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 owning or at least their Idol in another dress in managing 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 not the souls or spirits of any men are 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 may be polluted with sin 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 by Christians but Heathens Is there unrighteousness with God who taketh vengeance Godforbid 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 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 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 which he went and preached to the spirits in prison And these were the sinfull and disobedient spirits who provoked God in the dayes â—â— Noah The second Proposition all men will grant except the Quakers who often speak of the seed 〈…〉 captivity by which seed they mean no otheâ— but Christ or God within every man or the ligâ—â— within every man If the spirits or souls of men were God then Gâ—… might be condemned But God cannot so be Therefore The spirits or souls of men are 〈…〉 God That the spirits or souls of men may be so 〈…〉 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 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 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 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 Quaker 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 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 Bunian saith He God is distinct from the Saints and Bunian is deceived who saith he is distinct from the Saints and so you are a company of pityfull Teachers By these expressions he renders not only tâ—… Souls and Spirits of the Saint the same bâ—… with God but their whole man without distinction Again thou makes a great pudder that any 〈…〉 should witness he is equal with God Answ A Catechism of the Assembly of the Priestâ— and put forth to the nation in which they have laid doâ—â— that the holy Ghost and the Son is equal in power anâ— glory with the Father yet if any come but to witnesâ—… 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 Spirits 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 is not that of his being the soul which he hath in his hand and so divine
contempt of a Christ without which John preached and that faith and hope of the Saints which according to the Scripture are the substance of things not seen and the evidence of things hoped for reproached as a slumbring fancy and a nocturnal dream But if you would infallibly be convinced of the gross darkness wherewith this sort of men are benighted or their palpable knavery and impudence in abusing the Holy Scripture weigh the following instance out of the preceding Author Then God sent him John to bear witness to the light which in him was made manifest that all in the light might believe and he called unto others to behold him and said he was the Lamb of God and was to take away the sins of the world and least you should mistake him and guess that a man that could but write his name should not have so little wit or modesty as to expound that text of Scripture after this sort he quotes chapter and verse John 1. 9. and the next word is mark in a parenthesis lest his folly should not appear to all men who should have the hap to read him and moreover at the close of the period after he had made a further blind comment on the text he glories in his shame with a Weigh this truth all ye Priests and Professors and pouder it in your hearts no words big enough to express its madness SECT II. Christianity made its way not only by the truth and purity of its doctrine but also by such and so many signes and wonders wrought before multitudes as were convincing to its most malicious and prejudiced adversaries and that not only by Christ himself but also by his disciples and servants both before and after his death And all bare him witness and wondred at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth Luke 22. 4. but men may speak many good words and yet both say and do at other times bad enough but Christ appeals to the faces of his worst Adversaries If I have spoken evil bear witness of the evil John 18. 23 But if forcible right words would not make way Christ exhorts them to believe for the very works sake and these were not ordinary works or wonders and miracles neither If I had not done among them the works which none other man did they had not had sin And as himself so his servants introduced Christianity with the same holy pomp and state of the Mighty and miraculous works of the Power of God bearing witness to the truth of their doctrine Long time therefore abode they speaking boldly in the Lord which gave Testimony unto the word of his grace and granted signes and wonders to be done by their hands Acts 1. 3. But Quakerism made its way by and began in blasphemies against the Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth whom the Apostles preached by gratifying the pride idleness and giddiness of both Professors and prophane as will appear abundantly in the following discourse and by decrying the Scripture of the Old and New Testament as a dead Letter and altogether useless if not mischievous Your imagined God beyond the Stars a day of calamity will come upon them who have worshipped and do worship an unknown God at a distance and pretend the worship of the true God And if we will not believe the Quakers for their words sake which swell big enough with vanity folly non-sense and errour we are like to continue in the truth still for all them There have been some of them who have been sensible of this defect and have attempted to supply it to the cracking of their credit some to the loss of their lives George Fox hath found a plaister for this sore which I shall produce that you may give your judgement whether it smell more of the Fox or of the Goose Which many prayed by the Spirit and spake by the Spirit did not shew miracles at the Tempters Command though among Believers there be miracles â—n the Spirit which be signes and wonders to the world as Isaiah saith When I reade this I had much ado to keep my self from laughing but the weightiness of my thoughts on this imposture soon helped me to reduce it to a compassionate smile Indeed I think him crafty like the Fox not to venture his carcass in attempting any miracles but in spirit and yet more a Goose to call them signes and wonders to the world which the world never saw nor could have wondred at if George Fox and such as he had not blabbed of them But I must not let pass his fathering his absurdity on the Prophet Isaiah the words he intends must be in Isa 8. 18. Behold I and the Children whom the Lord hath given me are for signes and for wonders in Israel I find not the word Signes any where in that Prophecy he hath a strange spirit of discerning that can find in that Scripture any thing of Miracles wrought in the spirit for indeed they themselves were the wonders that is they were wondred at so may the Quakers well be but in a far worse sense or for a worse cause I may the lesse wonder at George's blodness with Isaiah seeing a great Rabbie of the Quakers hath said that he is as good a Prophet as Isaiah Who would conceive that so blockish a person as this should be the Fore-man and Chief in account among such a number of such singularly discerning spirits as the Quakers but as among wise men the wisest are most highly esteemed so among others the veriest SECT III. Christianity entred into the world with ravishing Songs and Hallelujahs of the Angels and heavenly Host the Songs and Thanksgivings of Mary Elizabeth Zechariah Simeon and others with the healing of all sorts of diseases casting out devils out of the possessed preaching the glad tidings of the Gospel of Peace and what might express the Sun of righteousness to be risen on the World with healing in his wings I need not finde you out the places of Scripture which speak these things But Quakerism entred the world as if Hell were broke loose and possessions by Satan were to make way and fit souls for the Quakers spirit Instead of that serious compunction that seized gross and black sinners upon their conviction and the consolation that was let into their souls by the joyful sound of remission and salvation through a crucified Jesus O the Hell-dark expressions of the Quakers Preachers the frightful and amazing words both for matter and manner wherewith they first attempted poor silly men and women whom they frighted almost out of their wits with their dismal noise whose eccho remained in their ears when their words were forgotten What bitter Curses and Execrations did they poure forth against all that made any opposition though most mildly and rationally against their unheard of innovation what disturbing of Congregations and reviling the most serious and faithful Pastors while those whose faults they have
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 Redeemer But if the ministration of death written and engraven on stones was glorious c. for if the ministration of condemnation be glory c. All these passages express and explain the same 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 and quake and it was death for any to touch the Mountain yea the Israelites were ready to dye with fear at the appearances of God on that Mount Sinai at the giving forth of the Law And as the manner of giving it forth by God so 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 Commandments And the Commandment which was ordained to life I found to be unto death for sin 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 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 punishment of it Thirdly And chiefly the intent and mind of 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 immediate inspiration and at first hand as the Apostles received them SECT I. I Am now come to the highest round of their 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 whose 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 againstus 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 pieces the Brazen Serpent that Moses had made for unto those days the Children of Israel did burn Incense to it and he called it Nehushtan that is Brass nothing of a Deity in it but a little piece of Brass So it were fit the Scriptures should be demolished as having nothing of divine authority stamped upon them When I have established this Charge by the mouths of two or three Witnesses it will be time to leave off pouring in more where the measure is already running over All people may search the Scriptures and see how you have been deceived by your Teachers who have caused you to seek your lost God in carnal and dead observations which they have not any Scripture for Who this lost God should be except Jesus Christ who is ascended above the visible Heavens is not to be imagined by those who are acquainted with the Quakers Tenets and Phrases as will appear more plainly where I treat on their Idolatry and if so as there is reason to believe there are two grand parts of Idolatry we are charged with in complying with the Scripture Precepts and Institutions as in Preaching Prayer Church-order Baptism Lords-supper The first is a false object of worship which all of them that ever I met with in print or otherwise will not deny that to be which is given to the man Christ Jesus who was crucified between two Thieves at Jerusalem The second is false worship for the matter which is Idolatry although it were intended to the true God as the object the sacrificing of Children was intended ultimately to the true God yet it was gross Idolatry And they have built the high places of Tophet which is in the Valley of the son of Hinnom to burn their Sons and Daughters in the fire which I commanded them not neither came it into my heart But you will say how is this charge for walking according to Scripture instructions and examples seeing he doth expressly exhort to trying by the Scriptures whether they do not thus I answer that they take not any thing in the Scripture to be obliging but what comes by immediate inspiration as the Scriptures were given to the Prophets and Apostles and whatever we do however consonant to the precepts there expressed is all contrary to the Scriptures with them as I have proved already if not by immediate inspiration and motion of the Spirit If this be not clear we shall pump clear by and by And this is Babylon the mother of Harlots viz. to read and practice as the Saints did and the Apostles in the Scripture of the New Testament and the abomination of all uncleanness That many Children have been brought forth of flesh and blood and of the will of man that is our choice and not passive obedience to the motions of the thing within which is the birth that persecutes the son and heir And not one of them must stand though ever so seemingly glorious for the day is come and the true birth is
