Little Flocks Guarded Against Grievous Wolves, Letter · Argument 4
The Fourth Argument.
A Person that shall expresly Renounce both the Religion and the Saviour which the Saints have hither to ventured their Souls upon, is one from whom all that are concerned for their Souls are to Turn away.
But such a Person is George Keith.
The People of New-England have generally hitherto received the same Gospel and the same Jesus which was Preached by the Apostle Paul; we can bring plain and full Testimony from the Inspired Writings of Paul, for what we hold, or else I dare promise, in the Name of my Country-men, we'l Renounce it; and therefore to us also are directed the awful words of Paul to the Galatians, There are some which Trouble you, and would pervert the Gospel of Christ; [There's a G. K. among them!] But though we, or an Angel from Heaven, Preach any other Gospel unto you, than that which we have Preached unto you, let him be Accursed. You shall hear presently, you shall see the Name of the poor man, whom the terrible Thunderbolt of this Curse, will fall upon. The words of George Keith in pag. 172, 173. of the Book we have so often quoted, are, The Religion ye profess is not the true Religion,—in the very foundation it self, which is Christ Jesus. Now there is no sense in these words, if he do not mean, That ours is not the true Christ Jesus. And therefore, when we did in our Printed Answer, make this Descant upon it; George Keith bids the world to take notice, that he utterly Renounceth the Religion we profess, even in the very Foundation of it, which is JESƲS CHRIST; I cannot find that in his Printed Reply, he has at all disclaimed the Censure which we have pass'd upon him. As for us, Our Blessed Lord Jesus Christ is, The Eternal Son of God, who became a Man, by taking to Himself an Humane, but sinless Body and Spirit, being Conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost in the Virgin Mary; and so was and continues to be God and Man, in two Distinct Natures, and one person for ever. Never was any sinner saved but by This Glorious Mediator; 'tis He, whom all the Saints of God have hitherto trusted with all the Important and Eternal Concerns of their Never-dying Souls. But it seems, Keith does Renounce this JESUS CHRIST, in the close of all his Writings, notwithstanding the, Hail Master! which he had before treated our Lord withal. He has Another Jesus Christ, for you, ye People of New-England; and will you Hear such a Man, any more than you would a Turk or a Jew, holding forth among you? or will you not rather satisfie your selves, as Peter did, There is no other Name, whereby we may be Saved?
You'l be desirous to understand, What CHRIST it is, that Keith is a Disciple of? inasmuch as in some of his Confessions, he seems to fall down before our Lord, and say, Jesus of Nazareth, I know thee, who thou art, The Holy One of God. Now, I know no better way to guess at his meaning, than to repair unto the Writings of the Quakers that have gone before him; doubtless, it is their CHRIST, that he is a Believer in, or else they are the most unhappy of all Wanderers, while they suffer him to lead them. It was an Expression among the Printed Questions of that famous Queker Pennington, We can never call the Bodily Garment, Christ, but that which appeared and dwelt in the Body. The Quakers in Pennington's Days owned, That there was such a man, as Jesus the Son of Mary, and that God, or rather Christ, was in him. But all this is no more than they profess'd also of Themselves; and therefore Pennington also says, That which he took on him, was our Garment, even the Flesh and Blood of our Nature; which is of an Earthly perishing Nature; but He is of an Heavenly Nature, and his Flesh and Blood, and Bones are of his Nature. In short, I cannot express the Mystery of their CHRIST, in better Terms, than Mr. Faldo has done it for them; There was an Heavenly, Spiritual, Divine Body Constituted of Flesh, Blood and Bones, in which Christ came from Heaven; and he put that Body, into the other Body of our Nature, which He took of the Virgin; and that outermost Body, He lest behind, when He Ascended into Heaven, no-body knows where; and this Heavenly, Spiritual Body, is the Man Christ, which is in the Quakers; and so the Quakers are as compleat Christs, as ever the Son of Mary was; for they also have the Divine Nature of Christ, dwelling in a Body of Spiritual Flesh and Blood, and those their Bodies which we see, are but the outward Tabernacles of the God, and the Man Christ Jesus. It seems, that unto such a sense as this, you must accommodate all Keith's Confessions about the Man Christ Jesus. You must imagine, 'twas this more Spiritual Body, which was Crucify'd in that more gross Bodily Garment which was deriv'd from the Virgin Mary; and you must imagine that Body to be in every Body as in a Garment, Crucify'd over again; thus the whole Story of the Gospel is acted over again every day, as Literally as ever it was at Jerusalem of old; it is all transacted by unaccountable Dispensations within our selves; and Christ is in every Quaker, as properly as he was in that Garment of a man, which was hang'd upon the Tree; hence Keith Expounding that place in Jam. 5. 6. Ye have killed the just one, says, That as Christ Jesus in their Hearts, Him they Crucify'd; as Mr. Hicks quotes it, from Keith's Book Of Immediate Revelation. Behold, here's a Key, by which you may open the Hearts of such men as Keith, when they seem to confess, The Lord Jesus, whom God Raised from the Dead. Let Keith tell us honestly, whether he does not count his own Body to be the Body of Christ, in the same sense that the Visible, Tangible Flesh which hung upon the Cross, was the Body of our Lord. Is it not a Declaration in the Quakers Catechism, We beleive that Christ doth offer up himself a Living Sacrifice to God IN us, by which the wrath of God is Appeased to us? And is not Mens Acquaintance with this Notion, called, The Discerning of the Lords Body, in the Writings of the Quakers? Here I suppose, this Christ, is that Light within, which the Quakers do so much magnify, omnify, Deify; 'tis to this, that we must repair for all our Light; and for the sake of this, we must have Penningtons Blessing upon us, My upright Desire to the Lord for you (says he) is, That he would strip you of your Knowledge of the Scripture according to the Flesh! though with my consent, we will sooner be stript of our SKIN, Yea, and our FLESH too, than of our Scripture. I must profess, I do not now wonder at what Mr. Hicks quotes as the Words of one Robert Wastfield, You are not able to bear what we have to hold forth concerning him; should we deliver what we hold concerning Jesus Christ, we should be stoned in the streets. Neighbours, I will animadvert no further upon these things; but say of them, as the worthy Mr. Faldo does, He that can digest such Fables as these, has a stomach hotter than an Ostrich! and add, That the Curse of the Lord Jesus belongs to the man that Propagates them, or Embraces them.