to the whole world is come it cometh it hath sounded and is sounding The mighty day of God is at hand therefore whilest you have time repent And allthough the Gentiles resist and all the Heathen every where gain-say yet the Lord will be glorified over all the world unto whom the Light is the sure message of the Most High whether they will hear or forbear AN EPISTLE TO THE GREEKS I Have heard a rumor in mine ears of a hard cry among the people Alas alas Our glory is defaced and our ancient praise and renown is utterly defamed Our wives are made the Vassals of other women and we are become slaves to a strange Nation We are no more under the Government of the Scepter which swayed our Fathers but the wills of another people works violence over us Our houses are but as habitations lent unto us and our substance and portion at pleasure may be spoyled by the hand of the Devourer Our children unto us are not as were the children of our fore-fathers in their Generations our wives and children treasure and substance is but a burden unto us when the eyes of our Lords looks over us Alas alas our misery is great and none regardeth it the sound of our cry hath reached far yet few have pondered it And the Lord said unto me Cry also among the Professors of Christian Religion even thus it is come to passe in many Regions of the earth the bondage it great and the captivity is doubled with violence and with cruelty The chains and yoaks are twice laid on and the people are under the indignation of the Lord The judgements of their adversaries lyes heavy upon their heads and their Loins are banded with the oppressions of their Rulers as with Iron and with Brasse and they cannot break the Cords to cast off their burdens and this and much more is the misery of the Greeks which their fathers iniquities first brought upon their heads in their dayes and the children of their Generations drinking of the Cup of their abominations unto this present Seed of evill doers Wherefore the hand of vengeance still toucheth their shoulders and in this manner God hath seen it equall to lay the burden upon that man which with his transgressions hath laden and pressed down the righteous soul of the Lord as a Cart is laden and pressed down with sheaves This is the end of their labours they ploughed the fields of the pleasure of their own hearts they sowed the seed of unrighteousnesse in the depth of the ground of iniquity who notwithstanding the Lord watered them with the water of adversity yet returned they not in the day of affliction wherefore of corruption they have reaped this abundance of misery YE Greeks unto whom I write for the seeds sake as a husband unto a wife not covering the diseased parts or falsly solving up the forest and most dangerous wounds not seeking to seal up your states in hidden sentences from your understandings or your conditions in parables nor to shut the door of the Kingdom against the seed of the Kingdom It hath pleased the Lord contrary to every part of the natural and desire of the carnall to lead me through some of the Countryes wherein as Sojourners you are Inhabitants among whom I did earnestly seek but could not find and then I returned to the Lord and sought with tears yet truly could not find one in a City that was worthy Ye ought to bear with me for the Truths sake nevertheless whether you will hear or forbear for the Lords sake and his seeds sake I am obliged by that which stretcheth forth love unto souls in this manner to stretch forth mine hand to draw back the Curtain that you may look to the Light which breaks through the Lattice and to remove the skirt which it folded over your nakednesse that your eye may see your filthinesse O misery misery the seed is in bondage that 's your greatest misery within the burdens of which is the ground of your misery without Consider consider and lay it to heart use diligence in the search of your hearts for the Lord God cometh quickly to try and to search every heart and to reward and give unto all according to their deeds done in the body whether they be good or whether they be evil Consider your Life which is the ground and cause of the mourning of the Land Jer. 23.10 I have passed through you and have seen the life of your people Behold abominable swearing lying cheating coveting drunkenness whoredom adultery murder Rom. 1.23.24 c. Changing the glory of the incorruptible God into Images made like unto corruptible man Wherefore God also hath given you up to uncleannesse through the lusts of your corrupt hearts Who have changed the truth of God into a lye and to worship and serve the Image of the creature more than the Creator Whos 's own Image only praiseth him who is blessed over all for ever and evermore Amen And this is truth in the presence of the Lord God of Heaven and Earth and unto the Light of Christ which shines in all your Consciences which shews you all your sins even unto that true Witnesse in your own hearts I speak I have been an eye witnesse of the bowing of the bodies of many of your people unto the works of your Fathers idolatrous hands unto which your corrupt hearts and deceitfull affections are joyned whilest not one of you in a Nation which mine eye ever beheld came to bow his heart in Righteousnesse and his life in Spirit