be made against equity and the faith of the Nation unnaturally ingratefully to their and their families impoverishment and utter ruine Every man as not flatly denying the faith of Christ and as not being a Barrabas and robber to himself and others must pay every man what he may justly his whole due and to that end must demand what he may do justly his whole just due The free called military and civil Families must in conscience see to it strictly that every one among them have all just interests entire as Moses faithfully demanded and had all Israels just due entire He that is unfaithful in a little is false in all but these things are the greatest and imperfect righteousness is the fruit of bondage not of freedom Either let them do justice absolute and impartial or else let them that are filthy be filthy still and them that are unfaithful and unjust be unjust still The virtual or essential form is real or paral consignation of force figure and matter in one act to and with oecunomick Representers and their represented the persons and families signing to them and to and with Provincial and National Representers and their represented the free people and families of the Provinces and of the Nation sighing to them for as an Instrument of an act or deed not sealed nor subscribed is no act or deed but a dead instrument of no force or vertue So an Agreement not signed is no Agreement but a dead instrument or carcass Therefore it is that Lieut. Col. John Lilburns Agreement though he and they with him that made it have done their parts in it and discharged their Conscience hath as yet come to nothing because the free people through slavish fear and sloth did not on their parts signe and subscribe it And therefore it is that the good which those that they call Levellers endeavored was a dead birth the hazard of its parents life because they gave it not life by consigning it in a right Order of a free gathered people for there were many busie pretenders betrayers of them amongst them and divers unsteady and vicious and rash persons that deserved not the name of Levellers who hindred their good endeavors and brought all into dis-order and confusion Lastly Right Government is the intense order of a right Agreement This intense order is an intermediate pressing forward in the righteousness of life and freedom from the bounds from which to the bounds to which a free people must act and move Righteousness is either of bondage or freedom Bondage and Freedom and their righteousness differ as light and darkness The righteousness of bondage in the people of God is lame and imperfect meer impostury reprobate righteousness of corruption Ishmael the bond-womans son with his mother to be cast out but their righteousness of Freedom shall be at least as to outward conformity firm and constant The good works of bondage in the people of God are dead carcasses of righteousness and therefore have an an appearance in their impressive act especially and so their impressive power of bondage is less visible but the intense power of bondage in the best righteousness of the people of God is in its intermediate act apparent For as thorns obstruct and choak the best seed so bondage and its forms respect to private ends and disrespect to duty and conscience kills the very impressive life of all righteousness Therefore their dead and slavish righteousness for they have no other cannot reach any supreme end of the righteousness of life and freedom but bondage forms and steers its intermediate first and last course to slavery sin and death for dead men to do the works of the living and for Gods people in bondage of corruption and death to do the righteousness of life and freedom is impossible Their best actions are but good words and these meer deceits and trecheries Such forms such effects but the powers of bondage are the forms in which the people of God and the whole Creation as the matter are subâ—ected therefore all their righteousness is the righteousness of the power of bondage a base off-spring of pride avarice and vain-glory a vile instrument to advance empty forms a servant to perfideous sloth and apostasie a prostitute to vice and bond-servant to base designes The rigour of Aegyptian bundage killed Israels fruits after the flesh their children so soon as born and captivated all that lived in continual bondage but this vehement rigour of real bondage suffers not the people of God nor their best righteousness to have intense motion being nor begining of life and freedom but of perfect captivity only to slavish dis-use sin and death The sincerest and their best righteousness are like Ishmael in bondage partly and partly free Ishmael was free-born by the fathers side but by Hagar the bond-woman Wherefore subjecting none and subject and in bondage to none his hand was against every man and every mans hand against him So the sincere and their righteousness are of God their Father and so free and perfect but outwardly of Hagar the bond-woman therefore their free Spirit bows not its knee to bondage but being Hagar the bond-womans sons the spirit of bondage not the free spirit coucheth to all burdens and resisteth in all things the free Spirit of God Therefore as wild men like Ishmael they resist but subdue not and are resisted but are not subdued by all vassals of bondage and their and its corruptions and bring forth no righteousness of life and freedom into manifestation of being because they are free and live partly and are partly dead and in bondage Righteousness of freedom is the good works of a people equally legitimate and free not as the people of God were and are in Aegypt by promise only and really and indeed the greatest and most miserable slaves that ever were nor as Ishmael was and the most sincere are free by the fathers side only but by father and mother as Davids fathers house was in a type free in Israel Jerusalem descending shall be the only free mother as Evah of all the living of all living branches of the Tree of life the free-born of God that shall bring forth perfect fruits of life and freedom The integrity of Primitive times did anti-type Adams and Evahs innocency and typified that equally legitimate and free righteousness of the free-born sons of God by that City the Lambs Bride Mans fall prefigured the general falling away from the Primitive Churches and second Adams first righteousness which general Apostasie and corruption of all flesh in the anti-type is now full as Adams fall and his off-springs general apostasie in a type was full when the floud came The Ark made of one wood into mansions or rooms shaddowing forth the order of the families which shall be actually redeemed unto freedom brought forth 1656 yeers after the first tree of life its first fruits of life in a type So the true Ark the tree of
life in anti-type and truth shall then bring forth and not till then its first fruits of righteousness of life and freedom when the order of its mansions that is the prefigured mystical families there shall be compleated and full The righteousness which is now and hath bin is the righteousness of false appearance covetousness and filthy corruptions of bondage born and begotten by and for base designes and ends the off-spring of illegitimacy and seed of incest conceived like Moah and Ammon in the heat and zeal of blind and empty profession and bloudy hypocrisie the fruit of perfideous trechery and deceit If any righteousness of life and freedom hath bin or is that Righteousness or they that produce it have or hath bin or is the first fruits to God and the Lamb but the Text is express That the sealed Tribes or Families of Israel shall be the first fruits to God and the Lamb There was no righteousness of deliverance from the curse of destruction bondage and death of Adams sin in a type until those creatures that were saved the shadow of the free people of God came as it were by their families into the Ark after their kind and there hath not bin any perfect but dead spurious and illegitimate righteousness no righteousness of deliverance life and freedom from real destruction sin and death nor shall be any until the free people come into the true Ark by their anti-typical Tribes and Families and possess their proper mansions in truth and substance The people of God absolute free and their righteousness shall be equally legitimate in relation to God their father and in relation to the new policy or City their mother descending which shall be free And they and their righteousness shall be perfect as their heavenly father is perfect and as their mother descending from God out of heaven shall be perfect Perfect