narrow difficult for passage so that many times sore doubtings and fears arise in us lest we should never get thereinto and many temptations have we indured from the suggestions of the great enemy of our salvation saying to us it is in vain to attempt an entrance but now blessed be the God of our salvation an entrance yea an abundant entrance is ministred to us thereinto and the path is becoming more and more easie and spacious and delectable the way of pleasantness and the path of peace is opened and opening wherein the wayfaring man though a fool cannot erre or stray and the Light hath brought us to Iacob's Well where we have found an eternal never fading spring of living water streaming forth into our souls and hearts to our unspeakable joy comfort and satisfaction and it hath brought us into Bethel the house of God the house of prayer and we have been made joyful therein according to the Lord's promise and in this house and Temple of God we have seen the glory of the Lord and had Isaiah's Vision beholding him sitting upon a throne high and lifted up and his train filling the Temple and we have heard the voice Holy holy holy Lord God of Hosts the whole earth is full of his glory and we have been made to cry woe is us for we are undone because of uncleanness and fear and trembling hath taken hold of us so that the posts of the door lyes moved and shaken at the voice of him that cryed and the Angel hath flown unto us having a live coal in his hand taken in the tongs from off the Altar and therewith hath touched our lips saying unto us your iniquity is taken away and your sin purged and in his Temple we have talked of the glory of the Lord and of his loving kindness one unto another and we have blessed and praised the Name of the Lord for his mercy and goodness to the children of men and we have eat and drunk in the house of our God in the mountain of his holiness have we been entertained with the feast of fat things full of marrow of wines on the lees well refined and we have seen the King in his beauty and bread hath been given to us and our water made sure and it faileth not which we drink every one out of our own Cestern and the glorious Lord hath become unto us a place of broad Rivers and we have been brought to the Shepherds tents and seen where he feedeth the flock and causeth it to rest at noon and we have loved the Pasture dearly and intreated the Shepherd that he would make us partake with the flock and lead us to the green field and Paradice of his pleasure and to the streams of that river which is full of water and floweth richly forth to the continual gladning of the City of God and we have desired it of him with the earnest of our souls that we might see the good of his chosen and be remembred with the favour he bears to his people and gladned with the joy of his Nation that we might have whereby to glory with his inheritance and the Lord hath heard and granted the breathings of our souls we asked life of him and he hath given it us and put a crown of pure gold upon our heads even a crown of righteousness and eternal life and he hath put a new song of praise to him who lives for ever and ever in our mouths which none can sing no nor understand but such as are redeemed from off the earth and Palms of Victory in our hands are given to us and Harps wherewith to harp and make melody to the God of our life who hath created us anew in Jesus Christ unto good works and Censers full of incense which are the prayers of the Saints and the Lord hath not suffered does not suffer us to want any good thing he openeth his hands plentifully and filleth us with his blessing and giveth us to drink of the River of his pleasure and the wine which groweth in our fathers Kingdom and how great is his goodness how great is his beauty for Corn hath made the young-men glad and new wine the Maids as it is written and the mountains have dropped down the wine and the Fatts and Wine-presses have overflowed and the Heavens have opened and poured down everlasting righteousness and rained the showers of blessing upon the tender herbs of the Lords planting in the earth and loe the Winter is past the rain is over and gone and the Spring is come wherein the birds do sweetly sing and the voice of the Turtle is heard in our Land and the Fig-tree putteth forth its blossoms and green figs and others are come and coming to perfection and maturity and the Vines with the grapes give a good and pleasant smell and at our gates are all manner of pleasant fruits new and old laid up for our beloved And the fruit of the Tree of Life which beareth twelve manner of fruits and yieldeth it every month hath been manifested unto us the leaves whereof are for the healing of the Nations And we have seen the Bride the Lamb's Wife adorned and trimmed for the approach of her Husband and the new Ierusalem descending from above the Holy City coming down from God out of heaven having the glory of her God and her light is like unto a stone most precious like a Jasper clear as Cristal and we have seen the frame and proportion of this City with the walls and gates of it within which our feet have stood whose builder and maker is God and there is nothing of mans work in it but all purely of him and we have seen to its foundation the Light the Life the Power the Wisdom of God revealed in the hearts of the Sons and Daughters of men the chief corner the foundation stone which the builders among all the Sects and Professions of the whole earth have rejected in this night of darkness whereby instead of building a house or City for God they have reared up a Babylon which must fall and is a falling and shall sink as a mill-stone into the bottom of the Sea and never rise again Amen Hallelujah glory to the Lamb whose work it is And now the Lord hath made us Citizens of this City and stones of this building even living stones polished by the power of God and glewed and knit together by the same power and Spirit of Life where is the pure perfect unity and in the unity the fellowship and communion with God and his dear Son Jesus Christ and one with another is witnessed and the builders are wise builders standing in the wisdom and power of God whereby they are taught to lay every stone and how to polish and square it and they are but tools and instruments in the hand of God for the work is his alone and the Ministry is spiritual and so are the Ministers men taught by
