find them, and in my next confider them particularly as they lie.

PART II.

In answer to the Athenian Mercury of the 11th of the fourth month called June.

You

OU were certainly very much in hafte, when you poured out fuch a mouthful of charges upon a poor people, that one half of them, made good, muft needs lay them as low as you with: but they that count fo quick, ufually reckon without their host, and must count again; as indeed you do; for, in an after Mercury, you retract fome of your charges; which fhews, by the way, you went without book in making them. To fpare you, and fave paper, we will not repeat them here together, but as we answer them; for they are both foul and fully given.

Your first charge is, We fpeak contemptibly of 'the bible:' but we hope not. Your affumption has four parts of proof. 1. We own it not,' you say,

as an adequate rule of faith and manners.' For this you cite R. B's Apology, page 25, & 43. And what you cite is true; but you cite not all, and so leave what you cite more open to exception, which is by no means fair. Love but truth and ingenuity more than you love your own credit, or flight ours, and we fhall not doubt the iffue, even in your own thoughts. R. B. tells you wherein the fcripture is not a rule in all cafes and circumstances, viz. It was not Paul's to go to Jerufalem, to be fhut up there, rather than go back to preach to the churches in Greece: nor 'the rule of Paul's call, nor of any minifter of Chrift to the miniftry; nor with reference to their going to this or that nation to preach the gospel, rather than 'any others.' It is not a rule to prophesy, as to when or what, at one time or place, more than another; for though it fays, 1 Cor. xiv. "That all may pro

"phefy

phefy one after another, as it is revealed to them,” which authorizes the practice; yet it is not the rule of those motions of the fpirit; neither to the party moved to speak, nor to thofe that hear to judge aright: for no fcripture can tell me if I am moved by the fpirit of God, or my own fpirit, or a transformed spirit; nor can those that hear, judge of it, but by the fpirit of truth. So that though the fcripture be a rule of words, it is the Spirit only that is a rule to mens fpirits concerning the rife of true prophecy in any. Again; by what chapter or verfe can you tell you are believers? For though there are divers can tell what a believer is, yet how do you know that you are fuch? By what rule do you apply fcripture; nay, by what rule do you believe fcripture? For the fcripture cannot be the rule of your belief of itself: and therefore it is, that R. B. in our name, fays, They are not the principal ground of all truth and knowledge, nor yet the primary adequate rule of faith and manners: but,' fays he, being a faithful teftimony of the first foundation, they may be well efteemed a fecondary • rule, and fubordinate to the spirit, from whence they have their excellency and certainty,' p. 38. And can you call this contemning of the fcriptures, without fpeaking contemptibly of the holy spirit that gave them forth? He argues thus: If the fpirit only give ⚫ the knowledge of God, and by the fpirit we be to ⚫ be led into all truth; then the fpirit, and not the fcripture, is the foundation of all truth, and the primary rule: but the firft is true; therefore alfo the laft. Again, That which is not the rule of faith to believe the fcriptures, is not the primary adequate rule of faith and manners: but the fcripture is not, nor cannot be, that rule; therefore; &c. p. 38. 41, 42. You fhew yourfelves too mercurial, and ride poft over our arguments, leaving them and the matter behind you. The fcripture you oppofe to all this, 1 Tim. iii. 17. and which is all you anfwer, (and enough too, were it but to your purpofe) proves only, That all fcripture by infpira

tion from God is profitable;' but it does not say, it is fufficient of itfelf for the accomplishing of the man of God to every good work: fo is preaching, praying, and meditating profitable; but it does not fay, that it is the fountain of all true knowledge, and the only rule of Chriftians, or a rule in all particular cafes that may occur to men: and it is plain the apoftle referred to the care of a paftor, and to all párticular occafions. Lefs does he fay, that the Spirit is not the rule of Chriftians; and if it be a rule at all, it cannot be a fubordinate one to the fcriptures that came from it: no doubt but they are profitable, very profitable; and bleffed be God for them; but muft we contemn them, unless we prefer them to the Spirit

