or I do not understand it or What do you mean by this or that passage T is strange totally condemned but not examined in any parts of it I may say in my case as Job chap. 31. v. 35 36 37. That mine adversary had written a Book surely I would take it upon my shoulder and bind it as a crown to me I would declare to him the number of my steps c. Had his reproofs been heavy true or false I would have taken them upon my shoulder and born either my own or his infirmities I have done it and by the same grace of God I can do it again Or had his book been more true righteous or mercifull then mine I can boldly say I should have put it upon my head openly worn his understanding professed it and gloried in it as a crown I know I have in me that authority over my self and have been so conversant in self-judging and retracting what I have seen to be short and also such a love to truth that it would be a glory and crown to me to meet with a light that could convince mine of darkness yea I have this experience of my self I can prefer another before me and give honour time and place to my adversaries even when I know they are the weaker But I may and do think that men are not able to deal with the reason of the Book and therefore it is left to my self to Animadvert upon it and possibly I may deal as severely with it as another The first thing that I blame the book for is its untimeliness it came too late I have in my heart a love to manknid to all English men and to the opposite parties in the Nation my place and work is to heal unite and reconcile and so to prevent ruine and destruction if I might be heard none should execute it nor any suffer it Many things did offer themselves in my mind that did tend to a universal peace and a composing all differences to the great advantage of the whole and of every part They have been long conceived in my mind and did offer themselves to birth at the beginning of this great change but I delaid so long till another spirit had stepped in and engaged the minds of men both in doing and suffering so that what was proposed towards mother course could not be heard by either and for this I suffered a very sharp rebuke from the Lord before the Book came forth t was like that to Moses Exod. 4.24 God met him and sought to kill him A more dangerous assault I have not received a long time nor a deâ—per wound I have still a frequent sense of it which keeps me in an awe of God My evil was suppressing a that light of love and peace which did arise in my mind from the divine nature This we must know and I declare it from a living sense That God is in his nature most gracious tender and patient yet he knows how to take vengeance on all iniquity even in his dearest children Where there is the greatest love there is the greatest authority and majesty yea the greatest jealousie and severity I find it so in his constant dealings with me The supreme Law of God is himself Love and with it peace salvation forgiveness good-will to man The very nature and Law of this love is to do good and communicate none receives it for himself only but to give forth to others of all things it must not be confined nor imprisoned being in its own nature infinitely large You have freely received freely give If this be the highest Law it doth punish accordingly being offended or transgressed against it requires the sorest punishment which is to take away that love They that have felt love must needs have the sharpest sense of the want of it and its nature being large and communicating that evil servant that hides and buries this talent of love and peace and not communicate it it shall be taken from him This was my danger All men live under a Law the Law of love is the exactest and severest where it is in life and power or the Law of the spirit of life which is in Jesus it is there the quickest and sharpest and works most fully and strongly where it is engraven and written upon the heart and put in the inward parts Every stroke of a Law of eternal life in the most inward parts must needs be terrible threatning eternal death I write this not only that you may know that I live under a Law and exact discipline but that all may learn to fear the Lord and his goodness For know assuredly that God will be known and feared of all and that in great mercy and severity For his love and grace where it is in its truth and power will not be abused and turned into looseness and wantonness you may abuse and corrupt lesser favour but it will rise and be revenged and at last have that absoluteness in it that it will rule and give Law to us else it cannot save us My suppressing the movings of general and healing love was thus it often rose up in my mind and required to be written and published I did attempt and essay to do it but what I did one day I disliked the second or third day either from the weakness of my mind or from a growing spring of light or both but finding larger and deeper discoveries I refused and rejected the former and so in hope of doing better more strongly more certainly and completely I delayed to do what was present till the season was past There is in this a great evil for which I received a great rebuke and yet am I not wholly delivered from the snare for the further enlargement of my mind and the instruction of others I will examine the particulars of it In not giving forth truth light and love as it arises naturally in our minds but deferring till it be more accomplished and compleat or till we can give it a finer dress which may render it the more acceptable to others that so the fruit may be more certain and our selves more honoured and justified In this there is a great transgression against the Law of love and life First it is a fin against that truth or light an undervaluing of it as if it were not worthy to be seen and looked upon by men in its own natural form wherein there is the greatest beauty it is sufficiently if not most lovely in it self and in its own naked and native goodness All light hath a natural Majestie in it and is best when purest and unmixed it commands by its own brightness but above all the light of love is absolute and perfect It hath in it a sufficiency of glory to take away the spots and defects of other things and therefore it self needs no accomplishments All additions to light and love do darken and ecclipse them both for they give
