named amongst them as becometh Saints Eph. 5. And how corrupt and grosse is T. V's reason for his wicked and unsavoury Doctrine before in saying Because the defilement of the Soul is more deep and more hard to be washed off than the defilement of Whoredom or Adultry As if they did not defile the Soul but the Body only this is a Doctrine that may gratifie Whoremongers and Adulterers and not only to reject the wholsom Warnings and Reproofs against all such Wickedness which both in their own Consciences and in our Meetings is declared and Preached against but also it tends rather to incourage them to go to Bawdy-houses than to our Innocent and Godly Meetings wherein the Truth Righteousness and Power of God which cleanseth and frees from sin and unrighteousness is exalted and born witness to T.V. having so manifestly discovered his Spirit he had now better go and sit down under the Common Prayer and confess himself a miserable Sinner among the rest and not remain in a separation with his whewling and whineing Prayers feigning himself as one more Holy and Humble than they What sober People could have thought that such foulness should lie under these Presbyterians coverings as is mentioned before and after And T. V. further adds to explain his gross corrupt Doctrine these words viz. I told her if there stood a Cup of Poyson in the Window I would rather drink it than drink in their damnable Doctrines because poysoning of the Body is not so bad as poysoning and damning the Soul By which the Reader may further see how his prejudice and envy hath blinded him thus to imply as if Persons might commit either Whordom or Murder upon their Bodies and their Souls not be defiled or damned thereby and then what actual wickedness may not People commit and their Souls not be damnified nor prejudiced by it from this Doctrine whereas the wicked slayeth his own Soul lifteth up his Soul to vanity the Peoples lusting after evil things caused leanness to enter their Souls tribulation and anguish is to come upon every Soul of man that doth evil And it is only the Power and Life of God which purifies the Soul sanctifies the Creature throughout in Body Soul and Spirit and so leads into Righteousness and thereby saves and brings the Soul to God and gives it Life and indues it with the Image of the Heavenly But after this T. V. hath uttered such corrupt Language and Doctrine as before he is so bold as to justifie himself in these words viz. I am sure I neither did nor spake any thing unbecoming a Minister of the Gospel That I refer all modest and sober Readers to judge of Whether T. V. hath spoken Truth herein yea or nay and whether or no it had not been more prudence for him to have studied quietness and quietly to have followed his Devotion with thankfulness for the Liberty they are permitted to enjoy then thus to have shewed himself in outrage with clamorous reproaches and reviling against us who mean him no harm to the great disgrace both of himself and his Religion and them that adher to him therein And as for his accusing me with confused Discourse and indirect Answers to his Arguments and with filling my Mouth and the Peoples Ears with a multitude of words wherein was so much ambiguity and obscurity that the sentiments of my mind were not easily to be perceived as he saith Wherein I have as much cause to complain of not having direct Answers from him as he seems to have against me whilst he was so puzled and put to it with what I said though I answered them in plain Scripture-language And wherein their Questions or pretended Arguments were either indirect or in terms which accorded not with Scripture-language I did not judge my self ingaged so far to admit of the stating their matters as being infallible in the manner and terms of them as to be tyed to Yea or Nay denial of Major or Minor without further scruple Their Arguments appear hereafter And whereas T. V. pleads for using some words in explaining Scripture which are not in the Scripture saying That the Quakers in their Books use many words which are not in the Scripture I Answer We neither contend with words or matters which are not contrary or do not tend to vail or darken the Truth 's or simplicity of the innocent language contained in Scripture neither do we go about to impose one manner and form of expression upon others or limit them therein whilst they speak the Truth or what is in or according to Scripture We are not of Kin to the narrow Spirit of the ridged Presbyters that will count a man a blasphemous Heretick Socinian Arian and what not if he can't repeat his Creed of the Deity or Father Word and Spirit in their invented School-terms although he really believeth and confesseth according to Scripture unto the only true God the eternal Word and Spirit or the Father Son and Holy Spirit and that they are One and in Unity inseparable And whereas T. V. saith That W. P. puts forth the sting of the Serpent in tearming his Prayers strangely affected Whines what more opprobious terms saith he would the Damn-me Blades of the Times have used c. Answ. To which I say That he did not only use a strange affected way of Whineing in his feigned Praying but also therein most falsely accused us for Blasphemers in telling God That we compared Him and his Son and Holy Spirit to three finite Creatures which more justly was charged upon himself and his Brethren from their distinction of Persons in the Deity T. V's lye to God was so apparent in this matter that some that were by said The next time he Prayed he had need to ask God forgiveness for telling him that Lye for our comparison was to evince the natural consequence of their own distinction and the gross tendency of it as further is mainfest and not to represent the infinite God like unto man or finite Creatures as they have done about their Personalities And his comparing W. P's words to such tearms as those use he calls The Dam-me Blades of the Times he should rather have began at home and judged himself for his own wicked opprobious terms in saying It was worse to go to the Quakers Meetings than to a Bawdy-house what more gross terms could the Damners and Sinkers have used but evil words corrupt good manners And as for his Confidence that it is a falshood that they did use such words as impudent villain that there was striking among some of T. V's Hearers There are Persons of repute and credit who can testifie both against them and to my knowledge an honest sober Women did affirm That one of his Hearers thumpt her on the Breast when we were about that Dispute with them besides the malice envy and rudeness that appeared amongst them in clamouring railing and reviling us like the Billings-gate folks though
without any just cause both then and when we were afterward at their Meeting to clear our selves from T. V's and W. M. their malicious and slanderous accusation of Blasphemy yea even in the time when I sate silent amongst them some of their Hearers both Men and Women would be railing and clamouring against me when I gave them no seeming much less real occasion at all I being silent So that of all the Assemblies I have been in I never met with any that shewed less Christianity Civility or good Education And whereas T. V. is neither so honest nor yet so ingenious as to acknowledge his apparent and palpable Contradictions in his Sermon set down and observed by W. P. but rather would out-face us and the Readers as though they were no Contradictions Let the Reader therefore take a short review of them as first That a Person that is born of God overcomes the World and yet the Victory in this Life incompleat Is not here an evident inconsistency and contradiction is his Doctrine and ignorance of the Child of God and the Saints Victory which was their Faith 1 Joh. 5.4 For if he have alwayes enemies or sins unsubdued in this Life how are they overcome and victory obtained Or is there a Victory over Enemies and they not overcome What false glosses would he set upon his Contradictions And his instance of the Canaanites among the Children of Israel being like Thorns doing them mischief This was when they did not as God commanded drive them out before them which is no proof in this case to him that is born of God for the wicked one cannot touch him much less mischief him And T. V. his saying That such as are in Christ and cast off the old Man and known a change altogether New and yet worldly Lusts cannot be extirpated out of God's People in this World Do but mark his plain Contradiction again here and how doth he clear himself by questions May not Have not Worldly Lusts a being and some power to oppose in God's People where they have lost their rule But how then are they in Christ and have cast off the old man and known a change altogether new what must the old worldly Lusts still remain unextirpated in this Life in Christ Where then is the newness of Life altogether or the Grace of God in its teaching to deny those things obeyed And how then are such as be in Christ new Creatures Or how have they that are his crucified the flesh with the Affections and Lusts Which to accuse all God's People of worldly Lusts all their life time what an abuse is it to them Did not Paul see and attain a state beyond that wherein he had seen a Law in his members warring and leading him captive c. Did not he see the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ to make him free from the Law of Sin Death when through Christ he became more than a conqueror And could he be in all those states he mentioned to the Romans then at one and the same time to wit carnal sold under sin led captive having a will to do that which was good but knew not how and also to be freed from the Law of Sin and Death by the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus one dead to sin that could not live any longer therein and more than a conqueror c. could these states be consistent or all his at one and the same time viz. To be Carnal Wretched a Captive ignorant of his Duty and yet a Delivered Freed Spiritual man more than a Conqueror and an Apostle that then knew how to write that Epistle Instruct others and Preach to them in the Fulness of the Gospel Were not these Latter his Attainments at that time wherein he shews his deliverance from the former Bondage Servitude and Thraldom under the power of Sin and the Law and Body of it which is not to remain alwayes but to be ended abollished and destroyed by the Power and Operation of Jesus Christ in them that believe For if Christ be in you the body is dead because of sin but the Spirit is Life because of Righteousness And where the old man is crucified with him it is to the destruction of the body of sin that henceforth sin should not be served Rom. 6.6 chap. 8.10 And Paul speaking to the Romans after the manner of men because of the infirmity of their flesh ch 6.19 And his so condescending to speak of several states that he had passed through was not to encourage any to plead or contend for sin term of life as most injuriously his Intention is perverted by these Ministers of Sin and Antichrist whilst that he also shews his Deliverance and Conquest but rather that men should believe as he had done in order to their obtaining perfect Victory and Conquest by the same Power and Spirit of Christ in which true Believers confide and trust against all the powers of Darkness Temptations and evil Motions knowing that Christ's Power is stronger than the Devil's power And it 's for Christ's Power and Work that we contend both against the Devil his Work and Messengers who dispute and contend for sin term of life which is their great injury both against Christ his Work and People and that which hath greatly strengthened the hands of evil-doers And T.V. his telling That Sin may tyrannize over Believers and yet not have Dominion but be in Captivity in Chains Who is so blind that cannot see his Contradiction herein and his silly come off in instancing that a Slave in Chains may sometimes break loose and Tyrannize what then is this Captivity and these Chains under which the sin is held and how doth it tyrannize and yet not have dominion what silly work is this But his saying You must kill or be killed either you must overcome the world or the world you What must they kill but sin and worldly lusts Surely this is further than an incompleat Victory and further than an Enemy breaking loose if he be killed for if he be slain he hath neither power to break loose lead captive and much less to tyrannize over Believers It is strange how T.V. can so far shut his eyes or endeavour to blind others as to seek to gloss over these notorious Contradictions as if they were in unity and then lightly to say Can you forbear smiling at the man he calleth these Contradictions How shallow and ridiculous hath he rendered himself herein CHAP. II. In Answer to W. Madox together with several Contradictions between him and his Brother T. Vincent and their Absurdities manifested and detected which shews also their ignorance of the True and Living God c. THese men having prostituted themselves to an Idol of their own brains The Light within which is their Christ Saviour count the Doctrine of the true God a strange Doctrine Answ. The Light within which we do own witness
not subsist in a several and distinct nature of the same kind so as they are not three Gods as is confessed pag. 3. how are they three distinct or separate persons subsisting each by himself These things being considered by the impartial Readers the absurdity of the Presbyterians Doctrine and Comparison touching the Deity will easily appear And what was this Aquinas quoted as T. D's Author so much cited and commented by him as a wise Observant pag. 19 Was not he a great Writer for the Romish Religion and the Pope's Doctrine of Transubstantiation and so a promoter of Popery in his time and canonized 〈◊〉 Saint among them see his large Volums his Sums and others he is highly applauded by the Papists as being an industrious Promoter of their Faith and Religion and was he not a Dominican Fryer To whom it appears that T. D. is very much beholding for his Doctrine of three distinct or sever'd Persons in the Godhead more then he is to Scripture for that is silent concerning it but I have of late Read it in Aquinas his Sums who is Tho. Danson's wise Observant And further mark that after T. D. has confessed that the word Person cannot be properly attributed to Father Son and Holy Ghost and that the Names common to God and the Creatures do signifie somthing wherein the Creatures bears some anology to God and three Persons not strictly yet anologically in the Godhead pag. 3 4. Where proves he this by Scripture and wherein doth man bear a proportion or likeness in his Person with his Maker this is strange Doctrine importing that the Diety hath the resemblance or likeness of persons but not properly which if improperly why do they stand so much upon their improper distinctions in the Godhead Yet saith T. D. may this word Person be used by us to distinguish the Father Son and Spirit in the Godhead and one from another Answer So it appears he pleads for a liberty to put improper names upon God from his pretence of anology the Scripture he mentions Hebr. 1.3 makes against him it being the express Image of his Substance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but as it is in some English Copies express Image of his Person however it is not the express Person of his Person much less the express singular Person or rational Substance subsisting by it self distinct from the Father For I and my Father are one said Christ and the Son doth nothing of himself but what he seeth the Father do and the Father is in the Son and the Son is in the Father and if so be that the Soul separated from the Body cannot be called a Person as T. D. saith pag. 2 3. how can he presume to call the Spirit which is the Life or Breath of God a Person distinct from God whilst God is never distinct and separate from his own Life But then it appears that T. D. is necessitated to call the Glorious Divine three in Heaven somthing and therefore he saith that distinction in the Godhead cannot be apprehended by us by any other notion or resemblance then Person and saith he we know not what to call these three but Persons pag. 4. For the conception or notion that we have of the Father suppose as a Subsistent or Person is in adaequatus conceptus in respect of the Divine Essence c. pag. 17. Reply But by what doth he and his Brethren apprehend this concerning God surely neither by the Scripture not by immediate Revelation or Inspiration nor yet by reason for that has failed them in this matter as also the nature and works of God is above their reach and the comprehension of the Creature so that their conceptions and notions being unscriptural we have no ground to believe them whilst we have but their conceptions words and notions for what they say derived from Popish and Heathen Authors and not from any immediate Power Revelation or Scripture and his saying they do not know what to call these three but Persons shews they were hard put to it as being necessitated to call them something but what are they ignorant of the Scripture or would not the Scripture satisfie them and yet profess it their Rule they had better search the Scriptures instead of Aquinas and Aristotle and see what they are called there viz. The Father the Word and Holy Ghost which are One besides these three bearing record in Heaven T. D. hath elsewhere called them Witnesses pag. 5 7 and 10. and thus he contradicts himself one while he knows not what to call them but Persons and another while calls them three Witnesses from their bearing Record and thus in contradiction he knows what to call them besides Persons but then he saith all Witnesses properly so called are Persons How proves he that Are not all things that bear record Witnesses Are Heaven and Earth Persons and are the Water and the Blood Persons seeing they bear record in the Earth and is Conscience in a man a Person distinct from the man seeing Conscience beareth witness if it be how then is the Soul distinct from the Body no Person page 3 5. T. D. upon 1 John 5.9 the Witness of God is greater referring to the Witness concerning Christ verse 7. not to verse 8. for none of those Witnesses are God Reply And yet those Witnesses verse 8. are the Spirit the Water and the Blood herein T. D. hath denied the Spirit to be God contrary to their former pretence and so is come under that they have so unjustly charged us withal but we own the Divinity of that Spirit that bears record in the Earth and know the Water and Blood which agree in one with it to be therefore Spiritual and of this water and Spirit a man must be born or else he cannot enter the Kingdom of God Joh. 13.5 and by this Blood his Conscience must be sprinkled from dead works who ever comes to enter the Heavenly Sanctuary And we may further observe how dubious T. D. in his Work hath appeared from what he saith pag. 83. viz. If my Answers seem not so clear as the Objections which I hope I need not fear unless in the point of the Trinity that being a Mystery so by that it rebates the sharpest edge of humane understanding c. By which the Reader may take notice that he was conscious to himself that his Answers in this case might not seem so clear as the Objections and that he has but made use of his humane understanding and not of Scripture therein the Edge of which is so rebated and grown so dull that it will take very little impression upon any that are in a right mind and understanding even none at all upon such who rely not nor lean to their own understandings but upon the guidance of the Spirit of Truth which leads into all Truth which it appears he has refused and gone from whilst he is now fain to make use of his humane understanding
