foundation which is not of my building to pluck up root and branch and all which is not of my planting I have said to my Messengers and servants go ye up upon her walls break down her battlements bull-works for they are not mine level all to the ground and let them not be built for ever and ever Amen saith my soul. And it is God's rich mercy love and compassion that he hath brought this day over you could ye but open your eyes to see it and some shall see that ye may suffer loss in these things which have been and are a loss and snare unto you The 10 th Month 1664. from the Tolbouth of Aberdein George Keith The word of commandement from the Lord which filled me with heavenly joy and comfort came unto me the 30. day of the 10 th Month called December saying Shew unto the people of Scotland my true and righteous judgement concerning the particulars above-mentioned And now however these be received by you I have peace in my God The blessed long looked for day of God broke up amongst us the Lords people called Quakers with a declaration of the Lords loving kindness to us and what he hath done for our Souls in causing the light of his countenance to shine on us And a brief description of our Church Ministry Word Worship order and Government And a Proclamation of the foresaid day of the Lord to the People of Scotland in judgment and mercy With a loving Exhortation unto them and dear and tender counsel concerning what the Lord requires of them in order to a perfect and thorow reformation which they have often assayed but never as yet come at Also a few words to such who expect the breaking up of the day of God and yet deny it broke up among us Written in the fear and will of the Lord and in bowels of love and compassion to the people of my native Country THe day of God is the Revelation of his living and eternal arm in and among the children of men to put an end to transgression and recover lost man to the blessed holy pure innocent state wherein he was created by God who breathed in him the breath of life and he became a living soul it 's the setting up the Kingdom of Jesus Christ the eternal King of righteousness in the hearts of the Sons and Daughters of Adam and the pulling down the Kingdom of Satan who hath ruled over the sons of men as God and swayed his Scepter as an absolute Monarch in the earth It 's the arising of the Son of righteousness with healing under his wings in the shinings forth of his pure Light for the dispelling the the thick Egiptian darkness that hath long covered the earth and brought upon the Inhabitants a sad sore and dismal night wherein the blessed sweet and amiable countenance of God hath been eclipsed and vailed from men whereby they could not live to God for that life is in the light which by the power and prevalency of darkness hath been much shut up so that it hath not shined forth in its glorious brightness upon mankind It 's the pouring forth of the Spirit of the Lord upon all flesh and the breathing of life upon the dead bones that they may stand up and live with flesh and sinews in strength beauty and comeliness of proportion It 's the manifestation and discovery of that great and glorious mystery hid from ages and generations Christ within the hope of glory Jesus Christ in his powerful spiritual glorious heavenly appearance in his Saints triumphing victoriously over death and hell and all the powers of darkness giving to his Saints to sit down with him upon his throne and making them partakers of that glory he had with the Father before the world began It 's the bringing of many from the East and from the West and from the North and from the South to sit down with Abraham Isaac and Iacob in the Kingdom of God and the gathering of his elect seed from the four winds of the earth which hath been long scattered and pended up in the holes and caves thereof lying in death bondage and captivity The day of God is the redemption of his beloved seed and raising it up out of the grave to live in the blessed and glorious presence of its God It 's the marriage day of the Spouse with the Lamb and the bringing of her into the Chamber of Presence and the Banquetting-house where she is entertained with the sweet fellowship and communion of the noble plant of renown the beloved of her souls and under his shadow she sitteth down with great delight and his fruit is pleasant to her taste where she gets access to him in the bed of love and sees his sweet comely soul-ravishing countenance and hears the sweet melodious voice which pierceth the heart with darts of love so that she is constrained to cry Stay me with apples comfort me with flagons for I am sick of love turn away thy face from me for it hath ravished me being filled with the glory of his Majesty that the sight of it is scarce tollerable in the house of clay which often trembles at the Revelation of the weight of glory The day of the Lord is the tabernacling and habitation of himself with men the Immanuel God in us bringing them up out of all visible and corruptible perishing things into fellowship with him and his Son through the eternal Spirit It 's the dispensation of the new Covenant taking place in the earth