the extraordinary revelation of the biftory of JESUS of Nazareth: in which refpect we confefs the fcriptures to be a fecondary rule, an historical rule, and a rule of the form of found words in dottrinal truths: but the first and great rule is the light and spirit of God; as that was the rule to them, by whom the scriptures were given forth, in their giving them forth: and we also affirm, The light and fpirit of God a rule to read and underftand the fcriptures by: and this was plainly feen in Chrift's time: for the Jews that rebelled against the light, had the veil over their understandings, fo that they could not fee his glory, but judged of him according to outward appearance, which was not righteous judgment; but those that loved the light in that day, the truly confcientious to God, they brought their deeds to the light: they knew him to be the Eternal Word, manifefted in the flesh, and thereby faw his inward glory to be that of "the only begotten of the Father, full of "Grace, and full of truth."

If he object, If all had this light, why did not all know him?' As, indeed, that is the weight of his objection, and other adverfaries oppofitions.

I anfwer; all have reafon, but all are not reafonable; all do not use it: fo all have light, but all do not obey it. It is not the light's infufficiency, but man's difobedience, that renders him uncapable of the knowledge of divine truth. Chrift told the Jews, "If you "do my will, you fhall know of my doctrine, whether "it be of God or no." Obeying the convictions, and firft motions, of this divine light, will increase our light and knowledge. Difobedience makes an unfruitful ground, though the feed be good that is fown in it: fo that the ignorance of those that have the light, is not chargeable upon the light, but their own darkness, which comprehends it not, through unbelief and difobedience. The fcriptures, then, are the rule to us of the biftory of Jefus of Nazareth, and neceffary to be believed where they are known; but the divine light and fpirit, the firft and great rule by which they are to be truly and

profitably

profitably read and believed; and without which Chrift could not have been favingly known when he was in the world; nor can he be known now, nor the fcriptures that declare of him: HE is the common rule to mankind, who by his light reveals common and effential truths, relating to the fear of God, and working of righteousness: and it will be hard for this man to name one nation or perfon in the world, that knows not the reproofs of this principle in evil-doing, and, in doing that which is right, has not a reference to the pleafing of Him, who is the great Rewarder and Preferver of men, notwithstanding his cavil to the contrary, pag. 12, 13. But I fhall attend his farther exceptions.

Pag. 13. They affirm the light within is Chrift: and I fay then, it is nothing elfe but Jefus of Nazareth. If they make the light within to be Christ, and not Jefus of Nazareth, they make it antichrift: and because they worship God in this appearance (as they speak) they are antichriftian idolaters.'

Anfwer. This way of arguing is very dark, as well as injurious. If by Jefus of Nazareth he only means what he took of the Virgin Mary, and will not confider him as the Eternal Word, but as man, like to us in all things, fin excepted, he is not the light within, that we declare of, and worship God in.

But this author, at the fame time, declares not to believe that Chrift is the Eternal Word, for he seems to deny his pre-existence; much more, that the world, and all that is therein, was made by him. And how orthodox that is, let the impartial judge. If he owns Christ to be the Word-God manifefted in the flesh, then, I fay, the light is Chrift, as much as Chrift can be called the light; and fo not only John calls him, John i. 4, 9. but he calls himself fo, John viii. 12.

This antagonist seems too eager and rath, or he would have reflected better upon the way of the Holy Ghoft's fpeaking in fcripture; for fometimes Chrift is fo called with relation to his divine nature, and fome

times with refpect to his manhood. As he was of the feed of Abraham, he is not God over all, bleffed for ever; he is not the Eternal Word, in whom is life, and that life is the light of men. And as he bungered, thirfted, forrowed, wept, died, he was not the Divine Light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world: yet he is alternatively called Chrift, fometimes Chrift without man, fometimes Chrift in man, the hope of his glory; according to the double refpect he stood and ftands in. Let not men feparate what God has joined; which has been too much the practice of our oppofers, to draw a line of reflection over our religion, as if it denied Jesus of Nazareth to be Chrift the Lord, because we afferted him the Light of the world, and as fuch to be in man: whereas they who confider him but in one capacity, are too ftrict with the text, to wrong us, and fo in the end draw the reflection upon themselves. But to run this abufe on the Holy Ghoft, as well as us, fo high, as therefore to ftile us antichriftian idolaters, fhews a bitterness, as well as mistake, that by no means becomes a critick upon other mens religion.

