Selected quad for the lemma: enemy_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
enemy_n	good_a	seed_n	tare_n	1,657	5	12.7414	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A54075	The way of life and death made manifest and set before men whereby the many paths of death are impleaded, and the one path of life propounded and pleaded for in some positions concerning the apostacy from the Christian spirit and life, with some principles guiding out of it : as also in answers to some objections whereby the simplicity in some may be entangled : held forth in tender good will both Papists and Protestants who have generally erred from the faith for these many generations, since the dayes of the apostles, and with that which they have erred from are they comprehended / by Isac Pennington the younger.	Penington, Isaac, 1616-1679.; Fox, George, 1624-1691. Cause of all error.; Burrough, Edward, 1634-1662. Here follows the testimony concerning the estate of the true church.	1658 (1658)	Wing P1219; ESTC R14864	89,559	110

light and there enjoyes the fulness of life and he gives a measure of his own light to draw from the darkness and he who believes and follows this is led by it unto God from whom it came and being come out of the darkness unto him he begins again to feel the springs of life the fresh springs of life which are in him He that believeth is come to the well of salvation and draws living water out of it and drinks of the living water continually so that he can thirst no more yea out of his belly flow rivers of living water This is the fruit of the true faith but this is not the fruit of the faith of the Apostacy but there the soul remains stil disunited to God and united to the darkness and drinks not of the living streams but drinks dead water the fountain of pure life is not open to it but the fountain of iniquity and that blood which clenseth and taketh away the sin is not known There is onely a dream of these things in the dark night of apostacy by which dream the conscience is a little quieted for the present but when the witnes awakes and the light of the day shines the soul which is lean wil find it self in the hands of the enemy in the bonds of sin and feel that it never new that power that could redeem it but the subtil Serpent deceived it with a name in stead of the thing This is the true way the narrow way I can in the presence of the living God set my seal to the truth of it which it hath pleased God to discover and make manifest again after the long dark night of Apostacy And we come not to it by hearing or receiving of any new notions or apprehensions of things but by feeling that which puts an end to all creaturely notions and apprehensions and we grow in it by the increase of that thing in us The seed to which the promise was made the seed which was before Abraham was is felt and his day is seen and rejoyced in and by the light thereof the darkness is discovered and the kingdom of darkness is assaulted And as it dayly fals in many particulars so it shall at length fal in the general and the Kingdoms of this world shal become the Kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ and ye shal reign upon the earth where sin and Antichrist have long reigned and kept him down And though there be a great rage and out-cry among the people and heathenish professors yet the decree is gone forth and Sions King shal reign upon the holy hill of Sion and the hills and mountains shal melt before him and the earth shal shake round about him Therefore gather your selves together muster up your strong forces O ye several sorts of carnal professors Let all your differences one against another fal and joyn together against him who is against you all improve the Serpents wisdom and form arguments out of the Scripture thereby with the utmost of the skil and understanding of flesh get the Kings Rulers and Magistrates of the earth on your side too handle all the weapons of the flesh skilfully Dispute reproach revile whip stock imprison starve nay put to death See if you can uphold your kingdom for there is a mighty one come forth against you who will take the vineyard the kingdom the inheritance from you and give it to another and on you shall come that death and darkness that misery and destruction which ye have put far from you and preached as the portion of others Therefore consider your condition in the fear of the Lord and if ye feel not your selves able to fight it out make your peace betimes and let your greatest crowns your choisest wisdom and strength in the flesh be laid down at the feet of Christ at the lowest appearance of his light in the conscience Let not the least check of his spirit be spighted there but esteemed above the highest notions of light that ye have gathered in or can gather with your fleshly understandings And indeed it is no less then its due for this which runs fresh from the Spirit is more living in it self and more proper to that mans present estate to whom it comes then whatever he himself by his understanding can gather from the letter There hath been a precious seed of God long stirring in this Nation but it hath been oppressed and kept in bondage by the spirit of Pharoah and his wise Egyptians who would subject it to their laws and worships and not let Israel go out