with another in the invisible heavenly life and though at a distance as to the bodily appearance yet nigh to and present one with another in Spirit and partakers together as members of one body in sufferings and afflictions in joy and consolations which as sufferings abound do abound also And now though the Scriptures declare of this word yet they are not that Word more then a Map or description of Rome or London is Rome or London or the image of Cesar is Cesar or bread and wine is the body and blood of Christ which rude draught shadow description and representation of such things and the like may and do borrow the names of the things by them signified or represented and thus the Scriptures may borrow the name of the Word of God and may sometimes be so called as the words or Prophecy of Isaiah is called by himself his Vision and the words of Iohn is called his Revelation whereas they but signified these things and it 's my testimony with thousands we have found another Word then the Scriptures which is not repugnant to them but teacheth the same things and bears a like testimony with them in a more excellent way so that they have a sweet harmony and concord together yet differing as much from them as bread wine corn oyle water light fire differing from a verbal description or likeness of those things And this is no dishonour to the Scriptures but a putting them in their proper place as a declaration of the eternal life which though pointed at by them yet is not to be found in them as the Jewish people foolishly thought and as Professors think at this day for which Christ checked them because they would not come to him to get life of whom the Scriptures testified That it was in him not in them Ioh. 5. And thus much concerning our Ministery and the object thereof or thing which is ministred and preached to wit Christ the living and eternal Word nigh and in the hear and our Worship and Sacrifice we offer up unto God in this Building House Temple City or Church of God is spiritual prayer and praise spiritual even from the pourings forth of the Spirit of Life from God praying and singing and making melody in our hearts and with our mouths and lips also as the Lord opens them with the spirit and understanding in all things making our requests known unto God and giving thanks alwayes for all things through Jesus Christ our life at whose Name our knees are bowed down and our head uncovered and the glory is over all and the Lord hath turned to us the pure language and the pure lip and given us to the throne of glory an abundant access and hath accepted our prayers and savoured a good savour in them and hath largely answered the desires of our souls blessed be his Name and we witness him a God who heareth prayer even to the least desire or breathing of the upright heart and he is worthy to be waited for who hath come to us in an acceptable time and prepared our hearts to seek and his ear to hear and given us strength and ability to wrestle and prevail with him to the break of day and we have not let him go till he hath blessed us and called our name Israel And as the Ministry and Worship of the Church or house of God among us is spiritual so is the Order Discipline and Government among us and we witness the Lord present with us in our Assemblies and the head Christ in us whether few or many passing sound righteous and infallible judgement concerning the particulars that come before us and we take not that blind fallible way of the many Sects and Professions in the world to determine controversies by viz. Plurality of Votes but we look up to the Lord and call upon him to decide the matter and pass righteous judgement and he doth it and each in the measure of the Word of Truth which they have received doth perceive the mind of the Lord therein and believeth it their faith standing in the wisdom and power of God revealing the thing in and to each particular and we are manifest in one anothers consciences and as Epistles written and read in one anothers hearts and we are of one mind and one spirit and life and here is sweet unity concord harmony and agreement not like Babylon and where the Lord goeth not before us and openeth not the particular or particulars unto us we stand still and forbear till we receive his mind who never is nor will be wanting to us in whatsoever exigence And now the power we have is from God alone and his Son Jesus Christ and he bears the government on his shoulders and takes us up into the Throne with himself according to his promise and maketh us a free people Kings and Priests to our God and our power is free and unlimited as to any mans determination upon the face of the whole earth and we own no head in our Church but Christ Jesus nor can we submit our consciences to any man or yield to the precepts and commandements of men out of the will and power of God in a jot though to the loss of our very lives and especially no man or men is to impose on us the least circumstance in the matter of the worship of the living God and the exercise of our consciences therein but what man or men set up in place of authority calls us to what is equitable and righteous betwixt us and our neighbour we are free and holds our selves bound to give all due obedience for conscience sake thereto and the Magistrate who hath his power and authority from God we dearly own and honour and the obedience he requires of us will be answered with the Witness and Word of God in our consciences which if we should disobey condemnation from the Lord should fall upon us And when that which is sinful and unrighteous is urged upon us then God's witness does arise in our conscience and forbids us to yield thereto but to suffer patiently what may be inflicted upon us for our not bowing under the same and not at all to resist with any carnal weapon or outward violence but to commit our cause to him who judgeth righteously and hath said Vengeance is mine and I will repay it and so we have sweet peace and content in our sufferings for our consciences are kept free and we are redeemed to God and bought with a price therefore we cannot be the servants of men and we seek not any worldly power or force to maintain our Church it needeth it not for the gates of hell cannot prevail against the same nor to propagate our Religion for it will never do it and we are to force no mans conscience nor to lay any punishment upon them or put any to sufferings because of their not concurring with us for we matter no uniformity but that
