he cites W. Smith's Catechism p. 107. Though some may not speak in such formal composed Words yet in the same Wisdom their Words are formal they can set their own Time to begin and end and when they will they can utter Words and when they will they can be silent and this is the Unclean Part which offers to God which he doth not accept Very well and what is this to the denying of Gospel-Prayer It seems then that what Prayer this Passage reflects upon is Gospel consequently if I understand any thing formal wise Words in Man's Time and Will which is Unclean is Gospel-Prayer in J. Faldo's account otherwise it is utterly false to say That W. Smith's Words prove the Quakers to contemn Gospel-Prayer But what can be more clear to the View of every Impartial Soul then that J Faldo's making that Prayer only which he is capable of himself that stands in his own Time Will Wisdom and Invention to be Gospel rather then to deny it and seek after one more truly Evangelical is not so much to maintain the Truth as himself § 2. Secondly he sayes That we own no Prayer that is not by immediate Inspiration and Motion of the Spirit and without the Use of our Conception and Direction of our Understanding His third I will add to this because to the same Purpose viz. That we own no Prayer but what is by and in the Light Within and here he brings 3. or 4. Testimonies which are to the same purpose I grant what he says of us in this particular to be our Faith and shall prove it to be sound Doctrine from the Scriptures of Truth The Worship of God is in the Spirit and in the Truth Now unless Men may perform Gospel-Worship without the Spirit and the Truth or if in the Spirit and the Truth yet not by the Motion of either a thing absurd it must needs be that Men ought only to pray or preach by the Motion of the Spirit and of the Truth If such only are Children of God who are led by the Spirit of God and walk in the Light as Christ is Light and that therein Access alone may be had to God who is Light and in whom is no Darkness at all then with good Reason may we say That no Prayer that ascends to God without the Leading of God's Spirit and which is not by and in the Light can be acceptable with him consequently Gospel-Prayer is only from the Motions of the Spirit of God and by and in the Light of Christ Again If no Prophecy or Preaching was to be of old but by the immediate Revelation or Motion of the Spirit though it was but to Men of far greater Reason should not any Prayer be made without a Motion of the same Spirit which is to the Eternal only Wise God § 3. Nay the Creature considered from under the Leadings of God's Spirit in all Religious Actions is unable to think a good Thought much less to perform one good Work and as the Professors say from the Crown of the Head to the Soal of the Foot are altogether unclean will it follow then that either such corrupt and sinful Duties are Gospel-Prayer and an Ordinance of God or else that what we assert of Praying by the Motions of the Spirit and in and by the Light of Christ in our Hearts must be the only Gospel-Worship which we are yet further inclined to believe For it is said in Scripture that the Word and Prayer sanctifieth all things Now if we take this Word in our sense to wit the Word of God then we are to consider whether the Word derives its Sanctifying Vertue from the Prayer or the Prayer from this Word Not the former to be sure If then it be allowed to be the latter since this Prayer which to be sure is Gospel or the Apostle would not have owned it hath a Sanctifying Vertue in it that no Prayer begun or carried on by meer Man can sanctifie because we are of our selves unable to think one good Thought it evidently follows That this Word of God which gives Prayer that Sanctifying Power doth begin or move first to that Sanctifying Acceptable Truly Gospel-Prayer § 4. But now suppose by Word is meant the Words either of Scripture or Preachings yet are we safe For since nothing can sanctifie but it must be from it self or something else and that meer Man in Preaching or Praying cannot and that God is that alone Power Wisdom and Eternal Spirit that is able to sanctifie it will follow also that God's Spirit or Power moving in the Heart is that alone which renders the Words or Prayers of any sanctifying Nor is this all The Pool of Bethesda is a notable Figure of the Matter in hand where the Certainty of being cured upon stepping into the Pool so soon as ever the Angel had moved the Waters doth very lively represent to us that what Benefit we may ever expect to receive from the Lord comes not from an hasty Rushing into any Religious Performance in our own time but our patient Waiting till the Lord's holy Angel stirs and moves the Waters and then to lay all aside to imbrace so blessed an Opportunity Further § 5. The Gospel-State is an Eternal Sabbath He that prayes in his own Will Time Wisdom Invention is picking Sticks and kindling a Fire and compassing himself about with the Sparks of the Fire of his own kindling This Man hath not Ceast from his own Works he will suffer loss in the Day of God and his Bed will be made in Sorrow § 6. Nor is this the utmost of our Force For whatever God hath not required just will it be with him to say who hath required these things at your hands 'T is true God loves that his People should pray and Christ injoyns it but he also bids all Watch unto Prayer that is wait to feel that Spirit of Life to stir which gives Life to Prayer the Key of David by which Heaven's Door is opened and the Soul comes to receive True and Heavenly Refreshment The Want of which maketh so much Complaint among some that their Duties are Unholy Things they want Power they have prayed long but to little purpose whereas had they pray'd aright that had never been Much more might be said to this but my Conscience is clear in the Matter and I shall conclude this Point with a general Confession and Caution § 7. We do acknowledge That God is That he ought to be worshipped That Worshipping of God is stricktly a bowing down before him in Fear and Holy Reverence according as he makes himself known to the Creature That Prayer is a Gospel-Ordinance That it is not only Good but Necessary to be used That God only can give us to pray aright as well to pray at all That therefore his Assistance is necessary to have which there ought to be a Waiting out of all Conceivings Inventions or Forms to receive
to be God are not like to be much the wiser for what they read This cuts off all Hopes of J. Faldo's being wiser for I suppose he read what he writ as blind as he is However for the sake of others I will endeavour to reconcile this seeming Contrariety In the first Passage he grants that within Man was not mentioned and by his Silence I suppose I may conclude it Orthodox For no Man that believes Scripture will dare to deny that God is Light That every Man is enlightned by Him and that by Him who is call'd Light all things are upheld and that He alone is Saviour A Doctrine J. Faldo teaches pag. 84. 85 89. To the other Scraps of Matter I answer That we never did do nor shall assert the God that made Heaven and Earth to be comprehendable within the Soul of Man No it is more impossible then that the Sun in the Firmament could be contain'd within the Body of any individual Person But that God who is the great Sun of Righteousness doth as truly cause his Light Spiritual to arise upon the Souls of Men as his Sun Natural upon their Bodies and as what Knowledge we have of the Natural Sun is by its Light Operations and Effects upon the World so our Knowledge of the Eternal Sun of Righteousness God who is Light and in whom is no Darkness at all is only and alone by his Divine Light Operations and Effects in and upon our Understandings and Consciences so that when we say that the Light is within any we do not intend the whole Being of Light nor was it in this gross sense that G. Fox the Younger ever meant it But that He who is the Eternal Fountain of all Life and Sun of Light causeth his Light to visit the Hearts and shine into the Consciences of all Mankind as well of such as Rebel against it and scorn it to reprove them as those who Receive it and gladly submit to it to direct and justifie them Wherefore we utterly deny that the Manifestation in Man strictly consider'd is the most-high God but a Manifestation of or from God by the Inshinings of his blessed Light And we cannot be said to Worship the Manifestation but that Eternal God which is Light that is thereby manifested and all Worship otherwise founded is not of God nor pleasing to him but of the Invention of Men which he will confound and this Scripture and Reason are ready to defend Scorning the Light in them and not owning the Light in them by our Adversary so strongly insisted upon is no more then scorning and disowning him who is the Light that shines in them and that gives Light to them What very vanity then is all his Boast And how does his Charge retort upon himself But that we may send it quite back to the Pit from whence it came le ts hear how he proves our Belief of the Soul to be God which he begins to do with no small Shew of Assurance that he shall cleaverly compass his End § 2. Every Man has that which is one in Union and like the Spirit of Christ even as good as the Spirit of Christ according to its measure E. Burroughs True Faith c. And what 's this to the Purpose Can any Man be so stupid as to think that E. Burrough ever intended the Soul of Man that purely simply constitutes him such For he is speaking of that Universal Grace Light and Spirit which God has given unto all whereby they may be led to Eternal Felicity And unless he will say that a Measure of the Holy Spirit a Scripture-Phrase which God hath given to every Man to profit with is not in Union with Christ nor as Good in Kind as the Spirit of Christ which our Adversary sayes is God it will evidently follow that what E. B. writes is found and Scriptural however this makes nothing for our Adversaries present Charge But he ends not with him Now my Soul and Spirit is center'd in its own Being with God and this Form of Person must return from whence it was taken F Howgil Test of E. B. This Expression is deliver'd to us by Francis Howgil as Edward Burorghs's a little before his Departure in that sensible Testimony he gave to the late Life Labours and Death of that worthy painful effectual Labourer and his Companion in the Gospel of Jesus But to help J. Faldo's Intellects that they may no more look asquint upon such weighty dying Words Let him know that E. B. spoke not of God as his Souls Being by Nature or as of that very Being for so the Soul would be God indeed and yet subject to all those Pollutions and Punishments which do and will attend Wicked Men Blasphemy with a Witness but God as that Being which by Regeneration the New Nature and Spirit of Adoption all the Righteous Souls are gather'd too and center'd in as their Everlasting Habitation and Life Eternal The World may perceive with ease at what rate and what Tearmes J. Faldo swaggers over the Quakers But let him boast that puts off his Armour § 3 The next Person he singles out is G. Fox thus answering a Priest But God and Christ is in the Saints and dwells in them and he the Priest is a Reprobate and out of the Apostles Doctrin Great Myst pag. 16. I perceive J. Faldo will rather quarrel Scripture when he meets it in a Quaker's Book then not have something against them But certainly if that be the Way to prove that we believe the Soul is God to wit that God and Christ are in the Saints what will become of the Scriptures Will they escape J. Falao's heavy Censures who say That Christ is in his Saints the Hope of Glory I in them and they in me The Tabernacle of God is with Men and he will dwell in them Must every thing that is in another be necessarily of that in which it is But I hope his Heat being abated he may discern the Weakness of his Attempts against us To proceed I. Pennington he also brings in to make good his Charge How serviceable he may prove will better appear when we have examin'd the Passage 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 Quest 27. But J. Faldo has mist his Aim and mistaken his Man For I. P. is not now speaking of the Soul of Man simply consider'd but of that Divine Life Nature Image and Birth that God by his Word of Life creates or begets in the Souls of those who once lived not to God but themselves bearing the Image of the Earthly and do turn at his Reproof to walk in the Way of Life This will not move the Business one Jot further on the behalf of our Enemies Charge § 4. We will close this Point with a Passage out of Samuel Fisher's
Velata quaedam Revelata pag. 13. of which he is very cheery 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 God's 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 sayes our Adversary being of so black and horrid a Nature I did judge it meet to prove it by abounding Instances and now Reader put on the largest Charity and give me thy Verdict if I have not made appear that the Quakers are gross Idolaters c. To answer which briefly and to Purpose and to close this Chapter with a contrary Conclusion I say That the Spirit of Man is not to be taken as of or from Man or that it is any part of Man's Nature take Man in an Abstractive sense And had he been so fair as to give us S. Fisher's Words at large they would have prov'd themselves of Age enough to answer for themselves S. Fisher is to be understood of that Spirit or Breath of Life not that made Man simply a Living Creature of a meer Reasonable Capacity but that Divine Life or Breath which makes alive to God and gives a kind of Heavenly Animation Motion or Life to live to him which constituted Adam not a meer Man but a blessed holy heavenly-minded Man before his Degeneration And that S. Fisher did never intend it of the Natural Soul of Man but rather of the Divine Life of the Soul without which the Soul is destitute of the Knowledge of the True and Living God his own Words very plainly show For if S. Fisher intended that Spirit which is the Divine Principle that Man did partake of before his Degeneration certain and clear it is that since Man did under that Degeneration partake of his own Soul or else he could not have been a Man S. Fisher never meant the meer Soul of Man but the Life of that Divine Principle which regenerates and renews the Soul unto a Life of Purity and Blessedness So that we conclude the Quakers not believing any such Strange and Unscriptural Doctrine as that the Soul of Man is the God that made the Heavens and the Earth for so it would make it self and what is greater then itself They are not those Idolaters they have been represented and fouly charactered by J. Faldo But Innocent and Free of all such Imputation and he their Accuser most of all Condemnable yea and that for Idolatry too who professeth no Knowledge of God but from Outward Sense by Hearing Reading c. p. 91. So that being destitute of the Revelation of the Son that only can make known the Living Father what Apprehensions he has of God are not Experimental but Imaginary and worshipping such an Idea he worshippeth not the true God but the Images of his own Brain therefore an Idolater See Bish Andrews upon the Command and Pagnin upon the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 CHAP. XXI Our Adversary at a loss to prove his Charge We own so much of the Resurrection as the Scriptures express more Curiosity Dangerous and Condemnable Eternal Rewards own'd by us J. Faldo's Book will prove it to Him and our Tribulations to Us. § 1. THe two last Charges of this second Part of his Discourse are our Denyal of the Resurrection of the Dead that is Dead Bodies and future Rewards To the First he brings in I. Pennington thus We say that Christ is the Resurrection to raise up that which Adam lost and to destroy him who deceived him viz. Adam so Christ is the Resurrection unto Life of Body Soul and Spirit and so renews Man c. Princ. Elem. Peop. cal Quak. p. 34. Upon which he comments What is this Resurrection but what they call Regeneration it seems he does not and the Resurrection of the Body is but in the same sense as the Soul and Spirit is raised I can't help it if J. Faldo has made so unapplicable a Quotation out of I. P. to his Business I hope none are so Blind or Partial as to be angry that I. P. did not write to his Purpose it was sufficient that he spake to his own or rather to the Truth 's Our Adversary falls down right upon us with a Charge of Denying the Resurrection of the Body and is angry that the Place he produces helps not his Design Certainly with sober Men the Blame will not lie at our doors for not making good his Charge but at his own that he exhibited one he could not prove But will he deny the Resurrection in I. P's Words If he does I pronounce him no Christian nor indeed will a bare Confessing to it render him One And where he stands I fear he is but too far from both Let it suffice that those Words are a modest serious and full Answer to this Caviller since he does plainly acknowledge All that the first Adam lost to be restored by Christ the second Adam and all that the Sin of one incurr'd the Righteousness of the other redeem'd from Now let his Notions of the Way and Method of Effecting this be what they will we desire not to be wise beyond what the Lord sees convenient for us as this busie Intruder into sacred Mysteries hath done that lives in the Land not of Light but gross Darkness within and whose very borrowed made framed Light from Reading Art Study and his own Conceptions is the very Blackness of Darkness § 2. But he affirms that George Whitehead should say being prest in the Matter that he did not believe his Body should rise again after its Death which he can prove by many Witnesses I know not if ever G. Whitehead did so express himself But I see every Expression must be treasured up to defend a decrepit Cause Truth stands in no need of such Watchings that would make a Man an Offender for a Word But what if he did say so and I should second him would it follow that we deny a Resurrection I am sure I will deny all such Consequences Doth not the Apostle say expresly Thou Fool thou sowest not THAT BODY THAT SHALL BE. Is Scripture grown into such mean Request with J. Faldo or doth his Rage against the Quakers so transport him that he knows not Scripture when he meets it from a Quaker But sayes our Adversary upon a like place and to this purpose viz. We shall all be changed I would ask if they would be content to be refused their Debts if contracted before Quakers and demanded when Quakers I suppose they would believe that the Change in a Person is not the Change of a Person and that they are the same still to
