whom I will lead thither with many supplications and tears and tremblings as blind ones by a way they know not in a strait way wherein yet their feet shall not stumble for I am a God unto them saith the Lord by the way of the wilderness wherein yet they shall not be weary nor in want nor in fear nor miscarry nor lose their way that wait on me for I will be with them to refresh them saith the Lord with Bread from Heaven and water out of the Rock and to overshadow them with a Cloud and go before them in the likeness of a flaming fire so that they shall eat the same spirituall meat and drink the same spirituall drink as the Fathers of old who drank of the same Rock that followed them which Rock was Christ and shall pass to their rest under the same protection providence and illumination as my people that were the Type of them by which light wherewith I enlighten them will I puzzle and dazle and blind all your Egyptians which pursue them saith the Lord till you have brought your selves into inextricable perplexities into the very Javvs even of inevitable destruction see therefore that ye touch them not they are the sheep of my pasture saith the Lord whom I am gathering from under the conduct of those careless false Shepheards that have fed and serv'd themselves of them and not fed but starved them and stenched the pure pasture and trodden it down and fouled the pure water they should drink of and forced tâ—em to drink of their ovvn pudled vvaters vvhich they have fovvled vvith their feet see that ye stand not in the cross vvays as Esau did of old to cut off saith the Lord the Remnant of Jacob that are novv escaping and returning to their own home and Country saith the Lord out of all places and Countries forraign forms fellovvships Churches Companies and strange lands and ways of vvorshipping of me saith the Lord vvhereinto they have been scattered and shattered up and dovvn in the dark and gloomy day and though they are a people scattered up and dovvn in all parts and Provinces of these Dominions and every vvhere complain'd on and accused by proud Hamans Generation that ever hated them because they could not honour them vvho vvere accursed of God and bow according to their haughty expectations as a certain odde people that keep not the Lavvs and live not as other men do but are every vvhere and every vvay cross because so to the carnall vvills of men and disturbers of the peace so that it cannot be for the Common-vvealth nor profit of the Nations nor of the povvers thereof to suffer them and are sold as sheep to the slaughter in the vvicked vvishes of their malevolent and blood-thirsty Adversaries that they vvould not care vvhat they paid almost into the Common treasury to have them hanged or banished or any way however spoiled saith the Lord yet take good heed to your selves ye powers and people of medling too much at the wills of such as suggest evill to you of them and if at their suggestion ye vvill do any thing against those that oppose me and are my enemies yet take heed that under pretence of that ye sight not unawares against me and be opposers your selves of those that are my friends and speak to you both for and from me saith the Lord for if they be of the seed of the Jews before whom Haman and his seed begin to fall they will never recover themselves till they have brought the very mischief they have hatched for my beloved ones upon their ovvn Pate saith the Lord yea though my people are low and weake and few in number and silly and contemptible in your eyes yea afflicted and ready to dye from their youth up yet I live saith the Lord who am a protector and redeemer to them vvho neither slumber nor sleep but vvatch and am Almighty to avenge them on all their enemies and I will do it saith the Lord yea let the Heathen rage and the people imagine and the Kings of the earth set themselves and the Rulers take Counsell together against me and mine anointed saith the Lord yet will I set my King upon the holy hill of Sion and give him the Heathen for his inheritance and the utmost parts of the earth for his possession yea and all in whom he reigns shall raign as they have suffered with him In an inumerable multitude of which he is coming to judge the earth in righteousness and the people with equity to pass a judgement upon all and to convince all that are ungodly of all the ungodly deeds they have committed and of all the hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him and he in them and they in him shall rule the Nations with a Rod of Iron and breake them to pieces as a Potters vessell even as they have received of me their Father saith the Lord and though they are now laughed to scorn and had in dayly derision by high and low saith the Lord and condemned by all and made the very strife of all tongues and made ashamed in all places where ever they are and all people make a noyse and roare against them like the roarings of the Sea and as the noyse of many waters yet will I get them praise and same in every Land wherein they have been put to shame and every tongue that riseth up in judgement against them shall they condemn and I that sit in Heaven will laugh at the