spirit in obedience to his Father and in all his work knew no sin yet he himself was made sin His Father by a superiour Law judged him as the sinner and acquitted pardoned and justified them This is Christs way first reprove severely as a legal Minister purely and holily and finding that short or weak he layes down his life for them he had condemned And when he had administred the Law in its highest purity he then nailed it to the Cross as a weak thing that could not save and died under it to bring in a better Law of peace and forgiveness The fourth and last is the best the reproofs of the Spirit which Christ prefers above his own John 16.7 8 c. It is expedient that I go away for if I go not away the Comforter will not come unto you but if I depart I will send him unto you And when he is come he will reprove the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgement Christ reproved of sin from righteousness The spirit reproved of sin and righteousness Christ reproved of sin in the flesh in weakness as under it and the Law and so grieved at it The Spirit reproved of sin and of righteousness in glory and power because saith Christ I go to my Father where he was glorified Being now exalted not only over their sins but by the worst of their sins by their crucifying of him The Son of man was lifted up His love and life overcame both Law Sin Death and the Devil having taken away their sins his Spirit could now manifest to them this one only sin unbelief That there was in him love peace pardon and salvation for them and their worst sins hatred of him that he had born them himself and was acquitted of them and so they were all done away and this sin only remained that they believed not this blessed and mighty grace that could overcome all that evil and bring forth glory to himself and good to them out of their sins and his death And this the Spirit did not only declare but convince so strongly that they could not resist it For his own descending upon them was an undeniable proof of it He convinces of righteousness by shewing that they had a righteousness as well as sin and that as their sins were Christs so his righteousness was theirs that their righteousness was with the Father in a heavenly invisible state because I go to the Father That this is true his own coming as Gods gift is a sufficient proof And therefore it is conviction with judgement or of Sin Righteousness and Judgement For except both the evil and the good be produced both Sin and Righteousness in the light and power of the Spirit there may be wrath administred but not Judgement It is said of Judgement because the Prince of this world is Judged And that is true Judgement that convinces the creature of Sin and of Righteousness and by the Spirit releases him and judges the wicked one the enemy that is the principal the author and worker of all this mischief This Judgement doth right to man to Christ and to God to man it humbles and abases him and brings him to God where his righteousness is It doth right to Christ and the sufficiency of his love life death and resurrection to save the world And it exalts God his love mercy fulness and justice that he hath the righteousness of the whole world with him and that he hath accepted Christ to it as Lord and Prince of the whole world as head of man and hath given him power and spirit to reveal and dispence that righteousness freely to whom he will Now it much concerns you and me and all men that are busie in reproving others to examine our selves by these things what kind of reproofs we do administer If you will admit your work to be tried which you now cannot avoid upon a little humble and sober consideration you will find that in the administration of condemnation upon the Magistracy and Ministry of Church and Kingdom persons and things officers and offices you are very much short of the second of these which I call a Legal or Angelical reproof and punishment for sin For true legal lawful or angelical justice is administred First upon men as Gods creatures made in his image and so his children though drawn away by Satan into the worst evils It is secondly not to ruine or destroy but to reform Thirdly it is by a just holy stable Law and not from mens uncertain and broken imaginations Fourthly it is from a just holy and godly life and nature If these things be true as they are then consider What spirit have you acted in Is it not mercy and justice to you and all men that this should be known That you dealt with them not as men but as brats of Antichrist And sought not to reform either persons or things but to destroy root branch abjure and curse for ever And that by no steddy known Law of God or man such you never could own or profess but by uncertain opinions and