concernes you near consider of it in soberness and yee shall truly find it your very case at this day as then it was theirs that same spirit for the outward in opposition to the inward Ministration acting now as then and heightned in its actings now more then ever O who◠shall that be dead to you or yee to it wherein yee have been 〈◊〉 long held from beholding the Glory of the Lord as it comes forth in the work of this day And how contrary to and inconsistant with it that work was which by might and power yee were leading on though yee had attained what yee so proposed in the furthest and highest extent of that uniformity which yee so endeavoured to have imposed upon all are yee not yet sensible of your mistakes and snares in these matters so as to be made willing to glorifie God as some of you have it may be ingeniously gratified men with a humble confession of your over-reachings and other guiltiness brought upon your selves and the people of these Nations Truly Friends however this may relish with you yet yee will find yee are called to it even to own your shame for so setting up your posts and thresholds by his that so yee may come to have the true forme of the house and fashion thereof shewn unto you Are yee not sensible that as unwise Sons yee have stayed too too long in the place of the breaking forth of Children do yee not yet perceive how that the Bridegroom is really departed and the Children the Children of the Bridechamber called to mourning So will it be before the enjoyments of Christ as the Bridegroom or first Husband be parted with yet this must yee come to know and condescend unto that so yee may be marryed to another even to him raised from the dead Thy dead men shall live sayes the Prophet together with my dead body shall they arise the Dead and the Living body consider for there 's much in it and very much that concerns you nearly to look to for as their mistake who crucified him was their not discerning his living body for if they had but so known him they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory so a mistake in the other persisted in brings under no less hazard then being given up to crucifie him over again eating and drinking of the damnation spoken of 1 Cor. 11. is where this discerning of the Lords body is not rightly made the dead and crucified body from the living body the living soul as its first from the quickning Spirit which follows after the letter and out ward teachings so much cryed up with all the fruits and effects of the one though a very blessed and comfortable enjoyment in its place and kind yet being but that which made nothing perfect it s now no less necessary to be parted with then at that time it was else the comforter as the blessed effect of the other cannot come nor can he be supposed so to become where his immediate teachings are so slighted and cryed out against Many times hath it been in my heart thus to have spoken some few words unto you as these who I dearly love in the Lord and to whom I stand by many bonds obliged if in any service I could be useful but being somewhat sensible what I had to do in my own particular case and not altogether unacquainted with the deceipt of the busie enemy who in this day lies so near ready to draw out the mind to vent its own imaginations and to speak of the things of God without his warrant I have hitherto withholden in expectation of a more fit opportunity and a clearer warrant to go about it which upon the perusal of these ensuing Papers was very clearly given to me And indeed the subject spoken to and the truths asserted in them had been some years ago much on my heart and seriously enquired after and that this search and enquiry was of the Lord attended with a blessing to me I can very clearly testifie and finding the same things for the most part so sweetly and with such a spirit of meekness offered unto you I find it only my duty at present to be concuring in my Testimony as agreeing fully with what in them is said as most fit and necessary to be seriously minded by you Dear Friends it is high time for you to awake and consider what yee are doing there is another thing to be brought forth in this day then yee have yet conceived of And your guiltiness for opposing it is greater then yee are yet aware of nor will your apparent zeal for God and his ordinances which hath with some of you hitherto layen very near your hearts this I do think it hath been and that yet it may be in a measure with some of you where singleness of heart in any measure yet remains serve the turn if yee so persist in the way of provocation Consider if something of the same snare and tentation be not on you as was on them who so zealously contended for Moses and the Prophets the same was their plea and upon the same grounds did they go on to the rejecting and crucifying of Christ as yee some of you ignorantly and others more perversly are in the way to do at this day bear with my freedom for truly I can say it there is no bitterness nor passion at my heart while thus I use it but the deep sence of the dreadful hazard yee are runing hath drawn it from me that if so in the will of the Lord yee may return to your first love and so imbrace the guide of your youth again the missing and departing from whom hath alwayes been the cause of our Fathers the first Protestants their short comings and mistakes of the work of God as well as of ours that they were not in every thing come to own their true guide though in some things they did it and according to the simplicity that was in them they were sweetly ordered by him and accepted of him And thus was it with them and so hath it been with many who succeeded them and was it not so of late among us also yea eminently so it was both in Scotland England and Ireland mainly in this our great sin and guiltiness as the foundation of all our mistakes and failings it s aggravated exceedingly beyond and above what was theirs that the discovery of this duty of waiting to find the immediate direction of our guide in every thing as absolutely necessary and at the very time when more fully and universally then ever formerly it was bestowed being more clearly come and coming forth then to them in that day it was yet now more then ever which is dreadful to think of is it both disowned and persecuted even by them whom I well knew to have sometimes sweetly enjoyed the blessed effects of the spirits immediate teachings in themselves and so to have been instrumental to the
that hitherto yee have been labouring but in the fire as to the producing any work of Reformation which God allowes of yea and going rather backwards from what was once attained to loosing and plainly contradicting the true and honest principles of your worthy Predecessors which one thing rightly considered may evidently demonstrate to you that your work hath not been nor is of God The presence of God having been very eminently with the Author of these Papers in his enquiry after these things this his service may be very useful for you and will be so found and acknowledged by those whose eyes shall be opened to behold how the Lord comes forth in this day of his power to try every work of man and by the foolish things of the World to confound the wise And to what is there said as to that particular annent the qualifications of a true Minister I shall only add these few words that which so was necessary from the beginning that which we have heard and seen and handled with our hands of the word of Life even the power and presence of the Lord in his people do we whom in scorn yee call Quakers declare unto you as the only essential qualification of a true Minister of Christ. And if this be it yee are so affraid