place so they will be sure to make Hell the lowest and therefore being as carnall in the one as the other make it to be the lowest part of the Earth Others because they find a place speaking of the Devill calling him the Prince of the Aire they will make Hell in the Ayre I know not where But as the Devill rules onely in Aierie and light spirits so I look upon this to be a Aierie fancy For as the Devill is and hath his Throne and Seat in every man so is his Hell truly for my part I think they cannot be separated and therefore I conceive any man that is in bondage to his own lust nay further he that is under the Law or in any formal or outward duty is so possessed with a spirit of bondage that he must be so and so do so and so or else he must be damned and in the doing of such and such things he shall be saved this man is in Hell and Hell in him and needes no other Devill to torment him but his own false and carnall apprehension of God for as the spirituall appearance of God doth necessarily and formally make Heaven and cause joy and peace in the spirit So the dark and carnall conceit or knowledge of God must needes cause sorrow and lamentation and makes Hell I do not much wonder at the carnall Papist no more then at the carnall Protestant the one fancying a carnall purgatory the other a carnall Hell And I think the one gets as much money for frighting men with the one and making them believe they can show them the way to avoid it and bring them to Heaven as the other doth in frighting them with purgatory and making the poor people believe they can keep them from that But I let that passe And however the Scripture speaks of Hell and expresses it by fire and brimstone and the worme dying not and many other expressions It speakes as in other cases after the manner of men not that there is such visible and material formes of punishment But that as fire and brimstone are the most fearful things to the nature of man so doth the Scripture set out the miserable and fearfull Estate of a carnall condition and what miseries and torments do accompany such an Estate And what consequences have followed the outward man from being in such darkness and what the absence of God hath caused in the spirit the Scriptures and many daily examples do abundantly testifie whose terrors and distractions in their spirits have been such as have been easeless and remediless and made them willing to become their own Butchers and all this hath been from a misapprehension and confused knowledge of God The truth is I shall speak from my own experience so long as I was in bondage to dayes times and set times that I must pray so often and do so much frequent such Ordinances so long I was in trouble and sorrow for I really saw there was this and that failing and miscarriage in every duty that I suffered torment in my spirit for fear I should never attain my end which was a carnall and sensible enjoyment of some happiness which I called Heaven and when I was inlarged in this and that duty I thought then all was well and that I should go to Heaven And so I was continually suffering the torment of Hell and tossed up and down being condemned of my self And this is all the condemnation that I see is come into the World that men love darkness rather then light because their deeds are evill That men live in love the dark and fleshly Being and not in the light in the divine being this is the condemnation not causally but formally And this is that I found til God appeared spiritually and shewed me that he was all the glory and happiness himself and that flesh was nothing and should enjoy nothing and then I could not but cease from my former fleshly actings which caused nothing but fear and trouble and saw God or rather God made out himself in me joy and peace and brought me into the glorious liberty of the Sons of God whereas I was before in bondage to sin law an accusing Conscience which is Hell And yet I cannot exclude God in all this for if we descend into Hell he is there He is in the dark though we see it not as well as in the light that we see He is in wrath and severity and we are wisht to behold him in both let there be never such confusions of spirit never such terrors and Hell let there be darkness and no light yet there God is there is some glimps of himself in as much as there is a secret going out of the spirit towards God and all the distractions the Creature lies under is because it cannot enjoy the presence love of God yet God is there amidst all that darkness and raignes in the midst of his enemies and so he descends into Hell and returnes with a glorious tryumph rising with abundance of joy and peace in the spirit So that though the Earth be moved and the great mountains which the Creature had made to it self be tumbled up and down and the Creature have no rest but is easeless and restless yet God is there as a Rock unshaken of any storme but is sweetly refreshing and delighting himself with himself and so enters into the strong mans house and disarmes him and bindes him hand and foote and casts him into utter darkness And to summe up all if