not of the essence of God but after the pattern and image of the mind of God as the Tabernacle was the figure of that pattern in the Mount and as the Rain-bow is the Image of the Sun so they shall be created and formed by the free Spirit of life in Christ after the Image of God For the Creator Former and Inhabitant is not the creature thing formed or house Howbeit God shall dwell in them more fully The perfection of a free people and of their righteousness consists in an impress intermediate and express act of Life and Freedom but the last gives their and its denomination and being and the first two without the third are properly the righteousness of bondage This perfect righteousness of a Free people is a commutative three-fold righteousness of deliverance from evil in evil and out of evil of bondage a figure of this righteousness was in Moses his visiting of his brethren three times the first time he went forth he seeing an Egyptian and an Israelite at strife slew the Egyptian and freed the Israelite in a Type from evil of bondage The second time he went forth he seeing two Israelites at strife sought to reconcile and unite them and so to releive and support them in the evil of bondage These actions were properly the righteousness of bondage for Moses was then in bondage and therefore it inslaved him and them and hazarded his life much more for which cause he fled and left them forty yeers Men may not be faithful indeed nor do impress or intense works of Freedom in bondage but extremely hazard their lives or estates they their righteousnes must be corupt by constraint or they must act if strictly faithful single For the people of God in bondage having no order nor unity deceive and betray each other Moses in his first visit acted but with one Israelite and delivered him and that one betrayed him The second time he acted but with two and one of them betrayed him and he fled for his life such are the perfidious treacheries deceits of the righteousness of bondage but Moses did not desist but sent came the third time and Freed Israel and their intire beings out of bondage all Israel therein joyned with him and this his and their joynt work was the proper righteousness of Freedom in a Type To avert evils of bondage in bondage or relieve and support those that groan under the rigour of it and rest so being works of bondage strengthens the power and rage of it and depresseth all means of deliverance So Moses did and fled for his life and left all Israel desperately helpless and worse inslaved than ever Ahimelech relieved David with the shew-bread and Goliahs Sword which was a very just and good work yet it occasioned that Ahimelech and all the Preists of the Lord and their City were cut off and destroyed man woman and child such are the violent evils of the bondage of corruption that the best and most perfect righteousness of bondage causeth through corruption the worst evils and effects because corruption of the best things is the most destructive corruption that can be It s the greatest and most desparate hazard of utter ruine to a mans life or estate to be conscientious and exactly faithful in bondage Also performances of impress and intense acts of righteousness in bondage without the express act of the righteousness of Freedom out of bondage is dead and imperfect righteousness and meer impostury which deceives and hardens like the works of Pharaohs Sorcerers all mens hearts in vanities and corruptions of bondage For whiles they follow and mind sorceries and deceits imperfect righteousness of relief or support in bondage they dream not nor once think of any legitimate or perfect righteousness of Life and Freedom out of bondage These rotten deceits destroy or hazard as in Moses and the Priests of the the Lord their Lives Families and Estates for the righteousness of relief and support in bondage and not of Freedom out of it rouseth up the power and rigour of it as a sleepy lyon to destroy them he that pricks a sleepy lyon must also kill him or be sure to be destroyed This corruption of bondage under which the Creation groans and travels in pain to be delivered out of it is briefly this The Creation was at first subservient to bruit beasts till man a figure of the Creatures Freedom was made the head of all creatures and thus far the creature was not properly subjected unto vanity under bondage of corruption Satan and the serpent the parents of all corruption of bondage sin and death co-inspired into the spirit of man the corrupt nature of bruit beasts from the bruit beast the serpent the mother of sin in a type and of fallen Angels from Satan the Father of sin and filthy corruptions of bondage So the spirit of man the head of the Creation became bruitish and divelish and then the creature was properly subjected unto vanity and bondage of corruption The corruption of bruitishness in man did corrupt and darken the Image of
ordained to be Pillars to support the Safeties Lives and entire Beings of the Innocent when wronged and oppressed may not become Mills to grind them to dust and to destroy them and Pillars to support the contrary I contemn no Court Councel or Person I condemn none I shal ever intercede for that Councel and the members of it that past Sentence upon me and pray for your Honors and shal ever do all Offices of Faith and Trust to your Honors Them and the Army Thomas Harby Quartermaster To all the Cordial Friends of the Armies and Peoples Rights and Liberties The sincere Lovers of Truth and Peace DEer Friends Shall Tribulations shall Anguish or Persecutions shall fiery Tryals shall love of filthy Lucre Life or Death divide you or me from the free discharge of our Consciences to God or Duties to Men God forbid If any be ignorant of any necessary Truth or guilty of any Sin or Error it is your and my Duty if we know it to seek in all Wisdom of Meekness to rectifie and convince their Judgements lest they perish in the multitude of their sins and their sin guilt and destruction be double upon us and we our selves become the greatest Transgressors though actually in our own persons never so innocent The sins of Ely's sons were Ely's sins which he committed not but his sons made themselves vile and he stayed them not therefore he especially was guilty of their sins and of his own and their destruction A man that sees and suffers the blind to fall into a Ditch and perish is far more guilty of his destruction then he himself Therefore that I and every one of you may be free from the sins and from the bloud and destruction of all men I exhort earnestly all and every one of you to improve your Talents for the good of this Nation and of all men for which end I set before you what most concerns you to consider because all our evils if wisely fore-seen and well considered are more then half remedied I herein somtime assert mine own advice and judgement wherein if I err and if any will convince my judgement I shall with hearty thankfulness accept it and willingly recede from and forsake any known error 1. In order to what ensueth I briefly set before you what hard measure I had from the Court Martial in censuring me to be cashiered without suffering me to prove my charge or to have any tryal or any witnesses examined 2. And thereby my great and most unjust disadvantage because I being already cashiered for that charge no witnesses will dare to testifie the Truth lest they should be censured to be cashiered or destroyed for so doing I being a President before them in the same thing 3. Consider the superlative injustice of enforcing not the Body as the Levites Concubine in Gibeah of Benjamin to Sodomitish filthiness but the Spirit and Conscience of any man and that upon penalty of being destroyed to deny and renounce God and wittingly to embrace professed Atheisme against a cleer light and conviction of Soul and Conscience to be forced to confess and acknowledge a Ly to be Truth contrary to knowledge and conviction of Conscience is to be forced to deny and renounce the Truth of God and to deny and renounce God contrary to knowledge and Conscience Which because I utterly refused I was censured to be cashiered and certified by Lieut. General Hammond President of the Court that I deserved to dy but that the Court favoured me And this was my sentence for seeking Justice and for seeking Right and Redress for the greatest wrongs done to the State and to private Persons without being admitted to have any witness heard or tryal had 4. Consider the transcendent misery of the Army and people the honest party especially who when wronged and oppressed may not approach a Representative or Court of Justice for