of that through the increase of this the spirit of Prophesie the true Church and Ministers of Christ shall suffer loss your fear upon this account is groundless for these must stand and only in that way must they prosper so as that the gates of Hell shall never prevail against them but if your fear be for the fall of that supposed Church which they the hirelings I mean and yee so contend for both among your selves and with others which is truly Antichristian and no better then undoubtedly your fear is coming upon you and for preventing of it as yee may suppose it is no marvel that ye so fall in with them for the defence of Rome and her Ministry or else as some who have been and yet are famous among you have both spoke and written that yee must not only lose your Church and ministry but your Baptism and the Bible which the witness of God in your Consciences cannot but tell you how much yee did sometime detest and abhor so to say or think untill of late through the growing light of this day in these and in many other truths of the like nature your skirts are so discovered and your heels made bare and your way so hedged up of the Lord that yee cannot escape either to own Rome as your mother Church and so to return to her again or fully to part with and come out of her for ever and thence not to bring with you a stone of hers either for a foundation to Zion or for a corner nay she must not be healed any more which yee have been for a long time so endeavouring but destroyed for ever Ier. 51.9.26 and the time draws near and yet thereby neither the Church nor Ministers of Christ nor the true Baptisme nor the holy Scriptures of truth nor any other of his true Ordinances shall thereby sâ—ffer loss but great and glorious advantage to them who wait for it And because there be some with whom I have had sweet fellowship in the Lord who its very like would have expected some other thing from me then such sharp and peremptory expressions and conclusions against them and the way of the so called Kirk of Scotland in which I was bred with them and had my beginning in the way of Godliness I know very well as things now stands with you yee may think so of what I have said as also that it may be yee would rather have expected some account of the grounds moving me to and the advantages that I either looked for or have found by such a thing Now to speak shortly a word to this I trust for it yea I am not without hope in it that the day is coming and frequently have I sought it of the Lord on your behalf when ye shall so come to see the truth of what I say and the necessity that on your account was on me for it as that ye shall willingly acknowledge that it was the greatest evidence of my dear and tender love in the Lord to you which next to his glory led me to it and that otherwise I should have been wanting of the expression of that true and sincere love which still I have unto you as to the advantages I have found which might be also offered as the reasons whereby I was moved of the Lord to make that so strange a change as yee account it in owning these despised people called Quakers I need say but little if what is in this and the following Papers be well considered of and I know it is my place to lie low in the fear of the Lord and to speak but little as to advantages or any progress that I have made and I acknowledge no man hath more matter so to do yet in this case I may not be silent but must in the fear of the Lord give this my Testimony to the pretious people and the truths of God asserted by them that they do truely and really both profess and practice the new and living way in which holiness by mortification and subduing a body of sin and death is attained and have indeed come to the discovery of these things even the life and power which throughout the dark night of Apostacy hath lyen much hid and hath been but very little felt or known yet such is the goodness of God to that pretious people count of them and call them what yee will the true power and life of holiness is more truly known to them and eminently holden forth by them then by any people else that have come forth since the Apostles dayes and a greater measure do they yet wait for and as they are faithful it will be multiplied on them for the presence of the Lord is with them and all their opposers must fall before them Dear Friends consider then how far yee have been mistaken concerning them and with groundless jealousies carryed on with prejudice against them as grosly erronious blasphemers and the like Nay nay friends it is not so and upon search yee shall find it far otherwayes let your informers who many of them sinfully take things on report without tryal and others who for maintaining of your own interests have made lies their refuge let such say what they will they are and will be found a blessed people who as instruments in the Lords hands may be called the repairers of the breach and the restorers of the paths to dwell in they own dearly and rejoyce in the use of the holy Scriptures and desire to live up to the practice of all the truths of God declared in them Beware then what yee say or think of them and that yee approve
typically dâ—d represent your estate As for this Moses we know not what is become of him let us take our jewels and ear-rings of gold and make it into a god that may go up before us into the Land and now after your long and sore travel in the Wilderness wherein ye have abode many years going backward and forwards wandring up and down having lost the sight of the cloud which pointed you the way and forgotten that rock which followed and accompanied your fathers out of which living waters flowed to their refreshment which rock was Christ and after many of your carkasses have fallen because of unbelief and more are yet to fall It hath pleased the Lord to raise up to us among your selves that Prophet whereof Moses wrote and his Word we have heard sounded forth which is near even in our hearts saying to us by the powerful breath of his Spirit Arise arise this is not your rest it is polluted it will destroy you with a sore destruction and the voice was so powerful that it hath quickned us who were dead with you while we were living and the firy-piller hath appeared to us glory to God for his gift and shineth forth with beams of glory and the Lord hath opened the windows of Heaven and rained down on us the Manna from Heaven which is the food of Angels and not like the Manna which the Iews did eat and died but that which feedeth us unto life everlasting and the rock even the eternal rock and salvation of Gods people is revealed unto us out of which springeth pure living water from the fountain of life and Ioshua which is Jesus is given us for a head to lead us into the Land of Promise an entrance into which many witness at this day and others are in the way and have got a fore-taste