of private Spirits and not rather of the Holy Spirit of God and such only as were conformable to it § 11. His other Cavil confirms the Truth of my former Argument and his own great Ignorance or Baseness My words are these If God sends forth his Spirit into the Hearts of his Children then are they not without an Infallible Spirit grounded upon that Scripture Because ye are Sons God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your Hearts Gal. 4. 6. To which he sayes 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 Now I have two things to desire of the Ingenuous Reader First to find me out so much as one Syllable in my Argument that infers or concludes the Spirits of such to be Infallible into whose Hearts God has shed abroad his Infallible Spirit whether they are led by it or not or that I could intend a concluding of the Spirit of Man Infallible because God has given his own unto Men that is unquestionably so I am sure such a Thought never entred my Mind as fruitful of them as our Adversary may be Adversary I may well say not only because he is one but that he acknowledges to me as much which let him know however I am not such to him The Second thing I have to desire of the Candid Reader is that he would weigh with himself how Unjust this Man is to me to infer Infallibility to Men from my Affirming it to belong only to the Spirit of God And as if he fear'd I should not be as Heterodox as his Envy would have me to conclude on my Account from what I urged to prove That God's Children in all Ages had an Infallible Spirit to Judge Rule and Guide them the Affirmative of the very Question debated that is God's Spirit That every such one was Infallible in and from his own private Spirit Oh Monstrous Perversion I would impute it to his Mistake of me it being far better to be Ignorant than Dishonest but he will not let me who a little below has Impudence enough to write but we are NOT IGNORANT that your Principles make no Difference or Distinction between the Spirits of God's People and the Spirit of God manifestly intending not that they are at variance for so we should esteem his Charge a piece of Justice but that the Spirit of the Creature and the Spirit of God are but one Spirit An Absurdity that never fell from us How many times hath J. Faldo been guilty in his Discourse of plain Forgery and Dishonesty against us So certain as there is a God in Heaven terrible will his Judgment be in that great Day of Inquest if he repent not § 12. He makes a great Stir about my Checking the late Socinian for making Christ the Head of a Fallible Body saying If Christ be Head to none but the Infallible Wo to the poor Saints who have trusted hitherto they had a Head in Heaven who hath Pitty on the Ignorant and those that are out of the Way and I am sure Christ is then none of your Head We have enough and leave his very Ill Language out 1. It is granted to us that Christ is Head to a Fallible Body or at least to Fallible as well as Infallible I charge him to give us one Scripture for this or he is gone for all his idle Puns Shifts and scoffing Flings at us 2. That a Man may be a Saint which if we take it strictly is one of that Number the Apostle prayed the Churches might be of I mean those which were sanctified throughout in Body Soul and Spirit I say that a Man may be such a Saint and yet be Fallible or Erring 3. That the Saints are Ignorant and out of the Way Truly this Doctrine very well becomes J. Faldo I had rather it should be his then mine I will venture them in the Scale of Truth without thinking I run an Hazard in the Matter especially when if I err that hinders not from being a Saint Member of Christ But J. Faldo can a Man be a Saint and yet Ignorant of so much of God as is requisit to constitute him such Or can he be such and yet out of that Way which renders him a true Saint It is the first time that I ever heard in so many words that a Man might be a Saint and out of God's Way Oh Doctrine of Devils No Marvel so many Unclean Fowls flock to this Carkass What! Saints and err from God's Way Strange Saints and ignorant of God's Mind It seems then that neither Ignorance nor Erring from God's Way indispose any to be Saints If this be not a plain Contradiction to the whole Record of Scripture none ever was is or shall be esteemed such to the End of the World How many how grievous and how sharp have God's Complaints been against those who have left the Right Way of the Lord which has been the Way of Light and Righteousness the Just Man's Path through every Generation No Wonder that such Doctrines are hoth greedily received and furiously maintained that sooth up People in the Belief of such Pernicious Soul-murdering Doctrines And the Truth is and I do boldly affirm it and that in the Counsel of the Eternal God it is our striking so constantly and earnestly at this and such like Sin-pleasing Principles that makes the Devil thus bestir himself in his ready Agents to raise up and bespatter us with such heavy Calumnies as almost every one produceth against us But we lose not an Inch of Ground nor a Dram of Courage our Godly Resolution redoubles with our Adversaries On-sets and whatever may befall us here as our Hope so our Reward is from God in that high and heavenly Place which is above the Reach of Time and every Assault of our Implacable Adversaries § 13. He tells me He might proceed to my fallacious Arguing from the Spirit 's Teaching indefinitely expressed that is by Scripture Visions Providences c. means our Adversary to its Teaching peculiarly frequently in my Pampblet pag. 18 29 c. that is to the Spirit 's Teaching Men and Women by its daily and Inward Discoveries Motions and Operations But he will not the Reason is he dare not For if the Spirit be not an Immediate Living Teacher and works not as such to the Information Conviction and Conversion of Men to God in these dayes let him for Shame relinquish all Pretence to Gospel or an Evangelical Dispensation of which it is the peculiar Promise and Priviledge § 14. Though for want of better Language he is pleased to bestow upon this Godly Proposition the Term of Beetle-headed Saying and affirms that the Scripture knows nothing of it For which I may more reasonably affirm that He knows nothing of it For can this Man be
serve thee with all Sincerity for the Truth 's sake as it is in Jesus William Penn. THE CONTENTS CHAP. I. THE Introduction Our Adversary's Definition of Christianity Defective True Christianity stated Quakerism mistaken by him It is prov'd True Christianity and a Quaker a Right Christian Page 1. CHAP. II. How Christianity was introduc'd it hurts not the Quakers The Question is not of Christ's Visible Coming that is Owned by them Nor is their Religion a New One from that of Christianity but the Recovery of Lost Primitive Christianity since the Reign of Anti-Christ in the World That Quakerism as call'd made its Way by Purity Sorrow and Rejoycing as well as Christianity The Priest's Vilifying Expressions Rebuk'd That the Distinct Times of their Appearance is no Argument against their Harmony or being but Two Words for the same Thing since the same Truth may appear at Two distinct Ages of the World It would strike out J. Faldo as well as the Quakers if the Contrary were admitted That he grosly Contradicts himself as to Time Christianity has more or less been in the World where Godly Men and Women have been as well before as since that Appearance We intend no New Dispensation but the Renewed Revelation of the same Power which is the True Gospel p. 11. CHAP. III. J. Faldo's Charge That the Scriptures are not the Word of God Reasons for it The Scriptures by him urg'd against us clear'd and prov'd to be for us They are the Words of the Word a Declaration of the great Law Word or Commandment but not that Law Word or Commandment p. 24. CHAP. IV. His Charge What he quotes proves it not Revelation Infallibility and Inspiration consider'd The Priest prov'd Uncertain of his own Faith Our Friends debase not the Scripture but Lift them up His Objection about our Books Titles answer'd The Use of Scripture asserted The Light vindicated from Insufficiency Something of the True Rule p. 32. CHAP. V. The Charge Stated not Proved The Scriptures not the most Excellent nor only General Rule God may speak by Instruments The Instruments not the Rule but that which useth them That the Scriptures being Obligatory does not conclude it the General Rule under the Gospel The Dis-ingenuity of our Adversary in citing the Apostle's Words Reprehended The Scriptures no Judge in that sense wherein they are not the General Rule The Scriptures Confest to p. 52. CHAP. VI. We deny the Charge His Proof no Proof but against himself We Own Believe and desire to Obey the Scriptures they afford Comfort and are as Lights in the World but not that True Light The Light and Spirit Superior to them p. 63. CHAP. VII Commands upon Conviction to be obeyed All General Commands Obligatory Particular not but upon particular Commission Our Adversary's Dis-ingenuity The Scriptures a Means by which God may be known but not the Principle p. 70. CHAP. VIII His Charge of our Denying the Scriptures any Means by which God doth enable Men to resist Temptations And that we say they are Dangerous to be read rejected His Proofs lame The Scriptures are believed to be a Means c. The true Knowledge of them Divine No Knowledge of Divine Things but upon Experience It does not destroy Faith W. Penn's Words safe and sound The Priest a meer Shuffler Learning a Servant to Truth Christ the Word of God Faith by our Adversary preferred before Scripture The Scriptures ought to be Read Believed and Obey'd p. 76. CHAP. IX That we do not put the Scripture and Holy Spirit in Opposition The Wickedness of the Priest in his Proof They accord and we acquiesce in their Testimony We do not say that they are not to be obeyed without extraordinary Apostolical Revelation as basely suggested His Proof fictitious and forged Such only are by us deny'd as are only Literal Formal Christians The Scriptures own'd and believ'd in by us according as they testifie of themselves p. 91. CHAP. X. He chargeth us with a Denial of all the Ordinances of the Gospel First in general then in particular His Proof of the first Invalid His great Dis-ingenuity in wresting our Words especially I. Pennington's p. 102. CHAP. XI The first of the particular Ordinances he says we deny is the Ministry His Proof lame W. P. and his Friends defended J. F. and his Gang Reproveable We own a Gospel one but not his The Calling abused by such Pretenders p. 105. CHAP. XII The Second particular Ordinance is a Gospel-Church His Definition for us by its gross Contrariety to the Scripture His base Inference of our Denial of Religious Societies and Outward Gifts from our Friends asserting of but one Catholick Church and that it is in God A Gospel-Church owned Our Adversary proved Heterodox about Apostolical Preaching Inward Sence preferr'd before Intelligence p. 112. CHAP. XIII We deny Preaching says he His Dis-ingenuity in stating our Principles We hold and practise true Gospel-Preaching No Difference between what the Light teacheth and the Scripture Our Gospel is Peace Our Adversary's is War c. True Preaching Converts our Adversary's not p. 117. CHAP. XIV His Charge of our Denial of Gospel-Prayer inverted The Prayer he pleads for Anti-Gospel True Prayer stated asserted and defended with plainness from Scripture and Reason That as well in Families as Meetings and at Meals as both False Worship detestable to God All False wherein God's Spirit is not the first and Chief Mover and Assister The Subtility of Satan in putting upon unacceptable Prayer to prevent true Prayer p. 121. CHAP. XV. His Charge of our Denial of Baptism and the Sacraments introduc'd with a Discourse of positive Commands Destructive of the Foundation of Religion The Priest against God Scripture and Reason He confounds himself Baptism of Water prov'd John's and not to continue Mat. 28. 19. 1 Cor. 1. 17. Ephes 4. 5. cleared and vindicated The One Spiritual Baptism defended p. 129. CHAP. XVI The Supper he says we deny not denyed but fulfill'd The Scriptures consulted No Perpetuity proved That it was a Sign and that Signs were done away in Christ demonstrated The present Practice in the Case not Primitive Our Faith left with God in the Matter p. 141. CHAP. XVII His Charge of our Denying Christ's Transactions to influence into our Justification consider'd His Proofs not for him His Abuse of our Friends words Justification distinguished upon as Remission and as daily Acceptance The Transactions of Christ largely own'd by us The Scriptures confirm our Faith in Christ as a general and particular Saviour No Works of Man Meritorious p. 147. CHAP. XVIII He says we disown the True Christ It is prov'd that He denies in Contradiction to himself what we deny and that we are Scriptural and sound in our Belief And though we cannot exclude that Divinity from the true Christ Yet we also own that the true Christ took Flesh that he appeared for the Salvation of Mankind and that his Bodily Appearance was instrumental in the Point Christ
and Women have been as well before as since that Appearance We intend no New Dispensation but the Renewed Revelation of the same Power which is the True Gospel § 1. THe next Mis-Representation is of the Manner of our Appearance and the Time of it by way of Comparence with that of Christianity little to his Purpose and in my Judgment much against him § 2. Christianity was introduc'd by Preaching the Promised Messias and Pointing at his Human Person but Quakerism by Preaching a Light within I answer that this is nothing injurious to the Quakers at all but highly on their side for had they preacht a Christ now coming in the Flesh they had deny'd his true and only great Visible Appearance at Jerusalem which all true Quakers own Since then they believe that Appearance and therefore need not preach what is not to be again and that the whole Christian-World besides have so long and lazyly depended on it without their Thirsting after his Inward Holy Appearance in the Conscience to Bind the Strong Man Spoyl his Goods and Cast him out in short to Discover Sin Wound for it and make an End of it by the Brightness of his Spiritual Coming into the Soul of all such as wait for him and will receive him in which Sense he was revealed in such and became in the Saints of old the Hope of their Glory I say since he has been so much talkt of and depended on as to his then Visible Manifestation of himself and so little if at all desired after as to his Spiritual and Invisible Coming into the Hearts of Men to finish Transgression and bring in Everlasting Righteousness Therefore God raised us up and we are now gone forth into the World to declare That he is Spiritually Manifested as then fully in that Body so now measurably in the Consciences of all People a Divine Light Reproving every Unfruitful Work of Darkness So that here is the Mischief the Malice and Ignorance of our Enemies do us in this World that because we Speak so much of and Preach up and Write for Christ's Inward and Spiritual Appearance as a Light to Mankind therefore they conclude with a mighty Confidence that we Deny his Outward Coming Life Death Resurrection and Ascension and the Benefits thereof O Darkness it self We have our Witness with the Lord of Heaven and Earth that we own Him to be the Saviour General of the whole World as to that Appearance and that he obtained precious Gifts for Men but we say and our Adversaries have not wherewith reasonably to unsay it that first the Divine Light Life or Power that shined through that Blessed Manhood was Excellently the Saviour and the Manhood but Instrumentally Thus the Scripture There is no Saviour besides me saith God a Body hast thou prepared me He then was greater then his Body for it is call'd a Vail and very properly for it vail'd much of that Divine Life which when it was withdrawn as he himself said it was expedient the Saints did witness inwardly Reveal'd Christ in them their Hope of Glory And secondly No Man or Woman in the World is savingly benefitted by his then Appearing as a Saviour and obtaining precious Gifts for Men but as every such Individual Person comes to experience his Internal Manifestation to Convince Condemn Wound Heal Break Bind up Slay make Alive in the Newness of the Spirit This is the State of Right Redemption and Salvation and thus is he particularly a Saviour and every such one is greatly benefitted by him as he was in that former Appearance the general Saviour of Mankind Behold then O You that are Impartial how unworthily he hath Injur'd us to make People believe that We testifie to Christ's Inward Appearance in Opposition to and Denial of his Outward which is far from our Hearts so much as to Conceive § 3. But again he tells us That Christianity made its way by the Purity of its Doctrine the gracious Words that Christ spoke by Sings and Wonders but Quakerism by Blasphemies against the Lord Jesus Christ and quotes E. B. saying Your Imagin'd God above the Stars and G. Fox There are Miracles among Believers in the Spirit c. frothily querying whether it smells more of the FOX or the GOOSE 'T is true the Purity of its Doctrine was and is an admirable Enforcement it had and hath above all other nor can he fasten justly any Impurity upon what we profess though he endeavours to detract from it by base Aspersions for indeed it is the same Sweet were the Words of Christ I grant but altogether as Severe and Terrible to Pharisaical Hypocrites who were both the greatest Scripturians and Haters of Him in that Age. § 4. Nor is it true that E. Burrough so exprest himself in Derision of God's Presence above the Stars but of Peoples Imagining him to be in the Likeness of Man and so denying his Omni-presence that He should not be as well below as above § 5. But Wonders and Miracles were wrought What then are not the Quakers true Christians without them see the Wickedness of this Spirit that works against us unless we will work Miracles to confirm that Doctrine in this Generation which was confirmed by Miracles 1600. Years ago either it is not True or we have no Right to it But by the way observe their Folly for they Unchristian at once Christianity and themselves too since Christianity must either be no longer such nor they Christians whilst they cannot work Wonders to prove it or them to be such or else the Quakers are never the less true Christians for not working those Wonders they boldly require from us We pretend not to a new Ministration and since the Question is not about the Visible Coming of the Messiah which call'd for Visible Miracles for that 's granted on all hands in Europe but the Spiritual Appearance of the Messiah in the Hearts and Consciences of his People that he might not have a bare and empty Title when he was call'd Jesus but really save his People now as then from their Sins the Case is plainly alter'd as to obvious Miracles to our Carnal Senses the present Work being to open the blind Eye and unstop the deaf Ear of the Mind blinded and stop't by the God of this World And these are greater Things of more Weight and the Consequence of them of far greater Importance And judge you how Vain Light and Unbecoming a Minister of the Gospel of Christ Jesus that requires an account for every Idle word was it in J. Faldo when treating of Christianity to say whether it smells more like the FOX or the GOOSE Vain and Frothy § 6. But once more Christianity entred the World with Ravishing Songs and Hallelujahs of the Angels Healing all Diseases Casting out Devils Preaching Peace But Quakerism entred the World as if Hell had broke loose and Possessions by Satan had made way and fit Souls for the Quakers
