Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A93389
|
A rout, a rout: or some part of the Armies quarters beaten up, by the day of the Lord stealing upon them. Wherein is briefly discovered the present cloudy and dark appearance of God amongst them. / By Joseph Salmon, a present member of the Army.
|
Salmon, Joseph.
|
1649
(1649)
|
Wing S416; Thomason E542_5; ESTC R203442
|
10,871
|
20
|
cannot be imbittered or disengaged from them you hugg them you prize them they are an object of you embraces But I tell you Sirs God is going about to unbody himself in you whiles you are embracing This body of self-safety and outward Liberty he is dying and departing from it though you see it not And This know That God will ere long leave you exceeding dark and dead in your enterprises I was alive once as well as you and in my life I laboured amongst you in my sphere as much as another but I am now dead with the Lord I am at rest from my Labour Ah happy death ô blessed loss how farr better is it ô Lord to be dissolved and gathered up into thy rest then to live the life of a worldly and carnall labour and I know also that the hour of Gods judgment is come upon many of you some of you have received your mortall wound already I see you gasp and struggle in your confused and dark enterprises Let this silver Probe but sink to the bottom of your wounded hearts and something without question will speedily be discovered Ah Friends If you saw your Interests in the Lord your Lives and Liberties in the Lord if you saw all yours in the Lord you would think it a beggarly thing to contend for any thing or to plead Gods quarrell with any that shall demand them of you Doubtlesse it is a poor low base earthly spirit that raises contests and seeks after the ruine and blood of creatures for the enjoyment of that which at best is but a bitter sweet a well being subject to all manner of casualties Lo This is the principle that God at present acts you by It is the Lord in you inhabiting his secret place and because I see it is the Lord I can embrace it I can tender you in my bosome-affections while you are carried forth in this carnall dispensation Nevertheless I will in part discover to you how far some are dead to their own Interest and whither shortly you must be brought Those that live in the more pure knowledge and life of God see themselves their Lives Liberties and all outward enjoyments not their own but the Lords and theirs in the Lord not a jot below him or at the least distance from him If we have the Lord we have enough because he is all to us and we the same fulnesse in him Lo this is life liberty and satisfaction Now no outward loss or misery can make us unhappy we may be persecuted yet not forsaken cast down yet not destroyed dying and behold we live in bondage yet free because the Lord is all this and more to us To live to us is Christ and to die is gain If we have a portion of outward safety amongst others we see it is the Lord if not it is the Lord and where the Lord is there 's Libertie God is to us light in darkness glory in shame beauty in deformity liberty in bondage we possesse nothing yet enjoy all things suffering is our crown death our life yea we live upon death daily we cannot live without it Again We are also contented with the dispose of providence in any thing that may be called ours If any party or power command us our lives liberties or interests it is the pleasure of the Father in us to give up all to them we see a divine call in it and can with alacrity yeeld obedience Oh it is a sweet smelling sacrifice acceptable with the Father when we the son are thus drawn forth to offer up our dearest Interests for the world It may be you cannot in this apprehend me it is no matter the Father willeth it should be a mystery Yet farther Our Interest of Life and Libertie is at your service If you call for it take it we are contented to be prodigall of it to satisfie the blood-thirstie spirit of any man in the Kingdom While we are in the enjoyment of these outward things we use them as if we used them not being free to throw them off at the first demand we are as free to suffer to be trampled upon to hang and burn as to enjoy that outward libertie which you so seriously and resolutely press after I tell you Sirs Suffering is our Conquest While we are ground to pieces under any power whatsoever all this while we trample upon them debasing is our exalting in that which you call miserie and calamitie we are more then conquerors We dare meet you even you whose courage hath excelled whose fierce countenance makes the earth to tremble you who are the present terrour of the Nation and appear in a naked posture before you yea throw our selves lives liberties and all upon the edge of your cruelty and we are sure if you dare encounter with us here we shal overcome you Ah Sirs When you see this way of conquest you will throw your swords behind you in an holy despite and scorn you shall lay all your honour in the dust and by that sweet spirit of meekness shall destroy and subdue your Enemies But secondly I wish you might be carried forth into a serious view of the Manner of your present