The Snake in the Grass - Sect. 7.

Concerning the authority of the scriptures

THE Quakers' notion of the light within (as before explained) must necessarily cut off our depend ance upon the holy scriptures as a rule either of faith or manners: for if that be God himself, and makes us equal to God; or, in the Quakers' lowest sense, as infallible as the prophets and apostles in their penning the scriptures, then have we as sure a rule as the scriptures, and which must not yield to the scriptures.

But because the scriptures are often brought in contradiction to the Quaker light, therefore they have made it their business to depreciate and under value them, nay, sometimes to run them down as hurtful and pernicious, leading men to the outward, from attending only to their own light within.

Nay, to make them false in many things, that we may believe them or trust to them in nothing; to make their authority doubtful, by disputing their penmen, and raising all the evil suggestions that can be against them.

The Quaker's Refuge, printed anno 1673, p. 17, states this, as truly owned by the Quakers, in these words:

Whether the first penman of the scriptures was Moses or Hermes, or whether both these are not one; or whether there are not many words contained in the scriptures which were not spoken by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit; whether some words were not spoken by the grand impostor, some by wicked men, some by wise men ill applied, some by good men ill expressed, some by false prophets and yet true, some by true prophets and yet false.

And from these suppositions he goes on, and con cludes that some part of the scriptures concerning the redemption and salvation of mankind were true; and, page 18, that the scriptures, as above distinguished, are a true record, &c.

Instead of answering these diabolical suggestions against the sacred authority of the holy scriptures of God, and which evidently overthrow the certainty of the whole; G. Whitehead, in his Innocency Triumphant, printed 1693, in answer to F. Bugg's New Rome Arraigned, p. 28, does own the whole, by way of an excuse for it, and says, That this questioned but of some words in scripture, not all.” But the holy scriptures confirming the whole of themselves, one part quoting another, if the whole be not therefore true, the whole must be false.

And we must take this to be the opinion of the new Quakers as well as the old, because now asserted.

(G.) Whitehead endeavours to solve this, ibid. p. 21, in answer to the quotations which F. Bugg had brought out of their authors, which called the holy scriptures by the wicked and contemptible names of dust, death, serpents' meat, &c. Whitehead says that was only in opposition to those who would have the very paper and ink and characters to be the word of God and the gospel; wherein they were opposed, says he, Christ being the Word, and the gospel the power of God, which endures for ever, which the books and letters or characters cannot.

Here Whitehead says that there were some priests in the north, and before the year 1653, when those books (which Bugg quoted) were printed, who were thus ignorant; and that this was the reason for those expressions in these Quaker books.

First, This had been no reason for these barbarous expressions, if it had been so.

But, secondly, I willjoin issue with George Whitehead upon it, that there never were such priests either in the north or any where else, that were so. ignorant.

No, George! this is an arrant lie, without all doubt: did any man ever think or say, that the. very material paper and ink and letters would endure for ever?

Where is now thy infallibility? where thy com mon honesty or morality, thus grossly to belie these priests, as thou callest them? But they thank thee that it was so grossly; for it is so very ridiculous, that it is in no man's power to believe thee, or that thou canst have the least pretence to infallibility, or even that thy word should be trusted in any thing that thou averrest, when thou darest print so noto rious and impossible an untruth. Like G. Fox's senseless reply to Richard Baxter, &c. ¹Writing, says he, paper and ink, is not infallible, nor the scripture is not the ground of faith Your rule, paper and ink, that will come to dust.

Here I would fain ask them a question—How it comes, that since they are such bitter enemies to the letter, they yet make a conscience of saying thee and thou, instead of you, in the singular, because these were old English words in the first transla tions? Is there any immorality or iniquity in these letters y, o, u, more than in t, h, o, u? And is not every nation master of its own language?

Besides, these were not the words of the languages in which the scriptures were wrote. It is likely that G. Fox, and the rest, in the year 1650, thought they were, and lighting upon some old English Bible, took it for the original; for if stress must be laid upon the letter, it must be surely upon the original letter in which the scriptures were wrote; and the Quakers may as well lay stress upon the Latin, or French, or Dutch translation, as upon the English, in this case. How do they in other languages make the distinction betwixt thou and you, when you is used in the singular number?