God? The great and most excellent rule of Christians, John xiv. 26. "The comforter fhall teach you "all things." Ch. xvi. 13. "The spirit of truth will "guide you into all truth." The apostle commended the church to the "Word of God's grace," which is inward, Acts xx. 32. See 1 Cor. ii. 9, 10, 11, 12. which place attributes all divine knowledge to the Spirit of God, its fearchings and revelations. Again, Tit. ii. 11, 12. & 1 John ii. 20, 21. "Ye have an "unction from the Holy One, and ye know all "things. It abideth in you; and ye need not that "any man teach you, but as the fame anointing

teacheth you all things, and is truth and is no lie " and even as he hath taught you, ye fhall abide in " him." We will clofe with the words of Christ, whom all are to hear and prefer, John v. 37, 40. "Search the fcriptures (or, ye fearch the fcriptures) "for in them ye think ye have eternal life; and they "are they which teftify of me. And (for all that)

ye will not come unto me, that ye may have life." A most severe rebuke to the better Jews of his time; and as great a one to the Chriftians of that stamp now. They valued the fcriptures, but undervalued the Meffiah when he came, whom, from fcripture, they looked for: what blindness was theirs, that knew him not by fo many marks as they gave of him, but turned the fcripture against him, that teftified VOL. IV.

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of him? This is the cafe of our oppofers with us at this day they oppofe the fcriptures to Christ the Word, that fhines in the heart, and will not come to him, the quickening fpirit, in themselves, that they might have life; but think, by them, to have eternal life, and they are they that teftify of him. "Know

"ye not your ownfelves," fays the apoftle, "how "that Jefus Chrift is in you, except ye be repro"bates?" 2 Cor. xiii. 5.

This is the doctrine that is our crime, our enthusiasm, our error; and we are feducers, deceivers, and what not, for afferting, recommending and preffing it. But if this be to be vile, we are like to be more vile; for we muft bear witness to that which the fcripture testifies of, viz. the fpirit, and prefer it before the fcripture, when the fcripture does fo to itself. No man's letter is HIMSELF, nor fo noble as himself. The fcripture is as the letter or epiftle of the Holy Ghoft to men; but for that reafon it is not the Holy Ghoft, nor to be intead of the Holy Ghoft to us; nor, to be fure, to be preferred before the Holy Ghoft. We blefs God for the fcriptures; we read them with comfort and advantage; and they are profitable to the perfecting of the man of God, through the affiftance of the fpirit: the fcriptures declare the things of God; but cannot work them in the man; the fpirit only can do that; for which cause we honour, exalt and prefer the spirit, as that which fulfils the fcripture, and invite all to receive it, that it may make people fpiritual; for, "to be fpiritually minded is life and peace." Wherefore, as often as any of our expreffions are construed to leffen the holy fcriptures, we afk it as a piece of justice from all our readers, to take this caution with them, we fpeak comparatively, not with our books, or with men, but with Chrift, his light and spirit, from whence the fcriptures came. And in this fenfe it is that R. B. and others, on the like occafion, express themselves, when fuppofed to abate of the common opinion of the fcriptures. For as face anfwers face in a glafs, fo we fay, and know, the spirit and fcripture anfwer each other. And therefore the comfortable

evidence

evidence of a Chriftian man, is the Teftimony of the fpirit of God within him, and the fcriptures of truth without him.' Let it not then be any more a fault in us to direct people to the fpirit of God, by which only they can come to the poffeffion of the good things the fcriptures fpeak of; for though they exhort, rebuke, inftruct, &c. yet without that great agent, the spirit, influencing and enabling the creature, he fhall never experience the truth of the fcriptures to himself in the moft relative and excellent parts of them.

2. The fecond part of your affumption is, That we deny the fcriptures to be neceffary;' for which you cité S. Fisher, Ruft. p. 112. and R. B. Ap. p. 68. It looks grofs, as you lay it down; but pray take it all together: they cannot be abfolutely neceffary to falvation, where God has not made it neceffary that they fhould be at all; for then that would be neceffary which is not; and people for ever miferable, for want of that which is not their fault that they have not. Again; it is allowed among Proteftants, that where the fcriptures or facraments are withheld from people, (as under confinement, or providentially in infidel countries) there an upright defire or intention anfwers and fupplies that want; then they are not abfolutely neceffary: fo every-where, by confequence, where they cannot be had, they cannot be abfolutely neceffary to falvation. This is not to render the fcriptures useless or needlefs, or to raise an indifferency to them where they are enjoyed; by no means ; they are a great bleffing, and, as fuch, to be highly prized; and no man, that has any fear of God, or the leaft taste of his goodnefs, but must be of that mind; but to vindicate God's mercy and goodness from leaving fo great a part of the world without the means of falvation, as they must be that want the fcriptures, if they are abfolutely neceffary to falvation. To end this head, confider, ift, How long the world was without them. 2dly, How few and particular the first books were: and, at laft, in how narrow a compass all the Old Testament writings lay, compared

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