and Truth before the Lord God who is a Spirit John 4.23 Whose day cometh and now is that the true Worshippers do worship him in Spirit and in Truth And for as much as Ye with other Idolaters do make these few following dark words the seeming ground of your standing places saying Viz. That you are the Roman Catholique Church and that you believe in Christ and do believe the Words and Doctrine of Christ the Scriptures of the Prophets and writings of the Apostles and that you hold the Precepts and do follow the instructions of the ancient Fathers c. Answ You whose Fathers made many Temples and painted Pictures therein that they might worship and bow down unto the works of their own hands Ye see the day in the midst of your calamities and time of sorrows how that many of the houses which they built are left unto you desolate And if now you the seed of the corruption of their generation were but come to the losse of your Fathers naturall Image in your carnal hearts and affections You would also as clearly discern your greatest misery which through the grosse vail of darknesse over your hearts is hid from your eyes Oh the captivity the captivity you are held in the possession of bondage and captivity under the profession of the name of Christ and Christians in the lusts of unrighteousnesse and the pleasures of
people and deceiving the hearts of the simple Awake awake to the judgement Behold the breath of the holy Apostles life is ready to utter voices in the earth as thunders against you destruction to your dwellings desolation to your habitations I have seen a dart within your doores which will wound you and when the day of God as a Thief in the night overtakes you Remember ye were warned unto repentance that you might escape the floods which shall overwhelm your Lands unto the determination of the consummation and decree of everlasting indignation and vengeance And furthermore ye Priests who say that you officiate as Peters Successors in the degree and order of your places I have both seen you your fruits and your labours and that hath plainly declared in the substance unto me that you have not the least relation unto the life of Peter being but the dirt and dust which the upright and undefiled spirit of Peter shakes from off his feet as a witnesse against your Cityes and habitations even in this day as a witnesse against the wickednesse and Idolatries of your Generation and whilst you are professing Peter's power and authority of binding and loosing on earth your manifold deceits hath blinded your hearts whereby you are so much ignorant of the word and work of Gods power that your corrupt wisdomes exercised in studies to the end of your evill dayes shall never find out the earth wherein the just life of Peter is this day entred binding the unrighteousness of your life and spirits under him as his Foot-stool everlastingly to tread and trample upon the glory of your heads and crown of your deceits Oh ye Greek Pastors Priests and people what can you plead for your Patriarch Can you not read the deceitfulnesse of his succession through the manner of his Election Dare you say that it is according to the election of the grace of Christ Jesus in the order of the truth or power of the true Faith who contrary to the word of Life and doctrine of the true faith doth purchase unto himself that Title and Degree with the price of a sum of moneys from the Emperour of the Turks whom you your selves do say is Antichrist and Reprobate concerning the faith of Christ an enemy to the life of the Saints and spirit of Peter of whom you say that your Patriarch is his successor Oh confesse confesse your blindness and blush blush and be ashamed of your impudence and obstinacy in ignorance for behold if your foundation and root concerning the remission of your sins be rotten what farther prop or post to your selves can you hew out in your imaginations and inventions for the support of the deceived walls of your Fathers buildings And again After one hath paid the price for the purchase of his Office if another of your Nation goes with his sum of moneys and gives to the Emperour he disposses the first and gives the Degree and Title to the latter Oh horrible abomination who hath a voice and hath with-holden and not cryed in the streets and published it in the open places even the iniquity and the abomination and not cryed against the loathsomnesse thereof by such desperate mockings of God through the wickednesse of their purchases Read diligently the Scripture Acts. 8.19 20 21. But Peter said unto him thy money perish with thee because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter for thy heart is not right in the sight of the Lord. Now compare the practices and see if the unrighteousnesse of Simon the Sorcerer who was in the gall of bitterness doth parralel the strength of the sealed bonds of iniquity of your Patriarchs Successors and finally touching this matter take this as the summe to your selves the original and ground of his deceivable granting and your receiving the remission of sin according to the truth of the reckoning of your own account is the Reprobate spirit of Antichrist Read also O Italy France Ireland Spain and Portugall the seat of your Father the Pope John 18.36 he sits exalted in the Kingdom of this world contrary to Christs example as King upon the highest mountain over many waters Rev. 17.15 Matth. 