immediate conjunction and union And the Lamb is with her dwells in her she is the Mountain of God or the City of the living God 4. She is washed cleansed enlightened and filled with the Spirit of the Lord whereby she is established strengthened guided and kept in even and straight pathes she is adorned and beautified with righteousness wisdom peace honour and salvation and therefore when she appears she will be a praise in the earth 5. She is in all things ordered and ruled by the pure and perfect Law and Word of God whereby she walks steadily surely justly to God to men and to all creatures These things in word and notion are not strange to you that Zion is a Body a Nation a holy People united and compact according to the heavenly pattern joyned unto God sanctified established and adorned by the Spirit ruled by the eternal Word Then consider and compare your state with this Zion where is this body this holy matter or when was this body formed was it in the Parliament at what time though you sifted and purged it yet it was mixed unclean and corrupt and afterward rejected as chaff Or was the Army this holy body with all that vile and filthy rabble If this was the body how came it to be such an offence to you why did it at last cast you off and betray you and your cause Or is it all the godly people why then are you not drawn out united built into a holy Nation or City by your selves Zion and no Union Consistencie or Order No Magistrates nor publick Ministers Can you say when in which of the ten powers that you set up in twelve years you were formed by the Spirit or Word of God which state Oath Protestation Covenant or Engagement was made by the Word of God If all then you were led into contradictions if any one why did not that one judge and condemn all the rest and why doth it not still stand and defend it self and you It grieves my soul to think that you should be so drunk with the wine of your own gifts and success as to need such sensible demonstrations to convince you of the evil of your state We have briefly shewed you the beauty of Zion I can give you a view of your own state possibly you have not observed it as I have done now you have time and opportunity to think seriously of it It is this You are a confused heap raised from the earth by the tumults and commotions of the people being impatient of suffering and full of consultations for self-ease self-safety and advantage actuated and stirred by the Providence of God who can make use of all creatures natures and dispositions And sanctified by and furnished with a spirit and gifts fit to execute his displeasure upon the Nation for their sins Finding success beyond your expectations you grew into high opinions and conceits of your selves overthrew the Government of the Nation break all Oathes and Bonds prey upon the wealth of the Nation enrich and exalt your selves under a name and profession of Godliness for which you are rejected into misery and shame I do feel what effect this may have upon your minds some will think it very hard and severe so think all children when they are beaten Others will rage and gnash their teeâ—h yet it must be born Others will say this is true but why should it be published to all the world I would avoid it if it were possible but it cannot be otherwise how can one write to a people but all may read that will But alas I see it is most righteous and just that you should bear shame for you have put the Lord to open shame and your iniquities and abominations are discovered in the sight of all the Nations they cannot be hid and publick sins must have publick shame publick confession and repentance Eze. 16.52 Thou that hast judged thy sisters Samaria and Sodom bear thy own shame for thy sins that thou hast committed more abominable then they they are more righteous then thou yea be thou confounded also and bear thy shame in that thou hast justified thy sisters And know for certain that till you are ashamed and confounded for your abominations you never can never shall know a better state But when you see God pacified towards you it will make you to remember to be confounded and never more to open thy mouth And then will he lead you into a better state Therefore know this I do not charge all this upon some eminent persons of the Party as some do nor upon the persons of the whole Party as most do My soul pitties you I know you have a sore and grievous burden upon you and your personal sins are punished with personal judgements I do both pitty and forgive you and if I could prevent it I would It was the intent of the other Book and is the intent of this to take you off from your state and spirit of opposition to the power of the Nation from which you have do and will suffer so long as you persist in it The judgement I pass is upon the state in which you stand and the spirit by which you are acted This state which I have discoursed to you it is not Zion but Babylon Her filthiness is discovered in the sight of all the world and can no longer be hid In one hour is her judgement come Great is the Lord that judgeth her Righteous and true are his Judgements and they are made manifest God hath openly shewed what was in you it is seen known and felt that it is Babel confusion Therefore is the name of it called Babel because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth Gen. 11.9 Shall I need to apply it to you Do you not remember how much your language was confounded And do you not now feel how much you are scattered Doth it need to be said This is Babel As to your persons gifts and graces I do admit them to be the Lords and to belong to Zion But it is Zion that dwells with the daughter of Babylon Therefore I do write this to call you forth of Babylon Come out of her my people and be not partakers of her sins that ye receive not of her plagues Sword war blood killing persecuting wrath cursing and destroying are her sins and must be her plagues Neither you not any men can live in them but they will perish by them No man or men can act in them but they must suffer them It is the righteous jugdement of God against the beast and for the Lamb he that takes the sword shall perish by the sword and the meek suffering Lamb only shall reign If you had again or could recover all the power and force you had and an hundred times more you could hold it but one hour with