imaginations which you never were nor could be true to or agree in either for Church or Common-wealth yea generally ye acted besides all rule Law and authority only by that you call necessity self preservation and interest And this you did not from a pure nature as is too grosly manifest but from a mixture at least of pride envy malice covetousness and self-seeking seen now by your selves and all men If you fall so short of the second I know you will not presume once to think of the third kind which Christ our Lord administred in the flesh first to discover sin and then to bear the curse and punishment of it himself This was â—nce an example and the Saints of old were called to practise the same thing read 1 Pet. 2.19 20 c. and chap. 3.17 18. But alas you are not yet instructed in the doctrine of such a thing but are taught the contrary that this is only for Christ to do and not for men But you are sheep gone astray and led away by false spirits and for the present have lost the Sheeps nature and acted as Woolves When you return unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls chap. 2. v. 25. he will teach you another and more excellent way And therefore as you are short of the second so you are opposite to the third in the very form of your spirits For Christ the holy one dies for the ungodly your holiness serves only to punish and destroy the ungodly his holiness to your practice must needs seem either unrighteous or foolish and impolitick to suffer the just for the unjust and only for well-doing and to commit his cause to God Why did ne not justifie himself and condemn others Had he power in his hands Yes he could command legions and that of Angels Why then did he not cut off the wicked out of
thing that opposed you was one and the same enemy In that troubled state you conclude I was turned to the world and backslidden to the present rising power Great guilt and great suffering meeting together must needs much disturb the mind of poor man If you in the trouble of your souls mistake me and if my mind be clear and at peace I may well bear it and pitty you and so I do My business was to be dayes-man between adverse parties I know I did not intrude into the office but refused and excused as Moses Who am I they will not believe nor hearken to my voice I am a man of no power or esteem and so put it off till I was compelled to appear and now I find the common fate of them that interpose to part the fray both parties fall upon him You think I am turned Courtier the Court thinks I am still a Fanatick T is but just I should receive both your neglects into me standing between you I am content to feel the evil of both because I love both and have in my soul good for both But you do not only judge me to be an enemy but worse an apostate brother and more wicked then your open adversaries for they only afflict the outward man I fall upon your spirits and principles We shall have occasion to discourse of spirits and principles hereafter but here I shall only mind you of two or three things First It is I confess a very difficult thing to judge of principles and spirits because they are inward and therefore strangers and enemies cannot judge of them It must be some friend or brother that hath conversed with them They that are still under them are judged by them and therefore they cannot judge of them It must be some that have travelled through them and have had experience of them spirits and principles are Gods and who can judge the Gods If any they that have been amongst them and tryed them you may from this find some reason why I should be chosen to do this service for you you generally know me my way and work hath been trying of spirits many years Secondly as it is difficult to judge spirits and principles so it is hard to bear the judgement of them Men can easier die and lay down their natural lives then suffer their principles to be touched Men of any common honesty do freely expose their flesh to death to save their Gods although they be but Idols But thirdly There are false Gods false spirits you know it and have familiarly accused others of it you know I know it I confess I do as we say to my cost it may be to your profit you have of late been hammering at a spiritual Antichrist an Antichrist within and it is most true many such there are can you think that you should be acting so many years against Antâ—christ all the while be ignorant of an Antichrist within who doth but now begin to peep â—ut and be discovered in you and you not guilty of receiving false principles or spirits Can all this smoke of confusion darkness and enmity be amongst you and no fire of false spirits Can there be so much reeling and staggering giddiness and instability and no wine of fornication no sophisticated or adulterated wine No spiritual harlots or false lovers Must all the corruption rotteness and filth he laid upon the poor flesh Is there no evil spirit that came in under the name of God to joyn with her to beget these bastard brood of hypocrisie covetousness and self-seeking Must man only bear the blame and not the unclean spirits that are gone out Or must God and his name only stand accused that he led his people by his Spirit into no better wayes Is it not then both justice to his name and mercy to man that these evil spirits and principles should be discovered and detected As it is proper for a friend or brother that hath been partaker with you in them and hath suffered greatly for it to discover them so it will be found a friendly and brotherly office to reprove them The