erroneous out of the fire with violence instead of feare malice hatred imprisonments bonds Endeavouring to pull others out of the fire and save others with a love respect affection to their fallible mutable garments spotted with the flesh But oh immutable unspotted undefiled God! thou who art able to present me faultless before the presence of thy glory with joy let me not be seperated from any or joyned to any when thou shalt seperate till thou seperatest and joynest that so seperation may be of thee uniting may be of thee and that I may hold forth the interior teachings the hidden unspeakeable mysterie of calling and enjoying Let me not walke according to the minde and will of the men of the world that are something and nothing that live and command according to the will of the flesh let me not walke according to the way of the wandring stars the wonders of the world of mountains of Thrones of Principalities and powers of the aire of the Gods of nations preistly Counsels and Magistrates of the earth chosen by men of the earth But oh Lord let my Exterior be what the Lord and not what the Lords will But methought I saw the preists of the nation in Pompe and glorie in kings Monarches and potentates Courts and methought I saw them instigating the Civill Magistrates of the world and I saw the persons and their waies to be the Preistly Lineage and the successours of the Lord Iesus his and his Apostles and Saints enemies who crucified the Lord Jesus did kill and slay the Apostles and Saints of the most high God and being convinced of the glorie power and truth of God manifested in those Apostles Saints did endeavour to extripate root them out from off the face of the earth made them to wander up down destitute afflicted and tormented And when they thought they had extinguished them and rooted them out of the world they stiled themselves the Apostles successours Ministers of the Lord Jesus and Priests of the high God like certain of the Jews Acts 19.13 yea Vagabond Jews Exorcists who tooke upon them to call over them that had evill spirits the name of the Lord Jesus whom Paul Preached But here I was cast into admiration why the world should ever the more admire the Preists of nations and their adherent that are the scourgers of Saints the incensers of Magistrates because they pretend to the Lord Jesus whom Paul did enjoy and whom Paul did preach But preists but Ministers of the Gospel as you call your selves though I can say in some measure Iesus Christ know somewhat by the power of that eternal spirit I know which Paul know But who are ye But though you are in my apprehension the great enemies of the Lord Jesus and though I shall be accounted an evill spirit by you a Devill or what not I would not insult over you though I had power over you But it 's I can onely say that many of you may be saved it 's the eternall absolute and onely wise can say you shall But yet I think you shall suffer the losse of your craft for many persecutors both before and in the Marian persecution became persecuted ones the Father called some of them from queenly fleshly carnall Antichristian glory to the fire I desire that you would not be offended with words for I profess seriously I speak not out of hatred but out of pitie to you that are in contrarietie to the Lord Jesus You often say you acknowledge a God therefore expect not that I should call you gods that have hands nor your works gods that are made with hands nor any or all your minds or understandings Gods even a whole Synod or Counsaile But the absolute supreame God shall be when you are not to be seen Time may be when your Craft as well as your predecessors craft may be set at nought and your gods and goddesses despised and all your magnificence destroyed though there were as many more eager and violent persecutors and worshippers are not you the cause whilst you have the power in your hands whilest you have the Kings Lords and Potentates of the earth to act for you that there is so great a stir about that way which you partiall fallible Judges call Heresie What though you cry out great is Diana of the Ephesians what though you are full of wrath and bitterness so that fire proceeds out of your mouth and as much malice envy and divellish contrariety to all except your selves as can be supposed to be in the most barbarous and cruell yet your Kingdom is not an everlasting Kingdom nor your Dominion an everlasting dominion but the supream infallible Judge will come gloriously will not tarry It is but a Marian Trick to persecute a poor man and to hale him or indeavour to bring him before you Commanders in chief your Magistracy and Counsels for Preaching as you call it I will acquaint you with one thing I providentially saw not long since in the Book of Martyrs of one Rawlins White a Fisher man of Cardiff who was burnt for an Heretick a little before the fire flasht up to his body many of his friends came to him and took him by the hand and one held held him till the flame arose and seperated friends but a Priest said it was not lawfull to take him by the hand for he was an Heretick and condemned by the Church I wonder Mr. Pryn doth not insert this as of divine Authority to prove the lawfulness of persecution and violence to be used to Hereticks But Nationall Ministers you are the Children or the Childrens Children of those that were so constituted and did Act according to an unjust papall way and as one sayth of them Cujus faetor usque ad nubes fumum teterrimum exhalabat whose filthy stinck did fume even to the Clouds of Heaven but indeed you did still indeavour to cloth your selves finer and finer to make the world wonder at you and think you were really for Reformation but be not deceived so as to think that God can be mocked and deluded though you finde men almost the whole world very facile and easie to be deluded with a lye with a fancy It was formerly wont to be said Agnus dei qui tollis peccata mundi miserere nobis but must we take it in this acceptation Synodus Dei qui tollis peccata mundi miserere nobis Oh the intolerable pride of Lucifer O the Vanity of the high Priests who are made by the power of the great God to confess they are not infallible yet act as if they were But methinks I see and behold I thank my eternall life and only wise God my Lord to laugh at the Lords my God at the Gods the and my absolute immutable perfect infallible informer and Reformer to laugh at the mutable non-absolute imperfect fallible Informers and Reformers but it may be these men may be sealed up to
give forth some way or other to discover the thoughts of all hearts Oh Lord Supereminent Thou hast made all men almost to differ one from another and thou hast set the world in their hearts to some thou didst give the gift of prophesie it may be in some measure to some Tongues to some discerning of spirits to some working of miracles to some wisdom to some knowledge to some Faith if thou givest me but the glimmerings of love in the least of these or in any one let me not despise him that hath more or judge him that hath more nor yet despise him that hath less or judge him that hath less if any have less then my self in relation to capacity or understanding for thou art the same let me not pretēd to know above what I really know though the powers of the world would have me do that I am not convinced of or leave undone that which I cannot because I am thine not their servant Oh then the absolute Lord over-rule the lords in me and let me see thee and walk before thee in the understanding yet if thou wilt have a Nero a Domitian a Caligula or any power of the visible world to scourge me Give my back to the smiters and let me know and see thou givest it and then let me take pleasure in it For oh Lord me thinks I see that a man may have a vision of God and may see a star to arise out of Jacob and may be convinced in his conscience that the earth is the Lords and the fulness thereof and that God is the alone Lawgiver Judge and absolute supream as many or most of the Nationall Priests and Lords confess yet at the request of a base sensitive lust and divilish desire will endeavour to have Altars built yea Altar upon Altar to see whether they can curse the Israel of God Let us proclaim a Fast that so God may hear our Prayers and grant our desires the longing of our souls But Lord how far is this from the true life of Saintship and love in the World But O Lord refine me and then let me walk as refined Thirteenth The mandates of the Scripture even the Scriptures from which the Potentates and powers of the earth have and do maintain persecution and violence to others do all of them extend to the Magistrate and if he were in a Christian constitution as he pretends he ought not in that relation to use carnall weapons neither will he unless he supposes himself wiser then ever Christ or an Apostle was or hath received the Spirit more then an Apostle had or hath received the Spirit to maintain and defend such a practise as the Apostle could not neither did 2 Cor. 10.4 Christ saith when they were persecuted should pray when cursed bless Christ could have had twelve Legions of Angels to defend him in this visible world but he would not take any invisible glory or visible excellency of God to defend him And if the Magistrates will tell us plainly that they have that power given them as considered in a constitution of holiness and truth which the Father would not give Jesus the Son or which he would not assume or exercise nor give his Apostles power to assume or exercise Let them prove that they or this or that particular Magistrate had or have that which neither of them had neither Jesus Christ nor Apostles And let those whom they are pleased to call Hereticks and to banish imprison and afflict see their Arguments that they have in themselves as in the presence though they think it not nor perceive it or know it or though knowing it will not acknowledge it of the Eternall incomprehensible Judge non-respecter of persons the interiorest discerner that can describe that which man describes with a fuller description and judge with a fuller judgement then man or any visible glory or rationall intellect in the world who is without the exteriorest and within the interiorest and indivisible in himself who judges with a more absolute judgement then all the Councels Potentates Lords Synods or Parliaments of the earth And when he enters into judgement the flesh of a Lord is no more then the flesh of another man nor shall more be justified by him or be able to justifie it self But I beleeve if things were demonstrated in the world according to the spirit of truth reallity and non-confusion the Lords Potentates and Counsels of the earth would appear to be the greatest Anti-scripturists though in words they would not have it so expressed or so express it themselves Fourteenth Is it not a case of conscience or is there not necessity that every particular man should be perswaded in his own minde for what he doth or for what he is commanded to do least he call good evil and evil good least he call oppressing persecuting Lords Magistrates Counsels Synods followers of the God of heaven in love light and truth Citizens of the New Ierusalem Saints of the most high God livers in the Spirit those that walk with God when indeed they are not so but grinders of the faces of the poor Idolaters carnall sensuall and divilish having not the spirit having mens persons in admiration because of advantage making a prey of the poor and needy having wisdom yet are not wise unto God but to themselves oppressours though not of their friends or themselves of the Saints of the most High or those that are not perswaded in their consciences by the Divine Supream God It is not strange to say know and think that magistrates and ministers so called have been so are and may be so The Scriptures of the most High God testifie it the saints have witnessed it and still do witness it with their blood and bodies Are there not men magistrates and ministers of such mindes as Caesar Caligula was of that wished that all the people of Rome had but one neck that he might destroy many at once Many can apply this But Hell must inlarge her self Gods design must be accomplished in Hell as well as in Heaven Saints give your backs to the smiters In this my last Demonstration and apprehension I was in the conclusion desiring in my own spirit of that eternall Jehovah and everlasting God that I might be so swallowed up into that eternall glory wisdom power will that I might not manifest my self with my self but that my self or rather himself might be manifested in me by me and from me then though the mutable Lords of the Aire oppose me yet my alone substantiall ever-remaining supereminent Lord remaines If I live he is if I die those that live after me shall not truly say he is not but he is the same I also desired that I might be so swallowed up to the life of the Lord that in seeing of that Lord in the things of that Lord I might not respect persons that it might be all one to me to be hated and to be loved to