Heb. 8. 10. And Circumcision the sign of the Covenant is called the Covenant also Gen. 17. 13. He that is born in thy house and he that is bought with thy money must need be circumcised and my Covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting Covenant Moreover Baptism with water is Baptism in a proper sense Baptism of or with the Spirit but analogically so called as having in it something a likeness to or proportion with it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies washing with water dipping into water properly that of the Spirit washing the soul but improperly for freeing it from sinfull pollutions I hope none of you believe a soul can be rinsed or dipped Beside in Water-Baptism which is proper the body being dipt or washed or any part of it the flesh is put into the water but the soul is not dipt or put into the Spirit Therefore this Objection is a meer fancy and they that will contemn the Deeds and Seal because they are Paper and Ink and Wax and cast them away may lose Land and all for their contempt and then they will pay for and repent of their folly Another ground for denying it is it was not laid on the Apostle of necessity but as they found it of service or dis-service This is to be understood only of Paul who in his call which was out of duâ— time and in an extraordinary manner had not this of Baptizing mentioned as the rest had therefore he said Christ sent me not to baptize but to preach the Gospel Yet he did baptize therefore it was an Ordinance and that he baptized so few in that Countrey it was rather providential than designed by Paul for he being so famous an instrument of converting the Gentiles they began to cry him up as if he had not been Christs Minister but rather his Competitor and therefore he thanks God he baptized no more lest they should have said he baptized in his own name But though he did not baptize there might be enough beside for that work and we read not of one that omitted it when they understood of the Ordinance and had any to administer it to them Object It was to confer the holy Ghost That was but one consequence but not what Baptism signified beside the giving the holy Ghost was of a miraculous nature for the confirmation of the Disciples in the newness of the Christian Religion and conviction of others and the friends of Cornelius had the holy Ghost before Baptism Object None were called to baptize but those that were sent to preach to all Nations Answ Ananias baptized Paul yet was not so sent The ends of Baptism which was a sign of what interest they had in Christ and of Regeneration and the righteousness of faith remain and therefore that remains to be dispensed by the ordinary aâ—…mediate Officers of the Church who are stewards of the mysteries of God of which this is one It being also a cognizance of Christianity there is the same reason for it and it is in vain to talk of Ordinances abolished without some proof when and why they are so Nailor saith Paul preached the Baptism of the Spirit in its stead Let that be proved and something is said But John Higgins saith That Water-Baptism was but the administration of John is known and confessed I say no more to him but I perceive he is but little acquainted with Confessions I must bring in the sentence of the great Patriarch George Fox to decide all for after his words 't is not fit any of his inferiours should speak again Where was Matthew or Mark or Luke or John baptized and many more which the Apostle Paul thanked God he had not baptized Baptizing is making Disciples to the Lord Jesus and baptizing them into his name thatis his power but he Paul told of the Spirits Baptism and brought the Saints off from the things that are seen and Water is seen and its Baptism Strange arguments as if the command and abundant instances of its practice had no force unless we have an account where every believer was baptized and because Paul did not baptize all therefore they were not baptized at all But for Baptism being a making Disciples if it be understood of Water-Baptism it will be no small friend to Infant-Baptism if of the Baptism of the Spirit I suppose George Fox will eat his words again and acknowledge that the Apostles had not power to bestow the Spirit of God on persons and make them new creatures that was the mistake of Simon Magus and now of George Fox But the last argument is such an one as never offered it self to such a service till the Quakers light which they say is almighty had the management of it and so may make an effectual instrument of any thing Paul brought the Saints off from the things that are seen and Water is seen and its Baptism He that shall look into the Text to which his words refer will admire his sharp-piercing genius or his non-such ignorance that could find such a meaning of that Text or tell the world it was there But if all that is seen must be cast away and rejected I counsel the Quakers not to be such eager pursuers of the world and that I dare ground upon the Text but above all to reject their proud dreaming intollerable notions the ignorance and delusion of which is so gross that it is not only seen but may be felt also But for all this the Quakers will affirm they own Baptism and believe that George Fox is sent of God because he speaks of the Scripture right as they are SECT VII The Quakers disown the Ordinance of the Lords Supper to be now a Gospel-Ordinance or any Ordinance of God at all As of Baptism so of the Lords Supper they will say they own it at least many of them but they call quite another thing by that name which is the way they have to delude people in all other matters of the Christian Religion If what the Apostle Paul saith he received of the Lord 1 Cor. 11. 23. do express the true Lords Supper the Quakers deny it Feeding upon the husk and shadow which is carnal For the Bread which the world all that are not Quakers breaks is natural and carnal so also the Cup which they drink and here is no communion but natural outward and carnal They Bread and Wine in the Lords Supper are the Popes invention The Priest gives it to the people and tells them it is the Bloud of Christ which is shed for them when it is Wine and not Bloud I will not trouble thee with so an unnecessary a thing as a reply to these silly cavils and plain contradictions to the Scripture The main Objection the Quakers have against this Ordinance beside that against all forms and all things that are seen is That Christ
garment Christ but that which appeared and dwelt in the body They do not deny That there was such a man as 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 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 summe 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 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 untill 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 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 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 he should not see death before he had seen the Lords Christ And he came by the spirit into 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 lettest 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 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 spake 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 witnesses Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly 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 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 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 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 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 desired they Pilate that he should be slain and when he had fulfilled all that was written of him
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 to commom the whole Creation for of him are all things the other is peculiar to the blessed Creator Magnus Byne saith the Soul is not infinite in it self but 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 its 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 its 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 nonsense of this passage out of the mouths or pens of any but the Quakers he may be reckoned a great discovereâ— But this is received by those poor deluded souls as infallibly true and a 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 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 affections and that pleaded for after their wild manner that they hold the Soul of Man to be God a part 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 tâ—â— mouths of many I shall cite yet more of their that none may think it is but one Qualâ—… though G. F. may stand for a thousand who is prodigiously wicked And whereas you Querie whether the said Spirâ—… the Spirit of man is mortal or immortal I answer it is immortal and neither mortal 〈…〉 corruptible but the immortal and incorruptible sâ—… of God even something of the living word which 〈…〉 said to be made flesh What the word is that was made flesh John saitâ— was God 1. John 1. That which the Lord from Heaven begetteth of his own 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 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 the spirit of man to be but one and the same thing but sometimes 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 As to the Spirit of man which concurs 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 own life this Spirit of man is that living principle of the divine nature which man did before his degeneration and shall again 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 for the work I have done will render it not very 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 accordingâ—â— their professed principles the light within every man the Souls and Spirits of any men as God worship a fâ—lâ—â— 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 them for if we should we should set the Devil in the râ—â—â— of God and give unto him that which is dâ—oâ—… God So that to those who are Quakers and have the birth of the light within the noble and gentâ—â— seed as they call it to them with respect to that they may bow And withall he tellâ— 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 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 outward worship 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 carkasses
the power of God vvhich 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 vvill not hear Moses and the Prophets neither vvill 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 set free from corruption and made able to escape the pollutions of the World and to run the pare vvayes vvith delight vvhich is the glorious 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 intollerable and shut the door against Proselytes 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 raise up that vvhich Adam lost and to destroy him vvho 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 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 layd 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 greattest 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 vvith 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 speakhis mind plainly in this matter did affirm That he did not believe that his Body should rise again after its Death I never knew any of them affirm the Resurrection of the Body intending there by the Body which is such in a proper sense and common acceptation I have often discoursed them about it and when I have proposed the question so plainly that they had no room to evade by their allegories their answers have been Thou art upon the Catch we shall not answer thee Or Flesh and Blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God Sometimes with that in Job If a Man die shall he live again and as the Beast dieth so dieth Man But when all their Arguments are answered which they think are lodged in these Scriptures their last refuge is their false interpretation of 15. Cor. 38. God giveth it a Body as it pleaseth him Who will doubt but that such who will not give a plain answer yea or nay when questioned about the Resurrection of the Dead but instead thereof produce all those Texts which to them seems to deny the Resurrection I say who will doubt that such do deny the Resurrection of the Dead before I discharge this subject I shall answer their Cavils about this point prove the truth and give some inferences from their corrupt wicked Religion and foul destroying Tenet First their Cavil from that Scripture 1 Cor 15. 50. Flesh and Blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God By Flesh and Blood here is to be understood Corruptible flesh and blood which is clear from the consideration of the following words neither doth corruption inherit incorruption compare this with ver 42. it is sown in corruption it is raised in incorruption and ver 49. and as we have born the Image of the Earth so also we shall bear the Image of the Heavenly So that it is still the same body only with the Change to spiritual and incorruptible For that in Job if a Man die shall he live again the meaning can be no more than this if Job understood himself he shall not live again in this world and in that state in which he liveth before death which is plain from what he most confidently affirms Job 19. 26 27. And though after my skin Worms destroy this body yet in my flesh shall I see God whom I shall see for my self and mine eyes shall behold and not another though my Reins be consumed within me And it is remarkable that God whom he here speaks of seeing is intended by him Christ the Redeemer who shall stand at the latter day upon the Earth verse 25. for that in Ecclesiastes 3. 19. As the one dieth so dieth the other It is expounded in the next verse all go unto one place all are of the dust and all turn to dust again But this doth not at all oppose Mans Resurrection out of his dust again But that silly evasion which is very frequent with them but God giveth