plucking up these principles that lie deep and secret is I know terrible I have felt it so It seems to threaten the rooting out of religion and godliness it self I have found the same thing in my tryals God comes against them and his people engaged with them in great jealousie enraged as an enemy in fiery indignation and vengeance because nothing but his vengeance can destroy them but I have found great love in these fires of jealousie yea love to our nature and persons with forgiveness to our iniquities even then when he takes vengeance of our inventions I know you can neither be inwardly cleansed nor outwardly saved but by a death in your spirits and loss of these principles which have deluded you and brought you into this grievous snare and therefore shall in love and good will to man to your souls lives and liberties prosecute my purpose of manifesting those unsound principles that have deceived and mis-led you and shall not spare for your crying or frowardness SECT V. ANother objection against the Book is it is written much in Allegories because the present state of things is there represented in and by ancient Scriptures I acknowledge this to be a fault and possibly it might arise from the first great error of delay by keeping it in too long it might be thus overgrown with hair and get this dress or at least the same distrust that made me unwilling to write might make me willing to shrowd my mind under those coverings of Scripture wanting confidence to appear more open or strength to go without that help I might affirm that the things written are not meer allegories if they be so they are to me hatefull Idols for I know nothing more abominable then meer similitudes and forms of truth I may affirm that the same eternal spirit that brought forth those works in Adam and Noah of which you there read doth for ever keep the living image of them in himself and many ages after brought them forth in Moses mind and by Moses into writing so that the works done and the words writ are one and of one mind and spirit The same eternal spirit having in himself the same eternal image doth by it preserve the image written or the words and history The same eternal spirit eternally works and brings forth his own likness in all times and in our age and the same spirit that did them and writ them then doth them now and reveals them in that Book He that is wise will understand these things But let them go for Allegories and let me bear the blame of it I am content it should go so because I know we shall gain by all our miscarriages grow wise by mistakes For sin hath something of Physick in it many times if not alwayes it hath its own cure with it because
Religion is not according to Scripture nor is any form of Religion now in the Nation All build something of their own and therefore they differ None are exactly according to the pattern of the Apostles neither in form nor power As all are sharers in the evil so in the good also You are not Angels of light nor they Devils you are all men Englishmen weak and sinful men You have personal gifts but an ill state They have personal defects they have a better state an outward at least They are upon the foundation of Law whether spiritually or no is the question It is not with you it may he found among them You have suffered they have suffered But they are not better by sufferings It is well this is an objection for by this there appears an expectation that they should mend Nor are you better by mercies And mercies are more Gospel and effectual means of Grace then judgements Israel was punished and was worse by it and yet not utterly rejected You suffered for conscience so did they But their sufferings are not for a pure conscidence neither are yours purely for conscience Not only for well-doing there is a mixture in both yours and theirs There is great reason why you should come to know one another for one Party succeeds another and is content to let the other be their rule and pattern You learned of your enemies lordlinses gentility wayes and forms of state of greatness they come after you and learn your wayes of finding plots disturbing meetings discountenancing disgracing imprisoning Adversaries They are and do now where you were and as you did not long since They ride upon you as you rode upon them They crush you as you crushed them You afflicted and vexed them they do the same things to you Must not the word of Christ be fulfilled Mat. 7. 1 2. Judge not that you be not judged For with what judgement you judge you shall be judged And with what measure you mete it shall be measured to you again This I declared to you when you began this judging and oppressing way that it would return upon you you would not bear then will you understand now Then know this and let all men learn by it First you began this hardness in them against your selves You reap what you sowed spoyling imprisonment hatred death Secondly God acts and rules in all mens spirits in these things and that justly and therefore be not wrathful against them but submit to God in it The Lord hath said Curse Thirdly And may we not say as Rom. 11.28 They are enemies for your sakes but as touching the election they are beloved for the Fathers sake It is for your sakes that they are acted thus against you to make you sensible of the work you have done What a goodly thing it is to ride upon men and to watch over them for evil When you come to a right sense and repentance of that work and spirit you yet glory in then will that spirit cease to afflict you because it is for your sakes