Being sensible that my mind is both weak and a great stranger to all the Forms and ways of Religion that are abroad and having found by experience that when I did look out I met with great trouble and opposition from all sorts of people I have been willing to enjoy my peace and comfort at home and alone I did the least think to come forth in opposition to any party having in my heart a general love to all men But I am by this Book unexpectedly engaged to come forth in some kind of opposition to many if not all sorts of spirits now stirring in the Nation The people that have severely censured this book and me for it are Independents Anabaptists Quakers Fifth monarchy men and such as profess themselves spiritual and are in no particular form I desire them all friendly to consider how high they have raised the controversie and what must necessarily be the issue if it be determined If any of them had taken the book and dealt with the reason of it and had answered it and convinced me I had been bound to have been their Scholler and to have subscribed to them as my Master And if my reason had been too good for theirs I might have expected the same from them and no more But they all leaving the reason and falling directly upon my person and the state of my soul my life and peace the â—ar is like to be of a higher nature and the question who is the Antichrist who the Apostate who hath sinned against the Holy Spirit and consequently who must go down into horror and trouble into Satan and the displeasure of God and so it is a war of souls and spirits about the most solemn things of life and peace with God And therefore the issue must be this if you subdue me and overthrow my state I must bow and seek for mercy and peace of you upon such conditions as you shall think good to give it This I know you do expect and as necessarily I must so I do believe I readily shall perform it on the other side if my state and peace be good and yours fail I may require the same of you that you should submit to me and accept of my peace and pardon according to that equal and just Law Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you do ye even so to them I do earnestly desire that we may on both sides heartily engage in this quarrel if I find you do shrink from it I shall endeavour to compell you to stand to it till there be a compleat victory gained by one of us If you be men and true to any thing that you say or think you cannot avoid the tryal for I know and feel that you are come forth against me in your censures of me with all your hearts and with the strength of your God Religion and Life as against an enemy to God and his cause t is so evident it cannot be denyed And by it you have drawn forth my life and spirit which till now lay close and still to answer you and therefore you are bound to stand and abide the dispute This I write neither lightly boastingly nor threatning but soberly and seriously in love to you and to the good and peace of souls The combat may be sharp but it may be friendly also For I do constantly find this truth in my mind that as all good doth and will overcome evil because it is larger stronger truer and more durable then evil so doth love conquer swallow up enmity enmity is a mean inferiour base thing that is but a servant to the greatness and majesty of love And at this time I find a special love both of pitty and friendship provoked and stirred in my heart by these wounds that you have given me For I feel such a nature in me the more you pierce the more freely my love and life will flow forth to you so that there is a ring of love made for us in which we may safely try our strength and therefore though it be both a serious and sharp contest yet it must also be a friendly strife It may be love hath laid a train to catch us all and all the enmity of all men For observe our quarrel it is of a very high nature for no less then the life and peace of our souls yet if we fight it out the end will be this either I must return to you and receive mercy from you of you must come to me and receive it from me Either you must be my Pastors or Ministers and so heal and feed me as a brother or I your Bishop and Father The quarrell is Whether you shall serve me with your life or I serve you with mine Whether I shall forgive you or you forgive me Possibly after some anger spent in the conflict it may be comprimised and we may both have our ends both serve and be served forgive and be forgiven But let us resolve to try it out for if you draw back and refuse the combat you will go down into your dark holes of enmity but press forward and we shall certainly come to feel and understand one another though through some smart and at last after we have spent our heat end in love If we had dealt in opinions that concern the State you might have feared trouble but you shall have the state of my mind to deal