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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A84760	A sober answer to an angry epistle, directed to all the publick teachers in this nation, and prefixed to a book, called (by an antiphrasis) Christs innocency pleaded against the cry of the chief priests. Written in hast by Thomas Speed, once a publick teacher himself, and since revolted from that calling to merchandize, and of late grown a merchant of soules, trading subtilly for the Quakers in Bristoll. Wherein the jesuiticall equivocations and subtle insinuations, whereby he endeavours secretly to infuse the whole venome of Quaking doctrines, into undiscerning readers, are discovered; a catlogue of the true and genuine doctrines of the Quakers is presented, and certaine questions depending between us and them, candidly disputed, / by [brace] Christopher Fowler & Simon Ford, [brace] ministers of the Gospel in Reding,	Fowler, Christopher, 1610?-1678.; Ford, Simon, 1619?-1699.	1656 (1656)	Wing F1694; Thomason E883_1; ESTC R207293	63,879	81

A SOBER ANSWER To an angry EPISTLE Directed to all the publick Teachers in this Nation and prefixed to a Book called By an ANTIPHRASIS Christs Innocency pleaded against the Cry of the Chief Priests Written in hast By THOMAS SPEED once a publick Teacher himself and since revolted from that Calling to Merchandize and of late grown a Merchant of Soules trading subtilly for the QUAKERS in Bristoll WHEREIN The Jesuiticall Equivocations and subtle Insinuations whereby he endeavours secretly to infuse the whole Venome of Quaking Doctrines into undiscerning Readers are discovered a Catalogue of the true and genuine Doctrines of the Quakers is presented and certaine Questions depending between us and them candidly disputed By Christopher Fowler Simon Ford Ministers of the Gospel in Reding LONDON Printed for Samuel Gellibrand at the Ball in Pauls Church Yard 1656. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE Colonell WILLIAM SYDENHAM One of his Highness Councill and one of the Commissioners for the Exchequer and Captaine for the Isle of WIGHT Right Honourable THe Author of the Paper we herein deale withall having by his Apostacy to the damnable Doctrines of the Quakers and written Apologie for them in the said Paper endangered divers of our Towne and the parts adjacent where he was formerly in some esteem and withall in the same Paper formed into the modell of an Epistle directed to them insolently challenged all the Publick Teachers of this Nation and particularly us who now appeare against him by sending two of the Pamphlets to us by name we dared not betray the Truth and Glory of our Lord Jesus nor the precious Soules of the People by neglecting to publish a timely Antidote against the Poyson of such a subtill and insinuating peice as your Honour if you will vouch-safe to look on it and compare it with this Answer will easily discerne it to be We perceive the designe of the Author is by false suggestions to reproach the Ministry and by Jesuiticall Equivocation to sweeten the Doctrines of the Quakers to the Publick Magistrates And upon that account we thought it meete to present this our necessary vindication of that and discovery of these to some Person in Authority of Honour and Conscience that under such a shelter we might gaine it a more facile admission to others of those unto whom we are necessitated to appeale And because we can assuredly suite that Character to your self and withall are perswaded that by reason of your equability of carriage to dissenters in late times our Adversary himself cannot reasonably quarrell at us for our choyce of a Patron and lastly because we have both of us in some measure but one of us more largely by divers years experience known you a cardial friend to a Godly Ministry and the Doctrine which is according to Godlynesse we therefore humbly put it into your Honours hands Sir as to the Cause we maintaine we need not any Creatures Patronage nor dare we submit it to any Creatures Umpirage for we are assured it mainly concernes such foundations of Religion as deeply ingage the honour of our Lord Jesus and therefore we are assured he will not suffer them to be moved and such as will stand when all Persons and Doctrines shall be judged finally and everlastingly according to the purport of them But as to our candour and integrity in the managery thereof and the proportion of satisfaction which we give therein we are contented to stand to your Arbitration wherein however we may fare yet it shall suffice us that our Consciences tell us that we have done our endeavour to defend the Truth and that with meeknesse and moderation beyond our Antagonists deserts or the merits of his cause and our experience tells us that you will not disdain to accept from us this small Testimony that we are very much Right Honourable Your Honours affectionate Servants for the Interest of Christ our Master Simon Ford. Christopher Fowler AN ANSWER TO AN EPISTLE OF THOMAS SPEED Directed to all the Publick TEACHERS in this Nation and prefixed to a Book of his called by an ANTIPHRASIS Christ's Innocency pleaded c. SIR NOT many daies since we received each of us a Book as from you by the hands of a Friend of yours living in this Town Intituled Christs Innocency