THE NAKED MANS PEACE IS OBEDIENCE In a word to the Magistrates Priests and People The Sword of the righteous mans war bringeth in Righteousnesse Holinesse and Peace without which no man shall see God True love pleads the cause of the just Behold Christ rideth to Jerusalem upon an Asse A naked man in true innocency is regarded more with the Lord then thousands which are cloathed and their hearts full of hypocrisie To which is annexed the will of dead living and living dead man now called NICHOLAS KEATE with a word in generall to all sorts Isaiah 66. ver. 16. For the Lord will judge with fire and with his Sword all flesh and the slain of the Lord shall be many James 1. ver. 16. Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth that we should be as the first fruits of his creatures verse the 25. read Written by me Edmund Hide London printed and are to be sold neere Fleet-Bridge 1655. Friends and people J am constrained in my self to publish to you some lines not craveing any thing of you but what is meet NOw concerning my Friend and Brother who was constrained to go naked in publike view about ten miles unto the Town of Newbery which in appearance unto men might hazard his life yet through that powerful operation and constraint of that Spirit of God in him he was made to effect that which he was commanded to do which was to go naked and take a Sword in his hand and fire on the top of it and a golden girdle on his loyns and standalls on his feet for this his obedience he is condemned and cried out against with scorn and contempt saying he is mad and hath a devil with more such like cruelties as their scorn can afford him yet his joy still continues and his heart still moveth towards God for the day of our Redemption draweth nigh Therefore hearken now my beloved friends and you our enemies to what the Lord shall speak to you in this matter and is made good unto us by his spirit in love and so bringing of us unto the glory of the Father and also to the fellowship of the Saints by the overturning of iniquity and slaying of sin and giving to us the true life of the Gospell in the Spirit of peace to walk in it in our generation that so the light of God may shine and have its day in true appearance and manifestation of love then shall the fire of God be kindled in your consciences then you shall see that you are one slaying of another yet you shall have a pretence of godliness but woe unto all that go down unto Egypt for help for his Sword is a Sword of peace Now again my beloved the truth of Religion is a mystery to Magistrates Priests and people which have a pretence to maintain the fundamentals thereof for they are true in none except they â—re truly practised Therefore in the first place I shall write a word unto the Magistrate and shall bring or compare their life with the life of Christ to prove whether it is one with his When he appeared amongst the sons of men to make manifest his life he appeared in the love of his Fathers will and that he might be an example of it unto us to shew the righteousnesse of God amongst men and that it might be followed by us who own the righteousness of God Then you Magistrates take notice had he honour of men or did he crave it or was he full of pride and did use it was he a follower of the customes and traditions of men was he full of superfluities in meats and drinks and apparel or was he chiefest among them that did meet in the Synagogues did he lord it over Gods Heritage as ye do or was he ever inriched by the things of this world or gained he by the Sword or did he by his obedience to his Fathers wil get into the honor of men and so raign over them He rid unto Ierusalem upon an Asse but ye Rulers of men now ride upon horses that is swift judgment to be put in execution upon the simple the strangers and widows and them which have no Father on earth he was not swift to destroy as those are who have a pretence to the doctrine of the Gospel by one name or other or one Ordinance or other and so call themselves Saints when they differ not from the world but in words for who have gained honour and riches more then they that pretend for Religion or who have divided the spoil but they or who are more proud then they or have more superfluities of meats and drinks then they so let the light in your own consciences discover to you that you are not risen with Christ neither know you what it is to bear his cross or Religion what it is for that is it which tyeth us to God and also one to another but the Daughter of Sion is lest as a cottage therefore give ear ye Rulers of Sodom and ye people of Gomorrah may not I say unto you as it was said unto them ye pray and keep daies of fasting and appointed times it is iniquity before the Lord your hands are full of blood do not these things fall upon the back of the righteous and can such that practise these things maintain true Religion how many were laid up in prisons of those that held up the power of Antichrist by Christ or his Apostles it is the cruel one that doth imprison but it is mercy and love that sets free is Christ your patern then where will you find that he imprisoned or punished any for the breach of the Law of God if he did not so to wicked then why are you so to the righteous I am now called to speak to you in