calamity of those that hate them and mock when their fear cometh yea I will have them all in derision and they shall be as my people have been among them a very proverb of reproach and I will Roar upon them out of Sion and utter my voice from Jerusalem against them as a Lyon and the Heaven and the earth shall shake and I will overthrow the thrones of Kingdoms and destroy the strength of all the Kingdoms of the Heathen and be my self a wall of fire about my people for their defence and the hope and strength of my chosen ones in the day wherein I do this saith the Lord God yea I will never rest till I have made all their foes their footstool and howbeit the powers of the earth are of me and for conscience sake to me-ward are to be obeyed and not resisted and have been obeyed and not resisted in things not contrary to my own commands by my holy ones that have ever suffered as evill doers under them of whom they ought to have had praise yet if that which was once mine own outward Ordinance for the punishment of evill doers and to be a terrour to evill works as Rulers are ever away when they are as they ought to be continue to be so abhominably perverted as in the pride and stoutness of their hearts making their own lusts and not my light their Law to be a terr our unto works and ways
and had no certain dwelling place and yet though counted the very scum of the world as these are now by you were neither rogues nor vagabonds saith the Lord some for onely entring into the Synagogues whose doors stand open for all Men and there either doing nothing or declaring sometimes in deed before but sometimes not till after all is ended even as the movings of the Lord are upon them against the false worships and hireling Priests thereof that Divine for money and the people that love to have it so which both Christ and the Prophets and Apostles of old did even there cry woe against and yet were neither disturbers nor Malefactâ—rs saith the Lord some for not having the faith of God with respect of persons which who so have are convinced of the Law as transgressors some for not giving flattering titles unto Men not honouring them in their own way of bowing before them not stooping to their wills beyond either sense or reason which the Law of God flatly forbiddeth some for not putting off the Hat to them or standing bare-headed before them which no Law at all of either God or Man commandeth but is onely one of those many customs of the Heathen which are vain and so vain is this especially as the complementall Cringers and foolish fashion-followers of this vain age use it that men may with as much civility put off and require the putting off of their Coats one to another and to as much good purpose saith the Lord some for using the plain English of Thee and Thou to Men though it be the most proper speech to a single person whether you speak to God or the greatest Men witness your own translation of the Scripture into your own English tongue in all which it can't be found from one end thereof to the other where the word you is made use of when no more but one person is spoken to besides what evidence is given in from other tongues to the truth of this save onely that meer pride and respect of persons doth both improperly and impudently plead to have severall sorts of speaking to severall sâ—rts of people in this brutish Nation and adulterous Generation saith the Lord some for telling lyars in plain terms onely of their lying which to do is held to be such reviling as deserves little less than half hanging among many though there is no more reall hurt but that falshood and foolish custome hath perverted the true being of many things and your true seeing almost of any things as they are in saying to him that lyeth Thou lyest than in saying to him that sweareth Thou swearest saith the Lord some for not paying of tythes even to them that they neither do nor can in Conscience ever own to be their Pastours though they hinder no Men from paying them that have a Mind to it and whose Consciences compell them even that way to maintain their own Ministers which as the Gospell is against the paying of by Christs flock to their own Shepheards that feed them much more to such Shepheards as whether they will or no do fleece but never feed them so no Law in this Land can compell any Man to pay at all in case he be minded whether out of Covetousness or Conscience to refuse it the Ecclesiastical Courts being clear taken away and there being an express Statute extant remaining yet unrepealed that it shall not be lawfull for any to sue for tythes in any Temporall or in any but in Ecclesiasticall Courts nor for any to be summoned before any secular Judge to give in any answer about that Matter and therefore what condition the Judges are in that now meddle with it who are sworn not to do against any Statute Law of the Land let the light in their own Consciences be judge for to that measure of my light in them by which I am coming to be a swift witness against the false swearer as well as every other evill doer do I now speak and appeal saith the Lord some for no more than bare going out of duty to God to visit their