True Old Light Exalted Above Pretended New Light, Title page – Dedication
True Old Light EXALTED ABOVE Pretended NEW LIGHT OR TREATISE OF Jesus Christ, He is the Light which enlightens every one that comes into the world.
… the sense both of the Quakers, Arminians, and other Assertors of Universal Grace; whose Light is proved to be Darkness.
Delivered in Nine Sermons, by JOHN TOMBES, B. D. And commended to publick view By Mr Richard Baxter.
PSAL. 43. 3.
… thy light and thy truth, let them lead me, let them … to thy holy Hill, and to thy Tabernacle.
LONDON, by. A. M. for Thomas Underhill at the Sign of the Anchor and Bible in Pauls Church-yard, 1660.
To the Honourable Sr THOMAS WIDRINGTON Knight, Serjeant Teril, & Serjeant Fountain, Lords Commissioners of the Great Seale of ENGLAND.
THe incessant and importunate inculcation of this monition, by the miserably deluded Quakers [look to the light within you] not distinguishing but confounding it with Christ, giving thereby cause to conceive, that they acknowledg no other Christ as their Saviour, but such a fancied one, as they have imagined to be in them, being sadly resented by me, as causing one of the most pernicious Schismes of our dayes, in drawing many weak, though perhaps well meaning soules, to neglect Scriptures, Ministry of setled Teachers, Christian-Church-Communion (which tends to Atheisme, irreligion, and perdition) moved me at first to Preach, and since to compose for the Press these ensuing Sermons. In which I have endeavoured to shew Christ to be, and how he is the true universall lighting Light, and the insufficiency of that magnified Light in each, which those forenamed erring persons with the assertors of universall grace and selfedisposing freewill of man have avouched. It is charged hotly by many on those whom they term Anabaptists, though not rightly, as if they were Authors or Fautors of this delusion of (Quakers and much to that purpose was objected against my self by that Reverend Brother, whose Epistle is prefixed to these Sermons, in his Letter to me, which is Answered by me in the 63d. Section of the 3d. part of my Review intitled Antipoedo baptism) But I hope that by our Declaration Printed Decemb. 12. last (to which I find two Quakers have made injurious Answers) and by my Answer in that Section, together with the reading of these Sermons, the truth will be cleared, and my self with those other Brethren who joyned with me in that Declaration, will be discharged from those evill surmises and insinuations which heighten our devisions: for the taking away or lessening of which if I were offered upon the sacrifice and service of the faith of Gods Elect, I should count my self happy. The Author of the Epistle hereto annexed imputes the rise or spreading at least of the errors of Quakers, and divisions of the godly to a Popish Jesuiticall practice, for the undermining and ruine of the Churches of Christ in those Nations and this Commonwealth, and he feares nothing so much as a toleration of Popery in England, as the meanes to destroy the Protestant Churches now near an utter destruction by the union of Popish Princes and plots of Romishs Agents. I hope the Lord will not so desert the Parliament, your Honours, or any other of the assertors of our just Liberties, as to allow such a Liberty, as will bring the whole State and all the Churches of God into the servitude of the Roman man of sinne. We have had experience of their and Satans devices by them, their implacable hatred of all that Idolize not the Pope and a piece of Bread, to make us wary how we permit such Serpents to lye in our bosomes. Their activity, subtility, perfidiousness, cruelty beyond any sort of men, that ever yet appeared in the world, especially to really godly Persons, should alarm and awaken us to bethink our selves, afore it be too late, of preventing their intrenching among us. And sith Quakerism is but a posterne to let in Popery, which English Protestants would undoubtedly fight against to the death, if it marched under its own Colours and Leaders, it is necessary that such an eye be had on Quakers, as that the Preaching of the Gospell be not hindred by them, nor their growth such as may oppress those, whom they revile and hate without a cause. To shew the falsehood of the chief foundations of Popery the supposed Cathoticism of the Roman Church, the Supremacy of the Pope, and the truth of their unwritten traditions, I have written a Book now in Press, which hath an Epistle of the same Reverend Brother (whose Epistle is here Printed,) prefixed, by which appeares our union and concurrence in the common cause of Christ against oppugners of it. And having regard to your Honours, and the esteem which is due to you as being a constellation of the first magnitude in this our Commonwealth, I presume to offer this Writing to your Honours for your use, and to subscribe my selfe
Your Honours humble Servant in Christ John Tombes. Lemster in Hereford shire the 3d day of the last MonethMonth vulg. Febr. 1. 1659