Behold here these men, whose chief principle it is to decry and damn the letter, do set up, at the same time, the most superstitious and ridiculous sticking to the letter that ever was heard of since Adam; so very extravagant, that if it had not been, no man could have believed that it could have been! or that any men could have made a case of conscience of such a senseless and insignificant criticism. But as the scorpion is said to carry oil which cures its own venom, so the wise providence of God has disposed of most errors, that they carry contradictions to themselves in their own bowels.

But, if the holy scriptures of God must not be called the word of God, because they are wrote in letters, why must the Quakers' most blasphemous and profane scribbles be styled the word of the Lord? Even Solomon Eccles's Lying Prophecy before told, in his letter to John Story: To you all, this is the word of the Lord, says George Fox of his own writings, Gr. Myst. p. 225. I charge you, says he², in the presence of the Lord God, to send this amongst all friends and brethren, every where to be read in all meetings. To you all, this is the word of God. [G. Fox's Letter to all Friends, printed 1671,with several papers,&c. p.60,62.] The scrip tures are not the word of God. [G. F. &c. Fire brand, &c. p. 159, second part, an. 1678.] A printed letter of G. Fox's, which is now lying before me, dated at Dalston, the 13th of the 10th month, 1683, bears this title, All friends every where, this is the word of the Lord unto you all: and there is a postscript in these words, This you may read amongst the children of the light and of the day: and, p. 4 of the letter, he says, I remember, before we were called Quakers, as I was sitting in an house in Nottinghamshire, (about the year 1648,) the word of the Lord came to me, and said, &c. And yet in his Gr. Myst. p. 246, 247, he calls it blasphemy to say that the scriptures are the word of God. His words are these; They (the scriptures) are not the word of God, which thou (Christopher Wade) hast blasphemously affirmed; but (says he jesuitically, to amuse the reader) Christ is the word of God. As if Christopher Wade, or any Christian, had ever affirmed that the book of scrip tures was the word of God in the same sense as Christ, or any otherwise than as the records of those revelations which God, by his Holy Spirit, did dic tate to the inspired penmen; but not a living person partaking of the substance of the Father, like the Word eternally begotten Could this George, either of these Georges, Fox or Whitehead, produce any one man, even in Bedlam, who ever asserted this of the ink or paper of the holy scriptures?

Why then do they use this distinction? against whom do they use it? Against nobody; it was only to shuffle and cut, to cover and excuse their contempt of the holy scriptures, and, in their place, deifying of their own spirit and their own scriptures.

They knew that the holy scriptures could not be discarded openly and aboveboard, nor all at once; that the world has been long in possession of them, and of a just veneration of them; and therefore would not so easily part with them, nor accept of any Fox's inspirations instead of them: therefore they set up a power like that of the church of Rome, of infallible interpretation of scripture; and improved it, as above is told, into immediate reve lation, equal to that of the prophets and apostles, And, pursuant to this plenitude of power, they have taken upon them, not only to abrogate the most ex press ordinances of the gospel, and pronounce them expired at their pleasure, as Baptism and the Lord's Supper; but to set up and institute new ones, as the women's preachings, (directly contrary to 1 Cor. xiv. 35, which suffers not women to speak in the church,) and the prelacy of the women's meetings, an inven tion never heard of in the world till G. Fox cobbled it out. And they enjoin not these only as ecclesias tical injunctions of their church, but (upon their pre tence, before told, to the same immediate revelation which was given to the apostles) as the institutions of Christ. Solomon Eccles, in his letter already men tioned to John Story, calls these the women's preach ings and the women's meetings, the great and good ordinance which Christ Jesus hath set up in his church. This is directly giving us new scriptures and a new gospel; for which they will find their re ward, Gal. i. 8, 9. Rev. xxii. 18, 19.

And they having (as they pretend) the same Spirit which gave forth the scriptures, they cannot be bound by the scriptures, or any command in them, unless their spirit does anew require the same thing which the scripture commands.

So that the scripture remains of no authority with them; because, if what the scripture commands be anew required by their spirit, they are bound to obey it, because required by their spirit: but if the scripture command the thing, they are (by their principles) not bound to obey it, unless it be required by their spirit anew: which is most effectually over throwing the scriptures, and resolving all into their private spirit, or light within. This will yet further appear in the sections which follow; but let me first give an authority for the last thing that I have said, and it is such a one as does astonish me: because, first, it is from the ingenious Mr. Penn; secondly, it is where he accuses others of misrepresenting the Quakers' principles³, and rescuing them from such misrepresentations, he sets them down in their most moderate, and, he says, true sense; and he avers, That what was a commandment to any servants of God in old time, (that is, in the scriptures,) that such are not commandments to us, unless re quired by the same spirit anew.

