ANSWER

ΤΟ

WILLIAM PENN, Quaker,

HIS BOOK, ENTITLED

"THE NEW WITNESSES PROVED OLD HERETICKS.”

WHEREIN

He is proved to be an ignorant spatter-brained Quaker, who knows no more what the true God is, nor his secret decrees, than one of his coach-horses doth, nor so much; For the ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib, but Penn doth not know his Maker, as is manifest by the Scriptures, which may inform the reader, if he mind the Interpretation of Scripture in the discourse following.

I. That God was in the form, image, and likeness of man's bodily shape, as well as his soul, from eternity.

II. That the substance of earth and matter was an eternal, dark, senseless chaos, and that earth and matter was eternal in the original.

III. That the soul of man is generated and begot by man and woman with the body, and are inseparable.

IV. That the soul and body of man are both mortal, and doth die and go to dust until the resurrection.

V. That to fulfil the prophecy of Esaias, God descended from heaven into the Virgin's womb, and transmuted his spiritual body into a pure natural body, and became a man child, even the child Jesus, Emanuel, God with us.

VI. That God, by his prerogative power, hath elected the seed of Adam to be saved, and bath pre-ordained the seed of the serpent, such as Penn the Quaker is, to be damned, without any other inducement, but his own preroga tive, will, and pleasure.

VII. A reply to the discourse between Penn and me.

VIII. What is meant by the armour of God, the wilderness, and the wild beasts 1 fought with in the wilderness.

BY LODOWICK MUGGLETON.

London:

Re-printed by Subscription, in the Year 1835, by E. Brown, St. John-st., Clerkenwell.

THE EPISTLE TO THE READER.

I HAVE read over William Penn, the Quaker's book, written against Reeve and Muggleton, and I have taken notice of all those proofs of Scripture he hath brought against those six points of doctrine, or heavenly secrets, to prove them heresies; also I have taken notice of all those passages in his book, that is of most concernment to the reader to have answered. And these six points have been sufficiently treated of in our writings already, which might satisfy the mind of any person that hath any true light in their understandings, so that there need not have been any further dispute or discourse upon these things; but because there is risen up of late another young serpent, learned William Penn the Quaker, who hath undertaken to write in behalf of the Quakers' anti-christian doctrine, which denieth the body of God without them, that owneth no other God but the light in man, which is the absolute spirit of anti-christ in this last age, as will appear in this treatise; but the Quakers' people are very brag that they have got such a champion for their captain, as learned Penn, to fight their battles, who hath been brought up at the University to read histories and old authors' judgments in matters of religion; and Penn hath found in those old authors' books, that some of these secrets of God were owned by some formerly, but were judged to be heresies by the aforesaid old authors; but Reeve and Muggleton never read any of those books, nor never knew that there was any such opinions held forth by any man, till Penn hath discovered them; so that we picked up no knowledge at all in these six secrets, from any books whatsoever on earth, but the book of the Scripture only, and the three books in heaven that were opened unto us by the revelation of the seed of faith, the seed of God in us, which will appear in this treatise; therefore, to put a stop to the Quakers glo

rying in their champion, and to satisfy the desires of some friends, I shall put myself to that trouble which I was very unwilling unto. I shall give answer to his wicked and ignorant pamphlet, who hath discovered the anti-christian spirit in the Quakers, more apparent than his brethren that were before him; let the reader mind and observe, that his book consisteth, the substance and matter of it, of three parts; the first part is to stir up the civil magistrate to the persecution of this doctrine and commission of the Spirit, as may be seen in his epistle; his words are these, It will appear both reasonable and necessary, that by an external judge and witness they should be tried, and if upon their arraignment at the bar, they be found only to have patched up old phantasms together, I hope they will be judged to be both horrible impostors, and their commission to be a mere counterfeit. Here the reader may see what the Quakers' spirit would do if it lay in their power; they would have an external judge to punish others for matters of religion, which doth discover what is in their hearts had they power to effect it. The second part of his book consisteth much upon old authors' books, and of their judgment upon heresies, which Penn hath read at the University, and how he endeavoured to find out the soul of man, if he could but have seen him anatomized alive, he doth imagine he could have found out the soul of the man if it had been mortal. The third part of Penn's book doth consist of cavilling arguments against the true sense of every word, and so he raiseth quibbles and animadversions, as he calls them, against all things of most concernment, which are spoken as plain as can be spoken in the English tongue; but Penn hath acted the part of Jack Pudding in a play; he answereth crossly to every word to make the people laugh, so he is counted the most witty that can quibble most. Penn is counted a witty man, because he hath raised more quibbles against the plain truth, than all the Quakers before him, which will appear more at large in this treatise, if minded by the reader, in the chapters following.