in the Flesh hath ceased from sin that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the Flesh to the lusts of men but to the Will of God Chap. 4.1 2. Now the ceasing from Sin and following of Christ's steps in the harmless sinless state is the right use and end of his Suffering for man and his Example to man But then mark T. D's Doctrine as followeth what an example and subject of Wrath and Vindictive Justice so tearmed he renders Christ viz. T. D. pag. 36.4 Christ when he suffered was not innocent and when God required satisfaction of him it was due from him Christ was guilty of our sin when he suffered for it for guilt is but obligatio ad paenam an obligation to undergo punishment which Christ was under by contract Hebr. 7.22 Answ. It s no wonder that these Presbyterians and those of their affinity accuse all Christ's Followers of being Sinners and imperperfect all their life time since that T. D. one of their Leaders or Chieftains hath accused Christ not to be innocent when he suffered saying also Christ was guilty of our Sin when he suffered for it which how false and blasphemous this charge is against Christ I appeal to all sober and moderate Professors of Christianity who have any real esteem and reverence to the Name of Christ and his Glory and how contrary to plain Scripture-testimonies plentifully given of him as being a Lamb yea the Lamb of God which declared his innocency and purity being without sin or guile who offered up himself by the Eternal Spirit a Lamb without spot to God 1 Pet. 1.19 chap. 2.22 Hebr. 9.14 Isa. 53.7 Acts 8.32 Now his being a Lamb without spot and without blemish manifests him to be a perfect Offering and Sacrifice for Sin as also how guilt is more then barely an obligation to undergo punishment being always imputed to the Transgressors and disobedient for sin and not to Christ Rom. 3.19 Jam. 2.10 1 Cor. 11.27 Deut. 19.13 and 21.9 Exod. 34.7 Although t is true those chief Priests false Witnesses and Persecutors of Christ among the Jews and such as accused him for a Blaspemer they said also that he was guilty of death Mat. 26.65 66. Mark 14.64 whose example T. D. hath followed in accusing Christ of being guilty and not innocent But if T. D. should say he meant not that Christ was really or inherently or personally guilty of sin but by imputation and so not innocent but guilty of our sins by this we may perceive then what he means by imputation that on the one hand an innocent person is made guilty and is not innocent whilst he hath no sin nor guile or evil in him and so on the other hand by their own rule of contraries contraria contrariorum ratio persons are to be reckoned imputatively righteous and innocent in God's sight whilst there is neither righteousness nor innocency really in them which is both unreasonable unscriptural and apparently false It was a false imputation of the persecuting Jews and Tho. Danson to impute guilt of sin to Christ and to accuse him with not being innocent when no sin evil nor guilt was in him and it is as false an imputation of theirs to impute Christ's Righteousness to sinfull persons who are not in it nor partakes of it in them so it s neither God's imputation nor Christ's for had Abraham no righteousness really in him when his Faith was reckoned to him for righteousness where then was his Faith and the righteousness and obedience of it if in reallity he was not a partaker and an enjoyer thereof within from whence did his acts or works of real obedience proceed and flow if not from his living Faith and its righteousness within Surely they are of very mean capacities that cannot see T. D's absurdities ignorance in these matters And his vain imaginations and conceits about imputation further will appear and that the stress and drift of all his and his Brethrens work in these invented Doctrines â—s to keep people in their sins and imperfections all their dayes and so their work in rendring Christ the subject of guilt and so of vengeance that belongs to Devils and their rendring people the subjects of his Righteousness and Justification by imputation whilst unjust and sinful in themselves it all centers in their sinfull Doctrine for sin and imperfection term of life Pag. 37. As to T. D's telling of the Son of God's Incarnation the creation of his Body and Soul the parts of that nature he subsisted in c. To this I say if the Body and Soul of the Son of God were both Created doth not this render him a Fourth Person for Creation was in time which contradicts their Doctrine of Three distinct Increated Co-eternal Co-essential Persons in the Deity seeing that which was created was not so but herein whether doth not his and their ignorance of the only begotten of the Father and their denial of Christs Divinity plainly appear yea or nay where doth the Scripture say that his Soul was created for was not he the brightness of his Fathers Glory and the express Image of his Divine Substance But supposing the Soul of Christ was with the Body created in time I ask if from Eternity he was a Person distinct from God and his holy Spirit without either Soul or Body and where doth the Scripture speak of any Person without either Soul or Body le ts have plain Scripture Pag. 38. Whilst T. D. grants our actual freedom from sin and wrath depends on what Christ did and suffered as on and upon its means what becomes of his Doctrine and Pleas for sin and imperfection which they that continues in term of life cannot be truly said to be Actually freed from sin nor yet imputatively righteous in Gods sight whilst actually and really sinfull And if Christ's obedience was not intended to exempt us from a personal obedience to the Law as is confest in pag. 38. then it s contrary to the end of his Obedience to live in sin and disobedience term of life and for any to be reckoned imputatively righteous when actually disobedient Secondly And if we be only so far made righteous by Christs Obedience as unrighteous by our own disobedience how far is that have we not been actually unrighteous and shall we so far be made righteous by Christ's Righteousness Is not this more then your Doctrine of Imputation whilst personally sinfull amount to but your flat contradictions in these matters are evident Pag. 39. And though Christ is our Surety this doth not exempt us either from following him or walking in the Way of God but the more ingage us therein and herein we know acceptance in the Beloved of God in that holy conversation which his pure Law within enjoyns without obedience to which God is not well pleased nor satisfied on man's part though he was even well pleased and satisfied in his own Son both in his doing and suffering
until the Law Sin was in the World but Sin is not imputed where there is no Law verse 13. But now mark there is a Law transgressed whereby Sin and Transgression is imputed to them that are guilty of transgression as all in Adam in the earthly state and nature are and therefore on the other hand righteousness is not imputed to persons out of Christ or to such that are not partakers of his righteousness Pag. 45. Arg. 4. Quaker A man cannot be said to be actually sinfull and imputatively righteous he may as well be said to be actually damned and imputatively saved To which T. D. answereth Why not as well as to say a man is actually poor and not worth a groat but imputatively rich as having by Surety paid his debt of thousands Reply Here he hath plainly discovered their notion of Imputation and the falseness of it viz. that a man is imputatively righteous when actually sinfull or actually damned and yet imputatively saved what gross Corruption and Ignorance is this and what an improper Comparison doth he bring to back it let the wise judge and we do not admit of it in this case as that a man should be actually damned and imputatively saved or actually guilty and yet imputatively innocent but that such to whom righteousness and true riches are reckoned as being theirs have right therein and are partakers thereof and what he asserts herein by his simile is but a beging the question and taking that for granted which is still opposed as both unscriptural and unreasonable viz. men being actually damned and imputatively saved or actually guilty and imputatively innocent by the same reason he might as well say persons really Theeves are innocent or persons really and actual trecherous and rebellious are true and good Subjects or actually Devils and imputatively Saints But Christ being or becoming our Suerty was not to impute righteousness to men in transgression but to bring them into Covenant and Peace with God which stands in everlasting righteousness and not in sin for he was also a perfect example to be followed as well as profest and he is the Surety of the new Testament and Covenant which is spiritual and is manifested and enjoyed in his people And T. D's instance that nine men throughout a mutinous Army are actually guilty and yet imputatively innocent when the tenth man is admited to sustain the punishment due to the rest is as sottish and impertinent as the rest before for neither is a mutinous Army innocent nor is Christ any of the mutinous or guilty Persons And where proves T.D. that Imputation is an Act of Law and makes a Relative and not a real change I ask what Law it is an act of is it real or true or no if it be of God it must be true if not then false and it is a false imputation which is not real and contrary to the Apostles Doctrine who knew that Abraham's Faith was imputed or reckoned to him for righteousness and to that state to which there was no condemnation but justification which was a state of being walking in Christ and not a walking after the Flesh but after the Spirit and this they that experience and witness know a real change from death to life from condemnation to justification from sin to righteousness from the wayes of death and darkness to the wayes of Life Light and Peace Pag. 45. T. D. saith There is no need of inherent Righteousness for Justification buâ— yet there is need of it for other ends as to make us meet for Heaven Col. 1.12 Answ. It appears that he means by this inherent righteousness that of Sanctification or the work of Gods Spirit within which he afterwards calls personal righteousness and is there no need of this for Justification what darkness is here as if men were justified while in the unsanctified state this is like the rest of his sottish stuff quite contrary to the Apostles Doctrine which is But ye are Sanctified but ye are Justified in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God 1 Cor. 6.11 And also what contradiction hath T. D. brought to himself herein whilst he hath confessed that the word Justifie signifieth to make Just as also he hath confessed that inherent Righteousness as he call it gives a fitness of enjoying the Heavenly Inheritance it lying in Communion with God pag. 46. then it follows that it gives a fitness for Justification whilst Justification and Sanctification are unseparable Companions and God loves his Image in his People freely saith his Brother T. V. Thus without Washing Clensing and Sanctification men are not Justified seeing the unrighteous shall not inherit the Kingdom of God and they that live in unrighteousness cannot be accepted of him It being not the Hearers of the Law but the Doers that shall be Justified Pag. 46. And now concerning good works that are acceptable to God which T. D. accuseth us with placing Merit for Justification or as a deserved cause thereof c. Concerning this particular that faithfull Servant of the Lord S. Fisher hath very fully answered T. D. and his Brethren and it hath been manifest how he did wrong and abuse S. Fisher about this point and how contrary to his intent he construed good works as being ours relating to self works or imperfect obedience which S. Fisher never intended but with Relation to those works which are perfect which Christ is the Author of which if Christs Works be not deserving whose are and to those which God hath wrought in us who having ordained Peace for us hath wrought all our works in us Isa. 26. now we never placed a merit upon self-acting nor upon mans best works in the faln sinfull and corrupt state so that there is not a correspondency betwixt us and the Papists in this particular as falsly we have been accused see S. Fisher's Rusticus ad Accademicos where the point is fully explained which you Presbyterians and Independants are never able to answer Where did we ever profess or hold forth that we were able or could fulfil the Law our selves or merit or deserve Salvation by any thing that we could do but we do profess and witness that through the Power of Christ we are enabled to faithfull and sincere obedience not of our selves knowing that good works how ever rejected and undervalued are ordained of God and without them your faith is dead as a body without a Spirit is And it is true enough as T. D. saith That you are averse to obedience through corruptions who plead for sin term of life and yet would cover over all your filthy raggs with a pretence of Christ's Righteousness Satisfaction Imputation Justification and Merit whilst you are yet in your sins and corruptions and in the weakness of your flesh but as under the Law of works wherein you are in no perfect obedience Pag. 47. Seeing the Law of Faith is acknowledged I ask how far it