out of that Sense in which they were given forth and to an other End then that for which they were given forth which proves to us that the Sense and not the Words shows the End of their being so given forth The Scriptures are a Sealed Book to all but those who know them by the same Hand which Originally gave them So that however Common they may be in the World they are Strangers to them that understand them not And though Old respecting the Time when they were revealed to the Saints yet New to every Age so that we assert not a Revelation of New Things but renewed Revelation of those Things God made former Ages Witnesses of otherwise Men are no more benefited by them And to be benefited they must be made ours by the Spirit which made them the Holy Ancients § 7. In short No Man can understand Spiritual Things but the Spiritually Discerning None can so be without the Inspiration of the Almighty or Spirit of God This is Scripture Now the Author of those Queries and J. Faldo also Denying Inspiration they consequently deny themselves to be Spiritually Discerning and for Men not Spiritual to Judge of Religious and Spiritual Matters much less to Write of them and bid their Writings go and throw down Self-Will and exalt the Truth is Vain and Idolatrous For the Scriptures themselves consider'd meerly as such are unable much less Writings founded on the Authority of Self Will for it is the alone Priviledge of God's Power and Spirit and no Writing whatever distinct from it can perform that Great and Mighty Work in Man § 8. And for Equaling our Writings with the Scriptures because we assert Inspiration and that what we have received and do declare of the Things of God is from the Revelation of his Spirit in our Hearts it is a Foolish Inference Truth was and is Truth all the World over and there was and is but One Way to come to it in all Ages I mean Inspiration The Scriptures are True and our Writings are True but will it therefore follow that we bring them upon a Vie Is this your Disputant But to determine this Case He should first have prov'd if he could what Power God gave to the Ancients and what to Us. How much of his Spirit to those Ages and what to This or else he loseth himself If he can Experimentally tell what were their Discoveries and Experiences and what are Ours he would be a Proper Judge But to think to run us down by Exalting them or to lessen what we are by Increasing their Praise is an old Artifice of the Devil and Sober Men will be more True to Themselves and Just to the Matter then so to censure us Cannot one Man be another Man's Brother and not the Elder Brother Doth it follow that because God has made what we know our own by his Holy Inspirations and Operations that therefore we put our selves upon the Comparison with the Ancients If true Christians fill up or add to Christ's Sufferings yet behind why should their Writings be shuffled out of all Relation to the Scriptures There may be a Relation where there is not an Equality much less a Preference and that we do assert against all Opposers § 9. But now let us see what he says of our setting the Scriptures beneath our own Writings and I will take his own Way to do it The Characters of the Scriptures given by the Quakers as says J. Faldo Characters of their own Teachers Writings and Sayings given by them Feeding Death with Death The Letter which Killeth Declar. from the Minist of the Word p. 7. The Voice of the Son of God was utter'd forth by him by which the Dead was rais'd F. H. Life of E. B. p. 20. Seeking the Living among the Dead J. Parn. Shield His Words Ministred Grace to the Hearers Fox jun. Life E. B. A Mistake for he dy'd before E. B. Reconciliation Death is a State without the Living Experimental Knowledg of God and his Work in the Heart And that State will talk of the Fame of Wisdom as saith the Scripture and that from the Scripture that is from or in the words of Scripture being Ignorant of the true Sense of the Scripture thinking there to have Life which Literal Knowledg it feeds upon and contents it self with where Nations have lain Apostatized from the Life of God and Power of Godliness The Letter Killeth that is the Literal Knowledge or rather their Imaginations from the Letter not being Divinely Inspir'd so as to understand it by which Men buoy and lift up themselves as Christians in the World and yet are Strangers to the inward sensible Work of God And it does Kill the Soul with respect to that true Life the Spirit and Power of God begets in all right Christians through whom the Voice of the Son of God has does and will utter it self to the Ends of the Earth for the Raising the Dead in Trespasses and Sins as that worthy Servant of God did which is now with his Lord. This disreputes not the Scriptures but those who make a wrong Use of them nor is there any Comparison betwixt Reading what God's Spirit requires immediate Hearing his Voice and being sensible of his present living Touches upon the Soul Writings are but holy Things at second hand a Living Ministry is the very Life Power and Spirit present and more immediate In short the Testimony of F. H. we prefer not before the Testimony Luke gives of holy Stephen We prefer the Scriptures before all Writings but before God's immediate Power we dare not do Paper Ink and Writing the same pag. 7. A Shield of the Truth Title J. P's Book Reconcil What 's this to the purpose We say that the Scriptures or the Writings not the Things written of mark that are Paper Ink and Writing which was spoken abstractively and upon a Comparison of them with the Word of God that was with God and was and is God over all blessed for ever Doth any Man think that we believe greater things of J. Parnel's Book By no means He call'd not his Book consisting of so much Writing Ink and Paper a Shield of Truth but that of which it treated was the Truth and with respect to the Controversial part of it as it was writ in Defence of the Truth it might be tearm'd a Shield in which sense the Scriptures by him urged have the upper-hand of his Writing by whose greater Authority with Men he abets and maintains the Doctrine contended for Shews you I suppose the Light your own Faces which the Scriptures cannot do Scorned Quak. accounts p. 20. A Spiritual Glass opened Smith ' s Cat. c. Morn Watch. Reconcil This can be no way hard to reconcile For when we say the Scriptures cannot show Men at all Times and in all States their Conditions but the Secret In-shining Light of God alone we are not so unworthy as to intend that any Book of
of the Light within every such Rebellious Person in which the Love of God is marvelously expressed who by his holy Light within and its Testimonies without endeavours the Conviction and Reformation of the Children of Men. § 13. But hear him in his second and last Inference upon the same Ground the Tenets and Assertions of all the Heathens are to be received as of equal Authority with the Scriptures for they resulted from their Light Within improved much more orderly and to Purpose then the Quakers do theirs Yea the bitter Scoffs of Lucian and Julian the Apostate must be admitted into the same Orders for if it be admitted they did not Vilifie and Scorn and Deride the Scripture and Christianity according to the Dictates of their Consciences it cannot be denyed that they therein acted from the Power within which whether it were the Power of Darkness or not the Quakers having no Rule to judge it by but their own Sentiments it is left by them undetermined And I know not hardly any Worse they said of Jesus of Nazareth the Scripture and Christianity then the Quakers have done under other Names This Passage Impertinent enough to the purpose and as Black as Hell it self in Malice against that despised Remnant of People Called Quakers by God's Assistance I will effectually answer to the shame of this ungodly Slanderer The Gentiles Light was one in Nature with that which the Evangelist saith inlightneth all Men a Text whose Plainness Expressness yields that Advantage to us against the utmost Force of all our Adversaries which they are Angry at but can never Invalid I say one in Nature with that Divine Being and as such transcending all Writings whatever yet that the Gentiles had that Light in a more excellent Degree then that in which the Prophets and Apostles enjoyed it whence came those excellent Writings I utterly deny and that in the Name of all true Quakers I say again that though the least measure of Pure Light it self is to be preferred before all the Writings in the World as meer Writings yet that it may not be comparable to that Degree and further Discovery of Light which was witnessed by those who gave forth those Writings I grâ—â—t so that to bring the Sayings and the Assertions of the Heathens upon an Equality with the Writings of the holy Prophets and Apostles we dare not assent to but vehemently oppose any such Inference made to be the Product of our Belief For though as I said before any measure of Light it self is beyond the most excellent meer Writings of a far greater yet the Writings or Sayings given forth by that lesser Appearance are not to be brought into Comparison with those of a greater Discovery no more then the Degrees of Discovery or Manifestation of the Light it self This the Apostle Paul practised who notwithstanding that he rightly knew that Administration to supercede and transcend what want before stuck not to remind the Heathens of their own Authors as Aratus Menander c. by an apt Application of them to this Purpose in Defence of his Doctrine And if Those who became a Law unto themselves Doing the things contained in the Law were to be preferred before the Circumcision who kept not the Law and that who lived without Law outward yet according to Law inward should be judged by Law inward which was substantially the same as testifies the Apostle with what was required by the Law outward Then their Law within Substantially consider'd did not fall short of that Law without nor they who kept it of the Circumcision themselves which most clearly overturns that Ignorant or Malicious Cavil to wit that the Quakers have no Mean by which to judge of the Ground of Wrong and Right Actions For if the Scriptures be that only Judge then there could have been no Knowledg of right or wrong Actions Spirits or Powers before they were given forth which because the Patriarchs and Gentiles had an evident Sight and true Sence of by that Internal Law of Light in the Heart and Conscience without Scripture it follows that the Quakers owning the same Light and that in a more eminent Discovery can not be guilty of such an Ignorance § 14. But a litle further to inspect his Argument If the having no Outward Rule was to be without all Rule whereby to Try a Right from a Wrong Power I would gladly know how the Prophets themselves were assured of the Truth of their Motions being without any outward Touch-Stone and by what means the Apostles knew that the Spirit or Power which acted them to reject and decry the whole Service of the Jews which God had so peculiarly Instituted Circumcision for Instance that was given for a Sign FOREVER was the right Spirit or Power I ask Was it the Scripture without or the Son of God otherwise called the Light or Word of God revealed in them But I will yet proceed Suppose any Man who is call'd an Independent and owns the Scripture to be that which J. Faldo reputes them should pretend a Vision of very strange and unwonted Things should imitate a Trance personate some extraordinary Inspired Person by what place of Scripture would J. Faldo assure himself or others of the Sincerity or Imposture of such a Person his Rationals being otherwise Sound his Life Sober and his Pretences no way anti-Scriptural O Weak Man Is thy Religion without a secret Light Life Power Vertue Sight or Relish of the Root and Ground of things or rather doest thou conclude that all Mankind however Christian are left Destitute of any Inward Power to Try or Discern Spirits because it is thine own State of Darkness I affirm to thee and all the World that in this Case no outward Mean whatsoever decides the Matter or clears the Doubt only the invisible Light Power or Spirit of God Yea and that in far less Cases too In which sense chiefly it is the Dispensation of the Gospel so call'd and justly preferr'd before all other And this I leave with him that nothing can judge of the Root and Ground of Evil but the Root and Ground of Good The Works of Evil the Scriptures tel us are abominable But the Question is How do I know what they declare to be Evil is so what works the Conviction in me and where an Evil Spirit brings it self not forth into those Works what shall discern him except it be the Good Spirit It is the Power of God within that crusheth the Power of the Devil within The Scriptures without Reprove his Works without But since the things contained in the Scriptures were such in themselves and true and experienc'd before they were written will it not follow that the inward Power was both a sufficient Judge and their Author too and consequently Greater § 15. But above all the Impudence of his Wickedness both to charge the Impiety of Julian and Lucian upon the Light within by placing them in the same Order with
possibly can be which he makes them but to be § 9. In short either the Scriptures are not obscure a thing we daily see or if so yet sufficient which is impossible or they must have a Judge which is most true and necessary and what Judge but the Spirit of Truth which leads into all Truth And so far are Decrees from determining because written that they are therefore determinative of Controversie because of that Conviction the Power from whence they came works upon the Conscience So that though what is true in it self is not the less so because written yet is not the Writing subject to an hundred Casualities nor Matter therein declared as there eminently the Rule much less the Judge after our Adversaries Notion of a Judge But that Living Powerful Spirit which gave it forth and who are made spiritual Men by it For the spiritual Man judges all things Such Writings may be declaratory of the Mind and Determination of the Living Rule or Judge I grant but also I utterly deny that the Writings themselves are that Rule how People are to believe them and a Judge how to determine of the Difficulties and Obscurities within themselves A meer Begging of the Question and a thing altogether absurd We cannot end this Chapter without an Acknowledgment of the Goodness of God in Opening things so clearly to the making known his Divine Light and Truth and manifestly Discovering the great Darkness and Blindness of its Opposers CHAP. VI. We deny the Charge His Proof no Proof but against himself We Own Believe and desire to Obey the Scriptures they afford Comfort and are as Lights in the World but not that True Light The Light and Spirit Superior to them § 1. THe next Charge he brings against us is a Consequence of his already mistaken Judgment and untrue Assertions concerning us viz. That we take People off from Reading the Scriptures and Looking into them for Instruction and Comfort to prove which as he thinks for none else can that is not either as deeply Ignorant of us or as Malicious against us as J. Faldo shows himself in almost every particular he brings out W. Smith speaking thus in his Catech. pag. 95. And this is the Meaning of our Doctrine to bring People to the Everlasting Word of God in themselves O Ungodly Man What Evil Spirit hath possest J. Faldo into this wretched and impious Consequence Certainly he is grosly blind or he has sinned against the Light of his own Conscience if he hath Conscience enough to think it a Sin which I profess I doubt when the Malignity Frothiness Envy and Impious Unjustice of the Man are set before me For 1 let any tell me if it be a Sin to bring People to the everlasting Word of God in themselves though he Dirts us not a little for so doing 2 If we do hereby take Men off from reading and looking into the Scriptures I do affirm against this Ungodly Priest and that by Authority from God the Scriptures Reason and the first Reformers too that no Man on Earth can understand them but by being first brought to the Everlasting Word of God nigh in the Heart by which the Lord speaks forth his Will to the Creature and the Scriptures themselves direct to this and never said that of themselves some over-doing Priests assert concerning them whose whole End is this that by Exalting the Letter and Excluding the Spirit they may lock up all Knowledge in their own Areanum and plead the Impossibility of Knowing the things of God any other way then by their literal Ministration for should Men be but turned to the Certain Witness of God in their own Consciences there placed of the Lord their whole Trade Power and Reputation would fall and their Deceits be made manifest in the View of the World which God the Righteous Judge of Heaven and Earth is now accomplishing § 2. But he says that J. Parnel censures such that draw Peoples Minds from the Light within to the Light without putting the Letter for the Light c. Shield of Tr. pag. 10. And what then Because we say that he who inlightens all Men God that is the Sun and Fountain of all Divine Light and in whom there is no Darkness at all is greater then the Scriptures therefore will it follow that we take People off from Reading or Looking into them Behold your Priest you that hear him Is this Man to be accounted of as a Minister of the Gospel that thus unrighteously deals with us But God will recompense upon his Head in the Day of his terrible Vengeance for all his Hard and Ungodly Sayings against us We do say and that rightly Whoever puts the Letter in Opposition to or above the Spirit is an Idolater For there can be no Comparison rightly made between them the Heavens don't excell the Earth more then the Spirit does the Letter and the Power the Form But if we do not therefore deny the Form of Godliness because we prefer and press more earnestly the Power neither do we exclude the Scriptures because we prefer and press the Everlasting Word of God nigh in the Heart And this I will tell him that to busie the Minds of Men with the Depth of those Truths the Scriptures declare of by reading and exercising their Minds in Meditating thereon before they have been turned unto the Measure of the Light or Grace of God in the Heart to believe and obey that in its secret Discoveries Reproofs and Strivings is to set Men about Images to conceive a God a Christ a Salvation a Damnation an Heaven an Hell by which the Inward Work of God is overlook't and they become Rich in Notion whilst most barren in Obedience and of all People that live upon the Earth the Greatest Idolaters because they bow down to their own Imaginations for real Truths And this is the State of every Opposer to the Sacred Light within how full soever of the meer Literal Knowledg of the very Scriptures themselves for indeed who knows the new Birth though the Scriptures declare of it but who really experience it § 3. But J. Story he thinks has Contributed much to prove his Assertion in this Passage And although the holy Scripture without and the Saints Practices are as Lights in the World yet far be it from all true Christian Men so to Idolize them as to set them in Esteem above the Light which is sufficient to guide or to esteem them Equal with the Light and Spirit of God within J. S. Short Discourse Pag. 2. To this he objects that J. S. confesses them to be as Lights but not a Light and that our Commendations of that Idol the Light within are such that if they were true he were a stark Fool that would direct his Eyes to the Scripture But here the Priest fail's egregiously For if the Scriptures are as Lights I cannot see how they should be denyed to be as in the