Justice without inevitable peril of being destroyed for so doing 5. Consider the extreme misery of the disbanded sick and wounded Souldiers deprived of the price of their lives their due pay in Arrears which countervails not their pains in seeking after it for want of which many thousands have miserably perished and do perish Secondly Consider that these miseries upon them and the poor and the middle sort of people are exceedingly augmented and occasioned by the Souldiers quartering in Cities and Market-Towns especially in Inns and Ale-houses where the Souldiers learn loose conversation and waste the short pittance of their slender pay Thirdly By means of their quartering in Cities and Market-Towns the Country being free enhanceth and almost doubleth the price of all provisions whereby a general scarcity and famine is procured Fourthly By means of this scarcity the Souldiers and the poor of the Nation but the disbanded Souldiers and the poor of Cities and Market-Towns especially perish for want of food and rayment Fourthly By this means the middle sort and Trades-men of Cities and Market-Towns being also over-burdened with Taxes Excise and Quartering and not having trading nor visible Estates are forced to become suddenly extreme poor and which is worst the remedy of all these evils is the root of the disease that is they that should redress all these miseries are the cause of them To redress which and to take away this cause of all the rest Sixtly Consider the many intolerable incumbrances incident to Representatives and Courts of Justice through their several Administrations and multiplicity of business whereby if any of them desire to do Justice and to redress the cruelties and oppressions which the Souldiers the middle fort and the poor of the Nation suffer yet they cannot do it because they are overcharged and incumbred with more business then they may possibly discharge amongst whom all just causes of all sorts of people and of the poor are like good seed sown amongst thorns that choke it So that while they are busied Martha-like about many things they must of necessity omit in all things the only one thing necessary which is To do righteous Judgement By this means War and Destruction hath bin and is continued upon this Nation and the people every where perish for want of their proper food the fruit of the Tree of Life which is Justice and Righteousness For remedy hereof and to take from Courts and Representatives this burden which they can no more bear then a new born child can bear the weight of a Mill-stone let the order and method of going to Law after the manner of Infidels be what may be declined and abrogated and let the Rule of God in the Gospel to end all Differences and cease strife be strictly observed and followed The manner of going to Law as Heathens is when two or more at variance betwixt themselves cannot judge their own cause but go to a corrupt Representative or Court for Judgement that hath no judgement or that hath less judgement then themselves because it knows less of their business and
people or persons that corrupt and abuse the Powers of God or that obey those Powers as corrupted and abused rebel against the Power of God and do not keep but lose and abuse the richest Talent of his goodness Lastly Just Powers in relation to the People are the breath of their life from God and the Form and Essence of their Beings without which the people are as they ever have biâ— dead carcasses of destroyd and slain men What power or force have dead men and what force and life have a people that want their own just power The want of just power is their chain of slavery unto all misery sin and death Esau to save his life sold his birth-right for pottage but that people that will sell their lives and birth-rights for misery sin slavery and destruction are miserably and slavishly wicked and profane Secondly That the People may improve their Talent of just power with all faithfulness to God whose it is and to themselves to whom for their joynt preservation from bondage and destruction it is commited they must consider that the people are many several or single and there can be no joynt improvement by many single or several A single file or hair of silk hath no strength and millions of files or hairs of silk single or several have no more strength than one single file If they let their Talent this power rest in every mans hand single they bury it in the earth and improve it not but bring infinite destruction upon themselves for where many are together single and untwisted there must needs be great dis-union and division from whence utter confusion and destruction to all severally must follow Therefore the peoples chief and speedy care must be to find out the fittest and best means and expedients to unite and twist them in this power The means and expedients that are best and fitest to unite and twist them in this power of God are Representors and Representatives freely chosen by them in such manner as I have already set down to which I refer the Reader Faithful and just Representors freely chosen are like the stalks in bunches of grapes that feed nourish and unite all the berries and they derive pure wine life and power to the people from the root and stem of the true Vine The people must be careful as God hath committed the richest Talent of his goodness their just power into their own hands that they do not set light by slight or profane it that they be not slothful wicked and unfaithful in improving of it nor chuse such as are slothful wicked and unfaithful to be Representors or Representatives lest they lose or abuse the Talent which God hath given them and God strictly require it at their hands and lest they mis-improve it against the people and destroy the people and themselves by it to avoid which let them chuse men most endowed with the spirit not of bondage but of Freedom just faithful fearing God dealing truly and hating Covetousness They are to chuse the rich so qualified as soon as the poor or midle sort and them as soon as the rich to officiate as their Representors in Parliament or in any other Representative God respects not the persons of men neither must they but in righteousness only why may not a poor man or the middle sort be as faithful and able in Parliament or in any other Representative as the rich neither must the rich if righteous be rejected because they are rich but if the poor and middle sort of people respect the persons of the rich and chuse them to be their Representors in Parliament or in other Representatives because they are rich then they misse their just ends and interests and the boule runs cross to all their â—imes because the bias is set the wrong way for how can rich men and oppressors be Representors of the poor and middle sort that are oppressed betwixt whom their is no shadow of similitude yee have dispised the poor saith the Apostle Iames 2.6 Therefore the rich do oppresse you do not rich men oppresse you saith the Apostle and draw you before the judgement seats Such Representors will rob the people of life and power render them wicked and unfaithful to God in wasting his talent and betray and destroy the people and themselves God hath chosen the poor of this world rich in faith Iames 2.5 So it is better for people to chuse the poor of this world rich in faith to God and them then the rich of this World poor in faith to God and them to be their Trustees Representors God offered the Gospel to the Iewes and such as were saved gladly received it but God cast off those that rejected it and the Apostles and people of God departed from them and turned to the Gentiles so an Agreement and Government in righteousness must be speedily and faithfully offered to the whole Nation that the whole Nation may be joyned as one man unto the Lord in an Agreement in righteousness as all Israel was gathered together unto the Lord at Mizpah such as shall resist or refuse such Agreement or Government or shall harden their hearts as Pharoah and his servants or shall sit still as the men of Iabish Gilead did or that shall reject such a government and Agreement as the Iewes rejected the Gospel are to be left to themselves and the people of God that they may be freed from Babels sins and plagues and from her fall and destruction must come out from them and turn unto such as shall freely close and joyn with them as one man unto the Lord in righteousness The direction of this constituted Government consists in a right regulating of it that it may reach and attaine the supreame ends and objects of its being this regulating of it and these supreame ends consist in a twofold action and an intermediate action of the people This twofold action is a moving and turning to or from the termini or bounds to which and from which they must move their intermediate action is a constant joynt perseverance in their twofold action this twofold action or motion in the people of God rightly constituted and to be constituted is a a moving or turning from darkness and error to light and truth from implicite faith in blinde guides to clear and free conviction in their own spirits from slavish obedience to the Wills of wicked usurpers and oppressors to a spontaneous and free concurrence with those that are faithful from being scattered as Israel was in Egypt to be gathered as one man unto the Lord in righteousness from cruel calamities burdens and oppressions the needless fruits of wicked slavery to the just power and liberty of a free people from the seat of the Beast the sourse of violence the seat of darkness to the white Throne which impartially dispenceth righteous judgement from the vallie of dead and drie bones of men slain by slavery to be a
