beauty and glory to all and receive from none Secondly it is a sin against God a distrust of him not to commit our selves wholly to the leadings of his spirit it is an ignorance of his presence with and dominion over every spirit he being in and over all men he will plead the cause of Truth with them especially when it rises simply and purely from himself and his own good Spirit And will make it effectual to that end that he sends it It is most righteously due to him that he should have the managing of what light and grace he gives to any man and to employ it to his own holy ends and purposes to be a savour of life or of death as he please Thirdly there is in it want of love to Brethren for why should we be either afraid or ashamed to appear to them we love just as we are if I love my neighbour as my self why should not I appear to him as I do to my self and be confident of him that if I be found weak to him he will both pitty cover and help me as I would do to my self or as I would do to him Sure such confidence and openness of heart one to another will sooner gain entrance into the heart then formal and neat discourses into the head being most natural and familiar And if they obtain a place in the heart they will effect more then by pleasing the fancy yea weakness as well as confidence suits best with them that are weak A man may over-power a weak mind by too great an evidence and strength of Reason We are all weak if any will seem to be otherwise I doubt he doth but dissemble and get a covering but if any could attain a perfection he would by it be more a stranger to his Brethren except he could make them like himself or descend into their imperfection and be like them Fourthly I am not justified in rejecting or scorning infirmity There is a time for all things and a season proper for weakness A mixture of light and darkness makes the morning pleasant and growing simplicity and mistakes in children is better then cunning and politick exactness Yea natural weakness is better then artificial strength Christ became weak for us and what is any man that he should refuse what he chose or to be weak with the weak much less to appear so if he be so Exactness and compleatness is desirable and exceeding beautiful in its season when we grow up naturally to it But we must come to it by degrees and arise to it out of weakness In a child perfect strength or wisdom seems strange and monstrous if it be feigned or affected in any it is Serpentine deceit and hypocrifie Besides if we refuse to do good because we would and may do better or best of all we reject the first degree of good which is the root and foundation both of better and best And cruelly slay and destroy the first spring and buddings of life which are the fountains that only can nourish and feed unto perfect strength and Eternal Life Lastly there is in it as distrust of Truth God and Brethren so of a mans self and his own life If a man have any true life in him it is sufficient to carry him forth into the world because it is better and greater then the world He that is in you is greater then he that is in the world By distrust and diffidence of a mans own life he weakens it It is the design of the enemy to keep us in fear and bondage of spirit If that life that is in me be true it is best when it is natural all art and contrivance do weaken and clog it If it be not true it is abominable hypocrisie to personate an holy or heavenly thing We see all studied and made things come to base ends they will wear out and leave a mans soul destitute But true and genuine life will stand and increase Therefore I would be natural as in all things so especially in Religion which though it is supernatural yet is never good if it be not also natural Yet I may not wholly condemn the exercise either of fancy or judgement in composing and forming things for that they also are natural faculties and are excellent when the spiritual life doth purifie them fill them and rule over them By this you see the first and great evil in this Book and in my mind in writing of it delaying or dallying till another spirit had entred and so long till all parties were so engaged and disturbed that they had neither time nor clearness of mind to examine the reason of it For which I was so sharply afflicted and threatned not only to the rejecting of my present work and Ministry but of my life also Yet it was a sin not of wickedness but weakness and therefore I found mercy and God accepted of a sacrifice from me and not only permitted me to proceed in my work but continued and enlarged his assistance and healed my foul also Which gives me hope that though the book and my self suffer awhile yet I and others may at last reap fruit and comfort from it It is for the present in the fire and let it be tryed throughly that all may see what is in it SECT IV. YOu have seen the first and great evil of the book its unseasonable birth occasioned by my delaying to write it when the things contained in it first offered themselves to come forth You have likewise seen the severe chastisments suffered for it and animadversions upon both If this evil be really removed and taken away and what I have written may a little calm and compose your minds but into a willingness to read it and seriously to ponder the things contained in it other defects the consequents and effects of the former may be cured There is a continual spring and growth of light in my mind which makes me distaste this day what I wrote two or three dayes since this made me suppress things and not giving them vent in their season they multiplyed so fast upon me that at last they crowded out one over another so thick and in a huddle that people know not what to make of them whereas had they marched out in their own order although rude and natural yet they would have been more perspicuous and so more easily discerned and understood There is I am sure a strange mistake in men even of the very drift and nature of the book so much wide of reason that I wonder at it besides other causes this may be one things pressed out so fast when they found the door open that they obscured themselves by multitude and force Being born in turba they are children of strife from the womb and then it is no wonder if they disturb others But this is a curable evil if any will be at the pains to part the notions and conceptions and take them asunder
and set them at a greater distance one from another I do think he may have another view of them The matters contained in the book are very weighty concerning the great change and turn in the Nation by which the lives and liberties of thousands are in danger The things written and manner of writing them are not vulgar most people say they do not understand them They that have read it often say it hath in every new reading a new face When I review it my self I find more in it then I apprehended when I writ it I profess when I consider it I cannot think of mens slighting of it without an indignation I must deal freely with you when I hear of your unworthy and irrational scorn of it my soul doth upbraid and wonder at that shallowness and froward headiness that makes you so uncapable of the justice reason and mercy that is in it I do know and am able to write it upon mature deliberation and consultation That there is in it that love and righteousness that must and shall be considered and understood And that very fury that makes you impatient of the reason and rebuke of it will run you upon a foolish and desperate opposing the present Providence and Power and so bring you into misery And then you will repent of your too late considering as I have of my too late writing I could return scorn for scorn and auger for anger it is in me to do it you know you are liable to it and may know I am able to do it But such is my love to you that I cannot but earnestly desire you to mind and study the things I dare promise you you shall not lose your labour if that which is there written do not answer your time and pains do but complain of it to me and you shall have satisfaction It is but just you should and I have such opinion of my honesty and ability as to assure you if it doth not perform to you I will Another fault is found in the Book that it is too sharp and cutting in the reproofs of it It is a sensible complaint in some I have the more reason to Animadvert upon it because it is so If they be afflicted at it there is great reason it should afflict me also Of all repentings I find the easiest and sweetest is to repent of anger God hath made it easie and honourable by his own example who hath often repented of his just rebukes upon his people It is easie in it self for anger is no pleasant thing If it were not necessary no man could chuse it Indeed it is so mean a thing that few men enter into it in judgement Most men