4.8 9. in the possession of the inheritance of the promise of Satan All these will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me The aboundance of his corrupt honour and vain glory with the abominable fruits of the worships of his children and the Priests actions in iniquity gives testimony of the oath of the witnesse that he stands principall in the ground of Apostacy Hester 3.8 c. Hamans decree which he got granted for the slaughter of the Jews and his Gallows of fifty cubits high which was prepared for Mordecai is the figure of your Fathers Inquisitions for the taking away the liberty Hos 5.13 14. and the destruction of the life of such as God sends to declare against your Traditional worships in Superstition and Idolatry Math. 11.29 How far is his life from Christs doctrine and example of humility who in the pride of his heart sitting on high in the seat and Throne of arrogancy maketh the comers to see his face to fall down before him upon their knees to kiss his foot The abomination and loathsomnesse of the nature of these few fruits are sufficient unto all that have the true sences of seeing and savouring that his succession is not in the Covenant of grace according to the election of God whom men in the flesh have elected and chosen unto the glory of the kingdomes of men in this present evil world And finally touching the vanity of your conceptions and the deceitfulnesse of the Popes practices this is the sum of the account of the true record concerning the absolutions and forgivenesse of sins which ye receive from his authorized sons Your Fathers the Priests Lucifer which sought a seat above the meek Prince of salvation is the root and ground of the issues of their grant and warrant of Remission Zach 9.9 Math. 21.5 Isa 14.12 13 14 15 16. whose figure and resemblance is the revelation of damnation He that hath an ear to hear let him hear and a heart to fear let him fear I have not in every particular remonstrated your Traditions and customes wherein you walk contrary to the truth but having the testimony shall in short shew you how that you are short of the substance in which the promise is yea and amen of eternall life Your hearts and minds are not singly and simply joyned to the Light of the Lord Christ Jesus which shines in all your consciences and that 's the cause of the foot-steps of your wayes and the birth of your words and works to proceed and flow forth as the fruits of the womb of darkness And in how much in all your wayes words and works you are short of the Life of the
sin and iniquity and this hath brought blindness and spread ignorance as a thick cloud which covers the understanding part wherefore you are strangers unto and as a people not having knowledge of the seed of God which notwithstanding the hardships of your outward sufferings and the scourge of your bodyes yet the seed of the Kingdome lyes laden with your lightnesse and is heavily pressed down with the excessive weight of your numberlesse oaths and other abominable sins and transgressions Ye are blinded ye are blinded through the multitude of your corruptions your whole body is become a lump of misery You daily add murder unto mischief without respect or any regard to the life of the innocent and after your adulteries you retain not the thought of the succour of the life of the Virgin Daughter which ye have abused through the lusts of uncleannesse and so you add sin unto sin binding your selves under the perpetual oath and curse of cruelty in the bondage of your own misery and captivity Wo is me for you the love of my bowels to the seed is made a brook of bitterness in my belly For your sakes I am as one that hath eaten affliction and swallowed up sorrows as in the day of trouble Oh how hath the night been tedious to my watchful eyes which the strength of your miseries kept open when slumber had no power to shut them wherefore now I call and with a loud voice lifted over your Land I cry Come forth ye carelesse minds stretch forth your feet ye regardlesse hearts out of the Bed of the miserable slumber of your starved soules Awake awake to the mourning and arise and come forth to the lamentation for your losse O weep weep for the woe is your own for your own wickednesse Consider and lay it to heart should not the hour of distresse bring sorrows and mourning upon your hearts Oh wherefore then hath the Lord looked and behold your Land hath been filled with lightnesse and ye have not forgotten the vain words of the former Generation but with a foolish confidence have believed and trusted in their lyes as if the credit of the deceitfull words of their wicked inventions should stand the salvation of your miserable sinfull souls Seeing therefore unto this day ye have been grossely deluded and deceived under the profession of the name of the Roman Catholique Church I shall answer the vanity of your Faith with a few words of Truth God who in the dayes of old chose unto himself a peculiar people of the seed of Israel according to his promise unto Abraham also in the fulnesse of the dispensation of time sent his onely begotten Son a Light into the world that the world through him who is the Light might believe and have everlasting life by whom the Apostles and Saints in them dayes were gathered unto God and were made Members of the Heb. 12.23 Acts 20.28 Matth. 