with which you may do without danger of any suffering but in your spirits our war will be now purely in and about spiritual things If we should controvert National Church Episcopacy c. the power of the Nation might be with me but declining that as you do and dealing only with my spirit and life possibly the Bishops may be as different from me and from my spirit and life as you are yea and be more with you then they are with me and I am apt to think it may prove so How ever you may be confident you are free from outward danger in dealing with the spirit of a private person You have advantage enough you are many I am alone you are whole and sound I am I confess much broken and weak you stand firm I have been tossed about my infirmities and failings are many and visible to all the world and most of all to my self yet truly I do desire and shall endeavour a fair trial not doubting the issue which way soever it fall it must be good SECT III. FIrst for the Book I have had many complaints against it but only in general as a monstrous strange wicked and cursed thing I have invited many to shew me particularly what false or unrighteous propositions there are in it and to this day not one man hath said to me that this or that sentence is untrue or will give me any reason against any passage of it But when we come to the point either they have not read it or but part of it
stand is this You presume and conclude First That you are the select and only people of God his Zion and Israel the true and only Gospel Saints And those that you oppose are Aegypt Babylon the World and Antichristian Secondly that your way in which you have and do walk and the works that you have done and would do again are according to the pure word and Law of God and that which you oppose is all Wickedness Superstition and Idolatry Thirdly That the war in which you have been engaged and upon which you stand is the way of God according to his will and word and therefore hath been and will be owned and justified by him Supposing all this that you are the people of God and Zion in Gods way and word engaged in his cause against Babylon and Antichrist there is then an unquestionable ground and assurance of a blessed success from the manifold promises of the Scripture But if this be not true and that you in this state and in this opposition are not that body that shall attain those promises And this be not the only way of God in which you walk and this war and engagement be not the means appointed by God to attain that glory you expect then be your intentions never so good and zealous your prayers never so fervent your gifts never so many your constancy never so great yet you will fail and the further you proceed in it the greater your loss will be If all this should be true that you should be the people yours the way war the means yet if you fail but in the circumstance of time if this be not the time determined for the fulfilling of what you expect there is righteous and mercifull reason for your retreating from such an opposition and engagement To have faith exercised about the promises of God to be fulfilled in these latter dayes to his people is an excellent thing whereby God will have glory his people deliverance and the whole earth peace But you may have a sight of this at a distance and know assuredly you shall have your share of it and be entertained with great joy concerning it have strong perswasions about it and yet may not attain it in that state of enmity and opposition in which you stand but in another more large holy and spiritual way Or the whole Church may enjoy it here and your souls for ever and yet your bodies may fall as carkasses in the wilderness for the impurity carnality uncharitableness frowardness and enmity of your way and spirits in your present state And therefore it is love and mercy to you to put you upon a thorough tryal and examination of your bottom spirit and way I consider not now your particular forms of Worship which are various and opposite one to another Nor your private and personal holiness fear of God conscience of his commands obedience to his word so far as you know which are not only to be admitted but approved and encouraged in a right way and in a right spirit but I would consider the way actions and work of the whole body in this publick engagement against the Government of the Nation and your private forms gifts and godliness as they have acted and still continue in the same opposition in order to turn your minds towards that which else is like to ruine your selves and families If this great affair and cause in which you have acted and do constantly persist in be the right and that you are the people yours the way this the means and time to attain the glorious things expressed in the Scripture then you must have these two things for your foundation strength and rule the Word and the Spirit of God If you are led by them and stand in them you will certainly prevail if not you will fall and must repent We may consider them either joyntly or severally for though they are two yet they are one also and never separated Let us consider the word of God the Scriptures There are three great works of God declared in it The deliverance of the children of Israel from Aeypt The redeeming of them out of Babylon And the grace and salvation revealed in the Gospel We have built our work upon all these and do think that our cause is the same with them all and therefore we have been fed continually with strength which we got as we could from them all But whether our work do justly evenly square to any of them is the question I