spin out the Hour-Glass I mean saying over the same things in other words yet that we may remove all Ground of Scruple I will lay down the several Charges of the remaining Chapters concerning the Scriptures and the best Proofs he brings for them and briefly examine both § 2. The Quakers affirm the Doctrines Commands Promises holy Examples expressed in the Scriptures as such not at all to be binding to us This sayes he is a Denying of the Scriptures and the Authority of the God of the Scriptures For Proof of this he brings out E. Burroughs Speaking thus That is no Command of God to me what he Commanded to another neither did any of the Saints which we read of in the Scripture act by that Command which was to another not having the Command to themselves I challenge to find an Example to it To this I answer briefly and plainly Edward Burroughs's Expression may be taken two wayes and both safe enough to the Honour and Credit of the Scriptures though not to the Charity or Honesty of J. Faldo No Command in the Scripture is any further oblieging upon any Man then as he finds a Conviction upon his Conscience otherwise Men should be engaged without if not against Conviction a Thing Unreasonable in a Man Therefore the Apostle when he wrote to the Churches exhorted them Not to do those things whereof they were ashamed to shun what was manifested to be Evil and affirms That whatever might be known of God was manifested Within for God had shown it unto them So that Conviction can only obliege to Obedience and since what works that Conviction is the Manifesting Light Universal Grace or Quickning Spirit in the Heart of Mankind it follows that the principal Ground for our Faith in the Scriptures and Reason of our Obedience to the Holy Precepts therein contained is the Manifestation Conviction and Secret Drawings of the Light or Spirit of God in the Conscience And thus E. B's Words are Sound and Scriptural for the Scriptures are chiefly believed to be true upon Conviction therefore every Practice therein and when any Man is convinced that what was Commanded another is required of him then and not till then he is rightly authoriz'd to perform it Again § 3. Such Commands are either relating to Ordinary or Extraordinary Cases By Ordinary Cases I mean such as chiefly concern Faith and Holy Life which are General Permanent and Indispensible and then I deny his Consequence By Extraordinary Cases I understand Moses ' s going to Pharaoh the Prophets several Manner of Appearance to the Kings Priests and People of Israel with other Temporary Commands relating to Outward Services c. And so we do say that what is Commanded one Man is not binding as such upon another But when the Lord shall say If thou Sinnest thou shalt Dye If thou keepest my Commands thou shalt Live Be ye Holy for I the Lord your God am Holy Also in case of Example as the Priest cites Whose Faith follow consider the End of their Conversation Leaving us an Example that we should follow his Steps For your selves know you not how you ought to follow us For after this manner in the old time the Holy Women also who trusted in God adorn'd themselves I say these Precepts and Examples are oblieging upon all Why because they more or less meet with a Conviction in the Consciences of all For I am perswaded none that has a reasonable Soul who has not out-lived their Day and on whom the Night is not come among the Indians themselves but would readily say These are true and weighty Sayings for Faith in God and an Holy Self-denying Life are necessary both to Temporal and Eternal Happiness Thus then are we clear from his Ungodly Consequence indeed Aspersion to wit That the Quakers affirm the Doctrines Commands Promises Holy Examples expressed in Scripture as such not to be binding But let 's hear another of his Consequences by way of Charge and see if he will acquit himself better then before § 4. The Quakers deny the Scriptures to be any Means by which we may come to know God Christ and Our selves To prove this he quotes W. Smith's Primmer p. 2. Q. Is there not another Way by which we may come to know God Answ Nay Child there is not another Way for Christ is the Way To which he replies Christ saith I am the Way no Man can come to the Father but by me but he doth not say that there is no Coming to the Knowledge of God but by Christ For some Knowledge of God may be attained not only without Christ as the Means but without the Scriptures also Quoting that Passage in the first of the Romans For the Invisible Things of him are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made c. To all which I say 1. That greater Untruth Irreverence and Impertinency could not well have been exprest then in his saying That no Man can come to the Father but by Christ and no Man can come to the Knowledge of God but by Christ are two different things For it manifestly implies that Men may know God without Christ either inwardly or outwardly though no other Name be given and that to know the Father was to know some other kind of Being then to know God Or that when they did know the one they did not know the other 2. That it was never denyed by any Quaker that God might and sometimes does reach into the very Heart and Conscience by the Scriptures Shall I allow that a Man may be convinced of his Evil by reading one of our Books and shall I deny it to be as possible for any to be convinced by reading some Passages in the Holy Scriptures God forbid Neither did William Smith ever mean that Christ was so the only Way to the Father as thereby to exclude all Instruments for then he had both cut off all Benefit that could accrue to People by his Books and also from that Ministry God had given him to profit others with which was far from his Thoughts we may be sure So that the great Wickedness of this Priest is herein manifest without further Cost to know him for he argues from our denying that there is any other Way to the Father but Christ to our excluding the Scriptures and consequently our own Books and Ministry with them from being any way Instrumental of Good Reader what can be said to such a Man but that he is either Ignorance or Malice it Self I wish it were the former but his Book makes me fear the latter § 5. In short through all Instruments He who in time and with respect to that Manifestation was call'd Christ was is and ever will be the alone Way to the Father And though he may discover himself by divers Instruments yet it is but in order to incline Man to his Holy Voice in Man Some they hear and obey and live Others
Flesh and Blood the Birth that persecutes the Son and Heir Graven Images Morn Watch p. 22 23. It would amaze sayes he a Christian to read what is contain'd in the two Pages quoted of vilifying Reproach to the Scriptures and the Doctrines from them received If this be not Opposing the Spirit of God to the Scriptures and rendering them advers to each other the Devil himself must dispair of Inventing Words to express it by And now Reader it is time for me with a Soul full of Grief to make my Appeal to the Righteous Lord God of Heaven and Earth and his equal Witness in thy Conscience if ever Quakers writ or said any such thing of the Holy Scriptures O far be it from us and very great and heavy will the Damnation of J. Faldo be in the Day of the Lord unless he shall unfeignedly Repent because of these detestable Lyes that he seems wilfully to fasten upon our Writings What William Smith said reflected not in the least upon the Scriptures nor yet those Doctrines which were truly received thence No such words can be produced by our Adversaries had W. S. written any such thing he that adds so much that was not we are to suppose would not have omitted mentioning of that if it had been But W. Smith addrest himself to that Adulterated Spirit which had defiled Nations that nevertheless were under the Profession of God Scriptures and Religious Worship though in Works they deny'd God and as concerning Scripture and true Worship grosly err'd not knowing the Power of God nor how to Worship him in Spirit and in Truth not that he ever durst to entertain so Blasphemous an Apprehension of those Holy Writings or those Doctrines that are truly received thence as is suggested by our most unfair Adversary And is it not the height of all Unrighteousness to our Neighbour that when he condemns the Degenerated Spirit Knowledge and Worship of any People however professing the Scriptures and it may be pretending to believe accordingly as W. Smith does all Apostate Christians J. Faldo should infer that his Neighbour calls the Scriptures themselves and not a wrong Knowledge of them Will-Worship Corruption Rottenness Deceitful Whore's-Cup Apostacy Earthly Root Graven Images c. and that he should intend nothing less then Opposition betwixt the Spirit and its own Scriptures There needs no further Confutation then the gross and black Envy of our Adversary about this one Passage Be it known to all we do affirm the Scriptures never did jarr with the Spirit nor the Spirit oppose himself against the Scriptures and thus much our Writings can plentifully prove to all sober Enquirers § 3. But he offers another and the last Proof of his Charge from J. Naylor That of this sort are they false Prophets as I suppose he means who have their Preaching from Study and other Men's Mouthes and not from the Mouth of the Lord. From which he infers that what we have in the Scriptures is not from the Mouth of the Lord and queries I would know saith he of the Quakers what they will make of the Mouth of the Lord It was said to Jeremiah Jer. 15. 19. Thou shalt be as my Mouth Our Meaning is still over-look't by this disingenuous Adversary and a quite contrary thing substituted The natural Purport of the Words can be no more then this That though the Things declared of in the Scriptures were the Word of the Lord to the holy Ancients and Jeremiah as God's Mouth not his Mouth therefore to the People of Israel yea and much of it the Word of the Lord to us too yet for Men to say any part thereof by wrote especially if they add their own Comments and Glosses fraim'd from Study to any part of the Scriptures and cry Thus sayes the Lord or Hear the Word of the Lord and not in the same living Sense nor upon the like Commission every such one doth Rob his Neighbour and Steal his words And He is no more a True Prophet for so doing then a Parrat is a Man because he can talk If then no such Creature is therefore to be reputed Rational nor what he says Reason as to him though so in it self because it proceeds not from the Root and Principle of Reason but by meer Imitation and consequently a Prater in no case to be minded Neither is he a true Prophet nor that the Word of the Lord with respect to that Prophet who has not received what he delivers from the immediate Word of God himself but by Hear-say or meer Imitation No he is but a very Babbler and begets People no further then into meer Words and Imaginary Glosses which is the Ground of that Uncertainty that is in the World about Religion The Scriptures then are to us oblieging as the Things they declare of were the Word of the Lord to several Ages Temporal Commands excepted and they are not without a Mouth yet they and Jeremiah too are Inferior to the Mouth of the Eternal Word which speaks in this Evangelical Dispensation the Will of God unto Mankind after a more living and immediate Manner as was prophesied of old And I may thus far gratifie our Adversary's Curiosity about God's Mouth and tell him that the Word of God is the Mouth of God and the true Prophets and Apostles in all Ages have been the Mouth of the Word of God and the Scriptures are the Writings of those holy Prophets and Apostles as they were the Mouth of the Eternal Word revealing God's Will in their Hearts that they might declare it whether by Word of Mouth or Writing to the People and this is the true Order and Descent of things § 4. But he has one Kick more at us before he gives up the Ghost in his Mis-representation of us concerning the Scriptures The Quakers hold it is a sin and the sign 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 And now says he I am come to the highest Round of their Ladder Indeed those Rounds of Ladders are very dangerous places I will not say how often nor for what an Army Chaplin might deserve to be so high exalted but since his eager pursuit after an Innocent People has brought him actually thither and it falls to my Lot to be his Executioner I shall take all the care I can to acquit my self well of my Employment I will warrant him for ever coming down the same way he went up In order to which let us first hear what kind of Speech he will make us to the Point in hand William Dewsbury in his Discovery of Mans Return pag. 21. 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
not to Deny them to be any Means whereby Men may come to know God Christ or our selves if to affirm them to be a Means whereby to resist Temptation not Dangerous to be read if to deny them to be read to any profit without the Assistance of the Spirit especially by such as know them not who are in a Rebellious and Unregenerate State if never to dare to put the Scriptures and Spirit in Opposition to each other if not to affirm the Doctrines Expressions and Holy Examples as such not to be binding Temporary Services excepted if to hold it as no Sin of Idolatry nor any other to Believe and Live according to the Instructions and Holy Examples expressed in and by the Scriptures If to do all these things so mentioned be not to deny contemn and Undervalue but rather to honour rightly instate and recommend the Scriptures then the Quakers who Believe and Do all this are not Denyers but Owners Asserters and Defenders of the Scriptures so far as they themselves desire to be Defended But we have largely prov'd that so to do is not to deny them and that the Quakers so hold therefore the Quakers are no Denyers but Maintainers of the True and Divine Authority of the Scriptures § 8. For his Comparison of us with the Papists though he has been so Cunning or Unjust rather as to quote their Authors and not ours and some passages we justly doubt it is Ridiculous and every way Unworthy of our Notice A meer Begging of the Question and by what we can guess design'd only to bring an Odium upon us He puts the Scriptures in the middle and the Quakers and Papists like the two Theeves upon the Cross on each side to discover their Harmonious Agreement against them which of them he makes to be him that should go to Paradice I know not but we have the upper Hand But we can never allow of the Comparison since the Papists place the Rule and Judgship in a Pope or General Council and the Quakers in the Eternal Unerrable Holy Spirit of God and consequently our Adversary is basely Irreverent to God that brings the Pope or a Council of Fallible Men upon a Comparison with his Infallible Spirit Nor if it were true would it be any thing against us since Protestants will not allow themselves to be therefore Papists because in several things they agree as about God Eternity Christ his Life Death Sufferings Resurrection Last Judgment and Eternal Recompence § 9. To conclude We dare leave it with God and all sober Men to judge how far J. Faldo hath abused us in giving in so black a Charge against us and traducing our Persons and perverting our Writings to prove it by base Characters fastned upon the one and false Inferences charg'd upon the other Which of themselves conspire the Overthrow of their Inventer and thus is he fairly turn'd off from the highest Round of the Ladder which he hath so unadvisedly adventur'd to mount And as it fares with some Notorious Malefactors he remains there Pendent as a Monument of his own Rash and Dishonest Undertakings to the Terror of all Passengers who shall happen to travel by this way of Controversie to the Land of Truth CHAP. X. He chargeth us with a Denial of all the Ordinances of the Gospel First in general then in particular His Proof of the first Invalid His great Disingenuity in wresting our words especially I. Pennington's § 1. THe Second part of his Book begins with the Quakers Denial of all the Ordinances of the Gospel as he will have it It is more then possible that we shall prove him ere we part not only to be a Denier of the True Gospel Ordinances but indeed an Introducer of another Gospel if such a thing may be