spirit of the Quakers c. 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 Kingdome 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 frequently their saying That if we are not perfect here we shall never be perfect It is easily deduceable from their more openly professed 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. Boroughs the day he dyed expressed himself thus that he was now putting of 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. e. 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 another 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 influenne of Christs transactions in Judaea 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 worshiping 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 W. PEN'S Pamphlet CALLED The Spirit of Truth With a Rebuke of his Exorbitances SECT I. WHiles I was writing this Book I met with a Pamphlet of William Pen's intituled The Spirit of Truth vindicated against that of Error 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 resented it as one of the best and most ingeniously managed and beyond all material and just exceptions at least by the Quakers that ever I read against that sort of people But reading Pens Answer and finding his Epistle giving such a Character of his Adversaries Book and himself for malice lameness trifling and what not that might render it and him wicked 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 diligently But for P.'s sake I shall believe it more than possible that a man of the highest pretences having some more than ordinary means to deal rightly and ingeniously may yet so far deceive my expectations as to give the highest contradictions to them all I am altogether ignorant of the name or person of the Author of the Piece opposed by Pen and if he be a Socinian as Pen affirms I shall be far enough from vindicating him therein but for the Piece it self wherein Pen saith he could find neither head nor tail I will sell my eyes and brains for two pence if it deserve so contemptible a Character And for the Answerer Pen if he were not furnished with fore-head and tales beyond measure his Pamphlet would have had nothing remarkable in it I expecting next his Epistle and Preface an orderly combating his Adversaries Charge I find him taking up his Post in the Quakers conceited strong hold of the infallible guidance of the Spirit of God afforded to his people exclusive of any other means In the debating of which he roams and tosses to and fro like a man in a confused troubled dream for above thirty pages His pretences therein lying athwart my present work I thought meet to give some account of his Forces especially considering him to be a man of noise and no small prop◠to the Quakers cause in their own esteem His Question which he pretends to include the Quakers strength and which he saith he is resolved to stand by as such he states in these words SECT II. The Question stated Whether Gods holy and unerring Spirit is or should be the proper Judge of Truth Rule of Faith and Guide of Life among men especially under the administration of the blessed Gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ or not I affirm it and proceed to prove it by Scripture and Reason Considering his words foregoing which are too many and too worthless to transcribe and what he aims at in the handling of this Question I never read one so lame and deformed in my life come forth with such state and confidence and such a train or rout of mediums as deformed as it self There is in it neither Logick nor Honesty Certainly if he had not turned Quaker and in that fall put all out of joynt he could not likely after so good Nursing have been thus lamentably crepled in his Intellects and somewhat besides First of all here is a fallacy à bene divisis ad malè conjuncta many Questions confounded together Secondly no explanation of the terms most or all of which are metaphorical or amphibious and in that part especially affirmed the greatest ambiguity of all Vt quisque est lingua nequior Solvant ligantque quaestionum vincula Per syllogismos plectiles He tells us indeed pag. 37. that there is no more difference to him between a judge rule and guide than essentially there can be in the wisdom justice and holiness of God he should have added nor between truth faith and life
them or that are gathered from the written Word or pretended to be so Baptism Not any thing by Water but the Spirit i. e. the Quakers Spirit to an obedience and devotedness to the light within and inspirations and immediate teachings Blasphemy To speak against the light within every man to be Christ and God and what they hold it to be Blind Not to acknowledge the light within to be Christ not to know by immediate inspiration The Blood of Christ The life of Christ i. e. the power of the light in them The spiritual Blood which they say came down from Heaven and was part of a spiritual Body which Christ brought with him from thence which dwelt for a while in the man Jesus who died at Jerusalem Salvation puririfying reconciling by the Blood of Christ Not by the Blood of Christ shed on the Cross but by the Blood of the spiritual Body of flesh blood and bones which they say Christ descended in which is in every Quaker as really as in the man that was the Son of Mary and so salvation is by no other blood but what is in themselves The Body of Christ Not that which was crucified without the Gates of Jerusalem in Judea but the spiritual Body aforesaid which they say took up its Habitation and Tabernacled in the Body of Jesus the Son of Mary and so the Body of Christ is as much in them as it was in him Bondage Not only our selves in bondage to sin but the light within the seed of God or Christ being in bondage under the disobedience of men Born again Regeneration Perfect Obedience to the light within as Christ and God Comprehending Brain A large understanding oâ— a desire of Knowledge by the use of the rational Faculty C. Gall. The motions of the Light Christ in the Conscience Christ Not the man Christ Jesus the Son of Mary which the Godhead assumed and united to its self in one person but the light within every man a Christ that had nothing of Adams Nature whose Body now in being was not Created or had a beginning in time which was never visible to the bodily eye   Not in any respect distinct from God the Father and God the Holy Ghost Christ in the Saints Not Christ without them an Object of the faith and love within them but his very Being his Divinity his Soul and his Body consisting of spiritual Flesh Blood and Bones not his Image and likeness but the self-same in his Being and Essence Christs coming In the Spirit or his spiritual coming into his People i. e. no other but the prevailing motions of the light within or by inspiration The Command in Spirit By immediate inspiration and motion Comprehension Fleshly Comprehensions That Opinion or Belief which is grounded on a rational demonstration though from the Written Word of God Carnal All things of a religious concern which we are not enlightned about and moved to by immediate inspiration yea whatever hath a form or is visible to the bodily Eye Fleshly Conceivings Those Opinions or expressions whose beginning and birth are in the humane faculties very great weakness if not â—in and unbelief contrary to the assured and undoubted dictates of the infallible light and Spirit within them Condemnation The reproofs and sentencings of the light in the Conscience Conversion A full obedience to the light in the Conscience a total freedom from the prevailing of any sin such a state as the Disciples of Christ had not attained when Christ was crucified nor Paul when he wrote the Epistle to the Romans Crucifying of Christ Not that crucifying on the Cross of wood but a crucifying within us by disobedience to the light in our Consciences  A strange merit and purchase of Salvation and way of pacifying the wrath of God for sin D. Damnation Being condemnd within by the light in the Conscience the terror affliction arising from thence but nothing of a pain of sense after the body is dead and turned to dust Darkness Not acknowledging the light in every man to be Christ and being guided by its immediate teachings as the only and all-sufficient rule Death of Christ The light within not obeyed The dead Body The Body living in sin Disciples of Christ No other but those who submit to the light within and follow only its dictates E. Election Christ the sâ—ed not the persons of men and women Vulturous-Eye The understanding faculty piercing into and earnestly seeking after Divine Knowledge F. Faith A believing in the light within Righteousness of Faith Those acts of Obedience performed by themselves in their own bodies conformable to the dictates of the light within and in the Faith of its being Christ and the Rule Teaching or doing falsly When not from the immediate motions and teachings of the light within though what is taught be in its self true and what is done be in its self good False Prophets All that are called by men however qualified otherwise all that teach from or out of the Scriptures and not from immediate inspiration as the Prophets and Apostles by whom the Scriptures were penned False Witnesses All who speak not from inspiration and inward meerly divine motions and experience not what they affirm in themselves Flesh Whatever is not from the light within originally and immediately Wisdom of the Flesh All Wisdom attained by industry Denying Christ come in the Flesh Denying Christ come in the Flesh of Joseph John Sarah or any other who are Quakers Christ come in the Flesh Come in their Flesh The Flesh of Christ The spiritual Flesh that descended from Heaven not the Flesh that lay buried in the Sepulchre after death The Fold of Christ Christ himself Following Christ Obedience to the Light within The Friends Friends All professed Quakers The will of the Flesh All that is chosen by man though he be thereto disposed by the will of God revealed in the Scripture G. Preaching for Gain Receiving any thing as the reward of preaching the Gospel State of Glory The State of Peace and Joy resulting from the witness of the light within in this life GOD. Father Son and Holy Ghost without distinction the light within every man the spirit of the Quakers every one of them the soul the seed and much more that he is not Foundation of God The light within and the inspirations and motions of it The Gospel Christ the light within not the written word or the sense of it as a narrative of the good will of God to men in Christ H. Handled the Word of Life Not as the Apostles who handled the Body of Christ but feeling by a spiritual sensation the motions of the light within or the Christ within them Hearing the Gospel or Word Listening to and obeying the light within Heaven Not the place where the man Christ is above or beyond the visible skies but the happiness they have within them  I could never yet hear or read them mention any other
Heaven to be injoyed by them as distinct persons but what they have within them in this world Hell The present torment and loss within Preaching for Hire Hirelings To have provision for the outward man as a maintenance or reward for preaching though no bargain be made yea though such who receive it would preach if they had never a penny reward in this world from those they preach to Holiness Obedience to the light within and that without any failing The womans Husband at home Christ the light in the conscience I. Idolatry Often for worshipping the man Christ Jesus who is at the right hand of God above or beyond the stars and visible Heavens taking the examples of the Saints and Churches in the Scripture recorded and doing likewise JESVS The light within the Word in the beginning not the Son of Mary who was made or created The Imaginations All conclusions how demonstrable soever which accord not with their Tenets or are not by immediate inspiration Inchantments Bewitchings A being perswaded and established by reason and Scripture but especially if humane arts or sciences have any hand in it Infidels All that obey not or do not place their salvation in the light within Workers of Iniquity All that live not without sinning against God The Judgment day of Judgment Sin being judged in the conscience by the light within in this life Justification Christ the light within obeyed K. Kingdom of God The rule and government of the light within and the peace and joy arising from thence Carnal knowledge All knowledge but what comes by the immediate inspiration of the light within L. The Law Christ the light within the law written in the heart Leadings in Spirit The motions of the light within immediate inspirations and teachings The Life Christ the light within The life of Christ The prevalency of the light within Eternal Life Being taken into God Saved by the Life of Christ A being saved by the prevalency of the light in the conscience The Letter The dead Letter The Letter that killeth The Scriptures or written Word A Lye Lying What is spoken though true in it self if not from immediate teaching or the light within The Light within Christ God Father Son Spirit the seed of Abraham and David according to the flesh Jesus the only Saviour The Law the Testimony The Gospel the Prophets The Advocate Righteousness Sanctification Justification The only Rule Guide Teacher