Conversations, discussions and anecdotes

Introduction

The conversations related in the ensuing pages, transpired near a century and a lialf ago. But the subjects of ^hich they treat have not grown old with time, nor has the light then shed upon them faded with the roll of years.

The powers of intellect, the clearness and cogency of argument here exhibited, have rarely been surpassed, and have lost none of their original vigor or of their genuine merit by the lapse of years. Time writes no wrinkles on the brow of religious principles, nor have the errors here combated become by age less injurious to the welfare of the present, than they were to a former generation.

The work therefore, has the freshness, the interest, and the practical utility, of a work of yesterday, and will, perhaps, be even more acceptable to the reader, from being clothed in the strong, direct, yet classic language of a bygone age.

Thomas Story was educated in the way of the National Church, and was trained in the fashionable accomplishments of an English gentleman of that period. He speaks of his acknowledged proficiency in the sword exercise, and of devoting some attention to music. A writer says of him : " He was a man of excellent understanding, and highly educated, and had particularly applied

VIU INTRODUCTION.

part of his time to the study of Natural History and the physical nature of things.''

At a proper age he was placed with a counsellor to study law, intending to enter one of the Inns of Court to finish ; but his sense of religious duty turned him from this course, and joining, from conviction, with the people called Quakers, he became a minister among them and to multitudes of others, of the gospel of Christ.

He travelled extensively in Europe and America in the prosecution of this, as he believed, divine mission, and underwent many hardships, dangers, and privations. In one of his many voyages he was captured by a French privateer, and was for a time detained a prisoner at a French port.

But his abilities and excellencies as a minister, were not all that rendered him conspicuous; whilst in America, having finished a religious engagement, he was solicited by William Penn to remain and take some charge of his affairs in Pennsylvania, and yielding his consent, he was appointed Keeper of the Seal, Master of the Rolls, a member of the Council, and was the first Recorder of the city of Philadelphia, named as such in the first city charter, 1701.

In 1706 he married Anne, daughter of Edward Shippen, mayor of Philadelphia; this marriage connection continued about six years, she dying in 1712. In 1706 he was chosen mayor of Philadelphia, but declining to serve was fined £20 by the common council. But beside his assiduous attention to the duties of the several offices which he did accept, he appears to have led a life of great activity, being almost constantly engaged in religious services of an arduous character.

The business which he followed for a maintenance both in England and in America was that of a scrivener, and he appears to have acquired considerable property in this way and by marriage ; after his father's death he came into possession of the paternal estate at Justice Town, England, and although it can

INTRODUCTION. ix

hardly be said that he made it his home (so much was he absent) yet he took much pleasure in tree planting, as an example, as ho says, to the neighboring proprietors, having planted out many thousand trees collected from different parts of the world, but chiefly from America. He died in 1742 of paralysis, aged about seventy-five years.

"Many witnesses remain," says a cotemporary, "even all who were acquainted with him, of his high value and merit as a glorious instrument in the Divine hand."

He left in his own handwriting a voluminous account of his life and travels. And in his will gave directions for its publication, at the expense of the residue of his estate, real and personal, to be bestowed upon the public as the author's legacy.

These munificent intentions were nobly carried out by his trustees, who within five years after his decease, " printed a certain number of copies of the said journal" in large folio of near eight hundred pages.

The copy from which these extracts have been taken is in paper, typography, and binding, a fine specimen of art. The number of copies thus issued is nowhere stated, nor is any intimation given of the amount of the residue of the estate ; both matters of some interest to those who road the work.

In reading the conversations and discussions (some of them of great length), it will scarcely be supposed that the author's memory could possibly recolleot the whole as it is here related, yet as he could be at no loss as to the full purport of what had passed on these occasions, and had a clear conception in his own mind of the arguments involved, there could be no great difficulty in his giving a truthful portrait of the discussion. Th« author has himself signified that in writing them out, he has in some instances amplified the argument and gxtended the quotations. By such means, however, the value of these |)roductions is enhanced, as being, by so much the more, a complete exposition of the several subjects of which they treat.

X INTRODUCTION.