truth and let the light within you testifie that these are the enemies Laws and unrighteous judgments Do we not daily see that those Rulers that are put in Authority for to judg of matter concerning the Civil State will also take upon them to examine the spiritual man and inflict punishments if there be a crying out against wickedness or vain-glory or such like things they take advantage against the simple which do not nor cannot do wrong unto State or people for they have a Law within them which is Christ though they come in appearance within them which is Christ though they come in appearance with sword as this my Brother did where are the wrongs that are or were done by him or any of those who of late have been imprisoned by the Officers of State are all Magistrates full of Divine Mystery surely no but sit as Judges to let Barrabas go free The people of God in former times were cloathed in sheep skins and goat-skins and dwelt in dens and caves of the earth and what we may undergo now we know not but the Lord is our peace and our all and when Christ who is
naked and bare for a sign to shew that all their secret evil doings shall be brought into publike view before men and Angels as they are now visible in the sight of God he hath stript me and brought me to have no will of mine own I live not but the Lord he hath instructed me and doth all his works in me and for me therefore O ye men that cry out shame shame for making my body bare know ye that I am neither better nor worse for that this proceeds from the work of God within me he hath taken away the vail and covering of all deceipt in me and take ye the shame unto your selves for none belong unto me because I die to all unrighteousness the Lord hath sent me forth with fire and Sword to proclaim that the day of the wrath of the Lamb is neer at hand wrath to all unrighteous and disobedient actions and my two-edged sword glistering with gold with flaming fire thereon which I received from the Lord do embleme that God will appear in the hearts and minds of men like flaming fire and with the bright spirit of burning will he out and divide us with a two-edged Svvord all that do oppose the righteousness and life of Christ Jesus the day of the Lord is come his harvest is begun he will now separate the tares from the wheat and the precious from the vile therefore O all ye people my will yea the Lords will is that ye cease from wrath and let go displeasure leave off from evil and learne to do well and as ye would that others should do unto you so do ye unto them the Lord hath strengthened my weak hands for this work and bound about my feeble knees with bright glistering gold he hath guarded me with strength even to bring confusion on the rich and mighty which say they have of their own and as the Lord hath bound and guarded me above the brest with a golden girdle so hath he bound my heart from doing violence to any for that spirit which raised me up from the dead is a loving spirit for in love to the truth will he cut off and destroy all proud evil doers from his holy rest but in love and vvith love vvhich is himself will he exalt and strengthen the humble the meek the chast and broken hearted Now to you my Brethren that are thus made by God and are become partakers of the godly nature do I direct this copy of my own hand writing and sure it is that my heart and hand is guided by a power above what the world doth call meum tuum otherwise I should say my house my lands my goods which are proper unto me by the Laws of men and I should be like the world having a wife and relations but now I am as if I had none and use them as I do the world which is as if I used it not the Lord is now come to prove you whether you be dead unto the world with its wayes and fashions traditions and customes for doubtless I am the house of God where judgment is begun and although I have had many tribulations afflictions and fierce trials yet I expect many more before I enter into the Lords rest I dare not judg any man for keeping a competent maintenance considering the worlds cruelty but an Heir of heaven that is a chosen out of the world dareth not claim the priviledg of mans Law to withhold any thing that should relieve his brothers necessity I write not this unto you to shame you or boastingly as if I as a man were better or freer then other men because I give so liberally but I tell you as I told you before the Lord is the giver and taker it is not my will nor goods nor my gift as I am a man neither ought any to receive it as man willing his own will but when the will of God is done in man and mans will is no more then the creature is new and his old covetous self-seeking heart being done away he will receive nothing but for his necessities and that he ought freely to have given him and as the Lord hath freely given me a new heart so let it be freely manifested that the Sower and the Reaper may rejoyce together and how can it be otherwayes God being in us of a truth but you my friends that have made your vaunts and brags and boasted of your freedome in and to God and that if he would require and call for your lives and estates you would be free to sacrifice whatsoever he would call for Consider hath the Lord spared yours and you from the hardship that others are put