that consult and endeavour to make the places of Saints too straight and to binde up the spirit of God to your formality darkness and bounds You that hear the children that you have lost say in your ears the place is too straight for us give place to us that we may dwell Isa 49.20 21 22 23 24 25 26. You that say in your hearts who hath begotten me these seeing you have lost your children and you are and will become desolate and who hath brought up these these where have they been will you make the broad places straight will you comprehend God in a narrow compass of a man of a Synod will you compass the incompassable will you compare with the incomparable Oh you cannot Do you think that God hath no other Ornament then a Directorie to adorn a Nation which he means to reform If he hath such a minde surely he hath Do you think that he who hath rivers of all sorts and waters of glory and of varietie to change his Creation by Iesus Christ and according to Iesus Christ hath but your stream But that one current of yours which you intend to make to run in the veins of the heavens and of the earth if you can Surely you are deceived God will I am confident dry up your River and make your fish to stink and die for thirst If you have a Jasper do you think all must have Jaspers may not another have a Saphir Yes truly whether you have or have not a Jasper if you have a Saphir may not another have a Chalcedony If you have an Emerauld may not another have a Sardonyx If you have a Sarduis may not another enjoy a Chrysolite if you have a Topar may not another enjoy a Chrysophrasus If you have a Jacynth may not another have an Amethyst Rev. 21.19 If you have or be any of these surely it would be satisfaction enough to you If you have the light of the Sun freely given you will you endeavour to destroy him that hath but the light of the Moon will you despise the day of small things Have you freely received and will you force another to walk as you walk when he hath not received You that were overcome your selves if you have truly overcome evill and Heresie will you have another Conquerour then the brightness of the Fathers glorie Is it not your darkness and inconsiderateness to say in your heart who hath begotten these Do you think you must be perpetuall Fathers shall Saints be alwaies taught of fallible mutable vain man would you not have God to beget how he pleaseth and when he pleaseth Oh vain man why contendest thou with thy maker the holy one of Israel Thou canst not prevail thou never madest a hair of thine own head thou never addest a Cubit to thine own stature He that walks in the circuit of heaven laughs thee to scorn and hath thee in derision daily Doest thou think God can bring none forth but such as thou willest can teach no other way but such as thou teachest can have no other Terms but such as thou understandest comprehendest studiest and contrivest If that invisible God and eternall substance doth begin to set up his Standard to the people to lift up his hand to the Gentiles and to make Kings nursing Fathers and Queens nursing mothers Wilt thou instigate the Magistracy the Kings the powers of the world in the high places to binde the people of God though under another notion in chains of death and darkness Doest thou think that Kings Queens and Magistrates must be only nursing fathers and mothers unto you must honour the God of Heaven and earth only in you and lick up the dust of your feet In the consideration of these things I am cast into admiration of infinitie Oh boundless God and binding man Oh boundless God! that measurest all things comprehendest all things who hast infiniteness in all thy true variety let not thy Saints be ashamed to wait for thee Oh Super-superlative binding God! who art able to bind Synods Counsels Powers of the world in chains and fetters of Iron that have bound the people deceived the Nations a great space manifest thy self that thou bindest and loosest and art able to restrain the bindings of man as well as to unloose after thou hast given him power to binde And if thou hast an intent that this Synod shall be a scourge or means of a scourge to thy people as well as other Synods formerly called Convocations or other names do thou say to thy Saints in the spirit of understanding Where is the fury of former oppressors and am not I the Lord thy God and is not my name the Lord of Hosts who have divided the Sea whose waves roared Isa 51.15 Say thou to thy people as thou saidst of old Isa 52.3 4 5 6. Ye have sold your selves for nought and ye shall be redeemed without money though they that rule over you make you to howle and cause the ignorant of God to blaspheme the Lord every day But let thy people know it is thou that speakest even thou I am confident Synod the thoughts of God are not your thoughts neither are your waies the waies of the Lord for as the heavens are higher then the earth so are the waies of the triumphant God and the thoughts of the triumphant God higher then yours and you may miss of your aime in your generation but I rejoyce you keep your Crown Power Kingdom and Glorie so long as the Father will Synod reade perhaps you may know and understand 56 Isa 11. 57 Isa Whose Chapter may appertain to thee in thy own understanding and the 13 Ezekiel 14 Ezekiel 9 10. 41 Isa 10 Ieremiah 23 Ieremiah the 26 Ieremiah 29 Ieremiah 8 12 verses c. And also the 34 of Ieremiah 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 c. I can I thank the most High the invisible substance make parallels and the parallels aequipolent Therefore though you shall endeavour to scourge me and afflict me yet I shall see the love of the absolute Lord in scourgings and whippings Though you shall say as others before you have said Come let us scourge him and afflict him for he hath sinned against the Lord yet my glory is in the absolute God washer cleanser purger discerner informer reformer and acquitter and from him I have my Quietus est What though you make me an offender for a word What though you shall have the Nobles the Powers of the world the Parliament whom you instigate the People to say Come let us devise devices against him because he speaks of the things of God he being not Ordained The Law shall not perish from the Priest nor Counsel from the Wise nor the Word from the Prophet Come let us smite him with the tongue and let us not give heed to any of his words Yet the absolute Lord non-respecter of persons can
infallible and absolute Divinity but in the 58 of Isa you may see your Image even by your Nationall fathers before you when the absolute alone supream judge shall enter into judgement and give grinding to the grinders in giving eternall burthens to those that have temporarily burthened bound and oppressed O then let the mountains and Rocks fall on us and the Hills cover us from the presence of the judge Oh then Ministers Divines Teachers Instigators Instructers as you said of your selves in righteousness what hiding place shall we have But you say or think it may be that there is no such thing to be expected therefore you will take another mans word I wish I could truly say if it were the will of eternity much good may it do ye When the absolute supream shall fasten this to your Consciences which as yet passeth away as a tale that is told unto you 59. Isai Your hands are defiled with blood and your fingers with iniquity your lips have spoken lyes you conceive mischief and you bring forth iniquity you hatch Cockatrice eggs and weave the Spiders webb but your eggs if they are eaten they that eat them die and if any with the power of life manifestation and understanding of the Absolute crush your eggs they break forth presently into a viper but when eternity will enter into judgement when the Islands shall flie away and the Mountains not be found when the hearing of this voyce shall be manifested Rev. 6.10 c. Oh Lord not Lords holy and true doest thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth shall the glorie of the heavens afford you any comfort they shall be roll'd together like a scrowl shall the Kings of the earth and the great men the richmen the chief Captains your servants the mighty men the bond men the freemen the Dens Rocks Mountains afford you comfort and succour Shall multitudes shall kindreds Nations Tongues shall power and authority shall a Ladie shall a Queen shall a woman arrayed in purple and scarlet colour decked with Gold precious stones with a Golden cup in her hand Rev. 17. Shall the Merchants of the earth with their Merchandise of Gold Silver and Precious stones shall the fruits that your soul lusted after shall the Shipmasters Rev. 18. shall the Parliaments shall the Synods shall the Committees No surely Lords Oh then happy is he whose God is the Lord. But Counsellors but earthly Polititians when you shall be arraigned in the interiour man by the interiorest the all-seeing Jehovah the infinite everlasting the absolute Lord VVhat are many Lords and what are many idolized false Gods when you shall be called Gods and Lords and come to be judged arraigned condemned by the absolute non-respecter of persons as men in the inwardest cogitations minde understanding with those aggravations that lie in the wisdome of eternity to make and manifest your Webs shall not become garments neither shall yee cover your selves with your works for your works are works of iniquity and the Act of violence is in your hands But in the midst of all my thoughts I was sore oppressed in my own spirit I was willing to give up my self even the exteriour the interior life to the supream absolute To live in the world I was unwilling yet willing for live I must and in this consideration live I would so long as the giver or the taker pleaseth let him do with me what seemeth him good in his own eyes But I saw man or the temporary Lords in the world contending to amend me thought I saw that which was mended by man was but amended with a fancy and that which was amended with a fancy was lacerated and torn with another one mans amending another in the world in relation to the supereminent divine changer amender translater is like a simple Cobler his amending a paire of shooes that may be for a fortnights or less not much more walking will weare them out so that it may be sayed as you were or rather worse then you were for these amendings perish with the using therefore I may say Ne sutor ultra crepidam But that which I beheld in the world I desired the supream to destroy in me for I thought with my self it may be I may contein all the innormities of the whole Orb therefore I was in fine made to reflect upon the supream and the