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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	comfort_n	life_n	live_v	4,359	5	5.5637	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A60227	The life and death of Sir Henry Vane, Kt., or, A short narrative of the main passages of his earthly pilgrimage together with a true account of his purely Christian, peaceable, spiritual, gospel-principles, doctrine, life and way of worshipping God, for which he suffered contradiction and reproach from all sorts of sinners, and at last, a violent death, June 14. Anno, 1662 : to which is added, his last exhortation to his children, the day before his death.	Sikes, George.	1662 (1662)	Wing S3780; ESTC R19959	148,120	164

walk who were shewed represented or propounded before God in the Temple over against the Candlestick but without the Holy of Holies Those twelve Cakes laid on the Table fresh every week were therefore called the bread of proposition and shew-bread But the Spirit of Man or rather the spiritual mind is to be the most holy place for God himself to dwell in This is the new-creature principle of marvellous light and eternal Life by which the Lamp or Candle of single humane Understanding is put out swallowed up and transformed into a better and more excellent the Light of the Sun The Lamp of Man's Understanding till transformed has nothing to do within the Veil The New-Ierusalem state of Life is so far from needing Man's intellectual Candle-light that angelical-star-light yea the sun-light of Christ's own natural perfection is out-shined there by the light of his Spiritual form which is sevenfold brighter There 's no need there of man's Candle or of the Light of the Sun or Moon for the glory of God lightens it and the Lamb is the light thereof Rev. 21.23 and 22. 5. What are in general all the Sacrifices and Ceremonies in the Old Testament but significant Types or Expressions of what we are to be or do in the New The Sacrifices Beeves Sheep and Goats taught and declared primarily the Sacrifice Christ was to make in his own person and secondarily also the sacrifices that all his true followers are to make in their persons that holy and acceptable sacrifice of our rational Life and powers thereof at best under the fire-baptism of God's spirit required Rom. 12. 1 2. that so we may be transformed and grow up into the spiritual powers of eternal Life hid with Christ in God as our true interest and grand concern without which we cannot be saved For persons Adam Enoch Noah Sem Abraham Isaac Iacob Ioseph Moses Ioshua Sampson Samuel David Solomon and many others were they not Types Letters or significant Figures of Christ Cain and Abel Ishmael and Isaac Iacob and Esau were Letters and Types of two Seeds or Births of Christ in Men one after the flesh for the cleansing them from the corruption of Nature another after the spirit which delivers them by degrees from corruptibility as before from corruption till mortality be swallowed up of Life Do not the Typical signifiers of Spiritual things in Moses and the Prophets hold on all along to the very end of the Revelation What 's the New Ierusalem character'd by at the very last but by the twelve precious stones in the High Priests Pectoral which also signified the twelve Tribes of Israel Are any so bruitish as to imagine that those glittering trifles of the East the Iasper Saphire Emrald Chrysoprase and the rest are litterally and really to be found in the heavenly Ierusalem Rev. 21 Does not Paul Allegorize the history of Abraham Sara Hagar Ishmael and Isaac as representing Christ the true Father of the faithful and as a twofold Husband to a first and second Covenant-Spouse which bring forth two sorts of Children one after the flesh another after the spirit The former of these Children arriving onely at the practical and experimental knowledge of and conformity with Christ in the flesh or in his fleshly changable manifestation persecutes the other the true Isaac the spiritual circumcision that 's born of Christ after the Spirit and brought into a likeness and conformity with him in his unchangable creature state Gal. 4. 22 31. Rom. 8. 1. Christ is that twofold Husband mentioned Rom. 7. 1 2 3. married first to a first-Covenant-Spouse then dies Unless that first Spouse be content to pass with him under the fire-baptism drink of his cup taste of his death in order to be brought into conformity with him therein she never meets with him or sees him more to her comfort Her Husband is dead but alive again and lives for ever more Rev. 1. 18. The Wife also must die with him or she cannot come to live with him for evermore 2 Tim. 2. 11. How die or to what To the Law or in the Ruling power of our own natural first-creation Spirit activity and principles however renewed or adorned that so we may come to live under grace the law of the spirit or spiritual eternal Life in the ruling activity and principles of that more excellent spirit we receive from Christ as a transcript of his heavenly manhood in us by the new creation This is that onely under the Government whereof Paul dares warrant us safe from sins ever recovering dominion again Rom. 6. 14. This is that state of Life onely in which as married to him that is risen from the dead we may bring forth fruit unto God in the newness of the Spirit of our new creation not in the oldness of the Letter of our first-creation Spirit as is signified Rom. 7. 4 5 6. The cleansed state of our first-creation Spirit amounts but to the renewed old man not the new but to the circumcision of the heart in the letter of the first-creation not by the spirit of the second whose praise is of Man not of God Rom. 2. 