but they that come to witness a part in Christ Jesus the Light of Life they in his Light may come to perceive the Mystestery of the Resurrection but if Truth can be received and understood then it will appear that I do not deny the Resurrection for I do verily believe that the Hour is coming in which all that are in the Graves shall bear the voice of the Son of God and shall come forth they that have done good unto the Resurrection of Life and they that have done evil unto the Resurrection of Condemnation but to Fools that say that this Body of natural Flesh and Bones shall be raised I say that body which is sown is not that body that shall be but God giveth a body as it pleaseth him yet to every Seed it s own body Thus far G. F. junior by all which T. D. his slander is detected and his false spirit discovered as not fit to meddle with the Mysteries of God which are out of his sight and reach God will sweep away the refuge of Lyes and Lyars Some Observations upon John Owen's Book Entituled A Declaration c. including a brief Answer and Reply to the same AS We the People of God called Quakers are but little concerned in John Owen's Declaration we need concern our selves the less and let them that are chiefly concerned in his Accusations make him answer But in that he hath in some few places hinted and falsly insinuated against us as being one with the Socinians as he calls them or seduced into Socinianism Lest any should give credit to these and such like insinuations and thereby be prejudiced against us or the Truth professed by us meerly upon John Owen's overly Reports I judge it meet a little to appear in Truth 's Vindication and our clearness in answer to some particulars in his Book As first where in his Preface Pag. 6. he saith There is now a visible accession made by that sort of People whom men will call Quakers from their department from the first erection of their Way long since desertted by them Answ. We have not made any accession contrary to the Truth first received by us nor have we deserted its Way which so long since the Lord God by his Power gathered us into out of the corrupt Wayes Inventions Traditions and false Worships of the World to worship him in the Spirit and in the Truth wherein we have been gathered to be a peculiar people to God being delivered from the many Sects Wayes and Professions set up since the dayes of the Apostles AS to Socinianism as he calls it we are neither Discipled in it nor Baptized into Socinus his name neither do we own him for our Author or Patern in those things which we Believe and Testifie nor yet do we own several Principles which John Owen relates as being from Socinus and principally that of Christ's being God but not the Most High God pag. 54 55. It was never our Principle for though we do confess to his condescention humility and Suffering in the dayes of his Flesh wherein he appeared in the form of a Servant being made in fashion as a man but his being in the form of God in the Divine Nature of God wherein he was equal with God and being glorified with the same glory he had with the Father before the World began and his being God over all blessed for ever these things we professed and believed in the beginning and do the same still it never being in our hearts in the least to oppose or desert them therefore as to the Conjunction J. O. â—ell of betwixt both these sorts of men in opposition to the holy Trinity with the Person and Grace of Christ. Herein he hath charged a double falshood upon us first such a Conjunction and Opposition either to the Person or Grace of Christ which we absolutely deny neither is our opposing of mens corrupt meanings of Scripture and invented names and terms put upon the Deity any opposition either against God Christ or Spirit nor yet against the Grace or Love of either J. O. Pag. 6. However they may seem in sundry things as yet to look divers wayes yet like Sampson 's Foxes they are knit together by the tayl in these firebrand Opinions and joyntly endeavour to consume the standing Corn of the Church of God and their joynt management of their business of late c. Answ. I suppose he intends Quakers and Socinians wherein both his Accusation and Comparison are false and scornfull for there 's no such conjunction nor joynt endeavours between them neither ever was it the Quakers intent or principle in the least to endeavour to consume the standing Corn of God's Church as we injuriously are accused but such vain and false imaginations corruptions and perverting Scripture as J. O. and his Brethren are guilty of which have no growth nor reception in the Church of God for his Church is in him and led by his Spirit into all Truth which no Lye nor Deceit have any part in Besides as for Sampson's Foxes they were not set to destroy the Corn of the Church or Israel but of the Philistines neither can we believe that the Presbyterians and Independants are the true Church till we see better Fruit appear among them then is yet for look into their Assemblies and see what pride and vanity they are gotten into in their apparel behold also how gaudy in their habits their women are and what an example of pride and pomp they shew to the profane to the shame of their profession certainly God hath yet Viols of Wrath unemptied to pour down upon that proud and persecuting Spirit which hath so much shewed it self in many of them But what he means by those words holy Trinity he further explains in pag. 26 27. in these words viz. Now the sum of the Revelation in these terms is that God is one that this one God is Father Son and Holy Ghost that the Father is the Father of the Son and the Son the Son of the Father and the Holy Ghost the Spirt of the Father and and the Son Now had this Doctor Owen and his Brethren but kept to these and such like expressions and have left out their unscriptural scholastick terms and distinctions about Trinity distinct Subsistances and Personalities we should not need to have had such controversies with any of them about them but have taken their confession that God is one and that Father Son and holy Ghost are God and that the Father is Father of the Son and the Son the Son of the Father c. according to this great Doctors Relation who pretends very much to Scripture and makes many large Repetitions of Scripture to prove his matter counting them the Revelation but then being again not willing to keep to the terms expressions and phrases of Scripture but writes his own conceivings sences and meanings as men of his Coat and Fraternity use to do
was made an Offering for sin he having offered himself through the Eternal Spirit yet his Soul or Spirit did not die with the Body though J. O. hath ignorantly made no distinction but joyns both as being but Humane Nature which was Sacrificed to death but yet its evident that though his Soul and Spirit did not die with the Body yet his Soul was offered for sin for the sins of men were laid upon him or did meet on him as is frequently confessed and so he suffered and his Soul travelled under the burthen of them so that his Sufferings were twofold both inward and outward and which were the greater suppose ye Professors and whether there be not a mystery to be known in the Sufferings Death and Blood of Christ beyond what could be seen or perceived with the carnal or outward eye since that he is truly and savingly to be known after the Spirit as the Apostles knew him who experienced the Fellowship of his Sufferings and a conformity unto his Death and bare in their bodies the Dying of the Lord Jesus that his Life might be manifest in them And Christ being touched with the feeling of their Infirmities was able to relieve them that were tempted and as Paul saith Colos. 1. You that were sometimes alienated and enemies in your minds through wicked works yet now hath he reconciled in the Body of his Flesh through death to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight if you continue in the Faith grounded and setled and be not moved away from the hope of the Gospel which you have heard which is preached to every Creature which is under Heaven whereof I Paul am made a Minister who now rejoyce in my sufferings for you and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his Body sake which is the Church verse 21 22 23 24. where mark that the reconciled state was not that of enmity in their minds and the end of this reconciliation through his Death was to present them holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight which does not admit of sin and imperfection term of life nor yet of Professors arguing or pleading for sin as they do and was there any of Christ's afflictions or sufferings then to be filled up in the Apostle for the sake of his Church how do Professors resent this Doctrine and what meaning will they give to it can they say that Christ's suffering was all at an end or fulfilled at once whilest yet some was behind to be filled up in his Saints and that for his Churches sake although still he was the one Offering Ransom and Sacrifice for sin and was offered once for all as both being opposed to and ending the many Offerings under the Law and consecrating a new and Living Way and establishing an Everlasting Covenant of Life and Salvation as also that in what he did and suffered be set us an Example bare Testimony unto and confirmed the Truth this J. O. confesseth page 199. And as to his being a perfect High Priest and discharging the Office thereof and all other the Father required of him these we never opposed nor went about to slight or lessen as some injuriously represented us Neither would we have any unreverent and slighty Contests entertained on any hand about the Sufferings Afflictions and Death of Christ in the least to lessen or undervalue them nor yet ought you to meddle and tamper about either God Christ or Holy Spirit or about the Suffering and Sacrifice of Christ with your pitifull sorry confused School-terms and distinctions and beggerly scraps of mens Traditions and Rudiments of the World c. wherein you have laboured more to fill your heads with airy notions invented words and brain knowledge rather then your hearts and souls with a saving Knowledge and experimental sence and feeling of the Life and Power of Godliness or of the Vertue and Efficacy of Christ Jesus and his Reconciliation as the one Offering and Sacrifice which puts away sin and whose Blood both remits and clenseth from all iniquity But to evade these blessed Effects which are only known to them that walk in the Light 1 John 1.7 many of you Professors have found out a very easie way and notion of all being fully satisfied and payed for you both for sins past present and to come and of all being suffered and perfectly obeyed for you by Christ in your stead though you deny his dying and being a Propitiation for all men in the whole World so that you can plead and wrangle for sin imperfection and body of sin all your life and say Christ hath fully payed all and perfectly obeyed for you as also you can easily evade or refuse to suffer either with him or for him if but a little Storm Trial or Persecution doth arise you and your Leaders can secure your selves and creep into corners though now you can make a shew and bluster in this time of calm and some of you make a boasting and insulting against W. P. and a hidious reviling of him now he is in suffering and you at liberty thinking probably that you may get your selves some credit and repute with those in power by your railing Pamphlets which you bring out one after another like cowardly base spirited men so many to go to trample upon a man that is already underfoot as to the outward man in regard of his confinement which some report that some of you Presbyterians were the Instigators and occasion of by such invective Clamours and Complaints as some of you are accustomed to clear your selves as well as you can but yet withal you do but befool your selves in so many of you going to war against and reproaching a poor man in Prison who freely offered up himself to suffer which the most of you would be loath to do for by that your so great stir and noise you make against him you render him how mean soever he be in himself such a potent Antagonist contrary to your many slighty and scornfull Characters of him in your Books that you make many momoderate people the more enquire after him and to have the better conception of him because of your enmity and outrage but such who wait upon the Lord and in his Light stand still can see beyond you all and your spirits and work which the day hath declared More Errors escaped the Press IN the Epistle Page 2. Line 12. for agree in read are p. 23. l. 2. blot out 1. l. 23. for for r. in p. 25. l. 10. r. produced l. 35. for 13 r. 3. In the Answer to T. V. p. 65. l. 1. blot out that In the Answer to T. D. p. 2. l. 24. for gifts r. gusts p. 5. l. 18. for in r. on p. 7. l. 5. for 13 r. 3. l. 11. for by r. high p. 9. l. 10. for and all r. an act p. 12. l. 2. for he r. the. p. 17.
those two are made Conditions on our parts in order to the enjoying the benefit of what Christ hath procured so that the Release is not immediate upon the Payment c. Page 272. We are to consider that these very Persons assert That Christ paid all for us and in our name and stead so that the payment by Christ was by a substitution in our room and if he paid the same which the Law required the benefit must immediatly acrue to those in whose Name the Debt was paid for what was done in the Name of another is all one to the Creditor as if it had been done by the Debtor himself But above all things it is impossible to reconcile the freeness of Remission with the full Payment c. Neither will it serve to say That though it was not free to Christ yet it was to us for the Satisfaction and Remission must respect the same person for Christ did not pay for himself but for us neither could the Remission be to him c. It is impossible the same Debt should be fully paid and freely forgiven much less will it avoid the difficulty in this case to say That it was a refusable Payment for it being supposed to be the very same it was not in Justice refusable c. pag. 173. Thus when our Adversaries Dispute against this Opinion no wonder if they do it succesfully but this whole Opinion is built upon a Mistake That Satisfaction must be the payment of the very same which while they contend for they give our Adversaries too great an advantage and make them think they triumph over the Faith of the Church when they do it only over the mistake of some perticular Persons p. 275. They make the right of punishment meerly to depend on God's absolute Dominion and that all Satisfaction must be considered under the notion of Compensation for the injuries done to him But if we can clearly shew a considerable difference between the Notion of Debts and Punishments if the right of Punishments doth not depend upon meer Dominion and that Satisfaction by way of Punishment is not primarily entended for Compensation It is lawful for a man to forgive all the Debts which are owing him althoug they assert That the Justice of God doth never require Punishment in case of Repentance but withal they assert That in case of Impenitency it is not only agreeable but due to the nature and decrees and therefore to the rectitude and equity of God not to give Pardon If this be true then there is an apparent difference between the notion of Debts and Punishments c. Thus far Edw. Stillingfleet Obs. Hereby the Reader may see how contrary to Dr. Owen and T. Danson's Notions of Law Dr. Stillingfleet hath reasoned and hath seemed to shew more Moderation and offer more Reason in his way and method than they have done in these matters These Passages I was willing to Relate that the World may see how Inconsistent and Opposite these Doctors and Learned men so accounted are in their Notions and how they cannot agree among themselves and also what Confusion men are apt to run into when they keep not to the plain language of the Scriptures Besides had the despised Suffering Quakers but appeared as from themselves after this method against J. O. and his Brethren as E. S. hath done what an offence would it have been unto them and how ready would they have been to muster up their Forces and send out their reviling Books against us hoping thereby to gain the more favour and esteem as Defenders of the Faith of the Church c. whereas it is not the Faith of the Church they defend in their mistakes whereby they have obscured the state of the Controversie by managing it with more Zeal than Judgment according to E. S. his words Now they may Answer themselves in their Contradictions and see if they can Reconcile their own Work before they further meddle against others for in the state they are in the more they strive the more they 'l Confound themselves and work their own overthrow As for their Reviling and nick-Names they give men that differ they are but poor Arguments for Confutation when they are rather to prejudice the Ignorant than to manifest Truth Howbeit whatever men's Notions or Opinions be touching Christ or his Sufferings we have not our Religion and Experience thereof from them they being uncertain and weak in comparison of the Living Truth it self which in Christ and his Light is received and not in men's Traditions and Notions And that all may come to know the certain Principle or Light of Christ within to wait in to know the Power of Godliness and those things which concern Life and Salvation This is the desire of my Soul for all such as feel a want of true Satisfaction and Peace in their own Souls Some Passages of Edward Stillingfleet's Sermon Preached before the King March 13. 1666 7. which was Printed by his special command HE who hath appointed the Rewards and Punishments of the great Day will then call the Sinner to Accompt not only for all his other sins but for offering to lay the Imputation of them upon himself We have the greatest reason to lay the blame of all our Evil Actions upon our selves as to attribute the Glory of all our Good unto himself pag. 16 17. b That God had designed they are ready to say That man should lead a life free from sin Why did he confine the Soul of man to a Body so apt to taint and pollute it But who art thou O man that doth find fault with thy Maker c. pag. 17. He hath offered us the assistance of his Grace and of that Spirit of his which is greater then that Spirit which is in the World He hath promised us those Weapons whereby we may withstand the Torrent of Wickedness in the World we have not only sufficient means of Resistance but we understand the Danger before hand pag. 19. Their Consciences still rebuke them sharply for their sins then in a mighty rage and fury they charge God himself with Tyranny as laying impossible Laws upon the Souls of men But if we either consider the Nature of the Command or the Promises which accompany it or the large Experience to the contrary we shall easily discover that this Pretence is altogether unreasonable for what is it that God requires of men as the Condition of their future Happiness which in its own Nature is judged Impossible Is it for men to live Soberly Righteously Godly in this World for that was the end of Christian Religion c. Is it to do as we would be done by Is it to maintain a Universal Kindness and Good Will to men That indeed is the great Excellency of our Religion that it so strictly requires it but if this be impossible farewel all good Nature in the World pag. 21 22.