of the Vine-grapes of the Land and hath sounded forth a good report concerning the same and many hath believed the report and tryed the truth thereof and found it to be true even some of your selves who were as you whose eyes the Lord out of his infinite mercy hath opened and they have found a place of repentance for all their hard speeches and enmity against the people of the Lord in the time of their ignorance and his work and appearance and have become ashamed and confounded therefore and I know assuredly it shall be so with others who for the present through the ignorance that is in them may be persecuting the Saints of God but alas alas how dangerous and deplorable is the condition of the most part of you for the time with whom our testimony can have no room nor find place in you and the good Land whereof we report has no more credit with you then if it were a cunningly devised Fable even the Kingdom of God and of his Christ in the Revelation of his eternal Light Life Power and Spirit in our hearts which fills us with joy unspeakable and full of glory and satisfies the desires of our souls so that we have true content in the injoyment of our God and have all and abound possessing him in whose favour is life and at whose right hand are pleasures for ever more the streams thereof your thick walled prisons and bolted gates within which ye shut us up cannot hinder from flowing into our souls and for the pretiousness and excellency of his dear and sweet love which he hath caused and does cause us to feel shed abroad in our hearts are we made willing patiently and contentedly to go thorow all the reproach and opposition we can meet with from you if possibly we be made instrumental to reach some of you that thereby ye may be saved with us and induced to walk in the Light of the Lord with us which has appeared and shined forth in its glory and as Solomon said Truly it is a sweet and a pleasant thing to behold the light O how sweet is it how pleasing how refreshing how healing how comforting how sure a Guide what assurance and satisfaction it gives to the soul none knows but such as are come to perceive it in their own hearts this this was it discovered unto your fathers the many gross abominations and superstitions of Popery so that they came to loath and abhor them this led them forth out of Egypt this discovered unto them Babylon the mother of fornications and the cup wherewith she had bewitched them so that they had no rest till they vomited up so much of the same as they perceived to be poysonous And oh had you their posterity kept chast to the leadings of the Lord by his Light which was near unto you as well as unto them even the light of Christ which enlightens every man that comes into the world and shineth in darkness though the darkness cannot comprehend it had you I say kept chast thereto and given it the preheminence above all how unspeakable had your happiness been at this day and now is your misery the greater that ye have adulterated there-from and become so impudent and shameless as to deny it for a leader or to give it the preheminence for have ye not set the letter of the Scriptures above it and made them unto your selves a golden Calf to be a Guide Leader and Rule unto you whereas if ye had given them the proper place setting them under the Light and Spirit of Jesus Christ from which they came and to which they point it being their own testimony that they are not that light but were given and sent forth to bear witness of the light that all in the light not in them might believe I say had you given to them their proper place they had been as jewels and ear-rings of gold unto you and useful in their room whereas through your abuse of them and setting their testimony above the inward and immediate testimony of Jesus which is the spirit of Prophecie Rev. 19.10 they are become your snare and a sealed book unto you that ye cannot read nor understand their interpretation because ye have gone from the key the Light and Spirit of Christ which would have opened them unto you and now they are parables unto you and dark sayings though you call them plain but plain indeed aâ—e they and easie to be understood by the children and Babes of Light and because ye have so gone a whoring from that which would have proved a soveraign remedy and antidote against the wayes and wiles of the Devil and Babilons cup of fornications therefore the light being a holy pure and chast thing hath been provoked much to withdraw and 〈◊〉 have cause to be afraid lest it eternally depart from you and you be shut up in blackness of darkness who hath so forsaken and undervalued your own mercy and misprized the gift of God unto you given you to profit withal and which only can open your eyes and give you the knowledge of the glory of God
open the Scripture for the edification of the people and it was appointed so to be afterwards as is evident by the Books of Policy and Discipline framed and presented to the Council Anno 1560. which thing by you is called disorder and confusion and it was an usual practice among them without distinction of Clergy-man or Layely when they met together to speak of the things of God and of his work on their hearts every one according to his gift and these who spake were not distinguished from these who heard by the name of Master and stepping up into a Pulpit and by getting the hands of so many laid upon them or by a black Gown or Canonical coat And Iohn Husse an eminent Instrument of the Reformation and Preacher in Germany did wear a gray coat which he gave to his friend some dayes before his death as Fox's Book of Martyrs relates And ye that are so much against Women-preachers some of you may remember upon a day when ye met together apart men and women and spoke of the operation of God on your hearts without the distinction of Sex and women allowed dearly to exhort pray or speak of God's dealings with their souls and now ye would bring Paul's words against womens speaking in the Church or rather against Christ the man his speaking in them being ignorant what women Paul meant when he wrote that he permitted not the women to speak in the Church now are not two or three or half a dozen of men and women fearing God gathered in his Name a true Church or are not two or three godly women met together a Church though a man be not among them and may they not exhort one another and pray and give thanks together and is not that speaking in the Church and the Scripture speaks of a Church in one family and if a woman or rather the man Christ speaking in the woman may speak in the audience of six or twelve why not in the audience of six or twelve hundred and the woman having experience of God's work on her heart and who hath felt the love of God shed abroad in her soul is she not fitter to speak of those things then a hundred men who are ignorant thereof So