EXTRACTS FROM “EPISTLES.”
John Rogers, Sr.
Christian Reader:—
I direct this my book to thee, without any regard to one sect more than another, for the unity and fellowship of God’s people is Love, and this Love is the bond of perfectness, and by this Love shall all men know that we are Christ’s disciples; and if this Love be with us and dwell in us, by it we shall know that we are translated from death unto life; for that faith that purifies the soul works by this Love, and by this faith which works by Love we come to have the victory over the world.
Beloved brethren, Since that great apostacy hath been, which the holy apostles did in their day fore-tell of, which hath spread over nations and kingdoms, so that the very names of things in scripture hath been (and in many things yet are) wrongly applied and generally believed to be that which they are not; and those false customs which this great apostacy hath brought in hath been received (and yet are in many things) for truths; but God hath in these latter ages raised up such lights in the world at several times as hath discovered much of the great mystery of iniquity; but they have always been accounted (at their first appearing) as deceivers and seducers and the like, by the dark world in general, and met with great opposition from the powers of this world, even from the powers of darkness; but the God with whom all power is hath so borne them up, through their faith, that the gates of hell were not able to withstand them, nor all the powers of darkness able to gainsay them, so that Satan hath been forced to fit up a new form of pretended holiness to deceive the world with, at several times, yea, even at every such appearance of the light of the gospel; for so often as the Lord hath been pleased to reveal unto his Church the life and light of the gospel, by shining into the hearts of his children, so often hath there been a falling away, and that old serpent, called the Devil and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world, hath at such times endeavored to work in the hearts of governors and great men of the earth to set up that which they imagine to be the worship of God, and to maintain the same, and this hath ever been a snare and net whereby God’s children have been ensnared and hypocrites set up; for the true worship of God is in righteousness and true holiness in the inner man, and none can thus worship God till he sets them free from the Egypt of sin, and works this righteousness in their own hearts by his own Spirit; and such as these cannot conform to any prescribed form set up by the powers of darkness of this world, without procuring the great displeasure of God; for they are to be God’s witnesses of that worship which God hath set up in the hearts of his own children, who alone can worship God in spirit and in truth, and none else; and these are the light of the world, and yet are but strangers and pilgrims in the world; for their kingdom is not of this world. But those that fall away from the spirit of truth into the spirit of the world are the false prophets and antichrists, and these are they whom the world doth follow and close with, according to scripture testimony; for saith the scripture, They are of the world, and the world heareth them; he that is not of God heareth not us; by this we know, the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. Here is a plain description laid down for us to know the false prophets by, to wit, “for the world heareth them”; by this we know they are always the greatest number, because the body of the people will hear and speak well of them; but the world will not hear and speak well of the true, saith the scripture; and this is the description the scripture gives us to know them by. I John 4, 5, 6. Luke 6, 26. Mat. 5, 11, 12.
What I have written in this book to the churches of Christ called Quakers I did present to the ministry of the said people in the time of a general meeting at Rhode Island, desiring of them it might be read to the congregation at the said meeting, and so handed among them till it come to Wm. Penn and the rest of their ministry. But after the ministry had perused it, some of them told me that I knew they did look at water baptism useless after a person came to be baptised with the Spirit. To which I replied, Your argument is just contrary to the scripture; for said Peter, “Can any man forbid water, that these should not be baptised which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we? And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord.” Acts 10, 47, 48. Another replied, saying, “Thou holds forth the light contrary to what we have done, both in our public testimonies and printed books.” To which I answered, “If you can shew me wherein I have held it forth contrary to the holy Scriptures, it shall be rectified:” But I heard no further reply to that. I then told them that if they would be pleased to publish it among themselves, I should be satisfied, and proceed no further with it, otherwise my purpose was to print it. Whereupon, some of them asked me whether I would be satisfied if they read it in their private meeting. I told them Yes; for I directed it to them and not to the world. Upon which they appointed me to come to the same place the next morning at seven of the clock for an answer; accordingly I did, where my book was returned to me again, some saying “It holds forth things contrary to what we have done, both in our public testimonies and printed books, and may make a division among us.” To which I answered, “If truth make a division among you, it is such a division as Christ came to make.” But they thus refusing to publish it among themselves, I have thought it my duty to put it to public view, believing there is yet a remnant among them which have not defiled their garments.
I have also added something more at the end of that epistle which I presented to them, to show the difference between the ministration of the moral law (written in the hearts of all the children of Adam) and of the ministration of the gospel of Jesus Christ (written on the hearts of God’s children by the spirit of the living God) the one being the light of condemnation, the other being the light of life, or the light of our justification, through faith in the blood of Jesus Christ, and both proceeding from the self-same God.
And as to what I have written to the observers of the Seventh Day Sabbath, these may certify thee that after it pleased God, through his rich grace in Christ Jesus, to take away the guilt of my sins from my conscience and to send the spirit of his Son into my heart, whereby he did reveal unto me his love and his acceptance of me in Jesus Christ, this unspeakable mercy did greatly engage my heart to love God and diligently to search the Scriptures, that thereby I might know how to serve God acceptably, for then I soon became a seeker how to worship God, though more zealous of the tradition of my fathers till I saw them to be traditions and no scripture precepts. I thus, upon diligent search of the Scriptures, found that the First-day Sabbath was nowhere commanded by any law of God, and the Scriptures telling me where no law is there can be no transgression, and that it is but vain to worship God by men’s traditions, Mat. 15, 9, and also finding by Scripture that there was a commandment for the keeping of the seventh day, I then openly labored on the first day of the week, in faithfulness to God and my fellow creatures, and strictly kept the fourth commandment, which commanded labor on the first day of the week, and required rest on the seventh. But I continuing a diligent searcher of the holy Scriptures, and begging at the Throne of Grace for direction in the way of truth, it pleased God to open my understanding to understand the Scriptures and to see that the seventh day sabbath was but a sign (under the law) of a gospel rest that Christ gives the soul, and that the shadowing part of the law was nailed to the cross of Christ; I could then no longer observe the seventh day without defiling my conscience; for saith Christ, Mat. 10, 27: “What I tell you in darkness that speak ye in light; and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the housetops.” I then wrote to those of my brethren that kept the seventh day sabbath, showing them how it was but a sign or shadow of a better thing that was to come by Jesus Christ, and since have writ this following Epistle to them, wherein is opened the covenant of the law and the covenant of grace, the first covenant being a figure of the second; which covenant, with all the rites and ceremonies of it, continued until the establishment of the new testament by the blood of Jesus Christ; which testament contains the substance of those things shadowed out in the first covenant; and though the shadowing part of the law was nailed to the cross of Christ, and so ceased, as they were signs and shadows, yet it is as easy for heaven and earth to pass as it is for one tittle (of what was shadowed out by the law) to escape of being fulfilled by Christ in the substance of it; for what God had before determined should be fulfilled by Christ was prophesied of by the law, as well as by the prophets, as is to be seen, Mat. 2, 13. But John the Baptist came so near to him that he pointed at him saying, Behold the lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world.
I have thought it my duty to put these things to public view, being sensible of the wiles of Satan, who is wont to work in the darkness of men, to mislead them to make idols of such things which God commanded to be observed as signs of instructions to his church as is to be seen, Numb. 21, 9, compared with II Kings 18, 4, and what it was a sign of is to be seen, John 3, 14, 15.
Then follows the Epistle to the Quakers and that to the Seventh Day Baptists.