And he instances in those elementary types, shadows, and figures appointed, as he says, for a season, and to pass off. These are the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, which he calls elementary types and figures; but that they were appointed only for a season, and to pass off, that is not to be proved from scripture, which enjoins them till Christ's coming again, I Cor. xi. 16, al ways, even unto the end of the world, Matt. xxviii. 19, 20. But all this signifies nothing: these com mandments are not required by the Quaker spirit anew; and so they pass off.

This we are sure is not aggravated upon them.

Indeed Mr. Penn does in the same place find fault with those who would improve this principle of theirs to justify immoralists, and things inconsistent with government; As if, says he, that eternal, holy, omnipresent light, with which we are enlight ened, did not continually declare and require just and righteous things at our hands.

This, with submission, instead of an excuse, is a full confession of the whole charge, unless Mr. Penn can make it appear that the Quakers, and every one of them in particular, have this light more than other men; or if they have it, that they must neces sarily be guided by it; because otherwise they may commit theft, sacrilege, and all immoralities under this umbrage; and no command of scripture can re strain or convince them, by this latitude granted here; because if they should enthusiastically be lieve, or hypocritically pretend that such command of scripture was not required by their spirit anew, it is ipsofacto superseded by this principle.

Thus it being objected to G. Fox⁴, that one of his Quakers had pretended an immediate call from hea ven to commit theft, or robbery, and sacrilege, in taking out of the church an hour-glass, G. Fox does vindicate it in these words; And as for any being moved of the Lord to take away your glass from you, by the eternal power it is owned. And if an other should pretend an immediate call to take away the communion plate—for that too is put to super stitious uses⁵—where is the end of these loose principles? Mr. Pennyman can tell whether he did not solicit G. W. to return a letter, which another Quaker had stolen and given to him, and whether G. W. did not make this answer, That unless the Lord required him, he would not return it again. See more of this in Tyranny and Hypocr. &c. p. 37.

But as for things inconsistent with government, which Mr. Penn supposes their light can never dictate, I refer him to what follows of the Quakers’ loyalty.

These concern the government of the state: but as for church government, (which is much more sa cred,) I think Mr. Penn will not say but that their principles are wholly inconsistent. Have they not broke off from the church government established in England, and in all the Christian world? and do they not pretend that their light guides them in it? Have they not by the same light rebelled from epi scopacy, which they cannot deny was in the times of the apostles, and through all ages of Christianity to this day? If they think this a light sin, let them read the sixteenth of Numbers, and see if the sin of Korah was small? or if it was for any thing else but church government? And St. Jude tells us, ver, 11, of those under the gospel who perished in the gainsaying of Korah.

But if disobedience to church government be no such great matter, why do the Quaker church treat their separatists with such violent fury, and strain their invention to find names bad enough for them, devil-driven, dungy-gods, &c. as if already smok ing in hell? Why do they charge them so despe rately with the heinousness of schism?

It is true indeed, that the church cannot subsist, more than any other society, without government; but it is as true, that the Quaker pretence to the private light in particular persons, as a principle overruling scripture, and all outward ordinances, is inconsistent to the government either in church or state, or any security from all the dismal and en thusiastical murders, rapines, and outrage of the zealots among the Jews, who went upon the same principle, yet shewed no evil signs of it; nor, I do charitably believe, had, at first, any evil designs, nor knew, more than Hazael, 2 Kings viii. 13, whither these principles would at last hurry them.

But if hard words are a natural presage, and shew an inward disposition to come to blows, no people have expressed more virulence in the first, nor do I believe that they are infallibly secured from the latter: but no tempting occasion has of late of. fered itself to them. For it is a very convenient principle to be protected by other men's swords, without running any of the hazard ourselves; to enjoy the benefits of peace equally with others, and to be freed, if not from the charge, at least from the slavery and dangers, of war. It is good to sleep in a whole skin: but yet if they had a government of their own, they would not part, no not with a sloop.