am fully satisfied in my self that it doth not And that you if you will be ingenuous and in any measure of uprightness examine what you have done you will quickly find that you have not in your whole business come near your foundation and pattern I shall only hint some few things to you as they do occurr and leave you to consider the rest Only by the way be perswaded to think and feel that you are but men and may err many may err many good men may err actually you have erred though you be much better then others yet you may err and err greatly sometimes the best people err most Israel sinned beyond all the Heathen God will shame and humble all and make first last and the last first the best worst and worst best The Jews that seek shall not attain the Gentiles that sought not shall attain You differ one from another and so must err one against another you have all sinned and come short of the glory of God And therefore you may have erred as to this business fundamentally and either not know your bottom or be upon a false bottom And so through loss and missing come to attain a true right bottom If once you be but willing to be tried you will quickly see much SECT VII COnsider first Whether this great business you have and are engaged in do justly and evenly square to the first foundation Israels deliverance out of Aegypt It hath been so believed so prayed preached and praysed but not so done For 1. Israel was visited by God he came expresly to Moses spake to him in the bush when he had called him he sent him to Israel to lead them forth they stirred not till he had proved his commission But we can boast of no such visit the troubles of the Nation gave us opportunity to deliver our selves the necessities of the Parliament made us usefull whereby we got power and so by degrees broke the yoke that was upon us 2. Isratl had a King and High-Priest given of God to be their Leader and Guide he was also himself their Leader he went before them in the wilderness in a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night and never left them We had neither King nor Priest no Guide nor Leader but left to shift for our selves and wander from one thing to another as our own crooked and blind reason led us 3. They had Officers sent by
God which did call them forth and then continue to judge them and God maintained his own and their authority over them We were called out at first not by Officers from God but by part of that we call Egypt or the world by the Parliament which we used as Egypt or Egyptians or worse we overthrew them and their authority 4. Israel had a Law given them from heaven and one Tabernacle built for all according to the pattern in the Mount of God We never had a Law from heaven to govern us but were left to the Laws and Customs of Egypt of the world No pattern for a Tabernacle but every one built according to his own mind which must needs make division and so bring confusion 5. God destroyed Egypt with his Plagues and armies of Frogs Lice Flies and Locusts but we our selves were these Armies that eat up this Egypt we were the Frogs Lice and Locusts that vexed the Egyptians 6. Israel were led out of Egypt into a Land that the Lord their God gave them We could never get out of Egypt nor had we any Land to go to They were driven out of Egypt by Pharaoh and the Egyptians we drove Pharaoh and the Egyptians out of Egypt and kept Egypt for our selves the goodly buildings the riches honours preferments and all the Laws Ordinances and Customs of Egypt and could do no other wayes for we had no Land of our own to go to 7. Pharaoh and Egypt first tasked and oppressed then persued Israel We had got the way of tasking and oppressing Egypt and then persued Pharaoh into the Sea and beyond the Sea Pharaoh and his Charets and Horse-men were drowned in the red Sea for his pursuing Israel And now our Charets and Horse-men are drowned in a kind of a Sea of confusion and it was for persuing with endless and implacable enmity Here is a wide difference betwixt us and our foundation and as wide an end There Israel overcame here Egypt overcomes And if that be our bottom and we build so very far from it we cannot expect a better end Let us consider the second ground the redeeming of Israel out of Babylon whether we have been truer to that Copy we have made great use of those Scriptures Prophesies and Promises how justly must be examined 1. First Israel did not destroy their enemies Babylon and the King of Babylon was destroyed by the hands of the Medes and Persians under the command of Cyrus a heathen Prince but anointed for that purpose But we have destroyed Babylon our selves and therefore have hitherto acted but the part of Cyrus the part of Israel is yet to come 2. In the deliverance of Israel out of Egypt God visited them by a King of their own Moses Who was King in Jesurun In this deliverance God visited them in the Emperour Cyrus and charged him to build his house And the Jews moved not but by Proclamation Command and Commission from the Prince When a succeeding King Artaxerxes forbade them to build the City they ceased until Darius made a new Decree enlarged their Commission and contributed to the work Afterwards another Artaxerxes was stirred up to give command for the carrying on the same work and supplying of all the wants of the builders We had no such authority for our work but on the contrary we went forth upon our own heads at our own pleasure according to our own minds without any authority and overthrew the Authority of the Nation because they would not joyn with us 3. Israel were the known people of God visibly