For God delighteth not in afflicting If he doth send evil it is for good As it is the just fruit of your own doings so certainly will repentance remove it Be not therefore angry at the hand but feel the staff of Gods indignation in their hand And when you come to mourn over your selves that you have been so acted your will pitty them that succeed you in that kind of employment For it must be found on all sides to be but a sad service to be a tormentor of others And when you come to pitty them that they should be made enemies for your sakes that they should be made a rod because you want chastening and be that rod to you that you were to them You will then see that both you and they are beloved for the Fathers sake neither for your own sakes And may also see that they have a good root and will bring forth better fruit in its season When we are fit to partake of it SECT XII HAtred so blinds men that they know not themselves nor their enemies It makes men worse then otherwayes they would be and yet to think better of themselves then ever they were It makes men think their enemies worse then they are and it makes those enemies worse then they would be And therefore the third thing follows they that hate their Brethren darkness hath blinded their eyes and they know not whither they go Enmity is of the Devil and he is in darkness God hath with-held light from him he hath neither the light of Christ nor of Angels no nor of men All his wayes and all the wayes of men that are acted in his spirit are most irrational and absurd things All men so far as they are led by malice are hurried and driven by the wrath of God blowing up their passions unto unreasonable things without any judgement or understanding Let us look back upon our wars Did any of us know when we begun whither we should go or did we once dream or imagine the things we have since done and the strange paths we have trodden Have we not been driven beyond all our purposes Declarations and Vows into crooked and contrary wayes which our Reason and Religion did at first condemn and will again when we recover either the one or the other Was there ever such a heap of inconsistencies and independencies such a mass of confusion in Church and state And if we were blinded then we are so still if we persist For we are not better but worse now then at first we have multiplied notions and opinions but have decayed both in innocency and love We were then more simple more moderate and less guilty and bloody And are now more enraged more hardened and more polluted Therefore the further we go in this way the worse we are and the deeper shall we plunge our selves in misery The whole Party that stand out in opposition to the present Governors and Government of the Nation are divided in all things and in the kind or degree at least of their enmity Some are more gross and carnal and thirst for war and blood but many are taken off in part from hopes of any good by war but yet their spirits are still in enmity preaching against praying against or cursing reviling and condemning them as enemies to God and his people and denouncing and expecting judgements from heaven against them Both these are of the same nature are from the same root or fountain and will If there be occasion fall into the same Channel Indeed all strife and envy though it be but in the heart yet it is in the judgement of the holy Apostle James chap. 3.15 earthly sensual and devilish And therefore it doth darken pollute and defile the soul And by how much more inward or seeming spiritual it is it is by so much the more dangerous because more devilish And being so no man
that can live in death love and bless enemies they are fit to raign For when such come to the Kingdom they will enrich save bless and do good to all and hurt none But they that cannot bear the worst of evils among men will themselves be a burden to men if they get to the throne The good God who loves man proves and tries his own Son before he gives him the Kingdom And will not commit the Government to him till he hath found that he can be happy without it till he can glory on the Cross till he can die for others and be more happy in laying down his life and honour for them then in receiving honour from them This Lamb doth overcome For he is King of Kings He hath the Kingdom of God in him and therefore all Kingdoms in his nature And needs not take from others but gives to others And they that are with him are as he is called faithful and chosen They do partake of his royal nature and are called to suffer and to raign And in both are faithful and therefore chosen to it they strive not for it Thirdly That only is mighty and shall raign that hath power with God They that will overcome any thing truly must overcome him because his is the Kingdom and the power and the glory Now nothing prevails with him but Lamb absolute and perfect subjection to him hath only power with him And therefore none shall or can raign with him but they that will not resist him nor any power that he sets up over them For whosoever resisteth the power resisteth the Ordinance of God Rom. 13.2 By this Christ overcame and is set down upon the throne And by the same Lamb nature keeps what he got for this only is invincible and eternal If you had all the force of England and of the whole earth yea of all the Angels you could not keep it it would all ruine and destroy it self if you had it not in the Lamb for nothing can possibly subsist in the nature of God or upon the throne of God but this meek patient Lamb For it is eternally