of letters. Both the new and old philofophy muft be strangers to you; and, which is worfe, you are fo to the Bible. Wash your eyes, therefore, I pray, and turn to John vi. from 48 to 63, and tell us, if you will, or can, Who is the living bread there that comes down from heaven; and what is that flesh and blood • Christians must feed upon if they would be faved?' Here is an immaterial fubftance or body for you, one of God's providing, which, you, in derifion, call “Pure "Quakerifm:" but very glad we are of it, and fhould. be more, that you were better acquainted with it. We pity your extreme ignorance of heavenly things; for nothing else could make you fo grofs, or abufive, upon fo effential a part of religion, and us for afferting it. Take not that strictly, which is spoken with conftruction; nor that properly or literally, which is figuratively and myftically expreffed, or to be understood, and we fhall neither appear fo monftrous, nor you fo much mistaken. You may wring as great inconfiftency out of fcripture as any other book, if you take that course to expound it. Be therefore just to ùs, and fhew you would inform us, or be informed by us, as fometimes you would have us to believe; but do not jeer at what you do not understand, nor charge what you do not know.

For your aggravation of the letter to G. F. and the confident conclufions you make of our idolatry, they are both untrue and abufive: it is not our principle, it was never our practice; abhorring utterly that extravagant as well as unchriftian imputation; no people or teftimony, fince the world began, laying men lower than we have done, even to a fault, in our adversaries apprehenfion. For we have not only opposed an idolatry to creatures or works of mens bands, which is the groffer fort, but that of the mind alfo: the worfhip men too generally, and too zealously, pay to their own imaginations, or the ideas they have framed to themselves of God and Chrift; and will, at any rate, make others do fo too, if they can. A refined idolatry too many are guilty of, that exclaim against the

other;

other; and very pernicious to the foul's true knowledge and enjoyment of God and Christ.

Your fifth charge is, That we deny the Trinity." But you should, in juftice, have added, of perfons, with all the fchool-niceties and diftinctions that belong to that fort of explication of fcripture; for to that only it is your first proof refers, viz. W. P's Sandy Foundation, p. 12. For the fcripture no-where calls God the Holy Three of Ifrael, but Holy One of Ifrael.* And if he had faid, imagined Trinity, p. 16, as you cite, which he does not, in the copy we have, it ought not to be fo heinous with you, fince three PERSONS are not to be found in the Bible, which you exalt for the only rule of faith. And if you will not allow that council to be infallible that formed that article above 300 years after Chrift's afcenfion, as to be fure you will not, I hope it must be their imagination of the text, if not a Divine infpiration. Your proof, 1 John v. 7. "There "are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, "the Word, and the Holy Ghoft, and thefe three

are one," will not fupport your charge, because it contains not the matter controverted in it, viz. Three PERSONS, for that is the point in controverfy. Let it fuffice, if you please, that we believe the fcripture, though we reject that interpretation; and that we own three witnesses, and that those three are one; without allowing the intricacy and confufion of the schools.

Your fecond proof is from Sweet Sips: but that is no Quaker's book, and fo no proof upon us. Be more cautious another time, and know better what you do.

Your fixth charge, That we hold, the foul fleeps," you yourselves retract, but would have it a fruit of your ingenuity; and because we would encourage a thing fo rare with you, we will at this time spare your difingenuity in making it. But, as if you were more troubled at our being clear than guilty, and at yourfelves for miffing the blow at us, than for abufing us; to recover that flip, and to make us amends, your ingenuous retractation ends in two other charges.

1. That

1. That we deny the refurrection of the body. 2. The diftinct existence of the foul after death.' Your proof for the firft is G. Whitehead's faying, That he did not believe his body fhould rife again after death: (but G. W. denies that to be his anfwer:) ¶ and William Penn's not denying it to John Faldo. Whereas they answer no otherwise than what the apostle faid to the Corinthians, "Thou foweft not that "body which fall be," 1 Cor. xv. 37. How is it then a crime, to deny your grofs conceit of the refurrection? For, in all fcriptural refpects, we reverently and joyfully own the refurrection, as we have good caufe to do, of all people. And if you believe, that death came by fin, that innocent, wife, and upright man, I. Pennington, 2 Prin. p. 34. was not out of the way; to fay, That what we loft in the first Adam ⚫ we regained in the fecond;' and the refurrection, to be fure, is not the leaft part; which is alone through him that was himself "the first-begotten from the dead.” And for Sweet Sips,' though none of ours, yet no proof for you; for the very quotation owns the resurrection. But curious queftions we avoid, and count them the foolish and unlearned ones that the apoftle forbad, 1 Tim. vi. 4, 5. 2 Tim. ii. 22, 23. being more folicitous that we appear accepted with God, than with what bodies we fhall appear.