upon if I speak after the manner of men it is my own condition terrible things so as to flesh and blood are required and imposed upon me by the Lord he hath snatched my life and livelihood from me and stripped me stark naked not suffering one friend to succour me for the present but hath exposed my naked body to the devouring teeth of wilde savage beasts in a barren wildernesse neverthelesse the Spirit of the Lord doth compel me to part with all and obey as aforesaid Now that I might not write of the judgment of others but also write to you what is done in me by the Lord which is in love to all in general NOw my deer friends and people I will write to you in some few lines the work of God which have been upon my spirit in my earth I have had fallen upon me the pure water distilled out of the Rock of God which came down to cleanse the mind and to water my earth so that it might be replenished to bring forth with increase that pure seed of God which he hath sown upon the well-husbandred land for in the new earth doth God plant his Paradise and therein soweth the seed of his blessed Spirit and himself is the Husbandman thereof So that whom he hath made the earth ready which is man he will poure in his love his life his spirit and true righteousness and showeth to me the pure Law and the Gospel fellowship enjuring no man but looketh for encrease Truly friends I am to write to you what I am made by God and no more and what he is made to me is this in the Husbandry of his own work he is this he follows me with peace to all men and makes me to know that a brother is as my self in short to express what I am is to express God or that power in me or that powerful power of God to express it self when Christ who is your life shall appear then shall I appear with him or that Son born in me which is the very express image of God born in man which can declare the Father and accordingly he is love in truth and that is the seed which God hath sown in my earth and when the time of the harvest is it will
is propriety so is the peoples the Priest hath a clamorous tongue so have the people the Priest denieth the coming of Christ to be the Resurrection of God in man so do the people the Priest denieth a true Judgment day of God to be come upon the Man of Sin and unrighteousness and that Christ will not bring us to the perfect life of holinesse here and so do the people the Priests have not laid down their lives for Christ neither have the people for if the Magistrates Priests and Lawyers had no greater rewards of men for following the world and its wayes then they should have for following Christ and his wayes it 's possible we should have neither Magistrates Priests nor Lawyers to supply the places they now stand in therefore O ye people give not up your selves to others to be led contrary to what your own consciences guideth you to but walk according to that which ye are fully perswaded of in your own minds for there is a light within you to which if you take heed will lead you into the way of all truth and being guided by that you need not crave the power of the Magistrate to defend nor the help of the Lawyer to plead for you neither need you go to the Priest to direct you for the children of the Lord are all taught of him and they know his voice and the voice of the Hireling they will not hear but if you give not heed nor take not warning by him he will scatter the Sheep with the Shepherd and deliver you up together for destruction And be it known unto you all that I have not writ this out of envy to any mans person but I have written it to that end to shew you the envy within you and that enmity is Judge when you condemn without cause therefore take notice that I do not condemn the Magistrate for punishing evil doers but those that do well and such are all those that in obedience to the will of God go forth to manifest the things they have seen and heard from him neither do I condemn the Lawyers seeing there is a right amongst men for endeavouring to help each man to his right but for coveting the reward or fee more then the pleading the cause of the simple neither do I condemn him that stands in the place of a Minister of the Gospel for doing righteousness but because he doth it not but walketh contrary to the life of Christ as it was made manifest amongst the sons of men God is my witness that this is the last Will and Testament of me the dead living and living dead man who am called Nicholas Keate and have my residence in Harevvel the first of May 1655. Yea God and God only is my witness First I bequeath my soul to the giver and taker of all good things God blessed for evermore Amen as for my body or composed mind of inventions it is the Serpents meat worms shall have it to heritage but the Lord giveth the earth to the children of men Psalm 115. The Lord giveth and he taketh yea he giveth all and I take and I give and keep nothing back for I must serve the Lord my God with all my heart and all my mind and strength honor belongeth unto God but shame and confusion unto the sons of men therefore am I no more neither have any more neither live I any more but the Lord only therefore that which the Lord hath lent me and that which the Law of this Nation doth and must give me do I give and bequeth all and every thing