there be any that think this is not Hell enough to be inwardly and spiritually tormented Let them but consult with those that have been under spirituall desertions as they are called and have cryed out as if their bones had been broken and would have chosen death rather then life and thought they could have indured many burnings to have been rid of such a condition And I think they will tell them there is no other or need be no other Hell and all this comes from a dark and carnall knowledg or rather ignorance of God for certain it is God condemns none But the condemnation is of a mans self and in a mans self If any shall say all this is nothing I care not if this be all the Hell and that it lasts no longer then this life But is there not a Hell hereafter that is the Hell to think of Eternity and that the Creat re shall be everlastingly tormented and indure the wrath of God to all Eternity For answer hereunto I must professe I do not know of any such thing nor do I conceive what should be thus tormented for that which men call a soule I had thought to have made it a particular of the present discourse but I shall referr it to further consideration onely to stay any mans appetite that desires my opinion of it I shall onely give him this morsell to chew upon and that is this I
unto it and that we have full and actuall possession of it and so saith the Apostle Our conversation is in Heaven which is nothing but the glorious appearance of God in our spirits when of naturall we are made spirituall we shall see the Scripture speaks of no other Heaven but what is spirituall and not consisting of any corporall or bodily felicity as men conceive God being all the glory and happiness of the creature and so he that believeth hath everlasting life within him and abiding in him because God there gloriously makes out himself to be the Life and happiness To look for a carnall and sensible enjoyment of God distinct from that pure and divine Being of God savours to me of a carnall spirit because it sets up something beside God when there is nothing that lives and is glorious to all eternity but God For as I said before there is nothing in the creature capable of God or to enjoy his glory nor nothing is of God but is God because God cannot be devided nor none can share with him in his Glory he having not given any glory to any creature out of himself but what ever the creature apprehends to be its own glory it is truly and spiritually no other but Gods one Being and glory But the truth is as men fancy a high God though yet very carnally so they fancy a high place for him above the Starrs I know not where herein indeed God condescends to the weaknesse of men in the Scripture to set himself and his glorious presence out to us as if they were properly in one place more then another when as we know a Spirit is not any where confined but the God of Spirits is in all and through you all And so Heaven is his Throne the Earth his Foot-stool That is God is in low and dark appearances as well as in the most glorious God is the high and lofty one that inhabits eternity and not any circumscribed place and so he is in low Spirits And the truth is where God is highest in the Spirit he is so low in that Spirit that they do not desire any glory out of himself but are willing to be nothing that he may be all It is very true that the Scripture saith We looke for new Heaven and new Earth wherein dwells Righteousnesse And truly I find that where God dwells and is come and hath taken men up and wrapt them up into the Spirit there is a new Heaven and a new Earth all the Heaven I look ever to enjoy is to have my earthly and dark apprehensions of God to cease and to live no other life then what Christ spiritually lives in me The Scripture speakes likewise of a Kingdom and a City and Mantions and that Christ went to prepare a place for the Saints all which are true in the Spirit For when God raigns in the Spirit he brings all into subjection under him and so he is King and Kingdom himself and Christ went to prepare and to make out himself in Spirit and so he left the flesh to live in the Spirit and his spirituall coming was much more glorious then his carnall and visible presence with them And the truth is the one was but a predarative and fore-runner of the other so it so it is spiritually true that he that was least in the kingdom of Heaven was greater then John the Baptist where note that those carnall and outward observations of Baptisme and other administrations that John was in they were but the preparatives fore-runners of a more spirituall condition the Kingdom of Heaven not consisting in them And therefore it was reasoned Why do the Disciples of John Fast and Pray Luke 9. and thy Disciples Fast not and Christ gives them the reason It was his presence which is not to be understood of his carnall presence with them but of his spirituall presence which he promised to appear in them and therefore the Baptisme of the Holy Ghost and fire was the substance of which the water Baptisme was but a shadow and so he that was least in the spiritual Kingdom and had