As to the temper, object, and manner of the author in conducting controyersy, the reader is particularly referred to the following statement taken from his journal : —

" Divers disputes I have had with many in other parts of the world; hut never began any controversy, being always on the defensive aide, and rarely entered upon any point in question, with any sect, till I knew the Divine truth oyer all in my own mind and my will subjected by it. And my next care usually was, not to provoke my opponent, for by keeping him calm I had his own understanding, and the measure of grace in him, for truth and my point, against the error he contended for ; And my chief aim generally hath been to gain upon people's understanding for their own good. But where a man is put in a passion, he may be confounded, but not convinced.

"And this has also taught me to be totally silent, and sometimes even insulted by ignorants as if I had nothing to say ; till the power and virtue of Truth hath arisen in my mind, and then it hath never failed, by its ovm light and evidence, to support its own cause, and justify me."

Nathl. Richardson.

Chapter I. A Dinnek Party At Carlisle, England

T RAN SUBSTANTIATION.

A SOLID consideration of the state of affairs, the doubtfulness and hazard of the issue, put me upon a more inward and close observation of persons and things than ever. And one day at the Assizes of Carlisle, dining at an inn with a mixed company, where happened to be two of our ministers of the Church of England, a Popish gentleman moved a debate concerning Transubstantiation, pretending to prove by Scripture, that by virtue of certain words which their priests say over a piece of bread or wafer, there is a substantial conversion of it into the real body of Christ, the very same that was born of the Virgin Mary, crucified at Jerusalem, and now glorified in Heaven.

The text of Scripture he advanced to support this petition, was, " And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said. Take, eat, this is my body." And his argument was only this, that Christ, being the word of God, and the truth, whatever he said must be positively and literally true; and therefore there is a real change of the bread into the true and real body of Christ. And this being an ordinance of God to his ministers, the same power is annexed to that ordinance; since, at the same time, he commanded them to do the same, saying, " This do in remembrance of me."

(in

During this uninterrupted discourse, my zeal was kindled, so that I could scarce contain it. But being young, and diffident of my own abilities, and paying regard and preference to our two ministers present, and expecting their appearance against so great an error, and so opposite to the Protestant religion, I delayed till it became almost unseasonable to engage him. But they minding their plates, and hanging down their heads, with their countenances vailed by their . hats, and I seeing no sign of any answer from them to the Papist, I took him up upon the subject thus :

" Sir, you of the Church of Rome take these words literally, but we take the whole form of his speech at that time, on that subject, to be figurative; and that these words, 'This is my body,' intended no more than, This bread is a symbol, or figure, or representation of my body, which shall shortly hereafter be broken for you. For we ought not to divide the sentence or speech of Christ, and take one part literally and another figuratively. And you may remember that, at the same time, ho also took the cup, saying, 'This cup is the New Testament, in my blood, which is shed for you.' Do you think that that cup, whether of gold, silver, glass, or wood, was the New Testament? Or can't you see that in this latter part of his speech there is a double figure ? First, Metonymia, subject! pro adjuucto, the thing containing for the thing contained; and secondly, the wine in the cup, exhibited, under the word cup, as a figure or representation of his blood, which was not then actually or literally shed, or his body broken. And seeing he said in the present tense, ' This is my body which is broken (not to be broken) for you,' ' and this cup is the New Testament, in my blood, which is (not which shall hereafter be) shed for you,' you must either own that Christ advanced a fajse proposition, which you will not ; or that he spake figuratively in both sentences, which you cannot reasonably avoid. Besides, the words uttered by Christ himself did not work that effect you imagine ; for no man can call a thing by any name, denoting its existence, before it is that thing which it is called; (then taking up a plate) no man, for

TRANSUBSTANTIATION. 13

instance, can truly and literally say this is a plate if it were not a plate before. Then, by a parity of reason and truth, Christ could not say, this bread is my body, if it were not his body before ; therefore these words made no alteration, for, if it was .so before, these words were only declarative of what was before, and not initiatory or commenoive of a new being which was not there before. And again, if ever these words had effected a transubstantiation, they would when Christ himself uttered them. Consider, then^ pray, that as soon as Christ began to speak those words, ' This is my body,' the body of Christ, born of the Virgin Mary, began to cease to be his body, and the bread began to convert into it; and that as soon as the words were finished, the body born of the Virgin altogether ceased to be what it was before, and, by a new way of corporeal transmigration, insinuated itself into the bread, which, by the same degrees that the body of Christ ceased to be his body, commenced, proceeded, grew, and became his body; or else he had two bodies present with his disciples at the same time ; and if they eat his body that evening, what body was that which was crucified the next day ? and what blood then shed, if, the night before, the disciples had drank the blood of Jesus in a proper and literal sense and without a figure '! And where now is that same cup ? If you have lost that, you have, in your own sense, lost the New Testament and all your share therein.