absolute Lord and Lawgiver and when I by reflexion considered the foundation of all Generations and I had no satisfaction in the apprehension of the life of the Generations past or the life of the Generation that now is I was reduced into the foundation and that gave me some sweet solacing and some pleasant refreshing But in seeing I beheld and in my view I saw the Lords of the earth had inlarged and were ever inlarging their beds of pleasure to take pleasure in their excess and their temporary glories Methought I saw them resolved so far as mutable Lords could resolve to keep to their own Lawes Statutes Ordinances and to make them unto themselves and demonstrate it unto others as if it were the absolute true and infallible Sabbath of rest and commendable by the most high And when I did upon the Lords casting me into serious consideration behold the Lord by the glimmerings of the supereminent and everlasting glory opening the Seals I saw beasts in the shape of men going forth conquering and to conquer with bows in their hands Rev 6. And I saw and expected an Arrow to pierce all those who held the Testimony of Jesus I saw the Lords and the Potentates of the Aire those that had the power of Nations and Kingdomes so long as they had the Crown go forth conquering and to conquer But Lord if it be thy will make me also to will to receive if thou willest to give an Arrow from that Bow The life supereminent was no sooner held out the Seals were no sooner opened by the eternall supereminent judging word but presently another beast represented it self so long as it had the Crown to take peace from the earth and to kill with the sword But Oh Lord Absolute and Eternall I cannot say that thou wilt not reveale thy self to any one because thou doest not reveal thy truth to many a one but if thou wilt reveal what thou hast hid and hide what thou hast revealed thy will be done the generations of the world are servants to thy Mysticall glory and to thy incomprehensible Majesty draw me up unto that supereminent life in the truth of apprehension and understanding that so I may live in that life though I am kill'd with the sword Also I see a further accomplishment and in the accomplishing I behold even in the temporarie world a horrible persecution and affliction upon the exteriour formes and natures of things methought I saw violence on every side persecution and affliction under all formes to stifle the
the judgement of the great Day but the alone absolute Judge knowes and I am alone satisfied that he knows and that he manifests and mysteriously containes in his invisible self what he pleaseth In my Soliloquies in my withdrawings in secret before my God of whom I desire not to be ashamed and unto whom all things are naked and bare the contrarietie of the powers of the world made me more now then ever in all my life to look up to God the incomprehensible glory to see if possible I might attain or had attained to it as apprehended of him how I was as to him which would be the greatest comfort to me that could bee if the Lord should lay some heavy affliction upon me if I should be brought before the powers of the world for I saw in the world and methinks I see and hear the Crowned Beasts as well as the Saints of the most High the fellowship of the body of the son of God that are round about the Throne cry Holy Holy Holy Lord God Almighty which was and is and is to come I saw the whole World in confusion and yet walking in their place the beasts in their place of adoration acknowledge the most high God under the same forms of expression or Ministration of holiness and glory that the Saints of the most High did But I see understand a variety of manifestation of the great God of Heaven and earth in distinction But I seeing and beholding the Beasts of the earth to have a Crown power and authority given them to kill with the sword under the name of the worship service glory and excellency of the most High God and it made me that have lived in the time of my ignorance of God or life to God with God after the flesh deceit formall man teachings and fallible apprehensions to look and see if I could behold or attain to see the eternal absolute infallible to comprehend me in the body of the Lord Iesus to see if I lived to the life supereminēt to the life sustaining feeding even to the absolute true and not fading principle of glory and to see if I lived to the true beams life and Communion of true understanding But Lords Counsels Synods or Honourable men of good admired literature you that desire to be reformers of men for the salvation of souls you that conceive your selves to be the men absolutely infallible in your selves undeniable to others called of God more then the generation of preists or Synods before you you that so well conceive of your selves that you act not from Preistly Marian principles as the Preists your predecessors did you also that hold foorth your doctrine as they did theirs from your owne or your Fathers interpretation of Scriptures you that endeavour to limit and binde in Chaynes of darkenesse and selfe you that would have none teach but your selves or rather to minister what they apprehend of God but your selves as your Fathers before you I desire you and earnestly intreate you as you tender the Scriptures of God which you as if convincedly truly and knowingly maintaine and preach from And because it may not be said if you if it be not true of you according to that Rule of imperiousness earthliness sensuality and Devilishness wisdom and yet folly Sic volo sic jubeo stat pro ratione Voluntas And furthermore because it is said in the 5 Iames 20. let him know that he which converteth a sinner from the errour of his way shall save a soule from death and shall hide a multitude of sinnes if you infallibly know as many of you seeme constantly to averr that this Scripture belongs unto you to make use of Consider you are men and not God You are many men and you have many minds See and behold if you can whether you may not be condemned by the Eternall God though you condemne not your selves or judge your selves if you are now of one minde in your Assembly you are not to be considered eternaly so for yesterday you were of one mind to day you are of another before many daies or yeares come to be consummated by that eternall God who is uncapable of change you may be of another minde contrary to them both you have hissed at the generations that have been past at the generation that is but the generations that are to come may hiss at you and may be ashamed of their fathers pretended infallibilities you or your fathers have Clipt the wings whipt scourged imprisoned the bodies in fine abused those that have been contrary to you what did you do as you would be done by Did not many of you that pretend to have a holy respect to the Sabbath read your selves or countenance the reading in others the book of sports And will you now make it your sport to persecute Did you not live farr below the heavenly glory of knowing and understanding How will it be with you when God shall say to your Consciences you that thought you knew so much of me did not know your selves you that were ready and violently ready to scourge had need be scourged even at the same time of God It is true I gave you understanding power and Crownes on your heads and I will judge you according to what you are and with what you have as I have your fathers before you Time was when you would take notice of none crowned but your selves none honoured of God but your selves as if you comprehended all the incommunicable and communicable varieties of my selfe as if you had the infallible discerning of spirits but now I will shew thee those whom thou persecutedst those whom thou esteemedst the off-scouring of all things the filth of the whole world to weare Crowns of gold and white Rayment though you had Crowns though powers kingdomes glories though you are disputing intellectuall persons and have rationall capacities though governours of multitudes Nations Kindreds and tongues yet you have not white Garments before the All-seeing Supereminent eternall Iehovah When you Lords of earth shall see one that you Lorded over crowned with transparent gold Crowned with the transparent power life wisdome and love of the eternall invisible God and in the body of Jesus Christ if you shall behold it in time Oh then my Lords Tempora mutantur if when time shall be no more what shall my Lords be I shall expatiate my selfe according to the Scriptures of God 10 Luke Christ gave power to and manifested the fathers glory in a few poore disciples a few tormented hated persecuted Saints to cast out Devills to tread upon Scorpions and all the power of the Enemy But surely they became not a Magistraticall power to accomplish such a Victory and though he gave them such power he told them there was no cause of triumph in this or joy in this that the spirits were subject unto them but rather that their names were written in heaven
would scarce afford him to write or seeme to write upon the ground If he did we should have a gangraena made presently to condemn this Heretick this Belzebub this friend to publicans sinners But Lords But Counsailes but Synods in fine but men when the absolute Lord and supereminent God shal tell you though a poore man it may be that is iudged and condemned before you may not neither doth that you who were or are called Lords in the sublunary Visible Kingdome glory did endeavour to cast a moate out of anothers eye you had a beame in your owne and that you having a beam are no competent judges of a mote But it may be you will say that you are infallible in this and also say that that saying of Christ doth not appertain to you Let him that is without sin cast the first stone when God shall discover himself and manifest you what you are even that you that judge other are Cast-awaies your selves are Hereticks your selves you would not be very willing to finde a stone for another When the Lord shall say though you cried Templum Domini Templum Domini yet the everlasting was not in your esteem even he that can when he will both cast out Beam and Mote But thus it is when the Lord is not or will not be understandingly supereminently in the Lords thoughts though he be neer and sees yet he will not be seen but they say how doth God know can he judge through the dark Cloud thick Clouds are a covering to him that he seeth not and he walketh in the circuit of heaven Job 22 23 24. But Oh Immortality thy righteousness thy seeing and thy seeing to be seen thy knowing to be known and thy understanding to be understood shines not upon all Thou hast O Lord set the world in my heart so that no man can finde out the work that thou hast made from the beginning to the end Ecclesiastes 3.11 Therefore Lord if thou wilt give a Crown Power and Authority to Temporarie Lords to excercise their Dominion and power even upon me if thou shalt manifest me and make me a little flame of thy self thy will be done It is only in thy self to comprehend the works that thou hast made from the beginning to the end if man indeavours to comprehend endeavours to inthrone himself in a state of comprehending others and persecuting others from an apprehension that he comprehends when he doth not in deed and in truth and though I shall if thou comprehending incomprehensib e willest be afflicted scorrned contemned by that generation yet let me in particular lie down and be satisfied that I am apprehended and comprehended of thee and that I know see and speake according to the true and reall nature of knowing seeing speaking living and injoying as comprehended let me see before I say I see know before I say I know and be spoken to before I speak Oh! thou immutable knower see'r and absolute speaker as to the things that thou hast made capable of seeing knowing