foolish are ye become in your reasonings and there are many living yet in the Nation who remember of women who have spoke so feelingly so lively and experimentally of the Lord's work upon their hearts that many eminent Preachers and Ministers so accounted have thought shame to open their mouth in their presence 8. Your Fathers the primitive Protestants and Reformers made not Latine Greek and Hebrew and Aristotle's Logick and Philosophy with other humane Learning and the passing of so many years course at the Colledge and that you call School-divinity the qualifications of a Minister of Christ many yea the most of them never was at Colledge nor had the opportunity of any to go unto unless to a Popish nor had they any of these Languages or curious Arts but were honest plain simple men such as ye now call Rusticks and Tradesmen many of them and yet they passed among your Fathers for Ministers but if these men were alive now ye would cry Away with them non-sensical fellows what can they say they are not learned should ignorant men preach should Wives Shoo-makers Plow-men Herds-men be Ministers of Christ should they incroach upon our sacred Function should not they hold them with their Callings So say ye against many of us who are not Book-learned and are Tradesmen and this same was the very plea of the Papists against your fore-fathers being Ministers See how ye have borrowed their weapons whereby they fought against them whose successors ye boast your selves to be but as these Popish arguments were too weak against them so are they against us for our answer to you is though we be not taught with humane Learning nor have the Languages many of us wherein the Scriptures were writ yet we are taught of God and that is better we have been with Jesus and have been made eye-witnesses of his Majesty and yee are worse then the Iews who crucified Christ for when they admired that Peter being an unlearned man did preach yet this caused their admiration to cease they took notice that he had been with Jesus as we have been and some of us can truly say whereof I am one we have learned more in one hours company with Jesus then we did in seven years from the Gamaliels and Rabbies among you at whose feet we have so long sitten and we are come to the Spirit of God that gave forth the Scriptures and gives us their meaning and sence though we have not the Languages and which all the Languages of the world cannot afford to us and though many of us know not to preach in the excellency of mans wisdom and some of us who could yet have renounced it and dare not use such a way lest the Cross of Christ should be of none effect yet we can speak and have spoken in the evidence and demonstration of the Spirit the words which the holy Ghost teacheth us and he hath made us able Ministers of the new Testament not of the letter which kills but of the Spirit which gives life and God hath blessed our Ministry so that many unto whom we have ministred have been quickned and brought into the fellowship of the Gospel with us and such a Ministry had Paul which he learned not of man and yet had Book-learning enough and such a Ministry God hath raised up in this day which is the free gift of God to which I bear my testimony and a part of which I have received and now is that Promise fulfilled and fulfilling in many hundreds I will make a new Covenant with them and they shall be all taught of me from the least to the greatest and I will write my Law in their hearts in a Language which is neither Hebrew nor Greek but such as he that is born of the Spirit can only understand and I will put my fear in their inward parts And now our hearts are come to delight in the fear of God which teacheth us the hidden mysterious wisdom which none of the Princes or Rabbies of this world knows and by the Word and Law of God writ in our hearts we are made wiser then our Teachers and when this dispensation shall fill the earth as it is doing what shall then become of the Scribe what shall become of the Senator what shall become of the Doctor and Rabby and Disputer of this World who spoke to us in a Language that neither they themselves nor we could understand but now saith the Lord as Isa. 33.19 Thou shalt not see a fierce people a people of deep speech that thou cannot perceive of a stammering tongue that thou canst not understand Glory to God the pure Language is known which was before Babylon was wherein the many Languages
with you and when any such die the cry goes through your streets there is a faithful brother departed c. or when any of them hath a child to be sprinkled the Priest will cause him to rehearse the Articles of his Faith and he hath no more faith nor so much as the devil for the true faith purifies the heart and lodges in a good conscience Oh horrid abomination and is not the zeal among Professors quite withered and deadness laziness stupidity security neutrality carelessness and sottishness generally overgrown them and all manner of iniquity abounds POSTSCRIPT ANd now ye who accuse us in derision called Quakers by you as Apostates and that we have denyed our fore-fathers Faith try your selves and parallel your fathers principles and practices with your own and also with ours and ye shall find ye are degenerated from them exceedingly as we were while with you but through the grace of God are we recovered and brought to witness the Spirit and Life of the primitive Protestants and Christians and in all 16. above-mentioned Articles we agree with them and ye disagree with them and ye cannot instance to us one particular wherein we dissent from them warranted from the very letter of Scripture for these things wherein we have forsaken them we have discovered by the Light which hath opened the Scriptures to us to have been but the inventions of men and Babylons more subtile cup of fornications which because that the day was not so broken up among them as among us now they did not discern but now the Light hath shined forth in such clearness that we have seen to the bottom of all Babylons treasures and were they living in this day they would concur with us in disowning these things and I am satisfied in it they have been accepted of the Lord according to their faithfulness but supposing ye were not shrunk from any of their principles it 's in vain for you to think that God will take that off your hands he received from them winking at their weaknesses in the day of ignorance for that which makes a people acceptable with God is their faithfulness to the dispensation of knowledge in their day and their answering his requirings therein and following him whithersoever he leads of which ye are very short and this is your condemnation Written in the 10th Month from the Tolbouth of Aberdeen G. K. True and righteous Iudgement from the God of judgement separating the precious from the vile concerning the late proceedings