warning The Aegyptians were Chams children the peculiar people of the curse in the antithesis to the promise of blessing and so most contrary to all order matter and form of a free people above all Nations but Israel under their power and command and in bondage unto them were visibly their vassals slaves unto servants bond-slaves to the curse They were servants to God by promise but in power servants to the Aegyptians under whose power they were and so more contrary to all order matter and form of free families persons people and churches then the Aegyptians until being sealed with the bloud of the Pass-over they were called and redeemed unto freedom in the power of God by the Lamb in a Type So usurpers and their servants all that receive the mark of the power of the Beast are the people of the curse servants of servants in antithesis to the true blessing and so their slaves Gods free people excepted most contrary to order matter and form of a free people But Israel Gods free people in bondage to them are visibly their vassals servants to God by promise by power theirs bond-slaves to servants and so are and shall be more contrary to right order matter and form as Persons Families or Churches then the peculiar people of the Curse or any people upon earth until being sealed with the seal of God in the bloud of the Lamb they shall be called and redeemed from the Will and power of Usurpers to the power and Freedom of God in their anti-typical Families The rule and form of a free people is the Law of Law Reason of Reason the Word by the work of his free spirit the elementary form and rule of the law of Nature and Reason is the Scripture But the matter the people of God and their forms Law Reason and Scriptures and the order of both matter and form are kept in chains of slavish dis-use dead to Freedom and Life alive and active unto bondage and death as all Israel living in bondage acted unto bondage onely The most just Law is but a bond-slave to Will and Power Will without Reason is the form of it Right if any be or seem is an effect contingent or a work of Bribery or of by-respects and not of the Law for there can be no right effect from that cause whereof Reason is not the Form and Power Reason is the power of Law-natural the Image of God in man fallen when man fell under the power of bondage and death Dead bodies not presently but in time wholy corrupt and putrifie So this Image and its form Reason though dead did not presently but in time wholy putrifie the order and manner of its dissolution is set forth in that Image in Dan. 2. Howbeit God by his Word the embalming myrrhe of this dead Image hath at some times healed its unsoundness But now this Image and Reason the form of it is as in a Type when the Floud came wholy corrupted and putrified Learning and Ignorance have puft up the wise and foolish and pride hath putrified this Image in man and the form of it Reason as it did in Nebuchadnezzar in a figure for he was the head of Civil Empire and government and a shadow of it from his time in which the Image of God as to Justice Reason and Sobriety is wholy destroyed and the people ruling and ruled turned through pride feral agrest and wild in the substance whereof the same in him was a shadow The wise and learned render reason sensual and divelish the unlearned bruitish Gross and stupid but conceited ignorance and pedantick learning have eaten up like Pharaohs ill-favored lean kine all real Vertue and honesty Religion and the Law and light of Reason is turned putrified filth and dirt of wickedness and folly in the thin bellies of these ill-favored beasts Reason is but a bond-slave to absurd Tenents of fond and sottish bruitishness delatory and evasive sophistry seems most to be but is no part of just reason or of the Image of God but of Satan There 's no true indoles of goodness or good nature left in this Image because the Scriptures are not neither can be but the imaginations of the thoughts of the hearts of men which are in bondage and onely evil continually are as they were in the Type Gen. 6.5 the forms and power of Reason wherefore this spiritual Image in man and the form of it Reason being dead corrupt and putrified as to Freedom Life and Power but alive and active unto bondage and death cannot be the form and power of the Law of the free people of God Thirdly The Scriptures are not but ought to be and shall be the elementary form and power of reason and of the Image of God in man that is they are properly and shall be really the Conduit and Instrument by which the Spirit of life in the Word of God shall convey light of life into the Image of God and into the form of it Reason But the Scriptures are also in bondage of death Rev. 11.7 dead to Freedom and Life and alive and active unto bondage The Scripture is not by strictest pretenders to it extended to Persons Families and People as the elementary form and rule of their Law and Government as Persons Families and people They call the Law of the people the Civil Law and discern it as having it original power and form not from the Scriptures but from the people and for government of Families and Persons and the power of it they think not of it or at least practise not really and indeed any They confine the power of the Scriptures to Churches only as Shimei was to his house in Jerusalem by which means the Scriptures are in bondage and are dead and have no power but to promote empty forms of pretenses and hypocrisie For it is impossible that those herbs that retein the strength and power of poyson in the place where they grow and likewise retein the same strength of poyson in the pot and in the mess should ever be wholsom in the stomack So it is impossible that they that have no power or form of Law or government according to Scriptures as Persons Families or People should have any form or power of Law or Government according to the Scriptures as Churches The Scriptures are a Cup of Gold Rev. 17.4 that is a vessel of pure righteousness not kept in the power of Gods people but in mystical Jezabels hand the mother of all abominations and filthiness Josephs steward said to the Brethren of Joseph That the Silver Cup was that wherein his Master used to drink and indeed to divine The Scriptures are indeed a vessel of perfect honor but as kept in bondage of death in possession and under the power of an harlot a vessel of vilest dishonor a cup of divination full of all abominations and filthiness of her fornications the false wares with which all mercenaries the Merchants of
the earth chandle and trade their high prised deceits of no value which they exchange for the treasure of the earth to make themselves rich some teach against some some against all forms of Godliness and deny all the power of it others press empty forms of fruitless profession and make these and all other painted Sepulchers seem to arise out of this Cup They seem to make the blindest braâ—s of Aegyptian darkness their brain-sick conceits of grossest folly and blasphemy to arise out of this cup. All base Sorcerers and seducers take up this cup for a pretence to dissimulation for lucre sake and make it their instrument to deceive and inslave the Nations subordinate to their own unjust gain and ends The Scriptures are but nets spread only to catch their prey their shaddow of darkness to deceit their vessel of divination to ensnare and destroy the earth for reward All Impostors take up out of this cup forms to deceive for gain unto themselves and they that receive the marke of bondage hardness of heart drink deceit and all deceivers the wages of lying divinations out of this cup. The word of God shall be but is not but the wills and power of wicked Impostors and their filthy lusts and desires are the power of the dead subjected and inslaved Scriptures Therefore the Scriptures in bondage under the formes of vilest and most slavish disuse and death cannot be the form and power of the Image of God nor of reason nor reason of the Law nor the Law of the free people of God But as the abomination of desolation was instead of the Arke of God set up in the Temple of God so right order matter and form of Freedom life and power in the people of God is by a general falling away from what they seemed null and voyd and positive opposit forms and powers of bondage the substance shaddowed by that abomination of desolation set up in the Temple the people of God and in all powers of their being Law reason and Scripture And the matter joyned to these forms is their proper matter in being and the order ends and effects must necessarily as effects their causes follow their productive matter and forms therefore the people of God as families persons people and Churches and all their powers and forms Law reason and Scriptures and the order ends and effects of these forms are wholly in the power of bondage and basest disuse dead to Freedom life and power of God alive and active to slavish destruction sin and death and shall be untill God call them and they come and bring with them all that is theirs out of the power of bondage unto the power and freedom of God in their anti-typical families While Israel was in bondage their persons estates law reason traditions and intire beings were wholly in the same bondage and they never had being nor begining of Freedom until they were