distinct from the world owned to be so Even by those Princes in whose Dominions they were God gave them honour in the sight of the heathen where they were carried captive We have no such visible character no such justification but assume it to our selves and destroy others because they would not so honour us 4. Israel as they were outwardly and visibly the people of God so they were the known heirs of that Countrey to which they went they had an unquestioned Civil right to it although they had been for a time sequestred from it for their sins And when they returned home they recovered but what they lost enjoyed their own Temple Priests Tithes Offerings But we not content with our own inheritance usurp other mens rights Indeed the parallel fits the other side much better who have been for their sins driven out and now return to their inheritance to their Law Church Temple and Worship from which they were sequestred and driven away 5. When God brought Israel out of Babylon he instituted the same Officers Prince and Priest that he did when he brought them out of Egypt For Moses and Aaron then there was Zerubabel and Joshua now and to those was given a spirit that would scatter confusion a line and plumet the seven eyes the fulness of the Spirit to furnish them for the repairing the Temple and City of God The two anointed ones that stand before the Lord of the whole earth which through the golden pipes empty the golden oyl out of themselves And therefore it was then not by might nor by armies but by my Spirit saith the Lord But alas we have no King nor Priest no anointing to scatter confusion but confusion scattered us Our Motto may be contrary to theirs Not by Gods Spirit but by might and by Armies For we were successful in nothing else but in force and arms Therefore if the Scripture be a rule to measure your actions you must confess you have grosly erred and walked not only in crooked but in contrary pathes to it Consider fairly the third dispensation of God to his people the grace and salvation revealed by Christ and the Spirit in the Gospel Gospel-Ordinances Gospel-Saints Gospel Order and a Gospel-Spirit have been much spoke of I am grieved at my heart for you to think that any men should be so grosly deceived or deceive themselves as to perswade themselves that such works as you have done and such a way as you are engaged in should have any countenance or authority from the holy and pure Gospel of of the Lamb of God For though you have endeavoured to frame your outward forms of Worship according to the outward letter of the Gospel yet you have denyed and opposed both the Doctrine and Spirit of the Lamb and his Apostles and that not only in those things which you call miscarriages but in the main of your work and business 1. First Christ begins his Ministrie with blessing he blessed the poor in Spirit them that mourn the meek the merciful the peace-makers the persecuted so he taught so he practised he was himself a Lamb he sent his Disciples out as Sheep among Wolves and commanded resist not evil love your enemies bless them that curse you do good to them that hate you pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you that you may be the children of your Father which is in
you stand up with Joshua and Zerubbabel they scattered confusion and brought Israel out of Babel you have led us and your selves into a Babel of confusion Nor can you stand before the son of man and his Spirit alas you are faln before him judged and rejected by him for ever never to he restored in that vile and abominable way in which you stood and still are I desire you to remember what is my intent in this present discourse it is to undeceive you and to bring you off from those unsound principles in which you are engaged and in which you will ruine if you be not delivered out of them And to shew you good reason for inviting you as I did in my Book to offer up your Principles to a fair tryal in order to satisfie his Majestie and reconcile you to his Government And if you consider what I have said here it will be found no wicked design but righteous and merciful Counsel both to your selves and to the Nation SECT VII BEsides the three former great dispensations in Scripture which you have seemed to make the bottom of your Cause and Way There is one thing more which sometimes you have glanced at with your eye as a rule to you and that is the Prophetical Scriptures yet unfulfilled and especially the Revelations You have sometimes harped at them and catched hold of some broken pieces of them But you never could attain such a knowledge of them as to make them either a foundaâ—ion or rule I do believe and know that the Revelation is a line drawn from Christ his first appearing quite through that state unto his second appearing and leads the Church both into her suffering and captivity and out of it into glory And therefore doth discover the state of the Gospel-Church from the beginning to the end from Christ his Ministrie to the glorious and eternal Kingdom of God And so all the works of God in these times both in Churches and Nations come under the Law or Line of that Book And therefore those revelations rightly opened will extricate the Church from her Babylonish enemy confusion and enable her to build up her self again in glory peace light and love That line will also measure the late revolutions in this Nation For I am fully satisfied that so considerable a work as this hath been in and about both Church and Kingdom was certainly in the Council of God and also expressed in his word But this much I know that you have been as ignorant of