Some remarks upon George Whiteheads creed.
IT has been a great and just complaint against the Quakers, that they would never give us any creed, or summary of their faith. They find fault with others, but tell not plainly what they hold themselves: they dwell upon negatives, but love not to speak in the affirmative what they would be at.
Well! now G. Whitehead has at last done it in the introduction to his Innocency Triumphant, which he entitles thus, Our Christian Testimony reassumed in the Affirmative.
And so far he keeps pace with the Apostles' Creed, that he comprises it in just twelve articles.
But, alas! when you come to consider them, they do not go cleverly off from the above said damnable errors of the foregoing Quakers; but, on the contrary, he words his new confession of faith in such dubious and general terms, as may indeed, at first sight, deceive an unwary reader, but yet keeps off contradicting the heart of the heresy, which he still preserves safe and untouched; and not only so, but often with a slily insinuated excuse and defence of it.
Thus in his first article he confesses Jesus to be Christ, even the same Jesus Christ who was born of the Virgin Mary at Bethlehem, &c. This would seem a plain confession to the Christ with out; that it was meant of that man Jesus of Nazareth, and not only of the light within.
But then when you consider, that (as above said) they attribute the name of Christ to their own light within, and to every one of themselves as well as unto Jesus Christ, then it will appear that this confession of Whitehead's is a mere fallacy; while it attributes no more to our Lord Jesus of Nazareth than to George Whitehead.
But let us not wrong honest George. He confesses, art. 10, in these words; Our ministers do not teach that the name of Jesus and Christ belong to every member in the body (or church) as amply as to Christ the head.
And that you may take notice of it, the word amply is put in a different character, in old black letters, lest you should mistake, and think that George was Christ as amply as Jesus.
That was modest indeed! But then, George, thou art Christ as well as Jesus, though not so amply: and then your first article above quoted, which calls Jesus the Christ, means no great matter; but is rank sophistry and dodging, and casting a mist before the eyes of poor deluded people. For I have that charity for a great many of your followers, as to think that they do not know those depths of Satan, and that mystery of iniquity into which thou and others have led them; and out of which thou dost not desire to rescue them, but to bind them faster in it, by this thy equivocating and jesuitical confession of faith: as, article 2, where you confess (with the Socinians) Christ's coming in the flesh: that is, as before explained, taking flesh upon him as a veil or garment; but not, in the language and true sense of the scripture, that he was made flesh, John i. 14; that is, took it into his person, and joined it in a personal union with his divine nature; so that (as it is expressed in the Athanasian Creed) as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man, so God and man is one Christ. If you had believed what is contained in these words, you would not have scrupled setting it down in these words; which must have given the best satisfaction, if it had been your design to have given satisfaction, without any reserve for that wicked heresy which you would seem not to plead for, yet in such words as you might easily afterwards explain to mean no thing against it.
Article 7. you say, We own no such saying as that the holy doctrine or divine precepts of scripture is either dust, death, or the serpent's meat. But you say that wicked men have perverted the scriptures; that nobody can deny to you. But what then? Is the holy word of God therefore become death and serpent's meat, because you have made it death unto yourselves? God...forbid, says St. Paul, Rom. vii. 13, in answer to the same argument which you bring; Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good, though the unlearned and the unstable wrest them to their own destruction, 2 Pet. iii. 16.
But what was it you called dust and serpent’s meat? Was it nothing else but the ink and the paper? Did any body ever say that these were no dust? Or is that any part of the contest betwixt us? Was it the ink only and the paper of which you doubt (as before quoted in the Quaker's Refuge) whether Moses or Hermes was the penman? Thou meanedst verily which of them made the pen; that was all upon the word of a Quaker. Was it the pen or ink of which you doubt, that some of it was not spoken by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit; and whether some of it was not spoken by the grand impostor; some by false prophets, and yet true; some by true prophets, and yet false?