unto the Saints which excell in vertue I I am the God of Abraham the God of Isaac and the God of Iacob it is the God of the living that giveth and taketh at his pleasure whose name is Power and Strength and is holy and blessed in himself it is even he which turneth men to destruction and then he saith Come again ye sons of men come and sup and dine with me saith this holy Father to his Sons and Daughters for in my house are all manner of varieties with abundance of plenty I need nothing of yours saith this Father save your obedience what would vain man give unto the Lord seeing the beasts on a thousand hills are mine saith he whose nature shall put fire on all the combustible matter of the earth and sacrifice it at his pleasure I do write unto all that are far and neer to the end that they might know that this is the Lords will and not the will of a carnal minded man for if I had and my had and self had did lord it over me I should be as all the world are worshipping the creature more then the Creator and adore it as God he hath ordained the fruit of my lips and that is peace peace to all far and neer all old things pass away I have no peace but in the new heavens and the new earth for all my earthly substance is become as dead Carrion drawn out for all the souls to feed on therefore it is the Lords will and that is my will that it may be laid wast from propriety and self-interest ever hereafter therefore let it remain as the Lords free inheritance to shelter succour and to be a place of refuge for the fatherless the widows and strangers I mean such widows and strangers as know no man nor any thing that belongeth to man after the flesh and such are all the fatherless they will own no father on earth nor call any man Master on earth for as the Lord hath bruised me and made me to disown all relations of the flesh and of earth and earthly things so will he deal with many thousands and they shall know the Lord in truth and in righteousness and when be hath made us a poor people he will turn to us a pure language therefore naked yea stark naked hath the Lord appointed me to appear before multitudes of people to shew that your hearts ought to be unvaried and uncovered and become innocently naked before the Lord as I am in body and mind and that not only so but he hath made me a sign to shew that all covetous self-seeking worldlings such as I was may hereafter become to obey and do as I have done even resign up all as the Lord hath commanded me so that I dare not say I have one penyworth of any thing left me of many hundred pounds worth of that which heretofore I called mine own and was so by the Laws of this Nation I know men will pass their votes that I am mad or drunk but be it known unto you all people that I am in my right sober mind only the hand of the Lord is strong upon me prevailing over all that follishnesse and unrighteous actions that I have heretofore and the world now liveth in and are glorying in their own shame and unrighteous selfish actions but the Lord hath made me
bring forth the same body as it was when it was sown and in the mean time I am but a stranger to my own Countrymen a stranger to professors and so to the world Truly friends Love mates it self with no other then the Son of Love which is to be born in our earth and so lives in judgment within til the day of the pure manifestation be brought forth then love wil shine or be like a City built upon a hill that love of God which is born in others is that fellowship which I have chosen above all things beside it self love hath compelled me love doth bind me to the life of it and hath governed me and not I my self to govern it love hath destroyed me and bound me up again God will bring forth us in those things which are his own so that we might destribute of the same one to another which my heart have felt and known so that I drink in the cup of my own salvation which God gave me to drink of to you God is my witness that no unrighteousness falshood nor injury nor have I any toleration to it in my heart nor against the State in the things which are of the cruel state nor any person whatsoever to enjure but he that is filthy let him be filthy where love is sown it brings forth the same again love is like to the ripe grapes which give a relish to the wine so is the life of God in me when it shall be brought forth in order and have divine evidences to witness it in the demonstration of the godly nature in creature so he that is in true love abideth in the life everlasting which cannot end when God hath taught me his love by the quickning spirit and he hath opened to me the union and communion which is Gods in fellowship which is in order to the Resurrection of that body of Christ who maketh it manifest by subduing all things under his feet when all things are subdued then is God all and my self nothing but I have had this Proclamation read in me which is to take up the pure life of Christ and his Government and to live in the family of his protection so that they which live in it walk as thus so that he and his are one so that there is a oneness in all and all but one so that there is but one disposition one quality one nature one judgment one in suffering one in life one in death one in mercy one pity one in all ruling over all