But to his Charge First in general then in particular The Quakers deny the Ordinances of the Gospel in general by which sayes he I understand not those of Nature's Book nor what was revealed by Moses but those Ordinances which were commanded by Precept or prescribed by Example in the New Testament Now to prove what he says of the Quakers he cites G. Fox thus And we say He Christ hath triumphed over the Ordinances and blotted them out and they are not to be touched and the Saints have Christ in them who is the End of outward Forms G. Myst p. 52. In all which I find no Denial of Gospel Ordinances Nor were they so much as meant by him His Language is Scriptural For Christ did blot out the Hand-writing of Ordinances and he was to the Saints then and is to those now who rightly believe in him the End of all Meats Drinks Washings Days or any other Temporal Elementary or Figurative Worship for J. Faldo then to charge a Denial of all Gospel-Ordinances upon these words is to plead for a Legal Dispensation and Bondage to the Shadows of the Good Things to come thereby making Christ's coming of none Effect and Consequently introducing of another Gospel as speaks the Apostle besides that he basely wrests our Words § 2. Again But Pennington is so Cruel by that time he arrives to P. 38. of Unity that he says Such of the People of God as do not follow the Lord perfectly out of the City of Abomination VISIBLE WORSHIP but be found in any part thereof when the Lord cometh to judge her the Lord will not spare them I perceive that unless we will allow J. Faldo the Liberty of telling the World our Meaning or rather making his own to be ours his Essays come to nothing What Words can be sounder of their Kind Visible Worship being left out and which our Adversary unworthily puts in Are not People to follow God fully Strange Doctrine that he teacheth But grant him his Gloss alias gross Comment without Distinction and I know he do's his Work But we are not so easily to be overlaid We do declare that while Men have Bodies which are the visible Parts of Men and the Bodies of Men are conversably concern'd in Religious Worship as well as the Soul there will be there must be and there ought to be a Visible Worship Therefore most false is J. Faldo's Paraphrase yet thus far we could go That Visible Worship as such without a due Regard to what Kind of Worship it may be and what is the Root from whence it came cannot be well pleasing to God For then that so Splendid Whore and Deceitful Prophet at large described in the Revelation of Saint John would be therefore true Worshippers because their Worship was Visible But I do perceive that here it pincheth with almost all Professions The Quakers would put us off our own Strivings Willings Runnings in our own Wisdom Contrivance Appointment whereby we must take up such a Cross to self as is insupportable to Flesh and Blood And indeed it is so which all must come to know a Crucifying of or they enter not into the Kingdom of God here nor
What Charge that upon us which our Practice gives the Lye to every day But when we urge this against him and such like Adversaries then it is not that he hath Mis-represented us but that we have Contradicted our selves But to clear the Point if it can yet be doubtful We do believe there is One and but One Universal Church the Ground and Pillar of Truth and that is in God anchor'd establisht and built upon him the Rock of Ages and Foundation of many Generations and as such neither is every Visible Society making Profession of Religion nor are all of them together that Church but such alone who are washed in the Blood of the Lamb and ingrafted into the True Vine bringing forth the Fruits of Holiness to the Eternal Honour Glory and Renown of Christ the Head who is over all God blessed for evermore And though there be a Mediate Preaching which is to say that the Spirit speaks by such whom he hath anointed to preach yet it cannot be strictly said that Man preaches or it is Man's Ministry but rather the Spirit by Man and that it is the Spirit 's Ministry and Man only a Mean or Instrument through which the Teaching is convey'd or Direction rather to the true Teacher the Light in the Conscience Not that the Lord doth not sometimes plentifully teach his Children without any such Means too who are turned to the Grace in the Heart and believe and walk in his Holy Light where God is to be found and an Access to this Holy Blessed Presence administred for he hath both promised it of old and perform'd it in our Dayes Thus the Apostles were Preachers not from Man nor by Man but by the Revelation of the Son of God declaring of the Mysteries of God's Everlasting Kingdom as they were moved by the Holy Ghost And so none are exempted for all may Prophesie one by one that the Church may be edified Yet I cannot but observe that 1 the Man implicitely denies that to be a True Church which is the Ground and Pillar of Truth for such the Quakers style a Gospel-Church 2 That he affirms the True Church to have other Teachers then the Spirit which is to say that the Primitive Churches were not led guided and taught by the Spirit of God only but by some other Teachers also contrary to express Scripture the Promise of God and very End of the blessed Gospel If he sayes that he meant the Apostles that were inspired I answer that was never deny'd by us because that was the Teaching of the Spirit by them which was very little less then if it had been immediately in them So that one of these two things must follow from his kind of Arguing Either the Apostles preacht without the Motions of the Eternal Spirit Or Preaching as they were moved of God's Spirit was their Preaching and not the Holy Spirit 's that so plentifully dictated to them what they were to say But in as much as neither can be reputed true by true Christian Men I conclude the Quakers sound and their boasting Adversary Heretical § 2. But he thinks he hath clearly got the Point of us about a Quaker's telling him they knew that one of the Dutch Nation spoke by the Spirit in a Meeting of ours though in that Language which was not understood by the Meeting because they all found Refreshings I will be faithful in giving his Observation upon it Of the unknown Language he sayes This was orderly according to the Popish Mass who read Prayers in an Unknown Tongue to the People but herein he wrongs us for though we do acknowledge that the pure and single Power of the Almighty may both strike Astonishment and give Refreshment where the words utter'd are not alwayes understood since he doth both frequently without them and that Understanding and Sence are two things for the Devil may speak the best words in the Bible and be an undiscover'd Devil still except by this Divine Light Power or Spirit he be inwardly manifested consequently a right Sence may be had where words may not be understood which is the One Tongue to the Children of the Light Yet we not only decry all design'd Obscurity by Praying and Preaching in unknown Languages but with the Apostle say that we choose rather by far to speak in a known Tongue that the People may understand our Words as well as have a sence of our Spirits Nor did ever any Quaker yet pretend to be moved to pray in an Unknown Language whilst he was Master of that which was well known to the People since then we don't affect such Obscurity the Case of all those Papists who pray in Latin rather then in their Native and vulgar Tongue he is very disingenuous in that reflection § 3. Upon the Quakers Reason why they knew that Declaration was from the Spirit of God viz. because they found Refreshings he bestows this Confutation so have Children many a time AT PUPPET-PLAYES What a pass are these People come to who yet deny all Teachings of Man But what a Pass may I rather say hath this Man 's implacable Spirit against the Truth of God brought him to who to his Dishonesty before adds Prophaneness joyn'd with Scoff and Impudence when he denies all Refreshment that comes not by sound of Words in a known Tongue to be any more Certainty from God's Spirit then the Pleasure Children take at Puppet-Plays though he could not but think the Person that spoak to him meant by Refreshings what came from God that there can be no Proportion or Comparison betwixt that Pious Answer and the Ungodly Sport of Puppet-Playes Ben. Johnsons ALCHYMIST which all good Men detest and himself dying abhorr'd hath nothing in it half so gross in Abuse of Religion I even tremble at the Thoughts of that Hand writing upon the Wall which this Man's Impiety is writing I fear with indeleble Characters against him who will receive a just and certain Recompence at the hand of the Righteous Judge of Heaven and Earth for all his hard Speeches against the Holy Way of the Lord. § 4. But let me not omit to show the Blow he gives his own Cause in this Expression since by the same Reason that we know no Refreshment to be any more of God without known Words then that of a Puppet-Play he knows not any more the Teachings of the God above p. 113. nor the Motions of the Holy Ghost or Dictates of the Grace of God within 2. Part. 9 10. known Words being excepted to be of God then that Refreshment little Children have in a Puppet-Play The Consequence of which Diabolical Comparison is nothing less then to overthrow all inward sence of God's Presence or that Refreshment which comes from it And then indeed we must confess we should be necessitated either to deny all Teaching or conclude with this Antichristian Priest That Man 's Teaching or Ministry ought to be adhered to Where if Puppet-Playes be
meer Imitations of real things as I have been credibly told we know not but our Ignorance of an Inward Sence might render us very fit to judge in favour of the Priest his Puppet-Play Doctrine till when we leave Imitating J. Faldo and the Puppets together who alike fainedly represent Life Power and Spirit but in reality are empty Sounds and meer Wind ratling through lifeless Truncks CHAP. XIII But we deny Preaching says he His Disingenuity in stating our Principles We hold and practise true Gospel-Preaching No Difference between what the Light teacheth and the Scripture Our Gospel is Peace Our Adversary's is War c. True Preaching converts our Adversary's not § 1. ANother of those Ordinances he falsly affirms us to deny is Preaching of which he speaks thus They will allow a Hearing the Word preach'd 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 This is so far from making against us that it makes for us at an high rate For who preaches without that Light of Christ that the Quakers affirm all True Preaching proceeds from preaches not from the Discoveries and Leadings of the Light and consequently all such Preaching is in the Darkness where God's Counsel cannot be known Nay how is it possible that People can be turn'd from Darkness to the Light the End of Preaching by those who deny that Men ought to preach from the Revelations and Guidings of the Light § 2. He hath also with manifest Baseness brought us in as putting a Difference betwixt our Preaching by the Light within and that Doctrine of God which is contained in the Scriptures Whereas we Read Believe Practise and Preach no other Doctrine for Truth then what is explicitely or implicitely there held forth and testified unto Though we confess that we don't only so believe practise and preach it because there written but from an Inward Living Power or Spirit which both Opens the Mysteries thereof to our Understandings begets right Belief in them and at sundry times moves upon our Hearts to declare a fresh those Ancient Blessed Truths therein exprest And this is what G. F. meant and we All understand by Ceasing from Man to wit meer Man not Man Inspir'd or so Divinely qualified But he has a Scripture and a Passage out of W. Smith to justifie his Charge at least he thinks so And how shall they preach except they be sent as it is written How beautiful are the Feet of them that preach the Gospel of Peace c. We say so to and did we mean the same 't were happy for J. Faldo By being sent we understand by the Light within and the Scripture without a being anointed by the immediate Power of God without which the Disciples themselves who had so many Advantages above us were not to budge They could have told most of what Jesus had done and suffer'd which though Truth in it self and they able to relate it yet bare Truth and all they had seen or known without a Living Immediate Power and Commission within the Baptism of the Holy Spirit they were not to budge on God's Account If J. Faldo could give us as good Evidence of his being so call'd as he hath done of a False and Enrag'd Spirit against the Truth we should acknowledge him for a Gospel-Minister but since he dis-acknowledges all share in any such Mission we justly refuse him any part in a Gospel-Ministry § 3. In short If none can preach without being sent then since he his Tribe were never so sent they ought not to preach nor any to hear them For Right Faith can never come by such a Ministry No They are Right Gospel-Ministers their Feet truly beautyful whose Gospel is Peace on Earth good-Will towards Men Not Garments rold in the Blood of Kings Princes Rulers and People No Worldly Armies Battles Victories Trophies Spoiles Sequestrations Decimations and the like Blood-thirsty and Tyrannical Projects In which J. Faldo and his POOR NON-CONFORMING MINISTERS have had their Hands almost over Head and Ears till they had well nigh lost their Ears and their Heads too Such Covenant-breaking Self-seeking Proud Covetous Tyrannical Club-law Persecuting Priests we could never own but ever did and ever shall earnestly bear our faithful Testimony against them as the Locusts Caterpillers Serpents and Dragons of the Earth whose Cruelty Self-seeking and Falsness hath griev'd Good Men and caused the Wicked to Blaspheme the Name of the God of Heaven whose Damnation slumbers not if by unfeigned Contrition not prevented § 4. Well but we are to hear what strength William Smith's Primmer can give to his Charge 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 That is principally there is no other Teacher no other Revealer or Discoverer of the Mind and Will of God to us then Christ the Light as saith the Scripture No man knows the Father but the Son the true Light and he to whom the Son reveals him And whatever makes manifest is Light Now unless a Man may know God without any Manifestation it is impossible that he should be known without Light that only gives it especially when it shall be considered That HE is Light it self If then there is no Knowing of God but that which we know must first be manifested and that whatever makes manifest the Things of God is Light it evidently follows That the Light is the Alone Author of those Discoveries Men receive of the Mind of God And whatever Knowledg may be given or rightly obtained through the Scriptures is not to be imputed to the Scripture as such but that Divine Light which gives inward Conviction of the Truth of what is outwardly read or writ in that excellent Book called Scripture So that still to Christ the True Light as the Chiefest Cause in which sense he is most properly so called do we rightly ascribe all the Knowledge we have of God and his Everlasting Kingdom CHAP. XIV His Charge of our Denial of Gospel-Prayer inverted The Prayer he pleads for Anti-Gospel True Prayer stated asserted and defended with Plainness from Scripture and Reason That as well in Families as Meetings and at Meals as both False Worship detestable to God All False wherein God's Spirit is not the first and chief Mover and Assister The Subtilty of Satan in putting upon unacceptable Prayer to prevent True Prayer § 1. BUt we deny Prayer as well as Preaching if he may be credited and indeed we do so by the same Figure or contrary Way of Speaking that We deny them that is as John Faldo owns them but not that therefore we should deny them at all His Charge lies in three parts First That we Contemn True Gospel-Prayer To prove which