Judge the Way the only way to the Father The Truth the Life The Power of God the Eternal God God Almighty that which pardons and conquers sin the Judgment the Lamb of God that is slain from the beginning the Word in the beginning the Creator of all things the end of all Books Laws and abundance more than can be crowded into many Pages The Lust All desires that accord not to the light within and proceed not from thence M. The Man Christ The Spiritual Body of Flesh Blood and Bones which they say descended from Heaven and dwelt in the Body of the Son of Mary and doth also now in every Quaker Cease from man do not bear man What the Faculties of Man have any hand in either by inventing working or expressing all that comes not purely from the light within Measure of God of Christ of the Spirit That degree of the power and inspirations of the light within  Something more or less of the very being and Essence of God the Father Son Spirit Meditate Not pondering or exercising the judgment and understanding on holy and divine Objects but a stilness and emptiness of all thoughts attending for the immediate impulses suggestions inspirations and motions of the light within In the Meekness In the light within Christ which is meekness in the abstract and between whom and their spirits there is no distinction Ministers of the everlasting Gospel Both men and women Ministers among the Quakers who declare from immediate inspiration not from the Letter of the Scripture Ministers of Antichrist Babylon Idol-Shepherds All such who have a mediate call from man or preach from the Letter of the Scripture Ministration of the Spirit The immediate teachings and motions of the Spirit exclusive of all forms in worship the will though sanctified in chusing and all premeditation and acting by the prescription of the written word Miracles Sometimes Miracles in Spirit invisible to bodily senses or humane understanding The Star of the Morning the Morning of the first day Christ the light within Moved by the Holy Ghost An inward immediate impulse of the light and power within From the Mouth of God Immediate teachings from the light within excluding all other Mysteries of the Kingdom Mysteries of God Such things as the faculties of man have no power to understand or express no not from or by the Scripture such things as are only sensated in the experience An allegorizing the Scripture N. Natural man Every man that is not a Quaker The natural man Every thing in man which is distinct from God or the light within The New man Christ the light within considered essentially They did by Nature the things contained in the Law By the new Nature which is Christ the light contained in the Law within the heart which is also Christ the light O. Obedience of Christ What is done by men by the power life and strength of of the light within them Obedience in Spirit Wrought by immediate impulses of the Spirit The Kingdom of God cometh not with observation The light within and its prevalencie which they call and that only the Kingdom of God is not obtained any way by the study or consideration of the Scripture or any thing without us Observers of times Such as keep any certain days as separated to holy use as the Lords-day or such as propose an hour or two to be spent in the Worship and Ordinances of God or any time with limitation Christ the Offering The light within Offering up of Christ The light within disobeyed or contesting with the lusts yea or the right reason of men Officers of the Church Invisible Officers and Overseers who do all their work in Spirit Gods Off-spring A part and measure of the very being of God continuing to be in a degree as good and divine as God himself  The Souls and Spirits at least of the Quakers which they say came out of God The Old man All that is disobedient or not conformable to their light within One-ness with God Christ Spirit Not relative nor by love or faith or mystical Membership but such an one-ness as leaves no room for distinction between God Christ the Spirit and such whom they say are one with Christ Openings of Life Springings of of Life Sudden workings to action or impressions on the mind and affections proceeding from within of their own accord and motion Overcome by the Blood of the Lamb and the Word of his Testimony All amounts but to an obedience to the light within which Smith
by the Quakers at the cheap rate of accepting though poyson taken into the Body and delusions into the Soul are ever dear and costly But to the unwillingly mistaken among the people called Quakers and such whose inclinations are towards their Principles and Practices known by the name of Quakerism I do solemnly profess That I have the witness of God and my own Conscience that I heartily desire the welfare and Salvation of all sorts of men whatever notions they fall under and however disobliging in their carriages towards me in particular And although I hope I shall not justifie the Opinions called Quakerism till I dye yet I am perswaded there are many called Quakers whom the Lord will turn from their way which is not Christs and sanctifie them by his Spirit and justifie them through his Grace by Jesus Christ even that Christ who as God is every where and as Man is ascended above the visible Heavens and Skies If sincere protestations of my righteousness and sincerity in this matter and the verity of what I have written would prevail with you my Spirit is clear and I doubt not but my Pen might be as serviceable to it as some of those whose interest is too great in you Yea I know not that suffering I might embrace without sinning against God but for Christ sake and yours I should not long to be baptized with I beg of you in the bowels of a Christian that you would not slight the Truth and Scripture-evidence here presented to your view The Quakers have no Miracles to bind you to their perswasion and sure the Truths contained in the Scripture and right reason may match all other visible demonstrations You venture hard to Father all your Opinions on the immediate inspirations and your affections and practices on the motions of that Spirit who is God which if it prove to be otherwise which will be as certainly as God is Truth your early repentance may be accepted but your late repentance will make little for your comfort I would not then be in your condition for more Worlds than there are Stars in the Firmament I beseech you do not think that God hath given you the reason of men to be serviceable to you only in the affairs of this world and not to be exercised at all in discerning truth from error good from evil of a Spiritual and Religious nature The new creature is the creature renewed that is Body Soul and Spirit so enlightned as to know God in Christ so sanctified as to be devoted to him in whatever service he shall command and to make a Heaven of nothing on this side the full Vision and enjoyment of his favour and glorious presence in the other world or the world to come and what will necessarily result from thence If you think me too smart in some passages in the Book be pleased to consider if against Persons it is against those your misleaders who are to be blamed at a sharper rate than good Eli chid his Sons and was therefore rebuked by God to the breaking his heart his neck and the loss of a great priviledge besides if against sayings or opinions I have fully proved them gross falshoods foolish and pernicious lusts and errors and I know not how to call gall and poyson by sweet and lovely names I must alter my stile according to the matter and occasion or they would agree like Harp and Harrow and I assure you it is neither my conscience duty nor design to commend their Opinions to the world Do not say I intend hereby your persecution for it is far from my principle and natural temper also and I know nothing that men who are your Adversaries can do more to promote your Tenets and Party though suffering without further evidences of truth as the cause is a poor foundation of Religion Your Souls Servant JOHN FALDO November 23. 1672. THE CONTENTS PART I. Chap. I. QVakerism affirmed to be no Christianity The tearms Quakerism Christianity Quaker Christian explained What Christianity is strictly considered and distinguished from Heathenism Judaism or any other character of Religion Chap. II. The beginning of Quakerism compared with the beginning of Christianity with respect to the manner and with respect to the time of its beginning from both Quakerism proved to be no Christianity or not the Christian administration Chap. III. Proving the Quakers denying the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be the word of God that the intent is more than a meer verbal matter that this is the gate and inlet of their other errors the grounds of their denying it to be the word of God all of which are examined and refuted the definition of a word and the Scriptures proved to be the word of God of that species contended about more properly than Christ the Son of God is the word of God the Scripture proved to be the word of God by its own undeniable evidence where it cannot be understood of any other than the written word denying the Scripture to be the word of God proved a denying of the Scripture the titles the Quakers give to the Scriptures examined and proved though taken altogether to come short of a fit and distinct character of the Scriptures the ends and necessity of the Quakers denying the Scripture this title for the support of their other fancies The sense we take the Scripture to be the word of God in the written word proved to be the word of God Chap. IV. The Quakers equal their own writings and sayings with the word of God and prefer them before the word of God So to do proved a denying the Scripture that they do so proved by their pretending them infallible that they speak and write by immediate inspiration that the Spirit of God dwells in them essentially and in all his divine properties and Christ speaks out of them as through a Trunk Proved by the characters they give of their own writings and sayings beyond and excelling the characters afforded by them to the holy Scriptures Infallibility explained the Quakers infallibility confuted by divers mediums their immediate inspiration considered and confuted the woful and absurd consequences of this error the Papists foundations of their orders and grossest absurdities and the foundation of the Quakers Religion proved to be the same thing and instances given on both sides viz. contempt of the Scripture as insufficient infallibility and immediate revelations and divine inspirations the Quakers proved to have the blackest marks of Antichrist upon them Chap. V. The Quakers deny the Scriptures to be a rule of faith and life or a Judge and determiner in religious controversies This charge proved to be a denying the Scriptures That charge it self proved Herein they agree with the Jesuites That whatever is by the Lord affirmed in the Scripture ought to be believed That what is there in commanded and not repealed ought to be obeyed That the holy Scriptures do in their kind determine
controversies of a Religious concern That the Teachings motions and determinations of the Spirit of God by the Scripture are more suitable to the nature and present condition of man and more certain to his knowledge than any immediate teachings which any enjoy in our days The consequence of this error Chap. VI. The Quakers take men off from reading the Scriptures and looking into them for instruction and comfort The charge proved 1. directly 2. by their affirming the light within every man alsufficient as a Teacher 3. by their affirming the Scripture to be within 4. by their affirming the Scriptures to have no light in them each of these confuted and explained in their order Chap. VII The Quakers affirm the doctrines commands promises holy examples expressed in the Scriptures as such not to be at all binding to us That this is a denying of the Scripture proved That they are guilty of the charge proved and their error confuted That we are to follow the good examples there expressed proved and the manner how that we may not sin on that hand The ill consequences of the error charged on the Quakers Chap. VIII That the Quakers deny the Scriptures to be any means by which we may come to know God Christ or our selves proved and confuted in their order The wicked absurd consequences of this error Chap. IX The Quakers affirm the Scriptures to be no means whereby to resist temptation and that they are dangerous to be read The charge proved and that it is a denying of the Scriptures William Pen rebuked for asserting this falshood Chap. X. The Quakers deny the Scriptures to be read to any profit farther than they are beforehand experienced by those that read them Chap. XI They render the Spirit of God and the letter of the Scriptures in direct opposition each to other Chap. XII The Quakers hold it to be a sin and the sin of Idolatry to believe and live according to the instructions and examples expressed by the Letter of the Scriptures except we have them by immediate revelation or inspiration and at first hand as the Apostles received them PART II. Chap. XIII The Quakers deny and subvert all the Ordinances of the Gospel An apologie for and account of Gospel Ordinances as such The Quakers proved to deny Gospel Ordinances in general That they deny and subvert the Gospel Ministry proved the