And they have shewn that no sort of people would less encourage, under their own government, their old pretended principle of enthusiasm, or the private spirit: we see how violently they now oppose it in their separatists. They call any opposition to the orders of their church no less than rebellion, and that against God himself. Thus Solomon Eccles told John Story, in his letter above quoted, that his opposing the divine right of the women's preachings and women's meetings, set up by G. Fox, was rebellion against the living God. (More instances of this, e in Some of the Quaker's Tuesday, August 20, 2019 at 9:51 AM Principles, sect. 13.) And they make orders in direct opposition to the laws, and make it rebellion against God to obey the laws, as in the case of tithes⁶: they declare all, as well payers as receivers of tithes, to be antichrists, and to have denied Christ's coming in the flesh. And it is at their discretion to declare any other injunc tion of the law of the land to be against their light; and then it is rebellion against God any longer to obey the law in such a case. So that all our laws stand but at their pleasure: and if they should de clare against all laws and kings together, there is nothing excepted from the plenary power of their inward light.

Do not think these so extravagant suppositions; they have done as much as all I have said. Their principle is spiritualizing; and as they have spirit ualized away all the letter of the scripture, the sacraments, and Christ's humanity; so have they reduced government also, from the outward administra tion, at least of kings, when the time was that they durst speak plain: as in Edward Burrough's ⁷Standard, &c. in the year 1658, p. 9; The Lord is risen, says he, to overturn, overturn kings and princes, governments and laws; and he will change times, and laws, and governments: there shall be no king ruling but Jesus, nor no government of force but the government of the Lamb. And George Fox says, There is that nature that would have an earthly king to reign, in which nature lodgeth the murderer. A Word from the Lord, p. 15, anno 1654, The Lord will cleanse the land of you, (rulers, priests, &c.) and not any that rejects Christ shall rule in England. Discovery of the Enmity, p. 59, anno 1655.

Now whether or no the Quakers do reckon us of the church of England to be among those who re ject Christ, I refer to what follows.

And then, whether they think by this rule that any such ought to rule in England, I leave to the reader.

And then, whether their submission to such government can proceed from principle or necessity.

In short, enthusiasts have no principles; they have no rule but their own fancy, (which is strong est in madmen,) and this they mistake for inspiration; and then their madness is at the height: and it is inconstant as the wind; they know not their own minds, nor can promise for themselves an hour toge ther. They are as dangerous in any government as elephants in an army, who, if they turn their heads, fall foul upon their leaders. No libertines have done greater mischief than the enthusiasts: the atheists and profligate pursue not their wickednesses with half their zeal and fury. If the debauched stick at nothing unlawful, the zealot thinks every thing he does to be lawful.

And it cannot be denied, no Quaker can deny, but that the principle of the Quakers is all enthusiasm; there never was any enthusiasm in the world that exceeded it: none that ever called themselves Chris tians have advanced themselves so high, to have the same infallible spirit and immediate revelation as the prophets and apostles, or as Christ himself; to be equal even to God, to be one person, substance, soul with God. And I do not think that any human government can be secure of men, in whose power it is to screw themselves up to such blasphemous heights of enthusiasm; and who, while they make themselves gods, think their governors to be ser pents, reprobates, and devils, raveners from Christ, and his utter enemies.

I here repeat the caution which I set down at the beginning of this Discourse, that I do not include all the Quakers in this; but those only who, having seen these blasphemies and delusions of G. Fox and other their old primitive Quakers, will not renounce them, but seek to cover and excuse them, and pre tend still to the same spirit that they had.

And what that was we shall see yet further in the next section.

The use I have to make of this is, not to upbraid or expose, but to beseech Mr. Penn, and all the sober-minded among the Quakers, now at last to consider whither their strange pretences to infallibility has led them; even from the only infallible oracles now in the world, the holy scriptures, by setting their light within above the scriptures; which they do, in refusing to let their light within be judged by the scriptures: but, on the contrary, allowing no obligation which the holy scriptures have upon them in any thing which is not likewise dictated to them by their light within; but thinking the dictates of their light within to be obligatory and infallible, in things wherein the scriptures are silent: alas, if that were all! even in things where the scriptures are repugnant, and command quite otherwise. But, in the authority which they have taken over the letter of the scriptures, they can overrule every command in scripture, though in terms never so positive; as in the case of baptism and the Lord's Supper, and many other instances; chiefly in that upon which I have so much insisted, because it is the principal, their spiriting away the letter of the promised seed, the humanity of Christ, and the satis faction thereby made for our sins; and his interces sion and mediation therein, now at the right hand of the Father, to which we daily owe the gifts and graces of his blessed Spirit.