a Living Touch and Sence from his Pure Living and Eternal Spirit whereby to set our Spirits at work This is that Oyl which makes the Chariot Wheels go smoothly and without which they grate and jarr Those who have not Words especially in Publick Places have Sighs and Groans and a deep and silent Exercise of Spirit God-wards In which blessed Communion is joyned and Refreshments that out-do all Worldly Satisfaction That it is the Duty of all to wait upon God and that not only at Publick Meetings but at their own Houses also and therein as well at their Meals as at all other times for Worship If any have the Motion of God's Eternal Spirit upon their Hearts let it be answer'd to God's Praise and the Edification of others if not let none offer up an unsanctified dead Sacrifice to the Lord as all that comes from meer Man is for it will be their Burden neither prodigally spend their own Portion or that Bread upon others God has bestowed for their own Use Thus whether such Eat Drink Sleep or otherwise Enjoy of God's Benefits Let all be done with holy Aw and to the Glory of God our Father as it will certainly be if there be but a still and reverent Waiting in Spirit upon the Lord in the Light of Christ to be made sensible of his Goodness and Blessings upon us and Unity with us in our Undertakings and Enjoyments And let this be a Warning unto all in the Name and Fear of the Jealous God of Heaven and Earth that they do not offer up to God their halt and lame and blind Self-Sacrifices which my God abhorrs Especially you Professors whose Leaves are large but your Fruit little Think not to be heard by your Multitude of Words nor Variousness of Duties God regards the Root the Life the Power the Spirit that begets them and whose Life it is that animates them if they arise from God's Holy Spirit and Seed of Life they can they will interceed and prevail but if not God will say to you one Day who has required these things at your Hands O! for the Love of God and your own Souls offer not God a Worship out of His own Spirit much less Contend for it for you strengthen Satan's Bonds in so doing and feed the Mystery of Iniquity the painted Jezabel the Mother of Harlots from whom these false accursed Births have come who under outward Imitations and Performances holds People in Death and Darkness and perfect Enmity against God and his Living Spiritual Holy Seed in them and others that is able to bruise the Serpent's Head which is the Pure Way of God and in whom is the Blessing forever For the Devil the subtil Serpent having got into those outward Courts of Religion Signs and Shaddows of the Good Things which God had given Credit to by his Appearing once in them he pleads their Divine Institution against the very Life and Substance that like old Garments it hath put off And so all are deceived by his Transformations and subtil Twinings who come not to that Inward Sence of Life and Power which relish the very Spirit and can try the Inside Servants are not Masters because they wear their old Clothes neither is the Devil an Angel of Light because he puts on the Pure Ware the Spirits old Clothes God once appeared at the Mountain and Jerusalem therefore was either Worship to continue No God disappeared that he might set up a more Spiritual Worship where ends Meats and Drinks and all outward Services figurative of the Good things come § 8. Let it not be evilly taken by any of you neither be ye offended in me or the Doctrine I here defend For all Preachings Prayings Graces as they are called with the rest of the Worship of the Day which arise not from the Holy Power and Spirit of God it is at this time laid upon me and I am bold to declare in the Name of the Eternal Holy God A Blast an utter Blast is coming upon them all and they shall be found amongst the Chaff and not the Wheat in the Day of God's terrible Tempest where nothing but the solid and weighty Seed shall remain Stable and Unshaken O bow bow ye tall Cedars and sturdy Oaks Come out and be ye separated by the Power of my God from all your Inventions self-Contrivances self-Runnings and Willings ye Children of the Night and Lovers of your own Works more then Lovers of God's who out of the Living Pure Eternal Spirit of Life are holding forth Faith Worship Prayers and Ordinances and contending for them against the very Life it self that in a more plain Appearance is risen departed from them and come to know the one True Faith Worship and Great Ordinance of God by the Operation of his Spirit in all your Hearts and Consciences else you will dye in your Sins and Christ shall profit you nothing but your Dreams of Salvation shall vanish and utter Destruction will be your Portion for evermore CHAP. XV. His Charge of our Denial of Baptism and the Sacraments introduc'd with a Discourse of positive Commands Destructive of the Foundation of Religion The Priest against God Scripture and Reason He confounds himself Baptism of Water prov'd John's and not to continue Mat. 28. 19. 1 Cor. 1. 17. Ephes 4. 5. cleared and vindicated The One Spiritual Baptism defended § 1. I am now come to the two last Particulars of this Charge Baptism and the Lord's Supper which he introduceth with a short Discourse of the Nature of God's Commands respecting Gospel-Ordinances which he sayes we deny I shall onely take notice of this Passage where he tells us that the Ordinances hitherto consider'd are called Moral from their natural Obligation although respecting the Substance they deserve a more EVANGELICAL Denomination without which we cannot says he call them CHRISTIAN ORDINANCES But these two I come now to consider are purely positive and depend meerly upon divinely reveal'd Institution and God has so express'd his Jealousie over this Right of his that when Sins not onely against natural Light but superadded Precepts to confirm and strengthen its Doubtfulness and Decays have been passed by without any special Expressions of his Provocation Sins committed against his positive Laws as CIRCUMCISION and all Ceremonial Laws as well as Water-Baptism and what is generally call'd the Lord's Supper have been avenged with a high Hand To all I return these short Heads of Matter First that a Ministry grounded Internally upon the Grace and Gifts of God externally upon the Scriptures of Truth A well order'd Church consisting of Religious Members Preaching Praying and that Scripturally too by him call'd Christian-Ordinances are by him made Natural to all Nations antecedent to Christ's outward Coming and consequently there was the Thing Christianity before the Name Christianity which pleads our Cause against his first Chapter and a gross Self-Contradiction Next that those he calls Natural Ordinances and of Universal Obligation are far more
Let him find me says J. Faldo such a Scripture and I will be bound to turn Quaker I perceive the Man thinks he can turn Quaker much at the rate he can Pray I mean when he will but I will tell him so much that it is as hard a Task for him to turn True Quaker as to be a true primitive Christian a thing most difficult to be sure But to his Quibble about But that J. Parnel has told a I willfull Untruth in saying the Baptism is but One suppose it will be allow'd that there was one Baptism in the same sense that there was one Lord one Faith Now if there is but One Lord One Faith as it is to be supposed J. Faldo believes why should it be so Criminal to say there is but One Baptism If saying there is one Lord and one Faith be synonimous or equivalent with affirming that there is but one Lord and one Faith I cannot see how it should be an Untruth to say that there is One Baptism is one and the same thing wish our saying there is but One Baptism In short if there is more then One Baptism because the Apostle does not say there is but one Baptism then there are more Gospels Lords and Faiths because the Apostle did not say there was but one Gospel but one Lord and but one Faith consequently there may be many Gospels Lords and Faiths as well as Baptisms § 7. Enough of this Weakness His Strength follows Water-Baptism is the Sign the Baptism of the Spirit something but not all signified Now to call the Thing signifying and signified by the same Name doth not make them Two of that Name no more then there were two New Covenants because both the Matter contained in it Hebr. 8. 10. and Circumcision the Sign Gen. 17. 13. are called the Covenant I shall grant to him that the Thing signifying and signified are sometimes called by one and the same Name as Baptism But when distinguisht by Water and Holy Ghost I hope nothing that is not as blind or hardened as J. Faldo if yet he himself will say that therefore they are but One Baptism Christ himself distinguishes betwixt John's and his Baptism and himself and his Baptism And frequently his Apostles yea the Baptist himself seem'd to take all Occasions whereby to let People know that his Baptism was but that of Water and that the Baptism of Christ was not of Water but of the Holy Ghost as the Scriptures in the Margent plainly prove So in the Word Circumcision compounded of the same Letters and Syllables let it be used to express that of the Body or the Flesh or that of the Heart in Spirit Yet it is to be hoped that none will conclude there were not Two Circumcisions and so Two Jews the one Inward and the other Outward Though now he is no more a Jew that is one Outwardly neither is that Circumcision which is outward in the Flesh but he is a Jew which is one Inwardly and Circumcision is that of the Heart in the Spirit and not in the Letter whose Praise is not of Men but of God § 8. And should we grant him what he desires as to the same Name being applicable to the Sign and the Thing signified yet Weak and Wretched must his Sophism appear to all clear-sighted Readers For if therefore the Baptism of Water and of the Spirit are One because the same Word is applicable to the Sign and the Thing signified and in that sense they are both of them One Baptism Then by just Consequence must the Circumcision outwardly in the Flesh and the Circumcision of the Heart in the Spirit be One because the Word of it self is equally applicable to both and Consequently they are both of them One Circumcision And here but must and will be allow'd us What Jew Living could have reason'd better for the Continuation and Perpetuity of Circumcision But because he has said nothing here for Baptism more then what may be said for Circumcision and that Circumcision is utterly exploded of the Christian Religion as a Sign whose Signification is come and therefore no more a Sign our Assertion of the One Spiritual Baptism of Fire and the Holy Ghost as onely upon the same Fundation proper to Christ's Kingdom doth remain fix and Immoveable against all the Batteries of our Adversary CHAP. XVI The Supper he says we deny not deny'd but fulfil'd The Scriptures Consulted No Perpetuity prov'd That it was a Sign And that Signs were done away in Christ demonstrated The present Practice in the Case not primitive Our Faith left with God in the Matter § 1. BUt the Quakers he says disown the Ordinance of the Lord's Supper to be now a Gospel-Ordinance for which he cites J. Parnel a Young Man often in his Eye now dead as he was grieveously so to J. Faldo's Brethren the Independents at Cogshall in Essex who by unparallel'd and never to be forgotten Cruelties murder'd him as may be seen in my Second part of our serious Apology pag. 185. 186. 187. His words as he quotes them are these For the Bread which the World breaks is Natural and Carnal so also the Cup which they drink and here is no Communion but what is Outward and Carnal Shield of Truth pag. 13. Also W. Smith thus They Bread and Wine in the Lord's Supper are the Popes Invention His Primm pag. 39. To the first Citation I answer that the Bread and Wine being of an Outward Elementary Nature and Substance may with respect to what they signifie be very properly tearmed Natural and Carnal for so they are And the World that is those who are doing it upon meer Imitation and not from any Heavenly Commission they see no further and their Communion may well be said to be Natural Outward and Carnal To the second I do challenge J. Faldo to make it good and require it at his Hand in the View of the World to produce any such words out of W. Smiths Books and that he may not plead Mistake of Authors I will give him the Scope of all our Books Friends to prove that we ever call'd the Bread and Wine Christ blest the Invention of the Pope O ungodly Man What hast thou done that God should thus give thee up not onely to believe Lyes thy self but to endeavour to make others do the like Thy Book shall be a Milstone about thy Neck in the Day of the righteous and terrible Judgments of Almighty God We deny the Expression and lay the Slander at John Faldo's door § 2. But the Quakers main Objection says he is that Christ is come in Spirit to them and his Disciples were to do it in Remembrance of him till he came therefore this Precept doth not binde them J. Faldo pretends thus to answer But who would think that Christ in the Spirit was not come either in shedding it abroad miraculously as in the 2. of the Acts or as a
the Christ or the Body of Christ onely I leave with Christ Scripture and Reason to determine Certain I am that this Principle must center in that senseless Dream of J. Reeve and L. Muggleton as well as that it makes a perfect Difference betwixt Him that was before Abraham and Him that said so Him that told his Disciples I will not leave you comfortless and Him that said I will come to you again Nay why should Christ say to his Disciples it was expedient he should go away since certainly if some more Excellent and Profitable Appearance of himself had not been to succeed at least as to them it had been far more Expedient he should in that Manner have remained amongst them And why did the Apostle speak of no more knowing Christ after the Flesh and of his being revealed in him and in the Saints as their Hope of Glory and that he was the Quickning Spirit and Lord from Heaven If that Body was the Intire Christ not rather the Body prepared for that Divine Power Wisdom and Righteousness to transact in and appear by and to the Sons of Men which with respect to that great Manifestation was denominated Christ or Anointed shall we dare think that he who so spoak and of whom the Apostle so testified was not the true Christ which to be sure was before that Visible Body God forbid Let that Sin lie at J. Faldo's Door § 2. But he offers to us Scripture And it was reveal'd to him Simeon by the Holy Ghost that he should not see Death before he had seen the Lord's Christ And he came by the Spirit into the Temple and when the Parents brought in the Child Jesus then took he him up in his Armes and said Lord now lettest thou thy Servant depart in Peace for mine Eyes have seen thy Salvation a Light to lighton the Gentiles c. and it is and will be granted that Simeon saw the Lord 's Christ But I hope J. Faldo will not deny unto that good Man who waited for Israel's Consolation that he had as well a Spiritual as Natural an Inward as Outward Sight of Christ For can he think that the Word which took Flesh was nothing of that Saviour and that the True Light which then appeared is to be excluded any Share therein Will J. Faldo or any Man that owns Scripture dare to affirm there was not something belonging to the True and Compleat Christ beyond what his outward Eyes could possibly see Certainly this Allegation from Luk 2. 26. will never prove the Body of Jesus which the Father prepared for him to be the Whole Intire Christ Saviour Light Salvation and Glory of Israel unless Christ under all these Considerations consisted or was made up of the more Outward Body that only was obvious to the Outward Eyes which to affirm were both to deny his Divinity and to conclude Simeon void of any Spiritual Sight or Intendment in these Words of the Lord 's Christ as a Light enlightning the Gentiles and God's Salvation to the Ends of the Earth Though still be it understood that we confess that Child as seen and understood by Simeon with respect to that great End of his Appearance to be the Lord 's Christ Nay J. Faldo himself sayes as much p. 70. otherwise there would be an exalting the Body above the Divinity nay an utter Exclusion of the Divinity with respect to the True Christ Let none then be so Ungodly and Unjust to us as to infer we deny the Lord 's Christ because we rather chuse to say the Body of Christ then Christ for sayes he Christ is God manifest in the Flesh see J. F. p. 72 77. § 3. And lest any should think that therein I contradict the inspired Saying of that Just Man when he said Mine Eyes have beheld thy Salvation the Words import no more then this Mine Eyes have beholden the Manifestation and Breaking forth of thy Seed and Heir who is come to visit the World and bruise the Serpent's Head Mine Eyes have seen him by whom thy Salvation shall be declared through whom thou wilt put forth thine Arm and work mightily for the Salvation of Man And this his other Scriptures prove at large for me the most Considerable of which I take to be this 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 Sin Act. 5. 30 31. which can no more be understood expresly stricktly and intirely so then it would be reason able for a Man to say that when Samuel died the Soul and Body which was call'd Samuel died and not rather the Body of him who was called Samuel And this is the Ground and Reason why the Socinians Muggletonians and several Anabaptists hold the Mortality of the Soul because otherwise those Words which speak of the Death of Christ could not be taken properly as they take and defend them I say then and that with Force of Reason and which at this time may be more to the Conviction of some the Suffrage of our malignant Adversary J. Faldo himself however contradicting to his fore-mentioned Sense the Words are thus to be understood The God of our Fathers who raised up the Body of Jesus from the Dead which ye slew and hung upon a Tree Him whose Body you so cruelly used hath God exalted with his right Hand to be a Prince and a Saviour for to give Repentance to Israel and Forgiveness of Sin To put this out of Doubt hear J. Faldo his own self 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 BLOOD OF CHRIST TO BE CHRIST SEPARATED FROM HIS SOUL OF THE NATURE OF MAN's SOUL but undefiled OR THAT WE TAKE HIS MAN's NATURE TO BE CHRIST SEPARATED FROM HIS ETERNAL AND DIVINE NATURE One would think I had spent my Time in vain when I set about to prove that the Divine Light Life Power Wisdom and Righteousness were not unconcerned in the true Christ and consequently that the Body which only died was not the Entire Jesus or Saviour since our Adversary calls us Blasphemers and Deluders and I know not for what except it be for Teaching that Doctrine he recommends in the same Paragraph wherein he calls us those hateful Names § 4. But that his great Inconsistency with himself may be further manifest hear him again If Men be so blind as not to see the Error of Disowning Jesus of Nazareth the Son of Mary who was hanged on a Tree put into the Sepulchre of Joseph of Arimathia to be yet alive and the Christ of God by all these Scriptures the most considerable whereof are answerd it is a Blindness wherewith never any before the Quakers who professed the Scriptures to be a true Testimony were smitten