are thrust upon it without understanding I think I may say all It is so unruly and troublesom a guest that none but fools will entertain it Solomon sayes Eccles 7.9 Anger rests in the bosom of fools If it be just and good it is mean and poor but if it be malicious wicked and false then it is devilish Be it what it will I alwayes find it as yet an offence to my weak nature it alwayes wounds and stings me therefore I am inclined to be jealous of it and of my self for it If there be a sowr and severe spirit in it it may possibly arise from the first ill root deferring or delaying to give it forth in its season when t was tender the keeping it so long within made it more fierce But if the nails be too long we may pare them I will be better then scratching and clawing Angry and vehement reproofs do abound in this Age You reprove and condemn your adversaries to utter destruction and they condemn you I have rebuked you and you rebuke me as a man irrecoverably lost The Nation is so full of judgement that men can administer little else wrath is so strong that most men are quite drunk with it love and peace is so weak that they that incline to it find great difficulty in exercising any of it It may be for the good of all to understand the nature and kinds of rebuke There are four sorts of it subject to my observation The first and worst is devilish A malicious searching into and aggravating the sins of them we hate and accusing of them to make them odious that we may appear just or a finding but iniquity in them that are opposite to us that we may destroy them There is a great deal of this it is meet you and I should consider how far we have been in this spirit it is a very gross and common evil yet no discerned because them that we prosecute with such enmity we first paint them in our fancies as devils enemies to God and then think we do well to destroy them believing they are appointed to it But I hope this darkness will not last long For no parties now stand in opposition one to another at so great a distance as the children of God and the children of the Devil Because if any were indeed the children of God they would be like their Father Mat. 5.44 45. Love your enemies bless them that curse you do good to them that hate you pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you That you may be the children of your Father which is in heaven c. How contrary is mens ordinary practice to this We say we are the children of God and therefore ought to destroy our and Gods enemies to do good to sinners and to them that hate us is Divine to hate accuse and destroy is certainly Diabolical The second kind of rebuke is Legal or Angelical To reprove and punish men as Gods children and creatures in a holy zeal for God and righteousness with intention to humble subject and reform and that from a holy and pure Law and from a just and godly nature and life This is no Christian or divine dispensation but a legal one yet who is there of you that can justifie himself by this Law Consider it seriously Do you reprove and punish men as men as brethren as Gods creatures and children though enemies Do you do it with intent to humble and reform or to ruine and destroy Do you do it from a holy pure Law or from your own conceptions of the Law which are broken uncertain and changeable Do you do it from a just and godly nature and life or is there not also envy covetousness self-seeking partiality and unrighteousness you may ponder these things in your hearts and measure your selves by this rule The third kind of rebuke or reproof is Evangelical that which was administred by Christ when he was in the flesh he was a Minister of the circumcision and did oncumcise in his Ministery he Ministerd sharply cuttingly but when he had done that he was lead by his Father to lay down his life for them that he had so reproved and after he had discovered sin in a holy
having written some part of it I offered it to the Press by the Book-seller that printed the Inquisition Upon consideration he told me that there was that rage kindled in mens minds against the other Book that his men durst not shew them in the shop and that nothing of mine would pass till that spirit was laid and therefore he durst not meddle with this to print it My mind being very weak and tender and apt to take check at such things this did not only put me to a stand but turned my mind quite about to hearken more attentively to this cry that did thus earnestly pursue me And to consider that sure this mouth that was thus opened against me did require something of me And that I could not fairly nor justly slight and neglect it any longer And that I could not proceed in my intended work till I had answered this plea against me SECT II. T IS a position in my mind that no persons or things that we converse with are absolutely evil but there is some good in every thing else it could not be and therefore nothing is to be reprobated or not till it be first sifted and tried By my own rule I am bound to think that though these angry speeches against me are my enemies yet sure there is some just reason in them such sounds at these are not without their significancy If so then I must not reject them because opposite and unpleasing but must admit them to the bar of my own reason and not only give them a fair hearing but all the advantage also that I can because the Court is my own mind where they are strangers and being weak distempered things I ought to humble my self to them though mine enemies and to descend from my own right to hear and satisfie them if I can or at least to do them justice For I consider though they be dark passions yet they are humane and every man is honourable and every affection in man though sick and distempered is of value besides they are zealous serious brethren friends Christians therefore I must query Have I not erred against them have I not done them wrong have I not detained something from them that is their due We have professed a Kingdom of Heaven within us if it be there indeed then we have in us a throne of judgement which must do right to all things that come before us In this Kingdom there is also sufficient to answer every plea and claim that is made to it or against it and therefore we need not fear to admit the greatest and strongest accusation to a full and fair hearing Where there is authority to judge and sufficiency to answer there is likewise wisdom to understand what there is in these clamours though they be of themselves very dark and confused things for the mind may taste and try all things throughly and every thing that comes into it must be opened and seen in that light that is in it because the mind is a supream light to which all things are subject that come before it Therefore setting my self to examine and consider these things I found first that although there was just reason in the book yet there was something that hindered men from the seeing of it and though there was love and good in it yet there was something also that denyed men the benefit of it and therefore t is righteous that it should be animadverted and endure a tryal And secondly I find that there is some thing in my self that is justly due both to my friends and brethren and to the Book it self that was not therein communicated which is my life and spirit the ground upon which I stand upon which I wrote and by which I am enabled to assert things so different from others As these high challenges of my spirit and peace do tell me that this is the thing wanting and now demanded of me so I am upon this review of things conscious to my self that I have not fully opened my self and my mind but have in a great measure concealed it as well as my name And therefore I must thus far justifie the plea against me That if a man bring forth a notion of things different from and contrary to the life of others they may justly refuse that notion if the Author do not bring forth his own life spirit and peace which only can maintain those notions and satisfie for that life that he would take away by those notions This is for you and therefore I hope you will well observe the justice of it I am content to condemn what I have done as guilty of this capital offence It may possibly stand as a Law to me and others hereafter That if any man write be it never so good reason and with good intention if he do not produce the head of the spring from whence it comes and his own heart soul and peace with it let it wither and be rejected truly I believe it will There is a further justice in the persons offended If any man utter his matters to his friends and conceal himself he deals injuriously with them in bringing forth the weaker and worse and hiding the better part which the royal Law of love will condemn as a great wrong for certainly if there be any thing worthy in a man