Actings As your Principles are poor and beggarly so also the manner of your Engagements is dark and fleshly This cloudy and vailed appearance of God amongst you puts you upon preposterous designes upon low and carnall Enterprizes You have taken away Charles his life because otherwise he would its likely have taken yours True it is the good will of the Lord it should be so I have nothing to say against it the Lord in this cloud leads you forth to it and in this you have playd the parts of men acting under a fleshly discovery of things You are led forth in a way of vengeance upon your adversaries you sentence and shoot to death at your pleasure it little moves you to trample upon the blood of your enemies this is your Victory Glory and Triumph All this is well you must tarry here till God moves higher amongst you I have onely this to say to you Is it not a poor carnall thing for Saints so high in profession as you have been to stand brangling with the World for a few carnall enjoyments What the sons of everlasting peace and ingaged in a carnal combat Well it is the Lord I am satisfied But oh that sweet and meek spirit of Christ who when he was reviled reviled not again was persecuted but with patience under-went it and committed himself to him that judged righteously You cannot you dare not commit your selves your cause your lives and liberties to the Lord and nakedly without any carnall opposition surrender your Interest to a divine dispose Nay rather Shall not your swords soon be sheathed in the bowels of those who obstruct or impede your furious march in the road of self-preservation Poor dear Hearts It is the lowness weakness and darknese of God by which you
are lead forth and acted The Lord ere long will come forth in another appearance amongst you he is coming out of darkness his secret place into a light and open view he will let out a more pure glory upon you when in an holy shame you will reflect upon your present Employments I tell you dearly Esteemed it is a scorn to us either to pick or plead a Quarrel with any party for an outward or carnal Interest The Lord hath shewed us and will shortly manifest to you a more easie and sweet way of Victory we can overcome by being conquered we can lose all and yet be savers in the conclusion Again for I draw homewards The manner of your present actings is in much fear dread darkness and confusion it is your daily thoughts and care how to complot your designes and lay out your Work so as that you may save your selves your honour and reputation but all is to little you must shortly part with all your name fame success and victory must all be forgotten yea you your selves shall rejoyce at your own Overtures You are very fearfull and jealous of your defamation you are afraid to think of it your spirits are involved in confusion and distraction for fear lest your designe should betray you These are your imprisoned thoughts I am very certain but spirituall wisdom can discover them The Lord knows That you lie under a sad weight of fear terrour and distraction Fear t he pit and a snare have taken hold on you disorder and confusion abounds amongst you You grope for the wall like the blinde you aim at Liberty and Priviledg but you grope blindly after it as knowing not which way to accomplish it and thus many times you sit down weeping by the Rivers of Babylon you are oft so over-whelmed in these troubled waters of Liberty and Priviledg that you are constrained to sink under the waves of sorrow and darkness I know the Lord judges many of you and throws you down by the sad and serious consideration of your actings He turns your hearts wayes and enterprises upside down before you and I know you are under daily convictions of spirit Thus the dark presence of God shuts you up in fear and keeps you under bondage The thick cloud of horrour and confusion vails that sweet presence and bright splendor of Peace and Liberty from you but in an appointed time the mysterie of light will break out in you and upon you when in the shinings of Divine Majesty you will clearly and purely behold things in a naked appearance when you shall see no canse of fear or trouble in any thing Those that live in Love to all see no cause to fear any for there is no fear in love perfect Love casts out fear If you were in Charity with all men you would fear no man for Charity thinks no evil it knowes none it fears none All things are not yet reconciled to you earth and heaven are not yet agreed but you labour under a body and bulk of cursed enmitie and hence is the spring of all your fear and jealousie If you could see all men all Interests all power in the Lord you would be offended at none you would not fear any but would with a sweet patient contented and quiet spirit lie down under any thing comming from a Divine dispose We see and behold our selves as in the Lord without fear or jealousie because we are really reconciled to all men all designes all interests And all they that know us are carried forth in a spirit of Love towards us The reason why we are hated despised and trampled upon is because the world knoweth us not they know not the Father in us