subjected to God and therefore he is eternally pleased with him and eternally honours him Fourthly The Lamb is King of Kings and Lord of Lords His Kingdom is on high higher then the Kings of the earth their glory riches titles and honours are below him they are his servants or children And therefore he cannot set himself to oppose them nor can any that have his spirit These low contests of war are the business of earthly and sensual men that live in the mire and dirt of the world who are hurt and offended with each others wayes and passions But he is on high and so are they that raign with him beyond the reach of all these things He is over them all and gives these Kingdoms to whom he please And when he hath given will defend and protect in that gift as long as he please and in what way he please And they that are with him are called to know what he doth and do as he doth Therefore if you seek for the Kingdom of Christ you must ascend by suffering into this glory from whence all men receive all their honour power and riches And then you will cease contending with that which he gives Fifthly Christ is now in the exercise of his Kingdom upon you and you are his subjects and servants now under his rod and iron scepter He hath brought you down and set up those that you would destroy And is you know righteous and just in it You are under the justice of his Kingdom and the first true and pure sense you shall have of his Kingdom is of the wrath of it You may talk of his glory but must come to feel his anger be pleased with it submit to it and rest in it before you come to enjoy his love This I can affirm upon certain knowledge and experience That if you will not embrace and kiss this his judgement you shall never rise higher neither in heaven nor in earth Therefore know he raigns now in righteousness and give him that glory that is due to him give him glory by taking shame before all the world That glory you may give him and it is all the Kingdom you or any flesh can give Christ to suffer from him But to think that as soon as you attain a notion of his Kingdom and a weak one that presently you must have share with him in it is high presumption For man or flesh to think to have it with him is to take it from him if they could Therefore you are miserably deceived by the Prince of darkness and deluded by him he would perswade you that you are for Christ and his Kingdom when indeed it is for your selves and your own advancement You are perswaded that you would exalt him and set him upon the Throne whereas he is already upon the Throne judging you and that carnal mind You can give h m no Kingdom you may acknowledge the Kingdom he hath Indeed if any will give him a Kingdom they must give of their own If then you had a glory and a Kingdom and could lay it down for him and to him you might then be said to exalt Christ And so far as you can bear this rejection that you are under and publickly justifie him and condemn your selves and the state and spirit in which you stood and acted as unworthy to stand up in his name and presence So far you will give him glory and make him to be honoured and feared in the world Could you and I come forth and openly declare that God may use us and all men and all our Zeal and Religion in what service he please But that he will not suffer either us or any other to raign with him so long as any thing of a private self-seeking proud or cruel spirit remains in us This lively and experimental testimony will make him to be honoured and feared And should I and you say and confess that the blessed God hath such love to mankind that he will suffer neither me nor you to have place in his Church till we can love and forgive all and bear the sins and curse of all men We shall thereby render him loved and honoured For this indeed is and alwayes was his mind he would not give the Kingdom to Jesus till he manifested this spirit in him neither did Christ desire it upon any other terms You may speak and do as you will but this is my sense and experience Therefore God hath brought me down and made me taste death again and again because he will not endure me to stand or to minister before his Throne till I can bear and forgive all the folly and sin of those to whom I minister And till by frequent deaths and rejection he hath killed that root of enmity to men that curses them and brought forth that love
become our advantage if we be made wise by our failings Let us first observe the process of things After his Majesties return there was by the sweetness and gentleness of his Government a great calmness and stilness in the Nation and in a degree in the most opposite The trying condemning and executing of the prisoners for the death of his late Majesty stirred a new passion in the spirits of many people And the execution together with the resolution of the sufferers revived a zeal confidence and boasting of their cause and an extraordinary earnestness in their minds which was expressed in incessant meetings discourses and prayers day and night These passions and religious exercises boyl up their minds into new heats which kindled this wild-fire and at last blowed it up into this open Insurrection That you may understand the reason of these things let it be considered what I have expressed in this and the former Treatise 1. That God had a controversie with this Church and Nation because of its sins and its sinful state and standing not with the things themselves only as they stood in darkness and weakenss 2. God must have some to plead this controversie with the Government