grounds of their denying the Ministry because mediate preaching out of the Scriptures taking maintenance studying for their Sermons that none can speak the truth truly but from immediate revelation All these grounds overthrown in their order They deny a Gospel Church what Church they own and what Ministry what a Gospel Church is and to what ends Chap. XIV The Quakers deny the Ordinance of hearing the Word preached They disown Gospel Prayer In their Families and at Meals altogether Pray in publick not ministerially Deny premeditated Prayer Owne no Prayer but what is by immediate inspiration and motion They pray not in the name of Christ or any Mediator All these proved and refuted in their places The Quakers deny reading and meditating in the Scriptures An apologie for positive or sacramental Ordinances The Quakers deny all Water-Baptism What Baptism they owne The grounds on which they deny Baptism considered and refuted They deny the Lords Supper to be now an Ordinance The grounds of their denial An account of their ridiculous fancies which they call the Lords Supper Chap. XV. The Quakers deny the transactions of Christ when manifested in the flesh 1600 years since and what he doth now at the right hand of God in Heaven to have any influence into our justification and salvation The influence of Christs active and passive obedience considered and objections answered What the righteousness is that the Quakers are as they say justified by and ascribe salvation to Chap. XVI The Quakers disown and deny the Christ of God and set up a false Christ in his room and stead and attribute all that to their false Christ which is due to the true Christ These abundantly proved What Christ they owne as God and as man Those Texts of Scripture on which they chiefly build their great delusion opened largely and discharged the Quakers service Ch. XVII The Quakers are gross Idolaters Quakerism gross Idolatry Abundantly proved by their owning false Gods viz. The Light in every man the Souls of men and the Spirits of men These Charges abundantly proved and that these are no Gods proved plainly The Quakers proved to worship and that according to their own professed principles false Gods Chap. XVIII The Quakers deny the resurrection of the dead Their Evasions discovered Their Objections answered The consequences of their errour Chap. XIX The Quakers do not profess a future reward after the dissolution of the frame of soul and body but are as to that either deeply silent or imply their contempt of such a belief PART III. An Examination of William Pen's Spirit of truth c. wherein his Arguments for the Spirit of God's being in his people essentially and so teaching them immediately as is exclusive of all other teachings their infallibility as the result of such a Proposition and teachings considered and confuted and the unparallel'd vanity and folly of William Pen discovered The Doctrine of immediate inspirations considered more especially and largely the Characters given of Apostolical persons distinguishing them from all others since Christs administration Characters distinguishing the inspiration of the Apostles which gave authority divine to the Scripture from the highest illuminations of the Saints as such in our days A Key to the Quakers new coin'd Phrases and also to their meanings of such Scripture and religious phrases as are commonly used by the Orthodox The Conclusion wherein is shewed that the Quakers contemn all rational demonstration and make their experience and inward sensation the only demonstration to themselves of the principles they hold Scriptures opened in the First Part. Book Ch. Ver. Pag. Words Deut. 5 32 17 The word is nigh thee c. Job 26 13 14 74 By his Spirit he hath c. John 4 23 64 Worship the Father in c. John 14 6 97 I am the way c. Acts. 24 16 71 Conscience void of offence c. 1 Cor. 3 6 122 The Spirit of God dwelleth c 2 Thes 2 4 64 Sitteth in the Temple of c. 2 Tim. 3 15 103 And that from a Child c. 1 John 2 22 64 Antichrist that denyeth c. 1 John 2 27 62 But the anointing c. In the Second Part. Job 23 4 29 I would order my cause c. Psal 85 9 10 11. 58 Mercy and truth are not c. Jer. 5 2 14 Liveth surely they swear c. Mat. 6 11 24 Give us this day our daily c. JOHN 1 9 84 THAT WAS THE TRVE LIGHT c. Rom. 10 8 94 The word is nigh the c. Rom. 5 14 21 Nevertheless Death reigned c
Charge of Fanaticism among us You may finde the Doctor as good as his word in the following Pages St. Francis is said by Bonaventâ—re a canonizâ—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 hence forward 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 Isa Let us cite a little of the doctrine and phrases some 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 endlessely 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 beeloâ—ed in Jesu with the blessed soul of Christ resting in the Godhead for into the time that it the soul is in the full â—ights we may not be all holy The only proper disposition towards the receiving supernatural Irradiations from Gods Holy Spirit is an Abstraction of life a sequestration from all businesse 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 God only by the most pure and intime affections of the Spirit what possibility of illusion or errour can there be to such a soul In which passive unions God after a wonderful and unconceivable manner affords them interior 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 do Yea so far is the soul from reâ—ecting 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 Gride and Director of an internal and contemplative life Râ—ynaldus tells of Norius the father of the Oratorians out of Baciâ—s the Writer of his life that he was so offended with the smell 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 from 1 John 2. 27. But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you and ye need not that a y 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 he 26. ver These things have I written to you conâ—erning 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 Majâ— in the Gr. it may be rendred in any Gender These Considerations duely weighed if there 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 only unscriptural but also idolatrous while in the mean time they plant and â—…ug 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 snare most dangerous The Apostle speaks of more Antichrists then one 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. ver 22. Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ he is Antichrist that denieth the Father and the Son That you who are called Quakers deny Jesus to be the Christ I prove at large in a Chapter by its self that you deny the Father and the Son is no less true of you who will admit no distinction between the Father and the Son so that the Father is with you as much the Son of the Father as the Son is the Son of the Father and the Son is as much the Father with you of the Son as the Father is the Father of the Son that by destroying these distinctions you destroy the relation of Father and Son in the Godhead which the Scripture speaks of so plainly and it is hereby apparent that
c. by the Scriptures and they that cleave to the Scripture teaching by the Spirit have forsaken the Spirit of God and his teachings we would owne our such profession to be a denying the Scriptures yea should take our selves bound in so many words to deny it and send it as far out of the way as may be as dangerous to the just prerogative of the Spirit of God And if those who profess what I shall instance and produce for proof to be truth had any honesty in them they would tell the world they utterly deny the Scriptures to be what the Christian world hath accounted them and in plain and open words and testimonies as far as they can produce exhort and move them to lay them aside and have no more to do with them nor give them one good word lest the adversary to the Spirit should in the hearts and lives of men be exalted against him For the proving of the Charge at the head of this Chapter take the words of James Naylor the Quakers proto-Confessor For all the Saints have their commands in Spirit but yours is in the Letter and so of another ministration for the literal ministration is done away in the spiritual Here you have the commands in Spirit or by the Spirit put in opposition to the Letter which is the written Word or the Scripture and so far in opposition that as heat being opposite to coldness and light to darkness the one so far as it prevails expelleth the other by its contrariety and opposite qualities so the spiritual ministration or ministration of the Spirit banishes and expelleth that of the Letter as its enemy and contrary But if you will have a prodigious instance a nonsuch for Blaspheming the Spirit of God in the Scriptures read what follows out of a great Writer of theirs William Smith And reading in the Scriptures that there were some who met together and exhorted one another and were edified and comforted one in another they observe and do as near as they can what they read of the Saints practice and so conceives a birth in the same Womb the Scriptures and brings it forth in the same strength as others do and they make haste thither and open their eyes to look at the things which are seen the Scriptures and this is pleasing to the carnal mind c. They Worship Order Ordinances Faith Practice understood by the written Word must all come under the severity of his judgment because they are Bastards and not Sons for these adulterous births have provoked the Lord and grieved his Spirit It would amaze a Christian and sound mind to read what is contained in the two pages in the Margin quoted of vilifying and reproach to the Scriptures and the Doctrines from thence received Traditions of men earthly root darkness and confusion Nebuchadnezzars Image putrefaction and corruption rotten and deceitful all out of the life and power of God Apostacy the Whores Cup the mark of the Beast Babylon the Mother of Harlots Bastards brought forth of flesh and blood the birth that persecutes the Son and Heir viz. the Spirit of God or light within Babylons Brats and Children Graven Images contrary to him the everlasting powerful God c. If this be not opposing the Spirit of God to the Scripture and rendring them adverse to each other the Devil himself must despair of inventing words to express it by I conclude the proof of this Charge with the words of Naylor And of this sort are they who have their preaching to study and to seek at other mens mouths or from the Letter and have it not from the mouth of the Lord. Then with him and the Quakers who are of his mind what we have from the Scriptures we have not from the mouth of the Lord. I would know of the Quakers what they will make of the mouth of the Lord Do they take it to be some part of his body which is like our mouths the Organs of speech We have thought hitherto that God being a Spirit hath no mouth at all only to express things to our understandings he speaks by similitudes taken from such things we are acquainted withall and so whatsoever God reveals his mind by may be called his mouth And it will follow that the Scriptures are his mouth as eminently as any thing yea all things in the world and more For God speaks by them to us more than by all other things he saith to Jeremy Jer. 15. 19. Thou shalt be as my mouth As thou spakest by the hand of Moses 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 manifest and by the Scriptures of the Prophets according to the command 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 enquire 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 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 brought into the field as the most hostile implacable Enemies whose followers from the time there were any were foes each to other And what can render the Spirit and the Scripture 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 causes of it too and therefore it was ever so and is as inseparable as natural cause and effect If this be all true well might W. P. say We livingly witness against all the dry cavelling Letter-mongers in the world SECT II. Having frequently met with that Scripture 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 also hath made us able Ministers of the new Testament not of the Letter but of the Spirit for the Letter killeth but the Spirit giveth life Whereas they would have us by the Letter to