16.18 Church of the first born which are written in Heaven who is the Resurrection of the dead and of this Church of God and of his Son Jesus Christ of which Christ is now the Head as he was in the dayes of the Apostles who wrote of this Church who therefore was and is the Head Ephes 5.13 Coloss 1.18 That he might present it to himself a glorious Church not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing but that it should be holy and without blemish and that in all things he might have the preheminence And of this and none other Church did the Lord speak and the Apostles write but as for the Roman Catholique Church neither have I by any testimony heard or by any writing of the true Prophets the Declaration of Christ or in the writings of the Apostles read of any such Church should be as of the Truth or stand as in the Truth or that unto the Members thereof the Truth should be only committed Allthough this I say that the Scriptures do make mention that once there was an assembly of Saints which lived in Rome as there did also in other places and parts of the earth among whom the truth was in power received in the day of the prosperity thereof untill the time of the apostacy came in and the working of the mistery of iniquity waxed great and spread over the face of the earth even among all people who received the sound of the Declaration of the birth of a Son in the City of David Jesus the Christ whom the Prophets prophesied of should come and of this apostacy and falling away Christ himself who is the sum and substance of the Law and the Prophets spake of saying Math. 24.24 There shall arise false Christs and false Prophets and shall shew great signes and wonders in so much that if it were possible they should deceive the very Elect. And this iniquity began to work in the dayes of the Apostles of which John in this manner did write They went out from us but they were not of us 1 Joh. 2.18 19. by which he knew that it was the last time as they had heard that Antichrist should come and saith he 1 John 4.1 even now there are many Antichrists Wherefore he also exhorted the Brethren that they should not believe every Spirit but to try the Spirits whether they are of God because many false Prophets were then gone into the world And Paul he testifieth his knowledge saying Acts 20.29.30 31. After my departing shall grievous Wolves enter in among you not sparing the flock and also of your own selves shall men arise speaking perverse things to draw many Disciples after them therefore watch and remember that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with teares And this in measure came to passe whilest John was Paul also John 1.9 10. 1 Thess 2.7.8 9 he bore further witnesse that this thing must be even the falling away else this day which is now come and coming could not come and he said then in his day also That the Mystery of iniquity doth already work only he who letteth will let untill he be taken out of the way and then shall that wicked one be revealed whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth and shall destroy with the brightnesse of his coming even him whose coming mark his coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signes and lying wonders and with all deceivablenesse of unrighteousnesse in them that perish and for this cause seeing they received not the love of the Truth God shall send them strong delusions that they should believe a lye that they all might be damned who believed not the Truth but had pleasure in unrighteousnesse In which state and condition of vanity and unrighteousnesse I find the Roman Catholique Churches as a people miserably spoyled Coloss 2.8 through the deceit of vain Philosophy Walking after the Traditions of men after the Rudiments of
Lord and the wicked shall be turned into hell But every member according to the diversities of their measures of the Spirit of life who are of the true Church can witnesse and read the Scriptures with the life in their life which is hid with Christ in God Col 3.3 but you standing only in that which hath written Annotations and which draweth Inferences Conclusions and meanings from the Scriptures that witnesseth sufficiently concerning you that you are not in the life of the first Principle of pure Religion which giveth the understanding of the Scriptures Ignorance therefore is the cause of your error Math 22.29 Math 13.34 as saith Christ You erre not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God Wherefore unto you they are parables and hidden sentences from the darknesse of your clouded understandings who is he that seeth your misery and doth not lament you who have consented to the blinding of your selves through the yeelding of your minds captives to the perverse wills of your Instructers they have trodden out paths in unrighteousnesse and you have walked in their crookednesse Verily I am as one wounded for your sakes and heavily pressed with the clods which the ploughers have ploughed upon your backs Oh where is the hand which hath holpen you Have not your watchers forgiven you your sins in