Concerning the divinity and incarnation of Christ
THE Quakers heresy in this is taken from the Socinians: they say Christ took flesh, but no otherwise, as they explain it, than as angels as sumed bodies; or as he (Christ or the Word) did inspire or dwell in prophets or holy men of old, though they allow (not always) that Christ did in spire the person of that man Jesus in an higher mea sure than other men.
But they deny any proper incarnation of Christ, that is, that he was made flesh, or that he and Jesus were one person.
Yet they allow Jesus to be called Christ, from the dwelling of Christ in him; but for the same reason they take the name Christ to themselves, and say that it belongs to them as well as to Jesus, from the same dwelling of Christ in them as was in Jesus.
They say that Christ did raise up the body of Jesus from the dead, but they say not that Christ did carry it up with him into heaven: so that though there be a Christ now in heaven, that is, as he was before his descent upon Jesus, as he is the Word of God; yet they do not confess that there is any Jesus now in heaven, or any where else; they know not what is become of him, or what Christ did with that body of Jesus after he had raised it from the dead. They say there is no other Christ but what is with in them; they allow him now no human body but their own; they call themselves his body, that is, the church. And as they give him no other than a mystical body, so they spiritualize his life and death to his spiritual living and dying within them; as one of their preachers prayed at a solemn meeting, O God, who was crucified, died, and rose again in us. And G. Fox says1, that if there be any other Christ but he that was crucified within, he is the false Christ—this Christ that was risen and crucified within, devils and reprobates make a talk of him without. And he disputes against those who say that the man Christ that was crucified, his body is now in the presence of his Father, (Great Mystery, p. 211,) or that Christ is absent from them, (the Quakers,) as touching his flesh, p. 210; and, p. 254, they that profess a Christ without them, and another Christ within them, here is two.
Robert Gordon was the first among them that I find who taught the orthodox faith in this point, of the divinity of Jesus, and his satisfaction to the justice of God for our sins, by which he purchased redemption for us, through faith in him, as outwardly suffering death for us upon the cross, and now personally reigning in heaven, and not only as a light within us; though he denies not that light within, but strongly asserts the necessity of it, as it is an influence sent from the Spirit of Christ into our hearts to guide and enlighten us; but not the very Christ itself, and the only Christ and Saviour, as the Quakers impiously do blaspheme, denying any other at all.
The book wherein Robert Gordon taught as above said, he entitled, A Testimony to the true Saviour, or Jesus Christ of Nazareth, as having already purchased Redemption for us in the Body of his Flesh, and revealing it within us by his Spirit. It was printed in London in the year 1670.
Against this wrote George Whitehead, with three other Quakers.
And Robert Gordon published an answer to every one of them severally, which was printed 1671, and called, Christianity Vindicated.
And in R. Gordon's reply you will find the abominable broad blasphemous heresies which these Quakers did hold; as, p. 20, That Christ was never seen with any carnal eye, nor his voice heard with any carnal ear: hereby, says Gordon, plainly denying him to be the Son of man. And, p. 21,
you neither confess nor preach him (Christ) as a man, but as a light in that man Christ, and as a light in every man, as it is in every man as he comes into the world. And, p. 30, Behold the Lamb of God, that takes away the sins of the world: a voice not heard among you, says Gordon, of the man Jesus Christ, the Son of the Virgin Mary, as now existing outwardly, bodily without us, but applied by some among you to meekness, humility, and the like within you. And, p. 33, The light, the seed within, is Christ; then I am he that speaketh, then Hosanna: the Son is equal with the Father, I witness the Son in me, so I witness equality with the Father: the light in me is Christ, Christ is the Word by which the world was made; then it was said of Christ, that he was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not; so it may be said of this prophet G. F. as is said by S. E. in his paper entitled, The Quakers' Challenge, p. 6. Christ is the way, the truth, and the life; Christ is in me, and must not he say where he is, I am the way, the truth, and the life? He that hath the same Spirit that raised up Jesus from the dead is equal with God; Jesus Christ the mystery passed before; the same Spirit takes upon it the same seed where it is manifested, as it is men tioned in G. Fox's book, entitled, Saul's Errand to Damascus, p. 7, 8.
