath been of greatest Use and Benefit to Religion that there is nothing more true then the contrary as it is commonly understood promoted and practised in the World I would fain know how many Rabbies Greek and Latin Philosophers yielded themselves Proselytes to the Christian Religion though they had his Presence Ministry Miracles Death and Resurrection amongst them who was and is the Author and Master of it If such Learning be so great a Friend to Truth How comes it that the greatest things have fallen to the Share of Poor and Illiterate Men And that such have been most apt to receive and boldest to suffer for it Why not Rabbies rather then Fisher-Men which was before the Pouring out of the Spirit of Prophecy And for what Reason should so many learned Academies since the pretended * Ceasing of it be overrun with such Foul Idolatries Gross Superstitions and flagitious Living as 1200 years past will witness Nay on the Occasion of any Reformation with whom is there more to do and who harder to be brought to yield then Universities have been Scripture and Story give it clear against him Not that I would be thought to oppose a Sort of Learning neither It has been Man's Erring from his Divine Guide that has made way for those numerous Theses Distinctions Books and Controversies the World for Ages hath been infested with Such are the Obscure Unintelligible and Unprofitable Metaphysicks of the Heathen too greedily received and mischeiveously increased by Fathers Councils School Men and our modern Universities to the corrupting of Christian Doctrine and disputing away the Benefit of Christian Life An unbounded Curiosity and Phancy have been the Womb that hath brought forth so much troublesom and unprofitable matter which began with a Degeneration of Philosophers True Philosophy in the beginning of it being no more then the Way of Holy Living by the Mortification of Passions But Learning as Religion failing by Corruption of Men is now degenerated into quite another thing Socrates taught proper Speech and good Life and such a Course of Learning turned to daily Practice and Profit severely forbidding all Curiosities and Niceties as what turned not to Good Life which he reputed the best Science And Plato would have the Poets banished out of his Common-Wealth as corrupting it with Fables thus was Learning as Religion once pure and Simple In short all right Learning is to be divided into these two True Knowledge and proper Language This Knowledge relates first to God and that 's only to be received from the Spirit of God and 2 ly the things of this