The ink or paper are neither true nor false, but the doctrine only which is written with them. And therefore, George, notwithstanding all thy mealy modesty, it is, it is indeed, George, it is the very doctrine of the scriptures which you blaspheme as dust and death and serpent’s meat, on purpose to bring men off from trying your pernicious heresies by those sacred oracles, and to make your followers trust wholly to your new light within; in com parison of which it is that you vilify the written doctrine and precepts of God, which are most opposite to all your gross delusions. It is not the ink nor the paper that you quarrel at; no, they do you no hurt; but it is the law and the testimony; accord ing to which written word if any do not teach, the same holy scriptures do instruct us, it is because there is no light in them, Isai. viii. 20. No light! George, mark that! your false pretence to the light within is here overruled, and to be measured by the written word without. These are hard sayings to the infallible friends: and it was for the sake of these and such like texts, which detect and explode the miserable ignorance and blasphemy of these pretenders to light, which made thee, friend George, in this same book, to which thou hast prefixed thy above said Affirmative Confession of Faith, p. 28, excuse and justify the diabolical suggestions in the Quaker's Refuge against the authority of the sacred scriptures, by saying, that it questioned but some of the scriptures, not all, as I have shewn before.
But now come, George, we are near an end, and we know not if ever we shall meet again; tell me, in the plain, downright honesty and simplicity of thy light within, didst thou mean no more by this, but that only some, and not all the ink, was thick and muddy, and fit for serpent's meat; and that only some sheets of the paper, or parchment, or barks of trees, on which they wrote in ancient time, and might write the scriptures, for ought thou knowest, was coarse and ugly? Is all thy malice only against those base printers or writers who profane the letter by poor sneaking impressions, and provide not good ink and paper?
If thou thinkest all this to be raillery not be coming thy gravity, see, I pray thee, if it be any thing more than what thou settest forth as the very true and only reason for those vile epithets which thou and thy friends do bestow upon the holy scriptures of God.
And be ashamed and blush (if thou canst) for that silly and childish come-off, with which thou gravely undertakest to banter all mankind, as if all your ignominies and contempt cast upon scripture were to be understood only of the ink and paper.
Nor is thy salvo more ingenuous in the eleventh article of thy aforesaid creed, wherein thou endea vourest to reconcile the heretical notions of thy sect against the true incarnation of Christ, calling his body a figure, veil, &c.
It is really, sayest thou, contrary to our faith and principle to make Christ Jesus himself onlp a figure, a veil, or garment. Here the word only (as the word amplp in the tenth article) is put in great black letters, to shew the stress thou layest upon it. And to discover thy sophistication, thou sayest, that Christ Jesus is not only a figure or a garment: not only! no more is a cloak or a veil; it is not onlp a garment, for it is cloth or stuff, and may be put to many other uses: there is no one thing in the world that is only one thing; it may be taken under more considerations than one.
But this (as I observed at first of thy equivo cating manner) is but a negative confession. Thou tellest us what Christ Jesus is not; not only a veil, figure, &c. So we may say that he is not only man, not only God; that God is not only just, not only merciful, &c.
But, George, this is not saying what he is: he may be any thing, a thousand things, notwithstanding of all thy not onlys.
And thou usherest in this article with more solemnity than any of the rest (that we may not suspect thee) with a really: It is really contrary, &c. as above quoted.
But really, George, this is not reassuming your Christian testimony in the affirmative, as thou dost promise in the title to this thy creed.
We did not want to know what was contrary to your tenets; this is still hiding yourselves in the dark, in negatives; but we would know affirmatively what it is you do profess; and this thou didst promise, and this thou hast not performed.