In this state of ignorance we are the objects of scorn and contempt and it is our Freedom and Liberty to be so The Lord in us and we in the Lord and with him travail together under the worlds infirmities and because we see it the Fathers will it is our meat and drink to doe it we love to sweat drops of blood under all mens offences Throw all the wrath malice envie and scorn of man upon us we fear it not but in the Lord we are able to bear all and suffer under it Lo thus we fill up behinde the measure of the sufferings of Christ in our flesh the dyings of the Lord are manifested in us daily Here O here 's a way to bring forth peace and unity the Lord is coming he is coming to discover it For by this death we ascend to a life in all mens hearts and affections after this crosse of hatred we are crowned as most choyce and precious in all mens love and esteem when the spirit shall descend from one high and be powred out upon them they shall look upon us whom in the Lord they have pierced and mourn over us with a spirit of love and tenderness Then shall we see of the travail of our souls and be therewith satisfied Ah my dear Friends my Soul travails again in birth with you till the Lord be thus formed and brought forth in you I know many of you are almost spent under your burden you are so lost in a wilderness of Confusion That you desire and seek after a retired rest you begin to loath your husks and to have some desire after your fathers table I say no more he that does come will come and will not tarry behold he comes with a recompence you are afraid to lay down your Swords lest you should lose your Liberties but the Lord will recompence this seven-fold into your bosome he is comming forth to make you free to suffer a blessed Freedom a glorious Liberty a sufficient recompence for the loss of all outward glories Is it the loss of your Honor Fame and Dignity that you are afraid of The Lord is comming to make you glad to part with it and with a holy rejoycing to throw it all behind you Ah freinds The Lord will honour you with meeknesse you shall be the fame of the world for true valour and spiritual courage yea now and not before shall the desire of the Nations be towards you their lamb-like spirits of meeknesse and innocency will be an enforcing invitation to the Lion-hearted devourers of the world to feed together with you in your green pastures and to drink of your quiet and still waters when you are become children of this new birth you shall be able to play upon the hole of the Aspe and to dwell with the Cockatrice in his den oppression and tyranny shall be destroyed before you the sons of your afflictors shall come bending to you that sweet spirit of love and subjection that God shall bring forth in you shall attract the hearts of the world towards you they shal throw down their crowns at your feet shal take hold of that skirt of Righteousness which is upon you and say We perceive of a truth that the Lord is in you and amongst you But in the mean time you together with the world are shut up in darkness and not truly discerning one another you fear the world and they are afraid of you you are at a distance involved in a bloody contest an earthly lustfull and carnall Warfarr Where Live and Lie and die together Yet but a while it 's not for ever Farewell POSTSCRIPT Friends BUt one word more and I have done I told you before and now I say it again That your reputation is the same and glory of this present Army you I know are the main supporting Pillars of it I will tell you what I see in this more plainly then I have hitherto declared I see the Lord our spirituall Samson hath laid his hands of almighty power upon You these Pillars of this woodden Fabrick he will disjoint you shake you all to pieces and in you the whole edifice of this swordly Power shall be annihilated the Lord wil die with it in it or rather out of it and from it and in this death he will destroy more then you have done all your lives time The Lord will here take you napping as you are eating and drinking marrying and giving in marriage to strange flesh and the lake of divine burning shall consume you Oh it will be a glorious day wait for it I have here offered a few things to a publick view I know the wise ones amongst you will slight it and disregard it the form method and language invites not the curious and nice spirit of any man it hath no beauty upon it though a great deal in it which the Princes of this world cannot discern It is indeed the foolish language of the Spirit if you do not like it retort it again and I will carry it where I had it you are like yet to have no better from me I was once wise as well as you but I am now a fool I care not who knows it I once also enjoy'd my self but I am now carryed out of my wits a fool a mad man besides my self if you think me any other you are mistaken and it is for your sakes that I am so And now Friends In him that was is and is to come I take my farewell of you remember what I say is was and is to come The Lord was when you were lowest he is now you are highest and he is to come when you shall be nothing Even so Come Lord Jesus Come quickly FINIS