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1. DO not you repent for your endeavouring vainly to defend Aug. 29. 1659. in so great a Congregation these positions printed in a book writ by George Whitehead (who professe your self to be an Am∣bassadour of Christ and yet that you pretend no more Com∣mission than all Hereticks have with as much colour pretended) viz.
2. Did not you offend God by asserting there and then (at the conclusion of your dispute) that the same thing at the same time and place might be both visible and invisible, plainly seen by the eyes of many men (and this upon record) and yet impos∣sible to be seen at that time and place?
3. If you still think this true, may you not be (as your Oppo∣nent inferred) a Quaker, and no Quaker, a Papist and no Papist, a Heretick and no Heretick, at the same time and place?
4. Do you think 'tis the part of a good Disputant to deny the conclusion of a syllogism, as you there and then did severall times together?
5. Why do you sleight both the Sacraments, Baptism and the Lords Supper? which the Scripture saith are necessary to Salva∣tion. For Christ saith Joh. 6.53. Verily, verily except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Ye say that ye have life though you do not eat, &c. Christ saith, Take, eat: do this in remembrance of me. You say do not take, do not eat, do not do this, &c. Christ saith, verily, verily except a man be borne of water (mark water) and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God; you say, that no man need to be baptized, he may enter into the Kingdom of heaven though he be not, &c.
6. Is it not evident that some of you (if not all more or less) are possessed with the Devill, when John Gilpin in his book, at tested by the Major and chief men in Kendall, confesseth that he
was possest with the Devill while he was a Quaker; and divers of your selves confess, in Sauls errand p. 4. 5. That at some of your meetings many men, women and little children, have been strangely wrought upon in their bodies, and brought to fall, foam at the mouth, roar, and swell in their bellies?
7. Do not you esteem your speakings to be of as great autho∣rity as any chapters in the Bible?
8. Do not you hold it unlawfull to expound or interpret the H. Scriptures?
9. Do not some of you say that he who preaches by a Text is a conjurer, &c.
10. That the Holy Bible ought to be burnt?
11. Do not you think it needlesse to pray for the pardon of your sins?
12. Do not you believe that there is no heaven nor hell, nor other world after this life?
13. Do you believe that all these bodies which are met here this day shall depart out of this life and that they shall rise a∣gain at the last day.
14. Do not you say that the Magistrate who makes Acts of Parliament and doth not receive them from God, as Moses did, doth act contrary to the law of God? as I read in the book cal∣led Fiery darts of the Devill quenched, printed by Calvert 1654. and subscribed by six Quakers.
15. Do not you say in the same book that the H. Scripture is not the Saints rule, nor the ground of his faith, p. 19. Not the Saints guide, nor the rule of faith and patience, pag. 30. and 32. of the same book: and do not you by such doctrines and refu∣sing to take the oath of abjuration show your selves to be Pa∣pists?
16. Is it not confessed by your selves in Sauls errand p. 4. (and attested by severall Gentlemen, Justices of peace, Ministers of the Gospell, and people in the County of Lanchaster) that you teach doctrines that break the relation of Subjects to their
Magistrates, wives to their husbands, children to their parents, Servants to their Masters, congregations to their Ministers, and of a people to their God?
17. Do you who call your selves Saints sin in this life? Solo∣mon saith, there is not a just man upon earth that sinneth not, Eccle. 7.20. See Prov. 24.16. 1. Kings. 8.46. and 2. Chro. 6.36, Jam, 3.2.
18. Are you still of opinion, that to affirm if any man say he hath no sin he deceives himself, is to affirm a falsity as concern∣ing the Saints or Quakers? Which you affirmed in the Majors house.
19. Did not you sin last week in saying that the Universitie Man preacht for hire, and made bargaines for his Ministeriall of∣fices, and took ten shillings for a Funerall Sermon, if you cannot prove these things? You see he denyes them all and sayes he never took a penny for a funerall Sermon in his life, &c. I de∣sire you to prove them all, or tell me whether slandering be a sin in you.
20. Whereas a book intituled, Fiery darts, saith p. 26. that since the Apostles dayes there hath been a great Apostacy and that a true Church of Christ could not be found: are you of the same mind?
21. Do you mean that there was never a true Church to be found from the Apostles dayes till now?
22. If so, what became of the Church all the while? Or do you confess 'twas not in being?
23. If so, how was Christ true to his promise, who said he would be with his Church to the end of the World? He could not be with a Church that was not in being?
24. What think you became of all the Martyrs for the first three hundred Years after Christ, or of those in England in Q Maries dayes? Were they saved or not?
25. Why do you censure our Clergy, and us Christians for trying your Spirits, when the Apostle bids us try the Spirits? Sure
then there is a false and a true Spirit, and how can we try which is true or false but by the Scriptures?
26. Do you think that Fornication in a Quaker is sin?
27. How do you know that Fornication is a sin in one that is a Quaker, but by the Law and the Gospell?
28. How do you know there is a Spirit, or a Conscience?
29. Is the Morall Law, or the ten Commandments a rule to the Christians life, or is it not?
30. Do you approve the doings of those Men and Women who lye together naked in the Streets, fathering it upon the Spi∣rit.
31. Whereas a Weaver against the mind of his Wife fol∣lowed a company of you from Coaton to Cambridge, intreating you (all the way) to tell him what your Religion was, and how he might come to be of your Religion, and you gave him no o∣ther answer but this, that he should follow the light within him: So he asked you, what that was, and you would not tell him. I desire to know what it is, that men may understand what to take heed to?
