Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A37457
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News from the new-Jerusalem sent by letters from severall parts, relating some hints and observations of that citty, all conspiring in a testimony that renders it exceeding glorious.
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S. P. D.
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1649
(1649)
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Wing D86; ESTC R27850
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73,796
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188
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friends with you 2. Letter My dear friend IN whom I have rejoyced I hold my selfe bound to acquaint you with the wonderfull dealings of my God with me It is so that I am called into judgement and the Books are opened and the booke of life is opened and I am judged according to all things which are written in the books Yet neither of these books is that Bible-book which we have hug'd so long as our onely happinesse I would not hore now be mistaken for I doe not say this judgement is not spoken off in the Bible neither those boâ—ks out of which I am judged for that they are both of them and yet I say that the Bible in the letter of it as it is bound up there is not the book I would not for a world take away any thing from the Bible or any of the excellency of that which is therein written but I would have it set in the right place I would not have it taken for God himselfe and yet God is in it and the letter of it is a very sweet manifestation of God but it is not God though God I say be manifested in this flesh But though wee have knowne things after the flesh yet henceforth we will know them so no more for indeed except wee come through the flesh which is the vail we cannot enter into the holiest for the outward Court is given to the Gentiles and it shall not bee measured wee all desire and strive to enter into rest the Lord give us hearts therefore that we faile not because of unbeliefe But indeed our lives and also our spirits are so full of prejudicate opinions that wee are apt to think the worst of every thing whereas if we were the children of God and like our Father we then should live in God which is love yea we should then be made one with this love Certainly we may feare that those Children are basely begotten that doe not in any way resemble their Father Deare friend such a like generation have we begotten amongst us for if we were like our Father we then should hope all things beleeve all things think no evill not be lifted up in our selves but thinke of every one better then of our selves But though the seed of the Serpent be sowen amongst us yet I say againe I would not bee mistaken by you for I am not against the use of the Bible for I see a true sweet lovely spirit in the writings of it though yet I would have you know that I dare not justifie all things as they lye in the letter of it not because the truth is not in it but because of the abuse of that truth by the fals translation of it for every one when he translates a Coppy writes it as he thinks fit and so puts in and leaves out according to his conceptions and we all are not ignorant what hands these coppies have come thorow I beseech you therefore to wait upon that one spirit which is in you he it is that shall lead you into all truth and I am sure that when God hath written his own truth within you then you will be able as well as the Apostles to write a Bible or any book else without you I am very confident did the Apostles live in our dayes they would be exceedingly grieved to see us appropriate the spirit onely to them when indeed the spirit cannot be confined for it is God himself and this God is in you and with you though you know it not so well as I could wish you did Let us therefore leave off all our appropriations and distinctions and then doe you tell me what you finde but God we have been apt indeed to say Lo hear he is and there he is but this is a lye for he is every where and he is not any where as confin'd or distinct from himself I beseech you therefore in the bowels of mercy that you be carefull what you doe I have one thing to acquaint you with which indeed was the cause of my present writing and its this That seeing as I have told you the great day of the Lord is come upon me and every thing is brought into judgement I cannot but minde you of one thing which past betwixt us and it was this you told me once of your visiting a maid which said that she lived in heaven and above the Bible even in God and by the Revelations of his own spirit which much stumbled both you and me Now I am come to tell you that this maid is risen in me and that I know now what she meant being by the wonderful goodnes of my God taken in to the same life my self and it is but lately accomplished upon my soule Shee meant therefore above the letter of that word in the Bible that indeed was dead too her but she lived in the spirit and life of it which was and is in God himself and this is the life which we all have groaned after and yet when God comes to take us out of those graves of sin and self apropriations and to loose those Chains and Bonds which we have in our darknesse and ignorance been brought into by distinctions we are afraid of him and not onely like Mary take him for the Gardner but wee are even afraid that it is Satan himself transformed as we call it into an Angel of light when indeed that is the very Satan that tels us so though he sets before us a seeming good but we are not ignorant of his wiles This was the Apple which he deceived our Mother Eve withall even this seeming good and hath ever since caused us to surfeit with it even to take things that are not for what they are in truth therefore take notice by the way that those things are not that seem to be or visibly doe appear to our sight but the things that are invisible and cannot appear to our fleshly sight those are the things in truth and therefore take notice of this that all this outward frame of things which doth appeare to our fleshly sight is but a resemblance or a figure of him which is invisible and cannot be seen but with a pure spirituall sight I speak all this for your and others sakes which yet stick in the flesh of Christ For I blesse my God I am got through it even within the vaile and I see him who is invisible with the eyes of my spirit and certainly I had these visible eys given me as a signe or a shadow of the substance Blessed therefore be the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ which hath not suffered me to stick in any thing below himself but hath brought me through all the wiles and cunning deceits of Satan and hath at length centured me in himself and hath caused me to sit down and rest in his own bosome Let therefore our heavenly Father bee glorified for this his great goodnes towards the Sonnes of