born the light within whose right it is to reign and his glory he will not give to another nor his praise to Graven Images If erecting and worshipping God by Graven Images be Idolatry then the Quakers do charge us with Idolatry for walking according to Scripture instructions and examples He who will take the pains to read this inspired Author thou by an evil spirit pag. 18 19 20 21 22 23. will find it his scope to prove all Idolaters that ground their worship and order on the Scripture examples and in page 17. he likens all professions among Christians this day to Nebuchadnezzar's Image and though some are more shining and glorious in appearance as the head of Gold was beyond his legs of Iron yet he calls all parts of the Image and the Scriptures the Feet of Clay they had their standing on And in pag. 16. hath these words Then searches the Scripture for words to prove their Image a lawful Son and this is the bottom and foundation of all Religions this day I am e'en tired with searching these sulphureous Veins of the Pit and Mine of Quakerism the root of all which is the deified light within If you have not enough of this smoak to satisfie you it is the bottomless Pit it rises out of I will give you two ebullitions more and then leave you satisfied or to get better senses So amongst the words you find how the Saints in some things walked and what they practised and then you strive to make that thing to your selves and to observe it and do it as near as you can and here you are found transgressors of the just Law of God who saith thou shalt not make to thy self any graven Image nor the likeness of any thing And it follows now what difference is there in the ground betwixt you and the Pope though in the appearance there seem to be such a great space SECT II. The Quakers having thus stript the holy Scriptures of their divine beauty and authority both name and thing plucked out their very heart and strength let us resume the particular Arguments produced to prove that they deny the Scriptures and look on them at one view so shall we better discern their united testimonies and strength They who Deny the Scripture to be the word of God Equal their own writings and sayings with the Scriptures and prefer them before the Scriptures They who Deny the Scripture to be the word of God Deny the Scriptures to be a rule of faith and life or a Judge and determiner in religious controversies They who Deny the Scripture to be the word of God Take men off from reading the Scriptures and looking into them for instruction and comfort They who Deny the Scripture to be the word of God Deny the Scriptures to be any means by which we may come to know God Christ or our selves They who Deny the Scripture to be the word of God Affirm the Scriptures to be no means whereby to resist temptation and that they are dangerous to be read They who Deny the Scripture to be the word of God Deny the Scriptures to be read to any profit any farther than they are beforehand experienced by them that read them They who Deny the Scripture to be the word of God Put or render the Scriptures and the Spirit of God in opposition to each other They who Deny the Scripture to be the word of God Affirm the doctrines commands promises holy examples expressed in the Scripture as such to be not at all binding to us They who Deny the Scripture to be the word of God Hold it is a sin 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 immediate revelation as the Apostles They who do all these things mentioned in the foregoing particulars deny the Scriptures But the Quakers do all these things mentioned in the foregoing particulars therefore the Quakers deny the Scriptures If any one or all these arguments together will prove what they are brought to confirm it is proved if it be not I shall for ever dispair to prove any thing For as much as the holy Scriptures being our compass on earth and our evidence for Heaven are mostly struck at by the Prince of Darkness and grand enemies of Souls especially the two great Antichrists the Roman Bishop and Church and the new Upstarts who hold the Light within every man to be the Saviour Light Righteousness all who do not only as other erroneous or heretical persons a little eclipse or pervert the light of the Scriptures but attempt to pull it down out of the Firmament or render it a dark and useless body but as it receives Light from their Idol the one party to set up the Pope at Rome as absolute in matters of Religion The other to set up the Pope within as absolute and more than he in the little world of every individual man I shall within these following parallel lines give you a view though but in part how both these adversaries do openly spit their venom and discharge their shot against the holy Scriptures And considering how they in most things jump together in the contempt of and detracting from the Scriptures you may conclude that although the Jesuite was not the first contriver of the Quakers grand notion of the Light within to be Christ which I am verily perswaded of to be true yet that he was a promoter of the building erected on that foundation we may easily guess by his mark on so many parcels of it yet I must say that the Romanists were much more sound in their opinions of the Scriptures until about Luther's time wherein the Protestants were too hard for them at those weapons I give you the mind of the Spirit of God expressed in the middle colume the Quakers Tenets on the left and the Jesuites and Papists on the right hand I do not give the Quakers books names and pages because it would not be contained in any order and in the body of the Book they are exactly proved I give you the Jesuites names and quotations of most or all because they are not mentioned in the body of the Book The Quakers Opinions and sayings of the Scriptures and those that adhere to them The Spirit of God speaking by the Scriptures The Jesuites and Papists Tenets and sayings of the Scriptures and those that adhere to them The Scriptures are not the rule of Faith and life Thou shalt not turn aside to the right hand or to the left viz. Gods Statutes and Judgments Deut. 5. 31 32. The Scripture is not the rule of Faith Greg. de Valentia Jesuita libro quarto analyseos   Carranza in prima controver The Scriptures are not the judg and determiner of Controversies in religious matters He mightily convinced the Jews and that publickly shewing by the Scriptures that
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 title 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 A postle to the Galatians O foolish souls who hath bewitched you Certainly it must be a strong delusion that thus blinds you He feedeth on ashes a deceived heart hath turned him aside that he cannot deliver his soul nor say is there not a lye in my right hand SECT VI. The next Ordinance I shall prove them to deny is a Gospel-Church And the Church so gathered into 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 Naylors 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 Church As I teach in every Church God hath set some in the Church first Apostles secondarily 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 we utterly deny all their wayes and doctrines who exclude 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 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 sufficient and by which they find more comfort often than when there is speaking But at a meeting not far from my dwelling there was the strangest teaching that I believe was ever heard of among pretended Reformers and I had it from a man of note among them who was one of the meeting There declared not a man but a woman that 's ordinary not an English woman but a Dutch woman that is not so frequent not in English but in Dutch this was orderly according to the Popish Mass and prayers in an unknown tongue to the people But the strangest thing of all was he told me that although not one of them understood Dutch nor could the Dutch-woman interpret into English at least she did not they knew she spake by the Spirit I asked him how he told me because they all found refreshings so have children many a time at Puppet-playes What a pass are these people come to who yet deny all teachings by man But that you may not doubt the truth of the Story there being a dispute or somewhat so called by some between me and George Whitehead the Quakers Champion I did before all the audience charge them with this thing my Informer a Quaker being there and many more Quakers who were at that meeting but none dared to deny one word of the Charge only George Whitehead said it may be there was some body there that understood Dutch But what have they to say think you to this contradiction of their principles in teaching Why it is not they but the man Christ or the light or the Spirit that teaches and if such light replies will not serve turn you may go somewhere else to be satisfied for them But beyond all contradiction if the Church and Churches mentioned and owned in the New Testament be Gospel-Churches the Quakers deny a Gospel-Church for all of them had men who taught them at least they did not deny any such helps But we will produce a testimony or two more to see if we can make a further discovery For the Church is but one and the Temple of God we own which is at new Jerusalem the City of the living God I have read of the Church at Jerusalem before it was destroyed by the Romans and of the Churches at Corinth in Thessalonica Ephesus and many places more and I have read of the Church called Jerusalem which is above and the City of the living God but never yet of the Church which is at new Jerusalem this is none of the Churches the Apostles ever built or set in order But let it pass as a rumour till farther confirmation The holy Ghost made the Officers of the Church Overseers the Overseers to be invisible for they saw with an invisible eye and so they was in the Spirit which is invisible and not in the flesh Great mystery c. p. 8. Quest Which is the fold of the sheep Answ The wisdom life and power of the Father even the same that is the shepherd Object Is not the Church the fold Answ This in the Church or the Church in this is the fold but not out of this Seeing this is the best account we can get I must repair to William Smith who telleth us That all we do according to Scripture-patterns is but building of Babylon and that I am sure is not Zion and this is the scope of many Pages in his Morning Watch. But I have proved them to deny all forms and visible things in Religion and worship upon the general head but the Gospel-Church is a form in whom all the building is fitly framed I am sure that is a strange building without any form but to be framed and formed is one and the same thing with being put into a form For though I be absent in the flesh yet am I with you in the Spirit joying and beholding your order and the stedfastness of your faith in Christ and not holding the head from which not in which only all the body by joynts and hands having nourishment ministred and knit together increaseth with the increase of God So that a Gospel-Church is a number for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a name of many
gathered together united according to Christs form first to him then one to another for mutual edification in the things of God But this the Quakers utterly deny CHAP. XIV They deny the Ordinance of hearing the Word preached SECT I. THey will allow a hearing the Word preached and that must be the light within but the mind of God contained in the Scripture they must by no means hear preached for as I hinted from G. Fox we must not hear man for the Prophets bid Cease from man But having already so largely proved their tenet to be That only the light within must be attended to I need not do the same thing over and over I will give you a Scripture or two to strengthen you against this fancy-full teacher the light within And how shall they preach except they be sent as it is written How beautifull are the feet of them that preach the Gospel of peace c. But I say have they not heard yea verily their sound went into all the earth and their words unto the ends of the world Here are more Preachers than one and these Texts explain what is meant by the word nigh thee in the 8th Verse which the Quakers lay as a strong foundation for their light within This Word must be heard or they could not believe and it could not preach it self for they could not hear without a Preacher and these Preachers could not be the Word Christ for they had feet which Christ as within believers Christ as the eternal God hath not and the Preachers were more than one whereas Christ the Word is but one as appears by the Relatives plural they them theirs But now I am upon the point of hearing the Word a great mystery of the Quakers comes into my mind and it is worth the revealing That is this They hold it is the light that preaches the light that is preached the light that hears or is preached to and so the light which with them is God Father Son and Spirit is all concerned in the Gospel and man nothing at all for it is the light that doth all also I think when I have proved this I have discovered that which will render the Quakers the most absurd and blasphemous Idiots that ever undertook to speak with mans voice Quest Is there something of God in my conscience that will give me the knowledge of him Answ There is not any thing else that can do it And man cannot know him God by any other way but by the manifestation of his light within him Now I shall prove that the light is the main if not the only thing to be preached according to the Quakers Tenet 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 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 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 which is their now prison wherein they are fast reserved to future and greater punishments and in part punished already 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 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 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 Where 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 't is 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 of the light SECT II. The Quakers disown Gospel-Prayer I take Gospel-Prayer to be the souls uttering its 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 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 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 implyed 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 contemptible form That they crave not