called out of the power of bondage unto their proper form of Freedom the power of God and of the Lamb and were gathered and sealed in that power typically by their families So the true Israel and all that is theirs are alike in the same bondage their bodys spirits power rights estates and their forms of being law reason and Scriptures are to life and Freedom voyd of being and begining But by occasion vials of slavish disuse destructive sinful and must so remain untill God gather Israel and all that is theirs from being putrified dust rebelling against him to a being and begining in his power of Freedom by their anti-typical families The dust which after was Man had no order unity nor figure of body whiles it was dust nor fleshly form untill it was transmutated into flesh nor life until the flesh had liniaments and breath of life and not till then it had the begining and being of a man So Israel were and and the true Israel are scattered dividuals of dust and Atomes most contrary to order and unity of a body and form of life When Israel rebelled against God and being cald out of bondage hearkned not Exod. 6.12 they were putrified and scattered dust warring against the life and power of God when they readily hearkned to prepare and keep the Passeover as God comanded then they were changed from dead and scattered dust into fit matter of a redeemed people when all their families were gathered together into their own houses or so many as could eat the Lamb into one house and kept together without going out or stirring from one another then they were rallyed and knit in a compact body when they did eat the Passeover together as God commanded then the life and power of God their breath of life from bondage of death was in a Type breathed into them and that night they were delivered and all the first-born the power of Egypt in a Type were that very night destroyed and God ordained that moneth by an Ordinance for ever to be the beginning of all moneths unto them and the first moneth of the yeare because it was indeed really the first beginning of their being So the true Israel the free people of God and all that is theirs have bin and are in that deep sleep and horror of great darkness of bondage and death in the substance of it did which fell upon Abraham in a figure Gen. 15. and are really those divided peices of flesh betwixt which the furnace and burning lampe passed which peices of flesh putrified That deep sleep and great darkness and those peices of flesh were a twofold figure of Abrahams seed after the flesh and after the spirit in bondage dead disobedient and putrified dust which being called hearken not When they shall readily hearken to prepare and keep the true Passeover the substance and truth of the typical then they shall be changed from putrid dust repugnant to all life and freedom of God into fit matter of a free people When their anti-typical families shall be gathered in the unity of the spirit of life and freedom unto the power of God in their natural and mystical houses to prepare and keep the true Passeover and not revolt not stir out nor desert one another then they shall be rallied into the com-pages and joynts of a body of a Free People When they shall eat the Passeover together as God commandeth that is when they shall do really the works of righteousness not the Type but the truth and substance of what God and the Lamb requires of a people redeemed to life and Freedom then the power of God their breath of life from real bondage shall be breathed into them and that time which is at hand shall be unto them and all that is theirs really the very first begining of being Then Israel and theirs first began in a Type and then the true Israel as persons families people and churches shall first begin really That shall be the first time wherein their proper Rights Estates Law Power and the
be made against equity and the faith of the Nation unnaturally ingratefully to their and their families impoverishment and utter ruine Every man as not flatly denying the faith of Christ and as not being a Barrabas and robber to himself and others must pay every man what he may justly his whole due and to that end must demand what he may do justly his whole just due The free called military and civil Families must in conscience see to it strictly that every one among them have all just interests entire as Moses faithfully demanded and had all Israels just due entire He that is unfaithful in a little is false in all but these things are the greatest and imperfect righteousness is the fruit of bondage not of freedom Either let them do justice absolute and impartial or else let them that are filthy be filthy still and them that are unfaithful and unjust be unjust still The virtual or essential form is real or paral consignation of force figure and matter in one act to and with oecunomick Representers and their represented the persons and families signing to them and to and with Provincial and National Representers and their represented the free people and families of the Provinces and of the Nation sighing to them for as an Instrument of an act or deed not sealed nor subscribed is no act or deed but a dead instrument of no force or vertue So an Agreement not signed is no Agreement but a dead instrument or carcass Therefore it is that Lieut. Col. John Lilburns Agreement though he and they with him that made it have done their parts in it and discharged their Conscience hath as yet come to nothing because the free people through slavish fear and sloth did not on their parts signe and subscribe it And therefore it is that the good which those that they call Levellers endeavored was a dead birth the hazard of its parents life because they gave it not life by consigning it in a right Order of a free gathered people for there were many busie pretenders betrayers of them amongst them and divers unsteady and vicious and rash persons that deserved not the name of Levellers who hindred their good endeavors and brought all into dis-order and confusion Lastly Right Government is the intense order of a right Agreement This intense order is an intermediate pressing forward in the righteousness of life and freedom from the bounds from which to the bounds to which a free people must act and move Righteousness is either of bondage or freedom Bondage and Freedom and their righteousness differ as light and darkness The righteousness of bondage in the people of God is lame and imperfect meer impostury reprobate righteousness of corruption Ishmael the bond-womans son with his mother to be cast out but their righteousness of Freedom shall be at least as to outward conformity firm and constant The good works of bondage in the people of God are dead carcasses of righteousness and therefore have an an appearance in their impressive act especially and so their impressive power of bondage is less visible but the intense power of bondage in the best righteousness of the people of God is in its intermediate act apparent For as thorns obstruct and choak the best seed so bondage and its forms respect to private ends and disrespect to duty and conscience kills the very impressive life of all righteousness Therefore their dead and slavish righteousness for they have no other cannot reach any supreme end of the righteousness of life and freedom but bondage forms and steers its intermediate first and last course to slavery sin and death for dead men to do the works of the living and for Gods people in bondage of corruption and death to do the righteousness of life and freedom is impossible Their best actions are but good words and these meer deceits and trecheries Such forms such effects but the powers of bondage are the forms in which the people of God and the whole Creation as the matter are subâ—ected therefore all their righteousness is the righteousness of the power of bondage a base off-spring of pride avarice and vain-glory a vile instrument to advance empty forms a servant to perfideous sloth and apostasie a prostitute to vice and bond-servant to base designes The rigour of Aegyptian bundage killed Israels fruits after the flesh their children so soon as born and captivated all that lived in continual bondage but this vehement rigour of real bondage suffers not the people of God nor their best righteousness to have intense motion being nor begining of life and freedom but of perfect captivity only to slavish dis-use sin and death The sincerest and their best righteousness are like Ishmael in bondage partly and partly free Ishmael was free-born by the fathers side but by Hagar the bond-woman Wherefore subjecting none and subject and in bondage to none his hand was against every man and every mans hand against him So the sincere and their righteousness are of God their Father and so free and perfect but outwardly of Hagar the bond-woman therefore their free Spirit bows not its knee to bondage but being Hagar the bond-womans sons the spirit of bondage not the free spirit coucheth to all burdens and resisteth in all things the free Spirit of God Therefore as wild men like Ishmael they resist but subdue not and are resisted but are not subdued by all vassals of bondage and their and its corruptions and bring forth no righteousness of life and freedom into manifestation of being because they are free and live partly and are partly dead and in bondage Righteousness of freedom is the good works of a people equally legitimate and free not as the people of God were and are in Aegypt by promise only and really and indeed the greatest and most miserable slaves that ever were nor as Ishmael was and the most sincere are free by the fathers side only but by father and mother as Davids fathers house was in a type free in Israel Jerusalem descending shall be the only free mother as Evah of all the living of all living branches of the Tree of life the free-born of God that shall bring forth perfect fruits of life and freedom The integrity of Primitive times did anti-type Adams and Evahs innocency and typified that equally legitimate and free righteousness of the free-born sons of God by that City the Lambs Bride Mans fall prefigured the general falling away from the Primitive Churches and second Adams first righteousness which general Apostasie and corruption of all flesh in the anti-type is now full as Adams fall and his off-springs general apostasie in a type was full when the floud came The Ark made of one wood into mansions or rooms shaddowing forth the order of the families which shall be actually redeemed unto freedom brought forth 1656 yeers after the first tree of life its first fruits of life in a type So the true Ark the tree of