that book as you have been of your own work and that you have not had nor yet have a reed to measure either the one or the other by neither can you rationally six your work upon any one part of that book Nor have you had light to make that or any part of it or of any Scripture a Law to you in your work but have been driven on by snatches without any rule or judgement or any dependence of one thing upon another Which is not the understanding of a Man or Christian but in plain terms it is the beast Being led and leading by impulses or by present sensible and occasional things and not by any certain rule If the beast and his mark image and name be not yet overcome in your spirits as certainly he is not then though you had power and a kingdom it was but with the beast and but one hour What that means read and you may understand Having faln upon the Prophesies and Revelations which are the only written rule of the dispensations of God to his Church and people in these dayes for your better instruction hereafter know these three things 1. It is not wise or saâ—e to appear in any publick business before you understand clearly by the unsealing of that book where you are what you are to do whether you are to go and what will be the end For if that be the only declaration of Gods mind concerning the government of his Church and Kingdom in these latter ages we are not to stir either upon guesses presumptions or broken hinâ—s nor to be moved by a crowd a noise a multitude which are uncertain and deceitful things and will fail any people that follow them but upon clear knowledge of that only rule 2. That ignorance of a rule to act by and forwardness to attempt without a rule in such great and weighty matters do declare that there is yet an enemy among you the Prince of darkness which hinders you from seeing your rule And also much fleshly unmortified worldly matter that dares move without the knowledge of that rule And where these two are an enemy that blinds and a bold impatient unmortified mind to follow him blindly no wonder if both fall into the ditch 3. You are and have been fulfilling some part of that book it is no question if you know not what part of it it is but reasonable that you should fear that it is an evil part you little think how bad it is Where there darkness there is also a lye Therefore seeing you know not nor can say what it is I may say it is far worse then you imagine you shall know more hereafter if God please We have tried your state work and spirit First by the Law of Moses and his Ministrie Secondly by the Prophets and the deliverance of Israel out of Babylon Thirdly by the Gospel and the Ministrie of Christ and the Apostles Fourthly by the Prophetical Scriptures to be fulfilled since Christ and the Apostles and do find that neither of all these are your foundation because you have not kept to them nor made them your rule Before we give a final judgement I shall shew you the thing it self that you have professed and pretended to that Zion and that Jerusalem which hath been so much talked of I will a little unvail her to you as she is with me and stands before me and at this time going out of Babylon 1. She is an holy Nation City or Kingdom Holy and righteous not by gifts notion purpose and prophecying but by nature and in the matter and substance of her being being one with the Lamb and so in her nature patient innocent meek She is from heaven Jerusalem that is from above comes from God out of heaven and is of the same nature with him and therefore hath his name written upon her which she could not justly wear if she have not his nature likewise 2. She is an holy City or Nation built and formed according to the eternal Law or mind of God in most excellent union beauty and order and not a confused heap of prophane and filthy matter She hath both Magistracy and Ministry in equal and proportionable parts all in order She is built both according to the Law and Gospel and hath the beauty of both and sings the song of Moses and the Lamb in excellent harmony 3. In this state she is joyned to the Lord her head in
children If you see God going before you in restoring delivering forgiving and instead of following his example you be angry at it fret and curse and think that your wrath should lead him and your prayer call forth his vengeance This is not like the Gospel nor like his Sons There is another principle which I will set at the foot of this standard Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life in him John 3.15 He that hateth his brother is a murderer then he that murdereth his brother hates him why else doth he murder him He then that hates and out of hatred endeavours the destroying or removing by death them that he hates is a hatefull murderer And then to prepare war is hatred and murder by the Law of love It is not just or good because it is commonly done It is not good because it is done by many but worse If it be murder for one man to kill another it is more murder for one party to kill another party If it be done by a more religious party upon a more prophane party it is still worse Wars for Religion are worse then for Civil rights because by such wars not only men suffer death but the peace purity and love of Religion which is the Law of Christ is violated Wars raised by a better people upon a worse if we be Christians is still worse then for a worse to raise war upon the better For according to the Law and example of Christ The strong ought to bear the infirmities of the Weak and not to please themselves Rom. 15.1 and the just to suffer for the unjust It follows no murderer hath