2. That we deny the diftinct existence of the foul,' is as falfe as that we affert the foul fleeps; but, perhaps, you think that Sweet Sips will help you out, ch. 26. but for that very proof you owe us another retractation; and we wish you may do it more ingenu-. oufly than you did your last.

Your seventh charge is, "That we have been looked upon as fly-blows of the Jefuits.' If fo, upon what church, pray you, did they beget us? but out of the abundance of your hearts your mouths fpeak, and that foully, and falfly too, too often. But your proofs for this? Why, moft writers fay fo.' Do they fo? Where are they, pray? And for what reafons? But you fay not a word of that. This you cannot think a fruit

<

of

of your ingenuity.

But,' it feems, if we would perufe Ignatius's life, we fhould think him as arrant < a Quaker as William Penn himself.' So that while you take it ill of us to refer you, for our belief, to our own books, and do not write new ones to tell you our religion, you take upon you to fend us to other people's books to learn our own, and that with reflections alfo. In this, whatever you think, you are not over-modest or reasonable. But if INSIDE, be outfide; if SPIRIT, be forms; PLAINNESS, pomp; CONVICTION, implicit faith; and CHRIST's KINGDOM be of THIS world, you are in the right, or else you abuse us.

Your eighth charge makes us to deny the plenary • fatisfaction of Chrift, and to rest upon our own < merits.' It is fome comfort to us, that there is not one charge that is a text of fcripture, or delivered in fcripture-phrafe. Where do you find plenary fatisfaction in the bible? Or what do you mean by it? You, that would have it the only rule, fhould make it yours. You cite J. N's Love to the Loft, p. 7. his righteouf• nefs imputed, or put into the creature;' and this you fquib at; not confidering that Abraham was really righteous, when his faith was imputed, or accounted, to him for righteoufnefs; or you will charge the Holy Ghost with wrong reckonings. But any thing rather than have Chrift's righteousness within men. Pray read 1 Sam. xxii. 15. Pfal. xxxii. 2. and you will find impute, or imputeth, fo applied. Your fecond proof is R. B. p. (no where) faying, We are juftified by • Chrift formed in us.' And fo we are, in the complete fense of the word; for the word comprehends remiffion of fins that are past, upon repentance, and fanctification, or being made holy and juft inwardly. And, to be plain with you, we do believe, 1ft, "That Chrift died

for all, and is a propitiation for the fins of the "world," I John ii. 1, 2. 2dly, "That he was here" in the effect, rather that cause, of the Father's love;" as John iii. 16. & 1 John iv. 9, 10. "God fo loved "the world," &c. 3dly, That juftification, as taken for remiffion of fin, accounting penitents as just as if VOL. IV.

Hh

they

they had not finned, refers to Chrift as a propitiation. • He was our common offering for fin;' and as the word is taken for man's being made inherently just and holy, it refers to Christ as the fanctifier of his people; fo that it is Chrift ftill, every way, by which we hope for falvation. And for our works, even the best, such as James meant, James ii. they are rewardable, but not meritorious; because there is no proportion between the work and wages; for "the wages of fin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jefus "Christ our Lord," Rom. vi. 23.

Your ninth charge is, That we deny the divinity of Chrift,' (but your reafons fhame your charge); And this they do with a witness,' fay you, if they make him nothing but themselves.' But if we do not, what have you made of yourselves, think you? Who, of us, ever faid fo? Are we the " Light that "lighteth all that come into the world? Or did we make the world? Indeed you are very grofs. Your other proof is as lame; you fay, We deny him to be God;' but not a word of ours cited to that purpose; for we believe, that "Chrift was God manifefted in the flesh;" as John i. 14. 1 Tim. iii. 16.

Your tenth charge is antarctick to your ninth for now you say, We more plainly deny his humanity. Thus you make us fhift and take turns at faith, till you have left us none: but what are your proofs? G. F. Myft. p. 71. Chrift is not human: where doth the fcripture speak of human? We deny the word human.' But that all readers may deny you, till you deny yourselves the pleasure of abufing us, we will repeat the place as it lies.

Priest faith, Chrift's human nature,' &c.

G. Fox Anf. "Where doth the fcripture fpeak of "buman? The word human, where is it written? Tell "us, that we may fearch for it? Now we do not deny, "that Chrift, according to the flesh, was of Abraham, "but not the word human: and Chrift's nature is “not human, which is earthly, for that is the first

"Adam."