t is his spiritual life and therefore I justifie your anger you do like friends and men not to take words notions and reason if there be a better thing in me your own life and peace being aimed at you may well challenge me to shew a better I have this relief against this charge that though I am guilty in not discovering the best yet the best is still with me and being my own as yet it will support and justifie me Neither can I complain justly of any injury done to me by these sharp censures for if any man will put on an appearance strange to his neighbours and withal cover his face t is no wonder if men beat him and the dogs bark at him if he be ill used he may thank himself and his covering There is this remedy also if hiding the life and face be the fault that enmity that is occasioned by it will rend that vayl and then the quarrel will be ended If I have a right sense of the offence that is against me it being at me and upon me it sure belongs to me to feel and understand it then I am called forth to give a judgement of my Book and to hold forth to the view of all the world my spirit and life from whence it came and to shew what righteousness and power is with me that can maintain me and others in the receiving and practising such things as I have writ I have been very inward and retired in my spirit a long time not without some motions to look out but I have suppressed them and till now declined all publick appearance
Animadversions Upon a BOOK Entituled Inquisition for the Blood of our late SOVERAIGN c. AND Upon the offence taken at it Wherein in order to Peace The Ground Reason and End of our Wars are discovered The Old Cause stated and determined The late Insurrection Animadverted And a way of Peace propounded By William Sedgwicke LONDON Printed for the Author and are to be sold in St. Pauls Church-yard Fleetstreet and Westminster-Hall 1661. AN EPISTLE To them that are offended at the Inquisition and to all that now suffer for their opposing the present Government YOur offence and anger begot this Treatise And therefore it is yours intended for you Not only to remove the offence but to instruct you into a way of peace and love Your anger was the Father of it but love conceived it and is its Mother It being begotten of anger and love you may well expect both natures in it And must receive them both together for they cannot be separated Severity and kindness are one in their Original and End They meet in the present Providence of God upon you They are bound up together in this little volume If your minds be as large as it or in any measure suitable to your present condition you will easily comprehend and digest both If you cannot agree with some sharpness you will neither agree with your selves nor with God For you have been and are so to others and God is now so to you I write both against and for all Against and for my self Against and for you And against and for your adversaries Because there is some good and evil in all My quarrel is only at malice which makes all the quarrels in the earth And at that because it destroyes If I meet with any in that way of enmity and destruction I do not forbear them You will I hope find in the reading of it that the root and spring of it is love the design of it in all the parts of it is to unite divided Parties and the conclusion is peace I would gladly that you should have the honour of being the first movers in and seekers of peace Your Profession of the Gospel and Kingdom of peace should incline you to it You have proved war and it at last fails you Your present sufferings press you to meekness and patience It is to me evident and in this Book I think demonstrated that those good things you expected by war you can obtain and inherit only by love and peace and in the good spirit of Jesus And therefore I have endeavoured to search the roots of your state and standing in enmity as deeply as I can that they being slain you may be free to go forth from your present captivity into largeness and so into peace and deliverance There are two things which I suspect may deny you the benefit of what I have written First I doubt the things here written may not at least not in all parts be fully and clearly understood Because my mind having long travelled in the pursuit of the reason and principles of things lies at some distance from mens ordinary apprehensions of things and therefore may not be so readily conceived I am sensible also that by reason of my long retirement there is a cloud upon my spirit that I cannot yet come forth with that evidence that I would and I believe shall I know likewise that mens understandings live much abroad in outward things and are little conversant with the inward reason and spirit of things And that at this time your minds are like troubled waters disturbed and not clear To remedy these defects both in your selves and me let me prevail with you to read this small Treatise with a little more then ordinary diligence and consideration I am sensible of the obscurity of the former Book which made it so liable to mistakes And have endeavoured all plainness here even to coursness and have taken liberty rather to write the same things again then to be too short Yet I doubt some parts of it may be vail'd to thee If thou meet with any places that are so Possibly the greatest treasure of truth may lie hid there True wisdom yet lies deep and is hardly found hardly expressed and hardly understood If thou wilt dig for her by a little study she will reward thy pains If therefore there be a curtain drawn before any part do but rouse up thy reason and press in upon it you may have admittance by a little consideration and labour My second doubt is lest you meeting with something that may cross your opinion of your selves and way you should turn away from the justice and truth of reproof But consider if you will hear nothing against you you can never come to know your faults If you will receive nothing but what agrees with your present apprehensions you must resolve never to be wiser If thou meetest with a strange different or opposite notion to thine own consider it is either true or false If it be true then it is a dangerous thing for thy soul to refuse a truth and embrace a lie For no man can be happy but in truth If it be false do but throughly examine it and thou wilt find the falshood of it and then it will be a great confirmation and enlargement to truth in thy mindâ— Therefore turn not from it nor reject it but rather search it and subdue it For no lie can long stand out against a true mind If an errour have gotten some shew of reason or truth to cover it if it be by a just mind searched and tried that reason and truth will come over to that just mind and leave the lie naked and destitute such conquests are very much to the advantage of truth The experience I have of this thing makes me love the exercise of opposition and to delight to read above all things those that are contrary to my judgement For I constantly find that things said and done against the truth do as our Lord promised his Disciples It shall turn unto you for a testimony I know and feel that sore travel is upon you pangs have taken hold of you It is that you may be born again into a new state and life more holy large merciful and heavenly then that wherein you have lived and acted It is that I labour with you for in this Treatise If you could once come to understand this design of God in his present afflicting of you That it is not to upbraid much less to destroy the Party or your persons for your or others personal sins no he pitties and forgives But it is that carnal and corrupt state of war enmity and destroying that is accursed of God If you could but discern this and turn away from that fleshly corrupted and now perished state you would quickly find ease rest and safety for your souls and escape much of the guilt and curse that yet sorely afflicts you It is