29. This makes but the concision that are of a diminutive narrow dogged snarling nature towards the true spiritual circumcision or circumcision of the heart in the Spirit whose praise is not of men but of God Phil. 3. 2 3. There may be a little dark interval in the passage the first wife of Christ adventures to make through death and the grave in order and with full assurance of hope to meet with him again in the better Life of the Resurrection But she will soon find her own again with usury the quitted and resigned activity and ruling authority of her own corruptible spirit which brings her into the true mystical grave and conformity with Christ in his death in the raised and advanced condition of the same spirit into harmony with and subjection to Christ in her superinduced incorruptible new-creation form and Life This is the mystical Resurrection the spiritual believer has real fellowship with Christ in even while yet in the mortal Body Such fellowship of Christs sufferings conformity with him in his death and power of his resurrection Paul lived in the experience and longed for the full accomplishment of Phil. 3. 10 11. This passage out of the Life of our first-creation spirit and form into that of the second being gradual and leisurely and the tempter laying all his engines of battery against those that are attempting this way and Christ for a little moment hiding his face or withdrawing that kind of comfortable presence he had afforded the soul in his first-marriage-union with her that after a little while he may with everlasting mercies have compassion upon her in the second these things considered 't is no wonder she sits for a little season as a disconsolate fruitless Widow But God bids her be of good cheer for more shall be the Children of the

that they shall find them again with usury in conjunction and harmony with the new-creature Life of saving Faith let them make their best of them for their defence in this case Let them produce their strong reasons let them come forth in the greatest pomp of Argument and Eloquence they can against allegorizing Unless they can afford more pertinent interpretations of the ●bove mentioned Scriptures and many others without allegorizing what they say in this matter is not much to be valued They will find themselves as far wide from understanding the Scriptures in any other way as Iobs three friends were from understanding his case and my answer to such colourable reasonings shall be that which Iob has furnished me with How forcible are right words but what doth your arguing reprove Job 6. 25. This yet must be granted that the devil who is a most dextrous and skilful imitator of Christ in all his dispensations by feigned resemblances of truth will also strike in at this allegorizing way of interpreting the Scriptures He will labour hereby to the utmost to confound and bewilder both teachers and hearers that take and own this course He will if possible run them all a ground in a thousand mistakes and false conclusions But he never puts himself to this trouble till he finds men will be allegorizing as neither will he make use of the choicest flourishes of his transformed angelical appearance to impose himself on men as Christ in spirit till nothing but that will serve their turn Then he perremptorily commands them under this disguise of an angel of light out of their own senses wills and understandings into a pure subjection to his dictating and ruling influence as the onely superior dispensation and attainment to what they ever yet experienced And allegorizing of Scripture in his way he finds to be a very apposite means to nourish and keep them safe under his wing in that his highest dispensation his mystical sabbath a rest from their labours under his angelical steerage These with all other his inferiour crafts and designs above mentioned does this perillous Impostor mannage upon the various tempered and differently enlightened inhabitants of the whole world every moment of time But it is one grand piece of his mystery of iniquity to keep men quite off if he can from allegorizing of the Scriptures and consequently from all the spiritual sence and mystery of them throughout He perswades by all means that men would stick in the letter as the onely course to hold fast the form of sound words and that they would quit mystical sence in the Scriptures and so the mystery of Godliness in their persons He would never have them own the Life hid with Christ in God That 's the onely Life he fears Those that rest in the letter of Scripture and deny the mystery will easily be induced to rest in the form of godliness and deny the power thereof from such turn away 2 Tim. 3. 5. They cry out against the Allegorist call him blasphemer say he has a devil as the Iews served Christ and Luther Swenckfeld in that general answer to his puzzling Letters The Lord rebuke thee Satan So much for Allegory BY way of Recapitulation then and as deducible from or at least in exact consonancy with the divinity part of this Sufferers Doctrine and Character take these following Conclusions 1. God in Christ as Christ is the purely divine form of God is absolutely unmovable incommunicable in a capacity too high for the creation of either world natural or spiritual 2. Had God remaining purely in the divine nature without assuming Creature-nature into personal union therewith produced or created this first world it must needs have been created in a violent instantaneous manner without any progressive motion as in the six dayes Gen. 1. And when created Angels and men so made must needs have been everlastingly miserable unless reduced to their primitive nothing again For God that is the onely Fountaine of all happiness and satisfaction had remained in an utter uncommunicableness and been shut up in absolute invisibility to them for ever 3. God therefore in Christ condescended to cloth himself with a twofold creature-forme natural and spiritual through the peculiar operations of the second and third of the three that are one 1 Ioh. 5.7 in order to capacitate himself for the creation of both worlds as also for the communication of himself to his creatures when created 4. This twofold creature-nature as in personal Union with God in Christ may by communication of Idioms and denomination of the whole person from the purely divine nature and form be called God God is said Acts 20. 