of the people of Scotland in the matter of their Reformation from and their covenanting against Prelacy with the corruptions and popish Superstitions accompanying it as also concerning their Church constitution Ministry Worship and Government set up by them after the pulling down of the former and discrying it as Antichristian wherein likewise the Lords controversie with them in laying them by and suffering this day to come over them is shewed in which their building is also laid in the dust and its the will of the Lord that it never be again rebuilt GIve ear unto me O ye people of Scotland of what quality or degree whatsoever and I will shew you the true and righteous judgement of God from whom I have received it and by whom I am moved to declare it unto you for your good concerning your late proceedings in the matter of your reformation from and your covenanting against Prelacy and the corruptions and popish Superstitions accompanying it and other particulars above-mentioned A zeal there was in many of you Rulers Teachers and People in that day for the Lord and his name and truth which he did tenderly regard and it was marked before him though the most of you all along minded more your selves and how to compass your selfish covetous and ambitious designs then his honour and ye made the name of truth and Religion a meer clock to cover and mask your hypocrisie with yet a true simplicity and uprightness of heart was among others of you and ye did well in disowning and departing from such men who gave themselves forth to be the Lord's Ministers and servants but they ran and he sent them not and their covetousness and ambition and seeking how to please men for their own ends and not his honour nor any true zeal for him set them on such a work to Lord it over the people which he had forbidden and it is abomination to him together with the many things accompanying them which they gave forth for his ordinances good order decency and comliness in the Church but were the meer inventions of men and Babylons golden Cup of Fornications and that ye vomitted up and refused any more to drink of this cup or to admit of such things as his Ordinances or belonging to his worship or as if he allowed it whereby your iniquity is exceedingly agravated before God and his indignation and jealosie burns as fire against you for your returning thereto and because of the iniquity of such men their pride pomp covetousness tirany and ambition his wrath kindled against them and he poured contempt and desolation upon them for the cry of their wickedness together with the Prayers and â—upplications which came from many in that day because of them ascended up into his Throne in the time of their great affliction of Spirit to see his Truth and Name so much dishonoured and the Lord heard and regarded and delivered them from that which was their trouble and grief of heart and he removed that out of the way which was a great let unto his work and glorious appearance in the Land and after the removal thereof the Lord put a fair oppertunity in your hands to have been blessed instruments in his work whereby had ye improved it ye should have been at this day a glory in the Earth a Praise a Renowne and a Blessing and your memory should have endured as a sweet savor unto all succeeding Generations But he had many things against you whereby he was provoked to lay you by also so that ye should not be honoured nor ever shall be in the state ye are in and way of your proceedings as instruments in his glorious work which he hath purposed to bring and is bringing forth in the earth even a work of wonders and admiration whereby he will make to himself a name everlasting therein and give matter to all the simple-hearted of thanksgiving and praise for ever and ever and this work he is bringing forth this day in the midst of you and yee are so far from joyning issue with him therein that ye are all opposing it but it shall go on and prosper over the heads and bellyes of all gainsayers on the face of the whole Earth and if yee repent not and give way unto his determination he will bring this word to passe against you Behold ye dispisers wonder and Perish And now hear the righteous judgment of God concerning these things he hath to
hearts for they are not come to the Light and Word of Truth whereby to discern the true upright genuine desire from the false and hypocritical and this thing hath proved also a great share unto the people who hath heaped up to themselves Teachers after their own hearts lusts who might speak false peace unto them and that whereon there is so much stress laid to wit the calling of the people or Patrons is not of God but of Babylon for in the state they are in they will be loth ever to call a good man unto them supposing he could be found but such who will wink at their faults and run with them thereinto and when at any time they let a reproof fall it stinks out of their mouths being guilty of the same things themselves and away with the education of youth at Universities and Colledges of Philosophy so called I may say of them which Luther stuck not to call them in his day That they are the stews of Antichrist for out of them comes this ignorant profane scandalous Ministry wherein they learn to talk of things they understand not and to prate in mans wisdom which is carnal earthly and devillish And the Philosophy so called which is taught them is but meer deceit and pedantry which even I came to see when among them and many of themselves see it and confess it to be but vanity and none can teach either the knowledge of God or of the creation but such who come to be indued with a measure of the wisdom of God which made the creation in number weight and measure according to it 's pure holy Law and neither God nor the work of his hands can be truly known but in the light which makes all manifest which the Doctors and disputers of this world are strangers unto and it's follishness to them and many among themselves have attempted the reformation of their so called Philosophy and squeezed their brains to find out a new one but all in vain it shall never be found out till they come to the Cross of Christ and under his cross denying their own wisdom become the disciples of Christ and learn of him in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom knowledge the true Science of the creation as well as the of the Creator for the world was made by him and he can best teach it and in him manifest in man the invisible things of God from the creation of the world are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made which carry upon them indeed the characters of infinite wisdom goodness and power but are a sealed book no less then the Scriptures to such who are not come to the teachings of him who made them and can only give an eye to read them with a true understanding and to