imprisoned and afflicted friends have been sent back without the sight of them and some with passes as Rogues Vagabonds and idle wanderers though they have been of sufficient worth as to the outward also and have never either begged or stole and others are taken up by the way to their friends and put by whole heaps together in prison and there kept till they can buckle so low to the wills of Men against all Law and Conscience as to say if the Lord will they will go back without effecting their intended lawfull business of visiting Christ in prison which woe to them that do not much more woe to them that do imprison him or not go on in that their honest undertaking witness that sinfull shamefull business at Exeter where are no less than between ten and twenty at once in prison meerly for going to see friends in prison at another place and there held unless they will find sureties for their good behaviour or pass their words if the Lord will to go which way they would have them as if the Land were not free for Men that are bound by the Law of God to a good behaviour to pass up and down in about none but lawfull occasions without binding themselves thereunto and so giving it for granted that they have misbehaved themselves when they have not upon every malicious Officers unruly will or Magistrates slender and meer groundless suspition b Thus is my people made a prey of saith the Lord for which in speciall as for all other of your evills have I had a controversy with you and my hand hath been against you saith the Lord so that you have not prospered in your undertakings ye have travelled much in your Councells but ye have brought forth little ye have wrought no deliverance in the earth to any perfection neither have your enemies fallen before you of late as in former dayes but ye have fallen even woderfully before them ye have sown iniquity and reaped meer vanity ye have sown wind and reaped a whirlewind even a grievous whirlewind of wrath from the Lord which falls with much pain upon your heads of distractions divisions jealousies one of another and suspitions fractions and factions confusion contention disappointment and vexation upon vexation ye have sown to the flesh and there is come up a crop of corruption that hath made you fit fuell for the fire of mine indignation which is kindled and except ye repent will ere long waxe burning hot against you till it have consumed you into nothing Wherefore now thus saith the Lord God unto you ye stiffe-necked and stout hearted ones who though ye talk of it yet are far from my righteousness yee high and sturdy Oakes of Bashan ye tall and haughty Cedars of Lebanon come down and sit in the dust and humble your selves under my mighty hand which is
stretched out against you and turn you to me even unto me with all your hearts and with fasting weeping and mourning even that fasting which I have chosen and amend your wayes and your doings saith the Lord and purge your selves from your own personall abhominations and turn in every one of you to the light in your own Consciences which shews you all the evills of your own hearts and if you take heed thereunto will save you from them and as for my people whom ye oppress even my people Israel that tremble at my word and by that holy disposition are discerned from all other people upon the Earth who are found trembling at the words and falling down and worshipping before the wills of Men let them go saith the Lord from under that hard and sore bondage wherewith ye have hitherto made them serve And it shall come to pass saith the Lord that if you shall yet hearken unto my Counsell the light in your Consciences which whoever lives according to not turning aside into the darkness cannot live besides the Scripture but lives the life of it and shall wash you and make you clean and put away the evill of your doings from before mine eyes and cease to do evill and learn to do well and undoe the heavy burthens of my people and break every yoke from off their necks and let my oppressed ones go free then will I bless you and you shall be a blessing upon the Earth then shall your light break forth out of obscurity and your darkness shall be as the Noon day and I will unite you that are heads of the people together in your Councells and you shall repair the breaches of these Nations and build their wastes even the desolations of many generations and ye shall be the restorers of paths to dwell in yea you shall honour me and I will honour you and make you truly and eternally honourable saith the Lord God But if you shall still continue to be self-seekers and men-pleasers and servers of your own ease your own honours your own interests base ends and earthly concernments and shall be proud and stubborn and stiffe-necked against my Counsell making your necks as an iron sinew against all my reproofes and wiâ—l not come down and give up your selves to be guided by my word which is nigh you evâ—n in your very hearts and mouths and shining clearly as a light within you and their checking and condemning you when you do amiss or go astray to the right hand or to the left and shall rebell against me so as not to let my