eternal life in him For if any man have eternal life in him he need not he cannot out of fear that another will take away his life destroy him Neither can he prey upon anothers life to maintain his own Nor can he take away the sinfull life of another to secure his eternal life it is contrary to divine reason and goodness But he that hath eternal life will be enabled to lay down his life for others because he knows his life is eternal and cannot be lost This is according to our pattern ver 16. Hereby perceive we the love of God because he laid down his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren By this we perceive that his love was the love of God that he could lay down his life for us and that his life was the life of God that it could lay down it self for us And we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren If this be truly and only the nature of the love and life of God and a rule to us Then that only is true godliness that answers to this pattern And what is contrary to it is of the wicked one You cannot you must not think to slight and scorn the authority and Majesty of this standard if ever you be saved you must come to it if you be saved by it you must also be judged and ruled by it I am able to say it doth save and shall judge and rule you and all men and therefore by this I must and will try and measure your present state and cause You profess in this state of opposition and enmity wherein you have been and are still engaged the cause of God and godliness Is there a cause of God that differs from himself from his life and love or another godliness then that which is born of him and conformed to him Doth he lay down his life for us that are sinners and enemies and give the same life to us which he laid down for us that we might be like him and shall we because we are his children destroy others that are not so If this be light and a rule then your enmity in which you stand is darkness and you are lead into it by a false God by an evil spirit and by a crooked rule SECT X. ALL enmity is betwixt two parties this enmity being in darkness there is a false judgement of both He that hates is ignorant of himself and of him or them that he hates in both respects the darkness of malice blinds his eyes and he knows not whither he goes In your present enmity you are guilty of both mistaken and deceived 1. In your selves And 2. In your enemies If there be these two errors there must be a third also ignorance of the way that you are in in prosecuting these enemies You think you are engaged in the cause of God and that you move in the way of God against the enemies of God But you will find that you are blinded by the enemies in all three and that you are not what you think you are nor are your enemies that which your hatred suggests they are nor is the way of opposing and destroying what your enmity imagines it is In all your eyes are blinded and you know not whither you go It will be a mercy to you if God please to open your eyes and to turn you from this way of wrath into the Way of peace we shall endeavour it First for your selves you take it for granted 1. That the cause in which you stand is the cause of God 2. You conclude that that religion and holiness in which you live is the only godliness and Christianity I doubt you are deceived in both For the first of these the cause it is cryed up among you as the Jews cried up the Temple of the Lord the Temple of the Lord I fear your cry hath less ground then theirs However while the sound of it lives in your spirits it is no wonder if it over-powers you For there is certainly nothing more high and honourable then to be engaged in the cause of God to be his friends and champions and to be imployed in recovering of a Kingdom for Christ and setting him upon the throne All that are called to this work may well be zealous in it and freely adventure their lives for it knowing they shall have a great reward for it and whatever their lives or sins are they shall at least go to heaven if they dye in the quarrel the service is enough to answer for all Besides what we have said in the seventh and eighth Section That this cause as you have managed it agrees to no rule or example of Scripture Not to the way or work of God in delivering Israel out of Aegypt nor to that of bringing them out of Babylon much less to the way of the Gospel in Christ and the Apostles nor to the prophetical Scriptures nor to the thing it self which you profess as we have I think convincingly shewed And besides that standard of the love and life of God set up in the last Section all which you must either overthrow or subject to I shall now desire you more particularly and closely to consider First Whether this
not hated And to impose your selves your sense and reason your taxes and payments with your religions and opinions by force of arms upon the people under penalty of being malignants the wicked and so not worthy to enjoy any priviledge If you have as much power in your reason now as you had once in your swords to make this common freedom I must be your slave and the whole Nation with me Suppose you intended freedom yet good meanings or intentions must not justifie ill actions Good intentions will not avail in a mans own soul much less save a Nation They are false intentions if the thing it self intended be not in the intention If the thing it self be there it will wisely direct and strongly work to bring forth it self and will not miscarry But that which is a false and deceitful intention may seem to aim at the end but as a broken bow will carry the arrow to another mark to a