life in anti-type and truth shall then bring forth and not till then its first fruits of righteousness of life and freedom when the order of its mansions that is the prefigured mystical families there shall be compleated and full The righteousness which is now and hath bin is the righteousness of false appearance covetousness and filthy corruptions of bondage born and begotten by and for base designes and ends the off-spring of illegitimacy and seed of incest conceived like Moah and Ammon in the heat and zeal of blind and empty profession and bloudy hypocrisie the fruit of perfideous trechery and deceit If any righteousness of life and freedom hath bin or is that Righteousness or they that produce it have or hath bin or is the first fruits to God and the Lamb but the Text is express That the sealed Tribes or Families of Israel shall be the first fruits to God and the Lamb There was no righteousness of deliverance from the curse of destruction bondage and death of Adams sin in a type until those creatures that were saved the shadow of the free people of God came as it were by their families into the Ark after their kind and there hath not bin any perfect but dead spurious and illegitimate righteousness no righteousness of deliverance life and freedom from real destruction sin and death nor shall be any until the free people come into the true Ark by their anti-typical Tribes and Families and possess their proper mansions in truth and substance The people of God absolute free and their righteousness shall be equally legitimate in relation to God their father and in relation to the new policy or City their mother descending which shall be free And they and their righteousness shall be perfect as their heavenly father is perfect and as their mother descending from God out of heaven shall be perfect Perfect not of the essence of God but after the pattern and image of the mind of God as the Tabernacle was the figure of that pattern in the Mount and as the Rain-bow is the Image of the Sun so they shall be created and formed by the free Spirit of life in Christ after the Image of God For the Creator Former and Inhabitant is not the creature thing formed or house Howbeit God shall dwell in them more fully The perfection of a free people and of their righteousness consists in an impress intermediate and express act of Life and Freedom but the last gives their and its denomination and being and the first two without the third are properly the righteousness of bondage This perfect righteousness of a Free people is a commutative three-fold righteousness of deliverance from evil in evil and out of evil of bondage a figure of this righteousness was in Moses his visiting of his brethren three times the first time he went forth he seeing an Egyptian and an Israelite at strife slew the Egyptian and freed the Israelite in a Type from evil of bondage The second time he went forth he seeing two Israelites at strife sought to reconcile and unite them and so to releive and support them in the evil of bondage These actions were properly the righteousness of bondage for Moses was then in bondage and therefore it inslaved him and them and hazarded his life much more for which cause he fled and left them forty yeers Men may not be faithful indeed nor do impress or intense works of Freedom in bondage but extremely hazard their lives or estates they their righteousnes must be corupt by constraint or they must act if strictly faithful single For the people of God in bondage having no order nor unity deceive and betray each other Moses in his first visit acted but with one Israelite and delivered him and that one betrayed him The second time he acted but with two and one of them betrayed him and he fled for his life such are the perfidious treacheries deceits of the righteousness of bondage but Moses did not desist but sent came the third time and Freed Israel and their intire beings out of bondage all Israel therein joyned with him and this his and their joynt work was the proper righteousness of Freedom in a Type To avert evils of bondage in bondage or relieve and support those that groan under the rigour of it and rest so being works of bondage strengthens the power and rage of it and depresseth all means of deliverance So Moses did and fled for his life and left all Israel desperately helpless and worse inslaved than ever Ahimelech relieved David with the shew-bread and Goliahs Sword which was a very just and good work yet it occasioned that Ahimelech and all the Preists of the Lord and their City were cut off and destroyed man woman and child such are the violent evils of the bondage of corruption that the best and most perfect righteousness of bondage causeth through corruption the worst evils and effects because corruption of the best things is the most destructive corruption that can be It s the greatest and most desparate hazard of utter ruine to a mans life or estate to be conscientious and exactly faithful in bondage Also performances of impress and intense acts of righteousness in bondage without the express act of the righteousness of Freedom out of bondage is dead and imperfect righteousness and meer impostury which deceives and hardens like the works of Pharaohs Sorcerers all mens hearts in vanities and corruptions of bondage For whiles they follow and mind sorceries and deceits imperfect righteousness of relief or support in bondage they dream not nor once think of any legitimate or perfect righteousness of Life and Freedom out of bondage These rotten deceits destroy or hazard as in Moses and the Priests of the the Lord their Lives Families and Estates for the righteousness of relief and support in bondage and not of Freedom out of it rouseth up the power and rigour of it as a sleepy lyon to destroy them he that pricks a sleepy lyon must also kill him or be sure to be destroyed This corruption of bondage under which the Creation groans and travels in pain to be delivered out of it is briefly this The Creation was at first subservient to bruit beasts till man a figure of the Creatures Freedom was made the head of all creatures and thus far the creature was not properly subjected unto vanity under bondage of corruption Satan and the serpent the parents of all corruption of bondage sin and death co-inspired into the spirit of man the corrupt nature of bruit beasts from the bruit beast the serpent the mother of sin in a type and of fallen Angels from Satan the Father of sin and filthy corruptions of bondage So the spirit of man the head of the Creation became bruitish and divelish and then the creature was properly subjected unto vanity and bondage of corruption The corruption of bruitishness in man did corrupt and darken the Image of