a spiritual enjoyment of him was greater then he that was the greatest and most strictest in the Observation of the outward Duties and Ordinances that John was under so that it is plain to me that the spiritual presence of Christ or God in the spirit is the Kingdom of Heaven into which whomsoever is entered he ceases from the outward and formal use of outward Administrations and Ordinances and to sits down spiritually in the Kingdom of the Father and is as the Apostle saith allready set down in the heavenly places and when God thus spiritually appears in you then you will be content with me to sit down and enter with me into an eternall nothingness and be willing to let God advance himself glorifie himself unto all eternity and so cast down your Crownes at his feet in everlasting silence Into which condition when you are brought you shall not need to expect any other Heaven for then shall you enter into that rest wherein you shall cease from that labour and toile of outward and formall duties as seeing God to be that in you which you expected in self If any shall say these things are true but these conditions and this estate is reserved for another life We cannot expect to be perfect here while we are in the flesh I answer that it is true we shall not that is there is nothing of us that is capable of this spirituall enjoyment and therefore we must know that our perfection lies not in any thing that the Creature is but it lies in God and in that respect unless you will say God is not so perfect here as he will be we are as perfect as ever we shall be so that though this spirituall condition be not of us yet it is in us and what Heaven or Estate God will be in when he ceases to live in the flesh I think is as vain for us to imagine as impossible to apprehend Yet if any man can tell me how he was before there was a World I shall with as much ease tell him how he will be when the World ceases to be and however men are so carnal women like that they dream of a Heaven wherein they shall sit one at the Right hand of God and another at the left and hope to have much outward felicity and glory when they have glorified bodies as they imagine yet for my part I look for no such condition and I see nothing in the Scripture to strengthen me in such a conceit For however it speakes of a City that hath twelve gates and streetes paved with Gold and yet I suppose all do but point out the glorious condition that God will appear in upon Earth and therefore I mind that there was a Jerusalem that it is said came down from God out of Heaven In which there
The Light and Dark sides of GOD Or a plain and brief DISCOURSE OF The light side God Heaven and Angels The dark side Devill Sin and Hell As also of the Resurrection and Scripture All which are set forth in their Severall Natures and Beings according to the spirituality of the Scripture Written by Jacob Bauthumley I thank thee O Father Lord of Heaven and Earth that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them to Babes even so it is thy pleasure The spirituall man judgeth all things and he himself is judged of none LONDON Printed for William Learner at the Black-more in Bishopsgate-streete 1650. THE EPISTLE TO THE READER I Have onely directed my discourse to thee though I know the most unto whose hand it may come cannot read it But that it will be a Barbarian to them and they to It. However if I be beside them yet I am not beside my selfe If I be it is to God The reason why I have not directed it to any particular man or sort of men what ever as is usuall in things of this nature is because I desire not any mans approbation of it as knowing I am not subject to mans judgement neither would I have any man to subject himself to mine neither shall I be ashamed to own what I have writ for the present or to cast it away for the future if God shall lead me thereunto I have cast up my accounts what all will amount unto upon either of the former considerations and so have sweet peace in my spirit in my present thoughts and apprehensions leaving the issue of all to the wise disposing providence All I desire is that those to whom these few lines may come would if they can be so charitable of me as to conceive and judge that I have not writ any thing with any spirit of opposition to any sort of men under what forme of godlinesse soever as knowing that there is a sweet appearance of God in them All. And however my person and parts be meane in the Worlds Eye and so may cast an odium upon the things that I hold forth yet I shall runne the hazard in that kinde and leave the Lord to gaine his own Honour and Glory in it as seeing by sweet experience it is one of his greatest designes in the World to confound the high and mighty things thereof by the most meanâ— and contemptible And so though men be not satisfied yet herein I shall receive sweet content in my own spirit that my worke shall either burne and consume or else abide the fiery tryall of mens indignation And as I shall wish no man to embrace it or condemne me So I shall neither thank them that do the one or condemne them that do the