of Egypt at Gods cal to worship him in spirit and truth but would keep him in forms and waies of mans invention The Lord hath poured out his plagues upon this spirit and more and more wrought out the liberty of his people but as the plagues cease this spirit hardens it self and assaies the reducing of Israel into bondage again And as Pharoah renews the bondage of Israel so God renews the plagues on Pharoah and his Egyptians Pharoah hath a stubborn wil and a great wisdom and power and is loth to let Israel go but the Lord also is wise and strong and hath a wil more righteous then Pharoahs and by his wisdom and strength will he effect his will and Pharoahs shal not stand Who is such a stranger in Israel that hath not observed that as God began to raise up the seed in this Nation and cal it into liberty so the spirit of the wise Egyptians rose up against it exclaiming of error heresy blasphemy new waies new lights c And doubtless many tares have sprung up but the aime of the enemy was not so much to pluck up these tares as to destroy the one good seed of wheat Herod did not aime at killing all the Infants in Bethlehem but he would rather kill them all then have Christ live What preaching on the one hand what running to the Magistrate on the other hand and all to destroy this young babe When any different way of worship did appear as of Independency Anabaptism or of seeking and waiting for the truth how did they make an head against them and cry out against them for fear the young child should be born and appear there And now they see their own image brought forth there they are at peace with them and having discovered that where no part of the image or mark can be received but there is another nature in life and truth brought forth and no form without life wil down now they know where to shoot all their darts now they know against whom to invent and speak all manner of evil and against whom to direct all their envy rage and out-cryes and to prepossess all sorts of persons every where with all manner of prejudices that the truth may not spread any where but be opposed every where And all persons minds there are so filled before hand with the venome of the

Christ reign in the heart and let him trample all mans invented forms of knovvledg and vvorship under his feet and give up thy self to be led by him into the true knovvledg and vvorship in the spirit and in the truth And now you who find your hearts touched and convinced of the truth and find any desire kindled in you after the living God and an hungring and thirsting after his righteousness Take notice of these three things which I have upon my heart to say to you by way of advice 1. Know and take up thy cross the Cross of Christ the daily Cross of Christ The Cross of Christ is that which crosseth the natural and this is the power of God to deliver from the natural How should the earthly understanding the earthly wil the earthly affections with the elementary nature which have had their swinge in the earth be crucified and slain but by the cross of Christ he therefore that wil have a Religion to please himself in any thing must not come hither and he who after he is come hither admitteth of any thing pleasing to the earthly and starteth from the cross which would deny and turn from it so far as it doth so he goeth backward and not forward It is no wonder that there is such an enmity in all sorts against the truth for it striketh at their life yea at the very root of their life If there were any new way or form of Religion held forth mens understandings and affections might by degrees be wrought of to it and find pleasure in it but this is direct death to that nature and spirit that hath lived in any form of Religion and to the whole course of that nature and spirit yet through this death the true life springs up in those who receive the strokes of it Therefore be willing and learn to die dayly and bring every thing which is contrary to Christ to the Cross Deny self in every thing take up the Cross in every thing follow Christ in every thing This is the way which Christ himself prescribes to become his disciples by If any man wil come after me let him deny himself take up his Cross daily and follow me seek not ease in the flesh no not in the least but take up the Cross every day in every thing till the earthly be slain til the wisdom and strength of the flesh be wholly subdued and then the wisdom and power of God will become natural 2. Keep to the sence keep to the feeling beware of the understanding beware of the imagining conceiving mind These cannot be for God not bring forth any thing for God until they be new cast and new moulded The one seed of life lies in the invisible in the hidden man of the heart among multitudes of seeds of death all which have their growth up into and strength in the corrupted natural So that this seed cannot shoot up into any part of the natural but the other seeds shoot up with it and endeavour to choak it Now the other seeds spring up two wayes either in a way of opposition against the the true seed or in a way of similitude There cannot a good thought or desire or beam of light enter into the understanding or will but multitudes of evil thoughts evil desire or fleshly reasonings against it wil spring up with it and strives to