But that he may apply this injustice home, he is pleased that it should light upon me, and therefore he quotes a paffage out of my part of the Chriftian Quaker, though not the page. I wave the fcurrility of his introduction to it, pag. 14, 15. This is the paffage, as he gives it:

"The power, life, and light which inhabited that "Holy Perfon, which (or who) was born at Bethlehem, "was and is, chiefly and eminently, the Saviour, as prepared for the work which Christ had to do in him." By which (fays he) he makes the light within to be their Christ, and Jefus of Nazareth the prepared instrument of this Chrift.'

Now by this, the reader will have a clear taste of the juftice of this writer.

My words are thus laid down by me, (Chriftian Quaker, pag. 104. chap. 21.) "We confefs, that though "the eternal power, life, light, which inhabited that Holy "Perfon which was born at Nazareth, was, and is,

chiefly

&c.

chiefly and eminently the Saviour, Hof. xiii. 4. (For "there is no Saviour befides me, faith God," this he left out) "yet that it was inftrumentally a Saviour, as prepared and chofen for the work which Christ had then "to do, in it, which was actually to the falvation of fome, and intentionally of the whole world, then, and "in ages to come; fuitable to that fcripture, Heb. x. 5, "6. Lo I come, in the volume of the book it is "written of me, to do thy will, O God! A body "thou haft prepared me." By which it is plain with what unfairness he gave my words before: firft, he left out my quotation out of Hofea, "For there is no "Saviour befides me, faith God;" whereby it appears that the eternal power, life, and light, was eminently concerned in man's falvation. Secondly, he concealed that fcripture in the conclufion of the paragraph, out of the Hebrews, "A body baft thou prepared me, which plainly interprets what I mean by perfon, and by which, and it, that he is pleafed to change for who, and be and bim, to render me at once abfurd and erroneous, and about which he calls me a lewd author, and all to naught. This was done of malice, doubtlefs, the better to have his evil end of me, by wringing my words to the fenfe he defigned they fhould bear. Making me to divide, as well as diftinguish, between Christ and Jefus of Nazareth, and Chrift and him that was born of the Virgin Mary, reading it, be and him, which referred to the body; fo making me to intend Jefus of Nazareth, completely confidered, when I plainly intended, from the nature of the words of the text, and thofe words and the fcripture cited by me, in proof and illuftration of what I meant by them, the body of Chrift Jefus of Nazareth.

Thus much of his conftruction of the words he quotes out of the "Chriftian Quaker," before cited: but if he will allow us to speak our own mind in our own words, and had rather we were in the right than in the wrong, which does but become an ingenuous author (though it thereby appear that we are not what

hc

he had faid us to be) then let him know, we do not divide, or diftinguish, between Christ, and Jefus of Nazareth. Nor did we ever fay, that Jefus of Nazareth is Chrift's inftrument to appear in, and by, for man's falvation; but, that the "Word took flesh," and this is the Chrift, or Anointed of God: and though sometimes the term Chrift is given to the Word, fometimes to the prepared body he took, as when he is faid to die, and be buried, and raifed again, &c. yet "God "manifeft in the flesh," and "Immanuel," God with us, in our nature, is that Chrift of God, or Chrift the Lord, that God hath, and will exalt; the Enlightener, Redeemer, and Saviour of the world, both an offering for all, and the Mediator and Sanctifier of all, that defire to come to God by Him.

But he farther urges against us, and our doctrine of the light within, as what is fallacious on our part to draw in profelytes, and which he terms a putid fophifm, pag. 21, 22. viz. Is there not a light in every man's confcience? You experience one in your own.

And

is not God light? And Chrift light? And is not God within, and Chrift within? Now this is all very true: but when from hence they infer, God is the light within, it is putid fophifm. God being light, and being within men, proves not that God is a light ⚫ within men. God is light, and God is within other things as well as men: is then God a light within to ‹ every tree, every beast, every star? If this be absurd, then God's being light, and being within, proves but fophiftically that He is the light within. And yet this is the conftant method the Quakers use to teach their people the divinity of the light within.

Answer. I hope he will find no cause to blame me for imperfect, and lefs for perverted quotations. I cite him fairly and fully. Now, for answer, I fay, I never faw or heard of that way of reasoning or tampering, as he ftiles it, that he charges upon us to make proselytes by. And I think I ought to be at leaft as well verfed in our way and writings as himself. All reasonable