pleaded c. which although it be particularly directed to a Godly and able Minister of the Neighbourhood yet it seems you thought fit to disperse it into these parts as well as over the rest of the Nation in Print to confirm those that are already gained to your belief and reduce others either to an entertainment of or moderation to the principles thereof And we must confesse that you have acted the last part of this designe with a great deale of Artifice not without as we conceive a concurrent aime of your own to shew how much credit your wit could give to an evill cause and how if not amiable yet tolerable you could render an ugly face by a decent dresse For our parts we are sorry you can find no better exercise for your parts then the maintaining of absurd Paradoxes in Civility and blasphemous Heresies in Religion for so we dare call the Doctrines you undertake to shelter under the wing of your Patronage and make no question but that Judge who we are assured will one day make that written Law which you refuse to own as the rule of your lives the ground of his proceedings upon you and all others that live within the sound of it after death will then call them so too when all the rhetoricall vailes you put upon them will be pulled off and you be found except you repent one of those that dawbe a rotten Sepulcher with untempered Morter and cover Violence with a Mal. 2. 16. Garment of subtle and Jesuiticall equivocation And indeed that which makes us the more compassionate towards your self in this sad delusion you are under is the repute which you have had till of late daies for soundnesse and Orthodoxy in Doctrinals and some kind of moderation beyond others of your Brethren in separation towards those you separated from And this because we feare that the influence of your Apostacy may occasion the ruine of many others whose former esteem of your person endangers them to follow you blindfold into your Errors This we assure you is not the least cause together with the preservation of those of our own charges from the infection likely to be spread among them by your name and the reducement of those of them who may we feare call you Father in other respects as well as the relation of Affinity which induceth us to put Pen to paper in this Quarrell Not that we intend hereby to take the Cudgels out of the hand of that Reverend man who is more neerly concerned and better able to manage them then our selves for as to that concernes his Papers so brokenly quoted by you we believe his own publication of the entire Copies which

are not bound up with the Bible and if so how huge a Volume would it make and how few could buy it we reply the Doctrine which we Preach is not ours but Gods and therefore infallible but must they therefore be bound up with the Bible what think you of the Sermons of Jesus Christ Luke 4. 21. Luke 5. 3. were they not infallible or the Sermon Philip Preached to the Eunuch out of Esay 53. Acts 8. 53. or that Paul Preached at his farewell Acts 20. 7. were they not infallibly true yet these were not bound up with the Bible why doe you thus from your inward darknesse cavill at outward Light we call it your darknesse hoping that you doe not knowingly oppose the truth 4. As for Ministers Maintenance upon which you harpe so much as knowing the sound to be very welcome to the eares of your gang and others we desire this favour at your hands either soberly to answer our reasons or else to be so ingenuous as to forbeare your scoffings 5. As for your defence of the Language thee and thou we referr you to what is said a bove we shall only add this we cannot think it to be any such great Crime to speake in this one case the plural you for thou for the singular as when Saint Paul saies we for I as Heb. 6. 9 we are perswaded better things of you and though we thus speake and againe we desire v. 11. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lastly wheras as you say in favour of your deare Quakers these are the Practices for which they are hated as though they were so innocent we reply besides their Blasphemies of which before and their railings cursings slanders untruths we desire to know what you think of foure or five instances we shall propose first what doe you think of the Quaker that acted that most abominable unnameable sin with a Mare what doe you think of it was it not from his light within or what is your opinion of another poore wretch that hanged himselfe these two you may find at large added to the relation of Gilpin of Kendall and confessed by the Prime of that way to be true what may be your thoughts of those Quakers that killed their Mother it was thus they were taught to harken to and follow after the Light within them this Light taught them they ought to destroy the Originall of Sin and by the said Light they apprehended their Mother to be the Originall and from thence still by the said Light they most wickedly embrued their hands in the blood of their Mother this you may read in Mr. William Keyes Minister of Stokesly his Answer to eighteen Quaeries who was with them in Prison What may be your judgement of Nicholas Kate of Harwell in this County of Berks who about ten months since came into Newberry between eight and nine in the Morning on the Lord day starke naked in a most immodest manner