Here you see them making themselves equal to God, by their having the true Christ in them; now see them, for the same reason, preferring themselves before that man called Christ: they make that man Christ, and what he suffered and did, to be a type and shadow of what is really performed in them by the true Christ, as you may see in Gordon's Testimony to the true Saviour, above quoted, p. 36, 37: The same things are fulfilled in thee (speaking to the Quaker) that was figured in him, (Christ.) But tell us plainly, says he, p. 37, is that one sacrifice of the crucified body of our Lord, once offered to bear the sins of many, a pattern and figure of things to be done over again in us, the blood without typifying life and spirit within? Is this sacrifice so weak, so empty a thing, that it is a pattern and figure, having nothing in itself but as pointing to another, to wit, this light, enlightening every man? How are you beguiled (does Gordon reason with them) to preach up the light enlightening every man that comes into the world, for the true Christ! to cry up the light within to cry down the blood without! to preach him as an example to cast out the atonement! to speak of him as a figure, pointing at this light within as the abiding substance—p. 40, Denying him to have any real, outward, individual, glorified, bodily existence in his Father's kingdom. The preaching of a Christ without them. they call old beggarly stuff; and those who have formerly preached him as without us, (though prophets or apostles,) to be low and carnal in their day, according to their cant, which he there repeats.
William Penn will not have the true Christ to be a person, but only a principle, such as justice, meekness, mercy, or any other moral virtue. What is Christ, says he, but meekness, justice, mercy, &c. Can we then deny a meek man to be a Christian? And he makes no more requisite to Christianity, and then allows the heathens to be Christians, and says, that to make any distinction be twixt a moral man and a Christian has been a deadly poison these latter ages have been infected with. And he compares this moral light in the heart, the light of morality, or our regeneration by it, to the incarnation of Christ; and he makes this regeneration the greater mystery of the two. If the manifestation, says he, of the Son of God in the flesh be a mystery, how much more is the work of regeneration a mystery, that is wholly inward and spiritual in its operation? See this more at large discussed, with the defences which Thomas Ellwood has made for both these quotations out of Mr. Penn's books, in Satan Disrobed, sect. I. No. x, x1, xII. By this it is plain what they mean by Christ, not that man Jesus, but the light within him, as within themselves: and therefore the work of this light in their hearts they make a greater mystery than the birth of the outward Jesus, which could not be, if they thought him to be truly and properly the Son of God; and not only in such a large sense as every man, especially every good man, may be so called: nay, Mr. Penn owns this in direct terms, p. 146 of his part of a Serious Apology for the Principles and Practices of the People called Quakers, printed 1671, where he confesses that the body which suffered at Jerusalem was the body of Christ, i. e. which Christ assumed, not into his person, but as a cloak, or a veil, like the body in which angels appear for a time, and throw them off again: and Christ, says he, suffered this body of his to be crucified; but that the outward person which suffered was properly the Son of God we utterly deny: these are his words. The same was said in a book, printed the same year 1671, composed by a whole junto of the Quakers, entitled, Some Principles of the elect People of God, in scorn called Quakers. There, p. 126, they say, that the scriptures do expressly distinguish between Christ and the garment which he wore. And we, say they, can never call the bodily garment Christ. And Isaac Pennington, in his Questions to the Professors, p. 25, denies that it was the flesh and blood of the veil—of the outward earthly nature, (as he calls the body of Christ,) by which we are cleansed; for, says he, can outward blood cleanse the conscience? See more of this in the Gleanings to Satan Disrobed, page 2. From this notion which they have of Christ's body, they think that he, now having laid aside that gar ment, or veil, and not carried it with him into hea ven, there is consequently no such person as Christ, God and man, in heaven; and condemn us, as wor shipping an imaginary God, for paying adoration to him. Thus, says Christopher Atkinson, (before mentioned, p. 43,) in his Sword of the Lord Drawn, p. 5, your imagined God beyond the stars, and your carnal Christ, is utterly denied To say this Christ is God and man in one person is a lie.
The Devil was in thee, (says G. F. to his adversary Chr. Wade, in Great Myst. p. 250;) thou sayest thou art saved by Christ without thee, and so hast recorded thyself to be a reprobate. And, p. 183, such as have Christ in them, they have the righteousness itself, without imputation; the end of imputation, the righteousness of God itself, Christ Jesus.
And in his Saul's Errand to Damascus, p. 14: Christ (says he, that is, the light within) is the substance of all figures, and his flesh is a figure, i.e. of their light within, which they make the only Christ. And Edward Burroughs, p. 149 of his works, that the very Christ of God is within us.