be the outward Commandments and Statutés For the Question was not about them but about the Commandment of Commandments and Word of Words which he resolves thus Let none say who shall ascend descend or go beyond the Seas to fetch the Great Word and Commandment But the Word is very nigh thee 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies the Innermost parts of Men. Whereinto the Outward Commandments could never come Nay I do affirm and that with holy Boldness in the Spirit Power and Illumination of the blessed Gospel that all the by rote Learning of the Letter of either Law or Gospel as they are conâ—â—â—-distinguisht is of no more Value to the true Knowledge or Worship of God then the Cutting off a Dog's Neck either to God's Honour or Man's profit without the Inward Living Word should powerfully write and engrave upon the Soul its Holy Precepts neither could there be any Conviction in the Conscience concerning the Truth of those Statutes nor indeed any Conscience at all since Conscience is no other then that manifest Judgment Man makes of the Truth or Falshood of things with respect to his own Soul from the Word or Light of God in his Heart according to the Practice of the Apostle who was manifest and desir'd to Commend himself to the Consciences of all Men Not as to a blind unsensible Thing but that Judgment in Man though not from him which was right and not learned of Man but received of God Whereas J. Faldo scoffs at such kind of Knowledge the Perniciousness of which Doctrine ought to antidote all sober Persons from ever adhering to it or him that preacheth it For I will be bound to make it appear that by his own Principles he is assured of nothing and must set down under the extreamest Scepticism in the World Or if concludable by any thing it must be by the way Rome takes to resolve all Scruples that is Plurality of Votes however directed and this too rather for Peace sake then any Certainty there can be in it For who bars out of all Inward Senses Motions Revelations Inspirations or Enlightnings resolving only to insist upon what may arrive them from meer Books because of the Fallibility of Man and Difficulty of the Matter they do contain which Way can there be to compass any tolerable Certainty to rest Men's Souls upon This is your once Phanatical t'other day Enthusiastical now Pragmatical and Scoffing J. Faldo The first in the very beginning of Independency in the World the best part that belong'd to it I meane Enthusiasm but now deserted by many as much as the true Religion is by the Church of Rome § 9. The third and last Scripture he undertakes to secure us from all Share in is that of Peter We have also a more sure Word of Prophecy whereunto ye do well to take heed as unto a Light that shineth in a dark Place until the Day dawn and the Day-Star arise in your Hearts By this more sure Word of Prophecy says J. Faldo is meant those Prophecies written in the Old Testament which are call'd Verse 20. Prophecy of Scripture and are called the Light that shineth in a dark Place I hope it will be alwayes forreign to me to detract from the holy Scriptures But the Truth I will take Liberty to defend The whole Chapter is a very weighty and zealous Recommendation of the Gospel to the Churches pressing them to call to Mind the Love of God unto them and to mind their Duty to him who had so loved them And as a great Ground both of their Faith Love and Duty the Apostle in the 16th verse tells them For we have not followed cunningly divised Fables when we made known unto you the Power and Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ But were Eye-Witnesses of his Majesty for he received from God the Father Honour and Glory when there came such a Voice to him from the Excellent Glory THIS IS MY BELOVED SON IN WHOM I AM WELL PLEASED And this Voice which comes from Heaven we heard when we were with him in the Holy Mount We have also a more sure Word of Prophecy c. Now that this cannot be meant of the Scriptures and take in the Comparison I thus prove If the Reason of their Assurance that what they delivered to the Churches was not Fabulous but true was their being Eye-Witnesses of his Majesty and Eye and Ear-Witnesses of that Testimony God gave of his Son in the Mount by that Honour Glory and Voice of Words which were there utter'd and did in that Plaee uppear then the Scriptures not only were not a surer Word of Prophecy but not so sure because they never heard nor saw them so delivered nor yet had any of the Prophets so Glorious so Transcendent and Unquestionable a Testimony to their outward Eyes and Ears that we read of J. Faldo's most infallible Way of true Knowledge see pag. 91. as was that which God gave to the Disciples when he testified This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased But we may inform our selves from the Verses recited that they were a more eminent Ground for their Knowledge Assurance and Belief then the meer Scriptures And consequently the Scriptures are not the more sure Word of Prophecy Again the written Account of another's Revelation cannot be more sure to me then that Revelation which I do immediately receive from God suppose it be from God But this was a Revelation to the Disciples and they were sure it was from God Consequently the writen Account of another's Revelation as were the Prophecies of the Old Testament so called to the Disciples could not be a more sure Word of Prophecy For it were to say that they were more sure that he among them who was called Jesus was the Son of God from Isaiah's Testimony That he would give him for a Light to lighten the Gentiles c. then the Immediate Voice of God when he pointed so clearly at him This is my beloved Son He that is amongst you whom you have followed This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased Then which what could be more demonstrable on God's part and incredulous on their side who should yet subject that living Testimony to any the best Tradition Let me not forget to add That what the Disciples then saw and heard from God and the Epistle Peter wrot by the holy Ghost being made part of the New Testament-Writings and they accounted more eminent by far then the Old with respect to the more eminent Pouring forth of the Holy Ghost in that Day which the Prophets fore-saw and they enjoyed the Old cannot in any wise be reputed a more sure Word of Prophecy as J. Faldo asserts therefore this more sure Word of Prophecy must be another thing § 10. What that is which may be reputed a more sure Word of Prophecy will much deserve our serious Consideration If it was not the Voice in the Mount which
we have invincibly proved to be more Immediate Living Fresh Convincing and Confirming to the Disciples then any the best written Prophecies they had It will follow that it was meant of the holy Anointing that Spirit and measure of the Grace or blessed Light of Christ which is Internal and out of the Reach of all Visible Things to sophisticate corrupt mis-represent mis-render or mis-translate all which have greatly befallen the Scriptures For I do affirm that Sense it self is not so certain as Reason and what clearly and fully occurs to the Understanding part of Man is a more solid Ground for Faith and Knowledge then those External Sights and Visions which Man might be attended with to Confirmation For what shall be the Rule for trying the Certainty and Truth of any such Visions and Prophecies It must be some measure of that Anointing which was afterwards given more largely to them in order to try Spirits and in all other Cases which concern the Gospel otherwise they should not have believ'd with any Certainty or upon spiritual Conviction as to themselves For if a Man has not something Divine to direct and inform his Understanding as to the true Relish Judgment and Application of what he may read in any Book or externally might appear to his Sences in the Way of extraordinary Vision there could be no probable much less certain Ground for his Belief in or Knowledge of the Truth of that thing however true in it self In short That which is Truth it self which is able to teach all things to try all things and to lead into all Truth which the Scriptures though Truth cannot do for then they would be Clear Plain Perfect uncapable of Additions Diminutions Corruptions Mistranslations c. must be this more sure Word of Prophecy But that the Anointing which the Saints had received of him was able to do as saith the Apostle John but the Anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you and need not that any Man teach you but as the same Anointing teacheth you of all things and is Truth and is no Lye And even as it hath taught you ye shall abide in him Therefore this Anointing thus able to do all things must needs be that more sure Word of Prophecy if more shall be allowed In short The Law written in the Heart is a more sure Covenant Law and Word then the Law written upon Stones or the Outward Book of the Law else the Dispensation of the Law of Life within the Gospel-State would be less Sure and therefore less Noble then the Law without and the Prophecies of the Old Testament so call'd more Certain then the Scriptures of the New that belong to a more excellent Dispensation and are an Account of the fulfilling of those very Prophecies Nay it would be to assert that the Words of both Scriptures are more sure and certain and our Regard ought to be more eminently after them then the very Spirit from whence they came which at least in the Church of God every one has received a Measure to profit with and so perfectly subvert the very State of the Gospel which was and is the Time of the Pouring out of the Spirit upon all Flesh and bringing Mankind to a more near sure and living Word of Prophecy then any Outward Writings whatever can possibly be § 11. But because he tells us in another place that a little Skill in the Original would free us from many Absurdities we shall a little examine both what the Original Text will make for the clearing the Point in Controversie and what may be the sense of some Men of Learning a thing he pretends to and Impartiality which I hope he has not Confidence enough to pretend to I will suppose then the Prophecies of the Ancients to be intended but deny any Comparison at all to have been made between them and that Voice in the Mount 2 Pet. 1. 19. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. We also have a More sure Word of Prophecy as by our late Translation render'd I cannot perceive that Comparison in the Greek so hugg'd by the Priests and insisted upon by our Adversary with manifest Design to prefer the Writings before the Spirit that gave them forth the great Evangelical Word of Prophecy for the Words without any wrong not only may which were enough but ought to be rendred thus Also we have a very sure Word of Prophecy which neither questions the certainty of the Voice nor so much as intends any the least Comparison at all with it which I take to be the very Ground of that Opposition which is made against us The Reason why I so render it is ready 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Also I know our Translation hath but it is commonly understood by our Adversaries for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But which is a great Injury to the sense for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Also is conjunctive and signifies onely another confirmatory Testimony whereas 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or But is a word that mostly doth and to be sure in that place would signifie a Comparison and Opposition Also then not being taken in the same sense with But there is nothing therein that can make for the Comparison or any Opposition whatsoever Now the Comparison it self 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lately rendred more sure is in the ancient Translations more truly interpreted sure and very sure in which there is no room for any Comparison or Opposition in the least And if J. Faldo has but Greek and Honesty enough he must needs acknowledge that Positives Comparatives and Superlatives are used promiscuously in the Greek See Acts 25. 10. where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is rendred as thou very well knowest whereas in J. Faldo's sense 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 would be interpreted as thou knowest better then I which certainly the Apostle Paul never intended when he spoke to Festus And as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Also is connective and joyns the 19th Verse to the 18th Verse so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the expositive and distinctive Article doth not preceed but follow 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Syriack one of the most approv'd Versions by learned Men has it thus We have over and above a true or sure Word of Prophecy The Arabick We have beside a very true Prophetick Word The Aethiopick has a Comparison not respecting the Sureness but the Antiquity of the Voices We have over and above an ancienter Word or Testimony which is so respecting time The French German Low-Dutch Swedish and several of our ancient English Traslations run thus We have also the sure Prophetick Word We have also the right sure Word of Prophecy We have also the very sure Word of the Prophets All which imports no more then that they had over and above their own particular Assurances of the Truth of the Christian Religion the Testimony of the Prophets whose Prophecies were fulfilled by the Coming of Christ and the Pouring out of
Government and consequently they had as truly their Measure of the Holy Unerring Spirit as had Moses Joshua c. theirs § 7. The Third Scripture he would unconcern me in is this And the Inspiration of the Almighty giveth them Understanding Upon this he asks me this Question But doth this Incourage Men to cast off all External Means and the Use of their Reason Nothing less says he Nothing less say I too And who can help it if he understands me so But that he may be as base as base can be he askes this Question as the Result of my Argument upon the Place and never yet answers it at all But I cannot help it if J Faldo will render me a Fool that he may shew himself Wise I confess he wants some such Fool for his Work and his own Weakness may tempt him to that Dishonesty Only I would have the Reader know that Reason Memory and Understanding are all useful Servants we deny them not a Place in the Heavenly Work but as Instruments not Agents what should not move of themselves to Religious Worship but in and by the Motions of the Holy Spirit of God § 8. The next Scripture he thinks I abuse is this Whither shall I go from thy Spirit or Whither shall I flee from thy Presence From whence sayes he you can scribble thus If God's unerring Spirit be so nigh and the Sence or it so certain it must be either to Reprove for Evil done or to Inform Uphold Lead and Preserve in reference to all Good Now in which of the two senses it shall be taken the Presence of God's Eternal Spirit his being the Saints Instructer Judge Rule and Guide are evidently deduceable from the Words rudis indigestaque moles worse then ever Bear brought forth her Cubbs says J. Falde But this is not all hear him further which with her Licking may be brought into some Shape but your Products are so defective both in Truth right Reason and Syntax and Sense that it is no Dis-reputation to your Adversary to be confounded by them A notable Excuse for no Answer but Silence which is always counted Answer enough by him that hath never another to give Again It is an effectual but an impudent Course to Silence all the World from Opposing you by writing such confident confused Non-sense We may suppose then that there is such a thing as confused Sense Yet again Were it not for the sake of many who conceit your Infallibility which you are here so blindly pleading for I would as soon abandon my Time Non-sense to dispute witha distracted Man in his Raving Fits as with W. Penn till he come better to himself then I find him in his Pamphlet And Reader Canst thou think that my Adversary has taken a fair or probable Way to bring me to my self again whose best Arguments are sordid ill-bred Names down-right Lyes and Slanders I challenge any Man that can soberly pretend to Religion to so much as abet this manner of Proceeding against me and the Way I profess if this were to be Christian as it is Antichristian were I a Turk I should take great Care I came not within the very Suburbs of so base a Profession Where 's J. Faldo's Reading Learning Conscience in this one Passage I will not so much as attempt the Defence of my Argument for it were to say it needed my Assistance or that my Adversary had done somthing to indanger its Security who has so pleaded the Sobriety and Truth of it by an Opposition that could become none but a Creature as for-lorn of all Honesty as himself that it is a Credit to my Cause almost equal with our Clearness that so much Rancour and Ignorance set themselves against it This is no less Man then your Vaunting Struting J. Faldo his own self who thinks as well of himself and deserves as little of it from other Men as any Person that has come within my Ken a long time In short whether I am out of my Wits or he out of all Bounds of good Sense or Manners shall be left with the Reader to determine For my part if this be the Way he intends to take to confute his Opposers he is like to answer himself And give him his due he is as good at it as most Men I know and 't is not to be doubted but he may increase in that Science § 9. But he tells me that my main Fallacies are these two First from an Infallible Spirit-Teaching to the Infallibility of the Subjects in which the Spirit dwells as a Teacher Next from the Spirit 's Teaching to its Immediate and Peculiar Teaching If the First be true without any Consideration had to the Obedience of the Creature and his being guided by the Holy Spirit I will yield it to him that I am mistaken though not fall aciously that implying a Design to do so which I had not And for the Second I am content to stand by the Charge not of a Fallacy but our Faith and such as is Defensible both from Scripture and Reason For if the Truth of no Argument I have made nor any Expression that has fallen from me doth so much as imply his Charge let him not be angry with me that I say He is one of the basest Perverters among Men And if that very Passage by which he hopes to prove this great Deceit of mine is found mute in the Case I hope no Reader will be so unjust as to refuse me the Censure of his being an Unfair Adversary § 10. The first Place he thinks to make for him is this Quench not the Spirit On which I argu'd thus Those to whom he gave the Caution had the Spirit if those could not quench it that had it not consequently the primitive Churches were not without an Unerring Spirit To which he sayes but suppose they had the Spirit it is a miserable erronious and weak Conclusion that they were Infallible How far this makes for him or rather how greatly he has mistaken me is evident if it may be considered that there is not one Word of any Man 's being Infallible in all my Argument only that the primitive Churches had an Infallible Spirit not of their own or from themselves but from God and that they were only so in their Knowledge or Determinations from the unerring Guidance of God's Spirit unless they either were without the Anointing or that the Anointing was Fallible both which are contradicted by the Apostle John in that noted passage 1. 2. 27. So that my Adversary is manifestly guilty of that Fault He doth with no small Aggravation charge upon me viz That from my Arguing the Certainty of the primitive Churches having the Holy Spirit of God to direct them from the Impossibility of their Quenching what they had not he makes me to conclude the Infallibility of the Churches whether they were led by it or no As if I intended to plead the Infallibility