God reason righteous judgement in man as dense earth darkens the light of the Sun and satanical corruption impressed the Image of Satan that is an opposite corrupt and contrary light of reason and judgement in the spirit of man This two-fold fall from which God and Nature to which the Beast and Satan was not full till the Floud came at which time all flesh was corrupt the earth filled with violence and the thoughts of mens hearts only evil continually But this was but a shadow of the bondage of corruption under which the whole Creation and the free people now groan and travel and must travel in pain to be delivered out of it Man then fell from the first Adams righteousness now from the righteousness of the first and second Adam Then the creature was subjected to all sorts of evil beasts to serve them whiles they devoured the most innocent and best creatures Men are now those evil beasts that devour the best men Pharaohs lean beasts ate the fat Fire went out of the bryars and devoured the Cedars of Lebanon so it ever was but is now indeed The thoughts of mens hearts were then only evil continually now their thoughts and works are continually only evil Now all flesh is wholy corrupt in Spirit and Judgement as it was then in a Type The spirits of men were then corrupt after the similitude of their parents the best the Serpent their mother and Satan their father but now expresly Judgement is onely preposterous and precedes knowledge and sentence goes before examination Right Judgement is the sourse of Righteousness but all Judgement is now meer rottenness and corruption Mâ—n learned and unlearned wise and ignorant judge and speak evil of what they know not and corrupt themselves like bruit beasts in what they know and all light and form of Judgement in them is satanical and divelish in antithesis to true light as the light of the judgements of the Pharises judged Christ and released Barrabas Then the earth was filled with violence every one was an oppressor and murderer or murdered and oppressed none free but all were full of violence Now bond-masters and oppressors are full as fountains pouring forth and the oppressed are full as vessels receptacles of all cruelty and oppression there 's no vacuum none are empty all are ful The Prophet writs to the Church of Smyrna that the devil should cast some of them into prison Revel 2.8 but these cast many of the most faithful into Prison yea all the faithful their Interests external Liberties and Consciences are by them kept in greatest Imprisonment of real bondage that ever was They give Liberty of Conscience to the Free people in profession they may sacrifice as to outward form the fruit of the ground or of their flocks herein is no Liberty nor Conscience These were shaddows Liberty of Conscience is free Liberty to exercise perfect righteousness of life and Freedom out of bondage they inhibit this Liberty wholly and all righteousness of bondage is made by them out of measure destructive The wicked Steward laid violent hands upon a poor man took him by the throat and said pay me what thou owest me But Bond-masters and Oppressors now lay violent hands upon the perishing poor and middle sort take them by their throats and say pay us what you ow us not and what you have not to pay pay us what by right and necessity is due to your selves that little reliefe the support of your lives and of the lives of your Families The Pharisees layd the Crosse the instrument wherewith they crucified and killed Christ upon Simon and compelled him to bear it So these lay heavie burdens of cruel bondage the instrument wherewith they crucifie the poor and impoverish the rich upon poor and rich and compel those by day labor and those with their estates to bear these cursed burdens of violence to crucifie and kill themselves These are the burdens of cruelties the corruptions of real bondage under which the creature is subjected and under which the Creation and they that have by the Fathers side the first fruits of the Spirit groan and travel in pain to be delivered As it was in the daies of Noah so now at this time in which the Son of man Christ mystical is coming to raign in his mystical families as Noah in the mansions of the Ark until time and they be transient and pass into eternity The first means in a Type that freed the groaning Creation and the earth filled with violence from violence and the curse of bondage was the coming of the freed creatures as it were by their families into their mansions in the Ark. The second typical means that freed the Creation and the free people of God was the coming of all Israel and sealing of them by their families in their own houses The third means of efficacy and truth that shall deliver the burdened earth filled with violence and the Creation and People or God groaning under it shall be by the coming of the true Israel into their own Mansions mystical by their anti-typical Tribes and Families God sealed that is shut in the creatures delivered from destruction in the Ark by their Tribes and Kinds God sealed all Israel delivered from Egypts bondage with the blood of a Lamb the Signe of the life of righteousness and shut them in their own houses by their Families and God will seale all his servants the true Israel with the Seale of the living God the blood of the Lamb â—in truth by their mystical Tribes and Families expresly Rev. 7. When the Creatures in the Ark delivered from destruction were shut in then was the beginning of a new policy or City and of a new Heaven and a new earth in a Type When Israel sealed with the blood of the Lamb in the power of God came into their own houses by their Families then was the beginning of a new policy Oeconominick Civil Ecclesiastick and of a new Heaven and of a new Earth in a Type And when the true Israel shall come into and shall be sealed and shut in as the Creatures in the Ark were in and by their mansions and Families mystical then and there shall be a reall beginning of a new policy or City Oeconomick Civil and Ecclesiastical and of a new Heaven and of a new Earth in Anti-type and truth Impresse and intense acts of charitable civilities in bondage are dead carkasses of righteousness as the Law is a dead carkass or letter Therefore they are just good and lawful as a carkass or body of righteousness but as the Law is the strength of sin by occasion so are they by occasion the strength of bondage sin and death for they being dead to righteousness of Freedom live in and unto the life and power of bondage and are the strength of it as a strong Castle is his strength that keeps it or as a strong and healthful body liveth in and unto the soul and
life also Want is Vertues clog and the most violent spur and provocation to all wickedness It fits men for all vassallage and slavery It puts out the eys of reason and renders mens minds brutish It subjects their Spirits to all servile wickedness and their Bodies to all unjust burdens of corporal calamities and miseries It maketh Souldiers slaves to bloudy Designes Vassals of base and wicked enterprises to kill if commanded or not commanded one another or their best friends and to engage in bloud against any or against all the Free-born People to destroy them Extreme and unjust Poverty caused by cruel oppression is the iron chain of cursed bondage which makes men slaves to other mens wills and wickedness Slaves to their own sins slaves to all miseries slaves to their own utter â—uine slaves to destruction of Body and Spirit They that put the poor and the Souldiers and the middle sort of people in iron chains of unjust wrongs and oppressions and they that do not effectually endeavour to break their chains and to redress their wrongs and oppressions bring the guilt of the bloud of the poor and of the Nation upon themselves and upon the Nation The poor of the Nation for the most part are Souldiers undone in service turn'd out and deprived of their proper Rights the price of their bloud Many of the Nation are made poor in pursuing their and the Peoples Rights and Liberties and the rest of the poor for the most part are such as are undone by slavery and oppression I mention these things for no other purpose but that the bloud-guilty defilement of the Land if possible may be purged from it and for redress of it I propose First that the Foot may have 12. d. per diem from the begining of the Service as was promised or as due by a better right the just claim of Equity and Necessity Why should the Souldiers eat ashes and be clothed in rags by those for whom they have purchased by their hazard and bloud to be clothed in Scarlet and to eat the fat of the Land Secondly That the constant future pay for the Foot be at least and when things are as cheap as they have bin twelve pence per diem and that their present and future pay be as rates of all provisions are now and may be so much above twelve pence per diem as may competently maintain them and their charge in due health with honesty 3. That Troopers and Dragoons may have 2. s 6. d per diem from the begining of the Service and for future what more may justly countervail their necessities the deerness and scarcity of all things considered 4. That the sick and wounded Horse and Foot that for that cause are out of Service may have the same pay that they in service have but not pay for horses except they keep horses for the Service The Souldiers when sick and wounded have most need of their pay and they best deserve it who in discharge of their faithfulness have suffered most 5. That the sick and wounded Officers may the same pay which they had in service it being extreme hard and unjust measure that they or the Souldiers should be then most destitute when they have most need or that their faithfulness wherein they have hazarded their lives and bin wounded should be punished with privation or abridgement of their pay 6. That all Officers and Souldiers that have bin faithful to their trust and for that cause or otherwise unjustly turn'd out dismissed or cashiered may be forthwith restored to their respective charge and places of trust and have all legal and due administrations of Right and Justice and equal and answerable reparations given them in all just relations For it is unreasonable and unjust in the Nation and in its Trustees and Officers and dangerous to the Nation That they that have bin ever faithful to their trust and born the burden of the Service should be turned out or cashiered especially without due satisfaction and other Officers and Souldiers perhaps false to their present Trust or late