even beyond the Pagans and so walked through a long Street only with an inchanted belt about him which belt we have ground to call inchanted this man did not converse or live as a Husband with his wife for many months before this we will tell you what his Doctrines were 1. That Marriage was made by man 2. That Christians were worse then Beasts 3. That any woman was as free to him as his Wife 4. That his wife was no wife of his she was a limb of the Devil 5. That he was holy and all things that he toucht were holy as his very Hatchet his pot his knife 6. That when the fulnes of time was come he should work miracles This man hath left his owne family his Land and stock of a very considerable value entred upon by Persons whom the Country esteemeth Ranters his wife a weake diseased woman who brought him a valuable portion left to the mercies of these Persons which are cruell enough to her the farmer Kate himselfe since his departure was never heard of by his wife or any of her freinds if any Person can tell where he is or what is become of him they may doe a charitable Christian Office to informe his much distressed Wife Lastly what doe you think of one of your neighbours of Bristoll who lately even the 29. of Aprill last at Marleborough in the County of Wilts in a discourse with a Godly discreet and Learned freind held out this Light 1. He knew no such thing as the resurrection of the body 2. That the body of Christ was not in Heaven neither should he come thence with a body 3. He defended those that went naked but as yet he had no command to doe so 4. That of late he went to bed with a woman who was not his wife and that he did it without Sin 5. That that very Christ crucified at Jerusalem was indwelling in him 6. That he was confident of his perfect holinesse and on that account went to bed with the woman and yet afterwards excused himselfe saying there was a necessity for it there was no other spare bed in the House Sir these with those before recited are the Doctrins and Practises that we according to the measure received contend against all the hurt we wish you is this that God would give you the spirit of truth love and of a sound mind that you may not go on to vilify the Lord of Glory to slight the word of life truth and salvation and shoot your Tart indeed bitter speeches like darts against men that feare God and desire to prize and keep close to the word of his grace for our parts we have a witnesse within that what we have done is for the truth which we pray that you and we may receive in the love of it and in so doing we shall subscribe our selves Reding this 12 of May 1656. Your Freinds Christopher Fowler Simon Ford. FINIS

for to take a sentence out of their Letters and preach from it as to take a sentence out of Pauls Epistles Discovery of mysticall Antichrist displaying Christs Banners p. 15. and 33. 26. That there is no call to the Ministry but an immediate Call which is generally proclaimed by them See perfect Pharisee p. 29. J. Parnell p 16. 27. There is no Baptisme of Christ but with the H. Ghost and fire And no Supper of the Lord but in the spirituall part for as for the visible part The bread which the world breaks is carnall and naturall See perfect Pharisee p. 28. and J Parnell p. 12. 13. 28. That singing Davids Psalmes in English Meeter is to sing the Ballads of Hopkins and Sternhold King James his Fidlers And to sing them is to turn the Scriptures into lyes and blasphemies One of them in a Letter here at Reading Henry Clark in his discription of the Prophets p 9. 29. That God made not man to be Lord over man but over other Creatures and therefore amongst them there are no Superiours after the flesh But are there any Superiours over them then that are not among them See in the next article J. Parnell p. 22 23. 30. That Christ comes to fulfill and end all outward Lawes and Ja. Parnell p. 18 19. Government of man The righteous are from under the outward Law for they are a Law to themselves Especially if Magistrates be wicked that is not of them the Author quoted in the Margin denies them utterly 31. That there is no Sabbath now but an everlasting Sabbath and that our Sabbath is but a shadow of which they have the substance Ja. Parnell p. 37. And that the first day in the week is no Sabbath 32. That we may not pray before and after Sermons or at set times daies and houres because these things were in the Generation which were enemies to Christ Quaeres sent to the Congregation at Stopport printed in a Book of Mr. Eaton 33. That the Ranters themselves had a pure convincement which did convince them And what their convincements were most men know To wit that there is no Heaven Hell Resurrection Judgment to come that there is no sin but what a man thinks to be so that all that they did was done by the Eternity in them c. G. Fox and J. Nayler in a book called A word from the Lord p. 13. 34. That that word 1 Jo. 1. 