the tenour whereof is I will put my Law in their inward parts and write it in their hearts and will be their God and they shall be my People and they shall teach no more every man his neighbour saying know the Lord for they shall all know me from the least of them unto che greatest saith the Lord for I will forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more Jer. 31. And again I will sprinkle clean water upon you and yee shall be clean from all your filthiness and from all your Idols will I cleanse you a new heart also will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and I will give you an heart of flesh and I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and yee shall keep my Iudgements and do them and yee shall dwell in the Land that I gave to your Fathers and yee shall be my People and I will be your God Ezek. 36. It 's the coming down of the new Ierusalem from above out of Heaven upon the Earth cloathed with the Garments of Salvation the Lambs Glory which is her Light so that She needeth not Sun nor Moon nor Candle and the pure white linnen which is the Righteousness of the Saints It 's the causing the old Heavens and the old Earth to pass away and the
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
and you who were very forward in causing others to suffer for their not concurring with you have not the confidence to suffer for it your selves Oh were there a willingness in you to bear your testimony by sufferings which hath been as weighty and useful a testimony as any as yee have formerly done by actings yee would not want a fair opportunity for the same did yee keep but faithful to the same very principles yee own'd in disowning the worship and constitution of the so called Church now set up which yee vowed against and did yee stick to your liberty yee ought to have met together to worship God according to your knowledge ye would not want I say a fair opportunity to give a notable testimony by suffering for your cause in disowning such men ye covenanted against it's little worth if it be not worth the suffering for were it not the loss not only of means and liberty outward but of life it self if put to it and who would have believed it within these few years that such an occasion coming as now hath come it being enacted by Law that all who should be found meeting together to worship God any where else but in the Prelatical assemblies and their Conformists and such who joyne issue with them should be put in Prisons throughout the whole Land I say who would have believed that the Prisons should have been so empty would it not rather have been concluded that such a time coming the Prisons would not have contained the thousand part of them and yet they are all empty for them and I know not amongst all the thousands of you Ministers or people that vowed to God against that filthy thing set up in the Land any of you all bearing a suitable testimony by sufferings according to your own very Principles or have yee not all fled before pursued or if some began to set their faces to the battle yet they could not stand the brunt of it but shamefully yielded and shrunk from their testimony by sufferings and now the Lord hath raised up a people even whom yee call in derision Quakers who fear the living God and tremble at his Word but fear not what man can do unto them among your selves but not of your selves who hath received courage from the Lord to bear their testimony by sufferings and yet though they had power could not find in their hearts nor durst they to cause their persecutors to suffer or lift up Sword or spear or any carnal weapon in their own defence against them but we can pray for them that persecute us and bless them who despitefully use us And what is the occasion that the people called Quakers suffer imprisonment and the spoyling of their Goods but the very self same yee have to undergo the like sufferings were yee faithful but to your own Principles the cause I say is common to you with us viz. our testimony against that which is now set up in the Land and both yee and many of us also vowed to the most high God while we were among you we should never own such a thing and we have kept to our vow and yee have shrunk therefrom Now say yee generally we have not seen a clear call to sufferings as yet and we should not run upon them without a clear warrant and call we are not put to it to take any contrary oath to the former and there is not any promise or oath required of us to the owning of that we covenanted against only it s laid on us to hear them and pay their stipends and we may do all this without owning them and they shall never have the approbation of our hearts and when an opportunity serves that we may shake off this yoak we shall be found ready to give them a heel-chop and say some of the so called Ministers why may we not preach under the Bishops and sit in Synods with them and concur in the ordering Church affairs with them and give obedience to their lawful commands and yet this cannot be called an owning of them and we conceive it 's no breach of our Covenant and the things required of us are not so weighty as that they should make us