then sayes suppose as a subsistent or Person c. But which of these terms it is this Notionist hath not declared to us in his 13th page And this Notionist goes on in the said 13th page and sayes Nor can we say that the Notion of the Father as one Person in the God-head includes the Son nor the Notion of the Son as one Person in the God-head includes the Father Reader Didst thou ever hear the like This is but a Notion of the Father and a Notion of the Son indeed And are these Presbyterian Priests like to interpret Scripture with their Notions Conceptions and Suppositions no no. No one knows the Father but the Son and he to whom the Son reveals him Nor none knows the Son but the Father and to know God and Jesus Christ is Life Eternal and none can call him Lord but by the Holy Ghost And so this Knowledge is beyond all your false Conceptions Suppositions and Notions And if the Holy Ghost the Saints bodies be the Temple of it which Holy Ghost leads them into all Truth And if the Holy Ghost be a Person then have not the Saints a Person in their bodies And why did not the Apostle say That their bodies were the Temples of a Person according to your Doctrine and Rule the Holy Ghost is a Spirit and so let us see that Scripture which gives the Holy Ghost the Name of a Person And he speaks again in his 14th page of Three distinct Persons are one with the God-head Now Reader is not here Four to wit Three Persons and the God-head But Reader we charge him to give us Chapter and Verse for this Doctrine for we must order him with the Rule And then he tells us of a Notion of the Father and including the Son it 's but his own Notion for if he had known him he would have spoken in a form of sound words whereby he might not have been reproved And again the Presbyterian sayes the Three Persons are distinct and the Rule is to be understood that they are One among themselves only in respect of that wherein they agree not simply Answ. Reader take notice he sayes The Father and Son and Holy Ghost which he calls Three Persons doth not agree simply Is not this contrary to Scripture What agreement is this which is not simply What! separate distinct Persons not agreeing simply Come what is this agreement then if it be not an agreeing simply Tell us what it is by Chapter and Verse thou sayes the Scripture is the Rule Where doth the Scripture say That the Father Son and Spirit doth not agree simply Didst thou not say That God was so simple that he admitted of no parts what agreement is this if it be not simple What is it then tell us Dost thou not abuse the Father Son and Spirit and Scriptures clear thy self and make this good That the Father Son and Spirit doth not agree simply if not simply then tell us how and give Chapter and Verse for it out of the Scriptures or else acknowledge thy self to be of a Sandy Foundation Seeing thou sayst A Man is a Person and God is a Person and the Scripture saith God is a Spirit and Christ was conceived by the Holy Ghost the begotten of the Father Was Christ the Image of the Father as he was of the Generation of Abraham or David or Adam or according to the Spirit Whether of these was he the express Image of his Father's substance because thou calls the Father a Person And the Scripture sayeth He suffered according to the Flesh which he did not die as he was God and the Scripture calls him Son of Man and Son of God and he being the express Image of his Fathers substance see the Old Translations And dost thou not in thy 16th page of thy Synopsis bring the Greek Philosophers to prove the Persons Yes How now Presbyterian Priest thou hast run beside thy own Directory and Scripture both but the Greek Philosophers must be thy Rule and Leader surely People will not alwayes have their Eyes blinded by you Christ is come to open them And in the 17th page of his Book the Presbyterian saith that Hypostasis must be rendred Person or Subsistent or some word to that Effect he sayes So People see it must be some word but what it must be he knows not and so in this manner they are giving Names to Christ and God besides the Rule of Scripture we charge thee shew us a Verse in Scripture that speak such Language and where one word may be put for another by Metalepsis and so leave People in Doubts and Questions you are going beside your Scripture and Rule that at last People shall not know what to call God and Christ. So the Presbyterians and Independants must give us Scripture For we will not be satisfied with your Notions and Whymsies and false Conceptions which you have from Aristotle and the Greek Philosophers and the Papists and Cardinals We do command you to give us Scripture Chapter and Verse Presbyterians and Independants for these things plainly seeing you are of late perked up in a way of scolding against us not like the Holy Men of God Patient and Meek and apt to Teach as you may see in the latter end of your Brother Vincent's Book Is that the Language of a Christian No He hath declared what spirit you are of Rabshecha's spirit railing and speaking evil of the way of Truth he thinks to overcome by Railing and complaining not by Love nay the Lamb must have the victory Whether or no was Christ's Blood shed for All men and by it Justifies All men they living in their sins and not believing in it are they saved by their saying they believe in the Blood and not believing in the Light which Christ Commands and become Children of the Light and they say they believe and yet not pass from Death to Life and from sin that brings Death And whether or no any are cleansed from all sin by the Blood of Christ but such as walk in the Light of Christ as in 1 Joh. 1. And so whether or no are those Justified who believe not in the Light of Christ nor passes from Death to Life nor walks not in the Light whether or no are those Justified by Christ's Blood and have not the Testimony of Justification in them as in the accompt to God Christ's Blood was shed for All men but for a man to come to partake of this Justification is it not to feel the Blood sprinkling the Heart and Conscience For the outward Jewes in the Figure had Blood sprinkled upon them in the outward Offerings Come answer us by Scripture Do not daub up People with untempered Mortar do you know the Mortar that is tempered Whether or no was Christ an Offering for the sins of the whole World and died for the sins of the whole World Whether or no all the sinners and ungodly of the whole World
Children of the Light as in Joh. 14. And deny that which should give People the Knowledge of the Light that is in their hearts the Light of Jesus 2 Cor. 4. And so People see what these men can Preach that deny true Faith true Belief true Apostles and Scripture and the Blood of Christ and the Offering and so denies God and Christ and his Commands and Preach up Sin and Imperfection and the Bawdy-houses and would have his Hearers rather go to a Bawdy-house than to go among the People called Quakers that Preaches up Perfection and the Blood of Jesus the One Offering that makes People perfect and Sanctifies them and must not People have Faith in them and Christ in them and the Blood in them sprinkling their Hearts and Consciences Reader I pray thee read the Scriptures for they were given forth to be read and believed and not for Presbyterians and Independants to make a Trade of them and keep People alwayes to be hearing them and paying of them the Holy Men of God did not give forth the Scriptures for that end that suffered many of them to death for giving them forth And so I pray thee Reader do not fell thy Wit and Reason any longer for they will put it up all in their Pokes and Bags and then lead them into a ditch and barren Mountain and so feed themselves of you and not feed you But the Lord is come to gather his People from off the barren Mountains and from their mouths that have fed themselves and not the Flock and sought themselves and not the Flock and made a Prey upon you and sought for your wooll hath bit you when you put not into their mouths and have sought for handfuls of Barley and a piece of Bread and hath born rule amongst you by their means and hath been the greedy dumb Dogs that could never have enough who have been slumbering Read Jer. 5. Isa. 56. Mic. 3. Ezek. 14. and so read how Christ marks out those false Teachers Mat. 23. And the Apostle to Timothy and Titus So no more but my Love that you may all come to know the Freedom in Christ from all the blind Guides G. F. Jo. Stubbs If that the Father Son and Holy Ghost be three distinct separate Persons not simply One or agreeing simply as the Priest saith then how far distance are they from one another shew us Chapter and Verse for this and make it good by Scriptures And let us see through all the Scriptures where ever the Holy Men of God did give such Titles or Names to God and Christ and the Holy Ghost as the Presbyterians and Independants have done as may be seen in this Book The Scripture saith That God and Christ and the Holy Ghost will dwell in Man then you Independant Presbyterian Priests Whether then that there is not three Persons in a Man dwelling in him that is a Person for the Apostle saith That your Bodies are the Temples of the Holy Ghost and that your Bodies are the Temples of God and that Christ is in you except ye are Reprobates The DIVINITY of CHRIST Confessed by us called Quakers And What we own touching the Deity or God-head according to the Scriptures THat there is but one God the Father of whom are all things and we in him and our Lord Jesus Christ by whom are all things and we by him That there are Three that bear Record in Heaven the Father the Word and the Spirit and that these three are One both in Divinity Divine Substance and Essence not three Gods nor separate Beings That they are called by several Names in Scripture as manifest to and in the Saints for whatsoever may be known of God is manifest in man Rom. 1. and their Record received as the full testimony of three by such as truly know and own the Record of the three in Earth and yet they are Eternally One in Nature and Being One infinite Wisdom One Power One Love One Light and Life c. We never denyed the Divinity of Christ as most injuriously we have been accused by some prejudiced spirits who prejudicially in their perverse Contests have sought occasion against us As chiefly because when some of us were in Dispute with some Presbyterians we could not own their unscriptural distinctions and terms touching the Father the Word and the Holy Spirit to wit Of their being incommunicable distinct separate persons or subsistences whereas the Father the Word and Spirit are One not to be compared to corruptible men nor to finite Creatures or Persons which are limitable and separable For the only Wise God the Creator of all who is One and his Name One is infinite and inseparable Deut. 6.4 Zec. 14.9 And the Father's begetting the Son and the Spirit 's being sent we witness to and own as He said Thou art my Son this day I have begotten thee Psal. 2.7 Heb. 1.5 And he hath sent his Spirit into our hearts Gal. 4.6 And that the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father yea in the bosome of the Father Joh. 1.18 chap. 17.21 23. so that they are neither divided nor separate being One and of One infinite Nature and Substance Christ being the Image of the invisible God the first born of every Creature by whom all things were Created both in Heaven and in Earth Col. 1. Yea the Son of God is the brightness of his glory and the express Image of his substance Heb. 1.3 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And that it was in due time God was manifest in Flesh 1 Tim. 3.16 As in the fulness of time God sent his Son Gal. 4. And the Son of God was made manifest to destroy sin 1 Joh. 3.8 And a manifestation of the Spirit is given to every Man to profit withal 1 Cor. 12. So the manifestation of the Father of the Son and Holy Spirit we confess to and own to be in Unity and so the only true God according to the Scriptures And that Jesus Christ being in the Form of God thought it no robbery to be Equal with God and yet as a Son in the fulness of time was sent of the Father and took on him the form of a servant Phil. 2.6 7. in which state he said My Father is greater than I 1 Joh. 14.28 And he learned Obedience through Suffering and was made perfect and is become an everlasting High Priest after the Order of Melchisedeck and is the Author of Eternal Salvation unto all them that Obey him Heb. 5. And God hath given us Eternal Life in his Son And unto us a Child is born and a Son is given to Govern whose Name is Wonderful Counsellor The Mighty God The Everlasting Father The Prince of Peace Isa. 9.6 And he is over all God blessed for ever Rom. 9.5 Even the true God and Eternal Life 1 Joh. 5. So that the Deity or Divinity of Christ in his Eternal Infinite Glorious State we really confess and
Freedom from sin or transgression of the Law whilst here and then judge whether Imperfection and Sin be Evangelical Surely all who have any true spiritual knowledge of the Law Gospel and new Birth may easily see beyond this man and also see his Ignorance and Contradiction to himself for the state of the Gospel is so far from being inferiour to that under the Law that it exceeds for God finding fault with his People under the first Covenant saw it needful to establish a second in which forgiveness of sin destroying sin and the Devil's works taking it away and making an end of it and remembring sin no more and so Perfection are to be known by the enjoyers and subjects of this Covenant as also the Gospel is not short of the Law nor the Righteousness of it for Christ came not to destroy the Law but to fullfil it and the Righteousness of Faith is so far from coming short of the Righteousness of the Law that true Believers do not make void the Law through Faith but establish it and the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ makes free from the Law of Sin and Death So that the Righteousness and Obedience brought forth in the true and living Faith which stands in the Power of God doth answer the righteous Law of God in the heart and exceeds and surpasses all self-righteousness and all mens outward immitations of the Law in the letter of it but this none knows but those who comes to own the Light and Spirit of Faith inward and the Law of it It is not known to such as these men who count the Light within an Idol and reckon that it guides contrary to the Light of the Word and Spirit as in their pages 15. 53. But as to his Perfection of parts but not of degrees this is strange Doctrine for if it be a Perfection of parts but not of degrees what parts are they and wherein consists their Perfection not of degrees but if he had said there is a Perfection of kind but not in the full height or highest degree of it then he had said something though to his own contradiction But where he adds That in this sense the work of Grace though the work of God was not perfect in regard of our selves but by degrees was carried on unto further Perfection Now in contradiction to himself he hath confest the Work of God by degrees carried on unto further Perfection which if so here is both Perfection in its degrees which vary not the property or kind as also the work of Grace in its carrying on unto further Perfection so then there is a time of perfecting or working the work of Grace in order to Perfection and a time wherein it comes to be wrought and perfected And now the kind and nature of that Perfection which we believe and plead for is that which God requires and Christ worketh who doth the Father's Will therein in all that truly believe the which consists in Righteousness and true Holiness not in any imagined conceited or self-righteousness brought forth in man's will which is not real nor perfect either in man's will-worshipping self-performing or applications which are neither from living Motions of true Faith nor Evidence of the Spirit of God within but from men's self-will imaginations and traditions And whereas T. V. tells of some that were established in the wayes of Truth intending by his Ministry Herein again he hath contradicted himself for Establishment in the wayes of Truth is a high state of Perfection and such admits not of his Preaching up sin nor of moving from any of Truth 's wayes which his Doctrine for Sin and Imperfection term of Life doth not at all tend too but rather to keep People in thraldom and captivity and in a wavering tossed estate in the wayes of sin which are all contrary to the wayes of Truth for the wayes of Truth do not admit of a continuance in the wayes of Errour either in Principle or Practice And whereas T. V. complains so sadly That two of his Friends Mother and Daughter that went off to the Quakers in his fortnights absence It appears that they were not Established by him as also that he hath led his Hearers to depend more upon himself than upon the Teachings of God or his Light within which is the cause of many's wavering and uncertainty who have followed him so that if their Teacher or Shepherd T. V. remove into a corner or if upon Persecution he should flee or hide himself for fear as many of them have done then his flock or at least many of them would be lyable to be scattered but who comes to wait upon God in his Light and Spirit to know him their Shepherd and Leader their Teacher will not be removed into a corner nor their Shepherd flee from them And whereas T. V. further adds in an angry reviling manner against the Mother and Daughter That the Mother should so much indulge a perverse Will in her unbefitting a Parent that it 's like to prove the destruction of Mother and Child c. His thus openly reviling of them in Print may tend to set them further against him then ever and now they may see more of his Spirit than before and if they abide in the Light to which their minds have been directed and by which their understandings have been opened since they came amongst us they will further feel and see cause for ever to bless the Lord for bringing them out from amongst such false Teachers and Ministers of Sin and Imperfection as T.V. and his Brethren have manifested themselves to be as also seeing what follows from his corrupt Heart and unclean Spirit it may set all sober minds and modest Persons against him and his Doctrine more than ever as they take a view thereof which most sordid reviling of his was the chief cause and occasion of these Controversies between us T. V. I acknowledge I did say it was worse to go to the Quakers Meettings than to a Bawdy-house because the defilement of the Soul with their damnable Errors was more deep and more hard to be washed off than the defilement of Whoredom or Adultry Answ. To which I say let all sober-minded Readers but mark the wickedness and grosseness of this man's Doctrine thus to set an esteem of Bawdy-houses above our Meetings What but Impudence and Wickedness could have vented such Doctrine publickly It is no marvel that he can so plead and contend for Sin and Imperfection whilst he deems it worse to go to our Meetings where Sin Wickedness and Uncleanness is openly Preached against than to go to a Bawdy-house where it 's committed What abominable Doctrine is this and Infamy and a ground of suspition against himself hath he given hereby and how contrary to the Spirit and Doctrine of the true Ministers this of his is for they were so far from such Doctrine that they reckoned such things not meet to be