32. Is not your meaning this, that the Ambitious man should follow his ambitious Spirit, the lascivious man his wanton Spi∣rit, &c.
33. If you say that this is not your meaning, how can you as∣sure me that another publick preacher of the Quakers will not tell me to morrow, that by the Spirit he means this? Since after the Universitie man had publickly proved divers blasphe∣mies to be in Whiteheads Book, you George Fox desired the people at last to take notice, that the said book was not yours but his, with whom the Universitie man was appointed by the Ma∣jor to dispute.
34. Do you George Fox still profess your self to be the eter∣nall Judge of the World, and the way, the truth, and the life?
35. Did Richard Huberthorn well in writing that Christs coming in the flesh was but a figure?
36. Did that Quaker sin therein or not, who brought lately, on the Lords-day, an old Dublet into Dr. Gells Church in Lon∣don, and sate upon the Communion Table mending it, while the Dr. was preaching, the Parishioners forbidding him.
37. If the Saints need not be taught by men, (as you say) is it not needless for you to teach one onother?
38. Do you think it a Tenants dutie to pay rent to his Land∣lord?
39. Whereas there is some talke by some Quakers of divi∣ding mens estates, and having all things common, do you believe that it is lawfull and fitting so to do?
40. Do you not think that the Clergy have as much to shew for taking tythes, as any man in England hath for taking rent for land left him by his Ancestours?
41. Do you not think it as lawfull to bereave all men of the one as of the other?
42. Do you think in good earnest that 'tis lawfull for Wo∣men to preach in the Church, as you asserted publickly last week? And that St. Pauls prohibition concerns onely married women not Virgins, and Widowes if you think so, then I ask further, why you may not say as well, that the seaventh Com∣mandment concerns Virgins and Widowes onely, and not married women.
43. When you tell us that you have faith in Christ, do you mean Christ whose person is now ascended into heaven above the Clouds or do you mean onely a Christ within you?
44. Did not Edward Burrough, James Naylor, and others affirm, that he who expects to be saved by that Jesus Christ who died at Jerusalem, shall be deceived? See their two Books, and the brief relation of the Northern Quakers, p. 22. &c. Billing-slyes defence of Scriptures, p. 16. The perfect Pharisee, p. 8. and Farmers mystery of godliness.
45. Do not you George Whitehead blasphemously take to your self an attribute of God, while you pretend ordinarily to know
the hearts of men: and tell Mr. Townsend of Norwich (in the second page of your Ishmael) that the light of God is departed from his Conscience?
46. Do not you (to use your own words) Walke in the steps of the false Prophets, while you ordinarily speak and print such rai∣ling language, as pag. 3. of your Ishmael. Thou priest Townsend, thou dreamer, thou deceiver, witch, lier, blind guide, without Christ and his knowledge, and in Antichrist enemy of God, &c.
47. Was it any thing to the purpose in the midst of a dis∣pute concerning points of faith to ask the Universitie man, what he thought of Sr. George Booth? Was not this question a silly trap laid for him who desired nothing but to reduce you from Heresy?
48. Do not we live in a fine age when such men as you can be permited in a Corporation Town (in Cambridge one of the eyes of the Nation) to rail an hour together against Christ Je∣sus, & the other two persons in the ever Blessed Trinitie & against the Holy word of God; In the same Moneth a Minister of the Gospell, son to a Parliament man, was sent for by a company of Souldiers by the Major, and kept prisoner some time, for praying for all Christian Kings, Princes, and Governours, 1 Tim. 2.1.
49. What credit may the Common people give to any thing you say, while no learned person is near; when they have heard you proved undeniably to be as damnable an Heretick as ever was in the world, from that very place in Scripture which was the only text you brought to prove your selves no Hereticks, 2 Pet. 2.1, 2. You not answering a word for your self?
50. Why do you encourage unlearned people to preach without learning, when St. Peter saith, that in St. Pauls epistles are some things hard to be understood which they that be un∣learned and unstable wrest, as they do other Scriptures, to their own destruction?
51. Was it the Spirit of truth or of errour, that made the Quakers run after Hen. Davill, a Tanner of Richmond, almost a
mile (while he was walking to see his ground) and tell him with open mouth, That the Spirit of God sent them to tell him he was a seducer of the people, one of the corrupt Clergy, &c. While 'tis commonly known he neither is, nor was a Clergy man, nor preacher. Did ever the Spirit of God send, any such frivolous er∣rands as this, and those mentioned p. 45. of the perfect Pharisee?
52. Do you still think it an unanswerable argument to prove the University man an Heretick, because Bishops (who built Col∣leges and Hospitalls gave all their goods to the poor and their bodies to be burnt) were covetous men?
53. Do you think that Cotton Crosland, who hanged himself, or Hugh Bisbroune, who committed buggery with a Mare, or that John Gilpin, who confesseth he was about to cut his throat, did sin or not sin in so doing?
54. Did your companion sin or not by drawing his sword in your meeting house tother day, to cut the knot when he could not untie it, and answer the argument.
55. Lastly, I entreat you to tell me after you have given me in writing a punctuall answer to these 55. queries how I shall know that you will not give me another answer next week quite contrary to that which you promise to give me now (telling me that the Spirit moves you to speak contradictions as plainly out of your meeting house as in it) so that I shall be as far to seek what your Religion is at last, as I was at first?
Pag. 1,
Lin. 1.
p. 1. lin. last,