quit our calling the preaching of the Gospel what would become of our poor flocks if we should not give some kind of submission or condescendency unto them we could not be permitted to preach and some of us have got the favour that no oath or ingagement is required of us they who have given as the most have done let them see to it we are free Ans. As for your alledging that yee see not a clear and manifest call to sufferings it is no wonder so long as your minds are abroad wandered from the just and righteous principle of God his witness in your Consciences which can only let you see the call but now yee not consulting herewith but misregarding it and looking out to see your warrant or call in the Scriptures yee may look long enough upon them e're yee can see your call therefore the Light of Christ in your Consciences being gone from the deceitful heart will draw the letter of the Scriptures to its own inclinations and promp you to put such a gloss upon it as may keep you from the cross and while ye abide in this state should ye be tryed further put to these things yee think for the time yee could not condescend to and yee should have a clear call then to suffer yet the deceitful heart would furnish you with a second shift and a third till yee should never see a call to any thing at all and is it not with many of you so is not your call grown dark unclear to you in many things which before the cross came was clear enough to you Now whereas yee say ye are not put to it to make any contrary oath or promise and so yee think yee have not broken your Covenant I ask is not a real practical breach of it aswell a breach if not more as a verbal yee have broken it in your practice forasmuch as yee have in the least bowed or yielded to them which as yee mind Gods witness in all your Consciences it will shew you Now admiting or giving but not granting that your hearing them and paying them their stipends were not an owning them yet I query you is it a disowning them can yee be said to disown them while yee so uphold them and come at them I am sure if yee be not exceedingly blinded yee cannot call your hearing them and paying them their stipends and revenues a disowning them well then yee neither own them nor disown them and is not this the detestable neutrality yee in express termes covenanted to God against I appeal to the witness of God in all your Consciences if it be not so in the like manner I answer to you called Ministers is your Preaching under them and sitting
Elements to melt with fervent heat and the drying up of the Sea and the making all old things to vanish and the creating the new Heavens and the new Earth wherein dwelleth Righteousness and the making all things new It 's the relieving the Creation of God which hath long travelled under the bondage of Corruption It 's the coming forth of the Woman cloathed with the Sun and a Crown of twelve Starrs upon her head and the Moon under her feet out of the Wilderness And her getting victory and Dominion with her seed which hold the testimony of Jesus the spirit of Prophecy Rev. 19.10 the great quarel of the adversary against her Rev. 12. over the Dragon Beast and false Prophet It 's the discovery fall and utter overthrow of mystery Babylon the mother of Fornications who hath bewitched the whole earth with the Golden Cup her Merchants hath handed forth into them who dwell thereupon whereby they have adulterated and gone a whoring from God and the pure holy life of Jesus Christ and the chast leadings of his spirit and the true spiritual glory hath been lost from among them who drunk of the cup of her sorceries and a false imaginary glory set up in its room which is the Image of the Beast over which the Saints get victory which false glory stands in some of the words and formes of truth patched together with the inventions of men by the cunning and art of the whorish spirit which is very taking and specious to the eye of man whereby it comes to pass that this whorish woman hath been taken for the spouse of Christ and her Merchants for his Ministers The day of God is the pulling up by the roots every plant which is not of the Lords planting and the fire of the fierce wrath and indignation of God passing thorough the bryars and thorns for the consuming of them and the plowing up the fallow ground and preparing and digging and dunging of it whereby it may become good and fruitful that the pure and tender plant and seed of truth sown therein may grow up and become a tree filled with the fruits of righteousness and holiness this seed hath long lyen as it were barren in the earth which hath been as a Wilderness and brought forth the Vines of Sodom and Grapes of Gomorah but now the Lord hath looked upon the earth and pittied it for the seeds sake and hath sent forth and is sending his servants to till and dress it that it may be for the Lord and master of it a garden of pleasure and now the truth which hath been long holden down in and under unrighteousness is arising and shall arise throughout the whole earth in victory and dominion over all And we the Lords People called in derision Quakers and mocked and persecuted by the World as all the