" Now, sir, if you can persuade me and this company out of our senses and understandings, so as that we may be able to believe against both, that a piece of bread is the body of Christ, and a cup of wine is his blood, then you may bid fair for our conversion, or rather perversion, to your religion. But till you can do that, you cannot reasonably expect we should embrace so great absurdities."

Upon this several of the company laughed ; and the Papist said these were great mysteries, and the subject copious and intricate, and could not at that time be fully prosecuted, but might be more largely discussed at some other convenient opportunity. 2

I replied : "Then why did you move it? Could you think we would all sit silent, to hear you propagate such notions, and make no opposition ?" And so the matter dropped ; but though I had thus opposed him, he showed more respect to me afterwards than to any other of the company.

Dinner being over, our ministers retired into another room, and I went to them, where, with much seeming respect, they addressed themselves to me after this manner : — " We are very glad you have had so much to say in defence of our religion, apd that you managed the debate so that he got no advantage, nor could maintain his point."J

But I, being still under the grief and shame, as well as resentment of their temporizing, cowardice, and negligence, quickly returned thus : — " And I, gentlemen, am very much grieved and ashamed to find that you had nothing at all to say in defence of it, which I very much wondered at, for I so long expected one of you would have engaged the gentleman, that it was almost unseasonable to make any answer."

Chapter II

DE. GILPIN, OF SCALEBY CASTLE, ENGLAND.

THE lord's SUPPEB.

Dr. Gilpin sent his son, a counsellor, under whom I had been initiated into the study of the law, and who still retained a great affection for me, to invite me to his house at Scaleby Castle, and desired to see some of the Quakers' books, supposing I had been imposed upon by reading them ; and I sent him, as I remember, all that I had.

THE lord's supper. 15

Soon after I had parted with these books, I observed a cloud come over my mind, and an unusual concern ; and therein the two Sacraments (commonly so termed) came afresh into my remembrance, and divers Scriptures and arguments, pro and con ; and then I was apprehensive the doctor was preparing something of that sort to discourse me upon ; and I began to search out some Scriptures in defence of my own sentiments on those subjects. But as I proceeded a little in that work, I became more uneasy and clouded, upon which I laid aside the Scriptures and sat still, looking toward the Lord for counsel. For I considered the doctor as a man of great learning, religious in his way, an ancient preacher and writer too, famous in Oliver's time, and a throne among his brethren, and that he might advance such subtilties as I could not readily confute, nor would concede to as knowing them erroneous, though I might not suddenly be furnished with arguments to demonstrate their fallacy ; and so might receive hurt.

And then it was clear in my understanding, that, as he was in his own will and strength, though with a good intent, in his own sense searching the letter, and depending upon that and his own wisdom, acquirements, and subtility, leaning to his own spirit and understanding, I must decline that way, and trust in the Spirit of Christ, the Divine Author of the Holy Scriptures. And as this caution was presented in the life and virtue of truth, I rested satisfied therein, and searched no further on that occasion. When I went to his house, he entered into a discourse on those subjects, and had such passages of Scripture folded down as he purposed to use ; and when I observed it, I was confirmed that my sight of him, in my own chamber at Carlisle, and of his work, some days before, was right ; and my mind was strengthened thereby. But before he began to move upon the subject, he dismissed every other person out of the room, so that himself and I remained alone.

The first thing he said was, in a calm manner, to admonish me to be very cautions how I espoused the errors of the Quakers, for he had heard of late, and with concern, that I had been among them, or seemed to incline that way. I

IG T. story's conversations, etc.

answered that I had not been much among them, nor seen any of their hooks but those I had sent him, and knew not of any errors they held. Yes, said he, they deny the ordinances of Christ, the two Sacraments, Baptism and the Lord's Supper, and then opened his book, at one of his down-folded leaves, where he read thus : — " Unto the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints." 1 Cor. i. 2.