And the adversary could never have gained this point upon them, (which is the heart of Christianity,) if he had not first disarmed them of the assistance of the holy scriptures, (wherein this is so mainly and frequently insisted upon,) by persuading them to take their own light within for the infallible rule instead of the other.

And the Devil cannot keep his hold much longer than we shall return to the scriptures, and submit to them as our rule; which we may perceive by this, that no other sect amongst us has run into this excess of throwing off the humanity of Christ but the Quakers, because no other has undervalued the scriptures so much as they. What other sort of men, that call themselves Christians, have abused the scriptures by the contemptible names of beastly ware, dust, death, serpents' meat, &c. but the Quak ers? If they say that this was only meant of the letter, that is sufficiently answered before. But I have now to ask them, whether the letter of their writings be not as beastly ware, &c. as the letter of the scripture? And then, why they do not give the same epithets to their writings? No, no, let them not dissemble the matter; they know very well that the giving of vile and contemptible names to any writing, can be for no other end but to render the contents of such writing, not the letter, ink, or the paper, vile and contemptible. And this is the rea son that they have taken such care to secure the honour of their own writings, not only from such vile names as they bestow upon the holy scriptures, but even from such names as are honourable and of the highest estimation among human writings; such as canons for the laws of the church, and edicts for the laws of emperors and temporal government: but these the Quakers think too mean and contemptible names for their writings; they will have them no thing less than the immediate commands of God himself; and as to themselves, they scorn the titles of elders, popes, and bishops, or that their meet ings should be called by such contemptible names as courts, sessions, or synods. Hear the order of their yearly meeting at London for the year 1675, in the following words: It is our sense, advice, admonition, and judgment, in the fear of God, and the authority of his power and Spirit, to friends and brethren in their several meetings, that no such slight and contemptible names and expressions, as calling men's and women's meet ings, courts, sessions, or synods, that faithful friends' papers, which we testify have been given forth by the Spirit and power of God, are men's edicts, or canons, elders in the service of the church, popes, and bishops, with such scornful sayings, be permitted among them; but let God's power be set upon the top of that unsavoury spi rit that uses them, &c.

Here you see that the world has no language or titles good enough for the Quakers, nor for their writings; edicts or canons are too slight and con temptible! popes and bishops are scornful sayings to them | But while they thus vindicate their own honour, and the no less than divine authority of their writings, at this sublime rate, they take upon them to vilify the holy scriptures of God in the most opprobrious and disgraceful terms. You must not call their writings by such slight and con temptible names as canons, or edicts of men; but you may call the holy scriptures by the not only much more contemptible names of dust and beastly ware, but the cursed appellations of carnal, death, and the meat of the serpent, that is, the Devil.

Now which of these several treatments do testify the greatest respect, and whether their veneration does hereby appear more to the holy scriptures, or to their own writings, I leave it, without more argument, to the reader, maugre their thin and hypo critical distinction of the letter.

It is plain they never gave the scriptures a good word, but merely for popularity, when forced to it, to avoid the odium of the world; and therefore, since the year 1660, when the restoration of the church and her liturgy brought the holy scriptures again into request, the Quakers have been more pharisaically civil towards them, and, upon some turns, will bestow upon them the epithet of holy, because it is so common in the mouths of other men.

But in all their preachings and writings before 1660, wherever they had occasion to name the holy scriptures, they seldom or never gave them that epithet of holy, or sacred, but plain scriptures at best; though most commonly they did not let them pass without some of their sweet appellations be foretold of, beastly ware, serpents’ meat, death, and carnal, to beget the greater reverence for them in the people.

And it is desired, to confute this observation, that they would give us what citations they can (they will not be many) out of all their books, which were wrote before 1660, (and they are very numerous,) which name the scriptures with the appellation of holy or sacred, or indeed with any sort of respect; especially let them quote Fox, Burroughs, Howgil, or some of their principal pillars.

But indeed none ever have so contemned and vilified the holy scriptures as they have done.

One of their mighty prophets, (before and hereaf termentioned,) SolomonEccles, came into the church of Aldermanbury in London, in the time of divine service, all naked, besmeared up to the elbows with excrements; and other Quakers did justify this beast, and said, that he might as well come into the church with that filth in his hands, as the minister with a Bible: and he was, after this, very dear to G. Fox, and the companion of his travels.