Therefore tell us plainly, did Christ assume flesh, not only as a veil or a garment, (like angels when they appeared in bodies,) but did he take our flesh into his own substance and nature, so as to make it one person with himself, as our flesh is part of our person, of our substance, and our nature? Was it thus that Christ clothed himself in flesh and blood? If in this sense you would mean that he took flesh, or was made flesh, we will not quarrel with you for the word garment or veil; for so it may be said that our soul is clothed with our body, as with a garment or veil. It is not words, but the meaning, that we contend about; and you cannot satisfy the world nor your own consciences with this dodging about words, while you shun to declare what you mean by them.
Nay, you do not shun to declare what you mean by them; that is, on the Socinian heretical side, (as above is shewn,) to wit, that Christ did not assume flesh into his nature and person.
But when you would impose upon us, then you dance about the words veil and garment, and will not deny the wicked heresies of those before you, but rather insinuate excuses and defences for them, as I before observed.
Thus, in this same eleventh article we are now upon, after your full and affirmative declaration, (as above said,) you suborn two texts as favourers of your damnable heresy before told: Yet, say you slily, his flesh was called the veil, Heb. x. 20; and he took upon him the form of a servant, and was made like unto men, and was found in the axhuatl, shape or figure of a man, Phil. ii. 6, 7.
Ah! George, George, I could forgive thee any thing but this: what! put upon us at this rate, and with a fine Quaker really too! But tell us, among friends, didst thou not really know, George, that the word veil, Heb. x. and figure, Philipp. ii. meant nothing at all of what thy friends mean by them in this controversy? Know then, George, (if thy light has hitherto forgot to tell thee,) that the veil in the temple, that is, the partition-wall which enclosed the holy of holies from the rest of the temple was a type of Christ; and that as that veil was rent from the top to the bottom at the death of Christ, and so opened a way into the holy of holies, (which was kept shut before, none but the high priest, who was a type of Christ, entering into it, and that but once a year with the blood of expiation,) which holy of holies was the type of heaven; so this shewed that entrance into heaven was only to be obtained by Jesus our true High Priest, and that by the offering of his own blood; which, by the way, was not his own blood, if he did not assume it into his own substance and person; otherwise he only carried it in, as the high priest did the blood of others, but not his own blood. And as the breaking of the veil opened the passage into the holy place, Eph. ii. 14, so the breaking of Christ's body on the tree broke down the partition-wall which was betwixt us and heaven, and opened the passage into eternal life, which otherwise had ever been kept shut against us.
And this shews the necessity of Christ without, and of his bodily sufferings without the gates of Jerusalem, Heb. xiii. 12, and the literal shedding of his blood as an atonement for our sins; and not only as a type or figure of the light within the Quakers, as the father of all lies has blasphemously taught them, and as you have heard above quoted from them.
And which thou, George Whitehead, and all the now Quakers, if they had but one dram of the spirit of Christianity in them, would renounce and detest, and with zeal disown the authors of such doctrines of devils; and not palliate and excuse them, as even thou, George, dost, and seekest to solder their leaky infallibility that thou mayest inherit it; but if thou hast sown the wind, thou wilt reap the whirlwind, Hos. viii. 7.
And now I have told you in what sense Christ's body is called a veil, Heb. x: but what has this to do with the sense in which the Quakers above quoted do call it a veil?
They call it a veil, that is, a garment, in contra-distinction to its being Christ's substance, and of his nature.
But, Heb. x, it is called a veil in relation to its type, the veil of the temple.
And these are as quite different considerations as can be, as far distant as east from west; and yet George Whitehead brings in the one to support the other, which is a gross sophistication, and, if not the height of ignorance, it is a malicious deceit.
As is his application of that other text, Phil. ii. where George Whitehead brings in the word figure, which is not in the English translation: but let him have it; he himself makes it synonymous to shape; Who being found in the shape or figure of a man, &c.
And now what relation has this to the calling Christ Jesus a type or figure of their light within? which books.