And from this account which they give of Christ, they think that the name Christ does belong to every one of them, not only more than to that body now, but as well as to it while it was upon the earth, and when Christ did inhabit it; yea, their very words are, Doth not the name (Christ) belong to the whole body, and to every member in the body, as well as to the head? A Question to the Professors of Christianity, by Isaac Pennington, printed 1667, p. 27. And G. Fox says, (Gr. Myst. p. 88.) Christ is the elect. Thus Christ is the elect, and the elect are Christ! they make them con vertible terms. And, p. 207, he disputes against this position, That God hath a Christ distinct from all other things whatsoever; and says, in opposition to it, that God's Christ is not distinct from his Saints.
I shewed in the last section that they would not allow God the Father to be distinct from the Son; but here is a stretch which far outdoes that; to shew that there is no stop, as in art, so neither in enthusiasm, which indeed is an art to put upon ourselves as well as others. They say a man may tell a lie so often, that he may come to believe it himself at last; and a strong enthusiastic habit may fix a man's thought so long upon a beloved object, as to dazzle his understanding, and glare so in his eyes, that, without considering, the grossest absurdities will go down, and the highest blasphemies gain a pretence even of piety and exalted devotion. This is the Devil transformed into an angel of light; this is the most fatal and irrecoverable state of a soul when we fall in love with our disease, and, as in a calenture, mistake the deepest oceans of presumptuous blasphemy for sweet and pleasant fields of contemplation, and even of humility, and thus mistake hell itself for our heaven.
Who that had not his head turned with such en thusiastical delusion could have imagined that G. Fox could not understand the difference or distinc tion betwixt Christ and himself, and that men of sense should lick up his spittle!
And it is but consequential to this, that the divine attributes should be given to G. Fox as well as unto Christ; if there be no distinction between them, then they are the same; and I have shewn several instances, sect. VIII. where G. F. does assume the style and names of Christ to himself, and that others do allow them to him. All which is excused by Mr. Penn in the eleventh chapter of the Invalidity of John Faldo's Vindication, in such a wonderful manner as will leave no blasphemy or idolatry in the world without a very fair pretence.
But I turn from him out of respect to him, and will carry the reader to others of the Quakers, who are not content to assume the name of Christ to themselves, and to equal themselves to him, but even prefer themselves before him, and put a greater value upon their own sufferings than the sufferings of Christ or his apostles.
These are the words of a great apostle of the Quakers, Edward Burroughs, p 273 of his works. The sufferings of the people of God (Quakers) in this age, is greater suffering, and more unjust, than in the days of Christ, or of the apostles— What was done to Christ, or the apostles, was chiefly done by law, and in great part by the due execution of a law. I will not stay to comment upon this blasphemous expression, to say that the sufferings and death of Christ was the due execution of a law; if it was due, then Christ had his due, and he deserved what he met with. Nor will I in this place take time to detect the subtile artifice of the Quakers in magnifying their sufferings, of which there are very remarkable instances to be given; nor to shew that their sufferings were by law, and, for the most part, by the due execution of a law, I being now chiefly concerned in their blasphemous comparing of themselves with Christ our Lord; and, as in the present instance, preferring of them selves before him; their small imprisonments or fines (for none of them suffered death, the law does not allow it) for not paying their tithes; their stubborn mess and open contempt of magistracy and the laws, for which they would not have escaped so easily in any other Christian country; I say, my business at present is to shew how they compare their short im prisonments for the abovesaid causes with the death and passion of Christ and his apostles, and make these their sufferings not only greater, against com mon sense, (as if tortures and death were not greater sufferings than fines and imprisonments,) but most blasphemously make their sufferings too to be more unjust than those even of Christ himself: as if it were more unjust to touch the hair of a Quaker's head, to fine or imprison him, though transgressing all the laws of the land, than to crucify the Lord of glory when they had no legal proof against him, nor any law, either of the Jews or Romans, by which he ought to die.
Let the Quakers never more pretend to persecution, when they can escape with such impudent blas phemy as this.
Let the Quakers never more pretend to persecu tion, when they can escape with such impudent blasphemy as this.
This was repeated by another of their prophets, whom I have often had occasion to mention, Solomon Eccles, who said, that the blood of Christ was no more than the blood of another saint.