Upon the 10th of August, 1681, at the Quaker meeting-house in Gracechurch-street, one, who had a greater reverence for the holy scriptures than the rest, brought a Bible with him; and before the meeting was gathered, or their preachers come, (so that it was no disturbance to their public service,) he, being in the gallery, read part of a chapter; it was the 14th of St. Luke, so nothing particular to the Quakers, that they could take notice of; but it was the Bible! and that was a sight not used to be seen there, much less to hear it read: which so moved their indignation, that one of the chief of them snatched the Bible out of his hand, and (not withstanding all their meekness) thrust him (an an cient and grave man) all along the gallery, down several steps. Richard Smith was present and did attest it.

But that this may not seem strange to the reader, he must know that there never was, from their first appearing in the world, one chapter of the holy scriptures read in any of their meetings; though many of their own epistles have been frequently, and enjoined there to be read: but they lead them from the scriptures, as from a dead letter, which is hurtful and pernicious, and that they should mind only their own light within, that is, to follow their own imaginations.

But would not that argument, of minding only their own light within, conclude as much against reading the letter of the Quaker writings?

O, no, that was far from their meaning; for, having thus taken the people off from reading or minding the holy scriptures, the fetch which the Devil had in this, was to substitute the rankest poi son in lieu of that heavenly manna, the scriptures of God: and therefore this grand deceiver possessed the Quakers with that nonsense as well as blas phemy, that when, upon pretence of the light with in, he had drawn them away from reading the scriptures, yet, upon the same argument, he made them zealous for the reading and studying of their own writings; as if the pretended sufficiency of their light within were not as much overthrown by the one as by the other. But this plainly discovers their preference of their own writings to the holy scriptures; that, while they rejected the scriptures as not necessary to the guidance or direction of their light within, they at the same time enjoined, under the severest penalties, even of rejecting the authority of God himself, not only the private studying, but the public reading of their own writings in their meetings. Thus their great Fox commands; This is the word of the Lord, says he. I charge you, in the presence of the Lord God, to send this (epistle) amongst all friends and brethren every where, to be read in all meetings. To them all this is the word of God, &c. Yet he calls it blas phemy to say the holy scriptures are the word of God, as before shewn. And George Whitehead, in what he calls An Epistle for the Remnant of Friends, concludes thus: Let this (epistle) be read distinctly in the life and authority of God, from whence it came, amongst friends in and about London, and elsewhere, &c.

Now I do desire G. Whitehead to produce out of any of his, or all of their writings, such an advice or encouragement as this for reading the holy scrip tures; or to tell us whether they ever yet endured so much as one chapter of them to be read upon any occasion whatsoever, in any of their meetings; and then, whether it be not a plain consequence, that they do prefer their own writings (which they so strictly enjoin to be read) to the holy scriptures, which they not only not enjoin or command, but never so much as advise or recommend to be read: but, on the contrary, they give all the threatening discouragements that can be to deter any from reading of them, calling them carnal and death, as be fore is told.

But to come to further evidence, and give you even a judicial determination of the Quakers assem bled in their public meeting, when they durst speak out against the scriptures, about the year 1658, this cause was brought before them, and solemn judg ment given: for then it was that Thomas Padle ac cused John Chandler (both of Southwark, Quakers) at a meeting of the Quakers at the Bull and Mouth, up one pair of stairs. I give it thus particularly, that the friends may not pretend ignorance, and because I have eye and ear-witness to produce, if it be in the least disputed, that then and there the said John Chandler was accused by the said Thomas Padle, for saying, that he preferred the scriptures before the friends' books; which accusation John Chandler did not deny, (he was something of a scholar, beyond the common Quaker level,) but be ing reproved for it by the meeting, he said in ex cuse, that it was in dispute with some opposers, and that the people urged him to it. And some of those who were present at that meeting do very well remember, that one principal reason they gave for the preference of their own books to the scrip tures, was, that though the people had had the scriptures many years, yet they had not converted so many to the truth as their books had done.