And at another folded down part he read thus : — " For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus, the same night in. which he was betrayed, took bread; and when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said. Take, eat, this is my body, which is broken for you ; this do in remembrance of me. After the same manner, also, he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the New Testament in my blood ; this do yc, as oft as you drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till he come."

Upon these Scriptures he raised this argument. That though the Corinthians at that time were sanctified in Christ, and called to be saints, yet they still needed this ordinance, and were to continue in it, according to the apostle's doctrine, till the coming of Christ, at the end of the world. And he did not think the Quakers more holy or perfect Christians than the Corinthians at that time ; and consequently that no state in this life can render that ordinance needless to them, or overgrow it.

To this I replied, that though some of those Corinthians had obeyed the call of God, and were at that time sanctified by faith in Christ, yet pthers of them had not obeyed the call, but were remaining in gross sins and pollutions. But as they had been heathens, and convinced by the ministry of that apostle, as appears by the beginning of the second and fifteenth chapters of that epistle, he had first of all preached to them Christ's coming in the flesh among the Jews, his life, miracles, doctrines, death for our sins, and resurrection from the dead, as

THE lord's supper. 17

saving truths, but does not so mucli as mention this supposed ordinance among them. But considering their weak and carnal state, and incapacity then to reach the knowledge of Divine mysteries, the apostle had, in their initiation into the Christian religion, related to them the sayings of Christ on that subject; and they had been in the practice, or rather abuse of it, till the time of the writing of that epistle. Yet if the words of that epistle, in that place, be carefully and impartially observed, without prepossession or prejudice, and compared with other Scriptures, it will appear that there is not any positive command for it at all, much less is it made a standing ordinance, but left to the option and discretion of his disciples, to whom it was first mentioned how often they should do it, and, consequently, also how long they should continue it, as appears by the same text now adduced; viz., "This do, as often as ye do it, in remembrance of me."

But, to set this matter in a clearer light, it is well known that, at the time of the redemption of the Jews from their Egyptian slavery, the Passover with the Paschal Lamb was instituted as a standing ordinance, in commemoration of it, until Christ, the Lamb of God, and antitype of that figure, should come. But as Israel, offending the Lord, was afterward sent into captivity under the Babylonians, they could not, in that state and under that government, celebrate it in form ; and therefore they invented another way to keep that great deliverance in memory, which was this :

The father, or chief of the family, at the proper time of the Paschal Supper, took bread and blessed it, saying : " Blessed be thou, Lord our God, who gives us the fruit of the earth ;" then, dividing it among the company, in like manner also he took the cup, and, blessing it, said : " Blessed be thou, O Lord, who gives us the fruit of the vine." This they did in a solemn manner, remembering their Egyptian slavery and deliverance, lamenting their present state, acknowledging their sins, and the justice of God in their punishment, and hopes of his mercy from his former kind dealings and gracious promises.

The Jews, being then initiated into this practice, upon so solemn an occasion, as the Lord's being pleased to remember them with redemption a second time, the succeeding generations continued it, as incident to the Passover, until the Lord Christ, the antitype (as well of the Paschal Lamb as of the bread and wine), did come, who, when he appeared, was declared by John the Baptist to be " The Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world ;" and he declared himself to be " the bread of life, the living bread which came down from Heaven ;" proclaiming also, and that very emphatically, that his flesh is meat indeed, and his blood is drink indeed ; that, except they ate his flesh and drank his blood, they had no life in them. And all this was meant of the Spirit of Christ, and not of his flesh. " It is the Spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing."

The time drawing near when the Lamb of God was to be slain, and offered as a sacrifice, declaring the mercy of God the Father, who sent him in love to the whole world, he then said to his disciples : " With desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer." And at the time of it, as father and chief of his flock and family, he celebrated the Passover in form, with this difference only, that whereas the Jews, until that time, in the celebration of it, had looked back to the type and outward deliverance from Egypt, the Lord now directs them to himself as the antitype of all figures ; and tells them he would not any more eat thereof (the Passover) until it should " be fulfilled in the kingdom of God," nor drink of the fruit of the vine, until that day "when he should drink it new with them in his Father's kingdom." Which eating and drinking, in the kingdom of God, cannot relate to material bread and wine, which can only be exhibited as symbols of the outward body of Christ, and the blood of that holy body, which to be eat and drank in a natural sense profiteth nothing, but to the all-quickening virtue and power of his holy spirit, which is all in all, and true feeding to the commonwealth of the whole Israel of God. And therefore this Passover, or any part or relative to it, whether bread, wine, or any other matter

