Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
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A54068
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Three queries propounded to the King and Parliament, in the fear of the Most High, and in the tender love of my soul to them
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Penington, Isaac, 1616-1679.
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1662
(1662)
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Wing P1208; ESTC R220473
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7,425
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11
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the Will of the Lord be done saith my soul Post-script O Dear Friends hearken to the Voice of the Love of my heart which speaketh thus unto you O wait wait to feel somewhat of God somewhat of his Divine Life and Power stirring in your hearts and travel in the Light and leadings of it out of the earthly nature leaving the corruption of man behind which makes you miserable and putting on the Holiness and Righteousness of the Nature of God day by day which will make you happy as ye are made partakers of it Yea do but come into the Power of that Religion which ye your selves profess not so much minding the outward form for it is not of so much value and ye shall find that we shall agree in Religion sooner than ye are aware Now if in your hearts ye shall ask me What it is to come into the Power of that Religion which ye your selves profess I shall appeal unto your own souls whether it be not this even To forsake the Devil and all his works taking up the Cross unto your own hearts lust and corrupt wayes and under this Cross wherein is the power of God felt by them that mind it and wait upon God there with humble and subject spirits to fight the battels of Christ against temptations to sin and the souls enemies even until death Here if ye will enter at this narrow gate and walk on in this streight way unto the Kingdom into which flesh and blood cannot enter but the selfish nature and earthly spirit must be left behind in this Religion which indeed is the substance of all true Religion we can readily meet and unite with you But if ye will set up a form to stop the power and progress of the Spirit of the Lord in the hearts of his people in this Nation and not mind the power of Religion your selves but with vehemency go about to force others to your form which ye cannot truly say is of God but of man in this we cannot close with you but must be content in the will of God to suffer under you the time which the Lord hath allotted which ye cannot go beyond And blessed for ever be the Name of the Lord our God who hath made us acquainted with that Life and Power which was before all forms and wayes of Religion and Worship of man's inventing and which will be after them and who hath hitherto born up our spirits in the Testimony which he hath given us to bear to his living Truth and Worship and who we doubt not but will yet bear us up even to a Conquest in his Spirit over all that he hath called us forth to testifie against And that great City or building of Religion which is built up by man's wisdom and maintained by man's strength we are sure is falling and shall fall throughout all the Earth yea man's striving to re-edifie and re-establish it will but make the ruins thereof more speedy and more dreadful The mouth of the Lord hath spoken it both in the Scriptures of Truth which cannot be broken and in the hearts of many of his Servants in this day of his appearance in spirit to those the eyes of whose spirits he hath opened and by whom he hath given a Visit and Warning to the Earth which the earthly ear cannot hear but will be overtaken and surprized with the Day of the Lord and O what running and seeking will there be to the rocks and hills and mountains for an hiding-place from the wrath of the Lamb but none will be then found O miserable earthly-spirited man who hast passed away thy time in a dream and hast little minded or regarded the salvation of thy soul or considered what thy present vain pleasures and courses would tend to what wilt thou then do There is a pit prepared for the wicked I speak not an imagination of mine own indeed it is the Truth of God Now the Lord seeks the souls of lost men to save them from the pit but their ears are dull of hearing their eyes vailed their hearts grosly fatted and made insensible with the sences and delights of the earthly nature and the Voice of God with the things that concern their eternal peace yea their present welfare also cannot enter into them and so they let slip the time of their Redemption and waste away the season of their Visitation hardly ever so much as thinking what will become of them in the end O Lord my God awaken thy poor creatures that they may live and not dye rather let thy Judgments break forth to awaken them than that they should thus run on towards utter destruction even to perish from thy Life and Blessedness and to be swallowed up in the misery torment and wrath due to that nature which they have contracted and wallowed like swine in Every nature principle and spirit is travelling towards its end O man take heed what nature thou art of in what principle and spirit thou actest and towards what thou travellest And remember that God loveth his creature thy destruction is not of him if thou perish but in him is thy help if thou hearken to his Voice and turn at the Reproofs of that which he hath placed near thee even in thy heart to reprove sin in thee and to beget thee into the love and holiness of his Life and Nature leavening thee into a new man as thou becomest subject to the checks and leadings thereof This is pleasing to the Lord that which proceeds from this and is performed in this is the true Worship and not that which man hath invented and with which the earthly nature is quieted and satisfied but the power of Life turns from It is the great mercy of the Lord to stop any man in the way of his error and happy is he that is stopped by him Another Post-script YEt one thing perhaps as my last unto you let me freely propose and be not hasty in spirit but wait on God for skill and ability to weigh the thing aright and to give an upright answer thereto as before him in the secrets of your consciences It is briefly this Why may not the power of Religion be permitted to flourish under you cannot the Government of God's Spirit and your Government stand together I beseech you consider it No man knoweth how short his time is nor what is to come after his present determination of things It is now your day O that ye had the true Light to walk by in it that ye might not afterwards repent and that my heart might be gladded concerning you who have so prayed for you as if I had felt mine own soul in your conditions Isaac Penington THE END
