Testimony methought I saw the beast the powers of the world the Aire the Kings of the earth the great men the rich men and the chief Captaines and the mighty men that had the temporarie Crown given them endeavour by all waies and means possibly to destroy the Testifyers and the Testifyers Testimony Methought I saw the temporany and yet infernall Nobles of the earth that wear the momentany and yet perpetuall Crown of Hell and death in themselves according to the power that is committed unto them acting persecution in one form upon the Neck of another which is the manifestation of the varietie and yet unity of that state that body of Antichrist Hell and death sword hunger and beasts of the earth even Ephesian beasts after the manner of men and then I saw the doom of those that have the Testimony of the Lord Iesus and I brake out into Admiration in my self Oh eternity how do the Nations of the world the Nationall powers of the world hear and see and read and seem and would be supposed to understand yet they see not nor understand and yet they suspect not themselves but teach and declare of themselves and say that they are christians walk in the life supereminent But Nobles of the earth take this only if you can lovingly til I am more lovingly inflamed or untill the father will manifest himself more unto you or me even in the interiorest in the dividing assūder rending and tearing in pieces of all your fleshly deceitfull glories whereby you have for many hundred years past deceived the people of the earth I am no disputer of the world I desire to be Tomteltra and not Oedipus I desire not to insinuate with you but to live to my God the God and Lord absolute mercifull holy undefiled and eternall I desire only of the father that I unworthiness weakness may live to him and with him in the interiorest sublimest and truest and that thou worthiness gloriousness wouldest understandingly as to me comprehend my particular and do what thou wilt with me in my exterior or in this visible world if thou worthiness and truly eternall Lord wilt surrender me up into the hands of the Lords and powers of the earth that act in a constitution of persecution Let me in the interior say Amen But yet Sathan that Divell tempts me but yet me thinks I am surrounded and invironed in this my pilgrimage and methinks the exteriors of the world operate insinuate dispute and reason with me and tempts my exterior to conform me to its self and confound me in its self I heard a voyce in the world the other day saying very Schismatically erroneously and according to the witness of men and denying the absolute witness of the great Jehovah denying that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh denying that power is given to the Son loving to have the preheminence the uppermost Rooms at feasts and in Synagogues setting themselves in the place of God attributing that to their fallible deceiptfull devillish understandings actings and contrivings that is to be attributed to the alone supream not waiting when God the absolute changer will give repentance to those that beleeve not the truth but have pleasure in unrighteousness earnestly contending as they say for the faith that was once delivered to the Saints in such wayes of carnallity by such carnall weapons which were not used in the times of that excellent glorious Apostolicall ministrations of God and consequently denying the glorious and supream power of the spirit giving themselves to fornication and going after strange flesh to deceive the Nations desiling the flesh by their filthy dreaming by imposing such things for an exterior worship as if Commanders as are not consistent with the life and glory of the Spirit in us Whereas the flesh of Christ that visible manifestation of God at Jerusalem 1600 years ago was lead according to teachings of the Divine God despising the true and absolute Dominion and dignities of the most High speaking evill of those things they know not and what they do know as brute beasts in those things corrupt themselves running in the way of Cain killing their brethren in the flesh because they are not of the same judgement and understanding in the spirit envying them in the offering of their sacrifices because they offer not their sacrifices as they do pulling and halling them before Magistrates Counsells Powers and Authorities Imprisoning them Banishing them confining them depriving them of their liberties accounting the world not worthy of them acoūting them the off scouring of all things running greedily after the errour of Baalam for reward setting obstacles in the way of true reall and unblameable liberty of Saints in their true and glorious feastings of spirituall Charity and Love in the dispensation of the various gifts of the most High God feeding themselves without fear when others are living walking talking lovingly conversing eating and drinking in fear Clouds without water Clouds covering the clear Heavens and Firmaments as if they were full of water and as if showres would presently fall great Mountaines travelling in birth Clouds carried about of winds from Popery or Popish Episcopacy to Prelacy in another form and from that to Presbyterie and those that would have the same wind of Doctrine the same teachings of fallible men to blow others whethersoever it blows them whose fruits have often already withered from one age to another and more then twice dead and plucked up by the Roots raging waves of the sea foming out their own shame having not the spirit of meeknes gentlenes tender mercy compassion though Stars yet wandring Stars to whom is reserved blacknes of darknes for ever and therefore they would draw all men unto them Murmerers Complainers Informers Reformers according to their own lusts speaking swelling words having mens persons in admiration because of advantage not knowing the glorious minde infallible will of the eternall God as the Apostles of Iesus Christ Mockers walking after their own ungodly lusts seperating themselves by the power will minde fallibility of fallible sensuall men having not the spirit denying any one but themselves and those whom themselves approve of to build up any in the holy faith or to Minister the gifts they have had of the supereminent God Teaching by necessarie unavoidable consequences that their love sensuall carnall mutable affections are to be looked after before the love of God or as well as the love of God though God the absolute satisfyer informer and reformer satisfies not having no compassion but on themselves those that they thinke they can by flattery draw to themselves making no difference but from themselves making no difference according to the true nature of difference but only making a difference according to their Carnall Lawes ordinances Statutes decrees not endeavouring to save others according to the true absolute infallible holy just warrantable way of salvation Endeavouring to pull men that are as they say
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
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
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
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
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
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