8. If we say we have no sin we deceive our selves was spoken by the carnall man Fr. Gawler See Antichrist in man by Mr. Miller of Cardiff p. 7. Idem ibid. 35. That if a man hath sin in him he hath none of Christ 36. They will not acknowledge that Christ ascended with his body into Heaven Idem ibid. THus you see Sir how much paines we have been at to satisfie you that those men you joyne your selfe unto have matters of greater moment then those you mention justly chargeable upon them So that we are no way in feare of the judgment you pronounce against the Offenders of Christs little ones in your next lines For if such as these be Christs little Ones we know not who are the Devills great Ones And when you have any such things justly to charge upon us we shall not cry out of hard measure although we suffer more then any of you yet do Let the Magistrate do so to us and more also if we thus deserve it As to what we lay to your charge whether he will take notice of it or no we have learned not to be over sollicitous seeing we are not out of hope that deliverance will arise for Gods reproached Ministers Truths and Ordinances some way or other And yet we cannot but desire he would vouchsafe this honour to those that are now in Authority over us that Truth and peace might flourish together in our daies under their wings And truly Sir did you know our hearts whatsoever Monsters of persecution and blood you judge us to be you would see that as it is no private interest of our own that drawes us out to appeare against you but the meer concernments of Gods Glory and precious Truth so we desire nothing more then the conviction and reduction of you in a Gospel-way And this we can clearly say that of all those that have suffered any thing in or neer the places where we live we know none of them but have drawn it upon themselves by first making such publick disturbances as brought them within the reach of the Law and then refusing to give bayle out of a fond ambition they had to be imprisoned when they might have avoided it And yet we cannot but wonder how an handfull of you Sect. 55 bidding defiance to whatever of publick Religion is professed in this Nation should think or with any reason expect to be protected in the disturbance of all others who as the present constitution of affaires stands are under an equall liberty with your selves and if you be denied to persecute all others or by processe of Law restrained from it complaine of persecution So that indeed if the Magistrate grant you such a protection walking by the principles you do he denies it to all else seeing no society of Christians whatsoever would enjoy the freedome of their Worship without distraction from you And to perswade the Magistrates to give you liberty of tearing up all the professed Religion in England and blaspheming it publickly where ever you come we suppose it will in reason be required that you shew some extraordinary Authority or commission from God testified by some reall signe to convince them that it is not counterfeit and yet even then as you shall see anon your Doctrines being such as they are they may see just cause to lay some restraint upon you therein In the mean while we must tell you that however you may please your selves in your sufferings and vent your passions against the men from whom you conceive they arise as so many Sauls and bloody Persecuters yet God judgeth not Martyrs by the suffering but the cause and you had need examine in whose Errand you go when you run your selves upon suffering as well as others to examine upon what Warrant they inflict it upon you If every one be a Martyr who makes a loud cry of Persecution surely the Jesuite will not be behind hand in putting in for his share as well as you and if every one be a Persecutor that curbs and restraines unruly and disorderly Consciences wo be to those Judges who arraigne and condemne Fauxes and Ravilliac's who plead conscience for what they do as well as your selves The truth is both you and we and all persons must be able to plead that we suffer not as evill doers and then suffering will be a comfort and a crown otherwise what we suffer we suffer in our owne wrong and shall when we have suffered our Estates out of our Purses and Soules out

have suggested to him Viz. That that Scripture did not expresly forbid Jesus of Nazareth to throw himself down from the Pinnacle And in the third Tentation according to your Tenet our Sect. 67 Saviour had been hard put to it to prove that it was unlawfull to worship the Devill himselfe had Satan been disciplined by your principles and required of him an expresse Text That it is not lawfull to worship the Devill Whereas it seemes for want of your Artifice the silly Tempter was put off with a Scripture that requires us to worship and serve God onely and concludes the unlawfulnesse of Devill-worship by this Argument If we must worship and serve God only ergo not the Devill But we must worship and serve God only therefore not the Devill And the Sadduces afterwards were very silly animalls that Sect. 68 they would let our Saviour go away in triumph for putting Mat. 22. 32. Exod. 3. 