in the sight of God SECT IV. Having proved the Quakers disowning that justifying righteousness which the Gospel holds forth and in some measure vindicated and explained it I shall now address my self to a discovery of that righteousness which the Quakers adventure their justification before God upon They will tell you They are justified by no other righteousness but the righteousness of Christ with abundance of confidence though as we shall prove they know not what they say nor whereof they affirm their righteousness being as far from what is pretended as darkness from light 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 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 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 jaâ—ring with truth discovers it to be foully cracke It follows in the Answer to the first Question For we have life 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 Scholar will do any 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 amounts 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-sanctification self-mortification and self-justification excluded right so far the worst will be in the tail Though they who received the Spirit were called to all this by faith in his bloud yet it is the work of God wrought by Christ in the believer 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 bloud 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 work of God wrought by Christ in the believer But to finish Nailor's testimony of justifying righteousness observe what he saith somewhat more plainly Whereby such become his workmanship in Christ 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 Gods workmanship in Christ Jesus created to good works are thereby designed and disposed by God to walk holily Nailor 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 Nailor'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 understanding into the very acts and expressions of Christ himself He saith moreover which
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 sins For there is one God and one Mediator between God and man the man Christ Jesus I am he that liveth and was dead and behold I am 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 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 Scripture 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 mercifull to your souls the Lord rebuke you who are so bold in denying the Lord that bought you and â—rampling 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 Scripture 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 evil to themselves I have not yet given you all the evidence I have 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 cleanse the conscience Yes by faith therein 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 flesh not is And Christs nature is not humane which is earthly 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 pityfully doth he wind and turn to get out 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 be 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 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 without Your carnal Christ is utterly denied by the light Your imagined God beyond the Stars But none 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 SECT II. I must not say That the Quakers do not own a 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 Guineys 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 that may be crowded into a little room but a body of flesh bloud and bones to be within a man surely no woman with child ready to be delivered would by her swelling and bigness proclaim it to the eyes of all beholders more effectually than such who should be so inmated And although they talk of all this being by faith they must give
But I proceed to further proof He that will worship Christ in his fulness in the majesty 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 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 worshiping him in them are worshiping Men Devils or Angels By the Christ that dyed 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 followes They are false ministers who preach Christ 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 gross Idolaters And there is somewhat in their Idolatry that is not common Idolatry for it is apostatical Idolatry which is so earnestly and with such an emphasis exclaimed against by the Lord Hath aâ—â—tion Changed 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 verily desolate saith the Lord. And it is no less agravated in that while the Heathen who had not their means to know God yet were gross Idolaters and as Pen saith true enough worshiped 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 error 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 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 bad 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 backslidings shall reprove thee know therefore and see that it is an evil thing and bitter that thou hast for saken the LORD thy GOD and that my fear is not in thee saith the Lord God of hostes How canst thou say I am not polluted I have not gone after Baalim see thy way in the valley know what thou hast done thou art a swift dromedarie traversing her wayes 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 wear themselves in her moneth they shall find her CHAP. XVII The Quakers deny the resurrection of the dead SECT I. I Doubt not but all who are not infatuated with the 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 you 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 but all baptized down into the sufferings of Christ and there the power kills him and gives him life again and so man layes down his own life and takes uâ— 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 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 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
which you had a mind should be grafted on this Stock but as the Text will not impart its Sap to your Proposition so your Proposition is as dry to your Consequence but that 's no matter if they will not grow one upon another you 'l make them hang together right or wrong Ay and if the Spirit do but strive it must be how you will have it and for what ends you please or you 'l rack the letter for it but there 's no cruelty to a dead letter But Mr. Pen if your conscience have any eyes I intreat you make use of the light here afforded you to compare the Text and what you lay at its door and see how alike they look Your Question is of the Spirits teaching among men c. indefinitely and your proof speaks of the Spirits striving with wicked men Your aim is to prove it an immediate and peculiar Teacher c. of Gods people the Text speaks of neither If I affirm the Spirit strove with them by providential Chastisements ominous presages of Calamities at hand by his goodness which leads to Repentance by the Ark which Noah built moved by faith and fear and by which he condemned the unbelieving besotted World by his Preaching righteousness I can prove my being guided therein by the unerring Spirit of God at another rate than you can your contradiction But your wandrings from truth and reason can hardly have a higher instance and evidence than that you should be so infatuated as to conclude from a Text which saith my Spirit shall not always strive with man that it doth now teach c. and God hath not left his people in our present nor will in future ages without his Spirit to teach them immediately and solely which is in your Question or your prosecution of it and should have been expressed there if you had had so much ingenuity Instead of being angry that I have shewed your vanity and made your folly in this argument such a spectacle to the world you have reason to give me thanks that I examine it no further SECT III. However before we part I will try you at another weapon which you forge out of Neh. 3. 19 â—0 Yet thou in thy manifold mercies forsookest them not in the wilderness the pillar of the Cloud departed not from them by day to lead them in the way c. This part of your quotation is not onely no friend to your affirmation and principles but an invincible adversary No man in his wits will say the pillar of the cloud and fire were the Spirit of God and if God led his people by them they were not led onely and immediately by the Spirit of God It may be the latter part of your citation may do more for you Thou gavest also thy good Spirit to instruct them This good Spirit was mainly the Spirit of God which he put upon Moses and Joshua and some other their chief Persons by Gods appointment as is evident from these Texts And I will take off the Spirit which is upon thee and will put it upon them and they shall bear the burthen of the people with thee Num. 1â— 17. And the Lord said unto Moses take thou Joshua the Son of Nun a man in whom is the Spirit and lay thy hand upon him Num. 27. 18. Thou leadest thy people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron Psal 77. 20. Now God is said to give them his good Spirit to instruct them by bestowing it in such a way and measure on their instructers and guides though I deny not but every true Israelite had the Spirit also dwelling in him yet they were never the less but the more submiss to the conduct of their mediate or if you will men-teachers and guides for that SECT III. Your third chosen Scripture for your service is But there is a Spirit in man and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth him understanding I shall explain this text by another which carries the full sense of it and almost the same words For the Lord giveth wisedome out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding But doth this incourage men to cast off all external means and the use of their reason Nothing less It is given as an encouragement to the use of the means expressed in the four first verses which are made conditional of being blessed with that knowledge and wisedom which comes from the Lord. If thou searchest If thou triest It will now be more easie to take in the right sense of your cited Scripture There is a Spirit in man that is a rational soul say some yet knowledg and understanding doth not so depend upon its improvement as to shut out the breathing and blessing of God from the chief efficiency A young man as Elihu may attain a measure by that divine blessing beyond the aged and more experienced If you can prove that those holy men who carried on that debate of which the Book of Job is a history did neglect the external means which the Lord afforded them for informing their judgments about divine and spiritual concernments upon the grounds of the inward teachings of the Spirit of God Eris mihi magnus Apollo and unless you can do that your arguing from this Text is but meer trifling beating of the air and contending for what is granted on all hands but nothing at all to your purpose who are very busie at doing nothing And it is not beside the purpose to consider that those holy eminent Saints who contended with Job were rebuked by God for not speaking rightly of God as Job did and Job did not pass free without a chiding also for his miscarriages and presumptions Job 42. vers 7. and forward To conclude this Argument you talk at a miserable lame rate to say that because the inspiration of the Divine Spirit giveth understanding therefore it is not from the strength of mans reason memory or utmost creature-abilities that his knowledge of religious and heavenly things comes but from the revelation and discovery of the inspiration of the Almighty Let me tell you once for all that if reason memory and humane abilities have nothing at all to do in the search and understanding of Divine things a meer animal or such an ideot as Jack Adams may know as much of the Divine and Heavenly mysteries as W. Pen but if I should say such a one is as able a Teacher or Writer as you I doubt not but you would take your self to be not a little affronted And it is as lame arguing to conclude because some men had Divine inspirations and teachings of some Divine truths when there was not one Book of the written Word in being as I dare undertake to prove and they who had those inspirations made use also of their reason to know Divine things by all external means within their reach therefore all Gods people i. e. Quakers have in