other For the subject matter of the Discourse I must confesse they are things of that nature that are not obvious to every capacity and so lye obnoxious unto their censure and when time was I should have been as ready to have sat in Judgement against the Maintainer of such Principles yet to me they are such as wherein the Mystery of godlynesse mainly consists and so are not to be slighted And however I do not looke that I or any man else shall receive much by this or any other Booke which had almost perswaded me to have been silent in this kind yet was I inwardly enforced thereunto to ease the burden that lay upon my spirit which was one great motive to me to act my part so publickly Besides having converst with men under severall formes and administrations not to speake of those of the inferiour sort as Papists Episcoparians and Presbyterians But those that are got to the highest as Independents an a Anabaptists commonly so called and seriously viewing the carnall apprehention of things in themselves and there mis-apprehenâ—ion of the minde of God held forth by others condemning them as Heriticall and Blasphemous in whom the Mysteryes of the Kingdome are most clearly revealed and they themselves placeing Religion and the Mystery of godlinesse in outward Ordinances and administrations of which they are all but Shaddowes Having a strong conceite of a Creature happynesse and selfe injoyment and so are acted to attaine to the End In all these respects I could not but gratifie them so farre as to set forth what is held out by a certaine Generation of Men and Woemen in the World That if it may be there may be such a favourable opinion of us from them that we neither deny there is a GOD Heaven or Hell Resurrection or Scripture as the World is made to believe we do And I thinke they are all as plainly and briefly made out as they themselves could desire And further I know by experience that there are some with whom my spirit sweetly closed in the Vnity thereof and that travell with me in the same birth yet are not able to bring forth their conceptions for so much as many times the Truth suffers by a weake delivery and for their sakes have I held this Glasse before them that so they may be the better able to describe themselves to others and to help them to bring forth that out of their mouths which perhaps may lye in the bottome of their hearts For these Reasons have I taken the boldnesse to set pen to Paper though otherwise I was unwilling desiring that and no more of others then what I would do to them which is to let every man stand and fall to his own Master One thing I thought fit to premise onely to satisfie any that shall be so weake as to make it a matter of offence to them In that I have not set downe the chapter and verse of many places of Scripture which I do hint upon all along the Discourse To answer them and so to salve up that pretended soare I found things of such a Mysterious nature as they are that while I was looking for them in the Letter of the Scripture I was at a great losse in the present delivery of my selfe of those things which I found spiritually and secretly conveyed to me in the Spirit and so rather then I would loose or let passe what was spiritually discovered in me I was willing to omit the outward viewing of them in a chapter or verse Besides there is nothing laide downe by me by way of Argument or formall dispute which might ingage me to an outward proofe of things as men usually do in matters of controversie and what is positively affirmed there is punctually Scripture for But my designe was mainly to deliver my private Meditations and apprehension of such things which are most carnally conceived of I thought it not therefore necessary to trouble my self or the Reader wiâ—h multiplicity of places of Scripture to prove those things of which I hed so reall and spirituall a Testimony of in my own spirit and which I am confident that the most spirituall man can set
himself and he uses such expressions as are highest in mens esteem and his commands threatnings and promises admonitions exhortations they are all as men speak to one another for I dare not believe God is this or that or can be named by any title or that he ever threatned any people or Nation or promised any that upon such and such terms they should have this or that or upon neglect of him they should suffer this or that for to me it plainly appears that there is neither wrath or anger love or hatred in God or that God was any thing more or lesse to a people upon their sinning or doing any good For then a thousand absurdities would follow But the truth is because men apprehend anger when they sin and God pleased when they do well therefore men speak as one to another and God so far condescends as to speak to men in their own language But that he is so in himselfe I should think blasphemy to affirme for I am confident there is never an error or tenent in the world as men maintaine but if men take that for Scripture which they call the Bible it doth fully and literally countenance and uphold and I know no other way in the world to