Children of God before us have been because we are not of them and they know us not do witness this day of God come and broke up among us in pure perfect brightness to the fulfilling all these things aforesaid every one in their measure and yet more abundantly to be fulfilled and his Kingdom revealed with power and great glory in our hearts and the Lord hath brought back our Captivity as the streams of the south whereat we are as those that dream for joy and we who sat by the Rivers of Babylon hanging our harps upon the Willow Trees are now returned to Zion having our hearts and our mouths filled with the Songs thereof and our Harps harping the sweet Praises of our God in the Land of our Nativity And the Lord hath redeemed us out of Kindreds Nations Tongues and People to be a peculiar people unto himself a choice Generation a royal Priesthood and holy Nation zealous of good works to shew forth the Praises of him who hath called us out of darkness into his marvelous Light which hath shined forth in beams of Glory through the darkness in us to the dispelling and swallowing up thereof by its brightness and the Light is very dear and precious unto us and we cannot deny it notwithstanding all the opposition we meet with from a wicked perverse World shut up in darkness and because they in the state they are in cannot comprehend it therefore they mock persecute and blasphem both it and the vessels thereof and they would have us to disown the Light and cease to bear our testimony unto it because they hate the Light themselves being it reproves their evil deeds and makes manifest the hidden things of dishonesty which they are loath should be known therefore they would have the Light quenched stopt and buried least their wickedness be seen hence it is that people of all Professions ranks orders qualities and degrees Rulers Teachers Priests and People Scribes Lawyers Doctors and Disputers of this World have and do oppose the Light and such who testifie of it least their pride pomp ambition lust tyranny deceit covetousness and other evil deeds which are rife among them should be made manifest and men of all callings hate the Light for deceit treachery unrighteousness hath seated and spread it self over all and taken a dominion in the Earth and is loath to quit it and therefore it puts into the hearts of all its subjects to oppose the Light which if it get footing in the earth will put a period to its raign and finish transgression and bring in everlasting Righteousness And the Devil sets men upon the opposing the Light least it bind him and cast him out of his place and spoile his house and break his Kingdom dashing it as a potters vessel into pieces and the Whore mystery Babylon the mother of Fornications hates the Light and puts into the hearts of the Kings and powers of the earth to make war with the Lamb the Light and the Children of it for that is it which discovers the cup of her Fornications and sorceries unto men and makes manifest her whorish mire whereby she may be discerned and when she is known the same Kings and Princes and great ones on the earth who upheld her shall come to loath and hate her and burn her flesh with fire and now glory to the Lord who hath shewed us Light and placed it in our hearts and hath raised and is raising it up over all opposition whatsoever in us and by this Light we have discovered the Whore the Antichrist the Beast the Dragon the subtle Serpent the false Prophet with all their subtle workings and deceivableness of unrighteousness we have seen the Land of graven Images and the wilderness where there is no way we have so long walked in hungry and thirsty and our souls fainting in us and our tongue failing with thirst and the light hath given us an out-gate shewed us an entrance into the way of life and path of righteousness holiness which the Vultures eye can never reach this path at the beginning appeared to us very strait
which is of the Lord's Spirit perswading the hearts of people to be one with us in principle and practice and to stand up with us living witnesses for the name and truth of the living God which he is revealing and we assuredly know all the weapons that are formed either against the truth or the witnesses of it shall not prosper and the Lord shall make to himself a glorious name in the earth and we the people of the Lord whom he hath formed for himself shall shew forth his praise and the Lord will make it manifest that we are his and that he hath raised us up and put his Spirit in us and that he dwells in and among us to all the Kindreds and Nations of the Earth and they who will not see shall see and be ashamed and confounded for their envy at the people whom God hath blessed and will bless for ever and ever and no deceit nor violence shall prevail against them And therefore now O ye people of Scotland know ye that the day of God is broke up among us the people of the Lord called by you in derision Quakers but who indeed tremble at the Word of his power when it is sounded forth from the Throne of Majesty yea and the mighty dreadful terrible God of strength power and Majesty Victory and Dominion hath determined to shake the Heavens and the