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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A57212	Abstracts of some letters written by Mr. Robert Rich treating mostly of spiritual matters and here transmitted to posterity and recommended to the sober and serious enquirer for promoting of universal love amongst all sorts of people without respect of persons, parties, or sects : together with a friendly letter of Dr. Jer. Taylor to the said R.R. in answer to one of his / published by J.P.	Rich, Robert, d. 1679.; Pennyman, John, 1628-1706.	1680 (1680)	Wing R1354; ESTC R26429	24,390	27

through the fellowship of his sufferings despising the shame of being cast out of your Synagogues and of being disown'd of their Mother's Children who in Patience and great Tribulations will follow the Lamb and possess his Crown And these are the true Tribe of Joseph or Jesus that are fit to make Princes in all Lands And whereas one of you asked me Whether I would have you one with the World and turn Drunkards Cheaters c. I replied Canst thou not see a middle Path to walk in betwixt these two Extremes of open Prophaneness and close spiritual Wickedness in high places nor put a difference between the true Christ that filleth all and is the First-born in every Creature and the false Christ that is only here or there in that Mountain or in this secret Chamber covered over with appearing righteous before Men yet inwardly ravening and with Simon Magus in the bitter Spirit giving Wormwood with Gall to drink pushing with the side and shoulder and piercing all those innocent Ones that can call neither you nor no Man Master of their Spirits save God only nor receive your Mark nor yet the Number of your Name And is not this the Abomination that maketh desolate and standeth in the holy Place the Heart where Love and Innocency should dwell And Proselytes thus begot and made tho appearing never so righteous whether such be not seven-fold more the Children of Hell than before let the wise in Heart judg Well my Friends when you come to understand how an Habitation may be built for the Devil by your Anger Wrath Backbiting evil Surmises c. and by your hearkening to and following after Men observing of Days and appointed Meetings together with other Traditions and outward Observations which the Power of Love leads not to but are begotten and continued either by the Letter or else Man's vain Philosophy or Example in which having once lost your Guide viz. the pure and single movings of the Lord as by a great and strong Wind ye are whirled about and left to your own Thoughts and Imaginations where the Lord is not felt so you run again into those outward Observations where once his presence was and there are struck blind as the Assyrians Egyptians Israelites c. were and as Saul was that ye utterly lose the Door and Way that leads to Life Read that can understand And here in this Spirit is the silly Woman led captive ever learning and talking of Truth Light and Love to Enemies and brotherly Kindness Meekness Gentleness and of patient bearing and suffering of all things but never able to come into the things talked of no nearer than in shew or in self-imagination and outward appearance only And in Truth I have been oft made to cry out amongst you how that I saw Christ must suffer and that he must die or disappear and then afterwards rise and enter into Glory Which thing I now see you have not rightly understood And if these my words seem to you as a Dream yet why are you angry with me for my Dream's sake But these things I leave to the Judgment of the Great Day near at hand wherein many will be smitten with Sickness VVeakness and the Sleep of Death because they discerned not Love to be the Lord's Body and could not patiently wait for the Resurrection thereof but have set up other Idols in their Hearts instead of him yet as for the innocent harmless merciful meek loving and kind hearted amongst you and of every Nation such shall obtain and inherit the Blessing of Peace Plenty and Rest which none can disturb but not till the last Enemy or Enmity which is the Sting of Death be destroyed and put underfoot Thus by the Life of Love Death loseth its Sting the Grave its Victory the Law its Strength and all resigned to the Conquest of Love unfeigned Then are the Kingdoms of this VVorld become the Kingdoms of our Lord and his Christ and he alone reigneth Go ye with all Sects and learn what this meaneth Oft-times many amongst you in much contempt have asked me Whom I have coverted and where the Fruit of my Ministry is To whom I now answer That my Work is with the Lord having delivered up my Kingdom unto him my self can do nothing but as Love moveth so I either go or come speak or am silent And I am not sent to call the Righteous or to gather into Sects or Opinions nor is it the ground of my rejoycing to have a Multitude follow me or to flock about the outward Court or that Devils themselves are made subject no I know no true Happiness nor a Kingdom everlasting in these things neither see I any reason to prefer one Sect above another only such whose Names are written in the Book of Love and by it are gathered into the Life thereof those to me are most choice and precious My Ministry is neither Lo here nor Lo there I am not so sent to preach but as a Light to the Gentiles and to open Mysteries interpret Dreams and hard Sayings that have lain hid ever since the World that lies in the Apostacy began that so the blind in Heart may see the things that belong to their Souls Peace and VVelfare that so every one in all Forms may sit under his present Attainment as his proper Vine and drink VVaters of Life from his own Cistern without the least spot or defilemenr of Enmity in their Feasts of Charity both with the Lord and with one another And who will be offended at the foolishness of this Preaching except it be the Scribes and Fair-sayers in every Sect that are highly exalted in themselves and in others because of their Gifts both in praying and speaking and in their Zeal earnestness and fervent working of their own Spirit where sits that painted and well-favoured Harlot upon all Waters or Sects speaking as with the Tongue of Men and Angels the Words of Truth and of the Fame of Life and Love but from that Principle which leadeth into the Chambers of Death in all which things the Good Man not being at home nor endowing with Power from on high great Abominations Murders and Adulteries are committed in Spirit and Heart as in the matter of Peor in the days of Balak and Balaam Figures of this untoward Generation whose Ear being once opened heard the words of God and with the single eye saw and knew the secret Counsel of the Most High but afterwards falling into a Trance mark into his own Imaginations he then opened the double Eye for he had two and this saw Evil and loved the Wages of Unrighteousness yet nevertheless what he had once seen with the single Eye he could talk of as you do and so speak of exceeding high and great Mysteries as one having all Knowledg mark that puffs up so could speak of the Seed of God its beginning and end and of the Light or Way through which it passeth and that it should