the intent of this Treatise to bring you off from that and to shew you a more excellent way Your former ministry is finished that state is perished you must have a new one Read diligently and you will find here is an entrance into that which will not fail I know the prejudices you have against me I know that there is weakness in what I write both may disadvantage my work I leave it to the Lord of all hearts and spirits The things I have written are I think just and it is just I should publish them The Law of love and truth in my mind led me to it and upheld me in it and therefore I am satisfied in my self And in the righteousness truth and faithfulness of God in whom I live and rest Yours W. S. The Contents SECT I. SHews the nature of the offences taken at the Inquisition and the Authors sense of them SECT II. Shews the justice due to them and the friendly way of dealing with them SECT III. Censures the Book and first for its unseasonableness with the cause of it and the Authors suffering for it SECT IV. Censures the multiplicity of things in the Inquisition and the sharpness of its reproofs Of several kinds of reproof SECT V. Opens the Allegories in the Inquisition and shews the thing intended in it A tryal of principles in order to peace SECT VI. Prosecutes the same thing of peace and shews the necessity and possibility of it And examines the ground upon which the opposition stands SECT VII Compares the Old Cause 1. With the deliverance of the Israelites out of Egypt 2. Out of Babylon 3. With the ministry of Christ and the Apostles SECT VIII Measures the same cause by the Propheticall Scriptures and compares it with Zion her self SECT IX Further examines the ground of the enmity and advances a standard of love SECT X. The original cause of the war it ceased SECT XI Hatred blinds the eyes else we may see that there is good in enemies with which we may agree There is good and evil in both Parties SECT XII Shews the root of enmity is the Devil How opposite it is to the Kingdom of Christ SECT XIII War and enmity are not for but against holiness SECT XIV Common liberty not to be in nor to be attained by war and opposition SECT XV. Liberty of Conscience animadverted Not to be obtained but by agreement with the Magistrate SECT XVI Animadverts the late sufferings and shews the nature and kind of them SECT XVII Considers the late Insurrection with respect to what hath been written and the use of it to both sides SECT XVIII Shews a rational and easie way for all opposite Parties to obtain a Treaty and by it an Agreement with his Majesty both for his security and their safety ANIMADVERSIONS Upon a Book entituled Inquisition for the Blood of our late Soveraign c. AND Upon the offence taken at it Sect. I. THat I did deny my name to go forth with that Book when it was first published was I think a foolish or weak niceness Possibly the want of that courage and confidence that was due both to my self and it may expose both to the greater contempt But I did resolve in my mind and promise that if ever it came to be questioned I would own it and either correct and amend it if it needed or else justifie and defend it if it deserved it What I promise is ordinarily required of me and if it be I am bound to perform it There is a justice due to things as well as to persons If to any thing then certainly to a mans own works which are his children and therefore he ought to Father them and either to call them home or maintain them abroad A mans Spirit Religion and Name are all tender things if I have any sense of any of them or of my self and what I have done I cannot but resent the grievous offence that is taken at that book and at me for writing of it The minds of many are exceedingly disturbed at it and the censures run as high against it and me as possibly they can It is judged the very Spirit of Antichrist and of the Devil the sin against the Holy-Ghost Apostacy Persecution Treachery Bloodiness and Cruelty And the condemnation is answerable the curse of horrour despair and self-destruction which are not only threatned and expected but reported to be already upon me These things are in their own nature weighty and they come thick upon me from all sects and sorts of people from friends and strangers and discharged at me from their very hearts with all the strength of their Religion with all their might in a bitter and angry Spirit sharp and fierce and in some with great seriousness and gravity yea in love to me And most of them solemnly in the name of God and for his cause as against an enemy to God to godliness and to his people This is the sense I have of them and I think the description is just and true These things being breathed forth from men friends Christians professing godliness and the Spirit of God besides the common rage that foames out Rogue Jesuite hang him c. They do requite and justly challenge from me that I should Animadvert and duly consider what these things are whence they come What they would have and what I am and have done to deserve them As these things drive me in to review both my self and book so they do peal and call me forth to shew in what Spirit and Light I live from what root this work came and upon what foundation that and my self stand so that I now count my self bound not only in honour and justice but in love freely to open and discover my self and my mind and spirit concerning my self my book and the great offence taken at it I confess I do feel that these censures are high and that men are hearty and serious in them and do lay them on with all their strength and with a sharp spirit angred and provoked And that they do sometimes sting and twinge a little and consequently stir some choler in me that I could be as heartily angry at others as others are at me But as yet I do not find that they go deep or abide long in me But on the contrary I have been well able to bear them yea to slight and neglect them as sick and sore passions which cannot live long and although they stumble at me and bruise me yet if I did but lie still I should quickly see them faln in their own dirt by their own darkness and weakness For that I find constantly to be the nature of Passion it is a blind thing that runs it self into ruin and needs no enemy to destroy it it is the Gunpowder of the mind while it is shot at another it doth crack stink and vanish As I must confess they do sometimes sting a little so I must
Being sensible that my mind is both weak and a great stranger to all the Forms and ways of Religion that are abroad and having found by experience that when I did look out I met with great trouble and opposition from all sorts of people I have been willing to enjoy my peace and comfort at home and alone I did the least think to come forth in opposition to any party having in my heart a general love to all men But I am by this Book unexpectedly engaged to come forth in some kind of opposition to many if not all sorts of spirits now stirring in the Nation The people that have severely censured this book and me for it are Independents Anabaptists Quakers Fifth monarchy men and such as profess themselves spiritual and are in no particular form I desire them all friendly to consider how high they have raised the controversie and what must necessarily be the issue if it be determined If any of them had taken the book and dealt with the reason of it and had answered it and convinced me I had been bound to have been their Scholler and to have subscribed to them as my Master And if my reason had been too good for theirs I might have expected the same from them and no more But they all leaving the reason and falling directly upon my person and the state of my soul my life and peace the â—ar is like to be of a higher nature and the question who is the Antichrist who the Apostate who hath sinned against the Holy Spirit and consequently who must go down into horror and trouble into Satan and the displeasure of God and so it is a war of souls and spirits about the most solemn things of life and peace with God And therefore the issue must be this if you subdue me and overthrow my state I must bow and seek for mercy and peace of you upon such conditions as you shall think good to give it This I know you do expect and as necessarily I must so I do believe I readily shall perform it on the other side if my state and peace be good and yours fail I may require the same of you that you should submit to me and accept of my peace and pardon according to that equal and just Law Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you do ye even so to them I do earnestly desire that we may on both sides heartily engage in this quarrel if I find you do shrink from it I shall endeavour to compell you to stand to it till there be a compleat victory gained by one of us If you be men and true to any thing that you say or think you cannot avoid the tryal for I know and feel that you are come forth against me in your censures of me with all your hearts and with the strength of your God Religion and Life as against an enemy to God and his cause t is so evident it cannot be denyed And by it you have drawn forth my life and spirit which till now lay close and still to answer you and therefore you are bound to stand and abide the dispute This I write neither lightly boastingly nor threatning but soberly and seriously in love to you and to the good and peace of souls The combat may be sharp but it may be friendly also For I do constantly find this truth in my mind that as all good doth and will overcome evil because it is larger stronger truer and more durable then evil so doth love conquer swallow up enmity enmity is a mean inferiour base thing that is but a servant to the greatness and majesty of love