28. to have purchased the Church with his own blood 'T is a Maxime in School divinity Whatsoever is in God is God 5. This twofold creature-nature of Christ as transcribed and copied out by him in the persons of elect angels and men may be called divine specially the superiour and more excellent kind of it but not God neither are the persons of angels or men by being but thus partakers of the divine nature either Christ or God 6. That being which angels men received in their first creation and that Image of God that was then stamped on them was in the life glory and righteousness of it but a shadowy corruptible or changable thing It was the image of the Mediator considered as in the changeable state of creatureship wherein he became the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world and again in the ●ulness of time the image of the first Adam in Christ that that is to be crucified in us as well as in him otherwise how can we be brough● into conformity with him in his death 7. Angels and the souls of men as having but this mutable Image of God in them received in thier first-creation are mortal as to the glory and life of their Beings in communion with God and in the way of righteousness The angels that fell and man when he fell died the death as to this Life that is lost that Life of communion they had with God in the righteousness and glory of their first-creation Thus in the day Adam did eate the forbidden fruit he died yet lived in the body many hundred years after 8. All mankind fell in Adam the tree out of which we spring as branches In him we all died Christ comes to give a general revival general redemption out of this dangerous fall Rom. 5. 12 19. and 1 Cor. 15. 22. As in Adam all die even so in Christ shall all be made alive It shall not be said our first parents eate the sowre grape and our teeth are thereby set on edge but all souls are redeemed and recoverable by Christ if they stubbornly refuse not into the life light and liberty of their understanding and will the proper principles of their first-creation The soul then that sin●e●h either by willful refusal of this renewal or the loss

who revealeth his secrets to his servants the Prophets Amos 3. 7. and them that fear him Psal. 25. 14. for the discovering unto Abraham that exemplary vengeance he then resolved to pour out upon Sodom and the neighbouring Cities for their wickedness Abraham by the offering up of Isaac did certainly perform the choicest highest and most acceptable Sacrifice and Service that is required of God or performable by the Faith of Gods Elect. Nothing was so dear to him as the Will of God and God thought nothing too much to give him He must become a great and mighty Nation yea all the Nations of the Earth must be blessed in him Moreover he will not withhold his secret counsels and resolutions from his friend Abraham If he intend to execute his Judgements in the Earth he will unbosom himself to Abraham before-hand and so afford him the opportunity of trying the utmost that may be done by his intercession on behalf of the Generation amongst whom his lot was cast The servant knows not what his Lord is about to do but the Friend the Son all must be discovered to him The Friend will readily do whatsoever the Lord commands Ioh. 15. 14 15. will follow the Lamb whithersoever he goes Rev. 14. 4. therefore is the Lord willing to disclose to him whatsoever he is going about to do The Son that abideth in the house for ever is open-handed free and universal in his love and resignation of all he is or hath unto God and God is as free and open-hearted unto him knowing that he will make a right construction and improvement of his discoveries Observe first then That the life of Faith is the most excellent life and that those therefore that live by Faith in the highest operation of it are of highest esteem with God This is apparant in Abraham's case here before us He was a Believer of the highest rank and therefore the choice Friend of God the Father of the Faithful in whom all Nations are to be blessed He is thought ●it for most intimate bosom familiarity and converse with God 'T was a more excellent operation of the Faith that saves and is Eternal life in the Believer which Abraham did experience and walk in in distinction from ●nd-superiority to the elect Angels and an inferiour ●ort of everlastingly ●aved Men that shall stand about the Throne on which Abraham with others of his more sublimated spirit and higher participations of Christ shall sit as the Bride the Lamb's Wife From the singular notice God here takes of Abraham and the peculiar friendliness ●he shews in revealing to him alone of all mankind his present intendment towards Sodom Observe secondly That ●● it is the 〈◊〉 so is it the great Priviledge and advantage of Believers highly to value and carefully to improve Divine Discoveries Why did God shew this secret to Abraham more than to 〈◊〉 living but because of the singular good use he