I do not mention this as if this contempt of our Lord Christ were only to be proved by these two evidences. No, there are clouds of witnesses to be produced of the like blasphemy in almost all their teachers in their profane meetings: but more spar ingly, since the noise that has been made upon this head by George Keith and others of their separatists. They now, to cover themselves from that horrid odium, (which this must justly bring upon them from all the nation, and from all Christians,) begin to preach in their public meetings of a Christ with out, and of his sufferings at Jerusalem, &c. A voice which, since their first appearing in the world, has hardly ever been heard among them; the chief ten dency of their doctrine being to depreciate, as much as was in their power, the outward man Christ Jesus, and to build all upon the inward Christ, or light within. But how sincerely, and with what reserves, they now (when forced by worldly politics) speak of Christ without, I have chosen this instance of Solomon Eccles to explain, by shewing the subtile and true Quaker answer which he gives to one Robert Porter, who objected to him what I have above quoted, and told it to others. Solomon Eccles writes to him in these words: Robert Porter, take heed of belying the innocent; for I hear that thou hast reported to a friend of mine, that I should say, that the blood of Christ is no more than the blood of another man. I never spake it; but do very highly esteem of the blood of Christ to be more excellent, and living, and holy, and precious, than is able to be uttered by the tongues of men and angels.
And now, reader, would not you think that he had fully denied the charge against him; and that he did highly esteem the blood of Christ? But be hold the Quaker subtilty! He does not mean one word of this of the blood of Christ which he shed upon the cross, but of the spiritual blood, (what ever he or the Quakers intend by it;) for after the above said high witness to the exceeding value of Christ's blood, he adds immediately in the very next words, to explain himself; I mean, says he, the blood which was offered up in the eternal Spi rit, Heb. ix. 14. You may say, that this was the outward blood which Christ shed upon the cross. True, it was so; for he offered his blood through, or in (as this Quaker alters the text, to make it incline the more to their meaning) the eternal Spirit. And if Solomon Eccles had said no more, so it might have passed. But he goes on in plain words to tell us what he would be at, and distinguishes this from the blood outwardly shed; for having told us what blood he so highly values, as above, he subjoins, in the next words, to signify what blood of Christ it is which he did not value more than the blood of another man; and that was the outward blood which was shed upon the cross. His words are these following: But the blood that was forced out of him by the soldiers after he was dead, who before that bowed his head to the Father, and gave up the ghost; (but thou sayest that was the blood of the new covenant which was shed after he was dead, which I deny;) yea, I did say that was no more than the blood of an other saint. These were my words.
And he adds a little after, That the Baptists, and Independents, and Presbyterians, and the Pope, are all of one ground; and none of you, says he, understand the blood of Jesus Christ no more than a brute beast: therefore repent, for God will suddenly overthrow your faith, and your imputative righteousness too; for the imputation of Christ's righteousness, which he did at Jeru salem, and without the gates, the Pope, the Episcopal, the Presbyterian, Independents, and Baptists, shall fare all alike, and shall sit down in sorrow, short of the eternal rest; but the true im putative righteousness of Christ we own, but it is hid from you all till the Lord open an eye within you.
These are the words of his letter, which I have transcribed out of a book wrote by Will. Burnet, entitled, The Capital Principles of the People called Quakers, printed 1668, p. 41.
And here you may see how they construe the imputation of Christ's righteousness to be only within them; and disown that which the whole Christian world understand by it, and their notion of Christ's outward blood shed without the gates of Jerusalem: but they have a motion of inward blood, inward shedding, and inward imputation, which no other Christians know of more than brute beasts, says Eccles. And they expressly deny Christ's outward blood to be the blood of the new covenant, and make no more of it than the blood of any other good man. See G. Whitehead's impious defence of this in the True Copy, &c. above quoted, p. 24, 25: to which I will only add, as a confirmation of what I before observed, that the Quakers will seem to confess any thing, but with such reserves as secure their own meaning, and serve to amuse the inad vertent readers. Thus in G. Whitehead's answer to this passage of Solomon Eccles, in page 58 of his book, entitled, The Light and Life of Christ within, printed 1668, repeating the above quoted words of Solomon Eccles, where he speaks of the blood of Christ as more excellent and living and holy than is able to be uttered, &c. he adds, which might have satisfied any spiritual or unbiassed mind. And the reader might have gone away with this as a full vindication of Solomon Eccles, without taking notice how he had in the same place explained himself, as I have above quoted him, not to mean this of Christ's blood shed outwardly upon the cross, but only of a notion which the Quakers have of spiritual blood, spiritual shedding, &c. which is all performed within them. And G. Whitehead entitles that very page of his book, The Blood of the New Covenant spiritual; and therein argues thus blasphemously against his opponent, William Burnet. These are his words: But if W. B. in tends that the blood outwardly shed by wicked hands was the price and life of Christ, as his words import; then it follows, from his own words, that the life of Christ is not in being; and this would render him a dead Christ, &c. But G. Whitehead can speak honourable things of the blood of Christ, (in his own sense,) and this is enough to satisfy any unbiassed mind; though they have evaded the most express texts for Christ's hu manity, even that, Gen. iii. 15, his being the seed of the woman.