over bear it And if the enemy be at length overcome by the power of God fighting with him and vanquishing him then he hath his garments of light then he brings in thoughts and desires and motions like Gods which easily pass for good if the soul keep not close upon the watch The forward understanding is apt presently to own them and the forward will to embrace and the forward affections to let themselves forth into them until the soul come to feel a loss in life and miss the power and presence of God and find the enemy strong again Yea the enemy hath yet a more subtil way namely to raise motions like the motions of Gods spirit and suddainly before the light hath given the discerning of them to raise opposition and reasonings against them that so by the opposition which is manifestly evil the motion it self which is also evil though good in appearance might be the less suspected and swallowed Now the onely way of safety is to keep out of the natural whereof the enemy hath possession and where his strength lies and to keep in the sence and feeling of the invisible seed and onely to come forth with him into the natural in that sence and feeling And when he comes he wil come with strength above the strength that the enemy hath in the natural and by degrees conquer him But by no means rest or abide in the natural but retire with the Lord who will not dwel there until it be clensed into the resting place These words may be hard to you at present but hereafter as you come into the exercise you will feel them And this is the reason why the formal and outward part of Religion doth so commonly eat out the life because things there are sutable to and exercise that part wherein the strength of the enemy lies and there can never be perfect freedom and safety until that part be subdued and all that belongs to that part removed The Lord is risen to shake what may be shaken that the kingdom which cannot be shaken may appear and happy are they who are shaken by his hand in all that is outward and established in the inward life power and rest which remaineth for ever and cannot be shaken 3. Wait patiently the Lords leasure Be not hasty after life and salvation in the wil of the flesh but leave the Lord to chuse his own season for the showring down of his mercy and blessing The Lord will not presently entertain that spirit which hath adulterated from him prostituting it self to strangers and defiling it self into his bosom but there must be a time of sorrow a time of purifying and clensing The soul must know and feel that it hath been an evil thing and bitter that it hath forsaken the Lord the living fountain of living mercies and hath sought life from vanities and among dead Idols And all the Idols must be thrown away and the heart washed from that nature that ran after them and become a pure virgin to bear and bring forth the living seed and by faithfulness to that seed and waiting in that seed in the Lords season it shall receive the mercy and the blessing and the inheritance which belongs to that seed The Husbandman doth not presently reap but waits long even till the seed be grown up to maturity Jacob the type of the seed said O Lord I have waited for thy salvation It is the election that obtains it is to the seed and for the seeds sake that the mercy is bestowed and there must be a waiting till the seed be

4. 3. and he that is entred into his rest hath ceased from his works as God from his vers 10. He that hath the least taste of faith knows a measure of rest finding the life working in him and his soul daily led further and further into life by the working of the life and the heavy yoke of his own labouring after life taken of from his shoulders Now here 's the truth here 's the life here 's the sabbath here 's the worship of the soul that 's led into the truth and preserved in the truth But what is the worship now in the Apostacy Among the Papists a very grosse worship a worship more carnal then ever the worship of the Law was for that though in its nature it was outward and carnal yet it was taught and prescribed by the wisdom of God and was profitable in its place and to its end but this was invented by the corrupt wisdom and set up in the corrupt wil of man and hath no true profit but keeps from the life from the power from the spirit in fleshly observations which feed and please the fleshly nature Look upon their daies consecrated to Saints and their canonical hours of Prayer and their praying in an unknown tongue with their fastings feastings saying of Ave-Maries Pater-nosters Creeds c. are not all these from the life out of the spirit and after the invention and in the wil of the flesh Ah their stink is greater then the flesh-pots of Egypt And the worship of the Protestants comes too near them for their worship is also from a fleshly principle and in their own times and wils and according to their own understanding and apprehension of things and not from the rising up and guidance of the infallible life of the spirit in them for that they will quench They also observe dayes and times and perishing ordinances and are not come out of the flesh into that spirit where the worship is to be know and to be in 3. The Faith the true faith was lost The faith which gives victory over the world the faith which feeds the life of