to labor with all speed and fidelity to gâ—t a just power of Freedom and Being of their own in manner as is declared All Armies upon earth could not hinder the rallying of the dry bones into a living exceeding mighty Army They came together bone to his bone as it were by their Families into their own houses natural their own bodies and were sealed and cemented with strength and sinew in life and power All Armies and Powers of death that opposed them were utterly dasht in pieces and destroyed by them Moses in bondage lookt this way and that way least he should be seen and the people of God in bondage must act warily and watch narrowly if they do any good or just action if they relieve any or support any that none see them If any Doeg or Edomite be nigh them or amongst them they are verily betrayd utterly destroyed and so must and shall be till they get a power of Freedom of their own the Free power of God which now is the easiest thing to atttain God freely giving it that is or can be But this relief and support so dangerous to the people of God is but vain boasting they releive none and support none but in talk as the Amalekit told David he kild Saul whereas he was free from his death so are they from relieving or supporting any David slew that Amalekit because he said he kild Saul though he did not and they and their Families and estates are ruinated and destroyed because they say and pretend they relieve and support the people of God in and against their evils of bondage whereas they releive none and support none but in word only and indeed destroy those that have sacrificed liberally their lives and estates for their support and relief The Spirit of bondage inward avaricâ— and the irregularities and rage of it kills and consumes as the worm smote Ionas Gourd and consumed it the slavish lives families and estates of each other with their own entire they releive and succour none but by deceits and shaddows of doing good without doing any But if any fragment of relief fall or if they fancy they have done or do any good or just work in bondage there they rest and there they stay Ioabs soldiers followed him till they came to slain Amases dying carkass and they stood still so but few yet some Free people in bondage follow righteousness until they come to some fragments of this dead carkass of releif and support in bondage and here they sit still there they rest they go no further The chief pretenders to Freedom look no farther they think not of any legitimate and perfect righteousness of Freedom out of bondage The slavish Spirits of the people of God in bondage desire private Freedom only a tanto but not a toto If they could have but so much of their just Right for themselves they care not they wish no more the Harlot so she had but half the Child was indifferent the mind of a murderous and bloody Harlot so satisfaction in the people of God with half righteousness or part or with imperfect righteousness denotes the basest mind of bloody Iezebel mother of all abominations and filthyness So long as Israel were of this wicked and base mind and demanded no more then Freedom in part their cruel burdens and ridged slavery was justly greater and they were never freed nor fit for deliverance till Moses demanded all and they accordingly acted with him and had all their Rights entire All imperfect righteousness whatsoever is impostury and deceit of the curse of bondage and a main cause of rejection and destruction to those that do it or joyning rest in it as Sauls imperfect righteousness was the cause of his utter rejection and of his and his whole Families destruction All true righteousness is of Freedom only a fruit of the tree of life from death for ever a freeing righteousness so soon as the creatures that came into the Ark did but one work of Freedom out of bondage they were all freed from destruction So soon as the Israelites did but that one work of Freedom out of bondage in coming by their Families into their own houses c. they were all freed from destruction and so soon as the people of God shall perform but this one work of Freedom out of bondage which is to come out of great tribulations reall bondage by their Anti-typical Families into their Oeconomick bodies and houses mystical they shall be freed from all coercive externall power of bondage destruction sin and death for ever these works were the first fruits of the Tree of life in a Type this work shall be the first fruit of the Tree of life prefigured When man Christ mystical shall put forth his hand and taste this legitimate and perfect fruit of the righteousness of Freedom out of bondage he shall live in the power of life and Freedom of God for ever and never be wholy subjected to vanity corruption and death of bondage any more The people of God and their righteousness shall be perfect after their pattern their mother the new Policy or City descending that City shall be four square equally without convex or indents every way and on every side exactly just and even Secondly the height and bredth and length of that City shall be equal So the reallity of things what they are and the judgments and estimations of the people of God upon them and their executions according to their iust estimations shall be exactly paral or equal Thirdly that City shall be perfectly square the most firm pattern of immovable stability So shall they and their righteousness be permanent in a progressive way in the righteousness of Freedom for ever and not generally revolt any more but if any as particular persons shall look back they shall return back and cease to be the people of God Lots wife delivered out of Sodom lookt back and returned back to destruction They that look back unto the horour of darkness of bondage shall return back unto that horour of darkness Nothing so displeased God as the spirit of apostacy and slavery in his people in looking back unto the house of bondage the land of their destruction after they were delivered out of it The Free people of God indeed must and will constantly press forward in the power of perfect and legitimate righteousness of Freedom and follow after Rev 14.4 and be led by the Lamb wheresoever he goeth I have herein as in the sight of God discharged my Faith Faithfulness reapes what it doth not sow destruction to those that are Faithful but this God disposeth The sequel to my self whether love or hatred bonds or liberty life or death I leave to God it is sufficient for me If I may by all meanes discharge my duty and disoblige my Conscience FINIS ERRATA Page 5. l. 22. Lieut. Col. Hammon read Lieut. Gen. Hammon p. 18. l. 7. their own cause r. their cause p. 18. l. 23. that are r. that act p. 21. l. 3. Representative r. represented p. 21. l. 6. as destroyeth r. and destroyeth and l. 10. tdatare r. that are p. 30. l. 2. where r. wherein p. 32. l. 18. time past r. in time past p. 41. l. 6. really r. real p. 41. l. 14. defaultings r. defalkings p. 52. l. 16. to be repented of r. and to be repented of p. 53. l. 3. Widdows r. The Widdows p. 55. l. 2. are broken r. were broken p. 63. l. 9. vilest r. the vilest p. 63. l. 9. there the affections r. their affections p. 63. l. 12. the sorcerers r. their sorcerers p. 67. l. 29. there food r. these food p. 69. l. 8. the oppressors r. their oppressors p. 69. l. 9. these authors r. the authors p. 87. l. 24. begin r. began p. 88. l. 10. emisary r. immissary p. 90. l. 2. define r. defie p. 96. l. 1. did which fell r. which fell p. 98. l. 36. them naturally r. them really p. 102. l. 2. That Souldiers r. that Souldiers with a little t.