hand of the Lord Sure I am the Lord is able to overturn you as easily as he overturned them that were in power before you What is man to the Lord what is his flesh to the Lord's Spirit What great tree could stand before the late vehement-wind where the Lord gave it power which was terrible and dreadful tearing up by the very roots which might be a figure and warning where the Lord gives eyes to reade After ye have done all ye can even made Laws as strong as ye can and put them in the strictest course of execution ye can one night from the Lord may end the controversie and shew whether we please the Lord in obeying him or ye in making Laws against us for our fidelity and obedience to him And as the Lord is able to overturn you so if ye mistake your work misinterpreting the passages of his Providence and erring in heart concerning the ground of his former displeasure and so through the error of judgment set your selves in opposition against him replanting the plants which he will not have grow and plucking up the plants of his planting do ye not in this case provoke the Lord even to put forth the strength which is in him against you We are poor worms alas if ye had only us to deal with we should be nothing in your hands but if his strength stand behind us we shall prove a very burdensome stone and ye will hardly be able to remove us out of the place wherein God hath set us and where he pleaseth to have us disposed of And happy were it for you if instead of persecuting us ye your selves were drawn to wait for the same begettings of God which we have felt out of the earthly nature into his Life and Nature and did learn of him to govern in that then might ye be established indeed and be freed from the danger of those shakings and overturnings which God is hastening upon the Earth Now because ye may be apt to think that I write these things for my own sake and the sakes of my Friends and Companions in the Truth of God that we might escape the sufferings and severity which we are like to undergo from you and not so mainly and chiefly for your sakes lest ye should bring the wrath of God and misery upon your souls and bodies to prevent this mistake in you I shall add what followeth Indeed this is not the intent of my heart for I have long expected and do still expect this cup of outward affliction and persecution from you and my heart is quieted and satisfied therein knowing that the Lord will bring glory to his Name and good to us out of it but I am sure it is not good for you to afflict us for that which the Lord requireth of us and wherein he accepteth us and ye will find it the bitterest work that ever ye went about and in the end will wish that the Lord had rather never given you this day of prosperity than that he should suffer you thus to make use of it Now that ye may the more clearly see the temper of my spirit and how my heart stands in this thing I shall a little open unto you my faith and hope about it in these ensuing particulars First I am assured in my heart and soul that this despised people called Quakers is of the Lord 's begetting in his own Life and Nature Indeed had I not seen the power of God in them and received from the Lord an unquestionable Testimony concerning them I had never looked towards them for they were otherwise very despiseable in my eyes And this I cannot but testifie concerning them that I have found the Life of God in me owning them and that which God hath begotten in my heart refreshed by the power of Life in them and none but the Lord knows the beauty and excellency of Glory which he hath hid under this mean appearance Secondly The Lord hath hitherto preserved them against great oppositions and is still able to preserve them Every Power hitherto hath made nothing of over-running them yet they have hitherto stood by the care and tender mercy of the Lord and the several Powers which have persecuted them have fallen one after another Thirdly I have had experience my self of the Lord's goodness and preservation of me in my suffering with them for the Testimony of his Truth who made my bonds pleasant to me and my noisom prison enough to have destroyed my weakly and tenderly-educated nature a place of pleasure and delight where I was comforted by my God night and day and filled with prayers for his People as also with love to and prayers for those who had been the means of outwardly-afflicting me and others upon the Lord's account Fourthly I have no doubt in my heart that the Lord will deliver us The strength of man the resolution of man is nothing in my eye in compare with the Lord. Whom the Lord loveth he can save at his pleasure Hath he begun to break our bonds and deliver us and shall we now distrust him Are we in a worse condition than Israel was when the Sea was before them the Mountains on each side and the Egyptians behind pursuing them He indeed that looketh with man's eye can see no ground of hope nor hardly a possibility of deliverance but to the eye of Faith it is now nearer than when God began at first to deliver Fifthly It is the delight of the Lord and his glory to deliver his People when to the eye of sence it seemeth impossible Then doth the Lord delight to stretch forth his Arm when none else can help and then doth it please him to deal with the enemies of his Truth and People when they are lifted up above the fear of him and are ready to say in their hearts concerning them They are now in our hands who can deliver them Well were it not in love to you and in pitty in relation to what will certainly befall you if ye go on in this course I could say in the joy of my heart and in the sence of the good will of my God to us who suffereth these things to come to pass Go on try it out with the Spirit of the Lord come forth with your Laws and Prisons and spoiling of our goods and Banishment and Death if the Lord please and see if ye can carry it For we come not forth against you in our own wills or in any enmity against your Persons or Government or in any stubborness or refractoriness of spirit but with the Lamb-like nature which the Lord our God hath begotten in us which is taught and enabled by him both to do his Will and to suffer for his Name sake And if we cannot thus overcome you even in patience of spirit and in love to you and if the Lord our God please not to appear for us we are content to be overcome by you So