And at this time I find a special love both of pitty and friendship provoked and stirred in my heart by these wounds that you have given me For I feel such a nature in me the more you pierce the more freely my love and life will flow forth to you so that there is a ring of love made for us in which we may safely try our strength and therefore though it be both a serious and sharp contest yet it must also be a friendly strife It may be love hath laid a train to catch us all and all the enmity of all men For observe our quarrel it is of a very high nature for no less then the life and peace of our souls yet if we fight it out the end will be this either I must return to you and receive mercy from you of you must come to me and receive it from me Either you must be my Pastors or Ministers and so heal and feed me as a brother or I your Bishop and Father The quarrell is Whether you shall serve me with your life or I serve you with mine Whether I shall forgive you or you forgive me Possibly after some anger spent in the conflict it may be comprimised and we may both have our ends both serve and be served forgive and be forgiven But let us resolve to try it out for if you draw back and refuse the combat you will go down into your dark holes of enmity but press forward and we shall certainly come to feel and understand one another though through some smart and at last after we have spent our heat end in love If we had dealt in opinions that concern the State you might have feared trouble but you shall have the state of my mind to deal with which you may do without danger of any suffering but in your spirits our war will be now purely in and about spiritual things If we should controvert National Church Episcopacy c. the power of the Nation might be with me but declining that as you do and dealing only with my spirit and life possibly the Bishops may be as different from me and from my spirit and life as you are yea and be more with you then they are with me and I am apt to think it may prove so How ever you may be confident you are free from outward danger in dealing with the spirit of a private person You have advantage enough you are many I am alone you are whole and sound I am I confess much broken and weak you stand firm I have been tossed about my infirmities and failings are many and visible to all the world and most of all to my self yet truly I do desire and shall endeavour a fair trial not doubting the issue which way soever it fall it must be good SECT III. FIrst for the Book I have had many complaints against it but only in general as a monstrous strange wicked and cursed thing I have invited many to shew me particularly what false or unrighteous propositions there are in it and to this day not one man hath said to me that this or that sentence is untrue or will give me any reason against any passage of it But when we come to the point either they have not read it or but part of it
or I do not understand it or What do you mean by this or that passage T is strange totally condemned but not examined in any parts of it I may say in my case as Job chap. 31. v. 35 36 37. That mine adversary had written a Book surely I would take it upon my shoulder and bind it as a crown to me I would declare to him the number of my steps c. Had his reproofs been heavy true or false I would have taken them upon my shoulder and born either my own or his infirmities I have done it and by the same grace of God I can do it again Or had his book been more true righteous or mercifull then mine I can boldly say I should have put it upon my head openly worn his understanding professed it and gloried in it as a crown I know I have in me that authority over my self and have been so conversant in self-judging and retracting what I have seen to be short and also such a love to truth that it would be a glory and crown to me to meet with a light that could convince mine of darkness yea I have this experience of my self I can prefer another before me and give honour time and place to my adversaries even when I know they are the weaker But I may and do think that men are not able to deal with the reason of the Book and therefore it is left to my self to Animadvert upon it and possibly I may deal as severely with it as another The first thing that I blame the book for is its untimeliness it came too late I have in my heart a love to manknid to all English men and to the opposite parties in the Nation my place and work is to heal unite and reconcile and so to prevent ruine and destruction if I might be heard none should execute it nor any suffer it Many things did offer themselves in my mind that did tend to a universal peace and a composing all differences to the great advantage of the whole and of every part They have been long conceived in my mind and did offer themselves to birth at the beginning of this great change but I delaid so long till another spirit had stepped in and engaged the minds of men both in doing and suffering so that what was proposed towards mother course could not be heard by either and for this I suffered a very sharp rebuke from the Lord before the Book came forth t was like that to Moses Exod. 4.24 God met him and sought to kill him A more dangerous assault I have not received a long time nor a deâ—per wound I have still a frequent sense of it which keeps me in an awe of God My evil was suppressing a that light of love and peace which did arise in my mind from the divine nature This we must know and I declare it from a living sense That God is in his nature most gracious tender and patient yet he knows how to take vengeance on all iniquity even in his dearest children Where there is the greatest love there is the greatest authority and majesty yea the greatest jealousie and severity I find it so in his constant dealings with me The supreme Law of God is himself Love and with it peace salvation forgiveness good-will to man The very nature and Law of this love is to do good and communicate none receives it for himself only but to give forth to others of all things it must not be confined nor imprisoned being in its own nature infinitely large You have freely received freely give If this be the highest Law it doth punish accordingly being offended or transgressed against it requires the sorest punishment which is to take away that love They that have felt love must needs have the sharpest sense of the want of it and its nature being large and communicating that evil servant that hides and buries this talent of love and peace and not communicate it it shall be taken from him This was my danger All men live under a Law the Law of love is the exactest and severest where it is in life and power or the Law of the spirit of life which is in Jesus it is there the quickest and sharpest and works most fully and strongly where it is engraven and written upon the heart and put in the inward parts Every stroke of a Law of eternal life in the most inward parts must needs be terrible threatning eternal death I write this not only that you may know that I live under a Law and exact discipline but that all may learn to fear the Lord and his goodness For know assuredly that God will be known and feared of all and that in great mercy and severity For his love and grace where it is in its truth and power will not be abused and turned into looseness and wantonness you may abuse and corrupt lesser favour but it will rise and be revenged and at last have that absoluteness in it that it will rule and give Law to us else it cannot save us My suppressing the movings of general and healing love was thus it often rose up in my mind and required to be written and published I did attempt and essay to do it but what I did one day I disliked the second or third day either from the weakness of my mind or from a growing spring of light or both but finding larger and deeper discoveries I refused and rejected the former and so in hope of doing better more strongly more certainly and completely I delayed to do what was present till the season was past There is in this a great evil for which I received a great rebuke and yet am I not wholly delivered from the snare for the further enlargement of my mind and the instruction of others I will examine the particulars of it In not giving forth truth light and love as it arises naturally in our minds but deferring till it be more accomplished and compleat or till we can give it a finer dress which may render it the more acceptable to others that so the fruit may be more certain and our selves more honoured and justified In this there is a great transgression against the Law of love and life First it is a fin against that truth or light an undervaluing of it as if it were not worthy to be seen and looked upon by men in its own natural form wherein there is the greatest beauty it is sufficiently if not most lovely in it self and in its own naked and native goodness All light hath a natural Majestie in it and is best when purest and unmixed it commands by its own brightness but above all the light of love is absolute and perfect It hath in it a sufficiency of glory to take away the spots and defects of other things and therefore it self needs no accomplishments All additions to light and love do darken and ecclipse them both for they give