and speaking let thy loving spirit of righteousness and wisdom uphold me and though thou deliverest me to the ungodly and turnest me over into the hands of the wicked let me say truly knowingly and understandingly my witness is in heaven and my record is on high in love Job 26.19 But Counsellours of the Earth Weak Contenders of the Earth with the absolute Lord I see and consider oppressions though I see not all oppressions under the Sun But a comfort it is that the absolute Lord sees Eccles 4.1 2. But it may be Lords you will say when you persecute there is no remedy in the death of a man it is sutable to conveniency and the constitution of a Kingdom to destroy a man so as it was indeed to crucifie the Son of God who was known is known to some not to be held of the grave But you it may be will say you have not known any man to returne it may be you will say men are born at an adventure and shall be hereafter as though they had never bin that the breath of your nostrils is as smoake a little spark in the moving of your Breast which being extinguished your body shall be turned into ashes and your spirit shall vanish as the soft Aire therefore you will lie in waite for the righteous because he is not for your turn he is clean contrary to your doings because he professeth to have the knowledge of God and he calleth himself the child of the Lord he is made to reprove your doings therefore he is grievous to behold because his life is not like other mens his waies are of another fashion because you are esteemed of him as counterfeits and he abstaineth from your filthiness and because he maketh his boast that God is his Father And therefore you will examine him with despightfulness and torture to know his meekness and prove his Patience But Potentates I shall present a few things to your consideration paradventure you may see with your eyes and heare with your ears and when you are converted if ever you shall you may set to your seals that these things are true to the praise and glory of the absolute infallible God Judge power wisdome and true glory 1. God is the alone supream King of kings Lord of lords and God may as well as he hath already give the Nations or those to whom he intends to shew and manifest himself unto a light and glorious understanding to see that Lords by speciall authority and power formerly constituted are but types and shadowes of the absolute supream immortall God and Judge but this is true though the Lords and Kings see it not themselves for I know they will say you Prophecie not good unto them in these things 2. Christ the perfect pattern of the Fathers manifested perfection to men never gave any such power or kingly authority to any that then were in the world either Magistrates or Apostles he never gave the Apostles power to exercise themselves with scourgings whippings imprisonments banishments or oppositions of such a kind therefore there is no such successive Magistracy 2 Cor. 11.3 4. verses If he that cometh Preacheth another Jesus whom we have not Preached and if ye receive another Spirit whom ye have not received or another Gospel which ye have not accepted ye might well bear with him Likewise there was power given or the manifestation of the most High in a way supereminent that the Saints should do great things by the power of the Spirit and in the name of the Lord Jesus that supereminent name that name above every name In whose name the seventy returned with joy and said the Devils were subject unto them by it Luke 10.17 I know no other authority power or glory given to any that should profess that name according to the spirit 3. Christs commanding the Apostles to give Caesar his due and God
be honoured and to be dishonoured to have evill report to have good report to be buffetted scorned contemned despised and to be counted the off-scouring of the world to be courteously entertained affected delighted in to be out of prison when I am in and to be in when I am out to have all things when I have nothing and to see only that all that eternall wise God alone when I have any thing if he shall call me to speak of himself that I may not live to any thing under the Sun for I see vanity in all things I desired that I might see and live in the eternall life in the life supereminent and if I shall be called amongst the called Gods and Lords that I might speak as seeing truly but one eternall God and Lord For all the Gods and Lords of the earth shall wax old lik a garment and shall be folded up like a vesture this I know and see by experience Thou Lord makest the lords of the earth their name to rot and their memory to perish and what shall be to them in their severall particulars everlastingly thou LORD knowest In companie I desire to see thee and to look up to thee in the understanding as if I had none that so I might see and not see behold and not behold be thou my alone companion Here in the world men love one another because they are as to one another according to sence but let me not be to any but to thee alone let my life as the Apostle said be in the flesh by the faith of the Son of God in the Spirit In this world none must speak of the God but that those the gods will approve of none must speak of the eternal immutable incondemnable but those whom the mutable condemnable dying Lords please none must declare the eternal God to the world but those whom the Ministers or Synods of Nations or the Gods of the Nation pleaseth But if thou absolute infallible minister ministrests to me if thou committest a word unto me inflame me and let me be thy flame in the spirit though the world indeavour to drown to quench thy glory in me But if I am not manifested by thee let my hiding place be in thee and of thee so that let manifestation and cessation to be and not to be and again to be be all of thee who hast times and seasons comprehended in thy self But Lord if the lords of the earth imprison me visit me in the understanding and lay not if it be thy will that sin to their charge for I desire not to have pleasure in their horror when hel and death seizes upon them I desire not to be taken up with them nor to live unto them nor to rejoyce in their pains for I desire not to live unto my own pleasure in me nor any pleasure to me but be affected with pain to me from them if thou wilst it But let me wholly live to thee but Lord thy will be done for all things are of thee all things are for thee all things are to thee though particulars see it not 15. If it be supposed as there is great probability to suppose or if it hath been and be known as by experience that Magistrates Lords Potentates Counsellours Priests yea high Priests are swearers drunkards oppressors walkers after their own lusts blasphemous fallible men will-worshippers having none as they say to rule them contemners and despisers of that which is good unless it be from a Priest from a Carpenters son from a fisherman then Lords are you competent Judges May not a man say to you when you would punish such a one as you call a Heretick though a man doth not countenance Heresie no more then Christ did countenance adultery in the woman when they would have had her stoned Let him that is without sin cast the first stone at her so you that are without Heresie or without the same Heresie for many times expressions of formality do make a difference cast the first stone imprison destroy banish or take away the lives of those you call Hereticks whose life perhaps may be better then ten thousand of yours But precious in the sight of the Lord though not of the Lords is the death of his Saints but you may do such a thing in your dayes that you may never blot out of your consciences at such a time when you shall not be able to redeem your selves or others with ten Thousands of Gold or Silver or ten Thousand Rams or ten Thousand Rivers of Oyl or the first fruit of your body for the sin of your soul But the Will supereminent indescribable is that there must be persecutors and persecuted crucifiers and crucified Lords and high Priests look to your selves if you can God hath chosen the poor of the world rich in faith not many mighty not many rich not many Noble c. I exclude not all What eternity hath done that it self knows 16. A man for what he doth especially in a business of high concernment had need be infallible be absolutely resolved it is the minde of God as in Jesus Christ for if you live not to the supream Originall according to the of knowledg God you judge the things so God with your own mindes you judge the supream so that it may be said as well that the lords Judge the Lord as that the Lord judges the lords But ye will not say so will ye neither wil you say you think so but whether you say or think so you do so 17. If you are infallible your infallibility must proceed from the most high immediately truly and understandingly if you will declare things without the Scriptures as you say you will not if you will be absolute Judges if you will have Hereticks depart out of your coasts if you will have them banished according to the minde of a Synodean Minister who declared himself so to me if you your selves are your own teachers you will not say you are infallible if the pretended Ministers of the Lord Jesus are your teachers they will not alwaies be so audacious thanks be to the most High to say that they are infallible so that you shall finde great cause to confess you are at a loss 18. If your infallibility depends upon the understanding of the Scriptures and so you as you say will walk according to the Scriptures you must have the infallible Teacher to teach according to them what is mysterious and what not to distinguish between the mysticall and the plain if you acknowledge that there is a plain and a mysticall and so to be more infallible distinguishers then others Suppose a Noble man should send a Letter to one that hath been an intimate friend of his in the Kings Army and they having had precedent intimacy know the minde one of another by this Letter but when this Letter is intercepted and comes to the hands of others every man interprets this
