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
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
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
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
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
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
the land and plant himself and followers in it because he came not to destroy but to save mens lives Because he was Lord and owner 〈◊〉 the world and not a thief therefore he would not destroy it but suffered for it he had the life of the world in him and therefore shed his blood for them Because he would not gain it to himself but by death bring it to God because he knew he had an eternal life and could lay down his present life in the flesh But they had only a fleshly and sinful life and could not die therefore he chose to die for them In fine he died for sinners because he loved man though faln sinful and enemies to him and because he would be like his Father he chose by death to go to God that is be and do as God is and doth suffer for the ungodly Certainly if God loves you as I believe he doth he will bring you to more acquaintance with himself and son and shew you what it is that makes you such strangers or enemies to the Cross of Christ As you are short of the second and opposite to the third so totally ignorant of the fourth Indeed where is among us that Messenger that Interpreter that one of a thousand to shew to man his uprightness Job 33.23 26. That will pray unto God and he will be favourable unto him and render unto man his righteousness This Messenger sent from God this Adâ—â—cate and Interpreter is the holy Spirit who knows how to make crooked things straight unsound things whole and to plead out an uprightness in man to which God the Father of this uprightness will be favourable and render his righteousness for all our righteousness is with him But alas we are either wholly ignorant of this or do but stammer it out know not how to interpret it plainly You believe you have an uprightness and I believe you have a righteousness with God which he will render to you in his season But when you come to know the righteousness that is with the Father you will see Kings and Bishops have a Father also in heaven and that Christ with God is both King and Bishop and the King of Kings and Bishop of Bishops nay possibly you may come to know and see their righteousness before your own and be glad of it and willing to have your part and share with them but you never yet were in heaven nor have you seen it opened to you but you measure things by an earthly and outward rule You may easily make a conclusion if you will You are short of the second opposite to the third and ignorant of the fourth kind of reproof then sure you act much in the first which is the worsâ— Turn back and look what it is If I declare this as a Law to you I am very unjust if I do not submit to it my self Therefore know this that I do acknowledge that reproof only to be spiritual and from heaven which convinces of sin righteousness and judgement and therefore if I do write either contrary to it or short of it I justly suffer condemnation for it and am willingly subject to it yea pleased and satisfied that nothing shall stand in the earth neither in my self nor any others but what is measured by this righteous mercifull and perfect standard knowing the equity authority and majesty of it and subjecting my own life to it I may justly require that all men and Angels should submit to it as the only rule of all censures and administrations of justice and so I do But observe and learn this also that as I would make the highest the rule of my practice as I ought if I be spiritual and as is due to it being the heavenly pattern and therefore admit of the second and third only in order to this yet would I submit to the lowest I would administer only for God in his spirit but bear that reproof which comes from the Devil with patience as comeing through Satan fâ—â—m God so David entertained Shimei his bitter curses so far as I am willing or able to do the one I am equally willing and able to bear the other But plainly the question now is Have I so done Formerly when this act of taking away the life of the King was committing which is since punished I did reprove the Army then of sin in one book and of righteousness in another but they did refuse both and neither repent of the sin nor rceive the righteousness And therefore sure it was not conviction or not in judgement T is true and because I administred it not in power nor in judgement but in weakness I have first suffered that judgement my self in my own spirit but yet there was that truth in both which God hath since justified and they fulfilled For this last book the reproofs of it are I know so clear and convincing that no man doth or can deny or resist them I never heard any question the truth of one syllable of them none rise s up to plead a word no not of excuse for the reproved As to reason and righteousness mens mouths are stopped and opened only in wrathfull and angry reviling and fretting against the hand that smites which is a proof of the truth and weight of them And so I accept your passions against mâ— as a witness that you have life in you and a sense of your reproof The sore is launced and the corruption comes forth And know this that as there is reproof of sin so there is of righteousness more then you are able to plead for your selves Indeed if a reproof be just and righteous the righteousness of God is in it and that only is the righteousness of the creature After your anguish is over search for it there it is you will find that there which you will be glad to make use of to cover your selves if the weather proves cold and sharp as it is likely to be That which makes you sensible of the reproof of sin only in the book and not of righteousness is this It fell upon you in the very nick of time when you were under judgement and condemnation from the Magistrate which is I confess a very bitter cup for men to fall of a sudden from the highest of rule and reigning to shame and punishment you were so drunk and drowned with this wine of wrath and so full of anguish that you had no sense of any thing but wrath Men drunk with passion while the fit lasts are not capable of the love or reason of friends but thrust them away as enemies which renews my sense of my first and grâ—â—â— error in delaying till you were uncapable of the reason of it by reason of sore and grevious bondage During the extremity you could hear but one thing and that only which was against you so you thought that all were your enemies that did not say as you said and that every