They allegorize that too into a spiritual sense, quite away from the letter, and to mean nothing else in the world but their light within: where they have a spiritual woman, and spiritual seed, as well as spiritual blood. Hear how Mr. Penn endeavours to prove it in his part of the Christian Quaker, p.97, 98: The serpent, says he, is a spirit. Now no thing can bruise the head of the serpent but some thing that is spiritual, as the serpent is: but if that body of Christ were the seed, then could he not bruise the serpent's head in all, because the body of Christ is not so much as in any one; and consequently the seed of the promise is an holy principle of light and life, that being received into the heart, bruiseth the serpent's head: and be cause the seed, which cannot be that body, is Christ, as testify the scriptures, the seed is one, and that seed is Christ, &c. Thus Mr. Penn. And this is his deduction: that the seed being Christ, and he having proved (as he thinks) that the body of Christ was not the seed; his consequence is, that the promised seed was not any person, but a principle: and that this principle is the light within, and consequently that the light within is Christ; and his syllogism stands thus in mood and figure: The seed is Christ; but the light within is the seed: ergo, the light within is Christ. But the minor remains yet to be proved, that the light within is the promised seed, which Mr. Penn has only supposed; and that the seed is not a person, but a principle. Which is a supposition of so perni cious a nature, that it unchristians any one who holds it: for the faith of Christians is built upon that man Jesus Christ, as the seed promised to bruise the serpent's head. And that the bruising of it was performed by the shedding of Christ's blood outwardly upon the cross, as a propitiation and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world. Though the application of this to our souls must be in wardly by faith in our hearts, not only a bare historical faith that Christ did so suffer, die, rose again, &c. which the devils do believe, and tremble to see their power so overcome; but by a lively faith, and full absolute dependence and trust in that satisfac tion made by Christ's death for our sins, as our surety, who has paid our debt for us, and purchased an eternal inheritance for us upon our performance of the conditions which he has set to us: and not only so, but as our High Priest, now sitting in his true human nature, (whereby he is our Mediator,) and in the same body, (though glorified and changed in qualities, but not in substance,) at the right hand of his Father, to make continual and daily interces sion for us, and to pour down his Spirit upon us, to give us this saving faith; for it is the gift of God. And this influence and inspiration of his blessed Spirit is the only true saving light within us; but not the seed and Christ himself, (as the Quakers blasphemously dream,) only a ray or communica tion of his light and life to us.
How then can the Quakers have the true Christian faith; how can they be esteemed as any Christians at all, who will not allow Christ to be the pro mised seed, or that he was more a man in the body of Jesus than in the body of any other man; who make no more reckoning of his blood than of any other saint; who do not believe him now to be a man, and, as such, our Mediator and Intercessor at the right hand of his Father? These things I offer to their serious consideration; and I pray God to discover to them those depths of Satan, and that bond of iniquity wherein they are captivated.
But I would ask Mr. Penn one question, before I go, upon his hypothesis of the light within being the promised seed; and that is, Since the Quakers make this light within to be in every man that comes into the world, how was it promised, Gen. iii. 15? Was it not then in the world 2 then were they to look for it as to come?
But Mr. Penn has another argument (ibid.) to prove that the outward Christ could not be the promised seed; which, he says, must be inward and spiritual. Why? Because, says he, one outward thing cannot be the proper figure or representa tion of another; nor is it the way of scripture so to teach us, the outward lamb shews forth the in ward lamb, &c. I am sorry Mr. Penn should tell us that this is not the way of scripture, because it is the common highway of the scriptures: for all the outward sacrifices under the law were types or figures of the sacrifice of Christ, the outward Christ upon the cross; of whom St. Paul said, 1 Cor. v. 7, Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us; so that the outward paschal lamb in Egypt, and the striking of its blood upon the side-posts of their houses, Exod. xii. 7, 13, that the destroyer might not come in, was a certain type of the outward blood of Christ, which keeps off God's wrath from us, and not of any fancied inward lamb slain in our hearts, &c. as the craft and malice of the Devil has sug gested, to deface and wear out of our minds the faith in Christ's outward blood, by which only there is salvation.