But when he will inflame me to speak in the understanding I desire not to value the powers of the world whether within me with me or without me For I desire to be a servant to the most high God though bonds and afflictions shall waite for me And so with my respects to you as to men men subject to infirmities and passions fallible men And also desiring the father alone if it be the fathers pleasure that I may whilest I live under the appointed power and Authority of the World be more and more drawn up into the life Supereminent in a way of peaceableness though I live in unpeaceable unquiet unholy ungodly Authority and Power and quietness in all godliness and honesty I rest Hoping I am and so shall be A Servant to the absolute Lord though I shall be persecuted for the same W. Bray To the Impartiall and Partiall READERS Reader WHosoever thou art under what name soever thou wouldest be accounted and esteemed amongst men if thou art free to reade let it be as if there were no distinction of names by man which tend to division fleshly contention but if thou I are distinguished in the true nature of distinction as of and in two bodies in opposition designed and brought forth by the eternall God I know we shall be contraries though in some measure I can say I have the spirit of testimonie the spirit of understanding yet I can say I am nothing at all neither do I desire to be any thing but what God will and whatsoever I am or am made to be that God may be all in all Perhaps I shall lead thee through varietie of objects which thou wilt like and dislike but whosoever thou art I hope I shall not be offended with thee being in it kept through the power of God if thou dislikest nor the more affected if thou likest for thy liking or disliking commends me not neither discommends me unto God But his Testimony unto me with me for me in me is free and true even higher if possible then perfection can style it Non ab homine testimonium accipio I receive not mans record I care not for mans testimony I have directed this ensuing treatise to the nationall Ministers so called perhaps you will expect they should confirme the words they have spoken and preached unto you If that ministeriall Assembly and those godly divines so called and esteemed will not vouchsafe or condescend to give me an answer I should be unwilling to be a Proselite to such men But my comfort is that he that inhabits eternity will discourse with me in the inner man within my owne vail when I shall not be admitted or accounted worthy to come within a thousand foot of a Synod I have read that Mahomet when he had published his Alcaron no man must comment dare to dispute or call in question any part of it be it never so absurd incredible fabulous and ridiculous it must be beleived implicite no man must contradict it upon paine of death threats terrours affrights tyranny are their means to keep men in obedience Preists and polititions do delude the whole world now at this day Such men as have and do read Machiavell and Tacitus are the men that act to the bene esse of a Common-wealth and must also as they suppose act in dominion and authority over the Church of God The Priests talke much of the spirit in their prayings and preachings yet none other must upon paine of damnation or heresie at least others if they preach it or declare it must be termed by them Enthusiasts and what not Can we exclaime thus O Festus dies hominis If that the light of reason only were not stifled and choaked in the world by the nationall Preists and their Proselites pretended divinity men would not be so much deceived Do not take notice of names as Episcopall Presbiter and Independent for a man may use either of them without wrath or malice a man may say unto you all do as you would be done by Let God alone if you can to destroy all unrighteousness and to add Cubits to our statures whosoever thou art if thou art righteous thou canst not hinder anothers wickedness and fals untill God wills it so if thou art wicked thou canst not hinder anothers righteousness unless God wills it God hath brought forth varietie in the world and one thing shall not hinder another till the Supream cause of all will hinder as to man and further as to man Methinks it would be more suitable to the Scriptures of an Apostle if in any thing any one be otherwise minded God shall even reveale it unto him and that would be the cessation of contention in Episcopalls Presbiters and Independents so called I desire onely to manifest a striking at the roote of any evill as I am striken lovingly of God the supreame cause I desire him alone to perfect the work in righteousness and to bring forth judgement and truth unto victory when he will both to thee and me I write this unto man not for libertie but to declare what grounds I have in my owne conscience for the same of him and from him who gives and continues libertie and holy complacency in a divine will in prison and out I have beene under an extraordinary temptation of from the Devill Satan that for the present hath Crowns in the world that I might not manifest my self in this particular way but God hath answered all Arguments that I can and paradventure also that thou canst make If I shall be againe striken friendly of the Saints I desire I may see it as a precious balme and imbrace it and in some of all see the active God in it If I am striken of others I desire to see only power will and authority from the Father of consolation So accept this from him who is Thine in the service of the everlasting God as in the generation of Jesus Christ W. Bray TEmporarie Potentates that now are you must go to the great Grave of your Fathers even you Mutable living and dying Potentates you must be inclosed in the Concave of the earth You Principle Counsels the best of you not much better then your fathers nay if some of your fathers were extant in the Visible life you would hardly counterpoise them in a ballance if you would suffer your selves to be weighed you would be found too light Oh! you spirituall Sensitive Synods or other Assemblies in the whole World VVhat though you break out without an absolute holy zeal of the eternall God but yet with zeal with a zeal to set up your selves or to honour eternity with the thoughts of your selves with the directories of your own hearts Interrogemus Prophetas Interrogemus Apostolos Interrogemus Scripturas Interrogemus Christum Have not many of your Nationall fathers erred not knowing the true and reall minde of the minifestations of that incomprehensible God Have not
many of your fore-fathers even you your selves varied from Apostolicall knowings and livings in the Spirit If I did think Antichrist would not lye or if you were competent Judges of your own hearts in this great time of your contention for Masteries for power and authority for the sitting in the uppermost Rooms of feasts for Judging according to your selves you would tell me that you have all gone out of the way and that you are altogether become abominable even in the eyes of the divine invisible presence as it is in the Son of the Fathers love and also in your own eyes Have not many of you endeavoured to finde out the profound unsearchable riches of the incomprehensible God who is every where in all the natures of things and yet can hide himself in relation to any thing beside himself so that they shall not perceive him May not God work upon the Left hand and upon the Right hand you see him not surely it 's recorded that Job was in such a condition Job 23.9 Have you not endeavoured to finde out that one indivisible mind that one unalterable God as if you contained him in the hollow of your hands in one associated assembled company Oh! then truly those that you are pleased to call Sectaries of all men are most miserable Have not you thought you might finde truth's glory by the knowledge of the Etymologie of words by your artificiall learning and parts by finding out the fallible derivations and nationall changings of Termes Have not your Sermons been cunningly and artificially composed like Menander his two Comoedies Andria and Perinthia which were very unlike in composition And hath not this deceived the hearts of the people though your subject matter as you will say differ little Do not you in your great contentions endeavour to make a Uniformity in worship which you are pleased to call circumstantials or to give some other slight name to it and also an Uniformity in your substantialls so that the Magistrates have been as the Priests or the Priests as the Magistrates and so Priests Magistrates and people have been almost all one But you must likewise go to the Sepulchre of your fathers to be intoombed or hidden mystically in the conteyning Bowels of the earth the grave of the eternall God for all Yesterday it was to a persecuting Papist afterwards to a persecuting Protestant power and to day is to a domineering Presbyter Hinc illae Lachrymae here is unstedfastness in all our wayes here is persecution under 3. adulterated formes though I mention only these formes I complicate other formes whatsoever they are in the world that are not of God even the Father as considered in the body of the Lord Jesus Christ Give me leave to reason with you and take all in good part for I freely give in a loving consideration but let me tell you in this little Tract that which I apprehend will in the time of the invisible omnipotent Father peirce you to the very heart even some of you in this Generation before it passeth away by that word which endures for ever Oh thou Papist hast thou Iesus Iesus so much in thy mouth Oh thou Protestant hast thou Christ as much in thine and thou Presbyter hast thou the Lord Jesus as much in thy mouth as either of the former to throw both down and others also that are in a form of contrariety to thee and to make thy self an absolute Lord an absolute lover of thy self an absolute pleaser of thy self an absolute liver to thy self I only give these names because you are capable of those names you own your selves by and distinguish your selves and indeed are distinguished in the world therefore be not offended at it You speak much of Christ and your own ordinary and frequent expressions to maintain your own Jus Divinum are frequently in your mouths nay I think in your hearts You say indeed Interrogemus Christum but you do take councell with your selves and if you or any of you shall be subject to the sweet teachings of God of the most holy true and absolute you will tell me hereafter or others if not me or your selves if not others or be told of God that you did proclaim a Fast but you intēded to cut of Naboaths head before hand to stone poor Naboath all because he will live in the inheritance of his Father You will say that you had self-contrivings and Law-makings to destroy those that would walk and live and speak as being the inheritance and in the inheritance of the Father of freeness love and excellencie You will say that you with the will of your selves and the minde of your selves though unseeingly to you the minde of the incomprehensible did make way for Stigmatizing and Stigmatizing Informers if you fasted from your selves if you did not ask councell of your selves in the forms of truth make interrogatories to your selves and answer your own questions it would be a great question whether you obeyed the voyce of God or walked after your own premeditated Ordinances Laws and Designes What though your Counsels as it is recorded of Herod in the peoples apprehensions do speak as the Oracles of God what though you make your selves strong by arguments drawn from your vast Humane Intellects according to the formall denomination of wisdom and understanding in the world it is all but your selves it is but the high glory of an exterior and mysticall Antichrist it is but ad res inanes studia convertere It is that that hath deceived all the Nations of the world and doth deceive the people multitudes of the earth and make them to wonder at you and indeed it hath not only drawn the earthly and beguiled the simple ignorant of God through deceipt but also the heavenly the Saints of the most high those that are in the fathers bosome glorious teachings even to make a Disciple for a season to deny his Master till the substance the invisible incomprehensible God hath given them to see himself more and also themselves and others and to see and live to themselves and others less and to see him inmost of all within every vail within whom nothing is and without whom nothing is or is not is it not evident in the world that Synods and Assemblies have more looked upon and judged truth to be according to mens various argumentative varieties according to the seeing of the eye and the hearing of the ear rather then the true and reall discendings of God in their own understandings by the absolute spirit witness Testimonie or manifestation of the sole supream How many thousands of adulterous voyces have the world heard and worshiped with even with the Supereminentest names of Glory how many false and uncertain sounds have the Plebeians so called by many in scorn affected from a Causidick or a Terrestriall Polititian or an affected self-affecting Priest when the sound have been given by those that have the power of
