The Foundation of God Standeth Sure, Chapter 10
CHAP. X. The Call, and Exhortation.
HAving asserted and proved the three great Doctrines of the Trinity, Satisfaction, and Iustification, denyed by W. P. I shall further add by way of premise to the Call and Exhortation (what was before intimated) that these three are great Fundamental Truths of the Christian Religion, necessary to be believed in order to Salvation; the unbelief and denyal of which, will bring unavoidable damnation.
1. The Doctrine of the Trinity of distinct Persons in the Unity of the Divine Essence is a Fundamental Truth, because the Godhead in the three persons is the proper object of saving Faith and right Worship, and those that do not savingly believe, and rightly worship God, cannot possibly be saved; besides, the denyal of the three distinct persons in the Godhead, doth necessarily inferr the denyal of the co-eternal co-essential Deity of the Son and Holy Ghost, which is Blasphemy and damnable Heresie, so accounted by the most ancient and authentique Councils, and by the true Church of God in all Ages.
II. The Doctrine of Christ's Satisfaction and Justification by his imputed Righteousness, are Fundamental Truths also, without which there can be no Redemption, Reconciliation, Remission, and consequently no Salvation.
This being premised, I shall now apply my self first to the Quakers, and then to others.
To W. P. and other Quakers who believe these and other Quaker damnable errors, I shall propound these four Queries, which I shall answer according to truth.
Que. 1. Do you know what you are?
1. You are strangers to Christ, (whatever your fancy be of Christ within you) and I am confident that none of you all that believe these errors, have had experience of the new birth and forming of Christs image upon your hearts, since there never is a work of regeneration and uniting the souls of any to Christ, that leaveth them in such darkness and error, as you are left and bound up in: No, had you been ever truly regenerated, you would have been humbled and emptied of your selves, you would have seen your selves lost in your selves, and your need of Christs satisfaction and imputed Righteousness, without which you would have been assured that there is no possibility Gods anger should be appeased, and your souls saved; It is not turning Quaker, that is turning from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to Christ: but on the contrary it is a turning from light to darkness, and from Christ to Satan, and what will be the issue hereof? not remission of sins and salvation, but the fastening of guilt upon you, and eternal destruction.
2. You are enemies to Christ; and I believe that Jesus Christ hath scarcely greater enemies under the Sun than you▪ who are greater enemies to Christ, than those who deny his eternal Deity? (as I have proved to be the plain consequence of W. P's words, and of the denial of the Trinity) who are greater enemies to Christ, than those that deny his Satisfaction and Justification by his merrits? who are greater enemies to Christ, than those that oppose his faithful Ministers and Embassadors, and that lye in wait to deceive and mislead Christians? you are enemies to his truths, and ways, and ordinances, and cause, and interest, and Ministers, and true Disciples; and all this with Christ in your mouths, and I am confident the Lord doth hate and abhor you for such hypocrisy.
3. You are Children of the Devil; and the works of your Father you do, and will do; you are his more close and subtle agents, that in a seeming more refined way, do all you can to enlarge the bounds of his Kingdom; and like Satan when the Sons and Daughters of God assemble themselves to worship their Father, some of you will appear amongst them to disturb them; I wonder how you can have the face to pretend Religion, when it is so apparent that you are more than ordinarily acted by the Devil to oppose it.
4. You are Serpents and a generation of Vipers, full of deadly poyson, poyson in the head, the poyson of damnable errours, from whence poyson doth drop forth at your lipps and into your pens; you are Serpents putting forth your stings where ever you come, hissing at all those who are not of your brood: If our Saviour were on Earth to preach to you as he did to the Pharisees, he would with as great reason thus stile you, as he did them.
Que: II. Do you know where you are?
1. You are in the Devils School; he is training you up in some of the deepest mysteries of his Kingdom; some amongst you are but raw Scholars, and in the lower form, but you that I speak to are arrived to some proficiency, and are well instructed in some of the chief principles of the Devils Catechism, so that you are able also to instruct others in the Devilish Doctrines you have learnt of him. Your master is a lyer from the beginning, and the Father of lyes, and you have learnt and believed some of his lyes, as if they were certain truths.
2. You are in the Devils arms; he huggeth you so fast, that it is more difficult to pluck you from thence than the most wicked and profane.
3. You are in the Devils chains, whereby he is leading you captive at his will, they are chains of darkness and errour, which he hath upon you, whereby he is dragging you towards the regions of eternal darkness
Que: III. Do you know what you are doing?
1. You are dishonouring God; in dishonouring the Son, you dishonour the Father, in reproaching Gods Embassadours, you reproach the King that sent them; you are spots, and blemishes to Religion, and render it ridiculous to the prophane world.
2. You are murdering your own Souls, embruing your hands in your own blood, you are poysoning, wounding, killing your selves; and you are some of the greatest soul-murderers of others, of any that live upon the Earth.
Que. IV. Do you know whether you are going?