enemies to it or newters or not fit for Service should ' be trusted with the charge and trust of the Nation Seventhly That all Widdows and Orphants or the next kindred of all such Souldiers or Officers if they have been faithful to their Trust as have been or shall be dead or slain in Service may have their Arrears Audited and paid them that the Nation may be free from the guilt and sins of bloud and oppression least God say to it or to many of it as Elisha to Ahab for Naboths bloud Hast thou killed and also taken possession or least God plead the Cause of the many thousands of Souldiers slain by cruel and unjust murder and oppression and the Cause of their desolate widdows and fatherless with the Nation and Representative of it and say Have you killed not one man as Naboth was but one but many thousans not who denied you their vineyards but gave their lives for you to do you service Have you killed them by keeping back the slender pittance of their deer purchase their due Pay which should have kept them alive Have you killed there by keeping back the price of their blouds who kept not back their own bloud that they might preserve your lives and Estates entire Did you enthral their bodies in all corporal calamities exigences extremities even unto death and did you kill their bodies did their calamities and extreme exigents enslave their Souls and Spirits in all excess of wickedness for â—so greater inforcement can be to all wickedness then necessity are they utterly cut of and killed Body and Soul in and by their and in them your wickedness And have you cut off and killed them in body and soul To keep back and bridle them from wickedness had been your duty and did you set your steely spurs of oppression in their sides and cause them to rush headlong into all wickedness and perish in it Did you kill them by keeping back the price of their hazard and bloud which had you paid them they had not perished or you had bin guiltless And have you taken possessian of it Did you possess the whole Land in peace and did you keep back when you had no need the price of their lives from their desolate widdows and forsaken fatherless Did you give possession of it to others that had no right to it and did dogs to whom it was not due lick their bloud Did you when you had power free the Nation from bloud or by not doing it plunge and re-involve it in a new bloudy War Did Ahab when sharply reproved humble himself and have you hardned your hearts when friendly admonished in the spirit of meekness Did you harken to corrupters and seducers and despise imprison persecute and destroy those that did faithfully admonish and friendly exhort you Let the Nation at least the Conscientious Party seriously consider these things as
with-holding of the best means to manifest Truth by Reason for the peace of all men be not a privation or restraint of the use liberty and benefit of the image of God in man which comprehends all Rights and Liberties or not 4. I determine nothing positively or absolutely but for my own and the Nations cleer conviction in all Truths concerning the peace and safety of it I further enquire whether there is not a necessity from God laid upon all men in the Nation and Army to maintain and stand to all their just promises and engagements made in Righteousness 5. Whether the Armies Engagements at New-Market and Triploe Heaths were not just and for both Army and Nation safe profitable and honest Or if not whether what was deficient might not or may not by Missives in writing as aforesaid be cleerly discovered and rectified 6. Whether the Souldiers and Officers that perfidiously persist to break their just Engagements made to maintain the just Laws of the Nation and to procure to all persons their proper Rights and Interests be not breakers of the Law as persons breakers of their faith to God as Christians and of their Trust to the State as Trustees of the Nation and are not thereupon quit and dissolved from all Trust as Betrayers of it 7. If they that stand firm to their just Engagements made in Righteousnes in order to the ends aforesaid are for this cause cashiered or without due satisfaction of Just Interests to the Army and Nation disbanded imprisoned or murthered whether are they that disband them without satisfaction cashier imprison or murder them usurpers over and oppressors and murderers of the most faithful Free-born people and destroyers of the conscientious party of the Nation or not 8. Whether ought such as are so cashiered disbanded imprisoned or murdered or their survivers to have just reparations and satisfaction or not and whether are such as are living to be restored to their former places of Trust and employment 9. If they that stand firm to their Just Engagements made in Righteousness wherein all the people and Representatives of the Nation as true and not Traytors to the State ought to stand firm are or should be for this cause engaged against in bloud or violently assailed Whether do all laws of Nature God and Nations require those that are in such sort engaged against or assayled to resist those that engage against them or assayl them whatsoever as enemies to the State as hostile Assailants and murderers of the most faithful free-born people and as destroyers of the conscientious party of the Nation or not 10. And whether all Officers Trustees and Representatives whatsoever in whose Name and by whose order and authority all such engagements in bloud and hostile Assailments shall be moved acted and carried on be not primarily guilty of the premises and guilty of betraying their Trust as Trustees 11. Whether all they whether they be Justices of the Peace Constables Sergeants Bayliffs Pursuivants or other persons whatsoever that shall by vertue of any Warrant or Order whatsoever assayl apprehend or imprison any such persons for standing firm to their and the Nations faith made in Righteousness and in defence of it or shall cause any such persons to be assayled apprehended or imprisoned are not strictly lyable to satisfie the Law as usurpers over the persons and just liberties of the free born people 12. Whether all Representatives Military or Civil and all Jury men and Judges or other persons whatsoever that shall condemn to death or imprisonment any such persons for the causes aforesaid be not strictly accountable to satisfie the Law for their lives or imprisonment or for any other unjust punishment upon them The Nation for want of clear conviction is made guilty of their blood that stand most firme for the Peace and safety of it because the judgements and spirits of the People are not convinced who are faithful and who not and what blood is shed justly and what unjustly therefore the Nation sin of blood shed is set upon it as the dye of scarlet dy'd in wool neither can it be freed from it without conviction of the judgments and spirits of the People because it cannot repent of it for how should the People repent of that blood shed and those wrongs and oppressions for which they conceive they ought rather to rejoyce or know nothing to the contrary therefore that the Nation may be freed from these chaines of its sins and destruction all faithful endeavors by joynt addresse of the Nation must be made to convince the judgements and spirits of the people that they may be convinced and satisfied who are and have bin faithful and who not who stand or have stood firme to their just Engagements for the Nations safety and who against the peace and safety of it what and whose blood is justly spilt in order to free the Nation from guilt of blood shed and what blood and oppressions polute and defile the Nation and are earnestly to be repented of I determine not who are or have bin faithful and who not what blood is spilt justly and what unjustly to be repented of But had all differences bin peaceably and freely debated by missives in writing as divers well-affected of the Nation and Army did humbly Petition the Parliment there had bin no ground of the last desperate war nor danger of a third and all differences and grounds of war might have bin by reason and satisfaction reconciled and composed in peace 8ly The reason of the necessity and the manner of chusing representors are shown already and further are because they are the fitest instruments to convince the judgments and spirits of the people in these things by which the general safety of the Nation may be procured and wherein satisfaction of all just interests to all persons doth consist Secondly because they are fittest to take cognizance and notice of every particular and private mans wrongs and grievances and to procure ful and through redresse of them Thirdly because they are the fittest meanes to gather the people into order and unity and to keep the just power of freedom and soveraignty in their hands How oft saith our Saviour would I have gathered you together as a hen gathereth her chickens under her and you would not nothing tendeth more to cause and conserve the intire safety and peace of the Nation or to constitute a firme Agreement of the people than to gather the people into order and unity which cannot be done but by Representors whom they chuse by their own power and freedom and who remain continually liable to be questioned deposed or continued by the same power and freedom Fourthly because Representors are the proper intermediate instruments betwixt the people and all subjects ends and objects of their freedom peace and safety as the neck instrumentally dispenceth and returneth life and sence to all parts of the body by them a new Representative of the Nation