and that not onely repeating the letter but in truth that those things which I have received have not beene from man nor woman nor any other thing but by the meere revelation of Jesus Christ in mee God manifesting himselfe in my owne flesh and therefore they much wrong both her and me that affirme it but especially they wrong or speake a lye of that God that did it for me and because I heare it so reported amongst you I thought good to write one word to cleare it that so whether you will heare or whether you will forbeare the word of truth might judge you give not eare therefore to all you heare though from brethren least you be brought into a snare for since the defection of the Churches men yea good men have been such lovers of themselves and their own opinions that they will speake largely upon little ground to keepe up their owne glory God having not yet undone them for were they once undone men they would willingly be what God would have them however the world accounts of them There is another thing which came to my care that it should be given into the Counsell by your two witnesses that the said Mrs P. should say that you cast her out for difference in judgement and when Collonell Rich and Collonell Harison asked to whom shee spake it they said to some of Abington Now indeed my husband said to you that he thought such a thing but when hee came home and saw so little ground for his thoughts I thinke he had but little comfort in telling you so and then brethren if you upon such slender grounds should act in this strange manner against her affirming this thing so publikely I thinke you have cause to bee humbled for it and justly to repent of your evill I desire you to beare a little with mee for truly it appeares to mee rather to bee your rage of spirit then your true love either to her or truth for mee thinkes it would savour more of a true Christian spirit if you had first spoken with her and have seene what change the Lord hath wrought in her as knowing that Mary out of whom seuen Divels had beene formerly cast was made the first messenger of Christs Resurrection yea and she must bring it to the Apostles and not the Apostles to her You say in your letter that you left her to the judgement of the great day and I beseech you brethren doe you not againe take her into your owne daie for truly I beleeve that daie in a measure hath come upon her and the Lord himselfe is at worke with her therefore doe not feare but the worke will be well done onely we as well as shee must have patience in it and surely this is the confidence that I have concerning her that she hath seen evill in that estate she walked in with you and certainly God is good to her in this shewing her what an abominable spirit of wickednesse may bee hid under the greatest practises and professions of externals not that these are the cause of it no the gold and the silver is mine saith the Lord but wee bestowing it upon our lovers and making our selves great with his ornaments he is fain in love to us to take us from them or they from us and so finde out a more sprirituall administration to perfect us in Oh the infinite riches of our God! where doth his bounty â—nd sure his waies of love are unsearchable eâ—d his paths of mercy in which he followes anore fallen man and poor backsliding soules are past finding out how narrow are our capacities we judge as men We may think as some did of David that there is no help for such things in God but all things in truth will be found possible with him even where they are altogether past our thoughts and conceptions and become to us impossible I beseech you therefore be perswaded to bow down to him I know you are conscious that all judgement is not committed unto you and therefore it is possible you may not judge right in this thing for truly brethren we may conceive many things even by the letter it self yet not living in that spirit that writ the letter we may erre I pray do not mistake me as if I would any way speak slightly of the letter farther than it speaks of it self no I blesse the Father for it and by sweet experience can say that I was never so confirmed in it now the Lord hath drawn me to him out of it even in that spirit that wrote it I am for the conscionable use of it but I would not abuse it I am sure those men that would set it above the spirit can hardly free themselves from that thing I hope therefore you will not count it your excellency to walk in the letter but rather desire the Lord to perfect you in that spirit that writes the letter for then and never till then shall we be able to walk by it aright and speak of the letter truly I have not yet acquainted my husband with your letter I shall wait upon God what answer to receive from you for truly dear brethren upon serious deliberation I know not how to approve my self faithfull in the eyes of God to my brethren here if I should deliver it for God having put it into my hand I must also see clearnes from him before I part with it for though blessed be the father we have a sweet hopefull people amongst us that wait upon God and have fellowship one with another yet whether they may digest such things as you write of I really question therefore it would be unfaithfulnes in me if I apprehending an evill to them or any other should not as much as in me lies prevent it and this I shall doe by detaining the Letter till further manifestation from God what to do with it Doe not judge me in this thing I beseech you I have one Judge even the Lord and he that put it into my hand will aâ— length clear my integrity in it I have nothing to doe for my self in it the Lord knows only to find out if it may be how I may approve my self â—aithfull to men in the Lord and for the Lords â—ake Your desire I exceedingly like that we may be kept from errours and the Lord keep us all from errours but who must shew us what errour is but the God of truth himself we have lived in errour and have suckt them in from our cradles and yet who will speak so much against error as we stating our selves still in the truth My sweet friends the day of truth is but now dawning upon us and how is it opposed even by those that are children of truth in their measure yet wee have all looked for it and prayed together for it a long time but truly now we will not own our prayers but turn away our face from our Saviour because he comes