any other by which they could only convey the Truth to their Understandings Or is Thou more acceptable to God than You in the declaration of Truth I believe those Words and that Language which proceeds from the Spirit of Love is best and most acceptably received by them that are in the same Spirit And what is there in refusing to swear after that manner the Magistrate commands while in the mean time you will call God to witness to what you affirm for Truth Is it any more than to oppose the Magistrates Form by your own Doth not he that speaks the Truth and calleth God and Man to witness the same swear by Christ Jesus the Truth and Oath of God Doth true swearing consist in the meer Ceremony of kissing the Book or standeth it not rather in calling God to record to the Truth which we declare And yet this manner of swearing is owned by G. F. and his Friends and frequently practised by them both by Word and Writing And what is all this but to swallow the Camel and swear substantially while you strain at a Gnat of some small Ceremony which the Magistrate thinks fit to enjoyn perhaps more to obtain Credit from those who have Conscience in such a Form of Swearing rather than to offend them that know how to distinguish between the Ceremony and the Substance And is not Verily verily an Asseveration and kind of Oath and more than Yea and nay And doth not St. Paul say who had Christ in him that he call'd God to record c. And is not this a great Oath And whether you have any other thing to rule and guide you in not swearing save the * Which tho it saith Swear not at all yet no where forbids laving on the hand or kissing the Book the only thing you scruple Letter And whether that be not more against you than with you let the wise in Heart who are acquainted with the Scriptures judg in this Case Thou sayest That the Gospel of Christ is Yea and Amen and that it leads not back to what it led from I say This hath been a Principle long received and taught by your Teachers and indeed hath occasioned much Persecution to the Innocent amongst you to call your outward Observations and Traditions the Gospel or Truth for when any have bin carried out of the way of your received Traditions into any new Appearance how have you upon this ground risen up against them with Floods of Reproaches to devour them To which Principle or rather Opinion of yours I answer and say That the Gospel Truth or Kingdom stands not in any outward Observations for why may not the Lord do both in Heaven and Earth whatsoever he pleaseth and lead his People howsoever or wheresoever he will How dare any find fault with him And who shall say unto him What dost thou He leadeth Abraham Joseph and all Israel into Egypt yea Jesus of Nazareth into the Wilderness and doth when he pleaseth turn the Course of his Dispensation leading them back again from whence they came Why may not God command Moses to set up a Brazen Serpent yea and give power to it also and then again withdraw his power from it and by his Light lead Hezekiah to pull it down and call it Nebushtan which is an Idol or nothing altho to the very day of its dissolution the Children of Israel burnt Incense to it supposing it may be as you also do that the Lord would not relinquish that Appearance once established by Himself The Lord hath had his sundry ways of appearing to his People as in the Mount of Samaria and at Jerusa em and yet she that was limited in her self was led by the Light from all this to worship the Father every where and in all places and things in the Spirit and Truth Christ appeared in divers Forms as the Scripture testifies yet no other save them only that saw him would believe the report of him according to their Testimony but counted their Words as Joseph's Brethren did his Dreams idle Fables as ye do while you judg your Brethren whom the Lord hath visited in a different manner from your selves What if the Lord will so strangely appear as to leave the Jew and turn to the Gentile to call them a People that were not a People What if God will make you that have been first and highest in Profession last and lowest in the Kingdom What if Capernaum now exalted to the Heavens should be brought down to Hell It will then be manifest that the Almighty is not confined to either Persons or Appearances But further why may not the Lord lead Mordecai openly to withstand the Pride and Oppression of Haman and at the same time lead Hester in a clean contrary work to feast him hereby overcoming Evil with Good If one Person should act these two parts which seem so contrary to each other as is Light to Darkness being led thereto by the Light whether that may not be accepted of God tho all Men should therefore condemn it And why may not one abstain from Meats to day and to morrow see a liberty to eat or have Conscience of an Idol now and anon know it to be nothing VVere not some led to sacrifice circumcise and baptize as being all beautiful while the Power of God was in them but that being departed the Practisers of those things may now tell you that they avail and profit nothing Surely did but all Sects knowingly consider that in my Fathers House are many Mansions and that his Commands are exceeding broad and various that there are diversities of Administrations and Operations yet the same Spirit working all and in all and was the Substance which is the Grace appearing to all more minded by Professors and the Form less also were the weightier Matters of the Law as Mercy Justice Truth and Love more in estimation than the lesser which only stand in outward Observations and are but the outside of the Dish and Platter in all Forms there would not be such tearing one another for the Form's sake For in the Substance and weightier Matters all People of all sorts do without controversy agree yet every one in and for the House of his Imagery rends and devours his Brother not equally fashioned and made up in the same proportion of Understanding as touching our outward Behaviour in the Truth 's Profession by which the Image of the Heavenly is indeed so defaced that the pure Love which thinks no ill amongst all Professors of Godliness is very rarely and hardly found These are indeed the bitter VVaters that cause the Curse upon all Sects Nations Tongues and Peoples as at this day this devours the Earth and makes all desolate this profanes the Lord 's own Sanctuary and the Princes thereof and causeth Jacob to be given to the Curse and Israel to Reproaches For this kind of Spirit of bitter envying is indeed that City Meroz which no way