And by the help of this distinction of an outward and inward Christ, outward and inward blood, &c. the Quakers do keep themselves out of sight of all men not throughly acquainted with their deceits. They can upon a pinch subscribe the whole creed, and yet not mean one word of it of God or Christ at all; that is, of any God or Christ without men, or what all the world believe by God or Christ, as existing without us, though by their blessed influ ence operating within us.
But their gross ignorance could not at first dis tinguish betwixt God and his influence; and those of them who know better now, think themselves obliged to justify, at least to palliate and excuse, the failings of their leaders, because they once owned them to be infallible.
By this means all the nonsense and blasphemy of G. Fox lies upon Mr. Penn's shoulders. If he will maintain him, right or wrong, then must Mr. Penn answer for G. Fox's calling himself equal with God, and his senseless argument to prove it, in his Saul's Errand, before quoted, p. 8, because (forsooth!) he had the Spirit of God, (as he pretended;) whence he argues in these words; He that hath the same Spi rit that raised up Jesus Christ is equal with God.
Mr. Penn must likewise account for what is be fore quoted out of The Sword of the Lord Drawn, &c. p. 5: Your imagined God beyond the stars, and your carnal Christ, is utterly denied—to say this Christ is God and man in one person is a lie.
I will here add to this, how careful they are to instil into their children, according to their capa cities, these principles of their most antichristian religion, and exceeding the blasphemy of all that we ever yet heard among the most barbarous of the heathen nations. There is a Primer put out for the Quaker children by W. Smith. There, p. 8, you have this question asked; How may I know when Christ is truly preached? And the answer is, They that are false (ministers) preach Christ without, and bid people believe in him as he is in heaven above; but they that are Christ's ministers preach Christ within. Here was an admirable cue given to young children, to prevent their ever receiving the least tincture of Christianity; that if they should at any time hear of a Christ in heaven, or of any Christ out of themselves, they might immediately stop their ears, and believe all who spoke of it to be false ministers. Sure Satan never advanced his king dom in any age so high as in these miserable de luded people!
But lest the child should think that there might be only difference of expression betwixt the Quakers, and others who professed a Christ personally in heaven, though present with us, and operating in our hearts by the influence and graces of his Spirit, there is another question, p. 9; Here then is great difference in their doctrine? Answer, Yes, and no more fellowship than east with west. This an swer is true indeed; for the difference is not only in the expression, but in the doctrine; and there is no more fellowship than east with west; as Edw. Burroughs says in his Epistle to the Reader, before G. Fox's Great Myst. p. 17; We differ in doctrines and principles, and the one thou must justify, and the other thou must condemn, as being the one clear contrary to the other in our principles. But here take notice, that there are no Christians in the world who deny Christ's spiritual influence and operation in the hearts of men, and his light within them; and therefore this difference of doctrine betwixt the Quak ers and us, which, they say, is as wide as east from west, must be more than concerning the light with in, as a ray or beam shining into our hearts from Christ the Sun of Righteousness; for in this there are none upon earth that have any difference with them; and therefore the difference must be concern ing this light within being, not a beam, but the sun itself, the true, real, and only Christ, the very person, and not only the influence of Christ: so that the true state of the question will be this; Whether this light within be the principal or a secondary agent in us? For if it be only a beam, it is a secondary agent, because it proceeds from the sun; but if it be the sun itself, then it is principal. Again, if it be the sun, it is the only agent, because the sun receives not his light from another; but if it be a beam, it is not the only agent, because the sun does enlighten by the beam. And in both these respects the Quakers do positively determine their light within to be, not a secondary agent, or sent from any other, but that it is itself the only and the principal: and this is the language which they betimes teach their children; for in Smith's Catechism, p. 57, there is this ques tion and answer: “And is that which is within you “ the only foundation upon which you stand, and “the principle of your religion? Answer, That of “God within us is so; for we know it is Christ; “and, being Christ, it must needs be only and prin “cipal; for that which is only admits not of another, “ and that which is principal is greatest in being: “ and thus we know Christ in us to be unto us the “only and the principal,” &c.
