abide as such.* It is their invincible shield;† and the knowledge of Christ in them, is the proof of their possessing it. Abundance is said of the nature, power, and effects of this all-conquering faith ;|| but I hope this will be sufficient to show, though in its complete sense, it includes a belief of all that is said of Christ, and by Christ, in Holy Writ, it goes deeper, and ariseth not in man merely from the man, but takes its birth, and receives its increase from the operation of the Holy Spirit in him, which works by it to the sanctification of the heart, and the production of every Christian virtue,

CHAPTER XIII.

1. S. N.'s saving Ability of the Scriptures considered.-2. His wrong reasoning from the Plea of the Papists.-3. Spiritual Things how understood. -4. Barclay defended from the Charge of arguing in a false Circle.-5. George Fox rescued from N. S.'s illiberal Abuses.

1. S. N. says, p. 14: "No more than what we assert of the ability of Scripture have the apologist or his defenders said of the light within." It may be so; but where is the proof of this, that himself and his coadjutors assert concerning the saving ability of the Scriptures? Why thus it follows: "We also say, the Scriptures will make us wise unto salvation, if we attend to the sense of them, believe it, and so become influenced by it, therefore they are able to save."

I have already shown that he mistakes the sense of the text above mentioned, which is not the only one by many, how then should he attend to, believe, and be influenced by the sense who has it not? And how should he be saved by the sense of that he does not understand? I hope his salvation will be better founded than his argument, for this hath no firmer basis than bare assertion. "We say, the Scriptures," &c., therefore they are able to save. But I have said enough before to this point.

2. P. 15. He reminds me, that the papists plead, "The * Rom. i. 17; Gal. ii. 20, and iii. 11; Heb, x. 38. † Eph. vi. 16. † 2 Cor. xiii, 5. Heb. xi.

Scriptures are not the supreme guide; for they do not answer the end, that is, the reconciling of differences; for those who pretend most to consult the Scriptures, do most of all disagree in matters of faith, and in their interpretation of the Scripture."

No protestant of a sound understanding can deny the truth of this; for more religious differences have arisen, and still subsist, about the sense of Scripture, than anything else. There is therefore need of an infallible interpreter, which is the Spirit of Truth, whence they came, and who is measurably given to guide into all truth.* The error of the papists stands not in asserting the undeniable diversities among men, concerning the sense of Scripture, but in setting up a visible carnal head, instead of the invisible spiritual Head of the Church; a succession of fallible men, under the pretence of their being infallibly empowered, officially and finally to determine doctrines for, and direct the consciences of all others; and those who approach the nearest to this part of popery, are such as pretend their own private or peculiar interpretations are the true sense of the Scriptures, and who seek to impose them upon others as such.

3. P. 18, S. N. expresses an imagination, that Barclay meant by right reason, "not the faculty of the understanding itself, but that reasoning or argument which is conformable to the true relation of things." I must suppose him to intend here, the true relation of spiritual things, for those are what we have here to do with. But what will this avail him? By what means will he assure us, that his understanding is adequate to this relation, and to what is, or is not conformable to it? Spiritual things are the things of God, and saith Holy Writ: "The things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God;"+ therefore the apostle declares: "We have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God, that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God."-" But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned."|| Hence it is clear, that he who hath not the knowledge of spiritual things, by the manifestation of the Spirit of God, hath not the true knowledge of them, imagine what he will of his other acquirements, and he must find himself at last upon the sandy foundation of vain opinion.

The apostle follows this by asserting, "The spiritual

* John xvi. 13. † 1 Cor. ii. 11. Verse 12. || Verse 14.

man judgeth all things."* That is, the man who is rendered. spiritual, by the renewing influence of the Holy Spirit, has, through the shining of divine light upon his mind, a clear discerning of all those spiritual matters it concerns him to know, which it is impossible for the natural man rightly to comprehend.

4. P. 21, "The apologist has recourse to the Scriptures, to prove to us the necessity of immediate inspiration for all persons, but when he will convince us of the truth and certainty of the Scriptures, he turns back again to his peculiar notion of the revelation of the Spirit in every man." Strange logic indeed!

What conclusion is more natural, than to determine what a tree is by its fruit; or what the fruit is by the tree? Men do not gather grapes of thorns, nor figs of thistles; but when they see a fig-tree, they know its fruit must be figs; and when they see a grape, they know it to be fruit of the vine. In this manner the Holy Spirit and the Scriptures, where both are known, bear mutual testimony to each other, by a demonstration above all logic, and out of the reach of sophistry. What Barclay, therefore, urges in this case, is the reciprocal testimony of the Spirit with the Scriptures, as the clearest and best convincement of both to the mind of man, and this not so much by way of argument to the head, as appeal to the conscience.