vanitie and strengthened your hands with the strength of their own hearts in iniquitie In what manner have they brought you unto confession and what will that availe you if after your confessions the same and worse sins and iniquities are wrought and committed by you Are you so ignorant as to thinke that their words of absolution is the covenant of pardon and salvation Or do you thinke that bare confession of your sins only will bring you under the Condition of mercy Mark the order of the declaration of Solomon's wise sentence which maketh frustrate the expectation of your vaine confidence Pro 28.13 He that covereth his sins shall not prosper but who so confesseth and forsaketh them shall finde mercy Oh people why therefore will ye thus rest and remaine in the night of slumber when will ye be awakened to come to see the works of your teachers how that they have double-girded your loynes with the cords of ignorance and have made that the strength of their renowne and praise in the Nations and your cloathing with the clouds of darknesse is your Priests garment of glory over you by this their power governes in Dominion and Majesty and you remaine as Subjects chained under the yoak of their iniquitie Oh who can declare your misery It is my sorrow for the Seeds sake to behold it and I know that it suits not with the delight of your hearts to read the explanation of it But hath the Lord a Remnant and shall he not visit for the sake thereof yea verily and this therefore in love to the soules of the simple that they may come to the light of the day each one in the sensiblenesse of his own heart and life to reade with understanding the mystery of godlinesse and Scriptures of truth which do speak one and the same thing in the word and intention and not of many things as by more then one but of all things in and by one through whom the worlds were made and the Covenant of God stands sure through whom also grace mercy and peace is come to as many as are joyned to that one in the clearnesse of the naked truth through the relinquishing of the hidden things of deceit and all the former wayes vanities customes traditions superstitions and ungodly words and works and renouncing the counsells of the many fathers and men of the world through the spreading of whose spirit and the fruits of their life delusion hath a long time reigned in the world cleaving to the only sound counsell of the living God father of truth which deceiveth nor deludeth any man but establisheth all men that come unto it in a holy way exceeding the errors of mans wayes even in that new and living way which he hath prepared wherein the uncleane cannot walke Isa 55.8 but it is unto those the way-faring men though foales shall not erre therein Wherefore all people be not any longer blinded under the perverse crooked wills of your Instructers and Pastors but examine and try truly whether they have lead you in the way of God wherein the wicked cannot walke And now in all this will you count me your enemy in putting you upon diligent inquiry and also in telling you the truth Lay it to heart oh people and you Doctors and Teachers of the Nations Come forth and consider assemble assemble the principal members of your bodyes together and call a full Councell of the Magicians of your Lands and suffer us then to prove you before all men provide your rods that you may cast them in the presence of the Nations and behold ours is ready to be cast also that it may be knowne whether God is the God of Egypt or of Israel and that all the Inhabitants of the Earth may have an understanding who are the people that have stolen the name of Israel that were never borne of his Seed and if it shall be seene that the Serpent of our rod shall eate up the Serpents of your rods then of a truth it shall be knowne that God worketh with us and not with you but against you But if the Serpent of our rod shall be swallowed up and by the Serpents of your rods utterly devoured then let not the Nations spare to publish and cry in their streets that the God whom we worship hath utterly forsaken us Againe I say assemble your Prophets and let the worke of the Lord and his word answering by fire give testimony to the Prophets whether the Prophets of your Lands are the true Prophets that the Inhabitants thereof may truly know and understand that if the Lord be God then let them follow him but if Baal whom ye worship he God then do you continue following of him no hurt will come unto your Nations through the tryall of the Prophets so that if the Lord answers our Prophet by fire and kindles the sacrifice of the oblation in your sight then shall ye know that our Prophet is the true Prophet of the Lord but if your Prophets shall cut themselves even to the drawing of blood of their bodyes and no word of answer to their supplications as the answer of the Lord by fire from Heaven but afterwards if in their madnesse and wilfulnesse they shall kindle a fire in their wrath and charge you to kindle fires in your houses to burne this testimony among whomsoever it comes then behold that shall be a signe unto you that God is not among them for if the Lord be their God then would he plead for them or if they be Jealous for the Name of the Lord God of Hosts then will they stand forth to plead