people go but hold them still in slavery and servitude to your own lusts and lawless wills then I testifie this day to your faces saith the Lord of Hosts that I will not honour any one of you that shall so dispise mâ— so as to use you in my service or to own you in any thing you take in hand in order to the deliverance of these Nations but as by Men that lapped and not by Men that bowed down to drink I delivered Israel of old out of the hand of Midian so not by any of you that mind earthly things and make your belly your God and love this present world and drink so deeply of it as to stand doting of it and seeking great things for your selves in it but by men that use and abuse it not that fly the shadow of it that are not conformed to it but seeing the fashion of it passing away have it under their feet will I bring great things to pass saith the Lord Almighty yea the very poor of the flock the flock of the slaughter whose possessors slay them and hold themselves not guilty my people whom ye so disdain as to count them the off-scouring of all things those plain simple despicable contemptible people of mine whom ye so trample upon who are so small in your eyes even them will I make to encrease upon you saith the Lord who seek to snap and surppess them as the old Israel their type did upon Pharoah and the Egyptians so that the more ye slay them the more they shall grow and multiply and their blood shall be the seed of that Church that shall be called the Sion of the Lord which I will make so glorious as to be even the joy and praise of the whole earth saith the Lord and I will cause them to stand out with great boldness before your faces who shall afflict them and make no account of their labours and they shall be a burdensome stone to all people that trouble themselves with them and they shall be rebuked for their sakes in the wrath of the Lord and vexed in his sore displeasure yea they shall be cut in pieces and fall into mischief for their sakes whoever shall go about to mischief them though all the people of the earth shall be gathered together against them saith the Lord I will make them to the Nations as an hearth of fire to the wood as a torch of fire in a sheafe and they shall devoure round about as a Lyon amongst the beasts among the flocks of Sheep which tears and none can deliver they shall be my battle Axe wherewith I will break in pieces the people the horse and his rider and they shall have a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth wherewith they shall thresh the earth and beat the very mountains of it into chaffe and all the glory of the great image of mans dignity and dominion being smitten by these stumbling stones shall be as the chaffe of the Summer floor before them and the wind shall carry it all away and they shall become a great Mountain which I will establish on the top of all the Mountains and all Nations shall flow unto it and it shall even fill the whole Earth saith the Lord And as for you even you O all you Powers Priests and People in these Nations to whom my people are a reproach I will enter into judgement with you and recompence all your wickednesses upon your heads and repay unto you the things you do to my chosen saith the Lord and I will bring you into contempt that are now honourable in the Earth and shamefull spewing shall be upon all your glory and I will blast blind and confound you in all your Councells and reject all your confidences and ye shall not prosper in them and ye shall reel to and fro and stagger and be as bottles fill'd with Wine fill'd with drunkeness and I wil dash you to pieces one against another and give over to bite and devoure till ye be consumed one of another and you shall labour in the fire of anger and attempt many things but your ways shall not prosper ye shall weary your-selves for very vanity yea in your ways of wickedness shall ye weary your selves and the light of righteousness shall not shine upon you mischief upon mischief shall overtake and befall you and I will
rain down snares and stumbling blocks upon you and my word which you stumble at out of the mouths of Babes and stammerers shal be unto you precept upon precept line upon line here a little and there a little that ye may go fall backward and be broken and snared and taken and your whole way shal be as slâ—ppery places in the dark and ye shal be driven on and fall therein and you shall look to your Seers but behold darkness they shall not be able to guide you they shal be as blind as your selves and though they shall flatter you with the name of Sion so long as you feed and pay them and cry peace peace while you honour them with your thanks for their pains and with your praises and put into their wide mouthed purses and shall say we see yet the vision of that destruction that is coming upon you and them shal be as a Book sealed a thick cloud shall cover them the day shal be dark over them the Sun shall set upon them and it shal be night unto them so that they shall not divine yea the understanding of all your prudent ones shal be brought to nought and the sword of the Lord shal be upon the Arme of the Idol Sheepheard and upon his right