5. P. 22. Our opponent falls upon George Fox, whom he represents in no very candid manner. He takes upon him to contradict those concerning him, who for many years were personally acquainted with him, and his conduct, and who, both from the opportunities they had, and the abilities they possessed, were much better judges both of the man, and the reality of the facts, than he can possibly be. What he calls his fair and just examination, is a mere train of invective and abuse, relating to matters transacted long before he was born into the world, and which his notorious prejudice renders him unfit to determine upon. Having pursued George Fox with great warmth, through eight or nine pages, and sufficiently heated his spirits, he fastens upon his singular concern, at Litchfield, in 1651. Upon which I shall drop the following observations.

It has pleased the Divine Being, at times, to require things of his devoted servants, which must appear very foolish to the wisdom of the world; but "he hath chosen the foolish

* Verse 15.

things of the world to confound the wise."* Might not such an act as this simply related by George Fox, be required of him in part, to try, or to give him an opportunity of exercising his faith and obedience, and also to alarm a people too secure in false rests, and carnal indulgences? He represents the apprehension he had of it, was to revive the memorial of their predecessors, and their deep sufferings for the cause of Christ; which, in Divine Wisdom, might be proper to a generation immersed in a state of degeneracy, and forgetfulness of God, and to show them the wo that would attend a continuance in a degenerate life and practice. With the same view, woes have been pronounced by divers of God's inspired messengers, as we read in Scripture, and what mighty hurt or scandal accrued from this, that it must be interpreted in the worst sense possible to be put upon it? What but ignorance, or an invidious and malevolent disposition, would see nothing else in the case, but arrant villany, rank enthusiasm, gross and melancholy fanaticism, loquacious lunacy, and diabolical possession?

If G. Fox had, from a divine impulse, found it his concern to go naked for three years together, as the Prophet Isaiah did;t or to lay siege to a tile, in a cumbent posture, and brake his bread with dung, for the space of fifteen months, as Ezekiel did; it would as surely have drawn down the resentment of S. N. upon him, and would have been altogether as just a foundation for his asperity.

With respect to miraculous testimonials; when I consider the many gross impositions of that kind, under names delivered down to us with great veneration, and sainted in the Romish church, I do not admire that thinking persons, not sufficiently experienced the divine life, should be inclined to disbelieve any modern narratives of supernatural tokens. But this difference is evidently observable, between the few related by George Fox and his friends, and the many by popish writers. These industriously propagated their miraculous legends for a name, for the support of unscriptural superstition, and separate interests, monastic institutions, the adoration of relics, and of the blessed virgin, the invocation of saints, real or nominal, prayers for the departed, imageworship, their deified sacrament, the formal sign of the cross, consecrated oil, &c. But G. Fox never once pretended to a power of working miracles to the people where he came, to open a door among them for the reception of him* 1 Cor. i. 27. † Isaiah xx. Ezek. iv.

self, or the principles he spread; nor was it necessary he should, since they had been already miraculously attested, in the first planting of Christianity. For the fundamentals he preached were, Christ once in the flesh, and always in Spirit, as the Light and Life of men, the Mediator, the Propitiation, the Intercessor, the potential and actual Redeemer, offered for all and to all, and the especial Savior of all that believe in him so as to obey him; with the necessity of regeneration in man, and the practice of every moral and Christian virtue.

Is it nothing extraordinary, that a person so obscure and illiterate, so little conversant among men, so uneducated in arts, languages, and sciences, so unversed in the various modes of divinity, by turns in fashion, uninstructed, unprovided, unprotected by men, should, singly and alone, launch into the troubled sea of a tempestuous fluctuating world, and in direct opposition to all the pride, policy, and power of a learned and lucrative priesthood, and a prejudiced people with a bigoted magistracy at their head; that such a one, by the simple doctrine of the cross of Christ, should be made instrumental to the turning of thousands, not from form to form, but from darkness to light; from the power of Satan, to the power of God; from a death in sin, to the life of righteousness; from habitual vice to a course of virtue; insomuch that some judicious magistrates declared the people raised through his ministry, eased their hands of much trouble, and had it not been for the spreading of this principle of divine light, the nation would have been overrun with ranterism and licentiousness! In this great and good work, G. Fox, with the people he had been instrumental to raise, stood with unabated courage and constancy, and were enabled, with undaunted fortitude, to bear up against nearly forty years cruel persecution, with small intervals, both from royal and republican parties, as each ascended the scale of national power. This he was favored to see an end of, before his removal beyond the noise of archers, and out of the reach of envy and malignity.

Notwithstanding the invidious misrepresentations made concerning him, no marks of insincerity, artifice, or imposture, appeared in his conduct, nor of interest or ambition in his views. He sought not to gather people to himself, but to Christ alone. He made no pretences to work miracles, in confirmation of his mission, while he travelled and labored among his fellow-creatures; but, in his journal, which he left behind him in manuscript, he acknowledges the goodness and