Edward Burroughs, p. 47 of his works, deter mines clearly, that the scriptures are not now of any authority at all to us at this day. Why? be cause they were commands given to others, and not to us. For example, that the Epistles to the Co rinthians bound no other church; that to the Galatians had respect only to those of Galatia; and so of all the rest; and that the old prophets were only to be hearkened to at that time by those particular people or nations to whom they then directed their prophecies. For it being objected that the Quakers held this pernicious principle, that the saints were not to do duties by or from a command without, but from a command within; and that the word command in scripture was not a command to them, till they had the word within them; Burroughs owns and justifies it. I answer, says he, that is no command from God to me which he com mands to another; neither did any of the saints, which we read of in scripture, act by the com mand which was to another, not having the com mand to themselves; I challenge an example of it; they obeyed every one their own command; and thou, or any other, who goes to duty, as you call it, by imitation from the letter without, which was commands to others—your sacrifice is not ac cepted, but is abomination to the Lord, &c.

Here it is made abomination to the Lord to obey the command of scripture, or to live by imitation (as he calls it) from the letter; that is, not to follow our own imaginations without the con trol of scripture, or any other law.

This is the same principle which is before related from Mr. Penn, and almost in the same words, that what was a command of God in old time (that is, in the scriptures) is not so to us, unless re quired by the same Spirit anew. Here the whole authority of scripture is at one blow cut down; for no command in scripture is by this rule obliga tory, unless it be commanded anew by the Quaker light within, (that is, by every man's roving ima gination,) and if it be commanded by their light within, then they think that it is dictated by the same Spirit which gave forth the scriptures of old, and upon that account only that it is obligatory; but not because it is contained in scripture, which was only a command to those in former ages, but not to us, who have another rule given unto us anew, that is, our own light within: so that the scriptures are by this as much outdated as an old almanack; and we must no longer search the scrip tures; we must not live so much as by imitation of what we find there. Burroughs says, it is abomination to the Lord.

And therefore it was no strange thing to hear George Whitehead, in his Serious Apology, p. 49, prefer not only their writings, but their extempore preachments, and even all whatsoever they speak, upon any account, to the holy scriptures themselves.

The question demanded was this; Do you esteem your speakings to be of as great authority as any chapter in the Bible? And his answer is in these words; That which is spoken by the Spirit of truth in any, is of as great authority as the scrip tures and chapters are, and greater.

And therefore, though they have let no supposed contempt of their own books go unrebuked, (as in the instance before of Chandler,) yet we never heard of any censure they have passed upon those many much grosser contempts of scripture, which daily are found among them; particularly (that we may always name some instance) of Mary Tucker, a Quaker servant to William Reyman, a barber, now living in Queen-street, Cheapside, but formerly in Bread-street, where this Mary, then his servant, took the Bible, and in the open day publicly burnt it against the church in Bread-street, to shew her zeal.

Pursuant to this their principle, in their disputes among themselves, they appeal to their own writ ings, instead of the holy scriptures. Thus when in their public meeting at Philadelphia, upon Sun day, December 11, 1692, G. Keith was accused of heresy, in saying, ⁸that the light within was not sufficient to salvation without something else, i. e. Christ Jesus, as without us; and that G. Keith desired to have that pretended heresy proved against him by scripture; it was replied by Sam. Jennings, as the mouth of the meeting, We are not to prove it from scripture, but from friends' books; for the question betwixt us and George Keith is not who is the best Christian, but who is the best Quaker. And, according to their rule, they pro duced, instead of scripture, a citation out of Mr. Penn's part of the Christian Quaker against G. Keith, to prove him an heretic. Mr. Penn's words were these: The talent is in itself sufficient. And so G. Keith was damned as an heretic for saying, that the light within was not sufficient without something else; ut supra.

It was two years before this, when Thomas Fitz water, (before mentioned,) another Quaker preacher at Philadelphia, being asked how he liked G. Keith's doctrine? said, Not at all; for that he was building up what they (the Quakers) had been throwing down these forty years, to bring people back to the scriptures, and the professors of Christ.

---

1. Great Myst. p. 302  ↩︎

2. Some of the Quakers' Principles, &c. P.4.  ↩︎

3. Reason against Railing, 1673. P. 150 art. 21.  ↩︎

4. Great Myst. P. 77.  ↩︎

5. Some of the Quaker Principles, p. 8.  ↩︎

6. T.C.'s Animadversions upon G.W.'s Innocency Triumphant, p. 16 and 30.  ↩︎

7. Some of the Quakers' Principles sect. 10.  ↩︎

8. See Heresy and Hatred, before quotes, p. 1.  ↩︎