other sense Also what did that clause do there viz. thy Spirit is good Can the Spirit be good for nothing if the external word be good for something as a teacher I mistrust not the eyes of any but the Quakers but that they will see at first glance what a feeble Champion you are without my pointing Parvas habet spes Troja si tales habet I shall trace you foot by foot no further you shoot at so many marks at once that 't is hard to find which you level at only in the conclusion you presume you have hit the Pin of the white Vnisonat cuâ—ulis rudibus geminantibus odis Your Arguments are generally sick of one disease you argue from the presence of the Spirit of God in and with his people by his motions influences manifestations gifts graces means to his essential being as the sense of those texts which is fallacious and as I prove by this argument answer it when you can The Spirit of God essentially considered or as very God is every where at all times without the least change or alteration for ever But the Spirit of God in and with his people according to the import of those texts of Scripture which you produce is not every where at all times without any the least change or alteration for ever Therefore the Spirit of God in and with his people according to the import of those texts of Scripture which you produce is not the Spirit of God essentially considered or very God The First Proposition is proved from Mal. 3. 6 For I am the Lord I change not The Second Proposition I prove from Joel 2. 28 29. which you cite Pag. 21. And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out my Spirit on all Flesh and your Sons and your Daughters shall prophesie c. This was in time what and where it was not before Ezek. 36. 27. Pag. 20. And I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my Statutes c. it was future what it was not before and is spoken of the gathering of the Jews from all Countreys Then the Spirit of God shall be put within them but this is not alway the same without alteration 1 Cor. 6. 19. cited by you Pag. 30. What know you not that your Body is the Temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you The Holy-Ghost did not dwell in them according to the import of that Text before their conversion The Lord was in the Temple at Jerusalem and dwelt therein I have built a House of habitation for thee and a place for thy dwelling Who is able to build him an House seeing the Heaven and Heaven of Heavens cannot contain him How did God dwell there more then elsewhere but by placing his name owning a relation to it as his house sanctifying it to his own use manifesting himself in it to those who waited on his Ordinances there solemnized But now the place is void of all the footsteps of that presence I deny not I doubt not but the presence of God by his Spirit in and with his people is much more glorious than that Type posessed yea such a Mystery of union and Glory as will be matter of intellectual exercise and delight for ever yet it is most certainly no more his essential Presence than is every where The difference is his being related to actuating of effecting in and manifesting himself to and union with the Souls of his people so as none in the world but they are blessed withal And here in the Saints are so happy they may well be content and not put the name of the Godhead in a strict and proper sense on these his blessings Such conceits are the natural sourse and have been of opinions and practices dishonourable to God and unworthy of his Grace Another fallacy in your arguings is from the Spirits teachings indefinitely to the Spirits teaching universally at least all that concerns the duty of the People of God in religious things The People of God have the Spirit therefore they could not be destitute of an unerring Spirit in what concerned them either towards God or men SECT VII But your main fallacies are these two from an infallible Spirit teaching to the infallability of the Subjects in which the Spirit dwels as a Teacher And from the Spirits teaching to its immediate and peculiar teaching For the first of these I shall produce some of your wild reasonings 1 Thes 15. 19. Quench not the Spirit Those to whom he gave the caution had the Spirit if those could not quench the Spirit who had it not Consequently the Primitive Churches were not without an unerring Spirit But I believe and can prove that they who had not the Spirit themselves might quench it in others by despising prophesyings in the exercise of its gifts 20. ver and those who have the motions of the Spirit as you sâ—… the old world had before the flood may be faiâ— from having the Spirit in the Scripture sense i. e. dwelling in them to sanctification But supposing they had the Spirit dwelling and teaching in them 't is a miserable erroneouâ— and weak Conclusion that they were infallible That this is that you would conclude from such improper premises is apparently your drift all a long A taste of this you give up p. 32. in these words If God sends forth his Spirit into the hearts of his children then are they not without an infallible Spirit but the express letter of the Scripture affirms iâ— and consequently our Adversaries reflection upon us for making it part of our belief is unsound and condemnable Your adversaries have not so little knowledge of the Spirit of God as to say the Spirit of God is fallible nor yet so ignorant of your spirits and of the Scripture as to say you are infallible If the latter be it you say is unsound it is upon no other grounds than your arguing from the infallibility of Gods Spirit to the infallibility of your spirits or of theirs who are Gods people But we are not ignorant that your principles make no distinction much less a difference between the spirits of Gods people and the Spirit of God which is indeed the secret bias which moves you so obliquely of which I shall give a more ample account in its place But you are yet so unwilling to speak plainly your mind that you appear in many shapes to insinuate this untruth but are industrious to be uncertain and amphibious Quo teneam vultus mutantum Protea nodâ— You say Page 31. And how this man can be esteemed a good Christian who would render Christ Jesus the Head of a fallible body by divesting Christians of an infallible Spirit I leave to persons of better judgement more honesty and greater moderation to judge By this we may more than guess your mind but verily if the asserting Christ to be the Head of a fallible
wisdom of the flesh and therefore it is by inspiration immediate Let such know that they must shew somewhat more then palpable errour gross ignorance and unparallel'd confidence ere they gain credit with any but those simple ones in a silly sense who believe every word A third Difference is that Apostolical illuminations and immediately inspired are not habitual they are not the more constant frame of the soul but have their fluxes not as Springs or running Rivers or Tydes which have their ebbings and flowings yet the chanel alway plentifully supplied but as bourns and flouds that sometimes rise high yet the grounds they cover for a while are sometimes and ordinarily a long time dry and no appearance remaining of those inundations The Apostles and Prophets had not such a Well and Spring of this sort as alway run or out of which they might ordinarily give advice and teachings of this kinde Whereas the Spirits most ordinary illuminations common to all Saints do in their several degrees and measures in-dwell in their souls and are as qualities adhering to their subjects their mindes and faculties being so united to them as Sugar being melted in the Wine its sweetness is constant and abiding thereby And hence it was that the Apostles though they could alway teach from the habits of light and knowledge they were blessed with yet in some cases at some times could not speak as inspired by the Holy Ghost witness Paul who in the body of his Epistle to the Corinthianâ— makes this distinction 1 Cor. 7. 6 12. to the end of the Chapter But I speak this by permission ver 6. but to the rest speak I not the Lord ver 12. Now concerning Virgins I have no â—ommandment of the Lord yet I give my judgment as one that hath obtained mercy of the Lord to be faithful 25. But she is happier if she so abide in my judgment and I think also that I have the Spirit of God The same Apostle gives instruction concerning the Choice of Bishops that they be such as are apt to teach 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the word signifies both the habit or faculty and also a promptitude and readiness to imploy it And to Timothy to be instant in season and out of season that is not only at necessary times in a constant course but occasionally and he could not so preach the Word as became it and an Evangelist but from habitual illumination Mat. 13. 52. Then said he unto them Therefore every Scribe which is instructed to the Kingdom of Heaven is like unto a man that is an Housholder which bringeth forth of his Treasure things new and old A fourth Difference the inspiration of the Spirit doth not grow and increase gradually and according to time and industry Samuel had as elegant and powerful an inspiration or revelation when a Childe as when he was old And the Apostles on the sudden at the effusion of the Spirit in that way of ministration had as eminent inspirations as ever afterward But the illuminations where with God doth usually by the efficlency of his Spirit bless his people doth ordinarily grow at least is capable of it Some to whom John writes were grown to be Fathers For when for the time ye ought to be Teachers Heb. 5. That is ye might have grown to such a degree of illumination if you had stood in the way wherein the Spirit of God doth usually bless there with as to have been able to teach others Yea the Lord Jesus Christ himself as man did increase gradually in these habitual illuminations Lake 2. 45 46 47. Jesus grew in wisdome and in stature And that it was meant of divine light or light in divine things Read the 46 47 Verses where he is said to be disputing with the Doctors and that his answers were astonishing to the Hearers Fifthly Apostolial inspirations were intended by the Spirit foâ—a divine and authoritative Obligation to the Faiâ—â— Order Life and Consciences of others and are therefore rightly placed among the Scriptures or wâ—…tten Word If any man think hinself to be a Prophet or Spiritual let him acknowledge that the things that I write are the Commandments of the Lord. But the teachings of the Spirit to the Saints as Saints are no such obligation any farther than they agree with and have their authority from the minde of God revealed in the Scripture Sixthly Apostolical teachings and inspirations were of authority to constitute a now order and polity of the Church to which the former though of divine authority in their season were to give place Yea those Doctrines and Promises so revealed to them by God and by them declared as such are binding to our faith and practice although we cannot discern any of the like import in the Scripture before written But the teachings and illuminations by the Spirit of the Saints as such do not add to or change any thing of the Doctrine or Order established by Christ and his Apostles neither are they contrary to the written Word nor in point of Doctrine beside the sense of it or beyond it To conclude The teachings of the Spirit and its Motions in the Saints which are most purely divine and immediate in ourdays are the bringing to remembrance explaning to the understanding imprinting on the affections the matter contained in the Scripture and directing them to understand providences to act in their occurent occasions suitable to his will revealed in the Scripâ—…re and moving their wills to a compliance with his out are all to be triâ—d by the Scripture and not the Scripture by them Some I believe will reply How did the Prophets and Apostles when they received immediate revelations and were inspired of God know it was no delusion and if they knew it being men as we are why may not we I dare not attempt to pry into the most secret ways of God and undertake to give you a history and description to the full of the Spirits workings on the Souls of his Prophets in conveying his will to them and satisfying their judgments and Consciences that they were the inspirations of God Yet I shall say so much of them as may satisfie any willing Reader to be informed that they had more to evince it than any have now and we have enough to convince us that they were inspired First Whoever they were that were givers forth of the Law or the Covenants in their first promulgation had the Testimonies of God for them by Gods outward Call to that as their special Office and his promise of guidance in the discharge thereof signs and wonders wrought either by God immediately or by their hands as the Apostles Jesus Christ Moses Secondly All the Prophets have a Testimony of their being inspired of God by Miracles which they wrought or by the quoting Scripture out of the Books written by them or bearing their names in the New Testament by Christ or his Apostles Thirdly For the Historical part
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 sâ—ed in Prison and Captivity and Bondage Pictures and Images The light within not obeyed as Christ and God  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 Mâ—n-pleasers They who comply with men though in things not only lawful but also to edifification Pollutions of the world Not only things in themselves sinful as drunkenness swearing lying c. but also what ever customs they dislike and decline As Cuffs Ribands putting off the Hat signes 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 pare 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 Quakerisme 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 light 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 Righteousness 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 minde 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  All that is not from the immediate motions within Self-righteousness 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 Signes 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