Eye his Arme shal be clean dryed up and his right Eye utterly darkned and when it shal be thus with you all that your feet are stumbling upon the dark Mountains and you tumbling up and down like a wilde Bull in a Net not knowing which way to get out of your perplexities and shall have wrestled so long in chains of darkness till ye come to that utter darkness which is the portion of all them that suppress the Light and their judgement at the great day now dawning upon the world though it sleeps and sees it not then shall you awake and remember that you had warning in time but would not receive it yea this word now spoken to you shall stand as a witness over your heads for ever and ye shall know that I the Lord have sent my Servant to speak all these words in your ears at this time in this place and thereby to the three Nations whose chosen Servants and Representatives ye are saith the Lord Almighty whose Counsel shall stand in the midst of all mans thoughts and who will work and none shall let it What shall one then answer the Messengers of the Nations even this that the Lord hath founded Zion and the poor of his people have betaken themselves unto it but all luxurious wantons and covetous worldlings all formall professors and dissembling hypocrites painted Sepulchers and whited walls base back-sliders and filthy lyars hyreling Priests and fawning Prophets and all proud oppressors wicked opposers and persecutors of Christ in his people can have no share in it but are shut out into the lake and gone down for ever with the uncircumcised into the pit which hath shut her mouth upon them there world without end to be confounded Given under my hand as that Testimony of Jesus which was given me in charge from him to deliver by word of Mouth if I might be heard at the time and place forenamed and now to give forth to the view of men in writing the truth of which I am made willing by the power of God upon me to seal if called thereunto and give testimony to with my blood Samuel Fisher THE SCORNED QUAKERS Second Account of his second attempt to give testimony to the truth of Jesus wherein is shewed both why and what so far as the Lord should have assisted he should have spoken by Commission from God had he had permission so to do by men to the Parliament and Ministers and people met together at Margarets in Westminster on the 24 day of this 7. month 1656. being the day appointed by them for their first publick humiliation ON the 22. day of this 7. month 1656. I even I Samuel Fisher being then in the City and happening to take notice of the Parliaments ordaining two dayes the one being by the joynt agreement of the Protector with them the 29. of the 8. month 1656. for all these three Nations together with them the other being the 24. of this 7. month 1656. set apart more peculiarly both by and for themselves as dayes of publick fasting and prayer for the humiliation both of themselves and of these Nations That notice I took passed by me as a thing of nought not taking any impression then upon my Spirit neither wot I then of any other thing but of returning to my own outward home soon after even so soon as I should have finished a transcription of my first account which that night I did well nigh finish also Nevertheless the next morning when I awaked I was with the Lord and his command came upon me to go again unto the Parliament and what people should be met together with them on the morrow and to give forth among them what he would give in unto me which what it should be yet I distinctly knew not which word was more black and more bitter in my belly than the fâ—rmer that came unto me before and by how much I gathered by my first entertainment that in this second service I should be less welcome and more troublesome to my self and them by so much was I tempted by the evill one to say as his servants out of fleshly fears have done before me Lord send by the hand of whom thou wilt send for thy word is made such a derision and reproach that its in vain to make mention of it any more in thy name for they will neither hear nor receive it thus though the Spirit in me had a willing ness to go yet a Lyon being in the way the flesh was very weak and fearfull nevertheless waiting from thenceforth with fasting on the Lord till the day after this service and their fast was fully over not without some weeping and supplication the Spirit of the Lord who was greater in me than he that is in the world waxed stronger than either he or I and did prevail so that in the pure fear of the Lord wherein onely his secrets are seen if not without any further fear yet without any further fainting for fear of any fleshly foes and at the will of the Lord which whatever became of me and of my house I saw was worthy to take place against mine own I at last very quietly and freely gave up to go and so was with them at the time appointed where hearing two of their three Ministers and abiding with much patience till they had fully done in the pure heat of my Spirit in which the word of the Lord even like a fire was often kindled so that my heart waxed very hot within me at last having a fit standing behind the seat of the houses Speaker I began to speak as the Spirit mov'd and gave utterance to me