thing that opposed you was one and the same enemy In that troubled state you conclude I was turned to the world and backslidden to the present rising power Great guilt and great suffering meeting together must needs much disturb the mind of poor man If you in the trouble of your souls mistake me and if my mind be clear and at peace I may well bear it and pitty you and so I do My business was to be dayes-man between adverse parties I know I did not intrude into the office but refused and excused as Moses Who am I they will not believe nor hearken to my voice I am a man of no power or esteem and so put it off till I was compelled to appear and now I find the common fate of them that interpose to part the fray both parties fall upon him You think I am turned Courtier the Court thinks I am still a Fanatick T is but just I should receive both your neglects into me standing between you I am content to feel the evil of both because I love both and have in my soul good for both But you do not only judge me to be an enemy but worse an apostate brother and more wicked then your open adversaries for they only afflict the outward man I fall upon your spirits and principles We shall have occasion to discourse of spirits and principles hereafter but here I shall only mind you of two or three things First It is I confess a very difficult thing to judge of principles and spirits because they are inward and therefore strangers and enemies cannot judge of them It must be some friend or brother that hath conversed with them They that are still under them are judged by them and therefore they cannot judge of them It must be some that have travelled through them and have had experience of them spirits and principles are Gods and who can judge the Gods If any they that have been amongst them and tryed them you may from this find some reason why I should be chosen to do this service for you you generally know me my way and work hath been trying of spirits many years Secondly as it is difficult to judge spirits and principles so it is hard to bear the judgement of them Men can easier die and lay down their natural lives then suffer their principles to be touched Men of any common honesty do freely expose their flesh to death to save their Gods although they be but Idols But thirdly There are false Gods false spirits you know it and have familiarly accused others of it you know I know it I confess I do as we say to my cost it may be to your profit you have of late been hammering at a spiritual Antichrist an Antichrist within and it is most true many such there are can you think that you should be acting so many years against Antâ—christ all the while be ignorant of an Antichrist within who doth but now begin to peep â—ut and be discovered in you and you not guilty of receiving false principles or spirits Can all this smoke of confusion darkness and enmity be amongst you and no fire of false spirits Can there be so much reeling and staggering giddiness and instability and no wine of fornication no sophisticated or adulterated wine No spiritual harlots or false lovers Must all the corruption rotteness and filth he laid upon the poor flesh Is there no evil spirit that came in under the name of God to joyn with her to beget these bastard brood of hypocrisie covetousness and self-seeking Must man only bear the blame and not the unclean spirits that are gone out Or must God and his name only stand accused that he led his people by his Spirit into no better wayes Is it not then both justice to his name and mercy to man that these evil spirits and principles should be discovered and detected As it is proper for a friend or brother that hath been partaker with you in them and hath suffered greatly for it to discover them so it will be found a friendly and brotherly office to reprove them The plucking up these principles that lie deep and secret is I know terrible I have felt it so It seems to threaten the rooting out of religion and godliness it self I have found the same thing in my tryals God comes against them and his people engaged with them in great jealousie enraged as an enemy in fiery indignation and vengeance because nothing but his vengeance can destroy them but I have found great love in these fires of jealousie yea love to our nature and persons with forgiveness to our iniquities even then when he takes vengeance of our inventions I know you can neither be inwardly cleansed nor outwardly saved but by a death in your spirits and loss of these principles which have deluded you and brought you into this grievous snare and therefore shall in love and good will to man to your souls lives and liberties prosecute my purpose of manifesting those unsound principles that have deceived and mis-led you and shall not spare for your crying or frowardness SECT V. ANother objection against the Book is it is written much in Allegories because the present state of things is there represented in and by ancient Scriptures I acknowledge this to be a fault and possibly it might arise from the first great error of delay by keeping it in too long it might be thus overgrown with hair and get this dress or at least the same distrust that made me unwilling to write might make me willing to shrowd my mind under those coverings of Scripture wanting confidence to appear more open or strength to go without that help I might affirm that the things written are not meer allegories if they be so they are to me hatefull Idols for I know nothing more abominable then meer similitudes and forms of truth I may affirm that the same eternal spirit that brought forth those works in Adam and Noah of which you there read doth for ever keep the living image of them in himself and many ages after brought them forth in Moses mind and by Moses into writing so that the works done and the words writ are one and of one mind and spirit The same eternal spirit having in himself the same eternal image doth by it preserve the image written or the words and history The same eternal spirit eternally works and brings forth his own likness in all times and in our age and the same spirit that did them and writ them then doth them now and reveals them in that Book He that is wise will understand these things But let them go for Allegories and let me bear the blame of it I am content it should go so because I know we shall gain by all our miscarriages grow wise by mistakes For sin hath something of Physick in it many times if not alwayes it hath its own cure with it because
the beast And in one hour would you be made as desolate as you have been You neither could nor can resist it For strong is the Lord that judgeth For he that hath sworn he will bring down them that exalt themselves be they never so mighty and raise up the lowly the meek the Lamb who only trusteth in him and shall be saved by him If you could not resist this Judgement when you were great and strong why should you not be wise now and cease from that state and those wayes which lead you upon sensible ruine For what more certain destruction can there be then for a naked people to dash themselves against a rock of power and authority that is rooted and grounded in the Laws and minds of the Nation and now after proof and trial rises up strongly against all its enemies You are as to your persons part of the Israel of God I do most freely grant it to you But as yet but Israel after the flesh and no more And God hath used you and the fire of your fleshly Zeal Rev. 17.16 17. to hate the whore make her desolate and naked and to eat her flesh The war hath been of fleshly knowledge fleshly forms and fleshly wisdom by fleshly power policy and arms against outward and fleshly corruptions which God hath put into your hearts until the words of God should be fulfilled And during this Ministry you pleaded the cause of Zion and had the name title and success for that work But those words are fulfilled And then there appeared in this fleshly Israel and fleshly work a spiritual Antichrist which your own mouthes have acknowledged and a spiritual Sodom Egypt and Babylon which your works have manifested Sodoms pride idleness and fulness of bread Egypts falshood cunning and cruelty Babylons loftiness glorying and self-exaltation Where our Lord also was crucified As well as the flesh of the whore desolated It is this spiritual Antichrist this adulterated