A27001:68
The Quakers catechism, or, The Quakers questioned, their questions answered, and both published for…
The Quakers catechism, or, The Quakers questioned, their questions answered, and both published for the sake of those of them that have not yet sinned unto death and of those ungrounded novices that are most in danger of their seduction / by R[i]chard Baxter.
London: printed by A.M. for Thomas Underhill and Francis Tyton, 1655
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Having said as much to this Query as you require, I will gratis add something that I may please you by supererogation: I lately saw another Paper of your Queries which you have dispersed in other places, which speaks almost only of This Inward Light; In which I perceived 1. That you falsely intimate that we deny the necessity of an inward light, when as we maintain that the external light of the Word alone is not sufficient without the inward light of the Spirit. 2. You there intimate to us a supposed sufficiency of the inward light that every man in the world hath. Concerning which I shall say more anon, and now only demand of you. 1. Whether you mean it is sufficient to leave men without excuse, (That we maintain as well as you) or is every mans light sufficient to his salvation? If so Q. 2. Was it sufficient before Christ preached the Gospel and sent his Apostles? Or is it now sufficient to all that never heard the Gospel; If so, Is not the Gospel a vain and needless thing? or are you Christians that dare so affirm? Q. 3. If the world have sufficient light, what need they your teaching, or discourse, or conviction? Q. 4. If all have sufficient light within them, what need there any converting grace? Q. 5. Then why did Christ send Paul to open mens eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, if they had sufficient light before, Act. 26. 18. Q 6. I pray you do not disdain to tell me when you have rubbed your eyes, if all men have sufficient light within them, Why you got up into the Judgement seat, and pronounced me so oft to be in darkness, and to be void of the light, and to have none of the Spirit. If all have it, why may not I have it?
Having said as much to this Query as you require, I will gratis adde something that I may please you by supererrogation: I lately saw another Paper of your Queries which you have disperst in other places, which speaks almost only of This Inward Light; In which I perceived 1. That you falsly intimate that we deny the necessity of an inward light, when as we maintain that the external light of the Word alone is not sufficient without the inward light of the Spirit. 2. You there intimate to us a supposed sufficiency of the inward light that every man in the world hath. Concerning which I shall say more anon, and now only demand of you. 1. Whether you mean it is sufficient to leave men without excuse, (That we maintain as well as you) or is every mans light sufficient to his salvation? If so Q. 2. Was it sufficient before Christ preached the Gospel and sent his Apostles? Or is it now sufficient to all that never heard the Gospel; If so, Is not the Gospel a vain and needlesse thing? or are you Christians that dare so affirm? Q. 3. If the world have sufficient light, what need they your teaching, or discourse, or conviction? Q. 4. If all have sufficient light within them, what need there any converting grace? Q. 5. Then why did Christ send Paul to open mens eyes, and to turn them from darknesse to light, if they had sufficient light before,