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
life also Want is Vertues clog and the most violent spur and provocation to all wickedness It fits men for all vassallage and slavery It puts out the eys of reason and renders mens minds brutish It subjects their Spirits to all servile wickedness and their Bodies to all unjust burdens of corporal calamities and miseries It maketh Souldiers slaves to bloudy Designes Vassals of base and wicked enterprises to kill if commanded or not commanded one another or their best friends and to engage in bloud against any or against all the Free-born People to destroy them Extreme and unjust Poverty caused by cruel oppression is the iron chain of cursed bondage which makes men slaves to other mens wills and wickedness Slaves to their own sins slaves to all miseries slaves to their own utter â—uine slaves to destruction of Body and Spirit They that put the poor and the Souldiers and the middle sort of people in iron chains of unjust wrongs and oppressions and they that do not effectually endeavour to break their chains and to redress their wrongs and oppressions bring the guilt of the bloud of the poor and of the Nation upon themselves and upon the Nation The poor of the Nation for the most part are Souldiers undone in service turn'd out and deprived of their proper Rights the price of their bloud Many of the Nation are made poor in pursuing their and the Peoples Rights and Liberties and the rest of the poor for the most part are such as are undone by slavery and oppression I mention these things for no other purpose but that the bloud-guilty defilement of the Land if possible may be purged from it and for redress of it I propose First that the Foot may have 12. d. per diem from the begining of the Service as was promised or as due by a better right the just claim of Equity and Necessity Why should the Souldiers eat ashes and be clothed in rags by those for whom they have purchased by their hazard and bloud to be clothed in Scarlet and to eat the fat of the Land Secondly That the constant future pay for the Foot be at least and when things are as cheap as they have bin twelve pence per diem and that their present and future pay be as rates of all provisions are now and may be so much above twelve pence per diem as may competently maintain them and their charge in due health with honesty 3. That Troopers and Dragoons may have 2. s 6. d per diem from the begining of the Service and for future what more may justly countervail their necessities the deerness and scarcity of all things considered 4. That the sick and wounded Horse and Foot that for that cause are out of Service may have the same pay that they in service have but not pay for horses except they keep horses for the Service The Souldiers when sick and wounded have most need of their pay and they best deserve it who in discharge of their faithfulness have suffered most 5. That the sick and wounded Officers may the same pay which they had in service it being extreme hard and unjust measure that they or the Souldiers should be then most destitute when they have most need or that their faithfulness wherein they have hazarded their lives and bin wounded should be punished with privation or abridgement of their pay 6. That all Officers and Souldiers that have bin faithful to their trust and for that cause or otherwise unjustly turn'd out dismissed or cashiered may be forthwith restored to their respective charge and places of trust and have all legal and due administrations of Right and Justice and equal and answerable reparations given them in all just relations For it is unreasonable and unjust in the Nation and in its Trustees and Officers and dangerous to the Nation That they that have bin ever faithful to their trust and born the burden of the Service should be turned out or cashiered especially without due satisfaction and other Officers and Souldiers perhaps false to their present Trust or late enemies to it or newters or not fit for Service should ' be trusted with the charge and trust of the Nation Seventhly That all Widdows and Orphants or the next kindred of all such Souldiers or Officers if they have been faithful to their Trust as have been or shall be dead or slain in Service may have their Arrears Audited and paid them that the Nation may be free from the guilt and sins of bloud and oppression least God say to it or to many of it as Elisha to Ahab for Naboths bloud Hast thou killed and also taken possession or least God plead the Cause of the many thousands of Souldiers slain by cruel and unjust murder and oppression and the Cause of their desolate widdows and fatherless with the Nation and Representative of it and say Have you killed not one man as Naboth was but one but many thousans not who denied you their vineyards but gave their lives for you to do you service Have you killed them by keeping back the slender pittance of their deer purchase their due Pay which should have kept them alive Have you killed there by keeping back the price of their blouds who kept not back their own bloud that they might preserve your lives and Estates entire Did you enthral their bodies in all corporal calamities exigences extremities even unto death and did you kill their bodies did their calamities and extreme exigents enslave their Souls and Spirits in all excess of wickedness for â—so greater inforcement can be to all wickedness then necessity are they utterly cut of and killed Body and Soul in and by their and in them your wickedness And have you cut off and killed them in body and soul To keep back and bridle them from wickedness had been your duty and did you set your steely spurs of oppression in their sides and cause them to rush headlong into all wickedness and perish in it Did you kill them by keeping back the price of their hazard and bloud which had you paid them they had not perished or you had bin guiltless And have you taken possessian of it Did you possess the whole Land in peace and did you keep back when you had no need the price of their lives from their desolate widdows and forsaken fatherless Did you give possession of it to others that had no right to it and did dogs to whom it was not due lick their bloud Did you when you had power free the Nation from bloud or by not doing it plunge and re-involve it in a new bloudy War Did Ahab when sharply reproved humble himself and have you hardned your hearts when friendly admonished in the spirit of meekness Did you harken to corrupters and seducers and despise imprison persecute and destroy those that did faithfully admonish and friendly exhort you Let the Nation at least the Conscientious Party seriously consider these things as
may be easily and freely chosen which cannot be otherwise obtained Secondly by them the soveraignity power and freedom of the people may be derived and convayed to their Representatives that they may improve it in righteousness for the profit peace and safety of the Nation Thirdly by them the increase and benefit of the peoples soveraignty power and freedom may be returned back from their Representatives to the people otherwise it is and wil be wholy obstructed 9ly The reasons of an Agreement are because if an Agreement be not the dissolution of the whole Nation must follow When the clay and Iron in the feet of the great image could not agree and mix the whole body of the Image was dasht in peices and dissolved It is every mans dutie to discharge his utmost faith and care to continue all just wayes and meanes to procure the peace and Agreement of the people and Nations safety And that only which can cause and continue a firme Agreement is just satisfaction of all Interests without which no right Agreement can be made or kept and the nations destruction must follow Therefore let the nation rouse up it self and let the people of it stir up one another to joyn as one man unto the Lord as Israel did unto the Lord at Mizpah and agree that all just interests may be satisfied that the poor and middle sort of people may have their just interests the rich theirs the Nation it s the Soldiers theirs the disbanded sick and wounded Soldiers and Officers theirs and that Widdows Orphans and friends of those that are dead and slain their interests that all evil doers may have their due interests and they that do well theirs That Presbyterians and Independents may have their proper interests the late Kings party theirs Papists and Protestants theirs the conscientious party theirs and that all sects nations and persons may have their just rights Let the Nation and Army at least they that are conscientious in both cal upon and stir up the people and one another to vindicate and dis-oblige their faith in truth and righteousness unloose the bands of wickednesse undo the heavy burthens break every yoak and let the oppressed go free Let them feed the hungry harbour the poor and cloth the naked at least in their own houses and with their own food and rayment To say the satisfying of all just interests would undo or impoverish the Nation is absurd and wicked for the not satisfying of all just interests is the utter undoing and destruction of the Nation and that real crying sin and guilt of blood filling the hands of all persons and overflowing as a boundless River the whole Land whereof the rivers of Aegypt turn'd into blood were but types and shaddows But grant that the satisfying of all just interests would undo and impoverish the Nation yet to do it were but justice and what God absolutely willeth and requireth and the not doing of it is in every person under what specious pretence of holiness soever a rejecting and renouncing of God and a rebeling against him And to suppose or say it would impoverish and undo the Nation is most absurd and false for suppose a man having many bones broken and shivers causing violent feavers and symptomes of death a Chyrurgeon should set right all his bones asswage his feaver and recure the party to perfect health of body limbe and