THE lord's supper. 19

in it, could be of no further use or obligation to the disciploa of Christ, than till they should experience in themselves his divine and spiritual appearance and coming in them, and to be the same to their souls or minds which natural food and drink is to the body — its support, strength, nourishment, and means of duration. Which divine coming of Christ as such, can mean no other than his being made manifest in a spiritual administration; for, as he is that eternal spirit of essential Truth, and Word, Wisdom an4 Power of God, it is not strictly proper to say of him (in that sense) that he shall come or go anywhere, but to be made manifest j for, as such, he ever was, is, and will be omnipresent, and never absent from any place or time.

His coming, then, must intend his powerful manifestation where he already is, and not a locomotive coming from where he is, to any other place where he was not before, " for the heaven of heavens cannot contain him." 2 Chron. ii. 6.

Seeing, then, that this was only the Passover, and the terms of the application of it to himself, not institutive of any new command or ordinance, but a liberty to do or not to do it, at discretion, "This do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me," laid no obligation on them to do it any more at all, it being ended by the manifestation of its antitype; and in the nature of things, could be of no farther obligation or reasonable use; when Christ himself was witnessed in them to be that eternal, everlasting, never-failing" divine substance.

But the Apostle Paul, whos,e concern for the Jews, and zeal for the conversion of the Gentiles, to whom in an especial manner he was sent, engaged him to become all things to all men, that by all means he might gain some, recommended to the Corinthians the practice of the Passover with the new application of it to Christ, at the time of their first believing in him by that apostle's ministry, that being yet carnally minded, they might have an outward communion, till the true communion should be made known, which their state, at that time, could not bear. As, in point of prudence only, he practised some other legal rites, at some times, ■which in his doctrines, he condemned at other times, where the state of the people was able to bear it.

And it is much more likely, considering the nature and end of the G-ospel, and its excellency above the Law, and all legal and typical rites, as substances excel shadows; that the apostle, observing how much some of the Corinthians had abused the Passover in practice, and their very carnal state under it, was rather by that epistle endeavoring to supersede it, and bring them off to the living substance, where he saith to such among them as were already sanctified, and to whom he inscribed his epistle, "I speak as to wise men, judge ye what I say, the cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ ? The bread whi<!h we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? for we being many, are one bread and on» body, for we are all partakers of that one bread."

It is plain, therefore, that the communion of the sanctified and wise in Corinth, stood not in the bread which perisheth, nor in the wine of the grape, which some of the Corinthians were carnally abusing, but in the quickening spirit and power of Christ, the true living, life-giving, and life-preserving bread, which daily comes from heaven, into all the sanctified and saved of the Lord.

This is that spirit that quickens and preserves to life eternal, the flesh profiteth nothing, and since it is so, much less does any symbol of the flesh profit,' but the divine substance only. This is that substance of which the apostle draws the comparison, "we being many are one bread." For as wheat consists of many particular grains, each containing a distinct principle of life after its kind, and all of the same nature, which being broken, and rightly prepared and ordered by the good husbandman, become one bread ; even so is the church of Christ, every member in his natural state, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance and darkness that was in him, and separated also one from another, as without a proper medium and condition of union, but being ordered and prepared by the Father of mercies, through Christ his eternal

THE lord's supper. 21

Word, they become one body and one spirit, the Church, which is his body, the fulness of him who filleth all in all.

The substance of this was what I observed to the doctor, though I have in this place expatiated somewhat further on the subject, and generally applied the Scriptures; to which he made little other reply ihs^n by telling nle, in a very calm and familiar manner, that as he had always believed it to be an ordinance of Christ, he had solemnly used it as such, and found comfort in it.

To which I returned, that I did not doubt but that he might have some satisfaction in it, since he believed it a remaininsr ordinance, and did" it under that apprehension; whosoever in his heart believes anything to be a standing duty in the Church of Christ, which ever had any countenance in it by practice, and performs it faithfully, according to his belief and understanding, may find a satisfaction in it.