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and if this be not the anti-christian spirit in this last age, then there never was no spirit of anti-christ in the world at all, as is spoken of in Scripture; but I have had perfect know ledge that the Quakers' ministry is the absolute ministry of anti-christ in these last times, and that they shall be judged out of those things which were written in the book of the law, which they call God, and the book of conscience which hath rebelled against this law, for I have known several Quakers that hath committed actions of dust when they were upon the rant, even against conscience, for which several of them hath received judgment in this life, even the foul disease poverty and beggary, besides their damnation hereafter. of ;{t1“༼ • 40% (-5953), to swa hadh 22, jog zie ɔrodi voron tatsautod skadelidade tuodtiw woud 2013 1 asm to hauEM .90105 of

CHAP. XXXIII.

AND when the book of life was opened, I saw many old authors that did prophecy that they true God was in the form and likeness of man, when he created man in his own image; and that he would descend from heaven to earth in the womb of a Virgin, and became very man and very God, and be found in the shape of man, and be like unto man in all things, sin excepted; and that he should suffer death, and rise again by his own power, and ascend up to the same glory which he had before the world was! glorious things did I see when the

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authors of this faith, that God was a spiritual body in form like a man from eternity; and I saw in the book of life, Enoch that walked with God, and Noah who was righteous in his generation, and righteous Lot who received the two an¬ gels, and Abraham the father of the faithful; Isaac, Jacob, Moses, the Prophets, and Apostles; these were the fathers of old that prophesied and declared the same things that Reeve and Muggleton hath; so that these truths and secrets of God that Penn and his old authors calls heresies, were declared: and prophesied of by those holy men of God aforesaid, whose names I saw written in the book of life; and I saw when

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the book of life was opened unto me, that Reeve and Mugs gleton were the two last prophets and witnesses of the Spirit, to finish they declaration of that great mystery of God, as was prophesied of by his servants the prophets, God manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory. Thus have given the reader some account of the old authors of those six principles of truth gas are substant tially proved by Scripture before as Reeve and Muggleton hath declared, in opposition to those old authors Penn hath brought out of those books he hath read at the University to prove them olds heresies. Thus I have given answer to those six points that are of greatest concernment for men to know, without which there can be no perfect peace to the mind of man in this life, nor assurance of peace in the life JIIXXX TAHO to come.

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The last thing for me to speak something to that is of condispute ute becernment in Penn's book, by way of reply, is the d tween us in page 38; I confess I did speak two unsavory words in the discourse, being provoked, which I will deny, as may be seen in the following discourse; and if those two words had not been uttered by me, Penn's book had not been worth two farthings but for waste paper; but them two unsavory expressions put a great lustre to his book, and doth yield comfort to many serpent-devils. But to the mat ter in hand: I do acknowledge that many of those passages between him and me in the dispute, were as true as they are related by him; but some of them are false as they are set down; indeed, as Penn saith, he did stay too long before he writ them down, so that his memory failed him, that he hath writ some of those passages that passed between him and me false, and some trne; but it would be too tedious for me to repeat what is false and what true, either will signify but little to the reader; to let them pass as they are, I am willing that mine enemies should suck what sweetness they can out of them, or what poison, for I am very well satisfied in what I said to him; and as for those two passages that seems to be unsavoury, I shall give the reason by and by. Page 41. Penn

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calls me a liar, for saying William Smith, the Quaker, was dead, it seems he was not dead as was reported; but if Penn had staid his book a month longer, he had been found a liar for saying he is yet alive, for now he is really dead, and pas sed through the first death into the second death; but let Penn call to mind what false, lying and wicked reports hath been raised of me by Quakers and others, how many times I have been dead and in prison, to the joy of their hearts, and that Reeve left the world in torment of spirit. These wicked lies and slanders have been reported of us, but more especially of me, yet knowing my own innocency I never charged any for reporting these lies of me.

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The second thing in this discourse was this, that I said William Penn the Quaker thou art a cheat and a deceivers neither did I speak this without some ground, for it was told to me in what particulars, both at Cambridge and in Ireland, by persons that knew Penn's beginning, and what his life was better than he did himself: the reader may perceive that this was before he had a rule of any estate, but what his father allowed him; but those persons are since dead, therefore they shall be nameless, and the things they reported of him shall be nameless also before he peeped after the Quakers; but if they did slander him and report lies of him, they were to blame; and if his conscience be clear, and not guilty of those things, then let the blame rest upon the head of those that reported lies, and his innocency will bring peace in himself, so far as it extends: but upon these words, Penn and his friend George Whitehead said, Though it was not their principle to use the law, yet perhaps, said they, his friends may make use of the law to make me prove what I said: and upon their threatening what his friends might do, I did so scorn what his friends could do in that matter, that I said I cared not a f→ for them, nor what they could do: and threatening what they could do by the law if they would use it; whereupon I did say I did not value nor care a t for him nor his friends, nor what they could do by the law in that matter, neither did I care what they could do in the law no more than the abovesaid. But let the reader mind the

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pride of these Quakers' hearts, that because Penn's father was a man of estate, and in some power in the nation affairs, therefore he boasted of his friends, what they might do by law; I never heard any poor Quaker boast of their friend: and if Penn's father had not been born before his son, he would never have boasted of his friends; but if he had been born before his father, as I was born before my father, he would never have boasted of his friends, but might have been cloathed in an old thread-bare black suit, like a sequestred begging priest, as I did look like my meaning is, I do count all those fathers that get estates, and leaves it to the son that never knew the getting of it, but the spending of it, such men's fathers were born before them, as Penn's father was; but such fathers that are poor and can give the son nothing, and yet the son by his labour and industry getteth a livelihood for himself, and doth rather help his father than hinder him, such a son may be said to be born before his father, as I was, that never received sixpence portion of my father; and if Penn had been born before his father as I was, I believe his suit had been more thread-bare than mine; for it is known by many that Penn's father's beginning was low and mean, his descent far lower than mine that hath left me nothing; yet by the fortune of war, and his facing about to the right and left, and something else besides, he hath left his son a considerable estate; and I do wish his son to make much of that unrighteous mammon his father hath left him, and say, Soul take thine ease, for thou hast goods laid up for many years, for I am sure it is all he shall have both in this life and in the life to come: and farther, Penn shall know to his eternal pain and shame, that my God whose dimension is no bigger nor higher than a middle-statured man, as I said to him; and that I do justify that saying of mine still, that I would not give a pin for that God which would save us both, now I have given sentence of damnation upon you ; neither would I give a rush for that God that cannot die; for our faith is in that God that made man in his own image, whose dimension is no bigger than a middle-statured man, even the bigness of Christ Jesus, who became a little child, and when he was a man he poured out his soul unto death, and

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was absolutely dead for a space of time, as the Scriptures doth testify.

Thus I have said something in answer to every particular passage in Penn's book that is of concernment, and to the disputes between them and me; and as for the latter part of his book, it contains nothing but a repetition of our words, and the drawing objections out of his own dark imagination against them. If he would or durst set himself to read the Scriptures, and observe contradictions in them, as he hath in our books, he might bring ten contradictions in Scriptures, for one he hath picked out of our writings; but I shall leave it to the reader that hath read those books, and doth understand, whether they be not as good sense, and builded upon as sure a foundation, as any writings whatsoever, as the Scriptures themselves. To consider and conclude.

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