before whether this doth not make a fourth For as he was not fifty years old this had not reference to his Divine Nature as is confessed But then where in pag. 36. The generation of the Son must be Eternal the Son being so they say How is his Personallity with reference to his being begotten denyed to be Infinite in pag. 45. What gross and apparent Contradictions are these And as to his instance Matt. 3.16 17. how that Jesus went up out of the Water and the Spirit descended like a Dove and lo a Voice from Heaven to prove a distinction of all the Three Persons the Son was cloathed in Flesh the Spirit in the shape of a Dove the Father was in the Voice he saith c. Let the Reader but mark how far short of proving his Distinction this instance is Surely he will not say That the Son was cloathed in Flesh from Eternity nor the Spirit in a bodily shape like a Dove from Eternity for if their Personallities did consist in these visible Appearances how were they Coeternal Coessential Coequal with God c And surely Personallity doth not consist in the shape of a Dove neither do we read of the Person of a Dove besides the Spirits appearing in a bodily shape like a Dove doth not prove that the Spirit was a distinct or separate Person from Jesus for he had the Spirit in him and was not separate from the Spirit though that appearance like a Dove was for a Confirmation to John's belief of him John 1.32 33. T.V. Isa. 6.3 Holy holy holy is the Lord of Hosts the three Holies signifies the three persons the Lord of Hosts the One God I must confess I never heard this Argument before if each Holy signifie a Person how then are they spoken to the One God And if so many Holies as are given in praise to him do signifie so many distinct Persons in him then they will amount to a great many Trinities for it is said Rev. 4.8 They rest not day nor night saying Holy holy holy Lord God Almighty c. Now if all the Holies they give day and night to him be so many Persons then they will amount to Persons ad infinitum but the absurdity of this Argument who cannot but see As also his Argument from the distinct Names is little better for God is denominated under many Names more than Three And also his arguing from John 14 15 16. chap. from personal Acts as he calls them as sending the Comforter his speaking and guiding c. Where doth the Scripture call them Personal Acts Were they not Spiritual Acts of the Divine Spirit and Power of God And was there any Act but what was brought forth in time And was the Father's begetting the Son a Personal Act however was it not an Act in time if so how sayes T. V. That the Generation of the Son must be Eternal What distracted confused work is here And as to that Cavil in pag. 40. at the word ONE as not being in the Hebrew in all those Scriptures Isa. 40.25 chap. 48.17 Psal. 71.22 where Holy One is mentioned in the English which to Cavil at shews little prudence whilst Holy One and the Lord being One and the Only Wise God is often mentioned elsewhere see Zac. 14.9 which W. P. quotes is it not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jehovah echad ushemo echad i. e. Dominus unus nomen Ejus unum One Lord and his Name One. And see Deut. 6.4 how its 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jehovah echad One Lord but where the word Echad is not expressed whether it be not understood Besides T. V. himself pag. 33. useth these words The Lord of Hosts the One God so that he might have spared his Contradictory Cavil about it And if their distinctions be in regard of the Personallity and not of the Essence then I ask Are they three Persons both distinct among themselves and also distinct from the Essence or Being of God and so not infinite or neither finite nor infinite as most Absurdly and Contradictorily is laid down in their 44 45 46 pages as before has been mentioned And as to W. P. his Cloudy Brain Conceptions as it 's called which is so difficult to find out as they say and his Phrases so uncouth and his Reasonings so odly joynted together Indeed neither T. V. nor T. D. have shewen any such Brightness nor strength of Argument as to expel or drive away these cloudy Conceptions if they be such it must be another thing that must unvail him and overthrow what he hath said than their grosse Confusion and many apparent Contradictions which I am certain that W. P. is so far unvail'd as to have a sight and discovery of though this dark ridged Presbyterian Spirit hath sought by Persecution false Reports and Slanders to vail and obscure both him and others in whom any degree breakings forth or glimerings of true Light have appeared where they could not do it by slandering grossely villifying and traducing them they would endeavour to bring Persecution and Cruelty and outward Restraint upon them to their Power And as for their taxing W.P. for instancing Irenaeus Justin Martyr Tertullian Origen Theophil and others as appearing forreign to the matter in Controversie c. they telling us The Doctrine of the Trinity is plainly enough to be gathered from several passages in Irenaeus lib. 1. ch 2. Ecclesia accipit fidem quae est in unum Deum Patrem Omnipotentem in unum Christum filium Dei incarnatum in spiritum Sanctum qui per Prophetas praedicavit And then our Opposers ask Do not these words hold forth a distinction of those three persons To which I say However he gathers or imagines such a distinction of their being three Persons he does but beg the Question in calling them three Persons which their words no not prove nor so call them but God the Father Omnipotent Christ the Son of God and the Holy Ghost in whom the Faith of the Church is Neither do the latter words prove any thing for this purpose which mention the God of all things making and governing all things by his word and Spirit If he had asserted no otherwise herein then Irenaeus hath done there had not been this Controversie between us and them And as for the rest of the Authors they mention I do not find that they called them three distinct separate persons as T. D. did in all these Passages mentioned and quoted by them And it s known that W.P. his Controversie was principally against them for unscriptural Doctrine of the God-head subsisting in three distinct and separate persons which also their own Instance of Theophil lib. 1. Com. in Evang. doth contradict viz. Margarita pretiosa est Sancta Trinitas quae dividi non potest nam in unitate consistit the Holy Trinity is a precious Jewel which cannot be divided because it consisteth in Unity To which I say then the Glorious
Righteous whilst such as if God's Righteousness or Workmanship were impure This Doctrine has led many in the way to Hell and Destruction But T.V. in 2 Cor. 5. should have read vers 17. If any man be in Christ he is a new Creature old things are passed away behold all things are become new Which is a real change in that man that is in Christ from sin and transgression and not a Justification therein for the Spirit of God both discovers to man his sin and reproves him as a transgressor and one Guilty whilst therein and surely God does not accept of men as his own Righteousness and in Christ whilst his Spirit in them judges them to be both unrighteous and out of Christ for if he did that were to make God contradict himself and to speak quite contrary to his own Spirit which were very absurd and blasphemous to assert But had T.V. rightly minded and understood that of Rom. 8.1 2 3 4 he might have seen how contrary it is to his Doctrine before and himself therein confuted For 1st They that are in Christ Jesus walk not after the Flesh but after the Spirit and it s to such only to whom there is no Condemnation therefore Justification and this is not a sinful imperfect or guilty state 2dly The Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus hath made such free from the Law of Sin and Death 3dly God sending his Son to condemn sin in the Flesh was not to look upon man Justified in the sinful state or whilst he walks after the Flesh. But 4thly That the Righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in such who walk not after the Flesh but after the Spirit and this doth absolutely confute T.V. and his Brethren And whereas for the proof of his Doctrine of Guilty Persons being the Righteousness of God he citeth Rom. 4.6 7. where it is said David described the blessedness of that man to whom God imputeth Righteousness without Works to which I say not without the Works of the True and Living Faith in Jesus nor yet without a subjection to the Law of Faith but without that the Works or Deeds of the Law of Works chap. 3.19 20 21 24 25 26 27 28. the Apostle did not exclude the Works Obedience or Righteousness of the true Faith from a justified state for if Paul had so done it had been contrary to James his Testimony who said Was not our Father Abraham justified by Works when he had offered up Isaac See Jam. 2. And Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for Righteousness We say That Faith was reckoned to Abraham for Righteousness Rom. 4.3 9. which Faith was not without its own Works although it be not the Works of the Law as Circumcision and others that were Types or Signs wherein the Righteousness of Faith doth not consist which they that are in the uncircumcision as the Gentiles that were the ungodly spoken of Rom. 4.5 11. chap. 3.29 do receive through Faith in Christ and become really partakers thereof being Justified from all those things from which they could not be Justified by the Law of Moses And so such are Justified or made Just or truly so Accepted of God not in sin or ungodliness but as Redeemed out of it and Sanctified from it See 1 Cor. 6.11 And blessed are they whose Iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin This is no Proof for T. V. his sinful Doctrine for them whom the Lord doth bless and imputeth not Iniquity to are in the way of God and partakes of his Righteousness through Faith cannot feed upon an imagined Imputation or Justification in sin for in Psal. 32.2 David describeth the blessedness of such in these words Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth not Iniquity and in whose Spirit there is no guile These words in whose Spirit there is no guile the Priests use to leave out in their talk of Imputation but as their Faith without Works or a real Obedience on the Creatures part is but a dead empty and feigned Faith So their laying a claim to and pretending a Justification by the imputed Righteousness of Christ whilst they are sinners and polluted pleading for Imperfection whilst here 't is but a false imagination of their own for though we confess that Justification is in the Righteousness of Christ by Faith in him and that this True and Living Faith and the Righteousness of it is reckoned to the true Believer yet we do not therefore grant that Sinners or Polluted Persons in that state are cloathed with this Righteousness nor that 't is imputed to them as theirs whilst they are out of it for they that have put on Christ are translated from sin and unrighteousness and so are made partakers of the Righteousness of Faith which T.V. saith is without us and so puts it a far off and yet cites Phil. 3.9 which plainly Contradicts his Doctrine for Paul having confessed Christ Jesus to be his Lord and suffered the loss of all things that he might win Christ it was that he might be found in him not having his own Righteousness but that which is through the Faith of Christ the Righteousness which is of God by Faith that said he I may know him and the Power of his Resurrection and the Fellowship of his Suffering being made conformable to his Death vers 9 10. Mark his winning Christ being found in him his not having his own Righteousness but that of Faith extends to a real injoyment of Christ and his being in him and not to an imagined Imputation in sin but to his knowing Christ and the Power of his Resurrection Fellowship of his Suffering and Conformity to his Death this was a blessed estate which all you that plead for Sin and Imperfection and a Justification whilst you are out of Christ or strangers to him being both unacquainted with his Power and Fellowship of Suffering and never came ye so to be conformable to his Death you being yet alive in your sins And as to T. V. his Argument or Syllogism it proves nothing of his Doctrine of impure or guilty Persons being Justified by Imputation for Justification by Faith in Jesus Christ and his Righteousness we never denied but this Faith is not a dead Faith nor without its own Works for it purifieth the heart but so does not your Faith who plead for sin by which you apply Christ's Righteousness whilst you are out of it and it without you as T.V. confesseth pag. 17. How hath he and the rest of you that own this his Doctrine soothed and daubed People up in their sins flattering them with a Pretence of Imputation and Justification therein when your Faith is but dead and empty as a body without a Spirit is dead That we are Justified by Faith without Works By what Faith and without what Works is mentioned and manifest according to Scripture both