which is God blessed for ever This being a true harmony amongst us with such regulation as holds to the singular number one so that all are to stand still let God work in them by the power of his will so now let him that gather gather in God so that he that is alive lives to God but God is free in me so if he please to dispose of himself which is his own in me it will be in the bright day of God to manifest love to that Majesty for God doth dwell in our Temples in the acting power and we have the oneness of that Divine Nature planted in ours so now we are Simeon like Lord let us depart for we know we have seen thy salvation and as for my part or that party which is now in me seeks no propriety in community but only to know the godly nature which approves it self and quits it self it will spoil all our qualities all our fashions and degrees of our flesh and rewards of mankind and from being our selves any longer that union and communion which I have had with my brother and others is so unexpressible that the carnal cannot believe for love is to be manifested by divine acts Truly he that is born of God and is in the life and dwelleth in the life he is the true looking glass in which love can see its self a universal deluge is come upon our old world but Noah shall live truth and a oneness is my delight where there is a true oneness in love there can be no distance in order not being I am free to lay down my life to enter into the new Covenant to live with God love cannot be known by words nor that love which we have to all men love is to be opened when the seven seals be opened with the Ministery of them in thy self whomsoever thou art which hath them opened in thee then thou vvilt knovv thy interest vvith us in true love and life vvhich makes us one in the true love Novv this knovv that there is a broken longing come amongst the Professors hovv and they are broken in judgment and are torn to pieces for they knovv not the Lord nor that love vvhich passes all understanding so that my love to you all is peace vvithout vvrong or enjury to any so that my brother lives to the substance so that as he came naked out of his mothers vvomb so he is returned again to live in the naked truth of God vvith Christ in the Resurrection from dead vvorks to live in the heavens made vvithout hands vvhich is vvithout covetousness vanity or vain-glory vvithout vvrong and hath been to this day vvithout vvrong to any therefore suffer us novv both friends and people to dvvell amongst you vvithout strife for if any injuries be done by us vve are free that the Lavv may take its course vvith us vve crave but the same peace of you vvhich vve give unto you but if not vve are resolved to follovv the Lavv Novv this knovv all of you that Lavv gaint peace so farevvel Edm. Hide A Song of the true Life COme along come along you Virgins that pure be And we shall enjoy the life that is free And call up the dead which now lye slain To live the Resurrection which Christ did regain And for to annoy that which did us destroy Which was from lust and things that be vain A Cup of Love is filled up in me And I drink of it continually What though my love black seemeth to be And is judged by Fouls for cruelty Yet he is as the balm of Gilead to me And I know him in love in the eternity What although Christ be ascended on high Yet he is come down into humanity That the truth of the Father he might maintain To hold forth his glory to those which are slain Showing to us the way of man is but vain But the second Adam hath restored us again Now we are restored into the right way And for to demonstrate the Ascension day Of Christ who iâ— our life 〈◊〉 in us to 〈◊〉 〈…〉 all one in 〈…〉 〈◊〉 to â—…ound all 〈◊〉 which it a lâ—… But we shall live single in virginity The power of Love runs in me as a â—lood To see the pure Christ in pure manhood 〈◊〉 King there to Raign the flesh being slain Now the Lord himself his own life will maintain The Lord is the truth and ever will be 〈…〉 can be no communion but in Virginity 〈…〉 be declared and not his life known Then the glory is lost of the Resurrection But now I do see that Christ is liberty To all that are pure in purity The fool in his heart no God is there known 〈…〉 perswaded by evil to the transgression Come now you worldlings and â—…arken to me The Lord is a mystery in the life of purity The 〈◊〉 life it is now come down And 〈◊〉 I do know without any bound Seven times in the fire love hath tryed me But now I know thy love and my love knows me Now my love being pure I am not alone But J am touched in another by the Phylosopher Stone Which trieth all mistles of what sorts they be But love is that ocean which hath swallowed up me But for true love O let love try me But now I know my love and my love knows me If any of you this Song now can sing You are of the truth and in the truth are living And are in the being to glorifie the Sun And are partaker of Christs Resurrection But for true love it doth set free To lead our lives in true community Now J being 〈…〉 gin J am married to the King And J know that his love is everlasting And in one true nature now â—e he And of all that is his we are now made free But of all the fleshly Mammon which ever revived me But J never knew true marriage till thou marriedst me FINIS