may be easily and freely chosen which cannot be otherwise obtained Secondly by them the soveraignity power and freedom of the people may be derived and convayed to their Representatives that they may improve it in righteousness for the profit peace and safety of the Nation Thirdly by them the increase and benefit of the peoples soveraignty power and freedom may be returned back from their Representatives to the people otherwise it is and wil be wholy obstructed 9ly The reasons of an Agreement are because if an Agreement be not the dissolution of the whole Nation must follow When the clay and Iron in the feet of the great image could not agree and mix the whole body of the Image was dasht in peices and dissolved It is every mans dutie to discharge his utmost faith and care to continue all just wayes and meanes to procure the peace and Agreement of the people and Nations safety And that only which can cause and continue a firme Agreement is just satisfaction of all Interests without which no right Agreement can be made or kept and the nations destruction must follow Therefore let the nation rouse up it self and let the people of it stir up one another to joyn as one man unto the Lord as Israel did unto the Lord at Mizpah and agree that all just interests may be satisfied that the poor and middle sort of people may have their just interests the rich theirs the Nation it s the Soldiers theirs the disbanded sick and wounded Soldiers and Officers theirs and that Widdows Orphans and friends of those that are dead and slain their interests that all evil doers may have their due interests and they that do well theirs That Presbyterians and Independents may have their proper interests the late Kings party theirs Papists and Protestants theirs the conscientious party theirs and that all sects nations and persons may have their just rights Let the Nation and Army at least they that are conscientious in both cal upon and stir up the people and one another to vindicate and dis-oblige their faith in truth and righteousness unloose the bands of wickednesse undo the heavy burthens break every yoak and let the oppressed go free Let them feed the hungry harbour the poor and cloth the naked at least in their own houses and with their own food and rayment To say the satisfying of all just interests would undo or impoverish the Nation is absurd and wicked for the not satisfying of all just interests is the utter undoing and destruction of the Nation and that real crying sin and guilt of blood filling the hands of all persons and overflowing as a boundless River the whole Land whereof the rivers of Aegypt turn'd into blood were but types and shaddows But grant that the satisfying of all just interests would undo and impoverish the Nation yet to do it were but justice and what God absolutely willeth and requireth and the not doing of it is in every person under what specious pretence of holiness soever a rejecting and renouncing of God and a rebeling against him And to suppose or say it would impoverish and undo the Nation is most absurd and false for suppose a man having many bones broken and shivers causing violent feavers and symptomes of death a Chyrurgeon should set right all his bones asswage his feaver and recure the party to perfect health of body limbe and life it were most senseless for that party to say he were impoverisht and undon because all his joynts and bones are set right and he fully restored to perfect health Iust interests unsatisfied are fractures and distortions in the body Politique the nation and shivers causing feavers and death and every man in the Nation is a distorted member a limbe out of joynt a broken bone or shiver because every man is deprived of his or depriveth others of their proper rights and interests Now suppose every distorted and broken limbe shiver and bone were set right in its proper compage and place that is if every several person of the Nation did reciprocally give afford to and receive from each other their respective rights and just interests it were most unreasonable and absurd that the Nation or any of it should say that all its bones and limbes are broken and out of joynt but now all are set right and healed therefore the Nation is impoverished and undon that every person in the body Politique was deprived of his or did deprive others of their proper interest but now every man injoys his own just due and proper right therefore the Nation is impoverished and undon That the not satisfying of all just interests caused violent feavers and evils of war and famin and desperate symptomes of destruction to the Nation But now the Nation by satisfying all just interests hath happily recovered perfect health and peace in truth therefore the Nation is impoverished and undon all such conclusions are most false and wicked and the contrary conclusions are infallibly true therefore they that shal bring the guilt of the Nations sins and their and its destruction upon it and upon themselves are and must be without all colour or excuse 10 But lastly if the people like Jabesh Gilead shall sit under the shadow of their own destruction in chains of bondage and death and shall not as one man unite to pursue and Agreement in Righteousness or if no such Agreement shall or can be procured Then all the Free-born of the Nation are with all Christian speedy care and providence to constitute such a Government amongst themselves as may by Justice absolute and impartial preserve the Persons Estates Lives and entire Beings of each other and of all those that close with and adhere unto them and to come at the call and command of God forth from Babel falling down as a Milstone cast by the hand of a mighty Angel into the midst of the Sea The reasons are because there is a necessity laid upon them from the call and command of God and also God gives the reasons of this necessity Rev. 18.4 Come out of her my people that ye be not partakers of her sins and that ye receive not of her plagues Her that is Babylon is the great City called spiritually Sodom Aegypt Babylon where also our Lord was crucified this and all Nations the whole World Her sins and plagues are the sins of those Cities and the plagues of their sins in the Truth and substance which were in these Cities in a type Gods call and command for his people to come out of her is the substance of his call to Lot in Sodom by Angels to Israel in Aegypt by Moses to the Iews in Babylon by Prophets and to the Saints in Jury by Apostles My people that is all that are so far as man may judge obedient to the call and command of God to be delivered from her sins and plagues and their own destruction as Lots Family in Sodom and Noahs Family in
face thou shalt die But these as Nabals servants said of him are such sonnes of Belial that the people of God cannot speak to them nor make any humble and faithful Addresses to them to undeceive and convince their judgements and cause them to see and forsake their bloody sins and oppressions or if they do make any such humble and faithful Addresses they do not only raile upon them as Nabal did and send them away emptie with churlish answers but add greater wrongs to their injuries and cruelty to their oppressions they answer their humble and faithful Addresses by doing double injurie and satisfie their just interests by making their oppressions so much greater as their thigh is thicker than their little finger they do not only threaten to kill them as Pharoah did Moses but do murder and kill them either by immediate stroak of lawless and wicked violence or by injury oppression and extortion But they will not believe that injuries oppressions and extortions wel hooded and masked under false formes of holy pretences can be murder as if Saul standing in the midst of the people was Saul but Saul hid amongst the stuffe was not Saul but Saul hid amongst the stuffe was Saul and the people ran and brought him thence and he stood before the people So injuries oppressions and extortions hooded and masked under formes of holy pretences are murders hid in the stuffe and the people must run as the Israelits did to fetch them thence and set them before the people Murders of the tallest statures are ever hid amongst the stuffe and these implicit massacres are most in number and the worst kinds of murder Lam. 4.9 They that be slain with the sword are better than they that are slain with hunger Therefore to murder the poor or midle-sort of people or the Soldiers by poverty or hunger caused by unjust oppression is worse than to slay them with the sword If the people do not seek out these sinister and implicit murders that are hiden amongst the stuffe and seâ— them before the people they cannot be freed from their Nations sins and their and its destruction 11ly They cannot support her because of the grand imposturies of her Sorcerers and Seducers who by her harkning to them do deceive and harden her heart The Kings of Egypt and their servants did once harken to the wholsome councel of the people of God then they exceeded all Nations in peace