private advantage and not publick freedom But suppose that indeed you were publick persons and had the good of the whole Nation in you and knew it before you offered to stir which to this day you cannot own Yet would you think to beat this freedom into the Nation by force Freedom is not freedom if we be compelled to it You never learned this either of the Law or Gospel God never would nor did offer to rule over any but by their consent The most glorious things if the subject be not disposed prepared and so opened to receive them are and will be a torment to minds averse from them By how much more any way seems to have more light and strength then another if it enforce it self upon that which is weaker and darker it is more injurious then for the darker to impose it self upon the stronger Because where there is light and strength they are more able to bear the infirmities and burdens of the weak then the weak is able to bear the strong They that have light and strength will shift well under the darker power and either evade the force or live and thrive under it But if a weak dark people come to be ruled by the force of a more knowing they have nothing to support them but must sink under it And either they must dissemble and be hypocrites or be sots and beaten like beasts because they are not better or be other-wayes abused and enslaved People may set up notions of things to please their fancies or to colour and paint a business But for the Common-people either they are well pleased with their Government and Governours and so quietly rest under them and then they are as free as they desire to be and so they are having liberty to buy and sell to purchase and enjoy their estates Or if they are sensible that any thing oppresses them as the Government of England is by Parliaments they have power to free themselves by chusing such Representatives as will take care of them and their liberties Liberty is for men not beasts beasts must be yoaked If liberty be only for men then it must be a rational liberty a freedom for reason and a freedom according to reason And if according to reason then according to Law and by consent And therefore the way to procure such a liberty is not by war which exalts force and deposes reason It exalts division and destroyes agreement And there is no liberty but where there is a free exercise of reason in order to consent And that to my knowledge would never be admitted by the late power For that which stands by force dares not submit to reason But know certainly that as you do see war provokes and exasperates mens minds into rage and jealousie and pollutes the streams of Justice filling mens hearts with cruelty partiality hardness and self-love So the Spirit of God in the shining forth of general love and light into all persons and things will expell the darkness and consequently the cruelty and oppression For the dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty Psal 74.20 This spirit hath sufficiency of light and love to expell the evil one out of the whole body out of Governors and people joyntly And will not set up one against another the people against the Prince or the Prince against the people Such unskilful Surgeons wound and break but heal not The wisdom of God which formed all out of himself and sustains them all in himself hath life light and liberty for the whole in himself and will give it forth to all parts and parties SECT XV. LIberty of Conscience hath been a great plea amongst us in these times a very busie body in our troubles Whence he comes and of what rase he is I believe no body knows If he can avoid examination I perceive he will for he is very nice and tender and will suffer no body to come near him I did think to have let him pass because as soon as he is touched he will clamour Therefore for my credit I thought to avoid him But I consider again that it is not just out of fear to fly any subject in a mans discourse if it lie in his way Therefore if I will be true to my own mind I cannot wholly wave him I must a little try him or at least examine how he hath behaved himself in these times For my own self I profess an universal Liberty for all forms and professions from the Papist to the Quaker or Fifth-monarchy men Because I know there is some good in all and therefore have a love to all not only of pitty to the worst and weakest but of complacency For I know that although they are now drawn out into an opposition one against another yet truth that is but one in it self is divided amongst them and therefore there is a secret union betwixt them I know the widest meet not only their persons in one life but their opinions in one reason also And therefore it is no hard matter I think if they were but tractable to put them all in one circle where the extream parts would meet the beginning and end be the same For certainly the Quaker is a kind of a Catholick and the Fifth-monarchy man is a kind of a Papist Another reason why I would that all might have all liberty of Conscience is because I know there is that reason and light in truth and power among us which is able both to subdue and unite all mens consciences For conscience is but one and truth the rule of conscience is one also It is true there is great confusion among us and therefore abundance of error which shews there is much distemper blindness and sickness of mind Outward punishments enrage and obdurate and therefore are improper remedies for diseased minds They cannot heal the understanding but they may and do harden the heart against them that inflict them and so confirm and strengthen the errour and distemper