Twenty-One Divines Cleared, Treatise · Vindication 1 – Accusation 2
John Faldo's Vindication.
ALthough I knew your Accusations to be false at first view, yet I little expected so careless a management of them by you; for the more defective the cause it self is of honesty, the more need. it stands in of all other possible supports. But both in matter and manner you seem to be desperate. If it come to a Test, all your wit cannot make so bad a cause appear good: But if it never come to a tryal, it will pass, though in all respects very bad.
I consulted the Page and Book which your Quotation directed me to, but the words are not there. I examined both Impressions, and also my VINDICATION (supposing you might name one of my Books instead of another) and in page 45. of either of them, there are no such words. And indeed I know not where to find them; and it cannot be supposed that I have all I write by rote. 'Tis an ill Omen of your success, to have such a flaw in your first attempt; and I might very fairly on this ground (if I had been guilty) have given you the go-by, and yet stood rectus in curia. But Truth needs no such shifts; I therefore say I do believe, that (for the substance) there are those words in some one of my Books, and I suppose in my Vindication of Quakerism no Christianity.
For my Citation which you say is so inconsistent with those words, you direct your Reader to find it in your Answer, p. 42. which when look'd into, the Reader must seek somewhere else, or never find it. You direct also to your Rejoynder, p. 60, 61, 62. but you may assoon find it in your Almanack, as in any of these places, or in any of my Books: But had it been fair, if this troublesome fault had not been committed by you, to direct your Reader to your Books, and not my own, to see what I cited, and how consistent I was with my self? If my Arguments must be read with your Spectacles, to be sure they will be found very crack'd ones: And here as you have repeated my Citation, there is unpardonable Treachery.
After much search, I find the Citation not in any of my Books, but in a single open sheet, entituled, A CƲRB FOR WILL. PENN'S CONFIDENCE, p. 3. which it may be did so gall you, that you hated to repeat the very name of it. The Citation was of these words; Child. Then the Scriptures are to be owned and believed: (thus far you repeat my proof, but let drop …ith's …immer, 11.all these following words in the Question, which explains the Answer) as a true Testimony of what the Saints were partakers of in that day.
Is not here a large Thong cut out of my Argument, to make it too scanty for its end? What building can stand, if so much of the foundation be stoln away? But this only can do your work; and therefore you repeat the same crime in the Answer to this Question: Father. Yes, they are to be owned and believed; and they that do not so, are to be denied: (Here you stop, and leave out these words following) But thou must take heed Child of giving more unto the Scripture, than unto them belongs, lest in so doing, thou diminish from the glory of Christ; (i. e. The Light within) and give it to another. And if thou lookest upon the Scripture to be for a Rule, and for trying, thou givest that unto them, which belongs to Christ; for he is the Rule, and leads his people, and he alone searches the heart, and tries the reins, and not the Scriptures.
Now Mr. Penn, Whether are my Rationals, or your honesty of better proof? And to turn your Arrows upon your own head: Can any thing be more consistent? Is it this sort of proof which is to be condemned? It is this treacherous course you take to pervert persons into, and harden them in Infidelity. Moreover, these passages were not in the Book to which the Ministers affixt their Epistle; and therefore your Accusation is as impertinent as false.
Your passage of Smith's of the service the Scriptures are of unto those that have received the same spirit from whom they were given, is no more an Exhortation to read them, than it is to attend to an Ass, according to Naylor before cited: For by the same Spirit, you intend no other than that Inspiration of the Spirit, by which the Prophets and Apostles received them. And if any thing be so inspired, whether it be in the Scripture or not, 'tis all one.
William Penn's Accusation. 2.
MY second Instance shall be this, that he maketh W. Smith call the Scriptures Traditions of P's. Rebu. p. 18. Quaker no Christ. p. 117, 119.men, Earthly-root, Darkness, Confusion, Corruption, all out of the Life and Power of God; which he only ascribed to degenerated men, their Worship, Imaginations, and Traditions. Shall this be called a Proof? doubtless a proof of nothing, but that hateful sort of Perversion.