A LETTER TO George Keith.  
Concerning his late Religious Differences with William Pen and his Party.  By a moderate Churchman. 
SIR,  
I Am sorry to hear of Strifes raised amongst Men about Religion, but I must indeed confess, by what I have red on both sides, about the difference betwixt yourself and some others, that are Quakers, you do seem to me to have received hard measure from some of your former good Friends and Confidents. Yet if you can Vindicate the Honour of Gods truth in those weighty points( which I find you are engaged for) I think you shall do well to accept of moderate reparations from them for the Injuries they have done to your reputation. Tho I cannot say it is your duty, or is prudent, totally to neglect it. For our Estimation is an Instrument necessary to enable us to do good. Your voluntary owning of some oversights of your own, and offering a correction of them, hath raised my hopes of your sincerity. And I think you did well to use St. Austin's and other good examples to encourage yourself to it, and to insinuate an excuse for such a singularity to an Age, when hardly any one does so, for want of self denial. And I believe most indifferent Men are of the same opinion with me in this. But in Tho. Ellwoods Nostrils, I find this smells of nothing but Pride and an Ambition, to rank yourself among the worthy ancients. When yet he has the Vanity to set off that little piece of his own, with the Glorious. Title[ of truth defended]. As if truth was so destitute in this Age of able Friends, that it could need such defenders as he, or had such inconsiderable opposers, that he could be of any use for it's defence. Who writes at such a rate, as if really he did not understand the true requisites of a valid Argument, much less the just evidence of any point in Religion. For in his Book he hath subverted the Foundation of Christian Religion and knew not, what he was doing. So that this Man plainly Titles his Book by an Antiphrasis, and might as well have called it. The Learned discreet work of Tho. Ellwood, as truth defended. But Sir, you need not fear that disinterested Men will behold your endeavours to rectify such mistakes, as you have observed in your own Books, with the squinting of this Mans Eyes, who hath thus impotently traduced your honest intentions. In your narrative of the proceedings at Turners-Hall, you seem to me beyond reasonable contradiction to have made good your charge of dangerous errors, exhibited formerly against some Quakers. Who have denied both the Divinity, and especially the Manhood of our Saviour, and the Resurrection. And their seeming confessions of these, seem to me rather Collusive then sincere, having observed that they make them always in expressions of studied ambiguity and exquisite obscurity. But when they deliver their sense freely about the light within, they clearly set it up above Jesus of Nazareth, making him but an underling to it. Take one example for a pattern of the rest( extracted out of G. Whitehead and W. Pen by Tho. Ellwood. Post-script to truth defended p. 167.) in W. Pens Christian Quaker, p. 104. We do confess, that tho the Eternal Power, Life and Light, which Inhabited that holy person which was Born at Nazareth, was and is eminently and chiefly the Saviour( for there is no Saviour besides me, said God; Hos. 13.4.) Yet it was instrumentally a Saviour, as prepared and chosen for the work, which Christ had then to do in it. Which was actually the salvation of some, and intentionally of the whole World. This passage I also find quoted in the Answer to W. P's Key, printed a year ago, and there remarked upon. But I would only observe, 1. That in it W. Pen and his Trusty Esq; T. Elwood are agreed( for making this Doctrine more passable) to contradict Two Evangelists and One Prophet. For whereas they agree, that Jesus was born at Bethlehem, these two infallibly do witness that he was born at Nazareth. That the Authority of the Scripture being abated, they might authoritatively teach, That there is, 1. The Saviour( that is Christ) and A Saviour. The one the Chief and Eminent Saviour, the other an Instrumental Saviour. The one the Eternal Light( and therefore must be the same with these Quakers Light in the Conscience) and the other the Holy Person, Jesus of Nazareth. And since The Saviour is Christ, and Jesus of Nazareth here asserted to be a Person, and no more but an Instrumental Saviour, as prepared for Christ's doing of his work; such a Person being the Instrument of the Saviour, is nothing else but the Servant of Christ. Therefore Jesus of Nazareth, the Instrumental Saviour, is really the Servant of Christ, but is not Christ himself. And tho the Scripture every where teaches, that Jesus is the Christ, and not the Servant of Christ, yet they will have the Light of the Living Spirit to contradict what they call the Killing Letter. For being before preferred above 2 or 3, it may with as much reason be preferred before all the holy Penmen of the Scripture. All T. Elwood's other Quotations are calculated for to agree with this Doctrine, and are punctually coincident with it. Neither is it either expressly, or by consequence, any where disallowed in these mens Books. I mean in all that I have red, that are several. When therefore, Sir, you charge W. Pen with Antichristian Doctrine, and denying the Manhood of Christ, here you have him confitentem Reum, and T. Elwood too, who is so much his echo, that if he pleases to say it, he must repeat it, be it never so faulty. I know I should not have thus pressed W. Pen, whom alas! you, and the Gentleman that answered his Key, upon different Principles, have loaded with a greater burden than he can bear or cast off. But I could not but observe what a wife Advocate is T. Elwood, who would justify W. Pen by such quotations which infallibly condemn him as guilty of the Crime which you and the foresaid Writer charge him withal.  