the just and slayes the unjust the faith which is pure the mystery whereof is held in a pure conscience the faith which gives entrance into the rest of God the faith which is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen this hath been lost and is not yet to be found among those who go for Christians For those who challenge the name of Christians and say they believe in Christ and have faith in him cannot with their faith overcome the world but are daily overcome by the world Where is there a Christian but he is either in the honours or in the fashion or in the customes or in the worships of the world if not in them all He is so farre from overcoming these that he is overcome with them yea so overcome so drunk therewith that he hath even lost his senses and thinks he may be a Christian and in a good state while he is there And the life of the just is not fed by their faith but the unjust nature is fed and the righteous witnesse which is raised up and lives by the true faith is kept down and cannot bring forth his life in them because of their unbelife for that is the proper name of their faith for being not true faith it is not faith but unbelief And the faith of Christians so called is not a mystery they know not the mystery of it which is held in a pure conscience but consists in believing an Historical relation and in a fleshly improving of that and can be held in an impure conscience Neither are they entered into rest by their faith for they know not the Sabbath in the Lord but are still in a shadowy Sabbarh Neither is it the substance of what they hope for but the substance of what they hope for is strange to them They are not come to Mount Sion to the City of the living God the heavenly Jerusalem to the innumerable company of Augels to the general assembly and Church of the first born to God the Judge Christ the Mediator and the blood of sprinkling and so to unity and certainty in the life but are in opinions waies and practises suitable to the earthly spirit which may easily be shaken and must be shaken down to the ground if ever they know the building of God and the true faith 4. The love the true love the innocent love which think no il nor wishes no ill much lesse can do any il to any but suffereth long and is kind meek humble not seeking its own but the good of others this love is lost The love unfained is banished and a fained love such a love as enmity and violence proceeds from is got in the place of it The true love loves the enemy and cannot return enmity for enmity but seeks the good of them who hate it but this love can persecute and hate that which it calls the friend nay the brother because of some difference in opinion or practice The love that was in Christ taught him to lay down his life for his sheep and he that hath the same love can lay down his life for his brother But the love that is now among Christians tends rather to the taking away of life What is the love among the Papists See their Inquisitions their wraths their fire and fagot c. What is their love in New-England is it not a love that can imprison or banish their brother if he differ but a little from them in judgement or practise about their worship yea they can whip burn in the hand cut off ears just like the Bishops of old England If one had told them when they fled from the persecution of the Bishops here that they themselves should have done such things they would have been apt to reply with Hazael what are we dogs But they fled from the Cross which would have crucified that persecuting spirit and so carried it alive with them and being alive it grew by degrees to as great an head there as it did in the Bishops here And what is the love here in old England is it not a love that whips stocks imprisons stones jeeres yea the very Teachers which should be patterns of love to others they will cast into prison and distrein the goods of their brother even almost to his undoing for maintenance according to a Law of the Land made in the Apostacy See the Record of Sufferings for Tythes in England which may make any tender heart bleed to read it and is like to lie as a brand of infamy on the Magistracy and Ministry of England to succeeding generations Is this the love of the righteous seed or is it Cains love which is in profession in word in shew but not in deed and in truth And how can these love God nay if the true love

tasted of in any of the Ordinances of the Apostacy ye wil all one day acknowledge this to be a true testimony held forth to you in true love it were good for you that ye could see it now J. P. A brief account of what we are and what our work is in the World WE are a people whom God hath converted to himself a people in whom God hath raised up the seed of his own life and caused it to reign over the earthly part in our selves a people whom God hath divorced from the spirit of whordom and joyned to his own spirit We many of us sought truly and only after God from our child hood our consciences bear us witness in the sight of God but the honesty of our hearts was stil betrayed and we led aside by the whorish spirit and knew not how to turn to that of God in us which inclined us towards God By this means we came to great distress and misery beyond all men Not but that all men were in as great a want of God