Here they expressly disown any other Christ than what is within them. But because all this may be pretended as meant only of Christ's spirit, not of his body—thought here can be no room for any such pretence, because all whole Christ is here spoke of; and that it would be as great blasphemy to say that Christ had no other spirit than what was within us, as to say that he had no other body but what was within us—yet to make it exceeding plain that the Quakers do not believe that Christ has any other body, or other humanity, than that spiritual or alle gorical body, or whatever they mean by it, which they say he has within them; in Edw. Burroughs's works, p. 149, this question is asked in these plain and peremptory terms; Is that very man, with that very body, within you, yea or may? And the answer is as plain; The very Christ of God is within us; we dare not deny him.
But lest these Primers, such as I have mentioned of W. Smith's, and others of the like nature, to poison their children with their heresies, should not enough be taken notice of, they have of late brought Fox's blasphemous Journal into their public meeting-place at the Savoy, where it is constantly kept in a box made on purpose, as their text, to be re curred to upon all occasions, and for the instruction of those who may not have the book themselves. This is an honour they never yet vouchsafed to the holy scriptures, which are not to be seen in their meetings, but are a great offence to them if produced by any there, as above is shewn; and it was a bold effort in George Keith to bring a Bible lately into his meeting at Turner's-hall, and reckoned by his opposites as a sign of his turning back again to the priests’ way of worship.
In their public schools, particularly that great one at Wandsworth near London, portions of this Fox’s Journal are enjoined to the scholars to be read every day, but never a chapter out of the Bible, that is beastly ware with them, dust, and death, and serpent’s meat/ The public ought to take some care of this, in pity to their poor souls. This I cau tioned before in Satan Disrobed, but repeat it here, because it is material.
I will end this section with shewing, that the Quakers have in their blasphemies against the di vinity of Jesus, and humanity of Christ, only licked up and improved the ancient most antichristian heresies. Mr. Penn's Sandy Foundation, printed 1668, is nothing else but the height of Socinianism in the two great branches of it, denying the Trinity, and satisfaction of Christ; these are what he calls the sandy foundation; and his whole book is wrote on purpose, and expressly against these.
The Manichees, Eutychians, Marcionites, and Saturninians, said that Christ was a man only in appearance, but had not properly an human body or soul: thus say the Quakers, that he dwelt only in the body of that man Jesus, as in a veil or gar ment, but took not that body into his own person, so as to become hypostatically united to it; and if so, he was not truly a man, but only in appearance. And, agreeing to this, the Cerdonites, the Euty chians, and Manicheans, Christ was not real, but in said that the passion of appearance only, and out ward show: and such it was, if, according to the Quaker doctrine, his veil only, or garment, was crucified.
Others taught (the family of love of late) that it was all an allegory: and thus the Quakers most expressly, making Christ's outward blood the type and figure of inward blood shed spiritually in the hearts; making Christ without but the history, and their light within the mystery or substance, which the Christ without, as a history or shadow of it, pointed to.
But, lastly, (because I must not stay here to deduce and compare all their heresies,) those ancient here tics the Ebionites and Nazarenes, from whom our modern Socinians, and from them the Quakers, do derive their doctrine, did mightily undervalue the holy scriptures. Some of them pretended to mend the scriptures", and did boldly adulterate them, and set up other scriptures against those received by the church; and this the Quakers have done beyond any that ever went before them.
For they have canonized all and every of their own writings, though most blasphemous, and express ly contradicting one another, as has been shewn.
They make themselves equal to God and Christ, and arrogate the name of Christ to themselves.
And the same would excuse Simon Magus for being called the great power of God, Acts viii. 10.
That was more modest than our magician, who was called the Christ himself, and not only his power or virtue. Simon desired only that the Holy Ghost might be given by his hands, Acts viii. 19, but George Magus owned no other Holy Ghost than what was within himself, of which he was the possessor and owner. These have far outstripped their master; for Simon Magus was the father of the Quakers, Socinians, and all the rest of the Anti-trinitarian heretics: 2he first blasphemed against the holy Trinity, slighted the scriptures, denying the law of Moses to be from God, set up magic, idolatry, and sensuality; in all of which he was not more followed by the Gnostics than the Quakers, as I think I have sufficiently shewn.
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