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death_n	bear_v	life_n	live_v	4,791	5	5.2156	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A45518	The nations claim of native right Wherein the gross and extreme defection and injustice of the court martial, and of all courts; the destructive abuse of the law, and pressing necessity, that the nation speedily unite (as one man) for an agreement in righteousness, is by particular example, and an appeal to the general councel of the army, and by several considerations cleerly demonstrated and proved. Secondly, the nullity of order, matter, and form of a free people is asserted, and proved by scripture: and how (to persons, families, people, and churches) right order, matter, and form may be attained. Thirdly, a brief pourtraict of a right government of the nation, and agreement of the people; and how such government and agreement may be with ease attained; a new representative freely elected: the laws rectified: the poor relieved: and the peoples, and armies, and every particular persons just interests (in peace with truth) satisfied, is proposed to the nation. By Thom. Harbye, late Quarter-master in the Regiment late	Harby, Thomas.	1650 (1650)	Wing H684; ESTC R216528	94,995	134

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 sub●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

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 M●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 ●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

The Nations Claim Of Native RIGHT Wherein the gross and extreme Defection and Injustice of the Court Martial and of all Courts The destructive abuse of the Law and pressing necessity that the Nation speedily unite as one man for an Agreement in Righteousness is by particular Example and an Appeal to the general Councel of the Army and by several considerations cleerly demonstrated and proved Secondly The nullity of Order Matter and Form of a Free People is asserted and proved by Scripture and how to Persons Families People and Churches right Order Matter and Form may be attained Thirdly A brief Pourtraict of a right Government of the Nation and Agreement of the People and how such Government and Agreement may be with ease attained A new Representative freely Elected The Law rectified The Poor relieved and the Peoples and Armies and every particular Persons just Interests in Peace with Truth satisfied is preposed to the Nation By Thom. Harlye late Quarter-master in the Regiment lately under Command of Maj. Gen. Skippon Gen. 1.2 3. The Earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the Deep And God said Let there be light LONDON Printed in the Yeer MDCL To the Reader Reader I Have set the faults in Printing as they may be mended With little labor Much reading is weariness to the Flesh and many books a burden Therefore I set out this to ease the Reader upon his and Nation upon its accompts of their burdens Let him that runeth so run that he may obtain So let him that writes yet this is not in him that runeth nor in me nor in man but in God and from God He that so runs not as he may obtain is at double loss of his labor and of the end of his runing If I propose not an expeditious and safe way to free the Reader and Nation on their accompts from burdens I must accompt me an Oppressor and him and it oppressed and burdened With double loss Freedom in part is but pretense not freedom and the end of it worse by occasion then the begining Let every man be fully perswaded in his own mind Ro. 14. Full perswasion is the whole duty of man redeemed to Freedom and my endeavor herein in reference to the Nation False perswasion is disswasion and deceit the cause in and through lying spirits of the Peoples fal as Ahab fill at Ramoth Gilead Full perswasion is perfect conviction the essence of Faith Rom. 4. that frees the people and the chief part in them their judgements and spirits from chains of darkness The key of deliverance from the curse of bondage The Bond-womans son so soon as God opened her eyes to see a Fountain of Life was freed from death the business was soon done the matter ended Reason reduced to right order is the ground of just perswasion and rule of the Laws and actions of a free people The literal rule and form of Reason in order is the Scriptures quickned from bondage of death The essential form is perfect and free light the work of the free Spirit in the word of God But all Families People and Churches as to these Forms Order and Matter are now most at least outwardly without form and void 〈◊〉 not void nor without form in reference to opposite forms of corruption of bondage sin and death as the earth without form and void of light had an opposite form of darkness That darkness and that darkness in Aegypt that might be felt and that horror of darkness which fell upon Abraham were figures of Past Present Oeconomick Civil and Ecclesiastical darkness of bondage to all slavish misery destruction sin and death in and under which the free people 〈…〉 and the whole Creation oppressed groan and travel in pain to be delivered out of it I do not in this Treatise mind so much to discover the evils of bondage yet I do that as an evident and easie issue out of them without violence difficulty disturbance not in part but entire For Freedom in part is by occasion worse than bondage The begining of this Treatise is not the Index but order to the premises Who answers or judges any thing before he hears or knows it judgeth himself guilty of shame and folly All I desire of the Reader is his faithful perusal of it in order and his care to mend the faults in Printing Farewel Thomas Harbye Septemb. 18. 1649. The Complaint of Thomas Harby Quartermaster of the Regiment lately under the Command of Major Generall Skippon against Richard Ashfield Lieutenant Col. of the same Regiment Charge I. FIrst The Complainant saith that the said Lieutenant Colonel keepeth back from him six weeks pay amounting to seven pounds due to him from the 26 of Feb. 1647. to the 9 of April 1648. And keepeth receipts in his hands for 81.15 having not withstanding received out of the Complanants pay the said summe I cannot set downe the proofes of this or of any Charge because the Court Martiall would not admit me to make any proofe nor my witnesses to be examined though I had Petitioned the Court Martiall for that purpose and had Order upon that Petition from the said Court under the Judg-Advocates hand I was mustered the 26 of February 1647. and the precedent Quartermaster was crost out of the role because dead before and I had Commission from the Generall bearing the same date with that muster and the mony which was allowed by the State upon that muster the Lieutenant Colonel received and paid it as he saith to the widow of the precedent Quartermaster as in right to the said Quattermaster whereas it had been rather due to any Alien or to any new-born or un-born infant if living because living then to him that was dead before any part of it was due for to any living it might be rather due for their service but to the dead nothing can be due for their service to the State after they are dead no Mustermaster may muster a man dead upon paine of death nor passe any man if he know it that is dead before the date of the Muster and before the Muster-roles are closed neither was this the Muster-masters but the Lieutenant Colonels fault but to deprive the States living servants of their due pay to pay it to the dead that never did nor ever could do service for it and who when living were not really and indeed the States Servants but usurpers over and intruders upon the Proprieties and Rights of those who were really and indeed the States Servants is worse then false muster or to muster the dead for the living What the Lieutenant Colonel spake at the Court-Martiall as being meer aire and emptinesse I omit But if I may be admitted upon equall terms of freedom and right to have a legall and just tryall let the Lieutenant Colonel object what he can and chuse whom he will to assist him I shall by Gods assistance declare to what he or

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

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