6. them to silence by so weak a proof of the Resurrection as the words of God to Moses in the Bush I am the God of Abraham the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. Why had they not required in so fundamentall an Article of faith especially a positive and expresse Scripture affirming in so many words that the dead shall rise againe But you think our Saviours example will not beare us out in Sect. 69 our interpretations and deductions because he was infallible in P. 6. what he spake and neither did nor could erre in what he said which you suppose cannot be said of us or our meanings and arguments To which we answer we do not compare our selves with our Saviour in point of infallibility although your generation do who account themselves equally perfect with him But this we say that our Saviour in these places and others where he argues from the Scriptures doth not urge his owne infallibility as the ground upon which he requires beleif neither did Satan or the Sadduces acquiesce in the acknowledgment thereof but in the conviction wrought in them by the strength of his Arguments And we must tell you that any one who can draw an Argument rightly from Scripture is no lesse infallible in the conclusions so deduced thence then our Saviour was in his The question therefore will be Whether any person in interpreting and arguing from Scripture be infallible but whether such interpretations and deductions be truly and bona fide according to the mind of the H. Chost in Scripture whether they be drawn by a person that is fallible or infallible For be the person never so fallible that gives the interpretation or drawes the argument yet if the interpretation be sound and the argument rightly concluded he is therein infallible For you cannot be altogether ignorant of that common Maxime That nothing Ex veris possunt non nisi vera sequi but truth can rightly follow from truth and a false conclusion can never be regularly drawn from true premisses So that all that flourish which you afterwards make is but a meer rhetoricall vapour and signifies just nothing to an understanding Sect. 70 Reader For whereas you bid us either tell the people P. 6. plainly that we are infallible that they may receive our deductions from Scripture for true Doctrine nay Scripture it self or else say that we are fallible that so they may take liberty of proving our actions and doctrine We answer we need not tell the people we are infallible and yet they are no lesse bound to receive our deductions if rightly drawne from Scripture then if we were indeed so Because although we be not infallible yet so far as we regularly argue from Scripture we are not deceived nor can deceive them The authority of our deductions from Scripture depends not on our fallibility or infallibility but upon the evidence they carry in them of their necessary connexion with the truth we argue from And this because we owne our selves fallible we allow our hearers to use their owne judgments and consciences to prove and try whether it be so or no. God forbid but they who as you say must dye for themselves and account to the Lord for themselves should interpret for themselves and beleive for themselve But what then will it therefore follow that they must not receive our interpretations or beleive our deductions Or that we may not help them to interpret or draw deductions which they cannot so well do themselves They interpret for themselves that by the light of the Scriptures and their owne Judgments led by them see cause to owne our interpretations And they beleive for themselves who are upon a serious weighing of our Arguments convinced that they ought to admit them as just and lawfull deductions from Scripture What you add in the close of that Paragraph that it may so Sect. 71 fall out that six of those that esteem themselves the ablest Doctors if shut asunder shall so vary in the interpretation of one Scripture that scarce two of the six shall agree in the same interpretation Whence you would infer how little credit is to be given to our deductions we might take for an unsavoury scoff and so passe it by But we shall forgive you this and many more such if it will do you any good and vouchsafe to answer even where you deserve no answer but silence and scorne Be it therefore as you say which yet in Scriptures that containe matter of saith and practise we cannot suppose most of us we conceive in such are at least till the new-fangled conceits of these times infected some of the Ministry as well as others were of the same mind in most of them yet herein we are no more to be blamed then the Apostles and other primitive Teachers themselves who differed as much in those times of clearest light about the Scriptures that enjoyned the observation of Jewish Ceremonies whilest some of them earnestly contended that they extended to converted Gentiles and others affirmed the quite contrary And will you thence conclude that there is little credit to be given to any of their deductions because they disagreed among themselves All that can be hence solidly inferred is no more but this that therefore it concernes Gods people to search with the Noble Beroeans whether the things the one or the other saith be most consonant to the Scriptures But you that will not beleive our interpretations or deductions Sect. 72 because we are not in all things agreed will you beleive them in those things wherein we are all or the greatest part of us of a mind Surely if so most of the quaking Doctrines will fall to the ground for very few if any of us shall dare to interpret Scriptures to the countenance of those horrid Doctrines before mentioned In a word this whole discourse about infallibility and differences Sect. 73 among our selves in interpretation of Scripture as one hath very well observed before us smells rank of your Popish