life it were most senseless for that party to say he were impoverisht and undon because all his joynts and bones are set right and he fully restored to perfect health Iust interests unsatisfied are fractures and distortions in the body Politique the nation and shivers causing feavers and death and every man in the Nation is a distorted member a limbe out of joynt a broken bone or shiver because every man is deprived of his or depriveth others of their proper rights and interests Now suppose every distorted and broken limbe shiver and bone were set right in its proper compage and place that is if every several person of the Nation did reciprocally give afford to and receive from each other their respective rights and just interests it were most unreasonable and absurd that the Nation or any of it should say that all its bones and limbes are broken and out of joynt but now all are set right and healed therefore the Nation is impoverished and undon that every person in the body Politique was deprived of his or did deprive others of their proper interest but now every man injoys his own just due and proper right therefore the Nation is impoverished and undon That the not satisfying of all just interests caused violent feavers and evils of war and famin and desperate symptomes of destruction to the Nation But now the Nation by satisfying all just interests hath happily recovered perfect health and peace in truth therefore the Nation is impoverished and undon all such conclusions are most false and wicked and the contrary conclusions are infallibly true therefore they that shal bring the guilt of the Nations sins and their and its destruction upon it and upon themselves are and must be without all colour or excuse 10 But lastly if the people like Jabesh Gilead shall sit under the shadow of their own destruction in chains of bondage and death and shall not as one man unite to pursue and Agreement in Righteousness or if no such Agreement shall or can be procured Then all the Free-born of the Nation are with all Christian speedy care and providence to constitute such a Government amongst themselves as may by Justice absolute and impartial preserve the Persons Estates Lives and entire Beings of each other and of all those that close with and adhere unto them and to come at the call and command of God forth from Babel falling down as a Milstone cast by the hand of a mighty Angel into the midst of the Sea The reasons are because there is a necessity laid upon them from the call and command of God and also God gives the reasons of this necessity Rev. 18.4 Come out of her my people that ye be not partakers of her sins and that ye receive not of her plagues Her that is Babylon is the great City called spiritually Sodom Aegypt Babylon where also our Lord was crucified this and all Nations the whole World Her sins and plagues are the sins of those Cities and the plagues of their sins in the Truth and substance which were in these Cities in a type Gods call and command for his people to come out of her is the substance of his call to Lot in Sodom by Angels to Israel in Aegypt by Moses to the Iews in Babylon by Prophets and to the Saints in Jury by Apostles My people that is all that are so far as man may judge obedient to the call and command of God to be delivered from her sins and plagues and their own destruction as Lots Family in Sodom and Noahs Family in
face thou shalt die But these as Nabals servants said of him are such sonnes of Belial that the people of God cannot speak to them nor make any humble and faithful Addresses to them to undeceive and convince their judgements and cause them to see and forsake their bloody sins and oppressions or if they do make any such humble and faithful Addresses they do not only raile upon them as Nabal did and send them away emptie with churlish answers but add greater wrongs to their injuries and cruelty to their oppressions they answer their humble and faithful Addresses by doing double injurie and satisfie their just interests by making their oppressions so much greater as their thigh is thicker than their little finger they do not only threaten to kill them as Pharoah did Moses but do murder and kill them either by immediate stroak of lawless and wicked violence or by injury oppression and extortion But they will not believe that injuries oppressions and extortions wel hooded and masked under false formes of holy pretences can be murder as if Saul standing in the midst of the people was Saul but Saul hid amongst the stuffe was not Saul but Saul hid amongst the stuffe was Saul and the people ran and brought him thence and he stood before the people So injuries oppressions and extortions hooded and masked under formes of holy pretences are murders hid in the stuffe and the people must run as the Israelits did to fetch them thence and set them before the people Murders of the tallest statures are ever hid amongst the stuffe and these implicit massacres are most in number and the worst kinds of murder Lam. 4.9 They that be slain with the sword are better than they that are slain with hunger Therefore to murder the poor or midle-sort of people or the Soldiers by poverty or hunger caused by unjust oppression is worse than to slay them with the sword If the people do not seek out these sinister and implicit murders that are hiden amongst the stuffe and seâ— them before the people they cannot be freed from their Nations sins and their and its destruction 11ly They cannot support her because of the grand imposturies of her Sorcerers and Seducers who by her harkning to them do deceive and harden her heart The Kings of Egypt and their servants did once harken to the wholsome councel of the people of God then they exceeded all Nations in peace riches strength and glory but when they rejected their counsel and harkened to Sorcerers and corrupters creatures most vile and filthy they were led and fel into infamous sins and the plagues of their destruction came upon them But by her that is Babels Sorcerers all Nations are deceived Rev. 18 23. Her Rulers Commanders and Officers reject the people of God and hate them and their Councels and their own Sorcerers and flatterers vilest and most wicked of execrable creatures take up their the affections and understandings and entire beings as spirits take up little children and sel them for slaves into far countries And why do they dote so upon the Sorcerers because they cover their filthy sins and nakedness with the figg-leaves of their Libels cast stumbling blocks before them betray and destroy them but these Sorcerers must set no name to their Libels lest the vertue of their hocus pocus vanish like bloome colours as soon as it sees light these lead them and by these they are and will lead and hardned that the people of God cannot by any faithfulnes undeceive and convince their judgments that they might be freed from their sins and from the plagues of their destruction 12ly The people of God in Babylon cannot support her from falling because they themselves are fallen in the spirit of their forme which is love The Apostle distiguisheth man into body soul and spirit and the form of the new man into faith hope and love Spirits are the fiery living and executive powers of creatures so is love in the people of God But their love is fallen from all lively executive heat and become contrary to the nature of spirits cold The love of many saith our Saviour shal wax cold Coldness of love is the power of death in the spirit and sourse of life from whence universal defection in the people of God floweth their goodness righteousness and faith is cold dying and decaying their courage and constancy wavering as a wave of the Sea the Sun and the light and the Moon and the Starres are in them darkened Their faith to God and man doth but deceive and destroy themselves and others they are pillars made up of shadows and deceits dashing pitchers broken pot-sheards The stars of heaven fell to the earth as a fig-tree casts her untimely figs when she is shaken of a mighty wind Rev. 6.13 They are the stars fallen from heaven to earth from heat to coldness from life to death or are dying They are Fig-trees that keep their leaves and cast their fruits They have left the power of Righteousness for appearances and embraced like Demas this present World Their Designes and Actions relate not to God nor the good of one another but terminate in their own corrupt ends and interests They are ignorant of true Righteousness and know not what it is nor wherein it consists but are zealous in their own Righteousness For the Jews the Type of the people of God had a Righteousness of their own wherein they were exceeding strict and that Righteousness was extreme wickedness So the people of God have a Righteousness not of God but of their own not of faith but of their own fancies and they are zealous in tihs their own Righteousness The Righteousness which the Jews had of their own consisted in Sacrifices refrainings from meats washings and in solemn fruitless Assemblies and Meetings Isa 1.10 and they were most hot and violent in pursuit of this their own Righteousness when they were most cold and fallen in their love to true Righteousness So the people of God being most cold and fallen in their love to true Righteousness are most hot and violent in pursuit of their own Righteousness which consists much in many Assemblings and fruitless solemn Meetings most needful were they well improved where they come together to serve God by jaring one with another What is true Righteousness the doing of that which is good and just unto all men they call moral and civil Righteousness and think it not essential in Religion whereas to give to every one their just right and proper due to evil doers their just reward to those that do well theirs and to all persons their own proper interests is the only expressive esential part of Religion and the visible life and marrow of all righteousness pure religion and undefiled with them is to abound in fruitless and needless disputes nice tenets and fond opinions They conceive that true righteousness and their obedience consists much in certain joynt solemnities of