so besotted as to think that when a Measure of the Spirit was given to all to profit with and that the Children of God were led by the Spirit of God and the Spirit that was sent into the Hearts of the Sons of God and the Anointing that was in the Saints that was able to teach them all things was any Measure Part or Parcel of the Prophets or Apostles Writings I cannot yet think him so Blinded as Ignorant or Envious as he is Either these Passages are no Scripture or that gross Absurdity must follow § 15. But he tells us that we may be mistaken ever since some of us thought Paul Hobson ' s Mumbling through a Trunck an Hole in the Wall to be the Voice of the Lord. But were it as true as it is in many things false it shews the Prophaneness of that Anabaptist who dar'd to take the Lord's Name in his Mouth and counterfeit a Solemn Commission to a poor whimsical Wretch and as it happened out of a Spirit of Covetousness and Inhospitality for he had no Mind to give him longer Entertainment so that not knowing how better to be rid of him then to forge a Commission wickedly contrived a Passage into the Chamber where the Man lay and through a Trunk prophanely utterred a kind of Commission to go to a certain place where I cannot tell but I am sure as the Story goes out of his House to whom his little Victuals had been a Burden A Practice for the Avarice Prophaneness and Abuse of it to be abhorred and detested of all sober Men. And I think the Man more excusable under his Mistake then Major Hobson who ventur'd into so much Wickedness that with Design to bring him into it 'T is true that such a Man there was that he went to Major Hobsons House that he dealt so wickedly by the Man to be rid of him that the Man had been among us but as his Practice shew'd him to be none of us so was not any of his Imaginations countenanced by us but sharply rebuk'd and therefore that part of J. Faldo's Reflection a Lye Yet since he has gotten this Story by the End I will see how much better grounded J. Faldo would be upon his Principles against a Quaker should he be so Impious as to put the same prophane Abuse upon him Suppose J. Faldo either by a Trunk or Hole through a Wall or one of the new invented Trumpets that carry a Voice a Mile should have as far as Words go a very solemn Commission to go preach the Gospel in any other Place then Barnet where I hear he now lives within this Isle or some more remote Part of the World and that not only once or twice but many times joyn'd with Threats and Promises I will suppose his Inclinations will lie at home unless more be to be gotten an Infallible Ground of Motion with many of his Tribe But I would know of him which Way or upon what Foot he would Receive or Reject such a Commission The Scripture makes no mention of any such thing in Particular in General it will not reach it because this is no other Gospel that he should be required to preach then that which he pretends to be according to Scripture I say with what would he relish savour or try this Voice Would he reject it because the Scripture did not particularly own it There is the same Reason why he should embrace it because it does not particularly deny it How will he do then Why perhaps he will go because there is no General in Scripture that withstands it But how does he know that so many good Words in themselves were spoken from God and not to deceive tempt or abuse him 'T is true the Scripture has general Denials to False Spirits and general Testimonies to the Motions of the True One but still here 's but a Begging of the Question for how shall I know that the Voice or Spirit be True or False It is not Unscriptural Unreasonable nor Improbable Alas for John Faldo Have all his Preaching Praying Writing c. no better Foundation then Hear-say Imitation strong Fancy and external Sense Can he not savour and relish Spirits as well as Words If not he may truly be styled a Man of Words but void of that Spirit which tryes Spirits and gives right Discerning to all that believe in it and are led by it of those things that may concern them I might say much upon this Theme but let this suffice to detect the Weak Foundation of J. Faldo's Faith Knowledge and Practice and that such as he though pretendedly 2 or 3 degrees more refined then the present Protestants are miserably apostatized from the First Revolters from Romes Idolatries who asserted none could understand the Scriptures themselves much less benefit by them who had not the same Spirit that gave them forth consequently the Spirit and not the Scriptures were the Principal Cause of Right Knowledge and Rule for our very Understanding of them And truly though J. Faldo would have the World think he both understands the Quakers Principles very well and has refuted them very clearly yet whether he will give me leave or no I will make him speak the Language of the Quakers passing well in this particular of the Spirits being the Judge Rule and Guide of Faith Worship and Conversation the thing aim'd at in that First Part of my Spirit of Truth Vindicated by him so much quarrell'd at perverted and scurrilously abused or else I greatly mistake his Mind And which will be much to my Defence he must likewise have done so himself Hear him § 16. But Mr. Penn do you deal fairely and honestly with your Adversaries to imply in your Question that we deny the Spirit of God to be a proper Rule of Faith Guide of Life Judge of Truth You know that we own it to be such and that it doth both IN THE CONSCIENCE and by the Scripture Creation and Providence perform such Acts c. and is to such Purposes that of Right What can we say more Has he not strangly mis-understood us Again Only we deny that the Spirit alwayes performs these Acts without the Use of the Scripture or any External Means Truly and so do we For we daily enjoy the Benefit both of God's Spirit by the Scripture and publick Worship as Means If this be the Grindstone my Nose is to be held at and by not mentioning of which as he falsly sayes of me I abuse and trifle him and my unwary Reader I am contented to abide here while I live as my Discourse at large upon the Scriptures must needs have informed those who have read it But I am of the Mind that J. Faldo will finde it too hot for him and I am assured that so much Concession overturnes him for ever as to his present Basis For that he should oppose my Discourse that intended nothing more then to prove God's Spirit
and moves and inclines to Purity Mercy Righteousness which are of God We deny and abominate that Ranting Spirit that would charge the Spirit of God with their Unholy Liberty God's Spirit makes free from Sin not to Sin Neither can we distinguish as they wickedly do between the Act and the Evil of it wherefore we say that as the Tree is known and denominated from the Fruit so the Spirits by their Motions and Inclinations and the Spirit of God never did incline to Evil. So we renounce that Construction of their esteeming Evil no Evil when any pretend to be lead to it by God's Spirit for that is not the Way and Method of his Spirit that is Pure and Holy forever Priest The Quakers must be all Infallible and Perfect if they have such a Light Quaker This also is a great Abuse of our true Meaning We say the Principle is Pure Perfect Unerrable in it self but we never did assert our selves such meerly because it was in us by no means but that all who are lead by it are so far Perfect and Infallible and no Jot further Who can lay down a more independent Doctrine upon Self and hourly depending upon the Grace or Gift of God Let us not be mistaken nor suffer for these things Priest The Quakers deny the Scriptures for they deny them to be the Word of God Quaker We own the Scriptures as they own themselves a Declaration of those things most truly believ'd given forth in all Ages by the Inspiration of the Holy Spirit That they are profitable for Reading for Exhortation for Reproof in Righteousness that the Man of God may be perfectly furnished They are the Form of sound Words We believe in them read them and it is the Work we have to do in this World and the Reason why we are so separated from it and the earnest Desire of our Souls to Almighty God that we may witness the Fulfilling of them That God's will may be done in Earth as it is in Heaven But to call them the Word of God which they never did themselves but which they peculiarly denominate Christ by in Reverence to Christ alone and no Slight to them do we as in Duty and Reason bound attribute that Title to him only Priest They deny them to be any Means whereby to resist Temptation Quaker This is a very Aspersion True it is that we deny the Scriptures of themselves to be sufficient to resist Temptation But that we should deny them to be any Means whereby to do it when we allow our own Writings may be such is either great Ignorance or Malice God has doth and will make Use of them for Reproof Comfort and Edification Priest The Quakers assert the Spirit of God to be the Immediate Teacher and that there is no other Means now to be used Quaker We never spoak such Language but perceive the Subtilty of the Devil in this thing as in others For since he cannot hinder the Exaltation of the Spirit above all visible Instruments and the Necessity of its Motions and Operations in the Hearts of Men and the great Suitableness of it to the Gospel Administration he would spoile us by Overdoing that is by inferring beyond that our Assertion will allow For we never denyed Means but to this Day from the Beginning we have been in the Use of them But then they are such Means as are used in the Life and Power of God and not in and from Man's meer Wit Will or Imitation the thing we strike at Strange because we deny all false Means or Means not used in the Leadings of God's Power and Spirit that therefore we must deny all Means however rightly employed Behold the Injustice of our Enemies Wherefore be it known unto all that Evangelical Means and Order we love and keep For we Assemble Our-selves together to Worship God where we Pray in the Motion of the Spirit and Prophesie One by One as any thing is revealed Nor are we without Spiritual Songs making Melody in our Hearts to God our Redeemer Priest The Quakers deny the two Great Ordinances of the Gospel Baptism and the Supper Quaker What ever is a Gospel-Ordinance we own and practise We know no such Language in the Scriptures as in the Calumny of our Adversary 'T is true those two Practices are found but that is no Institution That they were then proper we believe but that they were at most but Figures and Signs you acknowledge that are called Protestants Now prove to us that there ought to be any Figures or Signs under the Gospel-Administration when Christ who is the Substance is come 'T is to overthrow the whole Dispensation and to make his Coming of none Effect If it be said But they were used after his Coming and Ascension too I answer So were many Jewish Ceremonies not easily abolished If any say But Christ bid that one should be done till he came Very well and he that said so told his Disciples that He would come to them Some should not taste of Death till they saw him come And he that was then with them should be in them And he would drink no more of the Fruit of the Vine till he drank it New that is the New Wine that was to be put in the new Bottel which is the Wine of the Kingdom as he expresseth it in the same place which Kingdom also is within Luk. 17. 20. He was and is the Heavenly Bread that they had not yet known nor his Flesh and his Blood as they were to know it So that though Christ was come to end all Signs yet till he was known to be the Substance to the Soul as the Great Bread of Life from Heaven Signs were usefull to shew forth and keep in hand especially the People of that Day whose Religion was attended with a Multitude of the like Types Shaddows and Signs of the One Good Thing and Substance of all Hence it is that we don't deny them that is too hard a Word but truly witnessing the very thing they signified to be come we leave them off as fulfill'd and henceforth have but One Lord One Faith One Baptism One Bread and but One Cup of Blessings which is the New Wine of the Kingdom Priest The Quakers deny Christ's Transactions at Jerusalem and the Shedding of his Blood to be Beneficial unto them It is the Light within only they expect to be saved by Quaker This is a wicked Suggestion against us We do say That the Appearance of that Second Adam the Lord from Heaven the Quickning Spirit in that Holy Body prepared of the Father for him was for the Salvation of the World who had fain in the First That whatever he then did both Living Dying had a great Influence for Good upon all that then believed and hath still for all that now believe in him as he manifests himself to us by his Light in the Conscience For we do affirm that to come to that is
the readiest nay the only Right Way to come to true Faith in Christ as he then appear'd and to receive any Benefit by him And it is not another then that Blessed Light Power Wisdom and Eternal Righteousness who then appeared by whom we have received any true Spiritual Benefit How then can our ascribing particular Salvation in this Age to him who thus now appears to our Souls render him no Saviour in that or invalidate his then Appearance whose Doctrine pierc'd whose Life preach'd whose Miracles astonish'd whose Blood atton'd and whose Death and Resurrection confirm'd his then Manifestation to be no less then God who is Light manifested in the Flesh Priest The Quakers set up Works and Meriting by Works like the Papists Whereby Faith in Christ is layd aside Quaker We say That True Faith in Christ cannot be without Works no more then a Body can live without a Spirit Nay by the Comparison if they were separable Works being compared to the Spirit would have the better The very Believing of any is an Act of the Mind and therefore a Work to God and no sooner is that Faith begotten but it falls to Working which is both the Nature and End of it Nor do we say that our very best Works proceeding from True Faith it self can merit No nor Faith joyn'd with them All that Man is capable of Believing or Performing can never merit There can be no Proportion as there must be in Merit between the best Faith and Works of three score and ten and Eternal Felicity Wherefore all that Man can do even with the Assistance of the Holy Spirit can never so merit but that Right Faith and Good Works which will follow it may and do obtain that blessed Immortality it pleaseth Almighty God to give and priviledge the Sons of Men with who perform that necessary Condition and that we groundedly and therefore boldly affirm So that we deny all Merit from the best of Works especially by such as the Papists are wont to conceive Meritorious But as we on the one Hand do stifly deny them so neither can we joyn with that lazy Faith which works not Let not Good Works make Men Papists because they make Men Christians I am sure Believing and not Working and conceiving a Salvation from Wrath where there is no Salvation from Sin the Cause of it is no whit less un-scriptural and abundantly more Pernicious and Damnable Blessed is He that hears the Word of God and does it The Blessing is to the Doer Priest They acknowledge no Resurrection nor Rewards to come Quaker In this also are we greatly abused We deny not the Resurrection but are cautious in expressing the Manner Are People angry with us for not Believing or Asserting what is Hidden and they know not themselves THOU FOOL is to the Inquirer We shall be contented with that Body God will please to give us and think it to be both our Duty and Wisdom to acquiesce in that For Eternal Rewards we not only own them but above all People have the greatest Reason so to do for otherwise who so Miserable Do we inherit the Reproach and Suffering of all that have separated from time to time That is Are the Out-crys that have been against the Protestants by the Papists and theirs against Puritans Brownists and other Separatists fallen upon us And shall we hold Principles inconsistent with an Eternal Recompence of Reward By no means It is our Faith and the contrary both a Malicious and Foolish Suggestion of our Adversaries J. Faldo's KEY Prov'd Defective I Was not willing J. Faldo's Key should go wholy Unconsider'd The greatest Part of which I here publickly acknowledge to have done us such Right that if his Explanation of many of our Words be not True I am not asham'd to pronounce that the Scriptures must be False so agreable to and consonant with Scripture has he spoken on our behalf And not only with Scripture but that Sense of it too which the Best Wisest and most Learned both of the Fathers and first Reformers have unanimously had and on which Foundation in some measure both Puritans and Brownists began their Building Low Meek Spiritual and Plain as is yet well remembred But how grosly he has mis-represented us in other Parts that the True may not give Credit to the False with any I will observe a few with what Brevity I may J. Faldo pag. 62. ASSEMBLING says he Meeting in Spirit W. Penn. This is not Ingenuous For with such as know us not nor our Practice it insinuates a Denial of Publick Worship which we ever own'd and hope shall to the End It is well known who have most shrunk from that Testimony And if J. Faldo means that they do not Worship in Spirit because he makes it Criminal in us we have Reason to say He and They are no Gospel-Worshippers For People must either worship in or out of God's Spirit If out of his Spirit then no Worship in Spirit and Truth but the Device of their own Hearts If in the Spirit then the Quakers assemble as they should do and J. Faldo is to be rebuk'd for little better then an Upstart Scoffer at Assembling in Spirit The once avowed Principle of the Ancient Brownists now call'd Independents J. F. pag. 69. THE WILL OF THE FLESH says he All that is chosen by Man though he be thereby disposed by the Will of God revealed in the Scripture W. P. This is false Many things may be and are daily chosen by Man that is not in the Will of the Flesh nor by his own Will much less when any should be disposed thereto by the Will of God revealed in the Scripture An Abominable Untruth and so Notorious that I need say no more only Challenge him to produce any of us in Proof of his Exposition if he can otherwise he hath Slandered us and our Principles For the Will of the Flesh is that which is quite contrary to God and inconsistant with the Good of the Creature J. F. pag. 69. STATE OF GLORY says he The State of Peace and Joy resulting from the Witness of the Light within in this Life W. P. It is true That Glory is revealed from Faith to Faith in this Life But to stint the State of Glory to the Peace and Joy of this Life only may justifie his wrong Opinion of us that we deny Rewards to come but it cuts off from our stedfast Faith in an Everlasting Mansion of Glory and Blessedness which from the Light within to all who obey it shall spring as a River and flow as an Inexhaustable Fountain And J. Faldo shall never know true Peace another way That is the Word of the Lord to him J. F. pag. 70. PREACHING FOR HIRE HIRELINGS says he to have a Provision for the Outward Man as a Maintenance 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