make man righteous as his condemning Sin in the Flesh was that the righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in us that walk not after the Flesh but after the Spirit which righteousness fulfilled in us T. D. formerly said was to be meant in Christ's Person and not in ours by which likewise he hath both excluded man from the real enjoyment of Christ and his Righteousness and from that obedience and sanctity which he requires and answers the end of his coming and manifestation and by this means the Professors have made the Law and Commands and Teachings of God ineffectual as to the Creature whilst Christ only is made the subject of them and not man and this gives a liberty to people to live in sin all their time and to pervert Gods Laws and neglect the teachings of his Grace and vainly to excuse themselves in their disobedience like as T. D. hath done as where the Grace of God and his pure Law requires perfect obedience from us and that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts and that we should live godly righteously and soberly in this present world now if any man should say that this was not intended to us but to Christ as if God did require him to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts to forsake all sin and live righteously when he never did nor could sin nor had the Prince of the world any thing in him this would be a strange put off and gross perversion of the Law of God to lay it all upon Christ and put it from themselves whereas Christ's Example is perfectly to be followed and where he is manifest and his Life brought forth in man there is a conformity to his Heavenly Image and not a living in sin nor to the lusts of the world but to the Will of God Pag. 42. But as to T. D's confessing to the Creditors cancelling the Bâ—nd letting the Debtor out of Prison giving a legal Discharge upon the Sureties payment of the Debt as he could have done upon his personal payment First Hereupon I do enquire if man that hath been in Prison and bondage under sin and corruption be let out of that Prison upon Christ's Obedience if he be then he must not remain in personal bondage all his life time from partaking of Christs Righteousness and Obedience for if he be released from the servitude of sin and be let out of that bondage then he is made free from it by the Law of the Spirit of Life to serve obey and walk in the Law of Righteousness by Faith and this is not an imagined fixion or conceit of Freedom or Justification whilst people are in real bondage which your Doctrine tends to keep people in Though it be true as amongst men that the Act of one Person may by contract or Act of Law become the Act of another as the Sureties payment of the Debt is accepted for the Debtor yet in this case it doth not reach the real and full intent of Christ's Coming Obedience and Righteousness which is to bring man into his Image and to fulfil the righteousness of the Law in man that he may follow his Steps and have the same Mind Spirit and Righteousness in him that was in Christ that he may walk after his Example in all purity and holiness of conversation Yet so far as releasement out of Prison is imported in the comparison or any thing tending to a real Deliverance of the Creature out of Sin and Corruption and so from Condemnation it may be admitted of so for then it contradicts their pleading for sin and imperfection term of life and surely God doth not legally declare any to be righteous whilst his Spirit and Law within reproves them for sin and declares them unrighteous for God and his Spirit do not contradict one another neither doth God declare people to be out of Prison whilst they are really in bondage to their sins lusts and vanities as the carnal Priests and Professors have falsly done but the Liberty which Christ proclaims to the Captives is really to be injoyed and received by every one that believes and receives him his Message and Testimony And this is not a false Imputation or an imagined Application of Righteousness and Freedom to People in their personal bondage of Sin and Corruption such as T. D. and such false Guides have led people into And that of Ezek. 18.20 the Son shall not bear the iniquity of the Father T.D. saith Imports Gods gracious recession from his right because of their more then ordinary Audacity in charging his Ways with inequality This is his false construction For God sheweth his Way to be equal vers 25 26 27. which is no recession from his right as his condemning such as turn from righteousness and Justifying and giving Life to such as turn from wickedness for both Graciousness Mercy and Judgement are his right and he rewardeth every man in Righteousness according to the Equality of his Wayes T. D. Nor doth God Justifie what is opposite to his pure Nature in Justifying a person who in himself is impure upon the righteousness of another imputed to him Reply Is not a person that is in himself impure opposite to God's pure Nature Surely purity and impurity are opposite and whilst the impure Person is rendred the subject of Justification upon another's righteousness imputed he then it seems is accounted pure by T. D. and not opposite to God's pure Nature though he be personally impure but surely God doth not then account him pure whilst in impurity for God cannot lye nor account as the Wicked and Hypocrites do who are pure in their own eyes though not washed from their filthiness and here we may see T. D. and his Brethrens false notion and conception of Imputation and Justification and how contrary it is to Justum facere which the word Justifie signifieth as by him before confest viz. to make Just when now he falsly renders an impure person not opposite to the pure Nature of God from his notion of Imputation and Justification in that state Pag. 44. Arg. 3. Sin came not by Imputation but by actual Transgression This is laid down as the Quakers To which T. D. Answers The sin of Adam was made his Posterities by Imputation Rom. 5.12 14. Adam was a common Root of Mankind by nature Reply Herein hath he perverted the Scripture which doth not say that the Sin of Adam was made his Posterities by Imputation neither doth he hereby prove his notion of Imputation of Righteousness to impure persons for sure he cannot prove that all Adam's Posterity were pure and sin not actually theirs but only imputed to them whilst not partakers of it this is contradictory and as false as their Imputation of Righteousness and Justification to men whilst unjust but the Scripture he mentions Rom. 5.12 saith As by one man Sin entred into the World and Death by Sin so Death past upon all men for that all have sinned mark that for
extends whether to enjoyn to the perfect obedience of Faith yea or nay seeing sin and corruption is so prevalent amongst you and so contended for surely where the excercise of the true and living Faith is experienced there is obedience to the Law of it or else what doth it signifie whilst persons remain in disobedience Further T. D. confesseth that we have an immediate dependancy upon God in our operations John 15.5 without me ye can do nothing Siorsima me separate or apart from me It s well he hath at some time assented to the Truth but how doth this contradict the greatest part of his own and his Brethrens work elsewhere in their pleading for imperfect obedience and their imagined imputation of Righteousness and Justification to the unrighteous and unjust for those operations which have a relation to an immediate dependence upon God which he that is in Christ doth experience and bring forth do accord with the mind and will of God which is the Sanctification of those that believe and with that most holy Faith which purifies the heart and these are not imperfect nor to be slighted as undeserving according to the vain notions of Priests concerning Faith its works and inherent Righteousness as they term it Pag. 47. T. D.. Their dependancy upon Christ in all the good they do is as near and intimate as the Branches upon the Vine by vertue of their natural union in bearing Fruit. Answ. This is also a Truth that grants a perfect obedience in them that have such a near intimate dependency upon Christ as the Branch hath that grows upon the Vine by vertue of the natural Union thereof this also contradicts their pleading for imperfection and sin in all obedience and works which also shews that they do not flow nor spring from Christ the true Vine as also that they have not union with him nor are Branches of him and indeed how they have not immediate dependency upon God in Christ whilst they deny Immediate Teaching Revelation and Divine Inspiration to be attainable in those dayes But seeing without or apart or separate from Christ men can do nothing how then can they be any thing without him as righteous or acceptable or justified For men must be something in that Relation before they can do any thing acceptable and it is the Spirit and Power of Christ which sanctifieth and maketh just and bringeth into the true Obedience Works and Righteousness of Faith and to live by Faith as the Just doth Pag. 48. But Faith as a work is not opposed to nor excludes it self as T. D. saith because in one sence it is opposed to the deeds of the Law for true Faith as a Work is the Work of God which is not opposed to it self besides it being the work of God to believe in Christ this hath not relation to those deeds of the Law that the Jews wrought out of him and out of or besides that Faith wherein they fell short of the Righteousness of the true and living Faith and of the perfect Obedience or Righteousness of the Law Now seeing he confesseth pag. 49. to a righteousness bestowed upon men by Faith I ask if that man is not a partaker and enjoyer of that righteousness by Faith Surely Faith and its Righteousness are not separate nor divided Also he confesseth Faith in God through the Messias is called a walking humbly with God Micah 6.8 To this I say whilst he thus considereth Faith as such a walking were it not very gross nonsence and contradiction to say that it excludes it self as before or that those works or effects of Faith viz. Walking humbly with God were opposed to the Faith it self which is the Root thereof But this is even like T. Vincent's affirming Faith to be opposite not only to the works of the Law but to its own Works Pag. 51. I find T. D. upon James 2.24 doth not distinguish betwixt the Works of Faith and the Works of the Law and so talks like an ignorant blind Guide with his vain babling and perverting of the Scripture to exclude perfect Obedience and Perfection from the Believers And seeing he granteth that Justification imports the Absolution of Sinners and the Approbation of a Believer which he distinguisheth betwixt Then it is to be minded that a Believer that is approved of is absolved being Justified and what from if not from Sin and Transgression Otherwise Faith that stands but in a bare profession without a living work of purifying the heart overcoming the World c. is but a dead Faith as T. D. in fine confesseth And we are Justified by works as our Faith is made perfect by works James 2.22 but these are not the works of the Law but the Works of the Living Faith which manifesteth Fruit to God and demonstrates the nature of the Living Faith But his telling of a Sinner being Justified in the sight of God where doth the Scripture say so he quotes Rom 3.23 to prove it but it doth not but only that a man by Faith is Justified without the deeds of the Law which deeds of the Law a man may be Justified without and yet not a Sinner nor without the Obedience Works or Righteousness of the True and Living Faith which Purifieth the heart and Justifieth from all those things from which they could not be Justified by the Law of Moses And as to his saying That we are made free meritoriously by the Law of the Spirit in us from the Law of Sin and Death The word meritoriously he addeth But the freedom of the Law of the Spirit in us from the Law of Sin and Death we do confess and that it is the same Law of the Spirit of Life that is in Christ and the Saints according to the Apostles Doctrine the Freedom of which we testifie is of Everlasting worth for that it is not wrought by our selves but by Christ and his Law and Spirit Pag. 52. T. D. saith That we observe that the righteousness of the Law is fulfilled in the Persons of the Saints Indeed we do observe it believe it and experience it and do not wholy put it off from us to be fulfilled in the Person of Christ as T. D. and some of his Brethren have corruptly done though we do confess that the Righteousness of the Law was fulfilled in Christ's Person but not therefore to exclude it out of us since that he was a faithfull Example to be followed as well as a Captain and Leader to guide in all the Wayes of Peace and true Holiness Pag. 52. And as we do observe that the Righteousness of the Law is fulfilled in the Persons of the Saints contrary to T. D. and his Brethrens observation and thereupon not only suppose but really assert a state of Freedom from Sin attainable in this life we do not place the Merit of Justification upon the Creatures imperfect obedience or works but origionally on the Spirit of Truth and its perfect work in which
Spirit Christ perfectly obeyed offered up himself a Lamb without spot to God and we know that it is the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ that makes us free from the Law of Sin and Death Romans 8. which Freedom is effected with in Pag. 53. If there be a connexion between Justification and Sanctification and that the same Christ Jesus that Justifieth by his Blood Sanctifieth by his Spirit as is confest from Calvin c. in Loc. 2. then men are not Justified whilst in an unsanctified state seeing that it is also evidenced by a holy life but then herein T. D. seem doubtfull as rather enclining to lay it upon the active obedience of Christ but then is not he that is Sanctified and Justified being in an holy life a partaker of Christ's Righteousness Obedience and Subjection in the Spirit of Life and the pure Law of it seeing that makes free from the Law of Sin and Death But then he wavers again to the understanding of some who suppose the end of Christ's coming into the World is that God's Righteous Laws might not be absolutely contemned but might be observed though imperfectly by Believers others saith he of the Imputation of Christ's Surety Righteousness c. This imperfect observation of God's Righteous Laws is that he would fain center in and which indeed the tenor of most of his discourse amounts to though it be not the end of Christ's sending into the World nor yet the work of the Spirit and Law of Life within for the end thereof was to destroy sin and to work mans perfect freedom from it which they that experience are only the true and real subjects of Christ's Righteousness and know the true imputation thereof and effect and real benefit of his being a Surety of the new Testament wherein the Promises of God are fulfilled to and in man and man brought under the obligation of that Law and Covenant which tends to the exaltation of Truth and Righteousness in the Earth and the bringing the Creature into a perfect and peaceable subjection unto its Maker So Christ's being both our Surety Advocate Intercessor and Mediator betwixt God and man is to make both Unity Reconciliation and Peace betwixt them a Mediator being not a Mediator of one but betwixt two c. to bring into mutual agreement T. D. Our good and our evil works are not perfectly contrary for our evil works are perfectly evil for malum fit ex quilibet defectu any one defect make our works evil but our good works are but imperfestly good Answ. If good works and evil works be not perfectly contrary where and what then are the good works whilst defect and imperfection is pleaded for which makes them evil Surely good and evil are perfectly contrary but by this man's consequence there is no good works whilst defects and imperfections remain in them and then why doth he call them good works It appears he gives them that name which is improper to them but if good works be really acknowledged as we know they are in Scripture and that they that are truly so are wrought in the Light and so in God these are perfectly contrary to evil but such T. D. his Brethren with their sins and imperfections are strangers to whilst they shew themselves to be out of the Light wherein the good works are wrought and as to the condignity he speaks of or worth as with relation to the infinite reward we do as before place it in that Heavenly Image Spirit and Life which brings forth the good works which were ordained of God and it is that Spirit which leads its Followers to the infinite reward of Life and Salvation Arg. 4. Rom. 2.13 Not the Hearers of the Law are Justified before God but the Doers of the Law shall be Justified to this T. D. saith The words give a reason of the Jews perishing who had the Law viz. the old Covenant Reply The reason of their perishing was their Disobedience unto the Law but this of the Doers of the Law wherein both the Just and Justified state is intimated according to the Gospel verse 14 15 16. relates to those Gentiles which had not the Law outwardly and yet did by nature the things contained in the Law which the Apostle renders as a reason and proof of their Justification who shewed the Work of the Law written in their hearts which Law was pure and Spiritual converting the Souls and here it is also evident that the matter or things contained in the Law they had both in Power and Operation who had it not in the Letter of it but the extent of this is and hath been much opposed by T. D. and such as he who have grosly perverted the Scriptures for their own sinfull and corrupt ends to their own and others destruction And now that a state of Freedom from sin is attainable in this life this T. D. erroneously sets down as an Error and argues against it as followeth Arg. 1. If no meer man ever attained to any such state then it is not attainable but no meer man ever did c. Answ. His term meer man is his own and not ours what he means by meer man is a question for it may be taken variously as first he may be deemed a meer man that is without God Christ or the guidance of his Spirit who lives to himself in which state we never said that freedom from sin was attainable by any meer man for without Christ we can do nothing Secondly if meer man be taken singly as purus homo or man purely or intirely without mixture of those things which are either contrary to him as Man or not proper to his being Man as sin and transgression were improper to him for so he was in his first Creation in Innocency and primitive Purity as so considered to deny him Perfection or Freedom from sin were to deny him that which God did invest him with whilst he was in his Maker's Image which was proper to him and to which Christ comes to restore man again out of the Fall But then T. D. explains what he means by meer man viz. such as the eminently holy Persons in the Scriptures whom he denies to have ever attained a state of Perfection by which he has accused all the holy Men of God at once as but meer men in the worst sence and such were they that were carnal and walked as men 1 Cor 3.3 and he hath therein both opposed God's Commands Promises and Works as also the end of Christ's manifestation which was perfectly to restore man out of sin and unrighteousness unto God see Gen. 3.15 Rom. 16.20 Deut. 6.5 and 10.12 and 11.1 and 13.18 and 19.9 Matth. 22.37 Mark 12.30 Gen. 17.1 Deut. 18.13 2 Sam. 22.33 Psal. 18.32 and 37.37 and 119.1 2 3 4. Isa. 1.16 John 13.8 Isa. 4.4 and 60.21 Ezek. 36.25 26 27 33. Jer. 33.8 Hebr. 8. and chap. 10.13 14 15 16 17. Zeph.