riches strength and glory but when they rejected their counsel and harkened to Sorcerers and corrupters creatures most vile and filthy they were led and fel into infamous sins and the plagues of their destruction came upon them But by her that is Babels Sorcerers all Nations are deceived Rev. 18 23. Her Rulers Commanders and Officers reject the people of God and hate them and their Councels and their own Sorcerers and flatterers vilest and most wicked of execrable creatures take up their the affections and understandings and entire beings as spirits take up little children and sel them for slaves into far countries And why do they dote so upon the Sorcerers because they cover their filthy sins and nakedness with the figg-leaves of their Libels cast stumbling blocks before them betray and destroy them but these Sorcerers must set no name to their Libels lest the vertue of their hocus pocus vanish like bloome colours as soon as it sees light these lead them and by these they are and will lead and hardned that the people of God cannot by any faithfulnes undeceive and convince their judgments that they might be freed from their sins and from the plagues of their destruction 12ly The people of God in Babylon cannot support her from falling because they themselves are fallen in the spirit of their forme which is love The Apostle distiguisheth man into body soul and spirit and the form of the new man into faith hope and love Spirits are the fiery living and executive powers of creatures so is love in the people of God But their love is fallen from all lively executive heat and become contrary to the nature of spirits cold The love of many saith our Saviour shal wax cold Coldness of love is the power of death in the spirit and sourse of life from whence universal defection in the people of God floweth their goodness righteousness and faith is cold dying and decaying their courage and constancy wavering as a wave of the Sea the Sun and the light and the Moon and the Starres are in them darkened Their faith to God and man doth but deceive and destroy themselves and others they are pillars made up of shadows and deceits dashing pitchers broken pot-sheards The stars of heaven fell to the earth as a fig-tree casts her untimely figs when she is shaken of a mighty wind Rev. 6.13 They are the stars fallen from heaven to earth from heat to coldness from life to death or are dying They are Fig-trees that keep their leaves and cast their fruits They have left the power of Righteousness for appearances and embraced like Demas this present World Their Designes and Actions relate not to God nor the good of one another but terminate in their own corrupt ends and interests They are ignorant of true Righteousness and know not what it is nor wherein it consists but are zealous in their own Righteousness For the Jews the Type of the people of God had a Righteousness of their own wherein they were exceeding strict and that Righteousness was extreme wickedness So the people of God have a Righteousness not of God but of their own not of faith but of their own fancies and they are zealous in tihs their own Righteousness The Righteousness which the Jews had of their own consisted in Sacrifices refrainings from meats washings and in solemn fruitless Assemblies and Meetings Isa 1.10 and they were most hot and violent in pursuit of this their own Righteousness when they were most cold and fallen in their love to true Righteousness So the people of God being most cold and fallen in their love to true Righteousness are most hot and violent in pursuit of their own Righteousness which consists much in many Assemblings and fruitless solemn Meetings most needful were they well improved where they come together to serve God by jaring one with another What is true Righteousness the doing of that which is good and just unto all men they call moral and civil Righteousness and think it not essential in Religion whereas to give to every one their just right and proper due to evil doers their just reward to those that do well theirs and to all persons their own proper interests is the only expressive esential part of Religion and the visible life and marrow of all righteousness pure religion and undefiled with them is to abound in fruitless and needless disputes nice tenets and fond opinions They conceive that true righteousness and their obedience consists much in certain joynt solemnities of
people or persons that corrupt and abuse the Powers of God or that obey those Powers as corrupted and abused rebel against the Power of God and do not keep but lose and abuse the richest Talent of his goodness Lastly Just Powers in relation to the People are the breath of their life from God and the Form and Essence of their Beings without which the people are as they ever have biâ— dead carcasses of destroyd and slain men What power or force have dead men and what force and life have a people that want their own just power The want of just power is their chain of slavery unto all misery sin and death Esau to save his life sold his birth-right for pottage but that people that will sell their lives and birth-rights for misery sin slavery and destruction are miserably and slavishly wicked and profane Secondly That the People may improve their Talent of just power with all faithfulness to God whose it is and to themselves to whom for their joynt preservation from bondage and destruction it is commited they must consider that the people are many several or single and there can be no joynt improvement by many single or several A single file or hair of silk hath no strength and millions of files or hairs of silk single or several have no more strength than one single file If they let their Talent this power rest in every mans hand single they bury it in the earth and improve it not but bring infinite destruction upon themselves for where many are together single and untwisted there must needs be great dis-union and division from whence utter confusion and destruction to all severally must follow Therefore the peoples chief and speedy care must be to find out the fittest and best means and expedients to unite and twist them in this power The means and expedients that are best and fitest to unite and twist them in this power of God are Representors and Representatives freely chosen by them in such manner as I have already set down to which I refer the Reader Faithful and just Representors freely chosen are like the stalks in bunches of grapes that feed nourish and unite all the berries and they derive pure wine life and power to the people from the root and stem of the true Vine The people must be careful as God hath committed the richest Talent of his goodness their just power into their own hands that they do not set light by slight or profane it that they be not slothful wicked and unfaithful in improving of it nor chuse such as are slothful wicked and unfaithful to be Representors or Representatives lest they lose or abuse the Talent which God hath given them and God strictly require it at their hands and lest they mis-improve it against the people and destroy the people and themselves by it to avoid which let them chuse men most endowed with the spirit not of bondage but of Freedom just faithful fearing God dealing truly and hating Covetousness They are to chuse the rich so qualified as soon as the poor or midle sort and them as soon as the rich to officiate as their Representors in Parliament or in any other Representative God respects not the persons of men neither must they but in righteousness only why may not a poor man or the middle sort be as faithful and able in Parliament or in any other Representative as the rich neither must the rich if righteous be rejected because they are rich but if the poor and middle sort of people respect the persons of the rich and chuse them to be their Representors in Parliament or in other Representatives because they are rich then they misse their just ends and interests and the boule runs cross to all their â—imes because the bias is set the wrong way for how can rich men and oppressors be Representors of the poor and middle sort that are oppressed betwixt whom their is no shadow of similitude yee have dispised the poor saith the Apostle Iames 2.6 Therefore the rich do oppresse you do not rich men oppresse you saith the Apostle and draw you before the judgement seats Such Representors will rob the people of life and power render them wicked and unfaithful to God in wasting his talent and betray and destroy the people and themselves God hath chosen the poor of this world rich in faith Iames 2.5 So it is better for people to chuse the poor of this world rich in faith to God and them then the rich of this World poor in faith to God and them to be their Trustees Representors God offered the Gospel to the Iewes and such as were saved gladly received it but God cast off those that rejected it and the Apostles and people of God departed from them and turned to the Gentiles so an Agreement and Government in righteousness must be speedily and faithfully offered to the whole Nation that the whole Nation may be joyned as one man unto the Lord in an Agreement in righteousness as all Israel was gathered together unto the Lord at Mizpah such as shall resist or refuse such Agreement or Government