opened the locks and iron barres of all otherwise impossibilities in Israels way out of bondage into the land of promised liberty was the pillar of fire which after they hearkened to Gods call and command in coming out of Egypt and had manifested perfect obedience in a type went before them and led them And the people of God that shall manifest perfect obedience to Gods call and command shall find the pillar of light and truth from God in their own spirits which is the true key of liberty from all burdens destruction and bondage of soul and body They that manifest not the life and power of God by ready obedience to Gods call and command in coming out of bondage to all oppression misery unrighteousness and destruction of soul and body are not only dead and drie bones but they rebel against God and sell his talent and power their breath of life from him into bondage God called upon the drye bones that they might live and did they rebel and reject life no but as the Prophet called upon them to hear the word of the Lord there was a noyse and a shaking and the bones came together bone to his bone That noise was the rallying noise of a re-uniting Army These dead and dry bones were all the people of God slain and destroyed by slavery into whom the breath of life from God was re-enterings and they by ready hearkening and obedience willingly received it Did they then return to the valley of bones never but became an exceeding great Army and never sould themselves into bondage unto death and destruction any more Israel being gathered out of bondage wherein they were scattered in Egypt was an exceeding great Army before the most miserable and slavish but then the freest-people that ever were They that were poor amongst them before were then rich and the persons and estates of poor and rich were-freed from bondage all the house of bondage durst not lay their hand upon a Kid of the Hebrews to bring it back into bondage Before there was no appearance of the life and power of God in them The drie bones when God called upon them to hearken and live did hearken and live but Israel at first when God called upon them to hearken and live did not hearken but refused life Exod. 6.9 The life and power of God in his People is first manifested by their real hearkening and resolved obedience when God calls them out of bondage to all that he commandeth and when their hearkening obedience and righteousness are not Sorceries that is are not sayings but doings not shaddows but substance and not parcels of obedience which are but Hypocrisie but perfect obedience The first real appearance of the life and power of God in Israel in a Type was when first they being called out of bondage did all joyntly hearken unto and do all that God commanded them which was when the Passeover was first kept by them wherein as Moses was faithful in all the house of God in a Type so were they every man faithful in his own house in all that God commanded This their joynt faithfulness in keeping the Passeover in a Type was the present and immediate insertion and the ingraffing of them into the life and power of God and that very night they re-united and rallied into a living Army and were delivered from bondage and destruction of body and spirit in a Type the Lambe which they were commanded to kill and eat was called the Lords Passeover Exod. 12.11 and their observance of that command was called the Sacrifice of the Lords Passeover vers 27. It was the first Ordinance which God gave unto Israel and the first fruits of their faith and obedience That Ordinance was an Propheticall Act of a thing really done in Israel or an actuall Prophesie of the same thing in truth and substance which shall be done in and by the true Israel For as all Israel did that very night they were delivered observe and keep the Passeover so all Gods people the true Israel shall and must as certainly observe and do the whole substance of that Ordinance at the instant time of or immediately before their deliverance from reall bondage and destruction whereof the Egyptian was but a Type or shaddow their obedience in that Ordinance was Typically inward and outward Their inward Typicall obedience required and done was in that each family or so many together as might eat up the Lambe did that very night they were freed from bondage eat it in one house without carrying any part of it out and none of them might go out of the house untill the morning vers 22.46 Which shews that Gods People must and shall with one accord depart out of bondage and not by cowardly fears or faithless backslidings betraye and destroy one another or be scattered all over Egypt but co-unite indissolubly in the life and power of God Secondly they did eat the whole Lambe to shew that Gods People must and shall readily do and observe all which God in Christ the Lambe their perfect Freer and Redeemer shall command them that they shall gladly and willingly receive as the best meat when they are most hungry Freedom from all bondage to all unrighteousness sin misery and destruction and come not only out of Egypt but out of Sodom and Babylon and out of bloody and Pharisaical Ierusalem Thirdly they might not eat it soden in water at all but rosted with fire to shew that the spirit of Freedom in Gods People must and shall be fervent as fire and that their love of deliverance from bondage and slavery shall not be as it is cold decayed and dead as Water is the coldest of all Elements God would not accept of but rejected their service that bowed down to drink Water when they were to pursue their deliverance from slavery Iudges 7. They that thirst more after ditch water than Freedom from bondage are sit for nothing but slavery Fourthly they were to eat it with their shooes on their feet and their staf in their hand c. and they were to eat it in hast and the reason is given for it is the Lords Passeover verse 11. to shew that Gods people must and shall pursue their deliverance from bondage with a ready and dilligent preparation to depart and not remissely but in hast the reason is for it is the Lords Passeover that is because if they do not haste to make diligent preparation to come out of Aegypt and Babylon to which God calls them and which God commands and out of all bondage and if God when he comes to passe through Egypt and Babylon find them there he will lay upon them their and their own sins and rebelion and their and their own due plagues and destruction But his People are not ready for deliverance if God should deliver them they can no way use it but mis-improve it to destroy themselves because they make not any reall and faithful
warning The Aegyptians were Chams children the peculiar people of the curse in the antithesis to the promise of blessing and so most contrary to all order matter and form of a free people above all Nations but Israel under their power and command and in bondage unto them were visibly their vassals slaves unto servants bond-slaves to the curse They were servants to God by promise but in power servants to the Aegyptians under whose power they were and so more contrary to all order matter and form of free families persons people and churches then the Aegyptians until being sealed with the bloud of the Pass-over they were called and redeemed unto freedom in the power of God by the Lamb in a Type So usurpers and their servants all that receive the mark of the power of the Beast are the people of the curse servants of servants in antithesis to the true blessing and so their slaves Gods free people excepted most contrary to order matter and form of a free people But Israel Gods free people in bondage to them are visibly their vassals servants to God by promise by power theirs bond-slaves to servants and so are and shall be more contrary to right order matter and form as Persons Families or Churches then the peculiar people of the Curse or any people upon earth until being sealed with the seal of God in the bloud of the Lamb they shall be called and redeemed from the Will and power of Usurpers to the power and Freedom of God in their anti-typical Families The rule and form of a free people is the Law of Law Reason of Reason the Word by the work of his free spirit the elementary form and rule of the law of Nature and Reason is the Scripture But the matter the people of God and their forms Law Reason and Scriptures and the order of both matter and form are kept in chains of slavish dis-use dead to Freedom and Life alive and active unto bondage and death as all Israel living in bondage acted unto bondage onely The most just Law is but a bond-slave to Will and Power Will without Reason is the form of it Right if any be or seem is an effect contingent or a work of Bribery or of by-respects and not of the Law for there can be no right effect from that cause whereof Reason is not the Form and Power Reason is the power of Law-natural the Image of God in man fallen when man fell under the power of bondage and death Dead bodies not presently but in time wholy corrupt and putrifie So this Image and its form Reason though dead did not presently but in time wholy putrifie the order and manner of its dissolution is set forth in that Image in Dan. 2. Howbeit God by his Word the embalming myrrhe of this dead Image hath at some times healed its unsoundness But now this Image and Reason the form of it is as in a Type when the Floud came wholy corrupted and putrified Learning and Ignorance have puft up the wise and foolish and pride hath putrified this Image in man and the form of it Reason as it did in Nebuchadnezzar in a figure for he was the head of Civil Empire and government and a shadow of it from his time in which the Image of God as to Justice Reason and Sobriety is wholy destroyed and the people ruling and ruled turned through pride feral agrest and