the Aire that are the princes Lords Counsellors and Synods of the World hath not errour been affected from them if under glorious names and curious expressions let the Generation that is now be Judge Oh you Lords you Consellors of the earth Oh! you Cedars in the world your Kingdome you have interwoven your selves into the language of the Almighty and mixt your dross with the precious and scarce-known truths in the VVorld But your mixture destroys not the substance but the substance in the fulness of time shall destroy your mixture but how many or whether all you shall be saved in that day I determine not he alone knows before whom all things are naked and not vailed Truly Potentates I see when I behold him or when I am rather made to behold him who is the cause of all and of me that am in particular and of what I am whom I desire to live unto mans highness to be lowness mans strength to be weakness mans promises to be perfideousness mans liberty to be bondage mans Communion to be far different from the Communion with the Father and the Son in the active substantiall immutable eternall spirit I see mans truths to be vanity and a lye mans love to be wrath mans goodness and constancie to be all to himself and man with God in his heart as by his understandings contraction and man with God in his mouth to carry on the designe of his worldly Kingdome and glory Truly earthly scourgers and Tormentors in your own Kingdomes and glories your intentions to scourge and afflict do make me to looke to the interiorest to see if possible I can by that measure of glory ministred to me how I am as to the great Iehovah and how I must be to him and for him and not to you for you nor to him for you but that I might be all for him and all from him if possibly to you to him that so I might see what I have been and am unto my selfe But in the consummation of my thoughts I considered this with my selfe I shall not be truely able to endure the brunt of violence if my contrarietie be to you only with the flesh it is but Sathans Kingdom divided against it self whose Kingdom and glory must cease and must be demonstrated to be vile and contemptible for these two which are but one contraries in this seeming division shall at length finde and feele the absolute contrary the supream and the supereminent the head the Judge In my alone seriousness I considered that I had been a professor of and out of the Church of England so called but my profession made me no Saint for it is the alone absolute and reall sanctification in the Spirit that must make me a Saint a professor I did finde according to the substance of examination scrutiny that my profession now must surely be more then formerly that it must have an absolute life or else a fire would quench it the looks of Lords would abash it a prison would imprison it when I should be in and out if I shal be out after I am in it would cause a cessation and honour and credit and preferment amongst men would ensnare me and with it's smiles would intrap me But Lord let not the Lords excellencies mutabilities glories in fine Vanities intrap me let not my profession be meerly a profession of the eternall and everlasting beeing and name according to things without me in the similitude of the profession of the world generally cofusedly and from an exterior extrajudiciall affection that eternitie would comprehend me as knowingly to me as well as knowingly to himselfe who comprehends all things knowingly in the true serious and reall nature of sanctification and that my profession may be the true and reall effluxs of such a glorious comprehension But Princes Nobles and Counsels not worthy to be named so in relation to the absolute supreame I desire to behold a distance when I am truly acted in contemplation of the Prince the absolute the true the infallible unspeakable though I speak of the false though I speak of the fallible and mutable I desire not to center there I desire only to speake of the fading and dying glories as being United to him who comprehends the mutables the exteriors and the interiors and speaks of them and to them and give them their names and places But Satan that Divell tempted me and endeavoured to have Dominion over me and it presented it self to my exterior and approached violently with curious attire fine expressions the language of the most High to have admittance but the interior I thank the Lord had present recourse to the Interiorest to the comprehending the mysticall God the comprehending incomprehensible Me thought I had these things presented me if you will not walk according to the Law of Nobles Lords and Potentates you will be crushed they will binde you in chains will not let you live in the world Imprison your poor body make you to be despised of all men if thy profession or the things thou livest in knowest were more generall then thou mightest have honour credit and reputation in the profession thereof thou wouldest have friends in the unrighteous Mammon the High-Priests the Scribes Pharisees the Doctors of the Law are thy Antagonists but then was the time for the absolute Lord to appear and his appearance caused contrarietie to the Lords Agent or Agents then I despised contemned inconsiderable person did desire that I might behold the absolute Lord and might now contend in the spirit and speak by the power of the highest the cause of all causes the God of all natures the father of all spirits and might now be made unwilling to stand before him as being any thing and that I might be what he will'd and might not be what he nil'd Absolute supream one Absolute Counsellour yet more wise then Counsellours let me be abased so as in my abasement thou aboundest in me to me though thou art incapable of abounding in thy self thou who comprehendest the heavens the earth the constellations glories and powers of both let the particular producted visible form and shape even me in particular see thee who art alone praise-worthy If the world have a prison for me tell me that the prison is thine both before and when I am there and let me know that nothing divides thee and me for thou art indivisible and mayest when thou wilt be seen in all the natures of things Oh thou eternall triumphant God! let me live in the wondering and admiring of thy holy unsported fulness let me not look upon spots any more upon emptinesses any more but with the communication of thy fulness incommunicable that is let me not look upon things by the wisdome of self by the sensuall wisdom the wisdome of the flesh let me not look upon a lye any more to be deceived by it to live upon it to live to it
to be delighted in it thou that hast habitation and habitations and yet hast no habitation at all to inclose thee comprehend thee inviron thee do good unto thee if thou hast eternally will'd it let me be the habitation of thy wisdome though a prison shall be a habitation for me Oh sweet God! how sweet will it be that I should be a habitation for thy invisible indivisible self in the spirit of understanding conquer that Divell for me whom thou hast made and given power to deceive and yet hast power to conquer him and if thou hast a minde that I shall speak of thee and acknowledge thee manifest it and then let me not fear the face of a man whose breath is in his nostrils but yet Lord let me have that courage that belongs to thy immutable life and to those that live unto God and not themselves When I shall or if I shall be brought before Magistrates Kings Counsellours or Judges of the earth let not that move me let me not be tossed to and fro by them so as to give up or make recantation of those thngs thou manifestest by thy eternall impress let me be before the Magistrate and judge as knowingly in the presence of the judge of Magistrates and Judges and let me speak as in thy presence Lord I have spoken in private of thee and to thee and thou vouchsafest to reason with with me and discourse with me but man is vain man is sensuall man is proud and the lofty ones would be more lofty then the lofty one that inhabits eternity Wilt thou invisible God draw me to speak to thee and furnish me with arguments and shall I be afraid to speak of thee to thee in the face and hearing of a dying man But Lords of the earth Lords in time I may truly say as in the presence of the Lord of times and seasons Oh Lord my God! other Lords besides thee have had Dominion over me have been in me the head of a designe but by thee will I only make mention of thy name Temporarie Lords Counsellours Synods if he that sees would make you see that say you see if he that apprehends would make you apprehend you would see your selves neither Lords to your selves nor Lords to others in things concerning the invisible life you would be glad to have your selves dethroned and the absolute supream in all your titular momentary glories alone dignified and exalted But Mutable Dominion what will it avail in the day of the Triumph of the absolute perpetuall Triumphant when sorrow and mourning shall flie away from your abjects the off-scum and off-scouring of your worldly glory when fears death and Hell when worse then the Plagues of Egypt shall fall upon you possess you even you that have had the pleasures of Egypt power given not only to your selves but pleasure in your selves to scourge the Nations especially the refining Jewels of the great God of heaven and earth Me thinks I see and hear that the Lords of the earth the Potentates of the world the praying the preaching the fasting the fleshly glories and the spirits of Antichrist but I must confess with some comfort it is only during their time of dominion and whilst their place is to be found endeavour to destroy the prayers of Saints by praying the declarations of Saints by Preaching to destroy the glory of true reall and absolute fasting by fasting This Nationall Interrogatory may be indeed asked What Religion do you profess May there not be a generall cry by those that see May there not be a Trumpet sounded in the Nations of the World but more especially in the commonly called house of Jacob or England that seemingly there is a daily delight to know the wayes of the most high as if a Nation that did righteously and did not forsake the ordinances of the great God as if they walked according to the dictamen of the absolute sole supream and lived according to the absolute spirit of the eternall God in the truth of understanding do they not seem to ask of God he Ordinances of Justice when their own praemeditated praeordinated fleshly Antichristian Ordinances Lawes and Statutes are maintained by their fleshly carnall accomplishing power But these delight in their approaching to and by the name of the eternall God Have we not the Monarchs the powers of the world of Nations the spirits of darkness death hell and the Grave that challenge the holy one of Israel to his face that insultingly and domineeringly and as much as in them lie blaspheme the absolute supream wisdome and would be in the place of the supream Cause or would have the supream Cause to be their servant and they to be Master to that eternall absolute undefiled immutable glory as if they should say we have fasted and thou seest not have we observed dayes and moneths and years and observest thou not We love the Nation with our hearts and we will preserve the Nation with our prayers Shall we observe a day and wilt thou not observe both the day and us We have not only afflicted our bodies but our very souls if bodily whippings scourgings and lashings of our selves as many of us are perswaded in our understandings will not move thee yet our afflicting our soules piercing our selves through with many sorrows or reducing our selves in body soul into a super-superlative way of sadness and affliction will must move thee Wilt thou take no knowledge of this excellent daies work of ours We came with an intent to have thee know what we would have thee know and do what we would have thee do against Hereticks and Sectaries disturbers of the Peace we would have thee our servant our slave but we wil not say so for that wil too much undeceive the world if out of our own mouth we should judge our selves we should no more binde the world in temporarie chains and in fetters of our own devising But Oh Lords Oh you Monarchs in a Nation and Nations you have here in this little Tract but an earnest of your charge drawn up but when the interiorest of all when that knowing seeing and judging God that lofty one shall come and judge you according to that you are within for you are not alwaies the same without that you are within What are yee What difference shall you see Shall you not see a change and a vast disproportion betweeen a Lord and a Lazarus that was captivated to the light and knowledg of the absolute Lord But Lords or powers of the World by what name or title soever distinguished what though in the day of your fasting you found pleasure and delight yet it was but an exaction of your own labours ye fasted for strife and prayed for debate and to smite with the fist of wickedness as a Nation that did righteousness justice and mercie as if you lived to the highest formes of truth in relation to humanity and likewise to