Lord with fear and trembling ye serve him every one of you in your own persons and obey him by putting a way the filth of your own Spirits sweeping every one of you your own houses first even your own hearts that they may be fit Temples to receive the King of Glory that he may come into them and ye be made holy habitations for God through the Spirit and cast the beams out of your own eyes else thou hypocrite how wilt thou see to meddle to mend others that are blind thou being blind also if the blind lead the blind and the blind go about to order the blind they will all fall into the ditch be ye therefore personally reformed as Men from all your own vanities of heart and pride of Life else the counsel of all those that put press you on to the serving of him as Magistrates by making national reformations and Reformations in the Church as they call it who know not yet the true Church which is in God and needs none of that arme of flesh and magistraticall help which the false false Church calls for and in its Government Ministry and maintenance and by helping of Christ against his enemies and Hereticks whom yet I plead not for and such like will be turned as Achitophells into foolishness and the Reformations will be but Deformations at the best and both you and your Church and Ministry whose lips you mainly take Counsell at and not at the Lord himself and his Spirit shall be at your wits ends even you that they call to for help and they that call to you for help shall both fail together and none shall help either of you and those that have misguided you into by-wayes even blind and bloody ways of suppressing Saints as Hereticks by your Civil sword you shall at last be forc't to leave and look to your selves and run in holes of the earth to hide you from the face of the Lamb and from his wrath and they shall be even smitten with shame and madness to see all their ways turn'd as they have turned the ways of God upside down and esteemed as the Potters Clay therefore kiss the Son turn to him seek his face see him and submit to him in his own Light walk with him in his own way lest he be angry and you perish for ever from the way of your own eternall peace yea not as one reading it in the Letter onely and out of that amplyfying it to you or as one having it by hear-say onely from those that felt it and so wrote of it for so many a one can tell you much of the terribleness of Gods wrath and that talk may be a bug-bear too to terrify your hearts a while howbeit that terrour will wear out after a while but as one that hath witnessed it and been made in some measure to know the power of his wrath and feel the weight of his hand in my own conscience opening its black Jaws upon me of late to the affrightment of me for all my old sins and bringing me to judgement for them for judgement now begins though the wicked among whom it is to end see it not at the House of God therefore no marvail if there be so much trembling in the true Church as now there is and so much paleness on Jacobs face for it is the day of his trouble and travel out of which yet ere long he will be saved and Esau and his seed come into it in his stead yea as knowing by a sense thereof the terrour of the Lord I perswade you all people to take heed to your ways by the Light of the Lord least he tear you as a moth or as a Lion and lest his wrath be let forth in the full vials of it upon you which if it be kindled but a little blessed then indeed are all they and all they that do so well know it also even all they that trust in him moreover all ye people and you that are the Representatives of the people think not your fast is done when the Sun is down and your service done when your Sermon is done as many do who look for one day towards Heaven and then after live as if hell it self were broken loose again upon them but know that your business is now to begin after you have humbled your selves and are got up from the ground where you lay before the Lord now are you to live over all that good that hath been yet but talkt on many good and excellent things though some also that might not unjustly be excepted against have been spoken among you and prest upon you I acknowledge for far be it from me not to give every one his due by the men that have preached before you this day in my hearing yet much more in the words which mans wisdome teacheth than in the words which the holy Spirit teacheth who giveth utterance to them he sends yea both what and how to speake even in that hour they are to speake in nor are they so sollicitous if they be called before Kings and Governours to give testimony to the truth so as before hand to take thought for it much less by way of preparation to pen it down and so to preach it out of notes as is the usual course of your national men and a course used before you at this day I say many good things you have heard and good words and fair speeches which Paul saith they may use who serve not God but their own bellys whereby to deceive the hearts of the simple now see that they be turned by you into good works and let it not