knew Abraham wo●●● make of it He knew he would instruct and command his Children and Family after him to keep the way of the Lord and to worship him in Spirit and in Truth though a way by men called Heresie God thinks he can never be open enough to a tryed Believer a known Friend Vse 1. How should this encourage us to give up all our Isaacs to him to do with us and all we are or have whatsoever pleases him How willing should this render us to have our Sacrifices fast bound to the horns of the Altar with the threefold cord of God's love to us man's enmity to us and our love to God Whatever we surrender and part with in obedience to the Will of God we are sure to receive again with Usury to die is gain To lose life is the way to find it eternally A Believer draws forth the choicest communicable Excelle●cies and bosom-secrets of Christ. God puts a great value upon every motion of his believing Friends Much tribulation they me●e with in this Vale of tears many affronts and cruel mockings from contradictious men yea bonds imprisonments and cruel death● But the Lord stands by them to assist and give them peace in the midst of all to make them stedfast and unmovable in the work of the Lord and in their sufferings for such work He raises in them such ravishments of joy through the manifestation of the glory that follows that they chuse rather to be tortured and flain than to accept of deliverance in order to obtain a better resurrection than their deliverance from prisons and death would amount unto They abide stedfastly with God unto a temporary death and he then sets upon their heads the Crown of eternal life Consider was not Christ the great Captain of our Salvation made perfect through sufferings did not he pass this way to the Crown and must not he that will live godly suffe● persecution and through much tribulation enter into the Kingdom of God The Apostle bids us consider Christ who quietly endured such contradiction of sinners against himself lest we be wearied and faint in our minds I am now going through the grace of God to resist man unto blood as knowing that I ought to obey God rather than me● I am ready to follow the Lord whithersoever he goes and calls me after him Rest assured of this However dismal and sad the Believers work and condition appears to men God will give besides a holy triumph of rejoycing in the way an expected end an end that will answer and over-answer all the desires and expectations of his soul. Whoever is able throughout to mark the perfect man and to behold ●●e upright in heart will find that the end of that man is peace such peace and so given not as the world giveth but so as no man can take it from him Objection But what peace is this Believers have Is it not their usual lot here to be delivered into the hands of sinners doth not God permit the men of this world the inhabitants of the earth to trample upon and insult over them yea even to ride over their heads Psal. 66. 12. so that they are forced to lay their bodies as the ground and ●● the sheet to their oppressors that go over them Isa. 51. 23. Doth he not suffer the Devil by wicked men to proceed further against them for the tryal of their Faith than he had commission to proceed against Job for the tryal of his patience even to the touching and taking away their very lives and that with all manner of lying aggravations contring in this to fix the black and infamous character of the greatest malefactors upon them and then cry Crucifie them crucifie them away with such people from the earth it is not fit they should live any longer Act. 22. 22. Answ. To this I answer Thus Christ himself was served and therefore all this notwithstanding they may have peace Yea they have the only true peace which passeth understanding In the midst of all

afforded him for all his kindness reproach prisons and death he had need have other returns some where Great is his reward in heaven He was a burning and shining light he burned hotter and shined brighter in heavenly life and light under all the injuries of this persecuting world so that his last works were his best So death was to him a great gain If any sit down by the loss 't is we that survive him But he left this comfortable word behind him God would never want instruments to do his work Yet we may say The honourable Counsellour is taken from thee O England this day whose worth few knew A famous Master in our Israel is taken from our heads and who laies it rightly to heart His enemies were afraid of him as Saul of David because the Lord was with him 1 Sam. 18. 12. Pharaoh though but a heathen Prince was of another mind concerning Ioseph He advised with his Council about appointing some discreet wise man over the Land of Egypt and of Ioseph he saith Can we find such a one as this a man in whom the spirit of God is So Ioseph became chief Ruler in Egypt under several Kings fourscore years together from the thirtieth to the hundred and tenth year of his age The like great authority fell to Daniels share as a man of this more excellent spirit in Babylon under several Assyrian or Babylonish and Persian Monarchs 'T is a sign Monarchy is notoriously degenerated that persons of Ioseph's and Daniels spirit are for that very reason hated and slain for which they were advanced even in heathen States The enemies of this English Ioseph and deliverer were of the right Satanick spirit hated him only for following the thing that good is They that render evil for good are mine adversaries in the original 't is are Satan Psal. 38. 