what though their are many spirits gone abroad in the world Sectaries the divills of the world as you call them your rejoycing would be rather if you had such a glorious Apostolicall Commission power glory that your names were writen in heaven that you your selves are comprehended in the bosome of the Father But yet if you did so your selves and know your selves it would be questionable whether you have this Apostolicall power and glory if not the one surely not the other But you may have a Crown power and authority continued to you to scourge and crucifie It it is said in the 21. and 22 verses The eternall supereminent the Lord of Heaven and earth had hid wisdome from the wise and prudent and revealed it to babes Lords tell the people playnly and distinctly whether you can say that it seemed good in the sight of the Lord to alter his visible dispensations and to reveal his truth to Lords Potentates Counselours wise men prudent men Sattin men Purple and Diamond men that is to say those that go in gay cloathing and would sway the whole world those that have respect of persons those that must sit here and sit there because they are thus and thus Christ told his disciples that many prophets Kings did desire to see the things that they saw and did not see them and to hear the things that they had heard and did not hear them But admit there have been prophets Kings and Lords since that which have seene the things of God you may not be such men that are now in this Generation Christ said all the glories of the Father were delivered unto him and that no man did know who the Sonne is but the father and who the father is but the son and he to whom the sonne will reveale him even that sonne who hath power over all flesh to give eternall life to as many as the father pleaseth But Lords Synods Counsailes can you say all things are delivered unto you of the father though you have Crownes though you have power yet have a power of mutability your power is not that power of all that power of love of life of perfection of infalliblity do you know the sonne as well as the Father and the father as well as the sonne Doe you know how many and who if how many the father will give eternall life unto by Iesus Christ do you persecute you being fallible according to your owne confession because you would bring into the fold those that are not yet brought in but must be or would you be certain infallible powerfull assistants with Iesus Christ the absolute Lord or do you intend to persecute those that are not intended according to an eternall intendment to be of the body of Jesus Christ if so are you as certain as Christ is certain that this is the Harvest and are you as certain that you are the reapers that you your selves are not the tares are you the Thousands yea the ten Thousands of Saints by which he will come to judge the world Hath the Father altered his mind in relation to manifestation and told you that you must pluck up the tares before the Harvest Or was not that his minde when he declared that the tares should grow together till the Harvest Hath the Father or hath the Son revealed these things unto you in this generation if so tell us and when it was and how and it will be a greater glory unto you then to sit a great while bring out a few fallible contrivances Scholastick inventions But it is far more glorious and a greater matter of rejoycing to you to be lead if leade then to leade for the all-sufficient immutable Lord to leade the lords the people and Nations then for blind lords and Priests to leade poor blind people How would the supereminent be exalted here Admit that the Sectaries of the times those that are called Divels incarnat by you Potentates of the world should in their journey to or from Jerusalem fall amongst theeves and should be stripped of their rayment and be wounded should yield to the temptations of that raging divell in the world in and since the Apostacy or since that Satans Minestery Magistracy hath had and continued their power in the world Is it commendable in the Priests and Levites to see them so and to pass by on the other side or is it commendable for these Priests to add or cause others to add afflictions to their bonds But these Priests and Levites God will not honour so much The Samaritan must come and see also and have compassion Oh Good Samaritan for the poor wounded stripped and torn man this is an excellent similitude the supereminentness and gloriousness consists in the subsistance But Oh! unmercifull High Priests and Levites when God hath sent a messenger of Satan to buffet a man and to have power over the bodie may be the understanding in temptation will you buffett and imprison much more looke to your commission may not God say to a Synod in this case as Christ said to Peter in another Get thee behinde me Satan Are you better then Peter was if you are or if you thinke you are dare not Christ say so as well to a Synod as to a Peter But this is your pity if wee were wounded and naked and if you were as you are not the true loving compassionate judging discerning persons I think you had need to have the most glorious infallible Commission for your security that may bee so to persecute and prosecute if it were lawfull so to doe What cruelty is it in you who made not your selves to destroy your selves you that are not able to make a man to destroy a man starve a man for that which is in the conscience even for that which a man himselfe is not Lord of when you nor he are truly able to add one Cubit to his stature unlesse that you goe to a Shoomaker for a paire of Heeles Indeed what ye make you may marre but 11 Luke 40. Ye fooles did not hee that made that which is without make that which is within also Profecto testificamini quod consentitis operibus patrum Vestorum For ought you know God hath sent a few mechanicall illiterate fellowes as you call them that the bloud and cruelty of all Generations may be set on the score of the continued successiue persecutors as wel as upon those who slew and dealt injuriously with the Prophets and Apostles But this will not excuse you to say you had power to binde heavy burthens on others shoulders and not to touch them your selves with one of your fingers This will not exuse you before the Supereminent life glory Lord absolute discerne judge to say what tongue or Lord shall controul us Surely I think if Christ Iesus the head the anoynted of God in peculiarity were in the world now as he was in so despicable manner to his enemies you
was to be with Jesus Christ who was manifested in the flesh or when the body is exercised according to the life power and will of the supreame Lord in Communion with those that have the same spirit of the most high in knowing and understanding then the Saints must not feare them that can kill the body viz magistracy but they must walk as the divine supereminent Saviour Lord King Judge wil have them Suppose that a Magistrate commands my body to do one thing but the invisible God in the understanding he that is God of body and soule commands another thing whether is it lawfull to obey God or man Judge ye 6. Suppose there is such a Magistrate in the world that does truely and really conceive that there is one eternall God the judge the absolute God the Lawgiver in the conscience and he according to rationality doth endeavour to demonstrate it can he make another beleeve it if any conforme to what he saieth not knowing it is not he an ignorant doer of what he would have him to do or a dissembling person But Aug. one of Gangraena's Fathers saith Simulata sanctitas est duplex iniquitas But the Magistrates and Priests of the earth have led the world in a string and they are at the sensuall beck and will of every base lust and that rule is verified amongst them qui nescit dissimulare nescit vivere But Oh! how excellent will it be when Saints shall more and more live to the supreame absolute God! 7. Whether a man may not have a word of God to deliver to a Magistrate as well as a Magistrate to another man Formerly I know God called some to speake to Kings and Potentates of the earth But we are better then our Fathers Is not the spirit of forbearance as good in a Magistrate as it is in another man if the Magistrate hath had experience that no man can make him beleeve the truths of God that he can not make any one likewise why should he use violence bitterness and wrath But we call it not wrath we call it Justice But the absolute distinguisher sees what it is and he will call that wrath and anger in you which you call justice But we will contrive a great many fine words to waue it But there is nothing hath power but what is given to it nothing enjoyes it longer then he that gave it pleaseth neither shall any thing be waved but what he will wave even that absolute I am But oh Lord supereminent if thou callest me causest me to speak of thee to manifest thee though magistracy heape up words against me strengthen their mouthes according to the judgement of Causidicks Synods of the earth though they hale me teare me in their ire sharpen their eys at me yet let it be sufficient that thou lovest when soever I see man let me be drawn to God let me say with Iob in the spirit of understanding without respect of persons Iob 20.4 5 6 7. Knowest thou not this of old since man was placed upon the earth that the triumph of the wicked is short and the joy of the wicked is but for a moment Though his Excellencie mount up to the heavens and his head reach to the clouds yet he shall perish for ever like his owne dung they which have seen him shall say where is he 8. Those that the Magistrates endeavour to compell to the Laws wills Ordinances interpretations of Scriptures the Magistrates being and confessing themselves fallible may for ought the Magistrates know have an obligation and an absolute understanding ingagement upon their spirits as to God to live to Gods owne interpretation Law will and ordinance which may be contrary to the Magistrate For God is the absolute originall of all things that are and that are to be interpreted 9. The People shall not suffer for the Magistrates sins but their owne nor the Magistrates for the peoples sins but their owne But the soule that sinneth shall die But yet in a common calamity the one may suffer as well as the other though not for the sins of another 18 Eezekiel 1 2 3 4. c. There is a declaration as from the Lord. And the word of the Lord came to me saying What meane ye that ye Use this Proverb concerning the Land of Israel saying the Fathers have eaten sower Grapes and the childrens Teeth are set on edge As I live saith the Lord ye shall not have occasion any more to use this Proverb in Israel Behold all souls are mine as the soule of the Father so also the soule of the sonne is mine The soule that sinneth it shall die you may reade the whole Chapter This was