his life power and presence as we but the sence thereof was not so quickned in others as in us Now it pleased the Lord at length to pitty us and to inform our minds towards himself to shew us where life lay and where death lay and how to turn from the one and to the other and he gave us his helping hand to turn us And by being turned to him we have tasted of the truth of the true wisdom of the true power of the true life of the true righteousness of the true redemption and by receiving of this from God and tasting and handling of it we come to know that that which the World hath set up in the stead of it is not the thing it self Now mark we are not persons that have shot up out of the old root into another appearance as one Sect hath done out of another till many are come up one after another the ground stil remaining the same out of which they all grew but that ground hath been shaken and shaking destroyed and destroying removed and removing in us and the old root of Jesse hath been made manifest in us and we have been transplanted by the everlasting power of life and a real change brought forth in us out of that spirit wherein the World lives and worships into another spirit into which nothing which is of the World can enter And here we have met with the cal of God the conversion to God the regeneration in God the justification the sanctification the wisdom the redemption the true life and power of God which the World cannot so much as bear the name of And what we are made of God in Christ we know to be truth and no lie and when we testifie of this to the World in the measure of the life of God in us we speak truth and no lie though the World which knoweth not the truth cannot hear our voice Now our work in the World is to hold forth the vertues of him that hath called us to live like God not to own any thing in the World which God doth not own to forget our country our kindred our Fathers house and to live like persons of another country of another kindred of another family not to do any thing of our selves and which is pleasing to the old nature but all our words all our conversation yea every thought in us is to be come new Whatever comes from us is to come from the new principle of life in us and to answer that in others but we must not please the old nature at all in our selves nor in any else And walking faithfully thus with God we have a reward at present and a crown in the end which doth and will countervaile all the reproches and hardships we do or can meet with in the World We are also to be witnesses for God and to propagate his life in the World to be instruments in his hand to bring others out of death and captivity unto true life and liberty we are to fight against the powers of darkness every where as the Lord calleth us forth And this we are to do in his wisdom according to his will in his power and in his love sweetness and meekness We are not to take wayes according to our own wisdom but there must be a strict watch set in the life least that get up again nor must we speak such words as mans wisdom would call wise nor may we go in our own will to seek any but the Lord must go before nor may we make use of our own strength but feel his arme in our weakness nor may we go forth in that love sweetness or meekness vvhich is pleasing to the fleshly minde but vve must be true to God handling the svvord skilfully and faithfully judging and cutting down the transgressor in the power and authority of God and when the meek the lowly the humble thing is reached and raised then the true love the sweetness the tendernesse the meekness must go forth to that The Lord God is tough with the transgressor and all a long the Scripture heweth and judgeth him and if we come forth in the same spirit we shall finde the same leadings where we meet with the same thing for the Lord God will never be tender there nor can that which comes from him lives in him is lead by him be tender there where he is not Now the very root of this severity is good and of God and hath love and sweetness at the bottom of it yea in pittie love and bowels do we use the sword It is in pitty to the poor captived creature that that might be cut down which keeps it in bonds and captivity And though we seem enemies to all sorts of men for the Lords sake yet we are not enemies nor could do the least hurt to them any way but are true friends to their souls and bodies also and our only controversie is with that which captives and makes them miserable for we fight not at all with flesh and bloud but with the principality and power which led from God and rules in it against God to the poor creatures ruine and destruction Yea if we had all the powers of the earth in our hands we could not set up our own way if after the manner of men I may so call it or so much as disturb others in their way thereby but should waite in patience till God gave us an entrance by his power Now let not men run on in heats against us but let them seriously consider whether we be of God or no and let them consider not with the reason and understanding which is alienated from God but with the witness which lies hid in the heart There is one great palpable argument that we are of God which is this all the World is against us the Wordly part every where fights with us the Wordly