wine or wine of fornication in and with your fleshly gifts and fleshly success that bewitches your minds abuses your understandings and enrages your spirits into a foolish confidence and presumptuous opposition to the power of the Nation to your apparent ruine My endeavour is to redeem your understandings from those vain and rejected confidences and to recover your minds and reasons into a sober consideration of your selves and of your condition that you may not desperately throw away your lives and liberties in a heady drunken and rash zeal Friends I do earnestly desire you seriously to consider if you can or if your high conceits of your selves your principles and cause will admit of reason and consideration Then consider what is there in your present state which now lies under so great conviction in your consciences and so great condemnation from men that should make you disdain either a reproof or a proposal of trying your principles at a bar of Religion and Reason before the wisest justest largest and soberest men in the Church and Nation For that was the intent of that Book that you so fiercely and bitterly condemn It was humbly desired that the persons to be tried together with their principles might not be judged at least not finally by the Common Law but might have a Chancery And why should you not now be reconciled to it and seek it what should hinder you from petitioning it as a singular mercy To the utmost of my understanding it might be not only a means of saving your selves but a blessing to the Nation I am very confident that you and all men after you have wearied and spent your selves your peace and comfort in these unnatural and brutish violences will be glad to hearken to a brotherly and friendly debate of things When that pride that makes men scorn all mens Reason and Religion but their own is brought down For he that knows any thing of the general and large love of God and of Jesus to all men must conclude that that pride will as certainly be ruined and ruine it self as he knows God is just or mercifull SECT IX I Intended not to prosecute this point of accommodating the present distance and opposition that is betwixt you and this Government of the Church and Nation But being unexpectedly faln upon it and engaged in it and it being the end of my first Book and the constant frame of my mind to seek peace by a right understanding And there being still great need of it in respect of the great numbers that do suffer and possibly a better opportunity for it satisfaction being taken to the Law of the Land justice of the Nation upon them that have suffered The same love to you that led me at first to propound it continues still in me and leads me now to prosecute it The enmity is strong and great confirmed by a long and cruel war heightened and inflamed by many wrongs and injuries It is a fire that hath and doth burn fiercely in the minds of men It is now upon you if it be not quenched it doth and will utterly destroy you and all that cannot yield to the present Government of the Church except a new war relieve you And both you and the whole Nation have found by woful experience that war is no friend but an enemy to all Civil and Religious blessings And that fighting may destroy both the good and the evil without Judgement but save nothing I hope it is and will be the mind of all sober Christians and Englishmen that consider the effects of our late wars rather to suffer in their own particulars then to raise a new war whereby the whole Nation must suffer thousands be slain and at last they that raised it will be far worse then they were when they begun That Law and Sentence that came out of Christs lips first and was afterward confirmed by the Spirit in the Revelations as a divine Law to all ages is He that taketh up the sword shall perish by the sword And therefore wo be to that Party or Person that makes war and division his hope that longs to see the Kingdom in a flame that he may warm himself at the fire Or would have the whole ruined and Shipwracked that he might have a share of the pillage You have had the sword and could not keep it it is turned now against you and the strength of the Nation also all highly provoked by your evil dealings with them And yet you are the sharpest enemies to the Propositions of Peace I know no good reason why you should be so A good friend of yours and mine hath said again and again One side must yield why should not we first lie down and submit We that profess most knowledge of the Gospel and are most conversant with Scriptures should be most inclined to meekness and peace there is sure some notable evil spirit gotten in that makes the most gifted the most quarrelsome I am bound to examine what
cry of the cause be not only a great sound or more sound then substance Empty vessels give the greatest sound Most noise least truth and substance is very common Or things when they go off make the greatest report This I have observed of this cause it floats like Wine in mens heads fills mens Prayers and Sermons flies about in Books and Discourses and so raises a smoak of talk zeal and affection But in all this time First It never attained or gathered a body into any consistency but mens minds are still blown about like dust one people talk this and another that but there never was any consent or agreement about it 2. As it never could gain a body so it never had any form it was never yet stated by any man or by any company of men only confused thoughts and talks there are about it Thirdly it never yet attained any power in the Nation it never was owned as the cause of God by either Parliament or Army Men in their private prayers and Sermons talk of the Kingdom of God of the fall of Babylon and building Zion but those powers owned nothing but necessity safety interest of the people and such like things And therefore you may well think what a bottom it is that you adventure your selves in or rather how bottomless it is Many words many affections many duties multitudes of sacrifices many Scriptures quoted preached on But what power and substance is there in these What heavenly glory is there in them or among you that is able to convince your enemies Or what earthly strength is there in them that can defend and support a poor naked people against a strong and mighty Prince against a standing Law and Authority My reason experience and knowledge tells me that as you are so you will be left in confusion in any engagement for such a cause that hath no more solid body state or power in it And therefore be perswaded to retire from the noise that you make in each others ears and affections and enquire within in your own reasons and memories And remember if you can where had you this Cause from whence came it where and when was it born in what year of these late changes in which of them was it brought forth Or from what Scripture do you derive it is there such a thing spoken or named there as the Cause of God God pleads the Cause of his people by outward Judgements and by his Spirit the Advocate and by Christ their Counsellor But his Cause is not now at the Bar no he hath set Christ upon the throne and he is exalted far above all principalities and powers He is now actually judging and ruling the world he pulleth down and setteth up whom he will You may feel his power and authority he judges you for your unrighteousness and sets up your enemies above you What is it that thus blinds your eyes that you should contend or that which is already done for Christs Kingdom doth not the enemy abuse your understandings and perswade you it is the Cause of God and his Kingdom when indeed it is your own honour dominion and greatness But hath there not been a cause of God in this Nation Yes there hath been that which we may call so and it was this The Church and Kingdom of England stood in a very dark fleshly and corrupt state and the Governors of it were also corrupt and had sinned against God For which God had a Controversie both with their persons and standing And therefore sanctified you with a fleshly holiness against their fleshly corruption and called you forth for the executing of his judgement upon them And therein you were justified being engaged to speak in your language in the cause of God or being employed to administer that judgement which he had given in the cause Thus much I can grant to you and it will be found the right of the case But if the Judgement decreed be executed and the measure of outward punishment be fulfilled then your cause ceases If this kind of wrath by war blood and spoil be finished why should not you be content to be discharged from this employment First it is a mean service to be the Executioners of an outward destruction It is O Assyrian the rod of my anger and the staff in their hand is my indignation I will send him against