either required a thing not attainable or as if being perfect as he is perfect were but the measure of our Duty and so to be put off till the Life to come wherein the Saints had not such Commands given to them seeing they are not capable of sinning in the Life to come but John said As is he so are we in this world 1 John 4.17 And herein they knew their Love made perfect and this is more then either the small resemblance of Children to their Parents which T. D. speaks of and beyond his imperfect sinfull state and Doctrine for the perfect Love which they had was in them a perfect resemblance of God who is Love verse 16. But this way of T. D. his slighting and diminishing and falsly interpreting the Commands of God which require such perfection only as the measure of our Duty is like his Brethren saying That a Child of God his not committing Sin is to be meant he doth not make a trade of Sin which indeed is a very easie way they have taken to pervert the Commands of God and to give ease and liberty to the Transgressors in their sins as if when a thing is absolutely required of them they should put it off with this It is meant only as but in part to be obeyed and so if they should deal thus with God and say Lord then requires us not to Steal or not to commit Adultery or not to Covet but we are to understand it as that we cannot altogether abstain from Stealing Adultery or Covetousness only we are not to make a trade of these things nor wholy make it our business to be imployed in them what acceptance do they think such a Plea would have before the Lord and what Answer would he make them to this their corruption and what resentment would such Doctrine have in the minds of sober people if they should preach them and give such meanings to the Scriptures and tell them that where Stealing and Adultery and worldly â—usts and Covetousness are forbidden that they are not to go to the extent of the Commands but only not make a trade or a common practice of Stealing or these things c for thus they have dealt with many of God's Commands enjoyning perfect Holiness and Righteousness but then they have an easie way to lay all upon Christ as having paid their debt and fulfilled the Righteousness of the Law in his Person in their stead so that they must not expect its fulfilling in their persons for where the Scripture speaks of its being fulfilled in us we are to understand by in us that it is in Christ's Person and this is the manner of their course from time to time both to shut Christ his Works and Righteousness out of People so much as in them lies 1 John 3.9 Whosoever is born of God doth not commit Sin T. D. saith to this We may interpret it as he is born of God he doth not sin every Child of God is mixta persona Pag. 57. as our Law sayes of the King consists of an old and new nature and so his new nature is Principium quo the Principle from which he acts graciously and the old nature the Principle from which he acts sinfully Reply Here again he hath palpably perverted plain Scripture and contradicted the Apostle John as may be seen in that 1 John 3. For he that is born of God who doth neither commit sin nor can sin because he is born of God has put off the old nature and is not acted by that Principle which leads to act sinfully because he cannot sin and that gracious Principle in him hath overcome the sin and the nature of it and so to tell of his being mixta persona is T. D's gross blindness For first that which is born of God that overcomes the World is not mixt with sin nor with the old sinful nature Secondly He or whosoever is born of God whose Seed remains in him who abideth in Christ is not acted by that old sinful nature because he is born of God and abideth in Christ in whom is no sin neither is mans having divers parts as Body and Soul c. or his being liable or not liable to death any reason to shew that he that is born of God doth act sinfully from the old nature for the Bodies of the Saints were the Temples of the Holy Ghost and their Bodies were sanctified and so brought into subjection unto the Divine Spirit or Principle in them so as they might glorifie God in their bodies and in their spirits which were his Again T. D's meaning to that first of John 3.9 is That it may intend the manner of sinning so the 8 th verse seems to limit it be that committeth sin is of the Devil for the Devil sinneth from the beginning the Comparison quoth he is not between the act simply for then it should have been said only for the Devil sinneth but from the beginning implies a Comparison between the manner of man's sin and the Devils in respect of which he is said to be of the Devil because he immitates his example who from the day he began never ceased to sin nor ever did one truly good action Observ. By this we may gather T. D's limitation put upon that of 1 John 3.9 and the Comparison he makes between not the act simply but the manner of mans sin and the Devils still taking it for granted that he that is born of God doth sin and acts sinfully from the old nature but not in that manner as he that is of the Devil who intimates his example so that his meaning and comparison seems to amount to this that he that is born of God doth sin but not always or not as the Devil sinneth he is somewhat better then the Devil in that he doth some good actions but the Devil doth none Reply Surely our opposer hath come off but very poorly in his arguing for the Devils work contrary both to the state and testimony of such as were born of God whom he hath here very meanly debased and sadly abused the Scriptures misrepresenting Gods Children whom he by his Eternal Power hath delivered from the power of Sin and Satan and given them a Heavenly place in Christ where the Devil cannot come and in whom the Prince of the World hath nothing nor his sinfull Ministers any part or interest whilst they plead against God's Promises holy Commands and against the very end and purpose of Christ's manifestation as T. D. and his Brethren have done wherein they have shown themselves to be Antichrist's Agents and Ministers and not the true Christ's Now touching Christ's Enlightning every man whose Light we affirm to be saving this is set down as an Error by T. D. he and his Brethren denying the Light of Christ in every man to be Saving in its own nature and property which we do affirm it to be but that he enlightens every man to
of the Godhead or Divinity of Christ or his Spirit we never denied nor scrupled Therefore for J. O. to require any that except against their terms and inventions positively to deny the Unity of the Deity is both sad Doctrine and unreasonableness as also shews an imperious lording spirit though its probable among the Independants and Professors he can make a shew of more humility then he did formerly for he now wants Cromwel to promote him However he and others of his Fraternity might by this time have in reallity learned more lowliness and humility then yet appears in them towards such as cannot be screwed up to their way and method of expressing the Invisible things of God which are Heavenly Divine and Spiritual as his being and properties are absolutely above the comprehension of J. O's reason as is confest pag. 128. We cannot by searching find out God we cannot find out the Almighty to perfection And yet vain man would be wise and imploy his natural reason and fallen wisdom both to find and set out God to evince him and his things unto the natural reason of others which still falls short both of any true knowledg and spiritual understanding for vain by nature is every man and ignorant of God It is the spiritually minded who are begotten to God who are spiritually and immediately taught by his Spirit that have a true and spiritual understanding of Divine Matters and Mysteries Pag. 118. J. O. Every person hath distinctly its own Substance But then in contradiction he adds for the one Substance of the Deity is the Substance of each Person but each Person hath not its own distinct Substance Reply A strange Riddle and invention that each person hath distinctly its own Substance and yet not its own distinct Substance what Scripture hath he for this Critick and nice distinction how is a person then an individual Substance of a rational nature that is not upheld by another if it hath not its own distinct Substance whilst yet it hath distinctly its own Substance but the Divine Substance of the Deity of the Father the Word and Spirit is but one as often hath been granted so then the Holy Ghost though confessed to be a Substance pag. 101. yet I say not a Personal Substance distinct from the Father and the Son as there is ignorantly asserted But then J. O. to tell us pag. 118. That all Divine properties such as to be infinite is belong not to the Persons on the account of their Personallity but of their nature c. Observ. Then it appears they are not three Infinite Persons but one Infinite God and yet those Persons are the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost were it not both Blasphemy and contradiction to say they are finite and what better have our Opposers said but at other times they are Eternal God Eternal the Eternal Son and Eternal Spirit and thus they wheel about and say and unsay Answ. It were better for them nakedly to apply themselves to the plain Language of Scripture and keep to it to lay aside and avoid confusion and absurdities about distinct finite personallities which the Scripture does not put upon the Infinite God in whom there is neither finiteness nor variableness I am God I change not saith he the Lord is one and his name one from Everlasting to Everlasting he is God unchangable And the Father Son and Holy Ghost being one Divine Infinite Substance are one Infinite God Away with your vain babling and invented erroneous distinctions of finite Persons in him who is infinite you are not worthy therein to talk of God nor to take his holy precious and pure Name in your mouthes who are in your sins and pollutions corrupting your selves in your carnal conceptions and imaginations about those things that you know not who are gone a whoring after humane inventions invented words names terms and distinctions such as neither the Holy Ghost nor the Scriptures ever taught you Pag. 117. And as for them that will keep to their Cavils and Sophisms about terms and expressions I know not who J. O. may intend hereby but if he intend us called Quakers because we do not own but oppose his and their dark unscriptural terms and expressions which darken both counsel and knowledge we do reject his Accusation and Charge herein for Cavils and Sophisms are rather his and his Brethrens who have been trained up in Sophistry and School-craft in order to be furnished to a Trade of Preaching to make a Trade of the Scriptures corrupting them by their dark meanings and School-terms and Philosophick distinctions by which poor people have been kept even learning that they might be always paying them Pag. 117. But then J. O. addeth against such as he supposeth will keep to their Cavils and Sophisms That all further debate or conference with them may justly and ought both conscientiously and rationally to be refused and rejected Reply If herein he may intend us as it s probably he may as well as others among whom he has numbred us though unrighteously as his debating or conference is of little value or esteem with us whilst it proceeds neither from a sence of God's Divine Power nor from any Living experience of God or his work within but from humane inventions and traditions So J. O. and his Brethrens work in these matters whether they go on in it or stop from further debate it will be of very little weight to us since we see to the far end of their subtilty and beyond their spirits and confusion however J. O. laying it as their duty not to debate any further with such as he censures as before he hath brought himself and those that own him under a Law and Limitation that if they further contend with us they must either not accuse us with Cavils and Sophisms or else not debate nor contend any further with us for if they do so accuse and censure us and yet further debate or contend with us they transgress their own Law so strictly here urged by J.O. and by the same reason when he and they are found guilty of Cavils and Sophisms may not others as much slight him and them therein But however he or they judge or censure us I hope we shall not be backward nor negligent to vindicate the Truth and clear our innocency from reproaches and scandals of men of perverse and envious spirits when we have occasion given us thereby J. O. These sacred Mysteries of God and the Gospel are not lightly to be made the subject of mens contest and disputations Observ. It is very true that sacred Mysteries of God and Gospel are not lightly nor yet slightly to be made subjects of contests nor yet ought they to be medled with by light airy minds nor by perverse and prejudiced spirits which are apt to bring forth perverse disputes as it is too common to men of corrupt minds who are destitute of the Truth But why then do
concerning the Terms and Conditions whereon Sinners may be interested in the Satisfaction made by Christ J. O. saith pag. 167. It may also be farther evinced that there is nothing asserted in them but what is excellently suited unto the common notions which mankind hath of God and his Righteousness and that in their practice they answer the Light of Nature and common Reason exemplified in sundry instances among the Nations of the World Answ. First it is to be observed that a great stress is laid upon these Explications Declarations or Confessions of yours as relating to the terms and interest you claim in Christ's Satisfaction unto the determination of God's Will and Confirmation of Divine testimonies according to J. O's words wherein no less then Salvation appears to be concerned for without an interest in Christ and his Righteousness men cannot be saved Secondly Your Assertions herein being suited unto the common notions of mankind and as answering the Light of Nature and common Reason as it is called and as J. O's words are whether herein hath he not rendred this Light and common Reason together with the common notions mankind hath of God to be of a saving property since it so suits those things wherein Salvation is so deeply concerned according to J. O. but then if he does not reckon mens common Notions Light or Reason which is natural to be saving as indeed we do not believe that any thing natural as of man in the Fall can save then may we not reasonablely look upon J.O. to have asserted and declared those things wherein Salvation is not concerned or which we are not to look upon as answering that Light which is Spiritual and Saving but only common Notions and natural Reason whilst he and his Brethren keep not to plain Scripture Language and but run into notions terms distinctions which they have by Tradition from men mens inventions more suiting common and corrupt reason then Divine Light But and if the Light in men be Divine which manifests divine Revelations and Testimonies relating to Salvation such as J. O. would have us believe his matter to be grounded on then it follows that such a light is common or universal in mankind and not only given to a few nor natural as it hath been often rendred by such as J. O. and what doth this spiritual or divine Light teach concerning God and his Righteousness but that he is to be feared obeyed and honoured and that all sin and iniquity should be forsaken and God's Righteousness Power and Image which is Christ Jesus lived in obeyed and followed by man for herein is God well pleased and satisfied in beholding his own Image and birth renewed and brought forth which admits not of sin nor imperfection much less of either pleading contending disputing or preaching