uphold the authority of Scripture than to make it spirituall And whereas men speak that we deny Scripture I must confesse for my part tha◠I know no greater door opened to the denying it then for men to presse and urge men to do such and such things because the outward word saith so and so indeed so far I shall deny it as the Letter is inferiour to the Spirit so far I conceive the letter doth vaile and shadow the spirituality of it And if men have the Law in their hearts and be taught of God they need not run so often to a great Bible to relieve themselves in straights and doubts as men generally do never reflecting upon their spirits to see what God speaks there I do not speak it to condemn the practise neither is the fault in the Book but in mens carnall conceits of it and seeing men make an Idoll of it and think the reading and perusing the outward word is enough to cure all their wounds and to resolve their doubts so that as men look upon God outwardly and carnally so do they have recourse to an outward word to strengthen their carnall apprehensions Truly I must confesse ingeniously that as to my own spiritual enjoyment I see nothing of any concernment in it or in looking upon it but onely this I see and so it is some comfort to me to read that God hath discovered himself in others as well as in me and that the spirit speaks the same in me as it did in them But for any thing of God that I look to attaine unto by reading or looking upon it I do not care whether ever I look upon one again or no And yet this is no detracting from the glory or authority of Scripture because the Scripture is within and spirituall and the Law being writ in my spirit I care not much for beholding it in the Letter but as to the ends aforesaid And the truth is it is the Law in the spirit that is the true Bible the other is but a shadow or counterpart of it and therefore I do not expect to be taught by Bibles or Books but by God nay further I do not do any thing or abstain from any thing because the outward letter commands or forbids it but by reason of that commanding power which is God in me and his speaking is the power of God to salvation and it is in that by which I live and by which I act and so the Apostle speaks of the law outward that it was not made for the righteous but for whoremongers and such and such And so I see that if men were acted guided by that inward law of righteousnesse within there need be no laws of men to compel or restrain men and I could wish that such a spirit of righteousnesse would appear that men did not act or do things from externall rules but from an internall law within Again to speak a little further concerning the Scripture men generally speak that we must do nothing but what we have a rule for and are asking what warrant have you to do such a thing shew a rule from Scripture and then we will believe you or else it is but a whimsey and I know not what Truly it is true and I would those that talk most of a rule did see that rule for the safest and prime rule that I know for any man is that pure spirituall law and rule of righteousnesse which is within and so far as any man doth any thing beneath or beyond that so far he doth that which he hath no warrant for but who must judge of this rule whether this or that be according to the mind of God or no To this I answer in the words of Scripture because men will soonest believe me That it is the spirit which searches all things even the deep things of God and there is no knowing the spirit but in its own light which is spiritual therefore I think it not so safe to go to the Bible to see what others 〈◊〉 spoken and writ of the mind of God as to see what God speaks within me and to follow the ducture and leading of it in me I shall sooner and so others shall sooner mis-apprehend the mind of God in other men then in my self and the same law and rule being in me which was in those that writ the Bible and to which internall and spiritual rule within I must take a measure and scantling of all my actions I had rather measure them from or by a rule within then by any outward rule or word whatsoever for the one that is to say the Bible without is but a shadow of that Bible which is within which is the Law spiritual the safest and onely rule If any man shall say that I may be deceived and take that for a discovery of God which is but a fancie of my own Brain I answer I may mis-interpret the outward Scripture and so run as great a hazard that way and as soon fall into errour because it speakes of and to men in variety of Estates and conditions and so if I take that part of it which doth not speak to my condition I shall then make a false construction of it so that I conceive the farest and surest rule to walk by is that law of the spirit and as many as walk according to that spirituall rule peace shall be upon them and on the Israel which is of God but as many as walk according to a rule without them and so look for a God and Scripture without they shall be but at a losse and live in continuall trouble and disquietment and if I may speak my own experience without offence