20. Men of the excellent spirit do now find sad entertainment People flock together and every one is ready to act his part towards the shedding of their innocent blood Judges Jurors Witnesses Counsellors No time must be granted all must be huddled up in a trice when they are making haste to destroy them And they are ready to say as the Iewes of Christ His blood be upon us and on our children It is not like to be alone upon them they must take a heavier load with it Upon the abettours and contrivers of this murder if they repent not will come all the blood that has been shed upon the earth from the blood of righteous Abel to the last drop of the innocent blood that they have or shall farther spill Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his Saints Psal. 116. 15. God will be soundly payd for their blood He will not fail to encrease his wealth by their price Psal. 44. 12. One main ground of the unjust proceedings of worldly Powers against righteous and conscientious men is Reason of State which usually brings the most signal desolation upon them by that very means whereby they thought to prevent it With what a vengeance this thing called Reason of State has been repayed we may observe in all times and places Pharaoh for Reasons of State murthered the Male-Children and sought to suppress the Hebrews by cruel bondage No messages from God though accompanied with Prodigies could stop him in his course till he was payd home once for all in the Red Sea Reason of State made Saul seek the ruine of David Absolon lie with his Fathers Concubines Ieroboam seek the establishment of himself by his Calf-worship thereby distinguishing his people in Religion from the Ierusalem-Worship under another King This made Herod seek Christ's life and destroy the male Children about Bethlehem This made the Iews and Pilate crucifie him least Caesar should destroy their Nation whereas for that very thing they came to be destroy'd by Caesar and what end all the other with many like examples came to I refer you to the Scriptures and other authentick Histories to enquire Caiaphas said of Christ It was expedient that one man should dye for the people The like was urged against this follower of Christ. Here 's another Reason of State And he declared himself content to be any thing God should permit them to make of him to be handled as Paul was reckoned as the filth of the world the off-scouring of all things 1 Cor. 4. 13. The word there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which relates to the heathenish custome of culling out slaves or other contemptible persons to offer up to the devil as expiatory sacrifices to purge from some National guilt they had contracted and so deliver them from some National judgement they lay under Be the adversaries Reasons of State what they will they have done all they can do to this lover of his Countrey and the Laws thereof But I would willingly have their understandings disabused in one point Let them not think they have conquered him They knew him not He judg'd his Judges at the Bar. He triumphed over his executioners on the Scaffold R. and the rest Such a publick execution was more eligible then to have lingred out some small time in a prison as a condemned person liable to any arbitrary afterclaps on any future motion or pretence of motion in our troubled Sea He had more ease God more glory the honest party of the Nation and their just CAUSE more advantage and why may I not say his most intimate friends and dearest Relations more comfort in this way of his deliverance once for all He did fully comply with that rational notion of the heathen Philosophers concerning his mortal body That it was one of his prisons from which he could receive no final discharge as he might from others but by death Right joyful he was to lay aside this burthensome weight and go to his Father His heart was fixed trusting in the Lord. He was not therefore afraid or any way star●led at evil tydings but did sing and give praise that his full redemption drew so near Psal. 112. 6 7. and 108. 1. When the Sheriffs Chaplain came very gravely to him at the midnight before his execution the most dismal unseasonable and unusual time for such messages he told him he was come to bring him as he called it the fatal message of Death On this the Lord presently cast into his mind that which is written Zech. 3.4 to intimate to him That he was now taking away his filthy garments with intention to give him change of raiment that his mortal might put on immortallity Thus his Mortallity came to be swallowed up of Life and Death and the Grave into Victory Presently after his receit of that message of Death he laid him down and slept for the Lord sustained him Psal. 3. 5. When his Relations and Acquaintance came about him in the morning he told them he did not look upon that message of Death as having any thing at all of dismalness in it

the tumultuous confusions and insurrections of the workers of iniquity against them they have a steady composure and un-interrupted serenity of mind through an unshaken submission to acquiescence in and conformity to the will of God in all occurrences In the greatest storms the sharpest and most fiery ●ryals that can befal them when they see the flames of man's wrath the floods of Belial or wicked men devouring on all hands and overwhelming all considerations or appearances of true outward peace equity or order they have the inward peace and joy unspeakable and glorious which such strangers cannot intermeddle with or interrupt A perfect calmness and serenity both in spirit and outward deportment may be the Believers portion and ornament in such a season and such circumstances when the vilest of men are exalted and the wicked walk on every side When the world is in the most injurious career against the Saints then doth Christ more intimately imbrace them and more abundantly manifest to their Faith the riches and glory of the world to come Vse 2. for your instruction These things I leave with you as the words of one in my place and circumstances that ought to have weight with you that are young and liable to be misled Learn hence to put value upon the priviledge of believing Saints Be the daughters and children of Abraham and Sarah in all modest chaste and holy conversation Quit the broad way and beaten Road that leadeth to Destruction and be for the narrow path that leadeth unto Life the way everlasting Psal. 139. 