an hypocritical Nation and against the people of my wrath will I give him change to take the spoil and to take the prey and to tread down like the mire of the streets Isa 10.5 6. Secondly as it is a vile service so it hath been vilely polluted It is a filthy thing to destroy and the filthiness of it is manifested It is Babylonian and the confusion is sufficiently discovered The brightness and cleanness of it and all the honour and glory of it was the wrath and justice of God when that was finished then it presently shewed its vile nature covetousness self-seeking pride and cruelty Nothing but ignorance or a love of the prey and spoil can make men to doat upon it and desire to continue in it Thirdly being it self unclean it cannot purifie nor reform the Nation It reaches but to the out-side to the outward life honour and greatness It never touches the spirit and therefore may waste and spoil and so restrain for a time the fleshly part but the nature and spirit of the thing still remains yea confirmed and strengthened It may tread down in the mire but its unclean feet of wrath and pastion pollute more then purge and so make worse Fourthly to purifie is left to the fire of of his own Spirit which will thorowly purge with the spirit of judgement and burning You administred 1. without judgement you could not discern between the gold and the dross And 2. without burning for if the dross be not separated from the gold it cannot be consumed as yet we have had neither separation nor burning for want of both these their dross still remains after all the wrath administred But doubt not the holy purpose and power of God He will certainly purge both you and them by the breath of his mouth and the brightness of his appearing This pure heavenly fire is descended is kindled is set as a refiners fire and no iniquity shall escape the flame of it For it is holy mighty effectual and eternal it doth and will burn for ever You have heard the sound of it in your spirits ye are in the smoak of it and so is the whole Nation which is the reason of the present blackness darkness and confusion But when the evil is brought forth and discovered he will certainly destroy it yea it is actually destroying and in destruction in being brought forth Fifthly That outward wrath which you administred you could nor but execute it you could not cease from it till it was finished but you have since turned from that cause and made
sort of men because they are against them and their wayes they will exercise the same to all that oppose their way He that will kill a Cavaleer because he is not godly will likewise kill a Presbyterian Independant Anabaptist or any other if he cross his way and notion be he never so near to him in the kind of his life And he that will kill an Episcopal person or party for his own safety or for the Cause of God will for the same Cause kill his Brother Independent or Anabaptist Fourthly This kind of corruption of a body or society of people into deadly hatred and exercise of their spirits and gifts against each other is the worst kind of corruption that can be of Holiness or Religion Because 1. it is against love which is the supream Law 2. It tends to a dissolution For a Kingdom divided against it self cannot stand if not a Civil then much less a Religious Kingdom 3. Where this sin is all others are also For where envying and strife is there is confusion and every evil work Jam. 3.16 Therefore if you have bitter envying and strife in your hearts glory not and lie not against the truth This wisdom descendeth not from above but is earthly sensual and devilish ver 14 15. The wisdom that is from above is first pure then peaceable gentle and easie to be intreated full of mercy and good fruits without partiality and without hypocrisie ver 17. From all which we must conclude that the Religion and Holiness in which you glory and upon which you stand is earthly and sensual It began in strife and self-seeking and its end is devilish It is corrupted and faln As great and greater things then these have corrupted the Scripture witnesses it I testifie it upon experimental knowledge and your works manifest this of yours to be faln If you glory in this and think there is not a better you lie against the truth as the Apostle saith I know there is a more excellent heavenly and perfect state which now judges this of yours and you will know it also when you are ashamed of this SECT XI LEt me mind you what we are upon He that hateth his Brother is in darkness walketh in darkness and knoweth not whither he goeth because darkeness hath blinded his eyes I am proving that the darkness of hatred hath blinded your eyes that you know not 1. What you are 2. What your enemies are 3. What the way is you are going or whither you go You are blinded as to your selves and in a mist of strife and confusion have lost 1. your Cause 2. your Religion you retain the form or carkass of both but have lost the justice of one and the life of the other I shall now shew you how you are blinded concerning your enemies that you do not cannot understand them in the present state in which you stand I will not urge upon you my apprehensions of them which I have declared in my Book They are there published and let them abide the tryal I meet with nothing yet that is of sufficient authority to make me retract them You wonder and are offended at the good that I have written of the King from those antient foundations of rest and grace in Gods sight laid in Noah My authority for it I tell you pag. 65. in these words My love is my first and chief guide in this application to your Majestie I believe it will uphold and justifie me against that weakness or strangeness which either is in it or may seem to others to be in it For I do in my soul give unto love the most absolute authority as the most supream royal Law in heaven and in earth the most certain and infallible rule For that only is without errour that is able to cover the errours and supply the defects of all things else I only advance it as a standard let it stand naked by it self I do it to invite you to deal with it Both reason and sense are against it Overthrow it if you can I do desire it may be throughly tryed because I know it is a stranger in the world You have other thoughts of this application that it comes from the vile and base principle of flattery I profess the most honourable principle of love if you have I any strength of truth and righteousness in you suffer not so gross an evil as this to pass uncorrected My business with you is to slay that enmity that is in you to the present power and to take you off from that dangerous opposition in which you are engaged that so you may come to live a quiet and sober life under it And to let you see how hatred hath blinded your eyes No man that hates ought to judge while he hates he cannot judge All passions darken the judgement above all hatred which is a foul black devilish thing it is of the wicked one whom God hath cast down from all authority of rule and judgement And made him a slave a vile Executioner of his wrath I pleaded this in my Book in the behalf of them that since have suffered pag. 152. and now plead it with you And shall I hope never cease to plead it with God and with men and with God in man till this base spirit of malice be cast out of all power both Civil and Religious For I know that hatred though it seem to judge and to be very forward in judging yet it hath neither true right nor light to judge any Only it is a servant to the justice of God It is true God hath given this beast a kingdom greatness and power but it is only in wrath and destruction Foolish man is deceived miserably by him poor dust if he can get up into any kind of power though it be only to plague and destroy yet he thinks it a great attainment if he hath so much knowledge religion or power as to inflict punishment he fancies himself a god because he administers divine displeasure But if ever you come to so much light of God as to know what you do you will abhor your selves for that which you now glory in If you will shew your selves men and but exercise your reason you will quickly see that you cannot judge of your enemies that you hate and therefore that they are not what you judge them to be while you judge in hatred First No man can judge when he hates or after he hates For when men hate they suppose those they hate are to be destroyed and therefore they are already judged and condemned For hatred is the executing of one condemned and that with the worst condemnation unto the utmost and irrevocable ruine Men think when they hate there remains nothing to do but to prosecute to utter destruction to spoil pull down shame disgrace and ruine them And it is impossible that they should judge that are thus employed to execute For to judge a person or