wild in the substance whereof the same in him was a shadow The wise and learned render reason sensual and divelish the unlearned bruitish Gross and stupid but conceited ignorance and pedantick learning have eaten up like Pharaohs ill-favored lean kine all real Vertue and honesty Religion and the Law and light of Reason is turned putrified filth and dirt of wickedness and folly in the thin bellies of these ill-favored beasts Reason is but a bond-slave to absurd Tenents of fond and sottish bruitishness delatory and evasive sophistry seems most to be but is no part of just reason or of the Image of God but of Satan There 's no true indoles of goodness or good nature left in this Image because the Scriptures are not neither can be but the imaginations of the thoughts of the hearts of men which are in bondage and onely evil continually are as they were in the Type Gen. 6.5 the forms and power of Reason wherefore this spiritual Image in man and the form of it Reason being dead corrupt and putrified as to Freedom Life and Power but alive and active unto bondage and death cannot be the form and power of the Law of the free people of God Thirdly The Scriptures are not but ought to be and shall be the elementary form and power of reason and of the Image of God in man that is they are properly and shall be really the Conduit and Instrument by which the Spirit of life in the Word of God shall convey light of life into the Image of God and into the form of it Reason But the Scriptures are also in bondage of death Rev. 11.7 dead to Freedom and Life and alive and active unto bondage The Scripture is not by strictest pretenders to it extended to Persons Families and People as the elementary form and rule of their Law and Government as Persons Families and people They call the Law of the people the Civil Law and discern it as having it original power and form not from the Scriptures but from the people and for government of Families and Persons and the power of it they think not of it or at least practise not really and indeed any They confine the power of the Scriptures to Churches only as Shimei was to his house in Jerusalem by which means the Scriptures are in bondage and are dead and have no power but to promote empty forms of pretenses and hypocrisie For it is impossible that those herbs that retein the strength and power of poyson in the place where they grow and likewise retein the same strength of poyson in the pot and in the mess should ever be wholsom in the stomack So it is impossible that they that have no power or form of Law or government according to Scriptures as Persons Families or People should have any form or power of Law or Government according to the Scriptures as Churches The Scriptures are a Cup of Gold Rev. 17.4 that is a vessel of pure righteousness not kept in the power of Gods people but in mystical Jezabels hand the mother of all abominations and filthiness Josephs steward said to the Brethren of Joseph That the Silver Cup was that wherein his Master used to drink and indeed to divine The Scriptures are indeed a vessel of perfect honor but as kept in bondage of death in possession and under the power of an harlot a vessel of vilest dishonor a cup of divination full of all abominations and filthiness of her fornications the false wares with which all mercenaries the Merchants of
the earth chandle and trade their high prised deceits of no value which they exchange for the treasure of the earth to make themselves rich some teach against some some against all forms of Godliness and deny all the power of it others press empty forms of fruitless profession and make these and all other painted Sepulchers seem to arise out of this Cup They seem to make the blindest braâ—s of Aegyptian darkness their brain-sick conceits of grossest folly and blasphemy to arise out of this cup. All base Sorcerers and seducers take up this cup for a pretence to dissimulation for lucre sake and make it their instrument to deceive and inslave the Nations subordinate to their own unjust gain and ends The Scriptures are but nets spread only to catch their prey their shaddow of darkness to deceit their vessel of divination to ensnare and destroy the earth for reward All Impostors take up out of this cup forms to deceive for gain unto themselves and they that receive the marke of bondage hardness of heart drink deceit and all deceivers the wages of lying divinations out of this cup. The word of God shall be but is not but the wills and power of wicked Impostors and their filthy lusts and desires are the power of the dead subjected and inslaved Scriptures Therefore the Scriptures in bondage under the formes of vilest and most slavish disuse and death cannot be the form and power of the Image of God nor of reason nor reason of the Law nor the Law of the free people of God But as the abomination of desolation was instead of the Arke of God set up in the Temple of God so right order matter and form of Freedom life and power in the people of God is by a general falling away from what they seemed null and voyd and positive opposit forms and powers of bondage the substance shaddowed by that abomination of desolation set up in the Temple the people of God and in all powers of their being Law reason and Scripture And the matter joyned to these forms is their proper matter in being and the order ends and effects must necessarily as effects their causes follow their productive matter and forms therefore the people of God as families persons people and Churches and all their powers and forms Law reason and Scriptures and the order ends and effects of these forms are wholly in the power of bondage and basest disuse dead to Freedom life and power of God alive and active to slavish destruction sin and death and shall be untill God call them and they come and bring with them all that is theirs out of the power of bondage unto the power and freedom of God in their anti-typical families While Israel was in bondage their persons estates law reason traditions and intire beings were wholly in the same bondage and they never had being nor begining of Freedom until they were called out of the power of bondage unto their proper form of Freedom the power of God and of the Lamb and were gathered and sealed in that power typically by their families So the true Israel and all that is theirs are alike in the same bondage their bodys spirits power rights estates and their forms of being law reason and Scriptures are to life and Freedom voyd of being and begining But by occasion vials of slavish disuse destructive sinful and must so remain untill God gather Israel and all that is theirs from being putrified dust rebelling against him to a being and begining in his power of Freedom by their anti-typical families The dust which after was Man had no order unity nor figure of body whiles it was dust nor fleshly form untill it was transmutated into flesh nor life until the flesh had liniaments and breath of life and not till then it had the begining and being of a man So Israel were and and the true Israel are scattered dividuals of dust and Atomes most contrary to order and unity of a body and form of life When Israel rebelled against God and being cald out of bondage hearkned not Exod. 6.12 they were putrified and scattered dust warring against the life and power of God when they readily hearkned to prepare and keep the Passeover as God comanded then they were changed from dead and scattered dust into fit matter of a redeemed people when all their families were gathered together into their own houses or so many as could eat the Lamb into one house and kept together without going out or stirring from one another then they were rallyed and knit in a compact body when they did eat the Passeover together as God commanded then the life and power of God their breath of life from bondage of death was in a Type breathed into them and that night they were delivered and all the first-born the power of Egypt in a Type were that very night destroyed and God ordained that moneth by an Ordinance for ever to be the beginning of all moneths unto them and the first moneth of the yeare because it was indeed really the first beginning of their being So the true Israel the free people of God and all that is theirs have bin and are in that deep sleep and horror of great darkness of bondage and death in the substance of it did which fell upon Abraham in a figure Gen. 15. and are really those divided peices of flesh betwixt which the furnace and burning lampe passed which peices of flesh putrified That deep sleep and great darkness and those peices of flesh were a twofold figure of Abrahams seed after the flesh and after the spirit in bondage dead disobedient and putrified dust which being called hearken not When they shall readily hearken to prepare and keep the true Passeover the substance and truth of the typical then they shall be changed from putrid dust repugnant to all life and freedom of God into fit matter of a free people When their anti-typical families shall be gathered in the unity of the spirit of life and freedom unto the power of God in their natural and mystical houses to prepare and keep the true Passeover and not revolt not stir out nor desert one another then they shall be rallied into the com-pages and joynts of a body of a Free People When they shall eat the Passeover together as God commandeth that is when they shall do really the works of righteousness not the Type but the truth and substance of what God and the Lamb requires of a people redeemed to life and Freedom then the power of God their breath of life from real bondage shall be breathed into them and that time which is at hand shall be unto them and all that is theirs really the very first begining of being Then Israel and theirs first began in a Type and then the true Israel as persons families people and churches shall first begin really That shall be the first time wherein their proper Rights Estates Law Power and the