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 Jesus 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 fometimes 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 raised again, &c. yet "God "manifest 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 Christ light? And is not God within, and Christ 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 beaft, every ftar? If this be abfurd, 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 caufe to blame me for imperfect, and lefs for perverted quotations. I cite him fairly and fully. Now, for anfwer, 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 least as well verfed in our way and writings as himself. All rea

fonable

fonable people will readily allow, they have fuch a light; and in reading the holy fcriptures, they find the enlightened penmen call God light, and Chrift light, and are naturally led to believe, that their light is from God, the Fountain of all light, especially when they read the first chapter of John, and that of his firft epiftle alfo. And it is granted by this man, that God is in men, and that God is a light within men. Indeed his argument does not prove it, for it is not regularly formed to make such a conclusion, which is his fault, because it is of his own making: but neither is it a fophifm, or fophiftical in us, nor is the reafon good that he gives against it, viz. Because it is abfurd to fay, That God is a light within trees, beafts, and stars,' because God is within them, and God is light; therefore it is fo to fay, That God is a light within men. For trees, beafts, and stars, &c. are not of man's nature and capacity, they are not capable of fuch a manifeftation of the light of God, as man is God is in them after another and lower manner, and to other ends and purposes. But why God, who is confeffed to be light, and in man, fhould not be a light then to man, I cannot comprehend. I do not say that it strictly follows in the argument, but the reafon given against it is no reafon; and reafon and fcripture judge for us. For man being a reasonable creature, it is his duty, and the end of his being, to know and ferve God, the Author of it; but this he cannot do, unless God manifeft himself unto him: and fince this man grants, That God is light, and in fome fort in man,' to what better purpose, or which way more properly and beneficially, can he be faid to be in man, than as a light fhining there, to give him the knowledge of God? So that he is not only there as the Creator and Supporter of his being, but as his Illuminator and Inftructor to his well-being. The fcriptures already cited fufficiently prove, that God is light, and Christ is light, and that all men are enlightened by him; and to be fure it must be with his own light." Now, though with a fair adverfary, one might fay,

without

without offence, That God, or Chrift, is the light ' within man,' yet it is not the common way of our expreffing ourselves.

To be fure we have no fuch meaning in that way of fpeaking, as fome adverfaries ftrain our words to, as if God and Chrift were comprehenfible in and by man, to render us abfurd and blafphemous. But we rather chufe to fay, That God, or Chrift, who is light, hath lighted man; and by the light of Christ in man, man comes to know God and Chrift: and that the light in man, is the light of God, or of • Chrift; and not that God, or Chrift, is the light in man. The light in a room at noon-day, is the light of the fun; but the sun cannot fo properly be faid to be in the room, because its light is there; for the glorious, unapproachable BODY of it is elsewhere. I hope this will not pass with the fober reader for a putid fophifm.

He farther fays, p. 24. I may not now-a-days, therefore, tell Quakers their own religion is false, without telling them what is the truth; left I fhould tempt them to leave Quakerifm for impiety and irreligion, and not for the fervice of Jefus Chrift.'

Answer. We are beholden to him, that he thinks our religion a bar to impiety and irreligion; and I wifh neither had appeared in his oppofing of it. The truth he has a mind to tell us, lieth in a few words, upon which he beftows no less than fifteen pages, (viz.) That the light which God hath given to man for falvation, generally speaking, is, befides creation ⚫ and providence, the writings of the infpired men of the Old and New Teftament, which we call the ⚫ fcriptures of truth; no light, fpirit, or grace, com• monly or ordinarily opening and affifting our underftandings in the reading of them; but that the light, which is in men, is the effects of the perceptive fa-. culties of our minds, that is, our thoughts,' as he alfo tells us, pag. 9. So that what we read and hear with our outward eyes and ears, is thereby reported to

Our

our mind or judgment, whofe conclufion thereupon is this man's light within.

But, methinks, before he had been fo pofitive and voluminous in his own notion, (where he will find very few abettors, I believe) he should have been fo fair as to have confidered what I have faid in my Key, P. 1, 2. That feems to me to have more materially referred to another light within, than he has yet brought himself to. I will give the passage at large as it lieth, that it may speak for itself:

"The Quakers belief and affertion is, That Christ, "who is the Word, that was with God, and was God " (John i. 4, 9.) and is fo for ever) hath enlightened

every man that cometh into the world, with his "own light; as he is that true light, or fuch a light "as there is no other to be compared to him; which "is the meaning of the emphafis true in the text. "And that fuch as follow the reproofs, convictions, "and leadings of that light, with which he enlightens "the understandings and confciences of men, shall "not walk in darkness: that is, in evil, and ignorance " of God; but shall have the light of life: that is, "be in an holy and living state or condition towards "God: a ftate of acceptance and falvation, which is "from fin, as well as from wrath; (fee Ifa. xlix. 6. "John i. 4, 9. c. iii. 21. c. v. 40. c. viii. 12. "c. x. 10.) And for which end Chrift was given of "God. So that they affert the light of Chrift to be "fufficient to fave; that is, to convince of fin, lead "out of it, and quicken the foul in the ways of ho"linefs and not a natural light, otherwise than as all cr men, born into the world, have a measure of "Chrift's light, and fo it may, in a sense, be faid to “be natural to all men, because all men have it. For "this light is fomething else than the bare understand"ing man hath as a rational creature: for as fuch,

man cannot be a light to himself; but has only a "capacity of feeing, by means of the light with which "Chrift, the Word, enlighteneth him. For we can "no more be a mental or intellectual light to ourselves,

"than

"than we are an external and corporeal light to our"felves: but as the fun in the firmament is the light "of our bodies, fo the light of the divine word is the "fun of our fouls; the glorious luminary of the in"tellectual world; and they that walk in it, will, by "it, be led to bleffedness.' Rev. xxi. 24.

Of all which, he takes this imperfect notice, The ⚫ concurrence of many causes being requifite to produce faith, the Quakers confound thefe infpirations with the light, and attribute the efficiency of one < cause to another; which muft needs pervert all found judgment of things, and make them speak inconfistencies; as when W. P. fays, "Man cannot be a "light to himself," as if the denial of the divinity of the light within, implied any fuch thing; and "man has only a capacity to fee;" as if the defect was in God's works in nature, and in the fcripture, ⚫ and not in man's feeing faculty. Now fuch expreffions fhew his apprehenfions are much perverted about ⚫ these things.'

Answer. But this fhews my opponent to be either fhallow, or worse. I would be fo charitable as to think he mistakes me, and in the conclufion abuseth himself. For why do the Quakers confound those inspirations with the light? We never limited all divine infpirations and operations to the light, merely as it is light, as phyfically, and by his natural philofophy, he feems to explain it. We ever meant a principle in man, that is not of man, that is variously denominated by its various operations: light, from difcerning and distinction: fpirit, from life and power: word, as it fpeaks forth God's mind to man: truth in the inward parts, as it deals truly with man, and would redeem him from lying vanities: and grace, as it is God's gift, and not man's understanding, or man's merit. I fhall not therefore quarrel with his natural philofophy, p. 37, when he fays, The fun generates all life, and its faculties in bodies, but not by its light; for we never faid it did, with reference to the light within; elfe all men would have divine life as

well