The case betwixt you and your opposers, I conceive in short stands thus. Your ten Principles being represented to the yearly Meeting here as carnal( that is as contrary to the Spirit of Christianity) by some Pensilvanians, justify you against all your Adversaries both here and there For those Principles being the very truth, if the yearly Meeting disowns them in favour of the Pensilvanians, they disown Christianity itself; for they are so necessary, that if they be not upheld, the whole Faith of Christ falls with them. Wherefore if this be the real case, your contentiousness( as they call it) is nothing but contending for the faith delivered to the Saints, for which we ought to contend, and resist( if occasion be) even unto Death, and to give way, no not for an hour, to all the Authority on Earth that gainsays it. But if they own the truth of your principles, since the Pensilvanians did complain to the Meeting, and accused before them the Carnality of your Principles. They hearing them( as Judges by reference) ought to have vindicated the confessed truth of God from so foul an aspersion, and commended you for your indefatigable labour and diligence in opposing so vile Heresies. But not having done this, but on the contrary having Excommunicated you, for your pertinacious resolute withstanding their Blaspheming Gods most sacred truth, have in Consequence, knowingly cut off themselves from all true Christians, and cast you out for being obstinately a Christian. If part of the Meeting did believe your Principles, part not, but yet did both sorts join together to obstruct and frustrate your endeavours to suppress the errors and clear the truth, lest otherwise they should disoblige great Numbers of Quakers already engaged in those errors, and make or occasion a rapture, The Meeting then becomes nothing but a politic Combination of wickedness, strengthening itself by betraying the truth, and oppressing the hearty Friends of it. If they allege, they not knowing, whether your Principles were true or false, and therefore they could not justify them, or you in the defence of them, but onely consult for the Peace and Concord of the fraternity, it is plain however, yours being the very principles of the Doctrine of Christ, that such a plea of such ignorance does instantly divest them of all the Authority of a Church Meeting. For should all the Quakers in the World delegate Men of such professed ignorance, that could no more make them an Ecclesiastical Council, then the Londoners by an election, can make the Lord Majors Horse his Lordships successor in his office next year. Such Men must leave the chair of Teachers, and sit in the seat of Learners. Besides, such Ignorance offered in excuse for their not justifying your Principles, makes them guilty of temerariousness in condemning you, for your vigorous defending them. Put the case therefore how they please, if they Condemn not your Principles( as they cannot, if they be Christians) their sentence Condemns not you, but themselves. This I observe of the merits of former yearly Meeting required you to cease opposing those that imputed Carnality to your Principles( & complained to the next Meeting against you) as likewise to call in your Books, The next Meeting Excommunicated you for not doing accordingly. If this Meeting required this of you, by way of Command, and not of advice barely. They arrogated to themselves a power above all Ecclesiastical Authority not enforced by the civil Power.( As the Quakers in England is not) For whoever, be they Quakers, Anabaptits, Presbyterians, or others, do claim such a Jurisdiction, they have laid in their Church the corner ston of the Romish Papacy, and want nothing but power and time to finish the structure. Witness your usage in Pensilvania. If what they did impose upon you by such command, had had no evil in it( as we have seen it had) you ought not to have obeied, but to have testified against the usurpation and arrogance. Yea, if the thing commanded had been good( as it was not) you ought not to have done it but with a Protestation against the encroachment, and a Salvo for your subsequent liberty. And if they refuse you this, or complain of you for using it, they Act proudly and insolently. If they pretended not to command, but onely advice and admonish, then because all advice is for the benefit of the person advised, you being the advised person, are in the nature of the thing necessary made the Judge. If therefore upon due examination, you find the thing advised serves the interest of the Advisers, but is prejudicial to your own, you are not to think it counsel, or advice, but flattering insinuation, or at least a suspicious design upon you, if you find the advantage of the advisers is conspicuous, but your own undiscernible, whatever Authority they may pretend to, it is a Letter of request, or Petition of Beggart. Which if you find importune, you may reject. If this offend them, they imitate the example of the ill bread surly Beggars, that curse them, that find it not convenient to give them the Alms they ask. If you find that it makes for both the good of them and yourself, embrace it gladly, if the advice makes more for yours then theirs, accept it with all thankfulness, as a friendly office. But if you do not do this, they must be sorry for you, but not offended with you, or reproach you, so much have these people mistaken their own power. By these hints you may see, whether or no they really intended that for a command, which yet to decline the invidiousness of a processed Lording it over others, they more gently styled friendly Connsel. For if they grew offended with you, if they expel you out of their Company, if they account you peevish, testy, froward, proud, self-willed for not following their Counsel, but using of their own, what ever they call it, they use it to impose a yoke of Bondage upon you; and think you do them an injury, because you will not be their slave. If you prove still, if you be refractory to them in such a case, it's onely a sign you are made of good metal, and understand better, what to do with your liberty then to pass it away in a compliment to such Mens imperious humours. But if on the other hand, they sincerely offered it as friendly advice, then it is plain, if you have as much good will and skill, you have as full power, right, and Authority to advice and admonish them, as all the Meeting hath to advice you. And therefore they cannot accuse you as a self-pleaser, proud, or contentious for refusing their advice, until they have harkened first to your advice given them, to suppress effectually the Pensilvanian Heresy; charging Carnality upon the Christian Doctrine. And when they have set you this pattern of taking good advice, then( but not till then) they may think of accusing you, but this will take away the matter of their Accusation against you, and so leave you innocent. That is, as I said before, their Condemnation of you, as they have managed, the matter is really your Justification, but their own Condemnation. When therefore they reproach you, as touchy, petulant, froward, haughty, proud, contumacious, across, refractory, they do but whip their own faults upon your Back. These thoughts I have sent you, that you may see indifferent persons are not all just of Tho. Ellwoods mind, and G. Whiteheads concerning your case, desiring your pardon for so long a Letter, of your Humble Servant.  
FINIS.