advantage And this I testifie who have had a tryal and experience both of the one and the other the wisdom of man wherein I laboured much and long and profited above many of my nighbours and the wisdom of God in which now I see and for which I truly account that other loss and dung even for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ the Wisdom which was vvith the Father before the World began and I certainly know the humane Wisdom or learning is one of the main Bulwarks of Antichrist against the Revelation and setting up the Kingdom of Christ in the Earth and because this is arising and shall rise down must the other go and all who seek to uphold it shall fall therewith And away with the many Doctrins and opinions yee have drunken from your teachers who have abused the Scriptures and you both giving you to believe they were grounded on Scripture and are nothing but their own imaginations which the erring mind through Sathans suggestions hath begot both in them and you and rid your selves of all whatsoever yee have taken upon trust and what yee have not seen and learned in the openings and manifestation of the Word and Spirit of truth in each particular and make the revelation of the Spirit of truth in all things the rule and analogy of your faith believing nothing less or more then what is revealed to you therefrom and where that opens not keep wholy back from passing any determination for or against And away with that manner of interpreting Scripture and searching truth by drawing and knitting consequences by the fallible erring mind and natural understanding keep close in all things to the judgment and determination of the Spirit of God and where that leads you as it did lead Christ to infer upon the Saduces the Resurrection from the dead from that Scripture I am the God of Abraham and God is not the God of the dead but of the Living to draw a consequence or frame an argument do it else forbear And away with determining of things as yee have hitherto done by Plurality of Votes it 's not the way of God and will never further the Lords work or truth their votes or consents not being in the unity of the Spirit of truth And away with thinking general Assemblies Counsils or Parliaments in the state they stand in will do you any good in order to a perfect and through Reformation they will certainly marre it but never help it forward being out of Gods wisdom and its foolishness unto them And your looking too much to these things in former times hath been a great snare unto you And thus now I have showed you good advice and councel concerning your becoming a perfect and thoroughly reformed people and the witness of God in all your Consciences as yee heed it will not fail to answer me to the truth and expedience of these things I have laid before you And principally every one mind the through reformation and change of your own hearts and lifes by turning in your minds to the Light of Christ in all your consciences which must do the work else it never will be done and as the reformatiâ— of particulars grows so will the same do in the general And now what I have declared unto you and the manifestation of the Spirit of truth will shew you much more even the perfect patern of the house of God in the Mount concerning these things which are necessary and expedient in order to a thorough cleanly and perfect reformation we the people of the Lord called Quakers have fallen upon them being taught and directed thereto by the wisdom of God which buildeth the house else the building is in vain and we have found and do find the blessed usefulness of them as ye shall also find if ye be followers of us as we are of Christ And now ye who say or shall say Tush all this is but vanity and folly we will not daine to take councel from you we are wiser then your selves we will not learn at you and yee but boast of things yee know not and we expect a glorious comfortable breaking up of the day of God in order to a more perfect and thorough reformation then as yet hath been among us but it shall never come to us through your airth we can never expect good of you for yee are but a pack of poor silly deluded brainsick fools therefore get yee from us we will none of your councel the day shall never dawn upon us if it rise not in another airth then yee tell us of To such I say Oh yee foolish and unwise how like are yee to the former generations who ever were enemies to the wisdom of God through their carnal earthly and devilish wisdom and to the Iewes of old who despised the son of God and crucified him the Lord of Glory whom at that very time they were expecting to come the promised Messiah and when he came they mistook him and received him not because of his weak lowly contemptible appearance to the carnal eye but such who had the eye of Faith saw the glory of the only begotten of God upon him thorough the vaile which covered him from the sight of others and he disappointed them in all their carnal expectations and they are yet looking for him and have looked these sixteen hundred years but have never seen him nor shall see him in the way they look for him as neither shall yee and your judgment shall be one with theirs you being shut forth into utter darkness and plagued with hardness of heart if yee do not speedily repent And now whether ye will hear or forbear this I do declare unto you in the name and power and authority of the living God the day of the Lord is of a truth broken up among us and ye shall look till your eyes fail you and rote within your eye-holes e're ever yee see another day or appearance of Jesus Christ to your comfort then what we the people of the Lord called Quakers do witness come and yet more abundantly coming and if yee will not hear my soul shall mourn for you in secret places and weep before the Lord on your behalf And yee who in the perverseness and obstinacy of your hearts gain-stand and oppose with all your might and power the appearance of Jesus Christ in this day and yet are calling for the day of the Lord To what purpose do yee call for it that I may use the Prophets words in the like case Wo unto you that desire the day of the Lord to what end is it for you the day of the Lord is darkness and not light as if a man did flee from a Lyon and a Bear met him or went unto the house and leaned his hand on the wall and a Serpent bit him shall not the day of Lord be darkness and not light even very dark and no brightness in it Writ about the beginning of the 11 Month in the year 1664. THE END ERRATA IN Page 5. line 38. for and read an p. 16. l. 39. f. live r. alive p. 17. l. 39. f. these r. those p. 20. l. 30. r. in the world p. 22. l. 37. f. this r. his p. 30. l. 4. f. Laâ—ely r. Layety p. 44. l. 35. f. ease r. case p. 60. l. 8. r. did arise p. 63. l. 38. f. one r. an p. 64. l. 21. f. an r. one p. 66. l. 4. f. hear r. heart p. 68. l. 29. f. their r. her