and Governors of Church and State 3. Those that he called forth for that purpose he inspires and impowers with spirit for that work 4. The seat and subject of this spirit and ministry is the judgements and consciences of men For men by being inspired and led into opinions and judgements contrary to the received Law of the Church are thereby fitted to be instruments in Gods hand of his displeasure to the Church For the Church cannot be tried but by such spirits and judgements which differ from it and are contrary to it 5. They that are thus impowered for such a service so far as they do the will of the most high Lord in it are to be owned and justified Though the office be never so mean and never so contrary to â—he honours wills and wayes of States and Kingdoms yet it is the rod of God and must be kissed 6. These ministers of this displeasure have transgressed exceeded â—heâ—r Commission and exalted themselves in their service And so corrupted themselves and defiled their work This also is true Therefore there is in them that have executed this displeasure and in their consciences and work something that is just and something that is unjust and unrighteous Till these are distinguished there is no right judgement of them It must also be considered and it is granted by all Divines That the works of divine Providence and Government are executed by the administration of Angels Both the standing and changing of Governments is by the ministry of these principalities and powers Therefore in the great revolutions of this Kingdom both good and bad Angels have been employed They being spirits their proper sphere in which they move is the spirits and consciences of men Therefore it follows that as there hath been in these great Providences a righteous work of God and with it much unrighteousness so there are both Angels of light and of darkness inspiring the minds and consciences of men Now to administer justice upon men that have acted in these things without any judgement made of the principles and spirits that have moved in them cannot be thought to be perfect nor a right way to cure our distractions For outward punishments upon the body will not remove the evils that are planted by spirits in the consciences and judgements of men 1. For all men know First That if there be but a little truth and uprightness in any conscience it will bear up the person in the greatest outward suffering Neither death nor hell are able to over-power the least grain of honesty in the poorest wretch that ever lived That which is sincere is able to live and triumph under many sins and sufferings and will never yield till right be done to it 2. Mens spirits and consciences and the spirits that inspire and lead them are above the reach of the secular sword and only subject to the Scepter of Christ in his Church to the sword of the Spirit 3. Conscience though erroneous and seduced will enable men to suffer bodily punishment imprisonment and death with great chearfulness And if they are laid upon men without the means of conviction they do harden men in errour And therefore legal proceedings only to bodily punishments are not sufficient remedies to cure these distempers The case of the Nation under its present distempers is certainly extraordinary and far different from what it was an hundred or fifty years since Great variety of spirits are gone forth which have raised up the minds of men to a greater height of reason religion and resolution And old ordinary remedies will not cure new and extraordinary diseases If the Physick be not proper to cure and remove the disease it will by stirring the humours and enraging of them make dangerous commotions in the body For if men either from some measure of simplicity be it in the least degree and much mixed or from some spiritual operation be it of what kind it will or from an erroneous conscience If from any of these the sufferer be able to repell the Sentence of the Judge and to glory in his suffering and in a shew of righteousness to triumph over death he doth notably affront and wound that authority and judgement under which he suffers A man and his cause when he comes to judgement is brought out into the open view of all men and not only made publick but he and his cause is exalted to endure a conflict and tryal with the Law If the Law comes forth with that brightness and majesty that it ought the man is condemned in his own conscience and so justifies the Law and submits to his sentence and by this the Law and Authority is honoured But if the person judged stands clear in his own conscience upon any account and acquits himself in the face of dead when all men ordinarily yield such have a kind of conquest and do seem to overcome the sentence which must needs have an effect upon the people For people do naturally mind dying men death is King of terrours and it is a great thing to die it raises men on high And therefore in them that can die comfortably and confidently there is a great appearance of righteousness and worth which doth much affect the minds of people some are moved to pitty the sufferer and thereby his words and cause steals into their minds Others are convinced and drawn to the Party Others are hardened and strengthened by it For men think with themselves I cannot live comfortably bur here is that which will make me able to die comfortably and that is worth embracing That which makes the Magistrate to be feared and reverenced is his power of life and death That which makes men able to overcome death secretly overcomes the Magistrate