for its continuance in all term of life and this Light of Christ within however any miscall it is that which gives the knowledge of God's Love in Christ and of the vertue and efficacy of his Suffering and so of his Blood and to eat of his flesh which is given for the Life of the World wherein we partake of him as the one Offering at the Altar of God in his Sanctuary which the carnal Professors both among Jews and pretended Christians were and are ignorant of and in this Light are we come to know and receive Christ and reconciliation through his Death and also the glory of God through him in whom we have received the Attonement Peace and Union with the Father in the Son which all you that either slight oppose or deny this Light within and say its but natural are ignorant of being but in your dark notions natural apprehensions and conceivings which you intermix with Scripture so that the Dignity Glory Power and Vertue that is and ever was in Christ you do but talk of without the real sence discerning or enjoyment thereof but every one that truely waits upon the Living God in his Light and Life within whereby their minds and spirits being subjected unto his Will and their hearts truly broken before him such know the Ransom and Attonement which the Righteous and redeemed of the Lord knew and witnessed in all Ages and have that to offer unto God and such Sacrifices to present before him wherein he behold of his own glory and beauty and savours of his own vertue which is truly acceptable and well pleasing unto him who delighteth in his own Image Seed and Royal Off-spring which none truly know but who come into the Light to receive Christ the promised Seed which bruiseth the Serpents head and to eat his Flesh and drink his Blood without which you have no Life in you for all your talk and notions Pag. 185. J. O. The Sacrifice denotes his Humane Nature whence God is said to purchase his Church with his own Blood Acts 20.28 For he offered himself through the Eternal Spirit there was the matter of the Sacrifice which was the Humane Nature of Christ Soul and Body his Soul was made an Offering for Sin Isa. 53.10 his Death had the nature of a Sacrifice c. Answ. These Passages are but darkly and confusedly expressed as also we do not read in Scripture that the Blood of God by which he purchased his Church is ever called the Blood of the Humane Nature nor that the Soul of Christ was the Humane Nature or was put to death with the Body for the wicked could not kill the Soul though his Soul was made an Offering for sin and he poured it out to death he bore the sin of many and made intercession for Transgressors but what death and in what manner was it is a mystery truly to know for his Soul in his own being was Immortal and the Nature of God is Divine and therefore that the Blood of God should be of Humane or earthly nature appears inconsistent and where doth the Scripture call the Blood of God Humane or Humane Nature Neither do we read that the Blood which beareth record in the Earth and agrees in one with the Spirit and which purgeth the Conscience washeth and cleanseth the Believer in the Light from all sin was ever called by the Apostles the blood of the Humane Nature nor do we read that the Saints did eat and drink Flesh and Blood that was of a Humane Nature to receive Divine Life in them thereby for the Water of Life and Blood of Christ which are said to wash sanctifie and justifie which agree in one with the Spirit in those works and effects we never read that they are called in Scripture by the name of Humane Nature for the Spirit that quickens is divine and it is the Spirit that gives Life the Flesh profiteth nothing John 6. And the Soul of Christ is Immortal and did not die with the Body though it s deemed as being of the Humane Nature with the Body and so as of the Sacrifice in Suffering and Death whereas though his Soul
of it in the Unregenerate state not come to know the Image of God renewed in them for men are not imputedly Righteous when actually sinners as impiously hath been Asserted nor imputedly saved when actually damned no more then imputatively Saints while actually Devils Seventhly Neither doth God account men Justified or reckon them Righteous whilst they are really unjust being reproved and judged as Unrighteous by his Light and Spirit in them for God's accompts and reckonings are true and Righteous and he Just and True in all his wayes and his Judgments are Right and he can no more therein Contradict his own Light in Man or it's Judgment and Testimony than he can oppose or deny himself Eighthly The Unrighteous shall not inherit the Kingdom of God and the Wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men they that are or continue actually sinful and polluted are neither acquitted nor Righteous in God's account but must bear their Iniquity which will be their ruine unless they Return and be reconciled in their minds to the Light of Christ within which reproves them of sin and evil and so except men Repent and forsake their sins they shall surely perish they that neglect the great Salvation cannot escape Condemnation If I sin against thee then thou markest me and thou wilt not acquit me from mine Iniquity Job 10.14 Psal. 32. God imputes sin to none but them in whom it is in being so he imputes nor Righteousness to any but them in whom it is as the blessed man to whom God imputeth not sin c. in his Spirit there is no guile Finally All that profess to be Ministers of the Gospel and Teachers of others ought to Preach or Teach nothing but what may make or tend to the Glory of God and Honour of Christ Jesus in the Exaltation of Truth and Righteousness in the Earth and all the Contrary as all sin and sinful Doctrines with all sin-pleasing and sinners-soothing Principles to be abhorred rejected and opposed by all professing Christianity that tender the Honour of Christ and desire the Exaltation of his Kingdom which stands in Righteousness T.V. his Contradictions W. Madox * Christ's Divinity owned * The Vnity of the Deity and Divinity of Christ Asserted * A poor Tryal * The Father the Word and the Spirit truly confessed by us according to the Scriptures but these Priests mis-calling them denyed * See our Opposers blasphemous Distinctions and Contradictions * W. M's Rayling * Presbyters vain prophane babling confusion and blaspphemous work * Contradictions * The Pit they have digged for others they are fallen into themselves Here you may see T.V. his invented un-scriptural riddle * Yet in Contradiction they other whiles state it as an Act of Law and Contract between Creditor and Surety depending on Christ as a second Person but in Contradiction again 't is as God-Man as their words are * Where then is his absolute Power and soveraignity so much profest Confusion and Distractions * For a life in sin is not God's terms * But J. Owen confesseth otherwise That God requireth Faith and Repentance in Sinners antecedently to their Participation of Pardon * This being God's Pleasure in both where do the Scripture call it his Vindicative Justice upon him as T. V 's words are which J. O. and T. D. call Vindictive Justice but by what Scripture we know not for the Scripture calls it the Chastizement of our Peace that was on him * The Souls that he hath made his Justice doth not with-hold pity from them to gain upon them Heb. 12.9 10 11. * It was Christ's Persecutors that charged or imputed Sin Guilt and Blasphemy to him and so such they are that impute Righteousness to wicked or sinful Persons T.V. ‖ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Three Witnesses Page 14. Page 16. ‖ Here they deny the full satisfaction or plenary as they call it ‖ Here T. D. hath shot at us in the Devil's Bow as formerly he confessed he did ‖ But man in the faln state is worse then meerly a Debtor for he is a Malefactor guilty of high Offences and Crimes against the pure Law of God for which he must feel Justice in the Ministration of the Law and Sentence of death inwardly upon the Transgressor before he receive and enjoy the attonement ransom and peace with God ‖ Though God was alwayes well pleased and satisfied in Christ in his doing and Suffering and as he was a Sacrifice for Sin yet this is not enough for us to profess and believe without knowing the Work of Christ and Effect of his Sufferings and Righteousness within and his Spirit to make intercession c. Rom. 8. Phil. 3.9.10 Of Justication To Justifie what it is Of Perfection Of the Light within Of the Scriptures Of Baptism and the Lords Supper ‖ Rather Hireling at Sandwich Galat. 3.4 Chapters Of the Resurrection 1 Cor. 15.35 36 37 38. Pag. 156 157 and 160. Pag. 163. and 176. Pag. 178. and 180. ‖ But what a strange instance is that of J. O. that God cannot lye he cannot deny himself c. to prove that he cannot freely pardon sin c. pag. 178. as if the one were as much contrary to his nature as the other and yet upon Faith and Repentance which are his gifts he doth pardon his Creature man Note also that J. O. to the Reader saith of his Authors that many of them do expressly blame some of the School-men as Aquinus Durandus Biel Tartaretus for granting a possibility of pardon without satisfaction as opening a way to the Socinian error See here J. O's Authors great able learned defenders how they censure and contradict one another yet he would have men be wary how they censure them notwithstanding ‖ Who with his Brethren were fully manifested and confuted by Sam. Fisher in his Book stiled Rusticus c. never yet answered by them nor like to be ‖ For it was committed into the hands of the Father and was that day in Paradice ‖ Whether his Soul's travel and suffering under the burthen of Mans Transgression also even till he was in an Agony or his Body suffering under the violence of the wicked hands to death and the shedding of his Blood c. And why hast thou forsaken me Mat. 27.46 implies a deep suffering for Sinners under a cloud of Affliction yet not the Infinite Wrath or Eternal Death that 's due to the Wicked who reject God's Love and good will that 's tendred in Chirst we desire all may have as good an esteem of Christ in his Sufferings as may be but methinks you Professors do ascribe very mean honor to Christ and his Sufferings who therein reckon him not innocent but guilty of your sins and therefore that he suffered the same Vengeance or Vindictive Justice due to Reprobate Angels and Devils is this the Dignity you confer upon Christ Oh Miserable ‖ For if but a
little Storm or Persecution comes to try you its probable the Back-doors Back-wayes Closets Cole-holes Garrets or Cock-lofts with the Back-leads c. may stand you Professors in some stead as they have done many of you otherwise if there be no such By-wayes to make an escape and run away the Table spread with Victuals or Beer and Tobaco may stand for a colour and pretence in your Meetings as they have in some of them to delude those that shall oppose you and make them believe a lie and discover what spirit and religion Independants and Presbyterians are of W. M. * See his shuffle here for neither Nature nor Man simply can be called Three distinct separate Persons as Peter James and John were and as they say the Father Word and Spirit are Contradict * That was not Christ. * Where then is the Impossibility in him for it see Matth. 19.26 Luk. 1.37 Contr. to the former * Not upon his beloved Son Christ. All which Contradict their Doctrine of Imperfection and prove our Principle and then their filthy Raggs of self-Righteousness and best Performances which are sinful are shut out of both Union and Intimacy with Christ as not proceeding from any true dependance upon him or that Spirit and Truth wherein the True and Living God is Worshipped by all such as are of the true Circumcision In the Margent are J. Owen and T. Danson 's Doctrines [a] Jo. Owen For the term of Satisfaction the right understanding of the word it self depends on some Notions of Law that as yet we need not take into Consideration pag. 150. [b] J. O. He Christ bare our sins or the punishment due unto them pag. 160. He answered the Law and the penalty of it pag. 161. T.D. The deliverer undergoes the evil in kind which he that is delivered should have undergone pag. 24. Obs. Here is as much opposition between these men and Dr. Still as if J. O. should say It was the very same punishment c. but E. S. Nay It was not the very same c. [c] T. D. Christ when he suffered was not Innocent and when God required satisfaction of him it was due from him c. [d] J.O. God as supream Ruler dispenseth not with the Act of Law but the immediate object and substitutes another Sufferer in the room of them who are principally lyable unto the sentence c. [e] J. O. The Son of God was upon the account of the Dignity of his Person able to Answer the Penalty which all others had incurred [f] J.O. That God did so lay our sins in and by the sentence of the Law upon him c. pag. 166. [g] T. D. God admits of what Christ did on our behalf as if it had been our personal Act as the Creditor Cancels the Bond le ts the Debtor out of Prison and gives him as Legal a Discharge upon the Sureties payment c. Observe T. D's words below whereupon 1. I ask if refusable Payment how then is God bound to take Vengeance in T. V. his sense 2. If another thing be paid How agrees this with J. O? For [h] T. D. Supposes That Satisfaction to be Solutio recusabilis Refusable payment dum alius solvit aliud solvitur When another Person then what was obliged makes payment another thing is paid then what the Law required * As J. O. T. D. T. V. they being the Mistakers [h] T.D. That Christ made a Compensation to God for the Injury done him by our sin which may be both by doing and suffering Justice that is Vindictive * For which see their railing Language as Black-mouthed Blasphemers hiddeous Blasphemers with Socinian and damnably Heretical Opinions c. used by T. V. They may receive a Check from Dr. Stillingfleet to the Reader viz. It may be some will be dissatisfied that I give our Adversaries no harder Names but I never found any men convinced by ill Language and those we have to deal withal are too subtile not to distinguish between loud Clamours and Demonstrations I leave that Method of Confuting them to those who have greater Abilities in that way I think it very Incongruous for us while we Magnifie the Patience and Meekness of Christ in his Sufferings to discover our Passion in Disputing about them [a] T. Danson Christ when he Suffered was not Innocent and when God required Satisfaction of him it was due from him Christ was guilty of our sin when he Suffered for it Synopsis pag. 36. Christ was made sin by Imputation therefore so are we made Righteous pag. 40. [b] T.D. A state of freedom from sin is not attainable in this life No man ever did attain a state of Perfection viz. none of the eminently Holy Persons in the Scripture pag. 55. Yet Perfection is commanded Be ye therefore perfect as your Heavenly Father c. Mat. 5.48 Such Commands are the measure of our Duty not of our Attainments pag. 57. [b] T.D. A state of freedom from sin is not attainable in this life No man ever did attain a state of Perfection viz. none of the eminently Holy Persons in the Scripture pag. 55. Yet Perfection is commanded Be ye therefore perfect as your Heavenly Father c. Mat. 5.48 Such Commands are the measure of our Duty not of our Attainments pag. 57. [b] T.D. A state of freedom from sin is not attainable in this life No man ever did attain a state of Perfection viz. none of the eminently Holy Persons in the Scripture pag. 55. Yet Perfection is commanded Be ye therefore perfect as your Heavenly Father c. Mat. 5.48 Such Commands are the measure of our Duty not of our Attainments pag. 57. * His tasting Death was not the Revenge that the Wicked have incurred neither is Grace Revenge