suffice that a sound of words hath passed from their mouths and pierced your ears as if there were an end of the matter or at least as if when as private men you are come home to your own houses or as Parliament men into your place of sitting and have according to the common custome and their expectation sent them the great thanks of the House for their great pains then you are quit of what is required be not deceived God is not so mocked nor will he be put off with such slender shews and complemental services which mens Religion mostly lyes in while they lye in the dead and fleshly night of mans day and till they come to be in the Spirit on the Lords Day in this hour wherein his own day is approaching but know that for all this if ye go on again to sow to the flesh when you are ripe in corruption you shall reape condemnation and if the ground of your hearts still brings forth Briars and Thorns it is nigh unto cursing and its end is to be burned and if this be all the fruits of your fastings to continue the same men you were or rather to waxe worse and worse as such ever do that grow not better by such services and oh how often is it so seen at this day in
that are truly good I will hold my peace now no longer saith the Lord as concerning this evill which they so prophanely commit and do dayly against my chosen but will utterly subvert and overturn them and bring the Kingdoms and Dominions and the greatness of the Kingdom under the whole Heaven into the hands of the holy ones of the most high and give unto my Son and his Saints to raign over all the earth and take all the Rule and authority and power that shall stand up against my Son in his Saints and put it down among all the rest as one of his great enemies under his feet saith the Lord for though the world take no delight in them yet I take pleasure in my people saith the Lord and I will beautify my meek ones with salvation and I will put my high prayses into their mouth and a two edged Sword into their hands and they shall execute vengeance upon the Heathen and punishments upon the people and shal bind their Kings in Chains and their Nobles in fetters of Iron and execute upon them the judgement that is written in my eternal decree and unchangeable Counsell saith the Lord this honour have all my Saints this is the heritage of my servants saith the Lord their righteousness and their reign their salvation and redemption and all their dignity is of me onely and of me onely and not of themselves shall they acknowledge it to be saith the Lord God Almighty who is now doing all this his holy will and good pleasure and who is he that shall ever disanull it Given forth under my hand as the Lord himself gave it into my heart to see and into my mouth to speake in part and unto my hand thus at large to write it this 25. day of she same month 1656. FINIS a Unless either of the two Justices were Members of the House that took me to do a little after one of which taking me to be a Jesuit busyed himself more about me than he needed to have done unless they had found cause to do more to me than at last they did b Wherefore how justly Thou even thou Oliver Cromwell chief Ruler according to Man in these Nations couldst say in thy Speach as in my hearing thou didst before my offer to speak these things from the Lord that thou knewest not of any one man that sufferd imprisonment unjustly in all England I plainly know not unless thou be mistaken as very often no doubt thou art and very easily â—ver mayst be if thou see and hear not sometimes with thy own eyes and ears and not alwaies with other mens in the people of Gods conditions thorow that unusuall mist of mis-information which as it ever makes thy own misery greater upon thee so it often makes our misery far greater under thee than else perhaps it would be if the Cloud of false accusation did not cover us and hide our integrity towards God and our innocency towards thee and all men from thy eyes whereupon I am moved of the Lord a new here to warn thee if thou mean to raign that thou take away the wicked from before thee and all flattering false accusers if thou find any such about thee else the throne will never be estâ—bâ—ished in righteousness and if thou doubt the truth of our speaking to thee from the Lord so immediatly as by us is owned because the old Prophets words and Scriptures by us are often used as thou didst when by speciall motion and speciall mission I spake once to thee from the Lord to what purpose thou shalt once remember again if it be now forgotten know thou in order to the removing of that stumbling stone out of thy way that howbeit Micah wrote the same words that Isaiah did Mic. 4. 1. Isa. 2. 1. and Christ spake the same words that Esdras spake before him 2 Esd. 1. 30. Matth. 23. 37 38. and the Apostles often spake in phrases which were found before them in the Prophets writings yet all these holy men of God both spake and wrote immediatly by the Spirit as it gave them utterance and no otherwise did all holy men of God ever speak but as they were moved nor do any holy men of God now speak the word of God but as they are moved by that one and the self same holy Spirit