or shall harden their hearts as Pharoah and his servants or shall sit still as the men of Iabish Gilead did or that shall reject such a government and Agreement as the Iewes rejected the Gospel are to be left to themselves and the people of God that they may be freed from Babels sins and plagues and from her fall and destruction must come out from them and turn unto such as shall freely close and joyn with them as one man unto the Lord in righteousness The direction of this constituted Government consists in a right regulating of it that it may reach and attaine the supreame ends and objects of its being this regulating of it and these supreame ends consist in a twofold action and an intermediate action of the people This twofold action is a moving and turning to or from the termini or bounds to which and from which they must move their intermediate action is a constant joynt perseverance in their twofold action this twofold action or motion in the people of God rightly constituted and to be constituted is a a moving or turning from darkness and error to light and truth from implicite faith in blinde guides to clear and free conviction in their own spirits from slavish obedience to the Wills of wicked usurpers and oppressors to a spontaneous and free concurrence with those that are faithful from being scattered as Israel was in Egypt to be gathered as one man unto the Lord in righteousness from cruel calamities burdens and oppressions the needless fruits of wicked slavery to the just power and liberty of a free people from the seat of the Beast the sourse of violence the seat of darkness to the white Throne which impartially dispenceth righteous judgement from the vallie of dead and drie bones of men slain by slavery to be a
to labor with all speed and fidelity to gâ—t a just power of Freedom and Being of their own in manner as is declared All Armies upon earth could not hinder the rallying of the dry bones into a living exceeding mighty Army They came together bone to his bone as it were by their Families into their own houses natural their own bodies and were sealed and cemented with strength and sinew in life and power All Armies and Powers of death that opposed them were utterly dasht in pieces and destroyed by them Moses in bondage lookt this way and that way least he should be seen and the people of God in bondage must act warily and watch narrowly if they do any good or just action if they relieve any or support any that none see them If any Doeg or Edomite be nigh them or amongst them they are verily betrayd utterly destroyed and so must and shall be till they get a power of Freedom of their own the Free power of God which now is the easiest thing to atttain God freely giving it that is or can be But this relief and support so dangerous to the people of God is but vain boasting they releive none and support none but in talk as the Amalekit told David he kild Saul whereas he was free from his death so are they from relieving or supporting any David slew that Amalekit because he said he kild Saul though he did not and they and their Families and estates are ruinated and destroyed because they say and pretend they relieve and support the people of God in and against their evils of bondage whereas they releive none and support none but in word only and indeed destroy those that have sacrificed liberally their lives and estates for their support and relief The Spirit of bondage inward avaricâ— and the irregularities and rage of it kills and consumes as the worm smote Ionas Gourd and consumed it the slavish lives families and estates of each other with their own entire they releive and succour none but by deceits and shaddows of doing good without doing any But if any fragment of relief fall or if they fancy they have done or do any good or just work in bondage there they rest and there they stay Ioabs soldiers followed him till they came to slain Amases dying carkass and they stood still so but few yet some Free people in bondage follow righteousness until they come to some fragments of this dead carkass of releif and support in bondage and here they sit still there they rest they go no further The chief pretenders to Freedom look no farther they think not of any legitimate and perfect righteousness of Freedom out of bondage The slavish Spirits of the people of God in bondage desire private Freedom only a tanto but not a toto If they could have but so much of their just Right for themselves they care not they wish no more the Harlot so she had but half the Child was indifferent the mind of a murderous and bloody Harlot so satisfaction in the people of God with half righteousness or part or with imperfect righteousness denotes the basest mind of bloody Iezebel mother of all abominations and filthyness So long as Israel were of this wicked and base mind and demanded no more then Freedom in part their cruel burdens and ridged slavery was justly greater and they were never freed nor fit for deliverance till Moses demanded all and they accordingly acted with him and had all their Rights entire All imperfect righteousness whatsoever is impostury and deceit of the curse of bondage and a main cause of rejection and destruction to those that do it or joyning rest in it as Sauls imperfect righteousness was the cause of his utter rejection and of his and his whole Families destruction All true righteousness is of Freedom only a fruit of the tree of life from death for ever a freeing righteousness so soon as the creatures that came into the Ark did but one work of Freedom out of bondage they were all freed from destruction So soon as the Israelites did but that one work of Freedom out of bondage in coming by their Families into their own houses c. they were all freed from destruction and so soon as the people of God shall perform but this one work of Freedom out of bondage which is to come out of great tribulations reall bondage by their Anti-typical Families into their Oeconomick bodies and houses mystical they shall be freed from all coercive externall power of bondage destruction sin and death for ever these works were the first fruits of the Tree of life in a Type this work shall be the first fruit of the Tree of life prefigured When man Christ mystical shall put forth his hand and taste this legitimate and perfect fruit of the righteousness of Freedom out of bondage he shall live in the power of life and Freedom of God for ever and never be wholy subjected to vanity corruption and death of bondage any more The people of God and their righteousness shall be perfect after their pattern their mother the new Policy or City descending that City shall be four square equally without convex or indents every way and on every side exactly just and even Secondly the height and bredth and length of that City shall be equal So the reallity of things what they are and the judgments and estimations of the people of God upon them and their executions according to their iust estimations shall be exactly paral or equal Thirdly that City shall be perfectly square the most firm pattern of immovable stability So shall they and their righteousness be permanent in a progressive way in the righteousness of Freedom for ever and not generally revolt any more but if any as particular persons shall look back they shall return back and cease to be the people of God Lots wife delivered out of Sodom lookt back and returned back to destruction They that look back unto the horour of darkness of bondage shall return back unto that horour of darkness Nothing so displeased God as the spirit of apostacy and slavery in his people in looking back unto the house of bondage the land of their destruction after they were delivered out of it The Free people of God indeed must and will constantly press forward in the power of perfect and legitimate righteousness of Freedom and follow after Rev 14.4 and be led by the Lamb wheresoever he goeth I have herein as in the sight of God discharged my Faith Faithfulness reapes what it doth not sow destruction to those that are Faithful but this God disposeth The sequel to my self whether love or hatred bonds or liberty life or death I leave to God it is sufficient for me If I may by all meanes discharge my duty and disoblige my Conscience FINIS ERRATA Page 5. l. 22. Lieut. Col. Hammon read Lieut. Gen. Hammon p. 18. l. 7. their own cause r. their cause p. 18. l. 23. that are r. that act p. 21. l. 3. Representative r. represented p. 21. l. 6. as destroyeth r. and destroyeth and l. 10. tdatare r. that are p. 30. l. 2. where r. wherein p. 32. l. 18. time past r. in time past p. 41. l. 6. really r. real p. 41. l. 14. defaultings r. defalkings p. 52. l. 16. to be repented of r. and to be repented of p. 53. l. 3. Widdows r. The Widdows p. 55. l. 2. are broken r. were broken p. 63. l. 9. vilest r. the vilest p. 63. l. 9. there the affections r. their affections p. 63. l. 12. the sorcerers r. their sorcerers p. 67. l. 29. there food r. these food p. 69. l. 8. the oppressors r. their oppressors p. 69. l. 9. these authors r. the authors p. 87. l. 24. begin r. began p. 88. l. 10. emisary r. immissary p. 90. l. 2. define r. defie p. 96. l. 1. did which fell r. which fell p. 98. l. 36. them naturally r. them really p. 102. l. 2. That Souldiers r. that Souldiers with a little t.