24. Let not your care be spent in outward adorning but in adorning the hidden or inner man of your hearts with that which is not corruptible Get the ornament of a me●k and quiet spirit which in the sight of God is of great price With all your getting get divine wisdom and understanding Prov. 4. 7. Be as circumspect and cu●ious as you can in these heavenly ornaments watching alwayes to cast and keep out every thing that defiles that you may possess your vessels in sanctification and honour as becomes the temples of the holy Ghost glorifying God with your bodies and with your spirits which are his After this manner holy women that trusted in God did in old time adorn themselves whose daughters ye are so long as ye do well and you will find no need to be afraid with any amazement For keeping alwayes by this means a good conscience void of offence towards God and towards man when men shall speak evil of you as of evil doers the shame shall be their own It will appear 't is only your chaste and good conversation in Christ they persecute and accuse you for This is the ground of all their malice and reproaches Christ hath chosen you out of the world be ye followers of him out of it in the peculiar distinguishing spirit and conversation of pilgrims and strangers But then know the inhabitants of the earth will hate you Let this common lot and portion of Believers from this world be expected by you and rendred familiar to you that when you come indeed more eminently under the experiences of it you may not look upon it as any new strange or unusual thing that happens to you above all other Believers But when such things come to pass rejoyce in as much as ye are made partakers of Christs sufferings that when his glory shall be revealed ye may be glad also with exceeding joy If ye be reproached for the Name of Christ if ye suffer for Righteousness sake happy are ye for the Spirit of Glory and of God resteth upon you Be ye not therefore afraid of their terrour neither be you troubled but sanctifie the Lord God in your hearts by your stedfastness and boldness It may be ready to startle you to see a Believer thus handled as you see me now to end his mortal dayes by the hands of violence though not without the free and willing surrender of his Life in compliance with the divine hand and determinate cousel of God herein This is the way which the Lord himself the great Captain of our Salvation went before us in Let not this way of the Lord be evil spoken of by you Let not the least prejudice or thought arise in your hearts against it on this occasion but rather let it serve for the increase and strengthning of your Faith as it ought Vse 3. That which hath been said and observed concerning Abraham as to God's taking such peculiar notice of him and making such peculiar discoveries of his secrets to him should serve to instruct inform and mind us of the great benefits and glorious advantages attainable for us by abiding and increasing in the spirit and faith of our father Abraham It will meet with glorious Returns from God The Spirit of Glory will rest upon such as do thus improve the example of Abraham The secrets of the Lord are with them that fear him The Angels of the Lord encamp round about them and deliver them yet not alwayes from a violent death by the hands of men Christ himself would not imploy the Angels in this service though he could have had more than twelve legions of them for his rescue at his desire The followers of Christ then are not altogether delivered from death but from the fear the sting the power of death and so are made to conquer and triumph over death it self and him that hath the power of death by dying as Christ did who was thus heard in what he feared Heb. 5. 7. Live then in the Spirit and walk in the Spirit and Faith of our Father Abraham Listen to the Experiences of your Father in this dying hour and season of darkness who can and doth here give a good report of that heavenly and better Country he is now going to the more free and full enjoyment of In the midst of these his dark circumstances his enjoyments and refreshings from the presence of the Lord do more abound than ever I can truly say that as my tribulations for Christ have risen higher and abounded my Consolations have abounded much more My Imprisonment and hard usage from men hath driven me nearer to God and more alienated and disentangled my mind from the snares and cumbrances of this mortal life You have no cause to be ashamed of my Chain or no fear being brought into the like circumstances I now am in so it be on as good an occasi●n for the Name and Cause of Christ and for his Righteousness sake Let this word abide with you whatever befalls you Resolve to fuller any thing from men rather than sin against God yea rejoyce and be exceeding glad when you find it given to you on the behalf of Christ not only to believe in him but to suffer for his Name Stand fast in one spirit with one mind striving together for the Faith of the Gospel and be in nothing terrified by your adversaries but go on in your