a glorious Prophesie of the time that should be when God should peculiarly manifest himselfe when God would be no more vayled by a man when God would manifest himselfe to be the absolute Lord me thinks a Magistrate confessing himselfe fallible should feare to desire much more to command another to that which that other is not satisfied of God For the soule of the person that the Magistrate commands is Gods It was no argument for a poor soule when the absolute supreame entred into judgement to say that the Magistrate gave me and I did eate nor an argument for the Magistrate to say that a companie of people invested me with this and that authority as I thought or desired this or that thing and I did eate I had received a Petition from the people or from the Major part to release one Barabbas crucifie Jesus Christ I received a Petition to deprive such and such People of their liberties being such as they when they did petition confessed God had honoured in doing them good estates priviledges and benefits of living in the world unlesse they indeed were not perswaded of in their own consciences If it was an Argument inexcusable that Adam and Eve used to God this may also hardly be They had an infallible Ministration what should be death and life But the Magistracy of the world and Synods of the times confess themselves fallible It was an Argument in that most certain case for Satan to use to suggest to poor weak Eve as it was presented to deceive God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof your eys shall be opened and ye shall be as gods knowing good and evil But oh Lord I let me seek unto thee with thee and from thee though that Devil tempts me to unite and manifest my self to that and in that way of darkness and man-sinning in the world whatsoever specious and fallacious pretences I shall receive from the men of the world and from my own soul as considered in its way of operations contrary to the body of Jesus Christ Let me though I hear men in the world pretend to the glorious mysteries of the Eternall God and the honour and glory of him try things with thy self alone and therefore be
Letter as he pleaseth would you not esteem it an indignity when the supream Judge shall come to judge the world as the Apostle saith according to his Gospel when the supream God shall averr in the interiorest and say that indeed he sent his Son and anointed him with the Oyl of gladness above his fellows and gave him the spirit not by measure so that unmeasurableness and mysticalness was manifested in him and by him and he spake to a few Saints and gathered by the power of the Spirit a few poor men to teach the mysteries of Christ but there was one William Pryn Esquire a Lawyer I will not say Saint Pryn and the Lords of the earth and the Synods of the world proved interpreters with their own lusts according to their formall artificiall terms of distinction and so they said this must be the meaning to day this must be the meaning to morrow Procul dubio Lords is this not indignity But Christ will not be for ever crucified in his body the Church crucifying will be over may be in time but surely will when time shall be no more 19. If the Scriptures were so plain that he that runs may reade he that barely reads may understand to what purpose is the spirit promised to lead into all truth since the Ascention If I may absolutely knowingly understandingly infallibly Aopstolically Christ like know and understand all that I see and heare concerning my self and others But truly Lords and mutable Potentates though you reade hear see as you say you do you may say as the Eunuch how shall I understand without a guide But remember this the guides say and confess they are not infallible 20. If you do confess the spirit was promised to be given after the Ascention if it be given to ye it is a greater glory for you to tell us of it then laugh at it to tell of it how it came to you and when then to tell us what you have done for us if any thing in relation to civils Paul was not ashamed of it 21. If you confess that the spirit was promised to be given after the Ascension you had need to averr justifie and prove that it was promised to be given to Magistrats Lords and Synods not poore men not Fisher-men that the spirit went from the poore to the rich from those that the honourable count base to the honourable And though it were so it is no good Argument to convince a man even to strike him to imprison him and defame him as the false prophet did the true when he said when went the spirit of the Lord from me to thee 22. If you prove that the spirit was to be given to Magistracy Lords Nationall preists both you and the people had need know whether you in this age that now is more then any other are the Magistrates and the Preists For it was not promised to Magistracy in all Ages if it had it would have been performed for he promiseth nothing but what he performeth And that precedent Magistracy have been enemies and persecutors of the Saints of God under the notion of Heretiques or those that have been contrarie minded it is playnly apparent Historie declare it and you your selves confess it are convinced of it in your own hearts as you say therefore let that Magistracy as well as other men let that Synod that thinks he stands take heed least he falls or is already fallen or that he takes falling for standing in himselfe and standing for falling in others and so judges condemnes and persecutes 23. Me thinks I heare in my eares a urge saying and a voyce to my understanding declaring that there was a Nation or multitude of people met together as Episcopalls Presbyters and Independents so called and did convene from remote parts the East West North and South and these chose some to consult and debate what should be for the good of that Nation and kingdome and gave them power and honour and externall glory so much as they could or was in their power but the prevayling party tooke upon them the things of God and the place of God as much as in them lay and beat and wounded those that were contrary minded in their minds as to God though they still continued loving and affectionate to them Is this good Oh! sad requitall may not you say woe to your owne soul for you have rewarded evill to your selves Isa 3.12 Oh! my people they which leade thee cause thee to erre and destroy the way of thy paths 24. Suppose that a multitude of faire complexioned men of straite deportment should choose and elect a companie and place them in honour and dignity above themselves but these poore creatures or some of them may be Iob in the paralell should have an affliction upon them their faces should be changed their bodyes should grow crooked and this should be inflicted by the God of all natures mutable glories and excellencies or suppose God should send Sathan to tempt them or some of them that they may consent to the temptation and whereas Iob had boyles and sores even from the Crowne of the head to the sole of the feet would it not be sad now that one should come and lay Iobs affliction more heavie on him whipp the man sting him with scorpions But would it not be as sad also to see two that were full of boyles and sores wounds of Sathan temptations of the Devill that contrarie that roaring Lion in the shape of man to whip one another and lash one another for I have heard many of the nationall preists confess themselves publiquely that they have been full of wounds and sores and putrifactions even from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot Oh! Preist it is better for thee to tell who healed thee then to wound another that is in thy former condition if thou art out of it and truly translated But would not this make a man to breake out after this manner and say O inhumanitie had I knowne this should I have been so inhumane to my selfe I am scourged because I am sore wounded because I have boyles because I am in temptation because I am in errours because Sathan that politique Devill that contrarie hath deceived me and I am deceived though I have boyles and sores from the sole of the foot to the crowne of the head sent me of the God of Gods and Lord of Lords the Ruler of Princes yet after the manner of men I might have spared the rending and tearing my owne bowells I cannot comprehend the heavens and the earth much less him that is greater then both I cannot change my selfe nor make him change me till he will But the will of eternitie be done why should I contend with the God of all changes when I did choose them I was weakness it selfe I was the weaker vessell and I am despised for being so yet I made not my selfe so neither can I add one Cubit to my stature reade 1. Isa 29.30.31 25. Admit that those that are generally called and doe call themselves Ministers of the Gospel and prophets of the most high God in an eminent and a supereminent manner have communion with God and should be told of God as the Prophet was what they should do 13 Kings reade the whole Chapter must we goe forward and backward because the Prophets do so But surely I hope there is the Lyon of the Tribe of Judah in the way I who am weakness desire of thee O Immortall strength that I may more and more walke as comprehended of thy divine will that I may neither goe backward and forward and forward and backward to the right hand and to the left hand because the Nationall preists and Prophets do so but that I may walke as became a child to thee the Father of spirits and the God of all consolation and therefore let me live to the willing life and living will of thee O supersupereminent God 26. Magistrates and ministers of God so called you are but men subject to like passions that other men are as well as an Apostle was as he confesseth if not much more and you were not long since under Episcopacy and owned it as of God many of you if not all did did you satisfie your selves or were you satisfied of God if you were can you or we that are contrary minded draw God to us to satisfie us when you or we will our selves your selves 27. You Magistrates and ministers so called are but at the most or the most you can say of your selves in your own applause is that you are but wise and prudent men But saith Christ Father I thank thee thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent Scribes Pharises Lawyers chief Priests and revealed them to babes but may be you will say now as Lloyden said the case is altered but many Scriptures will prove this 28. Magistrates and ministers so called you shall die as well as other men the King and the Beggar the Fool and the Achitophel the master and the servant ye shall go to one Tomb that contains all generations mystically in it self But I will not say you think you shall have a Pardon or a Purgatory or both 29. Magistrates and minsters so called the Kings the Priests and the people the beggar and the rich the wise and the foolish the abased and the abounding person the Lawyer with his terms fallacies and term-pleadings and the Divines so called with their formall Sophistical Criticisms shall appear if there be any judgement as indubitably there is and shall before the absolute perfect Tribunal all the restitution of all things when all things shall be brought forth according to the will powerfull Excellencie and minde of the supream Cause when the things that are mystically unsearchably brought forth and are again mystically hid in its proper center in a way of mutability shall be brought forth in everlastingness but this is a mystery of eternity at which time and in which appearance you Lords of the earth shall be judged in those things that ye judge questioned in those things that ye question others and be your selves examined whether you are in the faith in a supersuperlaive manner And so farewell mutable dying vain unholy unnaturall temporarie judging inconsiderable man FJNJS