You are going the certain way to Hell; your way is not in the common rodewith others, but it is a by-way and dark path, in which you often stumble and fall, and at length it will meet with the great rode of the world, at the Gate of Hell, in which you will as certainly enter at last, if you go on in this path, as Cain and Iudas, that are there already. And here I might sound a peal of Judgement in your ears, and forewarn you of the wrath to come (to escape which, one day, you would give ten thousand worlds for an interest in Christs Satisfaction and imputed Righteousness, when it will be too late,) but for the present most of you are Judgement-proof and Sermon-proof; and so prejudiced against us Ministers, who are employed as Watch-men by the Lord, to forewarn the people of their danger) that our reproofsand warnings are rejected, and railing language is the return of our admonitions.
Yet in the name of the Eternal and Living God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, whose I am, and whom I serve in the work of the Ministry, I call upon you that are eluded by the Quakers, and have not as yet sucked in all their poysonous principles, which they have cunningly concealed from you, but now have made manifest to the world, that without any further delay, you would come out from amongst them, and seperate your selves; that you would save your selves from this untoward generation; that you would deliver your selves as a bird out of the snare of the fowler, and as a Roe out of the hand of the hunter, praying to the Lord to grant you repentance, (for going amongst them) unto the acknowledgement of his truths (which they deny) and that you may be recovered out of the snare of the Devil, who hath hitherto led you captive; considering that if you go in this way, your steps will certainly take hold on Hell; O then hasten, hasten, poor captiv'd deluded Souls! hasten for the Lords sake, for your poor souls sake, hasten from these Soul-murderers unto the Lord Jesus the Soul-Savior, and into the ways of life and salvation, which he hath prescribed in his word.
Lastly, I shall in a word bend my speech unto all (as yet undeluded) Christians, by way of exhortation to stedfastness in the truths and way of the Lord, and as they desire their salvation to beware of the Quakers damnable Doctrines. There are two ways, whereby God doth try his people, the one is by persecution, and other is by heresie, and the Apostle telleth us, 1 Co. 11. 19. that it is necessary heresies should, arise that they which are approved might be made manifest; this later way doth sometimes discover more unsound Professours than the former; the approved and elect of God I am sure will stand, and if any go out from us, it is a sign they were not of us, for if they had been of us, no doubt they would still have continued with us, 1 Ioh. 2. 19. And here I shall again repeat what I did before assert, that it were better for you to drink a cup of poyson, than to suck in the Quakers damnable opinions; Take heed of this infection which is worse than poyson and plague, more dangerous and destructive. For this end labour to get on the girdle of truth, let the truths of the word be fastned about the loyns of your minds, that is, get the principles of Religion fixed in you; which that they may, mingle them with faith and love, and live under the powerful influence of them: And that you may be the further off from danger, avoid the Company and Meetings of the Quakers, (lest coming thither out of novelty, being out of Gods way, you be left by God, and as too many have been, you be caught by the Devil in the snares which there he layeth) and come not neer the Tents of these enemies of Jesus Christ, lest you be swallowed up in the same ruine which is coming upon them. If you would save your selves from their plagues, you must keep your selves out of their ways. I shall shut up all with the exhortation of the Apostle Peter, having told believers of the unlearned and unstable, who did wrest the Scriptures to their own destruction (as do the Quakers,) he exhorteth them, 2 Epist. 3. cap. 17. 18. v. Yee, therefore beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also being lead away with the errour of the wicked fall from your own stedfastnesse; but grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Iesus Christ; Now to God the Father, to God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, be glory and honour, both now and for ever. Amen.
FINIS.
ERRATA.
THe speeding of the sheets off the Presses, hath caused too many both literal Errata's and in the sence too, the chiefest found out in a hasty reveiw you have as follow, and are desired to mend.
Page 9 line 21 read destruction, p. 11. l. 25 read own, p. 15 l. 11. read understands, p. 16 l. 30 r. redicule, l. 32 r. heart, p. 17 l. 24 foreign, p. 18 l. 8. foreign l. 12 Iob 35. 10. l. 2 my l. 14 for my r. thy, l. 18 r. for 18, 28 p. 20 l. 3 for the r. three l. 10 after substances, adde therefore the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are three distinct substances, or three distinct nothings, p. 23 l. 27 blot out, W. P. required his presence else where, p. 27 l. 18. blot out Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, p. 28 l. 17 r. blasphemer, p. 34 l. 28 r. Three, p. 35 l. 33 r. their, p. 40 l. 6 r. foreign l. 23 r. true, where ever you find subsistance read subsistence, p. 42. r. foolish l. last, r. reasonings, p. 45 l. 15 r. there p. 48 l. 18 r. W. P's. p. 51 l. last r. foreign p. 52 l. 1 r. foreign l. 12 r. foreign l. 17 r. Praxean l. 28 for thee r. the p. 53 l. 8 r. foreign l. 34 r. arguments p. 54 l. 27 r. much concern my self. l. 29 r. but chiefly, p. 55 l. 2 r. peccatum, l. 7 r. when ye have &c. p. 56 l. last r. to give, p. 59 l. 31 r. out of.
End of the text · Thomas Vincent, The Foundation of God Standeth Sure (1668)