A type and a shape are things so distant as to have no relation at all, or likeness to one another. A type is being the forerunner, or shadow, which points out something to come; but what has this to do with the shape of one's body? And because the word figure may be applied either to a type or a shape, therefore George Whitehead brings it where he confesses that it means a shape, to justify the Quaker blasphemy of calling him a type of their light within. I suppose George Whitehead will not say that Christ Jesus is the shape of their light within, and that is the meaning he puts upon the word figure in this text; and therefore he can make no advantage of it to his cause, he brought it in only as an amusement.
I could give several other instances of the like ingenuity and craft in the Quaker answers; but I intend not this for a thorough examination of all their errors, only to give the reader a short view of their principal and most monstrous heresies, and to provoke them (if possible) to a serious consideration of them.
At least I hope what has been said will be sufficient to keep others from going into their snares, till they have clearly and fully given satisfaction to what is here objected against them.
And let them either justify what is plainly quoted out of their books, or freely disown and condemn the blasphemous errors of G. Fox their first apostle, and others of their party.
But if they will not do this latter, for fear of spoil ing their infallibility, then let them stick to their infallibility.
If they will do neither, then we may truly judge them to be self-condemned.
And, in the next place, that they have more con cern for their own honour than for the honour of Christ, or truth of the gospel, who will refuse or scruple to condemn the most monstrous blasphemies, but seek rather to cover, palliate, or excuse them.
If they think that I have wronged them in this character, let their vindication appear in a clear, plain, and categorical answer to what is said above; let that be the criterion to judge of their sincerity: and so I leave them as to this point.
And now I have one word to say to those Quakers of Turner's-hall.
These have thrown off the pretence of infallibility; yet they will be Quakers still.
They own Christ without, and redemption through his blood: thus far they are returned to the orthodox faith.
But they stick still to the Quaker spirit in deny ing the sacraments which Christ ordained in his church, and in the schism which G. F., the first infallible Quaker, made from the church, and that upon the account of their own infallibility. Now how can these, who have thrown off that blasphe mous pretence to infallibility, remain still in that schism which is grounded only upon that infallibility?
But further, a false pretence to infallibility is not only an error, but it is an high blasphemy, and can proceed from none but the spirit of delusion; and therefore whatever comes from that spirit is justly to be suspected.
Now it seems incredibly strange, that those who have detected the fundamental forgery should yet stick to that same spirit in other things; and those of no less consequence than the tearing Christ's body in pieces, and breaking the communion of saints by schism, and throwing off those outward ordinances which are of Christ's own immediate institution, and commanded to be continued till his coming again, and appointed by him as means ofgrace, and there fore are the grounds of our hope of glory.of no less consequence than the tearing Christ's body in pieces, and breaking the communion of saints by schism, and throwing off those outward ordinances which are of Christ's own immediate institution, and commanded to be continued till his coming again, and appointed by him as means ofgrace, and there fore are the grounds of our hope of glory.
But I thank God I have found in several of them a good disposition towards receiving again the sa craments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper; they have learnt to speak of them with reverence, and wish they had never been disused; and are sensible that great hurt has thereby come to the faith, espe cially among the Quakers, who for want of these outward and visible signs have lost the substance, and spirited away the reality of Christ's natural body and his bodily suffering for us, together with those holy sacraments which he instituted for the continual commemoration thereof.
But there is a time for all things; and these be ginnings will, I hope, grow into a perfect reconcilia tion of these misled people to the true Christianity, and the true church of England, from which they have so unhappily and causelessly divided.
It is this year just forty years since their first appearing in London. London is the centre of all of them through the world, whither deputies come every year from the West Indies, and all other their colonies through the world. Such intelligence and politic institution is nowhere else to be found, but among the Jews and the Jesuits; and therefore I begin with them here in London, that, if it please God, their return may proceed by the same steps, and in the same road, by which their deceivers have led them; and I pray God that they may now at last find rest, and arrive safely in Canaan, after their forty years wandering through the waste and howl ing wilderness, wherein were fiery flying serpents of mortal heresy and error.
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