Earth and all the powers thereof to the utter confusion and fall of whatsoever standeth up in opposition against the seting up of his eternal Kingdom of Righteousness in the hearts of the Children of Men and the little stone cut out of the Mountain without hands shall grow and fill the earth and become a Mountain and it shall dash to pieces the Image of Clay and Iron Brass Silver and Gold and the Land of graven Images shall be smitten and all the Gods of the Heathen famished and all the Idols shall be broken and cast into the holes of the rock and Dagon shall not be able to stand before the Ark nor Babylon before the spouse of Christ which is coming forth to face all their enemies fair as the Sun and terrible as an Army with banners yea cloathed with the Sun and the Moon under her feet And the Lord is making a work in this day which shall make all ears to tingle and every heart to faint and fail that will not bow at the arm of his power stretched forth The day of the Lord is come and he is preparing himself to battle as a strong man as one awakned of out sleep who hath long suffered the reign and Kingdom of darkness and as one that cryeth out in the dread of his strength by reason of Wine and he is making bare his arme and covering himself with zeal as with a cloak now will I arise now will I lift up my self saith the Lord and who is able to stand up and make war with him whereof prepare to meet thy God O Scotland in the way of his judgments and repent repent repent of your iniquities from the highest to the lowest for the controversie of the dreadful God of power the zealous angry God who will not acquit the guilty is against the one and the other of you without respect of persons because of your abominations whereby his pure holy Spirit hath been grieved and provoked against you Oh Scotland Scotland the cry of thine iniquities hath come up before God into his throne and he is weary with forbearing to execute the fierceness of his wrath upon you though ye be not weary with sining but are drawing iniquity as with Cart-ropes and filling up the measure even to the brime Wherefore a Cup of trembling trembling saith the Lord God shall be put into thy hands if thou speedily repent not thou shall drink shall not escape and it shall be more tollerable for Sodom and Gomorab in the day of judgment then for you forasmuch as you have sinned against more Light and have had more warnings from the Lord one way and another and he hath borne with you long and strived much with you by his Spirit to reclaim you and would have healed you but ye will not be healed and oh how have your hearts turned back as a deceitful bow and shrunk from that measure of simplicity tenderness and zeal for the Lord that was once among you and because yee took up a profession of God above all the Nations of the Earth and have so treacherously backslidden therefrom in the day of tryal therefore is your sin exceedingly aggravated before the Lord and he will punish you above all the Nations of the earth if ye break not off from your sins by speedy and unfeigned repentance And now ye who mock at the quakings and tremblings of the people of God who feel the load of wrath ready to break out upon you and sink you down to the bottome of Hell and would faine stand in the gapes and hold off the wrath and are in great travel because of the dreadful day they see coming upon you and many times are crying unto God for mercy unto you when ye are adding drunkness to thirst and persecuting them and saying tush tush no evil shall befall us where is the promise of his coming ye shall be made to tremble and your loyns to shake and the joynts of your knees with Belshazar reading the hand writing against you to smite one against another and paleness shall come up upon your faces and pangs as of a woman in travel take hold of you and the Lord will roar out of Zion against you and tear in pieces as a Lyon and who will then be able to deliver you out of his hand and that comfort and peace will be far from you which we the Lords people do witness after all our fears and tremblings for the cup we have drunk at his hands is sweetly tempered with mercy and judgment and in measure he debateth with us and stayeth his rough wind in the day of his East and our hearts which once trembled for fear and dread and sorrow are now made to rejoyce with trembling at the powerful and glorious appearance of him in our souls so that we have been made to sing unto him that song we will praise thee O Lord for though thou wast angry with us thy anger is turned away and we are comforted And yet now O Scotland the Lord hath bowels of tender pitty and compassion towards thee which many times I have felt and do feel with many others and he is much put to it so to speak concerning thee what to do with thee and his mercy and judgement are at a kind of holy contest and wrestling about thee How shall I give thee up how shall I deliver thee O people of Scotland how shall I make thee as Admah and set thee as Zeboim my heart is turned within me my repentings are kindled together which word hath often sounded through me towards
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